[msandford]

I don't really read it as "invalidating" so much as pointing out the possibility of misattribution.

A concrete example: my car broke down. It's a Ford, that's blue, and is a two door, and is rear wheel drive. Is the right conclusion that it broke because it's a Ford and all Fords are pieces of crap?

Are there possible causes? Missed maintenance, a lemon, driving it too hard, etc. I realize that it's crazy to suggest that it broke down because it's blue or because it's a two-door because we happen to know the underlying mechanics here. But if the car was a black-box, those could potentially be causes too.

Just because a woman thinks that she's been discriminated against for being a woman doesn't make it so. That doesn't mean that her experiences are wrong, nor does it make whatever she endured somehow pleasant. And I'm sure that there's plenty of sexism out there too, I'm not trying to suggest that everything is great and there are no problems.

Sexism is an easy explanation in many cases, but that doesn't NECESSARILY mean it's the correct one. It's kind-of like the old XKCD comic: http://xkcd.com/552/

[ezy]

Well, duh, but the whole thing about "invalidation" is there is a subtext here: that she wouldn't know that she had been misattributing sexism to someone.

If all your friends with Fords of various colors and models had problems -- you would rightfully have cause to focus in on Ford as the problem.

Do not pretend to be objective by discounting context, or acting like everyone else is an imbecile. I'm not saying that everything everyone says has to be taken as truth. But think about the context for a moment -- like why is she writing the article in the first place? It's no small thing to put your name out there on the internet WRT to this issue.

Think about how analytically you are viewing what she wrote about her experience vs. how uncritically you might view articles from PG (especially the earlier ones unassociated with YC).

[msandford]

> Think about how analytically you are viewing what she wrote about her experience vs. how uncritically you might view articles from PG (especially the earlier ones unassociated with YC).

Wow, way to go! I read HN so I must be a PG cheerleader and ergo I'm definitely sexist!

PG makes some good points and some of them are a lot less tenable. I don't switch off my brain because I'm reading PG (though I do occasionally read his articles) any more than I turn it up extra high because a woman is saying critical stuff about men.

What I do try and do, though, is look at the kinds of psychological errors that people tend to make and see if that's influenced them at all. And misattribution is a big one. When a person has many attributes visible to anyone they interact with, any one of them could be the cause.

For example she complains that wearing dresses caused her grief. Should anyone be able to wear anything to any job without any consequence? If it should be OK for her to wear a dress, what about a man? If it's OK for girls to wear short-shorts can boys too? Can I ride my bike and continue to wear sweaty, smelly cycling gear and clippity-cloppity shoes instead of taking a shower and changing? Could a dude wear just a speedo? A girl a bikini? In the other direction, a suit? A three piece? A Matrix-style leather full-length leather jacket? Full on ski gear?

Yes these examples quickly go from maybe reasonable to clearly unreasonable. But just where EXACTLY should the line get drawn? It's not clear to me that there are absolute, definite answers that have narrow applicability, nevermind broad applicability.

What's appropriate for one job is terrible for another. Nurses and doctors (of both sexes in both professions) tend to wear scrubs to work, and it's appropriate. If I tried to wear scrubs to a construction site, or to a machine shop, I would rightly get told to go home. Coveralls, steel toes, and a hard hat are just right if I'm out on an oil rig but entirely inappropriate when I'm at the office and that's for a single job description! I have no less than four different kinds of clothing that I might need to wear when I go to work.

The point that I'm trying to make is that if it's possible for men to not get taken seriously (or worse sent home!) based on what they wear at the office then it's POSSIBLE though not necessarily DEFINITE that women might have the same thing happen to them AND that it's not sexism.

TL;DR

Please realize that there's a difference between saying "it might not be sexism" and "it's definitely not sexism" and that I'm trying to very cautiously propose the former, not the latter.

[ezy]

> Wow, way to go! I read HN so I must be a PG cheerleader and ergo I'm definitely sexist!

For someone who is all about psychological errors, you seem to have constructed quite a narrative. I'm not talking about cheerleading -- just the level of analysis. I'm not trying to make you into some horrible monster or anything -- that is your projection onto my criticism.

Speaking of psychological blinders: I stand by my assertion that, as long as anyone doesn't mess with your ego, you will not apply this level of analysis to what they write. It's human nature. At the risk of repeating myself, I just don't think you're reading PG's articles and thinking that what he says happened to him, didn't happen.

> Should anyone be able to wear anything to any job without any consequence?

Oh come on. Really? RTFA. You're veering away from the misattribution you original claimed as a possibility here.

I just wrote a whole comment about context, and you ignored it because it bruised your ego. Being obstinate about "drawing a line" is not a triumph of reason -- it's ignoring the world. Reductio ad absurdum relies on symmetry, of which you have none here.

She's obviously not wearing hot pants, a bikini top to work, and even if that were the case, she would be notified in an official capacity in short order (e.g. "told to go home") -- not "complimented" repeatedly in a creepy way.

There is no "murky line" because we are talking about a repeated pattern she illustrates in her article which shows it highly likely not to be misinterpretation. If she misinterpreted one of those examples (e.g. the "Facebook" example is the one I'd choose, actually), ok. But how likely is it she misinterpreted all of them, and the misinterpreted the social environment that made her pull together the examples in the first place?

