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Comment by oconnore | Hacker News Reader

I was hoping that they would complete the analogy. I was unable to make these connections: (please fill in!)

1. What is the reason the women's escalator goes down?

2. What is the reason only men can ride the up escalator?

3. What is the elevator?

4. Why not just make everyone take the elevator? Why have a restricted running arrangement at all? Why not just have organized one-at-a-time races on a 100m track with a photo finish setup?

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1. Because of institutional sexism. Things that exist that discourage or push women off the path to working in technology.

2. It's not that only men can ride it, it's that it's already full men, which is the current situation. Most people trying to get jobs in the technology area are men.

3. The elevator would be policies that help women in the technology areas. Be it affirmative action, or programs designed to help women in the area.

4. Because if you allow everyone in the elevator it would be full of men once again, and a line would form, with the same situation that it's happening in the escalator. If you could manage to make a line where people all queue correctly, and cancel both escalators, you would lose the current situation where people more skilled get to the second floor first.

I thought it was pretty clear. Did I manage to explain it better?

It's still arguing for special privilege. "and a line would form"... so? "It's not that only men can ride it, it's that it's already full men, which is the current situation. Most people trying to get jobs in the technology area are men." I'm not seeing anything here that changes that situation, merely provides a "free pass" to the few women who are interested in technology. This is just affirmative action applied to sexism.

Point 1, is the only legitimate issue I see here, but I'm not seeing any suggestions on how to fix it, and no, handing someone a free pass just because they happen to be the right sex or race isn't the answer, it's just as bad as the problem it's supposed to be addressing.

I share your suspicion of affirmative action as a solution. But I definitely don't think it's as bad as the problem.

As a straight white male, I've already received a number of unearned bonuses. If I fail to receive another dose of privilege, that is definitely not as bad as somebody who's been unfairly penalized receiving another penalty.

Even in the case where I'm improperly penalized so as to give a bonus to somebody who has less privilege, I don't think that's as bad as the reverse. I've still got my lifetime history of privilege; although it feels locally unfair to me, I don't think it's globally unfair.

As a straight white male, I've already received a number of unearned bonuses.

What kind of bonuses are those?

(Also, as a straight white male, how do I sign up and get my black Amex?)

Off the top of my head:

I was encouraged from an early age in math and science. I was given computer-ish toys (Big Trak represent!) and, later, computers. When I went with my dad to work and played around with their computing gear, nobody said that wasn't something boys should do. In my computer classes, everybody looked just like me. Nobody ever told me that I was good at these things "for a boy". Nobody suggested I should be spending my time on dolls, or make-up, or being appealing to boys. Nobody told me I should pick a college based on how many well-off men there were there. Nobody ever asked me to make them coffee because they thought I was the receptionist. Nobody ever told me I was too pretty to be a programmer. People listen to me more easily than my female colleagues.

And a zillion more, just for being a guy. Being white is a whole other set of things. As is being straight in a heteronormative society.

If you're really interested, these are some good starting points on examining and acknowledging one's privilege:

http://danilocampos.com/2013/02/unpacking-my-knapsack-the-pr... http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th...

I'm pretty sure that if I was a girl dad would have still snuck me into play advent on the work mainframe.

Sure, but what would have other people said? At least for the ones I visited, those environments were pretty gender-imbalanced. The guys did the smart work. Women did clerical work. Would you have internalized it?

Would a secretary have tried to get you to play with dolls? Would one of the programmers have told you that you'd make a fine keypunch girl? Would an aunt have told your parents that you should be doing something more appropriate?

Even now, kids get a ton of gender policing. Back then, there was a lot more of it. And one of my privileges is that my technical interests happened to match my gender role.

Thank you!

The limited number of spots in the tech world is the biggest flaw in the analogy. Life is not a zero sum game. You can create a new business and create great value for yourself without others "losing". The flawed analogy makes it difficult to follow the arguments being made.

