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Comment by Mz | Hacker News Reader

Another message was that we should do more to make women feel welcome.

As we do more events, we'll continue to reach out to women.

This sort of thing really, seriously annoys me. HN is a funnel for applying to YC. You do not need to "reach out to women." You need to stop shutting out the ones who are ALREADY here and trying like hell to participate in spite of frequently being stonewalled, being unable to get anyone to hold a private conversation with them, etc ad nauseum.

In some sense, I will probably rant a bit more about this on my personal blog today because I was already steaming mad about this before I logged in to HN to read this article showing how badly the people at the top are simply blind.

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> being unable to get anyone to hold a private conversation with them

Are you really surprised, right after that "Glass wall" story was posted here about one woman's terrible tragedy of having to deal with a male executive who briefly talked to her in an office stairwell? Convincing herself the entire office was about to think they were having an affair?

And you're surprised men are less eager to approach women than men in tech?

Are you merely being funny/sarcastic/something else I can't quite parse? Or is it lost on you that I wrote that piece?

FYI: I wrote some follow-up yesterday explaining more of the context: http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/03/my-personal-...

I had my reasons for my conclusion. I do not believe they were an overreaction at all.

I also think you're overreacting, honestly.

I don't think I've ever in my professional career observed someone being feverish and flushed and assume that it had something to do with sexual tension. Men just aren't that observant.

More likely, I would assume you were either sick or anxious because of some work-related conversation. Neither of which is a reason to be concerned vis-à-vis office politics.

Also, can I offer a suggestion to your problem? Couldn't you make up a little white lie and tell your coworkers that you had a very minor medical condition that resulted in being feverish and flushed often but that there were no other serious effects? No need to name anything, but that should take care of your worry about getting an email every time you sneeze and also deal with your concern about constantly having your obvious symptoms be misunderstood.

I no longer work at that company. I often told people very honestly things like "I have respiratory problems and allergies" without naming my condition. I did that kind of thing quite a lot.

No, I am not overreacting. There is still more to the story and I plan on writing more in the future. If my point of view is not your cup of tea, it isn't exactly required reading. If it helps other people, good. I write in some sense for myself.

Thank you.

I rewrote this from a rather snide to a bit more neutral comment; but are you aware that just because you don't that doesn't mean that others don't?

Or that even if all men really aren't observant enough, which is also a rather daring statement if I may say so, that still leaves room for women noticing it and communicating this more explicitly.

Of course I'm aware of that.

It's exactly the point I'm trying to make. I've never heard of anything like this happening, anywhere, ever. Even in casual settings. Nor have I observed that a normal response to sexual arousal is to be feverish and flushed.

To draw the type of conclusions that she is claiming, her coworkers would have to (1) be incredibly observant (2) reject all of the most plausible explanations for a very unlikely explanation and (3) care.

This is Ockham's razor.

I have a friend that is abnormally paranoid. He thinks everybody is out to get him and sees devious plotting from the most innocuous of situations. "those two guys at the water cooler are plotting to make me look bad at the meeting today" - type stuff.

Chances are they are not.

All I'm saying is that it sounds like fear of taking a wrong social step at work seems to be affecting her performance, not to mention increasing her anxiety.

It could perhaps be healthy to reconsider whether her assumptions are reasonable or not.

The thing is that she never said the thoughts were reasonable; it's perfectly possible that she acknowledges she's a bit over-sensitive about it just like you might do something out of fear that you'll be thought of as incompetent or unsuccessful.

On the other hand; thinking that this kind of thing is never discussed is rather naive. There's plenty of people who are very observant about these kinds of things and will happily discuss them when the opportunity arises. We even invented a word for it: gossiping.

Regardless of whether it's nature or nurture, women in at least Western culture are used to focussing much more on the subtle interpersonal dynamics of situations.

It could be due to something as simple as hormonal differences creating more interconnections between hemispheres or historical oppression having given rise to a form of power play that by it's nature needed to be concealed from men.

Whichever it is, it creates a different kind of sense-making and internal dialogue. Right here, you're taking that 'kind' of internal dialogue and branding it as the sort of tripe for which women deserve to be excluded by men.

That, even disregarding the fact that you accidentally wrote this to the author of said post, is exactly the kind of stuff sexism in tech is made of.

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