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I'm disgusted at the amount of sexist crap everywhere and I'm horrified when I see it here on HN and am still surprised at its persistence on reddit (ie the tra

I'm disgusted at the amount of sexist crap everywhere and I'm horrified when I see it here on HN and am still surprised at its persistence on reddit (ie the trainwreck #1 post this morning). It's been a while but here on HN there was a series of posts and discussion about women's pay and negotiations that left a bad taste in my mouth from the dripping sense of entitlement and ignorance that resulted from posters arrogantly asserting that "women should just ask for more", revealing their ignorance of the complications of sexism in various tech industries. Sadly this reaction is typical when confronting a majority about their taking advantage of minority groups. "It's just a joke". (Hint, this response has already been offered up more than once in this thread). It doesn't affect males and it's a male dominated industry, thus the issue has low visibility and personal impact to those who are causing the problem or have the influence to fix it. This all compounds to make this issue hard to solve unless people are willing to vocally confront these incidents as they happen, when they happen, and take responsibility for treating people with respect and equality.

shareme 15y ago
how much of this is the social background of the offender? I find those who had Moms that worked when they were growing up seem as far as a group as of a whole to be less inclined to state stuff like this
- Stormbringer 15y ago
  Frankly I think that spending half the intro talking about how sexy they are and then essentially giving an update on what the person in question has been doing lately with their genitalia is just wrong. Are they in the pr0n industry? No? Well then, sit down and shut the %%%% up.
- egillie 15y ago
  This makes me hopeful for the future
srl 15y ago
> posters arrogantly asserting that "women should just ask for more" I believe I remember the posts to which you're referring, which centered IIRC around posts of "what you as a woman can do to improve your salary", by at least one feminist and one recruiter. The thesis of both posts - and many of the comments - was that a heavy contributing factor to the lower average salary for women, at least in "higher" professions (C.S., engineering in general), was that the system was biased towards giving higher salaries to those who were bolder and greedier, traits which women seemed less likely to display at the negotiating table. I suppose one could argue that emphasizing the "what women could do" rather than "fix the damn system" aspect was sexist, but it's a stretch, especially given the authors. Re: jokes. Whenever someone complains about a joke, or about an aspect of language, I always feel like we're attacking the tip of the iceberg in a way that won't really affect the rest of the problem at all. I'd rather people spent their time dealing with the roots of these sorts of problems than arguing over words and jokes.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  Not to attack, but you're missing the point too. Saying someone "could do X, Y" especially where X, Y are "bolder" and "greedier" has very different implications for a woman than a man. And the resulting discussion revealed just that. Both anecdotes and studies were posted that revealed that not only were those tactics NOT very successful for women's advancement in the workplace, but that it actually caused resentment towards them as male collegaues took that behavior to, well, were it normally goes. Look at most bold women and the jokes that people make about them being "bitches" or "cold" or what not. It's undermining and it's why women are often conditioned to NOT be bold and ask for more, etc. (Why don't people ever ask, how did we get to this level of inequality and disrespect in the first place?) As for the jokes, I agree. As I commented elsewhere, it takes a sexist culture to excuse and allow sexist jokes. I think that being less tolerant of such jokes is a good first step towards reforming the broken aspects of such a culture though.
  - enjo 15y ago
    Do you have a link to said discussion? Look at most bold women and the jokes that people make about them being "bitches" or "cold" or what not. I would respond "bold" men are often called "predators" and "douchebags" by the very same people. I find that there are always people who dislike those who put their necks out, no matter their sex.
brown9-2 15y ago
and am still surprised at its persistence on reddit (ie the trainwreck #1 post this morning) Anyone have a link to what this is referring to?
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  Had to use Google to find it again, wondering if someone delisted or hid it. http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/phyp1 http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/phyp1 The thread was a catastrophe from the beginning given the obvious troll nature of the entire posting, but the comments get very hateful towards women (ironically, while accusing feminists of being "man-haters"), mocking gender neutral replacement words and the usual reddit belittlement of rape. There are some in the thread that point out that reddit loves to hate feminism and some with sense enough to point out that the post wasn't even about feminism. I've written more than I might like about an otherwise useless reddit thread, but it's better than you having to read it much. Since I read it this morning the votes and placement have adjusted that it's not as bad, but it still makes me cringe.
pyre 15y ago
> "It's just a joke". (Hint, this response has already > been offered up more than once in this thread). It could be likened to comments about a male hair dresser or nurse about whether or not he's sexy/single/gay/etc at a professional conference.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
michaelkscott 15y ago
I'm surprised you expect clean stuff from reddit.

