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Comment by supergirl | Hacker News Reader

it would be funny if it wasn't sad that women are so far behind that a woman ship captain is news.

The news story is literally that she's the _first_ female captain, so it's safe to say that there are probably a lot of deeply entrenched prejudices against women in those roles.

Jokes are (almost?) always political because it only works if you share similar views about what the world is like and how it should be. In this case the joke is that women are unfit to be captain, the setup is that "they" eventually "let" a woman be captain and the punchline is that she went on to cause one of the most economically disastrous incidents in recent history (ba-dum-tiss). If you don't think women are unfit to be captain (or at least "intrinsically less fit" or whatever) the punchline doesn't work.

> If you don't think women are unfit to be captain (or at least "intrinsically less fit" or whatever) the punchline doesn't work.

You seem to have a rather linear view of humor. People laugh at (and enjoy) comedians they disagree with all the time - a well crafted joke can be considered well crafted and funny by many people, regardless of the target or the listener’s personal beliefs.

> regardless of the target

Having watched hours and hours of comedy roasts and heckler takedowns on youtube over the years, I just don't see this in practice. The butt of the joke never gets it.

A joke can be funny and disagree with your beliefs if the fact that it disagrees with them is the basis of the joke. Most shock humor is meant to work this way: it's funny because it's completely inappropriate and violating social norms.

The problem with shock humor is that it can still be funny to people who agree with it and can help normalizing the views it's meant to make fun of. You can see this play out in real time on websites like 4chan that always shift from "transgressive humor" to genuine far-right talking points.

If the joke is "women are bad drivers", you either have to agree with the premise (so the joke is likely about the humorously exaggerated extent to which this is confirmed by an anecdote), or the joke is that someone holds this view while presenting evidence to the contrary (so the joke is that the character doesn't understand he's wrong), or the joke is that the view is extremely inappropriate and doesn't follow at all from what is laid out before (so the joke is that the character is so absurdly bigoted they just bring up their prejudices all the time).

Examples for the three structures would be:

1. <statement that Egypt now has a female captain> <statement that the Suez Canal was blocked by a massive ship>

2. <statement about female drivers presenting them positively> (optional: <statement about one minor data point that could be construed negatively>) <assertion that women are bad drivers>

3. <statement about some scenario involving a woman that could be a strained analogy for driving a vehicle> <assertion that women are bad drivers>

There are probably a few more of these patterns, but they still work by presenting a position that either agrees with your views, follows logically from them or intentionally contradicts them.

I don't understand the 'behind' bit. What's 'behind' about not being a cargo ship captain?

Do you have to force people into roles they don't want just to create a statistic to suggest equality?

Do you believe that there’s a perfect mapping between ‘jobs that people want’ and ‘representation in those jobs’?

And if so, how do you account for the fact that a) people working in the industries themselves cite that there is work to do on gender diversity and b) that the disparity remains even when you control for manual/heavy physical work (i.e you account only for people working in desk / design based AEC roles)?

I'd imagine barely anyone has the job they'd choose; maybe I'm an outlier.

Suppose I'm a doctor/refuse collector, but really wanted to be a ship's captain, am I 'behind'. I guess it's that there's an implicit hierarchy of roles implied .. if I'm ship's engineer, but really want to be engineer, am I 'behind' the captain?

I just don't know what's really meant by this: is it about competitive roles, is it about access, is it about status. I'm not trying to be argumentative, I don't know that the parent means by 'behind'.

It seems all the responses have assumed I did know what they meant and had taken a particular view on it.

FWIW I'm not in the slightest denying that in some countries women/men are excluded from (or find it more difficult to get) some roles for sexist reasons.

I'm aware there are disparities in all areas (in UK), one of the biggest is teaching - very few men are able to get roles in primary (5-11yo) teaching. In other areas it seems you're more likely to get a job if qualified. Where I work women are being offered jobs at about equal rates to men (higher rates of women, actually), but the pool of qualified people is heavily male as women don't choose to take the degrees that feed into that pool. None of this proves anything, except that I know senior management were lauding the offering of more jobs to women, as opposed to just to qualified people regardless of sex [I can't cite this, internal stats, sorry].

I'm interested in your (b) do you have stats to cite on that?

that's not how being behind is meant. it's the industry that's behind if you were not able to become a captain because of prejudices against you.

you are assuming that there are not many women in this field because they don't want to be. but the reality is that there are not many women because they are not welcome. 50% parity is not the goal here. (though in some fields like teaching children, it actually should be) but the removal of all barriers so that all women (or men, if that's the case) that want to work in this field and are qualified, can.

Usually I'd agree with you, but this arguments works as a heuristic with a 70/30 split. Maybe even 90/10, if you have some data. But when we're talking about a single woman on thousands of men in the job, personal preference is very probably not the reason.

I’m assuming you didn’t read the article. At the time she applied, women were not legally allowed to enter the merchant marines in Egypt. No less than Hosni Mubarak had to review and approve her application to join.

Personally don't think it's "funny" either way, as joking about stereotypes is generally not very clever humor. But to each his own.

Not that it's okay but note that it is "first in Egypt" which is a lot less surprising. Outside Egypt it is a lot more common. I know a few female captains in places like in the Danish shipping company Mærsk (like this ships captain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_M%C3%A6rsk).

If lack of female ship captains is a sign that women are far behind, is lack of male school teachers, nurses, and HR professionals a sign that men are far behind?

At least in your first example, yes, it is a sign that men are far behind when it comes to being trusted with children. But that's not really relevant to the ship story.

They might be, but that‘s not the reason why there are less male teachers. It is not harder to become a teacher, when you are male. They are just less interested in becoming one (on average). As are women to drive container ships. Although I don’t think that there is just one woman, who wants to do it.

it is the reason in new zealand. there it is practically impossible for men to become teachers at least in kindergarten and primary school because parents don't trust them. sad really because kids need rolemodels from both genders

The "solution" to this problem is to not allow people to choose. In the country where I live the vast majority of schools are funded from the very high taxes you pay. You'd still have to pay those taxes if you choose to enroll your kid in a private school just so you could avoid a male teacher.

Male teachers are nevertheless underrepresented, due to other biases.

actually i think it is relevant because the attitude towards gender in different professions is very much the topic of this post

No, because a cargo ship captain typically makes between $150k-$200k a year.

On an Egyptian ship? She's the first Egyptian female captain after all.

Deep sea welders make significantly more than that, but are at a massively increased risk of injury or death. Should women be thrust into these roles?

Of course not. No one should be ‘thrust’ into any roles, but if women want to do them they should have equal opportunity.

And clearly there is some issue of implicit bias, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this discussion in the first place.

Then what is the solution? Because as far as I can tell, unless you force people to be 50/50 in a profession, it will be basically impossible to get rid of the implicit bias people have in those jobs. And I'd be willing to bet that applies to other immutable characteristics, not just gender.

People working in those sectors themselves acknowledge there is implicit bias. And the difference remains even when you control for dangerous work (I.e looking at people who only work desk jobs).

You may never get to 50;50 but there is no reason for the disparity to be as large as it is - any more than women (or any any other immutable characteristic) don’t self select not to be CEOs or similar.

And articles like this tell you you don’t have to look too far to find out what the real reason is.

Exactly, it’s impossible. This so happens to be politically beneficial to people who want to weaponize it.

Do you really extrapolate that women are 'far behind' from the fact there are few female ship captains? What about coal miners or steel workers or construction crews then?

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