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My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's diffi

by jv22222 13y ago

My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it. My friends wife is an F16 fighter pilot. I was surprised to find that out. Truth is I should not have been surprised, but it went against the patterns I'm used to seeing. I wonder if that's at play here?

booruguru 13y ago
The thing is...we've been talking about geeks and discrimination for years now. "Ignorance" is no longer a valid excuse.
parfe 13y ago
>My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it. Awful lot of words you used to avoid typing "sexism". Hide behind whatever phrasing you prefer, but automatically assigning a person gender roles out of intellectual laziness embodies sexism.
- roflc0ptic 13y ago
  At risk of sounding flippant, I feel like you're bringing a certain amount of unwarranted pattern matching to this. The person you're responding to is 1. bringing up a cognitive bias, 2. positing that it might be the mechanism that's causing this treatment, and 3. saying he shouldn't exhibit that bias. It's thoughtful, and while he's using different language, describing his approach here as "hiding" is pretty ungenerous. I'd guess that you're used to people being kinda shitty about this stuff, and so you saw someone say something that could be part of some ugly apologetics and just went with your heuristics. (edit) Also, let me add, sometimes it's easier to talk about the mechanisms of sexism rather than the phenomenon. Ideologically I'm super anti-racist/homophobic/sexist/patriarchy/capitalist blah blah blah but talking about those things straight out often feels like the worst place to have a productive conversation from. Compare "The prison industrial complex is a function of white supremacy", vs, "dang, it's messed up that people of color on average get way harsher sentences for the same crime." Context is very important, of course, but sometimes using a lot of words is better communication.
- nicolethenerd 13y ago
  But it is just pattern matching - 'sexism' seems to connote intent, or at least some kind of discrimination / negativity. Assuming that a woman you meet is more likely to be non-technical than technical is just probability - it's not a great thing, but I do it too, and I am a woman. It doesn't mean that I think women shouldn't be in tech, or that I'm surprised when they are - just more likely than not, in my experience, women in tech companies are found in non-technical roles.
  - roflc0ptic 13y ago
    The word sexism is rather unfortunately overloaded. It can connote intent, but a lot of the social justice-y types use it in a way that specifically does not require any intent. It's specific language about the maintenance of power structures. Something sexist is something that maintains male power. This could be seen as sexist because it's a set of interactions that systematically disempowers women from participating.
  - OverlordXenu 13y ago
    It has very little to do with intent. Subconsciously thinking someone with a name usually thought to indicate blackness—like Tyrone—is different is racist. Subconsciously disbelieving that a woman can answer technical questions or is a fighter pilot is sexist. It may not necessarily be your fault, because society and your peers have taught you this, but that doesn't really matter. Especially because you have a responsibility to actively work against stereotypes and treat people as people. Having intent behind it just makes it worse, really. And "intent" is difficult to define.
    - jv22222 13y ago
      "Disbelieving"? Or "unaware"? Disbelieving has intent. Unaware is simply not thinking about it. Would you say it is ok to not think about something due to unawareness? Or would you say that was being sexist?
      - jacalata 13y ago
        Its usually called privilege or internalized bias.
- thibauts 13y ago
  Calling people sexist when they try to bring a valid point pretty much amounts to intellectual laziness too, don't you think ? Like it or not, our brains are wired to be able to ignore unusual cases and save complete analysis of each and every situation. This course of evolution may be why you and I are able to post on this website, after all. Sexism, racism an any other form of discrimination are made of this. That's very sad, yes. I want to make another point. Sexism is refusing to aknowledge the possibility for a woman to be technical, for exemple. Assuming she probably isn't is not sexism, it is an often-correct assumption. This doesn't make the man (or the woman) who makes this assumption a monster. So I understand women's frustrations very well as I can be the one discriminated in various other situations, but don't blame it too quickly on people. Blame it first on evolution, the same evolution that allows you to not think to much about it when you have to breathe.
  - jacalata 13y ago
    Assuming she probably isn't is not sexism, it is an often-correct assumption. It's both. related - one of the things I hate about hn is people whining "that's an appeal to authority, that's a logical fallacy, how dare you say you would believe a 50 year old hr manager about workplace customs over my 13 year old sister!" Technically they're correct, if I were invested in the argument I should follow up both proposals equally and not just dismiss one. But in real life, ain't nobody got time for that, and we use heuristics instead. The trick is identifying the biases I'm using as a heuristic, and also identofying which of these heuristics are hurting other people and when it is worth doing the long route of checking each argument - for the cocktail party example, would it kill people to just ask a woman what she does, even if they probably aren't in tech?
