A Plan On How To Stop Sexism In Science 613
StartsWithABang writes: If there's nothing else that science has to offer, it's this elegant notion: that anyone, anywhere, at anytime, can investigate and uncover the mysteries and workings of the Universe simply by asking it the right questions in the right ways, listening to its answers, and putting the pieces together for themselves. Anyone can do it. Only, for various and sundry reasons, not everyone gets to do it. Some people don't have the economic ability, some don't have the sustained drive or interest, and some simply can't cut the mustard. But some people — some really, really good people — are driven from their passions for a sad, simple and completely unnecessary fact: that they were treated in unacceptable ways that they refused to just accept. And in a great many cases, that unacceptable treatment came simply because of their gender. Sexism sometimes looks like what you expect, and sometimes not. Here's one opinion on what we can all do about it to create the world we really want: where science really is for everyone.
Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
For gods sake, this again!
This is a good thing! (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a good thing!
The more that people get subjected to this social justice nonsense, the more they see it for the junk that it is, and the more they dislike it.
So I'm all for social justice articles all over the place. The harder the social justice crowd pushes their shit on everyday people, the quicker those people will come to resent social justice and those pushing it.
The social justice crowd will cause more harm to themselves and their cause just by being themselves and promoting their idiocy. We sh
Well you want offensive ? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.ashedryden.com/blog... [ashedryden.com]
Meritocracy is the belief that those with merit float to the top - that they should be given more opportunities and be paid higher.
We prize the idea of meritocracy and weigh merit on contribution to OSS. Those who contribute the most, goes the general belief, have the most merit and are deemed the most deserving. Those who contribute less or who don't at all contribute to OSS are judged to be without merit, regardless of the fact that they have less access to opportunity, time, and money to allow them to freely contribute.
As the people who exist within this supposed meritocracy don't exist within a vacuum, we also have to realize how our actions affect others. Meritocracy creates a hierarchy amongst the people within it. Some of those at the top or striving to at least be above other people have been guilty of using their power for bullying, harassment, and sexist/racist/*ist language that they use against others directly and indirectly. This creates an atmosphere where people who would otherwise be deemed meritorious within this system choose not to participate because of a hostile, unrewarding environment.
Yes if you contribute to OSS projects don't you dare think that's merit.
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Perhaps you are right, but perhaps you are misjudging what "merit" is actually being tested for with a company like MS.
Microsoft, despite those mediocre products, did something right... make money selling software. Is the job of a company like Microsoft to sell "good" software, or to sell a product, no matter what its value to specific application?
One might argue that they almost certainly worked on a meritocratic basis. They have excellent marketeers and strategists. Oh and some passable development tea
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Here's another example for you: If meritocracy were a real thing, GM and Chrysler would have gone out of business in the 1980s (probably Ford too).
1. Just because meritocracy is real doesn't mean changes happen instantly. GM and Chrysler WERE very good car companies at one time (and many people still think they are). If you think they aren't, that doesn't change history. It takes time to fall.
2. Maybe their meritocratic skill is in navigating politics and unions, not car making.
Re:Well you want offensive ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that's called inertia. In a real meritocracy, there'd be no inertia
Your definition of meritocracy is useless, because that's impossible. Even in the most perfect possible meritocracy, information only travels so fast (speed of light?), so not everybody can dump the erstwhile leader at the same instant. And of course, in reality, it takes much much longer. You don't know that GM's cars have suddenly become worthless for 5 or 6 years, because that's when they start breaking down.
Similarly, you don't know that Japanese cars have dramatically increased in quality because it took 20 years for people to start noticing "Hey there are all these 20 year old Toyota driving around, looking old and boxy, but still running great.. what's up."
How do you think you can get around the fact that measuring quality takes time? How does that fit into your definition of meritocracy having "no inertia?"
If (as you might contend) unions were dragging down the American automakers
No, you misunderstood, I was saying that the (surviving) American car companies showed skill in managing unions and politics. Perhaps that is the meritocracy... not who makes better cars, but who can survive in a hostile world. It takes some kind of skill to get a bailout, which is why Lehman Brothers isn't around, Countrywide isn't around, but Citibank is, Goldman is, etc.
Business isn't all about making the best product, in other words. The guy who makes a great product but can't keep up with his taxes, or mismanages labor and has all his workers go on strike, can still fail. That doesn't violate the concept of meritocracy because those are integral skills in business.
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Well, shit, would Obama have become President with this resume?
- Community organizer
- IL State Senator (quit after 2 years to run for US Senate)
- US Senator (quit after 2 years to run for President)
Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan had similar resumes to George W. Bush (I assume that's the one you're referring to) as former state governors. Were they all short on merit?
Your examples are shit.
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President of a large union.
Highly effective governor of California took the state from budget deficit to surplus.
Defined the modern conservative position with this speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Oh btw What a wonderful president that LBJ turned out to be / sarcasm
Re:Well you want offensive ? (Score:4, Informative)
Yep, inertia is a powerful thing.
Here's another example for you: If meritocracy were a real thing, GM and Chrysler would have gone out of business in the 1980s (probably Ford too).
Chrysler was on the brink of bankruptcy in 1981 (ish), but was bailed out. Then a few years ago - along with GM - they were on the brink of bankruptcy and were bailed out. Meritocracy (in the form of people spending their money) really tried to exert its will on the car companies.
Re:This is a good thing! (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely.
