Sexism in technical literature

[Zero999]

This sort of thing does annoy me. I don't care if I'm labelled as sexist, I'll put across my opinion anyway and if it upsets anyone, they can ignore it.

The problem these days is child care isn't valued at all: jobs in that sector are poorly paid, typically minimum wage

Political correctness and capitalism have caused people to forget about basic anthropology.

I don't believe it's sexist that women have traditionally being involved more in child care and men have had to provide food, goods etc. It's simply the natural order of things. Women are designed to invest more time in child care. They have to carry the baby for 9 months and nurse it for much longer and no amount of feminist propaganda or political correctness is going to change this. Traditionally a woman would have have her husband, to support her financially whilst she raises the children. It isn't sexist, it's just the way nature made the human species. Raising children is a very important role in society, much more important than economic growth and it happens women have evoked to do this much better than men.

Of course this doesn't mean women shouldn't be allowed to contribute to economic growth, just as men shouldn't be excluded from childcare but most of the time it makes more sense for women to devote more time to raising children and men to making money.

[nitro2k01]

Of course this doesn't mean women shouldn't be allowed to contribute to economic growth, just as men shouldn't be excluded from childcare but most of the time it makes more sense for women to devote more time to raising children and men to making money.

Or in short, promote equal opportunity, not equal outcome.

[Simon]

Amen!

what is an outcome ? If a woman chooses to raise a child so be it, no children = no future to the human race. That is of course different from chain-childbearing for the sake of the benefits it brings while not bringing up the children properly - oh dear I just opened another can of worms........

[GreyWoolfe]

Simon, let's add to that can of worms: two words---tubal ligation.  You open the can of worms and I will whack the hornet's nest

[Simon]

what is tubal litigation ?

[nitro2k01]

what is tubal litigation ?

That's when you sue the fallopian tubes for producing eggs. Tubal ligation on the other hand is a form of sterilization where you tie the fallopian tubes to prevent eggs from reaching the uterus.

[GK]

GK: I'm guessing that's not a photo of yourself in the avatar...?

Correct.

[GreyWoolfe]

what is tubal litigation ?

That's when you sue the fallopian tubes for producing eggs. Tubal ligation on the other hand is a form of sterilization where you tie the fallopian tubes to prevent eggs from reaching the uterus.

No, tubal litigation is when you sue the city for allowing the winos to live in the underground train stations, causing them to reek of unwashed bodies and stale urine, causing permanent damage to your olfactory senses.  Thus you can no longer smell your significant others' perfume/cologne/natural pheromones, allowing you to sue for punitive damages.

[madshaman]

Regarding female tech-stars/you-tube presenters:

I think it's harmless but youtube comments that circle around the theme: "wow, an attractive female who knows stuff", "I'm in love" etc. bother me a bit.

It focusses on the persons sexual identity and it illustrates a problem a see amoung some of my techy friends:

They all want a girlfriend, they want her to be smart and attractive; fine.

They *think* that any woman who's into geeky stuff (or stars in some geek-associated media) is a potential mate and have quasi one-sided crush/romances with them like we all used to do when we were ten.

When it comes to real life, if they encounter a smart attractive woman (the world is *teaming* with them; I'm married to one of them), despite all the complaints of never finding a girlfriend, they don't go up and *talk* to her, or worse, they'll talk to her, but not like a guy who's interested in dating, but a guy who's interested in being friends (no doubt disappointing many a woman who was *actually interested* in them).

It all stems from a fear of rejection and it reinforces this type of "smart geeky woman on a pedestal syndrome" because these women are both ideal (in the mind of the geek; I'm a geek too so I don't use the word derisively) and also unattainable (no chance of rejection).

The problem is that these attitudes swamp comments and leave less room for technical discussion; and I can't help but to think that this makes the presenters feel they aren't taken seriously, or that part of their popularity is only because they're an attractive woman.

I think many guys would be surprised at how many very smart, very attractive women are walking around dejected, cold, frustrated and deeply hurt because everyone focusses on their looks or on some false mental image of them while completely ignoring the person they are.

[Simon]

I think many guys would be surprised at how many very smart, very attractive women are walking around dejected, cold, frustrated and deeply hurt because everyone focusses on their looks or on some false mental image of them while completely ignoring the person they are.

Send a few my way then, the problem is that we are all taught in society to have high expectations of a mate because it's all a race and a game to win the hottest partner (either sex) and impress our friends etc so many an opportunity to meet someone is missed as unless the right boxes are ticked it's a no go, instead of just being happy to talk to people and be friendly.

