daenerys comments on Call for Anonymous Narratives by LW Women and Question Proposals (AMA) - Less Wrong
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Question Submissions
Feel free to ask questions you would like answered by the women of LW as a response to this comment.
Remember, Crocker's Rules will apply for the answers, and one question per comment, please!
Would you be interested in having regular "Woman Oriented" threads (such as this one)? If so, how often? I'll set a range from once per month, to once per year.
(My experience is that every time a rationalist gathering becomes at least 50% female, conversation inevitably turns to Optimal Bras (braspace is large, and the optimal choice is highly situational.) or BC.)
I feel no need for women oriented threads, myself. However, I feel it's really important to work out dating and gender ratio issues. We've needed an open line of communication about that for a long time. As far as timing is concerned, why make it scheduled? Say something good when you have something good to say.
Didn't see this before, but I would like that. It looks like it's not that popular from the upvotes to wedrifid's comment below, but perhaps people wouldn't have a problem with, e.g. once every six months?
Voted up because it was a reasonable question. I don't think it needed to be voted down as though it was a campaign.
Oh please no! Don't institutionalize gender drama. Women may make use of the fact that they also happen to be real people and write what they want to say in the "open thread" that is already created once a month. If their sex happens for some reason to be relevant to what they wish to say they can make note of it in the comment in the same way that people can write about their nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation or hair colour.
In discussions such as these, how do you prefer that the community refers to its female members? Do you like when female community members are called "women"? "girls"? "females"? Do you actively dislike any of these options? What is your opinion on gender-neutral pronouns, and what do you use for the third-person-singular-neuter? I'm also interested in any other observations you've had on the linguistics of gender.
When guys use the word "girls", it makes me wonder if they're teenagers who still spend most of their time with girls. "Females" reminds me of scientific studies... I use it myself if "women" doesn't fit, but due to the association with test subjects, it sounds a bit dehumanizing at times. I like "women" best.
I don't like that we have to use gender pronouns so often, and I wish we had something that never sounded awkward and fit every circumstance. When being gender neutral, I use they/them/their, and may jam them in even if they sound a little off.
On a related note, I generally either use the neutral form of the word, or put a note about how even though I used the masculine form I don't like patriarchy. It's just sometimes a hassle to neuter everything, and I like going with the tradition of using the masculine form because I've already internalized it. But I don't want it to feel like I'm overlooking women's concerns.
Anyone here dislike that?
I've found that it's possible to avoid gendered pronouns with a little work. You may find that practice helps.
If they can't be avoided there's always "he or she", possibly alternated with "she or he".
For what it's worth, I don't like male as the default human. It's very far from the worst thing ever, but I recommend avoiding it.
The singular "they" is grammatically correct and requires less effort than "he or she" or alternating "he" and "she".
The generic "she" isn't gender-nuetral, but I think it's fine to use when everyone else is using the generic "he". Like affirmative action for pronouns. I usually use "they", but whenever I see an animal and I don't know it's gender I call it a "she". Because most people will call the animal "he" and I want to counter-act that.
So, specifically, if I used the masculine form but then also put down a note about how I don't like patriarchy, would you would still feel bad or think I'm supporting bad assumptions? The note thing is what I generally do in the status quo, and what requires the least effort on my part.
I can understand if you would still feel bad, I just wanted to make sure you saw the note caveat I mentioned because you didn't mention anything about it in your comment.
I actually either missed the note caveat, or else didn't mention it because I don't think that sort of note helps.
The thing is, I still have a mental habit of seeing male as default human-- I'm not just hoping to get rid of that in my own mind, I'd really prefer it if the meme of male as default human isn't spread.
I tend to prefer women. "Girls" often feels a bit demeaning, especially when contrasted with "men" or "guys".
"Females" sounds like somebody's trying to lend their remark a little too much apparently-biological weight.
I like gender-neutral pronouns when they're handy, for people who want them, or for the generic case. I used to be a bit mixed on which one sounded good for just general conversation, but after reading the Eclipse Phase RPG I pretty much stopped having any sympathy for the idea that "singular they" is awkward. It flows very well for me and sounds quite natural, and it's a common term in English so there's no trouble with inflecting it.
They, them, their.
It's problematic that there isn't really an age-indeterminate female pronoun to act as a counterpart to "guys," since a not-insignificant fraction of our members are still in their teens.
What about 'gals'? While it's technically just a form of "girls", it's used contextually similarly to "guys".
Only when it's used at all, which is far less often than 'guys'. Yes, it's true that it's a distaff counterpart to 'guys', but so is 'dolls', and would you seriously propose unironic usage of 'dolls'?
I suppose that is indeed a word that exists. Having grown up in the Northeastern U.S., it's not really part of my active vocabulary.
"Women" and "females" are both fine for me. The worst thing is when men are referred to as "men", and women are referred to as "girls" in the same discussion. No.
"Girls" is only ok when referring to children, or in very casual use to refer to a group of female friends. i.e. "Hey, going out with the girls tonight?", or if the male pronoun in that situation would be "boys" or "guys".
If a discussion is going on about gender, as long as no one uses "girls", I don't like when someone brings up "Hey, you should use the term "women" instead of "females"" (or vice versa). It reads as just another way to get the discussion off-track from the important issues.
I have a purely idiosyncratic, aesthetic distaste for the words "women" and "men", so I use "girls" and "guys", occasionally "boys", sometimes "males" and "females", if I'm being a little silly "dude" and "lady". I do sometimes use "women" and "men" when talking in a more formal register.
I like Spivak pronouns when talking about specific gender-unknown individuals where "they" is ambiguous or strange-sounding.
I hate being mispronouned. (I wouldn't mind if someone Spivaked me, but I'd then inform them of my gender.) I hate it even more when people think I'm being ridiculous for hating it.
In general, I prefer "women". If it's a far view discussion, then "females" is ok with me as long as it's paralleled by "males". I don't like "girls" being used to refer to adult women.
I use the singular "they". I don't mind invented pronouns. I get annoyed at male pronouns used to refer to people in general and still get startled at female pronouns used to refer to people in general.
What tricks do you use to control yourself while tripping when you dont have people you trust to help you? I have a inkling that the reason I have a harder time teaching role play control to girls is somewhat to do with gender roles but insofar I've failed at deducing why.
To learn how to trip more safely and more productively I highly recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeutic-Journeys/dp/1594774021
I have no idea what "role play control" is. The whole mindset of "tricks" to "control" yourself is generally counterproductive for tripping. Instead one should do their best to ensure a good set and setting, have a sitter and then "let go" and make themselves open to the experience.
I like letting go completely, but I have tricks in case I need to use them in dire scenarios. For instance my friend henri was thought looping quite badly a couple of weeks ago. I was able to get him on a bike and moving and calmed him down almost immediately due to his large muscle memory in that regard. Role play control is just a fancy way of getting someone into a familiar role while they are in an unfamiliar mental state to help them relax and let go. I have trip sat many times sober and many times while tripping on low doses and each time I have found it easier to help people with overly intense experiences using that technique. The last time I completely let go on a trip I was on ~5g of mushies and I thought I was having a heart attack at one point but it was quite enlightening and I experienced ego-loss like never before. I can definitely support the mindset of ensuring a good set in setting I just also accept the occasional need for dealing with people tripping too hard to be quiet.
I don't do a lot of role-playing, don't know what tripping is (though I can guess) and don't know why someone would need to trust someone to help with it.
Basically... You dont need someone you trust until you start doubting yourself and losing control. Role-playing is just a technique of letting your body play a role instead of losing that control. Thanks for the response :)
The unbalanced gender ratio in the atheist/skeptic/rationalist spheres (and the science/programming spheres, more generally) has negative effects on both genders. Women may feel objectified and marginalized, while men may feel romantically frustrated and hopeless. These reactions can lead to mutually defeating behavior. Typical responses - for women, abandoning those spheres; for men, acting inappropriately toward women - only widen the gender divide and make the problems worse.
I am interested in working toward better outcomes for both genders. My question for the women of LW is this: what specific advice do you have, for either gender, that you think will improve the situation? How confident are you that your advice will be helpful, and on what evidence do you base that confidence?
I have evidence-based insight into the gender ratio issue. Although it is not a solution, I think it will help everyone understand the problem better.
