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My positive experience as a woman in tech

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Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#61

Post by indifferentalex »

DanBC wrote: post #20
indifferentalex wrote: post #19

10/10 Will read again. The sexism debate has indeed painted a bleak picture, people so often try to show a different side of the picture but end up using the wrong words or simply adding ambiguity to the discussion, most of the time only making the matter more complicated, and worst of all, pulling us even further from a potential solution. This one showed us not only a potential solution, but also proved it's effect…

> treat others the way you want to be treated, You've never had a pathological arsehole for a boss?

I'm still studying and have never encountered obstacles set up by people with institutional power over me, so I am to a degree naive and privileged, however I was talking more about the day to day interactions that happen with a myriad of different people, mostly your peers (which apart from a few instances where it was the "bosses of tech" causing the problems, from what I remember reading the sexism usually came from the coworkers of the women). I definitely wasn't commenting on the application of the author's thoughts to all of human interaction, and didn't mean to come off that naive.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#62

Post by scintill76 »

meowface wrote: post #41
swombat wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't she be treated as both simultaneously? Why does treatment as an "engineer" require the abolition of her "lady" role? Are the two roles not compatible? I personally thing it is more sexist to try and deny gender differences than simply recognise them and deal with people respectfully. I find the implication that the only way to not be sexist is to treat everyone as gender neutral disturbing.

Why is it generally okay to swear in front of men but generally not okay to swear in front of women? That's a pretty sexist, and condescending, point of view. Sure, there are gender differences. But I don't think "genetic vulnerability to profanity" is one of them.

This feminist wiki says, "Any form of 'fuck' that assumes penetration is a bad thing for the receptive partner" is misogynist[1]. So I guess something like "Yeah, they really fucked us over on that one." could have been what he said, and it would be misogynistic and thus makes sense to be something that shouldn't be said around women especially. The next step is to eliminate saying it around men too, because misogyny hurts us all.

Yes, I'm being half-sarcastic here. It seems like if you want to question this definition of misogyny, you have to concede that every such thing, like casual uses of the terms "trigger" and "microagression", is suspect. Why is "fuck" so acceptable to say around women that they feel left out when you try to abstain, but saying "forking" and "dongle" was a mini sexual assault that one time?

[1] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Guide_for_foul-mouthed_fe...

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#63

Post by mycroft-holmes »

cubano wrote: post #27

Here is my personal experience with the fringes of this issue over a lifetime of watching it play out before my eyes... If a female is attracted to the guy, things he says or does are considered "cute", "flirtatious", and/or "interesting". If not, the same actions are often considered "creepy", "jerkish", and yes even "sexist". I think its just human nature to perceive things in this way, and since women grow up in s…

I'd say you're absolutely correct. I laugh when I see feminist friends of mine who complain about "creepy" guys approaching them at coffee shops and days later they'll talk about how they hate being single and want to meet someone.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#64

Post by cabalamat »

Chris2048 wrote: post #33
DanBC wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody seems to question Yes they do - there are programmes to get more men teaching, especially to younger children. This is mentioned in every single thread about women in tech on HN, btw.

It's also asked how prevalent those programs are compared to IT. "Women in Tech" is now a common phrase in IT, is "Men in Education" as well?

According to Google, "men in education" is the more common of the two phrases, for whatever that's worth:

"men in education" = 2,070,000

"women in tech" = 528,000

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#65

Post by tomp »

DanBC wrote: post #15
adrianN wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? Nobody seems to question that this is the reason why there are so few male preschool teachers.

> Nobody seems to question Yes they do - there are programmes to get more men teaching, especially to younger children. This is mentioned in every single thread about women in tech on HN, btw.

The problem is that they're never mentioned by anyone else, e.g. by mainstream media.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#66

Post by marrs »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #42
smikhanov wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... You should have stopped at this "but". Do you seriously think that it's reasonable to put into the same basket the girls' problems in Rwanda and girls' problems in modern San Francisco?

No it's not reasonable - that's the point. The OP came up with "sexism is overrated" - I wanted to point out that if you are a girl in large parts of the world that's a frankly laughable statement. It is also wrong in modern western world, but not to the same degree - but it is still measurably wrong to think sexism is over rated.

I think it's fair to assume that the OP was speaking within the context of working in the IT industry

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#67

Post by tomp »

meowface wrote: post #41
swombat wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't she be treated as both simultaneously? Why does treatment as an "engineer" require the abolition of her "lady" role? Are the two roles not compatible? I personally thing it is more sexist to try and deny gender differences than simply recognise them and deal with people respectfully. I find the implication that the only way to not be sexist is to treat everyone as gender neutral disturbing.

Why is it generally okay to swear in front of men but generally not okay to swear in front of women? That's a pretty sexist, and condescending, point of view. Sure, there are gender differences. But I don't think "genetic vulnerability to profanity" is one of them.

In my experience, with my friends, male friends are much more likely to swear than female. So it's reasonable to assume they would also be more accepting of other people swearing, and generalize this assumption to other people.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#68

Post by facepalm »

DanBC wrote: post #29
facepalm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it a bit funny that they call it a "gender index", but it really just cares about discrimination against women. Way to go... Are girls equally likely as men to be recruited as child soldiers? Presumably their statistics won't show it... Also I think access of women to education in the third world might be a good indicator of economic and health care in those countries, not necessarily discrimination. If women…

> Are girls equally likely as men to be recruited as child soldiers? Yes, girls are likely to be recruited as children. Sometimes that's as a child soldier, sometimes that's as a sex slave. Some armed groups see women (including girls) as equal to males. >> About 40 percent of the hundreds of thousands of child soldiers scattered across the world’s conflicts today are thought to be girls, but the numbers of girls enr…

Thank you for the statistics. My point, though, that a gender index should not just look at girls, still stands. "Male" is also a gender.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#69

Post by jstanley »

indifferentalex wrote: post #61
DanBC wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> treat others the way you want to be treated, You've never had a pathological arsehole for a boss?

I'm still studying and have never encountered obstacles set up by people with institutional power over me, so I am to a degree naive and privileged, however I was talking more about the day to day interactions that happen with a myriad of different people, mostly your peers (which apart from a few instances where it was the "bosses of tech" causing the problems, from what I remember reading the sexism usually came fr…

> I'm still studying and have never encountered obstacles set up by people with institutional power over me

You'll meet more obstacles set up by people with institutional power over you at school and university than you ever will in the "real world".

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#70

Post by aaronem »

swombat wrote: post #28
avz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing this important point: > His effort to be courteous made me feel that I was different, the odd one out, the one we must be careful around and treat like a fragile flower. We should respect all our colleagues equally regardless of the type of sexual organs they happen to be equipped with (and regardless of other irrelevant characteristics). Singling out one group over others for additional "respect" is w…

Why can't she be treated as both simultaneously? Why does treatment as an "engineer" require the abolition of her "lady" role? Are the two roles not compatible? I personally thing it is more sexist to try and deny gender differences than simply recognise them and deal with people respectfully. I find the implication that the only way to not be sexist is to treat everyone as gender neutral disturbing.

Apparently the two roles aren't perceived as compatible by whoever felt the need to apologize to a fellow engineer for saying something that no engineer would be upset to hear, or for that matter at all unlikely to say. If he has to choose, as apparently he does, between thinking of her as an engineer and thinking of her as a lady, then I'd suggest that the role she's earned should trump the one to which she was born.
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