A female founder acquaintance of mine (who's quite smart and capable) went on a Twitter screed a couple weeks ago. As it turns out, someone else had copied her idea, and her startup now had a competitor. The competitor was also able to raise a solid amount of money despite her being first to market and her having more relevant knowledge of the problem space (by her own estimation).
So, this scenario isn't exactly uncommon in the startup world. It happens all the time. But because she's a minority female and her competitor is a white man, it suddenly becomes an example of white supremacy and the patriarchy conspiring to oppress her. The VCs who funded the competitor? Obviously racists and sexists, and she called them out explicitly as that on Twitter.
I considered reaching out to her to offer some perspective, but ultimately demurred. Why? I didn't want to be caught in the wurlitzer. Better to let her make more problems for herself than offer a sense of perspective that could get me cancelled.
So, this scenario isn't exactly uncommon in the startup world. It happens all the time. But because she's a minority female and her competitor is a white man, it suddenly becomes an example of white supremacy and the patriarchy conspiring to oppress her.
Doesn't this sort of thinking basically make these notions into a conspiracy theory? Every piece of evidence interpreted in a way that it supports the chosen narrative.
One consequence is so many opportunities for insight and thoughtful constructive reflection are lost. It's funny to me that under the guise of narratives that supposedly empower women (narratives which have also, as in the above example, been abused beyond their true purpose of calling out actual unfair bias), women are instead holding themselves back and getting in their own way mightily... and they don't seem to realize it? How can so many smart women have such a whopping blindspot to be duped into acting this way and think this is "power"?
I think it has something to do with how compelling and self-satisfying these stories are. You know, the ability to blame everyone else rather than face yourself and take personal responsibility. So, sadly i think, many people just get addicted to this as a short circuit substitute for actually doing the hard work of processing experiences and cultivating useful insights out of them. They just short circuit to feeling good temporarily, sadly prioritizing these fake stories and reasons over getting results.
It seems if a movement was really interested in empowering women it would try to address this glaring structural weakness of the current approach rather getting them hooked on these fake payoffs that don't get them anywhere :(
In some ways, it reminds me of incel-style thinking. You pick up on some signals that you're facing discrimination. Some or many of them are real. But then you elevate that discrimination into the primary component of your identity: you're a victim, and all your failures have nothing to do with things you have agency over and everything to do with how society is out to get you. Entirely unrelated things get pigeonholed into the paradigm you view the world through. And as a result you never recognize that you can potentially get better results by self improvement and assuming the people you meet are operating in good faith.
That's an interesting parallel. It's self-victimisation, and as a result, it's also self-sabotage.
Incels badly want attention from women, but the way they act basically guarantees they will never have what they want. No self-respecting woman would ever want someone who blames them for all their suffering.
Radical, toxic feminists badly want success, but the toxic behavior they display will ensure that anyone successful and smart will do their best to stay away. No self-respecting businessperson would want to do business with someone who, given criticism they don't like, might turn on a dime and call them a horrible, sexist, patriarchal monster.
You can't have it both ways IMO. You can't say I'm a strong, independent woman, in control of my life, but any time things don't turn out the way I want, it's the fault of sexist cis-white-men. The world is not a fair place, you don't always get what you want when you want it, and sometimes, that's nobody's fault.
I know someone who works in the arts and for them the patriarchy or racism (or some kind of oppression) is the cause of every problem because that’s the current culture of the arts. But if it’s the answer to every question, it isn’t the answer to any question. We would be better off just assuming that, discarding it, and looking for some other cause
It's exactly the same! The same type of delusional pathology i think. The way you describe it exactly.
Just because some people think in ways that don't work, doesn't mean that there isn't unfairness toward women. But just because there is unfairness doesn't mean that's the cause of everything.
But i think the incel notion didn't even have a grounding in reality underlying it. Isn't it that sex is scarcity and and there's some sort of conspiracy against them as individuals that means they get no sex? Maybe i don't understand their view, but as i state it's, to me, anyway, complete and utter balderdash.
Just because that's bs, doesn't mean that all women are good people who treat everyone fairly, it doesn't mean that some women don't deliberately try to hurt people in relationships and surrounding matters, just like some men do... But the notion that there's a conspiracy targeting some self identified subset of the male population to deprive them sex is just crazy. Plus the notion that somehow they are entitled to some minimum sex quota and are being unfairly shortchanged...which is like the flipside of toxic masculinity. Like defeatist beta male toxic masculinity. Plus the notion sex is scarcity. It's not at all. So the underlying narratives are just bullshit i think. But atop that bs narrative the same type of disempowering delusional pathology that women attributing every failure to institutionalized patriarchal oppression also succumb to.
