The different payoffs for complaining explain the presence of complaining. They don’t explain the absence of… anti-complaining. As in: “girls, I seriously don’t know what is your problem; I am a woman, and LW is the most friendly website ever”. Did you ever see anything like this on LW? Me neither. (EDIT: OK, here is a rather positive comment.)
Imagine how much status on LW a women could gain by defending men. Seems like no one takes it.
Thanks. I was thinking about bringing that up, but on the other hand, what I said wasn’t as hostile as wedifrid’s suggestion of “girls, I seriously don’t know what is your problem; I am a woman, and LW is the most friendly website ever”, even though, as it turned out, I really didn’t understand the problems a lot of people have with LW’s tone.
Broad claims should be reexamined for specific unusual situations (LW is an unusual social situation). Also to avoid mindkilling, it would be better just to cite the claim without saying who claims it.
Even when outright dismissing is socially impossible, there can still remain some more subtle form of feedback. As a very extreme example, even in a totalitarian regime where no one can safely contradict the leader and everyone must clap their hands when the leader says something, people who disagree clap their hands slightly differently from people who agree.
I wrote this commentbefore erratio wrote hers. (And I somehow missed or forgot NancyLebovitz’s comment.) Now, with the new data… I stand corrected. I guess in this situation, the positive comments by erratio and NancyLebovitz are as far as a woman can go without a status loss. Whether someone did or didn’t go that far, that is an evidence we can use; and now that I see the evidence, I retracted the original comment.
So, considering this evidence, now I think that the situation is mostly OK, and that the whole “LW Women” series probably suffers from availability bias and priming. The complaining women were more likely to participate, they were primed to complain (“told to not hold back for politeness”), and they were primed to focus on gender issues (by the fact that they were selected for being women).
Just to make sure, by “mostly OK” I mean that I respect the wish to talk about sex/gender issues less. I don’t think we can avoid them completely, because sometimes they are strongly relevant to the topic, but we should always think twice before introducing them in a thread. Some degree of reducing emotions is necessary for a rationality debate (regardless of gender), but perhaps we are too extreme in this, and could be a bit warmer, simply because just like rationality is not a reversed stupidity, neither is it reversed emotionality. But of course we should not push people for whom that would be unpleasant. Anyone who prefers a different environment is free to lead by example, instead of blaming others for having different preferences.
They don’t explain the absence of… anti-complaining. As in: “girls, I seriously don’t know what is your problem; I am a woman, and LW is the most friendly website ever”. Did you ever see anything like this on LW?
Um, yes. The very first comment I saw here was exactly that. There are even more comments saying “girls, I see your problem; I am a male, but I too have experienced X” which fits the gender imbalance here.
The different payoffs for complaining explain the presence of complaining. They don’t explain the absence of… anti-complaining. As in: “girls, I seriously don’t know what is your problem; I am a woman, and LW is the most friendly website ever”.
That doesn’t strike me as something that needs explaining. Lesswrong isn’t the most friendly website (and nor should it be!)
The different payoffs for complaining explain the presence of complaining. They don’t explain the absence of… anti-complaining. As in: “girls, I seriously don’t know what is your problem; I am a woman, and LW is the most friendly website ever”. Did you ever see anything like this on LW? Me neither. (EDIT: OK, here is a rather positive comment.)
Imagine how much status on LW a women could gain by defending men. Seems like no one takes it.
Well, Nancy Lebovitz made a point of saying “I’m a woman and I don’t have a problem with the tone”.
Thanks. I was thinking about bringing that up, but on the other hand, what I said wasn’t as hostile as wedifrid’s suggestion of “girls, I seriously don’t know what is your problem; I am a woman, and LW is the most friendly website ever”, even though, as it turned out, I really didn’t understand the problems a lot of people have with LW’s tone.
Right. You didn’t dismiss their discomfort, you just said that you didn’t share it yourself.
The mystery is resolved if you accept the men’s rights activists claim.
No one gains status by dismissing the needs of women. Not men. Not women.
Broad claims should be reexamined for specific unusual situations (LW is an unusual social situation). Also to avoid mindkilling, it would be better just to cite the claim without saying who claims it.
Even when outright dismissing is socially impossible, there can still remain some more subtle form of feedback. As a very extreme example, even in a totalitarian regime where no one can safely contradict the leader and everyone must clap their hands when the leader says something, people who disagree clap their hands slightly differently from people who agree.
I wrote this comment before erratio wrote hers. (And I somehow missed or forgot NancyLebovitz’s comment.) Now, with the new data… I stand corrected. I guess in this situation, the positive comments by erratio and NancyLebovitz are as far as a woman can go without a status loss. Whether someone did or didn’t go that far, that is an evidence we can use; and now that I see the evidence, I retracted the original comment.
So, considering this evidence, now I think that the situation is mostly OK, and that the whole “LW Women” series probably suffers from availability bias and priming. The complaining women were more likely to participate, they were primed to complain (“told to not hold back for politeness”), and they were primed to focus on gender issues (by the fact that they were selected for being women).
Just to make sure, by “mostly OK” I mean that I respect the wish to talk about sex/gender issues less. I don’t think we can avoid them completely, because sometimes they are strongly relevant to the topic, but we should always think twice before introducing them in a thread. Some degree of reducing emotions is necessary for a rationality debate (regardless of gender), but perhaps we are too extreme in this, and could be a bit warmer, simply because just like rationality is not a reversed stupidity, neither is it reversed emotionality. But of course we should not push people for whom that would be unpleasant. Anyone who prefers a different environment is free to lead by example, instead of blaming others for having different preferences.
Um, yes. The very first comment I saw here was exactly that. There are even more comments saying “girls, I see your problem; I am a male, but I too have experienced X” which fits the gender imbalance here.
That doesn’t strike me as something that needs explaining. Lesswrong isn’t the most friendly website (and nor should it be!)