

It sucks to be female - zachinglis
http://inkpixelspaper.tumblr.com/post/42362892314

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smky80
I really think the author really draws the wrong message out of this. It sucks
that, because there is really no objective way to determine "merit", your
position in the social graph can be more important than your talents in terms
of your career. Meaning a person with some amount of social power can affect
your career negatively just because they don't like you. That applies to both
men and women, and it happens an awful lot to both.

Anyway, there are quite a few advantages to being a woman in Western society.
If she really hated this guy, she could have just married him and then took
half his stuff.

~~~
mnicole
> Meaning a person with some amount of social power can affect your career
> negatively just because they don't like you.

Right, but it should be based on something a little more tangible than a
Twitter picture and denying sex after creepy DMs and fake client calls. This
is the type of behavior that should be called out. I'm as on the fence as
anyone else about naming names in these situations (because even if it is
true, the fame of the accused could backfire on the victim), but this one
seems pretty cut-and-dry. I personally don't know, based on her descriptions
of him, who he is, but if these allegations are true and other women can come
forward with similar stories, something should be said.

> If she really hated this guy, she could have just married him and then took
> half his stuff.

Oh for crying out loud; damned if you do, damned if you don't. He was married
and lying to her and other women about it while going around conferences
sleazing on them and then badmouthing them in front of his equally celebrity-
status peers when they turned him down. If this was a story about a girl who
was pressured to be with someone for all the wrong reasons, I can only imagine
what the comments here would be like.

~~~
smky80
I'm not defending the guy at all. My point is that this general scenario --
upset some person with a certain amount of power, who then makes your life
miserable -- happens quite frequently to men as well. The title of the post is
that "it sucks to be female" and I don't agree that follows from the post.

The marriage comment was mostly a joke, but it does illustrate the point that
Western women enjoy a lot of "priviledge" themselves. It shouldn't need to be
said, but I'll add that this doesn't make sexual harassment acceptable.

~~~
mnicole
I'd be interested in seeing this list of privileges.

~~~
smky80
For starters, women live about 6 years longer than men [0], and currently make
up about 67% of college graduates [1] , which is partly due to affirmative
action.

I can't find a great link, but I believe it's been projected that women are or
will own a greater than 50% of total wealth in the Western world in the next
decade or so.

Divorce court isn't too friendly to men either.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy)

[1] <http://www.womenmovingmillions.org/how-we-do-it/facts/>

~~~
mnicole
I questioned responding to this at all because privilege is a social aspect,
not a biological one. An extra six years of life isn't exactly a benefit
because those extra six years aren't added to my childhood or adulthood, but
at the end of my life when I'm waning. But if we're going to talk about
biology, we can talk about the wonderful stuff most women have the pleasure of
dealing with on a monthly basis for the majority of their lives, we can talk
about childbirth and the expectation of what constitutes 'a woman' (which is
really a mix of both of these things) and we can talk about how it's more
likely a girl will be judged/ridiculed based on her appearance.

Your second link also says that more women graduate high school than their
male counterparts, and that 70% of college Valedictorians are women. Does that
have anything to do with affirmative action, which was put in place to create
equality to begin with?

It's _projected_ we're going to own greater than 50% of the total wealth in
the West for the first time in history? Fantastic, because we're greater than
50% of the population. I don't get this point at all.

You're reaching for statistics here, and I'm not even going to touch the
divorce thing. I'll leave that for Reddit and Men's Rights, plus I'm biased
because my father abandoned our family and three of my best friends growing up
were equally raised by single mothers.

~~~
smky80
So would you agree that the current achievement gap between women and men in
school is a social/cultural bias or privilege? Or would you argue instead that
women are just smarter?

Sorry to hear about your father.

~~~
mnicole
I don't want to make the statement that women are smarter as it may be more
related to what each gender accomplishes with their education. Men are
physically more capable at labor-intensive roles that don't necessarily need
the type of education currently provided in K-12 outside of vocational schools
and shop classes. That doesn't mean they're not smart, it just means they may
know what they want out of life and know what it takes to do it (i.e. taking
over his father's business).

I'd love to see our education system provide both academic- and career-
oriented pathways that bring back apprenticeships. While I think women would
still take more academic courses than their male counterparts, I believe it
would really help alleviate gender-based assumptions about intelligence and
capabilities.

~~~
smky80
We can agree to disagree. If you're going to put forward the view above
though, you can't really complain if someone were to argue that the lack of
women in tech is more due to their own interests and aptitude than it is
widespread sexism and "male privilege".

I'm not arguing this subject, except to say that I don't think the OP makes a
good argument that "it sucks to be female" in this industry.

~~~
mnicole
Interests and aptitudes are relative to pre-determined ideas of capability and
who is already in those fields, who we imagine when we think about those roles
and who is therefore inspired the most by them. Women had no issue pulling
their weight in manufacturing and computer engineering when we needed them to
during times of crisis. Blog post after blog post show and surprise readers
with images of women working on airplanes and doing technical work in
factories. Somehow, even today, the idea of women not only taking these jobs,
but doing so in mass numbers and enjoying the work impresses people.

I think the fact that we're having these conversations at all - and
consistently so - signals that it can "suck to be a female in this industry".

~~~
smky80
To be honest, I think anyone who believes 67% of college graduates should or
at least will naturally be women, will be having these conversations
consistently anyway, regardless of the merit of the argument.

But I agree with your last point, in that it CAN suck to be anyone in any
industry. So there's a point of agreement. :) And I'm finished with this
thread.

------
kunai
To the author:

 _clap_ clap*

Beautiful. It's a shame great stuff like this falls through the cracks on HN.

I really do not know what to say, except that your story was very inspiring
and I wish you the best with the future. I'm sorry about your losses, and I
hope you continue doing what you love and put the past behind you. The world
is a better place because of your achievements.

-kunai

