8 ms·

A different take on sexism in IT

38 points by antirez 14y ago

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
klodolph 14y ago
> As a proof in the United States where politically correctness and protection of minority is a topic always over-discussed, the condition of women is worse than in North Europe, where such an obsession does not exist. I don't really know how hard you can say "correlation ≠ causation" without getting an aneurysm, but I'm scared to find out. I mean, it's just so damn obvious. Let's suppose that sexism is more of a problem in the US than in country X. Wouldn't you want to talk about it more? Don't you think it suspicious that, say, people complain more about corrupt local police in countries that have corrupt local police? Don't you find it bizarre that people complain about the heat in places where the temperature exceeds 35°C? Isn't it fascinating that the people who complain the most about headaches are the most likely to suffer from migraines? Obviously they should stop complaining, it would make the headaches go away!
- zerostar07 14y ago
  I think he is saying that PC doesn't help, not that things will be fixed if PC is removed.
  - saraid216 14y ago
    Except that it does help.
    - zerostar07 14y ago
      I consider american PC towards women (or blacks etc) as a symptom. What makes you think it helps, other than overstating the problem (which in itself does not solve it)?
      - saraid216 14y ago
        Stating the problem is a step towards solving the problem. You can't solve something properly if you don't know it exists. How is that, by itself, not helping?
        zerostar07 14y ago
        Because there are better avenues (despite initial reactions, gender quotas in some EU countries managed to change deeply rooted corporate attitudes). And sometimes PC is misleading. I imagine if your workplace says "Our company welcomes women", it implies that it shouldn't be taken for granted, which would be illegal.
        baxrob 14y ago
        Unfortunately, the term "quota" has been uber-toxic in US politics for the past twenty+ years. So ... what is known as PC[1] (which I wish could just be called "common decency"[2], or "non-douche-ism") ... becomes an indispensable (if thin) lever. [1] Interesting, to me, because I think of it as starting in the late 1980s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness [2] Credit to Vonnegut
      - rmc 14y ago
        Political Correctness is great if you are a minority. It means you have similar rights to the powerful group. As a gay man, I know I can mention the gender of my spouse (male!) in a workplace environment without being worried about being fired (say). Straight people have always (more or less) been able to mention their spouse in the workplace without fear of repercussion. Now I can too! Political Correctness means I don't have to watch every word I say in the office! It's done wonders for my freedom of speech.
        zerostar07 14y ago
        But PC is only the first step! The more accepting a society is, the less PC is needed, because people embrace each other without a need for self-censorship and no one is offended.
- saraid216 14y ago
  And worth mention is religion. The United States has a jaw-droppingly powerful contingent of politically active Baptists and Catholics who have outspoken opinions on why sexism is moral. Northern European Christians tend to be Lutheran, which gives many fewer shits about political issues; I'd have to check stats to see the strength of Catholicism there, but I believe it's weaker than Lutheranism. Not to mention that atheism has a far stronger showing in Europe in general. Finding third variables are your friend! (I am not saying that religion is the root of sexism in America; I am just agreeing with the correlation ≠ causation point and offering an alternative theory.) ETA: It's also worth pointing out that Catholicism itself is not a good root cause to point at; I've noticed that their political actions are driven by a desire to remain relevant and possibly to maintain support from political actors, rather than some sincerely doctrinal motive. Thus, American Catholicism could be very different from Northern European Catholicism.
JohnBooty 14y ago
The article's point is that we should stop thinking about things like systematic sexism/racism and simply treat individuals equally and with the respect that every individual deserves. That's not wrong. Unfortunately, it's necessary but not sufficient to combat the problem of inequality resulting from sexism. Yes, we should lead by example, and absolutely treat our female coworkers with the respect they deserve simply because they're people, dammit. And if everybody else did the exact same thing, yes, the problem would disappear! However, that's not the world we live in. Not everybody is going to follow our lead. And that's why each of us who is interested in ending this crappy state of affairs can't simply do our part and then bury our heads in the sand. We have to do MORE than our parts. Not sexism-specific, but here's an example. I had a gay coworker a few years back. Of course I treated him with respect. His orientation was a total non-issue to me, not something I even thought about. But other coworkers said some insensitive things, tossing the word "gay" around as a synonym for "bad" and things like that. So I privately talked with a couple of them and, hey, let's not do that, let's make ____ feel at home here. Not putting my coworkers down; asking them to join me in doing something positive. And I made some progress that way -- progress that never would have happened if I'd simply treated him right and then buried my head in the sand. (For the record, I'm not some wonder of workplace harmony. I screw up a lot. About a decade ago, I was in a similar situation except I was the insensitive coworker. I learned from that situation. And frankly I wish I'd been steered in the right direction sooner, though I can't blame anybody else for my actions but myself.)
- klodolph 14y ago
  > That's not wrong. It is wrong. Sexism isn't a conscious choice that we can avoid on an individual level. It's a collection of bad habits and systems of bad behavior in groups. If you "stop thinking about things like systematic sexism/racism" then they become invisible to you, and you will lack the power to do anything or even articulate an argument about discrimination. For example, if you treat everyone equally but don't think about sexism, how do you stop someone else from doing stupid sexist things? How do you let them know that it's not acceptable? As an analogy, it's obvious that murdering people to steal their TV is wrong, and we know that because we think about murder. If we never thought or talked about murder, how would we know it is wrong? How would we catch murderers? What should the punishment be? It's not enough to not murder people, we have to talk about murder, hire people who catch murderers and put them in boxes, and think about how we can prevent more people from getting murdered.
herval 14y ago
"It's silly to try to protect all the minorities because they are minorities" Although I share OP's thought that people should be treated equally, that's just not what happens. We get examples every day, so trying to "solve the problem" by not talking about it will only make things stay the same (or get worse). It would be like pretending the elephant is not in the room as an attempt to make it disappear...
ddellacosta 14y ago
