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Comment by notatoad | Hacker News Reader

how is what he said a "sweeping and dismissive generalization"? he's complaining about women with 'golden uterus complex', which is not a phrase i've heard before but i know immediately what he means. some women derive a sense of superiority from the existence of their reproductive organs, and it can get pretty annoying. he is specifically complaining about those women, not all women.

the tech community has a severe case of male guilt when it comes to things like this. Mark has done nothing wrong, and there's no reason for other male software developers to be apologising for his actions. he complained about annoying people - there's nothing wrong with that, and there's no reason for women in general to be getting up in arms about it.

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When you complain about annoying people by making their gender the primary basis of identification, you are most definitely making a sweeping generalization.

You are part of the problem.

You are correct that there's no reason for other people to apologize for him, because he needs to do that himself, if he can be convinced that his sexism is a problem. There is also no need for other people to be defending his sexism.

Here's a hint: a complaint about "annoying people" should aim to be more specific than 50% of the population.

That's just it his complaint isn't about 50% of the population. He even gave the criteria for determining what type of person it is.

While I don't know exactly what Mark Jaquith's response was to, there is a small but seemingly vocal segment of women who do act as if them being women means that they deserve to be given special treatment because they are women. I know in my experience very few women are like this. I also know that there are men who are the same about themselves.

There was a reddit thread somewhat recently about this kind of thing too. [1]

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/ot8et/does_your_...

EDIT: I'd like to clarify that what I believe this whole thing is about is women who are overbearing to an extreme because they are women. A cliched phrase that I think would fit would be a woman saying something along the lines of "I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it" without trying to be funny, ironic, or some other non-serious message to it.

Oh please, this is so much brooha over nothing.

If I say guys who run out on their newborns are dicks, that doesn't imply anything about the male gender as a whole.

When this guy categorizes women with a "golden uterus complex", whatever that means, he's not grouping all women. Yes, all women do have a uterus, but that isn't what he is saying.

As for apologizing... I'd be sad to see him do it, as a man, of course.

You really can't use the word guys as they are not being discriminated in this world (in the majority of cases). Copying and pasting from another comment of mine.

Imagine if instead he said: "I hate black people who steal". Of course he does! But he must also hate white people who steal, in fact, he hates people who steal. There's no need for specifying race.

Do you really lack the empathy to see that the statement is offensive and hostile?

did you read my comment at all? the complaint is much more specific than 50% of the population. it's about a very small subset of women. nobody here is claiming that all women are annoying, just a very small group of women who are annoying in a very specific way. the gender is not the basis of identification, the source of annoyance is. the gender is almost incidental.

It’s not so hard. It’s probably best to quote what the author wrote in the comments of her post:

“‘Golden Uterus Complex’ is a slur against women. It‘s not even a real psychiatric term, just slang. It dismisses all women who have real life experience of things men don‘t go through first hand—like child birth or sexism. In short, when guys don‘t have a dog in the fight but they still think they have an important perspective, they whip this baby out to cry foul instead of giving a woman credit for her experience and respecting her opinion.

Maybe it‘s annoying to you, but it‘s legitimate to the women involved.”

>It dismisses all women who have real life experience of things men don‘t go through first hand—like child birth or sexism.

Putting these out there as exclusive only to women is absurd. I shared the experience of child-birth with my wife and have experienced sexism at many points in my career (I work in a female dominated field). The notion that these things only happen/are experienced by women is just wrong.

What you're arguing for is that certain topics be restricted to a women's only perspective which is about sexist as it gets.

Wha…?

I’m doing nothing like that. Nothing.

The actual issue is the slur. I do not really understand how anyone can think it’s not a slur.

Who cares? The point is not that he's calling women names. If you want to say that then fine but you should read the rest of what you quoted which makes a different point entirely.

So if he had left out "Golden Uterus Complex" then it would be ok?

I think the problem is that he could have said that people who feel superiority for their reproductive organs (or whatever) are annoying. The thing is that he seems to say that women who have that problem are annoying, which completely overlooks the problem. What I mean is that it doesn't matter if it's women or men who feel this superiority, so there's no need for specifying gender.

Imagine if instead he said: "I hate black people who steal". Of course he does! But he must also hate white people who steal, in fact, he hates people who steal. There's no need for specifying race.

>When you complain about annoying people by making their gender the primary >basis of identification, you are most definitely making a sweeping >generalization.

Not if the people you are complaining about are doing the same exact thing by making their sex the primary basis on which they should be listened to. What's good for the 50% of the gooses is good for 50% of the ganders.

>You are part of the problem. So the problem is that men are not allowed to point out inconsistencies in the way men/women are allowed to use their sex as a source of authority?

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