Female Founder Secrets: Men Clamming Up

Fear based actions can still be sexist though. We're talking about treating people different based on their sex.

Let's draw a parallel. Most people would consider crossing the street because there is a black man walking towards you as a racist action. Sure, not burning a cross in their lawn racist, but racist nonetheless (it's a spectrum). I would argue that people that do this do so because they are afraid of said black person. Yes, their action is caused by fear, but their fear is caused by racism (i.e. they view a black person as being more likely to be dangerous than a person of another race).

Looping back, I believe you are right that these decisions are fear based, but it is fear that women are out to get you, which is the sexist part. In reality it does not appear that women are more out to get you than men are. Though we likely have a perception bias that they are because of social media. There's the double edged sword of awareness. It can help you solve a problem but it can also increase the problem because it can make you blind to the root issues.

I think this brings us to problems with social media or more precisely sensationalism (which is amplified in social media but far from the only platform that encourages this). These cases are more visible and gives us a selection bias. But I guess we have to encourage good faith discussions (which is a rule on HN btw) through media, which is rather difficult to do at a cultural level. And we don't want to entirely kill sensationalism either because topics going viral has a lot of utility (such as that more women are being open about the abuse that they've received. Yes, this does lead to a higher number of false accusations, but they still are a very small percentage of accusations). It's a really difficult problem but I think encouraging good faith arguments, being kind to one another, patience, and allowing for mistakes are a necessary step to be able to solve this entire issue (which I'm not going to pretend to have real answers). Particularly I think the last component is essential because we need to recognize that not everyone learns the same lessons. If we're going to say things like "everyone is racist" or "everyone is sexist" we have to also allow people to safely make mistakes and importantly be given the opportunity change/fix their behavior. I personally believe if people are not given this opportunity they double down on their ways. It is a coping mechanism because no one wants to be the bad guy.

So you're a sexist if you do, you're a sexist if you don't?

I know you are being funny but this response does not feel like it was done in good faith (I may be misreading). A major part of my point is that there is a spectrum. "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" is often a false equivalence because it suggests that the two options are equally as bad. Intention must play a large role in how we're determining how to respond because someone with good intentions has a higher likelihood of improving/fixing their behavior than someone who does not have good intentions. But intention is substantially harder to determine. My comment is about fighting back against this binary sensationalization, which I believe you are perpetuating even with the joke.

So no, you aren't damned if you do and damned if you don't.

I disagree with this definition of sexism.

Would you like to expand on that point?

> ...but racist nonetheless (it's a spectrum)

It didn't used to be a spectrum and it's a terrible innovation that it's viewed that way today by so many. Racist used to refer to people that believed in the inferiority and superiority of certain races. Only recently has it become socially acceptable to accuse someone of racism or sexism at any sign of prejudice. This is a major cause of the divisiveness in the culture today and if you're doing it, you're part of the problem.

When we talk about people's prejudices it causes us to examine potential solutions in a productive way. When we accuse someone of being racist or sexist, we imply that they're beyond redemption, and we can skip right to hating them and feeling superior about ourselves.

Anyone interested in having good faith conversations should actively avoid labeling anyone or any action as a racist or sexist. The genuine racists and sexists are usually more than happy to self-identify as such. Everyone else, and I mean everyone else, is just a mixed bag of good and bad prejudices that can, with work, be improved over time.

I don't think GP is saying that your comment by itself can be reduced to "damned if you do, damned if you don't". I think the point is that your position might lead to a Morton's fork in general.

I interpret it like this: On the one hand, there are people (many of whom with good intentions) instantly assuming that any criticism a man might give to a woman is rooted in sexism, to wit, what TFA mentions that investors are cautious about. On the other hand, there are people, also with good intentions, saying that "men being cautious in what they say to women" is also sexism.

Now, I don't know the solution either, but I do believe that a good first step would be not saying that people who are merely cautious (precisely not to come across as sexist) are sexist anyway.

> It didn't used to be a spectrum and it's a terrible innovation that it's viewed that way today by so many. Racist used to refer to people that believed in the inferiority and superiority of certain races. Only recently has it become socially acceptable to accuse someone of racism or sexism at any sign of prejudice. This is a major cause of the divisiveness in the culture today and if you're doing it, you're part of the problem.

