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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

#311

Post by [deleted] »

JDiculous wrote: post #246
zeveb wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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". In my experience, the exact same thing is true with the sexes switched: behaviour which I find attractive in a woman I find attractive is awful in a woman I don't find attractive. I think this is probably a…

I disagree. Most men if approached by an awkward unattractive woman at a bar will at least be polite and have a normal conversation even if they're not interested. Whereas women will often outright ignore or even act hostile towards an awkward unattractive man trying to strike a conversation. Men are expected to treat women courteously, whereas women aren't held to the same standard. A woman can treat a man like a di…

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Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#312

Post by scintill76 »

marrs wrote: post #81
scintill76 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you missed the point of the GP poster. The GP would have apologized for this to anyone he didn't know well. Why would it be GP's fault for "making" someone feel "out of place" by treating them with a certain respect that has nothing to do with any personal characteristics? Her role wasn't "lady" or "engineer", it was "person I don't an F-bomb-level rapport with." At least that's the main point of GP's post. What…

My interpretation of the GP's comment was that he believes the man in the article was simply treating the author with the same common courtesy he treats all women with. My parents' generation used to call this "being a gentleman". Speaking of my parents, my mother brought me up to always be a gentleman around ladies, which included things like not using bad language. This was quickly drilled out of me when I entered…

He treats all women with a common courtesy... and all men with that same courtesy.

Did you misread the bit about "holding the door open for a lady"? Hint: the reason he does so is not because of her gender, has nothing to do with "being a gentleman" or anything else your parents taught you that you're dragging into this thread before anyone else did. The reason I know is because he calls it a "common courtesy" in a "similar light" to his position on being respectful with your language regardless of the gender of your listeners, and disavows one sexist justification for holding the door for women specifically. He probably brought up the door thing because some people have the idea that women are offended by having a man hold a door for them, precisely because it used to be chivalrous. And a counter-meme is that few real women are like that, so who knows, but this swearing anecdote seems a point in favor of the first idea. Did you see that he used the word "lady" and your chivalry detectors flared up and refuse to take anything else he says at face value? Was the comment edited after your reply? I was there around that time and it seems unlikely.

Since I had to dig a bit to justify it above, I can understand how you've misinterpreted it. The comment may have been sloppily written, or has a certain subtle sense of humor/sarcasm/analogy, or maybe even trolling by appearing sexist but being technically not.. but if you read it carefully and maybe a bit charitably I really believe it means pretty much the opposite of what you thought.

You probably still hold back on some "bad language" to men and women you don't know well, or you wouldn't call it "bad language." That was the main point.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#313

Post by Retra »

sokoloff wrote: post #288
kaitai wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, think about whether you'd help a young man or leave him in the lurch, and think about whether you'd help if the woman in question is 6'1" and 190 pounds of muscle, handling the suitcase quite easily. Agreed that the definition needs to have some room for reality.

It may be a little old-school (which itself might be code for something else nefarious), but I will almost always stop for a woman [or the elderly] with a broken down car or flat tire on the side of the road (and have often doubled back from an exit a few miles down the road, then past the exit behind me, then returned if I couldn't safely stop as I initially passed). I will virtually never stop for a male in the sam…

That is pretty clearly sexism. You don't have to apologize for it; people will just think you're an asshole.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#314

Post by joe_the_user »

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…

I'd draw exactly the opposite conclusion. What matters isn't individual niceness but organization imperatives.

One thing to consider is that "Tech" encompasses a number of organization types. Organizations vary in both how large and bureaucratic they are as well as how ruthlessly competitive they are. Working at Intel years ago, I saw an organization committed to equality in the work place but with a brutal demand that everyone produce.

The worst offenders for sexism seem to be small organizations with a brutally competitive environments but not having bureaucratic restraints on bad behavior - Zillow, etc[1].

Honestly, the answer seems to be that you need more regulation and especially regulation that will hit small bad actor companies hard. The rules hardly have to be "special", just a basic demand for proper behavior and an understanding there will be serious consequences for violation.

[1] http://fortune.com/2014/12/05/zillow-discrimination-lawsuit/

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#315

Post by mpweiher »

rmc wrote: post #34
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.

