4 ms·

>men erring on the side of protecting themselves and not wanting to take risks to engage with me meaningfully Do you believe that people should take potentiall

>men erring on the side of protecting themselves and not wanting to take risks to engage with me meaningfully Do you believe that people should take potentially career-ending risks to benefit you?

DoreenMichele 6y ago
No. But I believe I shouldn't have to literally starve and be homeless for years for the crime of being born with girl bits between my legs, which is more or less part of my back story here.
- cistercianic 6y ago
  edit: removing my comment as this probably isn't a fruitful avenue of conversation.
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    I did freelance work to accommodate my health situation. I was also the apparently highest ranked woman on HN and failing to turn that into professional connections and professional development and adequate income. I believe my gender is a factor in that failing to become what I desired. Every single time I comment on that, without fail, someone acts like I am utterly full of shit and I get really awful and dismissive replies that completely fail to acknowledge that maybe I have a point and maybe my gender actually was a factor in my low income. (And still is.)
    - MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
      Online relationships have a shred of value of what a personal one does. I don't know you but to me it sounds more like you didn't want to work for peanuts at a company and instead risked being an entrepreneur or something.
    - saberdancer 6y ago
      "I'm a freelancer. I polish resumes, I do a little website work and I do some writing." Polishing resumes and website work don't sound like highly paid jobs, regardless of your ranking on HN. This is probably bigger issue then your gender in your income.
      - DoreenMichele 6y ago
        I'm not claiming and have never claimed that my gender is the sole factor. I also have a serious medical condition and that's a big problem. But the issue is that I get told, both implicitly and explicitly, that my gender isn't really an issue at all. Even your comment basically hand waves off my gender as a factor. I appear to be the highest ranked woman on HN. I appear to be the only woman to have ever spent time on the leader board. I don't even need that much income. If I could just get enough resume work, I would be content to do resume work part-time at $50/page. That would work for me and I can't even arrange that. I believe my gender is a factor in my failure to adequately meet my financial needs. It is not at all constructive for people to keep telling me the many, many other reasons I am poor as a means to implicitly say "Sure, sexism is a factor, but it's not the only factor, so quit pointing it out because it makes the guys uncomfortable." That practice is exactly why so many women (people of color, etc) are so very angry. If people would simply acknowledge that my gender is actually something complicating my efforts to network and establish an adequate income and then spend time wondering what would work for me instead of dismissing it as "not the real reason" I'm poor, I would probably be okay financially. I'm not asking to get rich overnight here.
        saberdancer 6y ago
        I accept that gender could be a factor as well, but gender is not something that a comment on HN can change (or should for that matter). Your gender will not (probably) change and we can't really change the culture quickly either. My point is that if you have low income, it would be better to focus on improving skills you are offering rather than try to solve "women are paid less" problem. For example, just presenting yourself as a website builder sounds more profitable than someone who edits resumes. By the way is HN rank really that useful? For example I never knew there is a HN leader board or how to access it. Thank you for the explanation, I wish you all the best.
    - xiphias2 6y ago
      Did you write about it in detail somewhere? I would like to read it if you had. Also in my life professional and personal connections are not totally separated, as I view a person as a person. As an example helped my ex partners very significantly in their professional life (while they helped me in other ways).
      - DoreenMichele 6y ago
        There is no nice little write up somewhere. I have written about it -- quite a lot over the years, in fact. I did so to manage the situation as best I could under difficult circumstances and those many posts have been pretty consistently redacted over the years. I'm frankly really freaking tired of writing about it and don't really feel a strong desire to try to find some means to write about it as some kind of edutainment for random internet strangers, so don't hold your breath waiting for me to do a write up. That's probably not really in my best interest and I'm just amazingly exhausted with the whole thing at this point.
        xiphias2 6y ago
        Sure, no problem, I understand. I often feel that both sexes have lots of their own problems and we won't ever be able to empatize with eachother however strongly we want to.
c0d4h 6y ago
I don't understand how you ended up with such an interpretation of what she said. As I understand it, she's saying that the current "politically correct" environment is hurting women more than it helps.
- cistercianic 6y ago
  edit: removing my comment as this seems to be an uncharitable reading.
  - dang 6y ago
    You're breaking the site guidelines badly in this thread. Note this one, from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
  - yaml-ops-guy 6y ago
    You should re-read the second sentence of what was actually typed. Maybe a few times. Your characterization is flagrantly opposite of what this person shared.

