Sexism in Tech: Beyond the Outrage | Hacker News Reader

Sexism in Tech: Beyond the Outrage

code.likeagirl.io

21 pointsDinahDavis16 comments

Different people have different opinions on what is considered equal. Getting outraged over perceived slights only fuels the division, and expecting every company across the country to have the same culture is a bit insane in my opinion.

Also, using the term "mansplaining" is pretty sexist. If we're gonna aim for equality, then let's not put sexual undertones in everything we say. It doesn't add to the conversation, just denigrates the main idea by insulting a large part of the readers. Women can be condescending, too.

What's insulting about "mansplaining"?

EDIT: this could be seen as a rhetorical jab, but I really don't mean it that way, I'm just not sure in what context that would be insulting.

Good question. The term "mansplaining" is just another way of saying someone is being condescending, but with the underlying implication that they're being condescending because they're male. In our culture, men do tend to be more condescending, but by using the term, it implies that it's due solely to the fact that they're male, which is wrong.

A good example of the same thing would be if a woman that complains a lot and just seems to be in a bad mood is told she's "PMSing." Statistically it may be accurate, but the assumption is rude and sexist.

I think one of the points of its colloquial usage is as a form of protest to force us to reflect on our culture.

It's asking us to think about why the term bugs us, as well as how helpless it feels to be unable to stop being dismissed with terms like these no matter how much you explain it. We all have to change.

That's an interesting idea, but in my opinion, use of such divisive words are counterproductive, pushing men away from feminism instead of encouraging them to join. If the goal is equality, then foster an equal environment.

The goal is for women to be treated equally. That's on us, not them, and words like this being used on us are attempts to communicate that. They've been asking us for the equal environment for centuries. And if you honestly believe in women being equal, nothing would push you away.

"Mansplaining" doesn't hurt my feelings or oppress me and my expression at all. This isn't necessarily true for the hundreds of other words we use to dismiss women and their behaviour.

The goal is for everyone to be treated equally, not just women. People tend to create an us-vs-them mentality and form tribes, especially when they feel they're under attack. Much of the online backlash against feminism is due to militant, insulting forms of it that are popular on sites like tumblr that trigger this us-vs-them mentalities. That severely degrades the image of feminism when it seems to be anti-white guy. You can't allow sexism as long as it's against white men. If you do, you're part of why feminism is stalling.

"Mansplaining" doesn't oppress you like "PMSing" doesn't oppress women, which it does. It reinforces negative stereotypes and forms potentially false assumptions. Just because other people say mean things about women doesn't mean you should say mean things about men.

What I'm saying is you're deflecting the responsibility of creating ideal feminist societies back onto women to make it palatable to you, which goes against anything I've ever learned about responsibility and accountability after someone(women) tells you(men) something's wrong.

I understand what you're saying, but what I'm trying to say is that your approach is wrong. You're fighting fire with fire, and making an environment hostile to men in an attempt to make things equal for women. You won't win support by doing that. If we are to break down the barriers to equality, we must behave in a manner that will foster an equal environment for _both_ sexes.

It's a derogatory comment focused on one gender. The problem for me is that similar comments focused at women are often (and in my opinion correctly) viewed as sexist

And men can be condescending to men. Many engineers have a tendency to over-rate how much we know and to under-rate how much the other person knows, and it can come out in lots of ways in lots of interactions. It's not good in any of them.

And the time I did "mansplaining" the worst, I didn't do it because the recipient was female. I did it because she was a manager. I assumed she was only a manager. Big mistake - she wasn't. (Even if she had been only a manager, I still shouldn't have treated her like she didn't know what she was talking about, though.)

"Getting outraged over perceived slights only fuels the division" is a pretty hilarious thing to say when you then go on to complain over and over again about the term "mansplaining"!

There is a big difference between getting outraged and discussing why I believe something is bad. Notice how I stayed calm and had a polite discussion with people who have different opinions than my own.

While I understand that serious "sexist" incidents take place in the tech industry I always try to read such articles with distance as honestly, this is just a random blog post published after a leaked info of Uber toxic environment, there is no evidence presented and this may be a post by someone seeking attention (I'm not saying that's the case, though). I fail to understand what was preventing them all from releasing all that stuff anonymously prior Uber outrage?

Don't get me wrong, I'm highly critical of sexism but the western political correctness is driving me nuts even more, I could imagine some of the claims in the article being part of a joke, e.g. "Don't be such a woman" the person didn't like or didn't get, seriously this stuff will soon turn into another list of forbidden words one cannot think of without being accused of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia or other more sophisticated phobia I couldn't yet think of. On the other hand if it's true that there was a plan to fire a woman because she was pregnant, it is truly outrageous, but then again, it's just an article on the internet.

I also doubt that all these sexist comments ("don't be such a woman") came out of nowhere, this may sound radical but I can't imagine anyone in the tech field picking on an employee (whatever sex) who is performing well, that said I disagree with the form it allegedly took as the article claims but there are tons of various programs hosted by SV giants and other IT companies across the world that aim to bring more women into the field and let's make it clear, sexism works both ways and I personally haven't seen any complains about these programs, what a surprise. If anything, it's easier for a woman to get into tech nowadays than for a man and this might be one of the reasons why such incidents take place afterwards, when people within the team realize someone is a slacker or his/her abilities are way under the expected average I can imagine such person not being treated equally. What's worse, I can sense this leading to another politically correct absurd like "you can't say I'm not a high performer, because I'm a woman" or the managers not being able to give just criticism to female employees without being accused of sexism.

To be fair, the author didn't say she worked with Uber, and in fact didn't even out the compan(y/ies) she was complaining about. It seems like she was just trying to advance the conversation on sex and gender in our field, which is an important topic currently.

In my opinion, what we are experiencing is a combination of culture clash between regions of the country with varying expectations on sex and gender, and disagreements on what an equal society is. There are some places with literal gender quotas, others with an equal opportunity hiring method, and yes, some with real sexism and discrimination. How do we choose in what direction our culture goes? Are the differences in gender all cultural, or are there legitimate psychological differences? In a period of growing inequality and low marriage rates, how do we provide for the modern family? All of these are important social questions with many, many different opinions on them. Please try not to approach these topics with the mindset of "political correctness gone awry."

Going along with this thought, I think providing educational tools for people seems to be one of the things that could help empower those who would be targets of sexism. It seems simple but just educating people on what harassment is and how to react is way better over nothing. Prior to my current job, I'd only worked in companies that had less than 50 people, and not located in CA, so once I went through harassment training I was surprised to learn how much of the frat-boy behavior I'd experienced in small startups was sometimes straight up illegal.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com