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My positive experience as a woman in tech

lea.verou.me

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Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#131

Post by forgottenpass »

pron wrote: post #115
forgottenpass wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

You can't claim that physicists' definition of energy is unclear merely because it is also used colloquially to mean other things

No, but I also don't see lab scientists bustle when they're in a conversation where it's used colloquially.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#132

Post by tomp »

reitanqild wrote: post #119
tomp wrote: 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.

> you use wrong words

Intentionally, that's the point! It's absurd that some words are "right" and some are "wrong", when they essentially mean the same thing - a murderer killing others, for some definition of others.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#133

Post by userium »

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…

Based on discussions we have had with women in tech at https://keepwomen.com, it's not just sexism, but many women leave tech due to working conditions (low salary, no advancement), work-life balance (too much travelling, commuting), or the company environment (poor cultural "fit"). Some solutions for retaining women in tech are e.g. flexible working hours, personal development opportunities and workforce diversity.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#134

Post by reitanqild »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #120
aikah wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Where is this happening on a regular basis except in Muslim countries?

Also FWIW I think my local news sources tend to write about it in about the same way they write about other forms of terrorism.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#135

Post by reitanqild »

aikah wrote: post #91
tomp wrote: 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…

Upvoted, you explained it very well.

One other comment:

> A soldier that would do the same would be charged with war-crime, and it happened.

I'm sadly afraid this doesn't happens enough.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#136

Post by danr4 »

>"It takes a lot of introspection to see one’s internalized stereotypes."

I think she hit spot on with this - But that bit was directed at men, when the reality is that it goes both ways.

The problem is that it's a cycle hard to break from - it's not just men being sexist, it's women being unconsciously sexist towards themselves because they grew up in a sexist environment.

That's why you need to raise awareness, to make men AND women more aware of their thoughts and actions which they did not know were a result of sexism. Gotta break the pattern.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#137

Post by mkane848 »

lmm wrote: post #9
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #4

> "Ironically, one of the very few times I have experienced any sexism in the industry was when a dude was trying to be nice to me." I'm not sure how ironic this is. It seems to be setting up a straw man of sexist behaviour being the domain of moustache-twirling villians, rather than something that often perfectly normal men and women inflict on each other and experience unwanted outcomes of because of their culture…

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

My old manager did this kind of shit to female coworkers all the time. He'd insist they put "earmuffs" on if he was going to say something he thought was too dirty/inappropriate/whatever. He was a sexist piece of garbage anyway, but he didn't see how condescending and annoying it was for the women.

He did the same thing to female sales reps - insisted we give them extra help above and beyond what he'd want us to do for men. Very glad I got out of retail hell.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#138

Post by andrewvc »

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…

What you say about 'if the female is attracted' is incredibly wrong, and I can speak from personal experience (as a guy). It's NOT about attraction, its about being, well, creepy. I didn't find this out till I started hitting the gym more and gay men started hitting on me more often (I'm straight and happily married for the record, so it's not about me being attracted or not). Here's what I learned:

If the guy is direct and has a positive attitude I say no but I take it as a compliment. It's like a feather in my cap (someone thinks I look good!). If the guy is being weird and indirect about it that gets creepy (and sometimes a little scary). The difference is that the positive guy usually takes the hint if I'm not interested. If they don't take the hint they BECOME creepy. The creepy guy is either so indirect that there's no clear way to give a hint, or just refuses to take the hint at all.

As I said before, since I'm straight this isn't about whether I'm attracted to the person or not. It's about someone acting in a way that feels creepy or not. It's about whether boundaries are being crossed. Finally, I'll end by saying that you can be hit on by a good looking person in a creepy way, and flirted with by an ugly person in a very positive way. It's all about attitude.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#139

Post by pervycreeper »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #113
pervycreeper wrote: post #94

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.

>how many would be for releasing all of them?

I'm not sure; haven't made a survey. Probably most. It doesn't matter in any case.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#140

Post by theseatoms »

forgottenpass wrote: post #131
pron wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 o…

You can't claim that physicists' definition of energy is unclear merely because it is also used colloquially to mean other things No, but I also don't see lab scientists bustle when they're in a conversation where it's used colloquially.

You should hear militant (physical/philosophical) materialists react to the use of the word "energy" in a yoga class. ;)
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