I had the same questions after reading the article. While I feel this helps paint a pretty picture of what's going on it doesn't seem to even attempt to answer the more important question of why its happening? For example, are the people at the top controlling the direction of the escalators or is it just because it's always been a male dominated industry and has strong momentum in that direction? For example the simple fact that the industry is currently male dominant could be a factor in determining the direction of the escalator. Simply being a majority male may be off-putting to women trying to enter the tech industry, however i'm not sure if/how you would go about fairly solving that. I'm also curious about how this problem relates to other sciences, for example did/do chemistry or physics have/had the same problem at some point and how did they overcome it if they did.

The other thing I'm confused about- the article seems to imply men who do nothing will be rewarded with things simply by virtue of being men. Does this happen? I've never seen anyone say, "Oh, you're a man! Here, let me give you things!"

This is a real thing in certain areas, it is called gender bias. Keep in mind that gender bias doesn't guarantee favorable treatment for every member of a gender.

If we're talking about preferential treatment based on gender, I think the escalator is a poor analogy.

Are you denying men have ever benefited from privilege?

- Owning possessions

- Owning land

- Owning people

- Running a business

- Being owned by family

- Being owned by spouse

- Being actively selected against

- Being discriminated against, in general

- Going to school

- Going to university

- Housekeeping

- Working

- Raising children

- Being pregnant / giving birth / after

- Voting

I'm sure others could think of more.

I don't think he's suggesting that these things have not been in the favor of men in the past. He's saying that men are just not handed out things because they're men. My question to you is why should the men of today be penalized for actions of men in the past?

Because they are benefiting from those past actions.

And note that a penalty that offsets an unearned benefit is, from some angles, no penalty at all.

The expectation that everything should be fair from my perspective is something that I have because I'm a straight, white, upper-middle-class male. I get to assume that it's all about me, because it so often is. People from less privileged backgrounds don't expect that nearly as much.

Because they are benefiting from those past actions.

Which brings us to the whole "sins of thy father" question.

Does it? I think that's a different question.

Consider European genocide of Native Americans. Suppose they all had been wiped out. Or consider German genocide of Jews, with the same hypothetical. I think the "sins of thy father" question is: Should the descendants of the criminals be punished for the crimes of their ancestors?

My answer to this is "no". And I think bringing it up in this context mainly confuses things.

I think the question of privilege is about present-day social inequities. If the question is, "Should we work to make society fair to everybody, no matter their race, gender, sexual orientation, or other irrelevant factor?" There, my answer is a firm "yes".

Will that involve people with unearned privilege giving up that privilege? Sure. But that's not a punishment for being among one of the privileged groups, no matter how much it feels like it.

Do you think white women historically had it harder than black males?

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Oppression_Olympics

You're trying to put words in my mouth. My point is, nobody gave men possessions, or land, or people, or a business for virtue of them being men. Maybe it was easier for a man to own land or run a business, but he still had to work for them. Whereas our metaphorical escalator gives good things to its riders, whether they do anything or not.

So, mostly point being, I think the escalator is a flawed analogy.

I frequently get good things because I'm a man. For example, I find it much easier to get people to listen to me than do equally competent female colleagues.

If you'd like to see more examples, Google "male privilege checklist". E.g.: http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/

But if you'd prefer a different analogy, try this one from sci-fi writer John Scalzi: "Straight White Male: The Lowest difficulty Setting": http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th...

> Whereas our metaphorical escalator gives good things to its riders, whether they do anything or not.

That's not what the author says:

> There are also some men who are just standing on the escalator, simply letting the luck of the draw propel them up. Most of these men won’t make it to the room.

I kept asking myself similar questions while reading this article.

I also asked myself, what does it mean to say "Men should give up their privilege"? I'm not saying men aren't privileged, but at least spell out what that privilege is before embarking on a confusing metaphor that doesn't actually explain a whole lot.

This is a discussion that has been going on for decades. An author is not obligated to do "My Subject 101" at the beginning of every article. You would never complain that somebody writing in a science journal didn't explain what these "atom" things are at the beginning.

If you want to know the basics, there are plenty of places to look. E.g., the Geek Feminism Wiki: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Geek_Feminism_Wiki

This is not a science journal, it's a blog post.