Another connection I see albeit less commonly occurring in the population is the narrative used by terrorist recruiters. You know like it's not your fault that everything sucks in fact it's the result of someone else some institutionalized oppressor who is deliberately targeting you because of a group membership (that you can rally around), and you need to blame them for everything. It provides a
fake pretext for violence, which i think you also see to a lesser degrees with incels and then a type of emotional or reputational violence with twitter mobs.
And i think there's connections with Trump supporters and the white Christian America under attack narrative, although in that case there's a lot of different dynamics at play and it's not as easy to parallel because it's such a popular movement.
I do think there's a common thread that runs through all of these different movements, and whether consciously or unconsciously at work, it's a tool in tool box of people who try to enroll you in these movements and get you to do useful work in them, and that is to cast you as a disempowered member of some targeted group, setting you up to realize that there's "salvation" (or at the very least comforting consolation) achievable via this new group identity.
Apart from the tragedy of the violence which sometimes results, and which is then justified and explained away within the parameter set up by these narratives (at least by the supporters themselves), there's another tragedy where the group identity or "cause" is abused to lend legitimacy and motivation to the movement, and this often disenfranchises people who are authentic members of those groups by clouding their message and hijacking their collective voice (such as actual victims of discrimination, or true followers of Islam)
Of course there's a lot of room within these group definitions for a diversity of people to be genuine members of the group but I suppose that's the point, because it's the inclusivity of these groups that provides this vulnerability of their "brand identity and message" (if you will) to the abuse and exploitation of these movements that co-opt these for something else. These platforms could be sources of good. But when misused like this, the hijacked groupe messaging ends up getting in the way of people who should be doing good, or seeking good, through them. I think such misuse is the second tragedy.
the third tragedy is the that you end up with all these people who are ostensibly seeking empowerment ending up disempowering themselves by believing and acting in alignment with this stuff.
None of these tragedies insignificant. Even in the case where the second tragedy doesn't apply because, at least to me, there's no legitimate narrative underpinning the movement such as in the case of incels, the remaining tragedies are not insignificant.
You have to be careful not to confuse a misuse of an idea for the whole idea itself.
When life sucks and things go wrong we often look for something to blame on days when we're not at our best.
People who have experienced mistreatment because of some general characteristic have an easier time finding targets to blame "racists!" "sexists!" "-phobes!" unreasonably for their problems. We're all unreasonable sometimes.
If I'm having a shitty day day and I'm not a racist myself... I don't really have easy generalizations to blame for my problems so I have to find more nuanced ways to be unreasonable. (and yes, I have had bad days full of unreasonable accusations to blame for my problems, they just weren't towards some hot topic issue).
There is this issue where movements to empower and unify have a tendency to shit to blame and divide. It's a tough situation.
*You have to be careful not to confuse a misuse of an idea for the whole idea itself.
Exactly what I'm saying! You have to be careful to not do that, indeed.
Alot of people seem to confuse them, to the tragedy of both the people believing the misuse is the idea, and to those trying to genuinely use the idea to be heard or to spread good.
*When life sucks and things go wrong we often look for something to blame on days when we're not at our best.
Exactly. You have to be careful not to blame your stuff on others or things, because that doesn't help you or them. But it's so easy and compelling to do so, which i think in part explains why these notions are so prevalent: they're addictive. Indeed you do really need to be so so careful to not get hooked. It's such an easy trip to fall into.
*There is this issue where movements to empower and unify have a tendency to shit to blame and divide.
You have a really concise and clear way of saying these things. I'm so appreciative of that, thanks!
> You know, the ability to blame everyone else rather than face yourself and take personal responsibility.
It’s often not even about personal responsibility. Such as the example responding to, it’s just a case of a harsh dog eat dog world. Many well deserving people miss out due to that reality and simple bad luck and I think it’s also important to learn to be able to accept these cases (which can be really hard to do).
