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We must protect the fairer sex at all costs. This use of "privilege" as a targeted weapon to silence specific demographics has to stop. Women in the western w

We must protect the fairer sex at all costs. This use of "privilege" as a targeted weapon to silence specific demographics has to stop. Women in the western world have always been among the safest, most privileged people on Earth. This entire thread, in fact, has been a shining example of female privilege. No one cares that women soundly outnumber men in university admission, and university graduation, and even high school graduation. No one cares that young women without children (i.e. the majority) earn more money their male counterparts. Heck, no one cares that it is men who overwhelmingly make up the bottom of society. Instead, we're having a collective anxiety attack because a hyper-privileged white woman is upset that her hyper-privileged white daughter might have had her feelings hurt in high school. This is surreal.

lr 13y ago
At what point does it become ok to harass and threaten this "privileged" group of people?
- etherael 13y ago
  Never, but seriously as soon as I hear typical combinations of the words white male cis privilege I instantly write off the person using it as hopelessly deluded. These are dog whistles for social justice warrior ideologies and everything they imply. Use "different perspective" if that's what you're trying to put across, and if it's not and you really believe the whole privilege meme as something more than that, that's exactly why I write you off. Either way it means either you couldn't be bothered to figure out an effective way to convey a simple core idea without being horrendously offensive, or you actually don't have a clue what you are talking about. This article was mostly excellent because it primarily avoided the classic persecution complexes that are almost par for the course in such things, to have the top comment here raving about privilege does the article an enormous disservice.
  - nollidge 13y ago
    What the fuck is so "horrendously offensive" about the obvious truth that some classes of people have advantages that others don't?
    - Tycho 13y ago
      THe words privilege and advantage aren't really interchangeable.
      - orclev 13y ago
        I knew there was something that was bothering me about the way they abuse the word privilege, I just couldn't put my finger on it, thanks for pointing that out.
        nollidge 13y ago
        http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/privilege http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/privilege > 1. a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most Regardless, even if I and others called it "cronut", that doesn't invalidate the concept. So yours and Tycho's argument-from-terminology is just a distraction, and fails to even address the substance of my complaint.
        orclev 13y ago
        The fundamental difference is that a privilege is something given while an advantage can be something inherent. Privilege isn't something you're born with, it's something someone else has given you (and there's a strong implication of it being earned rather than simply handed out). Language is important, it does no one any good to try to subvert a word to a new and contradictory use because it paints your argument in a better light because of its existing connotations which do not apply. Regardless of all that I wasn't actually attempting to address your argument at all and my comment wasn't aimed at you. I was simply stating that it annoys me the way privilege has been subverted from its actual meaning by a minority with a particular political motivation. Similarly I'm also annoyed with the way the term organic has been subverted to mean food grown without pesticide even though the actual meaning of the word has absolutely nothing to do with that.
  - pzuraq 13y ago
    I don't even... Would you say that black people in America have it harder than white people, perhaps in some places more so than others? If so you accept that people are treated differently based on externalities. People are treated unfairly. People are mocked, hurt, threatened, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. And you want to tell me that it offends you when they say some people have privilege?
    - jsmeaton 13y ago
      I'm annoyed (not offended) by referring to it as privilege. To me it suggests that the "non-privileged" are being treated exactly as they should be, and the "privileged" have been elevated in some way. Black people and women being discriminated against is just that - discrimination, and that is horrible. But that doesn't (in my mind) make a white male privileged. Is a white woman more privileged than a black man? Who has more privilege between a black man and a black woman? What about a homeless white man vs a successful white woman? When someone suffers discrimination it should be called out, addressed, and made right. But it's unfair to paint the rest of the planet as an enemy for not suffering the same abuse.
npsimons 13y ago
We must protect the fairer sex at all costs. Where, exactly, did you find this quote? Because I can't find it in the OP, or the post you are replying to. I'd hate to think you might have pulled a strawman so blatantly out of thin air . . . Oh, and thanks for demonstrating exactly the points the GP was trying to make.
- RyanMcGreal 13y ago
  It is a straightforward strawman. Nowhere to I state or even hint that I consider women to be somehow more delicate or otherwise inferior to men. The point I'm making is that what women experience in this industry is vastly different from what men experience, and far too many men still refuse to acknowledge this (or indeed, actively defend and perpetuate it).
- hacker789 13y ago
  He didn't literally use those words, and my intent wasn't to trick anyone into thinking he was literally using those words.
hackinthebochs 13y ago
