
Sexism in Tech: A Good Apology is Better than No Mistakes - mwetzler
https://keen.io/blog/42031860734/sexism-in-tech-a-good-apology-is-better-than-no
======
dizzystar
Did the fact that all of the models are, in fact, the apparently objectified
and degraded women pass everyone up?

Look, I am totally against misogyny and sexism as much as the next guy, but I
have a hard time taking these posts seriously on a few counts:

1- A large portion of the marketing industry is based around the "objectifying
of women." Women should go out in droves and write long screeds against
marketers (pigs?) instead of flooding the marketing companies with their
resumes.

2- Stop buying clothes from the long list of fashion companies that are
clearly objectifying women to an unrealistic standard of beauty. Oh, right,
fashion schools aren't male dominated either.

I love women and I have a lot of female (and male) friends, and I am just as
bent out of shape about the way marketing is done as many other marketers
(which I am), but you have to call out double-standards when you see them if
you are ever going to have an intelligent debate about it. It's very easy to
point out a male-dominated industry and call it all sexism, but please look at
the very culture you not only built with your sisters-in-arms, but the culture
you implicitly support with your dollars.

As for the picture in question. Yeah, I don't see how it sells hard-drives
either.

~~~
jamesaguilar
Re: your point 2. There is a huuuuuuge difference between women dressed _in
the clothes being marketed_ sending the message, "You could look like this,"
to other women, and women _placed on pedestals like the product being
marketed_ sending the message, "Buying this hard drive is like _buying_ hot
sexy naked me," to a group mainly comprised of men. Huuuuge difference.

Maybe the former is not completely kosher, but the degree is so different that
it makes zero sense to accuse someone of not calling out double standards when
they mention the one and not the other. Also, it is really silly to tell
activists that they aren't allowed to bother you until they have sufficiently
bothered everyone else to your satisfaction. Basically all you've done is ask
them to go away. It is morally equivalent to saying that people are not
allowed to worry about healthcare or the homeless in their own country until
the Africa problem is fixed. It's dumb.

Also, plenty of feminists are complaining about the representation of women in
fashion. So on top of being bad rhetoric, your objection is wrong on the
facts.

> I love women and I have a lot of female (and male) friends

If there was a website called "x-ist-tropes.com", "I have X friends, my mom is
an X" would be the #1 trope for almost any value of X. Just don't say it.

~~~
dizzystar
I can write about sexism in female-dominated industries all day, and there are
most certainly sexists pigs of all stripes and all genders. The fact is that
the tech industry is a super-easy target for people to jump on, and this is
wrong on so many levels it is barely worth writing about anymore. I could
write long screeds about being a male in marketing and other industries, but
what does it accomplish but upping my view-count?

Honestly, I'm not sure what the Africa thing is about.

~~~
saraid216
> Honestly, I'm not sure what the Africa thing is about.

There is an argument that people make that you're not allowed to complain
about first world problems (for example, the NDAA) until we've fixed things
like world hunger.

~~~
dizzystar
Conversely, how come America feels like it can fix the world's problems when
it has so many of its own that it can't fix?

------
bitops
Cue the usual slew of comments stating "I have a hard time seeing how this is
sexism."

Really, there's no need to post these types of stories on HN anymore. The
discussion always goes the same way - lots of heated argument, no open
discussion, no admission of vulnerability.

Very few men are willing to question the power structure they've been brought
up in. If you're born at the top, why bother to question the system?

[EDIT: yeah, I'm grumpy about this today.] [Further edit: when I first posted
this my karma was 1129 - let's see where it stands at the end of the day.]

~~~
crindy
I'm new around here, and I've got to say, this thread has really let me down.
All these definitions of feminism and sexism that seem to have been taught by
straight white fathers to their straight white sons.

~~~
mnicole
Welcome Crindy!

HN is great for some topics, but on the issue of women, get ready to cringe.
In the same thread where I said I didn't want kids I was told that I would
live a miserable life where I would always wonder what I was missing on top of
being told that I shouldn't have a problem with not getting a certain job or
making less money because the potential for maternity leave is a liability to
the team (I don't disagree with the latter in theory, but I'm an individual,
not a gender, so if something doesn't apply to me, I shouldn't be reprimanded
for it).

There's also at least one member (with a decently large karma score) that goes
around downvoting (and often times insulting) every female-looking username in
these types of threads. For this reason, many women use gender-neutral names
and don't bother engaging in these conversations.

