I almost want to stand up and applaud this quite outstanding level of whataboutery for the poor menz...

[ShotsFired]

Original article link (depressing, not surprising etc): www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2017/aug/30/keith-mann-the-inside-man-who-has-exposed-tech-industry-sexism

Comment:
I believe in equal opportunities , not equal outcomes . That said , I smile at the amount of time examining sexism in tech / science / engineering when there is a dearth of consideration given to the catastrophic loss of male teachers , desperately needed to reach out to disillusioned boys . Male teachers are an endangered species in primary schools and it's getting that way in secondary also . This is spreading to other 'caring' professions too as I noticed when visiting prospective universities with my daughter . 90% plus of psychology graduates are now women ..... at s time when men's mental health is in crisis . But hey , who cares?

I expect he's is too busy to write more bunkum because he spends his life campaigning and working to improve the ratios of men in teaching and other caring professions, given how strongly he feels about it. Right? Rght...? Hello?

Those men thought it was their right, backed up by legislation. Genuinely. Now they don't.

Yes but the legislation was key. Legislative change was key in the racial desegregation of the deep south. Without that legislative or structural change nothing really progresses.

john

I'm not disagreeing with that.

For instance, there was an incident recently of a young girl at a festival who was sexually harassed, by a young man who took an upskirt photograph of her without her consent or knowledge.

Turns out this is completely legal.

Public opinion is that this is shocking. Despite there being no law against it. So now there are campaigns to change the law.

But the perception of it being wrong came first. Because attitudes to women are changing.

If attitudes to women hadn't changed, the law would not be altered.

John

I agree that there is a maelstrom of attitude is going on. One contradiction after the other.

And I think it's largely because feminism is making a difference. There is a backlash. I'm not an academic feminist, but there is historical precedent for this.

It's deeply worrying.

Some men want to take time off when their baby is born.

At the moment, they can't really, because the financial hit is too big.

Fix that, and some will.

Then, some men for whom the thought had never occurred, will think "that might work for me and my partner too", and they'll do it.

Some men like not being involved at all with their children, and they'll never take extended paternity leave. That's fine. In time, fewer women will probably want to have children with men with this shitty attitude. Some woman will, if that is an attitude they like, and then everyone's happy.

Look, John, I was there when we were campaigning to get marital rape recognised in law. I was writing letters, rallying the troops to support women as cases went before the courts, getting MPs on side.

It didn't happen because lawmakers just suddenly slapped their heads and shouted "Oh my god! Women are being raped by their husbands! Let's put a stop to that".

It happened because women got together, shared their experiences, agreed that it wasn't right, got together with other women and started to campaign, started to lobby, and got the law changed. And the first step in all of that was to start to challenge the unconscious thought that "a wife owes sex to her husband any time he feels like it and therefore is impossible to rape".

I will further say that the changes to the law happened in the teeth of bitter opposition from people who thought that it is the natural, unchanging order of things for women to be completely sexually available to their husbands. Their unconcious biases, if you will.

some people still think like that. We get a lot of women on MN whose husbands still think like that. Whinging on the internet is quite helpful then. It helps women realise they're being raped.

Datun, interesting point.

I agree that a shared conviction that something is wrong has to be a precondition of wanting to change the law. But I think you have to accept that not everyone will share that conviction. A good illustration is abolitionism. In the 19th century most people accepted slavery. The men and women who campaigned against it were regarded as dangerous eccentrics and often completely vilified. They could have tried to change attitudes on a broader level but that would not have worked.

I think attitudes are often changed in the COURSE OF a struggle towards a strategic, progressive goal, or even retroactively once that goal has been achieved.

I'm not suggesting unconscious bias training will magically solve all the problems? If only.

You asked, upthread, for concrete suggestions on what can be done to start changing things. Unconscious bias training was one of the things I suggested. I suggested others. Datun has made some suggestions. Lots of people have ideas and are actively lobbying for these changes. e.g. the up skirting issue mentioned above - now that so many people are aware it's technically legal, there has been a backlash. I think it's quote likely we will see changes to the law as a result.

No single solution will provide a magic bullet. SO we do what we can. Hence so many women on sites like these discussing ideas and actions and exploring how they can change things in their own lives and for their children. Which brings us neatly back to the pink issue - awareness of the silliness of pink being just for girls and tractors just for boys is a step in a longer and very difficult process.

I accept there's some truth in what you say; but at the same time there can not be a direct link between girls playing with dolls and wearing pink clothes and a disinclination to study computer programming twenty years later?

I'm in IT, I knew I was going to be in IT from when I was about 4 and had to fight through my (male) cousins to get a go on my uncle's Amiga (and often gave in, which actually worked out well, because instead I played on his BBC micro instead, which was a better intro to computing anyway)

And yes, it bloody is a direct link. I still remember one Christmas, wanting a Spirograph (and if you can't link that to computing, you've never programmed in Logo) - my male cousin got it, and I got a knitting loom (which is good, I knit, it's mathematical at least - but I wanted the spirograph, which was deemed inappropriate for me as a girl)

My male relatives were given consoles, science kits, construction kits. I was given dolls, books, and craft stuff.

How on earth can it not have an effect?

It happened because women got together, shared their experiences, agreed that it wasn't right, got together with other women and started to campaign, started to lobby, and got the law changed. And the first step in all of that was to start to challenge the unconscious thought that "a wife owes sex to her husband any time he feels like it and therefore is impossible to rape".

I completely agree - but, if you'll forgive me, I don't think the unconscious was changed first and then the law changed. I think the unconscious is changed in the course of the struggle towards the criminalization of marital rape. You have to posit the goal in order to change the unconscious.

