Hacker News Reader

Comment by tajen | Hacker News Reader

Because women are more talentful? If something irritates me, it's newspapers full of articles saying that women are better at work than men, women lecturing men on being being accordingly stupid, and no quality attributed to men about work or private life, apart from being stronger (yay, stronger, a great brain-dead prejudice).

I included your lecturing in my original comment, it's an humiliation that you could think I oversaw such aspects.

View on HN

This.

While I agree that generally in SV there is some misogyny, that doesn't mean any injustice against males should be seen as a red herring.

Nobody said that. Reading the comment again, we see it said "Women flock there because they can succeed there." There would then be many more talented women there than average.

Just as a note, as I know nothing about your or your situation, but reacting angrily will NOT help any impressions you are giving.

Frankly, when someone tells me they work in a tech place where women are successful, I'm jealous. So if you want to point out that there is some hostile bias at work and not just the lack of hostile environments that drive women away from so many places, you need to prove that. Coming across as a woman-hating man does not accomplish this (Again, I don't know you, I'm only saying the impression you are giving).

> Frankly, when someone tells me they work in a tech place where women are successful, I'm jealous.

I think the key there is "where women are successful *at mens expense" (feel free to swap the genders as well).

Well promotions are by definition zero sum. Promotion of any individual is at the expense of every other qualified individual who wanted the job.

You're assuming there is a fixed pie. What if the company is growing?

It's still zero sum for the current employees. Only the following scenarios are possible whether a company is growing or not:

  1. Nobody gets the promotion
  2. Somebody outside the company gets the promotion
  3. Somebody inside the company who isn't me gets the promotion
  4. I get the promotion

With the exception of #1, I only get the promotion at the expense of my coworkers (who want and are qualified for the job).

Edit: Put a better way, it is zero sum because you and your coworkers cannot equally share in the benefits of a promotion.

Oh yes, I'm just saying when you are claiming that a normally (relatively) priviledged group is being discriminated against, you have a certain perceptional burden of proof, and being angry doesn't help make your case.

What newspapers are you reading?

I won't answer your question because you just need to google "Why women are better for management" and you'll find many articles; And many major newspaper ran stories about the advantage of being a woman and manager (at least for Marissa Mayer). Women are usually granted with qualities like being able to do two things at the same time (which is good for a management position), being talkative (good for management), having empathy when necessary (good for management), being more organized...

I honestly can't list out of my mind qualities which are generally attributed to men, apart from being sharks. Please upgrade my ego if you can list any ;)

Your quickness to retaliate in anger, instead of correcting your mathematical oversight, undermines your reader's confidence in your ability to judge the merits of your coworkers.

I agree that many companies are discriminating against men in hiring and promotions, and that many managers are much more lenient toward women than men. I, too, am seeing contradictions of the statistics in many tech workplaces (e.g. 4:1 CS graduation rate, or 99:1 OSS contribution rate, but 2:1 and 1:1 employment rates).

I'm confident that the cause of this discrimination is companies' very rational fear of sex discrimination lawsuits (which only women can successfully wage), and the resulting public-relations shitstorm that results from that (but only when a woman has something to complain about). Anyone following the tech industry's news cycle over the past five years is familiar with this threat.

However, I object to your unease here at newspapers suggesting that there are differences between genders. There are obviously differences between genders -- biological and psychological.

The problem is that we have a culture that requires companies to take precautions (e.g. hiring less-abled women over better-abled men to meet lawyer-recommended quotas) to protect their interests; a culture that suppresses meaningful exploration of the differences between men and women (e.g. you're only allowed to mention possible advantages that women have) and how to handle that.

Our culture is mandating equality in all regards, at all costs, and its enforcers will stop at nothing until that's achieved. The reality is that, on average, certain demographics have innate advantages over others in a capitalist system. Gender can't go away, so the only way to achieve equality in the face of gender differences is to wage cultural-level discrimination against the advantaged.

Our culture needs to change; it's standing in the way of humanity reaching its greatest potential. I'm not sure how much further we can go while slitting our wrists at the altar of equality.

(new account because I would like to remain employed)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com