Men who go into technical fields suffer serious scars from social rejection that's every bit as painful as apartheid. Considering that techie men spend their sensitive formative years being completely shut out and excluded from the company of women, a woman is pretty presumptuous to think she will be treated fairly by technically oriented men.
> Men who go into technical fields suffer serious scars from social rejection that's every bit as painful as apartheid
Lacking social skills makes one a victim of a crime against humanity? Really? Do you want to go read this and then tell me you still stand behind your remark?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_under_apartheid
> Considering that techie men spend their sensitive formative years being completely shut out and excluded from the company of women, a woman is pretty presumptuous to think she will be treated fairly by technically oriented men.
That's a little thing called misogyny. The fact that you had a hard time with your social skills in high school doesn't give you, or anyone else, the privilege to be shitty to women. If a particular person did a particular thing to you that's unkind, then you have a right to be aggrieved only with that one person. Anything beyond that suggests you're in need of therapy. Someone having a vagina is entirely unreleated to your traumas and I'm disgusted that the community hasn't downvoted you into invisibility for this nonsense.
Downvote me all you want, women haters of HN. I'd say the same and worse of this stupidity to this "man's" face as well. There's a place where points of view become so poisonous and pernicious, it's a moral duty to become angry rather than tolerate their continued reasonable discussion. This is bullshit of the highest order and if that needs to be explained to you then you're beyond anything my communication can do to help.
personally i've avoided overt sexual harassment. there might be a few times I was looking at some {lady,chick,bird,gal,differently-chromosomed person) the wrong way and received a message, sent by a third party, that i smelled bad, but that's it
personally i think the race, class, gender analysis that goes around looks at race and gender too much and ignore class. considering class, I'd say that only 20% of white people are really white.
if people treated every person they faced as entirely as an individual, they'd have no ability to cope with other people at all. you've got to make generalizations and expect to have a certain shared reality if you're going to communicate. for instance, there are different social conventions when you interact with women and men -- a 'feminist' who wants to change that would be on a project to eliminate the feminine.
when that shared reality is out of whack, people make a lot of pain for themselves and others. if you want this problem to change, you should assert your point of view, because this behavior is unfair. but please recognize that these people are suffering too... they're not getting any pleasure out of this BS, they just aren't. they need a kind of therapy that's very hard to get these days.
Their suffering is not being denied. Their suffering is being pointed out as completely tangential to the problem at hand.
The therapy that they need is simply to try not to mistreat women just because women didn't worship them to their liking in their earlier years.
They don't need to pay a therapist to have people online tell them this simple fact which they can learn from if they're interested in making their lives happier.
"Men who go into technical fields suffer serious scars from social rejection that's every bit as painful as apartheid."
I'm not really sure you get what apartheid is.
"[A] woman is pretty presumptuous to think she will be treated fairly by technically oriented men"
Why? Why is a woman, just because she's a woman, supposed to be treated unfairly? Just because some people were treated badly (supposedly) by other women? That's just... random. If I were treated badly by a blond person once, or even more times, that wouldn't make it OK for me to treat blonds badly, just because they're blond.
On top of these points, you're also implying a lot of things that aren't true.
"Men who go into technical fields suffer serious scars from social rejection"
All men? Only in technical professions? Why are you giving weight to this not very accurate representations of anyone going into a technical career being socially scarred? Even if it has some basis in fact, it's nowhere near ubiquitous. And it's certainly not only people in technical professions - many people have scars from childhood.
Besides, you're making it seem like the women are the problem, who "socially scar" and "completely shut out and exclude" technically-oriented men. In truth, it's often the men's fault. They just don't put as much effort into "socializing" that they do into other things. It might not always be conscious, but it's a choice they make. The worst thing to do is to "blame the women", both because it's inaccurate, and because it's unproductive.
I don't think you understand the magnitude to which this occurs. When a man has been rejected/ignored by EVERY SINGLE woman he has met thus far, you can't really blame him for not being very friendly towards the next woman he meets. This is a far cry from being "treated badly by a blond person once, or even more times".