One issue has nothing to do with the other. Why is it when some minority group (in this context women) tries to address the causes of their underrepresentation there are always people that responds with some version of: "you already have it soooo good why can't you just be happy". I see this same pattern when it comes to issues regarding race/gender/sex orientation. Nothing less than full equality will ever be acceptable. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people that sees that female representation in tech isn't 50% therefore men must be at fault. But here is a clear example of horrible sex discrimination and here you come trotting out the "get over it--you already have it good" arguments.
usingpond 13y ago
"silence specific demographics" Haha, good lord. You're making fun of "hyperprivileged" white women while complaining that the white neckbeard bloc is being unjustly silenced? That must be really terrible for you, the jorts ceiling is truly an institution that must be smashed. Also where'd you get that quote from?
edoloughlin 13y ago
I find it thoroughly depressing that your comment is currently fourth from the top. I can only hope it's been dragged along based on its parent's votes.
stayhome 13y ago
I really can't tell if you're trolling or not. The straw man of "protect the fairer sex" is so frustrating. No one is saying to treat women like brittle creatures who cannot fend for themselves. It hasn't even been 100 years since women were given the right to vote in America, and the amendment was filibustered before it was ratified. It's shocking that there were politicians who believed so strongly that women should be second class citizens that they filibustered the bill. But now they are graduating from college at a high clip, and making a decent living, so it's okay to tell them to "get back in the kitchen and make a sandwich"? It's especially frustrating that the younger generation feels like this kind of comment is OK. It shows, at best, a cultural acceptance of, and at worst a promotion of, oppressive gender roles, in which females are subservient to males. How anyone can defend the promotion of such a hostile environment is beyond me. To you it may seem like a harmless joke, in which the woman just needs "thicker skin" to "joke around with the boys." But that's not your call to make. If it makes someone feel noticeably uncomfortable, we should be smart enough and kind enough to respect that. No one likes bullies, and every bully claims to be "just joking around mannnnn, don't be such a baby." That doesn't mean treat people with baby gloves when it comes to everything. It's not about maintaing a lovey work environment where everyone hugs and sings together. If someone is doing bad work, call them out. That doesn't require making sexist quips. Also want to note: being the safest, and most privileged relative to other places on earth != safe and treated equally. We shouldn't be happy with being the best on a relative scale that stacks us against cultures where women are stoned for getting raped, we still have a long way to go in the fight for equality.
- asdasf 13y ago
  >It's shocking that there were politicians who believed so strongly that women should be second class citizens that they filibustered the bill. So how do you feel about all the women who opposed it? You do realize that men didn't have the right to vote either right? The right to vote was tied to military service. >oppressive gender roles, in which females are subservient to males. That is an opinion, not reality. You could describe men's "oppressive gender role" as being subservient to women. Being forced to work your life away to provide for a woman is no more wonderful than being forced to cook and clean for a man. >Also want to note: being the safest, and most privileged relative to other places on earth != safe and treated equally But the discussion is framed as "we have things bad, you men need to fix it", but the "you men" in question are less safe than women, and are also not treated equally.
rthomas6 13y ago
ALL of your comments are about men's rights. I think I should make some writeup for responses to MRAs, similar to how you have done for responses to feminist sentiments, because I think I understand the worldview and bought into it myself for a long time. Of course the response might not be perfect this time around, but I can perfect it incrementally. The first thing that is crucial to understand is that feminism itself is not the enemy. In fact, intelligent feminists should care about the problems you list. I'm not saying they do, but they should, because feminism isn't anti-men, it's anti gender roles. This means that problems like men being pressured to bury their emotions, or men not getting proper mental health care, or men not being taken seriously when they are raped, are all things that feminism is supposed to be fighting against. The fact that our society often ignores these problems is not because of feminism, it's because of sexism. Feminists, often do ignore problems like this with men, and those feminists are either ignorant or bigoted, because sexist oppression caused by society to men, and sexist oppression caused by society to women, have the same root and are part of the same problem that feminism is trying to fix. This is not a fringe view of feminism. This is the normal view. The second thing that is crucial to understand is that the caricature of sexist tumblr-warrior "feminists" (that do indeed exist) are a distraction. The fact that people like this are taken seriously probably bothers me as much as it bothers you. However, these people are misrepresenting feminism. They do not say what feminism is supposed to represent. You can think of them as the crazy bigoted Christians or Muslims that are technically part of the same group, but do not represent the whole. Finally, you have to realize that gender roles and sexism are oppressing men and women. I think the reason so many feminists react badly to men's rights advocates is because they marginalize women's problems while promoting men's. In truth I think this is just a reaction from seeing feminist groups do the reverse. Really, both are a problem. Just because one is a problem doesn't make another problem any more or less important. So instead of saying "This is ridiculous to be worrying about when much worse is happening to men and nobody cares," try saying, "This is an important problem," and separately, "These other things are happening to men and nobody cares."