I think it is always an error to talk about sexism, even when the root cause is some asshole not respecting you because you are a woman. This is backwards. The thing that we absolutely have to do--especially those of us who are white males--is point it out when other white males are abusing our privilege, and show that we won't tolerate a work environment where women are not treated as equals. This is the single best, most powerful thing that we can do to end this type of discrimination. If a woman is expected to do something because she is a woman, if she is being subjected to sexual harassment or threats because she is a woman, everyone in the room has a moral obligation to point that out and nip it in the bud. And it is important, actually, to point out explicitly that you won't tolerate it because you don't accept discrimination against women (or minorities, or what have you). In person, in front of people, so everyone knows who you are are and where you stand. This is called making the environment safe for people to do their jobs; also known as having balls to do what's right. Unless, of course, you like working in a sexist/homophobic/racist environment, in which case let me know so I can make sure to avoid working with you in the future. I'm relatively new to HN, but I already have seen these kinds of tone-deaf articles pop up over and over, and it's maddening, and absurd. Surely there is something you people writing these articles could be writing about which is more worthwhile than rehashing the right to be a sexist over and over.
- saraid216 14y ago
  > I'm relatively new to HN, but I already have seen these kinds of tone-deaf articles pop up over and over, and it's maddening, and absurd. You should read the comments, too. It will become painfully obvious why these articles keep popping up. (Also note that this one was submitted by its author.)
herval 14y ago
"Another naive way to consider the problem is to think that sexism is a state of mind of men. Actually the problem is more complex than that, and a lot of women don't consider themselves or other women as capable as men." Actually it's more complex than that: a lot of women consider themselves inferior because they have been trained to think like that. Sexism all the way, in a cycle that is very hard to break. I do think that "being nice to women" is a great first step to "break the ice" and guve those who want an opportunity to "become equal"...
spindritf 14y ago
I'm starting to feel that this whole issue is being taken up by people who were born too late for some actual struggle against sexism and racism. 50s are over, women are not sent away by the bank teller and told to come back with a husband, people who aren't white are not barred from employment, and almost all that's left to "fight" against is unpleasantness and stupid jokes. And so unpleasantness and stupid jokes are being fought, which makes it easy and risk-free so more people join. Not to disparage the authors of those but anyone can write a blog post and feel like they've done something. ps. Your text requires some stylistic corrections, and it's not obvious what you mean by "too easy" in the beginning. EDIT: Thank you, rmc (below), for providing examples. That's what I mean -- unpleasant words is largely the extent of sexism nowadays, or even just shortcomings of pop culture (like there's a shortage of those). And that is met with major outcries, not to mention actual discrimination which is met with million dollar lawsuits.
- rmc 14y ago
  Some highlights of modern sexism: * Women don't "dress like sluts" and you won't be raped (Canadian police officer advice ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13739876 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13739876 ) ). * USA politicians think that somehow women's bodies can recognise "legitimate rape" and prevent getting pregnant (* http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/us/politics/todd-akin-provokes-ire-with-legitimate-rape-comment.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/us/politics/todd-akin-prov... ), which is just a way to stop rape victims getting abortions. * The EU made an advert to get women into science. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g032MPrSjFA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g032MPrSjFA ). "Science: It's a girl thing". Just look at it. High heels! Make up! Lipstick! It's like something from Mad Men ('women won't be interested in a thing unless you have lots of make up!') * It's amazing that so many films still don't pass the Bechdel Test. It's a simple game, where a film passes if it has 2 named women talked about something other than a man. Many many films don't have that. Many many films have 2 named men talking about something other than a woman, one would struggle to find films that fail the male bechdel test. What's going on here?
  - randomdata 14y ago
    Your last point seems like it should be a function of market demands. If people wanted to see women talking about something other than men, those movies should dominate at the box office. Since women buy more movie tickets than men[1] and thus movies will be generally catered towards that demographic, if there is sexism at play here, it seems like it is coming from the female gender themselves which brings up a whole new set of "what's going on here?" questions. [1] http://womenandhollywood.com/2010/03/11/guess-what-women-buy-more-movie-tickets-than-men/ http://womenandhollywood.com/2010/03/11/guess-what-women-buy...
jamesmcn 14y ago
I agree with the author that you don't want to "protect" women or other minorities, you need to make a general effort to make your work environment suitable for everyone. That said, I can't think of an instance in the ~13 years I've been working professionally where I have observed a minority in a tech company receiving "special care or protection." This may happen in more traditional industries, but my experience is that everyone works their asses off. (My experience is that minorities are often overachievers. I can't think of a single female engineer who was a slacker. I can think of quite a few white males and one or two South- and East- Asian male slackers. Ironically, when we start to see female slackers, then we know that we are creating the right environment. And can proceed to apply the same management tools that we apply to anyone not pulling their weight!) Today, software developers are in extremely high demand. There is no reason to believe that women, african americans, or any other minority are fundamentally less capable of being excellent engineers. So the question is: what are we doing wrong as a society and as company creators that causes certain minorities to be underrepresented in our tech companies? South and East Asians appear to be well represented, so it is clearly not an impossible problem. I welcome articles that help me better understand how to create a better environment for capable engineers. There is a clear shortage of female engineers, and there is an encouraging uptick of women speaking about the problems and issues that cause them. The more we learn, the better we will be at closing that gap.
Scidomino 14y ago
I disagree. If a bunch of people are facing the same problem a good way to solve it is for them to join together and fight it collectively. Insisting that women should play dumb when faced with sexism is just bad strategy.
pothibo 14y ago
Morgan Freeman nails it. Stop talking about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3cGfrExozQ&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3cGfrExozQ&feature=relat...
- angry_android 14y ago
  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/colorblind/201112/colorblind-ideology-is-form-racism http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/colorblind/201112/colorb...
  - seliopou 14y ago
    Yep. General rule of thumb: If you're considering adopting a view that's held by Stephen Colbert (the character), it's probably a bad idea.
  - pothibo 14y ago
    Are you referring to Morgan Freeman's comment as colorblindness?
laurentoget 14y ago
wow. way to go about ignoring and denying your privileges, mister straight white man! why on earth is that bigoted drivel on the front page of HN?
- bromang 14y ago
  what about the absurd institutionalized privileges of minorities are much larger in America?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - kylebrown 14y ago
    They took errr jerbs? (hat tip, south park). Are you talking about affirmative action or quota hires as an institutionalized privilege of minorities? If so, then what about institutionalized discrimination of minorities?(eg education of the average black student at an inner-city school way underfunded, relative to the majority). Even most proponents of AA are ready to concede that it should be done differently, but its not fair to rail against the evils of "reverse discrimination" without at least acknowledging present-day, ordinary structural discrimination.
