6 ms·

How To Exclude Women From Your Technical Community: A Tutorial

14 points by Kototama 14y ago

IsTom 14y ago
There's no tutorial in there. That's a whole post about one sentence said once on one symposium streched onto an "universal lession" how it was sexist. I'm not saying that there are many people who are jerks to women (and jerks in general) in the community, but this example is just not really a good one, nor is this post really insightful. There are plenty posts like that.
- pmr_ 14y ago
  The article wasn't even explain why the sentence-fragment was sexist. And I don't see how it was. Yes, meetings would be more attractive if there attendants were more evenly distributed across the spectrum of the human population. Otherwise some of the advice was really good for most kinds of confrontations.
  - greenrd 14y ago
    There was some good discussion about it on Reddit, and Twitter. I recommend checking out the reddit thread to better understand this point of view. However, even though reading this stuff made me think the blogger is probably right - it's a little off-putting that he doesn't seem to think his speech code should apply to him: https://mobile.twitter.com/eassumption/status/246636473800069120 https://mobile.twitter.com/eassumption/status/24663647380006... Makes you question the whole credibility of the radical feminist ethic, if they can't even follow their own rules. Or as I like to think of it after seeing that tweet, the "radical feminist reality distortion field".
- dsl 14y ago
  I came here to post the same comment. Very poor tutorial.
ktizo 14y ago
This line from the article is brilliant - Everyone who's ever written code knows that the compiler doesn't care about your intent; extend that to your interactions with other people, and you might find yourself behaving more fairly.
- ams6110 14y ago
  Perhaps, but "other people" are not compilers. Having real interactions with them requires a lot of nonverbal communication and interpretation of intent.
  - natep 14y ago
    The point was not that intent doesn't matter. The point was that intent is not enough when your language (verbal and physical) do not properly convey it.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
quesera 14y ago
I had to look up "cissexual". Here ya go: "In gender studies, cisgender and cissexual gender identities are two related types of gender identity where an individual's self-perception and presentation of their gender matches the behaviors and roles considered appropriate for one's sex." "Antonyms: transgender, transsexual." There's something satisfying about the fact that, despite four years of Latin and possession of all the other tools I needed to get there on my own, the field of Gender Studies caught me off my game with a word that means "normal". "Normal" is a perfectly good word. I don't advocate the being of it, but I'm not afraid to say it... And somehow I'm sure this makes me an awful person.
- ams6110 14y ago
  The author is clearly not "normal" him/herself, so it's not surprising that he/she might have a problem using the word. Not that there's anything wrong with not being normal, but this person seems to be rather obsessed with gender issues and sexism.
  - quesera 14y ago
    Right. The error is in conflating "normal" with "good", or "proper". Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, sometimes there's no such thing. In fairness, if you spend a lot of time thinking about these sorts of things, you do need a specific word for "normal in exactly the way I mean", and "non-transsexual" is a piece of work. I was just having fun, and I know that's not really allowed.
- ktizo 14y ago
  To replace the word cissexual with the word normal in that sentence would have changed the meaning of the sentence, so the two words are not synonymous in that context. Also, the author is a man who started out physically as a woman. He is not cissexual, and is aware of the terminology and uses it, and I don't think that using a wide vocabulary indicates some fear of other words.
  - quesera 14y ago
    Yes. I know, and I agree. I was just taking pleasure in the long definition couched in the opposite framing. I really do love language, and I think everyone should have their own.
shpoonj 14y ago
😒
anaheim 14y ago
"Suggesting that more women would be welcomed at a conference because they would make it "more attractive" is saying that women are valued for how they look, not for what they do." This is the author's own prejudices being unfairly grafted onto a perfectly innocent, if out-of-date comment about women making the audience 'more attractive'. " potentially alienating to any non-heterosexual men who were present, as they reflected an assumption that he was speaking to an audience of people who found women, and only women, "attractive". False, the potentially gay and male bisexual members were already being exposed to a number of members of the gender of their preference, and any lesbians or straight men in the audience were not. Hence, the comment was intended to address this specific portion of the audience. You can go on and on overanalysing some person's comments intended to suggest methods of increasing female participation at hacker conferences. Shooting down their efforts with some sort of snarky 'tutorial' is not going to help this cause at all, unless you yourself are willing to help create a supposedly 'safer' environment for female participation.
redfred 14y ago
You make it seem like he was completely serious when it appears from the video that he was making a joke. I understand the joke would probably put off women from their conference, but what he said after that is the woman in his classes have liked using Haskell so more woman should be encouraged to try Haskell because they will likely do well. I think you are overstating the sexist nature of his comment.
ranman 14y ago
So let me get this straight... If you say that women are attractive then the only possible reason you could be doing that is because you're secretly insulting their intelligence? Insecure much? Why is this nonsense on HN.
- roguecoder 14y ago
  "We need more Macs in this room; it'll pretty it right up" certainly implies that we don't need Macs because they are good machines. It's not "secretly insulting their intelligence", it is explicitly and overtly discounting the professional capabilities of the people he supposedly wanted to recruit. You seem to be being purposefully obtus to me. If it weren't a sexist joke people wouldn't have laughed at it.