For goodness sake people. Grow a bit thicker skin and get on with life. Why would you let what someone says or how they act around you affect what YOU like to do or want to do? This world isn't about acceptance by everyone.
Sure, if someone is going out of their way to discriminate and keep you from employment or getting a job that's against the law.
But not playing nice with you is not the end of the world.
IN the real world, Mommy doesn't catch you when you fall and makes the boo-boo go away. Not everyone gets a trophy for just showing up. And no, not everyone is going to be nice to you and "friend" you on FB or whatever. There are idiots and jerks aplenty in this world, and you really don't have time in this short lifespan to waste effort on them...so, grow some thicker skin and learn to ignore someone that isn't nice or even taunting you. Move on and get things done.
This is nothing new....pretty much human behavior since the dawn of time.
Re:This is a good thing! (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me guess: Middle class, white male?
Re:Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how the headline and summary just unquestioningly accepts the premise that there is sexism in science and that something MUST be done about it--all based on the single data point that there are more men in STEM than women.
If an unbalanced gender ratio is all you need to prove sexism, then doesn't it follow that the Nursing and Elementary Education fields are even MORE sexist than STEM (and even more in need of attention)?
Re:Again? (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed, with statements like:
Most authority figures in my field aren’t sexist, aren’t sexually harassing anybody, and treat everyone based on their own merits as people.
How do we get "institutionalized sexism" from this?
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How do we get "institutionalized sexism" from this?
Feminist Handbook, page 1: "Its always institutional sexism."
Re:Again? (Score:4, Interesting)
I am willing to bet that the level of Sexism for Male Elementary School teachers, Male Nurses, and other Historically Female dominated positions, is much worse than when a Woman goes into a Male dominated position.
Ok, you get a job and you are the only Female worker there, you feel uncomfortable, I get that, but the same thing will happen if you are the only person of your particular Race, or Ethnicity.
When you are the minority you feel more threatened than what is actually happening. The problem of why it is hard to fix, is because for the larger part it isn't an external issue, but an internal issue.
Re: Again? (Score:5, Informative)
Men are actively rooted out of teaching roles, sweetheart. And scientists arent paid much more than nurses for the same level of education.
Re:Again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why aren't they bitching about trash collectors, construction workers, and cattle wranglers being mostly men?
Re:Again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget all those dangerous jobs in the energy industry, from mining to oil rigs to hanging out in Alaska to fracking.
But it's all par for the course for Feminism Fridays on slashdot.
Re:Again? (Score:5, Funny)
Think we could lobby to have the traditional green changed to more of a lavender color?
Come to think of it the entire /. name itself just screams patriarchy! I mean, come on, it looks like the penis of a semi-erect man on his back! Maybe we can rename the entire site parenthesis dot ( . ) to empower women more!
Re:Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
If nursing and elementary education paid the same as STEM
Ah! Maybe now we're getting somewhere.
Go on, ask me if I got into computers in the 1980s because my crystal ball predicted the dot com boom. I'd dearly like to give my seven year old self the credit for being some Warren Buffet Baby, anticipating the growth of the internet.
It's not true, though. I didn't get into my STEM career for money. I got into it because of passion. And that (along with grace and luck) is what I attribute my success to: I love what I do. Nobody and nothing was going to keep me away from computers, from the thing I loved. Not even the inability of my parents to afford anything but outdated second-hand computers. Certainly not by something as trivial as glancing at my ass as I walked out the door.
Show me a doctor who is a doctor for the money, and I will show you a doctor who isn't as good as another doctor who does the same job for the love of craft. The same thing holds true with woodworkers, sculptors, chefs, or convenience store clerks.
If you're trying to get or be involved with a STEM field, and you aren't experiencing the success that you see others experiencing, maybe it isn't because of some deep-rooted gender bias creeping into every person with whom you interact. Maybe it's because you're in it for the wrong reasons.
Re:Again? (Score:4, Interesting)
Except that every empirical experiment proves you are wrong about that.
Vet schools on average admit 4 males for ever female student admitted. But when the personal details on applications are obscured, so that the selection committees do not know the gender of applicants - it switches to 60/40 female selection !
What this means is that every woman who does become a vet had to work 4 times as hard and be 4 times as talented as the men who became vets. No amount of bullshit will make that NOT sexism or something the students can control.
3 quarters of the women who would be great vets are excluded to allowed in twice as many men who will at best be mediocre vets.
That's sexism in action.
Re:Again? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Again? (Score:5, Informative)
Since vet schools are 80% female, I assume you managed to accidentally reverse the genders here.
Re:Again? (Score:4, Interesting)
I gave one as an example.
More like "mentioned". I didn't get to read it.
They all confirmed what I said, there hasn't yet BEEN one that found the opposite.
I'm skeptical. I'm cursorily familiar with research which actually does call into question some of these gender pay gap studies, for example.
So I could say that I know EVERYTHING about the studies that questioned my beliefs - they all ended up confirming them when tested.
You could say that, but it would sound kind of kooky.
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Do yourself a favor sometime. Go to any University bookstore and browse through the textbooks for Electrical Engineering and Elementary Education. Then come back and tell me why they should pay equally.
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Teachers here make up to about $90k a year with a master's. Nurses make more with overtime, with a 4 year degree. They're still mostly women.
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You must be pretty naive. Why do you think companies like Google are actively discriminating against boys by having programs targeted at girls? Because they are secretly misogynists?
