[knighthack]

> Part of that was due to the bro culture of the software business, part of it was that I receded to support my husband in a partnership where he was effectively the lesser partner, and part of it was that women, especially in tech, often seem to disappear when the story gets told.

Why is sexism being conflated with cutthroat business decisions?

She and her husband didn't make the cut - doesn't mean that she was specifically excluded because of her gender. Look, the fact that she then mentioned "... privilege of being a white middle class male" made it very clear that she wanted sexism as a key ragebaiting element.

As the article author relied on sexism as the concluding answer, there's nothing wrong to call her out on it.

[zackmorris]

I just want to clarify that I was the one who said "privilege of being a white middle class male", not her.

There's a lot of room for misinterpretation in long articles and comments, and risk of ragebaiting, as you pointed out.

But the reason I came down hard on the parent commenter is that after reading the whole article, they basically said that her being a woman had nothing to do with her treatment.

I've heard that veiled sexism my whole life, and racism, and agism, today it's classism.

What the parent may not realize is that by writing off her story so dismissively, they made her point. It's clear for the rest of us to see.

But if the rest of us let that stand, then it perpetuates a culture of ignorance.

There's been a lot of perpetuating these last few decades.

Which is why in 2024, despite all of our technology and progress, we are facing a presidential election between a woman and a man who openly expresses every ism and still gets 50% of the vote.

[ViktorRay]

But maybe the parent commentator was right. Maybe her treatment was not the result of her being a woman.

Someone might say something happened in their life because of sexism but that doesn’t mean it’s “veiled sexism” to disagree. We should be able to disagree or be critical with someone’s assertions on anything.

The stuff about politics you bring up like the election is not relevant to this. It’s essentially rage bait that would essentially derail the thread when you bring up stuff like that.

You also never actually addressed the specific things that people in the thread said. The fact that her husband’s contributions were also mostly ignored and that we mainly know him just as a cofounder. Or the fact that the work she did was in marketing and people generally don’t know the names of marketers.

“ What the parent may not realize is that by writing off her story so dismissively, they made her point. It's clear for the rest of us to see.”

When you say things like this you imply that disagreeing with someone when they say something happened to them because of an “ism” then you are automatically being “ist”. That’s silly. Sometimes people are right. Sometimes people are wrong. You should be able to disagree with people when you think they’re wrong. About this or anything else. Without automatically being labeled as an “ist” or promoting a veiled “ism.”

[zackmorris]

I've been trying to understand why I got triggered by the comment(s). I was in college in the 90s and it was very similar to the movie PCU:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110759/

Back then, sexism was blatant and rampant. The ratio of men to women in my engineering classes was roughly 30:1. It was almost unheard of for women to reach prominent positions in tech or any other male-dominated field for that matter. Yet we all had a sense that sexism and racism were finally on the verge of becoming a thing of the past.

Fast forward 30 years and I can't believe what's tolerated today, especially in politics:

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/stat...

On a personal level, bigotry may be lower today than in the 90s. But on the national stage it remains as polarizing as ever.

The saddest part about that for me is that it's creating division that was almost healed. Many women feel threatened after the Roe v. Wade rollback and countless other affronts, so masculinity is often portrayed as toxic. Then men, many of whom are struggling and unheard under patriarchy as well, feel like they are being lumped in with chauvinists and turn towards the Andrew Tates and Jordan Petersons and Joe Rogans of the world for validation. Which feeds their egos in ways that many women find insulting, creating a vicious cycle.

So when I see comments that being a woman has nothing to do with it, I think that sentiment feeds into the division. Whether it's true or not is beside the point, what matters is the intentional avoidance of empathy.

Unfortunately objective takes are given more credibility in these times than the subjective ones that I believe hold the insights. So even though this is a hill I'm dying on, there's no way for me to really win the debate. Which to me is the very essence of what the Harris/Trump presidential race is getting at.