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Mind you, I'm not saying their results or their mission is invalid, merely that this attitude is hypocritical and unfair. You treat men different from women? By

Mind you, I'm not saying their results or their mission is invalid, merely that this attitude is hypocritical and unfair. You treat men different from women? By definition, you are sexist. Sorry, you can sugar coat it any way you want but you can't fix discrimination with more discrimination.

kaonashi 13y ago
They treat women differently from men within the greater context of a society that treats women differently from men in the opposite manner. To ignore the greater context is to miss the forest for the trees.
- makomk 13y ago
  > They treat women differently from men within the greater context of a society that treats women differently from men in the opposite manner. There's no real reason to assume that the two opposing forms of gender discrimination will cancel each other out rather than reinforcing each other though - especially given that traditional gender roles say women are inherently weaker/stupider/... than men and need special treatment and protection that men don't.
- adamwong246 13y ago
  I'm afraid it is you who has missed the greater context. How exactly will you convince these women that they are truly equally skilled as male programmers? By shielding them from the presence of men altogether? By offering them special protections? Does this attitude fight back against stereotypes... or does it reinforce them? This moral quandary has a nice lateral solution: Lead by example. You can't fix all the assholes out there. If you fight them, you'll fall into the same trap. This isn't a real solution, it's a reflexive stop-gap solution. It's pigheaded and stubborn and it fails to solve the REAL problem at hand, that is, that we are missing out on half of our potential talent.
  - kaonashi 13y ago
    Hackbright has a demonstrable record of putting more women into tech. They are part of the solution. Once the representation starts to change, the calculus shifts so that the assholes become the outliers and they are the ones who start to experience pressure to change, rather than women experiencing pressure to drop out of the field due to harassment.

kaonashi 13y ago

They treat women differently from men within the greater context of a society that treats women differently from men in the opposite manner. To ignore the greater context is to miss the forest for the trees.

makomk 13y ago
> They treat women differently from men within the greater context of a society that treats women differently from men in the opposite manner. There's no real reason to assume that the two opposing forms of gender discrimination will cancel each other out rather than reinforcing each other though - especially given that traditional gender roles say women are inherently weaker/stupider/... than men and need special treatment and protection that men don't.
adamwong246 13y ago
I'm afraid it is you who has missed the greater context. How exactly will you convince these women that they are truly equally skilled as male programmers? By shielding them from the presence of men altogether? By offering them special protections? Does this attitude fight back against stereotypes... or does it reinforce them? This moral quandary has a nice lateral solution: Lead by example. You can't fix all the assholes out there. If you fight them, you'll fall into the same trap. This isn't a real solution, it's a reflexive stop-gap solution. It's pigheaded and stubborn and it fails to solve the REAL problem at hand, that is, that we are missing out on half of our potential talent.
- kaonashi 13y ago
  Hackbright has a demonstrable record of putting more women into tech. They are part of the solution. Once the representation starts to change, the calculus shifts so that the assholes become the outliers and they are the ones who start to experience pressure to change, rather than women experiencing pressure to drop out of the field due to harassment.