My Problem with Feminism

You're falling into the common trap of the technologically skilled, rational, intelligent, male. You see yourself as a meritocratic person and you believe that people should be judged based on their merits.

Fair enough. It would be nice if the world worked that way. Unbiased meritocratic decision is impossible when the subject in question is to known to their interviewer by anything but their merits. As far as we know, it's simply not possible to make meritocratic decisions when you know anything other than the subject's merits. It doesn't matter if you're racist or sexist, everyone inevitably makes assumptions about other races and other genders. Not being racist and sexist is about realizing those assumptions are incorrect and suppressing them.

Take the case of professional orchestras for example. Before the 1970s and 80s, most professional orchestras were 5% women. In the 70s and 80s when blind auditions became the standard, that number rose to 25%. You don't need to tell me that correlation doesn't imply causation but if the data doesn't say that to you I'm not sure what can.

People are awesome solely based on their merits, but acting like you have the capability to thusly judge them in such a perfect manner is silly. It's simply not possible.

The biggest thing I have an issue with is this paragraph-

>I happen to believe that many well meaning people of many causes damage their cause by basically forcing people to deal with their "diversity" first, instead of of being able to deal with people as people on their own merit.

If you feel like you're being 'forced' to deal with others diversity you should rethink being in the tech industry. Being in the tech industry means being able to deal with change and new ideas. Part of everyones merit is their different backgrounds, value sets and experiences. Equality/fairness is not treating everyone the exact same. It's absurd to be how undervalued diversity is in the tech world, it makes it's hard to believe that sexism/racism isn't at the heart of it.

Diverse teams make better decisions: http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/better_decis...

Diversity increases creative: http://www.eidi-results.org/pdfs/EIDARTICLE1-17-12.pdf

Diverse teams produce better results: http://www.inc.com/welcome.html?destination=http://www.inc.c...

Diversity makes for greater success in venture: http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_26086229/tech-workforc...

That's why campaigning often takes on an aggressive bent, and why affirmative action is called for. Current generations steeped in sexism (I mean, much as I'm a feminist, I see many of my ingrained sexist biases) need to prop up this scaffold to make sure the changes are institutionalized and carry over and next generations are raised with less biases by means of institutions, as opposed to "just keep in mind everybody is equal, yay!"

I'm a man, and I could even agree with you that "feminism" is not a great term, but I disagree about most of the rest of your opinion. It's a serious matter, very serious, and some people do need to feel inconvenienced sometimes. For me being a feminist is nothing more than a modern open mind's rational stance. Unless you don't really care about fellow human beings.

Unfortunately, that word already has a meaning in economic analysis. Eg, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/hist-mat... : "The traces of common ownership which are also found in the early stages of the new religion can be ascribed to solidarity among the proscribed rather than to real equalitarian ideas."

Still, many other words have been proposed (and discarded).

But I'm really writing to comment about:

> I'm not sure what "term" should replace feminism -- in the workplace I'd suggest "professionalism". After all everyone wants to be treated professionally, not just women.

The problem here is that "professionalism" is not well-defined. Is it professional to drink alcohol while at work? What about at a conference? At a conference reception? Is it professional to leave your desk cluttered at the end of the day? Is it professional to wear shorts at work? What about to not wear lipstick? Is it professional to take 6 months off to be with one's newborn? Is it professional to participate in a protest march (during off hours) against the company? What about if it's to protest discriminatory hiring practices in upper management? Is it professional to insist on 9-5 working hours, or is it professional to work as long as you think it takes, or is it professional to work as long as your boss thinks it takes?

"Feminism" means that people should have the same political, economic, and social rights no matter if they are male, female, or don't identify as either sex.

What's the equivalent for "professionism"? As best as I can tell, it's broadly defined by whatever the people in power (ie, your boss, or anyone else who can fire you, or your customers) say that it means. There's no underlying philosophy which guides changes in the meaning of "professionalism". One upon a time it was unprofessional to have women working in the office, or studying at universities. That didn't change simply by being "professional."

There are gender-based quotas forcing us to favor less capable women over more capable men (capability is objectively measured by education and publication history).

Now, I don't care what the gender of a grad student is at all. What I care is I want to get projects done. And I need capable people for that, and such regulations pushed by "successful" feminist agendas are actually hurting the academia as a whole.