Basic challenge: Tech forums thrive on explaining, and providing solutions. We do like doing that even without a full understanding of the situation.
So, if, as a woman, you raise a problem in a space that's mostly male (like pretty much all tech spaces), you'll get a bunch of suggestions of trivial things to try (that you usually already have tried), plus a bunch of questions that amount to "I don't see your problem, so it doesn't exist".
I firmly believe that isn't malevolence - it's lack of knowledge plus some traits that are more pronounced in people in software engineering. (We can have a long debate about why they're pronounced, but for a moment let's just stipulate to their existence)
This means, as a woman (or in general, as part of a minority), you spent the vast amount of time in majority spaces explaining things, over, and over, as opposed to actually diving deeper on your problem.
Again, this is not due to malevolence, or because men are bad - it's an outcome of the situation. Let's say we're all prone to ask questions of other people that seem basic to them if we're sufficiently different - because we just don't know.
Now, if you're in a space where you're the only one in your group (The "yous"), and there are 10 others ("others"), and we all ask on average one such question per day - "yous" get 10 questions/day, "others" get 0.1/day. IOW: You feel you get asked super-basic questions 100 times more often than anybody else. You can see how that wouldn't make feel people very welcome :)
If you want to avoid causing them, there are a couple of fairly easy ways:
* Don't make assumptions about other people. ("You're a man, you should be good at.../bad at...")
* If people talk about their own experiences, just believe them. Don't have them explain every single bit.
* Don't offer solutions if you don't fully understand a problem.
* If you want to help, Google at least basic information first. (Let's have an example: If you don't understand why women need a mother's room, head to Google first. Don't just say "I don't understand why there aren't father's rooms, too!". Sounds strange, but literal example I experienced)
* Find common ground, instead of focusing on the differences. (Here, for example: "Yay for launching this. How'd you do X" is much better than "why do you need that space". If you must ask that question, phrase it so it's still on common ground - we're on HN, people care about market fit, so ask "How'd you find out there was a need for it?")
* And if you still need to ask a question, because you truly lack the understanding and can't find the answer, do what you did: Make yourself vulnerable. Admit you really don't know, and you'd like to understand. (But really, Google first :)
> So, if, as a woman, you raise a problem in a space that's mostly male (like pretty much all tech spaces), you'll get a bunch of suggestions of trivial things to try (that you usually already have tried)
Can you give like 3 examples of this happening on HN? (Since the original question was about what the difference would be to HN), or for example StackOverflow? I mean the basic interface of those websites does even show the gender of the account, dies it? Why would the answers then be different dependent on the gender?
I’m not sure if this is meant to be a joke. But with your username, replying to a comment about “{GROUP} feels that they are unreasonably asked to prove themselves” with your reply of “can you prove to me that {GROUP} is allowed to feel that way?” is more than a little ironic.
You comment is structured so as to imply an identity or equivalence that doesn't exist. A claim was made without evidence. The respondant made a valid argument for the improbability of the claim being true, given that gender is normally not evident, and simply asked for evidence to justify the claim. There is no irony here, simply an attempt at objectivity.
We should ask for evidence to justify claims like this.
The problem is that the claim is most likely subjective so it doesn’t need evidence. And the act of always being asked for evidence in various situations, and not being respected for knowing what is going on was one of the subjective claims being made.
Someone doesn’t have to justify their feelings or opinions or observations of how they are being treated. If someone says they are always experiencing something, then we should listen instead of asking them to prove to us that they are allowed to feel that way.
I have another comment on this same line, which I'll add separately rather than editing my prior comment:
> If someone says they are always experiencing something, then we should listen instead of asking them to prove to us that they are allowed to feel that way.
I think it is important to be precise, to reason correctly on this issue. What is it, exactly, that they are always experiencing? The simple fact that they were treated a particular way, or the experience of a disparity of treatment? Those are two completely different types of experiences to discuss, and should be treated differently.
