What Can Men Do?

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No. I am saying that discussing the tone of an argument will always be viewed as disrespectful. For me it isn’t a question of validity, it’s a question of joining an existing conversation and following the rules of that conversation and conventions of that community.

There is plenty of space to argue in favour of civil discussion, you’ve done so very effectively here in the past. As part of a discussion around feminism (or racism, classism, and other privilege-related concepts) it flags you as a new entrant who hasn’t done their basic research at a minimum, and as an active opponent to the cause in the worst case.

And it was a good idea, but it was executed poorly. Jacob Kaplan-Moss details why that is the case better than I can. He also implements a successful mechanism for crediting without amplifying, in the event you need to do so in the future.

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One thing that no-one has raised is the nature of IT departments and how they have changed.

Back in the 80s, in a large business, you would have the business departments and the IT departments. They would go to the IT department and say they wanted something, and the IT department would deliver it.

I worked in one of those IT departments, and yes, we had more women than men in them. But a lot of those women weren’t the coders, they were analysts. Of the women I worked with in my first job, around half were analysts.

One thing that’s happened in more recent years is that businesses have a “business development” function that works out the requirements and what is to be built, and then they outsource that to IT companies to do the build. We’ve split the “IT department” in two and some of that is on gender lines.

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Here’s another way of looking at it: There are bad actors around feminism. People who do the cause a disservice while pretending to be doing it a service. Over the many, many years feminism has been a cause, certain tactics are repeatedly employed by bad actors, including (but certainly not limited to) White Knighting and Tone Argument.

I am not accusing Jeff or anyone else in this thread of being a bad actor, but one thing men can do to support feminism is know the tactics used by bad actors, and avoid them. Whether you agree with them or not doesn’t matter too much.

To make a technical analogy, it’s like spaces versus tabs. We have our personal preference, but when we join a project we conform in the interests of forwarding the project instead of painting the bike shed. Feminism’s style guide dictates that we don’t argue about tone.

There’s a lot more to it than that, but perhaps that’s a good starting point. Conventions exist and there is a legitimate reason for them to exist. If we assume that there is a legitimate reason, and conform to the existing convention, we can make a pull request without it being rejected for the wrong reasons.

That’s a really strained analogy, for which I am sorry.

Edited to respond to @simon​_​lmn, as I am a new user and have reached my reply limitation: Feminism doesn’t dictate any of this. Any oddness stems entirely from me and my strained analogy.

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First, thanks to @jongalloway1 for questing this. I appreciate that. And thanks to a few other folks for pointing this site out to me. Always good to be able to participate when you are being talked about… :slight_smile:

And for the record, what Jeff wrote was not plagiarism. Somebody out there thinks they own all right and title to the subject matter. Sorry…they don’t.

I’ve been in this business for about 24 years - as long as many folks have been alive - or longer. Suffice it to say, I’ve seen it all.

@Liz_Carlson :I have a history of “trolling women” online? Let me give you a very brief history how I got involved in these discussions. Some time ago, a friend of mine who runs a conference (that is happening this weekend) was getting threatened with a boycott of his conference; a conference that is about soft skills, respect, civil discourse, etc. Why was he getting threatened? Because he didn’t have a code of conduct. You may or not be aware Liz (which this next fact matters a bit for you) - I’m a lawyer. Some words of advice - be EXTREMELY careful when you start throwing words like harassment, trolling, etc out as it pertains to people. You may find very quickly that you will be on the business end of a defamation lawsuit. Don’t worry, I have no such interest in that. If that comes off as threatening, harassing, so be it. I happen to find it pretty distasteful when some are allowed to throw out accusations and bold face lies in the name of advocacy, diversity, etc. Let’s set that aside…

As a lawyer, I will tell you the codes of conduct out there, as written, don’t do much. The fact is, there are entities that put on these conferences and they have concerns as well. I’ve been to a lot of shows and have spoken at many of them. In 1999, I had to physically pull off a guy from a woman who was clear incapacitated. So…when I tell you I’ve seen some bad things - I have AND I’ve done something about it. I don’t have daughters. I have 2 sons and I’ve brought them up to, in a word, act civil. Two of my best friends have daughters that are at an age where they are beginning to think of what they will do. I’ve talked with both of them about tech careers. They are investigating that. So again, where I can, I’ve done my part. The code of conduct I wrote was short, but it was drafted with some teeth in mind. Most of the codes you see are drafted by non-lawyers. they are documents that don’t work. Again, just trying to do what I can do. Ashe Dryden’s response - I’m raining on her parade!! In other words, she’s not really interested in solving problems - and neither is Shanley. As I understand it, Shanley was offered a platform with the news outlet of record - the New York Times. She basically told the guy to F-Off. Anybody who turns an offer like that down simply cannot be taken seriously.

