That's not the real question, you're pretending context doesn't matter. What's your argument? Women say "I enjoy having a place to communicate with other women in a place that feels safe from male interference," and your response is "Let me into the women's bathroom"?
No, having separate bathrooms is not sexist. Because the term sexism refers to negative issues only. Webster's uses the word "discrimination". Which I assume you are being pedantic and interpreting in a broader context like "discriminating between the colors blue and teal".
But lookup discriminate and it has a few meanings. One of which refers to prejudicial or unfair treatment. That is the definition implied when referring sexist discrimination.
Every major dictionary specifically uses terms like "prejudice", "discrimination against", "stereotype". There is obviously a consensus that it is referring to negative/unequal treatment.
That poster didn't seem offended to me. More curious. It's not obvious if the person is male or female or feeling left out.
If some women feel that way anyway, are you suggesting that making more people feel that way helps or makes it not sexist?
Tech pushes many people out, male and female. Even if the men in tech are the same, what about the men who would like to be in tech but were pushed out? Or are all men the same?
>Tech pushes many people out, male and female. Even if the men in tech are the same, what about the men who would like to be in tech but were pushed out? Or are all men the same?
I'd wager most men "pushed out" of tech weren't fleeing sexism and gender-based isolation. This whole thing seems like looking at a team of 10 -- nine men and one woman -- and, when the woman says, "Gee, it'd be nice to have another woman to talk to," responding by saying "Well how about you just talk to us nine guys instead? Wouldn't that be just as good?"
>What problem is this intended to solve that isn't solved by moderation policies and forum culture?
I think this comment thread is a pretty good illustration of the problem. A group of women are saying, "hey, we think this is a beneficial project, for this reason and this other reason," and a bunch of men are saying "WRONG it's pretty much white supremacy except against men." Forums reflect their membership -- in an industry dominated by men, discussions will be slanted away from positions held by women unless compensatory measures are taken.
On the same token, a specifically male only group tends to get crucified. It's more of a confusion of double standards, perceived or otherwise. Sure, most groups end up de-facto male only, but you never see groups actively advertised as male only.
This once again reads as an illustration of the problem. This isn't an issue of double standards. You do understand the difference in experiences, right, between members of a group comprised and in support of a minority/systematically-unrepresented group, and a counterpart group comprised of a majority/the ones often perpetuating (even if indirectly) this imbalance?
I do. However, I'm not sure how that means that a subset of the majority cannot also have their own exclusive spaces while also allowing a minority to have the same. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against a woman only support group and find the idea of Leap great. What is the problem you're stating, in this case, that a woman only group can solve that one comprised of men and women could not? Genuine question.
If the answer is "Men cannot understand" that's fair, but a terrible simplification. You'll find most men are at least willing to try to understand, and by vilifying the majority and hiding in a smaller exclusionary group you may just end up worse off than before.
> What is the problem you're stating, in this case, that a woman only group can solve that one comprised of men and women could not? Genuine question.
To me, as a member of this minority group, I see this service as offering a solution to one aspect of (but obviously not the entire) problem: that of community and validation. A de facto understanding based on shared experiences. It does not mean that men can't understand and can't help, but that comes later or alongside this component of building strength in numbers.
If you are the only woman on a dev team, for example, who at work can you talk to openly about your experiences without fear of judgment/professional repercussion? We've seen what HR is (in)capable of in stories like what surfaced at Uber. And the men on your team may be the most emotionally intelligent, compassionate beings but they still won't be able to fully empathize. Maybe they will say, "I hear you, and I think that is awful, so what can I do to help?" (which IMO is a wonderful response), but they likely can't say, "I know exactly what you mean."
I hope people don't see Leap as a vilification of the majority. I have signed up for the beta but haven't used it yet, so I don't actually know what the overall culture is like. I sincerely doubt it was anyone's intent to alienate men, but rather to create a safer space for women than the tech world at large generally provides.
ETA: To address your point about a men's group--you're right that it probably wouldn't be received well, which isn't fair. But it also wouldn't be getting much of my sympathies, as its need for existence is altogether different.
There is plenty of reason to think "systematically underrepresented" is untrue, especially because the yardstick being applied, a 50/50 target, is likely unobtainable.
Given that a "bro" was denigrated, persecuted and fired for trying to bring light to some of the causes, there is plenty of reason to think the imbalance being perpetuated is not the one you're thinking of.