Very embarrassing for the community, we need to do better.

~~~
crindy
Thanks for the warm welcome, Nicole!

------
DirtyCalvinist
Interesting here is the automatic assumption that the company should agree
with the criticism and apologize. Except for the gratuitous accusation of bad
faith, the response is what one might expect from someone who did not agree
with the offended's characterization of the situation.

Rather than explain exactly why the display was sexist, this is mostly a
combination of condescending hectoring and whining. You have no right not to
be offended. If you think that the display was sexist, it is incumbent on you
to explain why and not act as though it is obvious to everyone under the sun.

~~~
king_jester
> If you think that the display was sexist, it is incumbent on you to explain
> why and not act as though it is obvious to everyone under the sun.

Uh, when someone does something wrong, its not up to the oppressed to explain
everything. This is classic victim blaming mentality that seeks to take the
blame off of the company putting out sexist messaging and advertising and to
place it on women at large. People have a right to be upset at this company
and if you feel that people don't you are implicitly endorsing sexism.

EDIT: If you are occupying the position of privilege, you have a duty to go
read about why this is sexist and to listen to the perspectives of the people
affected (in this case women). You can Google, so don't sit there and demand
an explanation before you are satisfied.

~~~
Hairy_Sandwich
One of the key facts I hear about privilidge over and over, is that it is so
ingrained in those who benefit from it, that they don't even realize it. So
how else are they supposed to understand if you don't explain it to them?
Essentially your message then becomes "You're bad but I can't tell you why,
you should just know" which just seems like you're wasting their time. If it's
worth their time to care, it's worth your time to explain it.

~~~
steveklabnik
The point is that it's not the _responsibility_ of the oppressed to educate
their oppressors. Obviously, it can be useful, and education is a big part of
it.

But it's perfectly legitimate to say "Listen, I cannot explain this to you,
but understand that what you say hurt me, and if that matters to you, you
should take the time to figure that out."

It's about the asymmetry: for the privileged, this is a situation, an unusual
part of their day, something that needs to be dealt with. For those who
aren't, it's an ingrained part of everyday life. Your entire life could be
devoted to education and there still wouldn't be enough hours in the day.

~~~
rjknight
It might not be the responsibility of the oppressed to educate their
oppressors, but who else is going to do it?

I agree that the "booth babe" situation is sexist (and I also happen to think
it's incredibly stupid - semi-naked women are not going to make me buy your
product, and I'd feel insulted by any brand that used that as a marketing
tactic). But we also live in a society and, as hackers, in a sub-culture where
we generally prize reason and debate over emotion. When we're debating other
topics here, this reason-over-emotion thing doesn't seem to be a problem.

If someone says "I want you to do, believe or refrain from doing or believing
something, and I can't explain why" then we generally ignore it. In no other
context would this be seen as a reasonable line of argument.

The thing is, I don't often see people saying "this makes me feel bad ergo
it's a bad thing". Most feminists have well-worked-out arguments for their
positions and it's not hard for any reasonable person to accept them. I've
been persuaded of many feminist arguments and this has contributed to changing
how I see the world. Sure, when we're talking about arguments on Twitter then
there's not a lot of space to cite references or bring in supporting
arguments, but to pretend that they don't exist or aren't necessary isn't
helping.

tl;dr I think the hacker community prizes rationalism and if you want to
persuade them of anything you should use rational and not emotional arguments.
This may be annoying but demanding that the hacker community _abandons
rationalism_ isn't going to work.

~~~
steveklabnik
> we also live in a society and, as hackers, in a sub-culture where we
> generally prize reason and debate over emotion.

This is an ideal, but it's not true at all. Look at all the 'dramas' posted
all over HN, does that seem like reason to you, or emotion?

Hackers are people too, as much as they try to deny it.

> who else is going to do it?

Either them themselves, or someone else. I think maybe this comes from a
slight misunderstanding of what the saying means. Let's say that Bob makes a
joke about rape around Alice, a survivor. Alice says "yo, that is not cool,
and you're making light of a trauma I experienced in the past." Bob says
"Why?" Alice says, "I don't want to explain it to you, I'm really upset right
now." The saying is trying to explain that it's not _Alice_'s responsibility
to make Bob see exactly where he went wrong; he can either look at the
numerous resources online to explain why, think about it and puzzle it out
himself, or maybe, ask Eve or someone else about it. But forcing Alice to
confront something in her moment of pain is just not right.

