

Men In Tech - raganwald
http://wekeroad.com/2012/05/11/men-in-tech

======
knowtheory
Reading this is really awkward. And it's not awkward because it reveals some
hidden truth, or because it's a good piece of writing that reflects on the
issue it's tackling.

No, instead it's awkward because the gender dynamics are not reversible. At
least, not in the manner that's intended here. You can't just take the
circumstances that women face in tech fields, and switch around the pronouns
and have the circumstances make sense, because doing so does not swap out the
cultural contexts which reside _in the reader's head_ (which is one of the
critical points in the veil of ignorance thought experiment:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance> ).

There are female dominated fields in which men are rare (nursing and dietetics
to name two) and encounter all sort of social awkwardness due to being the
minority. But the sorts of circumstances that guys face, while there are some
correlations, are not analogous problems to the problems that women face in
fields in which they are the minority. The oft cited thing keeping men out of
nursing and dietetics are cultural things like the work not being "manly"
enough, as opposed to facing sexual harassment and pejorative or demeaning
behavior.

~~~
robconery
You're being a tad too literal with your critique (if I may). The whole point
is to take you into a realm that's utterly absurd from the male perspective --
_which is entirely my point in writing this_.

Yes, male nurses face weird moments in life - but as you say it's mostly from
other men. That has nothing to do with being a woman in the tech industry who
get to listen to cracks about "being on the rag" or PMSing when they're
aggressive.

Next time you're with a female coworker, notice how often you and the other
men in the group look at her chest. Notice how often she ignores this and how
completely oblivious the other men are that she's overlooking their behavior.
If you don't believe me - and if you know this woman well enough - ask her.

You'd be surprised the shit women deal with.

~~~
tomp
> You'd be surprised the shit women deal with.

I'm not sure, but I think you're being too general. I'd rather state this:

    
    
      You'd be surprised by the shit *attractive* women have to deal with.
    

And I 'm pretty sure that attractive men have to deal with the same kind of
"shit". They just react to it differently.

Edit: I expected the downvotes, but please reply, do you disagree with the
stated facts (i.e. does you experience differ from mine), or with the manner
they were stated in?

~~~
TheSOB88
Attractive men DON'T have to deal with the same kind of shit, in general,
because they are not a minority. They are not in a minority with social
precedents to keep them down, which is what this article is all about.
Institutionalized sexualization of women through teasing and joking is pretty
common. This piece is trying to get you to where you try to understand what
it's like.

Most of us have wondered if our bulge was big enough - imagine if it was
judged daily, by every oncoming woman, in every meeting. Imagine if you were
constantly teased about getting a boner, and people acted as if it were
normal.

I imagine some people around here aren't very good at imagining, are too
literal, and hence react badly to this sort of thing.

~~~
JanezStupar
You are obviously not an attractive male.

I've had to put up with quite a lot from women of all kinds and I'm not even
that attractive.

I'm not going to say more, since I will get called a pussy and a bitch.

But lets please stop pretending that only men are perverts and that all sexual
discrimination and indecent behavior towards other people comes from men.

~~~
TheSOB88
You obviously are a jerk. But sadly that's also normal amongst our CS
population.

~~~
NotMyMorals
>You obviously are a jerk.

And you are obviously a "nice guy."

~~~
TheSOB88
Yeah, thanks - I do try to do the right thing. But that doesn't mean I'm a
pushover. You can be alpha and still be a nice guy, it's just how you deal
with those who -aren't- nice that matters.

------
redwood
Wtf, sure we need to be cognizant of discrimination against men in our
society, and I think there are great arguments to be made that men are
generally portrayed as dumb in TV shows, for example.

However we cannot equate men's and women's experiences of the world we live
in. I want to, and have the mistake of doing so many times, but I've since
seen how wrong I've been.

 _My female friend told me the following which radically transformed my
perspective_ Ask any group of women "What do you do to protect yourself in
your daily life?" Dome typical answers \- never walk alone at night \- hold
car keys out while walking to car so you can open car door quickly \- do not
make eye contact or smile to strangers at night \- do not go to bars or clubs
alone \- carry money in bra in case bag is taken \- never put down your drink
\- _the list goes on and on_

Women's life experiences are thus characterized by a _constant_ and _unending_
fear of sexual assault.

When you ask men the same question---to list what they do to protect
themselves in their daily life... \--> the answer is just about nothing.

We men walk around like we own urban environments. We have very little to lose
and we have a lot of fun with it all. However we have a major bias that we
need to be aware of: women are raised to be in constant fear, a fear they
don't share with us. This has tremendous implications throughout life. Also
this is only one example of a difference in life experience between men and
women. There are of course many more.

