
XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public - macrael
https://plus.google.com/111588569124648292310/posts/SeBqgN9Zoiu
======
fleitz
I take great offense to my culture being defined as "relentless treatment of
women as objects teaches them that they are defined by the one thing that men
around them want from them"

Yes some people do that, but VERY few. It's as silly as thinking that all gay
men speak with lisps, yes some do and those that do are very identifiable as
likely gay. Yes there is always that guy in the bar that is inappropriate with
women, and he will get noticed, but did anyone bother to look at the VAST
majority of men who do not engage in that behavior. These are also the same
idiots who are getting into bar fights with other men. This doesn't make it
acceptable but it's hardly a hallmark of my "culture". There are people who
just don't respect other people in every culture.

As to being bigger and stronger, perhaps we should look to the nation of Japan
and the feats its military was able to achieve with men roughly the size of
north american women. Women are perfectly capable of defending themselves, not
that they should have to, just like smaller men are perfectly capable of
defending themselves, not that they should have to. These are again averages
and if you look at the deviances you'll see that there are a lot of women who
are larger than a lot of men.

Also, keep in mind that a man is twice as likely to be assaulted as a woman so
from a statistical perspective it is men who should be fearing for their
safety as they post their gender online.

I personally think it's a good idea for Google to make the settings private
but it doesn't need the invocation of chivalric myths and the slander of an
entire culture for it to happen. Frankly, the idea that women can't defend
themselves and we need to add privacy settings to protect them seems more to
perpetuate the ideals of chivalry than feminism.

~~~
demallien
"but VERY few" I'm not sure what you're suggesting here. You know, if it's
only 1% of men that act in a sexually predatory manner (workplace sexual
harrassement, groping on public transport, all the way through to rape), how
am I as a woman supposed to react? Online it's even worse, I can expect
sexually explicit comments to be made to me with a probability approaching 1.0
if I reveal my gender (HN is a pleasant exception to the rule, and here's
hoping it stays that way!)

Online there are many forums where I choose to hide my gender, and in the real
world I am always conscious that I am being objectified sexually (an
experience you probably can't appreciate until you've been in a bar and had a
fat, bald guy 20 years older than you grinding his crotch up against your leg
even when you've physically tried to push him away).

So yeah, take all the offense you like, it is an offense that is rooted in a
deep ignorance of what it's like to be a woman in our culture.

~~~
olalonde
There seems to be deep ignorance of what it's like to be an old fat bald guy
in our culture. Who do you think had the worse night? My guess is that it's
the old fat bald guy who had to go home with his right hand, got publicly
humiliated in front of all of his friends by getting rejected and physically
pushed by a girl half his size. Not to forget his wallet is probably much
lighter after paying all those drinks to women he won't ever have a chance
with.

~~~
silencio
There is a lot more to it than "old fat bald guy". I don't know why so many
people keep missing the extra clues, including in this past weekend's
skeptic/atheist brouhaha over Richard Dawkins being ignorant. In short, it's
the same damn situation. "Nice guy" (which is an unknown to the woman)
approaches woman, gets rejected, is pissed off. Nice guy forgot to look at the
situation, which was woman alone with man hitting on her in elevator at 3am.

> fat, bald guy 20 years older than you grinding his crotch up against your
> leg even when you've physically tried to push him away

When you're a fat, bald guy that does exactly that, you don't get to be
treated like it's all okay and the girl is obligated to spend time with you
because you bought her a drink or ten. It's the attitude that is the problem,
not the fat or the bald.

If you are a considerate, nice, polite, friendly old fat bald guy that can
respect boundaries and that people just have differing ideas of attractiveness
(it goes both ways, and I know this as an overweight girl), you shouldn't be
treated like a dirtbag, ever. Anyone that does treat you as such is a dirtbag
in their own way.

~~~
olalonde
I agree with you on most point except this one.

> When you're a fat, bald guy that does exactly that, you don't get to be
> treated like it's all okay and the girl is obligated to spend time with you
> because you bought her a drink or ten.

Where I live right now, women (and some men) surprisingly often offer me
drinks in bars. Most of the time I'm not attracted to them but yet, I find it
only fair and nice to spend some time with them. I even sometimes dance with
old and fat women. I don't see anything wrong with this and if I don't feel
like spending time with a stranger, I respectfully decline the offer and pay
for my own drinks.

~~~
silencio
I feel like we're on the same page yet not.

I believe the key to the situation is will and interest. It is not drinks or
attractiveness or grinding. All of that is awesome if everyone is okay with
it. I too will also regularly talk to, dance with, and spend time with people
that I may not want to sleep with but that I find interesting and comfortable
to talk to. I will let them know this in advance, and most of the time they're
completely fine with just the brief companionship and otherwise accept my
declining their offer. This is basically the old bald guy chatting away with a
woman and maybe even having a dance together, with no expectation of sex. Or
the old bald guy that walks away from a woman that just said "thanks, but no
thanks" to him.

What I am _never_ okay with and what I believe is wrong and worthy of public
shaming is the old bald guy that tries to grind up against and buy drinks
despite the woman pushing him away. It doesn't even have to be the old bald
guy. It could even be a ripped young guy with a nice suntan, a significant
other or a friend or _anybody_ to anybody else. You're not showing that person
any respect by ignoring their boundaries.

I don't know if I'm doing a good job explaining this, but thanks to said
skeptic brouhaha someone else has a very eloquent piece on this subject:
[http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-
sch...](http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-
schrodinger’s-rapist-or-a-guy’s-guide-to-approaching-strange-women-without-
being-maced/)

While I don't care much for the statistics, the situations created to
illustrate the third and fourth points is of particular interest to this
conversation.

Lastly about drinks, I think that declining the offer and buying your own
drinks is the right thing to do. Some people don't understand that and like to
freeload, which is rude but what can you do. The person buying drinks needs to
understand that there is no obligation attached to buying someone else a
drink.

------
silencio
I'm just glad Google+ has an "other" option to begin with. Facebook lets you
hide gender (which would be nice to have in google+), but they only offer
male/female.

Really, I'm more disgruntled that Google+ lets you put down your relationship
status and types of relationships you're looking for, but no way to specify
which genders if any you are interested in talking to. I've been mulling over
removing that part from my google profile because I can't mark that I'm only
interested in women for relationships and dating. I have some female friends
that would prefer to talk only to other females as well, it doesn't even have
to go as far as preferences for dating.

Human sexuality and gender is so complicated that I'm willing to give a pass
to any company that at least tries to make an effort to be more inclusive.
They sure fall short here and there, but maybe with better education and
awareness and bug reports, that will change.

