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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

#271

Post by Balgair »

kazinator wrote: post #257
Balgair wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, what does flexible working hours, personal development opportunities and workforce diversity mean in practice? The faults are hard measurable things, but the solutions are more fuzzy and not as easy to measure. When you measure flexible hours, what is your metric for saying that someone has that? When you say dev opportunities, how do I know if I have given my employees enough of them and of what quality? What d…

Probably this has to be just be looked as simply avoiding being bad. To avoid being bad, you don't have to overcompensate; that just creates reverse biases. Just don't have a bias: for instance, don't make a decision because someone is a woman, or Asian or whatever. Any decision: hiring, awarding a raise or promotion, etc. A discriminatory bias cannot be measured by simple proportions, like how many women work at Com…

great points on the stats. BTW, re: your username; zisteau?

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#272

Post by mlajeunesse »

charlieflowers wrote: post #146
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…

> 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 I don't think so (if anyone thinks I'm wrong, I'd like to hear your thoughts). I think to be sexist, it must be (1) based on gender and (2) assume something _disparaging_ about the individual. Getting them yoghurt might get you laughed at for being silly, but it doesn't seem sexist to me. Assu…

I disagree, I don't think you have to think something disparaging. I think often acts of sexism are not intentional and are deeply engrained in us. Here is an example that happened to me last night. I walked into a small startup pitch event, approached a group of older men and said hi. They barely reacted to me. Not 30 seconds later a man of my age (who I happen to know) walks in and this group of men all turned and shook his hand. To be clear they did not previously know each other. I don't for a second think that any of these men saw me and thought to themselves "She's a woman, I'm not going to bother saying hello or introducing myself" I just think that on instinct they saw a man and decided to introduce themselves. This happens all the time to women. I can't count the number of times men have skipped over shaking my hand. It's a small thing, it's more than likely not intentional, but it is a bit sexist. Sexism isn't always a big evil act, it can be a lot of small things that add up to make it harder for women to succeed.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#273

Post by Tycho »

CaptSpify wrote: post #191
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be honest I'm usually in a coffee shop to study and read and think to myself or with a friend. I'd be creeped out if a total stranger got in my space to flirt with me out of nowhere. Some people need to have time to mentally prepare for certain types of social interaction.

I'm the same way with you, but that's also why I don't go to coffee shops to study/think. I'm simplifying and assuming a lot here, but: Why would you go out to a place like that for "alone time"?

I kind of like the background noise for some reason. It wouldn't surprise me if our brains evolved to be most relaxedness and free from other worries when surrounded by other humans, making it a good setting for doing some studying or whatever.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#274

Post by blowski »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #269
blowski wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I'm buying my young niece a toy, and see two otherwise equal toys except one is blue and one is pink, is it sexist to choose the pink one? It would be sexist if you bought the pink one thinking "She's a girl, she'll prefer pink to blue" because you would be assuming something based solely on her gender. The best course of action might be to ask her "Do you want the blue one or the pink one?". But maybe you could…

>It would be sexist if you bought the pink one thinking "She's a girl, she'll prefer pink to blue" because you would be assuming something based solely on her gender. What if I think "she is a girl, which means that, given I do not know her preference, she is more likely to prefer pink to blue"? Is using averages sexist/racist/*ist? Would it be genderist to assume someone who displays all the signs of a guy is a guy?

The logic of averages works like this:

  Girls are more likely to prefer pink than blue.
  My niece is a girl. 
  Therefore she is more likely to prefer pink.
So it seems to stand. However, my niece is also Italian, and Italians are more likely to prefer blue to pink. She is also vegetarian and vegetarians are more likely to prefer green to either blue or pink. (I'm making all these stats up in case that wasn't obvious). So which colour toy should I buy for my niece?

Humans are complex. They can't be reduced to simple 'this one or that one' probabilities based on a single factor.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#275

Post by Chris2048 »

douche wrote: post #98
burkaman wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you suspect that?

Because Europe is a socialist, progressive paradise, full to the brim with sunshine and unicorns! /s

Relative to the US? Socialism isn't a dirty word in Europe. Not that I linked that to the issue at hand..

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#276

Post by Joeboy »

danielmason wrote: post #264
Joeboy wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> since my degrees are not in one of those three fields, I'm only tangentially involved in tech That conclusion cannot reasonably be inferred from the post you are responding to.

Are you being serious? That's exactly what's being implied. Which part of tangentially involved in tech juxtaposed with unlike women with Math, CS, or EE degrees would lead you to read that differently?

I am honestly as confused by your interpretation as you are by mine. I don't have any of those degrees, and I don't infer that Supercomputing is dismissing me as "tangentially" involved in tech. They are suggesting that Adria Richards' "Developer Evangelist" role wasn't a real technical role, which I couldn't really comment on. I don't think they are implying that ksenzee's "Senior Software Engineer" role doesn't count as a technical role.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#277

Post by microcolonel »

tangled_zans wrote: post #218
nv-vn wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Don't see why this was flagged Because some people would rather silence people who disagree with their opinions rather than debate them or just learn to live ignore them if it's too hard.

It's not about disagreement. The poster put "scare quotes" around sexism, implying that the issue does not even exist or is worth discussing. That's not an "opinion" it's an implicit way of saying that everyone talking about it is kind of dumb for even bringing it up. EDIT: OH WOW, I HAVE BEEN DOWNVOTED. Which is not something I normally care about since I post quite controversial things anyway. But downvoted by the…

By the way, it's against the guidelines to talk about being downvoted, that will explain further flagging of your post.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#278

Post by exodust »

Now we just need a "neutral experience as a woman in tech" piece and we'll have discussed the full spectrum of this topic.

I didn't read the article. When someone has a positive experience in tech "as a woman", that is the norm. I don't subscribe to that being noteworthy, regardless of the campaigns insisting otherwise.

maybe some stories about nasty manipulative women in tech should be shared. Or not. Bad vibes and all, who needs bad vibes. I worked with a backstabbing IT exec woman in a previous job. Piece of work she was... Won't go into it of course but sometimes people just suck. Male or female.

The danger is that poor performance can be insulated by the distraction of over sensitivity to the "women in tech" issue that's memed at campaign levels.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#279

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #109
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…

>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. If I'm buying my young niece a toy, and see two otherwise equal toys except one is blue and one is pink, is it sexist to choose the pink one? I have to make a choice, there is no non-colored toy. I only think it crosses into sexism if my niece told me…

So, this is an interesting example because people are throwing Bayes around, and yet when asked what their favourite color is, the most popular answer for women is blue.

And yet, their favourite color is associated with men.

I wonder what could possibly have caused this divergence from making decisions on a factual basis when everyone here is so focused on using statistics?

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/05/12/blue-worlds-favourite-c...

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#280

Post by ghrifter »

CaptSpify wrote: post #181
kelukelugames wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My co worker accuses other people of being "tone deaf" and then makes dick jokes. I have about a million examples of this. Of course, some of those stories are about me. :P People are too unwilling to admit and learn from their own mistakes.

> "tone deaf" and then makes dick jokes What does "tone deaf" mean in this context? And what's wrong with dick-jokes? EDIT: I've poorly worded my question/point: I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with dick jokes in the workplace, but context is key. It's probably best to side on safe in that regard I still would like to know what "tone deaf" means as I'm not understanding that term

I guess "tone deaf" is when someone doesn't understand what your tone of voice is and what that tone implies. Like if you say something sarcastic, your voice tone and body language conveys it.
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