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Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

I'm not persuaded.

I know a number of socially inept people. Some of them are perfectly pleasant, just hopelessly awkward. Others are jerks to everyone. But some are sexist jerks. And there are some people who are perfectly well socialized who are also sexist jerks.

Women were oppressed for millennia. Women in the US haven't had the vote for even 100 years. Men and women didn't have equal college enrollment rates until circa 1990. I just don't buy the thesis that sexism is now suddenly extinct, especially in a male-dominated field.

I'm sorry you've received crap. Due to your gender or anything else. But understand that jumping into a discussion of sexism with "but that happens to me too!" is such a common problem that it's listed in the "Derailing for Dummies" guide: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/menu.html

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>I'm sorry you've received crap. Due to your gender or anything else. But understand that jumping into a discussion of sexism with "but that happens to me too!" is such a common problem that it's listed in the "Derailing for Dummies" guide: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/menu.html

This guide makes zero rational arguments for why those examples are derailment... It's completely rhetorical.

Intellectually, it's appropriate to discuss female/male oppression in the context of one another since the idea of patriarchy has been replaced with the idea of kyriarchy; A system where everyone oppresses/stratifies everyone else. It's a matrix of relationships that cannot be examined in isolation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyriarchy

>Women in the US haven't had the vote for even 100 years. Men and women didn't have equal college enrollment rates until circa 1990. I just don't buy the thesis that sexism is now suddenly extinct, especially in a male-dominated field.

Only ~10% of early Americans were eligible to vote. All white men weren't given the right to vote until the mid 19th century. A generation before women were granted the right.

Very few men benefited from a "patriarchal" social configuration. The fact that a small minority of white men had privilege doesn't negate the social costs externalized on the average man. The only realistic opportunities available to these men were war, working on a farm, working in a coal mine, or working in an industrial era factory. Having the "freedom" to be part of the workforce did not offer you the opportunities it does today...

Derailment is a purely rhetorical technique, so I'm not seeing the problem.

I agree that patriarchy is bad for pretty much everybody. But the rhetorical effect of "but what about the time a woman was mean to meeeee" isn't to raise awareness of power dynamics so that people see the real issue as patriarchy or kyriarchy and find action even more urgent. It's to devalue the given examples of sexist behavior so that the privileged person can avoid confronting their privilege.

>Derailment is a purely rhetorical technique, so I'm not seeing the problem.

The problem is you made an appeal to authority to "derailing for dummies"...

>It's to devalue the given examples of sexist behavior so that the privileged person can avoid confronting their privilege.

Half of those points could be made by someone who has no intention of derailing. They can be legitimate observations.

No. I personally am calling that a common derailing tactic; I just linked to that as evidence that other people also see it as a problem. If you have some counter-evidence, feel free to present it.

As I explained elsewhere in this thread, most people don't intend to derail. What matters isn't the conscious intent of the speaker; it's the effect on the conversation.

That X is a legitimate observation doesn't mean that X is also a valid contribution at any point in any discussion. Watch politicians spin something on a TV show. They can make valid observations all day long that avoid, obfuscate, dodge, color, distract, mislead, and misinform.

If a privileged person jumps into a discussion about injustice in a way that changes the topic from the injustice under discussion to something more comfortable for them, that's derailing. They can do that using a valid observation, an invalid observation, a rhetorical device, or a jack-in-the-box.

Also, Mr. Brand New Anonymous Account: if you aren't going to own your words, expect me to stop responding shortly.

^This. It's not that exclusively women have these problems, it's that they have them to a greater extent than men because of centuries-old ideas about how women and men should act. Articles like these are just saying it'd be nice if we made some effort to reduce the effect of these old social conventions on women in tech today.

And there are some people who are perfectly well socialized who are also sexist jerks.

Okay. I maintain that in the tech community, it's horrible social skills that's driving the majority of what appears to be gender bias, sexual harassment, etc. I also maintain that focusing on developing better social skills, empathy, etc. will do far, far more to solve the problem than simply pointing out over and over again the sex-related symptoms.

I just don't buy the thesis that sexism is now suddenly extinct

Who said anything of the sort? Please don't put words in my mouth, I don't like what you're attempting to project onto me.

jumping into a discussion of sexism with "but that happens to me too!"

I made no attempt whatsoever to derail anything. I was providing examples, from the opposite side of the gender fence, of how I saw social ineptitude causing apparent gender bias.

Your theory that apparent sexism in the tech community is actually only poor social skills requires that sexism in the tech community has died out. Because otherwise poor social skills would just make the tech community sexism more obvious than mainstream sexism.

Which I think is exactly the case. Sexism is a millennia-deep, society-wide problem. I think it's absurd to say that the tech community is actually not sexist like the rest of society, but just happens to act the same way for a different reason.

I'm sure you weren't intending to derail. Few do. But speaking as a fellow privileged person, you should be very suspicious when something comes out of your mouth that just happens to reduce or eliminate your responsibility for acknowledging your privilege in a situation.

Like, for example, suggesting that sexism isn't the problem, but rather those poorly socialized nerds.

Your theory that apparent sexism in the tech community is actually only poor social skills

I said "largely the expression of".

requires that sexism in the tech community has died out

It absolutely does not.

Because otherwise poor social skills would just make the tech community sexism more obvious than mainstream sexism.

And there you go. It's unlikely that misogyny and 'real' sexism exist among the tech community at levels significantly higher than other fields, yet it comes up all the time in the tech community. So, what's the explanation? Horrible socialization.

You can't have it both ways. You started out by saying, "I think this is largely the expression of terrible, terrible social skills." If our level of sexism and sexist behavior is the same as the rest of society, then social skills are irrelevant. If lower social skills magnify existing sexism, then either our level of bad behavior should be much higher or our level of sexism would have to be lower.

I think the reason it comes up here is that it's a field that attracts smart, idealistic people who are unlikely to be consciously sexist (but still have a lot of bad behaviors and unconscious attitudes). Another factor is that the low ratio of women makes it easier for sexist and misogynistic subcultures and workplaces to exist.

You can't have it both ways.

You aren't getting it.

If our level of sexism and sexist behavior is the same as the rest of society, then social skills are irrelevant.

What? That makes no sense.

If lower social skills magnify existing sexism, then either our level of bad behavior should be much higher or our level of sexism would have to be lower.

Depending on your definition, the level of "bad" behavior in the tech industry is much higher than other industries!

I believe I do get your point; I just disagree with it. I think it's a convenient way to shift blame to a small subset of people rather than the much larger group that benefits from endemic sexism.

I also disagree with your assertion that sexist behavior is particularly worse in our industry than any other, but if you have evidence on the point I'd love to see it.

Just because someone stuck it on DfD, does not mean its a bad argument. DfD is pretty trite.

Sure. Derailing tactics often include perfectly good arguments. Just ones that shift the discussion to other topics so that no privileged person actually has to face their privilege and acknowledge the systemic negative experiences of the unprivileged group.

Also, "trite"? You're going to talk about argument quality and then reject something because it's trite? Because that's purely a stylistic criticism, which is just the opposite of being concerned about argument quality.

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