~~~
henrikschroder
I used to work for a gay dating site where instead of presenting a table of
data about each person, we generated a natural language text that described
the person's age, location and sexuality. At the beginning you had a radio-
button to select your own gender (male/female/other/none) and checkboxes to
select which genders you were interested in.

With those limited options, it was fairly easy to construct this profile text,
even though we were using VBSCript. (Yes, it was _that_ long ago) Sometime
later we wanted to expand and cover all the trans* options which resulted in
that piece of code expanding into a horrible mess of weird cases, and those
users not being happy with the result anyway. We got a lot of complaints of
the type "I am an X looking for Y, but I don't want to be called Z".

I'd rather program date and time functions than that, ever again. :-)

~~~
Vivtek
Ha! Natural language _always_ expands into a horrible mess of weird cases.
Humanity _is_ a horrible mess of weird cases.

------
cletus
I have mixed feelings about this. I'm a guy so obviously don't have the
experience (any) women have but I will say this.

Three things will essentially give away your gender:

1\. Your stated gender;

2\. Your name (with a high degree of accuracy in most cultures that I'm aware
of); and

3\. Your photos.

So for (1) to have any impact, (2) and (3) must be hidden. Since all profiles
are public, I'm not sure you can hide (2).

Give all that, I'm not sure I understand the rationale for hiding gender but,
like I said, I don't have the experience.

That all being said, I really don't see the issue with hiding it.

I strongly encourage people who feel strongly about it to be vocal about it
and ask for either the ability to have it not stated or to hide it (like you
can with things like the number of "followers" you have).

EDIT: on the accuracy of gender prediction from Facebook profiles:

<http://cis.poly.edu/~ross/papers/NameCentric.pdf>

I realize this isn't _exactly_ the issue here. Most people concerned with
harassment probably aren't worried about computer models that can predict
their gender based on their name, information from their profile or their
writing style. I imagine harassment is far less systematic than that.

EDIT2: I would contend that a bigger factor in whether someone gets harassed
is how they present their profile rather than a single field.

For example, if your profile is public, has pictures of how partying and
getting drunk, has many messages about what a party animal you are and/or your
dating life, some will see that (rightly or wrongly) as an invitation for
attention (good or bad).

I would be very interested to hear from people who have been harassed or
bullied online or have been the victims of such crimes in the real world and
hear how they use social networks and how they present themselves online. I
suspect they tend to keep everything private.

I'd also be interested to hear how important it is that gender is shown on a
profile. It's all well and good for us to speculate about this but I really
would like to hear from some people with first hand experience.

~~~
woodall
Sometimes, the way in which you form paragraphs and sentences can give away an
individuals gender identity. Check this out, and the accompanying paper.

Female Score: 8

Male Score: 14

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

<http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.php>

[http://www.cs.biu.ac.il/~koppel/papers/male-female-text-
fina...](http://www.cs.biu.ac.il/~koppel/papers/male-female-text-final.pdf)

~~~
FeministHacker
The problem with this is that it reflects the issues with our society more
than people's genders. Having a reasonable education and writing about STEM*
tends to make anyone male, according to that.

* Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths

------
scythe
>Many women grow up with a sense of physical vulnerability that's hard for men
to appreciate. Our culture's relentless treatment of women as objects teaches
them that they are defined by the one thing that men around them want from
them

Daaaaaamn are people ever good at misinterpreting this line. It doesn't matter
whether women are at _actual_ risk; it's about the _perception_ of risk.
They're your _customers_ , not your students or children or friggin' royal
subjects.

Answering the question of actual risk has basically turned into a playground
of competitive sophistry. On the other hand, perceived risk is goddamn
obvious, and it's what matters. You don't start a social network by alienating
people, _regardless_ of whether they're 'right' or 'wrong' to feel the way
they do.

~~~
roundsquare
You're making this into a business decision. I'm sure that google has put a
lot of thought into this and made what they think is the best business
decision (in addition to the fact that they are testing it in beta).

