
Oh my god, it's a girl (2010) - Mz
http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/01/oh-my-god-its-girl.html
======
GhotiFish
Thoughts on the reasons stated:

    
    
       1) Attraction: Oh my god, it's a girl and she has a brain 
       and is interested in some of the same things I am 
       interested in. Maybe I can get a date!
    

I wouldn't put it past the majority of my gender.

    
    
       2) Misguided attempts to encourage women to post more: Oh 
       my god, it's a girl and we need more girls posting here. 
       Let's be nice and friendly and make her feel all welcome 
       and stuff so she will post more (thereby sucking all the 
       intellectual content out of their posts and killing any 
       reason you have to post there). 
    

I wouldn't put it past HN.

    
    
       3) It's not really kid gloves, it's really walking on egg 
       shells: Oh my god, it's a girl and what if she breaks 
       down and cries because I argued with her (like my 
       girlfriend routinely does) 
    

Now _that_ I just can not see.

    
    
       3b) or what if I make a joke and she takes it all wrong 
       and everyone will think I am some horrible sexist pig! 
    

People have lost their jobs to that one. Even I'm doing that. You would be
crazy _not_ to do that

    
    
       4) Shyness: A lot of the very intelligent men you find 
       hanging out in certain types of online forums (like 
       Hacker News) are very introverted and just awkward around 
       women and some of them have gotten a lot of rejection, so 
       they get nervous once they find out it's a girl. 
    

iffy.

~~~
thwest
It's for your job prospects that you avoid off color jokes? Not the comedic
banality or actual disgust with sexism?

~~~
Crito
The "comedic banality" nonsense is tiring.

At least you also said what you really mean, that the sexism is problematic,
but far too often I have seen people pretend that their issue with a
offensive/bigoted/problematic joke is that it is not funny or cliche^. Let's
be honest here, that is not _actually_ what bothers people. We only hear those
objections when there is _something else_ wrong with the joke; nobody objects
to non-offensive unfunny jokes. Groan perhaps, but not object.

^ _Usually this manifests as something like "it's not even that it is
offensive, the joke is just _lazy_"_

~~~
thwest
There's no accounting for taste I suppose. I'll happily wade through a
mountain of bad puns, but scatology and sexual dimorphism jokes are just
wearisome.

~~~
Crito
> _" scatology and sexual dimorphism jokes are just wearisome."_

Right, but that is not because they are unimaginative or cliched _(evidenced
by you being able to wade through mountains of bad puns)_. It is because they
are scatological or sexist.

------
leobelle
The author has a really high opinion of commenters on hacker news. I don't
really think it's that high quality. There are all kinds of weird conspiracy
theorists, uncritical guffaws and just plain obnoxious toxic commentary. I
think it was pretty high quality about one thousand days ago[1], but it isn't
anymore. And yes this is a new account, but I'm not new.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079)

~~~
benched
I agree. Perhaps the author is remembering the way Hacker News was 3 to 4
years ago.

~~~
Mz
At the bottom of the page it says:

 _(Originally posted elsewhere on 2010 /12/25.)_

I am moving a few things from an old personal blog to a new one. This was
previously posted on HN under the old url. I did not expect it to be upvoted
this much or get any traction. I just thought a few people might be interested
in knowing where it got moved.

------
mratzloff
As a guy, I get pretty sick of it. I've noticed the "kiddie gloves" effect for
a long time on HN and so I tend to just stay out of those threads altogether.
I've found that if I disagree or critique a woman a thousand misguided
defenders swoop in, presumably in some attempt to be chivalrous.

Guys, give it a rest and treat women the same as you would men. They don't
want or need special treatment.

~~~
__pThrow
We must read a different HN and participate in different industries.

> They don't want or need special treatment.

Many women these days are certainly expressing that they want special
treatment. The question is if they need it, and if they are representative of
women in IT as a whole.

~~~
fallinghawks
I suspect the women who unhappy are writing posts about it, and the ones who
don't want special treatment aren't saying anything because they're doing just
fine. IMO it's a noisy minority, but given the recent story about the woman
who got felt up at a Bitcoin meetup, perhaps more sexist behavior is going on
than I see.

I'm a female programmer. I don't want to be hit on or looked at like I'm from
another planet; I want to be judged by the quality of my work. It's going to
my satisfaction, so I don't feel the need to complain.

------
inmygarage
As an early HN user I secured the username "amanda" before promptly ditching
it after 2 weeks. While I don't hide that I am female in my bio, I have also
found that the style of interactions changed significantly when I changed my
username. Figuring out how to leave the kid-gloves off in real life has been a
bigger challenge.

~~~
usaphp
Weird, I wonder what percent of HN users are actually looking at a user name
when posting a reply, I personally don't even read a username of a person who
I reply to, never mind looking for any male/female meanings in it.

But because you posted this sort of comment I actually read your username for
the first time :)

~~~
rhizome
Of what possible use would a percentage of that be?

~~~
jaredsohn
It is relevant to the subject of the post. (If nobody looks at usernames, then
the issue cited in the post doesn't matter.)

Personally, I at least look at who I am responding to (especially when I
disagree with them; sometimes the person you're responding to has readily-
apparent expertise that you'd feel foolish disagreeing with.)

