[davidhansen]

I'm not sure why the author of this article somehow thinks that geeks deny the existence of sexism in geek culture. The reality is that it's widely known and accepted. If the author wants to find something to rail against, he should have chosen the fact that everybody knows, but nobody cares.

I'm not going to defend the treatment of women in geek culture, as much of it is indefensible. but it seems that few people bring up one of the most important factors in its existence, one which has nothing at all to do with objectification. It has more to do with envy, anger, and an amazing ability to hold a grudge.

Many HN readers are from a younger generation than myself. Many of you grew up always equating geek with "cool", and have no conception of what it would be like to be treated as nearly subhuman for liking computers. Some of us, however, remember the torment, the humiliation, the violence, the scorn and the ostracism of finding science, electronics, and computers fascinating. There was, indeed, such a time. Many nerds who endured poor treatment at the hands of their peers developed deep emotional traumas that, to this day, exist to some extent or another. One of these traumas is borne of the experience of being not merely rejected, but openly mocked by girls during the most critical time in a young man's life when he is supposed to develop his sense of social status and sexuality. Frustration and humiliation is quick to turn to anger, and from anger, a deep rooted misogyny.

The result of this kind of upbringing is often a socially stunted man who, despite all his powers of logic and reason, finds it difficult to reason away the anger that he knows shouldn't be there, but is. He witnesses sexism and mistreatment of women around him, but he lacks the empathy required to say or do anything about it.

This concludes my armchair psychologist's analysis of one possible dimension of a hypothesis of why many of my generation permits geek culture to allow rampant sexism.

Caveats: I have no data or training in psychology to suggest this is at all a significant factor. But I am quite familiar with the phenomenon, and I know several other nerds who experience the same thing. I mention it only because it seems the zeitgeist is that men don't even see the sexism. I posit that many do see it, but it doesn't matter to (a good portion of) them. And that a possible cause of this in geek culture specifically is latent adolescent anger at women.

[da_dude4242]

"Some of us, however, remember the torment, the humiliation, the violence, the scorn and the ostracism of finding science, electronics, and computers fascinating. There was, indeed, such a time. Many nerds who endured poor treatment at the hands of their peers developed deep emotional traumas that, to this day, exist to some extent or another. One of these traumas is borne of the experience of being not merely rejected, but openly mocked by girls during the most critical time in a young man's life when he is supposed to develop his sense of social status and sexuality. Frustration and humiliation is quick to turn to anger, and from anger, a deep rooted misogyny."

The irony here is that the stigmatization of "nerds" was/is a product of males falling outside acceptable gender roles as well. Calling these males "privileged" is a way to dismiss and marginalize them.

Why is it that the majority of feminist articles I run into feel the need to dismiss the problems of "privileged" in making an argument for their perspective? They are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps it's selection bias and only controversial articles float to the top but it really seems like this is the norm.

[wanorris]

This is a pretty good starter inventory for what feminists mean when they talk about "male privilege".

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/

You may disagree with the analysis behind the list's construction, but I see little if anything on that list that obviously gets crossed off the list by virtue of being a geek.

Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the idea that geeks have male privilege does not exclude the possibility that there is another form of privilege that they lack that others have. Some other types of privilege that are sometimes considered are white privilege, class privilege, heterosexual privilege, etc. You can have male privilege but not white privilege, etc.

In other words, privilege isn't simply a binary have/don't have thing such that geeks have it and women don't.

You could make an argument that there is some sort of gender-stereotypical privilege that, say, football players share in but geeks do not. Is that where you were going?

[da_dude4242]

Males have the "privilege" of being the "stronger" sex. If you're not collected and emotionally unreactive you are abnormal/weak. Any emotional expression that deviates from a narrow acceptable range is abnormal. You do not need the same reaching out or emotional support of the "weaker" sex because you are strong. It's no wonder males have the privilege of being more likely to be isolated. Have the privilege of being 5 times more likely succesfully commit suicide. Being 10 times more likely to die on the job. Our "strength" gives us the privilege to be drafted into wars and be generally disposable to the hazards of society. None of this captured by your list though so I suppose it's irrelevant.

"Weakness" in females signals a socialized response to reach out and support. "Weakness" in males signals a socialized response to stigmatize. Because after all you are privileged, why don't you just "man-up"?

"Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the idea that geeks have male privilege does not exclude the possibility that there is another form of privilege that they lack that others have."

That's my point. When is the last time you read an article about leveling the field of female privilege? In theory the idea of privilege is inclusive but in practice it's not.

[cemery]

You're thinking about the word privilege in the wrong way. When you use the term in a social justice setting you need to stop thinking about all the possible meanings and focus on a very few specific ones. (Think of the word in the same way you think of class when you are talking about programming, it has a specific meaning, trying to make privilege mean more then it does makes you look like you are trying to argue semantics).

When we talk about privilege in a social justice setting you want to think about the privilege of being the default. Ignore every other privilege and think about that one in particular. You point out all the downsides of that privilege in your post, which are all true and valid, which is why calling whiteness and maleness a privilege breaks our brains a bit. It's not unadulterated good, there are a lot of bad things that come about due to the default of maleness and masculinity.

Lets look at the idea that you put forward about Weakness, how in women it's ok, and in males it's not ok.

