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Comment by vonskippy | Hacker News Reader

OMG not this again. This has to be the most overinflated topic in tech. Just do your thing, if you're good, nobody cares what sex you are, if you're bad, don't use your sex as an excuse.

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"if you're good, nobody cares what sex you are..."

Part of the reason this is such a hot topic right now is because the above statement is not at all true. It is certainly applicable for some, but not enough to claim true equality in the system.

Yes, this is the myth that people tell themselves in order to ignore the fact that they had to work less to get to the same place because of their advantages in race, sex, economic or educational background, etc. Well illustrated.

EDIT: Perhaps more constructively, you have demonstrated exactly why "this again" -- because many people still don't understand that tech is not exceptional and is not a "meritocracy". The same biases that exist in all other walks of life exhibit themselves in the tech world but are often more insidious because people refuse to acknowledge them.

It keeps coming up because it's a real problem.

There are established behaviors people exhibit towards males who are good or bad. The author is noting that people tend to treat women differently, period.

YES. Women in tech would probably be treated more equally if they talked about ANYTHING other than being a woman. These types of posts do a serious disservice to women.

Show me a woman who has actually accomplished something of merit who also writes about gender inequality. Complaining about inequality is just an excuse for not producing anything of value.

Do you think I star repos on Github based on the sex of the author? NO! I star them based on their utility, elegance, etc.

This issue is a non-issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_feminists

I would say all of these women have accomplished something of merit while talking about gender inequality.

All of them is quite a stretch, frankly. Especially ones like Luce Irigaray.

Do you mean that not all of them have accomplished something of merit in the sense that their contributions to feminism were unimportant? Or do you mean that some of them detracted from the discussion?

I have to admit that I know very little about feminism, so I'm honestly all ears here.

It's not that they haven't accomplished anything in feminist discourse or that they weren't influential.

Rather, they contributed to the derailing of feminism into the contemporary postmodern feminism that dominates the public sphere. The one which gets uptight over private jokes between people at tech conferences.

Sorry, to clarify: I mean accomplished something outside the area of feminism and gender equality.

Don't feed the troll. "Controversial" is clearly not trying to have a legitimate discussion, which is probably why they felt the need to register a new user name.

Seems legitimate to me. You're the one not trying to have a legitimate discussion. That's why you would attack my username and not the content of my post.

"Show me a woman who has actually accomplished something of merit who also writes about gender inequality."

You're kidding, right? I know many of the following extremely successful and intelligent women have written about gender inequality:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2013/05/22/the-wo...

Yes, there do exist some people who "complain" about gender inequality in instances when that is not quite the fundamental issue, but you're ignoring the entire picture. These are serious issues that actually do exist and that people are trying to change. Some people aren't as constructive as others, but ignoring the reality and weight of the issue is certainly not productive.

Hm. I worked on the European space program. I contributed to a bunch of AAA games with fairly big names. I currently work on a fairly large OSS project. I think I can claim I created one or two things that have a tiny bit of merit.

And yet, I write about gender inequality - because it actually exists. I'd be very happy if it were a non-issue, but it isn't.

It's very rarely the big ticket items that are the problem, even if they grab all the attention, though. It's all the small things that say "you're not quite welcome here". The constant barrage of sexist jokes, followed by "present company excluded". The eternal "you're a programmer?" question at conferences. The media portrayal of computer scientists. And yes, the constant denial that there even is an issue.

Yes, I know the jokes are not meant to hurt. And the question is honest surprise. And media in general sucks. But at every step, women do get told they're "not part of the club". It grates, occasionally.

So please, do listen a tiny bit to the women who do talk about gender inequality. Don't assume a priori we're just doing it for the attention. I'd rather discuss the latest awesome CS paper, too - so please assume instead that we talk about a problem because there seems to be a problem.

^this

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