Hacker News Reader

Comment by milesskorpen | Hacker News Reader

> ... Also, it was hard for a lot of guys to think with 100% efficiency in her presence.

I wish people thought more highly of men. I think that this kind of sentiment is inexcusable in the workplace. We're (mostly) all adults here. People are perfectly capable of working around attractive people.

View on HN

Similarly, people are also perfectly capable of working while thirsty, hungry, scared, cold or tired.

If you're an actual post-pubescent person, you could do a simple experiment: Try to do serious work with half the screen playing video of attractive people, then try it with video of three-toed sloths. Do they require the same amount of executive functioning? The same amount of energy? Assuming of course that you're romantically indifferent to sloths, that the number of cuts per second is roughly equal, etc.

Suppressing phylogenetically old parts of the brain is never free, even when it's desirable. Is this sentiment inexcusable in the workplace?

Actually, there are studies[1] showing the opposite: it's difficult for men to think straight when around attractive women.

[1] for example: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103109...

That's equivalent to citing studies showing that women are indeed weaker when it comes to math or computer programming.

The counter argument then is that it is because of society that they are weaker. The same could be argued here: it is because of society's conditioning of men that they can't think straight when around attractive women.

There are differences between males and females in pretty much every species on earth, I don't think you can ascribe "society" to every gender. As a man, natural instincts to flirt with the attractive women can get you a sexual harassment charge - when women do it to attractive men it's fine with everyone. Some part of the man's brain is going towards stopping his natural instincts which can lower work performance.

I think you are mistaken to think that being a man, in itself, is what causes flirting behavior to be hit with a sexual harassment complaint. The greater factor is that the man in the equation is likely to be the one in power, and thus the woman has a reason to feel threatened if she rebuffs him.

To be fair, that's quite subtle. Power relationships are often invisible and masquerading as something "light." It's easier to understand if you've been on the short end of the stick a bunch of times.

> ... Also, it was hard for a lot of guys to think with 100% efficiency in her presence.

I wish people thought more highly of men...People are perfectly capable of working around attractive people.

This was something I observed firsthand. Hardly scientific, of course, but still. I've also experienced palpable disdain and hostility from professors, up until the first test was graded, and they realized I was one of the top scoring students. There's just this slowly fading cultural phenomenon where some people expect certain professions to be populated by males who fit a certain mold.

Yes, people are perfectly capable of working around attractive people. In those contexts, there's time to acclimate and time to get to know them as people. As a college student, there are other contexts where there aren't the same strictures as a workplace and all you have to go on at first is what they look like in cutoff shorts and a "farmer's daughter" getup. (I once saw her have that effect on a visiting prof in that outfit.)

People act differently around unusually attractive and unattractive people. Some of these folks have issues that seem odd at first glance, like a tall, exceptionally attractive woman who cannot find a date.

It happens to guys too. At the end of the day, humans are really bizarre creatures.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com