In males it's not ok because it violates the default maleness that is expected (a negative aspect of the default maleness), and in females it is ok because it goes along with the !default of femaleness.

When you start thinking of privilege not as things that you get for being male, but about expectations of the world, what we view the default as, and what we view the other as, the idea that male privilege could be bad for males and females makes more sense. In a lot of ways the word privilege is a crappy way to put it, because it makes us think about things that are privileges in our lives, not the privilege of being the default.

[wanorris]

> None of this captured by your list though so I suppose it's irrelevant.

They're not on a male privilege checklist. A catalog of gender differences would be a different list.

> When is the last time you read an article about leveling the field of female privilege? In theory the idea of privilege is inclusive but in practice it's not.

I think most feminists would discount the idea of "female privilege" per se as a false equivalence similar to a hypothetical "black privilege".

> "Weakness" in females signals a socialized response to reach out and support. "Weakness" in males signals a socialized response to stigmatize.

The fact that there is a societal preference toward masculinity, which underlies many of your points, is definitely a topic that gets brought up in feminist/gender studies circles. This is why it's comparatively okay for women to be tomboys and such, and highly frowned upon for men to be effeminate or show what are considered feminine traits.

Many feminists call this general societal enforcement of gender roles part of patriarchy, and seek to remove the stigma associated with violating these roles. So if that's something you're interested in, there's no reason you can't find common cause.

[da_dude4242]

"I think most feminists would discount the idea of "female privilege" per se as a false equivalence similar to a hypothetical "black privilege"."

That's my point.

"The fact that there is a societal preference toward masculinity, which underlies many of your points, is definitely a topic that gets brought up in feminine circles. This is why it's comparatively okay for women to be tomboys and such, and highly frowned upon for men to be effeminate or show what are considered feminine traits."

My point is that's not a fact. I mean look at what you're saying. You're saying that the fact a gay male is more likely to experience stigma, have less support, more likely to be a victim of hate crime, and more likely to kill himself than his gay female counterpart is an offense against the feminine. The determining factor for these injustices is being biologically male.

"Many feminists call this general societal enforcement of gender roles part of patriarchy, and seek to remove the stigma associated with violating these roles. So if that's something you're interested in, there's no reason you can't find common cause."

In theory there is no reason why there can't be common cause. Gender analysis is gender analysis. In practice it usually doesn't work out that way.

[slurgfest]

I think you are right, but it is really hard to take a nuanced position like that out in public (or anyway, it invites a lot of criticism) because it is inevitably interpreted as a political move to neutralize efforts in favor of groups which are, still, disadvantaged on-the-whole even if they actually are privileged or advantaged in some specific ways.

[einhverfr]

But in certain domains (childrearing, for example) females are definitely in a net-privileged position in terms of power and control, particularly if unmarried.

[Anechoic]

> Our "strength" gives us the privilege to be drafted into wars and be generally disposable to the hazards of society.

This isn't an example of privilege, it's patronization - it was a male-dominated society who declared that women weren't fit/suitable for war (and other occupations) and therefore should be protected from the horrors of war. Until recently it was men who wanted to keep women out of combat roles (now the split is about even, with the majority supporting combat roles for women).

[da_dude4242]

A)My use of the word privilege was sarcastic.

B)The Equal Rights Amendment which would have required drafting for both sexes was defeated by a woman organization(STOP ERA).

[einhverfr]

I am thinking of the descriptions of missionaries to Ireland who were horrified at what they saw as women in battle hacking eachother to pieces, while carrying their infants on their backs.

[wpietri]

That's my point. When is the last time you read an article about leveling the field of female privilege? In theory the idea of privilege is inclusive but in practice it's not.

Actually, there are quite a lot of people who seek true equity. Google "kyriarchy" and you'll find a lot of these discussions.

However, the reason you won't find many articles like you want is that a) the historical gender bias is undeniably pro-male, so people have focused on the bigger problem and b) the argument has become stigmatized because every time people try to talk about anti-female sexism some guy immediately jumps up and cries "what about meeeeeeeee". Not because his lot is particularly rough, but because he as the privileged party is used to thinking about his experience first, and ignoring that of the non-dominant group.

So if you want people to start noticing the way the current system of gender biases also hurts men, then a) don't hijack discussions of male privilege, and b) help solve the giant historical inequity.

[da_dude4242]

The reason you won't find many articles is because the male perspective has been marginalized from gender studies. The generic argument being "the male perspective dominates all other domains so there is no need for a mens studies".

>the historical gender bias is undeniably pro-male, so people have focused on the bigger problem

You're comparing apples to oranges. What's worse having a 5-15% risk of sexual assault or having 15% of your gender die like Soviet men in WWII? Trying to turn this into a pissing contest isn't a logically valid way to approach this topic. Both genders face hazards that are qualitatively unrankable.

[wpietri]

Once again, your goal doesn't appear to be to eliminate the gender-related problems that people face; it seems to be to disrupt the discussion of problems that women face.

[jcnnghm]

Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist? For example, while women may be asked to smile by random people (44), they are murdered by random people far less often than men, representing only 21% of victims. Or, while females spend more time grooming than men (27), they are much less likely to have their genitals mutilated as infants by mothers who do not like the way they look.

There can be some things in society that do not appeal to women. There are certainly things that women find appealing that most men are not at all interested in.

