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My positive experience as a woman in tech

lea.verou.me

111–120 of 403 posts

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#111

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…

And the "sexism" debate was stirred by people who were only tangentially involved in Tech, like the PR person "Adria Richards". If you listen to actual women with actual Math, CS, or EE degrees, you'll hear a different story.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#112
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.

"Creepy" is shorthand, which most men are at a disadvantage in understanding on account of not having spent a lifetime analyzing men as potential mates. (And now you know why the "gay friend" trope exists: as a bridge between the worlds.) In this case, "creepy" probably has a lot to do with anyone dense enough to try a cold sell in a coffee shop being unlikely in the extreme to make a worthwhile partner even if humored.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#113

Blackstone's formulation for those who didn't bother to click through: >"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" Wise to keep this in mind if you wish to be justice-conscious.

Given 11 people who each have a 90.9% chance of having significantly harmed a child and the option to release all or jail all, how many would be for releasing all of them? I find that most people don't follow Blackstone's formulation in practice. Maybe if it was 1 guilty person, but not 10.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#114
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever attend military training? I assume no because then you would know that there is a massive difference between somebody in civilian clothes attacking random people and soldiers in uniform and/or with other clearly visible signs that clearly tells they are combatants attacking people who were likely to be dangerous. That said, there's a lot to say about the notions that "(American) soldiers are good, insurg…

> people who were likely to be dangerous That's a convenient excuse. The number of civilian causalties in Iraq makes me unlikely to believe it.

Totally agree that we have a problem here, see my two last paragraphs.

I only pointed out that soldier is very well defined.

(And if they shoot at random civilian they should be bought to court and sentenced, although I suspect we see that far to rarely)

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#115
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sexism is not stereotypes or personal feelings or attitudes (although those can by misogynistic). The academic (and consistent) definition of sexism is a property of a society where one of the sexes has less power than the other, and the mechanism by which that imbalance of power is perpetuated. Of course, sexism occurs because of internalized biases that are very hard counter unless people actually seek them out, an…

No. I'm sick of this game. You clarification of the definition isn't clarification. It's unnecessary linguistic prescriptivism. If you want to talk about the type of sexism also often refereed to as "institutional sexism" then that's fine. If you want to call it just "sexism" thats fine too (but puts an unnecessary complication on the reader). But "sexism" is an overloaded term whether you want it to be or not. Just…

> If you want to talk about the type of sexism also often refereed to as "institutional sexism"

But I was not talking about institutional sexism. Sexism can be individual (and often is), but unlike misogyny it does not imply disdain towards women; simply behavior (that can feel neutral or even positive) that results in increasing the imbalance of power.

> But "sexism" is an overloaded term whether you want it to be or not.

OK, but it also a term that was coined by a feminist professor fifty years ago and considered a well-accepted academic term regardless of its colloquial meaning(s).

> Academic writing is about clarity and making sure the reader understands the author's meaning.

Academics seem to understand that writing just fine. You can't claim that physicists' definition of energy is unclear merely because it is also used colloquially to mean other things, and you can't expect an academic to clarify what they mean by "sexism" just as you can't expect them to explain what they mean by "energy", because those are well-established, commonly used academic terms. If you find them confusing, you can either learn the relevant subject or choose not to.

Unlike energy, the word sexism started with its academic definition and was only later overloaded (due to confusion) by laymen, rather than the other way around.

> But if they say "definition 2 of foo isn't actually foo, it's just bar. For any and all uses of foo, including outside this paper" they're a hack.

I didn't say that. I just clarified the original and academic definition of the term, because it is the colloquial term that causes confusion. The academic term is quite clear. Do with it as you like. You're obviously very angry about something.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#116
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…

It's like the old Tom Brady skit on SNL:

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/sexual-harassme...

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#117
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that deliberately trying to accommodate women can result in being more sexist. Which is pretty ironic.

I'm not a woman, but if I were one, I think I'd be pretty irritated if I was given special privileges or encouragement over male peers to "help me succeed" or something. That seems condescending and unfair.

I understand what you're saying, but it is a bit more complicated than that. Affirmative action is about leveling an unlevel playing field by giving preferential treatment to those who are on the lower side of the playing field, even if they're "less qualified" than those on the higher end of the field. Yes, when viewed on the micro scale without a picture of the whole field, it may seem "unfair," but that's precisely the point; to raise up those who have been treated unfairly in other arenas. In addition, there is value simply in having viewpoints outside of those you might otherwise receive by valuing people solely on whatever objective "merits" you might be evaluating them on.

It is a tricky and difficult subject, I would not be quick to dismiss either argument.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

However,

"men in education" = 2,070,000

"women in technology" = 9,200,000

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#119
post #74

That's the general theme of public discourse... Americans killing Muslims in Iraq are "soldiers", wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists". Edit: Looks like I've hit a very sore point...

Didn't downvote but...

> Edit: Looks like I've hit a very sore point...

What you said is wrong because you use wrong words. Try changing soldier to hero and we almost agree although I would still hold that attacking random civilians is bad anyway.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#120
post #91
post #74

That's the general theme of public discourse... Americans killing Muslims in Iraq are "soldiers", wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists". Edit: Looks like I've hit a very sore point...

> That's the general theme of public discourse... Americans killing Muslims in Iraq are "soldiers", wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists". Americans aren't killing Muslims in Iraq just because they are muslims. That's a straw-man. > wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists" (Some) Muslim extremists certainly are killing americans because of what they are and what they belie…

It's a pity that, whenever some idiot tries to set light to a mosque in a 'revenge' attack, it never seems to get described as a 'terrorist attack'. I don't know why that is.
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