FT Person of the Year: Susan Fowler

Re:FT Person of the Year: Susan Fowler by ktta on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @01:36PM (#15908151)

>“When I was younger, I used to think that my unconventional upbringing was a weakness, but over the past few years I’ve learnt to see it as one of my greatest strengths,” she says. “I never had a single thing handed to me, I had to fight for everything I wanted, like my education. When I was harassed and discriminated against, I fought as hard as I could — because I hadn’t gone through all of that, I hadn’t worked so hard my entire life, just to have someone take it away from me.”

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Re:FT Person of the Year: Susan Fowler by myth_drannon on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @02:16PM (#15908534)

Just survival bias, for every fighter like her there are 99 others that fell through the cracks. Not everyone is born with such a strong will to succeed.

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Re:FT Person of the Year: Susan Fowler by r00fus on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @03:27PM (#15909142)

I fail to see why her being proud of her success both despite and because of her upbringing should be cause of criticism just because she fails to acknowledge her "class peers" who failed to make it where she did... it's sort of implicit (esp. since she didn't in any way denigrate them for "not working hard enough").

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Re:FT Person of the Year: Susan Fowler by erikpukinskis on Wednesday December 13, 2017 @11:38AM (#15915316)

I think the point is that as a group we should care about bias even though some people are able to fight through it.

It’s like people who say “how could America be racist if Obamacare got elected” which I have been hearing a lot lately. You can have a system that’s massively unfair... the existence of a handful of people who succeed despite unfairness is not evidence of anything except that some people are extraordinary.

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Re:FT Person of the Year: Susan Fowler by r00fus on Wednesday December 13, 2017 @02:58PM (#15917098)

To not expect bias for someone only talking about her own experiences (and not comparing herself to others) sounds like you're trying to be criticize for criticisms's sake.

It's the onus of FT to contextualize Ms. Fowler's comments, if that's what you're getting at, but then again, it is FT not People magazine (take it for what it's worth).

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Re:FT Person of the Year: Susan Fowler by DoreenMichele on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @03:02PM (#15908943)

Or perhaps the world is not so black and white. Perhaps her experiences taught her things women often seem to not know. Perhaps she had various forms of support that are not obvious here.

I homeschooled my sons. Lack of formal education prior to university is not evidence that one is not getting support. There are parents that actively quash the dreams of their kids and insist the kids pursue something the parent feels matters. They push their kids into pursuing a particular path. This is often seen by outsiders as a good thing, but it usually is not. It usually means the kid never got to decide for themselves what they wanted out of life and simply did as they were told.

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Re:FT Person of the Year: Susan Fowler by jonny_eh on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @02:20PM (#15908576)

What's the bias here? She seems to deserve all the positive attention she gets.

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Re:FT Person of the Year: Susan Fowler by vailripper on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @02:26PM (#15908644)

Absolutely, but I think it can also be said that it's a pretty messed up system where it requires that will to succeed to have success.

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Re:FT Person of the Year: Susan Fowler by cjbprime on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @02:40PM (#15908775)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

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