I always kind of thought that young geeks used comic books to escape their reality. This is just a guess, but could it be that some geeks are awkward around women because females weren't nice to them during their adolescence? Sex hormone levels peak at around age 17 for men, senior year of high school. Is it really that unexpected that men that get no positive female attention during their sexual prime don't embrace women exploring geek hobbies?

Perhaps the focus of all these stupid gender articles should be on encouraging young women not to alienate a large subset of people. I would be willing to bet that if geeks were more accepted at an earlier age, many of the perceived gender issues would disappear.

[rayiner]

> Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist?

Sure. My girlfriend can randomly go up to random people and play with their babies, while my doing so is likely to get me arrested. A mother has the presumption of getting custody in a contentious divorce, etc. Nobody would take a sexual harassment complaint against a woman seriously.

But you know what? In pure economic terms, I'd take male privilege over female privilege any day of the week. I can't remember the last time a woman was sexually harassing me but nobody at work would take me seriously. Negotiating salaries, gunning for promotions, making trade-offs between career and family--these are things with huge economic impact that affects everyone and women have a disadvantage in these areas because of perceptions.

[gregholmberg]

Back when I had a boyish appearance (20s, early 30s), parents would smile when their kids tried to play with me. After the gray hair showed up, I could see them pull their kids away, no longer smiling.

In pure economic terms, what price do we put on "forced to feel like a moral leper"?

[jopt]

And then there's the draft

[philwelch]

> Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist?

Yes:

http://www.the-niceguy.com/articles/Checklist.html

http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2008/06/08/female-privil...

http://mensresistance.wordpress.com/female-privilege-checkli...

(Note: I don't necessarily agree with or endorse everything on every one of these lists, but the point is very much made.)

[wallflower]

Wow, read these lists.

It appears that I really never think about gender bias.

[wazoox]

> they are murdered by random people far less often than men, representing only 21% of victims.

Murder is an incredibly rare occurrence in most countries and social environments. On the other hand, women are a huge majority among rape victims, and this is not exceptional: 5 to 10% of all women are sexually abused at some point (depends upon the country, again).

> Perhaps the focus of all these stupid gender articles should be on encouraging young women not to alienate a large subset of people.

Perhaps the focus of people like you should be to think about your attitude, just like this article conveniently talked about? Your arrogance and close-mindedness are astounding. Oh, before you ask, I'm a white, straight male too.

[jcnnghm]

Murder is an incredibly rare occurrence in most countries and social environments. On the other hand, women are a huge majority among rape victims, and this is not exceptional: 5 to 10% of all women are sexually abused at some point (depends upon the country, again).

Rape makes up only 6% of violent crimes, and men are much more commonly the victim of violent crimes than women. In fact, excluding rape, as the severity of violent crimes increase, so does the probability that the victim is male.

And couldn't I also say that, while rape is relatively rare, men are over twice as likely to be the victim of severe physical domestic violence (the ratio of murder to rape and rape to severe physical domestic violence is the same). Or that perpetration rates for physical violence as a whole are significantly higher for women than men.

I personally think that these are all bogus arguments because they trivialize rape. At the same time, trivializing murder is no better than trivializing rape, unless you believe that men are expendable.

Perhaps the focus of people like you should be to think about your attitude, just like this article conveniently talked about? Your arrogance and close-mindedness are astounding. Oh, before you ask, I'm a white, straight male too.

Nice ad hominem.

[wazoox]

> Rape makes up only 6% of violent crimes, and men are much more commonly the victim of violent crimes than women.

Most victims of violent crimes are known offenders or their relatives. An overwhelming majority of offenders are male (see the proportion of male vs female in jail).

> Nice ad hominem.

It's ad personam if you want. You go straight to the usual tactic of pretending that it's the victim fault. Take some time to imagine yourself in the situations represented before being a judgemental jerk.

See this post for a good explanation: http://hugoboy.typepad.com/hugo_schwyzer/2004/09/guilty_unti...

[philwelch]

> On the other hand, women are a huge majority among rape victims

No one is even going to listen to a man complaining he has been raped, so I very highly doubt the validity of those numbers.

[wazoox]

Men are a significant minority of rape victims (5 to 10%). However more than 99% of perpetrators are males.

[zasz]

Eh, just because females have advantages in some domains doesn't mean that their overall advantages in life are outweighed by the overall male advantages in life. Stuff like the salary gap, stereotype threat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat), and being expected to give up your career to be the one to raise the kids affect most adult women for most of their lives. Murder is a pretty rare event, and men, as the traditionally more risk-taking sex, could be bringing quite a bit of it down on themselves. I'd take the increased chance of murder, personally.

[makomk]

On the other hand, stuff like the causes of the salary gap, stereotype threat, and being expected to give up contact with your kids to be the one raising money to bring them up affect most adult men for most of their lives. (There's support out there for heterosexual men giving up their careers to raise kids but only so long as this decision is made by the kids' mother based on what benefits her personally.)

The wage gap is also curious because these days it results mostly from men and women doing different kinds of work, and campaigners demand totally different solutions for high-status jobs than they do for low-status ones. For stuff like tech industry startups there are lots of campaigns to include more women. On the other hand, if you take street-side trash collection (another job which is also largely male) instead there are campaigns for women to get the same pay for doing "equivalent" jobs like office cleaning.

