Female here and longtime lurker before registering somewhat recently. The only time I feel very cognizant of the gender imbalance is in comments of articles about the lack of women in tech. Some amount of introspection on how to be welcoming to everyone is good, but the constant drumbeat of articles on the "woman question" definitely increases my feelings of "otherness". These pieces and the comments that follow are often addressed toward men as if there are no women present.
I think that some ongoing discussion of the STEM gender gap and other difficult group introspection is useful and important and I hope we can navigate the line between being self-aware and beating a field of dead horses.
Anyway my interest in this now annual survey (and the short-lived sexual orientation survey and the hypothetical race survey) is more self-serving and not so much about how to solve a problem. I'm interested in a profile on HN, as a community, to help me decide how much attention to pay / weight to give to elements of certain discussions here. If we're just a straight white dude monoculture then I want to factor that into my thinking. Come to think of it, I'd be interested to learn about the overall gender / age / ethnicity / sexual orientation / religion / country of origin demographics of other groups that I sometimes pay attention to (like Interesting People) especially when the community has a voting role in discussion moderation (like HN or reddit).
> These pieces and the comments that follow are often addressed toward men as if there are no women present.
Or perhaps they're comments that the writer believes are gender-neutral, so the gender of the reader isn't an issue? This is obviously not always true, but it might be in some cases that are misread as being male comments directed toward other men.
> Some amount of introspection on how to be welcoming to everyone is good, but the constant drumbeat of articles on the "woman question" definitely increases my feelings of "otherness".
The "woman question" wording isn't really the most common phrasing, and it certainly sounds exclusionary.
In all such exchanges, there are some encouraging facts:
1. Mathematics doesn't care about your gender.
2. Code doesn't care about your gender.
3. A properly run code project doesn't care about your gender, only whether you can code.
Expressed another way, the basics of code development are gender-neutral, and where people are involved, a certain amount of direct experience will persuade most people that your results are worth supporting.
As to being excluded in a more social sense, the best way to defeat that is not to care about it. It's basic human psychology that not caring about acceptance will make the other group members wonder why you don't care, which naturally enough and quickly makes you an insider.
> As to being excluded in a more social sense, the best way to defeat that is not to care about it. It's basic human psychology that not caring about acceptance will make the other group members wonder why you don't care, which naturally enough and quickly makes you an insider.
You can't seriously believe this. This same argument is made in gaming about issues people have with how women are treated and depicted within that industry: "If you don't bring it up and act like it's a problem, people won't think it's a problem and therefore it won't happen." It's a total crock, not "basic human psychology".
Hateful people don't care that they're the minority; they'll type in all-caps, call you a crybaby, show up with their guns out for all to see, call you sheeple and claim their truth is the real truth regardless of their numbers.
>> As to being excluded in a more social sense, the best way to defeat that is not to care about it. It's basic human psychology that not caring about acceptance will make the other group members wonder why you don't care, which naturally enough and quickly makes you an insider.
> You can't seriously believe this.
Yes, it's true, and it's the most basic kind of psychology. One doesn't need to spend much time as an adult before seeing scores of examples.
> This same argument is made in gaming about issues people have with how women are treated and depicted within that industry: "If you don't bring it up and act like it's a problem, people won't think it's a problem and therefore it won't happen."
You just changed the subject, and it's not remotely the "same argument". I'm talking about perceptions of exclusivity and being or not being an insider on purely psychological grounds. You're talking about proactive behavior toward women.
> Hateful people don't care that they're the minority; they'll type in all-caps, call you a crybaby, show up with their guns out for all to see, call you sheeple and claim their truth is the real truth regardless of their numbers.
Faced with that, you have three choices -- the first two are ignore them or have them arrested. If what they do isn't an arrestable offense, if it's "free speech", then ignore them. If you cannot ignore them and can't arrest them, then we have a case of PyCon syndrome -- an impasse in which everyone gets hurt and no one benefits.
The third choice should be obvious -- for those women who can't stand the behavior of men, they should start their own tech companies -- an occupation for which women are fully qualified -- and turn the tables on the overgrown adolescents. There is venture capital ready to support women's companies, there is plenty of political support, and there are plenty of talented women. Let men collide with a glass ceiling for a change.
But you know what? The day when women could blame men for their professional and economic problems has passed. It's unseemly, out of date and it contradicts everyday reality.
You must be missing the weekly blog entries by women on harassment in the workplace and at industry functions that get posted and subsequently flagged and responded to with "Not this again," and "Why is this on Hacker News?" I initially wrote "avoiding" but it makes sense you'd miss them since they hardly ever get on the front page (despite how often people complain they do).
You must also gloss over all of the threads relating to women-only events and women-centric ventures wherein the comments boil down to "Why do women need this? How is actively excluding themselves going to help us as a whole?" and "Great, now they'll feel like even specialer snowflakes." When Github announced that they were doing on-site talks by women for women, the comments broke out in fears that men were not allowed to show up and how bothersome this "trend" was and how disappointed they would be in Github for allowing such.
And your point that the exclusion is purely psychological is unfortunate. I was oblivious to gender issues until I started experiencing them for myself. The outright discrimination was degrading and unexpected and if I hadn't started building websites because of the love of the craft and that I started doing so in a community dominated by women, I probably would have reconsidered my life's path right then and there.
Lastly, while I understand you mean well by your other comments (re: men and women really being no different), I don't think a man can speak on behalf of any female-identifying persons' "everyday reality."
I'm particularly enjoying how ignorance of the state of the industry leads to victim-blaming. Telling women who are continuing to deal with these issues in their "everyday realities" that it's all in their heads is the exact attitude that is perpetuating this mess.