There are, however, concerns above and beyond profits that could drive this
decision.

~~~
scythe
>You're making this into a business decision.

Well... that's the point. I really don't want to talk about it as an ethical
decision, and I guess I can avoid that by pointing out that it is more
obviously a good business decision. I'm sure Google put a lot of thought into
this, but I'm also sure they put a lot of thought into the launch of Google
Buzz. Unfortunately, the sheer amount of thinking that goes on doesn't
guarantee success.

Of course, now you've cornered me, so I _have_ to talk about it as an ethical
decision. So, some things which pop into my head:

1 - the ability to not show your gender does not change the relative status of
the genders in public perception (hereafter "gender inequality")

2 - the ability to not show your gender does diminish the importance of gender
inequality _w.r.t. setting up a Google+ account_ , i.e., inequality affects
you less if you don't have to show your gender

3 - gender inequality is generally considered a bad thing

Per point (1), the negative consequences of allowing people to not show their
gender are probably small, and per points (2) and (3), the positive
consequences are probably significant. This means that people are probably
better off being allowed to not show their gender.

But b'gosh, I've let yet _another_ cat out of the bag by introducing the
concept of "perceived risk" and claiming its existence.

 _Why do I think there is perceived risk?_

Personal experience. If you haven't run into a sexism debate yet, you haven't
browsed any serious technology forum with any sort of regularity. If, in a
sexism debate, you don't see comments about men doing untoward things to
women, you probably haven't read the debate very thoroughly. If there is a
gorilla in a room, and nobody sees it, nobody talks about it; if there is no
gorilla in a room, but everyone thinks they see a gorilla, people talk about
it: people talk about what they see. I hear enough talk either from women
complaining about creepy guys or from people talking about such complaints
that I figure it is commonplace. In lieu of evidence I go with intuition,
because at some point I have to make a decision.

I call it perceived risk because, in short form, people think that things they
don't want to happen (anything from creepy private messages to violence) will
happen if they show their gender. I'm trying not to accuse anyone of malice,
negligince, cowardice or irrationality. Perhaps in some ironic twist this
itself is cowardly.

So, from an ethical standpoint, I hope this is enough to justify allowing
people to hide their gender.

There are many more questions: what risks are perceived, how do they come to
be perceived, what risks are real, how do they come to exist, what are the
effects of perceiving risk, how can real risk be prevented, and how can
negative effects of perceiving risk be prevented, with an eye towards both
valid and invalid perceived risk.

In an effort to broadly treat the last two topics:

It is progressively easier to take advantage of people who rank lower on
Kohlberg's stages of moral development:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_de...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development)

An conception of the ideal of justice based on categorical imperatives (not
necessarily in the Kantian sense) is not a guarantee of making the right
decisions. However, it makes many decisions easier. It allows one to have
sincere belief in their judgments about a situation, and to recognize
irrational and unfair behavior before it has a chance of affecting oneself or
others.

Compassion is excellent, but in too many cases trying to make a compassionate
decision leads to feelings of uncertainty and powerlessness. Self-interest is
necessary for survival, but in too many cases trying to make a selfish
decision leads to feelings of isolation and unfairness. Laws are a necessary
component of a free society, but they are written by flawed human beings, and
often prescribe no choice at all or an obviously bad one.

Conversely:

Making decisions based on rationally chosen principles leads to a better
situation for humanity as a whole. Contrast the success of the American
revolution with the failure of the French revolution: George Washington
adhered to the principles of justice and fairness and Napoleon did not.

~~~
roundsquare
I suppose I should be clear from this point on: I am against Google+ forcing
people to show their gender.

"Well... that's the point. I really don't want to talk about it as an ethical
decision, and I guess I can avoid that by pointing out that it is more
obviously a good business decision."

In this case, I don't like making it a business decision for two reasons:

1) It is all but certain that Google considered the business repercussions of
forcing people to show their gender. They almost certainly balanced the number
of people they would not be able to get against the fact that the data is not
indexed and searchable and concluded that, from a business point of view, it
was worthwhile to force people to show gender. In the end, without real data,
there is probably not a good way to make the business argument in a way that
convinces google that they are wrong from a business point of view. (Of
course, while testing, if the data they gather says that this is killing their
business, they'll probably change the way it works).

2) If we can make the moral argument, and Google busy it, they are less likely
to start changing their default privacy settings, etc... on people just
because its good business.

Of course, I realize there is strength in making something a business
decision. It means that even if they don't buy the moral argument, we still
get the outcome we want. But, in this case, I think the two reasons stated
above outweigh this (especially point number 2 given the experience with
facebook).

I'm having some trouble connecting your last few paragraphs ("An conception of
the idea..." onward), which are very general in nature, to the specific topic
here. As far as I can tell, you are basically arguing for some sort of rules
based morality. Without getting into if that's desirable or not (though in
many cases, I agree it is), its not clear to me what rules you are in favor
of. Please do explain...

(On your moral argument and discussion of perceived risk, I essentially
agree).

------
dazzer
Guys, lets not get carried away by the issue here.

The issue is NOT about gender identification. It is Google+ not providing the
ability to hide your gender on your profile (I won't say they're FORCING you
to post your gender).

The issue of Gender Identification is merely an example provided to justify
the usage of such a feature. So let's avoid a massive gender debate here, when
you can read all about it in the post itself.

~~~
throwaway939393
There absolutely should be an option to hide gender on your profile. I was
lucky to get a +1 invite early but didn't create an account because of this
issue.

Here's why: I'm a hacker. I do freelance work for a living. I avoid all
references to my gender in anything work-related because it creates too much
extra mental overhead. Instead of focusing on getting things done I end up
wondering whether a disagreement on a technical issue would disappear if I was
male. Or wondering if I didn't get a contract because I'm female. Or (worse)
if I got a contract because of affirmative action or because a company is
trying to cultivate an open forward-thinking culture, rather than for my
technical ability.

It isn't that I want to hide that I am female, exactly, its just that it
doesn't have any affect on the quality of my work, but disclosing the fact
that I am female unfortunately can create unrelated complications that get in
the way of doing my job.

~~~
dfxm12
Don't you think you are doing other females a disservice by doing quality work
and hiding the fact that you are a female? Maybe you'll have to deal with
those headaches you describe now, but then maybe you can make it easier for
your daughter, or inspire other young female hackers. Isn't that worth it?

