So, was searching “Jezebel” on Lesswrong after seeing that one reddit poster who posted a comment got featured on that site. Then searched “Jezebel” on LW and got here.
A few things I’d like to address, despite this article being rather old:
Most important of all, actually. Have your view changed? Because otherwise, I’m afraid the answers I’ll be getting will be somewhat different, at least that’s what I feel when I think about it. If you have a quality record of Alicorn 2009 then it would be nice but Alicorn 2015 is fine too (sorry, I know how women fret over how old they are)
Can you say what makes this post any better than any other post about women saying they feel uncomfortable? This post seems quite generic. I’ve seen women do this sometimes and it’s always the same thing, almost as if they’re saying they want to be treated better. It’s okay, but at the same time there’s many things involved. Are you sure your feeling is the same as what other people feel? I personally do not feel any reason to treat you any better than other posters. But I really do wonder if there’s some phenomenon that women suffer some sort of self-discrimination, or maybe inadequetness. Have you ever felt like that?
There was supposed to be a question here, but I decided PM is a better way to do it. Despite how amusing a flamewar on an old thread sounds like.
Have you ever thought that it cannot be changed? And if it could be changed, your method is ineffective? SPOILER ALERT: I’m male, and only 160cm tall (5′3 for you imperialists) and I can’t say I’m perfectly fine with my height. You probably never thought of how it feels to see so many women who are either taller than you naturally or taller than you once they put their heels on. This doesn’t feel nice. You might say I’m comparing your (or the female hive-mind, or whatever else) uneasiness to mine, but I’m short enough that it heppens almost too much. Now, there are clear differences between us. I guess we can let it slide for one person. An exception, and not the rule, or whatever. But at the same time, this isn’t the first time I see this and probably not the last. Certainly the first time on a place where rational discussion is encoureged more than others, but when you see somme things happen in a variety of places you just have to wonder what’s really behind it other than “this and that repeating patterns”. And back to the first two sentences.. I personally cannot cut all women 10cm in height (that would only compensate for the heels anyway) the same way as you cannot alter, artificially or naturally or in any other way how men behave. You can say you’re feeling uncomfortable all day, but I doubt you do it. I do honestly feel that my height isn’t satisfactory quite often. But will crying (and yes, I don’t care for your first paragraph at this point) about any of those two things solve them in even a fraction of them? No. You can only make your presence known here and if you feel attached to this pace as you say you are, recruit some more women here and ruin the equilbrium, or whatever you’d think makes sense (women, making sense, haha!). The same way as the only way I can stand out (oh, the irony) is to make better jokes, to dress better, to have more money or more impressive skills or whatever. You do not start at the goal; you work yourself there with great effort and tsuyoku naritai. Can you eat fruit and see flowers blooming without even planting a seed? There is no logic there.
So now back to the original questions. Do you think it can be changed? And if so, do you think you’re doing it the right way? I’ll expand a bit on the second question at question number 6.
Have you ever felt those gender wars to be silly? Maybe I’m too selfish to consider other views but sometimes I can’t help but think “these views are dumb and your ignorance is absolutely not as good as my knowledge”. Again, I wouldn’t discriminate or anything because the other person is a woman. But I often see women doing XYZ. Is it offensive to say “oh, women” when I see XYZ? Now that’s stupid. Once again, I treat people as individuals, I have nothing more to say other than “don’t shoot me because I’m not in your yard”.
I say posts like these aren’t really the way to do it. Why? Because it makes me feel like “shh, there’s women in the room, you can’t say that” and now that’s bad for rational discussion. For general social gatherings it’s okay though. But not on LW or any place that emphasizes rationality. Nobody said rationality is gender-bound either. I don’t care for research nor ancedentals or whatever. No flowers without seeds. You cannot come in to a man-dominated community and just say “I’m a woman, this and that topics aren’t very comfortable for me to see, please don’t talk about them, mmkay?”. It’s already too straining to think that if you make some silly remark or make a mistake or whatever some Lesswrong Police Departmant Officer Psuedkowsky would be there to eat me alive. Well, that’s an exaggeration but you don’t want to appear too dumb in places where intellect is valued. Wouldn’t want Miss Alisoccer to bat me in the head, either. Bottom line: I think you’re doing what you want to do the wrong way. What do you think?
PSA: I’m posting this only because you’ve been particularly nice on me on IRC. You can ignore this message or whatever if you want, I’m sure some other poor soul will take arms in the illusionary gender wars and as usual, die on the battlefield of a zero-sum shootout.
P/S/A/2: I might be a little bit biased after seeing so much “women in tech” bullcrap. You’re also free to ask me anything you’d wanna know if you think it would clear the fog up a bit.
P//S//A//III: I’m reading the comments and looking for some new ammo for my next fight in the gender wars.
I’m posting this only because you’ve been particularly nice on me on IRC.
I don’t really hang out on IRC except for a private channel in which my beta readers assemble. Are you sure that was me? I wouldn’t want to respond to a post that was composed in error.
Eh. I might have mistaken you for someone else. But I’m not responding to the person on IRC, whomever it might be. I’ve posted a response in response to your own post on LW. It was in November last year so it could have been you.
Anyway, as I’ve said, can you answer the questions? I’ve put some time into that, I’d like to have an answer.
Sure why not. I’ll use the numbering there would have been if the number 1 wasn’t duplicated so it’ll still make sense if you fix that.
My views on gender and feminism in general have slid substantially over the past six years. I don’t have particularly good memories of what I was thinking in 2009. I do still think making a crack about your suspicion that I worry about my age is icky.
I doubt very much that my OP is a substantial improvement over other posts on the same topic; like most of my writing from that long ago I both find it vaguely embarrassing from a quality standpoint and refuse on principle to delete it. It is notable principally for its location (on LW as opposed to somewhere else). I did not extensively poll other women on LW before writing my OP and don’t remember receiving any significant private messages from same, so I have no particularly special insight into what other women feel on the matter. The rest of this question seems badly worded to me; I’m not sure what you mean.
I have not received a PM from you.
What an… interestingly loaded… and opaque… way to phrase a question. I have actually thought about the plight of short men before. You’re about the same height as my dad, and he brings up the (entirely genuine, even) discrimination faced by short men on a pretty routine basis, although as far as I know he doesn’t directly have a problem with my mother being taller than him. But I’m not sure why you brought it up. People being taller than you happens too much? I’m only an inch taller than you if I stand up straight; people being taller than me happens about the same amount, I’d imagine. The surrounding culture is different for men and women here but you talk as though it’s inherently unpleasant to be short. Do I think culture, in general/on this specific point, can be changed? Well, we aren’t currently hunter-gatherers, so probably culture can change. Did this post help? I don’t really know. Is my current behavior now in 2015 helping? Again, I don’t know; anyway I’ve backed off from LW proper in favor of following rationalist tumblr and hanging out with the rationalist meatspace crowd. (The rationalist meatspace crowd has a decent number of women in it, especially if you look places like CfAR’s staff.)
The only coherent thing I can extract from this paragraph is “Have you ever felt those gender wars to be silly?”, the rest of it seems almost Markov-chain-like in its relevance. Yes, I have often found gender wars to be silly.
This isn’t a question, this is a ramble with an unhelpful flower analogy and poor coherence. Is what I think.
That’s just a joke, missy. Your views slid to the wrong way, or what? :)
Don’t worry about your age though. Mentally mature women are cool. Don’t expect a dinner and a date, though!
Eh, that was my point. I’ve read so many ramblings like that, and it makes me honestly feel that “I’ve read this before”. And that was my main problem with things like that. I’m quite sure many other men feel the same when they see yet another blog post on THAT KIND OF CHANGE written by a woman. And when I read the same patterns all over again, I just wonder if there’s some elephant everybody is missing. Better get our eyes checked.. or more liked our facts checked.
Will do later, although it’s a rather silly topic and I think we’d both think the same about it.
Brought it up because I’ve never seen short men do the same nonsense or requesting nonsencial requests or anything unreasonable despite how they feel about it. Or maybe I never bothered to search for it. Or maybe because I’ll tell them the same thing I’ll tell to every women who makes an unreasonable post of that kind. I treat unreasonable people equally so it doesn’t really matter to me what they post about.
The only problem is that, it’s ON THE INTERNET. How many people take the internet seriously? I’m probably making some sort of fallacy here, but at the same time I cannot help but wonder why I always see it on the internet. Probably because the women are afraid of retribution.
Ehh. Over 10 or so downvotes for this? Seems like there’s some feminists or some 6′5 men with a superiority complex around. But seriously so many downvotes yet zero explanations? The more I get them the more it basically feels like I’m not the problem.
Seems like there’s some feminists or some 6′5 men with a superiority complex around.
Well, I am 6′7, without a superiority complex of course. That’s not why I downvoted you, though, and since you asked for an explanation:
I’m reading the comments and looking for some new ammo for my next fight in the gender wars.
That’s not the kind of approach (arguments as soldiers) we’re looking for in a rationality forum. One of the prequisites is a willingness to change your mind, which seems to be setting the bar too high for some people.
I’ll point you to question #4 of my original post:
Have you ever felt those gender wars to be silly?
And then, this, which Kawoomba also quoted:
P//S//A//III: I’m reading the comments and looking for some new ammo for my next fight in the gender wars.
I’ve made the implication that I think the gender wars are silly. After that, If the gender wars are silly, why would I be reading the comments and reloading my guns (ohhh, puns!) in the first place?
Can’t you see how idiotic that is? You’re free to call me an idiot, and I don’t really care. But at the same time I also hope you make an update and understand that not everything should be taken literally. I could give you the story as to how I came to a conclusion about properly updating but that’s:
A. a short one so we can do it with a PM (I’ll post it publicly if you want to—more powe.. er, downvotes to me!)
B. Not very relevant to the current discussion, although it can be Yet Another Reason #24214 on why updating (and communicating) is important.
So, was searching “Jezebel” on Lesswrong after seeing that one reddit poster who posted a comment got featured on that site. Then searched “Jezebel” on LW and got here.
A few things I’d like to address, despite this article being rather old:
Most important of all, actually. Have your view changed? Because otherwise, I’m afraid the answers I’ll be getting will be somewhat different, at least that’s what I feel when I think about it. If you have a quality record of Alicorn 2009 then it would be nice but Alicorn 2015 is fine too (sorry, I know how women fret over how old they are)
Can you say what makes this post any better than any other post about women saying they feel uncomfortable? This post seems quite generic. I’ve seen women do this sometimes and it’s always the same thing, almost as if they’re saying they want to be treated better. It’s okay, but at the same time there’s many things involved. Are you sure your feeling is the same as what other people feel? I personally do not feel any reason to treat you any better than other posters. But I really do wonder if there’s some phenomenon that women suffer some sort of self-discrimination, or maybe inadequetness. Have you ever felt like that?
There was supposed to be a question here, but I decided PM is a better way to do it. Despite how amusing a flamewar on an old thread sounds like.
