
Do Women Only Initiatives Really Help Women? - MonicaSelby
http://nibletz.com/2013/11/20/women-only-initiatives-help/
======
spodek
When Nixon went to China people said it took Nixon to go to China, implying
only someone obviously anti-communist could go there without being labeled a
communist.

Likewise, no man could say " _Women in 21st century American cities are the
privileged of the privileged_ ," as the woman who wrote that article wrote,
without being lambasted.

I don't know if I would say it so strongly, but the once-standard view that
men succeed at women's expense seems to be crumbling as people recognize the
glass cellar as powerful as the glass ceiling; that as much as men occupy the
top echelons of business and politics, so do they occupy the bottom of
homelessness; that as they dominate lucrative fields like engineering, so do
they dominate fields that dominate workplace deaths like mining, construction,
trash disposal, long-haul trucking, soldiers, etc; that as much as women have
trouble entering STEM fields, so do men have trouble entering teaching,
nursing, etc. Women are successful in the West -- more of them get college
degrees, they live longer, no law forces them to register for the military (in
the U.S. at least), the law doesn't imprison them nearly as much, the
government has many programs to help them, and so on.

It seems that decades ago both men and women had to follow gender roles.
Women's roles have since opened up, giving them more options. Men's roles have
opened somewhat, but less so. I know a lot of fathers and I've never met one
who didn't want to spend more time with his children, but they tend to have
fewer options to.

Many of the initiatives the author of the article questioned could probably
help more if they defined need around issues other than sex.

(EDIT: I hope people posting realize that HN weighting sinks stories with more
posts than upvotes. If you want a discussion with many people participating,
keep the number of posts below the number of upvotes the story gets. Otherwise
it drops off the front page.)

~~~
pessimizer
Do men dominate homelessness, or do old women and single mothers with
children? I'd be interested in any links you have.

also:

 _> Women are successful in the West_

In what way?

 _> more of them get college degrees,_

Oh, that actually is pretty good.

 _> they live longer,_

Didn't they always? That's just biology, isn't it?

 _> no law forces them to register for the military (in the U.S. at least),_

That's not a success of women, that's just a sexist (and common) law. Saudi
women aren't drafted either.

 _> the law doesn't imprison them nearly as much,_

Because they don't commit nearly as much crime? I don't understand this at
all.

 _> the government has many programs to help them,_

Yup. More would be even better.

 _> and so on._

So more than college, then?

~~~
vezzy-fnord
_That 's not a success of women, that's just a sexist (and common) law._

Yet when was the last time you saw feminist and women's organizations actively
campaigning for more females to register in the military and fight in the
battlefield? Practically never, from my experience. Last time I saw it
mentioned was an activist who was insisting on diluting military training to
make it more accessible to women, which... is not a solution, I hope you
realize that.

But for the most part, it's never discussed. After all, war is hell. If women
are not encouraged to go out and die, that's a big advantage, even if a
technically sexist one. It's an example of sexism that is actually beneficial
to the group that experiences it. Why would they want to fix it?

 _Because they don 't commit nearly as much crime? I don't understand this at
all._

That or they get more lenient sentencing:
[https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ap:10:0::NO:10:P10_ETD_SUBID:49114](https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ap:10:0::NO:10:P10_ETD_SUBID:49114)

Also: "Interestingly, among women, white female defendants receive more severe
sentence outcomes than black females."

 _Yup. More would be even better._

I guess they would if you value short-term hacks that give specific advantages
to a group over actual long-term solutions.

~~~
pessimizer
>Yet when was the last time you saw feminist and women's organizations
actively campaigning for more females to register in the military and fight in
the battlefield?

Who cares what some strawman feminist thinks, especially since the strawman
feminist didn't even support the ERA. I'm saying that characterizing this as a
success of women is incoherent.

>That or they get more lenient sentencing:
[https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ap:10:0::NO:10:P10_ETD_SUBID:49114](https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ap:10:0::NO:10:P10_ETD_SUBID:49114)

Could you summarize that, rather than throwing it out there?

>I guess they would if you value short-term hacks that give specific
advantages to a group over actual long-term solutions.

And what are these long-term solutions?

------
Scienz
It seems doubtful that the answer to social inequalities is to make special
privileges for each group to match the special privileges already enjoyed by
others, as opposed to working more towards an ideal of equal treatment for
everyone. I kind of cringe every time I see some study or argument saying
something to the effect of, "Women are, in fact, better suited for this type
of work than men are." The healthy thing to do would be to judge each
individual on their own merits, regardless of what group they belong to.
Women-only type things seem a bit regressive in that respect, in that they
fight fire with more fire rather than fixing the underlying issue of automatic
special treatment based on which group you belong to. Not that I'm actively
against such programs, anymore than I would be against a bachelor's party or a
girls-night-out. People have the right to organize and I know such programs
were instrumental in helping to decrease the amount of sexism in society. The
point is just that the more you isolate people into special groups and make
them stand out, the more you encourage inequality in society as a whole. So
yes I think this was a good post.