jacalata 13y ago
One of the words you are looking for is 'stereotyping'.
melindajb 13y ago
No, no, no, no and no. Stop it. Pattern matching isn't science. Stop pretending it is. https://medium.com/best-thing-i-found-online-today/8178b279430f https://medium.com/best-thing-i-found-online-today/8178b2794... To be direct: Pattern recognition is bullshit voodoo pseudo-science masquerading as objectivity and meritocracy. It’s sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and xenophobia dressed up as science. It sickens me.
- balls187 13y ago
  > No, no, no, no and no. Stop it. Nice job in raising the level of discourse here.
  - melindajb 13y ago
    oh because claiming a bullshit voodoo science as argument was so earth shattering? seriously. especially coming from someone with "balls" in the name. read the link. Love it, i'm now not being allowed to reply. I love how it's ok for guys on hacker news to denigrate and insult women and minorities but if we say, look stop it, you're all suddenly begging for rationality. NOTHING about pattern matching is rational. So you have no right to expect rationality as a response. all the links to reply to any comment are now gone. would you like a screen shot?
    - balls187 13y ago
      > all the links to reply to any comment are now gone. would you like a screen shot? Hrm...sure it's not that you're trying to reply to a new comment (there is a delay before you can reply) I understand your point. Unfortunately the way you made it makes you come across as an irrational individual. https://www.google.com/search?q=fbi+profiling&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=fflb https://www.google.com/search?q=fbi+profiling&ie=utf-8&oe=ut... > especially coming from someone with "balls" in the name Considering that's my name... > i'm now not being allowed to reply. Did someone prevent you from replying? Did your comment get deleted? No one is preventing you from replying. You disagree with the above commented, I disagreed with how you came across. > NOTHING about pattern matching is rational. So you have no right to expect rationality as a response. How so? Think that it's okay for TSA agents to search a 82 year old women, instead of say me (a dark ass dude who looks like a terrorist)? Should their sampling of passengers should be completely random? People shouldn't denigrate anyone: women, men, minorities, or majorities.
jrs99 13y ago
it's not rude at all. I'm a hardcore male knitter and it will always surprise some people when I show up to a meetup for the first time with my yarn and needles. I'm sure it's not mind-blowing, but it's definitely a "Hey, oh, a guy showed up." The same was true for Bill Gates. If you read his biography, when he was really young, people didn't even shake his hand when they met to talk. They didn't find out he was the CEO until like an hour into the meeting. And when they did, they were surprised.
wpietri 13y ago
> My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it. Most rude people don't mean to be rude. They're just thoughtless. That doesn't make their behavior less rude. For example, the zillion people who, upon learning I'm a computer guy, bust out their computer questions and put me on the spot to diagnose and possibly fix their issues. Are they just pattern matching? Sure. But are they also being thoughtless and self-centered? Definitely. The problem isn't the pattern matching. Anything with neurons does that. It's the lack of consideration about how other people will feel.
- melindajb 13y ago
  The pattern matching itself isn't the problem, indeed. It's the apparent lack of some men, usually white men to override it and take a more charitable view of their fellow human beings. For some reason those same men cry out for "rational discussion" unless it's about their own behavior, of course. They can somehow override most of their animal instincts to steal, fight, or fuck indiscriminately, but can't somehow find a way to overcome thinking a woman at a trade show booth can't possibly be an engineer. So we're saying, either the person can overcome that thinking or they can't. If they can, but choose not to, they're deliberately discriminatory. If they can't overcome that thinking, we might want to have them institutionalized for anti social behavior, because what other animal instincts are they not able to overcome?
malyk 13y ago
The pattern matching IS SEXIST! That's the whole issue. Your using gender as a "pattern" to match against. The point is to try to overcome making that match.
- lmm 13y ago
  So I'm supposed to what, talk to everyone? Close my eyes while I'm doing it? In the real world I have limited time and I know I'm going to be happier and learn more if I'm talking to people with similar interests. So I make the best judgement I can with the information I have available. And sure, sometimes I'll get it wrong. But I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to just have no filter.