> They just don't put as much effort into "socializing" that they do into other things.
Then perhaps women that want to be a part of the tech scene should put more effort into "socializing" as well. The high school social scene is every bit as brutal to nerds as the tech social scene is to women.
Of course and without question you can. The imposition here is that your constructed nerd is emotionally immature to the point where he cannot divorce the actions of one person from another. He may even be so emotionally immature--but that is his problem and nobody else's. Accepting and condoning it cannot be borne.
Then perhaps women that want to be a part of the tech scene should put more effort into "socializing" as well.
I am hoping I am reading this wrong, because the implication behind your use of the word "socializing" seems to not be the same as your post's parent. Please expound on this. What do you expect them to do?
lol, then why are we reading this article?
you can have all the expectations you like towards realizing your gender-equality utopia. very few of them will ever be respected.
whereas paul points out an actually addressable cultural issue.
Because sufficient social pressure is not regularly and consistently brought to bear on said misogynists to grow up.
Unfortunately.
Then what is your solution? When someone gets treated like shit by a group of people for years on end, you can't expect them to turn around and smile to that same group of people who are suddenly interested in him because he's overflowing with cash. It might be a surprise to you, but nerds are not unemotional robots.
> I am hoping I am reading this wrong, because the implication behind your use of the word "socializing" seems to not be the same as your post's parent. Please expound on this. What do you expect them to do?
Just as the quintessential nerd sticks out like a sore thumb in high school, women tend to stick out like a sore thumb in the tech industry. A lot of women in the tech industry tend to capitalize on their "otherness", just as nerds do in high school. In both cases, it's counterproductive.
You don't have to like every person you meet. I certainly don't. But you do have to tolerate them.
Like I said above, I am NOT condoning sexual harrassment or any other illegal activity in any way. I'm speaking in more general terms as to why the poor treatment women receive in the tech industry is not arbitrary or unfounded.
You are desperately trying to rationalize shitty behavior by immature people. The answer's not in "but she wouldn't date me when I wasn't attractive or interesting or socially competent".
.
Again: you don't have to like everyone. You do have to tolerate them. This should be so basic as to be beyond argument.
a) "Not very friendly" is a different thing from assault and harassment. Don't use weasel words; you are writing a defence of the assaults and harassment in your comments, not "unfriendliness."
b) Where do you think the rejections are coming from?
I can't imagine that many women would want to date someone who resents their entire gender based upon some juvenile grudge.
> The high school social scene is every bit as brutal to nerds as the tech social scene is to women.
Thus the two evils are cancelled out, and everyone is absolved of all responsibility for their actions!
Wait... that's not how it works? </sarcasm>
I am not condoning sexual harrassment or any other illegal activity in any way. But I don't see a problem with giving what you get (i.e., not going out of your way to help out or be friendly to women in the industry).
> I can't imagine that many women would want to date someone who resents their entire gender based upon some juvenile grudge.
You're putting the cart before the horse. The grudge is a RESULT of women not wanting to date them, NOT the CAUSE.
> Thus the two evils are cancelled out, and everyone is absolved of all responsibility for their actions!
> Wait... that's not how it works? </sarcasm>
You're still missing the point. People are not impartial and unemotional, even in a professional setting. Years of mental conditioning cannot be undone by just stating that certain rules of professional conduct must be followed.
Who's talking about "helping women out"? They don't need help. We're talking about not attacking them. You continue to use weasel words, except when directly confronted with your acceptance of harassment and assault, that imply that--hey--it's just not that big a deal.
You are wrong. It is that big a deal. And acceptance of these behaviors--you can say you're not, but to be entirely honest I suspect disingenuity--is also wrong.
You're putting the cart before the horse. The grudge is a RESULT of women not wanting to date them, NOT the CAUSE.
And if they're emotionally unstable and immature enough to hold that sort of grudge, why exactly would anyone want to date them in the first place?