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The problem with "we must do something about it" is that it lets the "victim" off the hook. Instead of "victims" sucking it up and giving it back as good as they got it (or worse), we are feeding the victim mentality.
We should be encouraging women to "solve" this rather than "men" or "society at large". That kind of approach is ultimately the only way any real progress occurs. You can't liberate people. They have to take it for themselves.
The real problem isn't "those evil nerds". If anything, it's the same
Re: Your attitude is sexist (Score:5, Insightful)
The term "brogrammer" is kind of a shibboleth; if someone seriously talks about "brogramming" or the "brogramming culture", they're completely disconnected from reality. The whole "brogramming" thing was a hoax, an obvious joke based on the juxtaposition of the opposites of "nerds" and "bros". The press and blogs picked up on it as if it were real (it's still not clear which were in on the joke).
There's no "brogramming culture" where coders with popped collars drink Natty Bo and lift weights in one hand while pounding code in the other. There may be a few fake "brogrammers" out there in a life-imitates-art sort of way, and a few legitimate "bros" who are actually programmers, but "brogramming" was never a thing.
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If women are underpresented in some field, then of course they must be overpresented in some other, or underpresented in the workforce as a whole. So yes, not having enough men in Nursing and Elementary Education is part of the same problem. And Elementary Education is indeed a more important field to focus on, because it's where children get their first touch with Real World.
Yes, I always wonder why isn't that problem one we MUST SOLVE NOW(tm)? In fact, getting more men involved in primary education, nursing, and other fields would be a good way to balance out the genders in STEM. But I guess what the feminists want is for men in STEM to be fired and be unemployed, not for them to move to other jobs? I don't even know what they want anymore.
I also like that the automatic assertion that a gender imbalance anywhere must be sexism.
Re:Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually a LOT of people talk about that, its one of the most common topics of conversation... among feminists. I'm a member of a feminist group on facebook (many men are feminists too) - though I mostly prefer to just lurk - and that's one of the things female feminists talk about the most. The urgency of giving male rape victims the same support - because the lack of support for male rape victims come from the SAME patriarchal sexist ideas that punish female rape victims and the unjustness of a court system that assumes women to be more nurturing - a role any feminist will protest having foisted on her. Some women are very nurturing. Some men are very nurturing. Custody cases ought to be determined SOLELY based on the individuals concerned with no regard for their genders - THAT is the feminist position loud spoken by them ALL THE TIME.
And child support should be paid by the higher earning parent - that this is mostly a man is a consequence of that paygap I bet your about to deny exists.
Who keeps posting this garbage? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, what is this trash and why is it on slashdot?
And in a great many cases, that unacceptable treatment came simply because of their gender. [...] Here's one opinion on what we can all do about it to create the world we really want
You haven't proven there's a sexism problem, you simply dictated it like some kind of god. Where's the evidence? If it's there, link to it. If not, shut your hole and go find some before you come back.
Enough of this radfem nonsense.
Re:Who keeps posting this garbage? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is, nerds don't know what it's like being judged based on your interests, or how you look, or how you talk!
They are the most popular kids on campus, and always have been!
The other fact in this matter is that nerdy guys have always harshly judged women, but not the other way around. All women have ever had for nerdy men is love, and affection, and understanding. By contrast, nerdy guys have always been well known to be violent brutes to women. The phrase "white knight" refers to a nerdy guy who wants to kill all women (referring to the pale skin of a lovely woman, of course).
Re:Who keeps posting this garbage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who keeps posting this garbage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, the old 'we are abused, so we need someone below us in order to feel better!' argument.
That's not what they said. Not at all. What they said is more like a complaint about hypocrisy and double standards. "Why is this stuff only wrong when people like us do it, not when those who aren't like us, including the people who are complaining, do it to us?"
Nobody is out there writing 10 page think pieces on Medium about how we should not stare at overweight people with neck beards and man boobs because it might prevent them from coming out of their shells and pursuing their career in ballet.
Maybe I'll start listening to them when they get more consistent. For now, I just look at the SJW phenomenon as a bunch of privileged, spoiled brats looking for people to blame so that they can be victims and not at all responsible for the sorry condition of their own existence.
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I'm not sure whether to say this seriously or sarcastically, so I guess a little of both: just because you don't get anything you personally value out of your privilege doesn't mean you don't have it.
Likewise, just because you can baselessly attribute someone's position to "privilege" doesn't make it so. Lacking any salient basis for accusing me of succeeding through patronage, but having leveled the accusation anyway, what you've just done is prejudged me. Based on my gender.
Re:Who keeps posting this garbage? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would have thought the same too, not long ago. I don't think I've ever seen a woman being cat-called or made to feel uncomfortable by men simply because she's a woman. After all, I live in decent parts of Ontario.
Then a thread on Reddit [reddit.com] asked women when they became aware that they were being seen/treated sexually. Most of them were 10-14 years old, and they were being verbally and physically harassed by much older men (sometimes 4-5 times older). Someone compiled the women's ages [reddit.com].
I asked my SO about it. She also grew up in a quiet, relatively safe Ontario town. She confirmed that the same thing happened to her starting around age 12. When she was working in a market, around age 15, middle-aged men would wait until she was walking with big trays of food (and therefore couldn't protect herself) and grope her breasts and ass. This was common, and none of the other people around would say or do anything to help.
So just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not happening. It usually happens specifically when the girls have no one around to stand up for them. Talk to some of the women around you, and get their stories. Maybe things have changed, but I thought they had already changed in the '70s and '80s and I was wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
So you think that none of the 22,000+ posts on that Reddit thread were from the U.S.?
