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I am tech – Real stories from women in technology

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Re: I am tech – Real stories from women in technology

#41

Post by dragonwriter »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #30
eonw wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's all fine and dandy, but no one is bitching about the fact we have very very very few men working in the child care industry, for instance... better start subsidizing their jobs too? men and women were both given the same choice of universities and classes in high school. the tech sector did not turn its back on women or minorities, they turned their back on it. now that its profitable they want a piece of that…

Yes, I am all for greater male participation in the child-care industry. (I really am!) So say we all. Are you satisfied? Will you now please join us on in constructively discussing the exclusion of women from tech, law, science, politics, accounting, carpentry, the military... and how to fix it? If the child care industry were representative of men's exclusion from most high paying, socially powerful fields, then I…

> But, as it is, the child-care field is not a field that a lot of men would like to get into, it pays fairly poorly, (unfortunately) confers little power or respect, and is largely an anomaly in an economy where most jobs, especially powerful ones are dominated by men.

Its actually not really an anomaly for jobs that pay fairly poorly and confer little power or respect to be dominated by women and/or persistently disadvantaged minorities. (It's really part of the same effect as jobs that pay well and confer power and respect being dominated by white men.)

Re: I am tech – Real stories from women in technology

#42

Post by cpeterso »

Noelkd wrote: post #36

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_tVT0dhEMU Is this a positive story? Is it supposed to be? Is this a story from GitHub? I'm confused about this.

Whether the events happened at GitHub or elsewhere doesn't matter for the story. She is describing her personal experience so that other people may be find the courage to ask for what they feel is equitable.

Re: I am tech – Real stories from women in technology

#43

Post by nugga »

tdavis wrote: post #31
kefka wrote: post #5

Why should I care about more social justice demagoguery? I couldn't care less if you have a penis, testicles, breasts, vagina, uterus, or whatever combinations of said organs this unique little butterfly has. "What have you done, and what are you working on?" are important to me. And auxiliary to that would be "What life happenings lead you to addressing those questions?". I'm also curious how they learned the skills…

Kids, this isn't hard. Just apply a little logic. Statements like "all I care about is what you have done/created/accomplished" is predicated on the notion that everyone is already equal. That we all have the same access to opportunity, encouragement, resources, etc. Whether through malice or simple disinterest, you've managed to hold onto a basic assumption that would be exceedingly trivial for you to disprove. And…

Morgan Freeman said it right when asked how to combat racism. His answer: stop talking about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2d2SzRZvsQ

Stuff like this just creates undue resistance and ill will.

Re: I am tech – Real stories from women in technology

#44

Post by braythwayt »

no1ne wrote: post #26
pdabbadabba wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason others are concerned about this while you are not is that many people regard this proposition as wildly incorrect: > men have struggles just the same Yes, men and women both have struggles. But many believe (including myself) that women face many more challenges by virtue of being women, than men do by virtue of being men. Women are more likely to be sexualized in work (and any other) environments, their r…

let me ask you this simple question, whether you take it in context or not is upto you :) ... do you really think and know I might add, that there are no differences between men and women? especially in their brains??

There may well be differences. So what I do about that is this: I scan my wall for my certifications in neuroscience. None there.

I then scan my recollection for serious papers written about the subject, with results that have been reproduced and represent the consensus view of scientists working in the field. None again.

Therefore, I conclude that my debating whether men's brains are different than women's brains would be an exercise in ignorance, much like those politicians who "proved" there is no global warming by brandishing a snowball.

Re: I am tech – Real stories from women in technology

#45

Post by nostrebored »

crindy wrote: post #22
untog wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the implication here that we shouldn't let women tell any stories unless their experience is an utterly universal one experienced by every woman? Just seems like a way to derail a worthwhile project like this. It is clearly collecting a wide variety of stories, and IMO that's worthwhile. After all, minorities - by definition - don't have universal experiences, but surely they're still worth telling?

I thought the poster just wanted people to avoid generalizing. "All women get catcalled" isn't okay, but "I often get catcalled" is fine.

I think this would be fine, if more people were talking about it. My fiancee phrasing things in a way like "I often get catcalled" frequently gets derailed by people saying what the OP here mentioned. And at that point the discussion does get shut down, because if she does mention that most of her friends have the same experience, the implication does come up.