Some men honestly don't see it. I have upvoted a lot of your remarks here and I hope it opens some eyes, but I mostly prefer a less confrontational path forward. (Not saying you should.) Just saying that if you think you will change this person's mind, you are likely mistaken. If that is not your goal, hey, you go girl.
Thanks for your support, Mz. After reading "Guess what? Men don't possess this kind of self-doubt. They don't start arguments, they start companies.", I am officially out of words (but at least I had a few laughs). Knowledge and understanding don't come as an all-inclusive package, and it is a shame we see otherwise smart folks speaking so authoritatively on topics that are deep and multi-faceted and begin at birth, so-much-so that they couldn't possibly understand them (just as I cannot speak on behalf of someone else's life experiences and do not wish to). Ah well, just another day.
It's not a question of not seeing it, it's a question of dwelling on it, allowing it to degrade one's effectiveness. You need to realize that men face the same kinds of erosive, degrading comments from their peers, but they (at least successful men) process them differently -- they ignore all but the constructive suggestions. And so do successful women.
More constructively: your advice is not really actionable if your premise is that one must have the same emotions as you and think the way you do. And people can't just rewire their brains because a man on the Internet says their problems are all in their head.
I sometimes wonder why people are so desperate to craft a position that the other person has never taken. Want to constructively discuss issues? Limit yourself to thing the other person has actually said.
My statement is that men have chosen a more effective way to deal with erosive influences, and it's a behavior that women can and should adopt -- not by imitating men, but by adopting a more effective approach to negative influences. There's no gender dimension to it.
If I had said that gerbils have a more effective adaptation, would you have the right to ask, "So you want everyone to become a gerbil?"
> And people can't just rewire their brains because a man on the Internet says their problems are all in their head.
You need to stop inventing imaginary positions for other people. I never said or implied what you claim. My remarks address, not the original influences, but constructive ways to deal with them.
> Telling women who are continuing to deal with these issues in their "everyday realities" that it's all in their heads is the exact attitude that is perpetuating this mess.
Yes, so it's a good thing I never said any such thing, anywhere, ever. It's not in your head, it's real -- so start your own company and exclude the overgrown adolescents. But you need to stop blaming men -- there's no point and it makes you look childish.
At a certain age, usually early teens, everything is the fault of one's parents. Isn't it nice that we all outgrow that phase, move on to the kind of personal accountability that validates other people's trust in us?
Correct -- if there are no legal or practical remedies, to focus on the speech or behavior can only waste time and energy. That's what the PyCon episode ought to have taught all of us -- it was purely negative in its outcome, for all involved.
> That's a great way to avoid holding anyone accountable for their peers' behavior or their own behavior.
Read the history of the PyCon episode before deciding that sounding an alarm at every slight is a constructive choice. The PyCon episode (which was based on speech, not behavior) is a perfect example of what goes wrong when everything is reinterpreted as a gender issue. It also shows the danger of escalation -- when the reaction is a bigger offense than the original stimulus.
> The way to address this is to call people out on their sexist bullshit and force them to own it, not to ignore it and thereby grant tacit approval.
If I believed that, I would call people out on their clear (reverse) sexist bullshit expressed in this exchange. But it's not worth it -- it's not important, it's below my personal radar, and I have better ways to spend my time. But clearly this is not true for everyone, for example those desperate to retain their victim status at a time of declining justification and rationale for that perception and status.
Better to ask yourself which actions move women forward faster -- constructive engagement with activities that will improve the status of women, or unconstructive complaints about imagined slights, or as a recent correspondent put it here a week ago, "microaggressions".
When I read the "microaggressions" meme, I almost fell off my chair. How can anyone think reacting to "microaggressions" represents constructive behavior?
Bottom line -- if the activity is simple speech, not a direct action that discriminates, you're better off ignoring it. Oversensitivity -- turning everything into a gender issue -- does more harm than good. It falsely portrays women as powerless victims whose ascending status can be undermined by words.
> You must also gloss over all of the threads relating to women-only events and women-centric ventures wherein the comments boil down to "Why do women need this? How is actively excluding themselves going to help us as a whole?"
Guess what? Men don't possess this kind of self-doubt. They don't start arguments, they start companies. All evidence says that women could easily do as well or better, if they choose.
> I don't think a man can speak on behalf of any female-identifying persons' "everyday reality."
After you get done building the make-believe wall between men and women you clearly intend to build and defend, start your own company. Let men experience a glass ceiling for a change. Or are you satisfied to complain about men without actually doing anything about it?
In all seriousness, a strategy of blaming men is a non-starter. It worked when women had no vote and no rights, but those days are long past. The "it's all the fault of men" meme has expired -- apart from being out of date, it lacks credibility.
> So you're claiming that there is never any good that comes from speaking up against discrimination unless the law is involved?
Why, in discussions like this, do people struggle so hard to invent position the other person has never taken?
> How do you think laws get made?
No, the operative question is how do you think it happens? A group's wishes are compared to the wishes of other groups and to the Constitution. If the Constitution isn't violated and there's a public mandate (meaning there is something other than two equal groups, one for, one against), then there might be a new law.
> She quit because of the abuse.
Already answered -- let her start her own company. That's what a man would do in the same circumstances, and women are just as qualified as men to start a company. Or do you disagree?
> That's a professional and economic problem.
Yes, and it is one that women need to solve without trying to blame men for their problems. The sell-by date on that idea has passed.
Women need to wake up to the fact that there's no longer a man standing in the road, obstructing the path to the future -- only a straw man, one invented by women.
My favorite feminist anecdote took place during the MacArthur administration in Japan after the end of World War II. As part of MacArthur's constitutional reforms, women were immediately given the right to vote.
