5 ms·

If the only reason there weren't more women in tech was because they didn't want to be there, what you say about fixing tech would be true, but it's not. Women

If the only reason there weren't more women in tech was because they didn't want to be there, what you say about fixing tech would be true, but it's not. Women are significantly discriminated against, from the day they start engineering courses. I don't believe you are sympathetic at all. More importantly, you've shown no empathy. I'm assuming she started speaking at conferences because she enjoyed it. Some jackass takes that away from her and you call her out. That couldn't be more illustrative of the problem.

peterwwillis 15y ago
....I don't know how to fix the problem. Will empathizing more fix it? If so, i'll empathize like crazy. But I seriously doubt it will create change. Instead I try to point out what I see as some of the contributing factors to the problem in this particular case. I'm sorry I can't fix sexism, and i'm sorry i'm not being humbling and emotive enough to express that I find sexism wrong. But I don't agree that I am illustrative of the problem.
- dreww 15y ago
  empathy will fix it. you are illustrative of the problem because you are a) ignorant of what harassment is really like b) apparently unwilling to imagine it and c) BLAMING THE HARASSED
  - peterwwillis 15y ago
    First of all, I never blamed her. In my first point I note how people who give talks are subject to attack because they draw attention to themselves. I note how there are men (men who I know personally) who have been attacked as a result. I posit that this kind of behavior is not solely due to sexism. In my second point I equate running a geek feminist website with running any website wherein people who hate the idea of the website will send hate mail. I posit that one should expect that people who hate you will send you hate mail. In my third point I am noting that you don't have to quit the whole tech industry because giving talks is not the only thing in the tech industry. My fourth point is the closest to 'blame' that I get. There's no sugar-coating it, i'm being heartless and cold here. But I don't blame her for not wanting to deal with assholes all day. I suggest that she learn to deal with these people rather than run away from them, but I guess that's not something a lot of people will accept. My fifth point isn't even related to her really. I just find it super annoying when people try to speculate about something based on anecdotal evidence ("Because of the small sample, there is a larger chance that it may be true but unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise unrepresentative of typical cases.") Second, empathy alone will not fix it. You can not "win" against sexism by simply wishing it would go away or agreeing that it's completely unfair and unwarranted. Racism didn't completely stop in America, ever, and it only got a little better after people fought and bled to be treated as equals. They had to get right in their attackers' faces and say, Fuck You, I'm Not Leaving. Same for women's suffrage. Empathizing alone doesn't fix anything but your own conscience. You want to stop sexism in tech? Make it stop. Also, before you point the finger at me and tell me I should be the first person to fight their battles, keep in mind that nobody ever won freedom from persecution until they themselves stood up to defend themselves. Also, I don't need to have experienced harassment personally to have an opinion about it. I'm not black but I think it's really fucked up that black people get treated far worse than I do because i'm white. Amazingly enough, even though I find racism absolutely repugnant, I don't believe every black person who gets fucked with is purely because of racism. I also don't believe every single woman who is fucked with is just because of sexism. I can't believe I just wrote all that because of a troll. I say sexism is fucked up, and this guy blames me for sexism in the tech industry. Oh well. I should have just ignored you from the beginning.