Now, trash collection of this kind is an awful lot more dangerous than cleaning offices and this is both why it's better paid and why there are few women doing it; for various reasons people get more upset about a woman dying in a horrific industrial accident than a man so employers have an incentive to discourage women, and there's not so much social pressure for them to get dangerous jobs. Equality would require making people care more about men dying or less about women, both of which benefit men rather than women, so feminists go for the unequal option of paying women for doing less than men instead.

Edit: For example, if you play video games take a close look at the gender of the mooks that you kill en-masse. That's just one of the subtle messages saying that men are disposable in mass media.

[kstenerud]

Actually, men in crappy, dangerous jobs is an evolutionary trait. It's also why they're (traditionally) the ones to go to war and why everyone thinks women and children are to be protected above all else.

If 90% of the males in a population die, it takes 1 generation to recover. If 90% of the females in a population die, it takes 5 generations to recover. Meanwhile, they are easy pickings for other competing populations.

[zasz]

Sure, it's sad men don't get to spend as much time with the kids, but the point is, they can have their career, and have at least some time with their children. Women very often just don't have that choice, and are forced to take just the kids. That sounds worse to me. (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/18616558/ns/today-books/t/why-...)

Also, women are actively punished for asking for more money, or being aggressive: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07... That has nothing to do with dangerous jobs, and that's a legitimate form of sexism that feminism has every right to address.

Do you have any figures for the "men are paid more because they take on more dangerous jobs" assertion? From the AMAs I've seen on Reddit, trash collection is not dangerous--just a low-status job, albeit a high-paying one with short hours.

Also, yes, I play vido games. I have not played Assassin's Creed, but my understanding is that historically, monks were men, so if you're going to assassinate the pope, he's going to be surrounded by men. I have, though, slaughtered a lot of male and female citizens of Vault City while playing Fallout 2.

The vibe I'm getting from your post is, "feminism isn't doing enough to eliminate the negative implications of gender roles for men, and it is therefore invalid." Or maybe it's something more like, "hey, men suffer a lot too, why are you spending so much time paying attention to women?" In which case, the simple reply is that while gender roles can negatively affect both genders, women seem to have the worst of it.

I mean, black men have this reputation for having gigantic dicks and being able to dance, which reflects badly on white men in comparison, but you'd have to be insane to prefer being a black man to a white man in America. I hear Eminem has a hard time being a white rapper in a black man's world, but it would be silly to feel sorry for him. And in a similar vein, I don't feel nearly as sorry for men as I do for women.

[spindritf]

> the salary gap

Men don't earn more money for being men (not any more at least, if it was ever true):

> according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00....

[wpietri]

Amazing what happens when you read the whole article: you discover that a) this is a market research survey guy, and b) his theory is due to the fact that the women are better educated, and therefore better qualified.

Which means that this is definitely not evidence that evidence that women get paid the same as men when all else is equal.

[rmc]

they are much less likely to have their genitals mutilated as infants by fathers who do not like the way they look.

Female genital mutilation happens as well in some countries. And the majority of cases it's much worse than the male equivalent. FGM often results in all or part of the clitoris being removed. That would be like all or part of the glans of a penis being removed. (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation#Class...)

(As an aside, I think male genital mutilation happens more in the USA. Men in Europe of christian ethnicity don't usually get this done. Tis an odd the cultural practices)

[jcnnghm]

And the majority of cases it's much worse than the male equivalent. FGM often results in all or part of the clitoris being removed.

As a circumcised male, I generally believe that FGM is much worse than the male equivalent, even though it is much more rare in developed countries. At the same time, I wonder if the facts that most circumcised men have no basis for comparison, and that the procedure is so common, colors that bias. The foreskin has over 20,000 nerve endings whereas the clitoris only has about 8,000. Men that have undergone foreskin restorations sometimes report vastly improved sexual sensitivity and much more intense orgasms.

As I said, I believe the female variant is much worse, but it does cause me to pause and consider that this may be caused by female privilege. I cannot help but wonder if my belief that there would be outrage if roles were reversed is valid.

[wpietri]

Could you help me better understand the theory that circumcision results from female privilege?

Female genital mutilation is pretty explicitly about controlling female sexuality in a way that makes women more obedient male property.

Circumcision, though, seems to be a religious thing from a very patriarchal culture. The modern justification for which is hygiene and/or health, and sometimes it's definitely medically necessary.

So I'm not seeing how circumcision is evidence of a gender power differential.

[wpietri]

Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist?

Sure. And if you do that in the spirit of saying, "gosh, these are also nice problems to fix one day", that's great. But mostly people bring that argument up in the sense of "Gosh, your life is not 100% shitty, so I'm going to go back to pretending everything is fair now."

This argument is so common that it appears on the "Derailing for Dummies" guide: http://derailingfordummies.com/#butbut (Note that they include as an example your false equivalence between circumcision and female genital mutilation.)

Also, that there are reasons somebody might be a sexist jerk does not excuse them being sexist jerks. Suppose there's a correlation between sex hormone levels, lack of female attention, and rape. Do we say, "Gosh, that's not unexpected" and tell women to be more accommodating?

