Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, elegantchorus has provided the definitive mansplaination as to why the apparent sexism in the tech world isn’t really sexism.
He starts by addressing one recent controversy: the lack of any female presenters at a press event for Sony’s Playstation 4. Sexism — or just the whimsical finger of fate?
Sony not having female presenters at its console announcement because Sony doesn’t have any female executives, MIGHT be sexist, but its more just coincidence … .
What a strange coincidence that is! Sort of like, I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this, but all the popes so far have been men. Weird! What are the odds? Anyway:
[T]here is certainly great examples of women in leading positions in important tech companies. Marissa Mayer of Yahoo comes immediately to mind.
That certainly is great examples!
Yet people spent a lot of time talking about how sexist the Sony conference was, while giving relatively few props to women who have actually succeeded, I actually think that’s more sexist than anything the IT industry can conjure.
Yeah. I mean, Kotaku ran an actual article about that Sony thing. Yet where — WHERE!!!? — are the articles about Marissa Mayer, or about that Sheryl chick from Facebook. What’s her last name?
Sheryl Sandberg! That’s right. I wonder how Google knew that. I mean, it’s not like she gets much press coverage. Oh well. Kudos to the male programmers at Google for figuring out which Sheryl I meant!
Anyway, enough with the discussions of actual women in tech. Elegantchorus moves on to the truly important question to deal with when we talk about women in the tech world, which is: where are all the lady coal miners?
The complaints about apparent inequality are always directed towards jobs like Computer Science and Engineering but never towards something like Coal Mining.
You’ve got to admit he’s got a point there. I mean, why are these selfish ladies all worked up about being excluded from high-paying jobs that involve sitting on your butt in front of a computer in a nice office instead of the really dangerous ones that take place deep underground? Why are women more interested in good jobs than in not-so-good jobs?!
It’s quite the GOTCHA moment. I mean, feminists NEVER EVER talk about getting more women into mining, except, you know, when they do. And it’s quite telling that there are ZERO organizations devoted to expanding the number of women in the mining industry except for, you know, the Women’s Mining Coalition and Women in Mining International, and maybe others, I don’t know, which obviously don’t count because of reasons.
Why aren’t there more Coal Mining women? Is the coal mining industry inherently sexist? If you can’t take that question seriously, why should I take the concern about the IT industry seriously?
Seriously, what a ridiculous notion! Sexism … in the mining industry? Pshaw! Women have always been welcomed into the mines with open arms — and some good-natured ribbing! Consider this amusing anecdote I found on the Internet.
The women who broke ground as coal miners faced discriminatory hiring practices from the owners as well as sexual harassment from men who felt threatened by the demands of the women to be treated as human beings, equal in every way. Barbara Angle, a mining woman, said, “There were three women and 300 men in my mine. They used to ‘joke’ with me. “Hey, just set up a cot at the pit mouth and you’ll make more each shift than if you mine.”
It’s funny because women are really only useful as vagina suppliers to men!
Meanwhile, I’d like to add, while feminists sit on their butts and don’t do anything about the lack of women in mining, except organizing and filing lawsuits and all that, bold and courageous Men’s Rights activists have been active indeed in trying to increase the number of men in glamorous female-dominated professions like, you know, housekeeping. Selfish ladies, bogarting 89% of the housekeeping jobs! And 97% of the secretary jobs!
You may recall the chants that filled the air at last year’s Men For Crappy-Paying Lady Jobs rally* in Washington DC.
What do we want?
To be secretaries!
When do we want it?
Right before your 11 o’clock appointment, sir!
And besides, though elegantchorus doesn’t get into this, women are simply not biologically suited for high-paying jobs in tech, just as men are biologically incapable of taking jobs as dental hygienists.
