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Comment by firefoxd | Hacker News Reader

This is anecdotal but I'm sure many people are seen this increasingly. In the past 10 years on the job, I'm seeing more guys make jokes about how stupid they are. Every time they make a single mistake they say "oh my God, if my head wasn't attached to my shoulders..."

Then it becomes a competition of who has done the dumbest thing. I know it's just being playful, but you rarely see the opposite.

Turn the tables, I was in a meeting with a male and female coworker. The guy was saying how stupid he was, and the female stopped him and said: You shouldn't say that about yourself, in a serious tone.

I don't ever remember a girl telling me how dumb she is.

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That's even a common trope in sitcoms. The husband is a loveable but bumbling idiot, while his wife is the voice of reason who frequently needs to save him from his own bad decisions. I wonder if the shows are imitating life, or the other way around. My wife did her master's thesis on discrimination based on communication, and in her research she found a study showing that the constant depiction of people with a southern accent as being stupid leads the majority of southern children, as young as 10 years old, to view themselves as inferior to people without the accent. Maybe the same is true with TV shows and movies frequently showing males as stupid.

I spent some serious time as teenager training myself out of my southern accent for this reason. You could have a PHD in Astrophysics, but if you speak with a southern accent people will assume you're an idiot.

The only downside, is that I have a slight speech impediment, but it's mild enough that most people don't notice.

And for some reason I still (25 years later) tend to pronounce hill as "heel".

Haha, I love having a southern accent for this reason. It makes it very hard for one to sound pretentious.

This has been going on for a while in advertising as well.

I wonder...

After doing something stupid at work, I once said, out loud, "AnimalMuppet, if brains were leather, you couldn't saddle a flea." And 30 seconds later I was over it and back to work. I didn't say that because I think I'm stupid. No, I was able to say it because I'm sure that I'm smart. The security of being sure made me able to say that.

I wonder if the females don't feel secure enough to say such things, or if they're just wired differently. (So that saying derogatory things about themselves, which they don't actually believe, is an alien concept. It sounds rather weird when I put it that way...)

It's the new status contest among men in technical circles.

Who can self-deprecate, feign uncertainty and fake modesty in the most sophisticated way. Everyone is competing for the "nice guy" designation - or perhaps they're frightened of the "asshole" designation - and they're using deception as the means.

It's reminiscent of stale scientific writing where every statement is hedged with endless caveats just so they can't get singled out for overstepping slightly.

Right, it's a mating strategy probably. I'm not sure it works (we tend to select towards strong men in whatever capacity is relevant, in this case actual intelligence) but a desperate man will gladly debase himself tactically if their other wells are dried up.

People would rather be liked than respected I guess but I also think that many today can't tell the difference.

I've had a significantly different experience with this. I know a few men who self-deprecate when they make a mistake, but I know more women who do. I haven't seen it turn into a competition on who's done the dumbest thing because I'm seldom in groups where self-deprecation is widely encouraged. I've been the person encouraging people not to self-deprecate in this way, so I don't think it's really a gendered thing. I'm curious if this is trending differently in different age groups I'm almost 40.

Haha this is likely some sort of selection bias effect because I need constant validation and I have a group of friends who are all like that and a group of friends who are all not like that.

If I were in one group, I reckon I'd form one opinion and if I were in the other I'd form the other opinion.

I'd be wary of making population generalizations when one uses sample populations highly susceptible to selection bias: one's friends and one's coworkers - both of whom are usually selected for agreeableness with the group, either directly for friends or indirectly through culture fit for coworkers.

Women avoid saying such self-deprecating things because they already have a tougher time than men being listened to, taken seriously, promoted, etc. Not that there aren't exceptions, but most women are acutely aware of how they act and are perceived at work because they start off at a disadvantage. I imagine few men ever think "will my gender get in the way of my ideas, or my work relationships or my career trajectory?".

I don't fully agree with you, at least not in the European tech world. According to my experience, women in technical jobs have a higher chance of getting hired, winning a presentation award, and being promoted to team or project manager.

On the other hand, I also think that they have a harder time taken serious on highly techical topics, and earn less on average for the same job.

It comes with benefits and drawbacks. I honestly don't know which outweighs which, but putting it all in a negative perspective is unfair and not accurate.

Don't know why the pretty obvious explanation for why this sort of thing is common is downvoted.

Even if you're some weirdo who thinks there is no gender discrimination in the workplace, you can't deny that many women at least perceive there to be gender discrimination, and one of the tips passed around is to stop self-deprecating yourself in front of your colleagues.

I don't know for a fact either, but would guess the reason is a childhood of girls telling each other nasty things would make them weary of harsh language even when directed at the self.

With that part unmentioned, the GP seems to assign dubious priorities to human motivations.

> With that part unmentioned, the GP seems to assign dubious priorities to human motivations.

Really? The only motivating factor assumed in the GP looks to be that women want to be successful in their careers. Is that a dubious claim?

No... Priority. Not claim.

I'm saying that I think the downvotes comes from something GP didn't say rather than something they did say.

> Even if you're some weirdo who thinks there is no gender discrimination in the workplace, you can't deny that many women at least perceive there to be gender discrimination,

Sample size of one, but if my company has the option to hire a male or a female engineer which are known to have the exact same skillset and experience I expect them to choose the female one 10/10 times:

- hiring the man gets the job done

- hiring the woman gets the job done equally well and gets you a pat on the back (both immediately and also whenever the statistics are brought up)

You are very close to getting it, but you're missing one crucial detail.

> which are known to have the exact same skillset and experience

Sure if there was an objective way to evaluate this, then you're right.

But there isn't. We THINK that there is, but there is a ton of subjective bias along the way from who recruiters contact, the resume screen, all the way through the interview.

And the whole point of gender discrimination is that "on average" women's technical skills and experience are undervalued.

That's the premise people are making when they discuss discriminations. Now, you might disagree, and then we can get into the details of why this happens, which parts are conscious and which parts are unconscious. But what's happening is not how you're describing it.

> And the whole point of gender discrimination is that "on average" women's technical skills and experience are undervalued.

As have been pointed out before: most of us live in somewhat capitalist societies. Capitalists are AFAIK primarily greedy not primarily evil.

I don't believe for a second that Facebook wouldn't take the opportunity straight away if they could get the same work done for less money by hiring women instead.

IBM too. That should cause a feedback loop that increases salaries for female engineers until balance is reached.

Anything other would imply a lack of information somewhere or that capitalists were more evil than greedy.

Now that I think of it: Lack of information one or more places is actually an interesting hypothesis in its own right.

This isn't substantively responsive to my comment, about the perception of gender discrimination.

Seems you are right.

I probably replied to the wrong comment. Or didn't really read your comment.

Sorry.

> I don't ever remember a girl telling me how dumb she is.

Thats because girls blame it on their *astrological sign*

In all seriousness, I truly believe girls mature way earlier than guys. Just look at insurance rates.

Only confident people mock themselves.

I have to disagree with this. While there are plenty of confident people who will mock themselves in humor, I've also known many people whose self mocking hides a very negative self image that needs serious if not professional help that they often don't get.

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