I have some unpleasant news which is related to IQ (and LessWrong has a higher than average IQ according to the member surveys). There's something up with genetics and intelligence that goes like this (references included): Although men's and women's IQs are the same on average, there are far more gifted men than women. The explanation is that high intelligence is due to a mutation. Men are more affected by mutations. Therefore they are about twice as likely to get both beneficial and detrimental intelligence mutations, which is why they are unbalanced for gifted populations but even out in population averages. "Diseases inherited in an X-linked recessive pattern mostly affect males, because a second X chromosome usually protects females from showing symptoms." (From: How Are Genetic Disorders Inherited?) See also: Mensa's demographics page where they report a 33% female : 66% male ratio (for the top 2% in IQ).
I've heard it reported by people with very high IQs that the higher the IQ range, the worse the gap is. This may be true if higher IQs require multiple mutations.
If refining rationality, science, etc. or the specific forms of these that interest LW members tend to appeal most to people with high IQs, this ratio is probably, unfortunately, going to affect groups like these whatever you do. Of course, if the male to female ratio is 2:1 in Mensa (unsure what their average IQ is, just that the minimum is the top 2%) this means there's probably room for improvement. However, short of genetic engineering or brain implants, the gender ratio problem is likely to persist for high IQ groups like this even if a perfect strategy was used for making women feel more comfortable.
If the important thing is to be able to have children one day, then creating or using a service for finding intelligent women who are willing to have children for others would be one way.
Another idea might be encouraging women to work extra hard to refine their rational thinking skills, explaining that they'll interest more intelligent men that way. As we know, women can be picky and they tend to have a preference for intelligence. If they know that smart guys are looking for rational women, some of them may devote attention to it the way that many women currently devote attention to hair and make-up. Not all women will be interested, and it won't solve the incompatibilities that IQ differences cause, but it may help bridge gaps that aren't too great and lead to there being more female rationalists.
I feel that addressing the "creepiness" issues could go a long way to get interested women interacting more. Nerdy men are definitely my type but I'm often put off by their behavior. I'd like to date more, but the behaviors I describe here are disheartening, so I'm not nearly as motivated as I could be. Understanding women better is a great first step. I'm glad to see that the guys are looking into what's going on.
Unfortunately, I can't provide you advice or evidence and don't know that anybody can - I'm not aware of any projects or experiments to specifically try to increase the number of females in a male dominated social group.
To clarify, I asked for evidence-based advice in order to avoid the useless platitudes that are usually offered in such situations. Bad advice is worse than no advice at all. I appreciate your honesty on the subject.
For women: you have a great deal of control over how other people react to you. You can take some responsibility for how you are perceived.
personal anecdote: I'm a female maths undergrad, and most of my social circle is male. First term there I concentrated on making friends, so I adopted casual, unisex clothing styles. I attracted male attention only when I dressed in a stereotypically girly way for fancy dress parties and social events.
Second term I was on a mate hunt, so I overhhauled my wardrobe and started wearing skirts and behaving in a mate-attracting way. According to my now OH, that's when he "realised I was a girl".
So basically if you don't want men to view you as a potential mate, it's helpful to not act like one. Think hoodies and ill-fitting jeans. And if you have got attracting mates in the back of your mind, and your body language shows it, then you shouldn't be surprised if men notice you.
Second piece of advice for women where it applies: tracking your menstrual cycle is the easiest first step towards luminosity. Different hormones induce different kinds of bias, and also prompt changes in body language and attitude, which may cause people to react differently. The effects can then be harnessed or corrected for.
This is an overgeneralization. There are ways to improve the odds, but no guarantees.
Agreed and edited.
Another problem that I can see is that if I dress in attractive clothes and start dating someone, they might not want me to start dressing in unflattering clothes after we start dating (esp if looking like a girl is part of what attracted them to me). I either have to disappoint my new partner and wear baggy clothes, or to continue wearing flattering clothes and continue to deal with guys perceiving me as available.
ETA: I tend to go for guys who have a sense of style (not always, but often) and I'd be disappointed it they started wearing baggy jeans and hoodies because "now I have a girlfriend I don't have to make an effort."
There are other ways of deflecting male attention. If you're at a social event alone, instead of signaling 'I am not a potential mate', you could signal 'I am in a monogamous relationship and my boyfriend is higher status than you'. It's a bit harder, and I'm still working on it, but certainly possible.
It's more frustrating for the guys though.
I'm curious what would signal this. If I can't interpret these kind of signals then I'm in trouble.
A very expensive ring on your left fourth finger/heart-shaped jewel hanging from your necklace/etc.?
boyfriend != husband
So what? Some dating-but-not-married-nor-engaged couples wear such jewellery too. EDIT: and if you forgo the ''is higher-status than you'' part (which for certain values of ''status'' would mean you come off as a gold-digger) you don't even need it to be very expensive, and even a picture of the two of you kissing as the wallpaper on your mobile phone would suffice. (If they know you know they know you have a boyfriend --even if he's not higher-status than them-- and they hit on you anyway, they lose plausible deniability all the same.) EDIT 2: On reading chaosmosis again, I realize it's a male and he's asking about how to find out if a woman has a boyfriend. If so, the answer is ''You ask them.''
Erm, there are obvious ways of doing it. I tend to just drop my boyfriend into conversation as often as it is appropriate, and make sure I mention him in contexts such as "oh he's really good at such-and-such".
Okay, that seems obvious now that you've mentioned it. I started to try to think of all these abstract things, and I could only think of maybe showing off jewelry that was supposed to imply you're in a relationship. I was thinking about more subtle things, and I couldn't really think of anything, so I was wondering if maybe I was just missing something.
I tend to prefer to wear flattering clothes, whether looking for a partner or not, because they make me feel more comfortable/confident. It's possible to wear clothes that are flattering, but not sexy, I think. Maybe I need to work on this more.
It depends on what you mean by flattering. If you want to emphasise a feminine figure, then that's always going to be sexy I'm afraid, so you'll probably want a different approach for deflecting male attention. You can, however, get well-fitted jackets, shirts etc in good materials that don't cinch in at the waist, and trousers cut straight to deemphasise the rear if you merely wanted good quality clothes. Look for the androgynous style fashions from the last couple of years.
For a female? No, it really is not. But just in case I misunderstand what you mean, care to tell the difference between flattering and sexy? Or link to a couple of pictures of each type and we can let the males here provide feedback on whether what you consider simply flattering is also sexy.
One classic example of flattering but not sexy is coloration that suits you - if you have fair skin, blue-green eyes and salt and pepper hair, a light grey and sage green jacket is going to be flattering, but can range freely from not sexy to sexy.
Not sure of this. A large, colourful wool sweater can be flattering for certain women, but it's not particularly sexy (in my eyes at least).
I'm not confident of it - I'd like it to be possible! I think workwear (suits etc) is probably the closest thing to it, but even that's often made quite sexy.
I share your dreams of living in a should-universe :)
Mostly I'd like to have a solution that doesn't involve me having to wear uncomfortable and unflattering clothes :)!
Comfortable is easy, comfortable but flattering is harder, comfortable, flattering but not sexy is harder still. Also, I suspect that when women say "comfortable", they often mean something other than what straight guys mean by the same term. For example, many women would say that wearing basic sweats and a hoodie in public is uncomfortable.
Sorry, I meant "clothes that I feel uncomfortable in," not "clothes that are physically uncomfortable." I would feel uncomfortable/less confident in sweats and a hoodie. I appreciate it was the wrong choice of words.
Um, high heels?
This strategy makes a lot of sense, but I wonder whether it's applicable to professional settings. Jeans and a hoodie don't just signal nongirliness; they also signal casualness. Does anyone know of equivalently gender-neutral clothes that are appropriate for formal settings? Or is it unnecessary because the formality prevents people from making unwanted advances anyway?
I don't have much experience of professional settings, but from my knowledge of women's clothing: you can get tailored shirts in fairly male cuts and straight-leg trousers or long skirts that don't hug the figure. I'd imagine one would be received differently for wearing a very modest shirt and trousers combo vs a v-neck blouse and pencil skirt.
In most places, I think it's now acceptable for women to wear a tuxedo for black tie, if you go to that kind of thing and feel that cocktail dresses attract too much attention. Alternatively, keep a modest dress in your wardrobe.
It's worth mentioning that even in quite progressive circles, women in traditionally male-style suits tends to cross into that transgressive genderfuck aesthetic. There are a small but significant number of men and women who are really into that, and as a result I imagine this plan would backfire quite badly.
Right, ok. The question is then if these people are sufficiently less common and/or less annoying than men who give unwanted attention to feminine women to make it a worthwhile plan for avoiding attention nonetheless. The exist many situations where there are a significant number of people who react in a way that might be considered undesirable to feminine women.
Also, if breaking out of gendered roles is a big problem in some workplaces, there are ways to dress very modestly while still looking feminine.
I'm not suggesting the general idea of dressing gender-neutral isn't a good one; I am largely un-knowledgeable on the subject and can't really comment on that aspect of it. But a woman wearing a suit in a cut traditionally for men carries connotations a naive wearer may not be aware of.
It's a bit like wearing a collar. It has a specific meaning in BDSM subculture, and signals membership to that group. Someone naively wearing a collar is going to get a lot of unwanted attention at a social gathering. Wearing a suit isn't quite that specific, and doesn't belong to a specific subculture, but if your goal is to not have people come up to you and start talking about sex, it's going to fail in a whole bunch of ways.
Ah right, I see what you're saying there. I have loose women's jeans and I have men's jeans and agree that the implications are rather different.
In this instance I was intending to convey the "modest, but nevertheless womens" trouser suit, as exemplied in these links, rather than "a suit that looks like a mens suit".
What prompted me to respond was the "tuxedo for black tie" comment. For business-formal, there's obviously a variety of tasteful and subdued options. I don't believe there's such a thing as gender-neutral evening wear.
For men: Consider the women in the subculture "male for all social purposes" and seek romantic interests elsewhere.
I am a girl and I approve of this suggestion. I'll also note that LW has been very good about this in all of my experiences here (discussion forum, IRC, and meetups IRL).
I've only ever seen one case of a man who'd previously had a rationalist mate going back to nonrationalist mates afterward. The reason why the gender skew of our culture is a mating problem for men is that once you go rationalist you don't go back.
"Go to the physics department, find a woman you consider attractive, point her at HPMOR, and see if anything develops" sounds like more useful advice to me.
For (straight) men who insist on dating externally, asking a woman whether she would prefer a certainty of $500 or a 15% chance at $1 million seems likely to be a surprisingly good filter on potential mates. I didn't believe it either as first, but I've verified that many women, and in at least one case a female grad-student doing advanced math homework, says she would rather have the $500; while every woman I've tested inside our community - regardless of her math/science/economics level or her ability to talk glibly about explicit rationality - takes the 15% chance at $1M with a puzzled look and 'Is this a trick question?'
If you really need the $500, why throw that away for a one-off, low odds chance for more? The first $500 almost certainly has greater marginal utility than the second, and possibly more than the next 1,999 put together. And that's assuming the offer is totally legit, which is not very rational.
Sure, if they're to starve (or freeze to death) within the month if not for this money, then certainly: accepting the bet would then become a 85% chance of death vs a 15% chance at a million. And rejecting a 85% chance of death is reasonable, even in the face of a 15% chance at a million.
But relatively very few of the people offered the choice would really be so much in need. There's no point in finding ways to excuse simple irrationality by bringing in extreme scenarios that would justify it in some implausible cases....
Simple irrationality would be taking the implausible scenario both seriously and at face value. A priori, the likelihood of someone honestly offering you money for nothing is extremely low, as is the likelihood that they even have a million dollars to give away. If you don't take the scenario seriously, it's just a case of guessing the teacher's password. If you do take it seriously, it would not be rational in most contexts take the offer at face value, in which case "$500 now" has about as a good an expected pay-off as any, and at least provides guaranteed evidence of the offer's legitimacy.
At this point you're just using pedantry to dismiss the very concept of hypothetical questions. The question is simple: What option you would take with the mentioned choices at hand as a given situation: Whether you'd prefer the certainty of 500 dollars or a 15% chance at 1 million.
As simple as that. You really don't have to estimate how unlikely you're to be given this option in reality. That's why it's called a "hypothetical" question.
And the question is likewise not about what you would do if you were in danger of starving to death. Just what you would do. You're free to offer a conditional response (e.g. "I'd choose the 15% chance at a million, except if I was dead broke and in danger of immediate starvation), but just claiming that all possible responses are equally valid, regardless of conditions, just won't fly.
I'm tapping out.
I would be curious to know how people answer given the opportunity to spend $500 on a $1M/15% lottery ticket.
That depends a lot on the nature of the lottery. If it was a typical lottery that for some reason had a 15% chance to win, a $500 ticket would not be worth it as all, since thousands of people would win and split the prize amongst themselves and the expected value would be much less than you would assume at first glance.
If it's just "spend $500 for a 15% chance of gaining a million," though, I'd take as many tickets as I could get!
Yes, that version seems much less problematic, and I think the average person might be in favor of buying infinity tickets.
I might actually not want to buy one. (When no loss is involved I take the chance at a million.) I might want to buy five, or go in together with several friends on one.
(instantaneous reflex activated)
What if I gave you $500, then asked you if you wanted to spend it on the ticket?
I'd also like to know whether some unexpected expense, like needing a $500 dental crown, would change your mind about accepting the free $500 instead of the free ticket.
If you gave me $500 and then immediately alerted me to the availability of a ticket you'd probably catch me before the $500 entered the "my money" mental bin, because I'd still be a little confused about why you randomly handed me $500 and expect to have to give it back.
Risks of medium-sized unexpected expenses like that are already factored into how conservative I am about handling money on this scale, so I don't think that would have an effect.
I have a (male) friend who answered $500 to this question. He teaches math (at the middle school level). It was a sad day.
Of course it's not just women! Women (outside the community, that is) are more likely to respond that way than men, but that's from a study on both risk aversion and hyperbolic discounting which showed that "Women can't take small risks and men are creatures of the now", with both effects diminishing as scores on the Cognitive Reflection Test increased.
I now wonder what would happen if I asked a man on the street to choose between $500 immediately or $1 million in 10 years (= 113% annual interest) - a version that extreme wasn't in the original study, just the extreme version of the risk-aversion Q. I wouldn't expect it to work, but then I wouldn't have expected it to work with risk aversion either!
I would expect that to depend a great deal on their confidence that you would in fact provide $1 million in ten years.
Likewise, the original question depends on their confidence that you're not overestimating/lying about the probability they will get the $1,000,000.
Yes. EY's introduction of "immediately" is what changes the equation for me.... I might well choose $500 in my hand right now over the promise of $1million in ten years, whereas I probably would not choose the promise of $500 in an hour over the promise of $1 million in ten years.
Would you also choose $1 million in ten years over $1000 in an hour?
And would you choose $1000 in an hour over $500 right now?
If the answer to both questions is yes (and I think both are reasonable) then we may have an example of circular preferences on our hands.
Single point of evidence- I would have to fight my inner self REALLY hard to choose the 15% chance at a million. (Inner turmoil!! Logic says Do Thing A, but I really Don't Want To!!).
OTOH, the million in ten years is intuitively obvious to me and choosing it would be what I would've done even PRE-rationality.
While I understand the sentiment, the physics department will not usually have a significantly higher volume of women than the local rationalist/etc. group.
As long as it's got at least one lady who hasn't already been recruited, what difference does that make?
I actually dislike the focus on pulling in people from physics/computer programming/math. As Dreaded_Anomaly mentions, these are fields which have just as bad of a gender ratio as here. As long as we continue focusing on those fields, I don't think the gender ratio problem is going to get much better.
Also, I don't think there's anything inherent in rationality that means that it requires physics/programming/math types. But I think our current community is generally set up in a way to self-perpetuate that.
I can understand that STEMM types might more frequently lean towards rationality, which is why recruiting from there is often a suggestion. (If you have a .5 probability that a random intelligent STEMM person would be amenable to rationality, but only a .2 probability that a random intelligent person of another field would be, for example.)