Nobody is obligated to do anything, but if they want their argument to be widely understood, which it's obvious (at least from these comments) that it's not, it's helpful to at least explain your premise.

Are you seriously making the argument that all blog posts should start with basic definitions of terms for people who are too lazy to use Google?

And on this particular topic, it's reasonable to suspect that the people who have the "please spoon-feed me the basics" objection would just have a different objection.

For example, despite being provided a good starting point, you didn't say something like, "Thanks, now I'll go do my homework." Or, "Ah, now I understand." You just continued grumbling. And from an account fresh-created to comment on this topic.

This is a common enough problem that it's listed in a catalog of anti-patterns: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/derail-using-education/

> 1. What is the reason the women's escalator goes down?

> 2. What is the reason only men can ride the up escalator?

It's a simulation of unequal privilege.

> 3. What is the elevator?

Support programs, quotas, empathy

> 4. Why not just make everyone take the elevator?

That is what was mentioned as stopping all the escalators (privilege), and making everyone use the stairs.

And why are the number of spots in the room limited? From what I can tell, most software companies are having trouble finding good developers.

Most software companies in silicone valley. There are parts of the world that are not California and in which the hunger for talent is less severe.

Companies don't have problem hiring - if they had they would have just hire people directly in other countries without all the H1B quotas bullshit. There is nothing you cannot do remotely by VPN and some collaborative tools. I have worked 6 years with half my team in Moscow. It worked wonders. When we had heated discussions we just closed skype instead of beating each other if we were in the same room.

They have problem hiring local talent to warm the chairs.

    Most software companies in silicone valley. There are parts of the world that are not California and in which the hunger for talent is less severe.

In that case there shouldn't be a gender imbalance among engineers in Silicon Valley, but that is clearly not the case.

Indeed, I think the analogy hides circular reasoning - OP simply assumes what she wants to prove (men have a steady rise to the top).

Just looking at two other comment threads today - the guy on the doomed project and the guy sacked from Facebook within his first six months (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5784751 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5785759) - I have an alternative analogy. Y'all can let me know if this is more accurate:

There's a whole row of elevators. Some slowly head upwards, some downwards, some don't move at all - however, elevators can change speed or direction at any time. More often than not the change is in the downwards direction. Some of the faster-moving upwards elevators have velvet ropes or guards blocking them. It's hard to tell, because you can't really see more than one or two elevators at a time, and the guards are inconsistent, but it seems that to get onto the upward-moving elevators it helps to be straight, white and male. But to get on the really fast moving upwards elevators it's more helpful to be rich, well-educated, socially polished, and connected.

Complicating the picture is the shit cannons. Patrolling the top of the elevators are grinning guys in suits holding super-soakers filled with raw sewage. They blast the climbers at random. A few climbers make it to the top from their own efforts, fortunately avoiding any shit. They believe their success was down to hard work - onlookers say that they merely got lucky. What they really mean is that they weren't unlucky enough to be blasted in the chest with enough shit to send them back down to the bottom. Some people get blasted with a weaker, endurable stream of shit - these people often say that shit sucks but that you just have to deal with it. If you thought that it was grossly unfair that some people had access to the super high speed escalators, keep in mind that these escalators also feature the most brutal and indiscriminate shit cannons. A lot of the shit guards intentionally target women, though a few intentionally leave women alone. Others have other prejudices. It's pretty arbitrary.

Sometimes an entire escalator collapses. Everyone falls to the bottom and has to start again. Except the guys at the top, they're safe.

It's generally agreed that in the past, many more escalators moved upwards. With a few exceptions, a lot of escalators have collapsed or starting moving downwards in recent years. Still, everyone agrees that they're luckier than the guys born far away, who have to fight desperately just to get access to the least desirable escalators.

Analogies aren't used to prove things; they're used to explain things. You expect too much from a single post.

> OP simply assumes what she wants to prove (men have a steady rise to the top).

The author is pretty clear that she isn't trying to prove that men have a steady rise to the top. From the first paragraph she sets out to explain why criticisms like "Why do women try to get ahead by pulling men down?" are incorrect.

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