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.
Makes sense. 😀
@ostara321 awww what? THREE jobs? 🙁
Also, hello, fellow secretary. I commiserate.
Erm, so, anecdata alert ahoy, and also much rambling,
Despite being a lowly secretary, I spent a whole day this week administering typing tests to recruit other lowly audio-typist-types into the Scottish health service (thus punching far above my grade and also learning surprising things about the whininess of the general public). The list of names was all, surname, first initial, so I had no prior idea of gender, which I approved of, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that nearly a third of those who turned up were men, of all ages from 18 to 50’s. (Although that could merely be a reflection of economic times).
I’ve never really understood this parallel meme of ‘men all play computers all night’ and ‘men could not possibly type all day on a computer’ that seems to go around.
Anyway the two that got picked were, one woman and one man. This pleases me, because they were the ones I thought were most competent in the test (not that my input was requested, but I’m not at that grade.)
In additional, more completely non-essential anecdatal rambling,
Earlier in the decade, I spent a year working for bed and board as a construction/ general labourer, in an old farm being converted into a leisure/ activity complex, completely on the fly (as it turned out. I had been hoping for experience in the field and ended up with nothing documented at all, so in that respect it was a waste of time and I’m an idiot). It was fun for the first while, I got to feel all intrepid, living in an unplumbed cabin with no heating when it was -6 C at noon, chainsawing and floating concrete and building walls and so forth, which was great when I’d been an office worker my whole adult life, and the owner kept saying he was mightily impressed with my work ethic, being as I’m female and all and worked harder than all the blokes there.
The whole atmosphere changed when a new bloke turned up in the summer, and immediately started complaining all the livelong day about how ‘having a woman here ruined his ability to feel all manly’ and to my shock, all the guys I’d been living and working alongside for half a year (and had thought I was getting along with) readily turned round, in front of me, and agreed that, yes, my presence there was ‘wrecking everything for them’. Every single day. (Not that it stopped anyone, you know, hitting on me at the end of a day of that).
Possibly worth noting that, while the working day was 9-5, I was expected to start at 7.30 with feeding the pigs, cleaning the ‘canteen’, communal loos and gym, and getting the coffee on before starting the ‘work’ along with the guys, and to do the dishes after dinner. The rest of the work crew (all men) wasn’t. And no, I didn’t kick off about it, cos I was too sodding knackered.
This probably proves more about me than about society, but… damn. As a microcosm, or merely as a lifestyle, it sucked arse.
beshemoth, sounds like you got a sample of the nostalgic traditional life that MRAs long for! Women working harder than everyone else and getting shit for it.
I’m a secretary too! I mean, I do more than answer the telephone* and do transcriptions, but at the end of the day answer the bloody telephone* is pretty much what I do at work.
*Curse you Alexander Bell! Curse you and your infernal noisemaker!
History!! Still there no matter how ignorant MRAs choose to be.
http://www.balmaiden.co.uk/WomenUK.htm
Whenever I would walk into the room the guys would all stop talking suddenly, I really get the feeling that whenever I’m not around they would all just sit and talk about me. It felt really uncomfortable, and it wasn’t like I could go to the professor about it. I ended up kind of hating that class.
Weird thing about secretaries: when men did it, it was the first necessary step to becoming a high paid administrator, because the secretary learns everything their boss is doing and meets everyone he meets. Soon as it became mostly women, secretary is a dead end job despite the secretary learning everything their boss is doing and meeting everyone he meets.
Women worked the mines until men decided to make it illegal for women to work the mines. For their own good and for the sake of men with families to support, of course.
David, where did that photo come from?
As a fan of fiber arts, I think that using a computer to facilitate a weaving project is a pretty cool use of technology.
Yeah, the one is a seasonal type thing and the other was just a every other weekend sort of deal, (plus my full time secretarial gig) but yeah, I very nearly cried because I remembered being so fucking exhausted the entire month of December because I worked a shit ton so I could have extra cash for spoiling my loved ones and doing my taxes made it seem like it was all for naught. Even though I could have used my return money sooner, I’m actually almost glad I didn’t file in January when the exhaustion was still pretty fresh. I might have asploded.
Though now I’m starting to freak out a little since I quit the library gig (it was too taxing since working weekends there meant I basically got no time off, and hardly any time to spend with my beau those weekends, plus, when my car broke down it was hard to get there on the other side of town), wondering how depressing my 2013 taxes are going to look, even if my secretary boss DOES manage to get me that raise for basically having been doing two jobs for the past 6 months until we fill the other position.
I usually try not to complain since I know that I’m relatively lucky in a lot of ways, I do at least have a job, I have benefits and I have really awesome coworkers, but yeah, one thing I do not have is a lot of money or recognition for most of the shit I put up with. @Falconer phones…. ugh, gad the phones. I dunno about you but for me they seem to mostly have unpleasant people on the other side. Who sometimes become even MORE unpleasant when someone like me with a young lady-ish sounding voice picks up the phone and they assume I’m stupid or going to be unhelpful on purpose.