> Please realize that there's a difference between saying "it might not be sexism" and "it's definitely not sexism" and that I'm trying to very cautiously propose the former, not the latter.

If I have a bug, it might be cosmic rays, a compiler bug -- or it could be my shitty code. All of these are possible. It isn't about what's possible, if you want to be analytical about it.. it's the likelihood.

So, when you say "it might be a compiler bug" when code breaks, you should know how ridiculous that sounds, even though you are technically correct[1]. There is a reason people say those kinds of things (without much more evidence) and it has a lot to do with how attached they are to their code.

[1] The Best Kind of Correct.

[msandford]

> At the risk of repeating myself, I just don't think you're reading PG's articles and thinking that what he says happened to him, didn't happen.

I never said that what happened to this woman didn't happen, nor did I say I didn't believe her. I fully believe that she was treated differently when she wore dresses versus stereotypical tech clothes, I believe she (to paraphrase) got skeezed on by a bunch of dudes, and I totally believe that people mistook her for a recruiter.

I believe basically all the facts that she wrote in the article and I have no problems with them. That's not what I'm arguing. Her experience is ABSOLUTELY VALID!

What I don't necessarily believe is her assertion that being treated differently because she wore a dress or a kimono is ipso facto sexism. I think it's entirely possible that guys who don't adhere to the "company tee shirt and pants" dress code get treated differently as well. There are a lot of programmers (both male and female) that use "suits" as a derogatory term for business people, often in part because they dress differently, and often because that difference in values is made apparent by their attire.

The point is if PG says "we didn't get the deal" that's a fact and there's no problem with it.

If he says "we didn't get the deal and they said it's because we weren't a big enough company" that's probably a fact and it's easy to swallow.

If he says "we didn't get the deal because we're too young and hip for those old fuddy-duddies" that's moved from the realm of fact to speculation and I would analyze that just the same.

> She's obviously not wearing hot pants, a bikini top to work, and even if that were the case, she would be notified in an official capacity in short order (e.g. "told to go home") -- not "complimented" repeatedly in a creepy way.

I totally believe that all this happened, but it's probably less sexism and more that she's young and attractive. It might be sexual harassment, but unless these guys are skeezing on every woman irrespective of her looks and age, it's not really sexism. That doesn't make it OK! It's still unacceptable behavior and I wouldn't condone it. But calling it sexism isn't really accurate either.

> It isn't about what's possible, if you want to be analytical about it.. it's the likelihood.

Agreed completely! Here's a quote:

"I noticed I got better feedback from interviewers when I “looked the part.”"

That means that people are evaluating her by what she wore (which she has a choice in) not by her biology (which she does not). To me, that's not sexism. It might be somewhere between unfortunate and criminal depending on who you ask, but again not sexist.

[ezy]

Ok, I think I see where we depart. To me, treating women as sex objects in the workplace is absolutely part of sexism, and that's probably her assumption too. I see how you might make a distinction, but I don't agree with it.

The idea that the harassment wouldn't happen if she were old and ugly doesn't make it not about sexism -- anymore than a guy who only patronizes a certain kind of woman (the kind he is attracted to) is not sexist because he doesn't patronize all women equally.

There is a sense which (I think) you're going for where this could be thought of as people latching onto things that are "out of the norm", rather than specifically sexism -- but that seems tautological to me. All -isms (that I can think of) are based on pre-judging based on things that are non-normative: sex, race, age, orientation -- you name it.

What is the norm that she's violating? Well, it seems (to me) to be existing as a (technical) woman in the workplace and all of the attributes that come along with that -- like a human that speaks in a higher register, or wears dresses or doesn't wear t-shirts as regularly.

This is, again, not uncommon and therefore the most likely explanation for all of the things she's encountered taken in totality. "Culture fit", which you refer to, is about prejudice -- and each time the type of prejudice may differ (between racism, sexism, & agism, let's say[1]) but it's still prejudice, not some magical other thing.

[1] suit-ism, let's not forget suit-ism. :-)[2]

[2] Sharp dressed -ism?

[msandford]

I wholeheartedly agree that she faced a lot of prejudice. But not all prejudice is sexism, just ask any other kind of minority! There are minority men who are on the receiving end of prejudice who will tell you that there's a lot more to it than just sexism.

> The idea that the harassment wouldn't happen if she were old and ugly doesn't make it not about sexism

Yes, yes it does.

From the dictionary:

sexism: prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

synonyms: sexual discrimination, chauvinism, gender prejudice, gender bias "your hiring practices have generated numerous complaints about sexism"

According to that definition a man who likes women and hits on some of them isn't sexist, unless he also happens to think that men are better than women.

My point is simply that sexism isn't defined as "all things that happen to a woman that she doesn't like" or else literally everything bad that happens to a woman is sexism and I think it's obvious that her alarm failing to go off isn't sexism or getting in a car accident isn't sexism.

It sounds to me like she experienced sexism, sexual harassment, ageism, dress-ism (is that the right word?) and voice-ism (???) and they're all bad. But they're not all sexism.

[ahelwer]

You are free to advance an alternative hypothesis explaining her observations. If you go with her thinking "everyone is against her", like the parent comment, you should ask yourself what separates you from all the other people who have defended the status quo by dismissing women complaining of sexism.