Social Norms and Gendered Expectations | Hacker News Reader

Social Norms and Gendered Expectations

kateheddleston.com

17 pointswebology15 comments

The only thing I disagree with here is the idea that assertiveness is uniquely or predominately associated with white men, and that it's a problem to be solved (that's how I read her, anyway.) To me, there are two problems to be solved here, the first is that women are uniquely punished for being assertive; the second is that, in my opinion, you need a mix of assertive and relatively unassertive people in your organization to accomplish the most, but being assertive will naturally get you more attention, money, etc, which can create an imbalance in staff rewards. So I would not say that the problem is assertiveness in any way whatsoever (insofar as you are not being abusive eg interrupting) but of mediating the two groups and assigning appropriate compensation for individual staffers' abilities.

I initially had a slightly defensive impression about the article, but I ended up agreeing with it.

I hate to say this, but she will just have to get over it. People have biases, and are not entirely rational (in fact, if anything, we are machines built to rationalize to other people what we deserve).

The article goes to the ridiculous area, which is trending in the U.S.: Taking on the impossible task to train people to avoid these "unconscious" biases. It will a be a lot wasted effort, for ultimately impossible goal.

Let's assume there is a surgical procedure that lets you get of your biases. Would you do it? Are you going to require people to undergo the procedure? At some point, we just have to accept the biases, because the cost to get rid of them is too high.

And even if I would accept her solution, one of the big biases is that we judge similar faces to our own more positively. How are we ever going to get rid of that bias? For a given minority, you can perhaps consciously think, "Am I here biased?". But for person which looks differently than you? How can you even know you are biased?

Finally, I would like to warn, attempts to correct bias may create more bias, overshadowing any bias that was originally there. For instance, if you have positive discrimination, people may think that minorities have a leg up thanks to it, and may judge them more harshly.

I don't think any amount of anti-bias training will change people's biases. What does change them is role-models, and yes, in biased environment, these require hard work, on part of people who don't want to be perceived in biased fashion. Tough cookie.

I don't understand what problem you think she has that would be solved by "getting over it". She seems like she's doing fine to me. Getting stuff done. Supporting herself. Writing stuff other people want to read. What's the problem?

> How can you even know you're biased?

It's a lot like learning any other thing. As a young programmer, how can you even know you're using classic anti-patterns in your coding? The answer is you can't. When you are just starting out you don't even see the playing field, let alone how to shine on it. But you start with what you know, practice, and keep trying, and you get good as it. Learning about bias is no different than anything else.

> I don't understand what problem you think she has that would be solved by "getting over it".

She will have to accept the fact that people are unconsciously biased and won't fix it.

> It's a lot like learning any other thing.

My point is - people won't do it. Especially people in power, who make decisions; they are often not "nice". What she wants is a micromanagement of social relationships.

It actually may only confuse a couple of nice nerds and make them socially more awkward as they honestly try to navigate the maze of these new social norms. If anything, I am worried that the result will be even worse perception of the IT profession.

tl;dr: Interesting summary of the issues. Not much actionable at the end.

The author does suggest tracking data. This seems like a good idea: when people get what promotions and raises, etc. This is to counterbalance our tendency to see what our bias wants us to see.

I can see how this would work for larger minorities, but it doesn't seem to scale (down): the smaller a minority, the higher variance you will see in your data. I'm not sure it helps at all when you get down to the point where you have only a single member of a group in your population.

I think the actionable is get more people to read about the issues and the specifics of the issues.

I'd rather have an author take the actionable instead of giving me one.

Yay author!

Yeah I'm not of fan of 'awareness' as a social mechanism. Its more of 'look at us; we're on the right side of this issue!' but doesn't move anything forward.

I find that difficult to understand.

From my perspective the root cause of every problem is a lack of information and lack of awareness .... a plan of action can come only after that, and will on it's own.

So educate yourself, then ACT. Instead, folks have fairs and mailings and talks and races, spreading awareness, spending money. And then what? Mostly nothing.

