Have you ever tried doing all the same under a male handle? There is multiple evidence it works, maybe worth testing if you are sure that gender bias is the main problem?
No. And I find the suggestion incredibly offensive.
I can't get hired without pretending to be a guy? How does that work when it comes time to pay me? Assuming I can manage to actually get paid while pretending to be male, what happens when someone finally says "Let's do lunch"?
The cure for sexism is not for women to pretend to be men. That fixes nothing.
A slightly better one would be to use a nonspecific handle, because, as you're saying, it shouldn't matter.
If your writing stands out (and if you have the stats you claim, it must), using a gender neutral pseudonym (because you've identified discrimination is what's stopping you from eating well), and having clients pay an LLC could work.
Also, I work a shitty, barely above minimum-wage job at a gas station, and buy and sell old used crap on eBay and Craigslist, while (literally simultaneously, some nights), building my company. Curious to know if there's something comparable you're doing. Always interested in others' hustle.
I work for a writing service. It fits nicely with blogging as it helps me develop my writing for actual pay.
I am medically handicapped and I don't work full-time. I don't need a lot of money. I do need better per hour/item pay. Getting taken more seriously would help.
I wouldn't say the problem is discrimination per se. That isn't how I would characterize it.
The problem is that most men seem incapable of having a private conversation with me without mentally framing it as personally intimate, aka romance. When men on HN take an interest in each other's work, they routinely move from public discussion on HN to private discussion, usually via email. They also make friendly chit chat as part of the process of establishing trust.
When I make friendly chit chat, men routinely interpret that as a romantic opening. When I try to move things to a private discussion, most men interpret that as a romantic opening.
I honestly don't think it has anything to do with thinking "I would never hire a woman." I think when I talk about sexism that's what people think I mean and I don't mean that. I mean my gender is a barrier to success, yes. I don't mean "Because people are all sexist pigs."
I don't think we really have the language and mental models to make the distinctions that exist in my mind. I blog at times about such things, but the framing of the problem space in my mind is not a framework I see out in the world.
Because of how I frame it, I don't see trying to hide or obfuscate my gender as a solution. I see that as trouble I don't need.
When men get excited about each other's ideas or whatever, they don't interpret that as sexual excitement. When they get excited about my ideas or whatever, that seems to be what they do.
My feeling is that establishing a professional relationship on the idea that I am not a woman would be like a bait and switch operation. We have the expression that when people work closely together and are heavily invested, they are in bed together. And metaphorically I feel like if I hide my gender, then at some point some man wakes up "in bed" with me and realizes I am a woman and reacts to that differently than if I were male. To me, that sounds like trouble that I don't want. I also don't see myself successfully pulling off that kind of deceit to begin with.
I think the world needs some means to help people more clearly distinguish work relations from romance. I think the lack of such fuels a great many problems, including sexual harassment at work.
I have been celibate for medical reasons for more than 12.5 years. I don't harp on that constantly, but I am quite open about it. I am also 52 years old, chronically ill, and spent nearly 6 years homeless. I only got off the street a few months ago.
Being homeless put a damper on romantic interest in me. I think men were afraid that I would just empty their bank account. But the rest of those details seem to not put much of a damper on such interest. And I don't get it. It sounds incredibly unattractive to me. Who the hell in their right mind interprets toothless gray haired poverty stricken sickly old hag as "hottie -- I'd hit that!"
A recent incident: Some guy exchanging emails with me invested significant effort into trying to figure out how to get next to me and actively hid from me his age, marital status and intentions. After it became clear that his agenda was romance, I learned he was in his late twenties. I am literally old enough to be his mother. My adult sons are similar in age.
So I am at wit's end. Even men so much younger than me that I would never in a million years frame them as date material cannot be assumed to be viewing me in strictly platonic terms.
I didn't want to sound offensive at all, sorry if it happened. I agree that it fixes nothing in terms of curing sexism, but if it could fix the problem of not getting paid gigs I would try it, and I know several cases when it works for female freelancers. They just have male handles and don't contact their clients in person (offline or with voice).
Health, education and development are absolutely necessary. And these three are very expensive. Also a parent should have a decent amount of savings because you never know if your child is going to have health or mental problems. If he turns out ill and there are no savings, just saying oh sorry I can't afford stopping your suffering is not an option.
Sure, something leading to cyberbullying and girls committing suicides is obviously a very, very bad thing along with objectification. Many people are not even in control over their health and body for physical, psychological or social reasons. "Successful in their career" doesn't work the same way, it is a bad analogy. For one, this doesn't influence kids/teens, career success is all about grownups and doesn't degrade people to mere objects.
- How many people are really not in control of their health and body? Sure, there are physical exceptions and I‘m not saying it‘s easy, but is it really common that eating healthy and living an active lifestyle is prevented by psychological and social reasons? And if so, isn‘t that an excuse for missing pretty much any goal that requires to overcome some barriers?
- With cyberbullying, suicide and objectification you‘re throwing terms into the discussion that are a major escalation of the ads in question. I don‘t necessarily make that connection or at least think that it‘s a very subjective one and in my opinion those issues rather require work on a personal, individual level for those affected. However, that’s a different discussion.
- Wouldn‘t you agree that one‘s career and professional status is very much related to the perceived self-worth? How is that not relevant to teenagers that are about to start their careers, whether it‘s a high paying tech job or being a cashier at Walmart, very soon. Considering one‘s career options doesn‘t require to already have one - it also applies to future prospects - or lack thereof. And even then grownups aren‘t immune to these considerations and their effects.
And if the proper process for effectively addressing rape on a legal level is not in place yet, you suggest just to do nothing about it on any other level, great.
I think it is a combination of finally enough people starting to actively speak out against that behavior, the power these groups finally gained and amassed pieces of knowledge that those practices are really harmful. We just gained critical mass to flip the switch. To replicate it faster we should probably speed up human learning and development in some way.
Exactly. This is a problem of lack of imagination and empathy. How do you think it can be fixed in mass? I think we need mechanisms that make people understand experiences of disadvantaged groups. Like maybe some VR app showing their reality + some laws that those who deny other groups problems must use it.
>Like maybe some VR app showing their reality + some laws that those who deny other groups problems must use it.
Texas has this for abortions. The law requires that a woman get a sonogram from the doctor who will be performing the procedure at least 24 hours beforehand, during which the doctor must display sonogram images and make the heartbeat audible to the mother.
I think you made a nice addition to this discussion, but I think your comment possibly would have gotten less downvotes had you quoted the line before that one in the gp.
> I think we need mechanisms that make people understand experiences of disadvantaged groups.
Where the disadvantaged group you mention is the baby. I only say that it might help, because the part you quoted about VR seems almost completely unrelated to sonograms and abortions, but had you quoted the line before it then it would in my opinion be more closely related.
I dont think there are any easy solutions, certainly not as easy as a VR app. People harp on about empathy/tolerance/diversity but dehumanize "the other" consistently, and at a very early age. Tribalism is part of human nature, and caring more about those with similar genes is a primal evolutionary drive.
It definitely won't be easy, but we have to start somewhere. Currently I don't have any better ideas than something like an app to share experience. Any other ideas to start battling dehumanizing?
Preface: Netlify is a platform that enables static development, while Netlify CMS is an open source project created by Netlify.
In a broad sense there's nothing that can't work with the CMS - you can integrate a Mailchimp sign up form in your template and never have the CMS touch it. Beyond that, reach out in the spectrum community for help with a specific use case: https://spectrum.chat/netlify-cms
