I am curious if the users who flagged this have a lot of karma, or if they clicked through or spent an appreciable amount of time before clicking a different HN link.
I can't imagine anyone who actually read this article flagging it. And I doubt the hypothesis that it was wise users trying to avoid a flame war. Occam's razor - seems more like a knee-jerk reaction to the word sexist in the title.
To be honest when I read the title I kind of thought "okay, that'll be some bullshit". But it's actually just a really well written and interesting article with a silly/sensationalist title.
I always reserve space in my mental model of "people" for the ones who will downvote/flag something that is clearly true, they cannot disprove, and they may even acknowledge is true. Simply because they don't like it/it engenders cognitive dissonance.
Simple example; smoker downvotes article "Smoking proven to cause toenail fungus". He knows smoking is bad for him, and he doesn't think the article is wrong. He just wishes it wasn't so. He doesn't want to think about it.
Point taken. I deleted the hypothesis, which was extraneous anyway. It's not obvious to me which interpretation Occam would favour, though. HN has many fair-minded users.
What's the distinction you're drawing there? I flag most articles that contain the word "sexist" in the title because I know such articles usually cause a flame war.
I read the article, and I would certainly flag it. The article is clear to focus on hormones and biological factors, while most modern theories treat gender as a social construct, explicitly disconnected from actual biological factors.
So the mention here is adding no value at best, at worst it uses the term in a way that no longer matches up with the research around it.
(Not to mention that Oculus is actively working to reduce the factors that cause sickness (the one discussed here certainly isn't the only one))
edit: might the downvotes explain themselves? Surely it is known that terms and concepts don't have inherent, godgiven meaning and are at all times to be interpreted in the context they are used and the interpretations ascribed to them.
I didn't downvote you, but I don't think you made a convincing case for flagging this article.
Moreover, there's an entire disclaimer section in the OP that addresses this.
> 2. The language of gender
I ruffled a few queer feathers by using the terms “transsexual” and “biological male.” I completely understand why contemporary transgender activists (especially in the American context) would react strongly to that language, but I also think it’s important to remember that I’m referring to a study from 1997 in a Dutch gender clinic. The term “cisgender” didn’t even exist. And at that time, in that setting, the women and men that I met adamantly deplored the “transgender” label. They wanted to make it crystal clear that they were transsexual, not transgender. To them, the latter signaled a choice.
I made a choice in this essay to use the language of my informants. When referring to men and women who had not undergone any hormonal treatment (whether they be cisgender or not), I added the label of “biological.” This was the language of my transsexually-identified informants (who, admittedly, often shortened it to “bio boys” and “bio girls”). I chose this route because the informants for my experiment identified as female and male without any awareness of the contested dynamics of these identifiers.
Finally, for those who are not enmeshed in the linguistic contestations over gender and sex, I want to clarify that I am purposefully using the language of “sex” and not “gender” because what’s at stake has to do with the biological dynamics surrounding sex, not the social construction of gender.
Gender is a social construction. Sex dimorphism on the other hand is a real phenomenon that allows humans (as well as other mammals) to reproduce and evolve over time. The essay "Doing Gender" by Zimmerman and West is a good place to start.
Everyone agrees on this except for the dubious Queer Theory camp, and maybe a few surgeons making money off of sex transition surgery.
I'm trying to understand here- are you basically arguing that the use of "man" and "woman" is woefully inaccurate, and had "male" and "female" been used instead, you'd have been onboard?
To the GP: Which word(s) should be used to describe differences in people due to hormones and biological factors?
Using that particular word in the title does seem a bit keen on generating controversy, but the ideas presented are interesting and I don't think the article should be flagged.
To the author: If we agree that systems and institutions often include these biases and might be correctly described as "sexist" then what can or should be done in this particular case? It is probably possible to develop better technology which handles all the factors involved in 3D vision, but if for example a male researcher is testing a new VR system and he is biologically predisposed to notice/optimize for certain factors, is it unreasonable to expect that the finished product will work better for men than women on average?
And is that not a good reason for more women to develop or help develop these technologies?
People who have the chromosomes that correspond to the uterus and other related reproductive parts should be described as "female" people. People who have the chromosomes that correspond to the testes and other related reproductive parts should be described as "male" people. People who have chromosomes and reproductive parts that don't match classic sex dimorphic binary (the thing that allows humans and other mammals to breed and evolve over time) are called "intersex" by the medical community.
Queer Theorists have somewhat popularized the edgy notion that the above knowledge is socially constructed (read: in people's heads as a collective cultural meme) because, well, it sounds nice. A trend called Queer Politics takes this idea like a new toy and says people who use terms like "female biology" are bigoted. There is no need to cater to this temporal fashion produced in academia, a thing that does observably nothing to help gender-nonconforming people or explain the social forces that cause marginalization and violence against them.
I can't imagine anyone who actually read this article flagging it. And I doubt the hypothesis that it was wise users trying to avoid a flame war. Occam's razor - seems more like a knee-jerk reaction to the word sexist in the title.