5 ms·

Female here and longtime lurker before registering somewhat recently. The only time I feel very cognizant of the gender imbalance is in comments of articles ab

Female here and longtime lurker before registering somewhat recently. The only time I feel very cognizant of the gender imbalance is in comments of articles about the lack of women in tech. Some amount of introspection on how to be welcoming to everyone is good, but the constant drumbeat of articles on the "woman question" definitely increases my feelings of "otherness". These pieces and the comments that follow are often addressed toward men as if there are no women present.

lutusp 14y ago
> These pieces and the comments that follow are often addressed toward men as if there are no women present. Or perhaps they're comments that the writer believes are gender-neutral, so the gender of the reader isn't an issue? This is obviously not always true, but it might be in some cases that are misread as being male comments directed toward other men. > Some amount of introspection on how to be welcoming to everyone is good, but the constant drumbeat of articles on the "woman question" definitely increases my feelings of "otherness". The "woman question" wording isn't really the most common phrasing, and it certainly sounds exclusionary. In all such exchanges, there are some encouraging facts: 1. Mathematics doesn't care about your gender. 2. Code doesn't care about your gender. 3. A properly run code project doesn't care about your gender, only whether you can code. Expressed another way, the basics of code development are gender-neutral, and where people are involved, a certain amount of direct experience will persuade most people that your results are worth supporting. As to being excluded in a more social sense, the best way to defeat that is not to care about it. It's basic human psychology that not caring about acceptance will make the other group members wonder why you don't care, which naturally enough and quickly makes you an insider.
- jnevill 14y ago
  BOOM! MANSPLAINED!
  - lutusp 14y ago
    I hope you're kidding. Describing an explanation as a mansplanation can only isolate women. I hope you recognize that there is often no meaningful distinction between solidarity and isolation.
    - djcapelis 14y ago
      Did you want to maybe let women express what isolates us instead of declaring what will and won't lead to our isolation?
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - lutusp 14y ago
        > Did you want to maybe let women express what isolates us ... If you had done that, I wouldn't have replied. "Mansplained" explains nothing, it only argues for a nonexistent distinction between men and women, like the oppressive idea that women think about the world differently, process reality differently, do math and science differently, than men do. There has never been a more pointlessly divisive idea among the feminist ranks than the idea that there is a uniquely female way to think about the world. It's false and it undermines women -- it encourages sympathy for an idea that oppresses women. "Mansplained" is just a code word for "ignore him -- he's a man, i.e. the enemy." > ... instead of declaring what will and won't lead to our isolation? At present, in a country where women's rights are guaranteed by law, what isolates women more than anything else are those women who dismiss arguments as being either male or female. Truth has no gender.
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        lutusp 14y ago
        > What is gender if it isn't a way to think about the world? The answer is obvious -- it's a way to very reliably misinterpret everyday reality. In the same way that to a hammer everything is a nail, to a gender theorist everything is a gender issue. As long as black, brown and red people are thought of as something other than people, we have a serious race issue. In the same way, as long as men and women are thought of as something other than people, we have a serious gender issue. Do you think that race is a constructive way to think about the world? No? Then why would gender be?
