As a male engineer I'd be happy to spend half the time going around and chatting, listening, massaging and organizing games to help colleages / team mates destress and feel energized and motivated.
For hetero orientation pairs, opposite gender, can have added destressing effect, if people are skillful at creating a good mood. Effective way to relax and raise morale.
But because that connotes "sex", the Western moral hysteria / panic mode sets in, and people automatically make it mean "bad"/"abusive"/"counter-progressive". Christian legacy programming? They think that makes them "free" but I think constraining narratives around sex to a limited set of negative connotations, just binds them to endless suffering and frustration.
This moral panic is probably partly a psyop. Sexual drive is such a powerful drive, any group who can manipulate / control / or redirect / re-narrate that en masse holds powerful sway over the population. If you can make people hate themselves for their own gender, skin color or sexuality, you have really succeeded in warping / manipulating them for something that should be so positive / neutral. That frustration for the individual that results can then be directed toward whatever would seem to provide the answer. In effect, this psyop can yoke people to a particular cause, such as "progressive liberal politics" that seem to provide the answer to the invented "axes of evil" of "sexuality / skin color / gender", and pretend to lead the way to a "promised land" of equality (? heh) even while dividing everyone into groups and getting them to fight each other. The ultimate aim of all this is probably just crowd control for the population, by "drawing off" excess frustration into such fruitless causes, you can ensure the activation energy of "revolution" / mass civil unrest is never tipped. Also the frustrated will seek other outlets for their stymied desires, so rise in entertainment / consumer culture offering short-term thrills like sucrose, endorphins, etc.
In light of all this -- the 1980s quest for status ( mirrored by current modern day Chinese quest for status ) is more healthy. But without a totalitarian state, and inundated by new technologies that empower individuals, how are you going to keep a society under control in a democracy? Democracy / politics has to end up being a very compelling reality-tv entertainment, and people must "spend" most of their excess energy on fruitless pursuits, to ensure they don't spend it on something such as "overthrowing the state".
And when you want to take the yoke off people, they fight to keep themselves bound up in it. Insisting they are free. Such is the depth of their manipulation.
> As a male engineer I'd be happy to spend half the time going around and chatting, listening, massaging and organizing games to help colleages / team mates destress and feel energized and motivated.
As a gay engineer, I doubt that if a man came over and started doing those things to you, you would feel energized and motivated. That hopefully gives you an idea why workplace norms in the modern world are the way they are.
As an aromantic man, I do feel more energized and motivated after a chat or a card game with my (mostly male) colleagues. I'm somewhat averse to body contact, so I wouldn't make use of a massager, but so long as it's just an extra perk like a Googly ball-bath (they have those, right?), I don't see the problem.
Not being sexually attracted to someone doesn't mean that their company won't be refreshing or even uncomfortable. I think that's much more a matter of personality, and gender is only a secondary factor in whether you'll find someone likable or not.
You mean assuming he's not gay? Or do shoulder rubs from a hot guy not make you feel good? I'd assume (or at least hope!) they ask your preference before sending you some eye candy.
Well, you could send a gay person to play games and do massage to programmers who are least productive. I'm sure they will become enough motivated not to fail the next deadline.
> As a male engineer I'd be happy to spend half the time going around and chatting, listening, massaging and organizing games to help colleages / team mates destress and feel energized and motivated.
Well, I can relate to that. Sometime I can really use some massage at work while chatting with my friendly co-workers (about work), which will makes me love my job and maybe increase my productivity.
Sadly, I think ask our company to hire a massager is too much for them :(
Whereas the West sees male domination in tech as a problem and intervenes, China caters. Which approach will end up being more productive? Does it matter?
The rising labor force participation of women has been a major factor in total productivity growth. If we had continued to pursue male domination, for example, we'd have a lot fewer doctors. (Or a lot fewer of something else valuable.) And there's still a lot more to be gained.
There is also the fact that women are people, of course, and don't deserve to be "dominated" any more than anybody else does.
The amount of work to do is not fixed. More people working (and at higher levels of value, also a feminist goal) means more value created for us to share in.