~~~
velis_vel
> It seems doubtful that the answer to social inequalities is to make special
> privileges for each group to match the special privileges already enjoyed by
> others, as opposed to working more towards an ideal of equal treatment for
> everyone.

If two people are running in a race, and one of them has been running the past
4 miles with a 50-pound weight on their back, taking the weight off isn't
going to make the race fair. You've either got to give them some kind of help
or put a weight on the other person's back.

~~~
Scienz
The mentality of the world as a competition between different groups of
people, where either men win and women lose, or men lose and women win,
doesn't seem particularly helpful either. A race implies winners and losers,
so I think this is a bad analogy. An idea of "let's treat men worse for a
while as revenge for years of male-dominated history" isn't very
sophisticated, no particular offense intended. Also, giving special privileges
to all the known groups will just disenfranchise the people not associated
with any particular groups (in this case, one might consider trans people).
_Human equality_ (or even including non-human-persons equality) would seem a
better ideal than just male-female equality.

If we're actually intelligent creatures, let's try and fix the underlying
problems instead of just pushing them around for someone else to suffer from.

~~~
gress
I can't upvote this enough!

------
pessimizer
There's no connection between the headline and the article, which not only
doesn't examine the results of any women-only initiatives, but only mentions a
single example (that it seems to approve of.)

>But there’s something wrong when we treat half the population like a minority
or special interest group.

There's also something wrong when we treat half the population like baby
breeding kitchen help, too. We remediate the damage done by open sexism
through targeted help. When it comes to management, ownership, and government,
women are not only a minority, they are an extreme minority.

>Women don’t need all the help we can get because we’re women.

No, that's why a sexist would help women. Women need all the help that they
can get because men run everything and often don't really think of women as
completely human. Women need help because they are constantly under attack.
Women sometimes need help because they are generally smaller and lack upper
body strength. If you can get by without it, feel free.

There's a temptation as a member of a discriminated against group who has
found some success amongst the dominant group to use their own success and the
success of their friends to argue that merit will always rise to the top.
Don't do this, because you will be paraded as evidence that discrimination is
over, and it's alright to withdraw from the ghettos and set them on fire.

If a few millionaires are enough to say that discrimination doesn't matter
anymore, racism against blacks must have ended before slavery.

~~~
ppprop
"Women need all the help that they can get because men run everything and
often don't really think of women as completely human. Women need help because
they are constantly under attack."

Not sure if this is troll bait, but... are you serious? Do you have anything
at all to back this up?

~~~
pessimizer
1\. Men run everything.

2\. Men often don't think of women as human.

3\. Women are under attack by men.

I don't think these points are controversial.

1\. Women are 50% of the workforce, but 4.5% of fortune 1000 CEO positions.

2\. Women didn't get the right to vote in America until 50 years after black
people, who were officially only partially human.

3\. Is a characterization.

~~~
growupkids
Here's some official government sources to go along with this discussion.

Women earn the majority of bachelors, masters and doctorates:

[http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72](http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72)

Women live longer than men:

[http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf)

More women in the workforce have degrees than men:

[http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/education/c...](http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/education/cb11-72.html)

And some non government research papers:

Women choose safer jobs than men (which may explain some income gap
differences):

[http://www.nber.org/papers/w8574](http://www.nber.org/papers/w8574)

And a study that suggests that men and women are paid the same:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/30/payscale-study-
wome...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/30/payscale-study-
women_n_3360863.html)

~~~
ps4fanboy
Stop bringing rational and critical thinking to this debate, you obviously
haven't checked your privilege or heard of the patriarchy.

~~~
mkr-hn
This is amusing in /r/TumblrInAction, but HN is best when the discussion is
slightly above the level of watching monkeys fling poo at each other.

~~~
ps4fanboy
While I agree with you I was trying in a humors way to point out that these
studies contradict a lot of what this debate is about and therefore will be
ignored. Which looking at all the discussion around these studies seems
likely.

------
danso
> _I’m going to go out on a limb and say that’s true for everywhere else now,
> too. Are there sexist and biased individuals out there? Of course. Are there
> systems still in place from a sexist past that need to be revamped? Sure,
> and the flood of educated, successful women will eventually take care of
> that._

I can't speak for the women groups, but I think the last sentence in the above
statement has not, to their opinion, borne itself out. Thus, the need for
groups that specifically advocate for them.

I'll say this as a member of an "empowered" minority group... I'm Asian, I've
grown up in nearly-all-white communities in the Midwest, my family was
technically low-income but otherwise, I never _felt_ disenfranchised. And I
did follow in the "model minority" path of working hard and doing well for
myself, and Asians, overall, perform highly on tests of academic measure and
personal wealth in America.

But let's ignore the thing of not all Asian immigrants being on equal footing
(that is Chinese/Korean/Japanese is not the same as, say, Cambodian)...Asians,
despite their empowerment, get roundly screwed in media portrayal and
perception. In news coverage and in popular media. The only reason why I watch
WAlking Dead from time to time is because it is so utterly astonishing to me
to see a popular lead Asian character who is not at all exotic, not valued for
his math skills, and doesn't appear to know martial arts. (there's also BD
Wong in Law and Order SVU, but he's not as much in the spotlight as Steven
Yeun's character).

A friend of my works in an Asian American advocacy group...we both ponder on
how Asians are indeed a privileged group, yet at the same time, because
collectively we do so little to be the greasy wheel, there are ways we get
stepped on. But because the meritocracy seems to be working for us (as a
group), there seems to be little desire to get involved in advocacy.

------
quinnchr
The goal of women oriented initiatives isn't to tell women they aren't as
capable. The author may be perfectly capable and she may be treated on her
merit alone, but in aggregate women are not treated like that.

From [http://www.oecd.org/inclusive-
growth/Closing%20the%20Gender%...](http://www.oecd.org/inclusive-
growth/Closing%20the%20Gender%20Gaps.pdf)

"They reveal considerable gender differences among the self-employed,
particularly those who are also employers. Figure 22.1 shows that across the
27 EU countries only 25% of business owners with employees are women (for
definitions, see Annex IV.A1). The low share of women has only marginally
grown over the last decade in the EU27, Canada and United States"

Let's not kid ourselves. Women face serious hurdles in entrepreneurship. They
have less access to credit when starting new businesses for one. Women who own
businesses are on average higher educated than there male counterparts yet
they earn significantly lower salaries.

I will end by pointing out that women focused initiatives help everyone, not
just women. There is a positive correlation between gender equality and GDP
per capita, everyone wins in an equitable society.

~~~
ps4fanboy
_Women who own businesses are on average higher educated than there male
counterparts yet they earn significantly lower salaries._

I remember reading this I wish I had the link but it showed female business
owners tended to take more time off than male counterparts and had a nicer
work/life balance over money/growth/profit.

Are you suggesting that consumers are buying/consuming products/services from
female run businesses?

~~~
quinnchr
No, I'm not hypothesizing a reason for this. I'm simply describing the end
effect, which is women being paid less.

When you control for working hours women entrepreneurs still earn less.

~~~
ps4fanboy
How can this be? Are you suggesting that women run less profitable businesses?

~~~
quinnchr
Yes they are less profitable, for a variety of reasons, like the one I already
listed, women have less access to capital.

Read the full report if you'd like to learn more!

~~~
ps4fanboy
What a burden I have to read a 400 page document to understand your point. But
sure I will bite.

Page 280. _Work-life balance is a motive for starting their business for more
women than men_

It is also very suspect that the study does not include any data for credit
for women enterprises started in the US.

------
undoware
Another oft-overlooked problem with women-only spaces is that they tend to put
enormous pressure on the litmus, namely, "is so-and-so a woman?" This tends to
screw over people like me (trans).

Now, I know that's not front page news -- there are how many of us? -- but if
you care about things like wheelchair ramps and braille, you care about how
structural decisions affect the ability of minorities to access a space.

In this case, the minority is being kept out by a conceptual barrier rather
than (say) a pre-war flight of stairs, but it still really really sucks to be
that minority.

Just another consideration. I'm actually undecided if inclusive, well-managed
women-only (or _-only, where _ is a minority of your choosing) spaces are the
best approach to the (serious) problem, but I know that some people benefit
greatly from such spaces. So it's a question for sociology, really, not hand-
waving debate (is there a way of preserving the benefits of these spaces while
being more inclusive? what are the supposed benefits? How significant? For
whom?)

------
dmn757
Great post. I have been trying to make this point here on HN this past week or
so, only to be downvoted into oblivion. Thank you for putting it so
eloquently.

------
alan_cx
Why does no one care how many men are in hairdressing, finger nail painting,
child care, teaching and so on?

~~~
gammarator
Because those are low paid, low-status jobs?

Or to flip the question, if they were highly paid, what would stop men from
taking them?

~~~
claudius
People not wanting men to change their kids’ diapers for one.

~~~
ps4fanboy
Everyone knows men cant be trusted around children.

------
nraynaud
On a side note, in traditional designation of gender roles in many cultures
the women handle the family money, or do the sales (for example the man does
the harvest and the women does the sale at the market). Which I think could be
leveraged when it's time to break the mold.

Traditional gender roles has been exploited in education in some part of the
world for example. They decided to focus on little girls going to school,
since they will be the ones caring for the family later in life, they will be
the one spreading the knowledge to the kids, so if there is a choice is to be
made, it's more efficient to send a girl than a boy to school.