by jv22222 13y ago

booruguru 13y ago

The thing is...we've been talking about geeks and discrimination for years now. "Ignorance" is no longer a valid excuse.

parfe 13y ago

>My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it. Awful lot of words you used to avoid typing "sexism". Hide behind whatever phrasing you prefer, but automatically assigning a person gender roles out of intellectual laziness embodies sexism.

roflc0ptic 13y ago
At risk of sounding flippant, I feel like you're bringing a certain amount of unwarranted pattern matching to this. The person you're responding to is 1. bringing up a cognitive bias, 2. positing that it might be the mechanism that's causing this treatment, and 3. saying he shouldn't exhibit that bias. It's thoughtful, and while he's using different language, describing his approach here as "hiding" is pretty ungenerous. I'd guess that you're used to people being kinda shitty about this stuff, and so you saw someone say something that could be part of some ugly apologetics and just went with your heuristics. (edit) Also, let me add, sometimes it's easier to talk about the mechanisms of sexism rather than the phenomenon. Ideologically I'm super anti-racist/homophobic/sexist/patriarchy/capitalist blah blah blah but talking about those things straight out often feels like the worst place to have a productive conversation from. Compare "The prison industrial complex is a function of white supremacy", vs, "dang, it's messed up that people of color on average get way harsher sentences for the same crime." Context is very important, of course, but sometimes using a lot of words is better communication.
nicolethenerd 13y ago
But it is just pattern matching - 'sexism' seems to connote intent, or at least some kind of discrimination / negativity. Assuming that a woman you meet is more likely to be non-technical than technical is just probability - it's not a great thing, but I do it too, and I am a woman. It doesn't mean that I think women shouldn't be in tech, or that I'm surprised when they are - just more likely than not, in my experience, women in tech companies are found in non-technical roles.
- roflc0ptic 13y ago
  The word sexism is rather unfortunately overloaded. It can connote intent, but a lot of the social justice-y types use it in a way that specifically does not require any intent. It's specific language about the maintenance of power structures. Something sexist is something that maintains male power. This could be seen as sexist because it's a set of interactions that systematically disempowers women from participating.
- OverlordXenu 13y ago
  It has very little to do with intent. Subconsciously thinking someone with a name usually thought to indicate blackness—like Tyrone—is different is racist. Subconsciously disbelieving that a woman can answer technical questions or is a fighter pilot is sexist. It may not necessarily be your fault, because society and your peers have taught you this, but that doesn't really matter. Especially because you have a responsibility to actively work against stereotypes and treat people as people. Having intent behind it just makes it worse, really. And "intent" is difficult to define.
  - jv22222 13y ago
    "Disbelieving"? Or "unaware"? Disbelieving has intent. Unaware is simply not thinking about it. Would you say it is ok to not think about something due to unawareness? Or would you say that was being sexist?
    - jacalata 13y ago
      Its usually called privilege or internalized bias.
thibauts 13y ago
Calling people sexist when they try to bring a valid point pretty much amounts to intellectual laziness too, don't you think ? Like it or not, our brains are wired to be able to ignore unusual cases and save complete analysis of each and every situation. This course of evolution may be why you and I are able to post on this website, after all. Sexism, racism an any other form of discrimination are made of this. That's very sad, yes. I want to make another point. Sexism is refusing to aknowledge the possibility for a woman to be technical, for exemple. Assuming she probably isn't is not sexism, it is an often-correct assumption. This doesn't make the man (or the woman) who makes this assumption a monster. So I understand women's frustrations very well as I can be the one discriminated in various other situations, but don't blame it too quickly on people. Blame it first on evolution, the same evolution that allows you to not think to much about it when you have to breathe.
- jacalata 13y ago
  Assuming she probably isn't is not sexism, it is an often-correct assumption. It's both. related - one of the things I hate about hn is people whining "that's an appeal to authority, that's a logical fallacy, how dare you say you would believe a 50 year old hr manager about workplace customs over my 13 year old sister!" Technically they're correct, if I were invested in the argument I should follow up both proposals equally and not just dismiss one. But in real life, ain't nobody got time for that, and we use heuristics instead. The trick is identifying the biases I'm using as a heuristic, and also identofying which of these heuristics are hurting other people and when it is worth doing the long route of checking each argument - for the cocktail party example, would it kill people to just ask a woman what she does, even if they probably aren't in tech?