Have you ever thought that it cannot be changed? And if it could be changed, your method is ineffective? SPOILER ALERT: I’m male, and only 160cm tall (5′3 for you imperialists) and I can’t say I’m perfectly fine with my height. You probably never thought of how it feels to see so many women who are either taller than you naturally or taller than you once they put their heels on. This doesn’t feel nice. You might say I’m comparing your (or the female hive-mind, or whatever else) uneasiness to mine, but I’m short enough that it heppens almost too much. Now, there are clear differences between us. I guess we can let it slide for one person. An exception, and not the rule, or whatever. But at the same time, this isn’t the first time I see this and probably not the last. Certainly the first time on a place where rational discussion is encoureged more than others, but when you see somme things happen in a variety of places you just have to wonder what’s really behind it other than “this and that repeating patterns”. And back to the first two sentences.. I personally cannot cut all women 10cm in height (that would only compensate for the heels anyway) the same way as you cannot alter, artificially or naturally or in any other way how men behave. You can say you’re feeling uncomfortable all day, but I doubt you do it. I do honestly feel that my height isn’t satisfactory quite often. But will crying (and yes, I don’t care for your first paragraph at this point) about any of those two things solve them in even a fraction of them? No. You can only make your presence known here and if you feel attached to this pace as you say you are, recruit some more women here and ruin the equilbrium, or whatever you’d think makes sense (women, making sense, haha!). The same way as the only way I can stand out (oh, the irony) is to make better jokes, to dress better, to have more money or more impressive skills or whatever. You do not start at the goal; you work yourself there with great effort and tsuyoku naritai. Can you eat fruit and see flowers blooming without even planting a seed? There is no logic there. So now back to the original questions. Do you think it can be changed? And if so, do you think you’re doing it the right way? I’ll expand a bit on the second question at question number 6.
Have you ever felt those gender wars to be silly? Maybe I’m too selfish to consider other views but sometimes I can’t help but think “these views are dumb and your ignorance is absolutely not as good as my knowledge”. Again, I wouldn’t discriminate or anything because the other person is a woman. But I often see women doing XYZ. Is it offensive to say “oh, women” when I see XYZ? Now that’s stupid. Once again, I treat people as individuals, I have nothing more to say other than “don’t shoot me because I’m not in your yard”.
I say posts like these aren’t really the way to do it. Why? Because it makes me feel like “shh, there’s women in the room, you can’t say that” and now that’s bad for rational discussion. For general social gatherings it’s okay though. But not on LW or any place that emphasizes rationality. Nobody said rationality is gender-bound either. I don’t care for research nor ancedentals or whatever. No flowers without seeds. You cannot come in to a man-dominated community and just say “I’m a woman, this and that topics aren’t very comfortable for me to see, please don’t talk about them, mmkay?”. It’s already too straining to think that if you make some silly remark or make a mistake or whatever some Lesswrong Police Departmant Officer Psuedkowsky would be there to eat me alive. Well, that’s an exaggeration but you don’t want to appear too dumb in places where intellect is valued. Wouldn’t want Miss Alisoccer to bat me in the head, either. Bottom line: I think you’re doing what you want to do the wrong way. What do you think?
PSA: I’m posting this only because you’ve been particularly nice on me on IRC. You can ignore this message or whatever if you want, I’m sure some other poor soul will take arms in the illusionary gender wars and as usual, die on the battlefield of a zero-sum shootout. P/S/A/2: I might be a little bit biased after seeing so much “women in tech” bullcrap. You’re also free to ask me anything you’d wanna know if you think it would clear the fog up a bit. P//S//A//III: I’m reading the comments and looking for some new ammo for my next fight in the gender wars.
I don’t really hang out on IRC except for a private channel in which my beta readers assemble. Are you sure that was me? I wouldn’t want to respond to a post that was composed in error.
Eh. I might have mistaken you for someone else. But I’m not responding to the person on IRC, whomever it might be. I’ve posted a response in response to your own post on LW. It was in November last year so it could have been you.
Anyway, as I’ve said, can you answer the questions? I’ve put some time into that, I’d like to have an answer.
Sure why not. I’ll use the numbering there would have been if the number 1 wasn’t duplicated so it’ll still make sense if you fix that.
My views on gender and feminism in general have slid substantially over the past six years. I don’t have particularly good memories of what I was thinking in 2009. I do still think making a crack about your suspicion that I worry about my age is icky.
I doubt very much that my OP is a substantial improvement over other posts on the same topic; like most of my writing from that long ago I both find it vaguely embarrassing from a quality standpoint and refuse on principle to delete it. It is notable principally for its location (on LW as opposed to somewhere else). I did not extensively poll other women on LW before writing my OP and don’t remember receiving any significant private messages from same, so I have no particularly special insight into what other women feel on the matter. The rest of this question seems badly worded to me; I’m not sure what you mean.