- mnicole 14y ago
  > As to being excluded in a more social sense, the best way to defeat that is not to care about it. It's basic human psychology that not caring about acceptance will make the other group members wonder why you don't care, which naturally enough and quickly makes you an insider. You can't seriously believe this. This same argument is made in gaming about issues people have with how women are treated and depicted within that industry: "If you don't bring it up and act like it's a problem, people won't think it's a problem and therefore it won't happen." It's a total crock, not "basic human psychology". Hateful people don't care that they're the minority; they'll type in all-caps, call you a crybaby, show up with their guns out for all to see, call you sheeple and claim their truth is the real truth regardless of their numbers.
  - lutusp 14y ago
    >> As to being excluded in a more social sense, the best way to defeat that is not to care about it. It's basic human psychology that not caring about acceptance will make the other group members wonder why you don't care, which naturally enough and quickly makes you an insider. > You can't seriously believe this. Yes, it's true, and it's the most basic kind of psychology. One doesn't need to spend much time as an adult before seeing scores of examples. > This same argument is made in gaming about issues people have with how women are treated and depicted within that industry: "If you don't bring it up and act like it's a problem, people won't think it's a problem and therefore it won't happen." You just changed the subject, and it's not remotely the "same argument". I'm talking about perceptions of exclusivity and being or not being an insider on purely psychological grounds. You're talking about proactive behavior toward women. > Hateful people don't care that they're the minority; they'll type in all-caps, call you a crybaby, show up with their guns out for all to see, call you sheeple and claim their truth is the real truth regardless of their numbers. Faced with that, you have three choices -- the first two are ignore them or have them arrested. If what they do isn't an arrestable offense, if it's "free speech", then ignore them. If you cannot ignore them and can't arrest them, then we have a case of PyCon syndrome -- an impasse in which everyone gets hurt and no one benefits. The third choice should be obvious -- for those women who can't stand the behavior of men, they should start their own tech companies -- an occupation for which women are fully qualified -- and turn the tables on the overgrown adolescents. There is venture capital ready to support women's companies, there is plenty of political support, and there are plenty of talented women. Let men collide with a glass ceiling for a change. But you know what? The day when women could blame men for their professional and economic problems has passed. It's unseemly, out of date and it contradicts everyday reality.
galvanist 14y ago
I think that some ongoing discussion of the STEM gender gap and other difficult group introspection is useful and important and I hope we can navigate the line between being self-aware and beating a field of dead horses. Anyway my interest in this now annual survey (and the short-lived sexual orientation survey and the hypothetical race survey) is more self-serving and not so much about how to solve a problem. I'm interested in a profile on HN, as a community, to help me decide how much attention to pay / weight to give to elements of certain discussions here. If we're just a straight white dude monoculture then I want to factor that into my thinking. Come to think of it, I'd be interested to learn about the overall gender / age / ethnicity / sexual orientation / religion / country of origin demographics of other groups that I sometimes pay attention to (like Interesting People) especially when the community has a voting role in discussion moderation (like HN or reddit).