Just because you aren't aware of a problem doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
Oh, and a society based on vigilante justice is not a healthy one. We respect the rule of law for a reason.
Re:Who keeps posting this garbage? (Score:5, Informative)
/. recently published a story about a research article in which it was prove there is a gender bias in the hiring of academic faculty in the sciences...the bias was against male candidates. If women want to be treated as equals then stop demanding special treatment. Little wonder male children seek to change their birth gender in alarmingly high numbers these days. You rarely hear of women opting to become men through "gender reassignment" surgery and testosterone therapy.
Sure you hear about it all the time - you just haven't been listening. Searching for "female-to-male transsexual" or "male-to-female transsexual" yield about the same number of results.
Nobody goes for gender assignment to assume the privileges of the other gender - not with all the hassles, stigma, and damage to relationships and employment - this video ("Where's the dress") to the contrary [youtube.com]
Re:Who keeps posting this garbage? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm speaking specifically to transsexualism, which is a small subset of transgenderism. Transsexualism itself is no longer considered to be a psychological issue, and it has both elements of gene expression and physical brain development.
Of course it has psychological implications - but where did this "equating sexual attraction to a specific gender with the desire to become another gender" enter into the discussion? I think the post I was replying to was referring to favourable bias towards female candidates for jobs, not sex.
That being said, I agree with you that equating the two is a disreputed theory called (in m2f cases) autogynephilia, pushed by Ray Blanchard, J. Michael Bailey, and Anne Lawrence, which interpreted transsexualism in a sexual, rather than gender, context.
Re: (Score:3)
Except it's 2015, there's hardly a structural barrier keeping women out of STEM.
In fact girls are overly encouraged to study math and science. Celebrities and the media
tell girls it's cool to study science.
The thing is that college and graduate level science courses are hard, require practically a single-minded dedication to succeed in, and have very little social prestige. And even then there are plenty of women who graduate with hard science degrees (chemistry, physics, math) from 4-year colleges.
But then
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Are you kidding? EVERYONE is discouraged from entering STEM fields. It starts with this "nerd men are evil" narrative.
This society puts salesmen on a pedestal, not scientists or technicians.
Re:Who keeps posting this garbage? (Score:5, Informative)
There's an couple pat answers to that, though:
F: "Bad thing X happened to me! I'm being oppressed because of my gender!"
M: "Bad thing X happens to everyone"
F: "Stop mansplaining, shitlord oppressor!"
F: "Bad thing X happened to me! I'm being oppressed because of my gender!"
M: "What are you talking about? Bad thing X happens to me all the time"
F: "It's not about YOU, shitlord oppressor!"
How do stop sexism in science? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The perpetually offended are a cancer to the STEM master race.
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Re:How do stop sexism in science? (Score:4, Insightful)
Might be a good start. Women with actual skills and insights have no problems in the sciences and, no surprise, usually do not identify with what currently passes as "feminism". This whole thing is just an attempt to get women preferential treatment. That is as sexist as it sounds.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> Women with actual skills and insights have no problems in the sciences
Nonsense. There is a constant undercurrent in the hiring process of "what if she gets pregnant", even if such bias is outlawed in many states and even if it is never written into candidate review, much as "don't hire Americans, they cost too much" is not explicitly written into hiring policies. The bias is also demonstrated both statistically in overall hiring, and by numerous repetitions of the double blind experiment on scientific
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While I agree that this type of discrimination exists, you have to admit, it many STEM jobs, having somebody leave for a few months would be a pretty big concern. For many other jobs, it's not a huge problem to replace somebody when they need to take time off. For science and engineering, you are paying somebody for their knowledge. And in particular, you want to keep people around because they have gained a lot of specific knowledge about what goes on at your company. You can't just bring somebody in a
Re:How do stop sexism in science? (Score:5, Insightful)
That is a possibility. The women scientists I talked to about this have had experience in Western and Eastern Europe and the US. The field may also make a difference. Here it is EE and CS on master and PhD-level. Both fields are starved of good graduates and that may also play a role.
Still, blanket claims about "sexism in science" need to actually apply to most or all of the sciences in many or most geographical areas and they must come with supporting evidence. I see nothing of that here, and hence I suspect power-politics, not an actual problem. That would also fit the completely nonsensical "science is for everyone" statement, which is very, very far from the truth, but sounds good and is frequently used in areas where actually everybody is affected. A transparent attempt at emotional manipulation that falls flat on its face.
What I have encountered though was a small number of women that expected preferential treatment and got upset when they did not receive it. These were all at the low end of the skill-range. It is possibly that when faced with that, some scientists get unprofessional and say sexist things. That would be effect, not cause. And it would be reacting to sexism with sexism, which is not smart, but a heat of the moment thing, not a systematic problem.
Come to think of, I have heard some sexism from fellow students. I distinctively remember the statement (paraphrased) "These delicate ladies do not want to work hard.". That was from a female student that did work hard and had a very dim view of those trying to use their female charms to get by. (No, said student did look entirely fine, it was not an envy-thing at all, just disdain.)
Re:How do stop sexism in science? (Score:5, Informative)
I have been in STEM for 25 years and have not fund any indication that the claim is true, except for rare isolated instances that do not matter in the greater scheme of things. On the other hand, I have observed some women that did try to get by with their charms instead of scientific skills and hard work or that _expected_ preferential treatment and _they_ faced strong backlash and then claimed "discrimination" and such. Professional victims are a plague.
