[rewqfdsa]

If the vast majority of HN participants are male, the leaderboard composition is a function of demographics, not some kind of "man filter" you've had to overcome. If your username is so generic that people frequently misgender you, how can it also be the case that you're simultaneously held to a higher standard on account of being a woman?

(Well, you might imagine that commentators here are _deliberately_ misgendering you, which is a suggestion so preposterous that I can't entertain it. It might also conceivably be the case that you've gained so much karma _because_ you have an androgynous username, but see below.)

As a man, I find it extremely frustrating when advocates for women in technology look at a phenomenon where men and women are imbalanced and immediately jump to sexism as the explanation. I've had a long career in technology. Not once have I seen a woman discriminated against or her ideas held to a higher standard than the ideas of men. I've seen plenty of mentoring, encouragement, and outreach however. I've personally worked to mentor women in computer science. The idea that there is some systemic bias against women on Hacker News or in the workplace is inconsistent with my experience and with the professed views of my colleagues.

I think we need additional empathy here. Maybe it's the case that _everyone's_ ideas are dismissed too quickly. Numerous times in my career, I've proposed $FOO, been told $FOO is impossible, and only been believed after actually _implementing_ $FOO, often on my own time after tending to my official responsibilities. When some women get this treatment, they call it sexism. When I get it, I call it the reality of working in a world that combines empiricism and huge egos. I think a lot of women in technology are genuinely unaware that men get this treatment too. Maybe it's shitty for everyone and not just women.

[DanBC]

> Well, you might imagine that commentators here are _deliberately_ misgendering you, which is a suggestion so preposterous that I can't entertain it.

There are a bunch of people who chose to misgender others, even when they know the preferred terms.

Whether they get flagged or not seems random.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9896908

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9896788 etc.

[Mz]

Have an upvote.

I agree with some of your points. It took me a very long time to conclude my gender was a factor on HN. Compared to other male dominated environments I have spent time in, my treatment here has been spectacularly good. It is one of the reasons I worked my ass off to resolve some of the problems I had here.

I went through a period where I was getting a helluva lot of flack, where it was clear to me that men on the leaderboard were closing ranks to shut me out. But my karma was so far below what qualifies one for the leaderboard, I was baffled by social evidence that I was "prominent -- for a woman." After managing to gather objective data that fit with that fact, I handled things differently here.

Here is a summary, with supporting links, to the data I gathered: http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/01/some-raw-dat...

I don't think anyone is consciously, intentionally trying to exclude women. I do think the apparent lack of women on the leaderboard is not a mere happenstance of numbers.

It is possible for your experiences and views to have validity and for mine to also. I have written about this issue previously. I think you and I might agree more than it seems had we not gotten off on the wrong foot. I also think you are bringing personal baggage and frustrations to the discussion that biases your interpretation of my position. You "heard" me accusing you of dismissing it as coincidence because of my gender when that wasn't my intent. That kind of thing does wind up being a problem for women. It ends up being a kind of de facto sexism.

I also did not say I was held to a higher standard. That isn't how I would frame the problem space. But, given that you are not sympathetic to my views or testimony concerning my firsthand experience, I see little point at this time in trying to figure out how to communicate more on that piece of what you said.

Edit:

FYI: You can take my continued engagement as evidence that, while I think you are wrong about a lot of things, I don't think you are simply and intentionally being an asshole. I don't debate people that I think are not engaging in good faith to at least some degree. I stop replying when I think it is straight up assholery.

[douche]

Does it occur to you that you might be getting a lot of flack because you can be so combative and come across, frankly, as a little paranoid?

This is not the first subthread I've seen get detached and marked off-topic because it degenerated into a back-and-forth scrum that doesn't make anyone look good. It's too bad; I was getting a pretty good return of InternetPoints™ for my quip about bronies...

[Mz]

Does it occur to you that when a man stands up for himself, it is not interpreted as combative, but when a woman does, she is clearly somehow to blame for everyone else's bad behavior? I have tried walking away. I have tried reaching out and attempting to build bridges. I have tried networkng. When I do the exact same thing men do, it gets interpreted differerntly and does not get me the results I am looking for that it clearly gets for men. Blaming me for the fact that women are fundamentally not as included here is just another form of sexism.

Upon further review, it was not detached at the point of one of my comments. So you are blaming me for something that may have nothing to do with my replies at all.