Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

>First off, I don't understand how my stance is "speculation", but yours is not.

Because my stance (that sexism is a significant factor in putting women off from tech) can be trivially verified by, say, asking 10 women in tech about their experiences of sexism. Not to mention that it would be a minor miracle if tech were somehow completely isolated from the sexism that's clearly present in society as a whole.

Out of interest, have you ever tried talking to women about this issue? Or have you (ironically) formed your opinion that there is no sexism in tech without listening to their perspective?




10 women believing that there is sexism rampant in tech doesn't mean that there is, and it certainly doesn't prove out that it is a strain of sexism that is relevant in this particular case.

I generally don't try to collect facts about life by asking randos for their opinions, no.

But yes, I have talked with women in tech about sexism. I have also encouraged other women to get into tech in the first place.

> Not to mention that it would be a minor miracle if tech were somehow completely isolated from the sexism that's clearly present in society as a whole.

Is this the same sexism that is causing the current generation of young women to go to and graduate university at a higher rate than their male counterparts, earn more money than their male counterparts, or commit less suicide than their male counterparts?


>10 women believing that there is sexism rampant in tech doesn't mean that there is

And this attitude is why it's going to be hard work to change things to the better. You have no interest in listening to what women tell you. You'd rather cherry pick studies of dubious quality and relevance, and tell your female colleagues (if any) that they must just be imagining it all.

>[young women] earn more money than their male counterparts

This seems bogus, at least in reference to the USA. At most, it may the case that women earn slightly more than men straight out of college. The gender pay gap still clearly favors men overall.

As for suicide, I think men have pretty much always been more prone to suicide than women. If that's an argument for the non-existence of sexism, then you'd have to draw the absurd conclusion that, e.g., there was no sexism in Victorian Britain. See figure 1 here: https://watermark.silverchair.com/dyq094.pdf?token=AQECAHi20...

All that being said, it is a common misconception that sexism is by definition something that harms women and not men. Sexism certainly harms men too. The root cause of sexism is the power asymmetry between men and women. Generally speaking, men exercise that power in their own broad interests. But of course there are plenty of individual men who lose out.


> The root cause of sexism is the power asymmetry between men and women

The root cause of much disagreement on the subject of sexism is on the claim that there is a power asymmetry between men and women, and the methodology of measuring personal income as the sole means of measuring power in society.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: