Sayeth the Girl

The problem is real. I am a 21 year old woman and an aspiring rationalist, and my friends are mostly women and some are also aspiring rationalists. We find much of the conversation about women on this site so off-putting that I for one have never commented before. I read Eliezer's work and enjoy it very much indeed, which is why I stick around at all.

I am simply astounded at the men here confidently asserting that they aren't alienating women when they talk about "getting" "attractive women" and speak of women as symbols of male success or indeed accessories for a successful male. This reduces me and other females (including female rationalists) to the category of a fancy car or a big house, and I feel humiliated when I read it.

I am fully aware that some men think this way, and that in certain social scenes almost all the "players" in the social "game" see it this way. If getting ahead in a social game like that gives you loads of utility then thinking of women in this way might be rational. But if you would derive more utility from having long and close relationships with female rationalists, you might like to know that female rationalists will be less likely to seek out your company and attention if you persist in that attitude.

If you're wondering why half of the potential audience of the site seems to be conspicuously not here, this may have something to do with it.

I sincerely doubt it. This site is hugely less sexist than society at large. The comments at very high traffic sites are regularly flamed by many, many trolls who are explicitly, obnoxiously sexist, and yet these sites have a much larger percentage of women. As far as I can tell, the "misogynisitic comments" here are sincere, if somewhat indelicate questions or statements of opinion.

In fact "Roissy in DC" (a blog written by an openly misogynistic male "pick-up artist") has a much larger percentage of female commenters than Less Wrong. If you are looking for a culprit for why there are more men than women here, I suggest you start here.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm

Its just a start, (and the poll is sort of old) but twice as many men believed in evolution without divine intervention. Combine that with the fact that less women spend less time on the internet and I think we have a good start when it comes to explaining the dearth of female commenters.

My main problem with this post is that it attempts to impose social norms based on nothing more than your personal feelings, Alicorn.

I found your "Disclaimer" very off-putting. Though I'm sure you will say that you were either trying to be as straight-forward as possible or that you are just being cute and charming (taking these assumptions from comments you have already posted), I immediately read this disclaimer as saying: "Anyone who disagrees in the comments with what I have to say in this post is almost certainly going to be labelled as sexist." This casts a pallor over the entire discussion.

Imagine if I wanted to post something controversial on AI, something that I knew from past experience with the community was going to get me a lot of challenges in the comments, and I prefaced it with "If you are a stupid person who doesn't really understand AI the way I do, and who can't really do math as well as I can, this post is unlikely to interest you." I'd be laughed off the board, and rightly so.

In fact, one might consider it an excellent piece of evidence of one's own yet-unseen bias if one feels the need to preface a discussion with all-purpose disagreement-deflectors of this kind!

My other objection to the way you have framed this issue is to your twin assertions that you (A) are not interested in feminist stuff per se, and (B) are not easily offended. I believe you on both counts, of course, though I have nothing to go on except your own assertion. Nevertheless, it is my observation that on the particular issues you raise in this post (and many, many times before in the comments of other posts), you are easily offended. To my mind, almost comically so.

But, to follow your rhetorical maneuver here: You (A) aren't particularly a "feminist" and (B) aren't particularly sensitive, therefore (C) you aren't being overly-sensitive on this issue. Well, even granting (A) and (B) on very little evidence, I still reject (C).

However, from where I sit, you have raised some legitimate concerns, and for that reason I upvoted this post. But I want to register that I strongly disapprove of the borderline-coercive way in which you do it in this post and have done it in the past in the comments. This post feels creepily thought-police-y to me, which I am sure is not your intent.

To respond to your specific suggestions, I'd like to register that ....

I agree with #1 in principle but it's clear to me that I have a very different definition of what constitutes an unethical level of "objectification" and therefore this one may calculate out to disagreement on my part.

I agree with #2, though it seems like a rather tiny issue. I know, I know... Male advantage #46, right? Nevertheless, having duly considered my Male Advantages, I still think this is a negligible issue, one that you have every right to try and change if you please, but which I emphatically reject as a norm to be placed on others in this community.

I strongly agree with #3, because those kinds of unfounded generalizations are both unfair to women (or whatever subgroup), and bad-faith argument, and sloppy thinking.

I strongly agree with #4, mainly because I don't see what PUA discussion adds to Less Wrong. I'm actually fascinated with PUA theory and practice, but it's rife with pseudo-science and discussed in such detail on so many other blogs that I'd prefer to see Less Wrong steer relatively clear of it as a serious topic.

Your suggestions for what we can "use more of:"

Number 1: I agree most strongly with this suggestion, both on gender issues specifically and on all topics in general. Thoughtful qualifiers are always a good idea. I actually think these are part of the secret to the power and popularity of Eliezer's writing and Yvain's too.

Number 2: is a useless catch-all that, again, makes me feel creepy. What do you mean "attention"? Should we all post one comment a week that deplores male privilege? I know you are not advocating anything mandatory, and my question is tongue-in-cheek. But do you see how this kind of talk (along with your first disclaimer) casts a gauzy shroud of "guilty of sexism until proven innocent" over the place?

To prohibit generalizations about gender without overwhelming hard data is usually to in effect silence the topic. We are all very interested in gender, and many of us have made interesting and relevant observations about the gender we see around us, but few of us have much in the way of overwhelming hard data. This post seems to be making generalizations about gender aspects of LW posts and comments without itself offering overwhelming hard data - why hold this meta gender discussion to a lower standard?

I have to concur with the overall sentiment of this post. It bothers me more than a bit that sweeping generalizations about gender behaviors are made using armchair "just-so" evopsych stories. I even consider myself a relatively ardent supporter of evopsych in general, but a lot of the discussions of gender relationships seem to be motivated by an undercurrent of bitterness rather than an objective desire to understand the reality of gender differences. I realize that this is a vague ad hominem critique, and I could probably attempt to back this up by specific examples and analysis, but.... I think it's just more imperative to call this stuff out as it arises.