A way to get around that: Personally, I've found that anyone I have a match of >94% on OKC has a high probability of being the aforementioned Rationalists Who Just Don't Know It Yet. I myself was "recruited" this way. Dated someone from OKC (We no longer date, but are still REALLY good friends) who I was a 99% match with, and they pointed me toward HPMoR, then LW, etc, all while modeling "proper rationalist behavior" in our discussions. I think that's all that it takes, often, to get someone interested in rationality (once you filter for interest, whether you use okc for this or not)
Really? Back when I first joined I wouldn't have been surprised by this, but they've fiddled around with the match algorithms since then, and 94% matches have gone from extremely rare compatibility to fairly trivial (and yes, I've checked against people whose match values I knew from before the algorithm changes to make sure it's not just a result of a larger userbase.) These days, I could browse through a considerable number of people with that match rating before finding anyone I would expect to relate to.
Agree that the OKCupid technique probably works too. But I wasn't suggesting that we put up broad recruiting posters in the math department to solve the gender ratio thingy; I was suggesting that rationalist men seeking convertible mates try to date mathematical women. As Lucas observes, our community is still small enough that this provides a relatively large pool.
Good point! I understand what you are getting at. So long as it is also understood that mathematical does not necessarily equate to rational, and that rational does not require a person to be mathematical, etc.
What is the extra M for? Googling yields a band.
Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, Medicine
A useful corollary of the last point is that anyone with the HPMOR tag on their profile is likely to be a very high match :)
On an individual level, this will work fine for a few people. It makes a difference, though, if everyone tries that specific strategy. The strategy will lose its effectiveness quickly, and the overall effect on the gender divide will not be very large.
Trying to bring more women into the relevant spheres is clearly a big part of the answer. However, simply moving women from one low-density area to another doesn't seem very productive to me.
It is true that you receive dimishing marginal returns whenever you try to import people. Even if we were to use the largest available population sink, eventually we'd run into limits. The larger the population sinks you use, the less it has been filtered, so while your returns diminish more slowly, the effort required at the outset is larger.
Given the small size of our group, physics departments are more than large enough population sinks for the forseeable future.
I have dated rationalists and gone back. Rationalist subculture affiliations count very little to me. It doesn't make people all that rational and does make people more annoying when they are, in fact, being irrational. I do enjoy having some shared interests with those I date but honestly I'd assign more 'attraction' points for a fitness obsession, enjoyment of games (board games, cards) or, say, medical knowledge than "being a rationalist".
That sounds like an argument that one shouldn't date a rationalist even when an attractive option is willing and available. You don't want to permanently degrade your future options for (possibly) short term pleasure with what is immediately before you.
If you say so yourself!
I don't know, if a woman had tried that with me she'd have found I didn't make it through to the end (didn't read the last batch after the pause before it). And she'd find that I argue with the author, rejecting some of the "rationalist" morals he promotes in the chapters that get preachy. If she is too enarmored of the work it could disqualify me!
If I happen to marry (or otherwise have significant resource sharing with) a woman who is poor at this kind of decision making I'll first make sure she is willing to let me have final say on critical financial decisions. (Irrational and stubborn or egotistic about it is what would black-ball her.)
I think a statement more likely than "once you go rational you can't go back" is "once you go luminous you can't go back". I think my OH has expressed something along the lines of it just being too much effort when he considers dating someone who can't just tell him if they are having system 1 issues.
Would it be useful to distinguish between rationalist subculture affiliation and habitually rational?
I think this is a useful distinction. I care much more about "habitually rational" than "subculture affiliation," when it comes to social interactions.
Probably. In this case it is the subculture affiliation that matters---given the context of considering what strategies to use in response to the gender imbalance therein.
Should rational men take into account when considering very long term relationships with women that the women are likely to remain physically and mentally healthy longer than the men are, with the effect being amplified if the woman is younger than the man? If that factor is considered, then independent good sense is very valuable.
To make it more specific, it's highly likely that in a very long term heterosexual relationship, the woman will be wrangling medical personnel for the man. Of course, it's also pretty likely that at some point, the man will wrangling medical personnel for the woman, just not as likely.
Numeracy level of both marriage partners has a large impact on lifetime savings
I hate to No-True-Scotswoman you but I can't help but wonder exactly how rational she was - the cases I know have all been drawn from either East Coast or West Coast whole communities with corresponding personal transmission of skills.
Enough that by my best estimate based on what exposure to and information that I have about those communities she could easily soar to high levels of status within either (take that either way). Probably collecting an arbitrary sized harem in a matter of weeks.
Rationalist skills are impressive and sometimes convenient for lovers to have but again, I'd be just as impressed with and drawn to an interested prospective mate with Taekwondo or Jujutsu skills who was willing to spar with me. I'm reasonably aware of what I look for in a companion and a lover and that which is required to be respected as a rationalist just doesn't happen to be near the top of the list.
I actually suspect there is an element of in group bias at play here---the same bias I see in my Christian friends and relatives who tell each other how much superior other Christians are as friends and romantic interests.
I've noticed a pretty strong in-group bias in myself WRT Less Wrong.
You two are so cute when your argue!!!
This.
True for both genders.
Yep, though it's weaker evidence to observe that (straight) female rationalists don't go back when they can have their pick of mates and/or an entire harem by staying.
Actually, I have seen a couple of cases of women using their newly acquired Sanity Attractiveness Points(*) to pull in hot guys they want from outside the community, though in both such cases they still had rationalist mates on the side.
(*) = According to the one woman whose case I know in detail, this is apparently a pretty strong effect - a female from within rationalist culture, dealing with a guy from outside rationalist culture who has an unmet need for sanity, may appear unto him as a Goddess. Sort of the dating equivalent of what happens when people with unmet needs discover LW or read HPMOR.
Ah, yes. I completely agree, and should clarify what I personally mean by "rationalist". I care less whether they are (already) a part of the community, especially considering that the community in this city consists solely of people that were brought into it either by Jesse or myself.
Those "guy(s) from outside rationalist culture who has an unmet need for sanity, [she] may appear unto him as a Goddess."--Yeah, that's true, and I just consider them to be "Rationalists Who Don't Know It Yet."
I wonder what effect rationalist culture has on the attractiveness of guys who date outside the community. Are they more or less appealing than non-rationalist guys?
Now that is a strategy I can endorse.
I could believe that.
But I like dating subculture boys. Also, the bisexual one I see sometimes would not be deterred by considering me male for all social purposes.
And yet for all your interest and your polyhacking I suspect that you and those like you just don't have sufficient time or sexual and romantic interest to satisfy the demand. (My apologies if I have underestimated your enthusiasm and endurance!) This inflates your value and means at a grossly simplified level that for a given level of attractiveness a male that doesn't qualify to date you within this culture may attract women outside the subculture as attractive to you. Those that do qualify to date you could expect general population dating opportunities with women who are even sexier than you, or better at sport or who perhaps have neck-down alopecia.
I'm sure you'll not be lacking for available, interested males. Unless all the males started looking elsewhere and didn't notice that the incentives at the margin had changed. They'd also have to resist any overt advances you should happen to make!
Of course bisexual males also have more potential romantic interests, not being limited to the scarce female population. Perhaps that means this 'avoid scarcity' principle doesn't even need special case treatment for bisexual males. Homosexual males on the other hand may get all confused if they try to implement it!
What factors would tend to give you a bad impression of a community, either online or in person? (That's sort of two questions, but they're related)
I've discovered that there are a few things that can scare me away from an interesting place:
Dysfunctional behavior. A lot of people who have sharp minds don't always apply that in the emotional realm and their behavior shows it. There's a difference between harmless instances of social skill failures and a complete failure to develop as a human being. I don't think "irrationality" covers it. I'm speaking more of a lack of moral maturity. The creepers who think the world revolves around them and the various kinds of dysfunctional behaviors that result in people hurting each other emotionally. I was recently disappointed with the amount of dysfunctional behavior I discovered in a group that I liked and have not been back for some time.
Elitist behavior, or seeing a bunch of people commit social suicide by smearing the group as "elitist" in public. I considered quitting LessWrong because of that. I decided to stay a bit longer because there's a possibility that the pro "elitism" people will see the error of this and there are enough good things about the group that it seems worthwhile to see whether they reconsider.
Online: systemic irrationality. Systemic self-reinforcing irrationality. That's why I hang out here :P
In person, a mass lack of social skills make events unfun. Groups are much easier to get along with if they contain a reasonable mix of extroverts and introverts (read: at least two people who act like each).