It does, at the end of the day, go back to people who are reasonable and well-adjusted having little interest in close personal relationships with people who are unreasonable and ill-adjusted. Why should they behave otherwise? Why can't the ill-adjusted people with the seething rage toward anyone who doesn't have a Y chromosome grow up a little?
People are not impartial and unemotional, even in a professional setting. Years of mental conditioning cannot be undone by just stating that certain rules of professional conduct must be followed.
It's hard, so they shouldn't do it?
I'm not suggesting women in particular need help. Whether it's high school or the tech industry, a helping hand is always nice when you're getting started. But there's no reason to give one to someone who never gave you one when you needed it.
> And if they're emotionally unstable and immature enough to hold that sort of grudge, why exactly would anyone want to date them in the first place?
Emotional instability and immaturity are not personality traits inherent to all nerds. They are a RESULT of years of being ignored by women.
Like I said before, the grudge is a RESULT of women not wanting to date them. At the beginning of high school, the nerds weren't emotionally unstable or immature. That is a RESULT of social isolation.
> It does, at the end of the day, go back to people who are reasonable and well-adjusted having little interest in close personal relationships with people who are unreasonable and ill-adjusted. Why should they behave otherwise? Why can't the ill-adjusted people with the seething rage toward anyone who doesn't have a Y chromosome grow up a little?
For the same reason that high school girls can't grow up a little and stop ignoring all the guys who aren't wearing jock straps and walking around with footballs.
> Oh. It's hard, so they shouldn't do it.
And it's hard to socialize with nerds in high school, so women just shouldn't do it, right?
...
Wait...sorry, no, it makes no sense at all. And it's bullshit, to boot. Hell, I wasn't "wearing a jock strap and walking around with a football"--I'm overweight, tried out for the baseball team and totally bombed it, and was legendarily bad at sports in general--but I did all right. I could have been called a nerd in high school and college. I had serious computer interests (and in college I did Google Summer of Code twice), I was horrible at sports, all that. But I chose to socialize and act like a reasonably normal guy. Sports and all that are nice, I'm sure, but a decent--not great--personality, a willingness to take risks and sometimes be embarrassed, and a modicum of wit did, and do, me pretty well.
It's not about playing sports. It's about leaving the basement and choosing to not adopt a victim complex just because some--not all, but some--people don't like you. These are things that our hypothetical nerds can choose to do, but don't.
.
Nerds make it impossible for people to want to socialize with them. I know this from experience, 'cause I did it too--I just realized what I was doing and stopped. Then they turn around and make other people--who, in this case, want to socialize with them, want to go to a conference where they are--miserable. That is, to be completely blunt, utterly fucked. And the blame lies solely on them for refusing to grow the hell up and act like a halfway decent human being.
That people who talk the way you are have unresolved issues means they need therapy--it is not a license to hurt other people because they can't take care of themselves.
I would hazard a guess that companies that focus on not hiring assholes would not have the problems the writer refers to. I would further guess that there are enough people in the startup world who don't feel accountable and never had professionalism (hell, basic manners) hammered into their skulls that think their behavior is OK.
(EDIT: Paul's explanation in his reply is much more level-headed and worth a read)
actually, i don't excuse this behavior; if a i caught a friend sexually harassing somebody, i'd give them a really hard time.
on the other hand, the culture as a whole is experiencing a "crisis of object relations." young people in Japan and Europe aren't marrying and having children at a rate that can support a stable population. i know so many people who've made it into their 40's lonely and i know many people who've suffered the wreckage of divorce both as adults and children. i'm appalled by the murderous destruction that homophobia causes to our communities.
the fact is I'm in a committed relationship with a women that's basically successful. we talk about stuff like this all the time. i can definitely say i've had serious pain in the past. if i've got any real fault, it's that i'm terrifyingly able to work within different and contradictory viewpoints.
it's terrible. but the structure of institutions is that they subject people to traumas and then compel them to transmit those traumas to others. they're selfish memes.
sadly you're also making a mistake expecting the victimizers to go out and get therapy.
as an analogy, it would be great if post-civil war impoverished whites had a round of therapy to adjust any racism they harbored towards blacks. more likely only addressing their economic situation was ever going to be effective.
there really is a causal relation between the high school cultural problem paul describes and the situation the op author encounters. that's probably the level we'll have to address this at.
