>> We are not the 'nice feminists' of this community.
> Being nice doesn’t work. We’ve been nice.
In this article you were actually all nice and I read right to the bottom. I certainly do find it a lot easier to listen to and agree with people that aren't spilling hatred at me. I never want to feel like I'm giving time to somebody trying to extract some psychological harm as revenge on my gender - whether or not they have a reason to be angry with the status quo, the target market often doesn't last long enough to receive your message.
> We are tired of our male peers pretending that because they
> do not participate in bad behavior, that it is not their problem
> to solve. If you see someone engage in bad behavior and you
> do nothing, you’ve chosen to let that person think that what they
> did is okay. This leaves us feeling like we’re fighting this alone.
> We can’t work on what we can’t see, but if you’re there when it
> happens, you can help. It is absolutely imperative that men work
> with other men to combat bad attitudes and behavior.
This is true. Though it's not just heteronormativity or misogyny. It often seems like there might be the "bystander effect" at play, too. Not that you were arguing that and not to try to argue that this makes it okay, but just to argue that people taking responsibility when they have the power to do so are the exception and not the rule in human nature.
I agree that people should speak up if you see something wrong even if they just say something small, but I reckon it will be hard/impossible to educate all to do so. However if those that notice something is up speak up then it will be a better place for all of us. And for those that notice but are too shy to kick up a fuss, there is always more subtle signalling that can be used: tilt your body away from the aggressor, go quiet and start a conversation with somebody outside the group - disinterest, and "awkwardness" can be powerful.
* * *
Going slightly off-topic here just to say something that I care about. Something that has been quite difficult for me to read in other feminist pieces/tweets is the meme "not all men" which is often quickly followed by "ALL MEN!". It might be annoying to have guys constantly interrupting to raise themselves onto a little pedestal as caring gentlemen, but this is creating a wall between two groups and we both need to work beyond the meme. @slatestarcodex made a very good point in an article [1] I read recently, which explains how both sides are affected:
> "So the one problem is that people have a right not to have
> unfair below-the-belt tactics used to discredit them without
> ever responding to their real arguments. And the other
> problem is that victims of non-representative members of a
> group have the right to complain, even though those complaints
> will unfairly rebound upon the other members of that group."
In nerd-speak what he's saying is that you have a right to be angry with people that are victimising you and need to be able to speak about this, but at the same time when you say it anybody else in that group that didn't victimise you often feels that they are collateral damage (and this is actually the case, the connotations will affect them.) I don't know a solution. I side with you but some activist somewhere will hopefully step up and find a way of talking about groups in a way that doesn't turn all men into misogynists, all germans into nazis, all whites into walking privileges, and all feminists into fat, angry, lesbians (or whatever people say to discredit you.) It clearly isn't fair to individuals.
* * *
I don't think all men are out to get you. I also don't think there's a huge misogyny problem in the industry in comparison to some other industries and cultures I've mixed with. (Perhaps my bad luck.) This is my opinion from listening to the perspectives of the people around me and watching their behaviour around women.
However I do think we have a significant diversity problem and that it's altering the interactions between men and women in the tech industry in a very bad way. We're unfortunately at a point where it's probably most difficult for women. There are enough of you to talk about the problems you face, but not enough that you don't have your environment dominated by us.
I often hear tech men desperately wishing they had more women working in their company. And here is a big problem: it's not because they want to give you economic choices but because of sexual deprivation. I'm sorry if communication is nasty for you right now, I think a more diverse group would stamp out the majority of shitty interactions and we'll get there eventually. Until then some of those men are going to be acting nice trying to get close to you so they can eventually flip to their ulterior motives, while others will be running asshole PUA game on you to see what they can "get away with". Finally of course there'll be a large percentage of misogynistic or bitter (MRA) jerks that want to make you feel small so they can feel good - and unfortunately with the current diversity levels they have a voice. I can imagine it's enraging.
Sorry if I inadvertently said something that clashes with whatever feminism you all share. I just wanted to speak truthfully about how I see everything.