So because some guy at big tech co was reprimanded for publishing his opinions on the matter (the veracity of which we don't even need to get into), the real injustice here is a man's inability to speak, not a woman's inability to do her job in a safe/supportive environment?
Both speech and gender issues are complex, no doubt. But what I do have are my own very real, collected experiences as well as those of many other women I've talked to and read about on the topic. There is also plenty of data if you look. [0] It's getting tiring to have to continually explain to men that yes! This is actually a problem! No matter whether you think you've seen differently, no matter what your probably good intentions are. This stuff is happening all around you, and hey, maybe it's because you've enjoyed a lifetime of it not happening to you that you aren't constantly attuned to it.
There is a reason for this, and I think you answered it just now.
Men don't need it - in technology and many other industry spaces, we are comfortable voicing our experiences because we know they'll be well-received and affirmed by much of our audience. We're the prevailing voice in the broad group, so we're already being heard.
If you're creating a space for men only, it's either because you're part of another group with a sidelined voice (e.g. gay men) or because you have Damore-esque ideas about the world and really do want to be exclusive.
Head over to MGTOW and see why. Maybe the need for men only groups in a society we generally have dominated is intrinsically different from women doing the same? In the same way that MRA’s inevitably raising the issue of female-on-male spousal abuse is both true, and a smokescreen. It is the “all lives matter” approach to scuttling honest debate.
You're conflating "excluded from a web forum" with "excluded from society." The whole point of groups like Leap is BECAUSE those members want everyone working together -- they're not in their clubhouse plotting the deportation of men, they're trying to figure out how to get on even footing in an industry that has been hostile to women for years.
White nationalists tend to have a similar view of how they have been treated. I disagree personally but I don't allow my personal assumptions cloud my judgement when discussing these topics. Can you formulate an objective standard that allows an individual to determine what types of discrimination are moral or immoral?
I disagree that white nationalists have a similar view, though it's interesting that someone linked to a forum where women can feel safe from attack in discussions and we're currently debating their similarities to neo-Nazis.
The white nationalist stance (in general) is that racial hegemony, with their group at the top of the heap, is the preferential state of affairs. The stance of this group, as far as I can tell, is that gender equality is the preferential state. Those seem like very different things.
This assumption completely disregards the measurable advantage men have in the tech community. If you have identical programs, one for a historically disenfranchised group, and one for the group that's been in power for decades, only one of those programs is shitty.
edit: "Advantage" was a poor choice of words, but since it's been quoted in replies I'll leave it. I meant something more like "given the gender disparities in the tech community."
We women in tech frequently need to re-hash this discussion. We offer personal anecdotes, and they are written off as outliers. We present diversity numbers and pay gap data, and we are told that those are due to women either choosing family life over career or that we are biologically predisposed to not being as good as men at tech. We present data and stories about rampant, institutionalized sexism at large industry leaders, and we are scolded for being "overly sensitive". Assertiveness is conflated as bitchiness. Timidness as incompetence. The advantage is apparent - the real goal of constantly asking us to prove the advantage is to create doubt and the appearance of a controversy over the data. But I see these as thinly veiled gaslighting attempts. I have worked in tech all my life, and have had many men take credit for my initiatives and ideas, talk over me constantly through most meetings, pass me up for promotions because I didn't "engage with the team" (ie. attending late night drinking sessions at strip clubs), always get second guessed - even when I am the resident SME and was hired specifically for task, etc. I have lived it. If more men would make themselves aware of the systemic sexism in the industry instead of making women repeat themselves, argue every data point, and be 3x as good as their peers to receive recognition, maybe we could stop having this discussion . . .
As I noted above, "advantage" was the wrong word, my apologies. There's tons of information out there about the disproportionate number of men working in tech, to say nothing of the salary discrepancies that cause so much drama here.
At the end of the day, women say they feel that they feel isolated by an industry that is overwhelmingly male, and that being able to connect with other women and discuss their experiences is a valuable way to stay in a career that they might otherwise bail on. I'm inclined to believe them.
> At the end of the day, women say they feel that they feel isolated by an industry that is overwhelmingly male.
I would like to offer another point of view; A lot of the males who ended up in that industry are, to be blunt, social rejects. They were not the popular kids in high school, but those guys who were playing magic in the corner. Being a male in IT is a big stigma in the outside world. Nerd and Geek are still insults. There are entire sitcoms (IT Guys, Big Bang Theory) designed to laugh at them. Many dating website have the option to filter out men working in IT. I usually hide the fact that I work in IT and have found it very beneficial.