After the first election, the number of elected women became a matter of public comment -- they were elected in greater numbers than the pollsters had predicted. The newly enfranchised women were asked about it, and many said, "Oh, we thought we were only allowed to vote for women. Sumimasen (small bow)."
Sorry, but not being a woman, how would you know whether or not men are standing in the way? And in what respect are you qualified to pronounce women's complaints invalid? Yeah, whoever accused you of mansplaining upthread has your number.
Your premise rests on the idea that in order to get along with men, women must behave like men, in a system originally designed by and for men. And if they don't succeed, well, it's their fault because it's past the sell-by date.
Good call. You neatly absolve men from any responsibility, and completely disappear the uneven playing field. (Starting your own business is a non-answer— you're again playing the "have you tried acting like a man" card.)
> Sorry, but not being a woman, how would you know whether or not men are standing in the way?
That viewpoint is innately sexist. It essentially says only women can interpret women's experiences. If that were true (it's not) then by the same rationale only men can interpret men's experiences, which means women have no right to complain about men's motivations or behavior. So think before you post.
Women spend much of their time freely interpreting men's behavior, for example whether it's acceptable or not as though only a woman's perspective on men's behavior has validity, but when a man does the same thing, it's a sexist offense.
> Your premise rests on the idea that in order to get along with men, women must behave like men ...
Locate where I said or implied this. To get along with men, women must behave like people first and foremost (as do men). Your remarks continue the currently fashionable trend of reinterpreting everything as a gender issue. But in fact, much of human experience is not affected by gender -- certainly not technical or scientific activities, the present context. Good code, good mathematics, good scientific research, has no gender.
> ... in a system originally designed by and for men.
Living in the past will get you nowhere. Humans evolved in a world most recently shaped by and for prehuman simians. Did that hinder us? Not at all -- we reshaped the world to suit our needs. Now reshape yours.
> Starting your own business is a non-answer ...
Okay, I get it -- you really, really want to remain a victim. If you can't blame men for your problems, there are no other options. How do you think creative men and women deal with situations they find intolerable? Steve Wozniak repeatedly petitioned his managers at Hewlett-Packard to accept and produce his design for a personal computer, but failing at this, he left the company and started his own.
Marissa Mayer has a similar background -- Mayer joined Google in 1999 as employee number 20 and was the company's first female engineer. She eventually left Google and is now the CEO of Yahoo. Imagine how far she would have gotten by instead complaining about the very real sexism at Google and elsewhere.
Early in life, men learn that they have to build something positive, that to perpetually complain about how the world is arranged is a dead end. Many women learn this too, but it's voluntary.
> Starting your own business is a non-answer— you're again playing the "have you tried acting like a man" card.
Ah, so, based on the above quote, you believe than only men can start businesses. If I said that, you would have the right to call it a sexist and outrageous claim.
I hope you're kidding. Describing an explanation as a mansplanation can only isolate women. I hope you recognize that there is often no meaningful distinction between solidarity and isolation.
> Did you want to maybe let women express what isolates us ...
If you had done that, I wouldn't have replied. "Mansplained" explains nothing, it only argues for a nonexistent distinction between men and women, like the oppressive idea that women think about the world differently, process reality differently, do math and science differently, than men do.
There has never been a more pointlessly divisive idea among the feminist ranks than the idea that there is a uniquely female way to think about the world. It's false and it undermines women -- it encourages sympathy for an idea that oppresses women.
"Mansplained" is just a code word for "ignore him -- he's a man, i.e. the enemy."
> ... instead of declaring what will and won't lead to our isolation?
At present, in a country where women's rights are guaranteed by law, what isolates women more than anything else are those women who dismiss arguments as being either male or female. Truth has no gender.
> What is gender if it isn't a way to think about the world?
The answer is obvious -- it's a way to very reliably misinterpret everyday reality. In the same way that to a hammer everything is a nail, to a gender theorist everything is a gender issue.
As long as black, brown and red people are thought of as something other than people, we have a serious race issue.
In the same way, as long as men and women are thought of as something other than people, we have a serious gender issue.
Do you think that race is a constructive way to think about the world? No? Then why would gender be?
I didn't realize how much of a sausage fest this site really is. It's amazing how much intellectual talent we're missing out on because it seems tech scares away women.
I'd actually be curious to see what kind of sexual orientation distribution there is also. I wonder if it'd fall in line with the general population.
(Edit: Not sure why this poll has been killed. It was created as a serious poll to satisfy my curiosity, not as backlash! It was actually yielding some really interesting information, in particular the higher proportion of non-straight people than is normal in the general population.)
I think its important to remember that "tech" doesn't scare away women per se. People scare away women.
And I doubt its a strict sexism problem, either. My engineer friends are the most negative group of friends I have. By miles.
Criticism is great, but the negative attitudes I see among them (and here, and Reddit) upset the hell out of me, and I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't as-big of a problem.
As a general rule smart people tend to be less happy.
Idealists (as many in STEM are) who are smart is a deadly combination. You know just how terrible the world you live in is, and no matter how hard you work you keep hearing more bad news.
Sometimes I wish my brain had an off button so I can stop reading about North Korea (or remembering how "behind" I am from my peers) and instead go watch Celebrity Big Brother or whatever is showing today.
> If North Korea scares you, then you really, really want to be scared.
North Korea isn't itself very scary. What is scary is the fact that over decades they have threatened to attack everyone around them, and the surrounding powers have responded by extending food and economic aid, in a repeating pattern. The North Koreans know this -- they know it works -- so they do it again and again, and their citizens remain captives of a throwback regime. That's what's scary.
I'm in Europe. North Korea doesn't scare me. The only people who should legitimately be concerned are those in South Korea (and to a much lesser degree Japan).
