As evidence of systematic bias, this article provides:
Siri and voice apps not knowing how to respond to “i am being abused” or other reports
A 12-year-old noticing that her sampling of iPhone apps has mostly male characters by default
A medical device firm marketing an artificial heart that fits in male chests more than female chests
Apple not supporting period tracking in Healthkit
The second and third examples there don’t support the accusation as cleanly as the article would like to make you think.
The app store example listed in this submission neglects to mention that the set of games picked is the “running game” type, which neatly glosses over the large selection of other games that either cater to or target girls. Additionally, the accusation of “they don’t care about showing women” is quite incorrect–that’s exactly why those characters are the ones that cost money. One could even make the argument that the designers have a bias against men by portraying them as something not worth paying for, but then we get off in the weeds about assumed defaults and whatnot.
The medical device example shows an ignorance of both human anatomy and medical device certification. It is nontrivial to design an artificial heart that fits both of those operating volumes, and ending up with what are effectively two different devices conservatively doubles the cost in certification time and money spent. It’s not “har har screw women amirite”, it’s “oh hey this other population needs to be tested against differently because of nontrivial anatomical differences”.
I’d say that this article does brush up against a bigger question of what happens when gender equality and theory brush up against the realities of capitalism and engineering, but honestly it doesn’t explore that with any degree of insight worth mentioning and instead seems to settle for more of the same handwringing we’ve gotten used to on these things.
The artificial heart that works primarily for men is a bit horrifying to me. They literally dismissed the lives of half the population. Women should not be an afterthought in technology development. Companies are losing out on bigger markets and affecting human lives in a negative way when they do this, and the fix is simple. Have female product testers. Have female devs. Have women part of the planning stages of games and medical devices. Men might have a hard time thinking about women’s needs, but women certainly don’t.
“ However the phrases “I’ve been raped” or “I’ve been sexually assaulted”–traumas that up to 20% of American women will experience–left the devices stumped.”
That sounds really bad until you look at what else leaves these things stumped. The author ignored all the other stuff that’s inconsequential but stomps these AI’s due to her strong bias pushing feminism and other such things at Huffington Post. She shows the bias by immediately tying rape to only women, whereas both gender experience it, plus pointing out that it ignoring key words of domestic violence was an anti-women issue despite a ton of domestic violence being women attacking men. She holds that against the claim that most of the assistants have a female voice despite the fact that people (including women) react well to such voices. Given the above, I bet they’d have also complained if the assistants had male voices instead of female. Lose either way against such antagonists. Always something to target for these types of people pushing a political agenda rather than just trying to help people who are victims of many forms of harm.
The last part is a hint toward GamerGate. I was confused about that given only pro-feminist voices prevailed in the major media which made my feed. I never saw a contradicting story or point at all, which was weird. Only stuff like in the end of the article where they single out some games & quotes by people then cite how it’s all about sexism. Reality, it’s about the culture of the U.S. which includes men and women who demand very specific things that suppliers have a financial obligation to supply. Those that don’t go will out of business or make little money. The feminists of GamerGate were also happy to make money supplying what their audience wanted even when it contradicted their stated principles. I reached out to people i knew who were against their position asking if there was anything but pure sexism and hatred behind it all. One group gave me this:
Wow. Changed the situation around a lot. Would’ve been nice to see some of this information about the sources in the news articles I was reading at the time. Left out of all of them I saw for who knows what reason. Interesting enough, it wouldn’t matter if the whole vid was made up or not as the points remain. Relevant to this article, the demand side of this equation is pretty clear where companies supplying stuff such minority writers find appropriate basically die via both men and women putting them out of business. There’s virtually no supply of such media because demand and cash flow doesn’t go that way. So, in our society oriented around financial success, the companies build on tropes in our culture that lead to financial success. The game companies then succeed financially more often than not. Those rejecting these principles disappear or stay in little niches.
It’s a general principle. It applies to more than games. The author ignores that the demand side, both men and women, rewards the things the author opposes. The author also shifts general problems in a way that relates to her bias of pushing a political agenda. This author is best simply ignored in favor of those not being so selective of facts for political reasons while ignoring economic reality in general and for a good chunk of the demographic she claims to support. Nobody pushing feminist-oriented AI’s or games is a huge success despite the incredibly-large number of women on demand side that the author implies wants these things. She’s either deceptive or doesn’t understand the women’s market. I’m leaning toward both.