What do you think the LW community does right? What good experiences have you had?
People have been welcoming and not sketchy at my local meetup. I look forward to going there. I'm pretty constantly aware that I'm the only or one of the only women there, but I don't feel that other people treat me differently because of it. Sometimes I enjoy the gender ratio. My college and most of my jobs were mostly-female, so being in a mostly-male space is novel and interesting. But I also really enjoyed it when a new woman joined the meetup, because it was nice to feel there was someone a bit more like me (female, with good social skills, smart but not a programmer/scientist).
How aware are you of the gender or sexual orientation of other LW participants? Do you mentally assign a gender to each LW user whose comments you read, or who replies to you? Do you often get it wrong, and do you care when you do? Do you react differently based on the gender of other commenters? Does it differ from what you've experienced in other online communities?
Note: LW discussions where the gender of the participants is explicitly mentioned, or which are about gender themselves, don't count.
I'm not a woman, but...
As for gender, I start with an about 90% prior probability (from the last survey results) that they are male, and update it according to what I read (most often the username alone is enough to bring the posterior to epsilon or 100% minus epsilon). As for orientation,I don't really care: I know EY is straight but he'd like to self-modify to become bi, and I think Alicorn is bi and lukeprog is straight but I'm not fully sure. That's it. I have read by comments by others mentioning their orientations but I can't even remember them.
As in aliefs? Usually but not always. (And sometimes the alief is wrong. For example, there's a LWer who, despite having an obviously feminine username, comes across to my alief system as male (not sure why) and there's a Wikipedian (with an apparently feminine username, but he has explained that it's actually a Latin neuter plural and he's male) who comes across to my alief system as a female -- likely because of his username and because of the dingbats such as smileys, heartsuits and musical notes he uses to express his mood. I even called him 'she' by accident a couple times.)
I try not to. And in discussions which don't have anything to do with gender I think I almost always succeed.
I'm the complete opposite to Alicorn, so I though I'd just pop in and say. I don't just keep track of gender, but also any other characteristics like age, occupation, nationality; personality etc. While I find it ok to just type like this on the internet, I find it much easier to actually communicate with people. Knowing these sorts of details help me interpret tone, which I think is a vital part of conversations, and the lack of respect for which often a source of internet conflict. I respond differently to aggression, for example, from high-testosterone males to females.
Having more accurate priors of the person I'm talking to also lets me decide if an argument is a lost cause, helps me choose between ambiguous interpretations, and assists me in making the most palatable presentation of my point.
I try not to form opinions about people's gender unless it seems indicated by something they say or their username, and I try not to actually pronoun anyone with a gendered pronoun unless I am pretty sure. (I think I've been mistaken once or twice even then.) To the best of my knowledge, apart from pronouns I don't handle posters differently based on gender except insofar as I have different priors on them having had various experiences.
Do men and women suffer from the same cognitive biases (and to the same extent)?
That's a really, really big question. I think if you want a good answer to that, we'd need to do a study. I'm deeming that outside my ability to determine with a worthwhile level of accuracy.
Just think of it as an invitation to share your priors.
Sorry.
Forgiven.
What's happening?
Viliam said that this question would better be addressed as a survey and Jayson agreed, then they both deleted their comments for some reason.
Move along; nothing to see here.
Remembering Asch's conformity experiment:
What statement would you expect the majority of responders to say, that you disagree with?
I don't know about majority, but I suspect at least some people will say that (the contemporary sort of) feminism is good, which I disagree with.
Not so much in sentiment, because I have reasonable-ish consequentialist ethics, which ends up at most kinds of equality (and pretty much every kind of equality of opportunity). I just find feminism as much of a mindkiller as any other kind of politics. Reading feminist websites makes my brain go ARGH in the "why can't you see how little sense you are making?!" way, so I try not to. There have also been instances on LW where gender discussions just turned into a mess of irrationality.
I wish we could discuss everything in the sensible, factual, case-by-case way that LW recommends. So much of feminism's concerns are easily dissolved, and really not worth turning into a soldiers on one side or the other thing. -Isms are the mind killer, I guess?
(disclaimer: Less Wrong does gender discussions better than a lot of places. I just wish we were better.)
"Death is a bad thing."
I find death aesthetically pleasing as part of the great circle of life, and I also feel that the earth is overpopulated enough as it is. I bring this topic up because it's been noted that females, even rational ones, are often opposed to cryonics. I'm female, and I'm opposed to cryonics.
Errrrrr... I think Athrelon was referring to gender related issues, actually. I don't mind terribly much that you commented here, except that no one else has answered Athrelon's question with that relevant stuff.
I wouldn't call myself "opposed" to cryonics (the concept of medical suspended animation strikes me as mostly a convenience if you can get it to work, and interesting for potential social implications), but I do tend to think it's overly-boosted here. After a thorough review of the actual work done by the major players in the field (a concise history of which reads like the script to a Coen Brothers movie), and looking over the biological x-factors involved vs the typical understanding of those x-factors here, I just don't find the case compelling. The idea's neat, but it seems like the cryo-boosters here are settling for a business/cultural model rife with consistent bad decisionmaking, built-in overconfidence (including in their messaging), a severe professionalism deficit, and not incidentally a long and sordid history of laziness, incompetence, and actual fraud.
The standard reply to this is a reversal test. What's your reply to that?
"Overpopulated" seems to already reply to the reversal test (i.e. yes, the population should be reduced). The reversal test might apply to a different claim that the current population is all right and shouldn't be increased further.
In the grandparent comment, the reversal test might apply to lifespan (the relation of lifespan to population is not completely straightforward if we control other parameters such as birth rate).
I should have elaborated more. The reversal test I was thinking of was "if the problem is overpopulation and death's a good solution to it, should we be killing people?"
In this instance, I don't think the reversal test will establish much. I imagine that most who hold a belief similar to lucidian believe that there is a population homeostasis, or at least upper bound, which is determined by Earth's resources' ability to accommodate human existence.
If this homeostasis or upper bound is exceeded, either Earth's resources' ability to accommodate human existence must be improved, or humans must be killed. I imagine those I previously identified would favor the former.
The former could be achieved by ceasing pollution, disbanding mass cattle and feces pits, and investing in research investigating ways to remove airbourne methane as well reducing existing environmental damage. This route may prove more laborious than genocide or random en masse killings, but preferable nonetheless.
Except that most people have a deontological objection to actually killing people, so even if lucidian didn't think we should be killing people, it wouldn't necessarily imply contradictory beliefs (or rather, the contradiction comes from contradictions in deontology, not anything related to cryonics).
It is fair to observe that when somebody claims that their utility function says one thing but their deontology prevents them from following up, that is at least suspicious for one or the other being not-fully-motivating, not-fully-thought-out, etc.
I agree, but deontology is well-known to be a problematic but widely-held philosophy, which should explain away the observed inconsistency (e.g. desires could be consistent but deontology prevents the desires from being acted upon). I think that the proposed alternate test of asking about slowing down longevity research should reveal whether there is a further inconsistency within the desires themselves.
The question is why the deontological concerns are motivating. If they are motivating though a desire to fulfill deontological concern, then they belong in the utility function. And if not through desire, then how? An endorsed deontological principle might say 'X!' or 'Don't X', but why obey it? Deontological principles aren't obviously intrinsically motivating (in the way anything desired is).
Right. I was thinking of "death" as having status quo ("natural") death as the intended interpretation, which seems to exclude this possibility as stated, but allows a version where we prevent future attacks of status quo death by e.g. stopping all medical research (not just anti-aging research).
What is your evaluation of your own introspection abilities? (More precisely, how often do you consider the motivations for your emotions, attitudes, tone of speech, etc, and are you successful.)
I'd also like to ask this to the men.
I have a difficult time answering this. I analyze my current motives and mental states and actions in depth, constantly. But I don't spend very much time reviewing my past emotions or actions unless it becomes obvious to me that I made a mistake somewhere. I feel as though I should probably change this.
I introspect almost constantly, and try to keep a detailed archive of my thought processes so I can trace how my beliefs and opinions have evolved over time. I've found introspection extremely effective, especially when I discuss the results of my introspection with various analytical friends.
Measuring the success of introspection (as in epistemic success, as opposed to instrumental success) runs into a Wittgensteinian problem heavily. That is, it is ‘As if someone were to buy several copies of the morning paper to assure himself that what it said was true’.