I remember Razib on GNXP making fun of the demographic poll done here, that this is a community of young white male nerds. Oftentimes it shows... I often wonder what would happen if a Jezebel blogger stumbled upon this place.

Alicorn, perhaps you've changed the wording on this post since I originally read it, because though my initial reaction was negative, upon writing a reply I have very little disagreement with your actual prescriptions in this post. I do have some disagreements with your framing of the discourse on LessWrong.

Comments and posts that casually objectify women or encourage the objectification of women. "Objectification" is what happens when a person is treated or discussed as an object, not as an autonomous being. (Non-women can also be objectified, and that too should be stopped.)

"Objectification" can be a difficult term due to people defining it in different ways. Yet given the way you define it here, I agree with advocating against talking about or treating people in a way that denies their autonomy or depersonalizes them.

Whether particular examples exhibit objectification is another question. I don't think that phrases such as "getting women" necessarily implies objectification, but since it is often used in that way, I think it's worthwhile to expend a little bit more effort to avoid it.

I agree on the issue of pronouns. "They" isn't really that bad.

As for generalizations: if data is not provided, then whatever evidence (e.g. anecdotes) leads to that notion should be presented, and/or the speculative nature of the claim should be acknowledged.

Fawning admiration of pickup artists who attain their fame by the systematic manipulation of women.

"Manipulation" is not rigorously defined in this discussion, and people use it to mean different things. Some people use it mean any form of social influence/persuasion (and may defend "manipulation"). Other people use it mean unethical social influence; I think we both share this usage.

I also disagree with fawning admiration of pickup artists who gain their fame by forms of unethical social influence. It's not clear whether you are suggesting that all pickup artists engage in unethical social influence, or just some.

If it is necessary to refer admiringly to a pickup artist or pickup strategy (I'm not sure why it would be, but if), care should be taken to choose one whose methods are explicitly non-depersonalizing, and disclaim that specifically in the comment.

I would also advocate studying the methods of pickup artists who's methods are non-depersonalizing. Or if depersonalizing methods are studied due to some relevance to rationality, I would prefer to see the depersonalizing aspect critiqued.

Attention to the privileges of masculinity and attempts to reduce that disparity. (Note that of course there are also female privileges, but until Less Wrong hosts custody battles or we start suspecting that some of us might be violent criminals, they are unlikely to come into play nearly so much in this location.)

I agree with attention to unjust advantages based on gender ("privilege" is another non-rigorous term that shouldn't be used without a definition), as long as it runs both ways. I would caution you against assuming that the only systematic disadvantages men experience in society are in the legal system (but kudos for acknowledging the existence of some male disadvantages).

In Love in America, feminist sociologist Francesca Cancian argues that the conceptualization and discourse over love in Western is biased towards feminine expressions of love, and marginalizes masculine expressions of love. She calls this phenomenon the feminization of love.

While I mainly agree with your prescriptions, I disagree with your framing of the content of the discussions on less wrong that relate to gender. You say:

I suppose I could abandon the site and leave it even more masculine so the guys could all talk in their own language, unimpeded by stupid chicks being stupidly offended by completely unproblematic things like objectification and just plain jerkitude

You make the male discourse on the site sound a lot more unified than it actually is. In all objections you've made to certain discourse here, you have received substantial support by males (some of which you acknowledge, which makes me confused by your "masculine guys vs offended women" dichotomy in portraying LessWrong). In the example of "jerkitude" you cite, pjeby took the person involved to task and leveled multiple criticisms, such as a view of "entitlement." So did ciphergoth.

Someone made arguments that came of as overgeneralized and sexist; others came and critiqued him vocally. Sounds like the working of a healthy rationalist community to me, not of a locker room full of uncritical fawning over PUAs.

Finally, your post might give the idea (which I don't know whether you intend or not), that typical discussions on LessWrong that turn the subject of pickup are of a fawning nature. I think that this idea is false.

Personally, while I've always emphasized that pickup is relevant to rationality, I've included multiple criticisms of the community.

In this post, I accuse the seduction community of naive realism, and committing the availability heuristic in their model of women leading to oversimplification. In this post, I mention that some practices in the seduction community are unethical, and discuss my use of moral constraints on pickup techniques. In this post, I argue that some attitudes in the seduction community are overly cynical towards women, and detrimental to success in long-term relationships. In this post, I express skepticism that certain pickup theories are true even if they lead to success, and I suggest that the community falls prey to ideological thinking and that some of its techniques are morally questionable.

I actually have the creds to back up these criticisms. Btw, could you briefly list the pickup materials you have been exposed to so far so I can better qualify your claims about it?

Some of these posts attracted upvotes, but none attracted long threads. Maybe few people read them because I wasn't controversial enough. What I think this shows is that the subject of pickup and seduction can be discussed in a manner that is both complimentary and critical (an example I've attempted to show with my past posts on the subject), yet other threads suggest that people are more interested in participating in polarizing discussions of the subject.

While this may simply be an oversight, your post fails to acknowledge more reasoned and less sexist discussion of pickup on LessWrong that is critical of it (like mine, at least in my hopes), and critiques of pickup ideology when it has been presented (e.g. pjeby's critique of Sirducer's posts), presented by some of the very people who think there is value in the community and discussing it on LessWrong. While I support your requests for non-sexist and gender neutral language, I think your portrayal of the discussions of pickup on LessWrong is skewed due to these omissions.

P.S. I am planning on getting back to you in the name thread... I've been enjoying that discussion.

This post (and the comments on it) made me finally to register in here, partly because I had few discussions about similar topics just a few days ago.