~~~
sigmaxipi
>Women's life experiences are thus characterized by a constant and unending
fear of sexual assault. >When you ask men the same question---to list what
they do to protect themselves in their daily life... --> the answer is just
about nothing.

Why is this fear a bad thing for women? Interesting fact: men are more likely
to be victims of violent crime[1] and this has been pretty much true
throughout history[2] though it is getting better. That fear is probably quite
useful in keeping them alive since women are only half as likely to be victims
of assaults by strangers[3]

[1]
[http://web.archive.org/web/20060926004448/http://www.ojp.usd...](http://web.archive.org/web/20060926004448/http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/vsx2.htm)

[2]
[http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violen...](http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html)

[3]
[http://web.archive.org/web/20060927115258/http://www.ojp.usd...](http://web.archive.org/web/20060927115258/http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/sdvv.txt)

~~~
wpietri
This is excellent advice -- for women roaming free on our ancestral savanna.

For those of us, though, who are collaborating on this whole civilization
thing, high levels of fear are bad. Especially well-justified fears that keep
people from participating fully in society.

~~~
icebraining
Doesn't the satistics prove the fear is not well-justified? Unfortunately,
women should fear men they know more than strangers.

~~~
wpietri
Who said that the fear isn't justified?

The problem being pointed out is exactly that the fear _is_ justified. It is
fucked up beyond belief that half of our population has, as the parent post
puts it, "a constant and unending fear of sexual assault."

------
zdw
This is a pretty artificial and transparent effort, but it's well intentioned.

It's often interesting to see commentary from fields where the gender divide
skews heavily toward women. Libraries are one good example - I know several
people of both genders who work in them. To make some broad generalization,
sexual harassment tends to be a more minor issue, but "drama" and
territorialism tends to be much worse.

One example of this - a male I know enjoyed working with some of his female
coworkers better than others. As a result, there were complaints and grumbling
from other staff members. It's almost as if he was a pawn on the chessboard of
social status.

I'd love to hear similar stories - I know they're out there...

~~~
robconery
Does your local library push videos of Hot Library Chicks dancing around poles
while male library guys rap in their face? (referring to the Nokia Vimeo
video).

This isn't about gender divide, it's about a complete lack of understanding.

------
nowarninglabel
I've been appreciating all the articles on HN calling out sexism in the [tech]
workplace. It's actually made me change my own behavior at work, though I've
been told I never offended anyone, I've started doing things like never saying
"that's what she said" as well as chastising co-workers when they say it.

It would be nice if there were something to say instead, that could still add
a lightness and moment of comedy to a conversation, but without being
offensive. Haven't found a phrase yet that fits that mold though.

~~~
knowtheory
I've been trying to figure out whether turnaround is fair play:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxvujEmyiPQ>

~~~
yummyfajitas
I'm confused - is the video mocking women who whine about "that's what she
said" jokes?

~~~
niete
I hope so. They are annoying.

------
emgreen
I like this as an exercise in empathy.

It's important to consider how we treat the "odd ones out" in any group. Maybe
we're on snowboarding holiday with friends who are all mad keen boarders,
except for one who's never seen snow before, we'd probably adjust our
behaviour and hang out on the baby slopes a bit and help out our friend. Or
maybe we're organising a work party, and it would normally be a slightly boozy
affair in a bar, but we know someone doesn't drink because they're
pregnant/alcoholic/religious/don't like it/training for a marathon, so we
might do something a bit different, like take everyone for a bbq on the beach.
Maybe we own a cafe, and there's a step out the front, we might get a ramp
ready, so that if someone in a wheelchair wants to visit they can get in okay.

For whatever reason, at the moment, being a female in tech means you're an
"odd one out". The lack of women in tech is not the men in tech's fault, (the
men in tech are mostly pretty lovely, certainly I like working with them). The
lack of women is no-one's fault, the reasons run deep and are complicated.
It's also not a terrible experience being a women in tech, it's a good job. I
guess the worse you can say is that it's hard to be different to everyone
around you. And let's face it women haven't got the monopoly on that, we all
know what that feels like. It's not really about gender, I'm sure there's many
men who feel excluded by the whole "brogrammer" thing too.

Sometimes the discourse around the whole "women in tech" thing makes me
scared, I feel like it's stirring people to feel accused or hurt or angry or
confused, and causing them to divide. It shouldn't really be about women, it
doesn't even make sense, we're half of humanity for goodness sake, 3.4 x 10^9
very separate people, why consider us to be such a coherent group? It should
be about trying to understand those around us as individuals, who are not
necessarilly the same as us, and seeing if there's any small adjustments or
accommodations we could make so that they can be themselves, and also a part
of our group. And we should be doing this, just because it's right, and that's
the sort of world we want to live in.