Consider this from the big picture perspective, in which a community of people wants to care for its members but wants to do so on the basis of reality, not just indulging whoever, for example, tells the best story. If I have the strategy of jumping between subjective and objective types of claims, and then refusing to give evidence when an objective claim is questioned by invoking my right to have my emotional experience validated - at what point will you learn the difference between what is objectively true, and what is simply my unsubstantiated belief?
By insisting that everyone's lived experiences are always fully validated, while simultaneously suggesting that a factual investigation is invalidating of that experience, then we have made it impossible, as a group, to discover the truth.
There is a major problem of ambiguity at every level of this conversation. At least one person (reasonably) interpreted the claim to be that women are more likely to experience a particular kind of response in a particular forum. This is not a subjective claim. It may be hard to test, but it is either true or not true.
If it is not true, but the person believes that it is true, they may even be harmed by their false belief.
In general, we should take great care not to confuse our subjective impressions or our emotional experiences with objective reality.
> If someone says they are always experiencing something, then we should listen instead of asking them to prove to us that they are allowed to feel that way.
Listening to a person (or even caring deeply for another's experience) is not mutual exclusive to taking steps to determine if their emotional responses are rooted in actual reality, or just their perception of reality. Both can happen together, by the same person, in the same conversation.
Presenting this as a choice of mutually exclusive options does everyone a disservice.
In my opinion, there are situations where you should prioritize a person's emotional experience, and situations in which you should prioritize the facts.
Sure, you can prioritize the facts. But OP asked for the challenges experienced, and how they could help. I gave them that answer. If you then want additional facts, that's your problem, not mine or OPs.
I would agree with you that you are under no obligation to reply to any of the questions, if that is what you are saying. Emphatically.
In my opinion, everyone should be encouraged to question the evidentiary basis of any of your beliefs and claims which deal with objective reality, not be discouraged from doing so, and not have this conflated with invalidating your experience.
I am not conflating the two. I'm asking for the person posing the question to do the most basic research themselves. Their questions clearly indicate they haven't done so. So I opt out of continuing the conversation.
My objective reality is that they're not interested in actually having a conversation, but instead trolling. I require proof of work that that's not so.
I apologize if my prior statement, made as a direct response to your prior-prior statement, implied that you specifically were conflating an investigation with invalidating your experience. I was just trying to briefly sketch out my position and motive in the overall conversation, which has involved many people and an array of views. I respect your choice to opt out.
I did my most basic research: I went to the websites and saw the interface and concluded that the interface does not distinguish between the gender of the members. That sounds like quite an evidence against your claim.
Allowing any specific benefits to a single group, based solely on their own reports of their unreasonable experience, without any proof or any other information would indeed be quite stupid, don't you think? Should the society just give in to any group with any claim about their group identity, without any checking?
Also what does my name has to do with this conversation?
Not do homework but to give any basis for a claim that is actually quite preposterous - that women have in many instances have to deal with different things or preferential treatment or harassment on a platform where you can't even see the gender of the participants on that platform. What is the implication? That people who harrass stalk every single participant and somehow hack their accounts or otherwise analyze their speach or something, to first determine their gender, to then go ahead to harrass them? This is on a website where 99% of converstaion is about technical issues? Yes you would need to provide some evidence if your claim is this much out there, people are not just going believe it just because you happen to be part of a group.
So you claim you know the answer but you don't share with us. That is wtf. You had really good points up there but its not clear at all what is the conclusion for the original question. If you are asked to fill in the blanks you say you won't. Shall we google for your thoughts? (Googling is a main bullet point up there.)
Thank you for being so patient, and for engaging in good faith. If your use of 'wtf' suggests a growing frustration, please know at least one person both sympathizes with you and hopes that you won't let any frustration damage the quality of your discourse.
I'm confused. Why does being a women give a different set of challenges when troubleshooting a problem? The fact that it's a majority male doesn't explain why people would treat women completely differently.
Where are you getting these assumptions? Why would the same advice not be given to a male? If a male and a female ask the same question, they are given the same answer in my experience. Maybe it's that they are not having the same problems or asking the same questions?