~~~
lstamour
True. I also tend to look at usernames when a commenter annoys me, just to see
if it's a troll who is camping out on a thread waiting to say the same things
again. But... By then I've made up my mind what I'm going to say, and whether
the troll's name is Jack or Jane isn't going to change that.

------
rdl
It feels slightly horrible to admit it, but I'd probably try to be more
encouraging/nicer to someone who posted something I disagree with if I thought
that person was very young, new to the topic, female, or other
underrepresented group. The "female" part is probably specific to tech; if it
were a forum with equal gender distribution (biotech, or say fans of a tv show
or something), I wouldn't.

OTOH, I'd _also_ be similarly polite to a respected person, particularly from
outside the field, who posted something wrong. e.g. if a regulator or most VCs
said something fundamentally incorrect, I'd politely try to counter it, but
I'd back off rapidly unless the disagreement were really core.

All of this is without specific information about the person; there are
specific counterexamples. e.g. if pmarca were the VC who said something
"wrong", I don't think "back off to be polite" would be useful or necessary;
however, he's probably also less often wrong about things.

------
benburleson
I can't remember the last time I actually noticed a username, or assumed a
user was one gender or another.

~~~
vonklaus
Yep. Other than 1 or 2 people who often post extremely relevant and thoughtful
comments and articles; I never "follow" anyone on HN.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I notice some usernames but as the parent says you don't know what chromosomes
they have ... perhaps they're not even humans ...

------
jmspring
I find that I try and avoid certain topics on HN, they tend to be clustered
around:

1) discussions of gender 2) discussions of gentrification in the bay area 3)
financial or political ideology (anything especially randian, for instance)

Interactions / discussion tend to not be as factual or informative as other
discussions.

The poster makes great points on how to engage, sometimes, however, good posts
are lost within a bunch of noise.

------
usaphp
> A lot of the very intelligent men you find hanging out in certain types of
> online forums (like Hacker News) are very introverted and just awkward
> around women and some of them have gotten a lot of rejection, so they get
> nervous once they find out it's a girl

Imagine if man posted a similar statement about some female community, he
would be called sexist right away...

~~~
filoeleven
Maybe. You have to keep in mind though that the two situations are not
equivalent. Men have been the "in group" for a long time, and as members of
the in group there are a lot of social dynamics that we don't tend to have a
deep understanding of. See the parable of the old fish asking the young,
"How's the water?"

Conversely, as "outsiders" who are greatly affected by the dynamics of the in
group, women have had more of a reason to pay attention to the group dynamics
of men for a long time. They are more likely to have a sense of these things,
conscious or not. The same dynamic happens any time there is a minority. Black
people tend to be more astute observers of white people's behavior than the
reverse because a white person is more likely to live their life without
having to understand how to get what they want from the black folks who have
the power, while the reverse is less often true.

------
Tehnix
Many mention they can't think of cases where gender would come up in
discussions. While it doesn't often come up, there are some discussions where
personal anecdotes leads to the inference of the gender of the author.

Personally, in my AFK life and online, I treat women with the same respect
(and critique) as I do men. I also don't know many people who would treat
people differently based on their gender. Well, obviously disregarding the
case for romance/relations..

I do understand the interest in women in fields like tech and gaming. It
certainly is something that can pique ones interest when a person of the
opposite gender shares the same interests as you, but that doesn't mean you
need to treat them differently unless otherwise hinted.

The only people I can think of that do (treat women the way the OP describes),
are also people that are generally awkward in social settings, so it's not
gender focused per se, just a bit more apparent there, maybe.

~~~
pstack
Gender discussions seem to arise on here (and almost every other
geek/tech/whatever related group) between about one and three times per day.
I'm pretty sure we have shared very similar discussions to the topic of this
thread at least six other times around here in the last seven days.

------
awhitty
> At which point, most men will metaphorically go back to affectionately
> punching you in the arm like you are one of the guys...

I found this a little troubling. I wish women didn't have to feel like they're
"one of the guys" in an online community.

------
nataliehacks
I'm going to use this username for a while and see what it's like.

~~~
vonklaus
I once needed help on a project I was working on (building a lithium iron
battery pack out of 18560 cells) and posted as DIYGirl. Got a ton of responses
in a relatively less-traversed tech-heavy sub-reddit. If you explicitly state
you are female people will treat you different.

~~~
nataliehacks
Ha, I've heard similar stories before. Let's see what happens when I post my
next side-project under this account.

