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"how there are exclusive events for female staff where female leadership is advocated." Can someone on HN give me a level headed explanation, for why this is m

"how there are exclusive events for female staff where female leadership is advocated." Can someone on HN give me a level headed explanation, for why this is more appropriate than the opposite (An event exclusive to men)? It's never made sense to me why one is accepted and the other isn't.

pmorici 14y ago
It is a private organization is probably why; so they are allowed to discriminate. In government if they had a female issues oriented event there would be a foot note stating that men are welcome to attend. edit: to respond to the below comment, I don't think it is socially acceptable. It just isn't something that affects people too adversely yet so while they may shake their head and fire off a tweet no one really cares enough to bring significant pressure to bear.
- LockeWatts 14y ago
  I wasn't really thinking about the legality of the issue so much as the social acceptability.
mjmahone17 14y ago
It's the same reason "Black history month" is OK (if misguided) but "White history month" isn't: because EVERY month is white history month. Likewise, for tech events, if there's a focus on male-dominated things, such as drinking beer and playing Halo, or even a "hackathon" then, while it doesn't technically exclude women, the implication is that it's a "macho" event, even if that was never the intention. There simply aren't many events in tech that implicitly exclude men, while there are a lot of events, either due to who attends them (look at the conferences where 2 women show up) or how they're portrayed (using "booth babes," for instance) that implicitly exclude women.
rjknight 14y ago
In general, the idea is that actions designed to improve outcomes for underprivileged groups are acceptable, and actions designed to improve outcomes for privileged groups are not. In other words, "it depends". This obviously undermines the "don't discriminate based on gender" norm, which is quite easy to understand, and replaces it with "only discriminate against the privileged". Unfortunately, while it's quite easy to work out what gender someone is (or identifies as), privilege is a more slippery concept. We could say that men are privileged relative to women. This shows up in the data on educational attainment and wage differentials, which have historically favoured men. Actually, in the case we're currently discussing, of younger people who are in the typical intern age bracket, women already outperform men in both education and pay[1]. It's actually not at all clear that young women are an underprivileged group relative to their male counterparts, so we should probably start treating instances of bias in favour of young women against young men as just as objectionable as bias in favour of older men would be. There's probably going to be some time lag involved here, as it will take some time for people to update their priors on this subject, but I can easily imagine affirmative action in favour of men within the next decade or two. This is one of the main arguments against allowing positive discrimination - when the time comes to acknowledge that this discrimination is obsolete, there's not much incentive for those who benefit from it to do so (any more than there was any incentive for men who benefited from the old male privileges to acknowledge that it was time to end them). Personally, I think this is why we need to ensure that discourse on this issue remains civil and focused on fairness, rather than "men vs. women". [1] http://womensissues.about.com/od/womenintheworkforce/a/GenderPayGapClosing.htm http://womensissues.about.com/od/womenintheworkforce/a/Gende...
harryh 14y ago
Because events for male staff where male leadership is advocated HAPPEN ALL THE FUCKING TIME. LOOK AROUND! The events that the OP discusses for women are a great way to even things out just a little bit.

pmorici 14y ago

It is a private organization is probably why; so they are allowed to discriminate. In government if they had a female issues oriented event there would be a foot note stating that men are welcome to attend. edit: to respond to the below comment, I don't think it is socially acceptable. It just isn't something that affects people too adversely yet so while they may shake their head and fire off a tweet no one really cares enough to bring significant pressure to bear.

LockeWatts 14y ago
I wasn't really thinking about the legality of the issue so much as the social acceptability.

mjmahone17 14y ago

It's the same reason "Black history month" is OK (if misguided) but "White history month" isn't: because EVERY month is white history month. Likewise, for tech events, if there's a focus on male-dominated things, such as drinking beer and playing Halo, or even a "hackathon" then, while it doesn't technically exclude women, the implication is that it's a "macho" event, even if that was never the intention. There simply aren't many events in tech that implicitly exclude men, while there are a lot of events, either due to who attends them (look at the conferences where 2 women show up) or how they're portrayed (using "booth babes," for instance) that implicitly exclude women.

rjknight 14y ago

In general, the idea is that actions designed to improve outcomes for underprivileged groups are acceptable, and actions designed to improve outcomes for privileged groups are not. In other words, "it depends". This obviously undermines the "don't discriminate based on gender" norm, which is quite easy to understand, and replaces it with "only discriminate against the privileged". Unfortunately, while it's quite easy to work out what gender someone is (or identifies as), privilege is a more slippery concept. We could say that men are privileged relative to women. This shows up in the data on educational attainment and wage differentials, which have historically favoured men. Actually, in the case we're currently discussing, of younger people who are in the typical intern age bracket, women already outperform men in both education and pay[1]. It's actually not at all clear that young women are an underprivileged group relative to their male counterparts, so we should probably start treating instances of bias in favour of young women against young men as just as objectionable as bias in favour of older men would be. There's probably going to be some time lag involved here, as it will take some time for people to update their priors on this subject, but I can easily imagine affirmative action in favour of men within the next decade or two. This is one of the main arguments against allowing positive discrimination - when the time comes to acknowledge that this discrimination is obsolete, there's not much incentive for those who benefit from it to do so (any more than there was any incentive for men who benefited from the old male privileges to acknowledge that it was time to end them). Personally, I think this is why we need to ensure that discourse on this issue remains civil and focused on fairness, rather than "men vs. women". [1] http://womensissues.about.com/od/womenintheworkforce/a/GenderPayGapClosing.htm http://womensissues.about.com/od/womenintheworkforce/a/Gende...

harryh 14y ago

Because events for male staff where male leadership is advocated HAPPEN ALL THE FUCKING TIME. LOOK AROUND! The events that the OP discusses for women are a great way to even things out just a little bit.