Now that there's money and power involved, things are changing a bit. But I still feel that a large reason that the IT community is like it is because it was simply excluded from society at large for a long time and still is in a way.
I think that people coming now and turning the table around with such righteousness is a bit insensitive. How would you feel about being excluded from the club you build for yourself after having been excluded from everywhere else ?
Revbird was right. Leap isn't about men trying to claw their way out of the stigma of their industry. It's about women having a place to share their experiences - because right now, it's really common for them not to feel welcome in male-dominated tech water coolers like HN or software subreddits.
Nobody is trying to exclude you from these larger spaces. Though if we want to get rid of the stigma of tech, we can start by making them more welcoming and inclusive.
In other words: if seeing something like Leap makes you viscerally mad, focus on fixing the reason it needs to exist in the first place.
Honestly, I don't give a shit about "another point of view," and that you think it matters here is a great illustration of why women would run for the hills, whichever hills don't have you on them.
This is not about someone's experience as a "social reject," this isn't about sad boys not being cool in high school because they like comic books. This is about women wanting a place to talk to other women about an experience that they feel isolates them from their male colleagues. That men sometimes feel lonely too has nothing to do with it.
Your comments have been crossing into incivility in this thread—not principled incivility, just garden-variety internet swipes like "I don't give a shit", "this is nonsense", and "you're pretending". All this breaks the HN guidelines, regardless of how wrong someone else is or how right you are or feel. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and get on the right side of the rules if you want to keep commenting here.
What do you mean "advantage" is the wrong word? In general men clearly have an advantage in tech. Denying it is like denying that white people generally have an advantage in America.
That you feel compelled to apologize reflects the self-preserving power of this male advantage.
Measurement is easy. Just look around you. The majority of people working in tech are men. An even larger majority of its leadership is men.
Why is this?
There are only two possible causes that I can see - genetic, or cultural. The genetic argument is basically that men are, by nature, better at being programmers and leaders than women - that women are inferior. The cultural argument is that there is a social advantage to being male (and a social disadvantage to being female) - that, all else being equal, things tend to default in favor of men.
Personally, I reject the genetic explanation. Most people do. If you also reject it, then you're stuck with the cultural explanation, or finding something I haven't come up with.
So your argument is that men and women are exactly identical on all tasks for genetic purposes? Or are you arguing that such just happens to be the case as it pertains to programming?
From my observation, women are frequently proclaimed to be superior to men in numerous ways. My entire life I've heard that women mature faster than men. Women are proclaimed to be more nurturing. Women have higher 'emotional intelligence.' You'll see it almost universally proclaimed that if women ran the world, conflicts (eg war) would be far less common, this is a constant refrain in the US across all media.
There are very well understood differences between men and women when it comes to things like vision, physical strength, hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, physical aggression, and so on. We also have many different health risks due to our genetic differences. All of these things add up to women universally living longer from one culture to the next, and women commiting drastically fewer acts of violence (and thus making up a far smaller percentage of the prison population).
If any of that is actually true, why can't men be superior at various tasks due to genetic differences? Why not programming? What I'm asking is: what's the scientific argument to say that men are not superior at programming, how can that be proven either direction? Just saying such is the case (either direction), is not enough.
Genetics could explain the disparity without resorting to a "women are inferior" conclusion. For example, it's possible that the ability distribution is more varied for men than for women such that if you sample from either extreme, you'll find more men, and if you sample from the middle, you'll find more women. Employers obviously prefer to sample programmers and leaders from the high-ability extreme, and therefore end up with more males. However, the mean and median could be the same for men and women.
There are other hypotheses as well that have nothing to do with social advantages--maybe biology or culture has women preferring to elect into other career fields? We also know that (for whatever reason) women prefer flexible careers that let them spend time with kids, and that women are more likely than men to take time off to start a family and that they take more time off than men to start the family. Perhaps men and women are equal in their desire to spend time with family, but society expects men to sacrifice time with family to provide for the family? In this case, the disparity is the result of a social disadvantage to being male.
These are just a few hypotheses that I could come up with in a few moments. Some of these I think are probable and others improbable, but the point is that we have more hypotheses besides misogyny and patriarchy. We shouldn't feel the need to buy into the patriarchy explanation simply to avoid the misogyny explanation (especially because the people who favor the patriarchy explanation also tend to propose some scary reforms, like restricting due process rights for one gender).
