HN is a bubble made of few making it real, mostly in the Bay Area, and a lot of marginal daydreamers from all over the world. For this reason, the mood and the overall narrative is sometimes bizarre: we have a front page with one topic bashing India as corrupt (it may be 90-95% of the planet, actually) and this one where gender (race, age, culture, attitude) does not affect the industry. A bit detached from ordinary life, both the makers and the dreamers, uh?
My positive experience as a woman in tech
51–60 of 403 posts
Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech
#52I think, when we see things like this, we maybe need to clarify where (country) these experiences come from. I suspect that the worst of sexism in tech comes from the US, and that Europe is generally great...
Why do you suspect that?
Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
>OECD's Social Institutions and Gender Index Is at http://www.genderindex.org , and is a litany of baked in prejudice, violence, lack of access to education, lack of access to property and other normal legal rights. You have me. >When we compare the lot of a 16 yo girl in Rwanda to a High schooler in SF, yes it is hard to find where the High schooler is having problems, but we just have to look at the ratio of men an…
Evidence of an employment ratio difference, or even a wage gap (without careful controlling of as many variables as possible), is not necessarily evidence of sexism. Yeah it is. Hear hooves, think horses, don't try too hard to eliminate zebras. EDIT: I am one the many reasons women don't like working (in tech). Friends of mine are at work, overly enthusiastic when engaging with female colleagues - nothing overt, noth…
>Yeah it is. Hear hooves, think horses, don't try too hard to eliminate zebras.
Not sure what you're trying to say there. No studies have empirically gotten at the root causes of the gender gap. Sure, sexism probably accounts for some percentage of women deciding not to choose such a profession, but there's no evidence to think it's a predominant role.
Sounds like you may be projecting your own attitude towards women onto others, possibly? I've never acted smarmy towards female coworkers, and haven't seen anyone else do so. Nor have I ever heard them complain about such a thing. Occasional social awkwardness; some older gentlemen being a little too eager to help (not in a smarmy way or with romantic/sexual overtones or anything like that, just polite "old-fashioned" behavior); but that's about it. That doesn't mean it hasn't happened to them, but if it did, they probably would have said something to someone if they felt it was a big enough issue.
Of course, I can't speak for women in general; maybe a lot of them do deal with smarminess in the workplace. All I have are anecdotes. But your anecdote doesn't mean you can speak for them in general, either. Are there any blog posts or testimonies by women in tech who've discussed this that I could look at?
Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> pretty much the only article about gender discrimination that is allowed to be on the hacker news front page WTF? There have been dozens of articles about gender discrimination on HN front page, and comments have always been supportive. In what alternate reality do you live?
> and comments have always been supportive. There's a sizable minority of HN commenters who deny sexism exists.
Almost invariably there will be a minority of any community that will disagree with any issue. What makes HN interesting is that it will never be the same minority.
I would take exception on your use of the word "sizeable", but we could debate that one all day and not get anywhere, so I wont bother.
Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech
#55There are definitely good experiences. I think the problem is when management pretends they did not hear something. I remember another female colleague (absent at the meeting) being referred to as a 'chick' and the other men laughing it off. It was a very bad experience. Being the only woman in the room, I did not speak up but I wish I did.
Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech
#56She had me until the very end, with the anecdote about the guy apologizing for swearing in front of her. I would apologize if I said "fuck" near my country's president, or even the president of my small-ish company. Both of whom are male. It's a sign of respect. In the context of women, I see it in a similar light to holding the door open for a lady. It isn't me assuming she's too weak to open a door, it's just a com…
Would you seriously hold a door open for a woman, but not a man? That's ... weird.
Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech
#57> It’s impossible to know, especially since they don’t know either! If you confront them on their sexism, they will deny all of it, and truly believe it. It takes a lot of introspection to see one’s internalized stereotypes. Therefore, a lot of the time, you cannot be sure if you have experienced sexist behavior, and there is no way to find out for sure, since the perpetrator doesn’t know either. There are many false…
I am also racist and sexist although I'd imagine that no one realizes it.
I work hard to take individuals as I find them and not prejudge. I think the best thing to do is try to minimize the effect of your biases on your actions and keep working to eliminate them. Not sure what else one could do.
Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech
#58It really isnt surprising this is pretty much the only article about gender discrimination that is allowed to be on the hacker news front page. Lea is obviously a talented and confident person and it is great that she has had such a positive experience. Entirely agree that she can and should share it. It is however sadly predictable that the comments on HN lean very much towards self congratulatory 'gender discrimina…
> gender discrimination isnt really a problem
Nobody sane would agree with this, and it's a totally skewed image of the real compliant many people have.
The real argument is, that it's much more likely the person isn't sexist, but a common asshole, as it's really hard to distinguish between the two.
Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
> pretty much the only article about gender discrimination that is allowed to be on the hacker news front page WTF? There have been dozens of articles about gender discrimination on HN front page, and comments have always been supportive. In what alternate reality do you live?
> and comments have always been supportive. There's a sizable minority of HN commenters who deny sexism exists.
There's a sizable minority of HN commenters that perceive (or misconstrue) any questioning as straight denial.
Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and comments have always been supportive. There's a sizable minority of HN commenters who deny sexism exists.
Almost invariably there will be a minority of any community that will disagree with any issue. What makes HN interesting is that it will never be the same minority. I would take exception on your use of the word "sizeable", but we could debate that one all day and not get anywhere, so I wont bother.
> Am I the only one who thinks "sexism" is overrated?
> I'm still not convinced that the lack of women in tech is due to sexism. Maybe women just aren't as excited by the field as men?
>> Stories like mine should become the norm, not the exception.
> We don't know if that is not the case already. The echo chamber is powerful and viral.
Given the comments that happen in these threads, I am not sure whether its the word 'sizeable' or 'minority' in question.