>In this article you were actually all nice and I read right to the bottom. I certainly do find it a lot easier to listen to and agree with people that aren't spilling hatred at me. I never want to feel like I'm giving time to somebody trying to extract some psychological harm as revenge on my gender - whether or not they have a reason to be angry with the status quo, the target market often doesn't last long enough to receive your message.
This is true, yet such a delicate matter. Allow me to digress from the primary issue at hand to share an anecdote.
When I first read about the "check your privilege" controversy at my alma mater [1], my reaction was "we definitely have acute class issues, but by opening in such a confrontational way, we're taking away any possibility of having a constructive dialogue." Delivery so profoundly affects how we respond to the raising of an issue, and can be the difference between an instinctive defensiveness or a considered opening of the psychological gates.
The letter to the editor to the NYT piece puts it well:
"Most disturbing about the “check your privilege” comment to people making arguments at Princeton University is its utility in changing the subject away from their ideas, conservative or liberal. This kind of dismissive labeling needs to be called out for the ad hominem attack that it is. Recognizing it for what it is could undermine what it does, which is to sabotage debate."
It's a delicate line to walk -- being assertive and resolute, yet communicating understanding and cooperation. But if our goal is actual, gradual change for the better, rather than simply feeling good about ourselves for putting someone down or taking the pulpit for ourselves, then I feel that the means we choose must not fail to encourage our intended audience from lending us their ear.
It is so hard though, since each person's interpretation of language differs in so many subtle ways. We can see it in this very thread, where the same given post is interpreted in a wide range of intent.
There is one, but it's extremely drastic: We would have to completely taboo group identification, everywhere, all the time. Everybody would have to be judged solely as an individual, on the individual merits of their case.
Unfortunately, we humans are social animals who evolved to form dominance and status hierarchies, so I strongly doubt this solution would actually be stable.
>I don't think all men are out to get you. I also don't think there's a huge misogyny problem in the industry in comparison to some other industries and cultures I've mixed with. (Perhaps my bad luck.) This is my opinion from listening to the perspectives of the people around me and watching their behaviour around women.
However I do think we have a significant diversity problem and that it's altering the interactions between men and women in the tech industry in a very bad way.
I think this is a fair assessment.
> Finally of course there'll be a large percentage of misogynistic or bitter (MRA) jerks that want to make you feel small so they can feel good - and unfortunately with the current diversity levels they have a voice. I can imagine it's enraging.
This is where the wheels come off, and the bias shows.
There's a large percentage of men who are either misogynistic, and /or MRA jerks? Why aren't feminists characterized as jerks? Why are you painting MRA as jerks, but apologizing to feminists if you've accidentally offended them?
This is where those of us who really hold no bias start getting annoyed about the portrayal of the male gender. Men who care about men's rights are jerks, but women who care about women's rights get apologies if they get offended by reasonable arguments?
And this was done by a male. If the feminists were really honest they'd call this man to task for being biased towards women, and they would tell him they don't want to be held above the other gender either.
The person who posted this goes into depth about the men who have an "ulterior motive" about hiring women. What is this person's ulterior motive for pandering to women in this way?
Why do I have to be ok with being told how terrible my gender is in order to work in this industry anymore?
For the more moderate feminists, consider that. You have a lot of would be allies who get just as tired of being told how terrible they are, and just want you go to away as a result. And folks like the person who posted the above are not helping, they are pandering. A rational person can look at it and think "this isn't right either".
I'm not pandering to anybody. I actually believe what I wrote.
But I do have a bias: I have a bias towards diplomacy. We all have biases and the sooner we admit that we're fallible minds that have lived just one life, not the objective thinkers we wish to present to our audience, the sooner we can begin to respect and listen to each other.
> There's a large percentage of men who are either misogynistic,
> and /or MRA jerks? Why aren't feminists characterized as jerks?
> Why are you painting MRA as jerks, but apologizing to feminists
> if you've accidentally offended them?
Not all MRA are jerks. Not all feminists are jerks.
I certainly didn't mean to imply that a large percentage of men were misogynists. I meant to say that it was a slightly larger percentage than is normally visible and that this was mostly because in a 50/50 male/female environment they would self-censor as well as have less reason to feel the way they do while in the current 90/10 environment (or whatever it is) they do not need to.