> I think the hacker community prizes rationalism and if you want to persuade
> them of anything you should use rational and not emotional arguments.

This is _exactly_ why there's so much sexism here. The rhetoric around this is
extremely frustrating, especially with your charge of 'abandons rationalism.'

~~~
rjknight
Do you want to be righteous or do you want to be persuasive?

If you want to be persuasive, you appeal to people's better nature. You don't
tell them that their cherished ideals of rationalism and no-bullshit, all-
about-the-code ethos are a crock of shit, you tell them that you believe in
this too, and you want it to be this way for everyone. The people who are
undermining this are the misogynist minority, who are putting their irrational
hatred of women ahead of all other things. The reason we keep having to have
this tedious discussion is because these people are consistently attacking and
undermining our fellow female hackers, and it's about time we told them where
to go with that kind of behaviour.

The problem is, you've become convinced that the community at large is full of
sexism, when it really isn't. It's just that nobody has figured out how to
talk about this in a way that makes sense, and unfortunately arguments like
yours are counter-productive (which is why people are arguing with you, which
has the depressing effect of making you think that the community must be full
of sexism, and the cycle goes on).

------
hoverkraft
One point nobody seems to have touched on: men should be just as pissed off
about the "booth babe" thing as women. A company using this tactic is
basically telling the straight men at a conference to think with their dicks,
not their brains.

It's taking a product that could only exist through cultivating the higher
functions of the human mind, and selling it by appealing to our basest lizard-
brain instincts. It'd be like marketing a product by having two gladiators
fighting to death in front of the booth. Impressive, but a step backwards for
the species.

And yes, it's totally degrading to women as well. Even if the models involved
were willing/wanted to participate.

------
dorkitude
Aaaand, cue the throng of straight, white, upper middle class males, who'll
post a hundred aggressive comments like "stop being oversensitive".

~~~
jwoah12
As opposed to these types of comments that attempt to preempt and invalidate
the viewpoints of straight, white, upper middle class males because every
single one of them obviously can't think objectively.

~~~
dorkitude
As one of those people myself, I certainly didn't mean to suggest that all
straight white males are oppressors, but rather quite the opposite: that all
or most oppressors of civil rights in this country appear to be straight white
males.

~~~
jwoah12
Understood. Like you, I'm sure, I think I'm in the non-oppressor group. I
often want to share my opinion in many of the posts about examples of tech
industry sexism, but I never click the reply button. Even after taking a few
minutes and thinking as logically and objectively as I can about the
situation, I know that disagreeing that there was sexism involved will trigger
an equally irrational mob response of downvoting my comment and accusing me of
being sexist or being too privileged to even be able to recognize sexism.

------
chunsaker
This is a great synopsis. There are so many examples of how companies have
handles sexist snafus well, compounding the gaffe like this is inexcusable.

~~~
dkador
It's inexcusable from a PR standpoint. It's sad to think how much more love
they could have received from the community.

------
jlgreco
Not to say that this is not an issue, but is this sexism in tech... or sexism
in marketing?

~~~
mnicole
My issue here - and why I am glad it's on HN - is because we have this problem
in our industry a lot. We question why more women aren't interested in it
while we parade them around our conferences or include photos of them in
slides barely-clothed. We make very vivid implications that they are just
visual stimuli for the taking.

We can go back to that whole Violet Blue Twitter/article debacle wherein she
criticized a woman legitimately working at her company's spot on the floor for
being a boring-looking booth babe.

In my opinion, the only people that should be doing your advertising for you
are your employees. There's no reason to bring human eye-candy to these events
in the hopes that it will get a few more customers. I do like PAX's stance
where if the "babe" isn't educated on your product as much as you are, she
shouldn't be there. At the same time, those are "models" of the characters for
your games at a gaming convention, not male or female bodies just standing in
a warehouse being ogled to sell unrelated product.

~~~
jlgreco
I think we would be remiss if we did not consider this in a more bayesian
fashion.

Say 90% of all tech companies are using sexist advertising. Big problem;
clearly something wrong with tech.

But that is only part of the picture. We have to consider what companies that
are not "tech companies" are doing as well. If we see similar levels of sexist
nonsense from them, then we should consider the possibility that the
"techiness" of tech companies is not to blame and the problem has another
cause.

I think it is very likely that this incident is a manifestation of something
that is wrong with marketing and corporations in general. This stuff isn't
popping up because tech is involved, it is popping up because advertisers are
involved and executives okay it.

I feel I should say _explicitly_ that I am _not_ saying this behavior should
be permitted _"because everyone else is doing it"_. The behavior is not
acceptable, but we should find the _real_ cause.