As to the societal benefits, there's a lot out there on it. You can search The Economist for "women labor force participation" for literally decades of articles on the benefits of it. But specifically for societal economic growth, here's one study of many: https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2013/sdn1310.pdf
It doesn't sound like women are being unilaterally tasked with, or tacitly imposed upon, to fill these roles. As I read the article, the companies are openly advertising for women and women are applying.
If roles were reversed, most of my colleagues were female, and they got in a couple of hot guys to listen attentively, give massages and generally raise morale, nobody would blink an eye. Hell, if you told me I could spend all day talking with the ladies instead of doing actual work then I might consider it.
Coders make a good salary and have a normal schedule, they will usually find a partner. But nowadays I guess more and more young people will choose to live alone.
Attractiveness is all about how much time and effort you spend on it. But what's most frightening is our bias on appearance, and how we treat people different based on how they are dressed/makeup. No wonder (hot) people, women in general, spend several hours every day just to look good.
How does it make someone else uncomfortable? The man wants it, and the woman wants to do it. Who are you to tell women what's ok to do with their lives. That's just cultural imperialism.
It doesn’t, said that in the article. She did ask for a male, and I see no reason why she shouldn't get one. Besides, a man on staff that is has stronger hands for back or foot rubs would probably be appreciated by the men as well.
Gender equality is not nearly as big an issue in Asia compared to the west.
My experience is in Japan, but I could summarise a common opinion as "Men and women are different and should be treated differently".
Recently, when asking for a recommendation for a tax credit accountant, I was asked if I would prefer a man or a woman. The question was very matter of fact and not thought of as unusual.
To make things clear: I think this is nonsense and should be called out when it comes up.
Gender equality is pretty much a Western thing, and specifically an American obsession. In Asian countries it's not a big deal. I'm living in SE Asia now and can attest to this.
Many medical institutions will ask if you prefer a female or male doctor. Same with psychologist. What does it matter that we might consider the gender of the medical practitioner or psychologist? Are we next going to consider racial interactions as relevant to medical efficacy?
China is really different from Japan/Korea when regarding at gender. Women were called to hold up the half the sky in China since the very beginning. And nowadays girls are just equally demanded to be excellent at STEM. I guess the reason is China had few revolutions while Japan and Korea were basically reforming themselves.
Did you know in China almost no women change their last name to their husband's upon marriage (and it's been this way long before feminism even became a thing in the West)?
Whereas today in the "progressive" West it is still expected that women change their last name to their husband's and most do.
But children usually bear their father's surname, and if they don't, there's the assumption something's wrong with the father's side. (E.g. his name is not known, or they divorced before birth.)
I think it is silly to try to compare across cultures by looking for the presence or absence of specific customs, because you'll always be biased by your awareness of practices in your own culture, and ignorance of those in a different culture.
> Whereas today in the "progressive" West it is still expected that women change their last name to their husband's and most do.
Not in Spain, where everyone keeps their last names and it was traditionally so before feminism. Children get two last names, traditionally the first from the father and then from the mother, but the order can be reversed.
> I think this is nonsense and should be called out when it comes up.
Don't be such a cultural imperialist.
You think you're "doing the right thing" -- but isn't it "wrong" to assume your culture's current (in flux) definition of culturally "progressive" values is actually a moral right?
Come to China and see what things are like. Then maybe you can feel entitled to dictate what to call out.
You think your culture is morally supremacist, but are you so sure you are so right? Maybe your way is not the only "right" way -- maybe you can learn from other cultures. But you don't be open to doing that while you are so sure of your own moral supremacism. And being so certain, so full of passionate intensity of your own righteousness -- well that's just likely to make you less open to correction and learning, and more likely to be wrong, isn't it?
If your culture is so adept at "equality" (even "gender equality") then why are your genders ( races / politics ) so divided? In light of the actual state of things, rather than how you prefer to see them ( through a culturally imperialist lens of your own moral supremacism ) -- isn't it more likely that divisions have been artificially and deliberately inflamed, to keep you all fighting each other, to distract you from placing the blame on those in power? To make you all easier to control, in other words.
The best slaves are the ones who think they are free. "Progressive liberal values" has been a great way to divide people into groups to better distract and control them, and get them to channel their (perhaps otherwise constructively directed) emotions, into useless vitriol and conflict. Also stressed out combat-mode people purchase more, and think less about it. So, a harmful way to bolster consumer economy.