Honestly, your attempt at victim-blaming here is kinda repulsive. There's no particular reason to believe that the sort of sexism described by the article is experienced by the people who failed to be nice enough to (by which you mean: have sex with) the guys who are being jerks. And if they were the same people, then I'm still not seeing any justification: your theory appears to be that guys are somehow entitled to sexual attention just for being guys. Which, hello, is exactly the sort of sexism driven by male privilege the article's author is calling out.

[jcnnghm]

This argument is so common that it appears on the "Derailing for Dummies" guide: http://derailingfordummies.com/#butbut (Note that they include as an example your false equivalence between circumcision and female genital mutilation.)

This is really incredible, "Because the removal of a tiny flap of skin is entirely comparable to the crippling mutilation many young girls are subjected to.." Seriously? Why is the removal of a "tiny flap of skin" from a vulva a crippling mutilation, whereas the removal of the foreskin, which has over 2.5 times the number of nerve endings, no big deal? And also, it's not a false equivalency since I did not bring up FGM since it is irrelevant to a discussion that is not centered around third world issues, whereas male genital mutilation is, seeing as how over 50% of males born in the US are still altered. Or are you actually suggesting that any discussion of male genital mutilation is irrelevant because males are not important, or at least not as important as females? Or perhaps that female genital mutilation is so much more important that it is unthinkable to address male genital mutilation at all so long as it is happening to a female somewhere on earth?

And I actually fully believe that the female variant is worse (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3364906), but this language is incredibly inflammatory.

[wpietri]

Yes, the language of the whole piece is intentionally inflammatory. Satire: it's a recognized literary form.

Note that you entirely ignore my actual point, which is that you have taken a discussion about sexism and male privilege and tried to make it about you and your concerns as a guy. And that your behavior is common enough that somebody took the time to include it in a guide of lame responses to discussions of privilege. Do you see what's wrong with that?

[burgerbrain]

I must say that that trivialization of male genital mutilation is particularly sickening. The author very clearly has no actual knowledge on the subject.

[burgerbrain]

Hmm, there are a few things on that list that don't seem to ring true, or at least seem to be leaving out large portions of the picture.

For example:

"41. Assuming I am heterosexual, magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media is filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are rarer."

The last issue of Playboy that I have seen had more topless men in it than women. Perhaps the author is better at visually tuning out advertisements than I. Of course the same is true of the last... dozen? action movies I've seen.

And then there are the issues of reproductive/child rearing rights, which are currently heavily skewed against men. A woman who has unprotected sex (or for that matter sometimes protected sex) is in a much better position than a man who does the same. In fact, in nearly anything concerning children in the slightest men are decidedly discriminated against.

What is my point here? Real life is more complicated than a list or two might suggest.

[waqf]

Right, and

"22. If I’m careless with my driving it won’t be attributed to my sex."

Supposing you are caught speeding down the freeway at 110mph on Saturday night. What sex is everyone going to expect you to be?

[burgerbrain]

Or this one

"25. I do not have to worry about the message my wardrobe sends about my sexual availability."

Compare:

  A woman wearing pants.
  A man wearing a dress.

One person is going to have their sexuality judged. And it's not going to be the woman.

[skore]

That's funny, but not insightful. I assume that with pants, you don't mean plain jeans, but a pantsuit (because this isn't the 60's).

There are pantsuits designed for women, but no dresses designed for men. Even further than that - a dress is very specific to female anatomy in a way that a suit isn't, to male anatomy.

The real issue, however, is that a woman wearing a suit is perceived in a certain way (as aggressive and, funnily enough, "only imitating men") while a man wearing a dress happens to be an often frequented motif in comedy.

Finally, a man can wear a dress specifically to underline just how male he is, because "even a dress can't take that manliness away".

[einhverfr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWuJbOB1kdw

Or a man wearing a pantsuit?

Edit: The point of posting this wasn't just a funny fake political ad but also the nuances of suggesting that Bill Clinton wears the pantsuit, instead of Hillary wearing the pants.

[wazoox]

Actually misrepresenting reality. Do you consider William Wallace as a wimp because he wore skirts ?

[wpietri]

Are you seriously equating topless men and topless women as socially equivalent, disempowering sexual objectification?

That seems of a piece with your theory that the point of topless men in Playboy ads and action movies is to appeal sexually to women.

[overgryphon]

That particular list has been around for years. While a recent issue of Playboy may have topless men, it is historically a men's magazine. If you counted the pictures of women and men in the last year, what would you find?

"A woman who has unprotected sex (or for that matter sometimes protected sex) is in a much better position than a man who does the same."

Men who have unprotected sex are expected to pay a state-determined minimum tax essentially to provide for their children. For men, children are abstracted into a financial problem. A woman who has an unexpected child has much more than finances to worry about.

[prodigal_erik]

Divorced fathers face state-imposed poverty if not being caged for the sin of existing in a bad economy. Divorced mothers, after a decision that's wholly up to them, can free ride on half of the child's mandated "standard of living" which has almost no relationship to the actual cost of raising a child. We urgently need less unreliable, primitive, unpleasant contraception for men.

[mayanksinghal]

> 1. My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are probably skewed in my favor. The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are skewed. > 2. I can be confident that my co-workers won’t think I got my job because of my sex – even though that might be true.

