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Comment by geoffschmidt | Hacker News Reader

This seems to boil down to "Oh, it's so hard for the men to change. They've had a hard life too! Cut them some slack."

I couldn't disagree more. Sexism will end when we (1) educate people about what constitutes sexism, (2) stop tolerating it.

Everyone can help with (1) to some degree. Not every one is in a position to do (2), but those that can, such as the many startup founders that read HN, should.

It seems to me that in your post you are doing the opposite of both. You are arguing that we should stop talking about it, and that we should tolerate it.

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That's not what I'm getting at at all. This might be the most misunderstood thing I've written. If this keeps up I'll likely rewrite again.

Read my last paragraph in my post again, please. What I'm trying to get at is that if you want to really squash an issue let's do more than the easy thing of "awareness". Why don't we actually get involved somewhere else? Help out in the places where this type of crap actually originated and keep it from happening in the end. Try to prevent the problem, don't just suppress it when it arises in certain cases. It seems the better long-term solution; IMO it's easier to correct less-formed opinions and put people on the right track then. "How to correct sexism in Silicon Valley" isn't just "hey, get mad at people when they say something out of line", it's also "hey, let's try to get people to understand why this hurts us in the first place".

Do you really think this article didn't help? Do you really think that anyone who read it is going to behave like the Geek List guys did?

You'd have to be really clueless to read it and then make the same mistake that they did. For better or worse, public ridicule is an incredibly effective tool for changing behavior. It changes the behavior not just of the person who was ridiculed, but of everyone who saw it happen.

So yes, I think it is totally realistic to change people's behavior today, "by getting mad at them when they say something out of line." It's unpleasant for everyone concerned, but it works.

Your "better long-term solution" sure is "easier" for us men, but it's not easier for the women...

Also, fundamentally what you are doing is excusing sexist behavior. You're saying "these people, in some sense, aren't fully in control of their actions; it's not their fault that they didn't get the appropriate training as children; it's too hard for them to change." I think that that is a harmful idea to advance. First of all, it gives people cover when they behave inappropriately. Second, it's disempowering -- nobody wants to be thought of as a helpless case that can't change.

We are still missing each other somewhere here.

I'm not saying that this article doesn't help, but I'm saying it's the equivalent of pouring water on a fire, and we're ignoring the systemic cultural stuff that started the fire in the first place. What I'm arguing is we need to stop thinking "Pour water on this until it goes out" and also make sure that we take away the fuel for such behavior by trying to solve many of these problems earlier.

As LinXitoW put it, I think we need to do both. But it's a lot easier to call out what's offensive when it's right in front of you, than it is to change the demographics and training of an entire industry.

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