As evidence of systematic bias, this article provides:
The second and third examples there don’t support the accusation as cleanly as the article would like to make you think.
The app store example listed in this submission neglects to mention that the set of games picked is the “running game” type, which neatly glosses over the large selection of other games that either cater to or target girls. Additionally, the accusation of “they don’t care about showing women” is quite incorrect–that’s exactly why those characters are the ones that cost money. One could even make the argument that the designers have a bias against men by portraying them as something not worth paying for, but then we get off in the weeds about assumed defaults and whatnot.
The medical device example shows an ignorance of both human anatomy and medical device certification. It is nontrivial to design an artificial heart that fits both of those operating volumes, and ending up with what are effectively two different devices conservatively doubles the cost in certification time and money spent. It’s not “har har screw women amirite”, it’s “oh hey this other population needs to be tested against differently because of nontrivial anatomical differences”.
I’d say that this article does brush up against a bigger question of what happens when gender equality and theory brush up against the realities of capitalism and engineering, but honestly it doesn’t explore that with any degree of insight worth mentioning and instead seems to settle for more of the same handwringing we’ve gotten used to on these things.
The artificial heart that works primarily for men is a bit horrifying to me. They literally dismissed the lives of half the population. Women should not be an afterthought in technology development. Companies are losing out on bigger markets and affecting human lives in a negative way when they do this, and the fix is simple. Have female product testers. Have female devs. Have women part of the planning stages of games and medical devices. Men might have a hard time thinking about women’s needs, but women certainly don’t.
“ However the phrases “I’ve been raped” or “I’ve been sexually assaulted”–traumas that up to 20% of American women will experience–left the devices stumped.”
That sounds really bad until you look at what else leaves these things stumped. The author ignored all the other stuff that’s inconsequential but stomps these AI’s due to her strong bias pushing feminism and other such things at Huffington Post. She shows the bias by immediately tying rape to only women, whereas both gender experience it, plus pointing out that it ignoring key words of domestic violence was an anti-women issue despite a ton of domestic violence being women attacking men. She holds that against the claim that most of the assistants have a female voice despite the fact that people (including women) react well to such voices. Given the above, I bet they’d have also complained if the assistants had male voices instead of female. Lose either way against such antagonists. Always something to target for these types of people pushing a political agenda rather than just trying to help people who are victims of many forms of harm.
The last part is a hint toward GamerGate. I was confused about that given only pro-feminist voices prevailed in the major media which made my feed. I never saw a contradicting story or point at all, which was weird. Only stuff like in the end of the article where they single out some games & quotes by people then cite how it’s all about sexism. Reality, it’s about the culture of the U.S. which includes men and women who demand very specific things that suppliers have a financial obligation to supply. Those that don’t go will out of business or make little money. The feminists of GamerGate were also happy to make money supplying what their audience wanted even when it contradicted their stated principles. I reached out to people i knew who were against their position asking if there was anything but pure sexism and hatred behind it all. One group gave me this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXZY6D2hFdo&app=desktop
Wow. Changed the situation around a lot. Would’ve been nice to see some of this information about the sources in the news articles I was reading at the time. Left out of all of them I saw for who knows what reason. Interesting enough, it wouldn’t matter if the whole vid was made up or not as the points remain. Relevant to this article, the demand side of this equation is pretty clear where companies supplying stuff such minority writers find appropriate basically die via both men and women putting them out of business. There’s virtually no supply of such media because demand and cash flow doesn’t go that way. So, in our society oriented around financial success, the companies build on tropes in our culture that lead to financial success. The game companies then succeed financially more often than not. Those rejecting these principles disappear or stay in little niches.
It’s a general principle. It applies to more than games. The author ignores that the demand side, both men and women, rewards the things the author opposes. The author also shifts general problems in a way that relates to her bias of pushing a political agenda. This author is best simply ignored in favor of those not being so selective of facts for political reasons while ignoring economic reality in general and for a good chunk of the demographic she claims to support. Nobody pushing feminist-oriented AI’s or games is a huge success despite the incredibly-large number of women on demand side that the author implies wants these things. She’s either deceptive or doesn’t understand the women’s market. I’m leaning toward both.