When it comes to sad people on youtube that are only interested in fantasizing, sadly one of the things men do wasting time and being assholes, but on the internet they have less inhibitions. I think it's also a given that most geeks in the old sense of the word (not the I'm an apple fan type) are in fact people on the autistic spectrum / have asperges but undiagnosed that find interaction with people difficult and generally find it very hard to impress girls in just the right way to get their interested and will tend to have such online outbursts. Of course you get people from some countries where talking about sex is tabu and they just let all inhibitions go on the internet because they can.

Ok let the storms rage against me now.........

[zapta]

From the dictionary:
Sexism:   prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

The 'you look great' comments from the male geeks do not seem to fit the bill. It's more a one way crush or admiration as Mad Shaman described.

[miguelvp]

Send a few my way then, the problem is that we are all taught in society to have high expectations of a mate because it's all a race and a game to win the hottest partner (either sex) and impress our friends etc so many an opportunity to meet someone is missed as unless the right boxes are ticked it's a no go, instead of just being happy to talk to people and be friendly.

When it comes to sad people on youtube that are only interested in fantasizing, sadly one of the things men do wasting time and being assholes, but on the internet they have less inhibitions. I think it's also a given that most geeks in the old sense of the word (not the I'm an apple fan type) are in fact people on the autistic spectrum / have asperges but undiagnosed that find interaction with people difficult and generally find it very hard to impress girls in just the right way to get their interested and will tend to have such online outbursts. Of course you get people from some countries where talking about sex is tabu and they just let all inhibitions go on the internet because they can.

Ok let the storms rage against me now.........

One of these days, your balls will drop and you'll realize how far off you are.
You don't fall in love just by looks, that's not love is called something else (lust) so if you are ok to fall in lust, that's up to you, but maybe when you turn 40 or hopefully on your 30's you'll see the light.

It's quite alright, we all went through all of this before.

Edit: hint, geek it's been "in" for quite a while now.

[old gregg]

Traditionally a woman would have have her husband, to support her financially whilst she raises the children. It isn't sexist, it's just the way nature made the human species. Raising children is a very important role in society, much more important than economic growth and it happens women have evoked to do this much better than men.

It's not "nature", it's "society" and "religion", both created "tradition" and that statement that Women should be more concerned about Child thing and let Men do real work.

Then comes, maybe, the biological connexion between the mother and child (that she carried for 9 months into her biological system with obvious consequences).

I'm pretty sure there're (were) some Human societies that can prove the exact oposite of what you're saying.

Regarding youtube commenters, well it's the exact addition of testosterone and stupidity.

[Simon]

Traditionally a woman would have have her husband, to support her financially whilst she raises the children. It isn't sexist, it's just the way nature made the human species. Raising children is a very important role in society, much more important than economic growth and it happens women have evoked to do this much better than men.

It's not "nature", it's "society" and "religion", both created "tradition" and that statement that Women should be more concerned about Child thing and let Men do real work.

Then comes, maybe, the biological connexion between the mother and child (that she carried for 9 months into her biological system with obvious consequences).

I'm pretty sure there're (were) some Human societies that can prove the exact oposite of what you're saying.

Regarding youtube commenters, well it's the exact addition of testosterone and stupidity.

Try looking at the animal kingdom if you want an unbiased perspective, and yes I'm aware that male lions look after cubs while mothers go hunting but I'm guessing that is once cubs reach a certain age which is the parallel rational people on this thread have been drawing all along.....

[Simon]

Send a few my way then, the problem is that we are all taught in society to have high expectations of a mate because it's all a race and a game to win the hottest partner (either sex) and impress our friends etc so many an opportunity to meet someone is missed as unless the right boxes are ticked it's a no go, instead of just being happy to talk to people and be friendly.

When it comes to sad people on youtube that are only interested in fantasizing, sadly one of the things men do wasting time and being assholes, but on the internet they have less inhibitions. I think it's also a given that most geeks in the old sense of the word (not the I'm an apple fan type) are in fact people on the autistic spectrum / have asperges but undiagnosed that find interaction with people difficult and generally find it very hard to impress girls in just the right way to get their interested and will tend to have such online outbursts. Of course you get people from some countries where talking about sex is tabu and they just let all inhibitions go on the internet because they can.

Ok let the storms rage against me now.........

One of these days, your balls will drop and you'll realize how far off you are.
You don't fall in love just by looks, that's not love is called something else (lust) so if you are ok to fall in lust, that's up to you, but maybe when you turn 40 or hopefully on your 30's you'll see the light.