Depending on where you live, and what you do in your day, attractive women do get cat called. A lot. An upsetting amount, and just because it's not a universal doesn't make the derailing okay either. I'm sure that people saying this don't mean to derail, just as people mentioning the catcalling don't intend it as an insult, but it does shut down conversation.

Re: I am tech – Real stories from women in technology

#47

Post by lambda »

ryanobjc wrote: post #2

One thing I have learned from my wonderful partner is stories like this can be incredibly alienating to women who don't fit into them. For example, the "all women get catcalled" - my partner notes that since she never gets catcalled, she must be too ugly. So what about the women who have an entirely different kind of experience? This article is a classic: https://medium.com/@maradydd/okay-feminism-its-time-we-had-a..…

> "all women get catcalled"

Which one of these videos did that quote come from? I haven't watched them all, but I didn't see it in the few that I watched.

> So what about the women who have an entirely different kind of experience?

Just because some women have different experiences doesn't mean that there aren't real problems that other women face.

For instance, if I have never been a victim of mugging, that doesn't mean that mugging is still not a problem. And hey, I live in a city; so should I say that we should stop talking about problems with urban violence just because I haven't personally been subjected to it?

Re: I am tech – Real stories from women in technology

#48

Post by pdabbadabba »

exstudent2 wrote: post #34
pdabbadabba wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason others are concerned about this while you are not is that many people regard this proposition as wildly incorrect: > men have struggles just the same Yes, men and women both have struggles. But many believe (including myself) that women face many more challenges by virtue of being women, than men do by virtue of being men. Women are more likely to be sexualized in work (and any other) environments, their r…

> But many believe (including myself) that women face many more challenges by virtue of being women, than men do by virtue of being men. That's absolutely a position you can only take because of your own privilege. Lower income men face arguably the worst discrimination available in the US since they are way over represented in our prisons. I don't think trying to determine which of the sexes has it "worse" is in any…

Hold the phone! I didn't say that all women have it worse than all men. I totally agree that gender is just one of many factors that gives some people unfair advantages and other unfair disadvantages.

My only claim is that being a woman tends to be a disadvantage in the same way that being poor or being black tends to be a disadvantage. It obviously is the case that the advantage/disadvantage conferred by one trait (here, gender) is conditioned by other factors. So, it might be that upper-income white women are more disadvantaged relative to upper-income white men, compared to the relative disadvantage of lower-income white women with respect to lower income white men. This certainly seems like a real possibility given, as you say, the unreasonably high incarceration rate of lower-income men. (Though I'm not sure I'm ready to commit one way or the other on who has it worse. I just don't know enough about the lives of lower-income women, frankly.)

Given that we were talking about the software industry, though, it seemed reasonable to relativize the conversation to, broadly speaking, middle/upper income people.

Re: I am tech – Real stories from women in technology

#49

Post by Joeboy »

nugga wrote: post #43
tdavis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids, this isn't hard. Just apply a little logic. Statements like "all I care about is what you have done/created/accomplished" is predicated on the notion that everyone is already equal. That we all have the same access to opportunity, encouragement, resources, etc. Whether through malice or simple disinterest, you've managed to hold onto a basic assumption that would be exceedingly trivial for you to disprove. And…

Morgan Freeman said it right when asked how to combat racism. His answer: stop talking about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2d2SzRZvsQ Stuff like this just creates undue resistance and ill will.

Maybe the way to stop people making websites about gender issues in tech is to stop complaining about it?

Re: I am tech – Real stories from women in technology

#50

Post by braythwayt »

kefka wrote: post #5

Why should I care about more social justice demagoguery? I couldn't care less if you have a penis, testicles, breasts, vagina, uterus, or whatever combinations of said organs this unique little butterfly has. "What have you done, and what are you working on?" are important to me. And auxiliary to that would be "What life happenings lead you to addressing those questions?". I'm also curious how they learned the skills…

Your underlying point seems to be about making decisions objectively, without baggage related to gender or whatever.

But you wrap that point in a lot of highly subjective angry baggage, where you presume that anyone downvoting you is an "SJW," and you mock something you disagree with as "demagoguery," as if it is a rhetorical play to garner a following rather than a sincerely held belief.

This tells me that you are NOT a particularly objective person. And if you aren't, perhaps you could open your mind to the possibility that other people aren't, either. Maybe you personally aren't biased against women. But that doesn't preclude the possibility that other people don't have such biases, and objectively speaking, this is the case regardless of how you or I might believe we behave.

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