I’m a white guy in tech - and based on that, I supposedly have privilege. I think in history, it is well established that ONCE UPON A TIME, to vote, own land, sign a contract, etc - you had to be two things: 1. White, 2. A Man. I think we’ve progressed a bit on that. Still, I’ll concede that I have some level of privilege. The question is whether I abuse that privilege. Ashe and Shanley would tell you the entire population of white men in tech are a bad lot. It’s a patently absurd argument. Nevertheless, it’s the one they make.

Liz, let’s get to tweets you clipped. What is Shanley mad at? She’s mad that she personally, was not approached by Jeff - but she does acknowledge that Jeff approached other women in tech. Implicit in her statement is a question “Why not me?” Well - I think I answered it. It is her approach. Please note that at no time did I use the word “Tone.” I said “approach”. I choose my words carefully and deliberately. When you say “Tone Argument”, that implies that I’m using that I’m saying your tone invalidates her argument and point. I didn’t do that. Rather, I was speaking for myself. I can tell you my propensity to listen to you is going to be in part, based on your tone TO ME. I don’t care if you are Albert Einstein. If his discussion were laced with rants about me personally, I don’t care if he is the smartest guy on the planet, I won’t bother to listen. And you know what, most people wouldn’t. I have to chuckle a bit at the logical analysis that goes on that ignores the basic reality that if nobody LISTENS to your argument, your argument really doesn’t matter. It’s particularly ironic that people fall into that trap that are supposedly software developers that need among other things - logic. For the record, a tone argument can be a form of straw man.

A good book recommendation: A Rulebook for Arguments by Anthony Weston.

For the record, I have yet to see any real “arguments” coming from the likes of Ashe or Shanley. I’ve seen a lot of ranting, complaining, and blaming others for the state of affairs. Here’s the deal, I’m no more responsible for their particular circumstances than I was for slave trade. And for the record, I’, 1/8th Cherokee. My great grandmother was forcibly removed from South Carolina and relocated to Oklahoma. Should I continue to rant about that? My father was born/raised in Denmark. During the WWII, my family was part of a group responsible for getting Jewish families out of occupied Denmark to Sweden. I rarely mention these items as they are personal for me. I’m sure Ashe and Shanley have their personal stories too. But that doesn’t make a movement and for sure, I personally am not responsible for their lot in life.

Here’s the other irony. Folks like Ashe and Shanley will say that we men use certain excuses to justify bad behavior. In the law, we’d say that is a pre-textual argument that often, doesn’t hold water. It seems to me that if we apply that same logic to them, they are using the flag of “feminism” as a justification of sorts.

IMO, there are two camps where the “feminism” label is used. There are those folks that advocate - sometimes very passionately. They are about the cause - not themselves. For sure, they don’t label every white guy as a proponent of suppression and pro “rape culture”. Instead, they concentrate on solutions, education. And what they do is embrace those men who want to help.

Then, there is the other camp that for the most part, just complains, blames others, and quite frankly, relishes their celebrity status - whatever that may be. Guess where I put the Ashe’s and Shanley’s of the world. The irony is that they actually profit off the “movement”. It’s what they do and if the issue didn’t exist, they would have to do something else. In other words, they have an incentive to not see the problem go away. Fortunately, there are OTHERS out there who care about solving the problem and who care about being productive, positive and inclusive. I’m fortunate enough to know many of these folks and that is who I talk with.

My major mistake, engaging with likes of Shanley and Ashe. You can’t hope to have positive discourse with them. What they put forth as fact? I don’t find them to be credible. That’s not to say that at least some of what they say isn’t true. It’s just that I don’t find them to be trustworthy. As for being experts, they aren’t. There is no real intellectual rigor around any discernable research. There are a lot of folks that are bona-fide experts that conduct real research that hopefully, will lead to positive results. As always, I’ll strive to do my part.