I find international politics interesting. Fear isn't really a motivation.
* Yes, I am going to hell. I am also working on a comic to bleed off my socially unacceptable jokes. Sorry. I could have resisted temptation. I just chose not to. Mmkay?
I did consider not saying it. I decided to say it anyway. Although intended somewhat humorously, I suspect the downvotes are more about hitting a nerve. But perhaps that is neither here nor there. (shrug)
Edit: Or perhaps the disclaimer is the real joke, since I mostly meant the first part.
> What if I told you that I find the term sausage fest offensive and it makes me feel unwelcome in this community?
If you said that, if you took that position, I would strongly recommend that you do what you can to ignore those kinds of feelings.
It's my belief that women have a natural place in science and technology, but caring too much about social trivia and language (as with the recent PyCon episode) represents a pointless diversion that can only hold women back.
Would you want to be treated by a doctor who fainted at the sight of blood? I think you would prefer one who didn't care about that, who looked beyond it to something more important like a diagnosis and a cure. By the same token, people in science and technology need to be able to look beyond the petty annoyances and focus their attention on more important things.
Wouldn't it be ironic and deplorable if history recorded that an entire generation of highly skilled women didn't enter the ranks of modern science and technology because they sometimes overheard ambiguous remarks about "dongles", "forking" and "sausages"?
To say this in the most concise way, what price sanctimony?
Some people are crass, boorish, crude even. Develop some tolerance. I don't mean suffer in silence either. It's fine to let someone know how you feel. But it's not (IMO) fine to demand that everyone always cater to your extreme sensitivity. I'd personally prefer to be insulted occasionally, rather than having to walk on eggshells for fear of offending someone.
What if I were a woman complaining about sexism in the industry, would you give me the same advice? Several female bloggers have complained about the "don't be so uptight" reply they received to their complaints...
Are you a woman? If so, some people are crass, boorish, crude, jerks even. That doesn't make them right, but try to develop some tolerance. I don't mean suffer in silence either. It's fine to let someone know how you feel, and you definitely shouldn't tolerate, or allow people to make you feel unsafe. But it's not (IMO) fine to demand that everyone always cater to your extreme sensitivity. And, some people are just jerks, even if you can get them to shut up it doesn't make them nicer.
If you are both a woman and crass, and the person persists in annoying you, maybe try telling menstruation-themed jokes or anecdotes. But, if you are both a woman and crass, chances are you don't need me to tell you how to rid yourself of unwanted company.
I have a dream, that one day it will be rare to hold sexist perspectives like the one you just described. In my dream world, the importance of people feeling welcome is independent of that person's gender or that person's sex. I don't know what you meant to say, but what you said is that gender is among the things that you consider most important about participants, when deciding if their feelings matter.
The type of bigotry you just exhibited is way, way down the list of priorities. But most of the higher priorities are complicated and nuanced[0][1], but the thing you said is just straight-up wrong.
[0] E.g. affirmative action is complicated and nuanced.
[1] E.g. assuming a randomly-selected conventional-looking women at a tech convention is not a developer is... totally horrible, but also rational, given the distribution.
Yeah, well, my analysis, then and now, is that you were replying inappropriately to a semi-trollish comment by someone who's probably redeemable.
And actually, if counter-trolling is how you frame your comment, then I have to say, you're doing it wrong. The correct response to trolls is to silently downvote. This is called "don't feed the trolls", and it's the right strategy because genuine trolls are encouraged by counter-trolling, and this would result in more noise and less signal. Alternately you can try to say something that will be useful to other people, while still downvoting and ignoring the troll.
> It's amazing how much intellectual talent we're missing out on because it seems tech scares away women.
I don't think "scares away" is accurate. There are reasons women don't get into tech, but I don't think being scared is high on the list. I also think this will change over time -- I think social perceptions are changing and technical and scientific occupations are gradually being seen less as a male approach to processing reality and more gender-neutral.
I think scared is appropriate, inasmuch as it's a synonym for afraid. People want to choose a career they feel they can succeed in, and many women feel afraid that they can't succeed in tech, for a lot of reasons. Men feel it too, but being a minority in a field complicates things and probably makes it more likely for women to drop out or not choose tech as a career path in the first place.
> Men feel it too, but being a minority in a field complicates things and probably makes it more likely for women to drop out or not choose tech as a career path in the first place.
That's circular. It tries to say that women are a minority in tech because they drop out in larger numbers than men, because ... they're a minority. I don't this logic stands up under scrutiny.
The remedy is not to care about that. If I had to choose between being scared and having a boring life in which my gifts weren't fully exercised -- well, that would be much more scary. So even if we compare scary things, as I see it, being a member of a minority is rather low on the scary list.
I wasn't using "scared" literally, and I assume the person I was replying to wasn't, either. Web sites aren't generally actually frightening. [Insert your own punchline here]
I cant understand why the poll was taken down! Maybe we can make another simpler one? Without gender? It may be a little oversimplifying but it would be more viable regarding the platform. The starting options could be: Gay (Gay male/ Lesbian), Straight, Bisexual, Asexual, Queer, Pansexual . ?
It wasn't really that complicated! Gender does matter when it comes to sexual orientation as I believe more women identify as "non straight" than men. I did worry that I wasn't being inclusive enough, but didn't want it to get too long.
What was interesting, is that there's 20% non-straight guys, which is 4-5 times higher than the general population. This is really interesting to me.
I think it got flagged to death because it came across as backlash, which it wasn't.
I cant see how you can have a poll for both gender/sexuality. If you want to be inclusive it would easily have more than 50 option due to the simplicity of the HN polls (also Male/Female , internationally, are more usually used to describe sex not gender ) :/ It may have been flagged to death due to other factors as well (eg. homophobia?, people not being comfortable with it etc)
I think there was a strong bias for people who see themselves as not conforming to the norm to vote, so the would have been over-represented in the poll.