~~~
Ixiaus
The problem though, is empathy is going to be really hard for men -> women or
women -> men; both sexes are remarkably different culturally.

What you see is a large number of socially awkward and inept people flocking
to industries where being socially tact is less valued over intellectual
prowess. Women have always been more socially tactful than men - it's how our
society is set up, women are treated as a valued commodity.

If you want a "close" approximation of figuring out what it's like to be the
other gender in a "x dominated field", you should go the route of the author
of this book: [http://www.amazon.com/Self-Made-Man-Womans-Journey-
Manhood/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Self-Made-Man-Womans-Journey-
Manhood/dp/0670034665)

She did a remarkable job of actually _experiencing_ what being a man in our
society is like. I would be very interested if someone of the male sex were to
do something similar and write a book about it, this article doesn't cut it
IMHO.

------
awakeasleep
Wow. What a killer article. I think it went pretty far in depth, and I let
myself take the time to imagine everything the author was describing, and I
fuckin felt it man.

If this was written by a man, I applaud the effort you put into empathizing
with women. If it was written by a woman, Thank you for thinking up so many
creative and kick ass examples.

Our society has a long way to go before we reach equality. And I fucking PRAY
it happens with greater reverence for sex in general, instead of applying to
crude commercialized form of sexuality to both genders.

I've been noticing people using sexuality in a manipulative and threatening
way at work a bunch lately, and it fucking sucks. If anyone out there has
trouble socializing, and wants to know a good way to do it: Share your
feelings with a girl in private, and start off small. Yeah it makes you
vulnerable but that is an essential part of real love. DO NOT make sexual
comments in front of other people.

~~~
tomp
> Our society has a long way to go before we reach equality.

Why is there such a strong emphasis on equality?

In Slovenian, we have two similar words, of which one means "equality", and
the other means roughly "equal rights". I'm always annoyed when the former is
stated as a goal, instead of the latter.

We're not equal, and never will be. For example, men don't have to bear
children, they don't need a "paternal leave" (where it's available, it's a
nice bonus, but it shouldn't be introduced/mandatory at the expense of the
maternal leave).

Another apparent difference between the sexes is the different priorities in
the choice of mate. I'm sure that the bigger emphasis assigned by man to the
visual appearance of women is partially based in our culture, but also
partially based in our biology. Sure, sexual comments at the workplace are
inappropriate, but I'm never going to seek excuses for my preference for
seeing sexy women in ads (btw, another gender bias used in ads, but rarely
mentioned, even by the most fierce proponents of "equality": if a person is
implied to be socially awkward/stupid/taken advantage of, it's almost always a
man).

There is, however, one area where men and women are mostly equal: the
advantages in life that the _alpha_ members of each sex are awarded with (the
meaning of alpha differ between the genders: in women, it's mostly looks, in
men, it's fame, power, money, fitness/lookss (not necessarily in this order)).

~~~
spindritf
> We're not equal, and never will be.

There are many people who believe, or effectively believe even if they
acknowledge some innate differences, that people are essentially the same, and
all differences between them can be explained by cultural, social and personal
experiences. A paradigm which is sometimes, mostly by critics, called
"standard social science model" (basically a polar opposite of believing that
we are all born stratified into casts, classes, races, sexes... and that this
stratification determines each person's fate).

If you adopt this paradigm, all inequalities must be a result of sexism,
racism, or some other discrimination or failure on the part of society. It's
seen as unfair and unjustified and in turn results in actions against that
perceived injustice (legislation, shaming, protests, demonstrations, blog
posts...).

And it goes deeper than that. Some people will say that beauty is a
cultural/social construct, that obesity is a result of unhealthy food being
priced lower than healthy choices and affects poorer people more (it doesn't
btw[1]). This pattern of conflict between being affected by circumstances vs
having some innate qualities is very pervasive.