- hacker789 13y ago
  Overall, I don't disagree with much of what you said. > ALL of your comments are about men's rights. Yes, most of my comments are about gender issues. And interestingly, despite the vast majority of comments in any given thread disagreeing with my own, my median comment score when discussing those issues is around 10 to 20. Clearly, there are quite a few people here who don't feel comfortable speaking out, and for good reason! They don't want to be bullied for weeks, having their names permanently dragged through the mud: http://acko.net/blog/storms-and-teacups/ http://acko.net/blog/storms-and-teacups/ I don't want like-minded visitors to this site feeling like they're not welcome to speak their mind. > [T]he caricature of sexist tumblr-warrior "feminists" (that do indeed exist) are a distraction. The fact that people like this are taken seriously probably bothers me as much as it bothers you. However, these people are misrepresenting feminism. Let's ignore the social justice bullies on Tumblr. The top (western) feminist websites are probably Jezebel, Feministe, and Geek Feminism. All three of those are notoriously bigoted against men. Yes, those three websites lack the "I want to watch men burn to death" comments, but that's not saying much. Every time I hear someone claim that real feminists aren't like that, I must ask: Where are the real feminists?
lambda 13y ago
I know I shouldn't respond to the troll, but here goes. > This use of "privilege" as a targeted weapon to silence specific demographics has to stop. Sorry, no specific demographic is being "silenced" here. If you think that men are being silenced, well, why are you able to speak? > Women in the western world have always been among the safest, most privileged people on Earth. Always been, hm? So they were privileged when they were denied suffrage until less than 100 years ago? They were privileged when they were denied admission to some of the country's top universities until just 30 years ago? > This entire thread, in fact, has been a shining example of female privilege. What, exactly, do you see as female privilege? What do you see women being allowed to do, that men are not allowed to, that men are harassed for doing, that men are driven out of the industry for doing due to attacks? And if you do see any such behavior, perhaps someone being harassed for being a dancer, or into musicals, or the like, please note whether it's women doing those attacks, or other men. > No one cares that women soundly outnumber men in university admission, and university graduation, and even high school graduation. Awful generous of you to round down to "no one." If no one cares, why have you heard about it? Wouldn't people who don't care not be writing articles about it? There are plenty of people who care, who are concerned about this, who write about it and worry about it. That's not "no one" caring. However, despite all of that, there are many fewer women in technology, and fewer still are programmers. Just because there might be other biases in other fields, doesn't mean that we shouldn't worry about biases and harassment in our own. > Instead, we're having a collective anxiety attack because a hyper-privileged white woman is upset that her hyper-privileged white daughter might have had her feelings hurt in high school. This is surreal. I'm not really clear on what you mean by "hyper-privileged". Is it a privilege to be bullied and told to get into the kitchen? That doesn't really sound like the definition of "privileged" to me. Yes, there may be ways in which she is privileged compared to others. There are other problems out there. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to address this one. It is a problem when women don't enter a career due to harassment, and indifference from others in face of said harassment. Can we have a realistic discussion if a casual dirty joke counts as harassment? Sure. But there's a difference between a casual dirty joke told by one conference attendee to another, and several kids harassing another and telling her to get into the kitchen while the teacher does nothing about it. You sound fairly threatened and insecure; it sounds like you're worried that women might do better than you at technology, and then the one way you use to make yourself feel secure in yourself may fall away. You seem to have caught on to the power of being a victim and having other people come out to defend you, so you're trying to apply that tactic to defend yourself from women who threaten your sense of technological superiority. It's not a very attractive tactic, however; it makes you look defensive and reactionary. I'd recommend trying to find other ways to feel good about yourself; for instance, by being supportive and welcoming of new people, and making programming a skill and trade that is accessible to all.
SideburnsOfDoom 13y ago
> This use of "privilege" as a targeted weapon to silence specific demographics has to stop Your concerns, such as they are, have been discussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6354789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6354789, and here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6353402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6353402 With a longer piece on the topic here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6354336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6354336 and on the topic of criticism as "silencing" here http://www.popehat.com/2013/09/10/speech-and-consequences/ http://www.popehat.com/2013/09/10/speech-and-consequences/