So, no, I am not ignorant. But I have actually looked at what is going on, because I expected to find something in these 25 years. I found nothing.
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One to screw in the lightbulb and a colloquium to discuss the implications of the bulb-socket binary’s role in supporting the phallocracy, as well as the social constructs that the word “screw” promotes.
Before you crucify me, that is a feminist joke from a feminist's page
http://latinafeminista.com/fem... [latinafeminista.com]
Just happens to be pretty damn funny too.
Re:How do stop sexism in science? (Score:4, Insightful)
When these feminists demand to be included in the selective service and the draft, then we can talk. Until then its not about equality, its about special treatment for themselves at the expense of others.
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Even (most of) the ones in the military now don't want equality, and can barely handle it if they get close to it.
http://news.yahoo.com/inspirin... [yahoo.com]
Male finishing a 12 mile march, with 40 pounds of equipment, walks to finish line with no problem.
Female finishing behind him is barely able to stand, collapses to the ground, and needs encouragement to keep going.
And she expects to be able to be in a combat support role.
Lets all stop pretending (Score:5, Insightful)
That feminism is still all about equality of opportunity, and acknowledge that it in fact about equality of outcome, regardless of merit or ability.
Re: Lets all stop pretending (Score:5, Insightful)
More and more I suspect feminism is a hate movement, eager to destroy all things masculine.
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A large portion of it is. Not all of it, but the most vocal part.
Re:Lets all stop pretending (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lets all stop pretending (Score:4, Insightful)
People tend to overlook that in attacking this, one is also saying that women simply do not have as much merit and ability as men. And then people are surprised when they are called sexist for it.. it shows just how deeply ingrained the idea of female inferiority is in their minds... that the natural order, which just happens to disproportionately benefit them, is simply the way nature intended and any attempt to question that is somehow hurting them.
Not necessarily. My personal opinion is that the skills and thought processes needed in some disciplines simply might not be interesting to people who have more estrogen than testosterone in their blood.
It is curious that this kind of movement always seems to be only interested in obtaining safe, high-paying, white-collar jobs for women. If there is any hint that a job might be Difficult, Dangerous, or Dirty, there is no real push to put women in those roles, even when the pay is high. I have never met a single female welder, for example. A good welder is patient, deliberate, and if the directions don't line up with the situation, they need to ask for further directions. If you wanted to pick a gender most suited for that, would you pick a man? I wouldn't. Yet because it is (very mildly) dangerous, often dirty, and sometimes difficult, most women don't seem to be interested.
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It is curious that this kind of movement always seems to be only interested in obtaining safe, high-paying, white-collar jobs for women. If there is any hint that a job might be Difficult, Dangerous, or Dirty, there is no real push to put women in those roles, even when the pay is high. I have never met a single female welder, for example. A good welder is patient, deliberate, and if the directions don't line up with the situation, they need to ask for further directions. If you wanted to pick a gender most suited for that, would you pick a man? I wouldn't. Yet because it is (very mildly) dangerous, often dirty, and sometimes difficult, most women don't seem to be interested.
Women in fact are better welders on average than men. They just don't want those jobs for some reason, even though they are often high paying.
it's not a plan, it's just some dude blathering (Score:5, Interesting)
TSIA. It's meaningless pap.
"I am saying that you have a responsibility to treat every person that comes throughâSâ"âSnot only your work life but your life in generalâSâ"âSwith kindness and respect."
No, REALLY?
A PLAN would be something like: ....because until you extract one of the fundamental drives from our cells (in fact, one might say it is THE drive, as reproduction is the sole reason that there exists a male gender in the first place), men are not going to stop noticing - and reacting - to women.
1) "De-program the mating instinct from humanity"
2) Now watch men treat women more like each other.*
*personally, I believe what women are objecting to is, in a way, men treating them like each other. Obviously, not superficially; but men are competitive as hell, I daresay it's almost instinctive. And the guy who would actively demean or denigrate a woman because of her gender is the same sort of personality that would do the same thing to another man if he's brown, or from Minnesota, or had anything that could be used as such leverage.
Simultaneously, we all can easily trot out examples of women getting special treatment because they're female. Wearing a little lower-cut shirt than they needed to in that tough interview? A little eye contact gets her a free drink? Men will generally stop treating women as sex objects when they - throughout their lives - stop encountering women acting like that.
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>Of course you can make sweeping generalizations about biological sexes: Men have a penis, women have a vagina.
And you would be dead wrong on every level. Firstly there are NOT two biological sexes, - humans have at least 8 and every biologist will tell you it's probably more. There are 14 possible ones, we've actually OBSERVED 8 - and xx/xy is definitely not the only one. A lot of transgender and intersex people have chromosomic combinations like xxy or xyy for example - so when she says she's a woman w
Oh, good. (Score:2)
This is going to go well.
The Nerd Shaming Will Continue Until Morale Improv (Score:5, Insightful)
There is only one way to stop sexism in science. Nerds must be shamed, harshly and often.