As knb said: "This site is hugely less sexist than society at large." While this might be true, it only means that most people in here are "less wrong" than society at large. This does not mean that they are right. It also has the same ring to my ears as "Some of my friends are black/jewish/".

Gender bias is rampant even in the internet where it should hold no sway (there are no visual clues, no pheromones etc.), and denying its excistence only enforces it. If you want to see it, just try using feminine nickname for few weeks.

On the topic of objectification and PUA, I have decided to read "The Book" because I know that I hold a bias against it.

Heteronormative examples actually bother me more than masculine ones, and this might be because there are no gender specific pronomins in my native language. My brain just seems to skip over the usual "he/his/him" and interpret it as a gender neutral version.

Generalizations of certain type of either sex are very annoying. By this I refer to things like "men don't cry" and "women are such gossips". My annoyance with things like these most likely stems form two points. First, I don't recognize myself or anyone I know in them (I know, anecdotal evidence and all that). Second, they put up a framework according which one should behave.

As Alicorn says, costs of this type of thinking can be very high. For excample, because of "women are the weaker sex" they were effectively shut out of the intellectual community until about 100 years ago. Because of "men are not caring" they still lose custodity battles more often than not, and end up being deprived of their children.

Basically, assigning certain attributes to either sex effectively prohibits those attributes in the other sex. That is not useful or rational, that is just limiting the potential.

"I would like help reducing the incidence of:.. "

"There is still conspicuous karmic support for some comments ... "

"Fawning admiration of pickup artists ... "

So, this seems to be the start of a dangerous politicization of Less Wrong. Politics is the mind killer.

People go funny in the head when talking about politics. The evolutionary reasons for this are so obvious as to be worth belaboring: In the ancestral environment, politics was a matter of life and death. And sex, and wealth, and allies, and reputation... When, today, you get into an argument about whether "we" ought to raise the minimum wage, you're executing adaptations for an ancestral environment where being on the wrong side of the argument could get you killed. Being on the right side of the argument could let you kill your hated rival!

I am sympathetic to your concerns about women feeling unwelcome, but it seems that LessWrong is a place for rationality, not for arguing about object-level ethical statements. I think that the group rationality of the community might be increased if we had a few rational racists, rational deep-green environmentalists, rational sexists, rational communists, rational libertarians etc, as long as everyone agreed not to argue object-level ethical statements.

Despite being female, I generally find I could not give a damn about alleged 'social' pressures on women, since people who get all weepy because everyone doesn't treat them nice are (in my opinion) laughable, regardless of their sex.

"Comments and posts that casually objectify women or encourage the objectification of women. " Human beings ARE objects. All of them. Whatever an 'autonomous being is', if it exists it is still an object in both the grammatical and ontological sense. I objectify everyone, and it seems absurd not to.

"If you need to use an example with a gender, there's no reason to consider male the default - consider choosing randomly," This just seems silly to me. A total waste of effort. I can't imagine being bothered by the gender of hypothetical people, and especially not by casual use of words which are unisex anyways (such as 'man' for 'human').

"Sweeping generalizations about women" Most sweeping generalizations are flawed, but the amount of stupid things people believe about women is far less ridiculous than the stuff they believe about people they have literally no experience with - such as the Japanese, or Mormons.

"Fawning admiration of pickup artists who attain their fame by the systematic manipulation of women." 'Manipulation'? I though these were 'autonomous' beings? People who can't look after their own social well-being get what coming to them.

"Attention to the privileges of masculinity and attempts to reduce that disparity." The law favors women just as often as it doesn't, especially in various legal disputes. As far as the 'privileges' of men - insofar as they aren't legally enforced, I couldn't give a damn. No one owes you anything.

What sort of masculine privilege is appearing on LW that isn't covered by the sort of blundering myopic obliviousness already mentioned in the lines above that? The notion of "privilege" is one that I regard as dangerously general (and generally dangerous), so a bit more narrow advice might be helpful here.

I don't understand what "objectification" means. Even pickup artists can't think of women as objects, since the only way they can be successful is by interacting with women in accordance with a certain model of the female psyche. Objects don't have psyches.

If the pickup artist somehow deceives a woman to achieve his goal, then what is morally wrong is the deception. How does objectification fit into this?

Attention to the privileges of masculinity

For a balancing perspective, female privilege checklist.

Robin is not right.

On the other hand, Robin is right. This post is not about gender inequality.

I have the same problem with this post that I would have with a member of an ethnic minority speaking "for" their group here. the type of person who posts on less wrong is a statistical oddity, belief and action wise.

I think what the original poster is really saying: I am made uncomfortable by certain types of recurring posts. Since an individual has little leverage, I will borrow the theoretical support of others.

Note: not trying to completely dismiss the concerns noted in the original post, just my initial reaction to it.

Is it me, or was this post a little heavy on the other-optimizing? Yes, there's been a bit of talk about wanting more female posters here, but I haven't even seen an agreement that that's a priority, much less a request for advice on the topic. (Did I miss one? I'll admit I haven't been following the comments that closely recently.)

I'm in an interesting/weird(?) position with regard to the problem pointed out in this post in that I have (self-diagnosed, peer-confirmed) gender dysphoria, and in a number of ways do not think "like a guy".

For example: Without going all TMI, I'll just say that I don't relate to the whole heroin analogy, despite having (as far as I can tell) more-or-less normal levels of male hormones running around in my brain (not something I'm at all happy about, mind you, but nonetheless it doesn't seem to compel me that way). I'm not completely unsympathetic; I just don't experience it.

Furthermore, my own observations of more-or-less-normal men suggest that they do not universally see things this way. It is quite possible to be normally-male and heterosexual and yet still be more interested in building a solid relationship (of which sex might become a part) with a person who is a woman than with arbitrarily seeking out women solely for the purpose of obtaining sex as if it were some sort of commodity. (Not that I know how this is done, because I'm not normal.)