I'd argue that people now are still treating it as a binary situation and not including the nuance that is requisite of a spectrum in determining their response. As an exaggerated example we can't treat a grand wizard who burns crosses on lawns the same as someone who touches someone else's hair. If we react the same then the reaction is not acknowledging the continuum but rather lowering the threshold for the binary classification.

> When we talk about people's prejudices it causes us to examine potential solutions in a productive way. When we accuse someone of being racist or sexist, we imply that they're beyond redemption, and we can skip right to hating them and feeling superior about ourselves.

I think we actually have a lot of agreement. Reading your response I think a lot of our disagreement comes down to diction, not philosophy. When you say

> Everyone else, and I mean everyone else, is just a mixed bag of good and bad prejudices that can, with work, be improved over time

I fully agree, I just use different words because that's the words used around me. Words only mean what society uses them to mean. This is a big part of why I mentioned intention being an important component. I don't view someone that is racist/sexist as being nonredeemable, this includes Neo Nazis and Grand Dragons of the KKK (I know this is an unpopular belief, but it is one I hold). This is part of why I said that we need safe spaces to fail. I do think how we react needs to be tempered and thought out because my goal is to fix behavior, not punish. But if you lump me together with those that seek punishment (I believe this is a minority, but highly sensationalized minority) we're going to have a hard time discussing. Because I don't have major qualms with what you've said and I don't understand how you read my comment as such.

> I interpret it like this

I'm a bit confused, did I not respond in a way that recognized this? It appeared to me as a low quality response that did not actually have anything to do with my comment. I believe the comment vastly oversimplified the problem, which is part of what I'm trying to address, that the problem is complicated and we need to recognize the nuances involved and respond in good faith. To clarify, I do not think a good faith response results in

> instantly assuming that any criticism a man might give to a woman is rooted in sexism

As such a belief is itself rooted in the belief that the only criticism a man can have of a woman is that she is a woman, which I'd argue itself is sexist (and not responding in good faith). As an example we saw this during the 2016 election where people often said that anyone who criticized Clinton was doing so because she was a woman, which honestly is an extremely dehumanizing platform. While there were people criticizing her on this basis (openly and through more careful language) the claim itself positions Clinton as being infallible and thus not human, which is absurd. This is far from a good faith response because Clinton, as any human (and especially politicians/leaders), are deserving of criticism (not that you should be mean about it). So by a good faith response I would expect someone to respond to that criticism instead of accusing the other person of being sexist. But I honestly believe people making such claims are a minority, albeit with high visibility because of the sensational nature of their bad faith responses.

> It appeared to me as a low quality response that did not actually have anything to do with my comment.

I didn't think it was; it seemed to me a succinct summation of what calling the behavior in TFA "sexism" leads to: Ultimately, regardless of what he does, a man will be considered sexist by someone.

Or, to put it another way, calling the cautiousness we're discussing here "sexist" can itself be considered a bad faith position.

> But I honestly believe people making such claims are a minority, albeit with high visibility because of the sensational nature of their bad faith responses.

I'm not sure what to say to this: I agree, of course, but I don't think that's the point. That minority can and has killed people's careers and thus, we have the cautious behavior mentioned in TFA.

> Ultimately, regardless of what he does, a man will be considered sexist by someone.

I mean this is how I read it, but again, I thought it lacked nuance. Someone is key here and ties into how we respond to sensationalized perspectives. I'm advocating for more nuance and being more careful in interpretation. Such as not treating the term "sexist" as being a binary position. I would, and am, argue(ing) that interpreting the word as a binary classification is only detrimental. It in itself is a bad faith response. But we have a problem that "sexist" means different things to different people. While one may interpret my usage as such, I believe that there is sufficient information in my several comments that I am not using the word as such a classification (even explicitly stating so) and this is where I draw contention with the responses I'm getting.

It should be apparent that responding to me as if I am using such a binary classification will give me the impression that one simply skimmed and responded thinking "oh you're one of those people." I'm actively advocating for reducing this type of response, because I think we'd argue that binning people is far too common and leads to many of the problems (in fact, binning is the root of this entire post, thread, and conversation). This is why I'm saying that the damned if you do, damned if you don't is a false dichotomy as (as I stated in the original response) the actions are not equally as bad. It matters "how damned" someone is. My entire thesis lies in a continuum.

> That minority can and has killed people's careers and thus, we have the cautious behavior mentioned in TFA.

Maybe I can be more clear in my response to this. I am saying that how we are responding to sensationalized content is feeding into this behavior. We need tempered and thoughtful responses, not knee jerking emotional reactions (we don't have to be void from emotion). I don't think it is enough to just complain about these people, but that we are perpetuating this system by clicking, retweeting, liking, and pushing these comments into the forefront of our conversations. That minority has killed many peoples' careers (some justified some not, but we're presumably discussing the unjustified cases), but the reason these (unjustified cases) careers have been destroyed is because of public response and selection bias of what majority opinion is. As an example of this Speedy Gonzales was canceled because complaints/fear of ethnic sterotyping. But it was later brought back due to League of United Latin American Citizens noting that he was a cultural icon that was seen positively by Latin American viewers. It is a clear case of letting the minority's opinion overrule that of the majority. I believe that if we let people that are looking for problems dictate what a problem is then we'll only have a race to the bottom. I do not believe the people responding to me and downvoting would disagree, and that is where my confusion lies.

The problem here lies in the word "sexism" and that, I think, you believe a solution should be to remove its baggage. The replies you get are, I think, because many people, with good reason, believe that such a goal isn't feasible. In fact, the baggage itself is probably why you perceive the replies to be "emotional".

So I go back to my first reply: to stop casting people into a binary like I think we both want, better not to throw such loaded words at people and instead analyze their behavior on a case by case basis. Fighting the word itself is prescriptive at best, and language tends to be descriptive, AFAIK.

I'll push back a little, but it seems we're pretty much at consensus. We have to recognize that people use words in vastly different ways, especially as we're enabling more cultures to communicate. Around me "sexism" has this broader meaning and subsequently doesn't necessarily hold as much weight as the binary usage holds (though it can, but again, continuum). Unfortunately language is extremely imprecise and the dictionary not only lags societal definitions, but only reflects certain usages. Because of this it is important to recognize that language has multiple parts. There's: What someone says, what they mean to say (the information they are trying to convey through a function with limited expressiveness, i.e. language), and what is heard. If we don't recognize that these three things can result in three different interpretations then we're going to continue to have many of these problems. Rather if we look at language as the imprecise means of transporting information from one person to another it means we should rely less on the actual words said and more the intended meaning. This is more difficult to do, but it is something we commonly do with friends and people we know well. We need to apply this same restraint to others we don't know as well.

So if we're communicating with words meaning different things (which is extremely common but unnoticed) then we have to be careful that we don't lose meaning on the assumption that someone's message can only have one interpretation. We have to recognize the embedding problems and limitations of language to effectively communicate.

How exactly does sexism being a spectrum and not binary help men make decisions on this issue in any way whatsoever?

Do you think a slight or partial interpretation of sexism (even if misconstrued completely and therefore a false interpretation) will be treated with this nuance and proportionality you speak of by someone who wishes to publicize and cancel as described in this article?

The entire point here is that whether 9/10, or 999/1000 interactions with women go exactly or even better than interactions with men, it ONLY TAKES ONE to literally ruin your life. Get it?

Because of this, the natural defensive reaction is to avoid interactions and conflicts altogether, out of abundance of caution.

Is this sexism? Who the hell cares! Peoples livelihoods are on the line! That you would care more about your little intellectual exercises and nuanced view of the "isms" means absolutely nothing compared to putting bread on the table, or not, for most people.

One could even say this makes you privileged to even think they should care about this more than protecting themselves and supporting their families.

I appreciate you asking respectfully, and I understand the meanings of words like "sexist" and "racist" are changing and subject to opinion.

In my opinion, the nuance is whether the difference is truly because of gender or if gender is just something with a high correlation.