I usually measure my success by whether I can predict my system 1 responses to a situation ahead of time. The point is to model myself properly anyway.
Also, my OH can read me like a book. We mutually developed the me-trospection so we checked reads with each other.
Could you please explain this sentence?
We learned to read my mind at the same time, so could tell if at least one of us was wrong, by differing. Also we're not the same person, so rationalising in different directions means we were rarely both the same kind of wrong.
Okay, then...
Usually, several times per week.
I can seldom find good ways to test my introspection, so I don't know.
I am Luminosity Girl! Wheeeeee!
(Tone of speech in particular I don't think I have special control over.)
If men think more like economists than women, then what explains this difference?
Brain differences are nowhere near the entire story. There are so many different chemicals that can be floating around in your brain at any given time. Oxytocin might give you some insight here. They've done studies that showed that this hormone increases things like trust, trustworthiness, generosity, empathy and morality.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/paul_zak_trust_morality_and_oxytocin.html
This same video explains that testosterone increases selfishness and punishing behaviors. Different sources say different things about how oxytocin affects each gender, but there's a theme where they're saying the women either have higher oxytocin or stronger reactions to it or that testosterone interferes with it, etc. Essentially the message in the theories is "Women more frequently act on the influence of oxytocin".
Here is what this is like for me:
Imagine, for a moment, feeling ten times less selfish (the video says men have 10x the testosterone, not sure if our subjective experiences correspond exactly, but that's my guess for the following hypothetical scenarios). Now imagine being high every time you do something nice. For me, this means the world feels beautiful, I feel secure and peaceful, and I feel satisfied in a way that nothing else can match.
Imagine someone doing something bad to you. Imagine you're not even selfish enough to be angry. I don't always stay calm, but the things that don't make me angry might surprise you. Now imagine feeling sorry for the person instead of worrying about yourself. This is what it feels like to be me. People like me have to work hard on developing rational self-interest. You've probably wondered about the phenomenon where a lot of women get attached to an abusive man and keep trying to love him into being a better person even though he's abusing her. I haven't had problems saying no since my early twenties, but it took work to learn to be strong enough to say no and be firm. These hormonal differences may explain that.
If you're motivated by helping, and you even feel sorry for people who hurt you, how much motivation do you have to go out and learn more about how to make money? If your brain rewards you with a high whenever you're nice to someone, how much more time would you want to spend doing that? If what gratifies you is expressing empathy, this changes your priorities by, at the very least, competing with your other interests. In my case, I prefer playing helping roles so much that it trumps just about everything else for me. Here is a chart that shows the results of some studies done to compare the interests of highly intelligent adult men and women (I figure if the LW surveys are right about member's IQs being in the 140s on average, this chart is more applicable here than a random one).
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10176.aspx
Notice things like the women are much more interested in community service, social contacts and teaching children (all of which require caring) and men are more interested in law (which demands an aggressive personality because you're fighting over who wins). Sure, you can help people with money, but that way, you give them the most benefit while spending the least amount of time actually interacting with them. Most people have empathy and like helping but not everyone can do it full-time. I, on the other hand, like helping so much I can't be bothered to spend a large amount of time on money. After I clock out at the end of the day, it's time for me to help someone.
If oxytocin tends to affect the genders differently (or if testosterone contradicts it), this explains a lot of gender differences - why men tend to be more aggressive, why women tend to be more socially accommodating and it may explain why they aren't as interested in economics - they may just prefer roles that require caring instead.
In the brain females have more nerves (white matter), and males have more glia (grey matter); this doesn't mean much, though. Glia react to neurotransmitters, which means they may have processing capabilities as yet unknown; considering this and humans' neuroplasticity, nothing can be reasonably inferred from this distinction.
That's the only physiological difference of the cortex between sexes, as far as I'm aware.
The only macroscopic physiological difference (as far as you're aware). This is not very informative; we wouldn't expect to know about the vast majority of possible differences.
This assumes there are any innate differences; the only other difference I neglected to mention is hormone balances. Hormones, like neurotransmitters, can affect the way humans think - besides the reproductively relevant hormones, I am not familiar with any specific differences in hormone balances between sexes (as I haven't yet studied hormones in detail).
Brain plasticity is such that experience, particularly experience during rapid brain development (birth to ~12), can effect physiological changes in the brain.
The surveys the paper you linked analyse were of men and women with varying levels of education in a Western society (America). They found that the gap widens with higher reported levels of education. The economists at GMU who wrote the paper suggest that men learn more about economics per year of education, as they have more interest in it than women.
The question the economists investigated was not "Why is it that in populations of females and males with equal levels of education in economics, females still know less than men?" Indeed, their not even subtly suggesting that is an issue among economists implies there is no economics knowledge gap between male and female economists.
The GMU economists attempted to analyse existing, previously gathered survey data from 1996.
Speculation: This data may no longer be representative of the survey population.
The question the GMU economists did analyse was: "Why is it that, in our general Western populace (of America), females do not share the same opinions as economists about the issues on which they were surveyed in 1996, to a greater degree than the males of that same survey do not share the same opinions as economists about the issues on which they were surveyed in 1996?"
Speculation: Whatever differences of interest that spurred men in 1996 to learn more about economics than females in 1996 existed, the differences were caused by cultural influences rather than innate physiological discrepancies between the sexes. Cultural differences between the sexes could potentially affect females' and males' cortical physiology to the degree that economics would appear more interesting to broad spectrum males than females. I think it much more likely that the Western culture in question (America) was in 1996 and earlier more accepting of male interest in economics than female interest, if only because it is a simpler explanation.
Regardless, the data is quite old when one considers the Western cultural changes brought about by the internet and various other technologies in the past sixteen years. I think we should wait for more data before overanalysing a survey from 1996.
If you are correct, then brain physiology doesn't explain the difference. So then, what does?
I ask the question because I have a suspicion that whatever causes women to think less like economists than men also makes them less likely to join communities like Less Wrong. I, myself, do not have a good answer to this question. Furthermore, I suspect that until we do have a good answer to this question, our strategies for increasing the proportion of females on Less Wrong will be ineffective.
Please conduct yourself to this comment, as I think it will serve as a response yours as well.
What proposition affirmed in The Sequences do you find least probable?
Can you describe some occasions you met a new female friend (who you didn't previously know) at a social event, lesswrong-related or otherwise, and how it wasn't creepy, and what was fun/interesting/good about it.
I met some really neat girls by visiting the minicamps. They were friendly and most of them liked Luminosity. They were pretty huggy, but didn't make a big deal about it (didn't hold on too long or tense up strangely). (One of them wanted my autograph.) Despite the fact that I am Internet Famous and whatnot, they all clearly had other things to do too and could talk about other topics besides that, which was relevant; I was able to freely circulate through the parties/groups/whatever arrangement people wanted to be in and steer conversations around as easily as I can with people who I already know well.
Can you describe some occasions you met a new male friend (who you didn't previously know) at a social event, lesswrong-related or otherwise, and how it wasn't creepy, and what was fun/interesting/good about it.
When I first went vegetarian as a teenager, most other teenagers' reactions were along the lines of "Oh, that's nice" or "I love to eat animals! They're delicious! I'm going to eat a hamburger right in front of you! Ha!" A friend introduced me to her boyfriend, and my vegetarianism came up. He immediately asked, "What do you do for protein, eat a lot of peanut butter?" I remember being impressed that even though he had no interest in being vegetarian himself, he could think from my perspective and notice a practical implication of my choice without passing judgement on it.
I meet most people on the Internet or by their having swung through my house while I was in more of a group living situation, but awhile ago I visited a minicamp and met a bunch of people, some of whom I hadn't known before. I'll use Andrew Critch as an example. I'd been hearing for a while from Anna that he wanted to meet me and kept missing me. (This was relevant for two reasons: a) he was not making meeting me his life's mission or he could have done it much sooner, b) Anna seemed to like him and think we should talk). We had a conversation about miscellaneous topics ranging from the tree we were sitting under to his school stuff. I inquired about his schedule and dietary preferences so I'd know when to invite him to a dinner party. Eventually it got dark out where we were and we were being bitten by mosquitoes, so we went inside and dispersed - we both had other people to talk to.
This is a gender-neutral example, but one of the best ways to forestall stress/creepiness when meeting new people was pretty well summed up by a PUA. He suggested setting up a time by which your conversation has to end when you start it. ("Oh, I want to make the next bus, but I've got five min"). One thing that is stressful about being approached by someone you don't know, especially if they seem a little off is having to simultaneously carry on a conversation and try to plan an exit. If you set up an exit when you approach and precommit ending the conversation then (unless you both are in the middle of something quite interesting) it's easier to just be present for the conversation.
Can you describe some occasions when a woman was creepy towards you at a social event, lesswrong-related or otherwise?
I remember being hit on by girls (we were teenagers at the time) who didn't understand boundaries - they would try to make me try women, or try to extract kisses from me. Being persistent about what they want while ignoring the fact that what I wanted was in conflict with their desires is what was creepy.
At a science fiction convention, there was a question about enough car space to get a party to a restaurant, and a woman kept saying that I could sit on her lap.
At a later convention, she upgraded a hug (I can't remember how consensual the hug was) to a kiss, and I threw her out of my life.
Marginally creepy but much less serious for me-- an older woman who would keep touching my hair (more dramatically curly at the time). The experience was more weird/dissociated for me than upsetting, so I didn't do anything about it. I actually didn't even think of it as possibly part of a larger social pattern until I read many accounts by black people of white people insisting on touching their hair.
I'm white and this seems bizarre to me. Like, extremely weird. I'm sort of creeped out just knowing about it.
Me, too. When I grasped that hair touching was a thing, I actually wondered if my family had assimilated into mainstream American culture as much as I'd thought. (Eastern European Jewish, and my great grandparents came here in the early 1900s.)
However, I think it's more reasonable to conclude that this is something that only a tiny minority of white people do, but there's enough of them that black people are reasonably likely to have had the experience or to know someone who has.
I've also heard that demands to touch hair or touching with no preliminaries are somewhat likely to happen to white redheads.
To clarify my reaction: I don't find anything wrong with it. It just seems really arbitrary, and slightly like a violation of personal space (even if you ask) although that one doesn't really bother me. I find it unusual and surprising, more than anything else. My reaction was along the lines of "Wait, what? Why would you want to touch my hair?".
A lot of people like being petted. Enough people and enough liking that I'm confused that it doesn't seem to be a normal thing, like hugs.
Edit: Maybe because it's kind of hard to pet someone who is petting you? Hugs are typically reciprocal.
Sure. I've just only seen or heard of it done with intimate couples. I've never seen it done with strangers. It seems like a couple steps above hugs on a scale of casual intimacy, to me, if I can just invent a scale out of thin air and proceed to give no reference points to guide how you'd evaluate that sort of thing.
I've noticed some clusters of people thinking that touching other people's hair is okay (they usually ask strangers first), but I haven't been able to pick up on what else those clusters have in common.
Now that I think about it, a couple days ago I saw a group of white girls practically interrogating these two black girls about what they did with their hair. My own reaction was more along the lines of "oh, curly dreadlock braid thingys" and then I moved on, so I couldn't figure out why they were so (rudely) curious (they were so aggressive with their questions that my first thought was actually that the white girls were trying to bully them, but then that didn't make sense for other reasons). I concluded that it was more about those girls being extremely curious about a different type of hairstyle, which it technically was, but I meant that in a sense more about function and structure than about race and the hair itself.
I feel weird when I think about this. I think it's because I'm trying to use my brain to model an interest or value that I've never had or noticed before and that I have a difficult time empathizing with a fascination for something unusual like this. It feels like something warm and fuzzy is scratching the top of my head. Confusing..........
Textures are fascinating. I like touching people's hair in general; it's neat as long as it isn't full of goop. (I ask first.) So far this hasn't happened to come up with any black people except one I was dating whose hair I could consequently touch very incidentally, but yeah, this is supposedly a thing and it would make me nervous about asking a black friend if I could touch their hair.
Try to Feel It My Way, a book about touch-dominant people-- those who have touching as a major way of relating to the world.
I have no idea what you look like, but despite that I just had a mental image of you looking absolutely enraptured staring at someone else's hair, and playing with it sort of like a cat might (I have never had a cat). This amused me a lot.
I'm sure I've cat-batted hair in the past, but I'm more likely to braid it or just pet it.
(Cats are known to bat at my hair, though!)
I haven't ever felt a woman was creepy. Creepy essentially translates to unwanted (perceived) sexual advances, and, now I'm going to sound super-creepy myself, but I've never /not/ wanted a woman to come on to me. Like, obviously I don't think about it all the time, but it's always a welcome surprise if it happens. I don't have any exceedingly unattractive female acquaintances though.
I would imagine this would be different if I was straight. An example of creepy female-female interaction would be the way Amy often acts towards Penny on TBBT.
This almost never happens to me. I can only think of one example, which was mostly obnoxious and only mildly creepy. I went to a party where there was only one other woman present. She was strangely warm with me and asked me lots of personal questions. When I got up, but was still well within earshot, she started asking my husband the same questions about me ("where did you two meet?") He said, "You just asked Julia those questions. You already know the answers." She said she was interested to hear the differences, but it felt like she was trying to catch us in some kind of deception. Then she drank my beer.
O_O
At least it wasn't her milkshake?
The following is my personal experience only, and does not negate the feelings and opinions of those with different experiences.
I have almost never felt creeped out by a female. Even if they are overly huggy or complimenty, it tends to lack the predatory or aggressive/disrespective vibe that makes me feel creeped. Or rather, it doesn't cause in me a reaction of feeling predated. At worst, I feel mildly uncertain.
I can only think of one time when I ever felt creeped out by a woman. It was a couple years ago, so my recollection is not the best, but to the best I recall: We had only been talking for about a minute or two, when out of nowhere she says something along the lines of "So, are you interested in women?" It was ugh-y.
As a straight-leaning female myself, who's good at social cues, I do get to be more huggy and complimenty with people, without having a significant chance that I am going to creep anyone out.
I do think I might have once mildly creeped a fellow LWer though. We had recently met for rationality camp, and she made a comment that I had read as being insecure about her appearance. My reply was along the lines of "Seriously, when I first saw you I thought 'Oh wow, she is so pretty!'" and then complimented her. Later I found out that I might have misread her first comment (not certain if I actually did or not, but realized later that there was a possible alternate interpretation to what she said), which would have made me all of a sudden complimenting her looks to be a weird and creepy thing. But I'm pretty sure that IF I did misread the comment, that she realized the miscommunication, and was just too polite to say. (So in other words, her response was "Oh, she thought I meant X and is trying to make me feel better. Well I don't want to hurt her feelings by saying she misunderstood" which is significantly better than "Oh my god, why is this random person all of a sudden complimenting my looks?!?")
ETA- At the time of this incident, I actually was dating a female, which is a factor that could push the interaction from "awkward" to "creepy".
That's the only time I can recall making a "creepy" faux pas, and realizing it.
Can you describe some occasions when a man was creepy towards you at a social event, lesswrong-related or otherwise?
One general point: while "mansplaining" is not part of my vocabulary, I've looked into whether the word might be about something real, and I've noticed that on NPR call-in shows, men are more likely to take up the very limited amount of time by explaining things that people already know.
This leads into a specific issue: I've had a few instances of men explaining feminism to me and my not liking the experience at all, and I think I've figured out the issue. It's not that they're men, it's that they show no signs of hearing what I say on the topic, and I've seen this from men who are reasonably capable of listening most of the time.
An example of creepy even though it wasn't a sexual approach: a man telling me about how it's a fundamental male thing to protect women from violence. I had two issues-- men actually aren't very good at it (consider that wars frequently happen in places where women are living), and he was twice my size, talking about violence, and completely spaced out. I wasn't afraid on the "get out now" level, but I was spooked.
Interesting. I've had similar conversations with men - where they are intent on explaining stuff instead of listening too - but not very often with women.
When you say that "it's not that they're men", do you mean that it's as often women as men, or just that being a man is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for this behavior? I'm assuming the second, please correct me if that's wrong.
A few hypotheses:
1) Men like to be dominant, and that means being the explainer, not the explainee, no matter whether they know what they're talking about.
2) Men like talking more in general, so they are more likely to explain things that are obvious or wrong.
