I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

Mansplaining is one of those words like libtard or freetard that indicates that the user is unlikely to say anything insightful or deep.

In this particular case I think it was used to a particular effect.

The irony here is tptacek (a man) is out to explain why this woman is wrong - in order to help women.

And the reception to the use of those words indicates the likelihood that the forum can support insightful or deep discussion.

Definitely being ironic. It's a weird place we're in now - not because of any idea being discussed - but because of who is allowed to have an opinion.

But really, I'd be interested in how many women tptacek hires, and how he cultivated such a talent pool.

Which of course is impossible because the sex of the person who uses/states an argument is the most substantive part, nothing else matters. Thus dismissing a person's argument based only on their sex is just right.

/s

Calling someone's comment "mansplaining" is the mirror image of asking to see "the man in charge"; it's dismissal based on the sex of the person being addressed.

Here we have a straight white male telling a woman she's wrong about her experience. I don't subscribe to identity politics, but if you do - there's a fishy smell here.

Of course the logical thing is to evaluate all ideas for their merit. But that's not what we're doing here.

Yes. I am a straight white male. That is what I'm doing. I would say exactly the same set of things to her face as well. Next question?

What percentage of your technical hires are female?

Can't we address it like "here's a person telling a person they're wrong about the inferences they're making based on their reported experiences" and attack anything substantive rather than getting hung up on the sex of each person?

I thought that was what we were trying to do here.

Throwing flamebait into a flamewar will get you banned here, so please stop posting like this to HN.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15009988 and marked it off-topic.

I don't know, we haven't hired anyone yet; we're a partnership.

I can see how it looks like flamebait, but I was just trying to condense the idea into a sentence. Given the topic, context and follow up explanation - banning me from HN would seem a little zealous. But do what you have to do ;)

Unfortunately that's not how identity politics works. The whole point is that your sexual anatomy can disqualify you from having an opinion - which really seems to be the crux of this whole debacle. If you're a man who agrees with identity politics then it's because you're intelligent and compassionate. But if you disagree.. Then it's time to check your privilege.