lr 13y ago

At what point does it become ok to harass and threaten this "privileged" group of people?

etherael 13y ago
Never, but seriously as soon as I hear typical combinations of the words white male cis privilege I instantly write off the person using it as hopelessly deluded. These are dog whistles for social justice warrior ideologies and everything they imply. Use "different perspective" if that's what you're trying to put across, and if it's not and you really believe the whole privilege meme as something more than that, that's exactly why I write you off. Either way it means either you couldn't be bothered to figure out an effective way to convey a simple core idea without being horrendously offensive, or you actually don't have a clue what you are talking about. This article was mostly excellent because it primarily avoided the classic persecution complexes that are almost par for the course in such things, to have the top comment here raving about privilege does the article an enormous disservice.
- nollidge 13y ago
  What the fuck is so "horrendously offensive" about the obvious truth that some classes of people have advantages that others don't?
  - Tycho 13y ago
    THe words privilege and advantage aren't really interchangeable.
    - orclev 13y ago
      I knew there was something that was bothering me about the way they abuse the word privilege, I just couldn't put my finger on it, thanks for pointing that out.
      - nollidge 13y ago
        http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/privilege http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/privilege > 1. a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most Regardless, even if I and others called it "cronut", that doesn't invalidate the concept. So yours and Tycho's argument-from-terminology is just a distraction, and fails to even address the substance of my complaint.
        orclev 13y ago
        The fundamental difference is that a privilege is something given while an advantage can be something inherent. Privilege isn't something you're born with, it's something someone else has given you (and there's a strong implication of it being earned rather than simply handed out). Language is important, it does no one any good to try to subvert a word to a new and contradictory use because it paints your argument in a better light because of its existing connotations which do not apply. Regardless of all that I wasn't actually attempting to address your argument at all and my comment wasn't aimed at you. I was simply stating that it annoys me the way privilege has been subverted from its actual meaning by a minority with a particular political motivation. Similarly I'm also annoyed with the way the term organic has been subverted to mean food grown without pesticide even though the actual meaning of the word has absolutely nothing to do with that.
- pzuraq 13y ago
  I don't even... Would you say that black people in America have it harder than white people, perhaps in some places more so than others? If so you accept that people are treated differently based on externalities. People are treated unfairly. People are mocked, hurt, threatened, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. And you want to tell me that it offends you when they say some people have privilege?
  - jsmeaton 13y ago
    I'm annoyed (not offended) by referring to it as privilege. To me it suggests that the "non-privileged" are being treated exactly as they should be, and the "privileged" have been elevated in some way. Black people and women being discriminated against is just that - discrimination, and that is horrible. But that doesn't (in my mind) make a white male privileged. Is a white woman more privileged than a black man? Who has more privilege between a black man and a black woman? What about a homeless white man vs a successful white woman? When someone suffers discrimination it should be called out, addressed, and made right. But it's unfair to paint the rest of the planet as an enemy for not suffering the same abuse.

npsimons 13y ago

We must protect the fairer sex at all costs. Where, exactly, did you find this quote? Because I can't find it in the OP, or the post you are replying to. I'd hate to think you might have pulled a strawman so blatantly out of thin air . . . Oh, and thanks for demonstrating exactly the points the GP was trying to make.

RyanMcGreal 13y ago
It is a straightforward strawman. Nowhere to I state or even hint that I consider women to be somehow more delicate or otherwise inferior to men. The point I'm making is that what women experience in this industry is vastly different from what men experience, and far too many men still refuse to acknowledge this (or indeed, actively defend and perpetuate it).
hacker789 13y ago
He didn't literally use those words, and my intent wasn't to trick anyone into thinking he was literally using those words.

hackinthebochs 13y ago

One issue has nothing to do with the other. Why is it when some minority group (in this context women) tries to address the causes of their underrepresentation there are always people that responds with some version of: "you already have it soooo good why can't you just be happy". I see this same pattern when it comes to issues regarding race/gender/sex orientation. Nothing less than full equality will ever be acceptable. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people that sees that female representation in tech isn't 50% therefore men must be at fault. But here is a clear example of horrible sex discrimination and here you come trotting out the "get over it--you already have it good" arguments.