As for being a troll…It seems that part of the Internet Troll Definition includes in part that if you “upset” somebody, that is a trait of a troll. That definition also says that you have to sow discord, start arguments that are off topic with no legit purpose but to upset people. The problem I have is that the word gets used as part of an argument. There’s another irony. Some say that talking about tone is a logical fallacy. What about labeling what somebody says as trolling? Is that not the same thing then? There’s a word for that and it will be the one I close with that really describes these “feminists”

Hypocrites.

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I am not accusing Jeff or anyone else in this thread of being a bad actor, but one thing men can do to support feminism is know the tactics used by bad actors, and avoid them. Whether you agree with them or not doesn’t matter too much.

Bad actors have used words and persuasion. Does that make them out of bounds for the “good guys?”

These are the rules. You must follow them. It doesn’t matter if you agree with them. We have our reasons. If you don’t know them, you are displaying your ignorance.

Gee, I’m sure no “bad actors” have ever used those type of tactics.

Also, just because Jeff is writing about a topic touching on feminism does not turn his blog into feminist territory where he must abide by its rules. If I work at BigCorp, I need to follow their coding conventions. If I comment on BigCorp, I don’t have to.

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Also, I don’t think Jeff is arguing about tone. Jeff is stating what he will and not promote on his own blog. That is his choice, regardless of what the rules of feminism are. He paid for this micrrophone.

Now, just as it would help his interlocutors to understand the impact their emotional payload has on their listeners, it may hope Jeff to understand the impact words like “tone” have on them. But he is not obligated.

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Oh, so because the great feminism commitee has decided on a style guide, it should be followed blindly? (sorry for the sarcasm, but that sentence really struck me as very odd)

It makes absolutely no sense to me to say that some things are not to be argued about. If there are people who want to argue about it, then it should be argued about. Of course, if you are tired of it, you certainly have every right to not participate, but don’t tell people that “one” doesn’t argue about it.

You might think that it is a waste of resources to argue about certain things over and over again, and you may be right. But in my experience, you can’t just end arguments that way.

Besides that, I don’t really know if @codinghorror really started a tone argument, but well, since people are sort of having one now, it doesn’t really matter who started it.

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Sweden has a pretty nice statistics site. There’s still a noticeable gap at the moment:




Further reading on paternity leave:

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Where I worked, many years ago, a tech company, I can think of at least 6 marriages of couples that worked there, including my own, while the total employee count was never much more than 150 folks. Many couples meet at work. I don’t understand the logic of the OP there, but whatever it is, it’s faulty.

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If only kindergarten teachers were getting hundreds of millions of dollars in VC funding, and there were hundreds of thousands of new high-paying US kindergarten teaching job openings…

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This might be the case at many companies, but to survive in today’s ultracompetitive tech world, your HR needs to be more than a cover-your-ass group. In a world where new hires are difficult to find and expensive, if you aren’t making your employees happy, you’re going to lose. HR should have the same goal as anyone else in the company, to make the company succeed.

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There is no substance to this quote other than a direct attack on Jeff. If you come across a child who makes a mistake, do you say, “stupid child, dont you see that your mistake makes you look like you either havent done your homework or are trying on purpose to look stupid?” No, you explain the mistake, why it was a mistake and what the correct answer is. While you’re at it, leave out the name calling and the insults.

And it was a good idea, but it was executed poorly. Jacob Kaplan-Moss details why that is the case better than I can. He also implements a successful mechanism for crediting without amplifying, in the event you need to do so in the future.

Honestly, I feel like this whole discussion is more hurtful than helpful to the cause of feminism. Why? Because you are attacking someone who very clearly is trying to help the cause. As with the example above, argue your points and explain the mistakes without the personal attacks. Such attacks silence people who would otherwise help the cause. As far as what Jacob Kaplan-Moss wrote, I feel like he is either wilfully misinterpreting what Jeff has said or simply plain imagining things that arent there.

Office romance. This one’s just weird; I guess it probably comes from Jeff’s reading of Julie Ann Horvath’s harassment at Github, but it’s a bizarre conclusion to come to from that event. I hope he’s not implying that her dating a coworker somehow excuses the harassment she faced.

This is obviously guessing at where Jeff got these ideas from. Do you think that Jeff has no experience with this in any other situation? Further going on to imply that he might draw such a conclusion is also insulting.