lutusp 14y ago

> These pieces and the comments that follow are often addressed toward men as if there are no women present. Or perhaps they're comments that the writer believes are gender-neutral, so the gender of the reader isn't an issue? This is obviously not always true, but it might be in some cases that are misread as being male comments directed toward other men. > Some amount of introspection on how to be welcoming to everyone is good, but the constant drumbeat of articles on the "woman question" definitely increases my feelings of "otherness". The "woman question" wording isn't really the most common phrasing, and it certainly sounds exclusionary. In all such exchanges, there are some encouraging facts: 1. Mathematics doesn't care about your gender. 2. Code doesn't care about your gender. 3. A properly run code project doesn't care about your gender, only whether you can code. Expressed another way, the basics of code development are gender-neutral, and where people are involved, a certain amount of direct experience will persuade most people that your results are worth supporting. As to being excluded in a more social sense, the best way to defeat that is not to care about it. It's basic human psychology that not caring about acceptance will make the other group members wonder why you don't care, which naturally enough and quickly makes you an insider.

jnevill 14y ago
BOOM! MANSPLAINED!
- lutusp 14y ago
  I hope you're kidding. Describing an explanation as a mansplanation can only isolate women. I hope you recognize that there is often no meaningful distinction between solidarity and isolation.
  - djcapelis 14y ago
    Did you want to maybe let women express what isolates us instead of declaring what will and won't lead to our isolation?
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - lutusp 14y ago
      > Did you want to maybe let women express what isolates us ... If you had done that, I wouldn't have replied. "Mansplained" explains nothing, it only argues for a nonexistent distinction between men and women, like the oppressive idea that women think about the world differently, process reality differently, do math and science differently, than men do. There has never been a more pointlessly divisive idea among the feminist ranks than the idea that there is a uniquely female way to think about the world. It's false and it undermines women -- it encourages sympathy for an idea that oppresses women. "Mansplained" is just a code word for "ignore him -- he's a man, i.e. the enemy." > ... instead of declaring what will and won't lead to our isolation? At present, in a country where women's rights are guaranteed by law, what isolates women more than anything else are those women who dismiss arguments as being either male or female. Truth has no gender.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        lutusp 14y ago
        > What is gender if it isn't a way to think about the world? The answer is obvious -- it's a way to very reliably misinterpret everyday reality. In the same way that to a hammer everything is a nail, to a gender theorist everything is a gender issue. As long as black, brown and red people are thought of as something other than people, we have a serious race issue. In the same way, as long as men and women are thought of as something other than people, we have a serious gender issue. Do you think that race is a constructive way to think about the world? No? Then why would gender be?
mnicole 14y ago
> As to being excluded in a more social sense, the best way to defeat that is not to care about it. It's basic human psychology that not caring about acceptance will make the other group members wonder why you don't care, which naturally enough and quickly makes you an insider. You can't seriously believe this. This same argument is made in gaming about issues people have with how women are treated and depicted within that industry: "If you don't bring it up and act like it's a problem, people won't think it's a problem and therefore it won't happen." It's a total crock, not "basic human psychology". Hateful people don't care that they're the minority; they'll type in all-caps, call you a crybaby, show up with their guns out for all to see, call you sheeple and claim their truth is the real truth regardless of their numbers.
- lutusp 14y ago
  >> As to being excluded in a more social sense, the best way to defeat that is not to care about it. It's basic human psychology that not caring about acceptance will make the other group members wonder why you don't care, which naturally enough and quickly makes you an insider. > You can't seriously believe this. Yes, it's true, and it's the most basic kind of psychology. One doesn't need to spend much time as an adult before seeing scores of examples. > This same argument is made in gaming about issues people have with how women are treated and depicted within that industry: "If you don't bring it up and act like it's a problem, people won't think it's a problem and therefore it won't happen." You just changed the subject, and it's not remotely the "same argument". I'm talking about perceptions of exclusivity and being or not being an insider on purely psychological grounds. You're talking about proactive behavior toward women. > Hateful people don't care that they're the minority; they'll type in all-caps, call you a crybaby, show up with their guns out for all to see, call you sheeple and claim their truth is the real truth regardless of their numbers. Faced with that, you have three choices -- the first two are ignore them or have them arrested. If what they do isn't an arrestable offense, if it's "free speech", then ignore them. If you cannot ignore them and can't arrest them, then we have a case of PyCon syndrome -- an impasse in which everyone gets hurt and no one benefits. The third choice should be obvious -- for those women who can't stand the behavior of men, they should start their own tech companies -- an occupation for which women are fully qualified -- and turn the tables on the overgrown adolescents. There is venture capital ready to support women's companies, there is plenty of political support, and there are plenty of talented women. Let men collide with a glass ceiling for a change. But you know what? The day when women could blame men for their professional and economic problems has passed. It's unseemly, out of date and it contradicts everyday reality.

galvanist 14y ago

I think that some ongoing discussion of the STEM gender gap and other difficult group introspection is useful and important and I hope we can navigate the line between being self-aware and beating a field of dead horses. Anyway my interest in this now annual survey (and the short-lived sexual orientation survey and the hypothetical race survey) is more self-serving and not so much about how to solve a problem. I'm interested in a profile on HN, as a community, to help me decide how much attention to pay / weight to give to elements of certain discussions here. If we're just a straight white dude monoculture then I want to factor that into my thinking. Come to think of it, I'd be interested to learn about the overall gender / age / ethnicity / sexual orientation / religion / country of origin demographics of other groups that I sometimes pay attention to (like Interesting People) especially when the community has a voting role in discussion moderation (like HN or reddit).