usingpond 13y ago

"silence specific demographics" Haha, good lord. You're making fun of "hyperprivileged" white women while complaining that the white neckbeard bloc is being unjustly silenced? That must be really terrible for you, the jorts ceiling is truly an institution that must be smashed. Also where'd you get that quote from?

edoloughlin 13y ago

I find it thoroughly depressing that your comment is currently fourth from the top. I can only hope it's been dragged along based on its parent's votes.

stayhome 13y ago

I really can't tell if you're trolling or not. The straw man of "protect the fairer sex" is so frustrating. No one is saying to treat women like brittle creatures who cannot fend for themselves. It hasn't even been 100 years since women were given the right to vote in America, and the amendment was filibustered before it was ratified. It's shocking that there were politicians who believed so strongly that women should be second class citizens that they filibustered the bill. But now they are graduating from college at a high clip, and making a decent living, so it's okay to tell them to "get back in the kitchen and make a sandwich"? It's especially frustrating that the younger generation feels like this kind of comment is OK. It shows, at best, a cultural acceptance of, and at worst a promotion of, oppressive gender roles, in which females are subservient to males. How anyone can defend the promotion of such a hostile environment is beyond me. To you it may seem like a harmless joke, in which the woman just needs "thicker skin" to "joke around with the boys." But that's not your call to make. If it makes someone feel noticeably uncomfortable, we should be smart enough and kind enough to respect that. No one likes bullies, and every bully claims to be "just joking around mannnnn, don't be such a baby." That doesn't mean treat people with baby gloves when it comes to everything. It's not about maintaing a lovey work environment where everyone hugs and sings together. If someone is doing bad work, call them out. That doesn't require making sexist quips. Also want to note: being the safest, and most privileged relative to other places on earth != safe and treated equally. We shouldn't be happy with being the best on a relative scale that stacks us against cultures where women are stoned for getting raped, we still have a long way to go in the fight for equality.

asdasf 13y ago
>It's shocking that there were politicians who believed so strongly that women should be second class citizens that they filibustered the bill. So how do you feel about all the women who opposed it? You do realize that men didn't have the right to vote either right? The right to vote was tied to military service. >oppressive gender roles, in which females are subservient to males. That is an opinion, not reality. You could describe men's "oppressive gender role" as being subservient to women. Being forced to work your life away to provide for a woman is no more wonderful than being forced to cook and clean for a man. >Also want to note: being the safest, and most privileged relative to other places on earth != safe and treated equally But the discussion is framed as "we have things bad, you men need to fix it", but the "you men" in question are less safe than women, and are also not treated equally.

rthomas6 13y ago

ALL of your comments are about men's rights. I think I should make some writeup for responses to MRAs, similar to how you have done for responses to feminist sentiments, because I think I understand the worldview and bought into it myself for a long time. Of course the response might not be perfect this time around, but I can perfect it incrementally. The first thing that is crucial to understand is that feminism itself is not the enemy. In fact, intelligent feminists should care about the problems you list. I'm not saying they do, but they should, because feminism isn't anti-men, it's anti gender roles. This means that problems like men being pressured to bury their emotions, or men not getting proper mental health care, or men not being taken seriously when they are raped, are all things that feminism is supposed to be fighting against. The fact that our society often ignores these problems is not because of feminism, it's because of sexism. Feminists, often do ignore problems like this with men, and those feminists are either ignorant or bigoted, because sexist oppression caused by society to men, and sexist oppression caused by society to women, have the same root and are part of the same problem that feminism is trying to fix. This is not a fringe view of feminism. This is the normal view. The second thing that is crucial to understand is that the caricature of sexist tumblr-warrior "feminists" (that do indeed exist) are a distraction. The fact that people like this are taken seriously probably bothers me as much as it bothers you. However, these people are misrepresenting feminism. They do not say what feminism is supposed to represent. You can think of them as the crazy bigoted Christians or Muslims that are technically part of the same group, but do not represent the whole. Finally, you have to realize that gender roles and sexism are oppressing men and women. I think the reason so many feminists react badly to men's rights advocates is because they marginalize women's problems while promoting men's. In truth I think this is just a reaction from seeing feminist groups do the reverse. Really, both are a problem. Just because one is a problem doesn't make another problem any more or less important. So instead of saying "This is ridiculous to be worrying about when much worse is happening to men and nobody cares," try saying, "This is an important problem," and separately, "These other things are happening to men and nobody cares."

