# Am I a Sexist?
Source: https://www.yegor256.com/2017/07/04/sexism.html
Recently I said a few words in my
[Telegram group](https://t.me/joinchat/AAAAAEJFMRzsRTRxM3ec6A) about "women in tech,"
which led to some negative
[reaction](https://twitter.com/delawen/status/880517810400759808) on Twitter. I believe I owe my readers
an explanation. Some of them already got confused and came to me with
the question: "If you're so much against slavery, where is this male
chauvinism coming from?" Let me explain what's going on. Indeed
I am a big fan of [freedom]({% pst 2015/jul/2015-07-21-hourly-pay-modern-slavery %}),
but [recent hysteria](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKcWu0tsiZM&t=1s)
around [gender equality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_equality)
is not helping us to become more free. Instead it is causing quite
the opposite effect.
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When I was a kid my parents and my teachers told me that I had to be
a gentleman. That literally meant that I had to treat women with respect
and always remember that they were weaker than us men---physically
and emotionally.
I had to open the door for them, I was not allowed to fight with them
as I did with my male friends, I was punished for cursing in
front of them, and many other things. I did all this not only because
of what I was taught, but also because I saw that they indeed were weaker. They were
physically and emotionally different from us boys. They played dolls,
we played wars. They wore pink and white skirts and blouses, we wore
shorts and t-shirts. They cried when someone was offending them and
we were supposed to be stronger, never to cry, and to protect them. It was always
obvious that we were the troublemakers, but also the protectors, who those
little creatures eventually one day would marry.
Now it seems that I was raised as a
[sexist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism).
But do I feel ashamed? Not at all.
Do I believe that gender equality is about making men and women
fully equal in all aspects of life? Not at all.
We must _not_ be equal, because we are different.
There are many other categories of people in modern societies who
possess special rights or are not allowed to do certain things. Simply put,
they experience
[discrimination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination),
_but for their good_. For example, kids are not allowed to
buy alcohol and watch porn. Senior citizens receive pensions
even though they don't work any more. People with disabilities
sit in a bus where everybody else is not allowed to. Such _inequalities_ are only
making us more human. We need them.
The same is true for the "category" of people I was taught to respect
and protect: women. And no matter what extreme
[feminists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism) say, I will
remain the same. I do believe in inequality between men and women. I want
to see us as gentlemen and ladies. Not just genderless people.
Thanks to this inequality men find women attractive, fall in love with them,
marry them and make kids. Thanks to this inequality many years ago my dad asked
my mom out,
[kissed her]({% pst 2017/jul/2017-07-18-sexual-harassment %}),
proposed, and brought me into this world.
Now back to the main problem: women in tech. I'm a programmer myself.
I write and debug code every day. I also manage programmers and projects.
My 20+ years of experience in coding tells me that this job is not fun
most of the time. It's hard, it requires a lot of
[rigid logical thinking](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/02/men-women-brains-wired-differently),
it's rather boring, and it's a constant war against machines and against other
programmers who produce unmaintainable and unreadable code.
I don't feel good about sending women, who I was raised to protect and respect,
into this war. I also personally don't like the idea of women being police officers,
soldiers, surgeons, or firefighters, even though it's not up to me to decide
what they do for a living. Those jobs are stressful and dangerous, both
physically and emotionally. Not that I believe that women can't take this
stress, I just don't want them to suffer. There are plenty of gentlemen who can do that
instead.
Do I respect women who write code on a daily basis? Yes, a lot. Because I understand
how much stress they have to go through. Would I recommend my girlfriend do
the same. I don't think so.
Am I a sexist? Maybe so. But that's how I was raised.
~~That's who I am.~~ And I'm proud of it.