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Comment by epicureanideal | Hacker News Reader

Very well written, and I completely agree.

But how can we have this discussion as a society when anyone attempting to discuss it is shouted down as a bigot? (Which is odd because it’s unfair discrimination we’re trying to fix.)

In our workplaces it is acceptable to promote one side of the argument, which is declared by HR to be morally virtuous, but promoting the other side of the argument would quickly lead to termination.

Outside the workplace, any attempt to organize or speak out on this topic will similarly be intentionally misinterpreted and then the mob will demand the person be fired.

I’m not sure how we resolve this when only one half of the discussion is allowed.

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At one job at a large company, several women were sitting at a nearby table during lunch discussing how much they love tall men and talking about how too many of the men in San Francisco were too short to be dateable. So I reported this to HR through the proper channels, not to get them into trouble but just in the hopes that someone would let them know that wasn't appropriate workplace conversation.

Net result: HR lady laughed about it, let them know I had personally made the complaint, leading to teasing and mockery and no disciplinary action.

Now, imagine if you had a group of men talking about how much they loved big boobs in the workplace and ranking the women in the company on the perkiness of their tits...

HR protects the company from discrimination lawsuits, not the employees from discrimination. Talk to a lawyer.

I usually agree, but the way HR responded here actually implicated the company more in the sexual harassment, not less. A self-interested company would have proceeded according to established procedure, not participated in it itself.

Not that that would be worth making a federal court case out of things anyway. I just wanted to be able to sit down and do good work for a generally tolerable company without distraction.

Stop being a pocket sized snitch.

I think he overreacted but what if it was two men talking about how SF women are too skinny?

It's the double standard that gets me. Either people don't objectify members of the opposite sex at the workplace, or they do. A quote that applies here:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition: there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

We need to strive for liberal egalitarianism, not the reactionary identity group politics that typify politics on both sides in the US nowadays.

Collective action, studies and lawsuits.

The difficult part for men, is maintaining appropriate targeting and not supporting or even providing the appearance of supporting causes that could be easily construed as chauvinistic or patriarchal. The sooner collective action begins, the less damage current policies will inflict on the population in the long-term. The problem is as you described, it's tricky to navigate for fear of retribution of going against the current flow of interpretation. Special interest groups who benefit from current policies will ardently work against them to maintain their sort of market share of resources and political power.

It doesn't make much sense to try and have a general discussion about a topic that is very context dependent.

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