Hacker News Reader

Comment by kdelok | Hacker News Reader

(not for me, so I'm not sure how much I could respond to questions)

Is Leap for people who are i) female, ii) identify as a woman, or iii) both?

I ask because I have a few friends who are biologically female, but genderqueer (by which they mean that they don't prescribe to the cultural stuff that is usually attached to gender). Would this be suitable for them?

As a more general note, since this looks to be a community that's about inclusion and addressing discrimination, it might be worth taking care not to conflate "female" and "woman".

View on HN

Thank you for asking. iii – My goal is to create an inclusive community. I'd say Leap is suitable for your friend. I am also learning as I go, so would love feedback!

Again! Your goal is not to create an inclusive community. Your goal is to create an exclusive community.

Look, if want to create a female only website then go for it. But you have to own your actions. You can't exclude half the population then claim you care about inclusion. That is rank hypocrisy bordering on the delusional - you are doing the exact opposite of what you claim.

I warned you once in this thread already (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16161338), but you've managed to break yet another HN site guideline with this comment, the one that reads as follows:

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.

Obviously Cadran was talking about making Leap inclusive within the scope of being a forum for women—that's what the question was about. You don't have to agree with any particular view to see that, it just takes basic respect. If you can't or won't abide by the rules here, please stop commenting until you can.

It appears to me that sievebrain's criticism lines up with any plausible interpretation of cbcowans' comment. One cannot claim the benefits of inclusion while also excluding half the population, and arguably more than half of tech professionals.

That's not to say that there's necessarily anything wrong with exclusion -- it is a fact of life in many ways, and can be fruitful. I am a member of some exclusive clubs and I find them to be highly rewarding.

Perhaps "hypocrisy" and "delusion" are inflammatory words, and should not have been chosen. I think a better way to characterize cbcowans' comment is "doublespeak," as the inherent nature of Leap is quite the opposite of her description.

Still, in regard to that particular HN site guideline, sievebrain's point applies to even the strongest possible interpretation of cbcowans' comment. There is necessarily a logical inconsistency between establishing an exclusive organization and then describing it as "an inclusive community."

Words' meanings aren't absolute, they're relative to context. I bet we could find a dozen examples of that in your comment alone if we looked.

In this case the context is the question. Q: are all who identify as women welcome to join? A: yes, we want to be inclusive of all who identify as women. It's clear what "inclusive" means there, the same way it's clear that "join" doesn't mean sticking things together with carpenter's glue.

It does take a little work to remember that the same word can have two different scopes in the same discussion. Similarly, one might not use the same variable name to mean two different things in the same function. Nevertheless the meaning was reasonably clear and certainly plausible.

The problem is that when a word carries an emotional charge and the topic carries an emotional charge, outer-cortex nuances get flooded by deeper defensive reactions. This happens to all of us. It's one reason why discussions like this need moderation and the moderators need a lot of practice—and a lot of support—in order not to get flooded themselves. I'm dangling by the same thread much of the time, so I have empathy for it, but it's not ok for commenters to let themselves become disrespectful.

So here's the thing.

No space is being taken away. A new space is being created. This space is to give a voice to a population who reports, as a group, being silenced and undermined in other spaces by the dominant group.

This allows voices to be heard that weren't heard before. That's inclusion. Having those voices stay silent is exclusion.

Thank you. It's really common for the arrival of a women-only (or trans-only, survivors-only etc.) space to be met with alarm from men. On the surface, that's not even a bad reflex to have - identify things that seem exclusive, and try to make them more inclusive.

But what we don't always realize is that the internet isn't terribly inclusive in the first place. There's a prevailing atmosphere in well-populated tech spaces - Reddit, HN - that tends to shut down women's voices, especially if they're talking about an experience that men on the internet can't relate to.

I'm all for this project, hope it works out.

I don't get it. How are these voices going to be heard outside of the echo chamber of the community? For voices to be heard by the broader population, the echo chamber needs to be open and inclusive.

I'd love to chime in on this particular question. I am biologically female, but am gender-nonconforming in how I actually present and identify. I still see tons of utility in a place like Leap. While I don't fit the traditional description of what a woman looks like, I still am very much treated like one in the workplace (not to mention all the years of socialization and cultural treatment as a woman)!

A community that is only for people who "identify as women" is _not_ an inclusive community. Perhaps your comment should read - "My goal is to create an inclusive community only for people who identify as women". That will more accurately reflect what you've created.

> My goal is to create an inclusive community.

You may have noble intentions, but refusing nearly half the population simply on the basis of their anatomy is not inclusive.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com