It's genuinely difficult to find the right balance, though. (Even as an individual, let alone as a society.) I don't think there's a clean solution; the only easily-applied heuristics are the stupid extreme ones, either assuming that everything that could possibly be Xism is Xism, or that nothing is Xism unless the perpetrator conveniently says something like 'women can't do maths' or 'I don't want you to work here because you are black'. I'm not really sure what to do about this; maybe we just have to wait, make our own judgments as best we can, and hope that our society finds a non-terrible equilibrium.
it's definitely about balance, i don't think it should be as hard as it seems though. what does seem difficult [and is extremely sad in my view] is that Occam's razor type edge, acting like a filter between achieving that balance or not. you said this, i agree.
the sad part is something like this thread; where half [majority? like before Reddit hit critical mass] the people can/do understand what the difference is between, say, trolling and a dialectic or stoic whatchamacallit, and those that don't/can't.
as i think this thread seems to generally agree, those that can't then resort to this rhetoric you're talking about. you can see the same echoes in things like socialism and fascism. general bigotry. the backhand of misunderstanding.
where it really gets messy is when you have University graduates who can't understand these 'tropes'/dynamics/straight up logic getting opportunities ahead of an uneducated person that CAN understand those things, simply because they have that degree. it comes from the same place where racism and sexism are valid. where it's invalid you get this blame game. it's the hammer and the nail. those who can, do. those who can't, say... the Germans must have a word for this? man i wish i was more articulate cause i think we've all [as in hacker news minded type people?] got the words for this on the tips of our tongues. so much so that even out most basic know it's coming [the civil war chatter].
adversity as an opportunity for growth is a mindset some find themselves lucky enough to consider. others must rely on external persuasion from trusted mentors. every journey is different
I mean just because this particular situation isn't racist or sexist, doesn't mean that racism and sexism don't exist in our industry.
You are painting an entire gender (or the majority) with really broad generalities, all under the premise that gender based discrimination is overrated and exaggerated?
But even presuming that you are right, it still means it's on all of us to stamp out whatever discrimination exists from our industry, especially those of us that are straight cis het white males. So that each of us can be treated on our merits, including those of us who risk being accused of discrimination rather than facing it.
Each of us should absolutely be able to give completely unfiltered constructive feedback to our female and minority peers, and if anyone has any questions or doubts about whether they can do so without concerns of impropriety, that is not is not the fault of the woke or feminists, but that of our privileged arrogant predecessors who have created this status quo in the first place.
The fact that I, as a straight white male have to be careful with feedback is a FAR smaller cost than ACTUALLY having to face discrimination I never have to imagine seeing.
Keep in mind, cartoonish levels of either are no longer present. What remains is frequent and constant micro aggressions driven by unconscious bias that the offenders may not even be aware of. Each individual example is easy to dismiss and explain in other ways. But in the aggregate, this adds up to, and drives people all the way out of the industry.
*You are painting an entire gender (or the majority) with really broad generalities, all under the premise that gender based discrimination is overrated and exaggerated
No offense but it seems like this is a stock response that you've kind of pasted in here. Because it's all very self consistent but it doesn't actually relate to what I was saying because I wasn't generalizing like that and I wasn't assuming the premise that things are exaggerated, I was talking about when people misattribute blame. I know not all women blame like this and I know that there is discrimination based on a number of factors including gender skin color and other perceptions. I was simply saying that the tendency to misattribute blame along those lines of hot topic issues and avoid facing yourself and laying responsibility correctly at your own choices for successes or failures he is disempowering and it's funny how that's often carried out under the guise of these narratives which pretend to be for the empowerment of women or of some other group.
But the second half of your comment I really agreed with. I think there are a lot of these things happening but I think the term microaggressions is a misnomer because it incorrectly dismisses the validity of or presumes a magnitude of people's feelings where you don't actually know if that's the case.
You can't in general say that everybody needs to react the same way so you don't know if something which seems small to someone else is actually really big to another person.
but what I think the mistake of that kind of talk about this is that really this comes back to people being able to communicate effectively about their own feelings with other people who might be crossing boundaries or hurting them somehow. Like you said the other people might not even realize they're doing it and that's reasonable because everybody's reactions are function of their own individuality. so I think the mistake here is in sort of trying to aggregate and assume you know a common reaction and try to solve this as a you know sociological level rather than going no this is a personal problem of being able to communicate effectively with people you interact with and letting them know how you feel about something.
And not having to feel "oh I need to invoke sort of the mighty sword of the Zeitgeist discourse" you know in order to give validity to how I personally feel about something. It should have validity in and of itself and I think if people can be effective communicators about that then they will have a fine time navigating you know personal situations.
the other problem which I think is a basic interpersonal thing which seems to be missing from this discourse is that you can't blame other people for how you feel and react to things. And trying to hold them hostage to or blame them for your own reactions it's just a violation of a basic interpersonal boundary and it's just wrong. and it's also deeply connected with incorrectly mislaying responsibility for things. because by blaming other people how you feel and react you're incorrectly mislaying responsibility for how you feel and react.