About Aspergers:

Jeff buys into this myth, and, worse, I expect his post will be used in the future as to further excuse deliberate harassment as just “mistakes” or “miscommunication.”

What. Did Jeff say anything of the sort in this post? That seems to me like a complete fabrication. Furthermore, people are complex, not as simple as the labels you might attach to them. Therefore, labeling all instances of “harrasment” of people by someone with Aspergers sounds very much like an overreach. That is not to say the opposite (that it should be accepted), but rather to look at everything in a case by case basis and see that maybe that one guy out of a thousand really did not know. Furthermore, Kaplan-Moss’ use of Joseph Ben Unkle III 's tweet:

Also, @codinghorror: I’m autistic. I find it absolutely shameful that you’re utilizing my disorder to excuse unexcusable sexism in tech.

just further serves as a personal attack. Aspergers is a disorder with a wide range of symptoms. Therefore, because one man doesnt understand how it could cause the situation to arise more easily, that doesnt negate the idea altogether.

Lastly,

So yes, Jeff’s right: we do need to look at why women get into tech. But only focusing on getting women into the pipeline ignores the elephant in the room:

So, if you’re going to write about women in tech, you’re obligated to go into detail about each and every issue? Again, this comes off to me as intentionally trying to make Jeff look bad.

Honestly, if I were Jeff, I would simply stop responding at this point. I feel like you’re not trying to understand what he is saying and simply berate him because he didnt live up to your imaginary standards of what a feminist speaker should sound like. Furthermore, without any evidence I fear that the same will happen to me which is why I’m leaving this community after being here for less than a day.

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Tone arguments are not a logical fallacy as they don’t pertain to the substantive points made, but to the manner in which they are expressed. They are typically used to a license for name-calling without allowing criticism. A field doesn’t get to decide what is logical and what is not. The fact that this field doesn’t like ‘Tone Policing’, as it is so euphemistically called, doesn’t make such criticism automatically invalid.

This is the height of a double standard, especially on the part of shanley and ashdryden, who want zero criticism directed at them while simultaneously directing a never-ending stream of vitriol at others. They want people to not only agree with their goals, but their manner of reaching them. Sorry, but that doesn’t fly.

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Sorry, this doesn’t fly unless you are determined to have epistemic closure and your ideas contained within an echo chamber. Feminism doesn’t get to rewrite the rules of polite discourse to its own liking. No one invalidated Shanley’s emotions, but instead the actions she took in calling people names. Calling people on being rude isn’t tone policing, it’s exactly the behavior that feminists call for when men behave badly.

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I really didn’t think a list titled “What Men Can Do” that opens with
the palpably dismissive sentence “here is what you can do so you can
stop asking me to do your job for you” and includes “start a feminist
book club at work” … was doing a great job of actually reaching men,
the audience it is intended for, the audience in the very title of the article.

And that’s a shame. Because as a man I realize this is our problem
too. But getting men to help means you have to actually reach them. So
rather than just criticize, I thought I would try to help. My blog
reaches men. Lots of them. I am good at reaching men. Hence, I wrote a
list that contained simpler, more practical and actionable items… for
Men To Do. You know, take responsibility for our own actions as men.

Someone who is voluntarily reading a post “what men can do” is not there to be convinced they should do something. They can be assumed to already be convinced. With that in mind, asserting “no drinking or dating at work” is more useful than “start a feminist book club at work” is absurd. Someone who is already looking for something to do is probably already aware that drinking is no excuse for bad behavior or that dating at work requires care. What Shanley and others are asking is for men to do something substantial that actually requires work. Asking someone to start a feminist book club with their coworkers is asking them to spend social capital in order to advance the cause of diversity. That book club gets people who aren’t already looking at posts like “what men can do” to actually be the type of person who does look at such posts. In any case, a feminist book club will probably cover the complexities of alcohol and dating at work.

But a book club is work. So is asking hard questions of management. Or speaking up in meetings when talked over. Or explaining to senior colleagues why you’re having problems with certain coworkers. Or trying to get internal policies changed. It’s extra work that you’d have to do on top of your “day job”. It’s work that a lot of women already do part of the time at their jobs, but are usually not respected or rewarded for it and in many cases take risks to do. Shanley and others are asking men (specifically) to share in that work.