>men erring on the side of protecting themselves and not wanting to take risks to engage with me meaningfully Do you believe that people should take potentially career-ending risks to benefit you?

DoreenMichele 6y ago

No. But I believe I shouldn't have to literally starve and be homeless for years for the crime of being born with girl bits between my legs, which is more or less part of my back story here.

cistercianic 6y ago
edit: removing my comment as this probably isn't a fruitful avenue of conversation.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  I did freelance work to accommodate my health situation. I was also the apparently highest ranked woman on HN and failing to turn that into professional connections and professional development and adequate income. I believe my gender is a factor in that failing to become what I desired. Every single time I comment on that, without fail, someone acts like I am utterly full of shit and I get really awful and dismissive replies that completely fail to acknowledge that maybe I have a point and maybe my gender actually was a factor in my low income. (And still is.)
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
    Online relationships have a shred of value of what a personal one does. I don't know you but to me it sounds more like you didn't want to work for peanuts at a company and instead risked being an entrepreneur or something.
  - saberdancer 6y ago
    "I'm a freelancer. I polish resumes, I do a little website work and I do some writing." Polishing resumes and website work don't sound like highly paid jobs, regardless of your ranking on HN. This is probably bigger issue then your gender in your income.
    - DoreenMichele 6y ago
      I'm not claiming and have never claimed that my gender is the sole factor. I also have a serious medical condition and that's a big problem. But the issue is that I get told, both implicitly and explicitly, that my gender isn't really an issue at all. Even your comment basically hand waves off my gender as a factor. I appear to be the highest ranked woman on HN. I appear to be the only woman to have ever spent time on the leader board. I don't even need that much income. If I could just get enough resume work, I would be content to do resume work part-time at $50/page. That would work for me and I can't even arrange that. I believe my gender is a factor in my failure to adequately meet my financial needs. It is not at all constructive for people to keep telling me the many, many other reasons I am poor as a means to implicitly say "Sure, sexism is a factor, but it's not the only factor, so quit pointing it out because it makes the guys uncomfortable." That practice is exactly why so many women (people of color, etc) are so very angry. If people would simply acknowledge that my gender is actually something complicating my efforts to network and establish an adequate income and then spend time wondering what would work for me instead of dismissing it as "not the real reason" I'm poor, I would probably be okay financially. I'm not asking to get rich overnight here.
      - saberdancer 6y ago
        I accept that gender could be a factor as well, but gender is not something that a comment on HN can change (or should for that matter). Your gender will not (probably) change and we can't really change the culture quickly either. My point is that if you have low income, it would be better to focus on improving skills you are offering rather than try to solve "women are paid less" problem. For example, just presenting yourself as a website builder sounds more profitable than someone who edits resumes. By the way is HN rank really that useful? For example I never knew there is a HN leader board or how to access it. Thank you for the explanation, I wish you all the best.
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    Did you write about it in detail somewhere? I would like to read it if you had. Also in my life professional and personal connections are not totally separated, as I view a person as a person. As an example helped my ex partners very significantly in their professional life (while they helped me in other ways).
    - DoreenMichele 6y ago
      There is no nice little write up somewhere. I have written about it -- quite a lot over the years, in fact. I did so to manage the situation as best I could under difficult circumstances and those many posts have been pretty consistently redacted over the years. I'm frankly really freaking tired of writing about it and don't really feel a strong desire to try to find some means to write about it as some kind of edutainment for random internet strangers, so don't hold your breath waiting for me to do a write up. That's probably not really in my best interest and I'm just amazingly exhausted with the whole thing at this point.
      - xiphias2 6y ago
        Sure, no problem, I understand. I often feel that both sexes have lots of their own problems and we won't ever be able to empatize with eachother however strongly we want to.

c0d4h 6y ago

I don't understand how you ended up with such an interpretation of what she said. As I understand it, she's saying that the current "politically correct" environment is hurting women more than it helps.

cistercianic 6y ago
edit: removing my comment as this seems to be an uncharitable reading.
- dang 6y ago
  You're breaking the site guidelines badly in this thread. Note this one, from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
- yaml-ops-guy 6y ago
  You should re-read the second sentence of what was actually typed. Maybe a few times. Your characterization is flagrantly opposite of what this person shared.