~~~
mnicole
Totally agree with you there. VS is a brand almost exclusively for women, and
yet all of their marketing is clearly for men. That said, lingerie/fashion do
have a [sometimes scantily-clad] human component that should be represented in
_some_ way (more tastefully..), whereas tech generally does not. That's my
problem with this situation; there's no excuse for this company that could
fall into the "but we make x, so it's kinda sorta okay" category.

~~~
jlgreco
Fair point.

------
sp332
The women don't exactly look degraded. I can understand how people would be
offended by this, but I don't see it being sexist. As they pointed out, both
men and women were involved in putting together the booth, so it's not like
this is universally offensive to women.

~~~
crindy
The problem isn't that women are being degraded. The problem is that women are
being presented as bodies that can help sell laptop batteries.

~~~
sp332
Women are bodies, _among other things_. They can pose for a display for tech
junk without giving up other aspects of their humanity. In other words they
are not _reduced_ to being bodies, they are just choosing to express that
facet of themselves. Tomorrow they'll show off some other aspect.

Edited to add: I'm good friends with a model. She does stuff like this for
fun.

~~~
mwetzler
Hi there. I wrote the post and just wanted to let you and the models know that
I fully support them and their right to do whatever kind of work they want to
do. I don't see them as victims and I didn't write the article to be a voice
for them. I wrote it for myself, as a woman in tech. It's awkward when women
are used at a tech trade show to attract men to the booth. And it's offensive
when a company like HyperMac calls us crazy for pointing it out.

~~~
sp332
That's not what I got from your article. I saw HyperMac responding to the
people who said the display was degrading and dehumanizing, not to the ones
who "passed it around the twitter-verse, rolling our eyes and having a good
laugh." This part especially seemed odd: "What HyperMac failed to realize was
that all the community wanted from them was acknowledgment and support."
Really? Then why did the community boycott and attack them instead of asking
for acknowledgement and support?

~~~
rooshdi
Because they got an apathetic, arrogant, selfish, shitty response, that's why.
You respond to people like shit, you get shit back. It's not rocket science.

~~~
sp332
That is exactly my point. People started jumping all over HyperMac, and
HyperMac dismissed the twitter pile-on as an uninformed mob.

~~~
rooshdi
Which was exactly the wrong way to go about things. You don't dismiss a large
demographic's concerns by trying to throw it back at them.

~~~
Kalium
The alternative being... what, sitting down, listening to what they want to
say, and then giving them what they want?

Bear in mind that there's nothing more frustrating that someone apparently
taking you seriously and listening to you and then flat-out refusing to give
you any of what you want from them. It makes you feel like you were tricked by
someone who never took you seriously at all.

Fundamentally, this is about a company facing off against an angry group of
people who want to force the company to action that pleases them. No CEO is
going to enjoy that.

Also, if the demographic in question isn't your customer base you're likely to
treat them somewhat less seriously.

~~~
mwetzler
As far as I can tell, HyperMac's customer base is people who own macs.

Miss Rep is a bay area non-profit so I'm sure they have a very large base
here. And a lot of macs.

Not to mention all the techies, not at all affiliated with Miss Rep, who were
tweeting about this event.

Many tweeters and posters stated specifically that they were former or
potential customers who will now look elsewhere.

------
Torgo
This is a transparent promotion for the nonprofit mentioned in the article.

~~~
mwetzler
It's not, but even if it was that wouldn't be a bad thing. They need as much
support as they can get because they are doing very good work.

------
drakeandrews
I'm surprised no-one has taken note of the assertion in the title and at the
end of the article, that "a good apology is better than no mistakes". Yes sure
not making stupid, sexist decisions and never get all the publicity. However
when a [person/group/company (delete as appropriate)] does something bigoted,
even the best apology still leaves them several notches below where they
started beforehand.

------
slewis
HyperMac's response was certainly accusatory, which is probably not good for
anyone.

But what if they had just said "We believe our display was not sexist, and we
won't be changing anything." Is that any better than "We acknowledge that you
think our booth was sexist, and we support anti-sexism in tech, but our
display was not sexist and we're not going to change anything" ?

The former at least seems honest, the latter condescending.

