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Comment by nailer | Hacker News Reader

My wife works in an industry dominated by women and gay males. AFAICT, nobody in this industry thinks this is for any reason other than women and gay males being interested at the work and few straight males being interested. People get that, as a whole, gender and sexuality shape your interests. There's no scare articles about something being wrong with the industry, or large companies trying to hire straight male quotas, but where they exist, people like them and appreciate them for what is frequently a different and refreshing focus.

And as a straight male, I'm OK with this.

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When I was a kid I loved dressing up and makeup, etc. My parents (thankfully) did not discourage this type of play, but did they encourage me to make a career out of this interest? No. Was there anything in society that pushed me, a straight male, towards this career? Not really. Instead, while I was playing with Barbie I was also telling everyone I wanted to be an aeronautical engineer, mainly because I liked paper airplanes.

Kids seek approval from adults, adults approved of my interest in engineering, not my interest in fashion. Is it a surprise that I majored in CS?

You do make a good point. Part of the reason I was attracted to my wife is an appreciation of the traditionally creative industries, something that's always held my interest - I use to buy a lot of fashion magazines as a kid, and I got started programming by doing architecture inside video games. I think that boys interested in the arts are often pushed towards 'manly' pursuits like architecture rather than traditionally soft skills like fashion design - my parents were this way, it yours seems yours were too. Now I'm 30, and I regret not engaging the creative part of my brain more readily.

Perhaps we should be saying that girls who want to make stuff on computers should be encouraged to pursue that, just like boys who want to make clothes. No quotas, no 50% expectation, just encouragement for the kids who need it.

So what industry is this, and who are their customers?

1. Fashion.

2. Anyone who wears clothes (from streetwear brands like All Saints that do jeans and t shirts to D&G to bridalwear to millinery to anything in between).

There's a lot to say on this subject but basically it comes down to this:

What you think of as fashion is designing or observing women's high fashion and not something like traditional tailoring, watchmaking or other more male oriented fashion. There are straight men even in women's high fashion, but generally in higher positions. You also have straight men in all parts of outdoor clothing or sportswear, which is more utilitarian but most of the time still has a higher price point than fast fashion. Why men's high fashion is more conservative than women's is another story.

That being said. While women's gender role are stricter, men's gender role is much less questioned. Probably because of the disadvantages being less measurable.

> What you think of as fashion is designing or observing women's high fashion

If by you meant me specifically, that's clearly not true. See the post you replied to.

Ok, I guess you mean retail then. But then I don't get your point as retail overall isn't overly women and gay male dominated. Sure, most stores cater to women and women's fashion retailers are generally going to have predominantly female clerks and store managers, but this doesn't translate to higher positions most of time.

Anyway, the whole issue for me isn't personal like I get impression of in the article. It's about the freedom to do whatever you want without being forced to fit in a predetermined mold, both for men and women.

Like I said there's much to be said on the subject and maybe there are some cultural differences. Also I have somewhat of a hard time expressing my thoughts on the subject as most of my reasoning on the subject has been in my native language. This probably isn't the most enthusiastic audience when it comes to this anyways.

No need to guess, just ask. I mean design and production, not retail. Even if you buy jeans and T shirts, the designers and producers are majority female or gay men.

Might be a cultural thing then [1]. I do agree that there are far more women in fashion design and production than men. But I can off the top of my head think of several "fashion startups" with (one or more as far as I know straight) male founders or head designers [2]. Something I can't say about women in technology startups.

[1] Sweden is the home of H&M and also supposedly one of the more gender equal countries in the world.

[2] Acne, WeSC, Odd Molly, J.Lindeberg, Cheap Monday/Weekday, Our Legacy, Peak Performance, Whyred etc.

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