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Comment by IsaacL | Hacker News Reader

You seem to be all over this thread saying "oh well this is bad but men also have it equally bad sexism is exaggerated etc etc".

I agree that women can be shitty to men. But men, in general, can be far shittier to women. Being patronised by your female relatives is a completely different league to having sexual abuse shouted at you by strangers (strangers who should be subordinate to your professional expertise).

And yes, I've worked in blue collar jobs (factories, as a cleaner, as a binman), and I too found it hard to fit in with that culture. But I had it nowhere near as bad as this woman did.

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I'm saying this isn't a gender issue. This is a basic human psychology issue. This is the way humans behave, regardless of gender. Gender doesn't even have anything to do with it, gender just defines the specific words used in the overall pattern.

In the article men are making fun of a woman. Here on HN startups are making fun of lifestyle businesses. On r/programming Scala developers are making fun of Java developers. On imgur people are making fun of 9gag. The internet is making fun of Bieber fans. Bieber fans are making fun of old people. Old people make fun of young people. Young people make fun of old people.

People poke fun at each other. It's how we establish groups. It's how we operate. We pick a trait and converge around it, as soon as we see a member of the species who does not have that trait, we make fun of them and maybe, just maybe, we eventually let them join the group.

If you want to fight sexism, go to a country that hasn't given women the vote, or women are still treated as property. that's sexism.

"People poke fun at each other. It's how we establish groups. It's how we operate. We pick a trait and converge around it, as soon as we see a member of the species who does not have that trait, we make fun of them and maybe, just maybe, we eventually let them join the group."

That's true. But the traits chosen are not arbitrary. There are some traits which are consistently used to exclude people from certain groups. As a lifestyle entrepreneur, people on HN look down on me. 99% of the population don't care. Whereas if I was female, or black, or whatever, suddenly I find myself excluded from a lot more groups.

Yes, there is much worse sexism in the world, but I can't think of many people who would think shouting sexual abuse at your manager as anything other than sexism. You seem like an intelligent guy, but you seem to have already reached the conclusion that this isn't sexism and are now trying to justify that conclusion.

I have reached the conclusion that this is a deeper issue that in this particular instance manifests itself as sexism.

Why treat the symptoms, let's fix the problem eh?

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