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You just did. Thank you and all the other allies out there. It's important for me and my cohort to remember most people are well-intentioned and many are even e

You just did. Thank you and all the other allies out there. It's important for me and my cohort to remember most people are well-intentioned and many are even enlightened, in tech and elsewhere. (Source: this is my blog.)

unconed 14y ago
Where "enlightened" = agrees with all my views, simplified into dumb animated GIFs? The "What about the menz" trope is as sexist as the behavior it's pretending to decry. Calling yourself enlightened while stereotyping the opposing gender is sheer hypocrisy. I'm a male dev who has been subject to some very unpleasant behavior because of my work... I didn't have the privilege of summoning my white knights with a simple retweet, as you see women do over and over again in any online sexism shitstorm. I was expected to justify my choices through logical argument, and just accept the fact that people said I should be shot for publishing a Github repo. There was no outrage over that, no brotherhood to back me up. See, if women make less money because they ask for less, it's considered a problem that needs to be solved for women. It's the fault of society that women are conditioned to be insecure about their real value! If men self-select into technical disciplines and don't develop appropriate social skills by being immersed in competitive, meritocratic environments, it's considered a problem that women need to be protected from. The best those men can hope for is a "re-education" from the feminazis, so he knows the leash is not optional. Isn't it funny how female empowerment seems to require the men to do all the work in making changes? That's what "What about the menz" is really about. It's a way for women to hold on to the privilege that when both a man and a woman are crossed, it's the woman's needs which are tended to first. Women and children first, it's been around forever, and it was practiced religiously. That's why 80% of the people on board the Titanic were men, and 80% of the survivors were women. Even when faced with a certain icy death, men across all of society agreed that women 'deserved' to be saved more. The reason it's hard being a female software engineer is because people pay attention to you when you walk into a room. That has its upsides, and its downsides, and it's often not the kind of attention that you want. But you have it anyway. You can't decry the negatives, while continuing to coast on your own privilege of not being called out on your bullshit.
- LindseyB 14y ago
  The women and children first thing on the titanic was an EXCEPTION: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/07/31/3554854.htm http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/07/31/3554854.ht...
- alphydan 14y ago
  here's an essay that will hopefully make you think about it in another light http://weeklysift.com/2012/09/10/the-distress-of-the-privileged/ http://weeklysift.com/2012/09/10/the-distress-of-the-privile...

unconed 14y ago

Where "enlightened" = agrees with all my views, simplified into dumb animated GIFs? The "What about the menz" trope is as sexist as the behavior it's pretending to decry. Calling yourself enlightened while stereotyping the opposing gender is sheer hypocrisy. I'm a male dev who has been subject to some very unpleasant behavior because of my work... I didn't have the privilege of summoning my white knights with a simple retweet, as you see women do over and over again in any online sexism shitstorm. I was expected to justify my choices through logical argument, and just accept the fact that people said I should be shot for publishing a Github repo. There was no outrage over that, no brotherhood to back me up. See, if women make less money because they ask for less, it's considered a problem that needs to be solved for women. It's the fault of society that women are conditioned to be insecure about their real value! If men self-select into technical disciplines and don't develop appropriate social skills by being immersed in competitive, meritocratic environments, it's considered a problem that women need to be protected from. The best those men can hope for is a "re-education" from the feminazis, so he knows the leash is not optional. Isn't it funny how female empowerment seems to require the men to do all the work in making changes? That's what "What about the menz" is really about. It's a way for women to hold on to the privilege that when both a man and a woman are crossed, it's the woman's needs which are tended to first. Women and children first, it's been around forever, and it was practiced religiously. That's why 80% of the people on board the Titanic were men, and 80% of the survivors were women. Even when faced with a certain icy death, men across all of society agreed that women 'deserved' to be saved more. The reason it's hard being a female software engineer is because people pay attention to you when you walk into a room. That has its upsides, and its downsides, and it's often not the kind of attention that you want. But you have it anyway. You can't decry the negatives, while continuing to coast on your own privilege of not being called out on your bullshit.

LindseyB 14y ago
The women and children first thing on the titanic was an EXCEPTION: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/07/31/3554854.htm http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/07/31/3554854.ht...
alphydan 14y ago
here's an essay that will hopefully make you think about it in another light http://weeklysift.com/2012/09/10/the-distress-of-the-privileged/ http://weeklysift.com/2012/09/10/the-distress-of-the-privile...