jacalata 13y ago

One of the words you are looking for is 'stereotyping'.

melindajb 13y ago

No, no, no, no and no. Stop it. Pattern matching isn't science. Stop pretending it is. https://medium.com/best-thing-i-found-online-today/8178b279430f https://medium.com/best-thing-i-found-online-today/8178b2794... To be direct: Pattern recognition is bullshit voodoo pseudo-science masquerading as objectivity and meritocracy. It’s sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and xenophobia dressed up as science. It sickens me.

balls187 13y ago
> No, no, no, no and no. Stop it. Nice job in raising the level of discourse here.
- melindajb 13y ago
  oh because claiming a bullshit voodoo science as argument was so earth shattering? seriously. especially coming from someone with "balls" in the name. read the link. Love it, i'm now not being allowed to reply. I love how it's ok for guys on hacker news to denigrate and insult women and minorities but if we say, look stop it, you're all suddenly begging for rationality. NOTHING about pattern matching is rational. So you have no right to expect rationality as a response. all the links to reply to any comment are now gone. would you like a screen shot?
  - balls187 13y ago
    > all the links to reply to any comment are now gone. would you like a screen shot? Hrm...sure it's not that you're trying to reply to a new comment (there is a delay before you can reply) I understand your point. Unfortunately the way you made it makes you come across as an irrational individual. https://www.google.com/search?q=fbi+profiling&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=fflb https://www.google.com/search?q=fbi+profiling&ie=utf-8&oe=ut... > especially coming from someone with "balls" in the name Considering that's my name... > i'm now not being allowed to reply. Did someone prevent you from replying? Did your comment get deleted? No one is preventing you from replying. You disagree with the above commented, I disagreed with how you came across. > NOTHING about pattern matching is rational. So you have no right to expect rationality as a response. How so? Think that it's okay for TSA agents to search a 82 year old women, instead of say me (a dark ass dude who looks like a terrorist)? Should their sampling of passengers should be completely random? People shouldn't denigrate anyone: women, men, minorities, or majorities.

jrs99 13y ago

it's not rude at all. I'm a hardcore male knitter and it will always surprise some people when I show up to a meetup for the first time with my yarn and needles. I'm sure it's not mind-blowing, but it's definitely a "Hey, oh, a guy showed up." The same was true for Bill Gates. If you read his biography, when he was really young, people didn't even shake his hand when they met to talk. They didn't find out he was the CEO until like an hour into the meeting. And when they did, they were surprised.

wpietri 13y ago

> My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it. Most rude people don't mean to be rude. They're just thoughtless. That doesn't make their behavior less rude. For example, the zillion people who, upon learning I'm a computer guy, bust out their computer questions and put me on the spot to diagnose and possibly fix their issues. Are they just pattern matching? Sure. But are they also being thoughtless and self-centered? Definitely. The problem isn't the pattern matching. Anything with neurons does that. It's the lack of consideration about how other people will feel.

melindajb 13y ago
The pattern matching itself isn't the problem, indeed. It's the apparent lack of some men, usually white men to override it and take a more charitable view of their fellow human beings. For some reason those same men cry out for "rational discussion" unless it's about their own behavior, of course. They can somehow override most of their animal instincts to steal, fight, or fuck indiscriminately, but can't somehow find a way to overcome thinking a woman at a trade show booth can't possibly be an engineer. So we're saying, either the person can overcome that thinking or they can't. If they can, but choose not to, they're deliberately discriminatory. If they can't overcome that thinking, we might want to have them institutionalized for anti social behavior, because what other animal instincts are they not able to overcome?

malyk 13y ago

The pattern matching IS SEXIST! That's the whole issue. Your using gender as a "pattern" to match against. The point is to try to overcome making that match.

lmm 13y ago
So I'm supposed to what, talk to everyone? Close my eyes while I'm doing it? In the real world I have limited time and I know I'm going to be happier and learn more if I'm talking to people with similar interests. So I make the best judgement I can with the information I have available. And sure, sometimes I'll get it wrong. But I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to just have no filter.