Hacker News Reader

Comment by matt4077 | Hacker News Reader

There is also a difference in what is legal and what is acceptable. A good example from this case is not inviting her to an even with Al Gore because women "would kill the buzz". It's probably legal as long as it isn't part of a very explicit larger scheme to discriminate women, but it's plainly wrong.

I also don't get how, exactly, women are buzzkillers. But maybe I just don't speak bro.

View on HN

So there is not a single situation in which any group is allowed to be excluded based on anything that in't symptomatic of some larger conspiracy?

"I don't want Danny to come and see Jim Jeffries comedy because Jim says a lot of negative things about religion, and Danny as a Christian would be a buzzkill".

"I don't want Danny to come and see Anita Sarkesian talk because he is a man and his being there will be a buzzkill".

"I don't want Danny to come and see Barcelona Play Real Madrid because he is a buzzkill whenever sport comes up".

Seems to me that there are lots of valid reasons why people wouldn't want certain people around - people exclude me from all manner of things, and I don't think that is evidence of systematic bias against me. In fact, in many situations I'd say it is reasonable to exclude me, because I would very much be a buzzkill. As one such example:

"I don't want webehere to come and see the psychic, because he will spend his whole time trying to prove they are full of shit, and that will be a buzzkill".

I can't help noticing that all your examples involve an individual, even though you advance them in the context of group discrimination.

What about 'I don't want any men coming to our next brainstorming session because they're always going on about margins and analytics and it's such a buzzkill?'

"I do not want your husbands on this shopping trip as they'll be such a buzkill". "Let's not invite our girlfriends to this snowboarding drunk fest as they'll be such a buzkill".

These phrases could be social cliches, but neither is immoral in principle. It's ok to be in the company of people who are definitely and exactly into your fetish.

Of course if it's a company sponsored snow trip then it's different matter altogether.

Like code camps exclusively for gender/race/socioeconomic/etc groups? I thought exclusionary practices were the pinnacle of progressive reasoning.

You really don't see the difference between "Let's not invite any women to this event, they're all bitches" and "Let's make a women only event because they are a minority and their voices tend to not be heard in the masses"?

Oh sure, there's infinite differences. It just sounded as if anigbrowl was taking a principled position on exclusionary practices. Almost like we should tolerate people who look and act differently than ourselves instead of secluding ourselves into groups that mirror our values.

Actually I was just pointing out the self-contradictory nature of the comment I was replying to, rather than making a sweeping statement about exclusionary practices, which you and some other people have projected onto it. I do not, for example, consider myself a 'progressive.'

You could, of course, have just asked me to clarify my views on the subject before taking pot-shots at it.

one is a doomed attempt to fix sexism with sexism and the other is a strawman. they seem to have very little relation to each other.

If you want to pick a fight, try someone else. I'm not in the mood for sarcasm on this pleasant afternoon.

If you want a conceptual framework to understand political correctness you need to understand Gramsci who wrote the rulebook for culture war back in the early 20th century. John Fonte explains the whole thing pretty well in this classic essay: http://www.hoover.org/research/why-there-culture-war

Wow, fascinating and yet deeply depressing read. I realized that I fundamentally disagree with both major sides in this cultural debate—the only ones that have any real chance of maintaining broad social control. Which would be fine, except both sides view any disagreement as inherently immoral. They cannot countenance any disagreement and actively try to suppress it and reeducate the populace.

I've been realizing that the world is a lot more moralistic and populist than I thought, and this just reinforces that. Distressing.

I'm content having my own preferences on how things should be run, even if they're different from most people's. And I certainly don't want to push them onto others! I would like a world where people can do their own thing with no problems as long as they're not trying to force their views on others. But that's not enough for either side; both insist that any person or organization has to follow their principles even if they're content to be self-contained.

It's possible that some men, especially the very successful/powerful, are afraid that a woman will file suit over something which, despite being said without malice, was offensive to the listener.

Edit: I'm not necessarily defending their decision to discriminate based on gender. I'm only trying to suggest a motive for their bad behavior.

As a man, I've known groups of men to occasionally make crude yet seemingly hilarious remarks that they would not make in the presence of women. If your line of thinking on the subject is correct, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the answer. In the presence of men, other men make men-style remarks. In the presence of women, other women make women-style remarks. I'm not invited to my wife's girls nights with her friends, and she doesn't seem too torn up when she's not on the porch smoking cigars with me and the guys. The reason for that is we want to be able to have gender-specific conversations.

But like you mentioned, if this is happening in the workplace, that's completely wrong for anyone to do. Especially when it's preventing a woman from meeting the former vice president just because she's a woman. Is one woman at a men's only social party a buzz kill? Perhaps. Is one woman at a business meeting a buzz kill? Certainly yes, because there really should be more.

>> if this is happening in the workplace, that's completely wrong for anyone to do

This is the most important part. The comments and examples of gender specific comments/comments males may not make in front of females or vice versa are accurate, anyone denying that there isn't some truth to this is simply wrong (right or wrong, humans have some natural tribal tendencies that lead to this). However, there's a huge difference between comments made on a "guys night" playing poker or a trip to Vegas (or a girls night out, playing poker, going to Vegas), etc. and it happening in the workplace. While the underlying motive of a comment like "we can't invite women to this meeting because it will kill the buzz of a bunch of guys shooting the shit" impacts a career, the career of someone who is clearly highly capable.

It goes further than that. The KP partner that was accused of letting Pao out of company events was described by co-workers as having similar personality traits with her (being pushy and territorial, elbowing others out). He was promoted, she was fired. Sounds like the common pattern that the same sort of behavior will lead a man to be called an "alpha" or somesuch, and a woman, well, a bitch.

I find myself embarrassed for the sexism expressed in each of those situations -- for the stereotypes the men endorse when no women are around, and vice versa.

I'm also single and depressed so take with grain of salt eh.

No, you're right. There's a difference between making a joke about the similarities between your wife and your friend's wife versus making sexist remarks that some groups of men tend to do. And some women do too, to be fair. Humans all have flaws, and some of us try to put those flaws aside. Others like to put their flaws on display like they are proud of them. There's no excuse for it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com