I find my gender is a barrier to getting traction and my experience is that it's due to patterns of this sort and not because most men intentionally want me to fail. But the cumulative effect of most men erring on the side of protecting themselves and not wanting to take risks to engage with me meaningfully really adds up over time and I think that tremendously holds women back generally.
I think gendered patterns of social engagement also contributed to the Theranos debacle. I've said that before and I feel like it tends to get misunderstood as well. (Though in the case of Theranos it runs a lot deeper in that she was actually sleeping with an investor.)
I do not live in the Anglo Saxon world; know this well.
I would say so, and the thought that anyone would level some of these weird gender arguments I've primarily seen from Anglo-Saxon news sources wouldn't cross my mind, for it has never happened to me in my life. — and I am not entirely sure as to how much I should believe such stories I read on the internet that speak of how seemingly every single issue in Anglo-Saxon culture is phrased in terms of an imaginary gender war.
I have never in such professional disputes in my life felt as though gender were used as an excuse, or reason, I have never in my life been accused of sexism when I criticized female staffmembers, and I have never seen it happen to anyone else either, I have never seen anyone go that route as a matter of defence.
Perhaps, a difference is that Dutch professional analyses ten to be more numerical, and that the Anglo-Saxon more often wings it based on feeling rather than numbers. It is o course far harder to argue with numbers.
What you want the world to be isn't what the world is, and in this case it's true, as by law in the Netherlands, various promotional and termination choices are required to be justified by numbers, which is not the case in Anglo-Saxon countries, where employers are more so at liberty to subjectively assess whom they wish to promote, and whom not.
I simply said that in Dutch decisions of whom to promote, numbers play a greater sway than in Anglo-Saxon promotions; the claim you are attacking is another altogether.
The Dutch cultural tendency to be very blunt is probably not helping your case.
I'm leaving this comment in hopes of being personally helpful to you as an individual and it's probably foolish for me to do so. It would probably be better for me to say nothing, but it's just kind of a pet peeve of mine so to speak, so I am doing it anyway.
This entire thread is a sea of doomsday tears of fatalism and how bad it is, and how the culture is on a collision course with death, and mine was the perspective that I'm skeptical that it's truly as bad as they claim.
I'm far less dismissive of their own culture than they are.
But indeed, what they're tired of is not dismissing Anglo-Saxon culture, but that an outsider does so and having to hear that it's not the entire world.
They're own dismissals are far greater than mine.
> The Dutch cultural tendency to be very blunt is probably not helping your case.
My case? is it not further evidence of my thesis that there are cultural differences at play here?
One may assume that is is only to be expected that in a blunter culture, one would be less inclined to use sexism as an excuse when one be criticized.
Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon's famed tendency for politeness might very well be a contributing factor, if again, it truly be the case that it is so common for sexism to be used as an excuse when criticism be leveled.
> I'm leaving this comment in hopes of being personally helpful to you as an individual and it's probably foolish for me to do so. It would probably be better for me to say nothing, but it's just kind of a pet peeve of mine so to speak, so I am doing it anyway.
You are free to do so, and I am free to disagree and point out the opposite.
From my perspective, it comes across as a petulant child who excessively and unreasonably talks about a culture that is failing, but lashes out defensively when an outsider chimes in and says “It might be bad, but I'm not sure it's as bad as you claim.”, for then it is an outsider who does so, and apparently that crosses the line, not the dismissal in and of itself.
That's basically a personal attack.
I'm not someone who downvoted you and my above remark was my first reply to you.
Have a good day.
When I said it was sort of a pet peeve of mine, that perhaps sounds like I meant I was criticizing you and that's really not what I meant. I meant it aggravates me to see someone post in good faith, get downvoted to hell until they seem to be pissed off and no one will reach out to them and say "This doesn't work well on this forum for this reason."
I occasionally do try to make that effort in part because I'm a demographic outlier so I don't readily fit in here and have always had to really work at it and I sometimes get a lot of downvotes for what seems to be simply being a different demographic.
This forum skews culturally American to some degree. There do seem to be a fair number of Dutch members who post, but it is run by an American company and that helps shape the dominant culture here.
I'm American but I'm a former military wife. Like the Dutch, I tend to be pretty blunt.
Some people find me to be refreshingly direct. Others find me to be rude, crude and socially unacceptable. It seems to have little to do with my behavior and more to do with their cultural expectations.
I was only trying to tell you your bluntness will tend to be interpreted by most Americans as rudeness and disrespect, though some people with military experience will be more tolerant.
It's always a risk to say something to a total stranger and that's likely why it's common for someone to get downvoted to hell and no one tries to talk to them about that in some kind of helpful fashion: Because it can get misinterpreted and make the problem worse and make you a target of their ire.
I don't really care. I tend to do what makes sense to me and accept that sometimes it bites me in the ass.
Unlike a lot of people, I don't have to sit around justifying my guilty conscience. I don't have one. I don't stand idly by and say "Not my problem."
I'm sorry this didn't go well. I don't intend to discuss it with you further. If your take away from this is that I attacked you rather than that I was trying to reach out and bridge the cultural barrier you will face on HN, welp, you win some, you lose some.
Have a great day. Sincerely.