I think the article was unusually fair and diplomatic for a tech gender piece. I wanted to repay this by commenting on my own opinions in as careful, constructive and fair way as I know how to. If I was to have posted an inflammatory rant about how angry feminists were just as bad as misogynists and then have tried to equate them using some ridiculous objective-appearing seesaw as if I was the divine judge of a gender-war then I'd be completely arguing against what I was arguing for: diplomacy and the acceptance and understanding of each other's problems as a result of there being a lack of diversity.
I want a better way of acting together, not to win a battle.
You are absolutely entitled to your opinions but you are way too confident of the truth of what you're saying to signal rationality.
If there's one thing I've learned in my 35 years on this planet, it's that telling someone they're irrational is not diplomatic.
But it wasn't men you were talking about being diplomatic to, was it? It was women.
I wonder if that diplomacy should also include men, and if so, how do you feel about the way feminists have been vilifying men? Or the way you just did, with your comment about MRA.
> If there's one thing I've learned in my 35 years on this planet,
> it's that telling someone they're irrational is not diplomatic.
Well, you did it first, I just pointed out that we'd all do better by listening to each other and having less certainty of our rationality.
> I wonder if that diplomacy should also include men, and if so,
> how do you feel about the way feminists have been vilifying men?
I feel like it's a bad 'weak men' argument as stated by my two paragraphs I wrote on it referring to the article by @slatestarcodex.
* * *
I also feel that some aspects of feminism in technology can be neatly framed as rent-seeking behaviour. But, I think anybody that gives their wealth over to another because they have been guilted into believing that they should not truly own it (privilege narrative) are fools who should be parted with their money.
Also, I think that many in the MRA community are just too whiney to attempt to defend men. I could barely mount an argument for men like that.
I'm not a feminist. I listened to the article because it wasn't shouted at me, and I responded saying that some of the behaviour annoys me, that the normal lack of diplomacy normally makes me stop reading after 5 seconds, and that diversity is a problem because of the social interactions it creates but there isn't much misogyny to see. There's enough shared belief to be tapped here, and I'm pretty good at not jumping in with my own strong opinions when I can see a benefit in solving an underlying problem with others.
You cannot quote me insulting you in any way, the closest you can get is the statement that a rational person can look at the pandering that happens from some men and conclude it isn't right either (yes, you are included in that group of 'some men').
It should also be noted that I'm not the one who is using diplomacy in their argument. My issue with you is the weak way in which you've pandered to feminists in general, while at the same time painting men and MRA as 'jerks'.
We are not jerks, nor is MRA about 'jerks'. It is unfortunate that you've chosen to buy that line, you should start being more proud of your gender.
If men and women are going to come to any sort of concensus on these sorts of issues, it's not going to happen by 1 side pandering to the other.
"Men's rights activism" is seldom more than bashing women and attempting to shout down and dismiss any issues they might raise. I think this is sad, because there are some interesting issues a "men's place in society" movement could address, but unfortunately whatever reasonable folk there might be under the "men's rights" label, they're drowned out by a flood of really hateful people.
Are you characterizing people who identify as "feminist" as jerks here? Perhaps you should reconsider your phrasing. And consider how "hold no bias" you sound when you say something like that.
There's no such thing as the "male gender" ('male' refers to sex). You have a bias. For one thing, it's your years of socializaton as a boy and now a (young?) man. Understanding what feminists are trying to say takes work. You haven't done enough work yet. No one in 2014 is saying that it's terrible that you're male.
Maybe it's a cultural thing but here in the UK at least I think male and female are seen as genders... What word should the parent commenter have used? "man gender" is not grammatical, so I can only think of one other option; "male".
(edit: and in case I'm misunderstood, I don't mean any kind of subtext on the wider debate here, I'm just asking because I think 'male' is a gender and am confused).
(edit: right, found this: http://www.med.monash.edu.au/gendermed/sexandgender.html so basically it's the difference between sex and gender. I wasn't acutely aware that the words male vs masculine carried such an important distinction. I'm not sure if they are commonly used in that distinct way).
