Lean In should be read by everyone, including men | Hacker News Reader

Lean In should be read by everyone, including men

jasonshen.com

32 pointsjasonshen23 comments

The disclaimer made me cringe: "as a man writing about gender inequality, I acknowledge my privileged (and biased) viewpoint in this discussion."

In what upside-down universe is it considered necessary to pre-emptive apologize for what you are (a man) and what you might unintentionally do (offend someone's sensibilities)?

These kind ridiculous expectations of others is why the Adria Richards thing blew up, not because of (quoting the article the author links to) "One Brogrammer's Sexist Joke".

In the universe where the author would likely get a dozen one-off responses mentioning his ignorance of privilege.

Thank you - this would have been the reality of the situation.

Agreed. Since when did it become normal to apologize for being a man with a viewpoint?

I like the article but there is too much "please don't be mad at me if I offend." Here's a reality bite: Doesn't matter what you say, someone will get offended.

Being a man with a strong viewpoint when talking about women's issues is like being an non-technical MBA going off about how programmers should architect their code.

If you don't acknowledge the disparity, you will immediately turn off a huge segment of your target audience.

Yes, people may still get offended, but you can try to REDUCE the likelihood that they do, in order to effectively reach more people.

Well, I have an MBA and also instruct on how one should architect their code since I have a strong engineering background.

I am smart enough to realize what language to use and how to do this in a way that fits the target audience. I don't preface my discussions with - "Please don't be offended that I have a business degree."

This is my point, your audience will judge you on your content, not your disclaimer.

You have your opinion on this and we respectfully disagree :). Good for you for writing the article.

It's important to me that this post be read and considered by a wide audience of people. If my content angers and offends someone to the point at which they refuse to consider the content, I have lost.

By acknowledging upfront that I have many biases and that I hold a very real position of privilege in society as a man, I am trying to speak not from up high, but as a peer, as an equal.

I don't feel this is an unrealistic expectation. The whole point of this post is that women face unique challenges that men often do not understand. Your suggestion that my disclaimer only exists in an "upside down" universe suggests you don't agree with that assertion.

> Your suggestion that my disclaimer only exists in an "upside down" universe suggests you don't agree with that assertion.

No -- I don't agree with a social movement that induces you to lead with an apology for an innate traits such as your gender.

I read your article. It's well written and it's worth reading. Let your words stand on their own. Give your target audience the benefit of the doubt.

Also, your assertion - "By acknowledging upfront that I have many biases and that I hold a very real position of privilege in society as a man, I am trying to speak not from up high, but as a peer, as an equal." is also reverse discrimination. I am sure not every man or woman would agree that a man always has the upper hand. And please, your statement is general to the point of meaningless.

Like I said, in the spirit of open discussion, you have written a great article but your disclaimer is a weak point.

If you write with ignorance and privilege that will shine through regardless of your disclaimer.

If people take offense to you or your writing regardless of the content of your writing and make assumptions on you based on their perceptions of your sex and gender identification, well, we have a word to describe such prejudice, don't we?

What seems fair and reasonable to one person may seem very unfair and unreasonable to another. People may very well take offense to my writing based on their perceptions of my gender, and I am taking precautions to avoid that when possible. It is human nature to jump to conclusions. Good writing help readers avoid doing that.

As the old saying goes, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

The top comments on here are all from men who took offense to their fellow man's rather non-controversial (IMHO) acknowledgement that a man necessarily, by definition, lacks the first-person experience on women's issues. They have not commented on anything of substance from the actual article.

So this mysterious word of yours.... what is it?

Mine is "privilege blindness": http://www.shakesville.com/2008/04/blindness-of-privilege.ht...

That's a really great post and a very useful concept. Thanks.

Here's a lively discussion on male privilege:

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/

Aside from my opinion on the disclaimer, the link above definitely articulates "male privilege" in a more substantive way.

I hope that this doesn't become the focus of the comments here - what do people think about the arguments for reading the book? What do people think about the book? I followed the coverage for a while which did seem pretty negative (ironically probably because I got most of it from feminist critique rather than straightforward book reviews). I did get around to reading it, and I think it is absolutely amazing. I would recommend this book over I think literally every other book to anyone in a hiring position. It's important to know what natural biases exist in order to overcome them.

I had a similar reaction - I read some negative coverage but actually am really enjoying the book. I agree as well that it's particularly helpful for hiring managers, who might not have any idea how very subtle these gender stereotypes/biases can be.

How is this different from any other author on any other subject they might not be entirely familiar with prefacing their piece with acknowledgment that they don't have all of the information/experience to fully expound on the issue?

Because he's admitting he's a man writing on a topic only fully understood by women, he's suddenly weak for wanting to clarify to his readers that he can only speak for himself?

Solid (positive) review. I too have read Lean In and recommend it to the men as much (if not more) than women I work with.

I take some issues to some of Sandberg's arguments but the book is tremendous overall. Has changed my attitude considerably.

Is the text of this post displaying poorly for anyone else?

EDIT: Ah, zooming in a bit fixed it...

The font is basically unreadable for me in chrome.

Interesting. It's Open Sans Light. It looks like this in Chrome for me:

http://imgur.com/oQJZpri

What makes it hard for you to read?

My default zoom level in Chrome (nothing crazy, mind you) the 'e' character has no horizontal bar, the ''a' character is not connected, it's also quite jagged. It's funny how such simple things can be so jarring.

I'm on Chrome for Windows and your blog is pretty hard to read. I know that CfW has a ton of font rendering issues, making it easy to overlook some pretty common "jagged font" cases. Here's some more info:

"Using Web fonts in your design requires thorough testing on as many different browsers and platforms as possible, with a close look at various options for rendering text. If the screen display is of poor quality and lacks subpixel rendering, then opt for graceful degradation by serving system fonts to older browsers and OS. Conditional comments are the easiest way to exclude older browsers and operating systems from style sheets with Web fonts. Of course, JavaScript is a more elegant way to detect whether a client’s subpixel rendering is turned on."

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/03/02/the-font-face-rul...

Also useful:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/24/a-closer-look-at-...

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