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0 pointsyummyfajitas15y ago0 comments

I admit, I haven't read the entire checklist. When the first item on it is blatantly wrong, I kind of got turned off.

Go read about the advantages women have in hiring in the sciences: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12062&page=R1

Anecdotally, women are also given advantages in big corporate IT, but I'm not aware of any studies. Corporations are generally loath to give away data on stuff like this, who knows what lawsuits it might bring.

I only skimmed the rest, but I found 14) particularly amusing. The politicians who stole my lunch [1], my freedom and my money all have a penis (just like me). This is a privilege how?

[1] In Jersey City, where I live and work, Steven Fulops chased away the food trucks to protect subway.

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FeministHacker15y ago

The list is a generalisation across all fields, so discounting it based on how something might not be true in your field is a bit short-sighted. #1 is true still for many fields.

Of course, the link you provided wasn't for the general tech sector - it was specific to universities, which have other aspects in play. Even within the general tech sector, there are plenty of reports of questionable hiring practices. I've found to be not uncommon for my gender (female) to be an issue during interviews, and we've seen posts here in the past about this subject. Further, women are often moved rapidly into management roles, and their technical abilities treated as suspect.

And yes, I'm speaking as something big corporate IT, and it's no better. Just looking across at our large (40+) server support teams, you can count the number of women on one hand. The application support teams here are slightly better, but only just. We're a typical shared services company in the UK, and our competitors are all very similar.

As for 14, you've found a truth about privilege lists - they might not always be things you like.

yummyfajitasOP15y ago

Which fields is #1 true for? Regardless, I'll assume you are right. Points 1-3 are irrelevant for the conversation we are having here (about women in tech), so I'll keep reading.

4) is a matter of whether you personally adopt a collectivist viewpoint or not. If women disproportionately adopt collectivist viewpoints, why is that anyone's fault besides their own?

5) is probably on point. 6) may be true in general, but (much like 1-3) it seems false in tech. Consider Leah Culver - "ooh, a girl that can program, and hot", as opposed to "meh, barely competent".

7-14) may be true, but are similarly irrelevant to a conversation about women in tech. Also, you still haven't explained how 14 is a "privilege". How does Obama's penis benefit me, relative to a woman?

khafra15y ago

On 14, the failure mode is called "not carving reality at the joints." Because .00001% of men wield large amounts of political power, whereas even fewer women (at least, visibly) do so, political power is a male privilege.

There are certainly reference classes for "likely to wield political power" that change the likelihood ratio by far more than "male."

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JoeAltmaier15y ago

Seems dated? Personally I call into question the masculinity of any guy that won't support his children, to the point of shunning one particular jerk for 10 years now.

Women get hired, promoted and paid better than men in certain jobs (enlisted military service, govt jobs) that they strangely don't want! So some of it is self-inflicted.

true_religion15y ago

I'll also add to this: Men who fail to have children are called into question. If you're married, older, and have no children then one of you is assumed to be impotent. If the woman is prettier, then its likely the man will be considered impotent. Even if the man is charismatic, a lack of children combined with a lack of sexual show (e.g. philandering) will be seen a sign of low testosterone and emasculation.

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