Maybe they're too smart to go into tech. Said (only half tongue in cheek) by a father of a smart daughter with no interest (so far) in tech. I don't think its solely parenting as my son is nuts for tech. And its not the lack of role model as I met the wife when she was in a Z80 assembly programming class, back when that tech was only somewhat obsolescent. Several years remain of copying mommy in all other ways, this is not a teen rebellion thing.
How much of it is women being scared away versus women not having an interest or not considering it?
I'm not disagreeing that some women are scared away, but I can't fully expect that its the only reason for this gender imbalance.
As a guy, I can't really answer that. It'd take asking women outside of tech as to why they never considered it... Not just asking women in tech what they dislike about the gender imbalance in tech.
There is a lot of talk about what’s innate and what’s acquired. Characteristics we considered male or female for centuries are constantly being proven a result of nurture, either completely or by a large part, as tiny innate differences that grow intro troublesome gaps with social conditioning. Modern neuroscience keeps demonstrating how adaptable our brains are, and how society takes on the role of conditioning them on fixed gender roles from an incredibly young age. Have you ever noticed how gendered toys or child TV programmes are? How many people keep telling little girls they’re pretty and little boys that they’re smart or brave? That’s only the start of a rabbit hole that goes quite deep…
> It's amazing how much intellectual talent we're missing out on because it seems tech scares away women.
The same can be said about how stereotypes, personality types and culture scares away certain races, certain subcultures, certain age groups etc.
It's not as simple as "scares away half the population"; it might be so much as "scares away 95% of the population", of which there is an unknown percentage that would not be scared if some small part of any part of how tech looks to the outside changed.
And then there's a question of how many of those are really scared off.
This makes me wonder how many females here are cisgender. Myself, I'm transgender. I reckon there's probably a far higher proportion than average, since some transwomen have opposite-gendered childhoods, and hence were in an environment where being in tech would be acceptable, perhaps.
I'm not saying it's a problem if there are a lot of trans women here, it's just it would be highlighting a problem if there aren't a lot of cis women here in comparison, because that would mean tech was scaring women away and the only ones who were here are the ones who had been unfortunate enough to have had male childhoods.
(I'm worried this will come off as horribly bigoted or something, I don't know, I hope people can see what I'm getting at)
I am a cis female, but I am not sure if you would view me as "in tech". I run some websites. I have a certificate in GIS. I have never managed to get a job in GIS (long, irrelevent story).
I think it isn't "tech" that's the problem. I think it is "the old boys club" atmosphere, which can be changed.
The young boys have sometimes been worse than the old ones. When I talk to CTOs in their 30s, I feel like they take me more seriously and much less suspiciously than the 24 year olds.
I didn't mean to imply that age had anything to do with it. I can't think of another phrase with a similar meaning. I am open to suggestions. I only meant that there is a certain social thing going on which welcomes men and excludes women in some manner. It seems to be getting better on hn, though I don't think I can objectively "prove" that.
I've been to a conference for undergraduate GSMs in tech, and while I don't have any statistics, it felt like there were almost as many transwomen/genderqueer presenting as female as there were women (and still many more men and transmen). I think it's super awesome that tech is as welcoming to trans people as it is and has been from other people's stories that I've heard. I'm just worried that it isn't as sensitive to bi-cis-women as trans folks and gays or lesbians.
Me too, it's great that tech is accepting of them. The ratios worry me though. I don't think trans women are drawn to tech just because it's trans-friendly, I think women are pushed away from tech but trans womens' unique circumstances mean they stay, or something like that.
Maybe it's complicated by the fact that many people transition after the point where they already have ideas or plans for their future careers. One woman I talked to actually transitioned in between getting a job offer at a major tech company and starting the job.
For the record, she said that everyone was really open and comfortable with it, and one of the first things her boss did was make sure that all her IDs and employee records were updated to reflect her actual gender identity, which was awesome.
Unfortunately, the fact that tech is seen as a male-dominated field, and what you said often being true, may only serve to reinforce the notion that trans women are men for some people.
So you're a guy who likes dressing up like a girl. Ok, acceptable. Now stop lying and calling yourself a girl. You're not.
Edit: Fuck you downvoters. Yes, I know it's socially unacceptable to question someone's "identity". I don't care. That identity is a lie. He's a woman because he likes women's clothing just like I'm black because I love me some fried chicken.
The only question is what are you legally? if you are legally a man then you are a man no matter what you think you are. If you are a woman , then likewise.
However, that doesn't state your gender definitively. Intersexed folks exist, people who were mistakenly mis-assigned gender by their genitals exist, and you can change your legal gender, at least where I live.
Legal gender is is totally not the only question. Why would you hit the comment button, just to say something so obviously wrong?
There's not one legal question, but many. If you live in a jurisdiction with different rights by sex-or-gender, which rights do you get? If you live in a jurisdiction with legal heterosexual marriage but illegal homosexual marriage, who may you marry? If you represent yourself as (fe)male to someone who cares, are you committing fraud? When contracts legally discriminate between genders (e.g. maybe scholarships for one gender only?), do you get to choose which gender you are for those contracts?
There're medical questions: if sex is a useful predictor of therapeutic effectiveness, what should you be telling your doctor? What should E.R. techs do? What if _gender_ is a useful predictor of therapeutic effectiveness? (Consider difficult cases like this: someone who is XY but was gender-reassigned in infancy to female (it has happened!), and raised female, and believes emself female.... which pathologies will follow male distributions, which will follow female, which will be something else?)