On the other hand, while I don't make such remarks myself (because it isn't how I think), I tend to be somewhat oblivious to male-sexist remarks made by others. I'm guessing this is due to socialization as a male: being trained to think that such remarks are normal, so if they bother me I should just keep quiet. (There are a large number of areas in which I have been implicitly trained to just keep quiet, especially with regard to gender. I'm not happy about this either.) I do find it off-putting, but generally the "keep quiet" kicks in and I just move on to the next comment.

It seems to me that framing this as a choice between providing "safe space" and "being able to speak openly" -- an argument from consequences, even, and therefore "not rational" -- is a false dilemma. Claiming that Alicorn's objection is solely based on her "feelings" (or the feelings of women, even) is just as inaccurate, and rather manipulative at that.

What's irrational, I should think, is speaking as if "getting" women were a rational goal -- shared by all men and understood by all women to be part of How Things Are. It is one possible means of achieving a goal which I am willing to term "rational" (if we allow rational goals to be based on hard-wired non-rational needs), i.e. getting one's "heroin fix" -- but pursuing that particular strategy is not intrinsically rational (since there are other techniques which lead to longer-lasting relationships, thus providing more reliable sex if that's all that matters to you, while also not ignoring the value of women as sentient individuals).

Speaking of something in admiring terms when it is arguably harmful to some is not sympathy-inspiring; speaking in a way that is likely to lower one's social standing, if you don't have a compelling reason for doing so, is also not rational.

It seems to me that it should be fine to talk about the need that many men apparently have for regular sex, and various ways of satisfying that need, but talk about the subject rather than framing the discussion in terms which suggest that a particular group's main social function is to meet that need.

In the earlier comment which sparked Alicorn's post, for example, this statement:

most people here don't value social status enough and (especially the men) don't value having sex with extremely attractive women that money and status would get them.

is a problem because, as phrased, it implicitly dismisses the harm done by the attitude he is admiring and promoting. It's a little like saying (although milder) that we won't ever really succeed because we don't have sufficient callousness to steal from others when we know we can get away with it.

What he might have said -- if I'm not re-interpreting it too much -- is that we are too little motivated by material pleasures to devote much of our energy towards achieving them, and therefore we are less likely to achieve the influence necessary to obtain such pleasures -- even though this influence would be far more helpful in achieving our goals than are the means by which we more commonly pursue those goals. (sentence fatigue, whew.)

That is a legitimate suggestion, whether or not you agree with it. Implying that it's necessary to exploit women in order to do so, however, is unnecessary and runs against the goals I hope we all share.

I concur. I agree with a lot of what you say... I get upset frequently because of things said about women, many just offhandedly.

I am here, I've been reading for over a year and am a huge advocate of this site, but was not counted in the survey. But I'm 20 years old and rarely feel like I have anything valuable to offer the community... and because of that actually feel hesitation to respond to these kind of things. I also don't live a life about feminism or being a girl and would hate to be perceived that way.

I would like help reducing the incidence of:

• Comments and posts that casually objectify women or encourage the objectification of women. "Objectification" is what happens when a person is treated or discussed as an object, not as an autonomous being.

I believe that, to a first approximation, one factor of my utility function can be represented without a token for the woman's autonomy. Or, if this cannot accurately be said of my utility function, it can be said about world states of high instrumental value.

I believe it's in my best interest to fuck.

When Alicorn wrote, "some people seem to earnestly care about the problem", she accompanied it with a link to a comment made by me, in which I said that "I want to increase the female: male ratio [here]. So if you ever see me using language that objectifies women or that alienates you, please let me know."

Let me clarify that although I want to hear Alicorn's objections to my statements about women (especially since she is better than most feminists at explaining the grounds for her objections) I might not be able to cater to all her objections.

For example, most existential-risks activists (scientists doing networking and research about risks like unFriendly AI) are male, and I plan a top-level post to assert that not having reliable access to sex with the kind of sexual partners who can most improve the life of an existential-risks activist should be considered a large disability in a male prospective existential-risks activist -- in the same way that, e.g., an inability to stop rationalizing one's own personal agenda should be considered a large disability.

Note that recruiting existential-risks activists (though he did not use that exact phrase) is one of the stated goals in Eliezer's creating this web site.

Since a large fraction of the young men who have many of the other qualifications for existential-risks activism (such as extremely good mastery of math) do not currently have the knowledge necessary to obtain reliable access to sex with the kind of partners who can most improve their lives, I have a strong interest in trying to convey knowledge about it to them (because doing so decreases existential risk according to my current models of male psychology) and it is possible that despite persistent strenuous effort on my part, I will not be able to do a lot of that without alienating Alicorn and other feminists.

Maybe the correct course is for me to start another site where male prospective existential-risks activists can acquire this sort of knowledge, but sex is such a large part of life that it seems overly limiting for the 90 or 95% or so of the participants on this site who are heterosexual men to refrain from discussing how to identify the prospective sexual partners who can most improve their lives and how to increase one's sexual chances with those prospective partners.

Comments and posts that casually objectify women or encourage the objectification of women.

There's a distinction I draw between objectifying a particular person and a class of people. I think what drew you (Alicorn) into the argument which sparked this post is the idea of "getting attractive women". Women should not, conceptually, be "got", you say. Well, if you mean a particular woman, who one sees in a club or on the street, then I agree with you. If you mean that a man should not talk about the modal preferences and cognitive styles of attractive women, so that when he meets one that he likes, he knows how to convey his own value in a way that isn't self defeating, then I disagree, and I guess that calling it "objectification" isn't going to change my mind. To use the distinction in a different context: I claim that there's a difference between standing in front of someone and thinking about "what you're going to do to their body", and lying in bed thinking about what you might like to do to some body, sometime.