Also it's incorrect to say "gender equality" is not an issue "in Asia". It's just you don't understand how it is. In China, Mao made women and men equal before feminism "liberated" Western women.
But of course, "the West got there first" and better -- Oldest fake narrative in the book, buddy.
I'm sure you have some good points in there but could you please not cross into flamewar? It's against the rules here, because it destroys thoughtful discussion and poisons the community. If you'd read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow them, we'd appreciate it. Don't miss this one:
Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
How is calling out descrimination cultural imperialism? I don't think we should be selecting engineers, tax accountants and so on based on their gender, so I call it out when I see it.
The rest of your post makes a lot of assumptions about views and my background, but I certainly didn't say anything about them my comment.
It's true that in the socialist era, Mao and others really pushed for progress in gender equality. To their great credit! But beginning with pro-market reforms, a lot of that progress has been lost:
I also think the rest of your critique doesn't really hold together. You seem to be playing both sides of your ambivalence on gender equality. And for somebody opposed to one culture criticizing another, you seem awfully willing to be very vigorous in criticizing another culture.
Not just in China but in post-socialist Europe as well. Male chauvinism goes hand in hand with nationalist chauvinism and is the one of the first things to resurface back into the social norm as part of post-socialist social reform in all these countries.
Still, in the post-post-socialism (i.e. when the society recovered from the right-wing dominance of transition years) many of these returned to these values and I bet if one would to do an earnest comparison (which Western media rarely want, too much bias) they'd probably be able to count significantly more females in high politics, enterprise management and even entrepreneurship than in places like the USA, Ireland, Switzerland or other more conservative western countries.
In some of those countries, like Croatia and Serbia (even if they'd hate to admit it), even the right has been pushed, partly by inherited social norms and partly by strong female presence in the left to de-masculinise as well. Hence the female right-wing president in Croatia and the far-right lesbian prime minister in Serbia.
American startups are at least more tacit about it. Young, attractive women are heavily favored as recruiters and office managers. Honestly, as a new tech worker, I don't really mind. It is refreshing.
It's not just startups. Many tech companies have attractive women in HR and other people-facing roles. Whether it's perpetuating sexist stereotypes or simply playing to people's strengths is an exercise for the beholder. Or, I suppose, you could write a memo about it.
> American startups are at least more tacit about it. Young, attractive women are heavily favored as recruiters and office managers.
Yeah, I did a group interview at a San Diego startup that was like that. 90% of the developers were male, but 90% of the recruiters were young, attractive women with no background in tech. We didn't meet them face-to-face until we'd been flown out to San Diego, so it wasn't even about piquing people's interest to get them to the interview. Best I can figure is "male nerds are more likely to accept our laughably low salary offer if they think they might get to be near cute girls." It was really creepy.
I can only speak from the perspective of the IT market in my own region, but whenever a company hires more females (including but not exclusive to the young, attractive ones) it was a really change for the better in every regard.
When surrounded by more females in offices men are better groomed, behave more professionally, and since they now have a much more complete social surrounding they are under less stress. Productivity might seem to suffer on the surface (chatting up and banter) but in reality it usually improves as a consequence of all these mentioned factors.
Pretty sure the same would happen in a, say, administrative office, accountant shop or medical practice that was all female after you'd get a few more guys in there.
Attractiveness of the persons of the other sex also plays a role, despite it not being a popular thing to say, so if the company can pull it of and maintain the same business value of such a hire it's prudent to do so.
Refreshingly honest, I expect. Western companies do exactly the same tricks but are sly about it. And the HR department must be in on it. Just look at LinkedIn.
1. You consider that men and women have identical interests and you strive towards equal representation in your workforce because there is equal representation in society.
2. You consider that men and women have different interests and you strive to accommodate the different interests by diversifying the job offering.
Women tend to be more agreeable than men, more focused on people than things and if you want more women in your company it pays to focus on creating jobs based on relating. For example, I don't have hard data at hand but based on my experience, the IT recruitment field is dominated by women.
Why do you assume that inclusivity is a goal for them?
I absolutely believe it should be, but for the vast majority of human history, in the vast majority of civilizations, inclusivity was not a goal. It's certainly not universal now.