Proposing unlikely rules like “no drinking or dating at work” is the antithesis of asking people to do work to improve the culture. Almost no one is going to spend their social capital trying to get dating or drinking banned at $insertTechCompanyHere. If they were to succeed in getting the rules added, they would be applied unevenly and wouldn’t actually solve real problems. People who can’t reasonably navigate dating at work also can’t effectively navigate friendships and communication at work. People who say or do sexist and belittling things to women they work with while drinking also believe those things when not drinking.

My reaction to your list (aside from the many issues pointed out by others, but especially Jacob Kaplan-Moss) is that all you’re asking is for individual men to police their own behavior with no real means of accountability other than men calling out other men for obvious mis-behavior. That isn’t enough. For one, a lot of the behavior is not obvious. When managers hold women to higher standards than they hold men to, how do you call that out? How do you even know it’s going on? When teams and companies tend to hire more men than women, how do you know?

Shanley and others aren’t asking men to not be awful to women. That should be a given. They are asking men to actively work to improve diversity and culture. You claim your list is “simpler, more practicable and actionable”. I would submit your list lets men say they’ve done their part as long as they don’t (metaphorically) create the next Titstare app.

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No, you can’t make that assumption. Given the nature of the internet, you can be assured that a good number of people will read merely to take the opportunity to mock.

Update as I’ve reached the reply limit No, you don’t have to begin with 'literally tens of thousands of words explaining…" There is a vast difference between assuming a lack of knowledge on a topic and assuming people have accepted your premise. Trying to make the two equivalent isn’t correct.

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In the context of a post titled “What Men Can Do” you can assume it. Otherwise every article has to begin with literally tens of thousands of words explaining why diversity matters, what feminism is (and isn’t) and so on. Just because disinterested parties will read a piece doesn’t mean it has to start from first principles.

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No he didn’t (emphasis mine):

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I reject your suggestion that I’m part of the problem. I never discouraged a woman from pursuing tech. Is every woman in America responsible for the dearth of male Kindergarten teachers?

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I, for one, think shanley’s responses in the thread Jeff screenshots in the comment above are measured, appropriate and entirely apt.

Women who are outspoken online, and especially women who are outspoken online about gender issues are buried in mountains of constant abuse. The nasty stuff—the rape and death threats—are easy for us “reasonable folk” to point at and declaim, but the passive-aggressive stuff, the “please take time out of your day to explain basic concepts to anyone who asks” the “if you just rephrase your argument for the 100,000th time maybe it be more effective”, and of course the “what about the menz?” are just a different side of the same school of silencing tactics.

And they are silencing tactics. The end game of “could you please rephrase that more calmly” is “could you please stop making me feel uncomfortable so I can more easily dismiss the effect this issue has on you.” Women are socialised not to speak up. Women are socialised to believe that being “shrill” or “hysterical” are terrible crimes. And men constantly reinforce this socialisation by tone policing the women who dare not conform to it.

I follow shanley on twitter precisely because she makes me feel uncomfortable. This isn’t an issue I want to feel comfortable about. I know far too many women who buckle under the rampant sexism in this industry because they know the “price of speaking up”, and if I ever feel comfortable about this then I’m betraying them.

John V Petersen walked into a discussion with a complete stranger and was insufferably patronising from the outset. Because, you know, what feminists really need is middle-aged white men telling them what they could be doing better. And he got exactly what he deserved for that arrogant presumption.

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Rachael makes a good point that the harder work is probably more likely to result in progress than what Jeff proposes. Putting up no drinking and no dating rules and even not giving girls dolls is easy. Expending social capital is hard. One of the more annoying trends in recent life is that people think enacting social progress looks like changing an avatar on a certain day or tweeting a hashtag. Almost all progress requires real work and sacrifice.

On the other hand, I have to be honest:

I don’t care that much.

Would I prefer that more women were involved in tech? Yes. But if I’m going to expend my social capital at work on a cause, this would rank about 10th on my list. Sorry, but that’s where I am. I suspect that’s true for many of us that would voluntarily read such a blog post.

So, you’re both right. Shanley’s ideas are likely to be more effective; Jeff’s ideas are more likely to be actually done.

Is it possible there’s a happy medium? Maybe not a “feminist book club” (which, I also have to say is unlikely to draw the unconverted), but including female authors in a general book club?

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