this is one of the more thoughtful pieces i've read on the issue.
it's obvious to anyone really paying attention the tech industry (and probably most other industries) has been extremely unfair to women. writing like this--clear on the problem and supportive of people who want to help--is important, but it's also important to remember that we all collectively have to act to actually change things.
Seriously. There are so few women in the tech industry, how would it be obvious to notice they have been unfairly treated?
One place I worked has a newspaper article on the wall about the high numbers of women hey hired. There were still only 3 on a floor of around 100 staff. All the places I have worked they have been treated as equals.
"this is one of the more thoughtful pieces i've read on the issue" is bull shit. I'm male and even I can figure this out.
Do you see what you're doing here? Do you even realize? Your comment reads: "THESE women are actually thoughtful, not like those bra-burning man-hating diatribes that I've come across from those crazy women in tech. If only all women were this calm and docile when talking about this subject." Maybe that wasn't the precise thoughts behind it, but it comes off as that condescending to everyone (particularly the women) who don't fit to your standards. You are saying "if you're going to talk about gender in tech, or even gender at all, be like these women or I don't care/you're crazy."
Every "piece", whatever the tone, is written for specific reasons, and you'd rather take the lazy route and rank them as "more/less thoughtful" than actually try to understand those reasons. Hey, I agree, there are some articles and such on gender-in-tech out there that could make points more strongly, could be tailored to their audience better, etc etc. You should respond to those with honest, interested questions. Not this. Edit: from the actual article itself:
"Being nice doesn’t work. We’ve been nice. Some of us that have written down our stories here have even been paraded around by men in the industry for how nice we’ve been in trying to address the social problems in tech as a way to discredit more vocal, astutely firm feminist voices. We don’t like this, we’ve never liked it, and it needs to stop."
Parading this article as "more reasonable" is the same dynamic; don't settle for the speech that you're comfortable with. Go back and try to understand why the other, louder speech made you uncomfortable.
Disallowing people from having/expressing an opinion as to how helpful/thoughtful a piece is -- particularly a positive opinion -- seems as problematic as disallowing some pieces.
Maybe it's better to just let people express it when something resonates with them.
(And while any judgment on how thoughtful a piece is probably subjective, it seems unlikely that every piece is equivalent in how broadly it leads people think about issues in a helpful way.)
I'm not saying "don't allow men to give their opinions on feminism articles," I'm saying that "this feminism article really helped me understand things better/gave me a new perspective" is infinitely more polite and fair than "this article is good, better than those other feminism articles I've read."
You don't have to push other women down to congratulate the ones who speak in the way you like. Feminism, from what I've gathered over the years, involves working to understand the experiences of all women.
> Do you see what you're doing here? Do you even realize? Your comment reads: "THESE women are actually thoughtful, not like those bra-burning man-hating diatribes that I've come across from those crazy women in tech. If only all women were this calm and docile when talking about this subject." Maybe that wasn't the precise thoughts behind it, but it comes off as that condescending to everyone (particularly the women) who don't fit to your standards. You are saying "if you're going to talk about gender in tech, or even gender at all, be like these women or I don't care/you're crazy."
You're completely projecting here. Parent's post really doesn't read like that. You even quote words it doesn't have (unless it has been edited) like "reasonable" when it says "thoughtful", which is really not the same thing at all.
seriously? yes, I'm saying these women wrote a particularly good letter. i think its important to praise good work.
i didn't say anything about "if only all women were this calm and docile when talking about this subject"--that's all you. all i said was that this was particularly good.
it's obvious to anyone really paying attention the tech industry (and probably most other industries) has been extremely unfair to women. writing like this--clear on the problem and supportive of people who want to help--is important, but it's also important to remember that we all collectively have to act to actually change things.