The culture doesn't change overnight, the long haul of changing the boundaries of the conversation can only be achieved through conversation.

There are people you need to convince Joe, and you can't get them to take action until they enter the conversation as well.

Not enough people are aware of the conversation or its boundaries to act yet, once they are, the action will have happened already.

Your words make me think you think an individual can accomplish something without the group. That stupid people will always be stupid so educating them is pointless, some other "action" aside from education must occur.

I worry you've given up hope on education and with no "action" to take you dismiss those who attempt to educate. I didn't hear the action you proposed, just that it must be an action and "awareness" and "education" is a lost cause before we've begun.

If the problem is stated sufficiently and completely enough, we can talk about solutions.

Without the awareness and the context, a "action item" is worse than "I'm right" it's "I'm right and do what I say" instead of "No one's right, here's the problems, can we discuss?"

    behavior like assertiveness, dominance, or even interrupting

I've observed these behaviors in both women as well and people who aren't white. What's common among these "exceptions" and the "white males" who exhibit these traits is that they typically have a very aspie/autistic brain with a strong focus on constructivism and proofs. There are also plenty of white males who are not assertive, dominant and interrupt. And many white males are interrupted by other white males that are assertive and dominant. Women and non-whites are not the only ones who experience being interrupted by assertive and dominant individuals.

If you're wrong about something (or perceived to be wrong about something) in a discussion with someone (of either gender) who scores high on having systemizing cognitive traits and mind-blindness, you'll likely experience them interrupting you to assert their dominance about why you are wrong through proofs and/or deductive reasoning.

Research indicates that the main correlative factor with these behaviors is likely exposure to higher levels of fetal testosterone. While it is statistically more common for males to be exposed to high levels of fetal testosterone, females exposed to high levels of fetal testosterone also exhibit similar personalities/behaviors. Levels of fetal testosterone exposure are more predictive than gender insofar as measures of systematizing and likelihood of mind blindness is concerned.

Focusing on this being a "gendered" issue leads you to ignore other factors that may be more predictive (and possibly causative, but there's nothing conclusive yet) than what sex chromosomes someone has.

Check out the research work from Simon Baron Cohen from the longitudinal Cambridge Child Development Study.

http://www.autismresearchcentre.com/project_15_foetaltst

FWIW, I am one of those assertive, dominant individuals that interrupts others often. I try to be cognizant of this "habit" of mine. I interrupt white males way way way more often than I interrupt those who are not male or white. I happen to be a white male and aspie. As I have these traits, it's much easier for me to recognize it in others irrespective of gender and race.

A great contributing factor to interrupting others is that I have an incredibly hard time picking up on the facial and voice inflection cues that indicate that someone is done speaking. I often perceive someone as being done with their thought when they actually are not. When I err on the side of being conservative and really wait for it to be obvious that someone is done speaking, it results in me missing the opportunity to speak next and someone with a greater capacity to realize when someone is done speaks up before I get the chance. Because of this I either end up in scenarios where I interrupt more often than I should or not having any opportunity to speak. It's quite challenging to find the sweet spot where my timing is such where I can pick up on when someone is done talking and speak next without interrupting them.

I do not think the purpose of "gendered expectations" is to say that all "white males" behave this way and that other types of people do not. It is not meant to be predictive. As you point out, many people have these traits and there is interesting research finding correlation between behavioral traits and biological factors.

Instead, gendered expectations is about behavior that a society/environment deem acceptable for a certain type of person. That is, it is more acceptable for a man to behave in a loud and assertive manner.

Your final point really rung true with me. It is a great example of how environments encourage, or even require, that type of behavior. I can recall many times that I have been in a meeting and had anxiety that I couldn't get my point across because someone else was interrupting more effectively. And if I don't interrupt at the right time, I get spoken over and eventually the topic moves on.

Know that in those environments, you're not the only person in the room feeling that way. And for the less assertive people or those who think it is inappropriate to interrupt others, they get even less opportunities to speak up. It seems like that is the status quo for so many discussions and I have to wonder, is there a better way?

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