Just a quick note here before I start - I have a nasty head cold and I’m still working my way through the first pot of coffee of the day so I might be a tad crankier than usual.

This morning as I was making my usual rounds I ran across a post by Susan Mernit that she wrote in response to something I wrote the other day when sexual discrimination was the big meme of the day.

First off thanks Susan for taking the time to read the post and then write your reply. Second - you suggest that I got it all wrong because I pointed to Stephanie and Kathy as examples why there aren’t more female bloggers. Well I hate to tell you that if that is all that caught your attention then you missed the whole point of the post.

I used those examples as a reference point to the larger real world issue of the so-called equality of women hence the statement

A lot of noise is made about those of us that write about technology living in a bubble but there is an even bigger bubble than that in the technology field and it is inhabited by men who think that our gender is the cat’s ass.

Women in technology was the least of the points that I was trying to make which obviously got missed. I agree with you that sexism hurts both genders and that a few assholes don’t define everyone - except men still treat women as objects. You suggest that I am not living in reality. If that is the case then explain to my why

• eating disorders among women is so rampant
• the subliminal messages sent by everything from advertising to interviews to the office atmosphere is aimed to suggest that beautiful skinny women are the successful ones
• young college women are subjected to date rape and most of the time we don’t hear about it
• a woman’s success in climbing any corporate ladder is at some point alluded to her sleeping her way there while men got there because they were smart and cut throat
• breast enlargement is one of the most popular plastic surgeries

There is a wider world out there than technology and Silicon Valley and that world is filled with women who have to face discrimination of one sort or another just about every day. To suggest that it doesn’t exist or that it is something that is being ‘fixed’ is believing in nothing short of an illusion.

On top of that nowhere in my post did I suggest that “this is just how things are and we need to understand that” - what I was trying to stating that this was the reality of how women are treated every day. If you don’t see this then perhaps you should be the one to be taking another look at the real world.

But just to clarify so you understand me - I do not agree with discrimination of any kind and that women are just as capable to do any job as any man. I don’t believe that a woman’s beauty is any indication of her intelligence. I also believe that any man who thinks that a woman is his lesser or there just to make his world complete is an frikken idiot.

Conversation Tags: sexism, technology, real world