Casual use of masculine and/or heteronormative examples in posts and comments that aren't explicitly about gender.

Yeah, that sucks.

Sweeping generalizations about women, if they are not backed up by overwhelming hard data

Such generalizations are generally - not always - lazy and demeaning, so I do support your proposal, but in reality the argument normally centres on whether a particular statement is a generalization, whether it's a sweeping generalization, and whether the data in its favour are overwhelming or not. Good luck not getting bogged down in that. Really a small moderation team that explicitly deals with such matters would be a good idea. Metafilter has one and benefits from it.

Fawning admiration of pickup artists who attain their fame by the systematic manipulation of women.

Again, I agree with the literal meaning of your words, but I wager that you will find most of the people you have in mind very resistant to being characterized as "fawning" over anyone. In any case, comment after comment of "I don't admire this technique, but I've verified (400 cold approaches) that negging in the opener is a very effective tool for SNLs" wouldn't be made very satisfactory by the addition of "don't" in the previous sentence.

Also, it would be a good idea to immerse yourself in PUA blogs and forums for a while, if you want to get a good idea of what motivates people to do this stuff. I think I first became aware of the subculture in 2007, and thought it propagated immature and offensive nonsense. Its natural growth eventually forced it back into my consciousness earlier this year, and I have refined my view: it naturally attracts a number of immature or offensive people, but I like to think of it as fundamentally an applied sociology club for boys.

I did smile at your request for more qualifiers and disclaimers. In your article, I saw several qualifiers and one bolded disclaimer, but none that could actually weaken your arguments. Rather, you prefer to express absolute moral judgements. There's a touch of hypocrisy in that.

Upvoted because as aspiring rationalists we are presumably intelligent, and should act as though we are enlightened.

See Hofstadter's article in Metamagical Themas on using gendered pronouns (preview here). I was sympathetic to its conclusions before I read it, but it gives good ideas to consider.

I trace the treating of women as status objects to be acquired to the recent surge in popularity of Ev. Bio.. In particular, proponents of PUA and allied schools of thought tend to draw direct lines from lower-primate societies to ours. (They also assume that if a technique works, it must be okay to use, but that's a somewhat different issue.)

I'm still not sure that the problem is real or at least worth the fuss. It might be, but I'm not convinced. It might be more like the name effect, for example: real, but tiny. The first step before trying to do something about the issue should be to make sure the issue isn't illusory.

So far, I see Alicorn complaining about her aesthetic preferences not met by the prose on the forum, but how typical is it? Some people agree that the writing decisions made by some of the posters are not that great, but how much of it is support of hypothetical preferences of other people isn't clear. A whole information cascade about preferences may form this way, with hardly any of the participants benefiting, but most of them thinking that they help others. A few can't demand of a community what they intuitively think is fair.

Everything that involves arguing that it's important to not drive women away from the site is contingent on the reality of effect of writing style choices on the number of female participants.

Hello all,

New rationalist/reader/commenter here.

I originally wrote a rant against PUA culture and then a summation of that rant to post here, but I realized that most, if not all, of my objections to what I perceive to be negative in the PUA community and practice are derived from my biases [and insecurities] rather than a truly rational foundation.

I can object to the PUA sub-culture out of personal distaste, and maybe from a weak ethical point of view, but besides parts of the body of PUA doctrine and rhetoric, there is really nothing irrational about them that I can see.

These men have taken empirical observations and social engineering experiments and created a pragmatic system to utilize for their desired goal in a legal and relatively non-detrimental manner.

So the greater argument seems to be, at least insomuch that the PUA community and their practices are relevant to the original post in this thread, a question of which person-of-interest and group irrationalities/biases are to be sanctioned here for the sake of making certain posters more comfortable.

Upvoted because I appreciate Alicorn's efforts and would like to hear additional rational presentations of views in the same neighborhood as her's.

I would bet I also upvoted some of the comments Alicorn is referring to as comments that perpetuate the problem.

As a long-time female lurker on LW, encountering this post convinced me to finally make an account. I suppose it is a bittersweet post -- good news: there are LWers who care about this, bad news: there are LWers who don't -- but it worked to get me to comment here, anyways. I hope that the community has improved since. Thank you!

Girly username? "Alicorn" strikes me as pretty gender-neutral. The first mental image that popped into my mind before I learned about your gender, ironically, was a male, although not decidedly masculine, fantasy elf.

But yes, invisibility is a common problem online. I don't myself assign any prior probabilities to any given person online being a certain gender, unless the community is explicitly designated, for example, as "meant for women". But many communicate from a "male as default" standpoint, and maybe the only real way to combat it is to balance the gender ratio to a critical mass at which point that kind of prior simply becomes useless.

x

I've tried to avoid being the 'feminism police' around here too, despite apparently having a stronger background in it than you do. I'll try to pay more attention.

This is perhaps an obvious case of "don't be rude or marginalize any groups" that seems like a good rule for inclusivity. But it is worth bringing these things to attention specifically; the places where people are often biased are worth being reminded of.

Sweeping generalizations about women, if they are not backed up by overwhelming hard data (responsibly gathered and interpreted).

Sorry if this has already been said, but, to quote a friend, what would constitute a sweeping generalization varies widely. Some people would read this as being close to equivalent to saying 'Don't use heuristics when dealing with stuff related to women', which is impossible and imposes major costs. You can't engage in discussions if you're not allowed to use heuristics.

