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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

#221

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

Yes, interactions with other human beings have different personal (to the counterparty) and often social acceptability (as well as, often, moral and/or legal status) based on context, including, especially, whether they are welcome by the other person. The difference between rape and consensual sex is a fairly extreme, obvious, and readily recognizable example, but, while the intensity and severity varies, its common across pretty much the whole range of human interactions.

Failing to recognize this and act accordingly is the essence of objectification.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#222

Post by tangled_zans »

humanrebar wrote: post #193
andrewvc wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dir…

You didn't actually cubano's point. You're straight so you weren't attracted to any of the guys who approached you. cubano was saying it would be different if you were approached by a woman you were interested in. Perhaps the indirectness would seem coy instead of creepy. Then again, maybe not, but I'm not sure how to objectively measure this phenomenon. People are fickle and attractiveness is sort of a squishy conce…

"You didn't actually cubano's point. You're straight so you weren't attracted to any of the guys who approached you. cubano was saying it would be different if you were approached by a woman you were interested in. Perhaps the indirectness would seem coy instead of creepy."

Maybe the women that cubano observed were not attracted to any of the guys that cubano saw approach them either? Maybe they weren't attracted to them because they were actually creepy?

I have never seen a woman treat a friendly guy who approached her as creepy just because the guy wasn't "attractive" to her, unless that guy was only being "friendly" in his own mind and actually acting very sleazy.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#223

Post by yummyfajitas »

pron wrote: post #216
yummyfajitas wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it sexism to make assumptions that are probabilistically correct? Consider the following procedure: 1) For a woman I don't know, I buy her frozen yogurt. 2) For a man I don't know, I buy him pizza. Now suppose my stereotypes are actually accurate - i.e., P(likes froyo > pizza|woman) > 0.5 and P(likes pizza > froyo | man) > 0.5. This procedure, based purely on stereotypes, will make everyone happier than flipping a…

I know you're just doing your normal schtick of incorrectly assuming that everyone else is stupid (obviously no one, including blowski, thinks "to not be sexist, you need to ignore information and make worse decisions"), but this time you have accidentally stumbled on an interesting point. I know you don't care one way or another, but for the sake of other readers, I'd like to point it out(and BTW, your specific exam…

I'll ignore your ad-hominem and your strange attempts to change the topic to your uncommon definition of sexism (as opposed to the original definition used by blowski, Pauline Leet, Caroline Bird, and everyone else here).

You are correct that it is possible that by giving people snacks they prefer, I'm affecting their future preferences in some way.

So what? All actions might possibly influence people's future preferences in some (probably unpredictable) manner. Why would I trade actual predictable present-day happiness for unpredictable changes in future behavior that might theoretically be somewhat better?

(If you disagree with me that influence on future preferences is unpredictable, and think you can predict social dynamics better than random chance, offer me a basket of bets at favorable odds.)

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#224

Post by cbd1984 »

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?

You treat them nicely while you keep your records and protect yourself as well as you can. You can say "No" nicely, and you can instigate a lawsuit without ever losing your decorum or sense of fair play.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#225

Post by andrewvc »

humanrebar wrote: post #219
andrewvc wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got a point. I'm sure being physically attracted to someone enhances or diminishes the effect of their actual approach. Additionally, attractive people are more confident, and confident people tend to not behave in as many creepy behaviors. That being said, the underlying theme of cubano's comment was blaming women for (shockingly) responding positively to flirty men who they find attractive, and responding ne…

I think you're jumping to some conclusions there. Most "creepy" men are socially awkward and can't do anything about it, or at least they haven't been able to do anything about it yet. To villainize them out of hand isn't helpful either. Some of them undoubtedly have social disorders, so coming down on them seems unfair as well. Maybe there are some people that are creepy on purpose , but I suspect that is a very sma…

I think we agree more than we disagree! I agree with you that a lot of them are simply awkward. I'm trying not to make them into villains, and I apologize for striking a somewhat harsh tone. I think that is deeply unfair as well!