You can see the following quote: _Depending on the context, the term may refer to biological sex (i.e. the state of being male, female or intersex), ..._
LGBT has a tendency to use the term gender to mean gender roles, where the lines are a bit more obscure. I believe psychologists do as well.
But in every day vernacular, gender refers to sex for most people, and as the wiki article suggests, it's completely acceptable to use it in that manner.
I'll repeat what I said before, the poster was just looking for something to attack.
In U.S. medical and feminist academics (and elsewhere,) "male/female" refers to sex: XX/XY chromosomes and the resulting organs, body type, etc, resulting in human sexual dimorphism, to which there are rare, exceptional cases, where the person is called intersex.
"man/woman" are common terms colloquially referring to male/female people (you probably know this). In the context of certain feminisms, the words refer to people born male or female, and then raised into the gender roles defined by society as appropriate for male and female people. These gender roles are what are invoked by words like "manly", "womanly", "sissy", and other "gendered" words and insults.
In other feminisms, the words refer to people who "identify" as one or the other, where this identity is either "innate" or otherwise fluid or something. Full disclosure, I sympathize with the former sort of feminism, so I'm not exactly the best person to give a comprehensive synopsis here.
Judith Lorber's "Gender Inequality" is a book that goes over individual feminist movements and waves, without necessarily pushing any of them on the reader. It's not too long, I recommend it.
I agree that people should speak up if you see something wrong even if they just say something small, but I reckon it will be hard/impossible to educate all to do so. However if those that notice something is up speak up then it will be a better place for all of us. And for those that notice but are too shy to kick up a fuss, there is always more subtle signalling that can be used: tilt your body away from the aggressor, go quiet and start a conversation with somebody outside the group - disinterest, and "awkwardness" can be powerful.
Going slightly off-topic here just to say something that I care about. Something that has been quite difficult for me to read in other feminist pieces/tweets is the meme "not all men" which is often quickly followed by "ALL MEN!". It might be annoying to have guys constantly interrupting to raise themselves onto a little pedestal as caring gentlemen, but this is creating a wall between two groups and we both need to work beyond the meme. @slatestarcodex made a very good point in an article [1] I read recently, which explains how both sides are affected: In nerd-speak what he's saying is that you have a right to be angry with people that are victimising you and need to be able to speak about this, but at the same time when you say it anybody else in that group that didn't victimise you often feels that they are collateral damage (and this is actually the case, the connotations will affect them.) I don't know a solution. I side with you but some activist somewhere will hopefully step up and find a way of talking about groups in a way that doesn't turn all men into misogynists, all germans into nazis, all whites into walking privileges, and all feminists into fat, angry, lesbians (or whatever people say to discredit you.) It clearly isn't fair to individuals. I don't think all men are out to get you. I also don't think there's a huge misogyny problem in the industry in comparison to some other industries and cultures I've mixed with. (Perhaps my bad luck.) This is my opinion from listening to the perspectives of the people around me and watching their behaviour around women.However I do think we have a significant diversity problem and that it's altering the interactions between men and women in the tech industry in a very bad way. We're unfortunately at a point where it's probably most difficult for women. There are enough of you to talk about the problems you face, but not enough that you don't have your environment dominated by us.
I often hear tech men desperately wishing they had more women working in their company. And here is a big problem: it's not because they want to give you economic choices but because of sexual deprivation. I'm sorry if communication is nasty for you right now, I think a more diverse group would stamp out the majority of shitty interactions and we'll get there eventually. Until then some of those men are going to be acting nice trying to get close to you so they can eventually flip to their ulterior motives, while others will be running asshole PUA game on you to see what they can "get away with". Finally of course there'll be a large percentage of misogynistic or bitter (MRA) jerks that want to make you feel small so they can feel good - and unfortunately with the current diversity levels they have a voice. I can imagine it's enraging.
Sorry if I inadvertently said something that clashes with whatever feminism you all share. I just wanted to speak truthfully about how I see everything.
[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweapo...