This is an important and well-written article that succinctly exposes the history and mechanisms of sexism in the industry. How once software became a valued profession a complex of obstacles at the cultural and professional level were put in place to change its composition from primarily women to men.
It is also a damning indictment of the HN community. It is clear this post has suffered a campaign of down voting. Every comment that is positive toward the article, even just summarizing its content, has been downvoted. By the time I finished reading it it had disappeared off the front page entirely.
Meanwhile, many of the comments merely state anecdotal experiences and armchair theories reinforcing why men end up dominating the field, while entirely ignoring the content of the article.
There are clearly some high-karma men aggressively censoring this topic. I hope this article makes it back onto the front page because it's really worth a read by our whole community -- even if you disagree.
> It is also a damning indictment of the HN community. It is clear this post has suffered a campaign of down voting. Every comment that is positive toward the article, even just summarizing its content, has been downvoted. By the time I finished reading it it had disappeared off the front page entirely.
I don't know for sure, obviously, but based on the patterns I've casually observed on HN in the past, I suspect this article was flagged not because it promotes a male-blaming POV, but because the anti-male-blaming types seem to be winning the arguments in the comments.
And on topics as polarizing as this one, I suspect that every comment, on either side, gets some number of downvotes and upvotes. It's the countering effect of the upvotes that keep them from getting killed.
Personally, I upvote a lot more than I downvote, and I routinely upvote posts I disagree with if it appears they were made in good faith and some thought was put into them, but are nonetheless suffering a lot of downvotes.
It is also a damning indictment of the HN community. It is clear this post has suffered a campaign of down voting. Every comment that is positive toward the article, even just summarizing its content, has been downvoted. By the time I finished reading it it had disappeared off the front page entirely.
Meanwhile, many of the comments merely state anecdotal experiences and armchair theories reinforcing why men end up dominating the field, while entirely ignoring the content of the article.
There are clearly some high-karma men aggressively censoring this topic. I hope this article makes it back onto the front page because it's really worth a read by our whole community -- even if you disagree.