  - natep 14y ago
    Oh, you mean the astronomically higher incarceration rates of blacks? The ridiculous voter ID laws being introduced across the country? The increased likelihood of being subject to a 'stop and frisk' despite the decreased likelihood of finding a weapon? The fact that most public school systems are funded by property taxes, so poor areas are underfunded? I can only imagine you're referring to affirmative action, which I would say has done little to undo generations of structural inequality.
- kylebrown 14y ago
  Its on the frontpage because antirez is the author of redis. Who knows what prompted this but seems like its coming from way out of left field. Digging a bit into his blog archives, this seemed to be the only post that wasn't about redis. I understand what he's trying to say, but the self-contradiction ("I think it is always an error to talk about sexism, but I'm going to talk about it anyway") shows that he's missing whatever point he's trying to respond to. Plus, its not at all a different take.
raganwald 14y ago
The Keep: http://raganwald.posterous.com/the-keep http://raganwald.posterous.com/the-keep
- graue 14y ago
  Your original, short comment seems much clearer about the point you're trying to get across: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4597584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4597584
  - raganwald 14y ago
    I agree! The trouble is, once i started telling the story as a parable, I got emotionally involved in telling the town's story instead of using it as a secondary device for making a primary point. Thanks for the excellent feedback.
arkitaip 14y ago
You are seriously telling me that what made your female coworkers "deeply upset" was the idea that asking to be respected as women and not things like getting significantly less pay, sexual harassment and fewer career options? Either you are not telling the truth or this is the most ridiculous case of selective bias I've read on HN in a long time. Ask these female coworkers of yours what bothers them the most, the fight for gender equality in the workplace or getting paid less because they are women. ----- As a woman you want respect because you are capable and smart. Not because you are a woman. This is an really old and equally flawed argument that doesn't consider the fact that men discriminate women based on their gender not their individuality. ----- In the course of my life I started to develop an higher and higher intolerance for topics like politically correctness and protection of minorities unless this was clearly put in general terms. Political correctness is a weasel word designed to avoid meaningful discussions. By using it you've already made it clear that you have made up your mind on a topic that you're ignorant about. ----- If you are an human being you need to be respected because you deserve respect like any other. I don't care if you are black, white, yellow or woman, you are an individual. And yet you fail to see that individuals cannot fight centuries and millenia of stereotypes, biases and general ignorance. ----- Similarly, I will not care who you are if you do something silly at work. Nothing is more offensive for you than me being too easy with you because you are part of some minority. This is, basically, a masked form of reverse-sexism, and is deeply offensive. No one is asking you to subsidize minority stupidity, so I have no idea why you are bringing this up. Also, is this really a problem? People's work, regardless if they belong to a minority or not, are held to a certain standard and if they don't perform accordingly there are ways of remedying the problem. ----- In general if there is a problem at the work place between individual A and B, I think it is always an error to talk about sexism, even when the root cause is some asshole not respecting you because you are a woman. This is a very convenient way of avoiding to deal with sexism and other related issues. Imagine the guy who claims that he doesn't have issues with woman despite countless cases of harassing his female coworkers, that he just happens to have problem with individuals that always happen to be women. ----- Trying to protect women in tech since they are women is like moving a cultural problem (the sexism) into an individual domain. It's quite the opposite. You are so desperate to focus on individuals that you refuse to acknowledge that minority and gender issues can only be solved on higher level, i.e. group, company and society level. This is how we've managed to get things like equal political rights; centuries of organizing and fighting on higher social levels. ----- A woman in tech has nothing less than a male in tech, as such does not need special care or protection. She needs to be respected as everybody else. What does "less" mean? Woman are clearly more often harassed in the workplace, they get less pay, etc, so obviously something isn't working. I'm not sure that they need "special care" (nice pejorative term there) or protection by manly men, but they need to be treated equally and currently that's not the case. ----- Another naive way to consider the problem is to think that sexism is a state of mind of men. Actually the problem is more complex than that, and a lot of women don't consider themselves or other women as capable as men. You don't explain the complexity of the situation but you're implying that woman can be sexists too. Yes, that's obvious but doesn't change the fact that men are far more likely to be sexists and woman far more likely to be discriminated against.
saraid216 14y ago
Again and again, people make the mistake of treating individual solutions as similar to institutional solutions. Sexism is not a topic you bring up in an individual setting. You are absolutely correct about this. Women should live and die by their merit just as much as men do. But at an institutional level, this isn't possible. To exaggerate a little, think of chattel slavery. Could you really say that chattel slavery would be obliterated simply by not talking to slaves about chattel slavery? Of course not; there are physical restraints driven by economic and political assumptions about what would happen. Note that I'm only talking about chattel slavery here, which today only exists in rare parts of the world; I am not talking about racism. We talk about sexism in IT because this is what needs to happen: people in IT need to pause and think before making a sexist comment. They need to be able to review what they just said in their minds and understand why a comment or evaluation is sexist. They need to be able to do this especially when accused of sexism. They need to understand that some behavior can be offensive and that being civilized in part means that they make sure such behavior is kept in check rather than spewed around flippantly. That's why we talk about it. It's the same reason we tell you to comment your code. You have to REMEMBER TO DO IT. Some of us are happy magical and already do it as a habit. Others need the reminder. I encourage you to explore http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Geek_Feminism_Wiki http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Geek_Feminism_Wiki
kenster07 14y ago
To the ardent feminists, a simple question -- do you believe the world would be a morally superior place if there was no biological distinction between men and women -- i.e. there was only one gender?
- natep 14y ago
  I think ardent feminists are focused on making realistic changes to reality, i.e. working with the reality that we have a great diversity of sexual identities, gender identities, and gender roles, rather than try to fight against it. Fair treatment of women and minorities does not entail erasing all differences until we are a uniform grey.
emehrkay 14y ago
Is it wrong for me to assume that the author is a white man just by what he wrote?
antiterra 14y ago