------
ps4fanboy
_In 2010-11, there were more female (55%) than male fulltime undergraduates
(45%) enrolled at university – a trend which shows no sign of shrinking_

[http://www.theguardian.com/education/datablog/2013/jan/29/ho...](http://www.theguardian.com/education/datablog/2013/jan/29/how-
many-men-and-women-are-studying-at-my-university)

This sort of thing is happening in most western societies, majority of
university students are women, but what we are most concerned about is which
degrees they are choosing.

~~~
quinnchr
And by far the majority of PHDs and professors are men. Even in women
dominated fields the the professorships are dominated by men.

What exactly is your point?

~~~
ps4fanboy
What do professors have to do with the work force?

------
sp332
If this is true, why are only 20% of Computer Science grads women? And the
ratio has been falling since 2001.

~~~
montage
Maybe its because women down't want to take Computer Science?

~~~
sp332
That's probably not true. The money is pretty good, for one thing :) The ratio
used to be higher in the USA, and it's still higher in some other countries.
To be specific, it seems like boys are encouraged to go into tech while girls
are not, which has a few effects. The first is that girls don't really
consider tech at all: it's not that they consider and discard it, they just
don't think of it. The other is that more boys are proficient at computer
skills and programming by the time students are entering college, so even if
girls do take intro courses, they are discouraged because it seems like the
boys are so much better at it.

Edit: do I really have to put "on average" every time I use the words "boys"
and "girls"?

~~~
ppprop
"it seems like boys are encouraged to go into tech"

Please stop encouraging this lie. I've never been encouraged to go into tech,
and I'd venture a guess that most people here weren't either. As a matter of
fact, for me it was quite the opposite, because every time I was fiddling with
a computer, I was told to "stop playing games" and do something "worthwhile".

~~~
sp332
Even so, it's worse (on average) for women.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2817708](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2817708)

~~~
ps4fanboy
saying on average implies you have some sort of statistic, which you don't.

------
xdd
The reason why this became a topic is only because technology, soft/hardware
developer really make a lot of money right now.

I remember reading this in HN:" How to detect female-ism? Don't just focus on
the fancy job like CEOs, Founders who made million of dollars, you also need
to look at mine workers, bus drivers these dangerous jobs." ask yourself why
female-ism not talk about women need to work at those fields too?

Then, if you read "revenge of the nerd" by paul graham, you will understand
more.

------
daleharvey
The main quote that sticks out for me is 'Sure, and the flood of educated,
successful women will eventually take care of that.'

The plural of anecdote isnt data, because some people have managed to find
success doesnt change the fact that women are leaving this fairly hostile
field in droves.

------
onada
Feminism is not meant to only help women, at least in the last few renditions
of it. It's meant to seek justice for all persons. It's a rather complicated
political-social phenomenon that has seen many renditions, so I wouldn't try
to simplify it further.

Anyways, I doubt women-only-initiatives only help women in the great scheme of
things, as that's not how things/communities/humans work. Women-only groups
and incubators are wonderful, and of course they would support the world
beyond because they exist in the same world.

------
nicktipp
I just don't understand why this post and discussion is being censored? Any
one know why it just went from #3 to off the front page in under 5 minutes?

~~~
ps4fanboy
It doesnt fit with the social justice warrior narrative.

------
nicktipp
And just like that this post went from #3 to off the front page in 5 minutes.
Is sexism to controversial of a subject to discuss so it's just going to be
ignored?

~~~
ps4fanboy
I think people are just sick of the debate where no actual evidence of sexism
is being produced. But most probably this was down flagged because it doesn't
fit the narrative of social just warriors on HN. The author is saying that
women programs are bad.

------
smtddr
Aaaaaaaaand... GONE![1]. Took about, hmm, 37mins. Perhaps HN's and/or tech
community isn't the open-minded, diversity-welcoming group we all think we
are...

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7006583](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7006583)

~~~
ps4fanboy
Did you read the article? If anything this is getting buried because its goes
against what people are saying and its written by a female so it cant be
immediately be dismissed. So next best is censorship.

------
stefantalpalaru
Bravo! It takes courage to suggest there's something wrong with compensatory
sexism.

------
hbags
There's an over proliferation of all conferences, and this includes niche
conferences.

The answer to her headline question appears to deviate from Betteridge's law,
in that she concludes that some of the initiatives help women.

------
fantnn
b-but the patriarchy!

------
ps4fanboy
No one will be happy until we have full blown socialism where everyone is
assigned a career at birth that maintains a neat ratio for every industry by
race/sex.

~~~
alan_cx
This is so stupid on so many levels, its actually a work of genius.

Im impressed.

~~~
gress
I think it was a decent piece of glib satire.