shareme 15y ago

how much of this is the social background of the offender? I find those who had Moms that worked when they were growing up seem as far as a group as of a whole to be less inclined to state stuff like this

Stormbringer 15y ago
Frankly I think that spending half the intro talking about how sexy they are and then essentially giving an update on what the person in question has been doing lately with their genitalia is just wrong. Are they in the pr0n industry? No? Well then, sit down and shut the %%%% up.
egillie 15y ago
This makes me hopeful for the future

srl 15y ago

> posters arrogantly asserting that "women should just ask for more" I believe I remember the posts to which you're referring, which centered IIRC around posts of "what you as a woman can do to improve your salary", by at least one feminist and one recruiter. The thesis of both posts - and many of the comments - was that a heavy contributing factor to the lower average salary for women, at least in "higher" professions (C.S., engineering in general), was that the system was biased towards giving higher salaries to those who were bolder and greedier, traits which women seemed less likely to display at the negotiating table. I suppose one could argue that emphasizing the "what women could do" rather than "fix the damn system" aspect was sexist, but it's a stretch, especially given the authors. Re: jokes. Whenever someone complains about a joke, or about an aspect of language, I always feel like we're attacking the tip of the iceberg in a way that won't really affect the rest of the problem at all. I'd rather people spent their time dealing with the roots of these sorts of problems than arguing over words and jokes.

drivebyacct2 15y ago
Not to attack, but you're missing the point too. Saying someone "could do X, Y" especially where X, Y are "bolder" and "greedier" has very different implications for a woman than a man. And the resulting discussion revealed just that. Both anecdotes and studies were posted that revealed that not only were those tactics NOT very successful for women's advancement in the workplace, but that it actually caused resentment towards them as male collegaues took that behavior to, well, were it normally goes. Look at most bold women and the jokes that people make about them being "bitches" or "cold" or what not. It's undermining and it's why women are often conditioned to NOT be bold and ask for more, etc. (Why don't people ever ask, how did we get to this level of inequality and disrespect in the first place?) As for the jokes, I agree. As I commented elsewhere, it takes a sexist culture to excuse and allow sexist jokes. I think that being less tolerant of such jokes is a good first step towards reforming the broken aspects of such a culture though.
- enjo 15y ago
  Do you have a link to said discussion? Look at most bold women and the jokes that people make about them being "bitches" or "cold" or what not. I would respond "bold" men are often called "predators" and "douchebags" by the very same people. I find that there are always people who dislike those who put their necks out, no matter their sex.

brown9-2 15y ago

and am still surprised at its persistence on reddit (ie the trainwreck #1 post this morning) Anyone have a link to what this is referring to?

drivebyacct2 15y ago
Had to use Google to find it again, wondering if someone delisted or hid it. http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/phyp1 http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/phyp1 The thread was a catastrophe from the beginning given the obvious troll nature of the entire posting, but the comments get very hateful towards women (ironically, while accusing feminists of being "man-haters"), mocking gender neutral replacement words and the usual reddit belittlement of rape. There are some in the thread that point out that reddit loves to hate feminism and some with sense enough to point out that the post wasn't even about feminism. I've written more than I might like about an otherwise useless reddit thread, but it's better than you having to read it much. Since I read it this morning the votes and placement have adjusted that it's not as bad, but it still makes me cringe.

pyre 15y ago

> "It's just a joke". (Hint, this response has already > been offered up more than once in this thread). It could be likened to comments about a male hair dresser or nurse about whether or not he's sexy/single/gay/etc at a professional conference.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

michaelkscott 15y ago

I'm surprised you expect clean stuff from reddit.