~~~
rdl
It's also a great trick for buying domain names.

------
vonskippy
OMG not this again. This has to be the most overinflated topic in tech. Just
do your thing, if you're good, nobody cares what sex you are, if you're bad,
don't use your sex as an excuse.

~~~
controversial
YES. Women in tech would probably be treated more equally if they talked about
ANYTHING other than being a woman. These types of posts do a serious
disservice to women.

Show me a woman who has actually accomplished something of merit who also
writes about gender inequality. Complaining about inequality is just an excuse
for not producing anything of value.

Do you think I star repos on Github based on the sex of the author? NO! I star
them based on their utility, elegance, etc.

This issue is a non-issue.

~~~
awhitty
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_feminists](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_feminists)

I would say all of these women have accomplished something of merit while
talking about gender inequality.

~~~
eli
Don't feed the troll. "Controversial" is clearly not trying to have a
legitimate discussion, which is probably why they felt the need to register a
new user name.

~~~
controversial
Seems legitimate to me. You're the one not trying to have a legitimate
discussion. That's why you would attack my username and not the content of my
post.

------
herbig
From the most recent post:

"I basically think "dating" \-- ie men spending money on women in hopes of
getting laid -- is a form of socially sanctioned prostitution."

Why are we wasting time discussing this author?

~~~
pygy_
We're not discussing the author but her post.

She may have unusual opinions on dating, but that's not the topic of this
discussion.

~~~
herbig
Opinions on dating are opinions on gender, and they're not unusual, they're
ridiculous.

I'm male. I consider myself a feminist. It's just as possible to offend me
with ignorant statements as it is to offend anyone else, female or otherwise.

~~~
001sky
_Opinions on dating are opinions on gender_

Right, and frankly they're not professional. An in that sense, why are you
hung-up on them? Its a bit of a stretch to assume everything that is <not>
professional is "un" professional.

------
vonklaus
This thread brings up 2 obvious points: Often minorities are treated
differently [and] because of the relatively anonymous nature of the internet,
it is difficult to get true demographic information or user statistics.

~~~
pstack
Isn't the whole benefit of the internet that you don't know anything about the
other people and can thereby consider them on the merits of their words and
actions? I'm not pre-judged by being white or male or fat (and therefore
inherently "dumb and lazy") or anything else.

------
ElliotH
Huh, I read lots of comment threads, but I can't say I've noticed anyone using
kid gloves to each other around here.

Any stories that had enough instances of this occurring that linking to it
wouldn't be unfair?

------
belorn
We recently had almost a thousand comments long discussion regarding which 3
letters can form a appropriate program _name_ for female users.

Ask yourself how anyone would feel about that kind of attention.

------
hacknat
I don't even look at peoples' handles when I reply to them. I suspect a lot us
are similar to me in that regard. Also, are men just attracted to women in
general, site unseen?

------
greatdox
Eris makes some good points on her blog:
[http://blastar.in/crawfraud/?p=455](http://blastar.in/crawfraud/?p=455)

------
j2d3
One of the wonderful things about the internet is that no one knows you're
a...(something you're not)... unless you tell them.

------
mmastrac
Heads up: mobile stylesheet makes the text black on black. Can't read this
easily in Chrome mobile

------
sergers
first thing to learn on the internet: a guy is a guy. a woman is a guy. a kid
is a fbi undercover agent.

type wiseley

------
zobzu
I think it's more about the character of the person than the gender.

------
hnriot
how is one supposed to read that blog!

~~~
Mz
What is your specific issue?

~~~
Zimahl
Did you just change it? I personally liked the look with the transparent black
with white text. Didn't look all that bad to me.

~~~
Mz
Yes, I did just change it. But I am logging off now. So no more fiddling. (I
did not expect this to make the front page. It is a repost. I figured it would
be completely ignored, or I would not have done it late in the day before
logging off.)

Later.

------
benched
1\. Hacker News usernames became a blur of random characters quite some time
ago. I don't know how I'd begin to tell what gender you all are, and it never
enters my mind. 2. I really don't think there are that many people who care
whether you're carrying the batter or the oven. 3. I don't know how to say
this nicely, but you - not your gender, but you the individual - are sort of
known to be a little sensitive to this, in a way that comes off a bit
attention seeking. If you feel this is your message to bring, then great. More
power to you, really. Just saying, this seems like one of your things.

~~~
Crito
Eh, while on most sites I completely ignore usernames, I actually do read
usernames habitually on HN. The community is small enough and there are enough
frequent users that I find recognizing usernames to be helpful in
understanding where somebody is coming from.

------
controversial
Noone ever seems to bring up the fact that sex and gender are NOT the same
thing.

sex - either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans
and many other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive
functions.

gender - the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to
social and cultural differences rather than biological ones).

~~~
anaphor
thank you for the sociology 101 lecture