There're public-space social questions: which washrooms can you enter, which changerooms? (mutatis mutandis for other gendered public spaces). Can you attend girls-night-out? (Some friends-of-friends do a ladies night that includes transwomen; when I've met them, I'm inclined to think of them as dudes. How limited of me.)
And then, arguably most important, there're private social questions. We've already mostly worked out (at least in the left-leaning parts of the West) that neither sex nor gender determines who you want to have sex with, and that's probably fine (I personally think it's 100% fine!), but baby that's just the tip of the complicated iceberg. What do you do if you have an Adam's apple, and big hands, but you also have breasts, and you want to find people to discuss bra-sizing with?
tl;dr: gender and sex are complicated, and there are 2 defaults that seem to mostly-work for maybe 80%-95% of the population, and then a few more semi-defaults that work for maybe 80%-95% of those left, and then a few more defaults that work for maybe 90% of those left, and so on. And this shit matters to people, seriously. Don't be a dumbass by saying "oh it's as simple as X".
you are entitled to your opinion like blah blah ... what's make my opinion wrong and yours right ? yes legal gender is the question. If you tell me you are a woman but in fact your are legally a man , you are lying to me , period.
Are you this website owner ? so in the name of whom are you saying i should not hit the comment button ? who do you think you are ?
If Ahmadinejad decrees that there are no gay people in Iran, does that make it so? If Kim Jung Un went craz(ier) and said that all North Koreans are men, would that make it so? If (when) I become galactic emperor and (for my own amusement) declare that henceforth camus's legal status will be "bird", would that make it so?
Laws are what we make them, they do not influence the nature of reality.
> if you are legally a man then you are a man no matter what you think you are.
Do you mean "legally a man", or "medically a man"? It is trivial to conceive of legal systems that fly in the face of what is plainly reality. The law can, and at various times and places has been, written by bigots and/or the uninformed. Who cares how it classifies things?
As for "medically a man", while it is possible to be "medically a man" or "medically a woman", for any reasonable definition of "medically", there are more than those two options.
What does "medically a man" means ? I mean one undergoes a re-assignement because one wants to change its legal status right ? now in my home country however (France) , I dont think there is a third option , but you can legally change your sex. And that's fine.
I'm not a doctor, nor do I really do any sort of gender studies research as a hobby, so I do not know what "medically" would mean in this context. What I do know is that "legally" is basically worthless.
There are multiple legal documents that can be used to establish sex or gender. What happens when a person's driver's license is in one sex and their passport in a different sex? Better yet, what happens when the person has an "X" as their passport gender?
Sometimes I forget how fierce trolling can be. HN actually has very little of it so this really stands out. I'd have blown right past it on reddit but here I accidentally read it like a real comment. Kind of like absent-mindedly eating that last shriveled and nasty grape in the bunch while preoccupied.
Biological sex is many things, chromosomes, genitalia, hormones, and the effects of these. If any of these don't match, is the person a guy or a girl? Even among these, there is ambiguity. I have a friend who - no joking - was born with both a vagina and penis. According to you, is my friend a guy or a girl? There were Olympic athletes who had vaginas and no penis but XY chromosomes, are they guys or girls? There is at least one study that showed transgender women (regardless of transition status) had traditionally female brains, so why should a penis at birth be more important then the person's brain?
I understand how people could be not aware of this (most children's books don't cover the subject after all) and I can understand why it might make some people uncomfortable (although it does not make me uncomfortable, unfamilar things of can make people uncomfortable. I get that.)
What I, for the life of me, cannot understand is why someone, after being informed of it, would reject the notion entirely. Where does that come from? How does someone ascribe so much importance to the concept of a gender/sex binary? Just imagine if people reacted the same to the concept of political ideologies neither republican nor democrat... I cannot fathom it, nor any reason for it.
A) It's pretty clear the brains of transgendered are physiologically different.
B) People who have an emotional response to sexuality and gender are usually the ones who have repressed issues regarding their sexuality and gender identity. It's a touchy situation. On one hand I want to call you out for being a bigot on the other I feel sympathetic and wish you the best.
Huh, after your other hateful comments, I'm surprised that it's almost like you get it, here.
If you differentiate between biological sex and gender as social construct (what you call "made-up"), what is your objection to someone having a "made-up" gender identity that is different from the more common gender identity of others born with their same sex?
In my case, it's because my gender is not important to my identity and the constant harping about "women in tech" means that people pay way too much attention to my gender. I'm just another person!
Right. I understand this. I wouldn't want to be singled out or considered "special" or "different" simply for being a woman who happens to also program. At the same time I do have a very strong gender identity so I wouldn't be comfortable at all if I felt like I had to downplay or hide my gender to fit in. So while I do consider being a woman extremely important to my identity, it has nothing to do with me also being interested in tech and computer science.
Why is this relevant? Sure, his comment might sound a bit creepy to the wrong ears, but stating he is an Indian male is pointless, we shouldn't be judging him by either factor.
Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you and codegeek's reply is correct.
I saw a question, which I found nothing wrong about, and I answered it because I could. BTW, I am also an Indian and a male. Neither did I see anybody judge someone, except - now, you maybe.
[edit: I just realised I told him/her the gender of a different guy. He/she wanted gender of OP some other post :-) ]
In the previous thread that "he" linked to "he" states that "he" is actually female. I'm not sure why the gender of this person makes any difference though.
English is so limited. We need more forms of "you." I might need to revive my old habit of using the Southern "y'all" online to make things like that clearer.
I use male singular pronouns for people whose sex I'm not aware of because English male singular pronouns are actually also its neuter singular pronouns (I believe this is true for several other major languages, as well). Hence, for a noun that has gender, but whose gender is unknown, the correct pronoun is "he", rather than some silly construction such as "he/she" or the at worst flagrantly incorrect, at best vastly confusing singular "they". (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun#Universa...)