As a Redditor named lbzip2 explained in a comment posted in the thread, women
lack the necessary attention to detail. They are simply not interested in it. Guess what, they have no place here, just like I could never be a historian or translator or lawyer or doctor, because I hate meeting new people. I’m not “enforcing” this or some shit like that, I simply accept that most girls are like this for whatever reason and I’m not trying to force them into IT.
As for those ladies who for some crazy reason actually want to work in the tech world, lbzip2 offers nothing but respect, and the occasional sexist joke:
I treat my female coworkers with respect, I politely discuss technical stuff with them if they feel like. I do make sexist jokes if I was able to get to know them sufficiently before, like any healthy male. They mostly laugh and if they don’t, I apologize and tune it down.
They mostly laugh!! So obviously the sexist jokes are fine, and probably not even sexist. Did you hear the one about the lady miner and the cot?
Yet some ladies bizarrely think that the deck is stacked against them in tech:
“Missing out on best career opportunities?” Well, concentrate on the fucking task at hand, not irrelevant details. Suppose I’d like to work in a fuckin’ bakery but hate that the clothes are white (which doesn’t mean in the least that they are clean). So who will start a crusade for me? If the circumstances of your otherwise coveted dream-job are accidental, try to change them. If they are intrinsic, live with them or leave.
Oh, and speaking of things that are stacked:
In my college class we had this beautiful girl with huge boobs. She was smarter than any guy in the whole class. Did we envy her? Did we hate her? Hell no. We respected her and we constantly tried to bring her in discussions for her insights. Did we talk about her body among ourselves? Hell yes, we’re no monks!
Boobs.
Boobs boobs boobs.
Booooooobs.
Oh, sorry.
Anyway, all you gals who don’t like sexist jokes at tech conferences, consider this: lbzip2 doesn’t like to travel!
Women consider sexist jokes repugnant in conference presentations? Well, I don’t go to no fucking conference, because I hate to travel, I hate to spend money, I hate the crowd.
Q.E. fuckin D! Male logic defeats weird lady feeeelings once again!
So, in conclusion, ladies don’t belong in the tech world, and there’s nothing whatsoever sexist about that. Also boobs.
—
*The Men For Crappy-Paying Lady Jobs rally is imaginary. The chant is real, though, in that I said it out loud a couple of times to my cats.
I’m sorry, Halite can’t comment here anymore, because she has rage-sploded from the stupidity.
As has every woman engineer, miner, geologist, geophysicist, heavy equipment operator, geotech, driller, rig worker, safety co-ordinator, mechanic and *accountant* she has ever known.
Western Canada is real mess of asploded lady-miners right now >.>
It’s impossible to get more men in female dominated jobs. The easy jobs go to women – the cashier and such. The MEN do the heavy lifting and backbreaking work. You can’t get men involved in any childcare because of paedohysteria.
So blatent sexism – as necessary to IT as white overalls are to a bakery. Presumably Health & Safety do spot checks that you’re being blatently sexist enough to comply with the regulations. for public safety, of course.
For reals though, this take Creationist-level willfull ignorance. “WHERE ARE ALL THE WIMMINZ IN _____? REVERSE SEXISM” the MRAssclowns cry, and then when examples get pointed out they say “WELL THAT DOESN’T COUNT BECAUSE I SAY. NYAH. MALE DISPOSABLARGILITY!”
Actually, what I was “simply not interested in” was the constant sexual harassment, the being repeatedly barred from actually using a computer, and the being told I ought to be grateful for the “experience” of making fast-food runs and deflecting jokes about my boobs, butt, and vagina. Prior to all that, I was not only interested in programming, I was damn good at it.
Presumably Health & Safety do spot checks that you’re being blatently sexist enough to comply with the regulations. for public safety, of course.
Of course! And this is why sexist behavior is rampant in IT – because you never know when that dude in the torn jeans and Green Lantern t-shit is actually a Health & Safety official in disguise.
For reals though, these guys depress the fuck out of me. I just don’t understand how they get to the state of mind they are in. Like, they must have had mothers and sisters and female friends and and and …. you know, people who cared for them and loved them? How do they go from that to this rage-frothy stuff? How do their poor mothers feel? (Obvs, just statistically some of them had horrible mothers, but that can’t account for all of them) It makes me worry and feel depressed about our tiny little new son. What if he ends up like these MRAssfaces?
Then I try to tell myself that these guys are so out of touch with reality that the chance of their (bowel) Movement catching on is slim to none. I hope >.>
(ack comment spam! sorry >.>)
(I’m still trying to understand how a “lack of interest in detail” would prevent one from pursuing a job in IT but would encourage one to pursue a job as a doctor or lawyer. You’re phenylketonuric? Pfft, details. You want to sue someone and we have exactly 24 hours to file the complaint before the statute of limitations expires? Details!)
I’d love to hear the “beautiful girl with big boobs” story from her perspective:
I was one of the few girls in my science class and I was brighter than any of the boys. Whenever I spoke, the boys just sat and stared at my boobs. None of them paid any attention to anything I said, just stared at the boobs.
Or from the other girls in the class:
It was as though I was invisible. No one seemed to notice if I said anything, I was ignored all the time. All the boys were too busy staring at this other girl’s boobs.
In an odd moment of universal serendipity, the notice for this post and this article both showed up in my rss reader at the same time…
Funny, because most of the technical guys I’ve worked with have scoffed at the notion that they need to be focused on details; they are “big picture” thinkers and sifting code for errors is “beneath” them…
I like how one guy’s “disinterest in meeting new people” equates with “all ladies’ ladybrains can’t think hard enough to program.” Hint, just as you are not ALL MEN, a lady who is not interested in fine detail is not ALL WOMEN.
I thought detail work was women’s work, and guys are all big-picture? Am I getting my sexist stereotypes mixed up again?
@Bagelsan, they can’t even stay internally consistent. Ladies are both not detail-oriented enough to work in tech, but we also can’t get promoted because we focus too much on irrelevant details rather than the task at hand. Which is it?!
Uh what?
That…ow.
In other news, I haz a sad-my mom’s mother’s day gift was destroyed by the courier company because US customs prohibited it from being shipped to me in the US from the UK.
Titanblue, and it sounds like it would not have been worthwhile to actually point that out. Of course I am in such a foul mood at this point that I want to have a shirt that says “Staring at the boobs behind this will cause you to develop cancer.”
@Bagelsan: No, no, it’s always that women do it worse. No matter what it is, even if it’s contradictory.
In other news, the mayor of the city I live closest to (who happens to be a black woman) just happened to use the words “scumbag” and the name of the nearby incredibly redneck, mostly Republican county that I’m pretty sure has more guns than centralized heating systems in the same sentence. Take a wild guess as to how that’s been going…
I hope these stupid fuckers don’t have to write much in their day-to-day. I could barely read that codswallop. Way to be coherent, dudes.
I guess boners don’t type well.
*tries to convince someone to wallop their boner against a keyboard; inexplicably fails*
I am arguing with someone over the right to bear arms, based on his conversation, I think he is using his boner.
Sure they do. My office has been searching to fill an administrative position for the past… oh, 6 months, and we have not had a single dudely applicant. Not that all guys are MRAs obvs (shudders at the thought), but it’s been my experience that most men don’t apply for secretarial jobs because they pay shit.
Pardon my rant, I might be a smidge bitter having just done my taxes and realized that I made less in 2012 working three jobs (one being a “real” secretarial job with benefits and sick leave) than I did as a temp and part time library clerk in 2011 :(.
Dosent know women and kids use to did coal mining because men didnt want to into it because not much money.
Hasent seen dogs and cobras like to chew bird watching because cigarettes didnt like to on top of it because not much syrup.
I think nopestories actually is making a valid point in there somewhere?
I can’t tell, to be honest, but I remember when nopestories spouted some ableist BS so I’m not feeling charitable.