It's quite alright, we all went through all of this before.

Edit: hint, geek it's been "in" for quite a while now.

whenever was i talking about love ? i was infact refering to lust or just sexual drive with nowhere to go...... love never came into it.

Yea I don't keep up with the times or fashion being the old type of "geek".

[miguelvp]

Yea I don't keep up with the times or fashion being the old type of "geek".

I don't even know what "geek" means, I've only seen them in the movies, well those are "nerds" really.

Actually I always loved computers, programming, electronics, math, physics, etc.
Would that make me a geek?

Not much into geek fashion either, because I never even knew such thing existed back in the early 80s, jeans and t-shirt, and more into ac/dc, sex pistols, bowie and lou reed than the cure and the other pop stuff for example.

Unkept most of the year, I mean no regular haircuts or even shave (my wife doesn't seem to mind much).

So pretty much I was just another kid like the rest, other than I had an interest in all kinds of things, but that included friends. Our gang of friends grew over 40 people boys and girls, anytime someone will start dating some boy or girl from another group of friends our circle just kept on growing. To the point that we just didn't even call each other, we just showed up at the regular times where we hanged out and there will always be someone from the group.

But that was/is very normal in Spain. People just go out, even if you liked computers, electronics, math, etc. was/is quite acceptable and kind of cool.

Also we didn't have jocks either, not even nowadays I believe. Some people were good at sports but that whole separation as far as I know only existed in the US.

[Simon]

if you look at a few american or british films/tv programs from the 80's you will see geeks/nerds who are what today would be diagnosed with aspergers/autistic spectrum because the asperges end of the autistic spectrum was only discovered in the early 80's, until then they were nerds and weirdo's maybe the ones that get on better are called geeks.......

But all of that does not take away from the fact that plenty of men are just pigs or can't stop thinking with their dicks

[zapta]

if you look at a few american or british films/tv programs from the 80's you will see geeks/nerds who are what today would be diagnosed with aspergers/autistic spectrum because the asperges end of the autistic spectrum was only discovered in the early 80's, until then they were nerds and weirdo's maybe the ones that get on better are called geeks.......

But all of that does not take away from the fact that plenty of men are just pigs or can't stop thinking with their dicks

We had here recently a case of an asperger kid that did not get enough attention from the girls so he went and killed a few girls and more popular boys.  Play the video here, he is amazingly honest and articulate.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/video-suspected-santa-barbara-killers-disturbing-youtube-manifesto/

[madshaman]

I think many guys would be surprised at how many very smart, very attractive women are walking around dejected, cold, frustrated and deeply hurt because everyone focusses on their looks or on some false mental image of them while completely ignoring the person they are.

Send a few my way then, the problem is that we are all taught in society to have high expectations of a mate because it's all a race and a game to win the hottest partner (either sex) and impress our friends etc so many an opportunity to meet someone is missed as unless the right boxes are ticked it's a no go, instead of just being happy to talk to people and be friendly.

I'll have to check our export laws ;-)

I agree that this ridiculous perception that one's significant other is some kind of status symbol or object to show off really damages a lot of relationships or potential relationships.

My opinion is that any woman who still wants to play games and doesn't know what she wants doesn't get the most important "tick".  This goes for the guys too.  Having a real relationship requires both parties to be "real", some people haven't figured out yet how to do that or are afraid.

These societal pressures also make people put "my friends will think this guy/girl is hot or not" over "*I* find this person attractive.

Sooner or later though, everyone has to grow up (and I don't mean you have to stop playing with toys).

... I think it's also a given that most geeks in the old sense of the word (not the I'm an apple fan type) are in fact people on the autistic spectrum / have asperges but undiagnosed that find interaction with people difficult and generally find it very hard to impress girls in just the right way to get their interested and will tend to have such online outbursts.

It's a tough call, I definitely think having social autism can get in the way.

I can totally agree that some find it hard to impress girls in the right way to get them interested.  Problem is, the best advice I could ever give is "be yourself."  It sounds too simple, and it sounds cliché, but in my humble experience, no matter who you are, that's when you're most attractive to anyone who's naturally attracted to you anyway.

When I was in highschool, I was an ultra-nerd and a "loser", along with my loser friends.  Girls just couldn't be interested in me, or so I thought.

In reality, when I look back, there were PLENTY of girls interested in me, I just didn't have enough confidence to believe it when I saw it.