~~~
dkador
I think both of those would be better than their actual response, which was
accusatory and hostile.

~~~
slewis
Totally agree. But the article seems to say that you should always acknowledge
and support, even if you disagree. And I think that could come off as
dishonest in some cases.

~~~
dkador
That's a fair point. I think the article is assuming that, in these cases, the
companies are in the wrong.

This is actually interesting. I think there's probably a huge opportunity to
communicate with your customers in this case. There's got to be a way to
engage while respectfully disagreeing.

~~~
Kalium
That would depend greatly on who you are engaging with. If you're dealing with
your customer base, there absolutely is. They can and should be engaged as
customers.

If you're dealing with a number of people who aren't your customers and were
never likely to be, then you have a different problem as the presumed customer
relationship isn't there. In this scenario you're dealing with people who
don't care about your product and wouldn't buy anyway but mostly want to see
you knuckle under. Engaging them as customers is a fundamentally misguided
decision.

------
mwetzler
Anybody know why this post instantly dropped from page 1 to page 4?

Is it a bot or does someone really not want this conversation on the front
page?

~~~
sp332
If a story gets flagged a few times it drops off the front page. If it gets
flagged more it's killed. I think this is all automated.

------
spitx

      GitHub is an exceptionally popular open-source community
      where any developer can find code for pretty much
      anything. But there's a problem—some of that code contains
      extremely offensive racist, sexist, and homophobic,
      language.
    
      A word of caution before you proceed, because these search
      results are very NSFW.
    
      You don't have to look hard for to find hundreds of
      results for controversial terms of every stripe. Simply  
      inputting racial slurs, misogynistic words turns up code
      in several languages—Java, HTML, Python, Ruby, and so on
      —casually riddled with things like bitch, slut, whore, and
      worse.
    

Source: [http://gizmodo.com/5980842/there-is-blatant-racist-and-
sexis...](http://gizmodo.com/5980842/there-is-blatant-racist-and-sexist-
language-in-github-code)

    
    
      GitHub is a platform geeks and techies love because it not
      only lets you manage projects but allows you to share your
      code and your projects with the outside world. This kind
      of transparency obviously has its perks as well as its
      downsides—among the biggest is the fact that now we can
      see who's coding what. And we can see exactly how mundane
      racism, misogyny, homophobia, and other kinds of prejudice
      are in the coding world on a granular level.
    
      GitHub sits in the center of an Open Source community that
      has been dealing with heated ongoing controversy over its
      lack of diversity. In November, BritRuby, a Manchester
      conference of Ruby on Rails coders, was canceled after
      outrage broke out online at its all-male lineup of
      panelists. Ruby coder Sean Handley took to GitHub to
      criticize the online community for bringing down the well
      -intentioned conference with "careless words."
    
      "Turns out, a lot of the prominent Rubyists are white guys 
      and all of the ones who said they'd like to come were,
      indeed, white guys," he stated. "Making an issue out of
      that is, frankly, misguided."
    
      Is it an overreaction to make an issue, likewise, out of
      the words being used by GitHub coders? Perhaps. But if
      anything, Morris argues that the issue strikes at the
      heart of nerd culture itself:
    
      The reason we’re seeing such vicious anti-equality 
      bullshit in the geek community over the BritRuby situation
      and other conference type stuff is because the very
      existence of societal inequalities (against women, racial
      minorities, gender/sexual minorities) threatens the whole
      idea that hackers got where they are because they are
      super-fucking-smart.… A lot of what we call luck boils
      down to us being in groups that don’t face discrimination
      and other problems.
    

