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Comment by jsprogrammer | Hacker News Reader

You are mostly right. Some of the things people are saying to you are awful and you are rightly calling it out. Please keep doing that.

However, please consider that when something you post starts out by making a gender distinction (ie. "Things men have actually said..."), you are inviting everyone that has an investment in binary gender identity politics to either attack you (bitch) or support you (so brave).

I'd be interested in a post on what is "men" and why it is important to start out dividing everyone into only two groups (where, according to the premise of your argument, one will be wrong [and therefore, the other: right]).

What would be wrong with the title, "Things some people have actually said..."?

Edit: Wow, downmods with no rebuttal or comment. Typical HN.

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Well, because the comments being made are laced with gender, so the gender of the comments is surely relevant, no? I mean, I understand where you are coming from - the title can be interpreted to apply to all men, when it only applies to some men. So adding "some" to the title might be a good adjustment. Removing "men" from the title however is not warranted.

Sure, if every person quoted is a male, the title, "What some men have actually said...", would be accurate. As the title was posted, it did claim to apply to all men (even if that wasn't the intent).

Having said all of that, I still don't see the real value in calling out the gender of the people who made those comments. The comments are bad and they should be exposed for what they are. But, would they really be acceptable if a woman said them? Of what import is the gender of the people making the comments?

`define sexism`:

sex·ism

ˈsekˌsizəm

noun: sexism

prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

Discrimination on the basis of group (gender, religion, ethnicity, etc) is always more pronounced when it's performed by a member of one group towards a member of another. It's especially pronounced when the group the perpetrator belongs to is traditionally the more privileged or powerful one.

The reason I believe you were down-voted is because you were originally trying to steer attention towards "binary gender roles" instead of "sexism in tech". You may not have intended that, but it comes off as derailing.

The constant attempts to keep the harassment conversation "on-message" as regards sexism is intellectually bankrupt. Detailing the problem as it really exists is the first step to actually fixing it, not an attempt at "derailing," because, and this is really important, the rails are immaterial.

I think HN just prefers when the comments are on-topic, not "on-message".

This topic is "racism in tech", not "let's discuss binary gender roles and what is 'men'".

The topic is sexism, not racism (I believe).

How was my comment not on-topic? The first article started with a sexist title, all while declaiming sexism. It made statements about people with a perceived gender.

The first article started with a sexist title because (IIUC) it was specifically men who were making these comments to her at the trade show.

And your attempt to make that observation "sexism" seems to be ignoring a big part of the point. This isn't stuff that "people" say to her. It isn't stuff that might be said by transgender people. It's stuff that's said specifically by men.

Could it be said by women? Sure. It probably is, sometimes. Could it be said by a transgender person? Sure. But Leah perceives this stuff as being coming from men, not coming from people.

It's not sexism when it's an actual observation of specific actual events that are actually happening to someone...

And the topic is still sexism in what men say to women at trade shows, not the latent sexism inherent in the binary concept of gender.

I mostly agree with what you're saying. I'm only calling the title of the first post sexist (because it is on its face). I realize that Leah may not actually be a sexist (I only know what has been written in the two posts), and I don't really believe that she is.

My point is that the responses that were generated, both hate and faux support, are almost entirely predictable from the title of the article alone. We know that people tie their identities closely to a gender and like to group together along those identities. So, when you make a statement like "Things men have actually said...", you have set the stage for people to come down on the side of whatever group they identify with.

I think that is counter-productive. It seems to only be propagating the real (at least, what I perceive to be) problem, which is that people will find characteristics in specific instances and then begin projecting feelings on to people that they think have similar characteristics, even when those feelings are unwarranted. I'm not saying that Leah has done this, I'm saying that others will begin to do this when they come across an appropriate trigger.

> it did claim to apply to all men No, it was just vague in its scope. It can only be interpreted that way, if you deliberately ignore the first sentence of the article "In my experience, 99% of men and women in the tech industry are decent and genuinely well-meaning people.".

+! for the argument for pushing "people shouldn't treat people that way" over "men shouldn't treat women that way" style messaging.

That is fair, but most people will only read the title. If people never get to the qualifying statements, then they will never understand what was actually meant.

>Well, because the comments being made are laced with gender

Can you please clarify this? I just went over the words in the highlighted quotes from the first article. 1 of the 8 statements had any reference to gender.

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