    - anigbrowl 15y ago
      I say sexism is fucked up, and this guy blames me for sexism in the tech industry. No, you didn't say that. You said it was inevitable and that people should suck it up and stop harping on it. You're not the victim here.
      - peterwwillis 15y ago
        I did say that people should suck it up. I was referring to ignoring the treatment (online) as a better form of dealing with it than running away. But at the same time that confronting the attackers would be a more proactive effort. Not to stop harping on it. I specifically said women should mobilize and work proactively to prevent sexism in the industry, which is far from 'stop harping on it'. But thanks for cherry picking two things I said, displaying them out of context and inserting your own agenda.
        dreww 15y ago
        keep telling women what to do because you know better, i'm sure that will end the sexism really fast
  - pyre 15y ago
    > BLAMING THE HARASSED This is a mantra that I see a lot, but let's stop for a second. If I put a sign above my head that says "Murder Me," can I really be surprised if someone takes me up on the offer? Does stating that mean that I am attempting to absolve the person that murdered me of murder? No, it doesn't. Put more simply, if you're going to crusade for a cause where the opposite side is likely to get nasty, you should probably be prepared for war. Did Martin Luther King Jr give up because the police brought out fire hoses? That said, while I can't really empathize, I do sympathize, and find some of the examples of bad behavior that people are highlighting as having happened to women as atrocious. If I found out that someone at my company had shown a naked picture of himself to any interviewee, you can bet that I could make sure that it his/her career was ground into the pavement through word of mouth.
  - nasmorn 15y ago
    If the only harassment you know is digital I would suggest you don't know either what it is like. Not that I do.
- sp332 15y ago
  But it will. Empathy is an effective antidote to harassment.
- gldalmaso 15y ago
  The contributing factors you pointed out seem to signal the message that minorities should expect hatred and suck it up. That's a normalization of the status quo and does not address the issue, it's just being complacent with behavior that should be reprimended but is often taken with the same lack of empathy and thus is ignored. Most men can't empathyze because they are priviliged (as in, they do not suffer from the same kind of sexism) and completely miss the point. If you want to understand, truly understand, then read more on feminism, read everything on Geek Feminism and then read on feminism from other sources (they link great sources). If you reach a point where you you realiza that you ARE privileged and take for granted simple things, that men make the world UNFAIR to women and rile them for being oversensitive, then you may have just grown a bit.
  - peterwwillis 15y ago
    ...I don't really care to understand. What little i've read on feminism leads me to think that modern feminism is a passe joke. My guess is modern feminism doesn't connect well enough with the average woman who doesn't complain when the boss grabs her ass or passes her up for the unqualified white male in the boys' club. They need a new strategy and better marketing. Most of all they need solidarity. And maybe a less antagonistic approach to equality, like "human equality" instead of "women's equality." But everybody just defends their own kind I guess.
    - gldalmaso 15y ago
      If you wanna read further than just a little, I suggest: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/14/faq-i-asked-some-feminists-a-question-and-instead-of-answering-they-sent-me-here-why/ http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/14/faq-i-ask...