Some guys have to get over the following:

1) Someone who isn't into you when you're acting totally like yourself, warts and all, really isn't right for you; how could it ever work?  Isn't it stupid to spend energy putting on an uncomfortable act to spend time with someone who wouldn't like who you really are?

2) What women really like is a man who is himself with confidence, and the sort of men women like is wide and varied and truly has little to do with what popular media portrays, but the media does make being yourself seem more risky.

3) Certain guys also need to learn to recognise when a woman they're into is also into them and BELIEVE IT, while at the same time recognise when a woman's only being friendly and that if a woman isn't into *them* *that way*, it's not because there's something wring with the woman or themselves.  Rejection has never killed anyone.

P.S. Any woman who has romantic feelings for you, but doesn't engage because of what her friends or peers might think has a lot of growing up to do and wouldn't make a good partner, and *certainly* wouldn't make a good wife.

I'm sure a lot of my rambling applies to other gender-combinations but probably not exactly.

[Simon]

if you look at a few american or british films/tv programs from the 80's you will see geeks/nerds who are what today would be diagnosed with aspergers/autistic spectrum because the asperges end of the autistic spectrum was only discovered in the early 80's, until then they were nerds and weirdo's maybe the ones that get on better are called geeks.......

But all of that does not take away from the fact that plenty of men are just pigs or can't stop thinking with their dicks

We had here recently a case of an asperger kid that did not get enough attention from the girls so he went and killed a few girls and more popular boys.  Play the video here, he is amazingly honest and articulate.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/video-suspected-santa-barbara-killers-disturbing-youtube-manifesto/

Have no idea what was going through that kids mind, peer pressure is a powerful nasty thing and yes maybe he had aspergers

[Simon]

Some guys have to get over the following:

1) Someone who isn't into you when you're acting totally like yourself, warts and all, really isn't right for you; how could it ever work?  Isn't it stupid to spend energy putting on an uncomfortable act to spend time with someone who wouldn't like who you really are?

2) What women really like is a man who is himself with confidence, and the sort of men women like is wide and varied and truly has little to do with what popular media portrays, but the media does make being yourself seem more risky.

3) Certain guys also need to learn to recognise when a woman they're into is also into them and BELIEVE IT, while at the same time recognise when a woman's only being friendly and that if a woman isn't into *them* *that way*, it's not because there's something wring with the woman or themselves.  Rejection has never killed anyone.

P.S. Any woman who has romantic feelings for you, but doesn't engage because of what her friends or peers might think has a lot of growing up to do and wouldn't make a good partner, and *certainly* wouldn't make a good wife.

I'm sure a lot of my rambling applies to other gender-combinations but probably not exactly.

Fix all of that and you have fixed most of societies problems. The media do people down so that they can control them and sell them the goods they want them to buy or get them to pay to read their shitty columnists telling you how to succeed.

People always spend more time on trying to be better then their neighbor than being happy and thanks to the media think this is what makes them happy. How many products have you seen advertised that appeal to your self esteam of lack of, how many cosmetics that you are told will get you the man/woman of your dreams, how many cars sold to people who want one better than their neighbor or co-worker, how many other items sold on the promise that they will make you look better in some way and we are conditioned to go around seeking things and ways to outdo our peers instead of having a levelheaded friendly relationship with our peers and then we wonder why we are in the mess we are in and people start singing sexism, feminism ad trying to box out problems and give them fancy names that require fancy solutions so that they can carry on with the rest of their competitive shit lives and ignore the problems.

In the UK class is till a big thing, I have a coworker who recently said he likes to thinks of himself as middle class, ya just because he got a few pay rises, upgraded his car from a ford to BMW and thinks he is big (and still can;t see solutions to engineering problems for looking too hard and trying to be too clever and be seen to be clever). If you ask me what class I think i am I'd tell you NONE, class is irrelevant to me!

[miguelvp]

3) Certain guys also need to learn to recognise when a woman they're into is also into them and BELIEVE IT, while at the same time recognise when a woman's only being friendly and that if a woman isn't into *them* *that way*, it's not because there's something wring with the woman or themselves.  Rejection has never killed anyone.

P.S. Any woman who has romantic feelings for you, but doesn't engage because of what her friends or peers might think has a lot of growing up to do and wouldn't make a good partner, and *certainly* wouldn't make a good wife.

I'm sure a lot of my rambling applies to other gender-combinations but probably not exactly.

My son told me a good way to find out and it's actually brilliant. say you are in a place that is moderately crowded and there is a girl you like and you think she might be into you. Without looking at her fake a yawn, then check if she does yawn, if she does, then she was checking you out.

