Comment by adventured | Hacker News Reader

Comment by adventured | Hacker News Reader

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What does being openly gay mean exactly? And how do you know there aren't others on the list?

About 2% of people self-identify as gay. So 10 people on that 500 list are likely to be gay, give or take.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014...

Is your theory that the remaining nine should issue press releases? How do you know others aren't openly gay with the only people that matter: friends, family, loved ones; as opposed to feeling the need to broadcast it to the media.

Straight people don't go around declaring their sexuality, nor ever feel the need to. Gay people shouldn't feel the need to either. That is a critical hallmark of equality.

Do I have to email the press to declare that I'm openly gay and running a Fortune 500 company?

Should I declare that I'm openly straight and running a Fortune 500 company?

It's an absurd premise, and it presumes that we all need to be declaring our sexuality. That another person has a right to know my sexual orientation. It's not only false but disgusting.

About 50% of people self-identify as female. Why are there only 26 female CEOs in the 500?

Women are 97 percent of preschool and kindergarten teachers, 80 percent of social workers, 82 percent of librarians and 92 percent of dietitians and nutritionists and registered nurses.

Is that a problem too?

The usual answer is "yes", but am I correct in assuming you think it's "no"?

I don't know. I don't think so ~ what's the rationale? How do you know that perfect equality presents as perfectly equal percentages of any given profession?

I wonder what the ratio of male/female food servers is? If they are roughly equal, would you say we have true equality among food servers or is something else going on?

Exactly. Stepping back a bit, in nature there are all sorts of variation and swings in numbers from one characteristic to another.

Nobody wants women to be pushed out by force or denied opportunity to reach their deserved position. But is that really happening whenever we see more of one gender in a particular role than another? I don't think so.

I remember in highschool (20 years ago), only 2 girls were in my electronics class. Those 2 girls were not given any special treatment, or picked on, or anything. It was simply how the cards fell for that class due to most girls in the school NOT being interested in electronics.

I suppose we could've started a campaign designed to attract more "women in electronics". Okay, but they were never unwelcome in the first place. They simply didn't enrol in that course.

> It was simply how the cards fell for that class due to most girls in the school NOT being interested in electronics.

It seems likely that the fact that so few girls expressed an interest in electronics is a result of differences in the way society treats men and women. Whether or not this is inherently a bad thing is something I think can be reasonably debated (and at great length), but ultimately I think it is.

> How do you know that perfect equality presents as perfectly equal percentages of any given profession?

It almost certainly does not present as "perfectly equal percentages", but such radically unequal percentages are at least suspicious, especially because the professions you listed pay unusually poorly compared to jobs of similar skill and education levels.

> Women are 97 percent of preschool and kindergarten teachers

In my country this ratio is slightly better: 88-12

And it is widely seen as a serious problem.

You're right: gay people shouldn't feel the need to declare that they're gay. But there's a reason they do, and if you actually read the article that was posted instead of getting upset that someone used the words "openly" and "gay" in the same sentence, you might see why.

"Straight people don't go around declaring their sexuality, nor ever feel the need to"

Straight people don't declare their sexuality because everyone is assumed to be straight until proven otherwise.

Straight people don't go around declaring their sexuality, nor ever feel the need to.

Have you ever seen wedding photos? Never heard a man refer to his wife or a woman to her husband? People can, and should, disclose their orientation all the time.

"White people don't have a month dedicated to their history. Black people shouldn't either. That is a critical hallmark of equality."

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