Hacker News Reader

Comment by politicallines | Hacker News Reader

What a sexist comment. In this world where equality for men means "avoid the crimes they commit and their languishing in jails", does equality for women means that they will start take a job and not just spend the money of men?

Is the discussion so infected that we can't simply share a goal that every person should be equal in worth, be able to pursue their passion in life, and to have liberty. If we can't agree to such simple goals, then how can we ever have progress beyond political lines than just shout at each other, forever arguing and never fixing anything for the better.

View on HN

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10436439 and marked it off-topic.

You're punching air mate.

I think the point was just that if we don't help these boys - then they are more likely to fall into patterns of crime and violence - which is a cost everyone in society would like to avoid. What is there to disagree with here?

After reading it a couple of times I think there is something to the phrasing. The underlying motivation does matter. No one supports the era where an increasing number of women were in the office just because the boss liked having a "pretty young thing" around, even though it helped the numbers.

Likewise there's a very big difference in helping children because we want to maximise their potential and it being the right thing to do, versus helping them because they're effectively holding society hostage by otherwise becoming criminals later in life. You're probably not going to put your best into helping a group you feel holds you hostage and certain solutions, like guaranteed employment in a physically draining but low paying job, might eliminate the threat for society while wasting the potential of the kids involved.

It may be similar to people who take issue when someone warns another (especially a younger woman) of the dangers of walking around at night alone.

There is a legitimate increase in danger in some areas, but people often view it as victim blaming. The line between 'do this and you'll have a better chance of being safe' and 'if you had done this, you would have had a better chance of having been safe' can be fine.

There are also those who see such advice as misplaced (the whole don't teach people how to avoid X, teach other people to not do X).

Not saying I agree or disagree with either view point, only hypothesizing there could be a common trend of thought underlying the issues some are taking with the original post.

"If we don't help these girls - then they are more likely to fall into patterns of parasitic behavior - which is a cost everyone in society would like to avoid. What is there to disagree with here?"

You don't see a problem with phrasing equality in that way?

Are you suggesting there are zero behavioural differences between boys and girls?

It seems that the post is suggesting the implications of the phrasing can be taken as offensive, and trying to give a different example to express the point.

To avoid gender, consider an example which uses race instead.

>It would help humanity to also give enough focus on black child development so that we could save their future, avoid the crimes they commit and their languishing in jails.

I've only switched one word, and while some may say it is not offensive, I could clearly foresee some people finding the underlying tone as offensive.

Calling boys for future criminals and girls for future parasites is not going to help creating equality. It has nothing to do with "behavioural" differences from genes, and everything to do about sexism.

That's exaggerating his position. It's not sexist to acknowledge differences between males and females.

It is likely sexist to acknowledge differences as being biological in origin when they are sociological in origin. Of course, some differences are biological, but the outcome of how the biological differences result in different social trends is part sociological.

For an example of a difference which is sexist, imagine someone saying women are less fit for critical roles because they are more emotional, when in fact it is that our society works to repress male expression of emotions and both men and women are, at the core, emotional entities.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com