This isn't Lake Wobegon. Not all the children are above average.
You can cut this cake a different way, too... race. White people are overrepresented (or non-whites are underrepresented) in IT, and in high-status jobs. And the male/female representation ratios are different, as well.
Consider historic example, as well. Right now, women are significantly underrepresented as CEOs and senators. But a century ago, there were no women CEOs or senators. Are women less genetically inclined to their "proper" path as homemakers now than they were a century ago?
At a certain point, I start cutting the cake with Occam's Razor.
They don't have to be. Only the majority, and I have a hard time believing that the majority of software engineers and leaders are of average capability or worse. I'm open to data to the contrary, however.
> You can cut this cake a different way, too... race. White people are overrepresented (or non-whites are underrepresented) in IT, and in high-status jobs.
Not sure what your point is here. Are you implying that because there are racial disparities as well, then both gender and racial disparities must have a common cause? That's obviously fallacious, but I don't know what else to make of this.
> Right now, women are significantly underrepresented as CEOs and senators. But a century ago, there were no women CEOs or senators. Are women less genetically inclined to their "proper" path as homemakers now than they were a century ago?
No. I made no claims about the cause of disparities a century ago.
> At a certain point, I start cutting the cake with Occam's Razor.
Good. Then let's hold off on the elaborate conspiracy theories until we can invalidate the simpler explanations, eh?
Pointing out the existence of sexism and racism does not require "elaborate conspiracy theories".
As for my point, it's that systematic bias against people by race looks remarkably similar to systematic bias against people by gender. That suggests a common cause, especially when one group (white men) is the beneficiary of both. Hence Occam's Razor. A single dominant group shutting out everyone who doesn't match the dominant traits is a simpler explanation than coming up with two entirely separate causes for the same observation.
As for historical disparaties... I know you didn't make claims about disparities a century ago. The historic example was an argument against the case you made that somehow, women are genetically predisposed to avoid certain career paths.
> Pointing out the existence of sexism and racism does not require "elaborate conspiracy theories". As for my point, it's that systematic bias against people by race looks remarkably similar to systematic bias against people by gender. That suggests a common cause, especially when one group (white men) is the beneficiary of both. Hence Occam's Razor. A single dominant group shutting out everyone who doesn't match the dominant traits is a simpler explanation than coming up with two entirely separate causes for the same observation.
On its face, your explanation is simpler, but there is a whole bunch of evidence that forces the theory of sexism/racism to become more complex. Here are a few that pop into my head (in no particular order):
* Asians are kicking too much ass; a more complex theory is needed to explain why whites aren't holding Asians back when they're apparently happy to hold back blacks (and Hispanics, to a lesser degree).
* Women approached parity in medicine and law in the '80s and '90s when overt misogyny was the norm--long before million dollar diversity budgets; do we really believe that tech is more misogynistic than medicine and law in the '80s?
* Overt discrimination is on the decline, so we resort to increasingly improbable theories of microagressions and unconscious bias, however...
* Even progressive universities, industries, and companies aren't moving the needle on tech diversity despite million dollar diversity budgets and bias response teams
* Even the critical theorists can't pin it on sexism/patriarchy without calling into question math, reason, and objectivity
Also, what similarities are there between racial and gender disparities that constitute damning evidence in a common cause? What do these disparities have in common that (for example) the workplace fatality gap or the longevity gap lack? This seems much too loose to support your claim that sexism/racism is a simpler explanation than the dual explanations of "different gender preferences" and "artifacts of history including historical racism".
Again, my point isn't that the cause can't be a conspiracy theory; only that it has to be a very, very elaborate one. And it seems more probable to me that some combination of cultural and biological reasons drive women to make different career choices. I don't imagine you'll agree, but hopefully you can at least appreciate why I'm skeptical about the sexism/patriarchy explanation.
"The real reason why there are so fewer women in tech isn’t because of discrimination, harassment or unequal pay (although like I said these factors do exist and need to be fixed). The real reason is that most women clearly aren’t as interested in technology-related work as men are. It’s a choice. And for whatever reasons, more women seem to choose other fields."
I'm sorry but that is a very intellectually dishonest passage. There is real
concern that women may be turned away fom technology careers because of
cultural bias that says those jobs are not for women. And the answer to that
is that "maybe they're just not interested"?
Well- how do you explain the fact that "they're just not interested"? Why is
cultural bias not an explanation of this lack of interest? And if it isn't,
then what is?
You can't just stop the ball rolling wherever you like. At some point we have
to figure out why girls are not into technology as much as boys are and it's
very lazy to just dismiss it as "not a girl thing".
There are real genetic differences in how the brains of men and women work. Men and women do not have the same interests, the same goals, nor the same desires. To claim otherwise is ignoring established scientific facts. Studies on this subject always lead to the same conclusion: That women are just less interested in tech jobs, just as men are less interested in social jobs.[0]
I presented the OP with a objective, data-based argument and limited myself to quoting only the article (of which there are many, many, many more I could have chosen from) exactly to avoid a subjective response like yours. I am not interested in ideological discussions about purely subjective arguments (Read: flamewars). You can ignore the data all you like, but please don't try to drag me into an argument with that.
The data you present does not explain anything. It is just an observation. Yet you present it as an explanation to another observation.
By analogy, it's like answering the question "why do cows eat grass?" with "because cows are herbivores", which is really just restating the question. An actual explanation would require understanding how cows have evolved to become herbivores in the first place, and not meat-eaters, like, say, wolves. Without such an explanation, there is no way to understand why cows are herbivores and wolves are not.
By analogy, without any understanding of why women are not interested in technology jobs, there is no way to understand the gender disparity in technology.
>> You can ignore the data all you like, but please don't try to drag me into an argument with that.
This is very unpleasant. First you assume I'm "ignoring the data" when I actually discussed what the data means. Then you assign a motive to me, that I'm "trying to drag you into an argument". Please don't do that.
I notice there's a misunderstanding, so let me clarify this. I called the
passage you quoted "intellectually dishonest", not you. And the "you" in the
phrase "you can't just stop the ball rolling" did not mean you personally, but
everyone in general.
The same goes for the sentence "how do you explain the fact". For example, if I asked the question "how do you invert a binary tree", I wouldn't be asking how a specific interlocutor would do it personally, rather, I'd want to know how it is generally done.
A more accurate way of stating the question would be "how does one invert..." etc. But that is a bit of an archaic turn of phrase that tends to make one look a bit of a twit, so one tends to avoid it. I do.
Not when you look at it subjectively and only focus on the specific subset that supports your argument. I believe that's called 'selection bias'.
> without any understanding of why women are not interested in technology jobs, there is no way to understand the gender disparity in technology.
The scientific understanding is there. It's just not the answer you want it to be and hence you ignore it.
> This is very unpleasant. First you assume I'm "ignoring the data" when I actually discussed what the data means. Then you assign a motive to me, that I'm "trying to drag you into an argument". Please don't do that.
>> that is a very intellectually dishonest passage.
>> You can't just stop the ball rolling wherever you like.
Of course it's okay if you do it. To a quoted article, no less, not even my own words. But when I point out what you did then I'm the bad person. This is why I had no desire to get dragged into this kind of discussion.
For the sake of the argument, I presume you are a woman (personally I don't care if you are male, female, a tree, or whatever else). You think that, just because you are interested in tech, every other woman must also be. That is false. The fact alone that you are a woman in tech means you are part of a minority. It doesn't matter how vocal that minority is, it still is just a minority that does not represent the interests of the majority. Just because you chose a career in tech, while most other females did not, does not inherently mean that there is a problem and that that problem needs fixing. Vegans aren't "sick" just because they chose to eat no meat. Salafists aren't bad people just because of their choice of religion. Cat owners don't hate birds just because they have cats. Most women just have no interest in a technical career. Be that (software) engineers, mechanics or truck drivers. It is a choice they made based on their interests (you can prove that yourself by just asking random women on the street) and it is on you to accept that you are part of a minority and that isn't going to change.
I myself am part of a minority too, being autistic. Unlike you, I have to deal with it no matter what I do and where I go. Would it be nice not to have to live in a world tailored to neuro-typicals and not having to face (extreme) prejudice everywhere I go? Hell yeah. But that is wishful thinking and not reality. Just like gender equality in tech is wishful thinking, but not more. The sooner you accept reality instead of chasing a dream based on wishful thinking, the sooner you can start making a difference for the women that made the same choice you did.
Now have a nice day. I have nothing further to add and won't answer you again.
>> You think that, just because you are interested in tech, every other woman
must also be.
You keep assigning motives and thoughts to me, even though I made it clear
that I find it unpleasant and asked you to stop it. I clarified that my
original comment was not addressing criticism to you personally and that the
use of word "you" did not mean you personally, either. I don't see what I did
to justify your confrontational tone, other than disagree with your
interpretation of some data.
As to the rest of your comment:
>> Most women just have no interest in a technical career. Be that (software)
engineers, mechanics or truck drivers. It is a choice they made based on their
interests (you can prove that yourself by just asking random women on the
street) and it is on you to accept that you are part of a minority and that
isn't going to change.
I'm not as uncommon as you think. I'm originally from Greece,
where it is quite common for women to follow careers in technology and the
sciences. It is not common in the UK where I live, but that suggests some sort
of cultural bias. Additionally, I've worked with several female
developers from India over the years and they also don't think it's uncommon, or that
it's a job that's not suited for women- quite the contrary; they see it as
"office work" which is definitely better for women than manual work.
But let's stick to women in the US and the UK, which I'm guessing you're more
familiar with. The point remains that observing that "women are not
interested in technology" does not explain why they are not interested in
technology. Which means it doesn't explain why women are not pursuing careers
in technology, either.
This has nothing to do with subjective or objective analysis. Data alone does
not explain anything. It does not have exegetic power, one would say. So the
observation that "women are not interested in technology" does not explain
anything not because I don't want it to, but because it can't.
Theories do have exegetic power. But observations alone do not constitute a
theory.
Lawyers have about the same gender breakdown as computer systems analysts, so I don't think this is the case. CEOs are even more predominantly male, at a fairly shocking 73% by 2016 numbers (we'll have '17 soon).
The problem with tech in particular is that we're often viewed as an inclusive and progressive industry. But when you run the numbers, we're no better than the law firms.
> This assumption completely disregards the measurable advantage men have in the tech community.
There is obviously an imbalance in the industry, but can you please provide proof that this is due to an advantage that men have?
> If you have identical programs, one for a historically disenfranchised group, and one for the group that's been in power for decades, only one of those programs is shitty.
Why would fighting racism with racism or sexism with sexism be a productive method of correcting imbalances? Wouldn't that just fuel and maintain the disdain between groups?
> Why would fighting racism with racism or sexism with sexism be a productive
Here you cross into making this yet another same-old generic ideological thread, thus guaranteeing repetition and tedium. What more we can do to explain to HNers that this is where discussions become off topic because the light/heat ratio goes to zero? I realize the line isn't obvious when a topic starts out close to it anyhow. But you know, it especially isn't obvious when you aren't consciously looking for it in the first place. Since you have a habit of doing this in HN threads and stand out as a user who's done particular damage this way—unintentionally I'm sure—we need you to do a better job with this.
Perhaps the following heuristic would help. If a comment breaks away from the specific content of the specific story and becomes generically ideological, it's on the wrong side of the line and you probably should not post it.
Note that this doesn't have to do with the ideologies or politics in question, or what view you're arguing for. It has to do with generic discussions being boring in HN's sense of the word.
There definitely is something I'm not understanding if this comment crossed the line. I'm sorry, it's still not my intent to negatively affect the quality of this site.
This may seem pedantic, but what do you consider ideological? I said what I said because I saw it as a fundamental flaw of the community. I don't believe fighting discrimination with discrimination is productive, and I believe a woman-only community is discriminatory. Would it have avoided the genericism if I had tied it directly to the thread by saying "I believe this community is wrong because you can't fight discrimination with discrimination?" Or would mentioning discrimination genericize the conversation as well?
By ideology I mean something like predictable clusters of ideas around large questions. On HN it doesn't much matter which ideology people subscribe to or battle against—it's all more or less off topic here. There are two reasons.
First, all of it is predictable. Each time something gets repeated, its potential to gratify curiosity diminishes. In the case of ideological squabbles, the repetition is so entrenched that there's no curiosity potential left at all. What is has instead is strong conflict potential, meaning that such discussions not only add no value here, they burn up and destroy what does have value.
Second, it's all generic. The larger a question is, the harder it is to say meaningful things about it. Signal/noise ratio goes down as topics get more generic.
I don't doubt that it's possible for people to find new, meaningful things to say about large generic questions. But internet comments are not the right genre for expressing them. Someone who truly has such ideas would write a book or an essay, for the same reason one wouldn't excavate the foundation for a house with a thimble.