Should work on other gender combinations as well.

I never chased women, nor I think they chased me, but things just happen when you least expect it, usually is the right type of smile that lets you know, or the playing with her hair wile talking to you and the lack of awkward silences are a good indication. The trick is just be be ok with yourself, it's all about being confident. And just talk about normal everyday things or things you like and listen to her, I mean it's really simple.

For confidence, go to a bar and sing karaoke, If you can do that, you can talk to girls
If you are too shy or feel like you will ridicule yourself, I'll tell you that nobody in that place cares how good or bad you are (in general).

Although depending on the age group in the bar they might, I guess trying to do this in a college bar they might make fun of you if you do badly, but you can always find a place where the average age is 35 or more.

On rejection and being dumped. Don't be a creep! give them space if they want to move on, don't over do it and try to force them to get back with you, move on as well. Of course I'm talking dating periods of less than say 3 months it's not serious to go crazy, 6 months might start to get serious, a year well you should get married then, 3 years, she will move on because you will never commit.

If you find someone and you spend way too much time with "the boys" playing video games and getting high, or drinking, etc, without inviting her over, or never taking her out often and you just treat her like someone that you can call at night after being on a drinking spree to come over after you are done playing with your friends, believe me it won't end up good.

Most of my friends while not being married were female (just can talk so much about sports and tits & asses with "the boys" at the bar) so I've heard a lot of the female perspective of things. Funny thing I never dated any of my female friends. I don't mean all guys are like that, I have good male friends that are past the tits and ass conversations, sadly some never went past that.

On female friends, women have this ladder and you will be placed in one of the steps, if you are in the friends step, you'll rarely get promoted to a "doable" step. No matter where you are on the steps, you cross them you go into the abyss. If you try to get out of your step and think it's more than friendship, a misstep will push you to the abyss. Also not all females are looking for a long relationship, but you just have to be honest to yourself on what is all about, no harm on playing between consenting adults, as long as you are not misleading. Remember females talk about these things all the time I mean they talk about boys, but more on the relationship aspect with details, males don't (at least not all of us).

Guys on the other hand have just one single step and no abyss, well yeah they have an abyss but only triggered if cheated on, or perception of being cheated on.

Single women can be mean with each other too "frienemies" since they are really competing with each other, but that's when they are actively looking for someone in the same place. Another important thing, Do Not Ever date one of your ex-girlfriends friends. This opens Pandora's box and you don't want to ever open that box!

So single women can be as stupid as single men, and act desperate and funny when trying too hard. Specially on bars.

Which brings me back to the Sexism in engineering, woman that are married (or in a relationship) they don't go for drinks on happy hour, also most married (or in a relationship) guys don't do that either, they rather be with their significant others. Also because men don't trust their mates as much as females trust their mates. We (males) are more insecure about letting them hang out with their office mates.

wow this went long sorry about that, I guess I just wanted to share my opinion. But you gotta know that at least in the states, single women sometimes think with their genitals too. More often that you know.

The problem is more that you find someone that is not looking for someone while you are not looking for someone either.

I could write a book with all that I left out, one important thing is to get your mind outside of the high school mind set of always needing some relationship, lucky me (or unlucky) my first marriage didn't last, separated for a couple of years being totally alone and really discovering how I am by myself with not relationships at all. And if you find someone that had time to discover herself without being on a relationship for a while then "bingo". No high school dramas anymore

[mtdoc]

Interesting discussion. 

Here's some food for thought:

Death by Political Correctness

[westfw]

If someone said that to me, I would be proud - that they like my work. Nothing wrong with people loving me - the more the merrier.

Well gee, danny; you should put up an avatar picture of you in a good suit, or maybe showing a little skin (you know what I mean!) (Don't forget to smile!)  And perhaps you should be a bit, I dunno, "flirtier" in your postings..

[miguelvp]

If someone said that to me, I would be proud - that they like my work. Nothing wrong with people loving me - the more the merrier.

Well gee, danny; you should put up an avatar picture of you in a good suit, or maybe showing a little skin (you know what I mean!) (Don't forget to smile!)  And perhaps you should be a bit, I dunno, "flirtier" in your postings..

Edit: I forgot the crucial start of the sentence (in bold):

And while you are at it. Would you be a dear and take care of the office kitchen? it's kind of messy and the cleaning crew won't show up until 6 pm and we have important visits coming in.

I know we don't pay you to do this but please just this once.