First of all I must say that I do not know if there is in fact a problem on LW, and it is not my goal to definitely say so, I only ask for introspection. There are not enough women on this site to make a proper analysis of how the (obvious) male orientation of some language used generates negative sentiment. However, I think that the simple fact that one person thinks there is a problem is a big indicator of a problem. It takes a great deal of courage (or, I admit, contrariness) to go against an established group consensus, and as far as I can tell, alicorn is not prone to the second. Humans have a tendency to feel protective of in groups, which may account for alicorn's feelings, but the same goes for the men who feel she is overreacting.

I have spent a great deal of time attempting to figure out whether or not I am sexist. All I can say for certain is that I am able to avoid certain very egregious examples of it. Eliezer recently asked what systemic biases prevent humans from ever seeing really obvious things. I must ask if the men in the audience can be certain that they aren't making a similar mistake. Most people are unaware of many biases and will defend their misconceptions even when provoked.

To conclude my plea for introspection I will state a fact then ask a few questions. At least one woman is offended by examples of sexism on LW. Is it okay to offend anyone? If it is not your intent to offend, is it your responsibility to not offend or the responsibility of your audience to not be offended?

I am not female, and I find some of the language and PUA-related content here to be extremely off-putting. If you really want to refine the art of seduction, I would suggest reading Greene; this blog, on the other hand, is for refining the art of rationality.

On PUAs:

Originally, I had a long rant I had typed out in a fury after reading some of the posts on the previously linked, "Roissy in DC" PUA blog.

My comments were originally directed towards some of the irrationalities and inadequacies present within the rhetoric of greater PUA and "Pump-&Dump" culture. But as I continued to write, I found that I wasn't able to separate my own biases against the PUA rhetoric and convey my comments rationally.

So I figured it may be best to just sum up a few of my thoughts on the matter in the hopes that they will stimulate discussion...

• It seems that PUA culture desires to coerce and/or skip the evolutionary and traditionally inspired courtship processes in order to obtain sexual favor with women without providing longterm co-commitment and benefit for them.

• Many PUA-aspirants and celebrity PUAs within the sub-culture seem themselves to be very unfulfilled personally despite attempting to appear as the modern equivalents to most worthy provider and Alpha Male. The behaviors they seek to emulate and display usually come after many years [and possibly generations] of hard work in the internal building of personhood, reputation, competency and external social capital & physical/monetary capital. [Which are extremely hard to fake after a certain stage in courtship.]

• Many of the examples of traditional Alpha Males that PUAs use to demonstrate their points such as Tribe Leaders, Kings, Historical Celebrities, etc. are actually examples of the previously listed concept .... Individuals who spent years obtaining their internal and external fulfillments or inherited them from lineages that spent years doing so, giving them the potential to access many mates. [I.E. Their personhood and fiefdoms were built through hardwork and dedication, not through witty social tricks and routines.

• Just observationally, it would seem that the "goal" of a lot of PUAs is to become an Alpha Male via the building of self-esteem through sexual conquests. This in itself seems to be a philosophy of short-sighted seeking pleasure over long-term internal and external growth. Wouldn't it be better to teach men who feel unfulfilled methods that are conducive to lifelong satisfaction and prosperity past the stage where their sexual libido is in full swing? [Even though I know full well that some men would be happy enough dying after some few years of wide access to many sexual partners.]

• Many PUA Celebrities seem to be extremely condescending of any views, lifestyles and agendas that don't mesh with their own. [PUA-culture infighting amongst PUA celebrities is rampant... But this may be due more than fighting over paying followers and ego more than doctrine.]

Once again, just a few points that I hope may stimulate conversation.

[EDIT]:

To be even more succinct, I suppose I am alarmed at how much the PUA sub-culture and PUA-like ideas on women, courtship, relationships and sex are spreading within the mainstream young pop-culture circuit here in the U.S.

This fear is probably a result of my deeply-held suspicion that the formula for finding a worthy and desirable mate is in building self-confidence, a stable fiefdom [home, property, financial status] and possessing traits that are desirable in the long-term...

Not treating the act of finding a mate as a game in which the perceived "WINNING OF" has no extended consequences on you or your "mate". [Or in which you have no consideration for the effects the rules you play by in this game have on your "mate".]

I will admit that I see a few aspects of PUA philosophy as having merit... Specifically the deconstruct of the "Alpha Male" persona and the compromises and negotiations that American caucasian [PUA culture seems to chiefly be aimed towards and molded around this cultural category] men and women engage in when courting and mating.

But the means in which these observations are implemented... It all seems to build an individual towards style without any substance.

I upvoted because I agree on the meta level that it would be nice to have more diversity of ideas in this and most other communities. And I read all of the comments, so it obviously triggered a discussion that interested me.

I agree with Robin, however, that generalizations need not be prohibited--that is going too far. However, generalizations should whenever possible be made falsifiable.

I don't think any of the comments you cited warrant going meta, but I can certainly understand why discussion of picking up physically attractive women might annoy you. Presumably there are more appropriate forums for that.

I've been annoyed at people who grab attention by strutting/flirting in what should be a nonsexual context, but upon reflection, I've decided that usually such disapproval is best kept to oneself.

Downvoted due to trying to shame people into obedience to your norms and complete misunderstanding of what PUA is about.

Disclaimer is definitely off-putting. It comes off as implying that you consider criticism to be unwelcome. I can understand the desire to exclude unreasonable people from the conversation, but posting a sign, "No idiots allowed" doesn't accomplish that. It may discourage people who disagree with you from posting, but only because they will assume from the disclaimer that you've made up your mind and that it is therefore not worth their time talking to you. This will occur independently of how intelligent their feedback is, in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some reverse selection here where the people who make low effort criticisms will comment anyway, but those who would make more intelligent criticisms won't find it worth their time.

An Alicorn:

Also, I think we should be persons before humans before genders before races before cultures, at least morally. Notice how each category is smaller than the preceding.

Honestly, I am probably a feminist. I see the problem of, say, difference in wages, between genders, but also how (here in Denmark at least) magically passing the 18 year line increases the wage you can rightfully demand. A 16yo can stock shelves just as well as a 19yo, thank you, that doesn't mean the 16yo should get ~9 euros/hour and the 19yo twice that. Similarly, but subtler, managers tend to be subconsciously biased in deciding who to give wages, in ways that because of the sate of affairs result in gender imbalances. This is just as unfair, but much harder to fix.

I do know that humanity has oppressed half it's population for a long freaking time, which is a reason I don't tolerate Abrahamic religions. That is bad, but it is the past, and so we fix the mistakes in the now. I live in a country that had gender debate driven ad nauseam by crazy feminazis in the 1970's, that is just reversed stupidity.

Foremost my conclusion is that the world is fucked up. When, say, women can no longer reasonably call themselves oppressed, I'll probably stop rooting for them.

"If you are prone to dismissing women's complaints of gender-related problems as the women being whiny, emotionally unstable girls who see sexism where there is none, this post is unlikely to interest you."

The above does not apply to me per se, but this post neverthless doesn't interest me for its content. The poster of this article certainly looks like an immature feminist who is incapable of separating rational inquiry and the asking of hard questions, when they get close to her value system. 

 I have found Anna's posts way more mature and tackling issues and hard questions with sensible arguments instead of holding a long list of taboo topics and crying foul when anyone ever talks bluntly about them. Similar is the case with other girls that I know of. I particularly recall Robin Hanson's post regarding applying an SAT score correction factor to factor in the prior information of greater variance in the performance of men (which would lead to removing a few points from the high scoring women). While there were mindless argument by immature feminists crying foul, instead of addressing the math, I thought Anna's follow up post detailing how the prior knowledge of variance differences becomes less and less consequential with multiple SAT trials whose scores are averaged or when SAT is coupled with other pieces of information, was extremely insightful.

Anyway, the girl that's posting this article seems only 20 and has plenty of time to grow up. :-) I am hoping that exposure to these politically incorrect communities for enough time will ensure that she "grows up" in a couple of years and fearlessly asks and investigates hard questions and acknowledges uncomfortable realities rather than allow clear thought to be constantly muddied by political sensibilities. Good luck!

Well said.

Obligatory XKCD link.

What percentage of the posts exhibit these problems, would you estimate (or just guess)? Thanks.

ETA, it might well be that potential female contributors would find themselves drawn to topics which are more likely to lead to sexist discussions.

I didn't vote for Hilary Clinton in the primary.

I am not American, but still I had the impression that, as a white male, if I had rooted for Obama some people would have called me sexist and if I had rooted for Clinton some people would have called me racist. (Not that I gave a damn about that -- IIRC I rooted for Obama for reasons not directly related to his opponent's gender, which is enough to count as non-sexist by my definition.)

::clicks links::

Wow, I go away to Otakon for a 3-day weekend and LW decides to go throw a flame war. (And my very old grandmother is sitting on our couch refusing to go home, but that's not relevant to the discussion here.)

What the hell, LWers?

::sigh::

Don't make me take matters into my own hands.

OB/LW readers/writers are overwhelmingly male. If men and women have different perceptions of gender bias in writing, which seems overwhelmingly likely, the fact that a woman (who is by no means confrontational or overly outspoken on this topic) feels this issue is worth a top-level post seems like strong evidence that e should worry about it.

Sexism is our anosognosia?

How about using LW to collect the data to answer this question?

For example by introducing tags to mark comments as sexist/racist/otherwise offensive, and few months period to collect data.

After that period there could be another thread to analyze the data and collectively decide how to continue?

If you are prone to dismissing women's complaints of gender-related problems as the women being whiny, emotionally unstable girls who see sexism where there is none, this post is unlikely to interest you.

The above does not apply to me per se, but this post neverthless doesn't interest me for its content. The poster of this article certainly looks like an immature feminist who is incapable of separating rational inquiry and the asking of hard questions, when they get close to her value system.

I have found Anna's posts way more mature and tackling issues and hard questions with sensible arguments instead of holding a long list of taboo topics and crying foul when anyone ever talks bluntly about them. Similar is the case with other girls that I know of. I particularly recall Robin Hanson's post regarding applying an SAT score correction factor to factor in the prior information of greater variance in the performance of men (which would lead to removing a few points from the high scoring women). While there were mindless argument by immature feminists crying foul, instead of addressing the math, I thought Anna's follow up post detailing how the prior knowledge of variance differences becomes less and less consequential with multiple SAT trials whose scores are averaged or when SAT is coupled with other pieces of information, was extremely insightful.

Anyway, the girl that's posting this article seems only 20 and has plenty of time to grow up. :-) I am hoping that exposure to these politically incorrect communities for enough time will ensure that she "grows up" in a couple of years and fearlessly asks and investigates hard questions and acknowledges uncomfortable realities rather than allow clear thought to be constantly muddied by political sensibilities. Good luck!

 I however absolutely detest lying or soft peddling the truth or refraining from asking hard and important questions, simply because they affect some people's political sensibilities. I have little regard for such political sensibilities that subvert the quest for the truth. 

 So yes, a woman who complains of sexual harassment in the workplace is not one I would characterize as whiny; a woman who claims that Larry Summers's talk was sexist is certainly one I would characterize as whiny and finding sexism where there is none.

I hope I've made my point clear.

So, was searching "Jezebel" on Lesswrong after seeing that one reddit poster who posted a comment got featured on that site. Then searched "Jezebel" on LW and got here.