Nerd must be shamed:
- for being male;
- for being white;
- for being cisgendered;
- for being american;
- for being educated;
- for being tech saavy;
- for playing video games;
- for playing tabletop games;
- for reading sci-fi;
- for being sighted;
- for having two hands;
- for not getting out enough;
- for getting out enough;
- for having parents;
- for not posting trigger warnings;
- for voting Republican;
- for voting Democrat;
- for voting;
- for not voting;
- etc
Nerds must be shamed for all these and more. Constantly. It is only by breaking the collective morale and free spirit of the Internet generation that we can hope to instill the true sense of camaraderie and globalism that the tech industry needs to grow and profit in the post-digital age. Positive change is only possible through negative reinforcement. You can lead a horse to water, but he must be beaten into drinking it.
Nerds will never become tolerant or accepting on their own. They cannot be saved, and their zealous adherence to outdated concepts of equality, meritocracy, and free speech are holding tech companies back. Shaming is best way of gentling this disgusting race of geeks who currently dominate tech. We must rip open their cozy-caves of childish solice, their fortresses of nerdy solitude, and all their conventions and creative workplaces, and there smear the disinfecting lights of inter-sectionalism, sexual politics, and identity politics all over their protesting bodies, minds, and souls until they have no more energy to resist. Only then will tech be finally free from rape culture.
Re: (Score:3)
Pointless (Score:3)
It's evolution in action. Men who don't "chase skirt" are not as likely to produce offspring, so that group has the tendency to stay small.
Woman in Tech Here (Score:5, Interesting)
Apologies for length but this issue is sorely getting on my nerves.
I realize that the goal of a lot of these campaigns and whatnot is so that we develop gender-blindness so that women can succeed, yada-yada, but when was the last time that the submitters actually asked any women who frequent this site how they feel.
The alarming frequency of how much I hear about how women in tech need to be helped because OMG sexism!!! is really standing on my very last nerve (and this isn't just in tech, it's in a lot of areas...in the past two weeks, on my Facebook feed alone, I saw a semi-famous internet guy shilling the "poverty is sexist" hashtag and coordinating charity because "women are affected more by poverty than men", the church I just quit put out a fact sheet that men were 95% of perpetrators of domestic abuse, and in addition to Hack Reactor's generous need-blind deferment of tuition, they're now offering scholarships to women...all of which I find to be dubious, or at best moderately short-sighted, to say nothing of the fact that anyone who would question the goodness and purity of the intentions behind any of these MUST be an MRA, which is a group I find to be wildly misunderstood anyway). Never mind all the pro-woman people I know who aren't even in tech pushing the wage gap myth.
It's almost like there's a concerted campaign out there to get people tilting at windmills or something.
Okay, I'm not a typical woman, bear in mind - a number of my "guy friends" like to point out I come across as more male than female, sometimes even more they themselves do. But hear me out for a little bit.
The issue as I see it is not that there isn't sexism - there most certainly is, and yes, I've experienced it. The issue is that all of this fear-mongering is wildly and substantially overblown.
I will say it again. YES, there are sexist men out there. YES, not enough people call it out. YES, there is real injustice out there.
BUT:
YES, women can be sexist too, and I find all of these alarmist cries of sexism to be making it all worse, not better. Women become suspicious of men, and start to believe that 10% of M&Ms are poisonous garbage. Suddenly all men are suspect, and what's that called? SEXISM. But either way, there isn't nearly as much sexism or even as many bad-actors as you might think out there, and if you think so, stop watching so much television.
YES, not enough people call it out, but what do you really think people are supposed to do about it? Most people don't want to get caught up in other people's drama, because if they do, they don't know how to handle it. If we all knew how to tackle all the world's problems, we wouldn't HAVE problems.
YES, there is plenty of injustice in the world, but if we keep drawing arbitrary lines, like male vs. female, then what's going to happen is we're always going to look for those dividing lines everywhere. If all you're looking for is faults, eventually that's all you're EVER going to see. More than that, it doesn't help with equality or gender-blindness. It fact, it's counter-productive. It makes one side suspicious of the other. It creates warring factions.
You can have equality - a notion that assumes women are capable of all the things that men are, including handling their own problems - or you can have the notion that women are somehow handicapped and need gentler handling. Pick one. Pick only one. You can't have both. Not yours.
Women, if you want to be respected in tech, show up, do good work, be reliable and dependable, and for the love of Christ, stop pointing out that you're a woman. Far fewer people care that you're a woman than you think, they just want to make sure deadlines are met and profits are made. Making it about sexism doesn't make a conducive working environment and you're not helping ANY other women at all. And if sexism is so pervasive that you can't succeed, leave. Sometimes the best thing you can do is admit that the problem is much bigger than you. There ar
Wow, thank you (Score:4, Interesting)
Thank you for your comment. I've been saying much the same thing for - it seems like - forever. But it's one thing coming from a guy (even though my wife is in tech, and agrees with all of this), and entirely another coming from a woman.
"there are sexist men out there"
I would put it even more generally: There are jerks out there. Men and women both. That is, unfortunately, just the way life is...
"You can have equality - a notion that assumes women are capable of all the things that men are, including handling their own problems - or you can have the notion that women are somehow handicapped and need gentler handling. Pick one."
This. Exactly this.
Re: (Score:3)
Even worse, when it's a man saying it, it's "mansplaining", but when a woman says it, it may carry some authority, or some may even claim it's "internalized misogyny".
Re:Woman in Tech Here (Score:5, Insightful)
They use the top 5% of men to generalize, campaign, and demand laws about reducing men's success--for the other 95%.
If you did that with the genders reversed, it'd be called sexist as hell.
There are strong men, there are weak men, and to assume that every man somehow knows how to negotiate, step up for himself, and get a wall street job is insane. At the same time these feminists are arguing that gender is a spectrum, except when it's "evil men who control everything." It's laughable.
