

The Last Article That Needs to be Written About Sexism in IT by a Male - leftnode
http://leftnode.com/entry/the-last-article-that-needs-to-be-written-about-sexism-in-it-by-a-male.html

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johngalt
To be consistent with your opinion; women should write no articles or have an
opinion on the challenges men face.

War for instance. No females should be in command positions or authority over
the armed forces because they don't know what its like to bleed on a
battlefield.

Workplace fatalities are also a predominately male. So OSHA should be run only
by males.

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madrona
Why can't the "privileged classes" discuss these issues and have open
discourse with women? As long as both parties have open minds, it seems like a
far better way to walk in someone else's shoes.

I'm gay and think that it's hard for many straight people to understand some
of the setbacks I've encountered - but I would MUCH rather talk about it to
achieve better understanding than letting people assume that I'm seething and
angry all the time.

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abraxasz
I disagree. It is true that a male is hardly qualified to talk about how a
female perceives things. But sexism in IT is an issue that concerns females
AND males. A male should be allowed to say that, as a male, he thinks that he
is annoyed by any kind of positive discrimination in the work place.

In the same vein, a white person is allowed to have an opinion on positive
discrimination, an heterosexual is allowed to have an opinion on gay marriage,
and someone who doesn't carry a gun is allowed to have an opinion on gun
regulations.

Oh, and to defuse any bashing: I'm black, I have no opinion on gay marriage,
or on sexism in IT (not working there).

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true_religion
You're not exactly qualified to guess how people perceive things, but can you
not relate their words second hand?

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batgaijin
I don't really get this attitude. So it's okay for me to write a school essay
about the women's suffrage movement? Okay. It's cool for me to write about the
civil rights movement? Okay.

Why are things going on today special? Do you think that because I'm white and
in a suburban basement without any real property to my name I can't talk about
the Chinese housing bubble?

I'm sorry, but if you want to claim that an article is poorly written or uses
incorrect sources, say so. If your opinion would change simply based on the
pseudonym that something is published under, you do not have an opinion tied
to reality.

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tzs
So are only mentally ill people qualified to write articles about mental
illness? Are only cancer patients qualified to write articles about cancer
treatment? Are only fat people qualified to write about the difficulty of
weight loss?

The author is implicitly assuming that sexism is not capable of being studied
in a scientific fashion, and so all we can do is have people write up their
personal anecdotes.

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petercooper
A good post. An added complication is that it can be tempting to (some, not
all) math or engineering focused people to look at problems through a sort of
"universal" math or engineering focused lens. Yet fields like theology, social
affairs, law, economics, gender issues, or politics have their own (and
multiple) philosophies and systems of logic and shoehorning any sort of
universal, math or engineering-oriented system of logic onto them is likely to
bring discord.

In my (limited) experience, religious engineers/mathematicians often seem to
be aware of this concept and can balance scientific philosophies with those of
theology and faith while recognizing the distinction between them.

In the same way that there are devoutly religious people who twist every
matter in life into a religious matter, I wonder if there are "devoutly
technical" people who twist everything into calculations and analysis.

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true_religion
And... the devoutly technical want to convert all of humanity to their side,
wherein not viewing things through the same lens is seen as a sign of mental
shortcoming.

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p_sherman
Privileged sounds right. What makes him think that he gets to decide.

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jeffehobbs
Yes. This. Very much so.