"One" is also a reasonable alternative, though its odd construction means it can't be used as a drop-in replacement, and it can often sound awkward, overly formal, or antiquated.
When political correctness became a big deal, people bent over backwards to avoid using "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun, overcorrecting so much that they forgot that "he" isn't necessarily masculine (the universal "he" started losing favor in the 1960s). It was similar to the guy that got fired for saying "niggardly" (a synonym for stingy) because it sounds like "nigger", despite the fact that the similarities are meaningless and entirely coincidental.
Depending on how PC the crowd is, I'll sometimes use one of the incorrect constructions to avoid ill-placed ire.
Interestingly, Baltimore primary school students have started using "yo" as a neutral third person singular (http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-yo-pronoun.aspx - Warning: autoplaying audio ads, and a fullscreen ad that covers the page on load). While I don't like "yo" for purely subjective reasons, it is an interesting linguistic development.
EDIT: fixed the spelling of "niggardly". Thanks, jcromartie.
> I use male singular pronouns for people whose sex I'm not aware of because English male singular pronouns are actually also its neuter singular pronouns (I believe this is true for several other major languages, as well). Hence, for a noun that has gender, but whose gender is unknown, the correct pronoun is "he", rather than some silly construction such as "he/she" or the at worst flagrantly incorrect, at best vastly confusing singular "they". (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun#Universa...)
I have a few bones to pick with this.
It's not the case that "he" is "the correct pronoun". First of all, any competent grammar nerd recognizes that correctness in language is defined by the consensus of fluent users (yes, that's a circular definition, get over it), and there's an open debate in English about what is a correct pronoun for unknown-gender individuals.
Also, "they" is not "flagrantly incorrect", and it's often perfectly clear. (It's certainly not always clear, but neither is "he".) It has a 500-year history, and I think the general rule is "Good enough for Shakespeare, good enough for me." If you're happy with WP as a source, I give you the very next section in the same article you linked:
Just to be clear, since my post may have seemed inflammatory, I wasn't trying to correct anyone else so much as put in a good word for a correct usage that others often consider incorrect (such incorrectness was implied by my original post's parent).
> It's not the case that "he" is "the correct pronoun".
I didn't so much mean "the one true way" as "a valid and IMO way". I realize this wasn't clear in my initial comment.
> First of all, any competent grammar nerd recognizes that correctness in language is defined by the consensus of fluent users.
True - I agree wholeheartedly. I meant more that that has been the primary (or at least a major) usage historically, and its rejection due to PC was and is unnecessary and destructive. I tend towards grammatical conservatism when it comes to my own usage, but I don't care how other people use it, so long as it's actually valid English (I recognize informal usage and dialects such as the creole-esque inner-city AAVS as distinct entities, so I wasn't really intending to discuss them).
In addition, I'd argue that it has far greater usage than one might think. Style guides purposely follow the most PC usage in order to be as widely applicable as possible, and most major public writing avoids the usage because many people take offense at its usage, and it's easier and simpler to just avoid the usage than to try to deal with them. Thus, its public usage is specifically lowered. This end up resulting in, at least in my experience, its actual usage being far higher than what would normally be apparent from its public usage.
> Also, "they" is not "flagrantly incorrect", and it's often perfectly clear. (It's certainly not always clear, but neither is "he".) It has a 500-year history, and I think the general rule is "Good enough for Shakespeare, good enough for me."
"Flagrantly" was overstating my point, as was "at best". Sorry, I get caught up in my own rhetoric sometimes. It strains desperately against the grammar ("A person walked to the car, and someone hit them" sounds ok, but "Bob walked to the car, and someone hit them" does not. Most third-person singular gender-neutral pronouns still make sense, even if the gender is known). At least to me, it's far less clear than "he", as ambiguity of number is almost always more confusing than ambiguity of gender. It is certainly acceptable in informal and semi-formal usage, but I'd argue against its usage in formal English, particularly when there are better options available (formal usage doesn't usually care about verbosity, so "one" can be used for almost any situation, if necessary).
As for Shakespeare, as with any other fiction writer (particularly one that writes poetry, as grammar must often bend to fit the needs of meter and rhyme), there are vast numbers of constructions that he uses that I would be uncomfortable with using in formal English - and many I'd be uncomfortable using at all. (Looking at you, Brian Jacques, and your interminable and frequent run-on sentences in your post-Redwall books.) In addition, many of his usages are archaic, even for someone as grammatically conservative as myself. You clearly aren't writing like Shakespeare now, so your rule of thumb seems to be a bit of an anachronism.
As for 500-year history, "y'all" goes back at least 150-200 years, and it's completely incorrect. (I kid, I kid. I don't like "y'all", but it's just me being ornery.)
First, it's "niggardly". It's also worth pointing out that a lot of people learn the word "niggardly" and procede to use it solely to see if it offends someone.
You're right, and it's fixed. Thanks for the spelling correction.
For purely practical reasons, I don't think it's a good idea to go around saying "niggardly", and I acknowledge that some people use it in order to offend. The point I intended to imply was simply that it was PC overcorrection when they fired the guy (I don't believe he was trying to offend, but my memory's not perfect.)
Something that's been discussed in a few mailing lists/blog entries I've seen lately are women who are really put-off by the phrase "guys" to refer to a mass of people. For me, the word is synonymous with "all" rather than "male" specifically, and I don't consider it to be offensive in the least. Now I'm all paranoid about all the times I've - as a female myself - walked up to a group of girls saying, "Hey guys!"
Well, I use "you guys" all the time, and that's usually referring to a specific mostly-female group of people. I've mentioned this with them, they're fine with it.