A few things I'd like to address, despite this article being rather old:

1. Most important of all, actually. Have your view changed? Because otherwise, I'm afraid the answers I'll be getting will be somewhat different, at least that's what I feel when I think about it. If you have a quality record of Alicorn 2009 then it would be nice but Alicorn 2015 is fine too (sorry, I know how women fret over how old they are)

2. Can you say what makes this post any better than any other post about women saying they feel uncomfortable? This post seems quite generic. I've seen women do this sometimes and it's always the same thing, almost as if they're saying they want to be treated better. It's okay, but at the same time there's many things involved. Are you sure your feeling is the same as what other people feel? I personally do not feel any reason to treat you any better than other posters. But I really do wonder if there's some phenomenon that women suffer some sort of self-discrimination, or maybe inadequetness. Have you ever felt like that?

3. There was supposed to be a question here, but I decided PM is a better way to do it. Despite how amusing a flamewar on an old thread sounds like.

4. Have you ever thought that it cannot be changed? And if it could be changed, your method is ineffective? SPOILER ALERT: I'm male, and only 160cm tall (5'3 for you imperialists) and I can't say I'm perfectly fine with my height. You probably never thought of how it feels to see so many women who are either taller than you naturally or taller than you once they put their heels on. This doesn't feel nice. You might say I'm comparing your (or the female hive-mind, or whatever else) uneasiness to mine, but I'm short enough that it heppens almost too much. Now, there are clear differences between us. I guess we can let it slide for one person. An exception, and not the rule, or whatever. But at the same time, this isn't the first time I see this and probably not the last. Certainly the first time on a place where rational discussion is encoureged more than others, but when you see somme things happen in a variety of places you just have to wonder what's really behind it other than "this and that repeating patterns". And back to the first two sentences.. I personally cannot cut all women 10cm in height (that would only compensate for the heels anyway) the same way as you cannot alter, artificially or naturally or in any other way how men behave. You can say you're feeling uncomfortable all day, but I doubt you do it. I do honestly feel that my height isn't satisfactory quite often. But will crying (and yes, I don't care for your first paragraph at this point) about any of those two things solve them in even a fraction of them? No. You can only make your presence known here and if you feel attached to this pace as you say you are, recruit some more women here and ruin the equilbrium, or whatever you'd think makes sense (women, making sense, haha!). The same way as the only way I can stand out (oh, the irony) is to make better jokes, to dress better, to have more money or more impressive skills or whatever. You do not start at the goal; you work yourself there with great effort and tsuyoku naritai. Can you eat fruit and see flowers blooming without even planting a seed? There is no logic there. So now back to the original questions. Do you think it can be changed? And if so, do you think you're doing it the right way? I'll expand a bit on the second question at question number 6.

5. Have you ever felt those gender wars to be silly? Maybe I'm too selfish to consider other views but sometimes I can't help but think "these views are dumb and your ignorance is absolutely not as good as my knowledge". Again, I wouldn't discriminate or anything because the other person is a woman. But I often see women doing XYZ. Is it offensive to say "oh, women" when I see XYZ? Now that's stupid. Once again, I treat people as individuals, I have nothing more to say other than "don't shoot me because I'm not in your yard".

6. I say posts like these aren't really the way to do it. Why? Because it makes me feel like "shh, there's women in the room, you can't say that" and now that's bad for rational discussion. For general social gatherings it's okay though. But not on LW or any place that emphasizes rationality. Nobody said rationality is gender-bound either. I don't care for research nor ancedentals or whatever. No flowers without seeds. You cannot come in to a man-dominated community and just say "I'm a woman, this and that topics aren't very comfortable for me to see, please don't talk about them, mmkay?". It's already too straining to think that if you make some silly remark or make a mistake or whatever some Lesswrong Police Departmant Officer Psuedkowsky would be there to eat me alive. Well, that's an exaggeration but you don't want to appear too dumb in places where intellect is valued. Wouldn't want Miss Alisoccer to bat me in the head, either. Bottom line: I think you're doing what you want to do the wrong way. What do you think?

PSA: I'm posting this only because you've been particularly nice on me on IRC. You can ignore this message or whatever if you want, I'm sure some other poor soul will take arms in the illusionary gender wars and as usual, die on the battlefield of a zero-sum shootout. P/S/A/2: I might be a little bit biased after seeing so much "women in tech" bullcrap. You're also free to ask me anything you'd wanna know if you think it would clear the fog up a bit. P//S//A//III: I'm reading the comments and looking for some new ammo for my next fight in the gender wars.

I'd support this entirely, were it not for the bit

"Casual use of masculine and/or heteronormative examples in posts and comments that aren't explicitly about gender. It's just not that hard to come up with an unsexed example. Be especially careful when using the second person. If you need to use an example with a gender, there's no reason to consider male the default - consider choosing randomly, or you could use a real person as an example (who isn't presumed to archetypically represent anyone in the audience) instead of a hypothetical one (who might be)."

English evolved in a time period, predominatly ruled over by men. Hence, the default term is: "Mankind", "Man", and the default, when gender is uncertain, is to use "Man", "Him", or derivatives of such.

The others I can support. Objectification of anyone is an insult to thier intelligence, heck, even thier sapience. Sweeping generalizations about anyone are just that. Generalizations. Just as statistics are meaningless when applied on an individual level, so are generalizations, and men, please support me in this when I say: True pick up 'artists' know that each woman is a unique challange in and of herself. There may be certain techniques that may affect a large slice of the demographic, but even then, if you attempt to apply them without extensive knowledge of the subject, more often than not, you fall flat on your face. Even peeling oranges cannot always be done in the exact same manner, and women are far, [b]far[/b] more complex than mere fruit. Any who challange this, I respond with a challange of my own. Choose a pick up line. Any line at all. Go to a diverse number of clubs on multiple nights, and try it on enough women to provide statistical rigor, then come back here and try to tell me that it has a success margin wide enough to even be [i]considered.[/i]