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Comment by adelevie | Hacker News Reader

Very interesting and worth taking a look at, but as a male programmer who doesn't go to conferences (where it seems the most striking instances of sexism occasionally occur), how am I privileged? End users don't care what gender I am, and the end users will ultimately determine how my work is valued.

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An answer to the question of how you may be privileged is provided:

http://lafalafu.com/krc/privilege.html

I read the checklist. Isn't it presumptive to assume that I play video games?

No assumption are made about your video game preferences in that linked page.

>Getting invited to play video games with people, because they haven't assumed you won't be interested because of your gender.

It's also presumptive to assume that I won't be judged by the way I dress because I'm a guy, that potential partners don't immediately consider me a dork with no social skills because I work with computers, that I'm considered a hero rather than lazy when I put life ahead of work, that I get to walk home unafraid after a late night coding spree (because guys are never harmed, or raped, right? and I'm never worried that I'll be unable to defend myself since I'm a big strong man, right?)

"34. The freedom to listen to speakers use gender fields in database schemata as an example of an attribute that never changes and only has two possible values without having to sit on your hands."

This one doesn't seem to belong as I'm sure most women would be just as likely to make this assumption as men, wouldn't they? This seems like it should be on a separate "Non-TransGender Programmer Privilege Checklist".

I believe the author of this list is, in fact, trans-gendered. This is mentioned way down at the bottom.

The bit about using a gender as an example of an attribute that never changes doesn't seem like a specifically male error. I'm sure there are any number of women who would also make the same mistake and I don't think it's about gender, it's about assumptions that we all make. An equally good example is the way people store names of people in databases.

This list and the parent article are both, in my opinion, way off base. Some people are juvenile and obnoxious and we can pick them out of a crowd by this very behavior. Turning around and telling everyone else in the room that they are just as juvenile and obnoxious is unreasonable and unfair. Part of being an open group is letting pretty much anyone who's interested into the room.

I can understand why many of these criticisms would be characterized as whining. Some of these items seem like nitpicking when compared to some of the very real injustices that women face in the workplace, for instance, the fact that they aren't paid the same wage for the same work. Better curation of this list might help ameliorate that issue.

Most of these "privileges" are the privileges of the majority. Majorities and minorities are a fact of life, whether you distinguish gender, education, skillsets, race, age, religion, fitness, lifestyle, etc.

i.e. there is not much specific about maleness or programming. Programming happens to be majority male, so it's easy to think this checklist is more specific than it really is.

    1. Any majority
    2. Any majority
    3. Not true.  Male partner does not get a free nepotism pass
    4. Consider a male nurse, appreciating McSteamy.
    5. Consider a technician in coveralls.  Janitor?
    6. Any majority
    7. Reasonable.  c.f. Horny
    8. Any majority
    9. Reasonable.  c.f. Pilates / Yoga
    10. Reasonable.  Assholes exist
    11. Reasonable.  c.f. Pilates / Yoga
    12. Asinine.
    13. Context?  c.f. Pilates / Yoga
    14. Asinine.  Only distracts females?  Products and systems are 
        anthropomorphized female as well.
    15. Asinine. I've witnessed open door talks.
    16. Completely asinine.  How on earth could one possibly sleep one's way 
        into a bug fix?  Assholes exist.
    17. There exist male programmers who are not appreciated for their 
        professional competence.  There exist male employees who are 
        appreciated for their dispute resolution skills.
    18. Completely asinine.  More context needed.
    19. Asinine.  Computer programmers are unattractive dorks who live in 
        their parents' basement.
    20. Any majority.
    21. Unfounded.
    22. Reasonable.  c.f. Sex and the City
    23. Unfounded.  c.f. skateboarding
    24. Unfounded.  c.f. Porcelain dolls
    25. Unfounded.  it happens both ways
    26. Asinine.  We all have to Dress For Work.
    27. Unfounded.  e.g. DHH [citation needed, but it can't be too hard to find]
    28. Straw man.  Not the same as LOLcats.  False dichotomy regarding 
        colleague perspective.  Did anyone really laugh at this?
    29. Reasonable, but is there any evidence any attendee saw another attendee 
        primarily as a sex object?
    30. Any majority.  c.f. male nurse
    31. Completely unfounded.
    32. Reasonable.  c.f. Joe Sixpack
    33. Reasonable.  c.f. Forums / 4chan
    34. Unfounded.  Why are males exempt from this discomfort?
    35. Unfounded.  Males are not exempt from this worry.
    36. Asinine.  Everyone without a chip on her shoulder has this freedom.
    37. Straw man.  *Pure* meritocracy, really?
    38. Completely unfounded.  Males are in no way exempt from death threats.  
        e.g. crypto / security researchers
    39. Dubious.  Let's see the responses to this very comment ;)
    40. Dubious.  c.f. the privilege to promote the privilege of the male 
        programmer

As a numbered wall o' text, it looks formidable, but a lot of these items are mere rephrasing or restatements of the same complaint (valid or not). I must admit this list is thought provoking, and it is good to enumerate these sorts of things.

However, there are some extremely weak claims here, and their very presence undermines the overall effort. I was interested to know just how privileged I was, but after scanning a few of these, it's hard to take the author seriously.

Wish I had the time to extensively rebut in this way, but completely agree. Privilege exist everywhere at all times, with all kinds of complexity, and goes both ways many times. It is overcome through character, not complaint.

Link at the bottom provides a decent list: http://lafalafu.com/krc/privilege.html

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