I can appreciate it if you aren't up for this fight, but think of it like
this: wouldn't it have defeated the purpose if Rosa Parks wore a disguise when
she sat at the front of the bus, so that no one would be able to tell what
race she was?

~~~
throwaway939393
When I was younger I worked for a nonprofit that supported women in non-
traditional fields. I guess I'm just too tired to fight anymore. I'm no Rosa
Parks. When given the choice of spending my time hacking or discussing gender
issues, I will pick hacking every time. I deeply respect the folks who have
the energy to tackle the issue head on.

BTW, my clients do eventually find out that I am a woman when we do phone
calls.

------
macrael
He's written about gender very well before.[1] It is certainly a subject that
I don't know very much about, but I appreciate that it can get very
complicated very quickly. What are the good reasons for requiring it to be
public?

Secondly, do you think that "other" is enough? To what lengths should
developers go to handle rare corner cases?

[1]: <http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/06/sex-and-gender/>

~~~
Qz
I vote for the text field option.

~~~
FeministHacker
The range of answers you get when you give a free text entry field is
wonderful, and proves why this is the best route.

On matters like forced revealing of gender, my gender is rage.

I'm in the process of trying to convince an genderfork academic I'm friends
with to actually put a 20 marks question on an exam "what is your gender?".

~~~
Qz
Anyone care to explain why they're downvoting this?

~~~
burgerbrain
I found the comment quite difficult to parse. I'm guessing that is why.

~~~
FeministHacker
To be fair, it actually is hard to parse - I'm re-reading it, and trying to
work out how to word it better, but the fact that I'm actually using a
freeform gender, and the academic term genderfork, makes it hard to see how.

I'll have another stab later if I have time - My gender is currently busy.

------
redrobot5050
FTA:

>> Our culture's relentless treatment of women as objects teaches them that
they are defined by the one thing that men around them want from them—men who
are usually bigger, stronger, and (like any human) occasionally crazy. This
feeling—often confirmed by actual experiences of harassment and assault—can
lead, understandably, to a lifetime of low-level wariness and sense of
vulnerability that men have trouble appreciating. <<

I want to comment on the attitude Randall is projecting in the above
referenced quote. It's a commonplace attitude in the modern world today. That
a woman's only protection is a man's forbearance. I feel this attitude is also
toxic to our social fabric -- it really is just another form of gender bias.
Attitudes like this lead to strange unintended consequences: Single, unmarried
men cannot be seated next to unaccompanied minors on a plane. Men are now less
likely to come to the aide of a screaming or crying child in public.

Just because some Vikings rape and pillage does not mean that all men do. Just
because my grandfather was of German descent and fought in WWII should you
assume he was a Nazi (he was a medic for the Allies).

Google+ is supposed to have privacy options "superior to facebook". (And
considering they also have access to our search history and email, they had
better be). Women online (and this is likely not their first social networking
experience) have the same access to those privacy tools as everyone else. Let
them block the harassers and those that objectify them.

(But still some really good points made about co-opting "Other").

------
Dove

        Many women grow up with a sense of physical 
        vulnerability that's hard for men to appreciate. Our 
        culture's relentless treatment of women as objects 
        teaches them that they are defined by the one thing 
        that men around them want from them—men who are 
        usually bigger, stronger, and (like any human) 
        occasionally crazy. This feeling—often confirmed by
        actual experiences of harassment and assault—can lead,
        understandably, to a lifetime of low-level wariness
        and sense of vulnerability that men have trouble 
        appreciating.
    

This is so absolutely dead right on the money, I find myself wondering where a
male author gets such an insight. _I_ feel this way, and I was raised in
idyllic suburban circumstances surrounded by loving and honorable men.

(Edit: Here's an old comment of mine on the phenomenon of women preferring
gender anonymity online: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=750413> )

------
nl
The linked essay[1] is worth reading. I had no idea that sex testing was so
complicated - it explained to me a lot about why sex-testing for (usually)
women's sport isn't as simple as I'd assumed.

[1] <http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Essays/marriage.html>

~~~
brianmatter
i agree that it is a complex issue. the problem is that he negates his
argument by saying "many women" and trying to say what they feel. "many women"
is pretty much a gender enhancing phrase

~~~
rick_bc
I actually think that "many women" isn't exaggeration.

Similar issues are discussed frequently in many forums. It's only you don't
know what you don't know!

Edit: Ok. I exaggerated. But we really don't know.

------
rimantas
I don't get this trend at all. Something is wrong with priorities and
perceived risk vs. real risk. It's pretty difficult to assault someone
physically over the internet (<http://bash.org/?4281>). On the other hand,
woman broadcasts her gender when in public. Will x years from now we all be
walking in some kind of uniform enclosures as to protect from anyone knowing
if one is male or female?

Also, in some languages name is very clear indication of the gender. And even
some ambiguous nickname won't help, because in some languages you usage of
verbs, adjectives etc. differs depending on gender.

Recently I saw a story about some kindergarden in Sweden where kids were not
allowed to say "he" or "she" when talking about person but rather had to use
something equivalent to "it" (I don't think English has equivalent to that,
Russian language has "оно" for neuter nouns). To me it looks extremely stupid.
But I guess it is easier just to ignore our differences than teach to cherish
them and respect the other side.

~~~
silencio
It has nothing to do with assault over the internet and everything to do with
the way others perceive you. I would love to imagine I live in a world where
it doesn't matter what chromosomes and sex organs you were born with, and
really, I have kind of found that in the Cocoa developer community. That is
why I enjoy talking to those people.

But just /join an IRC channel with a female nickname. Play online games and
talk with a female voice. Someone somewhere is going to make some kind of fuss
over it and it is _incredibly_ annoying. I like to do things like raid in
WoW...and most raids want people to join ventrilo/mumble voice chat. I _never_
talk unless a friend is in there with me or unless I hear another female
voice. Period. I do not want to hear "IT'S A GIRL (or prepubescent boy)!!
/whisper Can I see your tits?".

So I may not care about hiding my gender on my google+ profile because it's
mostly just a bunch of people that know me already some other way in circles,
but there are definitely places where even my thick skinned attitude towards
"tits or gtfo" can't help and I don't want anyone to know what I might be. I
understand some people may think that about google+ and fully respect and
support their desire for such a feature.

I can't say I know the best way to deal with this problem, but I don't think
it has as much to do with ignoring differences as much as it is not infusing
our own gender biases into the way children think and learn about how to
interact with each other. In a way, ambiguity can foster a sense of respect
(or at least, caution).

There is no other reason for me to be running around with gender ambiguous
usernames on websites, IRC, chat, and more where I am interacting with people
I don't know.

~~~
waterhouse
As a random suggestion for the WOW raids, might it be possible to use software
to distort your voice so that it sounds male (or at least androgynous)? Come
to think of it, even males might want to do that so they can have, like, a
really deep voice that sounds like the big heavy warrior character they're
playing, or maybe an old gravelly voice if they're playing a wizard--or a
female voice if their character is female, for that matter.

Does anyone else think that would be a cool idea?

~~~
silencio
I've considered it! I used to play with someone that liked doing that to poke
fun at someone else who had one of the deepest voices I had ever heard, too.

I think the problem would lie in that the distortions might make it harder to
understand someone. The primary goal of talking is to draw attention to a
problem or strategy, not to make it harder to understand someone. Hard enough
time doing that with accents and varied dialects and fluency of English :(

Usually when I am in a situation where I don't want to talk, I just say that
I'm listening but I don't have a mic. It's usually not a problem because I
type fast enough that I can yell in text without needing to pause playing my
character.

~~~
klipt
There is free (as in beer) software to change the pitch of voices:

<http://www.screamingbee.com/product/MorphVOXJunior.aspx>

------
vacri
I've always found Munroe's position on gender equality weird - despite what he
says, he 'others' women in his main work. Female stick figures have long hair,
even if the strip has nothing to do with gender. Male stick figures have no
such indication. That is: 'male' is 'default'.

~~~
hebejebelus
I fail to see how the males aren't just the female stick figure with short
hair. Your viewpoint is at fault here, not the comics.

I see what you mean in a way - that the male stick figures don't have long
hair. Again, though, this is only your viewpoint - very rarely is the stick
figure's gender actually mentioned in the text of the comic or otherwise.
Besides, not all females have long hair, many of the not-overtly-female stick
figures may also be female despite not having long hair. Only your viewpoint,
again.

The internet: where you can argue about the gender of stick figures.

~~~
vacri
Well, a couple of things here. Firstly, when the gender of a character is
revealed, it's in line with what I've said. There are no long-haired males or
hairless females.

Secondly, long hair denoting femaleness is a cartoon trope and that's how it's
used in xkcd (note my issue is not the trope itself here, but that it is used
by someone who says they're passionate about equality). Using your argument,
you could argue that the cartoon characters with long eyelashes and pink bows
in their hair _could_ be male, but of course in real terms that's never how
they're seen.

------
JohnLBevan
One advantage of publicly disclosing information about gender is that you know
it's public. It's possible to glean someone's gender from the language they
use (see <http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php>), meaning people who kept
their gender private may be lulled into a false sense of security. Admittedly
I still agree that you should always have to option to select which of your
details to make public (or to limit which groups/circles this information is
available to), but thought I'd chuck in a counter argument to keep things
interesting.

------
olalonde
He's quite a bit harsh with his own culture (presumably the American culture).
American culture is way ahead of most cultures in terms of respect for women.
Travel to Africa, Asia or South America and you'll realize your culture isn't
all that bad. (Disclosure: I'm not American)

~~~
corin_
I would argue that it's better to rate something based on how it should be,
not on alternatives.

It drives me mad when people say "<so and so country> is better than <other
country> because they only lock up gay people, not kill them" or "country A is
better than country B because women there can go outside without a man, even
if they can't vote". Sure, it might be better, but can we not agree that it's
still shit?

I can't really speak to sexism in America (I'm English, and on my trips to
NYC/LA I haven't personally experienced it at all) - I'm not saying you should
hate America because of problems, but don't brush them away as being fine just
because there are far worse situations elsewhere.

~~~
olalonde
I agree with you, but in this case it seemed that the author was putting
emphasis on his own culture as opposed to other cultures. Replace "Our
culture" with "America" here:

> America's relentless treatment of women as objects teaches them that they
> are defined by the one thing that men around them want from them

I might be wrong though.

------
ern
I'm not sure why Google is getting a free pass on the public profiles
requirement. Every other social network I've used has an option to block
search engines from indexing your profile.

~~~
dorkwagon
There is an option -- check near the bottom at
<https://profiles.google.com/me/about/edit/d> .

~~~
forza
"If you currently have a private profile but you do not wish to make your
profile public, you can delete your profile. Or, you can simply do nothing.
All private profiles will be deleted after July 31, 2011."