For you and your fellow campaigners there was an A and a clear B.

Spaghetti you are now in IT aren't you?

I agree that women should be given the same opportunity to enter tech and provided with the same access to computers. But there's nothing much you can do beyond that.

What you're referring to is being denied access to a computer because you were a girl, and sure that is wrong; but everyone's got access to IT now.

I am indeed - frankly through the actions of my parents - my dad who brought home a computer in the summer holidays, and my mum who's never been afraid of maths and made sure I wasn't.

If I had had my cousin's parents, then I wouldn't have had that confidence boost/support, and I wouldn't be where I am now. I have many cousins, we're all bright enough, the only ones in IT jobs are me and some of the men, no other woman at all (one is a bank manager - but that's the closest). I saw how we were each raised, what we were en/discouraged to do, what the expectations were on each of us, and of course it made a difference - if you're not allowed to experience something, how can you know if you'll like it or be good at it?

It takes a certain bloody minded confidence to walk into a lecture theatre where you are one of 2 women in 100 students, or to walk every day into a job where there are perhaps 3 women in the department, and the moment they hear a woman has been employed they're all on the prowl.

I literally have had to fight for a turn on a computer, I've had to prove that I could do a job in a way that my male partner, of the same age never has - we met at work, I've seen it happen in meetings, literally that cartoon 'nice suggestion Miss Spaghetti, now perhaps one of the men could suggest it'

Gentlemanjohn

You said we have to get everyone agree with our conviction.

Feminism is for women. Only women. Men will benefit as a byproduct, but that's not its purpose.

It would be great to get men on-board, because they are listened to, but they benefit from the lack of feminism, or they think they do. They are reluctant to give up their privilege.

So you are left with women. Unfortunately many women collude in their own oppression. Partly through unconscious bias and partly because they are operating within a patriarchal system. Sometimes it's necessary.

If women everywhere became radical feminists overnight, everything would change instantly.

This is why it's a little different to slavery.

Informing women, through sites like this, recruits an awful lot of them to feminism. It is a powerful tool.

This site has 12 million unique users per month. That's a massive audience.

Mumsnet is quoted in mainstream media all the time. Journalists lift threads from here constantly.

Last year Paperchase put some highly distasteful and sexist valentines cards as a display in their window. The mumsnet massive kicked off.

During the thread Paperchase tweeted they were taking them down because of what the parents on here were saying.

Social media has revolutionised the way people think. It's a double-edged sword.

And it's very powerful. And that includes feminism.

but everyone's got access to IT now.

At my kids school I've seen the same dynamic - girls patiently waiting their turn while the boys pile forwards and take over. There's more access, but the dynamic is the same.

You said we have to get everyone agree with our conviction.

Noooo..the complete opposite. I'm saying that what lots of feminists are misguidedly trying to do.

Mansplained on the feminism board

What brings you here today, John?

Here to this feminist board. To discuss feminism. With feminists.

What gives?

Spaghetti, it was wrong that you were denied access to a computer. That is not a problem now. My niece has been issued with her own iPad by her school, who seem to be bending over backwards to encourage girls to take their computing GCSE. In fact, parents are trying to get their kids OFF computers.

It sounds to me like you had a burning ambition to succeed in IT. You cannot instill or engineer that desire in anyone. You can just provide them with the opportunity and resources - and some encouragement if they have that aspiration.

john

I can see you've nearly got it. But you're coming at this intellectually.

Which is useful, because it can challenge.

But women live this. It's incredibly difficult to describe what that's like.

Sexism is so pervasive so all encompassing and comprehensive, it affects women all day, every day.

It's an enormous spectrum. So putting a pink hairband on a girl at one end, and raping a woman at the other. It's all part and parcel of the same thing.

Women are lesser than. It oppresses them. Gender stereotypes are the means by which it is done.

So changing attitudes can shake the perception of which roles belong to which sex.

That can, and it does, happen even when there is no need for a law change.

Pop over to the relationship board to see it in action. To see women letting other women know that what they're going through is not normal, not right and not to be accepted.

You might think this is a microcosm. It isn't. It has huge ramifications.

Girls are more likely to take computer science or physics in single sex schools than they are in mixed schools. That suggests that there is something stopping them from pursuing these studies that is linked to the presence of males in their educational environment.

Today 16:05 Gentlemanjohn

You said we have to get everyone agree with our conviction.

Noooo..the complete opposite. I'm saying that what lots of feminists are misguidedly trying to do.*

This is what you said. Have I misinterpreted it?

"I agree that a shared conviction that something is wrong has to be a precondition of wanting to change the law."

I don't doubt any if that - and no I don't know what it's like to suffer sexism.

It's like - I'm not sure what can be realistically changed through cultural politics.

That is not a problem now.

Yes it is, as I have said, I've watched exactly this dynamic happen with my own kids

It sounds to me like you had a burning ambition to succeed in IT

Yes, I did. My partner didn't though - yet he is also in IT and doing well. When the road is harder, you need to be more determined. If the road was easier for women, more mediocre, less determined women would likely go into IT too, there are plenty of mediocre men just putting in their time - as it is, only the ones prepared to put up with what's thrown at a woman in IT do it.

john

You commented on the program I mentioned. Did you actually watch it?

Yes Datun, but I meant not a universally shared conviction. There has to be a community of people - the Civil Rights activists for example - who have a shared conviction.

But they could have not have got anywhere merely trying to extend that conviction to everyone through persuasion.

Yes - you mean the recent one in the school?