Defending women is often based on sexism (Score:3)
It manifests differently, but it is sexism all the same. Many of the "defender of women" types really do see women as weaker, inferior. These poor little flowers just can't, CAN'T stand up for themselves. They need guys to help them out so that things can be fair! So don't worry, fair lady, they'll protect you from the evil men... unless of course you disagree with them in which case they'll attack your fiercely for having "internalized misogyny" or some such. After all, you can't be strong enough to have y
Is this sexism? (Score:2, Informative)
Posting anon because I'm in a STEM academic field.
First off I don't know what kind of places the author worked at. I saw that kind of behavior when I was a young TA, where the age differences between "teacher" and "student" were very small, but in my professional life I see my fellow professionals acting...well, professionally. I of course may have internal biases and filters that may prevent me from seeing everything like this, but without hard evidence of these scenarios either way, that's all we have.
The
"Whether or not you believe there’s a proble (Score:4, Insightful)
What an antithetical beginning to scientific thinking.
The proof thus far of rampart sexism in science is at best contradictory, and especially now, this push seems to have the flavor of if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes fact.
Also, I see no reason why women should be singled out in this regard with a myriad of social injustices that take place. By the HDI, they are a privileged class.
Right now there is a Supreme Court case pending of how affirmative action ends up being discriminatory to Asians, similar in effect to quota systems to keep Jews from higher education.
I caution attempts at social engineering result in greater injustices than those they seek to fight against.
This is too much. (Score:3)
I've spent now more than a decade in academia, and I've always had women colleagues, during msc, during phd, after phd. Not many, naturally (fairly typical CS/IT ratios), and even today from the 9 senior (young postdocs and "older" postdocs) in our lab onyl 2 are women - which I think is a fairly average ratio in our field. None of my earlier or current female colleaues/coworkers had such negative experiences as the blog post is about. That doesn't mean others didn't, but sometimes I have the feeling such stories are a bit overreacting and over-generalizing.
Personally, I wouldn't mind to see more women in scientific fields, but I couldn't care less if there weren't any either. I just never thought about such numbers as ratios as being an issue. It certainly never occurred to me - or anyone I've ever spoke about such topics - that women couldn't perform in our field, since I know from experience that they can, furthermore, most women I know - personally or because of their results and publications - in our field are really exceptional in their areas, very many of them are much better than me or some of my colleagues
So, tl;dr, sexism and gender issues: don't care.
Real world looking more like Harrison Bergeron (Score:3)
When I read that story [wikipedia.org] as a kid, it seemed absolutely absurd to me. How could such a society ever even come to be?
Now I understand. God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut
I have a much more pressing question (Score:3)
I Swear I'm Going To Open Berkeley Burqas (Score:4, Insightful)
The professor who’d talk to a student professionally and politely, then stare at her rear end while she walked away.
Oh yes, how terrible. Great think piece, Sir Galahad.
If people looking at your ass makes you uncomfortable, wear clothes that obscure your ass. That's what clothes are for, covering the parts of your body that you don't want others to see.
..then stare at her rear end while she walked away (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it possible to find a woman both attractive and intelligent at the same time? I certainly believe so. The author makes it sound like the moment you pay any attention to a woman's physico-social attractiveness, you automatically disregard her academic abilities.
IMHO, it's basically the same thing that happens between any people in a professional setting, with or without sexual compatibility. You get along better with some people than others, and this has an effect on your professional collaborations. We don't simply treat other people as computers or data stores for the professional stuff - is this what the author wants?
Women need to make just one cultural change (Score:3)
Discussions like this always center on the need to make science less 'male' in the sense of getting rid of locker-room humor or, once the academic battleaxes really get going, humor of any kind.
But if women are going to meet us halfway and make the most of their talents in STEM, they too need to make one change..
Stop being afraid of everything!/b
Yes, please stop sexism in science... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:really everyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fact of the matter is, most people cannot do science. Yes, that also means most women cannot. That means doing science is for almost nobody. Apparently, some people are pushing for the "skill" and "insight" requirement to be abolished for women. The quagmire that is "gender studies" shows nicely where that will lead.
Also, having been in science for quite a while, I have yet to find the first instance of sexism and none of several female colleagues had any examples for it happening "in science" either or for being held back when doing a PhD. Sure, they all had to do real work and overcome real obstacles, but not in any way different from what male PhD candidates have to do. This whole thing is a transparent move to acquire more power, not to fix any existing problem.
Re:really everyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
> Fact of the matter is, most people cannot do science.
Fact is, most people can do science. While few will have the tremendous insights of an Einstein, most people can observe, record, and _verify_ data, and especially note and report details that don't match the models they understand. That data gathering and verification, and that concern for data that does not fit the model, is a vital part of science that almost every human can participate in.
Re: (Score:3)
While few will have the tremendous insights of an Einstein, most people can observe, record, and _verify_ data
Dealing with customer bug reports, it has become very clear to me that most people are terrible observers.
Re: (Score:3)
There's a wide plain between Einstein (who was a theoretical scientist anyway and didn't observe, record, and verify data) and a technician whose only role is to observe, record, and verify data. The GP was referring to PhDs in science, whose role involves making models to explain the data that they collect, not just collecting data and applying it to models that somebody else made.
While anybody can observe, record, and verify data (which isn't even remotely true and many people trained in science are terri
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy to stop SJW, look at them instead and ask them questions.