I remember a discussion on HN where many of the comments have said that the best way to bring women into the industry is to bring women into the industry. Quite true, I definitely agree to it. And so does most of the companies - they all try to maintain a gender ratio that is not too skewed to make the firm look sexist. But, when one tries to bring a category X into a field where X is rare, to bring them in - it results in lowering expectations from them. I just had my placement season on campus (I am a final year student) - the difference was visible. Of course, that makes me look sexist (I possibly am) when I say that the expectations from male students to get a job was higher than female students. Female students are, at least now, rewarded for being rare and because women are required to be brought in the industry. Unfortunately, there are pros and cons to this approach. These steps result in unavoidable animosity because of scarcity of resources - in this case, a lucrative job. My point is that you cannot have the best of both worlds: any corrective action has consequences.

[demallien]

There are many reasons for women being difficult to recruit in tech. Here's one - if you are an intelligent young woman having just finished high school, and about to choose your university courses you might have a look at the expected pay that you will receive in different industries. You note that in medicine and law women are no longer a minority, and that they receive equal pay, and nearly equal social power as their male counterparts. You note that in engineering this is not at all the case. Studies repeatedly show female engineers receiving less than their male counterparts[1]. Women are rarely promoted up in engineering organisations and engineering organisations are unusually hostile to flexible work arrangements[2].

The result is that unless you are absolutely passionate about engineering, the reasonable thing to do is to take a pass on engineering, and go for one of the many other rewarding careers available to you.

If you want to bring women into the industry, you need to make the industry appealing to women. With current discriminatory practices that is just not the case, and until that changes, there won't even be an opportunity to recruit women, because those with anything less than a burning passion for the career are going to look elsewhere.

[1] http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/engineering-pay-gap-glassdoor-... [2] http://www.studyofwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/NSF_Wo... page 27

[mayanksinghal]

I think you are mixing points though the central cause remains the same. Firstly, medicine nearly always had enough women though as nurses (male nurses are still minority) and them gaining equal role, responsibility and returns was probably a slow process (I wouldn't know, I am not related to the field). The point I was making was because the very basic of the privileges that were pointed out in the article was regarding (1) Easier jobs/promotions for men (2) Men saying that women got it because they are women.

There has been a lot of efforts to bring women at par with men in terms of returns they gain. And there have also been efforts that aim at increasing their count. Both, are required. You are pointed out at the first category of efforts and I am pointed out the consequences of affirmation actions that belong to the second category. There are two forces at play here - (1) Discriminatory, against women. (2) Affirmative action, for women. Now the second point in the privileges is because affirmative actions have a very obvious but mean side effect. It leads to undermining the potential of those who receive benefit from them because affirmative action is done at an expense of some people who otherwise deserved the benefit if standard parameters of judgement are used. This leads to unrest and hence my refute to privilege (2). While my refute to privilege (1) was the overwhelming of discriminatory forces by affirmative actions in my experience from my point of view. This is as biased an opinion as possible, hence you can choose to ignore it. But if many seem to face a similar experience, that would mean that affirmative action needs to be done at a lower level or be stopped for it has served its purpose.

[bermanoid]

You note that in medicine and law women are no longer a minority, and that they receive equal pay, and nearly equal social power as their male counterparts.

Sorry to be [citation needed]-guy, but a quick Googling tells me that this is not true. In both medicine (http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2011/02/gender-gap-physician-sal...) and law (http://www.theglasshammer.com/news/2009/02/05/the-wage-gap-p...) the pay gap is substantial, and a quick look says that they're both worse than tech.

From that first link:

Without these adjustments and just looking at a Population Survey from 2007, the New York Times reported that women doctors earn a whopping 40% less than their male colleagues. That is worse than every other profession the Times looked at. Yes, even lawyers.

I don't think wage gap is what's pushing people away...the worst case difference in tech is around 10%, which is not particularly bad compared to most fields, and for recent grads the gap is much smaller, around 4%.

I'd probably look to absolute value of wages instead for an explanation, though that wouldn't explain a difference between men and women's preferences.

If you want to bring women into the industry, you need to make the industry appealing to women. With current discriminatory practices that is just not the case, and until that changes, there won't even be an opportunity to recruit women, because those with anything less than a burning passion for the career are going to look elsewhere.

While I don't really think that discriminatory practices in tech are any worse than the general average across fields (I at least think that's an accusation that requires substantial proof), you bring up an interesting point. Most tech people that I've worked with do have a burning passion for it, and to be good in this field, it's pretty much a prerequisite.

I wonder what is blocking more women from feeling as passionate about tech as men do, especially since such passion usually emerges very early, well before one has opportunity to interact with anyone in the field (this is why I'm always skeptical of claims that teachers, professors, bosses, etc. have anything to do with this, I was programming on my own almost a decade before I ever interacted meaningfully with other programmers). Do girls spend less time with computers at the critical young age, perhaps? I wonder if perhaps the difference could have to do with time spent playing video games, at least for the current generation...

[overgryphon]

I am a woman just entering the field after college. So I'm going to speak from my own experiences.

I haven't found much discrimination, but I have noticed that any boss considering to hire me after an internship has asked if/when I plan to have children. This has happened twice, and is the only situation anyone has asked me that question in college. It really is an odd question to ask an 18 year old.