For example, if an average man says to me "give me your wallet or I'll beat you up", I'm likely to do it since I'm on the smaller side. If an average woman did that, I'd say no. So maybe it seems like sexism at first, but then I consider, if a woman threatened me who was the size and build and general risk of an average man, what would I do? I'd hand over my wallet.

Everything you've written over several comments shows that you've thought about it deeply but are unable to provide an actionable solution for social interactions. Sure sensationalism causes problems, sure some of the accusations are valid but your nuance doesn't matter because you're missing the point. Men just don't want it to be them next. So we shut up. That has usually been the solution to any socially dangerous or awkward situation and for self preservation it works very well.

Any behavioral modifications would have to start from castigophobia. Remove the punishment - that's the solution. Everything else is pointless.

> Most people would consider crossing the street because there is a black man walking towards you as a racist action.

Yeah, and that is weird, isn't it?

Because most people nowadays would not consider it a sexist action for a woman to cross the street because there is a man walking.

In fact, these days it seems to be demanded of men to notice the situation and cross the street if they are walking near a woman, so to self-discriminate. And the man would be considered sexist/misogynist if they didn't self-discriminate this way.

It's all so wonderfully self-contradictory.

Let's say I agree with you, why create a world in which everything is sexist? Isn't the entire point that we want less of it?

> accuse someone of racism or sexism at any sign of prejudice

At anything that the most hostile interpretation possible could somehow construe as racism/sexism.

And basically, anything can be construed as racism/sexism given some of the current definitions.

Sitting peacefully on your couch minding your own business is racism, according to Kendi/diAngelo.

Treating women equally and not achieving perfect equality of outcome is sexism. Treating men and women differently in order the achieve equality of outcome: also sexism.

Leaving women to make their own choices, which may not exactly match men's, is sexism.

Giving women candid feedback is so sexism. Not giving women candid feedback: also sexism.

Sexism being a spectrum makes things worse because everyone assumes that it is binary. So anyone labeled 1% sexist is the devil incarnate.

The actionable thing is that we need to change how we respond to sensationalism. Tempered responses. You cannot remove the punishment without this. Removing any punishment is too vague and is no change. Before we had no response. Now we have too strong of a response. I'm suggesting we be more thoughtful before we determine the proper response. This depends on how we, as the general population, respond to sensationalism. As long as we still click on (through anger or celebration) these types of headlines they will still continue because there's major profit. It is a "pick your battles" response that I'm looking for.

I would not say you are acting sexist in your analogy. If we take average male vs average female, yes there is a large strength disparity and your response seems very justified. It is clear that your response is more linked to the danger that you're in. I would contrast this from my analogy (black person walking towards you and crossing the street) because there's not a good justification for thinking that the black person is more likely to mug you than if a white person was walking towards you (there's no justification for increased danger). I'd argue that the priors are different in these situations (I'm sure there are people that would disagree and call your response sexist, but I will say that my thesis is about not binning people to easy little boxes. "us vs them". That responses need to be thoughtful and tempered).

> I understand the meanings of words like "sexist" and "racist" are changing and subject to opinion.

Also on this point, I think this kind of "words having different meanings to different people" is far more common than people realize and requisites more care in how we interpret others' statements. I think this is obviously true for any "ism" (sexism, racism, capitalism, socialism, etc). Pinning a definition to strictly our own interpretation ends up being naive and often leads to fighting because we have basic breakdowns in communication. We can't agree even if philosophically we agree. It should be the other way around, meaning triumphing over diction. Diction over meaning is just looking for a fight.

> why create a world in which everything is sexist?

I'm sorry if it was interpreted this way (I know some people want this, but this is not what I'm advocating for).

> Isn't the entire point that we want less of it?

This is goal. But we also can't solve a problem if we don't acknowledge it. To do that expanding the definition helps. BUT if you expand the definition you need to also respond differently (this is where I disagree with what we see). We need to see nuance that there's a big difference between rape and not being as open with advice due to potentially becoming a social pariah. Our responses to these should be extremely different (which is what I'm advocating for). But this also means we need to recognize our progress (which I've been accused of for dog whistling having said that).

