Why women write about being women in tech
code.likeagirl.io
code.likeagirl.io
So, then, just stop. You have posted six articles to HN so far and they all appear to be about this same subject. I would be thrilled if you wrote about something else and posted that.
I get it: The door has been opened and this stuff is getting a certain amount of sympathy here on HN and not merely being completely pissed all over for a change. So, you and a few other women are all excited as hell that you can feel heard for a change.
But being heard as just a victim is not real progress. It actually helps keep this problem alive. While you have a little bit of attention, why not talk about cool tech or something so that the world can see you as something other than a whiny bitch?
I like talking about this subject at times myself. When I do comment on it, it gets vastly more attention than most other things I do. So, I fully understand how the behavior of other people contributes to this cycle of only talking about being a woman in tech because it is the most positive experience you have had all day. Everything else you have said on any other subject has probably been largely ignored or completely shot down.
But, ultimately, it is on us women to decide to put the focus on other things.
It's fine if you find it cathartic to blog about this. I do plenty of blogging to process stuff. But, if this is the ONLY thing you blog about and/or the ONLY thing you post to HN, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
If you reject the idea that you are to blame for the sins of your ancestors, you don't immediately see the need to fix the imbalances that resulted from their actions.
This is not wrong, per se (e.g., children shouldn't go to jail if their father commits murder), but it confuses responsibility with culpability.
Men bear responsibility for eliminating sexism even if not personally culpable for creating it.
> shaming girls for having visible bodies and prioritizing the education of boys over girls, rather than teaching boys to pay attention and not objectify girls.
... implies that boys specifically do not pay attention to girls, and instead objectify them.
> in an industry that continues to raise up and pat the most historically powerful and privileged amongst us — white men — on the back
... constructs white men as a group who is generously risen up and patted on the back
> Instead of being recognized for the complex, multi-dimensional individuals we are — a privilege white men are afforded at birth
... constructs white men as collectively understood as complex and multidimensional.
These all strike me as somewhat accurate, to a degree. However I somewhat agree with your OP that this kind of essentialism, when used to fight sexism is counterproductive.
I would prefer we try to stop essentializing altogether. We don't need to say "men are X" in order say "I would like to make sure women are afforded opportunity Y". I think there's a path here where we can talk about the specific behaviors we want to discourage, without constructing those behaviors as typical of men.
Not because they are atypical of men, but because we are trying to construct men who are not doing those behaviors, and we need a definition of manhood that works for those men too. Unless the plan is for men to disavow manhood entirely, but I don't see a lot of feminists advocating for that yet.
Tone arguments are so often used for concern trolling around women's issues (and doubly so on HN) that I don't have much patience for them. Frankly, there is no way these problems can be phrased that will both make everyone happy and not omit crucial facts of the scenario (i.e., that women cannot achieve equality without men who are both aware of these problems and willing to act on them).
The linked article doesn't blame "all men" for anything. It does talk about systemic problems that need addressing. E.g., there are unfair advantages that men have just from growing up in society, that need to be rectified, even though it's not their fault they have those advantages.