I'd really like antirez to explain his inclusion of a quote that implies his entire article and the topic at large aren't even worth discussion. Randi has been able to bravely endure incredibly cruel sexist treatment from various online communities, some of which undoubtedly stemmed from pursuing interests in male-dominated spaces. However, I don't think it's fair to say that every woman can or should suffer such experiences with the same aplomb. Edit: I have discussed this a bit with Randi, and there is indeed some context missing that makes me understand where she was coming from in the original quote.
zerostar07 14y ago
"It's silly to try to protect all the minorities because they are minorities" That is silly. Societies are not made in heaven and are full of prejudices against minorities molded through centuries of white male domination.
raganwald 14y ago
http://m.netmagazine.com/features/primer-sexism-tech-industry http://m.netmagazine.com/features/primer-sexism-tech-industr...
antirez 14y ago
I see many comments in this post where sexism is referred as "bad jokes" or things like this. This is the smaller part, and the sole that you can address with a campaign. My point of view is focused on the sexism that is NOT blatant and obvious like that. Examples: 1) The male boss promotes a male instead of a woman not based solely on merits but for prejudice about the capabilities of women. 2) The male boss promotes a prettier woman worker even if another woman deserved it more. 3) The female boss promotes a male because she feels (without possibly fully understanding it) in competition with the pretty woman even if she deserved it more. There are a shitload of cases like this, and this is the whole point, because the bad jokes can be addressed directly: they may be unpleasant, but there is an easy path to fight this behaviours. Instead the more subtle things that prevent a carrier from having the same chances of everybody else is where I would be more focused. And this stuff is not the one you can fight with being politically correct.
- whamill 14y ago
  Okay, so you have given a few examples of sexism. So why do you think we shouldn't talk about this? Don't you think that what you've just described, being more prevalent in the US, warrants the discussion? Don't you think it's irrelevant and destructive to play the quote at the end of your article telling us just to get back to work?
dspeyer 14y ago
This works on big things. Not so much on little, cumulative ones. Why did A make a tasteless joke about B's outfit? Because he was nervous and his dubious sense of humor got ahead of his judgment. But he didn't mean anything by it and said he's sorry B feels that way. Well everyone says stupid things sometimes. No actual harm done. B should lighten up, right? That doesn't work. http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/21/lighten-up/ http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/21/lighten-up/ Some things are problems only because they're part of a larger pattern. That's when we need to think outside of the individual domain.
sophacles 14y ago
There is a lot of weird cognitive dissonance in this article. "Special protection" is one of those vague phrases that can (and appears to be here) used in a few different ways.[1] In some senses it is taken to mean "elevating one group to have a higher privilege set and stronger boundary enforcement than the norm". In other senses it is used as "stripping unfair privilege from one group by a combination of positively asserting the rights for the protected group and punishment for those who deny those rights or assert a privilege for their group".[2] This fuzzy, conflicting set of understandings leads to a lot of cases of people talking past each other, and not really accomplishing anything. We really need to stop using such terms in discussion and be a bit more specific. There are good and bad examples of both meanings, and there needs to be frank and open discussion, without reduction to overloaded and emotionally loaded terms. Similarly there is the problem of privilege blindness. Even if I treat everyone the same, or think I do, I may not be. This is a real thing - people have notions of the right way to treat someone and they don't even notice that it is absurd or privilege enforcing. For example: In college and for a short time after, I worked at a bar as a bartender. My boss was a black man, the owner of the business. I am a white guy, 10 years younger. People would come in during closed hours with deliveries or job applications or sales pitches and come to me first. I honestly didn't notice or think anything of it most of the time, even when it was obvious when he was in charge (e.g. i was mopping and he was counting out drawers). I would write it off as "oh they just don't want to interrupt the boss" or other reasonable sounding explanations. One day right before we started accepting a round of applications, he mentioned this to me and I was a bit resistant to the idea that it was racial. I offered the reasonable sounding thoughts and explanations. So we did an experiment. Half the days I would do grunt work and he would do boss work, the other half the days I would do boss work and he would do grunt work. In both cases, a significant portion of the applicants came to me first[3]. Surprisingly, all groups of applicants (divided by gender, race,etc) displayed this behavior. This is a case of privilege that is really difficult to see if you think everyone is treated equally or think you do too. I seriously doubt the applicants were racist (well most of them weren't), and I presume they truly believed in equality and that they actively wanted to treat everyone the same (evidence: how embarrassed they were when I pointed out who the actual boss was). The privilege I had here, by being white, was that the default assumption is that I was in charge.[3] The point here is that sometimes, despite the best intentions, there are societal/cultural assumptions that are ingrained to the point of invisibility for those who are the norm. It is important to point these out and discuss them, so that people can actively stop doing participating. I believe most people don't want to be (.)ist, but also that the just don't know when their actions are conforming to it unintentionally. I think that one thing this article is great for, is highlighting that. The author obviously cares that everyone is treated well and equally. It would be insulting to point out to him any of his actions as sexist, because he really isn't.[4] Instead the better approach is to have discussions, which are inherently uncomfortable, in the light of "here's a privilege or default assumption that exists, here is evidence", and get the people with the privilege to see it as existing at all. Once that happens, they will stop asserting it on their own, because the don't want to be unfair or unequal or whatever. </unintentionally ranty post> [1] Please note, that my definitions after this footnote are my understanding of the scenario, if this is inaccurate please link me to sources with good explanations! [2] There is another commonly used understanding of this term, which is as a code word for "I am about to say something that really is about protecting my privileges", however I don't think the author meant this here. [3] Later, after learning about various equality issues in a more formal way, there were even more things that pointed out the privilege in this situation... my boss was someone who could "pass" as white, I'm a guy who dresses down and is generally scruffy, and so on. There is also a related bit of privilege in this situation from when I was hired. My friend who hooked me up with the lead and a good recommendation made sure to casually point out that the owner was a black man. This priming was something that at the time I thought nothing of, it was a bit of conversation about the environment, but in retrospect, I probably would have made the mistake I described above without that priming. No one ever casually mentions that the boss is white when describing a job to a prospect. [4] (.)ism implies the person actively wants to keep the targeted group in a state of lower privilege. It is insulting to be called that when you actually want the opposite.
deleted 14y ago
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38 points by antirez 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

> As a proof in the United States where politically correctness and protection of minority is a topic always over-discussed, the condition of women is worse than in North Europe, where such an obsession does not exist. I don't really know how hard you can say "correlation ≠ causation" without getting an aneurysm, but I'm scared to find out. I mean, it's just so damn obvious. Let's suppose that sexism is more of a problem in the US than in country X. Wouldn't you want to talk about it more? Don't you think it suspicious that, say, people complain more about corrupt local police in countries that have corrupt local police? Don't you find it bizarre that people complain about the heat in places where the temperature exceeds 35°C? Isn't it fascinating that the people who complain the most about headaches are the most likely to suffer from migraines? Obviously they should stop complaining, it would make the headaches go away!

zerostar07 14y ago
I think he is saying that PC doesn't help, not that things will be fixed if PC is removed.
- saraid216 14y ago
  Except that it does help.
  - zerostar07 14y ago
    I consider american PC towards women (or blacks etc) as a symptom. What makes you think it helps, other than overstating the problem (which in itself does not solve it)?
    - saraid216 14y ago
      Stating the problem is a step towards solving the problem. You can't solve something properly if you don't know it exists. How is that, by itself, not helping?
      - zerostar07 14y ago
        Because there are better avenues (despite initial reactions, gender quotas in some EU countries managed to change deeply rooted corporate attitudes). And sometimes PC is misleading. I imagine if your workplace says "Our company welcomes women", it implies that it shouldn't be taken for granted, which would be illegal.
        baxrob 14y ago
        Unfortunately, the term "quota" has been uber-toxic in US politics for the past twenty+ years. So ... what is known as PC[1] (which I wish could just be called "common decency"[2], or "non-douche-ism") ... becomes an indispensable (if thin) lever. [1] Interesting, to me, because I think of it as starting in the late 1980s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness [2] Credit to Vonnegut
    - rmc 14y ago
      Political Correctness is great if you are a minority. It means you have similar rights to the powerful group. As a gay man, I know I can mention the gender of my spouse (male!) in a workplace environment without being worried about being fired (say). Straight people have always (more or less) been able to mention their spouse in the workplace without fear of repercussion. Now I can too! Political Correctness means I don't have to watch every word I say in the office! It's done wonders for my freedom of speech.
      - zerostar07 14y ago
        But PC is only the first step! The more accepting a society is, the less PC is needed, because people embrace each other without a need for self-censorship and no one is offended.
saraid216 14y ago
And worth mention is religion. The United States has a jaw-droppingly powerful contingent of politically active Baptists and Catholics who have outspoken opinions on why sexism is moral. Northern European Christians tend to be Lutheran, which gives many fewer shits about political issues; I'd have to check stats to see the strength of Catholicism there, but I believe it's weaker than Lutheranism. Not to mention that atheism has a far stronger showing in Europe in general. Finding third variables are your friend! (I am not saying that religion is the root of sexism in America; I am just agreeing with the correlation ≠ causation point and offering an alternative theory.) ETA: It's also worth pointing out that Catholicism itself is not a good root cause to point at; I've noticed that their political actions are driven by a desire to remain relevant and possibly to maintain support from political actors, rather than some sincerely doctrinal motive. Thus, American Catholicism could be very different from Northern European Catholicism.

JohnBooty 14y ago

The article's point is that we should stop thinking about things like systematic sexism/racism and simply treat individuals equally and with the respect that every individual deserves. That's not wrong. Unfortunately, it's necessary but not sufficient to combat the problem of inequality resulting from sexism. Yes, we should lead by example, and absolutely treat our female coworkers with the respect they deserve simply because they're people, dammit. And if everybody else did the exact same thing, yes, the problem would disappear! However, that's not the world we live in. Not everybody is going to follow our lead. And that's why each of us who is interested in ending this crappy state of affairs can't simply do our part and then bury our heads in the sand. We have to do MORE than our parts. Not sexism-specific, but here's an example. I had a gay coworker a few years back. Of course I treated him with respect. His orientation was a total non-issue to me, not something I even thought about. But other coworkers said some insensitive things, tossing the word "gay" around as a synonym for "bad" and things like that. So I privately talked with a couple of them and, hey, let's not do that, let's make ____ feel at home here. Not putting my coworkers down; asking them to join me in doing something positive. And I made some progress that way -- progress that never would have happened if I'd simply treated him right and then buried my head in the sand. (For the record, I'm not some wonder of workplace harmony. I screw up a lot. About a decade ago, I was in a similar situation except I was the insensitive coworker. I learned from that situation. And frankly I wish I'd been steered in the right direction sooner, though I can't blame anybody else for my actions but myself.)

klodolph 14y ago
> That's not wrong. It is wrong. Sexism isn't a conscious choice that we can avoid on an individual level. It's a collection of bad habits and systems of bad behavior in groups. If you "stop thinking about things like systematic sexism/racism" then they become invisible to you, and you will lack the power to do anything or even articulate an argument about discrimination. For example, if you treat everyone equally but don't think about sexism, how do you stop someone else from doing stupid sexist things? How do you let them know that it's not acceptable? As an analogy, it's obvious that murdering people to steal their TV is wrong, and we know that because we think about murder. If we never thought or talked about murder, how would we know it is wrong? How would we catch murderers? What should the punishment be? It's not enough to not murder people, we have to talk about murder, hire people who catch murderers and put them in boxes, and think about how we can prevent more people from getting murdered.

herval 14y ago

"It's silly to try to protect all the minorities because they are minorities" Although I share OP's thought that people should be treated equally, that's just not what happens. We get examples every day, so trying to "solve the problem" by not talking about it will only make things stay the same (or get worse). It would be like pretending the elephant is not in the room as an attempt to make it disappear...

ddellacosta 14y ago

I think it is always an error to talk about sexism, even when the root cause is some asshole not respecting you because you are a woman. This is backwards. The thing that we absolutely have to do--especially those of us who are white males--is point it out when other white males are abusing our privilege, and show that we won't tolerate a work environment where women are not treated as equals. This is the single best, most powerful thing that we can do to end this type of discrimination. If a woman is expected to do something because she is a woman, if she is being subjected to sexual harassment or threats because she is a woman, everyone in the room has a moral obligation to point that out and nip it in the bud. And it is important, actually, to point out explicitly that you won't tolerate it because you don't accept discrimination against women (or minorities, or what have you). In person, in front of people, so everyone knows who you are are and where you stand. This is called making the environment safe for people to do their jobs; also known as having balls to do what's right. Unless, of course, you like working in a sexist/homophobic/racist environment, in which case let me know so I can make sure to avoid working with you in the future. I'm relatively new to HN, but I already have seen these kinds of tone-deaf articles pop up over and over, and it's maddening, and absurd. Surely there is something you people writing these articles could be writing about which is more worthwhile than rehashing the right to be a sexist over and over.

saraid216 14y ago
> I'm relatively new to HN, but I already have seen these kinds of tone-deaf articles pop up over and over, and it's maddening, and absurd. You should read the comments, too. It will become painfully obvious why these articles keep popping up. (Also note that this one was submitted by its author.)

herval 14y ago

"Another naive way to consider the problem is to think that sexism is a state of mind of men. Actually the problem is more complex than that, and a lot of women don't consider themselves or other women as capable as men." Actually it's more complex than that: a lot of women consider themselves inferior because they have been trained to think like that. Sexism all the way, in a cycle that is very hard to break. I do think that "being nice to women" is a great first step to "break the ice" and guve those who want an opportunity to "become equal"...

spindritf 14y ago

I'm starting to feel that this whole issue is being taken up by people who were born too late for some actual struggle against sexism and racism. 50s are over, women are not sent away by the bank teller and told to come back with a husband, people who aren't white are not barred from employment, and almost all that's left to "fight" against is unpleasantness and stupid jokes. And so unpleasantness and stupid jokes are being fought, which makes it easy and risk-free so more people join. Not to disparage the authors of those but anyone can write a blog post and feel like they've done something. ps. Your text requires some stylistic corrections, and it's not obvious what you mean by "too easy" in the beginning. EDIT: Thank you, rmc (below), for providing examples. That's what I mean -- unpleasant words is largely the extent of sexism nowadays, or even just shortcomings of pop culture (like there's a shortage of those). And that is met with major outcries, not to mention actual discrimination which is met with million dollar lawsuits.

rmc 14y ago
Some highlights of modern sexism: * Women don't "dress like sluts" and you won't be raped (Canadian police officer advice ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13739876 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13739876 ) ). * USA politicians think that somehow women's bodies can recognise "legitimate rape" and prevent getting pregnant (* http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/us/politics/todd-akin-provokes-ire-with-legitimate-rape-comment.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/us/politics/todd-akin-prov... ), which is just a way to stop rape victims getting abortions. * The EU made an advert to get women into science. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g032MPrSjFA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g032MPrSjFA ). "Science: It's a girl thing". Just look at it. High heels! Make up! Lipstick! It's like something from Mad Men ('women won't be interested in a thing unless you have lots of make up!') * It's amazing that so many films still don't pass the Bechdel Test. It's a simple game, where a film passes if it has 2 named women talked about something other than a man. Many many films don't have that. Many many films have 2 named men talking about something other than a woman, one would struggle to find films that fail the male bechdel test. What's going on here?
- randomdata 14y ago
  Your last point seems like it should be a function of market demands. If people wanted to see women talking about something other than men, those movies should dominate at the box office. Since women buy more movie tickets than men[1] and thus movies will be generally catered towards that demographic, if there is sexism at play here, it seems like it is coming from the female gender themselves which brings up a whole new set of "what's going on here?" questions. [1] http://womenandhollywood.com/2010/03/11/guess-what-women-buy-more-movie-tickets-than-men/ http://womenandhollywood.com/2010/03/11/guess-what-women-buy...

jamesmcn 14y ago

I agree with the author that you don't want to "protect" women or other minorities, you need to make a general effort to make your work environment suitable for everyone. That said, I can't think of an instance in the ~13 years I've been working professionally where I have observed a minority in a tech company receiving "special care or protection." This may happen in more traditional industries, but my experience is that everyone works their asses off. (My experience is that minorities are often overachievers. I can't think of a single female engineer who was a slacker. I can think of quite a few white males and one or two South- and East- Asian male slackers. Ironically, when we start to see female slackers, then we know that we are creating the right environment. And can proceed to apply the same management tools that we apply to anyone not pulling their weight!) Today, software developers are in extremely high demand. There is no reason to believe that women, african americans, or any other minority are fundamentally less capable of being excellent engineers. So the question is: what are we doing wrong as a society and as company creators that causes certain minorities to be underrepresented in our tech companies? South and East Asians appear to be well represented, so it is clearly not an impossible problem. I welcome articles that help me better understand how to create a better environment for capable engineers. There is a clear shortage of female engineers, and there is an encouraging uptick of women speaking about the problems and issues that cause them. The more we learn, the better we will be at closing that gap.

Scidomino 14y ago

I disagree. If a bunch of people are facing the same problem a good way to solve it is for them to join together and fight it collectively. Insisting that women should play dumb when faced with sexism is just bad strategy.

pothibo 14y ago

Morgan Freeman nails it. Stop talking about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3cGfrExozQ&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3cGfrExozQ&feature=relat...

angry_android 14y ago
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/colorblind/201112/colorblind-ideology-is-form-racism http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/colorblind/201112/colorb...
- seliopou 14y ago
  Yep. General rule of thumb: If you're considering adopting a view that's held by Stephen Colbert (the character), it's probably a bad idea.
- pothibo 14y ago
  Are you referring to Morgan Freeman's comment as colorblindness?

laurentoget 14y ago

wow. way to go about ignoring and denying your privileges, mister straight white man! why on earth is that bigoted drivel on the front page of HN?