Why is only 5% of Hollywood and TV directors women?
Why do women in Hollywood make significantly less than men for top roles?
Why does Mrs. Clinton pay women on her staff 87 cents for each dollar she pays men?
Why does Obama pay women 78 cents for each dollar he pays men on his staff?
Sexism is far more rampant from the left/SJW crowd. That's because no one is supposed to ask them about it, but go ahead and ask them and watch their complaints disapp
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does Mrs. Clinton pay women on her staff 87 cents for each dollar she pays men?
Why does Obama pay women 78 cents for each dollar he pays men on his staff?
Probably because both of those statistics derive from studies using flawed/dishonest methodology?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Women studies are sexist because there are no men studies
If only there was a way to check whether such a thing exists before making bald and incorrect factual claims:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=men's+stu... [lmgtfy.com]
Well, whadya know? Apparently men's studies is a thing. Who knew (apart from google, of course), eh?
Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a course in men's studies it is called HISTORY.
History is gender neutral. It talks about all things that happen whether women or men were involved. Women's studies specifically studies women in history. Men's studies doesn't exist because there would be outrage.
This is similar to racism. There is Black studies and there is Mexican studies, there is Islam studies, but if there was White studies, there would be outrage.
There are beauty pageants specifically for Blacks and for Latinos, and then there are beauty pageants that must allow everybody. If there was a beauty pageant that only allowed whites, there would be outrage. Same with awards shows.
Racism and feminism are big business. This is why the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson continue to promote and incite racism and racial divisionism in this country. If we could get past the "something bad happened to a black guy" and get it down to "something bad happened to a person", then we would be making real progress, but the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons of the world would be out of business.
Re: (Score:3)
Abolish women studies/gender studies
Women studies are sexist because there are no men studies and both produce crazy sexist feminazis.
For the rest, act cool.
In my opinion, women studies is school sanctioned hate speech.
Why is it acceptable to teach women to hate men...
You don't build by dividing, you only destroy.
Yes. Take Lifetime TV for example. It seems to exist solely to teach women that all men are rapists, wife beaters, cheaters and murderers. I am not sure if this to try to teach them all to hate men and become lesbians, or whether it is to teach them that since all men are evil, they should settle for the first guy who beats them, or somewhere in between. But whatever they are doing, it is extremely irresponsible and promotes division among genders.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Do we really need a artcle about so called sexi (Score:4, Insightful)
And oddly enough, I see women as privileged.
Guess how well that plays with them?
Re:Do we really need a artcle about so called sexi (Score:4, Insightful)
Women are paid the same as men and have been since the 1970s. The pay gap statistic is wrong.
First, it conflates all workers on the basis of education and does not factor whether people actually followed through with those careers.
Second, it counts total life time earning power to get to 72 percent and which means the years women often take off work to care for children are counted the same as the years men stay in their jobs working.
Third, when professions are matched, they're typically only matched by industry. So a person working in the office of a coal mine is counted the same as someone working in the actual coal mine.
These errors and many more render the pay gap statistic meaningless. It was disproven in the 1970s pretty much instantly by the first academic that reviewed it. But shameless politicians, lying interest groups, and hack ideological professors bring it out with some regularity to dupe the gullible.
You see the same thing with Malthus's theories on population. Crypt-communists love bringing him up... but they rarely point out that Malthuse's theories were disproven in his own time, he personally disavowed them, and the whole thesis was based on the fact that the Irish were starving to death while ignoring that the British were literally exporting food from Ireland in the middle of a fucking famine.
Look, if you want to have beliefs, that is fine. You are entitled to believe whatever you want. However, you are not entitled to make up your own facts. Either make an argument that does not rest on facts what so ever or fit your argument TO the facts.
If you did that, you'd drop the whole gender disparity thing and go find something else to bitch about.
Re: (Score:3)
Malthus pointed out that population, given enough food, grows exponentially, while food production isn't going to. Therefore, unless there was some way of limiting fertility, population was always going to outrun resources. As it happens, giving women equality or a reasonable facsimile of, including education and birth control methods, lowers the fertility rate. This was not understood until fairly recently, and could not have been understood in Malthus' time.
Re: (Score:3)
You just responded to a thoughtful, detailed, logical post with a "can't get a girlfriend joke", but you're the one complaining about the tenor of the conversation? How is it even possible to be so shameless?
Re: (Score:3)
Way to display your bias there buddy. People are pointing out that the incessant harping on "this is sexist", "that is sexist", "everything is sexist" being counter-productive and your knee jerk reaction is to call people using a non-derogatory term (SJW), "Douchebags".
The reason why the term SJW is becoming pejorative is precisely due to reactions like yours from people who see no common ground.
Re:I read the article (Score:5, Insightful)
You want to know how to really contribute to the problem? Tell women that their co-workers, who will be largely male, are a horrible bunch of sexists who will mistreat them based on their gender. If they don't quit right there, teach them that any action those men take is a "microaggression" directed at them as a result of their gender. Teach them that the appropriate response to these "microaggressions" is to be extremely upset and angry, possibly to file a complaint with management or HR. Tell them (and convince HR) that a man defending himself from such a complaint is itself sexism and oppression. This will ensure the women always believe they are being oppressed, that they always feel uncomfortable, and that their male co-workers will never feel comfortable with them and will be apprehensive if they are anywhere around.
Then, once you've done this, blame the toxic environment you've created on male sexism. It's a positive feedback loop.