I love programming and problem solving and nerd culture and growing up I never felt that computer science was not the place for me. I understand now how incredibly lucky I was, but that is for another blog post. When I grew older, my gender grew into a topic. I remember that when I started grad school, I was the first female in my research group, and my supervisor told me I would be “happy to hear” there was another female PhD coming soon. I did not get it. Why was he telling me this, and why would I be happy about this. I did not care. This is the first time I remember that my gender came up in professional context. And I did not like it one bit. When I started to work in the faculty, there were female lunches. They wanted to nominate me for a female CS award. These things annoyed the hell out of me. Like why is this a topic. At all?? I am a PERSON. Yes, there were only 2 girls among 120 freshmen in my CS class, but that is not my problem. Now let me do my programming.
Recently, maybe because I am growing more patient and attentive, maybe because the tech feminism voices are growing louder, maybe both, I started thinking about this. Why do feminists annoy me so much? I am not annoyed by other things I believe are not an issue. You believe God put dinosaur bones in the earth to test your faith, you think vaccines cause autism? Yes, that’s crazy but also funny haha who cares? Why do feminists get on my nerves so bad?
It is not that I do not care about equality! And I am all about equality. When I am abroad, I feel proud to be a citizen of the country that first legalized gay marriage, 15 years ago. Every Saturday, I volunteer at a weekend school for kids in an inner city neighbourhood, because it is clear to me that these kids have fewer opportunities than I had growing up. So why do these women annoy me so much?
Well, I found a few good reasons and I think it is important to share them, because many people feel like this and spoiler alert: it is not them, it is me!
1 They remind us that the world is not a fair place, which contradict the Just World hypothesis. Simply said: people want the world to be fair and they happily refute evidence of the contradiction. So if girls in tech say they have less opportunity, we all love to believe they are wrong. The world cannot be unfair, could it? So: they must be wrong. This is, of course, untrue. There are many studies done proving that there is some subtle bias, like the one where resumes with a male name were rated as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant.
2. This is basically the same argument, but on a more personal level: People want to believe they are reasonable creatures themselves. If everyone has bias, so do you, you sexist pig! Because it is hard to see you might not be as full of reason as you think, they must be wrong. This is of course, also untrue. In the above study, female faculty exhibited the same bias.
3. The final point took me the longest to realize, but once I got it, it immediately clicked for me. Accepting that there is a bias against women, means you must accept there is a bias in favor of men. This means accepting that you got where you are not just because you are smart, but because you are part of the majority. I realized this when I read the following statistic:
With the same high school grades a white person has a 78% higher chance of being admitted to a university than a person of color. So this is not about people of color potentially growing up in worse neighbourhood and everything. This is for the same grades!
When I read this, I admit, this hurt me a bit. It hurt my ego, because I needed to realign my self confidence a bit. Yes, I got into grad school because I worked hard and I am smart, but also, partly, because I am white. Who knew? Turns out I was having tail winds all along, while I thought I was an awesome sailor, ouch. If you refuse to make this step, again it is easy to refute feminism: I got where I am because I am smart and I worked hard, they must be wrong.
In conclusion: women ‘nagging’ about equal rights are so annoying, because it hurts to accept their inconvenient truth. It hurts your worldview, your view of yourself as an honest person and your self confidence. But that does not mean they are wrong.
I notice that you have focused on feminism as being between men and women. But as a society we’ve come to realize that gender is not binary. There are some people who have one gender, some people who have no gender, some people who have more than one gender, and some people who even have more than one of the same gender.
Feminism can occur within and between these groups, and even within and between a single individual. A male-to-female transsexual who identifies as both male and female can simultaneously engage in pro-feminist and anti-feminist behavior, for example, with others and zierself as the target!
What are your thoughts about this highly complex situation?
The reason why she didn’t add other genders and/or lack thereof is because homophobia and its cousins is a whole different ballgame. Feminists do not address issues of these other genders that you’re referring to. I believe this is a whole nother’ topic.
Ridiculous. I can’t stand feminists. They don’t want equality, they want to dominate. I am a woman and a lady, my husband loves it and loves me. I am Christian, conservative and a Republican and find gays disgusting. I am not judgemental. I’m honest and straightforward. Nuclear families are destroyed by gays and feminists who say they “don’t need a man”. If anyone was to see a mans and a woman’s paycheck it’s obvious they are paid the same. I don’t go off of Internet sources, I do the old fashion go out and research. Oh and by the way vaccines done the way the CDC recommends then has in fact caused autism on numerous occasions. These days it seems scratching the surface is the only research done, which is why it makes sense to me how people like feminists act. Men and women cannot do the same things. Don’t get mad, it’s true. Just look at the military special forces, it’s like that for a reason. Good day and God bless.