[Kaizyn]

The Two Travelers and the Farmer

North America

A traveler came upon an old farmer hoeing in his field beside the road. Eager to rest his feet, the wanderer hailed the countryman, who seemed happy enough to straighten his back and talk for a moment. "What sort of people live in the next town?" asked the stranger.

"What were the people like where you've come from?" replied the farmer, answering the question with another question.

"They were a bad lot. Troublemakers all, and lazy too. The most selfish people in the world, and not a one of them to be trusted. I'm happy to be leaving the scoundrels."

"Is that so?" replied the old farmer. "Well, I'm afraid that you'll find the same sort in the next town.

Disappointed, the traveler trudged on his way, and the farmer returned to his work.

Some time later another stranger, coming from the same direction, hailed the farmer, and they stopped to talk. "What sort of people live in the next town?" he asked.

"What were the people like where you've come from?" replied the farmer once again.

"They were the best people in the world. Hard working, honest, and friendly. I'm sorry to be leaving them."

"Fear not," said the farmer. "You'll find the same sort in the next town."

Source: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/traveltales.html#twotravelersandfa...

[Mz]

You aren't outright wrong, the problem is that if you are a woman (or black or fill in the blank) and you have been consistently shit all over your entire life because of it, not only do you suffer from burn out on trying to keep your chin up and hope for the best and all that, but you may have zero skills for trying to effectively interact with people in a way that doesn't help recreate the same shitty experiences. And if you actually do have good skills for handling it effectively, actual sexism (racism, etc) can still rear its ugly head even if you are doing everything right.

The other problem with your parable is that it doesn't tell people how to make such outcomes happen, which aren't simply based on some kind of magical "thinking positive" BS. I actually know how to do stuff like that and it is damn hard work that has to happen on top of whatever other work you were actually trying to do or are being paid to do. Even if you do everything right all the time (which you probably won't because people have off days or whatever), it can be a long hard slog and some people will still just be sexist assholes no matter what you do or don't do.

[chillacy]

I actually like the parable because it hints at another side to the issue, which is the perceiver, and though I'm not a woman I do get to sit in one type of disadvantaged social role in life, so I can relate. And I've given this some thought.

First off, while it's true that social factors are real, provable with data, and very annoyingly denied by many out there, the degree to which we tie our personal identity to a disadvantaged social identity is up to us. Evidence is pretty easy: talk to people in your disadvantaged social group and ask what they think. Probably most will acknowledge that it's a problem but that they can overcome it through working harder. A few number will not even acknowledge that it's a problem in the first place. And a few number will claim that it's such a big problem that it's insurmountable. I think the first group is probably closest to reality.

Second idea: it's easier to change ourselves than it is to change the world. That is, we can change our outlook on life by changing the narrative we've woven for ourselves. Whole point of therapy and a big part of psychology.

And thus, in order to avoid getting bogged down into hopelessness, at some point you have to maintain a delusion that either you aren't heavily disadvantaged such that working is pointless, or that you are disadvantaged but you're a crazy hard worker who can get things done anyways.

[Mz]

First off, while it's true that social factors are real, provable with data, and very annoyingly denied by many out there, the degree to which we tie our personal identity to a disadvantaged social identity is up to us. Evidence is pretty easy: talk to people in your disadvantaged social group and ask what they think. Probably most will acknowledge that it's a problem but that they can overcome it through working harder. A few number will not even acknowledge that it's a problem in the first place. And a few number will claim that it's such a big problem that it's insurmountable. I think the first group is probably closest to reality.

If you really dig into the details, the odds are good that the differences in their perception is rooted in more concrete and complicated problems than merely perceiving the problem differently. There are quite a lot of seemingly or even literally invisible issues that have substantial impact on social outcomes.

My oldest son walks around with a social black cloud over his head. People read him as defiant of authority and disrespectful merely for opening his mouth. They read me as ass kissingly deferential. We have done quite a lot of research and concluded that he lacks prosody -- he has no ability to tone match, so he gets that reaction of "I don't like your tone." I apparently tone match by default, which gets me read as very submissive and subservient, but the reality is that I do it in part because I am routinely perceived to be a dragon lady, so if I don't go the extra mile to try to be mollifying and build bridges, it is a shit show every step of the way.

I didn't say I dislike the parable. But as someone who does study the social stuff a helluva lot, I can tell you that there are going to be massively more differences between the "positive" traveler and the "negative" one than merely their attitude. I have substantial social astuteness which makes its vastly less dangerous for me to try to navigate situations that many women want no part of. It would be monstrously assholish of me to dismiss their very real problems in life just because "Well, it works fine for me!"

My son will never be able to glad-hand the way I do. He outright lacks the ability to tone match. Saying the exact same words as me to the exact same people in the exact same situation gets very different reactions. I know because I have seen exactly that happen.

The world if full of fascinating invisible forces, including pheromones, verbal cues and a million other details. Pretending that this parable is merely about having a good attitude is a gross oversimplification.

Tell the story again and say that one of the travelers is black and the other white or one is male and the other female or one is rich and the other poor and see how you feel then about acting like your attitude alone determines your social outcomes.

