[jordo37]

When I first read this post I thought "Great! A story on cases of less explicit forms of gender-discrimination told in a way that makes business and economic sense. Seems like a good argument to have in my backpocket as someone who cares about gender issues." Then, out of further curiosity I checked the conversation on HN.

Gender issues are not like making someone feel uncomfortable for their eating habits, or their consumption of alcohol. Your eating habits, especially in Silicon Valley, are not something that systemically keep you back from achieving success. Gender and implicit sexism do.

Perhaps as a man, respecting women for their brains and their bodies feels "orthogonal" to you, but I doubt it does to most of the women you work with. Ask them, but in a way where they can really respond.

More than anything that's the important idea here. Being a woman in technology is different than being a man. If you are a man and have opinions about this and have not sought out the opinions of the women you work with in a genuine way, in an environment where they can be honest, then you don't know what you are talking about. I've asked and it's always surprised and dissapointed me.

Maybe from now on we should use IANAW to talk about gender issues as men, because honestly, its are stacked in our favor. Only by understanding the other side can we understand what the problems with gender issues look like.