"I have the feeling that we’ve been only addressing one side of the story. It’s the side where women are victims. I’m here to tell the story of how I, as a woman in tech, benefited from sexism and that men can be victims too."
Something that keeps bugging me - and this is in no way limited to tech - how being a victim has become an identity to many, which is almost worn as a badge. While I do what I can to emphasize with every individual who has been exposed to discrimination, harassment (and while as a white man I experienced most likely much less of this, although not nothing), a scenario in which everyone walks around all day long feeling as the victim (followed by the inevitable selective perception and confirmation bias) cannot function.
I recently listened to a philosophy podcast which started with a line which has since been stuck in my head "In a time in which being a victim offers so much social capital...". (edit: I recalled the quote slightly inaccurately, but the point was the same: "In a culture in which there is so much social currency connected to being a victim..." In case you are curious, it's episode #105 of philosophizethis.org)
I don't know what to do
about it and I in no way want to diminish the harm that those who feel like victims experienced. But whenever victimhood is becoming an identity, things are getting out of hand.
(the feeling of being a systemic/structural victim can be found on all sides of the political/ideological/gender spectrum of course).
Something that keeps bugging me - and this is in no way limited to tech - how being a victim has become an identity to many, which is almost worn as a badge. While I do what I can to emphasize with every individual who has been exposed to discrimination, harassment (and while as a white man I experienced most likely much less of this, although not nothing), a scenario in which everyone walks around all day long feeling as the victim (followed by the inevitable selective perception and confirmation bias) cannot function.
I recently listened to a philosophy podcast which started with a line which has since been stuck in my head "In a time in which being a victim offers so much social capital...". (edit: I recalled the quote slightly inaccurately, but the point was the same: "In a culture in which there is so much social currency connected to being a victim..." In case you are curious, it's episode #105 of philosophizethis.org)
I don't know what to do about it and I in no way want to diminish the harm that those who feel like victims experienced. But whenever victimhood is becoming an identity, things are getting out of hand.
(the feeling of being a systemic/structural victim can be found on all sides of the political/ideological/gender spectrum of course).