5 ms·

Wars are only fought where at least one side thinks they can win. SV is the front line because it is more egalitarian than those arenas you mention.

s_baby 12y ago
Also "winning" the right to working in a coal mine or laying roofing wouldn't really be a victory after all compared to SV. These people want the upside of being a male without the risk that it carries. Yea some of us get to play this game in SV. What about the vast majority of us that have to work a shit job to support our family? Giving one gender privileged access to industries like SV while simultaneously sheltering them from industries like the coal mining industry would also be a horrible form of marginalization.
- dperny 12y ago
  This argument is as terrible as it is old. Feminists have been fighting for the right to work in coal mines, and fight on battlefields, and everything else.
  - Kalium 12y ago
    You are correct. That said, from within Silicon Valley it sure looks like the feminists are coming for the supposedly easy money of engineering while ignoring the risky things like policing. True or not, it's sometimes the perception that matters.
    - tobr 12y ago
      This says more about Silicon Valley than about feminism, though.
      - Kalium 12y ago
        My statement could be interpreted that way, yes.
  - s_baby 12y ago
    >Feminists have been fighting for the right to work in coal mines, and fight on battlefields, and everything else. It's terrible because it doesn't fit the narrative you're trying to push. Paying occasional lip service isn't the same as "fighting for the right". Working in a coal mine or fighting in the battlefield isn't a "right". It's an obligation blue collar families fall into.
vinceguidry 12y ago
That's my thinking as well. I've read up a bit on feminism, the picture I get is of a movement that's trying really really hard to get people to take them seriously. They've chosen tech as the battleground for precisely that reason. Personally, I think it's great. I like seeing my compatriots forced to confront sexism. If you think sexism is bad in technology, you should see it everywhere else. The gender gap has gotten a bit better in the last twenty years or so, but traditionally male occupations are still overwhelmingly male, and likewise for female occupations. And salary gaps where you do find men and women working together are just abominable. Sexism is one of those things you just kind of ignore until you really start looking, then once you do you see it literally every fucking where. And it's utterly depressing. We like to think that because we gave the vote to black people and women that we're enlightened.
- theorique 12y ago
  I think you're right. Highly educated, intellectual "nerds" who generally really want to do the "right thing" (however that is defined) are likely to be a lot easier to convert to feminism than, for example, (1) the NFL (2) Kentucky (3) Wall Street (4) Saudi Arabia. Feminism, as a movement, is aimed at battles it thinks it can win. Nerds who aren't particularly attached to conventional forms of masculinity are already partly won over.
- hagan_das 12y ago
  Or the skewed gender ratios in various fields are due to innate biological differences. Sexual dimorphism, which includes psychological traits, extends to humans as well. We are animals too after all. What an age we live in. Nearly every animal on earth, including our closests primate relatives, have innate morphological and behavioural differences between male and female. Yet noticing that homo sapiens exhibit the same differences has become a thought-crime of the highest order. These differences cause a tendency for men and women to gravitate towards certain fields. Skewed sex ratios in a profession do not necessarily indicate discrimination and its time to stop pointing and sputtering when not everything is 50/50.
  - vinceguidry 12y ago

s_baby 12y ago

Also "winning" the right to working in a coal mine or laying roofing wouldn't really be a victory after all compared to SV. These people want the upside of being a male without the risk that it carries. Yea some of us get to play this game in SV. What about the vast majority of us that have to work a shit job to support our family? Giving one gender privileged access to industries like SV while simultaneously sheltering them from industries like the coal mining industry would also be a horrible form of marginalization.

dperny 12y ago
This argument is as terrible as it is old. Feminists have been fighting for the right to work in coal mines, and fight on battlefields, and everything else.
- Kalium 12y ago
  You are correct. That said, from within Silicon Valley it sure looks like the feminists are coming for the supposedly easy money of engineering while ignoring the risky things like policing. True or not, it's sometimes the perception that matters.
  - tobr 12y ago
    This says more about Silicon Valley than about feminism, though.
    - Kalium 12y ago
      My statement could be interpreted that way, yes.
- s_baby 12y ago
  >Feminists have been fighting for the right to work in coal mines, and fight on battlefields, and everything else. It's terrible because it doesn't fit the narrative you're trying to push. Paying occasional lip service isn't the same as "fighting for the right". Working in a coal mine or fighting in the battlefield isn't a "right". It's an obligation blue collar families fall into.

vinceguidry 12y ago

That's my thinking as well. I've read up a bit on feminism, the picture I get is of a movement that's trying really really hard to get people to take them seriously. They've chosen tech as the battleground for precisely that reason. Personally, I think it's great. I like seeing my compatriots forced to confront sexism. If you think sexism is bad in technology, you should see it everywhere else. The gender gap has gotten a bit better in the last twenty years or so, but traditionally male occupations are still overwhelmingly male, and likewise for female occupations. And salary gaps where you do find men and women working together are just abominable. Sexism is one of those things you just kind of ignore until you really start looking, then once you do you see it literally every fucking where. And it's utterly depressing. We like to think that because we gave the vote to black people and women that we're enlightened.

theorique 12y ago
I think you're right. Highly educated, intellectual "nerds" who generally really want to do the "right thing" (however that is defined) are likely to be a lot easier to convert to feminism than, for example, (1) the NFL (2) Kentucky (3) Wall Street (4) Saudi Arabia. Feminism, as a movement, is aimed at battles it thinks it can win. Nerds who aren't particularly attached to conventional forms of masculinity are already partly won over.
hagan_das 12y ago
Or the skewed gender ratios in various fields are due to innate biological differences. Sexual dimorphism, which includes psychological traits, extends to humans as well. We are animals too after all. What an age we live in. Nearly every animal on earth, including our closests primate relatives, have innate morphological and behavioural differences between male and female. Yet noticing that homo sapiens exhibit the same differences has become a thought-crime of the highest order. These differences cause a tendency for men and women to gravitate towards certain fields. Skewed sex ratios in a profession do not necessarily indicate discrimination and its time to stop pointing and sputtering when not everything is 50/50.
- vinceguidry 12y ago