[http://www.google.com/support/profiles/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#...</a> <a
href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2321727"
rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2321727</a>

------
andreyf
Why not simply reword the question to ask whether you prefer to be referred to
as a "he" or "she"? In the rare case that it doesn't align with your genetic
or anatomic gender, it's not exactly the end of the world.

~~~
dazzer
At first glance at your comment I said "how would that help". Then I thought
about it a second time, and I think this is actually a legitimate way to
approach the problem of gender identification. So +1 for me.

Wonder what others think

~~~
lhnz
Some might prefer the gender-neutral pronoun "they".

However, I think doing things this way is going to be quite difficult to
implement when you consider multiple languages. Male/Female/Other with an
option to hide this information is much easier a solution.

~~~
parfe
They is traditionally plural.

~~~
epochwolf
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Generic_they> It's been around for
a very long time.

~~~
parfe
Are you saying that usage is common or are you showing me the exception that
proves the rule?

I Don't think I'd ever use a "They" in a way such as being described here.

"John was late for dinner. They were caught in traffic."

Or is it "They was caught in traffic." ?

~~~
klipt
> "John was late for dinner. They were caught in traffic."

It sounds ungrammatical because the gender-neutral pronoun follows a gender
specific name. The actual use is more like

"A friend of mine was late for dinner. They were caught in traffic."

~~~
parfe
This conversation is regarding asocial network where your name is always
public.

------
JabavuAdams
Some data points:

1) I'm a 6'3" brown guy. I never get heckled when I walk down the street. I'm
reasonably handsome, but in general, I don't have the sense that a lot of
women are checking me out as I go about my daily business.

I was surprised to learn that my wife would get catcalls when she wasn't with
me in our old somewhat sketchy neighbourhood. It never happened when she was
with me, so I was like "WTF, people actually do that?"

2) At a previous job, I had a long walk to the coffee shop in suburbia. One
time I was walking about 20 m behind a couple of women. I found one very
attractive. I noticed that almost without exception, guys driving in oncoming
traffic would crane their necks to look at her. I sometimes do this too, so
I'm not suggesting that this is wrong per se, but it is _very_ noticeable.

Imagine you're just stepping out to run some errands. Almost every guy you see
checks you out. I'm not going to argue about whether this is right or wrong.
I'm just pointing out that many women's experiences are _very_ different from
men's. It's a weird vibe when you can't go anywhere without being obviously on
display.

3) Tall people get paid more than short people. Many short people I know are
very aggressive, as though they've become accustomed to defending their turf.
I'm taller than almost everyone I meet, so when I'm in an elevator with
someone taller, it feels _wrong_. Subconsciously I'm thinking about how I'd
win a fight with them. You could argue that this is just weird and neurotic,
but my wife says the same thing. She knows how to incapacitate a man, but
again there's just this back-of-the-mind threat assessment that's overlaid on
everyday situations.

4) Sexually, mechanically, it's less threatening to probe things with your
appendage than to let something into an orifice. In a non-sexual context,
you'd poke a lot of stuff that you wouldn't eat. In many cultures male-male
anal sex isn't considered gay for the top. Only the bottom is gay. So there's
probably something biological going on here.

So to all those arguing about probability of violent sexual assault, etc.
You're missing the point. It's a completely different vibe, and you won't be
able to speak intelligently about gender and social issues until you
understand that.

~~~
JabavuAdams
EDIT> I feel different when I'm in a good neighbourhood versus a bad one. In a
bad neighbourhood, I'm on guard -- my spidey-sense is tingling.

Now imagine that for roughly half the population it feels that way even in
good neighbourhoods. How does it feel to always be on guard?

------
Tharkun
I'm all for _not_ asking for gender information in the first place. It's
completely irrelevant in all but very few situations. Ending up in bed with
someone who has different bits than you expected, is awkward. Everything else
is just pointless.

The only real reason why computer systems ask for gender information is so
they can address you "properly". Some languages have neutral pronounds (their,
them, etc) for that, others don't. If your users are using a language where
this doesn't exist, tough luck for them. I'm sure every language at least has
some kind of rule (ie "use male pronouns when in doubt") of dealing with these
situations.

My Facebook profile at least has the option of not showing my gender, even if
it doesn't let me select Other or NoneOfYourDamnedBusiness.

------
asdpalpl4444
The reason is this: Advertisment!

Advertizers pay more if the ads are "targeted", the more information you have
the more "segments" of customers you got. Google gets 98% their revenue from
advertizing, which means they want as much information as possible to target
as good as possible so that they can sell you more crap!

Just try to give as little information as possible everytime you deal with
companies as google.

------
jordanb
This seems like a really pointlessly long rant that boils down to a feature
request: Change the "other" category to "other/not-disclosed".

Also do these women who don't want to disclose their gender really need
Randall Munroe to file the bug report for them?

~~~
edanm
"Also do these women who don't want to disclose their gender really need
Randall Munroe to file the bug report for them?"

That's disingenuous. He's simply acting as a good "beta tester" by filing a
report on what he sees as a bug. I don't think he's setting himself up as
"representing women", just someone who noticed a problem and has the ability
to act on it (which is true of very few people in this case; how many Google+
users have used the feedback option?)

~~~
archgoon
>which is true of very few people in this case; how many Google+ users have
used the feedback option?)

I have, but for more mundane UI issues. Though I suspect that Mr. Munroe has
considerable amplification power of his opinions. I have multiple reshares of
that post at this point.

------
jrspruitt
I understand the issues that arise with forcing people to expose more about
themselves, than they are comfortable with. From a personality standpoint, my
google+ account is a well defined sliver of who I am as a whole, by design.
Mostly because I consider it something that could be put on a resume.

As far as the social issues of such public knowledge, I wonder, is hiding from
the problem, by sexually, racially, and or religiously homogenizing profiles
ever going to help cure the problem in society that makes, making these things
public, an issue? Certain males, act like jackasses around women, is putting
them in an isolated bubble going to cure the problem?

