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Comment by vfc1 | Hacker News Reader

The title subtly but still obviously implies that finances and investing are men's business, and not women's. I don't see how anyone can deny that.

I bet that many women reading this title that work in finance don't appreciate the title one bit.

The argument that it's just a joke is not acceptable, because this together with other 1000 similar remarks, or "jokes" or micro-agressions will make women choosing that field as inadequate over time.

This is actually a scientific fact, that people that are told several times that they are not able to do a task or don't belong performing the task will underperform doing that same task, when compared to people that are not subjected to that treatment.

Words are powerful, I wouldn't want my two daughters to put up with this type of bullshit growing up.

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The women in finance I know have much thicker skin than you think. They also put up with bullshit that is not on the same scale as this benign title.

Complaining about the little things can hurt the bigger cause if you piss people off in the process.

It's about the impact of 1000 little things.

The thousand little things seem to be experienced on your end. That this makes you condemn an author for his choice of headlines - when you've said nothing about the substance of an article - makes it seem like you have no guy-group to hang with. Get one! It'll clear up the perspective the guy's coming from.

There are fields that are currently over-whelmingly dominated by men. If you are a man, and you are in these fields, it seems like women just don't want to get involved.

But if you start looking with fresh eyes you start to see again and again and again small things, apparently insignificant things, that all combine to say "Women aren't welcome here." This is a single, simple, tiny, apparently insignificant example, but it's utterly ubiquitous.

Your dismissal just makes it clear that you either haven't noticed, or don't care. It's a sobering thing to realise that there is just so much subliminal repelling of women from fields such as finance, programming, physics, mathematics, engineering, and more. If you start to listen to women instead of just saying "it's all in your head" then you'll learn something.

And it's horrifying. I always feel guilty that when I get tired of the fight I can give up for a while. But that's because I'm a cis-het white male, and the system is biased in my favour. Others can't choose to give up - and it's relentless.

In this case, the social message implied in the headline is much more relevant than the content.

What is exactly the perspective that looks at the title of this article and thinks its perfectly OK?

I think it's intended to be a reference to "The boy's guide to usefulness" and similar 19th century books for boys.

But I agree with your underlying point. At best the title is careless and lends itself to misinterpretation.

(Worth noting, perhaps, that the linked paper was published in 2002. I wonder if the author would have thought twice in 2019?)

I doubt the author would use the title today, but still, if we don't call this kind of stuff out for what it is, it just keeps happening.

vcf, it is what it is ... the interpretations, judgments and your subsequent reactions however are, as you are keen to explain intended to get others to censor value creators (the pdf, not the industry). its probably you that should be happy for free speech more than he.

See my reply here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19984423

That is obviously false, nobody tried to censor the creator. People have just pointed out that the title is inappropriate, which it obviously is.

It implicitly conveys the message that women don't belong in Finance. I don't see how anyone could attempt at denying that or try to defend it.

I should be happy for free speech, what does that even mean LOL?

I agree with you entirely, although my comment making pretty much the same point is seeing wild swings in the voting:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19980584

There's a lot of incel lurkers here, and they seem to coordinate their actions somewhere else. Typical up/down vote patterns start with sensible upvotes and then a torrent of jealous downvotes.

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