>Why would fighting racism with racism or sexism with sexism be a productive method of correcting imbalances? Wouldn't that just fuel and maintain the disdain between groups?
Is this the "all lives matter!" response to this project? It's not a crime to point out that some groups are poorly represented in an industry. Are you saying the solution to "hey, women feel isolated in the tech industry" is to say "Well, let's figure out how to include men too"? If women felt like their discussions were being treated fairly in public forums, they'd have stayed in them.
> Are you saying the solution to "hey, women feel isolated in the tech industry" is to say "Well, let's figure out how to include men too"?
No, my solution to a sense of isolation is instead to find ways for women to no longer feel isolated within their field.
A great example with the other sex would be male nurses. Male nurses are definitely the minority in their field, yet they manage to not feel isolated overall. Even if they did, creating a male-nurse-only group wouldn't do a thing to correct the isolation-causing systems in their place of employment, and would only work to further separate male nurses from the majority by isolating them from the wider nursing community.
If women feel isolated, we should try to find out why and correct that instead of just sticking them with other isolated women.
"If women feel isolated, we should try to find out why and correct that instead of just sticking them with other isolated women."
Certainly you realize they may feel isolated because you are not sticking them with other women?
What is wrong with doing something like this until they generally feel less isolated, then moving on to something else?
IE Why is it unreasonable for this to be a step along the path?
> Certainly you realize they may feel isolated because you are not sticking them with other women?
This is possible. I do not know.
> What is wrong with doing something like this until they generally feel less isolated, then moving on to something else?
What I'm afraid will happen by taking this route(though I do not know that this will happen) is that this will divert energy that would have gone into converting work cultures to improve the interaction between men and women and shift that energy into an external forum that doesn't affect their real employment conditions in the slightest.
I'm also afraid of the optics of a double standard. If women can have women-only groups while men can't socially get away with having men-only groups at the same time that the number of women grows in the field, then that may make seemingly displaced men very angry.
I could be wrong. If you see a reason why this doesn't make sense, please let me know.
The only way you'd be able to say "groups like this won't fix feelings of isolation!" is if you ignored all the women in this comment section saying it has definitely helped their feelings of isolation. Which I guess might be kind of the point.
> If women felt like their discussions were being treated fairly in public forums, they'd have stayed in them.
This so much. Most men in tech can have a majority male discussion in any open community, due to their numbers. The amount of disparity from men towards leap in this thread is a prime example of why we women in tech seek to have discussions in more closed environments.
This is tangential to your point, but I'm pretty sure what you're referring to isn't being "triggered." It's, I don't know, disagreeing? It has a specific and important definition, and it seems to be getting thrown around in other scenarios, to the detriment of those with PTSD.
The word was properly being used. The definition of triggered is "anything, as an act or event, that serves as a stimulus and initiates or precipitates a reaction or series of reactions."[1] Definitions also change over time, and the colloquial definition of the word seems to be shifting to "Getting filled with hate after seeing, hearing or experiencing something you can't stand."[2]
This seems like a disingenuous decontextualization of what was said. Your link to dictionary.com says this:
>to initiate or precipitate (a chain of events, scientific reaction, psychological process, etc.)
"Psychological process," in this case, is what I was talking about, and what I think the original commenter was referring to. "Trigger warnings" aren't warning you that you might feel "anything that will cause a reaction," they're to help people suffering with PTSD avoid having a panic attack.
I agree that the colloquial definition is trending the way you describe, and I think it's irresponsible to just sit and watch it happen without speaking up in favor of the more specific psychological definition.
I agree that the odds of "society" dissolving are very small. However, the penalty for encountering a blizzard without preparation -- maybe not having enough food to eat full meals for, say, a week -- is FAR lower than then penalty for encountering armageddon without preparation. I'm not saying you're wrong, but if the fall of civilization is 1,000 times less likely, and the consequences are 1,000 times worse, the calculus gets a little more complex.
Degrees of suffering! How many people in Norway died from not being able to afford a trip to the hospital? How many medical bankruptcies have there been on that entire continent? Any at all?
>could likely launch a cubesat with some sort of bacterial payload that would eventually get to Mars
Curious how this might work, given the energy required not only to escape Earth's orbit, but to get into another one around Mars and crash into it. It's my understanding that cubesats don't have anything that could do any of that stuff, and a larger craft doing the heavy lifting would be way more complicated.