“Customer contact” positions are generally some of the worst out there, be it phones, retail, etc. I used to fill in on the phone desk in the newsroom of a major urban newspaper, taking calls from the general public, and trying to get them in touch with the person they actually wanted to speak to.
In addition to the usual ‘dumb’ calls that anyone dealing with the public has to put up with, we had those callers who had progressed so far into their own personal conspiracy theory that the only word I have for it is ‘delusional’. Policy at that time was to let the caller ramble, promise to pass the ‘information’ along to the appropriate party, and then end the call. It always amazed me how grateful so many of these folks were–they were just that desperate for someone to listen to them for a bit. (Of course, during a high call volume, you sometimes had to rush them along a bit.)
My most memorable was during the 2008 Democratic Primary season, when this very gentle-spoken elderly woman informed me, politely, that she was the “secret President of the United States”, and that she did not, repeat, did not support “that woman, Hillary Rodham Clinton” for the nomination. She said that this was because she knew that Hillary was breaking into her room at night and stealing her clippings, along with her money. The most intriguing part of the call, for me, was the genuinely likeable nature the woman had, even as she was spouting utter nonsense. Her personality was intact, and very pleasant; she was gracious and well-mannered. I occasionally wonder what she was like before her condition–whatever condition that was–came over her. I’m sure I would’ve liked her, though, had we met.
Huh. That turned out sadder than I thought it would.
So, in order to bring things up, I present Greta Christina’s cat, Comet, Obamafied:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/files/2013/03/BITE.gif
@Cloudiah – you made me lol with the cobra and the syrup.
@Everyone – We respected her and we constantly tried to bring her in discussions for her insights.
Oh how sweet , you tried to bring the weird thing attached to the big boobs into your already established man-chat? Magnanimous of you. Yay for benevolent sexism
She had huge… insights.
Giant insights.
Wasn’t programming originally thought of as an adjunct to or extension of secretarial work and gendered female?
They just wanted to get all up in her insights.
@Bagelsan, hellkell
Someone’s going to post this eventually, so let’s get it over and done with.
Starskita, I found the pic on pinterest, and whoever posted it there got it from my-retrospace.blogspot.com. I’m not sure what the original source was.
Victorian coal-miners didn’t have the most pleasant of jobs, but the smaller miners – women and children – were often given the jobs of pulling mine-carts through smaller passages. They were cheaper than pit ponies.
Also, I like how most of the comment about how they totally weren’t sexist to that woman in their class were about her boobs. Right, yeah, not sexist…
@lowquacks
You’re thinking of the original ‘computers,’ as in the (mostly) women at Bletchley Park and elsewhere who would do the calculations and data management for the cypher breaking operation. When I was doing my PhD coursework, one of my professors would speak often about how her mother was a computer during the war. She had some fascinating stories to tell.
Of course, since women aren’t good at things like that, they couldn’t be true… 😉
And now I have the mental image of an sentient detached boner trying to type on the computer, frustrated that it’s doing so poorly. /had to share
@princessbonbon
Good luck? I’m curious what his talking point is and how it relates to boners though 😛 You don’t need to share if you don’t feel like it, I’m just super duper rambly today.
@beshemoth
God that sucks 🙁
@Ostara
Your jobs sound hard. 🙁 Internet hugs, if wanted.
Women lack the necessary attention to details that men have but they should also stop wasting time on details and look at the big picture, like a man does.
Someone flunked logic 101
If you think that “backbreaking” work is limited to those in possession of a penis, you’re delusional.
Take maids and housekeeping for instance (according to the US Bureau of Labor Stats, it’s 88% female). Overuse and repetitive strain injuries are rampant. One study (Buchanan et. al. 2010, Journal of Industrial Medecine) found that the rate of injury in 5 UNIONISED (read, more likely safer work environments) hotel companies was about 20% higher than in similar industries in the same province. Being female gave you a higher risk of injury.
It’s not limited to housekeeping. Teaching/childcare; retail; food service are all female dominated and all have higher rates of injury than, say, mining. Just because a maid doesn’t have a pick-axe slung over her back does not mean her work is not “backbreaking”. Being bent over scrubbing floors (or whatever) for 12 hours a day will do that in a couple of weeks.
Rates of injury are also very high in male dominated fields like construction. But a serious difference between that field and, say, housekeeping is the rate of pay. There is a big risk in being a construction worker. But the payoff and potential for advancement is much, much higher than being a maid in a dodgy hotel.
Do yourself a favour and read Babara Ehrenreich’s “Nickeled and Dimed”.
Cashier being an easy job? Try boring, tiring (standing all day) and dangerous – retail is not a safe job. Cashiers/shop assistants are the people at risk when shops are robbed. Not that an MRA would last any time as a retail worker. They’d be fired within weeks.