Source: [http://www.dailydot.com/society/github-code-search-racism-
se...](http://www.dailydot.com/society/github-code-search-racism-sexism-
bigotry/)

~~~
mwetzler
thank you for sharing this!

------
davidpayne11
There is a very thin line between being a feminist and being an asshole. The
problem with these women, who claim to be angered by women being treated as
objects is that they don't identify the real problem.

Women are attracted to men and men are attracted to women. This is basic
nature and no one can change it. Using either to sell a product is not exactly
sexism. For example, many deodorants use both male and female models to
promote their products.

Sexism in my definition would be when given the same opportunity, when one
gender is being paid or treated better than another gender, that would be
sexism, because someone is being treated _unfair_.

What hypermac (the company in question) did was not wrong. They hired models
who were for god's sake ready to do it. They were ready to accept money and
stand nude on their product exhibit. It would have been unfair if they were
treated unfair, or against their will, none of which had happened.

The real problem about women being objectified is that women are ready to be
objectified - either for money or for some other form of compromise. This is
the real problem. As long as such women exist, the product makers and
corporations would obviously use them. So, if you want this to stop, you have
to revolt when someone from your own gender (male/female) is ready to
represent your gender infront of a public audience and accept to be
objectified for money. Don't go after the corporation that hired them, instead
ask these people why they let them objectify you, on behalf of you/your gender
in the first place. This is the real problem.

I love the way that these rogue women go after men (and vice versa) only
because they want an apology to feel superior and write a blog post about it.

I think it must have been a great marketing campaign for HyperMac and the guy
was right - These people deserved no apology for this particular event and
this particular event alone (please don't generalize this conclusion).

There's a great saying - _Any publicity is good publicity_. I hope these
feminists realize this and stop fucking themselves up like this, publicly.

~~~
mercurial
> The real problem about women being objectified is that women are ready to be
> objectified - either for money or for some other form of compromise. This is
> the real problem. As long as such women exist, the product makers and
> corporations would obviously use them. So, if you want this to stop, you
> have to revolt when someone from your own gender (male/female) is ready to
> represent your gender infront of a public audience and accept to be
> objectified for money. Don't go after the corporation that hired them,
> instead ask these people why they let them objectify you, on behalf of
> you/your gender in the first place. This is the real problem

Either you think objectifying women is wrong, or you don't. If you do, then
it's absolutely logical to go after the people deciding to run their marketing
campaign this way. You will always find people ready to do whatever if you put
enough money on the table. It doesn't mean it's not wrong.

~~~
randomdata
What I fail to understand is why objectification of the body is wrong, but
objectification of the mind is normal, if not encouraged.

We spend _a lot_ of time trying to make individual thought into an
interchangeable machine. You don't even have to dig very deep in HN to see
people boasting about the benefits of a college education, or why you should
drop out, in order to make yourself like just like everyone else, creating an
"us vs them" mentality. Then we put the most attractive minds on display for
all to see. _"Buy this and you can be smart and successful just like me!"_

Exploiting a woman to display her body to sell a laptop battery is no more
wrong than exploiting a woman to use her mind to create the battery in the
first place. In either case, we are not appreciating the person for being a
person, just an object that gets the job done.

Women are not free of problems because of their gender, but this case seems
entirely about a non-sensical shame of the human body.

~~~
mercurial
Interesting analogy. This actually made me pause and think for a while.

However, I think it is ultimately flawed. The message here is clearly targeted
at the reptilian part of heterosexual male brains: buying this battery is like
buying this woman to bed her. Straightforward and effective.

Saying "do this and be smart just like me" works in a completely different
way. It does reduce people to one dimension: their success, while ignoring
their appreciation for the finer points of Zoroastrianism. But I would not
call it exploitative. You put forward a positive quality (business skill,
programming chops, whatever) and you encourage people to take action and
_work_ to acquire it. This is a fairly positive message.

I would say also that paying a woman to create a battery (provided the
compensation is fair) is not exploitation. In this context, we are not talking
about economic exploitation, but exploitation of heterosexual male lust in
ways which send out the message that women are nothing better than sex toys.

To every straight, at least moderately attractive male who have trouble
understanding how this can be an issue, I suggest to challenge yourselves and
go out to a gay night club on a Friday night. If anything, this should be an
interesting experience, and may help you understand some things which can make
women uncomfortable.

~~~
randomdata
You definitely make some great points. I do, however, wonder why you consider
business skills a positive quality, but being a sex toy a negative quality?
Neither is inherently good or inherently bad.

I expect it is because the woman is viewed as a sex toy without getting to
choose to be one? However, the stereotype about a man's wallet seems to play
into the same idea. A man who looks wealthy is going to be assumed to be a
smart businessman, even if he wishes to not be seen that way.

I admit that I still don't fully understand, and maybe it is impossible for me
to fully do so, but I'm glad we can talk openly about it to learn more.

\- " _I suggest to challenge yourselves and go out to a gay night club on a
Friday night._ "

I have actually done this and found it to be a fun and positive experience.
Nothing creepy or uncomfortable about it. I guess I am, perhaps, too ugly to
have experienced what you are talking about?