Does training people that you can't say xy or z around people of a certain
race, stop them from being racist? It just makes them Pavlov's Dog, they know
saying those things are socially bad, and keep saying and doing the same exact
things, when society is more lax about those things being said or done to a
different group of people, say, homosexuals.

Sure it makes it harder for them to find people to act that way around, making
it seem like its less of an issue, but does nothing to change the mentality
that causes the behavior, they'll just find someone else to do it to, that is
more socially acceptable, like Muslims. Hiding from it, is not the way,
dealing with it, which is going to cause some discomfort is the you cure it.

~~~
cjzhang
Are you saying you should be allowed to use racial slurs because disallowing
people to say them doesn't make them less racist?

~~~
jrspruitt
Well technically you can use racial slurs all you want, the only thing
stopping people, is the social circles around them's willingness to accept
such behavior. Or if you are a media figure, loosing your job.

If it was me, I'd rather know they were, than have them hide it, at least I
would know who I could trust. And I think once exposed, its a problem that
could be better dealt with. Instead of teaching people just keep those
thoughts to your self, and let your racist, sexist, ways come out more
passively. Which allows people to constantly be suspicious about other peoples
motives and causes a lot of tension between people.

Though admittedly, getting people to stop needing some other group to put
down, so they can feel better about themselves, is not ever going to be easy.
Its a shame, in the "survival of the fittest" certain members of the species,
find it easier to hold people down, than excel at it themselves. But we are
what we are, and have been. At some point in our history there may have been a
point to all this, but not anymore. Maybe it made more sense when we were
doing these things over food, because there wasn't enough? Who knows.

I think its more effect to actually talk to people about why they think this
way, what caused it. It was socially acceptable when they were kids, some one
picked on them, stole their girl friend, cultural conflicts, etc. Getting to
the root of the problem, than just telling them, you can't say it, but keep on
thinking it.

------
spiffworks
Is there any particular reason that Buzz and Plus need public profiles? I
really like Plus, but I have a friend who has voiced a few significant
concerns where it defaults to public on some occasions(such as when you change
your picture). Especially given that Plus is so integrated with the rest of
Google's services, I want to fully understand the privacy implications before
committing to it.

------
afterburner
So he's saying extend the ability to make profile details private to the
gender field. Sounds fine and logical to me.

------
brianmatter
i'd love to know what makes "Radall" the expert on what "Many women grow up
with"

~~~
perlgeek
I've seen a video of Randall talking about a variety of stuff (I think it was
"Google Tech Talks" or so), and I got the impression that he just talks to
people, and listens to what they say. While reading his comics I also thought
multiple times that he must be a very good observer.

That doesn't necessarily make him an expert in the sense that conducting a
scientific study would make him, but it's still worth listening to him.

~~~
brianmatter
i don't doubt it. i just question his ability to talk about what many women
feel. how many women do you have to "talk to", "listen to" and "observe"
before you can consider yourself to be assigning what "many woman feel"
without ever being capable of feeling it yourself?

~~~
mentat
We all draw conclusions about the feelings of groups of people without
experiencing what the group actually feels. Making observations and
conclusions based on those observations is necessary to reason. "Many women
that I've talked to" should be the read version of all group observing
statements. Then the conversation can continue about how someone else's
observations may differ.

------
skrebbel
I don't think most posters in this thread realise how many flat-out nutcases
there are out there.

My girlfriend's 90+ year old grandma used to be occasionally harassed on the
phone because she was listed as "Maria Lastname" in the phone book (in
Denmark, where this is common). I can only assume that the callers didn't
expect her to be 90+. The harassments stopped a while after she changed it to
"M. Lastname".

My conclusion: some people will go pretty far to get in touch with the other
gender. If people want to hide their gender online, they should be given the
possibility to.

------
kevinpet
The argument that it follows from name is a red herring. If I create a photo
sharing service, should I require you to list a race and justify it by saying
that it can be inferred from your photos anyway? To summarize:

name: relevant because it's the center of identity, which is what the product
is about. sex: not a necessary feature of a public profile.

If 99.9% of your users say "um, sure, I wouldn't mind sharing that", and 0.1%
say "hell no, I absolutely don't want to share that", then you make it
optional unless there's some important reason to not make it so.

------
benmmurphy
i don't see how an option to hide your gender solves randall's problem. if
most people who are hiding their gender are women then hiding your gender is a
credible signal that you are a woman.

------
parfe
Every single reply to his post includes a picture. Tempest in a teapot.

It seems even people who care about this issue enough to post don't care
enough to protect their likenesses.

~~~
protomyth
Ever think that people who care about the issue aren't going to use the
service or going to use a "fake" photo?

~~~
parfe
So what problem are we talking about them? People who care don't reveal that
information. Problem solved.

Fake photo, fake sex, fake name.

~~~
protomyth
Forcing your users to lie is not a good starting point for a relationship.

~~~
parfe
Google is forcing people to use their free service now?

~~~
protomyth
No they are not and you sadly you went with the snarky comment. If you are a
user, you need to make public your sex or lie (other is not undisclosed and
has a different meaning to a part of the population).

Yes, there is always the "don't like - don't use it" defense. On the other
hand, they could simply not make it public without permission and save the
trouble. Downplaying the concerns of people just because you don't have the
life experience to see the problem is not the best way to run a product.
Understanding the concerns and making a good faith attempt to provide a
solution or at least an explanation why you won't / cannot beyond "get over
it" will win respect if not customers.

~~~
parfe
Sadly? Are you disappointed in me? Who are these abused females you are white
knighting for?

~~~
protomyth
"white knighting"? This is HN not Fark.

I find a lack of compassion for the difficulties of other people or their
exclusion because of dogmatic rules not very helpful to the world. It is quite
a lot like the proposed change to the WoW forums to require real names. The
"it works for me" brand of design is not a good one.

The basic government stats and research are here:
[http://www.nij.gov/nij/topics/crime/violence-against-
women/w...](http://www.nij.gov/nij/topics/crime/violence-against-
women/welcome.htm)

------
hexadecimator
Google have taken Randall's feedback into consideration and have added the
feature to hide one's gender on Google+ profiles.

Women using the service are reporting that their low-level wariness and sense
of vulnerability has lessened somewhat as a result.

"Hiding female identity from male view on the internet is very important and
is likely to lead to real social change," a spokesperson from Google added.

------
paganel
This all could be have been averted had Google not forced its users to make
their profiles public.

------
thurn
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it correct to say that there are two
_genders_ , but not that there are two _sexes_? Since gender is only a social
construct, presumably the prevailing views of the society in question are what
defines it?

~~~
walrus
Sex is physical. There are more than two sexes. Some examples are female,
hermaphrodite, and male (among others).

Gender is social. There are more than two genders. Some examples are
masculinity, femininity, and androgyny (among others).

Edit: (expanding upon the above)

Sexuality is social. There are more than two sexualities. Some examples are
heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality (among others).

A person's sexual identity is the triplet defined by these three items. For
example, one could be an androgynous male homosexual.

~~~
com
I'd add a couple more things to condition your list:

* people are sometimes contextually gendered or contextually express specific sexuality (I know people who might describe themselves - and present that way too - as TV in some situations, but not others. I might imagine certain contextuality in sex is possible also, but with rather more logistical difficulty

* people sometimes change over time, and while they may choose to simply identify as their current (or desired goal situation) sex/gender/sexuality/... some people are happy to identify some or all aspects of their history, such as visible trans people

It's a pretty diverse world out there if you pay attention, even in somewhat
conservative communities, so take care out there.

------
tmcw
As a heterosexual, male-identifying, rather vanilla-sexed individual, I
instinctually chose 'Other' nonetheless when I signed up for Google+, much
like Facebook, which still refers to me as "you" or something like that.
Computers are not for that.

------
dreamdu5t
This is why social networking sucks: It's all about putting yourself in a box,
which is the last thing I want to do socially. I want to express myself, not
be placed in an echo chamber.

------
9999
That Randall Munroe is a real person's person.

------
beatpanda
Diaspora got this right, and Google+ should have copied it that way they
copied the UI for aspects for "circles".

------
ignifero
The main question to ask is: do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks? For
developers, when google opens up their platform, having the gender by default
will make it easier to make a better interface and use pronouns correctly. On
the other hand, i dont know many apps that distinguish gravely between men and
women. The name of a person and their photo is usually enough to infer sex
anyway. So, they're just making it easier for a developer to have the sex of
the user. Another useful variable would be language.

I actually think the friends' list maybe should be private, but gender should
be public by default. I think Mr. Munroe's concerns are completely
unjustified. It's kind of horrifying too, it paints things as being really bad
for women in america; I doubt it's really that bad. I find the whole "attracts
more attention" argument rather weak. After all, when you introduce yourself
in the real world, its apparent from either the looks or voice whether you're
male or female.

~~~
geekagirl
"After all, when you introduce yourself in the real world, its apparent from
either the looks or voice whether you're male or female."

Apparently, it's really not. I get called 'sir' all the time, and I'm a tall
skinny chick with long hair. One memorable week, it happened four times. On
another memorable occasion, I was wearing a bright pink coat.

"it paints things as being really bad for women in america; I doubt it's
really that bad."

Let me tell you my experiences as a woman in America.

Online, we get to deal with turds like these: fatuglyorslutty.com. You know
what else? 50-year-old men private messaging you pictures of their penises.
It's happened three times. o_O

Maybe it's the anonymity, as one poster suggested, and clearly face to face
interaction isn't that bad? I had a classmate tell me that I only got into
college because of my gender. Never mind that my GPA nearly two points (out of
four) higher than theirs.

Ever been flashed trying to work a drive thru? I have.

"having the gender by default will make it easier to make a better interface"

If your developers are worth their paychecks, they can probably figure out to
handle 'decline to answer' and 'other' as the same case.

------
ignifero
I support the ability to hide sex as an option, clearly on the grounds that
more options are better. But the logic presented here to support it is really
wrong. It's the same logic by which women hid themselves in burqas, long
dresses, and the shadows of their men for centuries. If anything, having sex
open might encourage everyone to be more aware of the issues that arise and
fix them.

~~~
dgabriel
No it's not. It's the same logic that by which women choose gender-neutral or
masculine nicknames when interacting with strangers on the internet. I do
this.

~~~
ignifero
Because you believe that the men of the internet are hostile towards women,
you can't do anything to fix that, so it's best to hide?

~~~
cjzhang
Because when they complain about being sexually harassed or uncomfortable with
the attention they get by being seen as a pair of tits, men invariably say or
imply that they're being unreasonable for being offended, which doesn't solve
the problem itself (which is that they're offended)?

------
mikecaron
This BLEW MY MIND.

------
baby
This subject is so much interesting it is now the top submission of HN
frontpage⸮

------
temphn
Everyone, including Randall Munroe, is free to note the "obvious fact" that
men make most unwelcome sexual advances.

No one is free to note the "obvious fact" that men make most of the welcome
technological advances.

------
philthy
Oh fuck off! If you want to be a woman, you're a woman, a man, then you are a
man.