Of course people would respond differently to different questions. It sounds like maybe not knowing the right questions to ask or where to look for those answers, or an inability to communicate about concepts in clear terms. And that's not a knock against women, there are plenty who can do this well. That seems much more straightforward and plausibe than saying that HN gives you trivial answers and gives you the run around because you have female experiences.
That's just different answers being given to different questions.
No, that's lumping in a huge amount of genuine disagreement and curiosity into a throw away bucket because a certain perspective doesn't like them. Maybe people should look at having actual conversations and not trying to educate everyone.
Woah, I'm even more confused now. You said you were confused but you don't appear confused at all when I asked what you were doing. Could you please clarify?
I'm confused about the OPs opinions. I'm not confused about your response. I think it's more than unproductive to blindly dismiss questions, it's telling. How was that confusing? Who asked you?
... And to your comment below...
... I already responded to why, because it's Bs to post a claim with no questions allowed. I'm not calling her a liar I'm disagreeing with the conclusion she comes to.
Sorry I don't blindly believe conspiracy theories. You shouldn't either. I don't care if they posted NO QUESTIONS, IM FEELING UNWELCOME. Like that's great, I'm still going to ask questions, you don't get immunity especially with nonsense theories. That's something to qualify arguments with clear holes in them. I'm trying to get a real answer not make a sheltered bubble.
This is a hollow opinion to hold. If you can't defend or discuss your beliefs, especially inflammatory and controversial ones, then don't spout them off with a disclaimer of no questions allowed. I happen to disagree with the explanation op gives, but they won't even accept feedback. We're at an impasse because you want your own rules.
Otherwise it's just an opinion contest and no progress will ever be made. Thanks for pointing out the obvious repeatedly though. I don't want to e welcoming to everyone, I want to be welcoming to those who deserve it.
It was confusing because the person explicitly stated when someone says they experience something, believe them, and if you don’t understand then google it yourself. You responded by asking more questions, even though the post was explicit about how questions are exhausting and part of why a person may feel pushed away. This is why I said I’m confused, because it seems odd to respond to a post that expresses how questions are unwelcoming with more questions.
So, if, as a woman, you raise a problem in a space that's mostly male (like pretty much all tech spaces), you'll get a bunch of suggestions of trivial things to try (that you usually already have tried), plus a bunch of questions that amount to "I don't see your problem, so it doesn't exist".
I firmly believe that isn't malevolence - it's lack of knowledge plus some traits that are more pronounced in people in software engineering. (We can have a long debate about why they're pronounced, but for a moment let's just stipulate to their existence)
This means, as a woman (or in general, as part of a minority), you spent the vast amount of time in majority spaces explaining things, over, and over, as opposed to actually diving deeper on your problem.
Again, this is not due to malevolence, or because men are bad - it's an outcome of the situation. Let's say we're all prone to ask questions of other people that seem basic to them if we're sufficiently different - because we just don't know.
Now, if you're in a space where you're the only one in your group (The "yous"), and there are 10 others ("others"), and we all ask on average one such question per day - "yous" get 10 questions/day, "others" get 0.1/day. IOW: You feel you get asked super-basic questions 100 times more often than anybody else. You can see how that wouldn't make feel people very welcome :)
If you want to avoid causing them, there are a couple of fairly easy ways:
* Don't make assumptions about other people. ("You're a man, you should be good at.../bad at...")
* If people talk about their own experiences, just believe them. Don't have them explain every single bit. * Don't offer solutions if you don't fully understand a problem.
* If you want to help, Google at least basic information first. (Let's have an example: If you don't understand why women need a mother's room, head to Google first. Don't just say "I don't understand why there aren't father's rooms, too!". Sounds strange, but literal example I experienced)
* Find common ground, instead of focusing on the differences. (Here, for example: "Yay for launching this. How'd you do X" is much better than "why do you need that space". If you must ask that question, phrase it so it's still on common ground - we're on HN, people care about market fit, so ask "How'd you find out there was a need for it?")
* And if you still need to ask a question, because you truly lack the understanding and can't find the answer, do what you did: Make yourself vulnerable. Admit you really don't know, and you'd like to understand. (But really, Google first :)
I hope that's a somewhat helpful answer?