[jaemison]

I love how in the past hour, a NYT op-ed discussing motherhood and women's agency is flagged as irrelevant but an article on decriminalizing prostitution is at the top of hacker news with a lengthy discussion on the nuances of policy and practice /s

[belorn]

Articles get normally flagged when HN users don't think that the resulting discussion will become productive. For an article that brings up gender roles, it really have to be amazing new insight in order for it to cut through the otherwise predictable discussion and people violently agreeing with each other over goals and violently disagreeing in the ways to reach it.

Prostitution has its own controversy but in my view it is less likely to bring in unproductive discussion. The hard lines opinion about sex is more or less settled, so the discussion is mostly focused on policy and end results. It is also less common discussion than gender roles, so it also gets a bit of a free pass.

[cokernel]

Is that https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/opinion/sunday/motherhood... by any chance?

[jaemison]

That's the one! Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14944904

[UnoriginalGuy]

I have little sympathy. The author decided to pick an "edgy" title to get clicks and it clearly backfired.

If you posted "Motherhood Isn’t Sacrifice, It’s Selfishness" as a comment here it would get flagged to death too. Putting it as a title of an OP-Ed doesn't change that even if the author will slowly break down why that ISN'T true (or more complex/nuanced).

If the author wants to generate legitimate discussion, they should talk to their editor about dropping the faux-controversial titles. Particularly as it sets the tone for the discussion is such a negative way.

[maxerickson]

The headlines in newspapers aren't written by the people that write the columns and articles.

[soundwave106]

From what I can tell, the title unfortunately reflects the article well. Sure, the article does skirt around some interesting thoughts on ingrained societal bias / roles (which has been discussed here quite a bit). But the article struck me as preachy / opinionated, in that the author had a fairly exact idea of what she thought the motherhood of everyone else was.

[thriftwy]

It sounds line an opinion piece not backed by any discussion. Essentially a blog post that anybody could have written. Why have off-topic blog posts on HN?

[forgottenacc57]

Cause nothing is off topic in HN that's the rules.

[forgottenacc57]

Are you saying that in today's politically correct world, HN should rank and give equal front page time to every topic relating to a minority? And also implying subtly that the predominantly male audience of HN prefer prostitution stories over discussion of minority's issues?

[jaemison]

No. What I am saying is that I don't fully understand the logic that dictates that while both articles I pointed to discuss women's autonomy and the right to decide how use their reproductive organs, only one issue relating to that is worth talking about in great detail and that is the one that discusses the legislating of vaginas in the vein of other topics like income inequality, homelessness, etc.

[forgottenacc57]

There's a whole lotta stuff posted to HN, most of it doesn't get discussed even if it's interesting.

It's not a male conspiracy to carefully disregard and disrespect certain topics/posts.

[jaemison]

I think that's the source of my confusion. I've generally accepted that women's issues are uninteresting to this audience unless it's about a startup disrupting some issue and that's ok. I'm more curious why this particular aspect of this particular issue is so interesting and worth discussing.

Say we legalize prostitution in the United States. What if a sex worker gets pregnant? Does the client have any obligation to support that child? Can the client sue for false advertising of an implied reproduction-free sex organ?

Laws governing social issues are messy and interesting but not technical. My point is it's a frivolous distinction to separate motherhood and women's rights from sex work because at the end of the day they are the same issue.

[frgtpsswrdlame]

To me it seems that it's not about the upvotes per se but about the flagging and the perception that prostitution is an appropriate topic for HN but motherhood isn't.

[DanBC]

It wasn't ignored, it was flagged.

[Spooky23]

The topic that you refer to is discussed frequently here and is a well worn path.

I think the combination of experiments in deregulation, a departure from norms in a historically socially conservative place like New England, and pruient curiosity probably attracted more reaction to this particular story.

[hackinthebochs]

>while both articles I pointed to discuss women's autonomy

I suspect its because the relevance of this article goes far beyond "a discussion of women's autonomy".

[fav_collector]

Because that's more political and it was an opinion piece. This is more "technical" and neutral.

HN flags both anti and pro women's agency articles (most opinion articles actually) so it is fair.

[okreallywtf]

I read that piece out of curiosity and didn't really see anything work discussing in it - it was pure opinion and thats about it.

[timwaagh]

i guess prostitution is a lot more interesting for us guys but i dont understand why we need to flag your article. to put it in stronger terms: how can we say its ok to be a woman in it if womens issues get flagged.