[1] [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/08/the-poor-are-not-
fat.h...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/08/the-poor-are-not-fat.html)

------
KaoruAoiShiho
Hmm, not completely sure what this article is getting at but it seems to be
implying that men and women are the same and would feel the same way when
reacting to such things as sexual harassment and whether or not you're
desirable to the opposite sex.

That's basically a completely false premise.

Because of biological facts and the resultant social history, men and women
have completely different values and attitudes to sex. As such this story
seems pretty unrealistic to me.

That's not to say that patriarchy doesn't suck and that women doesn't face a
lot of adversity in tech and so on.

~~~
zenogais
I'm kinda hoping this is a joke, but I'm also guessing not.

The point is you would feel as helpless and frustrated as women do now if the
tables were turned and the entire social structure was set up so as to
belittle you and give you little recourse to respond.

Also men and women are very similar in terms of values and attitudes towards
sex regardless of the prevailing popular myths.

~~~
NotMyMorals
>Also men and women are very similar in terms of values and attitudes towards
sex regardless of the prevailing popular myths.

In the sense they both expect different values and attitudes towards sex from
men and women.

Keep your religion-derived asexual "men and women are the same" nonsense to
your church or feminist club.

------
scotty79
OP could make his statement much stronger if he wrote the whole piece from
perspective of bit asexual straight man working in environment dominated by
gay men who would introduce in daily worklife all kinds of innuendos often
forgetting that protagonist is not interested in them and also not very
interested in sexual layer of human interaction.

I think the innate homophoby of the readers could help them to better
understand.

~~~
robconery
The trick in pulling this article off is you can go too far with your
stereotypes and "artistic license" - actually offending the people you're
trying to defend.

And I've worked there - in a place where gay men outnumbered the men. I've
been cornered - shoved in between two refrigerators while a guy who outweighed
me by 50 pounds leaned against me and went for my bits - all the while telling
me "it's time to come out".

I put my fist into his sternum as hard as I could. He laughed - "feisty! I
like it..." and he backed off.

This happened. But what's the point of this story? That gay men can be
aggressive? That I was "wronged"? That I can somehow identify with women
because I was, literally, assaulted at work?

~~~
scotty79
:-(

I think you can relate better to victims of similar assaults. Most of them are
women.

Point of the story would be to help reader to understand how unsafe can
someone feel at work when people pass sexual remarks like it's nothing. OP's
post doesn't really achieve that.

------
lucisferre
The comments here so far are mind bogglingly stupid. It's intended as a
satire, simple as that. Try not to over think it guys.

~~~
cwp
Satire, huh? So by telling a story of sexism with the genders reversed, the
author is slyly poking fun at all the fuss about sexism in tech that we've
been hearing lately, and showing us how ridiculous it all is. That's an
interesting take, 'cause I sure didn't read it that way. To me it seems more
like a straight put-yourself-in-her-shoes appeal to empathy for women who
brave the tech industry.

~~~
benmccann
Isn't this more a story of sexualization and objectification than sexism? It
was an interesting read to empathize with the uncomfortableness of the
situation, but the sexualization stood out to me far more sexism.

------
sp332
_I'll take my time explaining what professionalism is, and what it means in
the workplace. I'll take care not to offend you as I explain the roles of men
and women in any industry._

Some place I can find this?

------
captainsaveaho
Wait... Rob can afford a car? I thought he had to ride to work on a paddle
board? And I'm also going to call BS on his bulging pecs and biceps. I bet he
couldn't even bench the bar for 10 reps.

------
sasha-dv
Just what women need!

Another middle-aged white man fighting for the women's rights. It's
condescending. It's just a step away from "A Gay Girl in Damascus".

~~~
ericabiz
Hi,

I have no idea if you are a woman or a man, but as a woman in tech, I feel
compelled to reply.

I appreciated this story. Not so much the comments attached to it on HN, but
the story itself. If it got some guys thinking about how they would feel if
this happened:

"You don't look like a programmer! When did you get into computers? That's
kinda hot..."

 _Which has happened to me so many times I've lost count...usually followed
closely by "Are you single?"_

If it gets guys to stop saying THAT...then it was well worth the whole thing.

~~~
orangecat
_If it got some guys thinking about how they would feel if this happened:

"You don't look like a programmer! When did you get into computers? That's
kinda hot..."_

I'd have no problem with that at all, especially I found the woman attractive.
As others have said, just flipping the genders in scenarios like that doesn't
often work.