The "lifting" of one's own personal reactions to the level of you know a social offense, (as in, my feelings are hurt therefore somebody did something "wrong", sociologically) unfairly limits the ways in which offended people are allowed to react or things about which they're allowed to feel offended, but it also incorrectly invokes the language of systemic bias for things which don't cross that level, which then starts witch hunts and creates more bias, when these common things (incorrectly called "microaggressions") are simply the result of I think interpersonal communication issues. The other thing that that type of labeling of anything that goes wrong for you as some sort of part of something that's wrong with society is that it traps you in and supports The narrative of you being a persecuted victim of some institutionally oppressed class. Which is very disempowering and very limiting for how you will then be able to respond and think about things.
from a cynical point of view of trying to control large numbers of people in groups and that would be great if I wanted to control you and limit your reactions but it would not be great if you valued freedom, authenticity and personal expression.
you might say you can't separate those things like this systemic sociological bias from interpersonal communication but I think it's really important to separate them because you have to have effective individuals to have an effective society and you can't have effective individuals if people do not respect these basic interpersonal boundaries and you know ways of communicating about themselves, that work.
so I think this is the case where there's a sociological solution for a personal problem but it's not very useful, and is actually maladaptive.
so I think there is a separate issue which can be dealt with sociologically and that's the elimination of unfair and discriminatory bias in all forms and education about bias... but confusing, in the way i try to describe here, the issues of responsibility, personal reactions and interpersonal communication with this sociological issue is a mistake.
I remember some comedian pointing out, racism (sexism in this case) drives people crazy. Because it's subtle. Very rarely are people nowadays blatantly racist/sexist, because they get called out for it. But imagine that every time you have an 'off' experience with someone, you end up wondering whether your race or sex had something to do with it. It only takes a couple instances of finding out that that 'off' feeling did in fact mean racism or sexism for you to suspect that you just experienced discrimination every time it's possible. This understandably drives people f*** crazy.
> But imagine that every time you have an 'off' experience with someone, you end up wondering whether your race or sex had something to do with it.
I can't pretend to have any idea what that's like. However, I do know what it's like from the other side, wondering whether the things I say will be misconstrued as prejudice and whether any bad experience I have with someone of a difference race/sex/etc will be used to label me as a bigot.
I don't think I ever thought differently of anyone for their sex or skin color as a kid. Now I'm so worried about offending people that I force myself to be hyper-aware of anyone with those kinds of traits that differ from my own. Maybe it's easy for me to say from my position, but I'm not sure how we'll ever come together so long as we keep highlighting those sorts of differences.
Sounds like a lot of your anxiety comes from not having insight into the experiences of people that end up experiencing racism and sexism. You have the option of doing a bit of research and a bit of work to understand the 'other side' in these interactions. This pays off in a couple ways. First, you'll be more at ease in your interactions with women/POC. Second, people in those groups do notice when people put in a bit of self-work to build that empathy and create a good environment for that and over time will see you as an ally. Is that a process that you're willing to engage?
I'm not sure what that process would look like, but I'd be interested. I think the world needs more empathy and I have no doubt there is a lot I can learn. However, I'm skeptical that my anxiety comes from a lack of insight or understanding.
I do not have these sorts of worries around people with whom I am well acquainted. I know I'm not prejudice and I trust my friends to interpret my words and actions in good faith. But I recognize there is a minority of people out there who will intentionally take what I say or do in bad faith if it benefits them. People like that exist in all groups, regardless of physical traits. When interacting with a minority or protected class, I have to worry just as much about interpretations of those around me as that of the person I'm interacting with. In a world where accusations of prejudice are often met with a guilty-until-proven-innocent mentality, any such accusation is very damaging regardless of who it comes from.
I have heard a lot of people say that is what it is like to be a minority. You are always worried that what you say or do will fall into some negative stereotype. You don't speak the way you naturally do in public for fear of being branded "uneducated". And you completely avoid certain situations because you are simply tired of keeping your guard up.
So if anything, maybe having to be on your guard all the time will help people learn what it is like to be a minority and can then understand why it is helpful to at least be somewhat thoughtful in how you treat people of diverse race/gender/cultural background.
Is it a “lot of people?” Growing up as a brown guy in the south I’d think about my ethnicity maybe once a month? If that?
