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> “Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’”

I believe she genuinely felt the way she describes, but I don't think she felt it because of her gender.

I would take a guess that this kind of feeling isn't present for the vast majority of women -- indeed, there was no danger.

I find it more likely that the feeling had something to do with the trauma associated with her father knocking out her mother's teeth with a hammer when she was a kid, as detailed in the last part of the article.

An innocuous joke that triggered a disproportionate emotional response, seeded by past trauma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_trauma#Symptoms



> I would take a guess that this kind of feeling isn't present for the vast majority of women -- indeed, there was no danger.

I can attest to this. My friends in computer science - both male and female - make bad sex jokes all the time. We all laugh at them.

I don't think it's fair to assume that only men can enjoy dumb jokes.


> An innocuous joke that triggered a disproportionate emotional response, seeded by past trauma.

This psychological point is the key issue which seems to have unfortunately been missed in a lot of the HN discussion.




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