3) Men are worse at listening.
4) Men and women both do this, but men are more obvious about it.
#1 is almost certainly true. Men and women IME also seem to have different average preferences about the appropriateness of interrupting, talking over someone, saying flat-out "you're wrong."
I don't think #2 is likely, but I've been wrong before, and I'll be wrong again (though hopefully less wrong).
I don't have an opinion on #3. Listening (and being curious about what other people think) in real time is definitely a learned skill for me.
I've definitely had a bunch of conversations where people said things that sounded like listening, without giving any sign of comprehension. I'm not sure if men or women do this more often, but it is weak evidence for #4.
I meant that being a man is neither necessary or sufficient for the behavior., and also even though I don't think I've run into that behavior from a woman in person, I'd still find it almost as annoying.
I haven't been checking on the gender/topic combinations which make it hard for me to get into a conversation so I don't even have the beginning of a theory.
My tentative theory is that feminism is makes some men more anxious, so that if they're talking rather than intimidated into silence, they'll be more compulsive. Along the same lines, they may be hoping they've finally gotten it right, and don't want to put even more work into it.
However, I don't have a lot of samples, and I'm guessing.
So you mainly notice this in conversations about feminism?
I've noticed a specific pattern in conversations about feminism. There are certainly people who take over conversations on other topics as well.
I have never felt creeped at a LessWrong event. There are other problems arising from social awkwardness, though. Here's an example:
A fellow LWer and I were discussing a mutual LW passing acquaintance. I mentioned that I had read him as cold and aloof. He didn't really respond any time I had tried to engage with him. My friend responded that his read had been that he was a warm, but shy person. Further discussion led us to the realization that because this person was attractive, well-dressed, carried himself well, and elsewise high-status, I was interpreting certain responses (monosyllabic answers, not really looking at me, or engaging with me, etc) differently.
If I was trying to engage with a person who presented as being more socially awkward, and they gave the exact same responses then I would have read that as being signs that they were shy and/or I was intimidating them. I would have adjusted, raised my patience level, and try to draw them into a one-on-one conversation. However, because this particular person managed to give off a superficial appearance of being socially skilled, I read the same responses as being aloof, cold, and dismissive. (which is what they would be, coming from a socially skilled person)
A sub-culture I have occasionally felt creeped out in, is swing dancing. I love swing and blues dancing, and will happily dance in a sensual manner, even with people I've never met before, am not at all attracted to, etc, as long as a) they are skilled dancers, and b) they aren't giving off "creepy" vibes. These are correlated, as most leads who have stuck around long enough to be skilled, have also figured out how to be not creepy.
A counter-example of a skilled dancer being creepy: An older male, who I used to enjoy dancing with, once came to a dance a little drunk, and was much more forceful during the dance with pulling me close (it's hard to explain the difference between good-lead-pulling-close, and creepy-forceful-lead-pulling close. ETA- A good explanation is that it is a "demand" rather than a "request"), and such. Now I don't even much like dancing him when he's sober any more.
Another problem is creepy new leads. They see the sensual dancing, and so think they can lead it. This is not okay. Intro classes are offered before every event, and they teach how to do the basic dances. Open position. Closed position. NOT full contact. A non-experienced, new dancer trying to pull me close, etc is NOT GOOD. Most new leads know better, and if anything are a little too shy (tend towards open position only, when closed position is perfectly acceptable).
My ad hoc explanation for this, is that you have to "earn" the more sensual dance moves by putting in your time enough to show that it is about the DANCE, and is NOT about skeeving on me. A guy who shows up to his first or second swing event, and tries to pull me close is communicating that he is more interested in skeeving on girls, than on actually learning to dance.
As an aside, I actually did get the same sort of tensed-up-omg-omg reaction that usually accompanies "creep" behavior, my very first time swing dancing. But I recognized it as a reaction to the fact that random guys where touching me, and in my personal space, in a way I wasn't used to. I realized that it was not AT ALL the fault of the really nice leads who were dancing with the new girl, and completely my own reaction to a physical situation that in my usual circumstances would be weird. I'm sure it didn't help that my first time at a swing event was because I just happened to be where at the location a late-night (post swing dance event that tends towards the more sensual dancing) was, when they showed up.
This confirms every fear about the convoluted and thin line between being stiffly and unnaturally standoffish and creepy that's ever kept me from going to a dance class. I'm quite positive I would spend the first few classes being told to just loosen up a little, to not be afraid of my dance partner, finally try really hard to do that--and forever earn a reputation as a creep.
Please don't read this as a rebuke or admonishment; I'm actually glad to know that my fears were well-founded; and learning to dance isn't really that important to me.
As a guy, I don't think it's that bad. If you cannot avoid holding your partner, and you don't feel comfortable with it, or you worry that your partner won't feel comfortable with it, there is a well-tested set of ground rules to tell you what to do. Basically, each dance will have a standard "frame," which is how the dancers should (according to various formal groups - the more formal the dance lessons, the more likely this is to actually be an element of the lesson) be positioned relative to each other. If this isn't made clear, nobody will think you're silly if you ask.
It's really not that hard. I did not mean to make it sound complicated. Basically, any thing they teach you in the dance class is fine. If you see people blues dancing or something, don't attempt to copy their dance moves with a random follow during a random song. Don't get drunk.
That's pretty much all it takes.
Well, you could try learning as a follow to start with, and get a sense of how leads act. This might be awkward if you're really tall, though, and would make it slightly more complicated to invite people to dance.
Unfortunately, this one illustrates that there isn't a hard-and-fast creepy definition. I was at a party, and a man was there who had been showing social but not physical interest in me was there. I was sitting on an empty sofa and he sat down right next to me so our sides were touching, which I found creepy.
But later in the evening a higher-status and more attractive man did basically the same, and I was pleased rather than creeped out. So the creepiness of an action depends on how much I like the person who does it.
Ironically, I'm now friends with the first man (who no longer hits on me) and not with the second (who has probably forgotten I exist.)
I think this is a very important sentence. It illustrates how typical, colloquial usage of the word "creepy" can run afoul of the fundamental attribution error.
I don't think that sentence can be successfully said outside LW, but not because of the FAE, more like the Just-World Fallacy and Appeal to Consequences. It would go something like this:
1) In a just world, behavior standards would not vary for men by status or attractiveness (because in a just world they would all have equal status and attractiveness, or women would not be moved by status or attractiveness).
2) Therefore, unhappiness-avoiding behavior standards should not vary by status or attractiveness (contrary to the actual fact that in an unjust world, some things will make (some) women feel uncomfortable/unhappy only if the man's attractiveness/status is below a (varying) particular level).
3) Therefore, a woman who admits that behavior X would not make her feel creepy if a sufficiently more attractive man did it, is being unfair to lower-status men, is wrong to label the behavior "creepy", cannot justly blame the lower-status man for doing what would be okay for a higher-status man to do, is just being shallow, is applying a double standard, etc.
4) It's impossible to have an explicit social standard for men which says, "If you think you're in the upper 20% of attractiveness you can sit down next to a woman touching her, otherwise this will make her feel creepy and you should avoid doing so." This rule would not be optimal/justified in a just world, so it must not be allowed in this one either.
5) Thus if we admit that whether sitting down touching someone is "creepy" depends on how attractive they are, it will be impossible to prevent men from doing things that make women feel creeped out, or for women to be listened-to when they object, in which case women will feel creeped out, which is bad.
6) By appeal to consequences, it must not be true that a woman's sense of creeped-out-ness can vary with a male's attractiveness or status.
The typical resolution of a situation like this, I think, is that you have an explicit standard which says "You can't hug people without asking", but there will be an unspoken selective lack of prosecution (like how cops don't get traffic tickets and white people don't go to jail for drug crimes) when an attractive man engages in the behavior.
I don't think that it's necessary to resort to this type of hypocritical normation.
You can have the explicit rule: "Don't do things that will typically generate negative feedback when you do them."
Assuming that you can read feedback (which may be admittedly a problem for some people), after some calibration you would effectively avoid creeping people (except when you encounter unusual individuals, but you can always blame them for having abnormal standards).
See also: the subsection on “new Puritanism” in the SIRC Guide to Flirting.
Yes, typical human hypocrisy. Not problematic for the average joe.