I assume there’s a spectrum, but I also think the public view is very distorted by who gets amplified. You can’t get tenure or get your op-ed published in the NYT writing about how being a minority in the US is fine and people are pretty nice.
That in itself is a stereotype. Ask the people you know who fit your description if they feel like they have to put up a facade or keep up their guard. Let’s see how prevalent that is.
My advise as someone who has experienced this in many parts of the world including my own Country. Most people are subtle about it and I beilve it is their mental shortcut to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation. They are not doing it because they think they are truly superiors. So instead thinking world is unfair (racists, sexist etc.), I try to respond appropriately and in the moment.
Current crisis is a direct result of people attributing too much meaning to simple negotiation tactics.
Better to let her make more problems for herself than offer a sense of perspective that could get me cancelled.
So it's come to this. People making accurate and pragmatic calculations on real-world cost/benefit, without malice, are making these decisions. What's amazing, is that it's largely the effect of the outrage mob itself. Let me explain.
Answer me this: On average, does the outrage mob give as strong a response to an accusation, regardless of gender? Whether or not this is historically justified is irrelevant here, just whether or not such a bias or skew exists. For the sake of argument, let's say that such a bias exists in the outrage mob, and that it skews very powerfully in favor of accusations by women.
Well, given this circumstance, accurate cost/benefit and expected outcome calculations are going to skew by gender. Women, on average, are going to present a much higher risk of bad outcomes from giving candid advice.
In this way, the sexist, gender-biased reaction of the mob, combined with its outsized power, and the fear of accusations that damage without evidence, is itself distorting these individual decisions. In this way, the sexism of the outrage mob is causing a societal gender-skew which itself results in even more sexism.
In my school days, we were taught the dangers of the mob mentality. We were taught that the mob too easily generates injustice, even evil and horror. Now, we are presented with another situation in which the mob generates more injustice: specifically more sexism. Go figure.
Instead of this mess, how about some gender-neutral due process, innocent until proven guilty, and respect for evidence?
We review social media for management level hires. One of the big red flags is exactly this - accusing people/companies/organizations of sexism/racism/xenophobia/illegal activity/etc without providing any material evidence.
This applies to both men and women, from any background. Even forgetting the potential for these accusations to be levied on us, it's simply a legal liability to have someone on the team that makes public accusations on social media without evidence.
The last thing anyone wants is a lawsuit magnet on the team. Lawsuits are extremely expensive, even when you win.
I'm not so bothered by this personally because it's not someone asking / giving advice and getting blasted by it. That's the real crux that I see.
The scenario you paint is uncomfortable - only because there have been a fair number of situations (music and elsewhere) where the white person really has raked in the cash off a minorities good idea.
Luckily my friend was the competitor trying to compete in a market much more crowded than she perhaps realized.
Yeah, though now I'm realizing it's a more unique/deanonymizing phrase than I anticipated... sometime in the 2000s it transitioned to being used to describe right-wing media circle jerks. I think it's something I picked up from the liberal blogosphere during its heyday.
For what it's worth, as a naive outsider who doesn't know much about the other founder, she seemed to have a good argument for why she would.
It's just a bit of a stretch to think that a VC not giving her money must be because he was thinking "oh, she is definitely more competent and knows more about this space than this other founder, but because she's a woman I'm going to cut her out and go with the other guy."
Maybe they thought, oh, she is much more qualified than this other guy. But there is just something my gut is telling me about this guy... Or for some reason, I just feel more comfortable around this guy... Or, I'm going to invest in this guy because he reminds me of myself when I was starting out.
Sure, maybe. Or maybe he knew the other founder better and was more certain of his ability to execute well. It's impossible to say exactly what weightings of factors went into his decision making. His heart of hearts is unknown to all of us (even including himself, to some extent).
Even if it were a case of unconscious bias, though, that doesn't mean she should be on Twitter accusing of him of committing collective violence against women of color by choosing to fund a white guy instead of her.
So, this scenario isn't exactly uncommon in the startup world. It happens all the time. But because she's a minority female and her competitor is a white man, it suddenly becomes an example of white supremacy and the patriarchy conspiring to oppress her. The VCs who funded the competitor? Obviously racists and sexists, and she called them out explicitly as that on Twitter.
I considered reaching out to her to offer some perspective, but ultimately demurred. Why? I didn't want to be caught in the wurlitzer. Better to let her make more problems for herself than offer a sense of perspective that could get me cancelled.