On the one hand, good for PG for speaking up. On the other, how can one write a piece about persistent discrimination against a woman without mentioning societal gender discrimination as a thing?
He even asks the question, "If Jessica was so important to YC, why don't more people realize it?" His answer: he's vocal and she doesn't seek attention. Those may be true, but that's not enough to answer the question. As the NYT just wrote, even famous female economists get slighted like this:
>[3] The existence of people like Jessica is not just something the mainstream media needs to learn to acknowledge, but something feminists need to learn to acknowledge as well. There are successful women who don't like to fight. Which means if the public conversation about women consists of fighting, their voices will be silenced.
That he did in fact mention this issue, and noted it's relationship to Jessica in his article. He didn't expound on it at length, but why would he when the point of this article is Jessica's involvement in YC?
That footnote does not even admit that gender discrimination exists, let alone address it.
It admonishes feminists for doing feminism wrong. Which I always find a little rich from people who are not themselves doing the thing. It feels to me like when non-developers tell me how to develop. My reaction is, "Oh, you know how to do this better? Why don't you show me?"
The point of this article also wasn't Jessica's involvement in YC. It was correcting the general public's lack of understanding of her involvement.
That lack of understanding fits the broad pattern of women being undervalued, and the work of women being written off as subsidiary to prominent men. It's a topic that has been much discussed, and was, as I linked, in the New York Times less than a week ago.
Given that he literally asks why more people don't recognize a woman's contributions, it seems weird to me that he lays it entirely at her character (and his), without reference to known systemic biases. That footnote only makes it weirder, in that he seems to be claiming sufficient acquaintance with the discussion of this problem that he should be aware of the biases.
Do we have to turn everything into a gender issue? This is exactly what feminists (or maybe people acting in the name of feminists) do wrong - they try to inject their fight for social justice every. fucking. where., whether it's startup economy or landing on a goddamn comet.
And pg is actually very right - reasonable people from all sides of the issue avoid mainstream social justice discussions because they're just ridiculous and a huge waste of time. Participants of those have their stance on discussed issues tied too close to their personal identity[0].
> Do we have to turn everything into a gender issue?
Feminists are arguing for things not to be gender issues. People make it a gender issue when they ignore female accomplishments for which men would be honored. Paul Graham explictly made this a gender issue when he praised her for being the "mom".
If you don't think talking about these things is valuable, nobody's forcing you to talk about them. The participants, me included, don't see it as a waste of time, because society has been making steady progress on this for the last hundred years or so. Maybe in another hundred things finally won't be intrusively gendered all the time and we can all get back to what we're doing. If you'd like to help, great. If not, maybe let the people who care get on with it?
> Feminists are arguing for things not to be gender issues.
Interesting way of doing that by making everything a gender issue all the time.
> Paul Graham explictly made this a gender issue when he praised her for being the "mom".
No, he just praised Jessica for performing the role of mother in the YC family.
> If you don't think talking about these things is valuable, nobody's forcing you to talk about them. (...)
I usually don't. But someone has to speak up when there's bullying starting to happen, because if nobody does, then it will just continue. I want to live in the world where all people are respected and happy. I don't want to live in the world where everyone is afraid of saying a thing in fear of getting bullied by political-correctness defenders.
Maybe is it because some of us might experience social injustice (almost) every. fucking. where.?
(And no, I'm not talking about 21st century first-world problems like "getting offended on Twitter" or PC-bullshit or what not... I'm talking shit that drives you literally to tears, as you see your life's chances, choices, freedoms and potential getting gradually but relentlessly taken away from you by the actions and expectations of your employer, your advisor, your peers, your own family even...)
So for you it might be "just ridiculous and a huge waste of time" --but some of us this is indeed "tied too close to our personal identity". Because we have to live with it.
> (And no, I'm not talking about 21st century first-world problems like "getting offended on Twitter" or PC-bullshit or what not.
And I am talking exactly about those. Because this comment against pg's essay was a typical 21st century first-world problem. And those problems are what dominates mainstream discussions. It hurts those who experience injustice more than it helps by trivializing their problems.
> It hurts those who experience injustice more than it helps
I see this sort of "u r doin feminsm wrong" comment a lot from people who a) are not part of the population harmed, b) never actually help themselves, and c) have very little understanding of the topic. But perhaps you're different. Could you tell us about three ways you've personally fought gender discrimination lately? Bonus points for links.
Even in this country, women were not allowed to vote in political elections until the 20th century, and the case was similar in countries around the world.
How does your argument that "all issues which feminists (make no mistake, feminists of the 1920's were "radical") seek to fix are a result of empirical reality" fit with that? Women couldn't vote, and that was just the natural outcome of "empirical reality", now they can, and that is, what exactly? Did "empirical reality" change? Or is the fact that women now vote in virtually all countries a terrible crime against biology?
Women in the United States gained the right to vote in 1920. The majority of men (non-landowners) received the right to vote only 50 years prior in 1870 [1].
This doesn't seem to be the work of a nefarious patriarchy behind the veil, but a continuing democratic movement that began with the Magna Carta.
Although of course, once again, this information does not fit the feminist narrative, and is blasphemy to a movement whose only goal is political power.
So you're saying that women getting the vote two entire generations after men is not a sign of some sort of gender discrimination? (Let me guess, you're a guy.)
That would be a pretty rich claim on its own. Perhaps if were the single historical or present example of discrimination against women, maybe it would be worth considering. It isn't, of course.
Two easy examples were women not being allowed to own property:
Definitely. Those (mostly dudes) who believe feminism is no longer necessary seem never to be able to say when they think true fairness was achieved. But they're awfully sure we have it now.
I thought that footnote was odd. It's acknowledging widespread sexism (implying that (almost) all public conversation about women is confrontational - or leads to a confrontation, presumably in contrast to most other public conversations (about men)) -- and calls for feminists to acknowledge that not all women wants to be/are confrontational?
The whole idea of fighting for equal opportunity is so that everyone can be more of who they are, and not have to fight more than anyone else to be heard, because of race, gender, sexual preference, social standing or any of the myriad of things we are so great at holding against people for no good reason.
Anyway, just as with the last time few times PG found himself in a minefield of mostly misguided political correctness -- I think this simply shows his general style of pragmatically voicing his thoughts, without much concern for overall social analysis. I for one welcome that, even though if read in in a certain light, he can sound anything from quaint to prejudicial (not so much in this article).
But he's not alone in that -- any neutral voice in a in-equal society can be seen as being oppressive -- of supporting the status quo.
I also see how people can get tired of being expected to fight, when all they want is get on with their work. It's a perfectly natural reaction. It's quite horrifying to see one of the more powerful women of Silicon Valley (?) not dare to be interviewed for fear of how her message will be twisted though. If anyone needed confirmation that there's a long way to go to equal opportunity in management, that surely is it.
I suggest you read the essay again. PG clearly writes that Jessica's way of dealing with people is by listening. And she's damn good at that. It is harder to listen when you speak, or when everybody watches your every move.
Thanks, I read it twice. But as with the economists I link to, this happens even to women who are perfectly vocal. I submit that there is something else going on here besides her just being naturally quiet.
He's not just showing appreciation. He's rectifying a problem of her being underappreciated by society at large.
So a) there is a well-known societal problem of women being underappreciated, especially leaders. And b) he added gender to his essay by talking about how they were dating and she was the mom and how her special skills were the kind of thing that get called feminine. (Note the many comments here explicitly relying on that.) He also talks explicitly about how people don't notice her contributions because they read her as a secretary, which is a very gendered phenomenon.
So whether or not gender is the formal thesis, the essay is shot through with gender-related issues.
>there is a well-known societal problem of women being underappreciated, especially leaders //
This approach begs the question [assumes the conclusion it supposedly seeks to find]: it seems as likely that a certain type of person is underappreciated. That a lot of women are of that type may be true but that doesn't make it an issue of sex per se. Reading between the lines of the essay Mr Graham hints that he feels one reason his wife is underappreciated is because she shies away from vocal conflict. That at least leaves a hypothesis that this is not really about the sex of the person but about character traits that are more often found in one sex than the other.
You might for example say there is a societal problem of women being forced to use stepladders when in fact it is short people that use stepladders and it happens that women on average are shorter than men.
The topic has a little interest to me in understanding attitudes of those in one area of work I'm in (loosely "craft as a leisure activity"). Other workers - almost all the people in this sector are women running their own businesses - always assume that I'm just there to carry the heavy boxes [which I usually can't due to a back injury] rather than actually function as an integral part of the company. In short they read me as the minion and her, my co-worker, as the boss. Basically we're in the sex-opposite position of Mr Graham and Ms Livingston wrt our roles in the business we're in.
From the public side of things I've been asked more than once if there was a woman available to do my job instead of me. Which I find particularly hilarious if then my female co-worker has to ask me what to do.
If this were the only sort of discrimination that went on, and if people were simple automatons, yes, your "just a trait" thing might have some explanatory power.
However, we have a historical record millennia long with enormous discrimination against women. Were women not allowed the vote until a century ago because their character traits mysteriously changed enough for them to finally be responsible? Did their character traits start changing in 1970 such that they were suddenly suitable for medicine, law, and science (and, briefly, technology)? [1] Because the feminine character was certainly cited as a reason why women shouldn't vote or be allowed to pick particular professions.
Further, we receive all sorts of gender socialization, starting with color-coding infants, moving up through toys and education, and continuing through all sorts of gender expectations during youth. A lot of education is explicitly about building character. A great deal of what you call "character" is learned behavior.
I'd think that you working in an area where you are treated as an idiot because of your gender would make you aware of how arbitrary this stuff is.
Yes, there is. It's the undercurrent of sexism that runs through almost every human encounter. But that undercurrent can run deep or shallow depending on whether the people involved acknowledge it and actively try not to let it affect their decisions. This essay is a great effort at making the undercurrent shallower.
Oh, definitely. As I said, I appreciate him speaking up. But in speaking up for his woman while reinforcing sexist notions and ignoring how this happens to other women, it has a "two steps forward, one step back" feel to me. I appreciate the piece, but I'm disappointed as well.
I would think that if he focused the essay more on gender discrimination instead of just on Jessica, she would not be comfortable with or allow the essay to be published.
> Those may be true, but that's not enough to answer the question.
I think the "he's vocal and she's not" answer is a perfectly good answer to the question "why do people tend to ignore Jessica?", since it does seem to be the main reason. If the question had been "why do people tend to ignore women?" then maybe that NYT article might be relevant.
I don't think essays discussing "why X" are limited to only talking about what the author believes the main reason to be.
Even if PG believes that the broader societal problem is not at all relevant here, I think it would have been a stronger essay if he'd said that and said why. Since he didn't, I'm left to wonder whether he is even aware of the problem. A lot of guys aren't, so a reasonable reading of this essay is that he may have written about a tree without noticing the forest.
Elsewhere on this page someone linked to a talk Jessica herself gave on this subject[1]. It is remarkably similar to PG's essay. Jessica notes at the beginning that pretty nearly no one on the outside knows how large a role she has played at YC and then credits that to her preferred MO of working behind the scenes. She also does not mention her gender as a factor in being ignored.
Since this is a reply to my comment, I gather you think it's a response, but I'm not seeing the connection. There are a lot of reasons women choose not to talk about gender discrimination, and I respect those choices. But that doesn't mean it's not an issue, either broadly or in this specific case.
You started this thread with, "how can one write a piece about persistent discrimination against a woman without mentioning societal gender discrimination as a thing?"
The grandparent to my previous comment suggested that "if [PG] focused the essay more on gender discrimination instead of just on Jessica, she would not be comfortable with or allow the essay to be published."
You said that since PG felt he could write the article without mentioning societal gender discrimination, "I'm left to wonder whether he is even aware of the problem."
I linked to a video where Jessica covers the same material that PG did. She also does not so much as hint at societal gender discrimination. This can be consider supportive evidence, along with PG's footnote about feminism, for the GP's hypothesis that Jessica would not being comfortable with societal gender discrimination being in the article.
It would follow that if you are going to respect Jessica's choice to not talk about gender discrimination in her talk, you would have to also respect the choice of PG to not have it in his essay, on the assumption that he may have withheld any such commentary in deference to Jessica's preferences.
> It would follow that if you are going to respect Jessica's choice to not talk about gender discrimination in her talk, you would have to also respect the choice of PG [...]
Not really. Women may avoid talking about this stuff because it makes them targets, and they may not need more trouble. Guys can and should talk about this; it's our chance to use our gender privilege to reduce the problem.
My experience is that for any given feminist statement I get 90-100% less crap than women do. I hear some squeaks from the antifeminists, but very little from the active misogynists and other abusive shitheels. If you're right and PG is unwilling to take even mild heat when he could easily do so, I don't feel obliged to respect that. Especially after his big talk about him getting all the credit because he's more comfortable in the spotlight.
If PG really didn't want to talk about gender discrimination because Jessica, he could have just said so. Or he could have not mentioned her feelings at all and said, "gender discrimination could be a factor but I want to focus on X for now." Refusing to acknowledge it at all weakens the piece. And expecting people to pick up subtle radiations from obscure YouTube talks also doesn't strike me as a very good essay-writing strategy.
Honestly, my suspicion is that he was trying to stick to the facts and not analyse why they came about, because his primary purpose was to talk about Jessica, not to attract yet another internet whaargarbl jumblefuck of soi-disant feminists and anti-feminists flinging poo at each other.
He asked "why" and then answered it. That's analysis. And his slam against feminists in a footnote explicitly drags it into a discussion on sexism. If his primary purpose was pure description, he did a pretty poor job of it.
He even asks the question, "If Jessica was so important to YC, why don't more people realize it?" His answer: he's vocal and she doesn't seek attention. Those may be true, but that's not enough to answer the question. As the NYT just wrote, even famous female economists get slighted like this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/upshot/even-famous-female-...