peterwwillis 15y ago

....I don't know how to fix the problem. Will empathizing more fix it? If so, i'll empathize like crazy. But I seriously doubt it will create change. Instead I try to point out what I see as some of the contributing factors to the problem in this particular case. I'm sorry I can't fix sexism, and i'm sorry i'm not being humbling and emotive enough to express that I find sexism wrong. But I don't agree that I am illustrative of the problem.

dreww 15y ago
empathy will fix it. you are illustrative of the problem because you are a) ignorant of what harassment is really like b) apparently unwilling to imagine it and c) BLAMING THE HARASSED
- peterwwillis 15y ago
  First of all, I never blamed her. In my first point I note how people who give talks are subject to attack because they draw attention to themselves. I note how there are men (men who I know personally) who have been attacked as a result. I posit that this kind of behavior is not solely due to sexism. In my second point I equate running a geek feminist website with running any website wherein people who hate the idea of the website will send hate mail. I posit that one should expect that people who hate you will send you hate mail. In my third point I am noting that you don't have to quit the whole tech industry because giving talks is not the only thing in the tech industry. My fourth point is the closest to 'blame' that I get. There's no sugar-coating it, i'm being heartless and cold here. But I don't blame her for not wanting to deal with assholes all day. I suggest that she learn to deal with these people rather than run away from them, but I guess that's not something a lot of people will accept. My fifth point isn't even related to her really. I just find it super annoying when people try to speculate about something based on anecdotal evidence ("Because of the small sample, there is a larger chance that it may be true but unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise unrepresentative of typical cases.") Second, empathy alone will not fix it. You can not "win" against sexism by simply wishing it would go away or agreeing that it's completely unfair and unwarranted. Racism didn't completely stop in America, ever, and it only got a little better after people fought and bled to be treated as equals. They had to get right in their attackers' faces and say, Fuck You, I'm Not Leaving. Same for women's suffrage. Empathizing alone doesn't fix anything but your own conscience. You want to stop sexism in tech? Make it stop. Also, before you point the finger at me and tell me I should be the first person to fight their battles, keep in mind that nobody ever won freedom from persecution until they themselves stood up to defend themselves. Also, I don't need to have experienced harassment personally to have an opinion about it. I'm not black but I think it's really fucked up that black people get treated far worse than I do because i'm white. Amazingly enough, even though I find racism absolutely repugnant, I don't believe every black person who gets fucked with is purely because of racism. I also don't believe every single woman who is fucked with is just because of sexism. I can't believe I just wrote all that because of a troll. I say sexism is fucked up, and this guy blames me for sexism in the tech industry. Oh well. I should have just ignored you from the beginning.
  - anigbrowl 15y ago
    I say sexism is fucked up, and this guy blames me for sexism in the tech industry. No, you didn't say that. You said it was inevitable and that people should suck it up and stop harping on it. You're not the victim here.
    - peterwwillis 15y ago
      I did say that people should suck it up. I was referring to ignoring the treatment (online) as a better form of dealing with it than running away. But at the same time that confronting the attackers would be a more proactive effort. Not to stop harping on it. I specifically said women should mobilize and work proactively to prevent sexism in the industry, which is far from 'stop harping on it'. But thanks for cherry picking two things I said, displaying them out of context and inserting your own agenda.
      - dreww 15y ago
        keep telling women what to do because you know better, i'm sure that will end the sexism really fast
- pyre 15y ago
  > BLAMING THE HARASSED This is a mantra that I see a lot, but let's stop for a second. If I put a sign above my head that says "Murder Me," can I really be surprised if someone takes me up on the offer? Does stating that mean that I am attempting to absolve the person that murdered me of murder? No, it doesn't. Put more simply, if you're going to crusade for a cause where the opposite side is likely to get nasty, you should probably be prepared for war. Did Martin Luther King Jr give up because the police brought out fire hoses? That said, while I can't really empathize, I do sympathize, and find some of the examples of bad behavior that people are highlighting as having happened to women as atrocious. If I found out that someone at my company had shown a naked picture of himself to any interviewee, you can bet that I could make sure that it his/her career was ground into the pavement through word of mouth.
- nasmorn 15y ago
  If the only harassment you know is digital I would suggest you don't know either what it is like. Not that I do.
sp332 15y ago
But it will. Empathy is an effective antidote to harassment.
gldalmaso 15y ago
The contributing factors you pointed out seem to signal the message that minorities should expect hatred and suck it up. That's a normalization of the status quo and does not address the issue, it's just being complacent with behavior that should be reprimended but is often taken with the same lack of empathy and thus is ignored. Most men can't empathyze because they are priviliged (as in, they do not suffer from the same kind of sexism) and completely miss the point. If you want to understand, truly understand, then read more on feminism, read everything on Geek Feminism and then read on feminism from other sources (they link great sources). If you reach a point where you you realiza that you ARE privileged and take for granted simple things, that men make the world UNFAIR to women and rile them for being oversensitive, then you may have just grown a bit.
- peterwwillis 15y ago
  ...I don't really care to understand. What little i've read on feminism leads me to think that modern feminism is a passe joke. My guess is modern feminism doesn't connect well enough with the average woman who doesn't complain when the boss grabs her ass or passes her up for the unqualified white male in the boys' club. They need a new strategy and better marketing. Most of all they need solidarity. And maybe a less antagonistic approach to equality, like "human equality" instead of "women's equality." But everybody just defends their own kind I guess.
  - gldalmaso 15y ago
    If you wanna read further than just a little, I suggest: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/14/faq-i-asked-some-feminists-a-question-and-instead-of-answering-they-sent-me-here-why/ http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/14/faq-i-ask...