[chillacy]

Didn't say the story was meant to be taken at face value, only that the idea that you have some degree of control over your life is empowering and I think leads to more happiness.

It's useful to look into research into optimism and pessimism: especially Learned Helplessness, which is what happens if (as I had in the past) one slips into thinking that they have zero power over their lives, and that your social factors determine everything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

I recall that a study found that pessimists were actually more accurate in that their perception of reality was closer to what actually happens. But optimists were happier.

I don't know the specifics of your situation, but if prosody can be at all learned or improved, then that's something that can be changed, which is a lot more than some of the other stuff out there like skin color or height.

Anyways, I appreciate your thoughts on the matter. I don't want to dissuade anyone from standing up/fighting the good fight for social causes. But as someone who naturally skews pessimistic and struggled with depression, maintaining the semblance of control over my life, even if it's not real, has helped tremendously. And I hope it helps others too.

----

> Tell the story again and say that one of the travelers is black and the other white or one is male and the other female or one is rich and the other poor and see how you feel then about acting like your attitude alone determines your social outcomes.

I'm not sure that's the way I'd think of it. More like: imagine two travelers, both are black, or both are gay, and they're exactly the same in all regards (thought experiment!), and one person believes that them being in group X means people treat them unfairly, while the other doesn't. They will have different interpretations of events, leading to different responses, leading to different lives. As I said above, taking the stance that we can control our lives leads to improving our lives, taking the stance that social factors are the biggest leads to us I think improving society in the best case, or learned helplessness in the worst case. The former is easier to do than the latter.

And that's a practical thought experiment, because you can change your outlook over time, it's the whole point of therapy. Those two travelers are the same person at different points in their lives.

[Mz]

There is lots of interesting stuff about optimism out there, some of which shows that optimists handle certain things differently. One experiment did something like asked how many pictures were in a fake newspaper they had printed and gave you a time limit. On some page (like page 2 or some other early page), it announced "This paper has X number of pictures." The optimists would see that and stop counting. They had their answer. The pessimists were so focused on counting pictures, they failed to read this big, bold statement.

So, basically, many optimists know how to hack the system instead of literally doing what they were told. This is part of what I am talking about. I am an optimist, but it isn't merely "think shiny thoughts." It is "I think I have the skillz to handle this and get a better outcome than what most people would expect or are predicting." And it is really problematic when the message is "you just need a better attitude." In my experience, a better attitude grows out of having the skills you need to tackle the problem. Many people don't have that. If you give them that, changes in attitude follow.

I don't really disagree with anything you have said here, except for the detail that this question was posted by a woman in tech on an overwhelmingly male forum. So, this parable tends to come across as suggesting that women merely have an attitude problem. I am the highest ranked woman here. Trying to establish the ability to open my mouth and get real engagement without it being a shit show has been a long, hard slog. Having done that, I am noticing more women able to open their mouths.

So, if the parable is helpful to you, awesome! But I didn't want to just stand by and say nothing knowing how such subtext can have a chill effect that is enormously harmful to already silenced minorities.

[iaw]

This parable is designed to illustrate the difference in outcomes based on perception.

Gender and racial bias in tech are not based solely on individual perception but also behaviors of individuals within a culture.

How can this parable be seen as addressing OP's question?

[jshevek]

The experience of oppression, particularly in the modern US, is highly influenced by ones perception.

[s73ver]

I'd say it's much more influenced by one's gender or race.

[jshevek]

Yes, though the truth of your statement doesn't detract from the truth of my statement. We can't change our gender or race but we can change our outlook.

[Mz]

The problem here is that "outlook" hardly does justice to a very complex situation.

The implication that oppressed peoples who have been genuinely wronged merely need to put on a happy face and change their attitude is pretty horrendous. It ignores the fact that smooth social skills take time and opportunity to develop. It ignores the fact that if you are "the wrong kind of people" you do not get the benefit of the doubt that "the right kind of people" get. (This is a thing I have gotten to experience firsthand from both sides of the equation. Being homeless has been a huge education in just how much that benefit of the doubt greases the wheels of polite society. When that lubrication is missing, your life can grind to a painful halt.) And a thousand other factors here.

I am a woman and I try to tell other women what they can do differently in the face of living in a sexist world. I am routinely accused of blaming the victim for trying to empower women. I find that very frustrating because I do my level best to provide solid data and practical how-tos. I do my best to avoid suggesting that women merely have an attitude problem.

So while I am sympathetic to the idea that wherever you go, there you are and I am also sympathetic to the idea that it makes vastly more sense to focus on changing the things within your own control, given the larger context of life, I think this point you are trying to make about "just change your attitude" is a really crappy message to put out there. It is akin to telling someone maimed by abuse "It's in the past -- it doesn't matter!" and overlooking the very real legacy of impairment those past actions have left behind.

[jshevek]

As far as I can tell, your comment has little to nothing to do with mine, due to an ungenerous interpretation.

[iaw]

Thank you for getting at what I was trying to say much better than I could have.

[roguecoder]

We can change the environments we participate in to correct for measurable bias, though, and it is reasonable for people being discriminated against to expect us to.