

Oh my god, it's a girl -- thoughts on gender imbalance on HN - Mz
http://www.novemberwest.com/blog/2010/12/25/oh-my-god-its-a-girl/

======
enko
Some women do not seem to understand, or somehow forget, that they are a
"protected class" in society. Men do not hit women. Men are polite to women.
Men put women first. We are all trained that, from an early age.

You may agree or disagree, but that's the state of society at the moment. If
you don't want to be subject to different treatment than a man, don't identify
as a woman. I'm not really aware of any other solutions at the moment.

~~~
zallen
"Men do not hit women."

Right. Except all those cases of domestic abuse, I mean.

"Men are polite to women."

Have you ever actually been a woman? Typically men ignore women, except
attractive women, who they ogle or patronize. In stores, men get served first
or, if it's a couple, people assume the man is the decision-maker and speak
primarily to him. People assume that men lead any social interaction. This is
readily observable even if you're a man.

"Men put women first."

Except when it comes to childrearing, domestic arrangements, wages and
promotions, poverty-reduction programs, marketing, healthcare (there's viagra
and procepia, but it was only two years ago they figured out the structure of
the clitoris), and in the classroom where boys are still called on first and
it is routinely assumed that girls can't do math or science.

But otherwise, sure, you're spot-on.

(Oh, except, not identifying as a woman. We try. Especially online, where
random threats of violence and rape happen routinely in certain communities
like gaming as soon as you check the "F" box, often from complete strangers.
But are you really saying that an entire group of people should just not be
who they are to receive equal treatment? Right.)

~~~
enko

      >> "Men do not hit women."
      > Right. Except all those cases of domestic abuse, I mean.
    

Hm, perhaps my language was a little unclear. In this context, imagine instead
of "men" that it reads "gentlemen". Gentlemen do not hit women. Gentlemen put
women first. That was the meaning I was getting at, and that is what is taught
by society.

I know there are sociopaths who ignore these rules, that is a valid point.

------
beloch
1\. Make a hypothesis: Men are overly nice to female HN posters.

2\. Make assumptions, like that HN's readers are predominantly male. Sure, the
probably are, but who knows for sure? If I was asked for my gender when I
signed up, I responded randomly. Reliable demographics are simply not
available.

3\. Test your hypothesis in a way that does not control most variables: Change
your name and post on completely different topics. Maybe your male posts were
dumber or more interesting than your female posts. Maybe you posted to newer
threads with more active commentors. etc. etc. etc. Even your choice of names
could bias the study.

4\. Have no objective metrics of "niceness". i.e. Evaluate everything with
your "gut feeling". (Note: Your gut is biased towards your hypothesis!)

5\. Conclude that your assumption was correct based on a statistically
insignificant amount of highly suspect data.

I'm not saying your hypothesis couldn't be true. I'm just saying it's going to
be a lot more difficult to prove (to even a modest degree of confidence) than
you thought it would be. I'm also not saying we should ignore an unproven
theory. We act on unproven theories all the time after all.

~~~
bmalee
> 2\. Make assumptions, like that HN's readers are predominantly male. Sure,
> the probably are, but who knows for sure? If I was asked for my gender when
> I signed up, I responded randomly. Reliable demographics are simply not
> available.

It's well-documented that men significantly outnumber women in the software
industry (and other high-tech industries). Why is it unreasonable to expect
that HN reflects this imbalance? It would seem more odd for there to be an
imbalance in the industry in general but perfect equality on HN.

------
ifearthenight
Idiot! NB: ironic insult :)

I'd love to say I agree totally with the article because it does raise some
really good points and it is an extremely interesting topic. I'd also like to
give the average (talking a mean average here not some kind of "norm") man,
and cisgender males more specifically, the benefit of the doubt. Agree there
are some intellectuals (read nerds) who are acting in the way the article
suggests but personally I think the main cause of the "egg-shells" treatment
is a basic view of women as being, again on average, inferior. Or, that all
women are essentially the same (as the article hinted at with the "my
girlfriend" comment).

I thought the use of the word "intelligence" in the post was an interesting
choice too. By the description can only assume this is referring to IQ. What
about EI? Surely we’ve progressed beyond the stage of thinking of IQ, which is
essentially just processing patterns, as the be-all and end-all of
intelligence!

~~~
Mz
I homeschooled my gifted-learning disabled sons. I am very aware there are
many kinds of intelligence. This piece isn't the place for getting into all of
that.

Thanks.

~~~
ifearthenight
Didn't mean to question your understanding of intelligence but of the
intelligence of the people your post was commenting on

------
holograham
Women are treated different on hacker news in the same ways that women are
treated differently in the world (US worldview) with some slight variance due
to the makeup of HN posters. We have differences... while mostly physical
there are differences in men and women's brains. Different is not bad. Many of
us can relate in childhood saying one thing to a guy and that same thing to a
woman and getting different responses. In addition, being "chivalrous" is
still kept in high regard by most women and some men (though deteriorating
rapidly). Chivalry amounts to treating women different from men in much the
same way your hypothesis on your article espouses. Since the HN community is
1. Generally smarter than the overall populations and 2. Generally more
introverted and thus has less female interaction they will tend to revert to
social norms (chivalry) and from female interactions from childhood rather
than adulthood.

------
herval
sexist and generalist piece... you can't (and shouldn't, really) put all
pieces of the same gender in a single bucket.

Plus, you have nicknames on HN. What can assure you anyone is (or isn't) a
woman? If you feel unconfortable by "being one in the man's club", just pick a
neutral nickname and be treated "like a man"...

