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Comment by DarkWiiPlayer | Hacker News Reader

This constant "Men vs. Women" narrative really doesn't make any sense to me. I've always seen people as just that, as individuals, with strengths and preferences that will most likely decide what they will work as. Making everything about gender just annoys me, no matter who does it.

Was physics built by men? Sure, probably because women weren't allowed to, or maybe they really didn't want to, who knows. But this outrage isn't about those women in the past who could have made it big, is it? It's about the present day situation where gender is not a deciding factor (or a factor at all) in who is allowed by society to do what.

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I've always seen people as just that, as individuals

The problem is that there is lots of research indicating that while many people will swear up and down that this is what they do, in many cases it subconsciously isn't the case.

Had you asked me two years ago or so I would have absolutely sworn that I was no way biased with regards to gender, but about a year and a half ago I started to seriously introspect on these issues, specifically trying to focus on my subconscious actions and running through past interactions, and now I honestly don't feel confident claiming that anymore. I obviously never actively discriminate and try to be aware of my action, but the subconscious is a hard thing to control.

Great response. It's uncomfortable doing an honest self-evaluation.

Sure, everybody is biased in many ways. I am not claiming I don't have any bias, but those become irrelevant if you make an effort to decide things rationally. And in my opinion, when judging other people, we should always make sure we're basing our decision on rationality, not what feels better to us.

This obviously requires some work to train yourself to notice when you're lying to yourself or making up reasons to go with the decision that feels better when you should really know it's not the correct one.

Definitely not as overtly prohibitive as in the past, but still we have workplaces/systems/hierarchies which aren't as inclusive for men as they are for women. e.g.: you won't find many women on the trading floor, but I'm pretty sure there are a lot of women out there who would enjoy making a shit ton of money in a high-risk environment. However the treatment of women there is notoriously bad. It's not the job women don't want, it's the toxic environment which goes along with it.

I'm inclined to believe that those jobs are equally as toxic towards men as to women. This is purely based on my personal experience, but to me it seems as though men just grow more used to the typical male-to-male bullshit (pardon the expression) while growing up, so they can more easily just deal with it. Also, consider that it isn't enough that women want those jobs, there needs to be lots of women who want those jobs. If the set of people who 1. want those jobs and 2. believe they are capable of achieving them contains less women, then the subset of those people who are good enough to get those jobs will also contain less women.

Now, combining the factors that 1. girls are often confronted with an image of men being good at the sciencey stuff and women being better at caring for a family and 2. to women it's much more viable to instead attempt to get married to a man with one such high-paying job\, it makes sense that less women would attempt to get into those positions.

\ And I am not trying to say that's something only women do, but something men would probably do just as much if it was available to them.

So there's a benefit to reducing that "male-to-male bullshit" not only for men, but for women too

Yes, except that won't happen. Why would those men who can take the bullshit stop? Why would they make their job more attractive to their competition?

Noone is opposing the argument "reduce bullshit" (we're just pointing out it's unrealistic). But the argument "reduce bullshit because women" is simply sexist.

Would you say that women greatly outnumber men in university because the environment is toxic to men, there are systematic hierarchies holding men back, or men's preferences lead them not to attend?

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