I have not received a PM from you.
What an… interestingly loaded… and opaque… way to phrase a question. I have actually thought about the plight of short men before. You’re about the same height as my dad, and he brings up the (entirely genuine, even) discrimination faced by short men on a pretty routine basis, although as far as I know he doesn’t directly have a problem with my mother being taller than him. But I’m not sure why you brought it up. People being taller than you happens too much? I’m only an inch taller than you if I stand up straight; people being taller than me happens about the same amount, I’d imagine. The surrounding culture is different for men and women here but you talk as though it’s inherently unpleasant to be short. Do I think culture, in general/on this specific point, can be changed? Well, we aren’t currently hunter-gatherers, so probably culture can change. Did this post help? I don’t really know. Is my current behavior now in 2015 helping? Again, I don’t know; anyway I’ve backed off from LW proper in favor of following rationalist tumblr and hanging out with the rationalist meatspace crowd. (The rationalist meatspace crowd has a decent number of women in it, especially if you look places like CfAR’s staff.)
The only coherent thing I can extract from this paragraph is “Have you ever felt those gender wars to be silly?”, the rest of it seems almost Markov-chain-like in its relevance. Yes, I have often found gender wars to be silly.
This isn’t a question, this is a ramble with an unhelpful flower analogy and poor coherence. Is what I think.
That’s just a joke, missy. Your views slid to the wrong way, or what? :) Don’t worry about your age though. Mentally mature women are cool. Don’t expect a dinner and a date, though!
Eh, that was my point. I’ve read so many ramblings like that, and it makes me honestly feel that “I’ve read this before”. And that was my main problem with things like that. I’m quite sure many other men feel the same when they see yet another blog post on THAT KIND OF CHANGE written by a woman. And when I read the same patterns all over again, I just wonder if there’s some elephant everybody is missing. Better get our eyes checked.. or more liked our facts checked.
Will do later, although it’s a rather silly topic and I think we’d both think the same about it.
Brought it up because I’ve never seen short men do the same nonsense or requesting nonsencial requests or anything unreasonable despite how they feel about it. Or maybe I never bothered to search for it. Or maybe because I’ll tell them the same thing I’ll tell to every women who makes an unreasonable post of that kind. I treat unreasonable people equally so it doesn’t really matter to me what they post about.
The only problem is that, it’s ON THE INTERNET. How many people take the internet seriously? I’m probably making some sort of fallacy here, but at the same time I cannot help but wonder why I always see it on the internet. Probably because the women are afraid of retribution.
Nevermind this, I messed up.
Ehh. Over 10 or so downvotes for this? Seems like there’s some feminists or some 6′5 men with a superiority complex around. But seriously so many downvotes yet zero explanations? The more I get them the more it basically feels like I’m not the problem.
Well, I am 6′7, without a superiority complex of course. That’s not why I downvoted you, though, and since you asked for an explanation:
That’s not the kind of approach (arguments as soldiers) we’re looking for in a rationality forum. One of the prequisites is a willingness to change your mind, which seems to be setting the bar too high for some people.
This is silly. How can you take such a thing seriously?
Can you point out anything specific that’s wrong with it, or is this just a “that’s not something I’m used to” reaction?
I’ll point you to question #4 of my original post:
And then, this, which Kawoomba also quoted:
I’ve made the implication that I think the gender wars are silly. After that, If the gender wars are silly, why would I be reading the comments and reloading my guns (ohhh, puns!) in the first place?
Can’t you see how idiotic that is? You’re free to call me an idiot, and I don’t really care. But at the same time I also hope you make an update and understand that not everything should be taken literally. I could give you the story as to how I came to a conclusion about properly updating but that’s: A. a short one so we can do it with a PM (I’ll post it publicly if you want to—more powe.. er, downvotes to me!) B. Not very relevant to the current discussion, although it can be Yet Another Reason #24214 on why updating (and communicating) is important.