Conversations like this are important because, as you say there's no authoritative resource on the topic. If we don't talk about how to act people will continue to walk around clueless.

That being said, if someone's boundaries are being crossed it incredibly unfair to say "he isn't doing it on purpose, he just doesn't know better". It still sucks to the person who's on the receiving end of that, they deserve fair treatment just as much. Unfortunately justice in that sort of situation is going to leave someone hurt, and it's better that the hurt person be the person breaking the social contract.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#226

Post by washadjeffmad »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #152
blowski wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Sexism is not identical to misogynism. Where the latter is about being nasty, sexism is believing something about somebody solely based on their gender. So if I assume you don't like pizza and football because you're female, so instead buy you frozen yoghurt, I'm being sexist even if it's with the nicest of intentions. We're all human and we all make mistakes, but sometimes people blow those mistakes out of…

Is it sexism to make assumptions that are probabilistically correct? Consider the following procedure: 1) For a woman I don't know, I buy her frozen yogurt. 2) For a man I don't know, I buy him pizza. Now suppose my stereotypes are actually accurate - i.e., P(likes froyo > pizza|woman) > 0.5 and P(likes pizza > froyo | man) > 0.5. This procedure, based purely on stereotypes, will make everyone happier than flipping a…

Whether or not they understand Bayes, some groups of people are more concerned about what their posteriors will become proportional to whether they choose pizza and/or froyo.

In those cases, despite your information being generally probabilistically correct for your goal, the worst decision could be giving them something that they'll eat (and enjoy) or want to eat but can't. You're predicting for what to bring on a first encounter, and the best answer could be to bring nothing until you have better information.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#227

Post by Ntrails »

gvb wrote: post #130
gotchange wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but simply by people treating others (women included) nicely, or as my first grade teacher taught me, by following the golden rule, treat others the way you want to be treated, So, no more "ladies first" and gentleman treatment for women?

The golden rule requires you to be courteous regardless of gender. For instance, when you reach the door first, hold it open for the others, regardless of their gender.

No, it doesn't. It says "If you would want them to hold the door open for you were the places switched, then hold the door open." Of course if I don't really care about it, then I'm free not to bother. If I would rather someone confronted me when my code is shit, rather than letting it slide, then that is how I treat everyone else too.

There is a strong argument to say the golden rule is really saying "treat others the way society tells you to" and some contend it should simply be "treat others the way they want to be treated".

Of course at that point you've lost the simplicity of the original phrase and the primary teaching implement of self interest.

Not to mention, at some point there are limits to the extent I am going to pander to someones wishes in how they want to be treated. I respect your right to self-identify as an attack helicopter, but I'm not going to bow my head as I approach to avoid your rotor blades.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#228

Post by dragonwriter »

SuperComputing wrote: post #111
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…

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.

> 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.

As someone whose listened to actual women with Math, CS, and EE degrees (and women who are working in technical roles without degrees in those fields, as both women and men in the field do), I disagree. You'll hear a mix of stories from those women, some positive, some as bad (or worse) than those from women "tangentially involved" in tech.

OTOH, I don't think that sexism in the tech industry would fail to be a problem if it only victimized women in non- (or less-)technical roles within the industry.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#229

Post by fweespeech »

SuperComputing wrote: post #111
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…

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.

http://blog.linkedin.com/2015/06/17/measuring-gender-diversi...

> Technology companies are generally considered to be some of the most sought-after employers in the world. We have an inherent “home field advantage” when it comes to recruiting the largest and richest talent pools of our most critical position: software engineers. However, despite this advantage, our data indicates that software engineering teams in tech have proportionally fewer women than several non-tech industries; namely healthcare, retail, government, education, and nonprofits. For example, a typical software engineering team in a healthcare company is likely to be 32% women, compared to 20% in technology. While these non-tech industries employ significantly fewer software engineers versus technology, their teams tend to exhibit greater gender parity.

You don't end up with 50% women in other industries with basically the same role without some sort of reason.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#230

Post by fweespeech »

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 leave when I encounter that. Its the only viable solution when the other party in the relationship isn't reasonable.
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