~~~
mercurial
> You definitely make some great points. I do, however, wonder why you
> consider business skills a positive quality, but being a sex toy a negative
> quality? Neither is inherently good or inherently bad. > > I expect it is
> because the woman is viewed as a sex toy without getting to choose to be
> one? However, the stereotype about a man's wallet seems to play into the
> same idea. A man who looks wealthy is going to be assumed to be a smart
> businessman, even if he wishes to not be seen that way.

But society does not see businessmen in the same light as sex toys. At all.

The problem is that we've been living in a patriarcal society for a long, long
while. Sending the message "women are sex toys" also means "women are sex
toys, _nothing more_ \- they are here for _your_ enjoyment". It's a message
that they are not in a position of power, contrary to the businessman. They
are not equal.

> I have actually done this and found it to be a fun and positive experience.
> Nothing creepy or uncomfortable about it. I guess I am, perhaps, too ugly to
> have experienced what you are talking about?

It's a bit difficult to explain. Imagine suddenly that somebody sees you as
just a piece of meat, ready to be consumed and thrown out afterward. This is
not a pleasant feeling. And congrats for challenging yourself!

~~~
randomdata
So would you say the root problem is our puritan shame of sex, as I suggested
earlier? If a sexual person was held in the same regard as a business person,
wouldn't that be something to strive towards, not shy away from?

" _It's a bit difficult to explain. Imagine suddenly that somebody sees you as
just a piece of meat, ready to be consumed and thrown out afterward. This is
not a pleasant feeling._ "

See, I wish people would value me for my body in that way. It is the constant
having to prove myself with my mind, instead, that made me think of the
original comparison. Without being able to fully understand what you are
feeling, it seems like it could be the same thing in many ways – ultimately
rejecting what you have and seeking what you don't have.

~~~
mercurial
> So would you say the root problem is our puritan shame of sex, as I
> suggested earlier? If a sexual person was held in the same regard as a
> business person, wouldn't that be something to strive towards, not shy away
> from?

Well, it already is... for men. A man with many sexual partners is looked
favourably upon. A woman doing the same is called a slut. There is a gender
imbalance built into our society, and until such time as a majority of men
recognize it, it will keep being there. But it is a question of equality and
power more than sexuality. Just as if you systematically represented male CEOs
and female secretaries in the media. This wouldn't be about sex, but would be
equally problematic.

> See, I wish people would value me for my body in that way. It is the
> constant having to prove myself with my mind that made me think of the
> original comparison. Without being able to fully understand what you are
> feeling, it seems like it could be the same thing in many ways – ultimately
> rejecting what you have and seeking what you don't have.

You have a point here. I'd say the problem is treating people as the means to
an end - whether as sex toys, problem-solving machines or plain old cannon
fodder.

~~~
randomdata
" _I'd say the problem is treating people as the means to an end - whether as
sex toys, problem-solving machines or plain old cannon fodder._ "

I don't know if I can speak for all men, but personally, having someone to
want you to do something for them is where self-worth is derived. Whether
someone wants to have sex, or a business wants to hire you for you services,
it feels good to be wanted. That seems like the exact opposite of a problem,
from my unique perspective. And maybe it is foolish to have those feelings,
but it largely outside of my control. Assuming you represent the prevailing
views of most women, and the gender divide on this is real, it is clear to see
how we got here.

Interestingly, I've noticed this pattern even outside of gender differences.
People generally push on other people what they want for themselves, male and
female. Even my aforementioned college example is a great one here. Someone
who wants to go to college will think everyone should go to college and push
that idea upon them, even if it is not the wishes of someone else. I don't
know where you even begin to fix that; it seems to be the human condition.

~~~
mercurial
> I don't know if I can speak for all men, but personally, having someone to
> want you to do something for them is where self-worth is derived. Whether
> someone wants to have sex, or a business wants to hire you for you services,
> it feels good to be wanted. That seems like the exact opposite of a problem,
> from my unique perspective. And maybe it is foolish to have those feelings,
> but it largely outside of my control. Assuming you represent the prevailing
> views of most women, and the gender divide on this is real, it is clear to
> see how we got here.

The difference is whether you are treated as valueable or as a commodity. In
both cases, you can be made to feel "wanted" but completely different ways.

