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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

> What if this reliance on rationalism and this idea of exceptionalism makes it easy to dismiss what you don’t experience first-hand?

Indeed. It's amazing how many self-described rational people fall back on "I've never seen it, therefore it doesn't exist and you are lying" when it comes to uncomfortable or challenging questions. It's very easy to end up performing a kind of rationalism identity politics, especially when men end up defending "rational" men from "irrational" women.

> "being unbiased is a vital part of being smart"

(From a quote within the article)

I disagree, having known a lot of smart people. There's definitely a skill of being able to step back from a situation and look at it from other angles. That doesn't mean people apply it by default to themselves. Nobody likes rationally evaluating their own flaws. Some of the smartest people I knew had chaotic personal lives because of this.

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You can flip this around just the same. These "women in tech" have never heard of men being treated awfully, while women complain loudly and get easy attention when they do, so it _must_ be much worse for them.

This too is a bias, that coverage is proportional to incidence.

When men get shit treatment, they can't play the gender card, so they don't. It's not going to get a sympathetic ear, damseling and crying makes them look pathetic, and you're a loner creepy neckbeard unless proven otherwise. So men are out to prove themselves by default, and women who are not used to this see it as discrimination in an industry where "put up or shut up" is the norm to cover up bad management and shitty work loads.

This is a logical consequence of applying privilege theory back onto tech feminism, and it's a truth they refuse to face, instead dismissing it with the same sort of gendered epiteths and generalizations they shriek at when on the receiving end.

Do men get badly treated in tech simply for being men? Or is it the generic bad treatment of employees?

I think that was the point he was trying to make? That womens perception of bad treatment because they are women, might in fact be a generic bad treatment of employees as you say. I can agree that it might be plausible in the cases where the bad treatment is coming from a higher level, and is not blatantly sexual harassment.

Bad treatment amongst co-workers on the same level will almost always be because they either don't like you or [if you're a woman] because of your gender.

Now, I have no idea if the women that are complaining about bad treatment just defaulted to "I'm getting badly treated because I'm a woman" or if they considered that they're not well liked, but it might be an important distinction to make.

I once had the CEO of a company roll his eyes at me in the middle of a meeting and say roughly "you tech people are all the same".

Did I scream discrimination or did I pass it off as the powerplay of an asshole?

I passed it off as the powerplay of an asshole.

The thing about assholes is that they're assholes. It's a part of being in the workplace and when it happens you have to think about whether or not it's worth it for you.

But when you look at everything through the lense of feminism, then he's suddenly not an asshole, but is instead a misogynist.

I once saw a woman complain that she was on a mailing list and someone said something mean to her and no one spoke up to defend her. She felt like that meant the mailing list itself was sexist.

I read her account and my thought was "if it were a male, would you expect others to defend him, or would you expect him to defend himself?".

I could go on and on, ALL OF US who have been in the workforce for any length of time have dealt with pricks. We've dealt with them as co-workers, we've dealt with them as managers, and sometimes we deal with them as subordinates, but we've all dealt with them.

That's the point the poster you were responding to was making.

men deal with a lot of bullshit in the workplace too, but when we come across it, we can't call it gender discrimination, or whatever else. We have to decide if, when, and how to defend ourselves from it.

That's the reality of the workplace, and it's the reality of women in the workplaces as well. But that doesn't make it sexist.

What kind of discrimination can't you dismiss with logic like this? "That's not a racist! That's just a prick! That's not an antisemite! That's just a prick, like the kinds all of us deal with!"

No, hey, you're right, that CEO was probably sexist against men.

Or was he racist against minorities? I sometimes can't figure out which thing I'm supposed to be offended about, there's so many to choose from.

I'm sorry, I understand and empathize with the emotions you're trying to convey here, but I have to point out that you've in no way responded to the actual question I posed.

It's a technique known as Reductio Ad Absurdum, and it's absolutely a valid way to point out the flaw in someone's argument.

Your issue is that you're too entrenched in your way of thinking to accept it, which is not the same as your claim that I've somehow avoided responding to the point.

If someone is an asshole to women and not to men, he's sexist. But if he's an asshole to everyone, he's just an asshole.

The idea that "these women in tech" have never heard of men being treated awfully is something you've invented, a straw man you've built to beat on instead of the actual argument.

Straw woman!

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