16 ms·

For those who think it doesn't matter, and that there is no sexism and that women aren't be discriminated against due to the pure fact of their gender, be aware

• VMG 14y ago
  Isn't that a separate issue? I doubt that the speakers intend to put down women, they just lacked the insight that their comedic material makes some people feel uncomfortable.
  • diego_moita 14y ago
    I don't think so (I am a man); in the end it all boils down to excluding women. My 4 year old boy goes to a day-care where one of the care givers is a man. I know of at least a mother that refused to leave her kid there scared that he was a sexual predator. The same prejudice is faced by male obstetricians. In the end, whenever you stigmatize a profession as belonging for a specific gender you do sexism, doesn't matter how you do it and who you target.
    • VMG 14y ago
      I just can't see how making jokes that include sexual imagery are at the expense of women. Crude? yes - inappropriate? absolutely - funny? not in my mind - "against" women? I don't understand how. I make this distinction because I think about an old professors of mine who stupidly would try to make women welcome by saying things like "Nice to have such a beautiful young lady here". His intent was to make them feel better, but he didn't get that it doesn't work that way.
      • king_jester 14y ago
        > I just can't see how making jokes that include sexual imagery are at the expense of women. Note that it included sexual imagery of women, not just sexual imagery. Making a commodity of women's bodies is a big theme of sexism in media, so to introduce that kind of imagery at conference where women will be a smaller percentage of the audience compared to men, you are essentially saying that those women present don't have value outside of their bodies. This kind of thing is hugely alienating.
    • rmc 14y ago
      Correct, gender roles and the patriachy are wrong. However it's mostly women that are excluded from more jobs. The idea that "men are excluded and discriminated as much as women" is false.
  • impendia 14y ago
    It's not a separate issue. In my understanding, the point of the article is that it proves that sexism is much more prevalent, serious, and harmful than I am able to discern as a white male. Reading things like this make it much easier to emphasize with women (and men) who get upset over sexist humor. Also, sexism is not about intent, most of it isn't deliberate, and much of it is committed accidentally by people such as myself, despite my best intentions to generally do otherwise.
• coldtea 14y ago
  >For those who think it doesn't matter, and that there is no sexism and that women aren't be discriminated against due to the pure fact of their gender, be aware that there have been double blinded scientific studies that show that if you change the name of a CV/resume to a female name when applying for science jobs, they don't get as much/as good offers. Then maybe try to fix that instead of complaining about bikinis in powerpoint presentations? Would anyone raise even an eyebrow if a woman sliped a sexy male model photo in a slide?
  • rmrfrmrf 14y ago
    > Would anyone raise even an eyebrow if a woman sliped a sexy male model photo in a slide? Uh, yes? Why would anyone ever do that?
    • goodside 14y ago
      As a punchline to a joke about some software being superficially attractive, e.g.
      • rmrfrmrf 14y ago
        Even still, I think it would be inappropriate. Part of the issue here is the anatomical differences between men and women. While seeing a women with large breasts might not seem bothersome to you, I'd venture a guess that a photograph of a closeup of an extremely well-endowed man whose penis is bulging out of his speedo (analogous to a well-endowed woman's breasts spilling out of the top of her bra) that conspicuously outlines the glans and shaft (analogous to a woman's erect nipples) would have men feeling uncomfortable at the LEAST and more-than-likely up in arms. To take it further, just imagine if the "male programmer" stereotype was up on the slide as a "before" image with all of the insecurities of men highlighted--namely height and penis size. The "after" image shows the man visibly more endowed and taller. Again, if a WOMAN were to do this at a conference, she'd be ridiculed on the blogs for months after at the very least.
        • rmc 14y ago
• chacham15 14y ago
  FWIW, it has also been shown that women are okay accepting lower salaries and are less likely to ask for raises (i.e. less aggressive at trying to get better wages and such). This is not to say that I think that sexism doesnt exist, but rather that your 'evidence' is potentially misleading/false.
  • rmc 14y ago
    But if a group of people are constantly offered less (as this evidence shows), then it makes sense that that group will ask for less. The lower rate of asking for raises could be caused by the same sexism at play. (You include evidence in quotes, to imply it's not real evidence. You can see the paper there, what's wrong with the evidence? If you don't want to accept the evidence just because you dislike what it tells us about the world, you are not a scientist)
    • chacham15 14y ago
      Your point is that being constantly offered less and not asking for more is a chicken and egg problem. Even so, you cannot tell which created the other, hence my pointing out that the "evidence" is flawed. > If you don't want to accept the evidence just because you dislike what it tells us about the world, you are not a scientist Further, please avoid ad hominem attacks, it is unprofessional and does not further your point.
  • jeffcutsinger 14y ago
    It's also been shown that when they do ask for higher salaries or raises they are perceived in a negative light, whereas men who do so are perceived in a positive light. So they don't ask because if they did it would harm them.
  • jeffcutsinger 14y ago
    It's also been shown that when they do ask for higher salaries or raises, they are perceived in a negative light whereas men who do so are perceived in a positive light. So they don't ask because if they did it would harm them.
• str8gk 14y ago
  women get pregnant
  • rmc 14y ago
    So? It's not legal to discriminate based on gender, or family status. The people reviewing CVs didn't claim to be taking this into account (and odds are, weren't). This evidence shows they were taking things into account that they thought they were.
    • str8gk 14y ago
      its illegal - what's your point? If you were hiring ( using your own money ) would you want to take that risk? illegal lol that's a good one
• Camillo 14y ago
  Playing devil's advocate here: that shows that scientists take gender into account when making job offers to students, but it begs the question as to whether doing so is unfairly discriminatory. It's possible that CV+gender is a better predictor of future job performance than CV alone (for example, if female applicants are exceedingly good at writing CVs specifically). Notably, the effect of the faculty participant's gender was not significant, so the study did not show men discriminating against women, but both men and women taking gender into account.
  • rmc 14y ago
    It's possible that CV+gender is a better predictor of future job performance than CV alone (for example, if female applicants are exceedingly good at writing CVs specifically). Perhaps, but the modern law says you cannot take gender into account. The people reviewing the CVs claimed not to be taking this into account. But this evidence shows that they are.
• jonnathanson 14y ago
  Depending on industry, sexism takes other (equally destructive) forms as well. A friend of mine quit his job at a big law firm that shall not be named when he found that attractiveness was the primary criterion for hiring women. He sat in on a hiring meeting once, where the following sorts of conversations took place: "Katrina. That sounds hot. Do you think Katrina's probably hot? Let's give her an interview." This was in 2006, by the way, not 1956.
  • klodolph 14y ago
    Someone told me once that a contributing factor to the "jewish lawyer stereotype" was caused by law firms who discriminated against jews — who then started up their own law firms, and outcompeted all the other law firms because it's easier to find talent if you don't discriminate. The Harlem Globetrotters picked the best of the african-american basketball players, who were not welcome on other teams. The result was predictable in hindsight, they beat the other teams by humiliating margins.
    • jonnathanson 14y ago
      I've heard that story as well. Same thing happened with investment banks. Legend has it that Goldman Sachs was started because Marcus Goldman and Samuel Sachs couldn't get jobs at WASPy firms. The other side of the coin is that the white-shoe firms didn't touch certain types of businesses (like M&A or IPOs) because those businesses were considered "ungentlemanly." So they were left to the Jewish firms, who developed an expertise in the fields during the decades that they were considered unimportant. If you really want to trace the origin of the Jewish finance/law stereotypes back to their root, it goes all the way back to Middle Ages (and possibly earlier). Money handling and the trades were considered unclean/uncouth professions, and the landed aristocracy were so rich that they didn't need to concern themselves with such business. Some countries even mandated that Christians couldn't engage in such businesses. Jews took up finance, merchandizing, artisanry, etc., and placed a great deal of importance on professional success -- it being the only way that Jews could advance in society. To whatever extent that my people are stereotyped as "naturally" good at finance, etc., it's usually because nobody else was touching those things for hundreds of years.