Hacker News Reader

Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

Well, he's pissed at a woman journalist accusing his company of sexism and misogyny. He said so. This is already a gendered incident.

So sure, it's possible that he'd also talk about destroying a male journalist for the same thing. Heck, it's possible that he has the bodies of a dozen journalists, all male, buried in his back yard. But given that this was already about sexism and misogyny, given Uber's notoriously douchebro culture, and given that prominent women on the Internet are regularly attacked in ways that men aren't, interpreting this as a continuing pattern of misogynistic behavior seems reasonable.

View on HN

So all you have to do is accuse people of sexism, and anything they do in reaction to that is automatically sexist? Does that make Arthur Miller a communist?

That is not what I said. If you're really having trouble interpreting what I wrote, perhaps you could ask less loaded question, and one more specifically related to what you're replying to.

That is exactly what you said! You said that when a woman journalist accuses you of sexism, it's already a "gendered incident" (even if you didn't do anything to deserve the original accusation!) and getting angry at her can be "reasonably" interpreted as a "continuing pattern of misogynistic behavior". The logical consequence of that is that any woman journalist can indict someone for misogyny and it's automatically true, in your eyes, if they try to defend themselves.

Logical? By no-shades-of-gray, nuance-eliminating, crazy-person logic, sure.

Uber did some sexist stuff. A woman called them out for it. A man got upset and talked about a detailed revenge fantasy against her. He did not name any other journalists, even though plenty of people have been critical of Uber. Gender is part of this story.

I'm not saying that this guy is or is not a sexist or a misogynist, and I'm not saying that Uber does or does not have a culture that contributes to sexist or misogynist behavior. I wasn't present. I don't know enough to determine "true" here. Probably nobody does. Probably nobody ever will.

I am saying that is reasonable to suspect that gender plays a role here. Which is why I said "interpreting this as a continuing pattern of misogynistic behavior seems reasonable," and not whatever you think I said. We live in a world with a history millennia long of systemic sexism and endemic misogyny, a history we haven't entirely emerged from yet. People who see this incident as part of that history are not insane. They are reasonable.

I'm not saying that's the only reasonable interpretation. I'm saying reasonable people can differ on things like this, and you frothing at me won't change that.

You've qualified your words very well then; whenever someone calls you out for what you said, you can credibly backtrack to the fact that you didn't say much of anything. You would have a promising career in politics.

What you imply has troublesome connotations, which you seem unwilling to honestly address, so you just insult me instead.

Your inferring something does not mean I implied it. Also, I didn't insult you, I mocked your eminently mockable argument. You're going to have to work on your reading comprehension if you want to be taken seriously.

I'm not backtracking at all. I said that gender was clearly in play, and that it seemed reasonable to see his behaviors as misogynistic given the context. I stand by those statements.

> I didn't insult you... You're going to have to work on your reading comprehension if you want to be taken seriously.

That's the third time you've insulted me and you're saying you didn't insult me? It's reasonable to see your behavior as trolling. Learn to discuss things like an adult instead of making personal attacks and maybe I'll take your ideas seriously. As it stands, you're only discrediting yourself.

By the way, judging from my comment score at least four other people inferred the same thing from your comment that I did. That's a large enough number that maybe you're the one who didn't explain yourself clearly. Think about that before making any more comments about my reading comprehension.

> That's the third time you've insulted me and you're saying you didn't insult me?

You are failing to comprehend the exact words I wrote in a way that I am having a hard time seeing as other than willful. Because of that, I'm taking you as a person with an axe to grind, not someone who's serious. So if you would like to be taken seriously...

And given that you leapt in to accuse me of being part of HUAC, calling me a troll is a little rich. Regardless, gender issues in tech are an interest of mine going back 20 years, so no, I am not trolling. But by all means keep up with the drama.

> By the way, judging from my comment score at least four other people inferred the same thing

Yes, that is the only possible interpretation of an upvote on Hacker News. Oh no! You have showed me! Chastened, I retreat from the field.

