[gatordan]

This article is about a call to action to end sexual assault and harassment against women. It's really disappointing that the majority of comments that have followed are about how things really aren't THAT bad (as a man), or that women should expect this from a bunch of lonely guys, or that hey it happens to men too. I know some of these commenters are are well meaning, but this article isn't about you. The comments miss the point and completely undermine the author with their male centered narrative.

So next time you read about a minority group creating something exclusive to their gender, race (like Black Girls Code), or religion, remember this thread of comments. Because I bet you're first instinct will be to say "the solution is not to divide us into separate groups!". But until you start listening, internalizing, and cultivating those minority voices rather than dismissing them or displacing them with your own, those people are going to keep dropping out, showing up small numbers, or start making their own exclusive conferences/coding groups/fill-in-the-blank.

[belorn]

Articles like this are declaring issues in existing communities. This make it natural for members in those communities to create opinions and question when listening, internalizing, and cultivating the issues brought forth. Some of those opinions will be of the type "Is this issue, compared to all other form of issues already identified in the community, significant different that it need a imminent and unique reaction?".

Hackers/programers/scientists/problem solvers is also extremely, to the point of obsession, interested in identify root issues when talking about problems. To find root issues, one need to ask questions, like are there similar issues like this one? Are they caused by the same problem? What suggested fixes are there? are those proven to work? whats does the number says, do they show a trend? are there sources that back up what people experience? How can we eliminate research and political biases? are there additional factors involved like relative risk, risk assessment and risk aversion?

Denying those questions and asking the community to accept the issues as facts, immune against research and question, and just shut-up and follow any suggested fixes it gets, is wrong. Just simply wrong. Maybe that will result in people dropping out, showing up in small numbers, or who starts making their own exclusive conferences/coding groups/fill-in-the-blank. Maybe. But maybe the better way is to ask the questions and find the answers?

[makomk]

> Hackers/programers/scientists/problem solvers is also extremely, to the point of obsession, interested in identify root issues when talking about problems. To find root issues, one need to ask questions, like are there similar issues like this one? Are they caused by the same problem? What suggested fixes are there? are those proven to work? whats does the number says, do they show a trend?

Well, there's your problem. From what I can tell asking those questions is considered anti-feminist and evidence of misogyny. For instance, just to pick one example, there are various studies showing that an impressive proportion of men actually admit to raping women. These get used as evidence of a rape culture in which men specifically - not just society as a whole, but men and men alone - consider it acceptable and normal to rape women. Now, since the studies in question didn't ask women whether they committed rape, they actually give you zero information about whether this is something that men do or something that everyone does. They're still used as ammunition to accuse anyone who treats rape as more gender-neutral of hating women and denying its tuge gendered nature. Meanwhile, the studies that would actually be required to test this - ones which make no up-front assumption and ask both men and women the same questions - don't exist, because even posing the question of whether women rape others in this way makes you a misogynist and is apparently a really bad career move. The same happens in a whole bunch of topics around rape, domestic violence, sexual assault, prostitution/sex work, ...

You cannot uphold anything resembling the scientific method in this climate. It's impossible.

[gatordan]

This is flat out ignorant. Is it "impossible" to google for credible studies about sexual assault. Like this popular one from 2010 by the CDC that interviewed 16,000 people (including 7,400 men) and found that 18% of women and 1% of men had been raped or had someone attempt to rape them. So to take the point home, you don't have to believe in a "rape culture", but just know that if you have a wife, mom, grandmother, daughter, and aunt chances are (according the CDC) that one of them will be raped or have to fight off an attempted rape in their lifetime.

http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/NISVS/index.html

[gatordan]

I did not say the proposed colored card system was the end all solution and that everyone here should shut up and take it. Absolutely we should question and propose different solutions. But I'm not sure that I saw any comments on alternative fixes besides the general theme "women should know what they're getting into".

I think you're saying that i need to understand this is a scientific crowd and they are of course going to question and apply logic. To which i would respond, why then did we end up with a majority of comments applying unchecked anecdotal evidence (which this community is usually very quick to dismiss) to subtly undermine the authors point?

[belorn]

Normally I would just do some hand waving and mumble "people", but I will try to do something more constructive.

I believe it is the same effect as after a random rant article about firefox/gnome/pulse audio/software licenses. Everyone has some personal opinion there, so if the article lacks all form of basic research, people will immediately start to fill that void with their own anecdotal evidence.