~~~
AndrewDucker
I'd much rather that women didn't have to hide their gender to be treated the
same way that we'd treat men.

~~~
herval
I never treated a woman in a professional environment differently than I treat
men. Which I always thought be the right way of doing it.

But after having two women come to me and say that "I don't treat them like
proper women" and making a former boss (also female) burst into tears during a
technical discussion, I wonder if the sexism isn't something that I really
SHOULD consider a right approach, in some cases. Like, appearently, the writer
of this article...

~~~
AndrewDucker
Or, possibly, you should treat the men around you more nicely?

Not that you're necessarily treating them badly - but if you've got a manner
that causes women to burst into tears you're probably causing some of the men
to grit their teeth.

~~~
herval
nope, I don't need to treat the men around like chinese porcelain vases, thank
you! ;-)

------
chunky1994
As far as I'm concerned, I don't even look at the username of the person whom
I'm replying to. I just put in my two cents and take part in the discussion,
only if it turns out to be really, really interesting do I actually look at
the username to go to said person's profile. I'm quite sure a lot of other
posters have a similar attitude. HN is a forum about interesting stuff, and
(dare I say it) similar to it's secular community, is also probably a very
asexual (unconcerned with the gender of the participant) community. If the
author of the post had included more examples, then perhaps we could come to
some sort of statistical guess about whether gender really is a 'problem' or
not.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
I rarely look at username either. Well... until now. Now I feel I have to look
at every username. So... thanks for that. :/

------
jasondrowley
2 things:

1\. As a socially-awkward smart dude, the last section of the post resonates
with me, because I'm getting over a lot of my social awkwardness through
interacting with women. And it's great.

2\. I don't know what all the fuss coming from other HN-readers is about. As a
man, I readily acknowledge that women sometimes see things completely
differently than men, and while I could ram a lot of sociology theory down
dissenting commenters' throats about women and minorities and how each non-
male or non-white constituency develops a consciousness/worl-view particular
to and shared with their respective cohorts, and that to males (white or
otherwise) these world-views might be hard to parse... but I won't go into
theory.

------
iamdave
_(thereby sucking all the intellectual content out of their posts and killing
any reason you have to post there)._

 _Oh my god, it’s a girl and what if she breaks down and cries because I
argued with her_

 _W_ hat??

Who thinks that, where?

~~~
Mz
My ex husband for one.

~~~
iamdave
At the expense of sounding crass, that sounds like a personal problem between
you and he, not you and the HN community (assuming you are the OP of this blog
post).

~~~
Mz
I happen to be the OP. You asked for an example. I gave the first real life
example that came to mind. No, not all men are like that. But some absolutely
are.

Thanks.

~~~
dextorious
TL;DR; woman frustrated by ex-spouse takes it out on the HN crowd.

Here. Now you can't complain that we didn't treat you aggressively enough
because you're a woman!

;-)

------
helen842000
To me the design of HN actually inherently helps the gender balance. Here
comments are read at face value & not pre-judged according to who the poster
is. I like that.

The comment is at the forefront of the post. The user name is not emblazened
atop of the post in size 72 font (unlike in other forums) A distinct lack of
user icons, real names & sigs make HN so comment-centric that I come back here
most of all.

I've never felt what the OP has described. Welcome yes - no fuzzy warm
comments when I declare "hey guys, girl alert" (just to clarify - I don't do
that!). No unusual responses - even with a quite obviously female username.

I think where the community bustles here is on controversial posts.
Personally, I don't comment on those types of thread.

Maybe it's the type of posts the OP is posting on or that she mentions that
she is female within her comment that gets a skewed response.

~~~
Mz
Just to clarify: I am not complaining and generally agree with your
observations. These were my thoughts in response to a remark by someone who
did voice a complaint.

Thanks.

~~~
helen842000
It's an important topic and I read your post with interest.

Perhaps as I spend longer here it will become noticeable & patterns will
emerge.

I certainly think HN as an environment is conducive to level-headed responses
& is a welcoming community.where my views are taken seriously.

Thanks!

------
ordinary
The HN title is very confusing. I was full of righteous fury when, initially,
I interpreted it to imply there's a difference in quality between girl-
thoughts and boy-thoughts. Could you please replace the hyphen in the title
with an em dash?

Edit: Thanks!

~~~
dextorious
Of course there is a difference in QUALITY between boy-thoughts and girl-
thoughts.

(Quality not as in better, but as in "different" [dict] character or nature,
as belonging to or distinguishing a thing).

For example:
[http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0029265)

~~~
dguaraglia
You are absolutely right. I never understood this idea that 'women should be
equal to men in everything'. Outside of pure logical/scientific thinking it
simply _won't happen_. Some societies are more accepting of the idea, while
others sacrifice common sense in the altar of political correctness.

------
ChristianMarks
Commenting here is largely a waste of time, but I suppose it is an area for
the pursuit of feminist ideals. Commenting generally has higher opportunity
cost than reading comments. Aside from this comment, my activities here have
been reduced to reading an occasional article and a few well-written comments,
and to _upvoting the downvoted_.

------
dextorious
TL;DR: We declare beforehand, without consulting any science (including
Sociology and History), that men and women should have absolutely the same
interests, and then lament about the existence of fields where men and women
are not equally represented and condemn them as sexist.

Different groups of people have different priorities, likes and such. Not even
Democrats vs Republicans -- even women vs men, black vs white, etc. Whenever
you can make a distinction between two groups, you have attributes group A has
that B does not.

Not everything is because there is some power at play keeping A/B different,
and A/B not being absolutely interchangeable is not always a problem.

Get over it.

~~~
AndrewDucker
The article doesn't say anything like that, and doesn't lament that men and
women aren't equally represented.

~~~
dextorious
As I explicitly wrote: "TL;DR;".

Tons of other articles on the same matter do, and though I saved myself some
time.

Now I have to go read TFA. Thanks for nothing, killjoy.

