[borgia]

This piece belongs on HN as much as any of the pieces that spring up and are flag killed about feminism i.e. it doesn't.

However, the fact that it is on HN and has received quite a bit of support let's me know I'm certainly not alone in my frustration with the modern social justice movement, their antics, and its creep into the "tech media".

It is an incredibly divisive, hate-fueled movement based on flawed, debunked statistics and what amounts to a game of oppression olympics. Where once the type of person to spout their hateful rhetoric would be simply ignored, through social media they have been enabled, given a voice to, and been able to form an echo-chamber with other similarly deluded, hate-fueled people.

Through their network they have wielded an undue amount of power and we have unfortunately witnessed the result of it in real life, as a man who landed a probe on a comet millions of miles away had his team's achievement pushed to the back in favour of the furor over the shirt he wore while doing so, and who then wept on TV as a result of the sheer level of hate he received.

We have seen GitHub shamed for its rug championing unity in meritocracy, who then quickly moved to throw the "problematic" rug into the trash amidst the furor from these online "feminists".

We saw two people lose their jobs and have their names ran into the ground online by these "feminists" over a bad joke at a tech convention.

And the list goes on.

They have become simply too large to ignore. Their presence, and their narrative, drives so many clicks that we now see the "tech media" latch onto it, give their toxic views air and promote their narrative in the name of gaining clicks.

Facts no longer matter when it comes to these people, only the narrative. It doesn't matter that Ellen Pao was proven to have no case against Kleiner Perkins and was exposed as an incredibly shady person while doing so, you wouldn't tell she lost as the media driving this narrative cherry picked that which was convenient to the narrative and brushed over everything which was not.

I could go on about this, but all I will say is that I'm glad to see backlash against this movement increasing. I'm glad to see more speaking out against it. I'm glad to see their hashtags on Twitter being used against them, and I'm extremely glad to see some of their champions like Sarah Noble being held accountable in real life for the hate they spew online.

[morbius]

I think this is a bit disingenuous. I have definitely seen many articles on the web playing "oppression olympics" pitting supposedly privileged and oppressed groups against one another in literally every possible category, but these are usually met with scorn from rational individuals who identify as feminists or social justice warriors who believe that it harms the relevancy of actually oppressed minorities. There are fringe groups on every topic -- just as the Tea Party isn't representative of the visions of Libertarians and Islamic extremism isn't representative of the views of most Muslims, most radical exclusionary feminism isn't representative of the views of the vast majority of feminists.

And as for Pycon 2013, most feminists I know argued that Adria had done enough by complaining to staff and had no right to post the employees' names and pictures on Instagram/Twitter/whatever, and that the individuals involved did not deserve to lose their jobs. But being a jerk isn't a prerequisite for being a voice for a traditionally oppressed group. It's just a result of being impassioned and hopelessly misguided, both traits that are indicative of naïveté rather than malice.