And is that really an awful way for guys to hit on you? They're going to do
that anyway, and at least this way they're expressing interest in your
interests, rather than just staring at your chest.

~~~
NotMyMorals
>And is that really an awful way for guys to hit on you? They're going to do
that anyway, and at least this way they're expressing interest in your
interests, rather than just staring at your chest.

If the man is attractive, women will generally welcome the flirtation. If he
is unattractive, the woman will generally perceive it as an insult to her
attractiveness, since the man should know better, that she is "out of his
league."

Also, can anyone explain _why_ it is considered a "good thing" to have a
gender balance in tech, or any industry? Who decided that every industry must
have an equal number of men and women?

~~~
DanBC
> _Also, can anyone explain why it is considered a "good thing" to have a
> gender balance in tech, or any industry?_

We strive for a balance because that's a good way to avoid excluding people.
Excluding groups of people is bad because they may have different ways to
attack problems or different insights to bring to development etc.

Mono-cultures are generally weak and vulnerable. Diversity is generally
robust.

~~~
NotMyMorals
>We strive for a balance because that's a good way to avoid excluding people.
Excluding groups of people is bad because they may have different ways to
attack problems or different insights to bring to development etc.

We exclude all sorts of groups, including the incompetent, all the time. There
are cases when the benefits of including some group may cause a net detriment
due to other factors.

>Mono-cultures are generally weak and vulnerable. Diversity is generally
robust.

These glittering generalities are not backed up by any facts. "Diversity"
often causes more problems than it purportedly solves, and generalizing "mono-
cultures" as "weak and vulnerable" is not something that you can base on
facts.

~~~
IAmNotMyself
A lot of shops I have worked in the last 15 years had no such exclusion on
incompetence....

------
bdg
I don't really like my neighbours, so I get changed with the blinds open. It's
different when you're a man.

------
fatjokes
wtf did I just read??

~~~
aslan
My sentiment exactly.

------
yelsgib
Try reading this with a sense of wonder, rather than as a heavy piece of
social commentary.

------
icebraining
It doesn't work for me; I can't imagine an entire field of women acting like
that.

------
kitsune_
Is this a rant? I'm confused.

------
jeffio
I see what you did there.

------
wamatt
Would someone be kind enough to get us the TLDR version?

Not sure the point, the writer is trying to make.

~~~
chrisguitarguy
Essentially the author is trying to put the male readers in a women's shoes.
In other words, take every sexist tech story that's popped up in tech news in
the last few months and reverse the pronouns.

It's certainly an interesting read, but not particularly well executed. There
is a book called _Egalia's Daughters_ [1] that does a similar thing in a much
more powerful, primal way. Seriously worth a read.

1\. [http://www.amazon.com/Egalias-Daughters-A-Satire-
Sexes/dp/18...](http://www.amazon.com/Egalias-Daughters-A-Satire-
Sexes/dp/1878067583)

~~~
wamatt
Ok but why should we care? I mean it's not like men are raging about the lack
of male orientated pregnancy articles.

I don't get it.

Tech is male orientated because there are much more males in it. It make sense
to then align the reporting towards the base.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
Think "you'd feel bad if this happened to you. By empathy, you should figure
out that women feel bad if this happens to them."

~~~
JanezStupar
I've had most of the events mentioned in the article happen to me, by women.

I was also labeled as gay in milieu for turning down a woman.

I was hit on by gay men in an extremely uncomfortable fashion more than once.

I was also assaulted by complete strangers for no reason at all.

I was also isolated and bullied by my schoolmates in kindergarten and primary
school (boys and girls).

And if I go and complain about it I will be labeled as less than a man. So why
should I care?

p.s.: Disclaimer. Since I grew big and strong enough to do it I also disallow
any kind of improper behavior in my presence.

------
michaelochurch
_My boss (the senior dev) is a Dragon Girl_

Targaryens everywhere!

~~~
robconery
LOL the image I was going to use in the header was Daenaerys - but thought it
went a bit too far. PJ Harvey is a hero, so I decided she should sit atop the
post.

------
georgieporgie
I think this is largely the expression of terrible, terrible social skills.
I've seen appalling things toward women and men alike from young, socially
inept Bay Area tech males.

Also, for what it's worth, I've received a lot of crap from women over the
course of my working life. In college, I worked in a deli where I was the only
male. There was outright sexual harassment, and regular dismissal of me solely
because I'm a man. Even in tech roles, I've had problems with female bosses
who were horrible, socially incompetent worker bees who got promoted out of
what they should have been doing (implementation instead of management).

