3 ms·

I don't really read it as "invalidating" so much as pointing out the possibility of misattribution. A concrete example: my car broke down. It's a Ford, that's

I don't really read it as "invalidating" so much as pointing out the possibility of misattribution. A concrete example: my car broke down. It's a Ford, that's blue, and is a two door, and is rear wheel drive. Is the right conclusion that it broke because it's a Ford and all Fords are pieces of crap? Are there possible causes? Missed maintenance, a lemon, driving it too hard, etc. I realize that it's crazy to suggest that it broke down because it's blue or because it's a two-door because we happen to know the underlying mechanics here. But if the car was a black-box, those could potentially be causes too. Just because a woman thinks that she's been discriminated against for being a woman doesn't make it so. That doesn't mean that her experiences are wrong, nor does it make whatever she endured somehow pleasant. And I'm sure that there's plenty of sexism out there too, I'm not trying to suggest that everything is great and there are no problems. Sexism is an easy explanation in many cases, but that doesn't NECESSARILY mean it's the correct one. It's kind-of like the old XKCD comic: http://xkcd.com/552/ http://xkcd.com/552/

ahelwer 12y ago
You are free to advance an alternative hypothesis explaining her observations. If you go with her thinking "everyone is against her", like the parent comment, you should ask yourself what separates you from all the other people who have defended the status quo by dismissing women complaining of sexism.
ezy 12y ago
Well, duh, but the whole thing about "invalidation" is there is a subtext here: that she wouldn't know that she had been misattributing sexism to someone. If all your friends with Fords of various colors and models had problems -- you would rightfully have cause to focus in on Ford as the problem. Do not pretend to be objective by discounting context, or acting like everyone else is an imbecile. I'm not saying that everything everyone says has to be taken as truth. But think about the context for a moment -- like why is she writing the article in the first place? It's no small thing to put your name out there on the internet WRT to this issue. Think about how analytically you are viewing what she wrote about her experience vs. how uncritically you might view articles from PG (especially the earlier ones unassociated with YC).
- msandford 12y ago
  > Think about how analytically you are viewing what she wrote about her experience vs. how uncritically you might view articles from PG (especially the earlier ones unassociated with YC). Wow, way to go! I read HN so I must be a PG cheerleader and ergo I'm definitely sexist! PG makes some good points and some of them are a lot less tenable. I don't switch off my brain because I'm reading PG (though I do occasionally read his articles) any more than I turn it up extra high because a woman is saying critical stuff about men. What I do try and do, though, is look at the kinds of psychological errors that people tend to make and see if that's influenced them at all. And misattribution is a big one. When a person has many attributes visible to anyone they interact with, any one of them could be the cause. For example she complains that wearing dresses caused her grief. Should anyone be able to wear anything to any job without any consequence? If it should be OK for her to wear a dress, what about a man? If it's OK for girls to wear short-shorts can boys too? Can I ride my bike and continue to wear sweaty, smelly cycling gear and clippity-cloppity shoes instead of taking a shower and changing? Could a dude wear just a speedo? A girl a bikini? In the other direction, a suit? A three piece? A Matrix-style leather full-length leather jacket? Full on ski gear? Yes these examples quickly go from maybe reasonable to clearly unreasonable. But just where EXACTLY should the line get drawn? It's not clear to me that there are absolute, definite answers that have narrow applicability, nevermind broad applicability. What's appropriate for one job is terrible for another. Nurses and doctors (of both sexes in both professions) tend to wear scrubs to work, and it's appropriate. If I tried to wear scrubs to a construction site, or to a machine shop, I would rightly get told to go home. Coveralls, steel toes, and a hard hat are just right if I'm out on an oil rig but entirely inappropriate when I'm at the office and that's for a single job description! I have no less than four different kinds of clothing that I might need to wear when I go to work. The point that I'm trying to make is that if it's possible for men to not get taken seriously (or worse sent home!) based on what they wear at the office then it's POSSIBLE though not necessarily DEFINITE that women might have the same thing happen to them AND that it's not sexism. TL;DR Please realize that there's a difference between saying "it might not be sexism" and "it's definitely not sexism" and that I'm trying to very cautiously propose the former, not the latter.
  - 12y ago

ahelwer 12y ago

You are free to advance an alternative hypothesis explaining her observations. If you go with her thinking "everyone is against her", like the parent comment, you should ask yourself what separates you from all the other people who have defended the status quo by dismissing women complaining of sexism.

ezy 12y ago

Well, duh, but the whole thing about "invalidation" is there is a subtext here: that she wouldn't know that she had been misattributing sexism to someone. If all your friends with Fords of various colors and models had problems -- you would rightfully have cause to focus in on Ford as the problem. Do not pretend to be objective by discounting context, or acting like everyone else is an imbecile. I'm not saying that everything everyone says has to be taken as truth. But think about the context for a moment -- like why is she writing the article in the first place? It's no small thing to put your name out there on the internet WRT to this issue. Think about how analytically you are viewing what she wrote about her experience vs. how uncritically you might view articles from PG (especially the earlier ones unassociated with YC).

msandford 12y ago
> Think about how analytically you are viewing what she wrote about her experience vs. how uncritically you might view articles from PG (especially the earlier ones unassociated with YC). Wow, way to go! I read HN so I must be a PG cheerleader and ergo I'm definitely sexist! PG makes some good points and some of them are a lot less tenable. I don't switch off my brain because I'm reading PG (though I do occasionally read his articles) any more than I turn it up extra high because a woman is saying critical stuff about men. What I do try and do, though, is look at the kinds of psychological errors that people tend to make and see if that's influenced them at all. And misattribution is a big one. When a person has many attributes visible to anyone they interact with, any one of them could be the cause. For example she complains that wearing dresses caused her grief. Should anyone be able to wear anything to any job without any consequence? If it should be OK for her to wear a dress, what about a man? If it's OK for girls to wear short-shorts can boys too? Can I ride my bike and continue to wear sweaty, smelly cycling gear and clippity-cloppity shoes instead of taking a shower and changing? Could a dude wear just a speedo? A girl a bikini? In the other direction, a suit? A three piece? A Matrix-style leather full-length leather jacket? Full on ski gear? Yes these examples quickly go from maybe reasonable to clearly unreasonable. But just where EXACTLY should the line get drawn? It's not clear to me that there are absolute, definite answers that have narrow applicability, nevermind broad applicability. What's appropriate for one job is terrible for another. Nurses and doctors (of both sexes in both professions) tend to wear scrubs to work, and it's appropriate. If I tried to wear scrubs to a construction site, or to a machine shop, I would rightly get told to go home. Coveralls, steel toes, and a hard hat are just right if I'm out on an oil rig but entirely inappropriate when I'm at the office and that's for a single job description! I have no less than four different kinds of clothing that I might need to wear when I go to work. The point that I'm trying to make is that if it's possible for men to not get taken seriously (or worse sent home!) based on what they wear at the office then it's POSSIBLE though not necessarily DEFINITE that women might have the same thing happen to them AND that it's not sexism. TL;DR Please realize that there's a difference between saying "it might not be sexism" and "it's definitely not sexism" and that I'm trying to very cautiously propose the former, not the latter.
- 12y ago