I just think we need to stop making our fights over diction and about philosophy. If we're placing diction over philosophy we'll never solve anything and always be fighting. We can never have unanimous agreement on diction, that's just not how language works (words evolve). So the question is if your disagreements with me mainly over word choice or if we have disagreements in philosophy (and are they minor or major?)

You proposal has no teeth and ignores the history and reality of mobs. It's like you expect unorganized people to be intelligent as a collective. That's foolish.

Removing any punishment isn't vague - just take it out of the hands of those who can currently inflict it:

1. Make it illegal to fire employees for any speech in the public square.

2. Make it so they have to be found guilty in a court of law in order to be fired or shunned for anything sexist or racist.

3. Make it so that any publicly funded institution (even partly) cannot terminate their relationships with individuals because of their speech in the past or the future.

Right now what we're seeing is extrajudicial punishment instigated at the will of anyone with a twitter account and following. The above suggestions reduce the twitter mob's leverage because they shouldn't have any to begin with. Anyone seeking damages should have to go through channels that allow some kind of defense. The court system is supposed to be systemized thoughtfulness so we should rely on it.

The way I see it playing out is that companies will force all employees off of social media with their own names or fewer people will attack companies because they know that the company can't do anything. Both cases are a positive change.

You're being optimistic about vengeful people online. I don't think you're being realistic.

Right because the consequences of these situations ARE binary, and that's all that matters.

I want to clarify that I'm also arguing that the consequences shouldn't be binary. There's utility in treating sexism as a continuum, but if consequences continue to be binary then we lose the utility of the continuous definition.

I see your proposals as having the same requirements as mine.

> 1. Make it illegal to fire employees for any speech in the public square.

So you can't fire an employee that is causing an uproar and a subsequent boycott of your product? Because that's why they get fired now, to prevent a decrease in sales. The only way maintaining the employee and the sales is for the public to recognize that an employee (including a CEO) does not represent the company (which in a case of a CEO can be shaky). This is a tricky situation that I think you're overly simplifying.

> 2. Make it so they have to be found guilty in a court of law in order to be fired or shunned for anything sexist or racist.

I feel a bit better about this. But this lines up with my tempered approach. I think this may be a bit too light handed though. For example, it is legal to be a Neo Nazi. That is protected by free speech. But if a high level employee is openly a Neo Nazi then that's going to affect your sales.

> 3.

Same goes here.

I think these solutions are too simple that they miss the nuance I'm asking for.

> Right now what we're seeing is extrajudicial punishment instigated at the will of anyone with a twitter account and following.

This is a huge problem that I'm concerned about. But I don't see a way around it without having society act better.

Well I do see one other solution, but it has a lot of consequences too. Twitter/Facebook/etc could change their algorithms to prevent these cases from going viral. But there's big consequences to that and makes them arbiters of "*ism". That's also a dangerous situation and honestly a position I don't think Mark or Jack wants to be in.

> You're being optimistic about vengeful people online.

I'm not optimistic about them. I'm optimistic about the public. That the general public will get tired of this shit. Getting tired will cause less clicks, which will cause less rage, and momentum will dampen the system. But right now we have media resonating with this vocal minority because it brings in dollars. People still click a lot on hate porn (articles like "You won't believe how dumb {Republicans,Democrats} are" or "Watch this {Democrat,Republican} get totally destroyed!"). People are already getting sick of it, that's why we're having this discussion. So I'm saying fight by not clicking. Increase the momentum back to normality.

I think people need to learn about how power and politics work in the real world. This, like many other things, is political.

The people that are making these binary determinations to wield social power could not care less about the academic nuanced views everyone is discussing here in the comments. They are not acting in good faith, so reasoning with them will not work.

I agree that they aren't acting in good faith. But a big problem is how we, the rest of the public respond. We click all those links, share all those tweets, and talk about the responses. As long as those people get to hold our attention then they have power. It is like dealing with a troll. You don't get rid of trolls by getting mad at them or "owning" them. You can't fight them with logic or anything. You fight a troll by pretending they don't exist.