James this has been really great for me to have this discussion. It has helped me to dive into what I believe a little further and really narrow down on what I actually believe. I need someone to push me for that. Thank you.

I’ll try my best to respond by copy/pasting your words just so I can keep it somewhat clear/in order.

“I would hate to suggest implicitly or otherwise that there are topics that men can write about and that women can write about.”

I don’t want to suggest that either. I don’t even want to come anywhere close to suggesting that. If I did, that was not my intention.

“You talk about GIVING women a fair opportunity to talk about things they are experts in — as though expertise in a subject is gender specific. And now that the men are finished talking about tech women are being GIVEN a chance to talk about things that interest them instead.”

(As though expertise in a subject is gender specific) I think it can be on average. I think there are certain topics that — on average — a certain type of person is more of an expert in than others. I can’t begin to understand what Filipinos go through who live in the mountains of Mindanao, for instance. Third-world living. Life is tough. That doesn’t mean I can never have an understanding, though. I can research. I can even live amongst them for a few weeks maybe just to understand their lifestyle more. Then I would be better equipped to write about that accurately I guess, right?

I think the same is true for women in the workplace. There are just some things I can’t understand about what they go through because I am not a woman. I do not have to wade through biases like they do, get paid less like they do, Etc. Etc. Etc.

But they do.

Therefore there are an abundance of women who, because of who they are, understand what each other are going through and conversely, there are a number of men who have zero idea what they’re going through because they are not women.

Does that mean men can NEVER understand what they go through and NEVER write about it? I don’t think so at all.

Here’s an interesting take…

If women wrote more about what they went through in the workplace, for instance, that would probably educate men and even motivate men to learn more about what they are going through. Therefore making them a little more knowledgable. Therefore they could then theoretically write about the pay gap, for instance, with their newfound education.

In that case, empowering men and women to both write about what they can only (on average) write about would be a good thing because it would be educating everyone.

I hope that makes sense. There’s probably a hole in my argument there or a hole in my wording.

“If writers are being pigeon holed into particular subjects as writers then they’re being curated by design. And that is a bad thing. That may also have been true for early adopters like yourself who quickly learned how to write about productivity.”

I agree. I don’t think that’s happening here (on Medium) that much. The content game is weird. A lot of Youtubers make videos they know will do well in the Youtube algorithm. We have to make sure this doesn’t happen. I think human curators help, but even with human curators with biases and agendas can do harm, too. There does need to be a balance.

“Curation is not an endorsement of viewpoint, it’s an endorsement of writing quality. That’s proving problematic for a team of human editors who have their own biases. Broadly speaking, I think they do a good job, though a tendency to lean slightly to the political left.”

Another really good point. I think they lean reallllly far left which is annoying to me at times because I want all the opinions. When I come home from the Philippines to my conservative parents I hardly ever interrupt them because I actually want to hear their point of view for a change (many of their POV’s I agree with, and there are also a good bit I don’t agree with). Anyway, let me get back on track..

I agree that curation should be an endorsement of writing quality. The problem, to me, is that writing quality can sometimes be really subjective.

That was a great discussion. I appreciate that.