Moreover, not everyone who receives benefits is aware of them in the first place. For example, I am reasonably sure that I have it slightly easier at conferences as a man because women do not hit on me, whereas my female Ph.D. students have to endure all kinds of sleazy invitations over the course of one week. (low sample size, admittedly, but it was eye-opening)
>I am reasonably sure that I have it slightly easier at conferences as a man because women do not hit on me
Can we acknowledge the fact that most men would be ecstatic to be hit on by a woman or two at a conference? Can we acknowledge that men and women are innately different? That forcing men to change their behavior significantly to accommodate for women in male spaces may in fact place unequal strain on men?
Edit: are we just going to deny the fact that men are biologically driven to reproduce and compete for women? That this is an instinctual urge that we are required to suppress? You don't solve problems by ignoring their sources.
> >I am reasonably sure that I have it slightly easier at conferences as a man because women do not hit on me
> Can we acknowledge the fact that most men would be ecstatic to be hit on by a woman or two at a conference? Can we acknowledge that men and women are innately different? That forcing men to change their behavior significantly to accommodate for women in male spaces may in fact place unequal strain on men?
"Male spaces"?! Since when are conferences male spaces, they are a freaking professional space and yes expecting men (and women) to act professionally is exactly what we should do.
> Edit: are we just going to deny the fact that men are biologically driven to reproduce and compete for women? That this is an instinctual urge that we are required to suppress? You don't solve problems by ignoring their sources.
B*ll, to imply that men can't control themselves is just offensive to men. But I guess you're also a proponent that women should wear burkas to protect them from those men that can't control themselves. Funny how those "policies" are always to the detriment of the women, not the men who can't control themselves. So much for unequal strain.
>"Male spaces"?! Since when are conferences male spaces, they are a freaking professional space and yes expecting men (and women) to act professionally is exactly what we should do.
Male spaces are any spaces that are predominantly occupied by men. It is an observational definition and does not imply that women are deliberately excluded.
>B*ll, to imply that men can't control themselves is just offensive to men. But I guess you're also a proponent that women should wear burkas to protect them from those men that can't control themselves. Funny how those "policies" are always to the detriment of the women, not the men who can't control themselves. So much for unequal strain.
No, I am not implying that men cannot control themselves. But it's possible that in unisex spaces, there is a much higher burden on men not to be men than there is on women to accommodate to the spaces they are entering (practically by force).
But I'm glad you brought up burkas, because I considered mentioning the fact that men and women have largely self segregated across time and culture; we seem to be taking our very modern experiment with diversity and inclusion as though history (and non western culture) has been unambiguously wrong.
My ultimate point is inclusiveness does not come without its own costs, and there's no guarantee that an environment re-emagined to be overly inclusive will overall accomplish it's initial goals with the same effectiveness. In fact some degree of implicit exclusivity is not only good, but necessary for many pursuits. In sports the differences (not just in performance, but strategy) between males and females are obvious - but we're just supposed to pretend that sexual dimorphism stops at the shoulders?
> Can we acknowledge the fact that most men would be ecstatic to be hit on by a woman or two at a conference? Can we acknowledge that men and women are innately different? That forcing men to change their behavior significantly to accommodate for women in male spaces may in fact place unequal strain on men?
Well, does it place unequal strain on men to just not do something? I get the appeal of this—and believe, I would love to have women throw themselves at me left and right! But the issue is: it's probably interesting if it happens a few times, but what if it keeps happening? What is if every smile, every kind word of yours would be seen as 'Oh, he must be into me'?
I am not saying anyone's at fault here: I get it, there's a few women around and hey, you can shoot your shot. The trouble is that it's one shot for you, but dozens for her over the course of a regular conference. The conference messaging apps make it easy to make advances to women...
> That this is an instinctual urge that we are required to suppress?
That doesn't mean it's proper to whip your ding dong out in professional settings (aside from the professional settings that require it). Are you going to fight that fight? For the same reason, it is not proper to hit on people in professional settings.
> Can we acknowledge the fact that most men would be ecstatic to be hit on by a woman or two at a conference?
Yes, we can acknowledge that this could be flattering if it happened rarely. Can we also acknowledge that getting hit on at nearly every professional event would be extremely tiresome?
> That forcing men to change their behavior significantly to accommodate for women in male spaces may in fact place unequal strain on men?
There it is. A machine learning conference is not a male space. A men's bathroom is a male space.
As a fat, hairy IT guy who goes to a lot of conferences, I'd be super unnerved by multiple women hitting on me. That's the kind of thing that ends up with me getting hoodwinked out of a bunch of cash or waking up without a kidney in a bath tub full of ice.
That's a misrepresentation of the content and you're pretending he wrote that. It didn't say "women are more privileged", it said "I'm a man, but I've never received any benefit just because (most of) our presidents / businessmen are men".
Please leave that kind of behavior on reddit and Twitter.
You pulled a quote from tomp's post history, in a post made 8 days ago in a discussion on an unrelated story, and gave no indication of where it came from. You should have posted the source link as an attribution, because I was really confused about where you were getting that from until BerislavLopac found it and posted the link.
