I make remarks like the one above in part to help other women realize they do have other options. My experience has been that providing an example of more effective behavior tends to go a very long way towards empowering other people.
> I make remarks like the one above in part to help other women realize they do have other options.
So, the "correct" option for a woman facing discrimination is to grow some balls, man up, and be assertive? Hmm. Still does not seem very fair to her.
In the eighties, a young woman was taking assertiveness training. The instructor was some Nazi-like drill seargent type of a woman. The course was teaching these women to yell at people and be extremely aggressive and pushy. At some point, it was the author's turn to yell and practice asserting herself. She told the instructor she didn't want to do that, she liked being nice to people. She was berated about how it is a tough world and she needed to learn to stand up for herself or people were going to walk all over her. She politely declined. Eventually the instructor moved on. She decided to quietly gather her things and leave. She didn't want to do this anymore. As she left, she overheard someone in the back row say to someone else "God, what a bitch."
So, yes, she should woman up, grow some bigger tits if necessary and wear her brass bustier to mixed gender events if that is what it takes.
Intended to be helpful, not critical. Have a great day and thank you for participating.
And judging by the comments in this thread alone, I hardly think it was posted to an audience that already agrees.
The fact that these situations occur frequently in tech circles is indicative that things still need to be done about embedding the issues into the general consciousness of people in tech circles. If it were a one-off situation, and everyone were horrified by it, it would be easier to say "well, it was just that one guy". But the fact that it still happens frequently, and reading the comments here and elsewhere that shift the blame of the outcome to the victim... makes me think that we haven't quite got to that stage yet. Sadly.
She made a bunch of observations. Firstly, that sexism in tech, while it happens, is nothing compared to the sexism you'd find in the average tattoo parlour or mechanical workshop. At least in tech there is the option of sitting down and writing blog posts about things and getting validation even weeks after the fact. In other sectors, you either confront the sexist in their face immediately, or you will lose face and not be taken seriously.
But she also rightly pointed out that establishing a "code of conduct" and expecting people to abide by it will not change the behavior of those who act sexist or inappropriate today. Either they do it out of ignorance, or they don't care. But they're not going to change until specific instances are pointed out.
Additionally, I've noticed on multiple occasions that putting sexism on a special pedestal and making it a mission to eradicate it just has the opposite effect. People start seeing it as a right to never be offended, based on their own narrow personal and/or cultural view. For example, there was an entire shitstorm in this community about a 'sexist' tweet, which literally did not contain any gender reference. It merely implied that there was a gallery where you could view all the conference attendees that had uploaded a picture and, tongue-in-cheek, suggested you go look for that attractive developer you saw last time. Which isn't that strange, it's hard to remember faces and names in large groups.
You'd think the tweet said "Come perv over hot geek chicks here." It would invite harrassment, sexualizes things unnecessarily, etc., and all this in a completely one-sided debate about validating the hurt feelings of a few women, completely ignoring all the men and women who didn't see any offense, who 'obviously' didn't 'get it'.
And actually, that offended me. Because it implies that a) the only people who picture-stalk are straight men b) if given the opportunity to do so, men can't help themselves.
It takes the discussion away from the individual who did something wrong, and instead paints a giant target on a nebulous generalization of a very diverse group of people.
I agree that sometimes it goes a little overboard. But there are also genuine moments when sexist bullshit should be called out for what it is. I don't know anything about the "gallery" tweet, but you need to consider a wide contextual impact of things you say and do, especially when it comes to minority groups. Having a gallery of people involved in the conference is fine, but why bring attractiveness into it? Why not just say "interesting" or "talented" instead? It strikes me as just being a bit thoughtless of the promoters, really.
Also worth noting that the fact that a woman wrote the article has little to do with how "true" it is; maybe this goes without saying, but "woman" don't have selected representatives who can reasonably speak for all of their experiences. Unless the article author is citing some actual data, she's just guessing as much as you are.
Codes of conduct really can help, if they achieve widespread acceptance. People are social animals; they care if everyone around them thinks less of them because of their actions. They find out what the people around them think sometimes because of direct confrontations, sometimes because of other things... imagine "John Doe" at a popular conference, sitting through a presentation on some retarded code of conduct, dumb modern political correctness cranked up to 11! -- and John leans over to crack a joke about it to the normal-looking guy next to him, but then he realizes the guy is nodding along with the presenter, and was now standing up to give a frickin standing ovation -- what, really? -- and, oh come on, just about everyone was standing up now? Cheering all that rubbish? He'd feel a bit lost, I think -- recognizing the disconnect -- and that probably wouldn't change his habits of thinking all that much... but it could certainly give him pause before telling that same joke about blondes and whiteout on computer screens in front of so many of these same people.
This isn't data; this is my hopeful imagining... but it's worth putting some energy into trying to fix this problem, in many ways at once (why not?) vs. putting energy into stopping others from trying to fix it.
At the very least, if you agree there's a problem, say so (instead of finding ways to dismiss it) when the topic comes up; people are listening.
You're missing the point of what assertiveness is. It's about creating opportunity, not sitting on your ass and waiting for the world to cater to your needs. Life is what you make it and one has nobody to blame but themselves for where they go. True, we don't choose the starting point, but we do choose the destination.
> you'll always stand on the side-lines and will forever be relegated to being a spectator.
Yeah, if the men are allowed to be in charge.
I think that a distinction must be drawn between being assertive and being abusive. Assertiveness is, in my opinion, nudging your way forward and reacting to people's objections by talking to them then taking their opinions into account and, if they lack assertiveness, representing their opinions. If someone else is also fighting for that spot, team up with them and work together.
In contrast, abusiveness is nudging your way forward at the expense of peoples' well-being and not respecting others' right to assert themselves.
In other words, it's the difference between fighting for yourself and fighting for everyone including yourself.
It's incredibly perverse, the way I was socialized in the US. I was taught essentially that love was always "at stake" in every discussion with the opposite sex, and that if I didn't have love, whether by commitment or conquest, then I was worthless. I ultimately had to resolve the problem that I wasn't treating ladies as genuine human beings by jumping off the deep end, and accidentally inventing a personal religion. Basically I committed to the worthlessness and resolved to make it my own, because it was better to treat others as real human beings. In doing so I suddenly discovered that love isn't static, isn't a substance, and that along that earlier path, real love was in fact impossible. So by embracing worthlessness I accidentally discovered worth.
I can't apologize to those I have wronged before, and those that have wronged you can't apologize to you now, but though it is empty, I would apologize to you on their behalf. I'm sorry; I've learned.
As to whether an illegitimate apology means anything, that I leave to liedra's discretion.
We seriously need a social protocol for situations where A says something which makes B feel very sorry, but the proper recipients of B's apology are no longer available to hear it. It felt way too cheesy to just apologize to myself, so I apologized to you, but that doesn't make me feel any better about my womanizing and discriminatory past. Live and learn, I guess.
The 20/20 hindsight in this thread is ridiculous.
Those people may well have stereotyped her, but when she fails to speak up about it and sits there silently giving no indication that something is wrong, what would you expect. This isn't kindergarten. These people don't get paid to read minds. What it sounds like, is at least part of the time these people genuinely thought they were helping her, and she gave no indication yo the contrary.
She is not a professional, pure and simple. If you aren't a professional, then what are you doing at E3? What are you doing in any situation where assertiveness is expected in order to get your job done?
"Any professional in her situation, male or female, would have spoken up if they had a problem. Period."
There are no exceptions to this rule. This is not male/female issue. If a male had written that article I would say the exact same thing.
Learn to form a valid argument before you open your mouth. Your comment is not even deserving of a retort.
But, male or female, somebody shouldn't have to say "back off" to get some respect.
I have toyed with the idea of writing a post about that concept. I was thinking along the lines of quoting Riddick -- "There is one speed: My speed. Keep up or get left behind." My experience has been that competent men do not necessarily treat me worse than other men. They sometimes are talking "down" to me because they talk that way to everyone. When you are far more competent than average, it becomes difficult to assume or behave as if others are your equal. I am at times guilty of the same faux pas. In my experience, if you can keep up, some of the most competent men will genuinely respect you. What is tricky is pulling it off in a social situation where other people will interfere or where a man will become uncomfortable with a woman challenging the status quo. Her description sounds like it was fairly one on one, which is part of why I think I would have been inclined to quietly call him on it.
I can fairly confidently admit to being a significant statistical outlier for a woman. Even one of the female big wigs at my former job remarked on me sitting up front (edit: at the time she made the remark, I was sitting closer to the front than she was and she was the highest ranking woman in the department -- however, she was sitting next to a very high ranking male) which other people routinely interpret as Type A behavior, somewhat to my bafflement. I do that for reasons like I have terrible eyesight. But I am aware that other women also have issues like terrible eyesight and still do not sit up front. I have speculated that if I come across like an alpha female it is due in part to having a yawning disinterest in pecking order, not because I am trying to be at the top of the heap.
Anyway, have an upvote. And have a great day.
Thank you for putting this into words. This summarizes part of what bothered me about this article.
My wife and I are both gamers. Neither of us have ever been treated without human-respect at LAN parties. Competence-respect is usually given to me due to prior reputation (I'm active in the community whose LANs I attend.) She is often assumed to be just tagging along, until she starts destroying people. Competence-respect comes pretty quickly if you demonstrate competence.
There were times in this article when it seemed the author wasn't given human-respect, and that's a circumstance where someone needs to be either told off or walked away from. But at other times, the issue may have been competence-respect, and that's a circumstance where the first attempt at respect-earning should be to say "I can take it from here", pick up the controller, and play.
I didn't have a driver's license or car, so was dependent on others for a ride. If the group chose to play a game that didn't interest me, I went to sleep on the couch until we all left together. So it somewhat annoyed me that my actions got interpretted that way when there were other explanations but I also could kind of understand why.
"Admiration".
Is this really true? I've had it pounded into my head my whole childhood that you have to stand up for yourself to get any respect in this world. It's the theme of basically any coming-of-age movie. If that's what has to change for equality to work, then I think we're doomed.
But this girl was far from powerless in this situation. That doesn't excuse the guy for being an unthinking sexist dick, but her blog post is a little too much of a pitty party.
I am 47, a good bit older than most people posting on HN or writing tech blogs. I did a lot of journalling pre-internet, thus only read by me and sometimes my therapist. I now routinely examine my belly button in public, but a lot of what I write is stuff I have thought about deeply for many years. I assure you I threw myself plenty of pity parties when I was younger. In fact, I eventually stopped doing therapy because I reached a point where I felt that whining and crying to a therapist was helping me to keep alive a victim mentality and victim self image and I wanted to genuinely move on. But first I had to go through all that.
Both sexes are struggling to leave behind old paradigms. We all have a growth process to go through.
But certainly have an upvote for furthering the discussion.