So essentially you're saying that wheelchair ramps shouldn't be installed because we need to maintain an ironclad everone-gets-exactly-the-same-treatment position? A ramp serves only a very select part of the population, therefore it isn't 'fair' and should be shunned?
Women are being treated differently, that is what is keeping them out, so I will endeavour not to treat them differently?
The flaw here is the fundamental flaw in libertarianism: there is no mechanism for evening the playing field. People who already have significant advantage get to keep their significant advantage. Being born into wealth doesn't just mean you have money - you also get a social network, plus you grow up learning about how to handle money and assets, amongst other things. Having classes intended to help people not born into privilege is about trying to level the playing field, not oppress the privileged.
Sometimes I wonder just how many of the vocal "how dare women get their own classes" crew have anything to do with providing education at all.
People are ignorant to the material effects of oppression. I'm not sure how sometimes, especially on hacker news, since everyone in this thread wouldn't start discussing some small aspect of a programming language they have never used. But if they wanted to, they would look it up and the contribute. When it comes to anything social and therefore political people are throwing words around and they do not even understand what they are saying.
Your ramp example is spot on. And to take it a little bit further. Some of the posters in this thread are at the top of the stairs, staring down at everyone who can't get up them AND refusing to help them. The fact that these people are validating these attitudes in a way that actually serves to destroy their own point just shows that people in this thread with these views have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.
If you are uninformed/ can't follow your train of though to its logical conclusions PLEASE do some reading.
At least with my own disability/disabilities, I much prefer people to act normally around me. I absolutely feel othered if people go on forever about it.
Able-bodied people can use ramps too. If I were in a wheelchair, I'd prefer my friends to walk beside me without talking the whole time about how tragically victimized I am by the existence of stairs and other devices employing 90 degree angles of oppression. I'd definitely be even more annoyed if "well meaning" "activists" tried to ban my able-bodied friends from using the ramps alongside me.
Also, you just compared the relative ability of men and women to succeed in the tech world as the former being like a person who can walk unassisted and the latter being like a person who is significantly crippled. Given that success in the tech world is largely due to mental ability instead of physical ability, you might want to find a different way to word it to avoid unpleasant implications.
I'm confused by the way you mention class privilege and then assume that somehow this means that women are disadvantaged. Women control 70% of global [consumer] spending. Are you proposing men-only scholarships to fix this?
>"how dare women get their own classes"
When even ACLU says you're on the wrong side of a civil rights issue, it may be time to reconsider your stance.
"Two centuries later, women -- who control more than $20 trillion or about 70 percent of global consumer spending -- account for only about a tenth of the voting power on the world’s key interest rates"
You seem to be ignoring a pretty big 'but' there. Plus its 70% of consumer spending, not 'global spending'.
Then you described someone in a wheelchair as 'significantly crippled'.
Also, this poster's reference to ramps and stairs was a metaphor - a tool for understanding. Not literal.
What I got from their comment was nothing you seem to have. I think they were saying that we need to understand the ways people are excluded, and support them.
I absolutely feel othered if people go on forever about it.
Where did I suggest this at all? You're projecting your issues onto me. I wasn't painting people with disabilities as tragically victimised or any of that other shit. I gave one example that happened to be about people with a disability, then talked about advantage and privilege as largely abstract concepts.
you might want to find a different way to word it to avoid unpleasant implications.
You might want to find a way to respond without putting words in people's mouths. The audience that would actually take what I said as saying that being a woman is a physical disability does not exist. It's a bogeyman used for arguments like yours. "But these hypothetical morons might take you the wrong way and take offense!". Well, if they do take offense, no harm done, because they're morons. You're also arguing from hyperbolic outliers - painting 'well-meaning activists' as the ones who fight to ban sharing the ramp (because that happens... how often?) rather than the ones who fought to have the ramp put there in the first place.
The irony is that you've just said you don't like people taking offense on your behalf, and yet here you are taking offense on behalf of these hypothetical morons.
Women control 70% of global [consumer] spending.
Yes, women do a disproportionate amount of shopping for staple items like food or clothing. This is not 'controlling the economy'. It's like saying that since most workers in hospitality are in their early 20s, this means that people in their early 20s know the most about fine dining, since they are the ones that handle the plates.
I'm confused by the way you mention class privilege and then assume that somehow this means that women are disadvantaged
This is a fair comment. I was responding to a comment about women with a more abstract comment about social advantage, using wealth as an easy example. It wasn't meant to be a causal relation.
Women are being treated differently, that is what is keeping them out, so I will endeavour not to treat them differently?
The flaw here is the fundamental flaw in libertarianism: there is no mechanism for evening the playing field. People who already have significant advantage get to keep their significant advantage. Being born into wealth doesn't just mean you have money - you also get a social network, plus you grow up learning about how to handle money and assets, amongst other things. Having classes intended to help people not born into privilege is about trying to level the playing field, not oppress the privileged.
Sometimes I wonder just how many of the vocal "how dare women get their own classes" crew have anything to do with providing education at all.