The high school cultural problem you're referring to, at least with regard to people who end up in tech fields, etc., seems to be much more along the lines of "they won't turn off their computers and go hang out with people." And I say that knowing full well that for most of high school that was me, too. Look inward, people.
that's just not going to spontaneously happen across all the individuals concerned.
where as paul has actually identified a situation that can be addressed.
Paul's point is not without merit, but it is not one that leads to a solution. "Get girls to date guys who aren't desirable" seems like a non-starter.
[1] - and "relatively normal" is pretty broad, especially in high school and college; there's a social group, and a social group that is not uniformly male, for everybody who actually wants to socialize.
Is propositioning Ms. Camp either responsible or mature?
If you spend your formative years not taking advantage of the opportunities that exist, I have trouble mustering sympathy. (And like I said elsewhere in this thread, I certainly did that until the middle of high school. It's not easy to break out of it, but the only one who can is you.)
Anyone that doesn’t mature at least somewhat from such scenarios is actively choosing not to. Maybe not consciously, but they are making the decision to resent and blame, rather than regret and find out why they got rejected.
many young men feel like they're destined to go to the grave alone. they can't picture any chain of events that could lead to having any relationship at all with a women. they get angry and hateful which seals their doom.
yes, they should resist the urge to commit unconstructive behaviors. the fact is some of them won't.
really these people need to get past their traumas AND learn new skills; non-directive therapy alone doesn't work because these people need to develop entirely new software. I hate saying it, but people like Ross Jefferies have come the closest to identifying the needs of these people, but we badly need relationships skills training that's effective through the lifecycle of the relationship.
sexual harassers should be punished, but punishment doesn't get to the root of the problem; it's terrifyingly easy to be born into the wrong family and social context and to just not be equipped for the world of relationships and work -- yet that kind of family background is something you can't choose just like you can't choose to be black or gay.
I'd love to cut her a break, but her and I are too similar for me to let this go.
If you want to see improvement in this area, stop making excuses for sexists and let them realise that their attitudes are not tolerated, let alone actions like the one related from the blog.
It may be "presumptuous" to expect equality and fairness but it is exactly what everyone ought to be expecting, and in its absence the correct action is to fight the culture, not silence.
But the fact of the matter is, humans are learning machines, and they will generalize their experiences. So, if a male geek is terribly mistreated by women as a teenager, he will almost certainly resent them for it and probably treat women worse later in life. At least, they'll have a prior belief that women are cruel, cruel creatures unless proven otherwise.
Thus, justified or not, the way group A (women) behaves towards group B (geeky men) does have an influence on how individuals from group B behave towards individuals from group A.
But I don't think dating someone is the only way to show kindness.
Once they hit real life and realize that things aren't as easy as they were lead to believe, things get nasty.
On the other hand, most nerds/geeks tend to have had more time looking inward, and are sometimes more able to empathize with others. Or they ignore the social scene altogether.
(just my experience, YMMV)
I'm a nerd. My sister's a choreographer. My parents encouraged my sister to date my nerdy friends. It generally had the opposite effect.
"techie men spend their sensitive formative years being completely shut out and excluded from the company of women" <-- that is not true at all. These prototypical 'techie men' actively focus on things other than social development. There is a way to develop socially whilst going into technical fields, and that involves actually trying to be social.
what the "high school" social rejection you point to really contributes to is a certain lack of empath if not satisfaction with the plight of women in the industry.
There are no absolutes.
You have your religion; I have mine.
Each of us is always justifying whatever we do.