"I wonder what is blocking more women from feeling as passionate about tech as men do, especially since such passion usually emerges very early. Do girls spend less time with computers at the critical young age, perhaps?"

Why does someone have to be interested in computers/video games at a young age to pursue software development? I think the attitude that if you didn't play with computers at a young age you can't do tech is rather egotistical. Some girls I met in college didn't pursue an interest in tech until college and by the end of college you wouldn't know the difference.

[bermanoid]

I remember a discussion on HN where many of the comments have said that the best way to bring women into the industry is to bring women into the industry. Quite true, I definitely agree to it.

I don't know that I'm so sure. Most other professional industries were, at one point, just as lopsidedly male as tech is these days. But as society lifted the more explicit barriers and it became common for women to pursue professional careers, they naturally flowed into all sorts of different roles (the "Jackie Robinson effect", so to speak).

That they haven't showed up in tech (and math and science, though there are slightly more there) means there's something else going on, and I just can't buy the theory that women have stayed away because there are few women, since that has proved to be a relatively small deterrent in so many other cases.

I'm similarly skeptical that sexism in the industry is responsible for this, because it's just as rampant, if not moreso, in most industries (I could tell you some really unbelievable stories about the finance industry, yeegads...). That's not to say that because "everybody else does it" it's right or okay in tech; rather, it's to say that unless there's some clear reason why sexism in tech should push women away more forcefully than it does in other fields (or a shred of non-anecdotal evidence that sexism is more prevalent in tech, which I have never seen, and which I'm skeptical about because if it was true it seems fair to assume that we'd see a greater pay gap than in most other fields, which is not the case), it's hard for me to accept it as the main reason women aren't showing up to the party. And if it's not the real reason that women aren't getting into the field, then we might be missing the actual cause, which perhaps we could do something about.

Or maybe we can't. But we should at least be trying to figure out some better way to find out what's actually going on, rather than just arguing from anecdote and theory (I'm guilty of this, as well).

[philwelch]

I would look at how many women are in STEM fields in, say, Europe. Because if it's an American problem, then maybe it's because in America, STEM fields are low-status. Not as low-status as garbage collectors, but low-status enough that women don't aspire to break into those fields the way they've broken into law and medicine.

[rayiner]

That's a shockingly insightful list.

I love #30: I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch.

I've found that I can entertain a much broader range of personality tones than my female friends. You have to be an order of magnitude more aggressive to be an "asshole" than you do to be a "bitch." "Pensive" is a word you might use for a man, "moody" for the equivalent in a woman. I've never had to fight a socialized urge to defer to anyone in conversation, and certainly not to someone of the opposite sex.

[neutronicus]

I don't disagree with your examples, but I do think that men are more common targets for the "creepy / sketchy" nexus of slurs, including the not-particularly sexualized varieties. The same goes for the "loser / choke artist" family, I think.

[rayiner]

Oh definitely. But when was the last time having a reputation as a "choke artist" negatively impacted someone at work?

[neutronicus]

Having a few indicators of being a "loser" on you resume - like, say, being unemployed, can put a damper on your career.

[Goladus]

Men who are inappropriately aggressive get kicked in the balls, then get called a bitch (by men) or loser (by women). Alternately they are simply considered irritating and are ignored until they go away. If there's an equivalent insult in this case, it's "aspie."

Men might be able to be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch, but that's minor compared to the other consequences that face by being aggressive.

> You have to be an order of magnitude more aggressive to be an "asshole" than you do to be a "bitch."

One caveat being that for men, balancing aggression and restraint tend to be learned early and if there's no reason to challenge the hierarchy there's no reason to be aggressive. Women, on the other hand, who are thrust into male-dominated environments without understanding the rules may fail in a variety of ways. They may fail to use appropriate body language. Their voice might betray too much emotional investment in the outcome. They may persist on unwinnable points where men would back down (iow fail to choose their battles effectively).

If you've dealt with successfully aggressive women, they are rarely called "bitch" unless they are truly hostile or by angry people who have lost control and pick the first insult that comes to mind (see the movie 'Crash' for some excellent examples of this phenomenon as it applies to racism). Typically you will notice that these women are comfortable adopting male body language, probably have a deep and confident voice, and are far more emotionally restrained than average women. They are typically physically intimidating (a saleswoman or CEO). They are capable of aggression and assertiveness without being called a bitch because they have learned to do it in a masculine way.

What women can't do is be aggressive without sacrificing femininity.

> I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew

Women who are loud in the way that men are loud are never called shrews. They are maybe called unfeminine but usually it's just something like "she's type A." Women who are loud in the sense that they complain constantly about small things and provoke arguments which they try to win by shrieking as loud as possible is the definition of a shrew. I think you'll find that's far rarer for men to behave that way.

[einhverfr]

I am not a social justice geek, much less a theorist in that area. I think a lot of times we see a lot of hogwash coming out of that area and I think this is impossible to resolve because social justice theorists tend to deny basic aspects of human nature, despising sexuality (which is a necessary part of life), social divisions and hierarchy (socially necessary) and the like.

I think when we look at these things something more objective and less judgemental (like anthropology) is a better starting point. I.e. it is better to criticize from a standpoint of functional understanding than from functional ignorance (seeing only portions of a dynamic that bother one and not seeing how something benefits the target group).