~~~
wpietri
I'm not persuaded.

I know a number of socially inept people. Some of them are perfectly pleasant,
just hopelessly awkward. Others are jerks to everyone. But some are sexist
jerks. And there are some people who are perfectly well socialized who are
_also_ sexist jerks.

Women were oppressed for millennia. Women in the US haven't had the vote for
even 100 years. Men and women didn't have equal college enrollment rates until
circa 1990. I just don't buy the thesis that sexism is now suddenly extinct,
especially in a male-dominated field.

I'm sorry you've received crap. Due to your gender or anything else. But
understand that jumping into a discussion of sexism with "but that happens to
me too!" is such a common problem that it's listed in the "Derailing for
Dummies" guide: <http://www.derailingfordummies.com/menu.html>

~~~
s_baby
>I'm sorry you've received crap. Due to your gender or anything else. But
understand that jumping into a discussion of sexism with "but that happens to
me too!" is such a common problem that it's listed in the "Derailing for
Dummies" guide: <http://www.derailingfordummies.com/menu.html>

This guide makes zero rational arguments for why those examples are
derailment... It's completely rhetorical.

Intellectually, it's appropriate to discuss female/male oppression in the
context of one another since the idea of patriarchy has been replaced with the
idea of kyriarchy; A system where everyone oppresses/stratifies everyone else.
It's a matrix of relationships that cannot be examined in isolation.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyriarchy>

>Women in the US haven't had the vote for even 100 years. Men and women didn't
have equal college enrollment rates until circa 1990. I just don't buy the
thesis that sexism is now suddenly extinct, especially in a male-dominated
field.

Only ~10% of early Americans were eligible to vote. All white men weren't
given the right to vote until the mid 19th century. A generation before women
were granted the right.

Very few men benefited from a "patriarchal" social configuration. The fact
that a small minority of white men had privilege doesn't negate the social
costs externalized on the average man. The only realistic opportunities
available to these men were war, working on a farm, working in a coal mine, or
working in an industrial era factory. Having the "freedom" to be part of the
workforce did not offer you the opportunities it does today...

~~~
wpietri
Derailment is a purely rhetorical technique, so I'm not seeing the problem.

I agree that patriarchy is bad for pretty much everybody. But the rhetorical
effect of "but what about the time a woman was mean to meeeee" isn't to raise
awareness of power dynamics so that people see the real issue as patriarchy or
kyriarchy and find action even more urgent. It's to devalue the given examples
of sexist behavior so that the privileged person can avoid confronting their
privilege.

~~~
s_baby
>Derailment is a purely rhetorical technique, so I'm not seeing the problem.

The problem is you made an appeal to authority to "derailing for dummies"...

>It's to devalue the given examples of sexist behavior so that the privileged
person can avoid confronting their privilege.

Half of those points could be made by someone who has no intention of
derailing. They can be legitimate observations.

~~~
wpietri
No. I personally am calling that a common derailing tactic; I just linked to
that as evidence that other people also see it as a problem. If you have some
counter-evidence, feel free to present it.

As I explained elsewhere in this thread, most people don't intend to derail.
What matters isn't the conscious intent of the speaker; it's the effect on the
conversation.

That X is a legitimate observation doesn't mean that X is also a valid
contribution at any point in any discussion. Watch politicians spin something
on a TV show. They can make valid observations all day long that avoid,
obfuscate, dodge, color, distract, mislead, and misinform.

If a privileged person jumps into a discussion about injustice in a way that
changes the topic from the injustice under discussion to something more
comfortable for them, that's derailing. They can do that using a valid
observation, an invalid observation, a rhetorical device, or a jack-in-the-
box.

Also, Mr. Brand New Anonymous Account: if you aren't going to own your words,
expect me to stop responding shortly.

------
NotMyMorals
Have to admit I don't really care if there are fewer women in tech, or if they
feel uncomfortable in a boy's club, and don't see any reason why we should
have to change to make them feel better.

Just because "sexism" is against _your_ moral code doesn't mean it's against
mine.

The old joke is true - to avoid sexual harassment accusations: 1) be
attractive, 2) don't be unattractive. I've dated plenty of women at work,
flirt all the time, and no one has ever accused me of "harassment" or
"sexism."

My boss lady caught me checking out her ass once, the next few weeks she wore
short skirts and made sure to walk by my desk. It was great.

~~~
captainsaveaho
Are you hiring?