bromang 14y ago
what about the absurd institutionalized privileges of minorities are much larger in America?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- kylebrown 14y ago
  They took errr jerbs? (hat tip, south park). Are you talking about affirmative action or quota hires as an institutionalized privilege of minorities? If so, then what about institutionalized discrimination of minorities?(eg education of the average black student at an inner-city school way underfunded, relative to the majority). Even most proponents of AA are ready to concede that it should be done differently, but its not fair to rail against the evils of "reverse discrimination" without at least acknowledging present-day, ordinary structural discrimination.
- natep 14y ago
  Oh, you mean the astronomically higher incarceration rates of blacks? The ridiculous voter ID laws being introduced across the country? The increased likelihood of being subject to a 'stop and frisk' despite the decreased likelihood of finding a weapon? The fact that most public school systems are funded by property taxes, so poor areas are underfunded? I can only imagine you're referring to affirmative action, which I would say has done little to undo generations of structural inequality.
kylebrown 14y ago
Its on the frontpage because antirez is the author of redis. Who knows what prompted this but seems like its coming from way out of left field. Digging a bit into his blog archives, this seemed to be the only post that wasn't about redis. I understand what he's trying to say, but the self-contradiction ("I think it is always an error to talk about sexism, but I'm going to talk about it anyway") shows that he's missing whatever point he's trying to respond to. Plus, its not at all a different take.

raganwald 14y ago

The Keep: http://raganwald.posterous.com/the-keep http://raganwald.posterous.com/the-keep

graue 14y ago
Your original, short comment seems much clearer about the point you're trying to get across: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4597584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4597584
- raganwald 14y ago
  I agree! The trouble is, once i started telling the story as a parable, I got emotionally involved in telling the town's story instead of using it as a secondary device for making a primary point. Thanks for the excellent feedback.

arkitaip 14y ago

You are seriously telling me that what made your female coworkers "deeply upset" was the idea that asking to be respected as women and not things like getting significantly less pay, sexual harassment and fewer career options? Either you are not telling the truth or this is the most ridiculous case of selective bias I've read on HN in a long time. Ask these female coworkers of yours what bothers them the most, the fight for gender equality in the workplace or getting paid less because they are women. ----- As a woman you want respect because you are capable and smart. Not because you are a woman. This is an really old and equally flawed argument that doesn't consider the fact that men discriminate women based on their gender not their individuality. ----- In the course of my life I started to develop an higher and higher intolerance for topics like politically correctness and protection of minorities unless this was clearly put in general terms. Political correctness is a weasel word designed to avoid meaningful discussions. By using it you've already made it clear that you have made up your mind on a topic that you're ignorant about. ----- If you are an human being you need to be respected because you deserve respect like any other. I don't care if you are black, white, yellow or woman, you are an individual. And yet you fail to see that individuals cannot fight centuries and millenia of stereotypes, biases and general ignorance. ----- Similarly, I will not care who you are if you do something silly at work. Nothing is more offensive for you than me being too easy with you because you are part of some minority. This is, basically, a masked form of reverse-sexism, and is deeply offensive. No one is asking you to subsidize minority stupidity, so I have no idea why you are bringing this up. Also, is this really a problem? People's work, regardless if they belong to a minority or not, are held to a certain standard and if they don't perform accordingly there are ways of remedying the problem. ----- In general if there is a problem at the work place between individual A and B, I think it is always an error to talk about sexism, even when the root cause is some asshole not respecting you because you are a woman. This is a very convenient way of avoiding to deal with sexism and other related issues. Imagine the guy who claims that he doesn't have issues with woman despite countless cases of harassing his female coworkers, that he just happens to have problem with individuals that always happen to be women. ----- Trying to protect women in tech since they are women is like moving a cultural problem (the sexism) into an individual domain. It's quite the opposite. You are so desperate to focus on individuals that you refuse to acknowledge that minority and gender issues can only be solved on higher level, i.e. group, company and society level. This is how we've managed to get things like equal political rights; centuries of organizing and fighting on higher social levels. ----- A woman in tech has nothing less than a male in tech, as such does not need special care or protection. She needs to be respected as everybody else. What does "less" mean? Woman are clearly more often harassed in the workplace, they get less pay, etc, so obviously something isn't working. I'm not sure that they need "special care" (nice pejorative term there) or protection by manly men, but they need to be treated equally and currently that's not the case. ----- Another naive way to consider the problem is to think that sexism is a state of mind of men. Actually the problem is more complex than that, and a lot of women don't consider themselves or other women as capable as men. You don't explain the complexity of the situation but you're implying that woman can be sexists too. Yes, that's obvious but doesn't change the fact that men are far more likely to be sexists and woman far more likely to be discriminated against.

saraid216 14y ago

Again and again, people make the mistake of treating individual solutions as similar to institutional solutions. Sexism is not a topic you bring up in an individual setting. You are absolutely correct about this. Women should live and die by their merit just as much as men do. But at an institutional level, this isn't possible. To exaggerate a little, think of chattel slavery. Could you really say that chattel slavery would be obliterated simply by not talking to slaves about chattel slavery? Of course not; there are physical restraints driven by economic and political assumptions about what would happen. Note that I'm only talking about chattel slavery here, which today only exists in rare parts of the world; I am not talking about racism. We talk about sexism in IT because this is what needs to happen: people in IT need to pause and think before making a sexist comment. They need to be able to review what they just said in their minds and understand why a comment or evaluation is sexist. They need to be able to do this especially when accused of sexism. They need to understand that some behavior can be offensive and that being civilized in part means that they make sure such behavior is kept in check rather than spewed around flippantly. That's why we talk about it. It's the same reason we tell you to comment your code. You have to REMEMBER TO DO IT. Some of us are happy magical and already do it as a habit. Others need the reminder. I encourage you to explore http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Geek_Feminism_Wiki http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Geek_Feminism_Wiki

kenster07 14y ago

To the ardent feminists, a simple question -- do you believe the world would be a morally superior place if there was no biological distinction between men and women -- i.e. there was only one gender?

natep 14y ago
I think ardent feminists are focused on making realistic changes to reality, i.e. working with the reality that we have a great diversity of sexual identities, gender identities, and gender roles, rather than try to fight against it. Fair treatment of women and minorities does not entail erasing all differences until we are a uniform grey.

emehrkay 14y ago

Is it wrong for me to assume that the author is a white man just by what he wrote?