As far as the checklist, it's fairly rife with definitional problems (sexual harassment has a very narrow legal definition for example but I doubt that's what the blogger means, and even terms like rape are more and more frequently subject of definitional problems, as jurisdictions pass laws saying that drunken sex is rape regardless of how the intoxicant was administered).

Moreover I think one could turn this on it;s head and come up with a female privilege checklist too as unpopular as that would be (particularly important in areas of parenting, child support, and the like).

[127]

I was one of those nerds. I was not bullied by girls, but by guys. Most of the girls were really nice and lovely, in fact. I have nothing but fond memories of girls from those times.

As such I find your hypothesis quite hilarious and insulting. Misogyny in Newspeak does not mean hatred of women, it means things women hate. Think about it. More often than not it is a pure strawman.

Your logic chain goes as such: bullying -> misogyny -> boobies in entertainment.

My logic chain goes as follows: I like boobies -> boobies in entertainment.

Somehow you jump from sexism to misogyny without blinking. Those are two completely different things.

[Mithrandir]

As well as gaining points by distancing oneself from unpopular kids, one loses points by being close to them. A woman I know says that in high school she liked nerds, but was afraid to be seen talking to them because the other girls would make fun of her. Unpopularity is a communicable disease; kids too nice to pick on nerds will still ostracize them in self-defense.

From http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

[bitops]

[The "you" below is not personal.]

> The result of this kind of upbringing is often a socially stunted man who, despite all his powers of logic and reason, finds it difficult to reason away the anger that he knows shouldn't be there, but is. He witnesses sexism and mistreatment of women around him, but he lacks the empathy required to say or do anything about it.

Boo the fuck hoo. If guys weren't so hung up on trying to explain everything rationally, they might experience empathy without trying very hard. Most guys out there who want to "be sensitive" are putting on a nice liberal face so that they appear to have the right opinion.

I'm a guy, and can state from experience, that most guys are more concerned with being right and looking good than being empathic and in touch with their feelings. The issue is that with empathy comes understanding, and so you might see what a jerk you are sometimes.

Consequently, we're way too hung up on pride and being the alpha. Until guys can take a step back and admit that they might not have all the answers all the time, the thoughts, attitudes and opinions stated in the article will not go away.

[rdtsc]

I blame fucked up educational and general (I presume US?) culture. Let me give you another possibility. A country where liking math, computers and being good at those subjects earns you status and admiration including from girls. I remember tutoring some girls in those subjects, helping them with the homework and eventually dating them. It mostly based on my status as being #1 in those subjects got me the equivalent I guess what a football jock would get in an American high-school (and I know because I went there too, so I can compare).

However there is another element here and that is there are different kinds of women and it is not about girls vs boys but about assholes vs everyone else. When a girl was mean to me it was because she was an asshole not because she was a girl. I wouldn't want to be admired or liked or even be in the company of anyone like that.

Now to get back to the original subject I think often apparent misogynism is the result of socially inept/stupid behavior on behalf of male geeks. When there are 20 male geeks and one woman gets included in the group, the geeks start acting stupid and saying stupid things. Sorry I can't put it another less direct way. They often try to impress the woman or vie for her attention. Trying to outdo each other they end up making some inappropriate sexual joke, or even end up propositioning her. Sometimes hateful remarks are just sad attempt at teasing and trying to be more "direct" and "open" with her. Pretty soon she will be running away without even looking back. I know I am stereotyping geeks here as sexually frustrated, socially inept individuals, but that is because often I see it happening like that. So my idea is that misogyny is sometimes only apparent and stems from social ineptitude, rather then a genuine hatred of women as a gender (Not that it makes the woman feel a lot better as a result...).

[GigabyteCoin]

Any women that have been in my CS classes most certainly were not flirted with. They were 100% of the time "just another guy", and knew that before joining the class.

[neutronicus]

Considering that one thrust of the article seems to be that anyone (particularly anyone female) who despises comic book store patrons is justified in doing so, I think you're on point.

[wpietri]

Some geeks certainly deny the sexism -- he gives an example of one -- so I think an article on male privilege has to start out there.

I also think trauma can work both ways. My abuse for being a nerd didn't teach me that women were bad, it taught me that being mistreated for being different is bad. Ergo my hatred of sexist behavior in my industry.

More generally trauma can explain bad behavior, but I don't think it excuses it. (Not that you're suggesting otherwise, but I want to make sure people here don't slip into a common error.) A lot of physical abusers have been abused themselves. But a lot of abused people don't go on to abuse anyone else. There may be a reason that somebody is a sexist jerk, but we should still hold them to account.

[sqrt17]

> Some geeks certainly deny the sexism -- he gives an example of one -- so I think an article on male privilege has to start out there.

How is sexism a privilege? Sexism may be a bias, or as the grandparent hypothesizes, a lack of empathy;

Privilege may arise as a result of these biases (just as much as it would arise as a result of any other bias, against rural people, people with non-majority ethnicity, against unattached males over a certain age, etc.), but contrary to the title, the article is about sexism and not about privilege.

[wpietri]

Privilege here is a technical term.

Other people's sexism yields my male privilege. And yes, this article is definitely about male privilege.

[zasz]

Look at all these comments. I see a lot of geeks denying that sexism exists. The appeals to hunter-gatherer psychology are especially precious.