hacker789 13y ago
Overall, I don't disagree with much of what you said. > ALL of your comments are about men's rights. Yes, most of my comments are about gender issues. And interestingly, despite the vast majority of comments in any given thread disagreeing with my own, my median comment score when discussing those issues is around 10 to 20. Clearly, there are quite a few people here who don't feel comfortable speaking out, and for good reason! They don't want to be bullied for weeks, having their names permanently dragged through the mud: http://acko.net/blog/storms-and-teacups/ http://acko.net/blog/storms-and-teacups/ I don't want like-minded visitors to this site feeling like they're not welcome to speak their mind. > [T]he caricature of sexist tumblr-warrior "feminists" (that do indeed exist) are a distraction. The fact that people like this are taken seriously probably bothers me as much as it bothers you. However, these people are misrepresenting feminism. Let's ignore the social justice bullies on Tumblr. The top (western) feminist websites are probably Jezebel, Feministe, and Geek Feminism. All three of those are notoriously bigoted against men. Yes, those three websites lack the "I want to watch men burn to death" comments, but that's not saying much. Every time I hear someone claim that real feminists aren't like that, I must ask: Where are the real feminists?

lambda 13y ago

I know I shouldn't respond to the troll, but here goes. > This use of "privilege" as a targeted weapon to silence specific demographics has to stop. Sorry, no specific demographic is being "silenced" here. If you think that men are being silenced, well, why are you able to speak? > Women in the western world have always been among the safest, most privileged people on Earth. Always been, hm? So they were privileged when they were denied suffrage until less than 100 years ago? They were privileged when they were denied admission to some of the country's top universities until just 30 years ago? > This entire thread, in fact, has been a shining example of female privilege. What, exactly, do you see as female privilege? What do you see women being allowed to do, that men are not allowed to, that men are harassed for doing, that men are driven out of the industry for doing due to attacks? And if you do see any such behavior, perhaps someone being harassed for being a dancer, or into musicals, or the like, please note whether it's women doing those attacks, or other men. > No one cares that women soundly outnumber men in university admission, and university graduation, and even high school graduation. Awful generous of you to round down to "no one." If no one cares, why have you heard about it? Wouldn't people who don't care not be writing articles about it? There are plenty of people who care, who are concerned about this, who write about it and worry about it. That's not "no one" caring. However, despite all of that, there are many fewer women in technology, and fewer still are programmers. Just because there might be other biases in other fields, doesn't mean that we shouldn't worry about biases and harassment in our own. > Instead, we're having a collective anxiety attack because a hyper-privileged white woman is upset that her hyper-privileged white daughter might have had her feelings hurt in high school. This is surreal. I'm not really clear on what you mean by "hyper-privileged". Is it a privilege to be bullied and told to get into the kitchen? That doesn't really sound like the definition of "privileged" to me. Yes, there may be ways in which she is privileged compared to others. There are other problems out there. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to address this one. It is a problem when women don't enter a career due to harassment, and indifference from others in face of said harassment. Can we have a realistic discussion if a casual dirty joke counts as harassment? Sure. But there's a difference between a casual dirty joke told by one conference attendee to another, and several kids harassing another and telling her to get into the kitchen while the teacher does nothing about it. You sound fairly threatened and insecure; it sounds like you're worried that women might do better than you at technology, and then the one way you use to make yourself feel secure in yourself may fall away. You seem to have caught on to the power of being a victim and having other people come out to defend you, so you're trying to apply that tactic to defend yourself from women who threaten your sense of technological superiority. It's not a very attractive tactic, however; it makes you look defensive and reactionary. I'd recommend trying to find other ways to feel good about yourself; for instance, by being supportive and welcoming of new people, and making programming a skill and trade that is accessible to all.

SideburnsOfDoom 13y ago

> This use of "privilege" as a targeted weapon to silence specific demographics has to stop Your concerns, such as they are, have been discussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6354789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6354789, and here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6353402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6353402 With a longer piece on the topic here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6354336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6354336 and on the topic of criticism as "silencing" here http://www.popehat.com/2013/09/10/speech-and-consequences/ http://www.popehat.com/2013/09/10/speech-and-consequences/