I don't think it's very relevant, but it was going to show up and I was hoping to dismiss the notion preemptively. Look at this quagmire you've started!
Female here, although I don't often comment. Used to place a few choice comments as FeministHacker [1], until a desk move at the office cost me access to the account. Oh well, incentive to get blogging more!
I've a lot of people who are very much dear to me who identify as non-binary, so I was thrilled to see the great support for the other option. As predictable for trans/cis discussions, a real jerk emerged from the woodwork, but the general support is great too!
Regarding the general topic of LGBT+ people (now that the other poll has been killed), if you're a queer hacker in the UK, feel free to get in touch!
By the way, we will have no idea what the actual ratio is here on Hacker News even after many more poll responses are recorded. (Another comment already in the thread points out that some respondents are voting more than once.) That's the defect of voluntary response polls. See
for a recent posting of a FAQ on the subject. I have no doubt that there are more male than female participants here, and no idea what the actual ratio is.
(Most online communities I participate in, including my circle of Facebook friends, have a strong female majority. That's because many of those online communities pertain to education policy, and mothers care more about that issue than fathers, on average, at least as to online participation in discussion of policy.)
Results are overwhelming, a 12:1 ratio for males:females and a 40:1 ratio for male:other.
At first, I was afraid to answer this poll truthfully because of the recent "gender issues" our scene has faced. But reading through the comments...yes, we (as always) dwelved into the "gender stuff" again but all involved parties managed to have a decent and civilized discussion.
Which made me realize: what our community really needs to improve isn't "red cards", "women-only events", "enforced talks parity" or any other stuff that's just dividing us further. What our community needs is civilized discussion.
Just because you don't feel something, doesn't mean you can dismiss the mindset of others. Many people feel and demonstrate that gender is separate from sex and can be very much non-binary. It surely exists, whether you like it or not.
You are not using the same definition of "gender" as me, and so your reply doesn't make sense. Sex (what you are born with), and gender (what you perform as), are two different things. No, you can't change what you are born with, but you can change what you perform as. Whether you think this is right or not doesn't come into it – it simply is. A great deal of people perform outside of the gender they were brought up as. If you don't like that, that's one thing. But it does happen. And why not let those people be happy and comfortable?
I'm still of the opinion that "gender" should refer to the grammatical concept alone, and this new usage should get its own word. It irks me even more when people use it as a synonym for "sex".
They presumably could. I'd say a car construction robot is ungendered but, as a fictional example, Bender from Futurama is male gendered. Ungendered would be "other" I would say.
Gender is not binary. Myself, I'm neither male nor female in terms of my identity. To simplify it a bit, When I think of myself in my head I don't think of myself as being "a male" or "a female".
Genderqueer and other folks who identify outside the binary often prefer an other option. Trans people who identify as either a woman or man usually answer according to how they identify.
There are people who identify as genderqueer, who don't fit into any gender identity, and people who identify as a gender, who don't have a gender identity.
Not sure if it would be a big deal. Some things are bug deals if treated as one. Transgender has been a long existing thing, the awareness of our particular civilization might not be high.
But, um, why do you assume people are clicking "other" for fun and not clicking "female" or "male" for fun? Do you have data about people's reasons for clicking? Is there some data on HN's readers' gender distribution with which you can disprove - oh wait, that's what this poll was intended to provide...
Other than http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/ and specific gender/sex studies, I haven't seen studies that make a distinction between gender and sex. Of course, if you want to make the distinction about biological sex, then you have to define which of the biological criteria and categories you're using, and even then you need more than two categories (http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Essays/marriage.html).
When someone asks if you are male or female, 99% will interpret it as "do you have a penis or a vagina?", not "do you identify as a man or a woman?", nor any other
You seem to suggest that my interpretation is arbitrary, while I think it is the most colloquial. Do you honestly think that a 15 year old girl/boy would see this thread and think "well I am neither of those"? Or are you just deconstructing a very straightforward question by its edge cases to prove some kind of point that I'm missing?
I think my point is more along the lines of "no matter how you ask it, someone is bound to be unhappy, feel discriminated against, etc". I know at age 17 I was not comfortable saying "I am a woman." That meant something to me that I felt I had not yet attained. I suspect minors mostly feel left out as is, just like transexuals feel left out in a thousand subtle ways by all kinds of linguistic implications that there is only male or female.
"Identities"? Go fuck yourself. You don't "identify as" male or female. You ARE male or female, because you have a cock or a vag. Simple as that. Why do liberals like shit like this?
I wish it were that simple. It would save a lot of people a lot of misery. Unfortunately we organisms are unimaginably complex, and it turns out that, although the vast majority of the time it comes down male/female, things do land on a spectrum in terms of biological sex.
(heterosexual male upper-middle class white American here...)
Just a note, "hermaphrodite" is a wildly inaccurate term to define those with an indeterminate sex within the dichotomy of male/female and can be quite offensive as well, especially when used outside of specific cases (none of which I've ever heard to be identified accurately as strictly hermaphroditic)
Hermaphroditism is incredibly rare, but there are recorded cases (including cases of births involving hermaphrodites: according to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18394621 there were 11 reported cases of fertility in true hermaphrodites)
You can copy/paste on android. Press and hold on the text, then use the pointer boxes to adjust the area you want to copy, then stare at the incomprehensible icons and guess which one means copy (why can't they just use words?)
I can copy-paste some things but not others and it is frequently a huge pain in the arse. Fortunately, codegeek did me the curtesy of adding a clickable link already. So it doesn't really matter.
I think that you are interpreting a sarcastic comment literally. The linked article condemns the ridiculous device in question. Unless of course I'm double-reverse mis-interpreting your comment...