antiterra 14y ago

I'd really like antirez to explain his inclusion of a quote that implies his entire article and the topic at large aren't even worth discussion. Randi has been able to bravely endure incredibly cruel sexist treatment from various online communities, some of which undoubtedly stemmed from pursuing interests in male-dominated spaces. However, I don't think it's fair to say that every woman can or should suffer such experiences with the same aplomb. Edit: I have discussed this a bit with Randi, and there is indeed some context missing that makes me understand where she was coming from in the original quote.

zerostar07 14y ago

"It's silly to try to protect all the minorities because they are minorities" That is silly. Societies are not made in heaven and are full of prejudices against minorities molded through centuries of white male domination.

raganwald 14y ago

http://m.netmagazine.com/features/primer-sexism-tech-industry http://m.netmagazine.com/features/primer-sexism-tech-industr...

antirez 14y ago

I see many comments in this post where sexism is referred as "bad jokes" or things like this. This is the smaller part, and the sole that you can address with a campaign. My point of view is focused on the sexism that is NOT blatant and obvious like that. Examples: 1) The male boss promotes a male instead of a woman not based solely on merits but for prejudice about the capabilities of women. 2) The male boss promotes a prettier woman worker even if another woman deserved it more. 3) The female boss promotes a male because she feels (without possibly fully understanding it) in competition with the pretty woman even if she deserved it more. There are a shitload of cases like this, and this is the whole point, because the bad jokes can be addressed directly: they may be unpleasant, but there is an easy path to fight this behaviours. Instead the more subtle things that prevent a carrier from having the same chances of everybody else is where I would be more focused. And this stuff is not the one you can fight with being politically correct.

whamill 14y ago
Okay, so you have given a few examples of sexism. So why do you think we shouldn't talk about this? Don't you think that what you've just described, being more prevalent in the US, warrants the discussion? Don't you think it's irrelevant and destructive to play the quote at the end of your article telling us just to get back to work?

dspeyer 14y ago

This works on big things. Not so much on little, cumulative ones. Why did A make a tasteless joke about B's outfit? Because he was nervous and his dubious sense of humor got ahead of his judgment. But he didn't mean anything by it and said he's sorry B feels that way. Well everyone says stupid things sometimes. No actual harm done. B should lighten up, right? That doesn't work. http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/21/lighten-up/ http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/21/lighten-up/ Some things are problems only because they're part of a larger pattern. That's when we need to think outside of the individual domain.

sophacles 14y ago

There is a lot of weird cognitive dissonance in this article. "Special protection" is one of those vague phrases that can (and appears to be here) used in a few different ways.[1] In some senses it is taken to mean "elevating one group to have a higher privilege set and stronger boundary enforcement than the norm". In other senses it is used as "stripping unfair privilege from one group by a combination of positively asserting the rights for the protected group and punishment for those who deny those rights or assert a privilege for their group".[2] This fuzzy, conflicting set of understandings leads to a lot of cases of people talking past each other, and not really accomplishing anything. We really need to stop using such terms in discussion and be a bit more specific. There are good and bad examples of both meanings, and there needs to be frank and open discussion, without reduction to overloaded and emotionally loaded terms. Similarly there is the problem of privilege blindness. Even if I treat everyone the same, or think I do, I may not be. This is a real thing - people have notions of the right way to treat someone and they don't even notice that it is absurd or privilege enforcing. For example: In college and for a short time after, I worked at a bar as a bartender. My boss was a black man, the owner of the business. I am a white guy, 10 years younger. People would come in during closed hours with deliveries or job applications or sales pitches and come to me first. I honestly didn't notice or think anything of it most of the time, even when it was obvious when he was in charge (e.g. i was mopping and he was counting out drawers). I would write it off as "oh they just don't want to interrupt the boss" or other reasonable sounding explanations. One day right before we started accepting a round of applications, he mentioned this to me and I was a bit resistant to the idea that it was racial. I offered the reasonable sounding thoughts and explanations. So we did an experiment. Half the days I would do grunt work and he would do boss work, the other half the days I would do boss work and he would do grunt work. In both cases, a significant portion of the applicants came to me first[3]. Surprisingly, all groups of applicants (divided by gender, race,etc) displayed this behavior. This is a case of privilege that is really difficult to see if you think everyone is treated equally or think you do too. I seriously doubt the applicants were racist (well most of them weren't), and I presume they truly believed in equality and that they actively wanted to treat everyone the same (evidence: how embarrassed they were when I pointed out who the actual boss was). The privilege I had here, by being white, was that the default assumption is that I was in charge.[3] The point here is that sometimes, despite the best intentions, there are societal/cultural assumptions that are ingrained to the point of invisibility for those who are the norm. It is important to point these out and discuss them, so that people can actively stop doing participating. I believe most people don't want to be (.)ist, but also that the just don't know when their actions are conforming to it unintentionally. I think that one thing this article is great for, is highlighting that. The author obviously cares that everyone is treated well and equally. It would be insulting to point out to him any of his actions as sexist, because he really isn't.[4] Instead the better approach is to have discussions, which are inherently uncomfortable, in the light of "here's a privilege or default assumption that exists, here is evidence", and get the people with the privilege to see it as existing at all. Once that happens, they will stop asserting it on their own, because the don't want to be unfair or unequal or whatever. </unintentionally ranty post> [1] Please note, that my definitions after this footnote are my understanding of the scenario, if this is inaccurate please link me to sources with good explanations! [2] There is another commonly used understanding of this term, which is as a code word for "I am about to say something that really is about protecting my privileges", however I don't think the author meant this here. [3] Later, after learning about various equality issues in a more formal way, there were even more things that pointed out the privilege in this situation... my boss was someone who could "pass" as white, I'm a guy who dresses down and is generally scruffy, and so on. There is also a related bit of privilege in this situation from when I was hired. My friend who hooked me up with the lead and a good recommendation made sure to casually point out that the owner was a black man. This priming was something that at the time I thought nothing of, it was a bit of conversation about the environment, but in retrospect, I probably would have made the mistake I described above without that priming. No one ever casually mentions that the boss is white when describing a job to a prospect. [4] (.)ism implies the person actively wants to keep the targeted group in a state of lower privilege. It is insulting to be called that when you actually want the opposite.

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