> And given that you leapt in to accuse me of being part of HUAC

Speaking of failing to comprehend the exact words someone wrote. If you want to be taken seriously you should extend the same courtesy to others, even those who disagree with you, full stop. I was disagreeing with you in good faith because I was troubled by the implications of what I thought you were saying, and instead of providing any kind of helpful clarifications you provided personal attacks. Which one of us has the axe to grind?

Ok. Taking you at your word:

I'm sorry if I misunderstood. You drew an analogy to Arthur Miller and communism. I presume the reference was to Miller's famous troubles with HUAC. Not seeing anybody else nearby, I assumed was the witch-hunter in this analogy. I also assumed that you were equating anti-sexist efforts with anti-Communist hysteria, which I think is a) wrong, and b) insulting to the last 150 years of people doing anti-sexist work. But since you insist it was all in good faith, I'll assume that you meant something else entirely.

If in the future you would like people to gently provide helpful clarifications, you could perhaps start by asking reasonably neutral questions. Instead of, say, leaping into contentious threads with conclusions about what people meant and drawing dramatic analogies to the famously wronged. However good your personal intentions were, there are a host of people, especially here on Hacker News, that are less committed to good-faith discussion and are are reflexively opposed to anything that might suggest that there are gender issues in tech.

I do think that "anti-sexist efforts" have risen to the level of a witch-hunt or anti-Communist hysteria, which is not to say I'm supportive of sexism any more than a critic of HUAC was necessarily supportive of communism. I think that's a reasonable way of looking at things and if you can't imagine someone holding that opinion in good faith then I suppose we have no more to talk about.

Specifically, I think it's reasonable for Uber executives to take exception to their company being characterized as misogynistic. I don't think taking exception, even strong exception, to these accusations is a misogynistic act in itself.

I agree that it is reasonable for people to disagree with their company being characterized as misogynistic. However, I continue to believe that responding to reasonable accusations of sexism by spinning elaborate fantasies of revenge against a woman could reasonably be taken as further evidence of sexism. (I also believe that it's deeply improper to try to keep journalists from journalism: the First Amendment includes press because they are a foundational part of a functioning democracy. But that's mostly beside the point here.)

Do I believe that one can in good faith believe that current concerns about sexism are a witch hunt? (Note that "hysteria" is an unfortunate word choice here in that it was an imaginary disease used to smear women for centuries, and the name itself is rooted in the notion that having lady parts makes you crazy.) Sure, I guess. In the same sense that I think one can have a good-faith belief that anthropogenic climate change isn't real. In both cases I think some are consciously acting in bad faith. But I think the bulk just don't know enough about the topic to have a valid opinion, so they run with the one that's politically and/or personally convenient for them to have.

As a guy, I get it: the shift from thousands of years of male domination to something more equitable feels like a loss. We quite literally didn't have to think about how women would take things. Now suddenly our speech and actions are having consequences they didn't used to have. It's easy to feel that we get in trouble for saying "normal" things. But it didn't work the other way: women always had to be conscious of how men would take what they said.

The system of beliefs and behaviors that punished women for speaking up and speaking out is on the wane, but as we see with Kathy Sierra, it's still powerful. Until it's destroyed, I think everybody has an obligation to help end it, or at least stay out of the way. And when people do things that look a lot like supporting and continuing that system (as Michael did here) they should not be surprised when people do not look charitably upon that.

It's not gendered. A reporter discussed supposed sexism and misogyny at a company. The man is frustrated because it's probably untrue, but we don't have a clear picture because the press has been sensationalizing anything anti-Uber for a while now, and no credible evidence is ever presented.

That doesn't make his response or anything about it gendered. It doesn't matter who slanders, it's frustrating when it happens, and joking about digging up dirt to do the exact same thing back to a journalist so they know what it feels like is tantamount to wishing an abusive person would some day get to know what being on the receiving end of that feels like.

Also, you should really check your sources about harassment on the internet. Prominent men are harassed more often and more violently than prominent women. It's a recently constructed myth that's been hyped up by the media over the past few months that the internet is an especially hostile place for women.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com