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WOMAN_HUNT


                                             May 16, 2010

   How do you take the relative
   absence of women in many
   technical fields?

   One, which is favored by some of
   the "geekfeminists" is that
   it's indicative of rampant         HIVE_VAGINA
   sexism inside the field.

   Another is that it's a reflection of
   general sexism in society at large,
   where women are subtly discouraged
   from going into these fields.


      I find myself often groping
      toward a third answer, rightly
      or wrongly, I keep veering
      toward the feeling that this is                    RACE_DOWN
      some sort of internal problem
      with "the culture of women".
      A symptom of insecurity?              There's an impulse to
      Frivolousness?                        point the finger back
                                            against the complainants.
      Whether or not this is
      some variation of                           When Critical Mass first
      "blaming the victim", I                     made the news in the
      do have this impulse to                     mid-90s, bike activists
      blame women for their own                   were often told that
      (apparent?) lack of                         they needed to police
      advancement in technical                    the behavior of fellow
      fields.                                     cyclists.

      I get tired of being put down               There are some weird
      for being interested in a                   assumptions in there:
      number of things that most                  What am I supposed to
      women just don't seem to care               do to control another
      about very much.                            cyclist's behavior?
                                                  Am I responsible for
      Is it my problem that women                 all other cyclists,
      don't want to do cool                       just because I'm a
      stuff?  What am I supposed                  member of the group?
      to do to make them want to
      do cool stuff?                              Notions like that come
                                                  up again and again,
         The allowed answers are:                 where group identity
                                                  is concerned the
         (a) don't discourage them.               people outside the
                                                  group struggle with
         (b) discourage guys who                  the notion of
             discourage them.                     individuality within
                                                  the group.
   I'm more-or-less fine     But why is
   with both of those,       there no             They don't have any trouble
   and in fact I think       prohibition          villifying all cyclists
   I'm really and truly      against              because of the behavior of
   someone who just          discouraging         some, and yet they wouldn't
   lives that way-- and      *me*?                agree that all motorists
   indeed, I suspect                              deserve the reputation of
   most male geeks           You think guys       the worst.
   are... most of us         are given a
   don't exactly object      free pass that          Many geekfeminists
   to having women           gets them               seem to want all geeks
   around who share our      through life            to Do Something about
   obsessions.               without                 the tiny minority of
                             ego-crushing            aggresively sexist ones.
                             experiences?
                                                     And someone like myself
                                                     often wants to see
                                                     women as a group take a
                                                     public stand against
                                                     people who claim to
                                                     speak for women as a group.




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