14 points by Kototama 14y ago

IsTom 14y ago

There's no tutorial in there. That's a whole post about one sentence said once on one symposium streched onto an "universal lession" how it was sexist. I'm not saying that there are many people who are jerks to women (and jerks in general) in the community, but this example is just not really a good one, nor is this post really insightful. There are plenty posts like that.

pmr_ 14y ago
The article wasn't even explain why the sentence-fragment was sexist. And I don't see how it was. Yes, meetings would be more attractive if there attendants were more evenly distributed across the spectrum of the human population. Otherwise some of the advice was really good for most kinds of confrontations.
- greenrd 14y ago
  There was some good discussion about it on Reddit, and Twitter. I recommend checking out the reddit thread to better understand this point of view. However, even though reading this stuff made me think the blogger is probably right - it's a little off-putting that he doesn't seem to think his speech code should apply to him: https://mobile.twitter.com/eassumption/status/246636473800069120 https://mobile.twitter.com/eassumption/status/24663647380006... Makes you question the whole credibility of the radical feminist ethic, if they can't even follow their own rules. Or as I like to think of it after seeing that tweet, the "radical feminist reality distortion field".
dsl 14y ago
I came here to post the same comment. Very poor tutorial.

ktizo 14y ago

This line from the article is brilliant - Everyone who's ever written code knows that the compiler doesn't care about your intent; extend that to your interactions with other people, and you might find yourself behaving more fairly.

ams6110 14y ago
Perhaps, but "other people" are not compilers. Having real interactions with them requires a lot of nonverbal communication and interpretation of intent.
- natep 14y ago
  The point was not that intent doesn't matter. The point was that intent is not enough when your language (verbal and physical) do not properly convey it.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

quesera 14y ago

I had to look up "cissexual". Here ya go: "In gender studies, cisgender and cissexual gender identities are two related types of gender identity where an individual's self-perception and presentation of their gender matches the behaviors and roles considered appropriate for one's sex." "Antonyms: transgender, transsexual." There's something satisfying about the fact that, despite four years of Latin and possession of all the other tools I needed to get there on my own, the field of Gender Studies caught me off my game with a word that means "normal". "Normal" is a perfectly good word. I don't advocate the being of it, but I'm not afraid to say it... And somehow I'm sure this makes me an awful person.

ams6110 14y ago
The author is clearly not "normal" him/herself, so it's not surprising that he/she might have a problem using the word. Not that there's anything wrong with not being normal, but this person seems to be rather obsessed with gender issues and sexism.
- quesera 14y ago
  Right. The error is in conflating "normal" with "good", or "proper". Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, sometimes there's no such thing. In fairness, if you spend a lot of time thinking about these sorts of things, you do need a specific word for "normal in exactly the way I mean", and "non-transsexual" is a piece of work. I was just having fun, and I know that's not really allowed.
ktizo 14y ago
To replace the word cissexual with the word normal in that sentence would have changed the meaning of the sentence, so the two words are not synonymous in that context. Also, the author is a man who started out physically as a woman. He is not cissexual, and is aware of the terminology and uses it, and I don't think that using a wide vocabulary indicates some fear of other words.
- quesera 14y ago
  Yes. I know, and I agree. I was just taking pleasure in the long definition couched in the opposite framing. I really do love language, and I think everyone should have their own.

shpoonj 14y ago

😒

anaheim 14y ago

"Suggesting that more women would be welcomed at a conference because they would make it "more attractive" is saying that women are valued for how they look, not for what they do." This is the author's own prejudices being unfairly grafted onto a perfectly innocent, if out-of-date comment about women making the audience 'more attractive'. " potentially alienating to any non-heterosexual men who were present, as they reflected an assumption that he was speaking to an audience of people who found women, and only women, "attractive". False, the potentially gay and male bisexual members were already being exposed to a number of members of the gender of their preference, and any lesbians or straight men in the audience were not. Hence, the comment was intended to address this specific portion of the audience. You can go on and on overanalysing some person's comments intended to suggest methods of increasing female participation at hacker conferences. Shooting down their efforts with some sort of snarky 'tutorial' is not going to help this cause at all, unless you yourself are willing to help create a supposedly 'safer' environment for female participation.

redfred 14y ago

You make it seem like he was completely serious when it appears from the video that he was making a joke. I understand the joke would probably put off women from their conference, but what he said after that is the woman in his classes have liked using Haskell so more woman should be encouraged to try Haskell because they will likely do well. I think you are overstating the sexist nature of his comment.

ranman 14y ago

So let me get this straight... If you say that women are attractive then the only possible reason you could be doing that is because you're secretly insulting their intelligence? Insecure much? Why is this nonsense on HN.

roguecoder 14y ago
"We need more Macs in this room; it'll pretty it right up" certainly implies that we don't need Macs because they are good machines. It's not "secretly insulting their intelligence", it is explicitly and overtly discounting the professional capabilities of the people he supposedly wanted to recruit. You seem to be being purposefully obtus to me. If it weren't a sexist joke people wouldn't have laughed at it.