That is on possibility. However there is strong evidence that people judge the same work worse when it comes from a woman. Here's[1] a study where identical resumes were sent to science labs applying for a sciency job. The women were rated less suitable. And yes, people do look into why there are fewer male preschool teachers[2], and blame sexism. Some people want to believe that the world is 6,000 years old, or that…

There is even stronger evidence that there is a 2:1 hiring advantage for women in STEM fields[1]. That study first looked at real-world hiring rates, which showed this 2:1 advantage and then tried to see whether the advantage was due to the women applicants being generally more qualified (which would obviously explain the empirical finding). The study went on to show that superior qualifications were unlikely to be the cause for the real-world hiring advantages.

Note also that the departments selected in the study you cite were Psychology, Biology, Chemistry and Physics, not tech (Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Engineering in general). In Biology women are the majority, in Chemistry the ratio is close to 50/50. Physics is close to Tech at around 20-25% and in Psychology women are the vast majority of students and practitioners at around 75%.

Therefore, this study shows, if anything, that there is no link (causal or otherwise) between the discrimination it purported to find and participation rates.

Also note that the study you cite looks at sending the exact same resume and changing the name. Another study (that I can't find right now) showed that if the qualifications are noticeably different, gender and other factors play no role. People are competent at spotting differences in qualification and will select on merit if possible. So whatever discrimination there may be (in whichever direction) apparently only plays a factor if the resumes are carefully calibrated to be the same, an unlikely scenario in real hiring situations.

Another issue I had with the study you cite is that they write that the resumes were identical apart from the name, so not real-world resumes. I could imagine that male and female resumes are different in practice, and a female name on a "male-style" resume would look odd, as would a male name on a "female-style" resume.

Some people want to believe that tech and STEM are this maelstrom of sexism, but the evidence doesn't support that...

[1] http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.abstract

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#316

Post by Chris2048 »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #88
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you seriously hold a door open for a woman, but not a man? That's ... weird.

Some dudes get really testy about having doors opened for them (which is all the more reason to do it).

Indeed; I always slam the door on them as they approach, as a sign of respect.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#317

Post by sokoloff »

Retra wrote: post #313
sokoloff wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be a little old-school (which itself might be code for something else nefarious), but I will almost always stop for a woman [or the elderly] with a broken down car or flat tire on the side of the road (and have often doubled back from an exit a few miles down the road, then past the exit behind me, then returned if I couldn't safely stop as I initially passed). I will virtually never stop for a male in the sam…

That is pretty clearly sexism. You don't have to apologize for it; people will just think you're an asshole.

Given the rampant assholism in the world, I have to be unconcerned with those people who believe I'm an asshole for doing this.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#318

Post by facepalm »

rmc wrote: post #34
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.

That is on possibility. However there is strong evidence that people judge the same work worse when it comes from a woman. Here's[1] a study where identical resumes were sent to science labs applying for a sciency job. The women were rated less suitable. And yes, people do look into why there are fewer male preschool teachers[2], and blame sexism. Some people want to believe that the world is 6,000 years old, or that…

If that is the study I remember, I don't think it shows women are deemed less capable. It might as well be possible that women are deemed less likely to follow through with their studies (for example because they might drop out to have kids), making them a worse investment.

That's of course still a problem, but a different one than you make it to be.

I think if there is an actual issue like that (if women are a less promising investment), rather than crying "sexism", society should compensate for it somehow. Why should it be the burden of employers to insure against women's life choices?

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#319

Post by Chris2048 »

burkaman wrote: post #52
Chris2048 wrote: post #40

I think, when we see things like this, we maybe need to clarify where (country) these experiences come from. I suspect that the worst of sexism in tech comes from the US, and that Europe is generally great...

Why do you suspect that?

Prove me wrong, kids. Prove me wrong. :-)

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#320

Post by [deleted] »

meowface wrote: post #102
scintill76 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That seems like a bit of a strawman and overgeneralization. I personally think offense over "fuck", "fork", or "dongle" is absurd (beyond typical professionalism/politeness standards), but this is one branch of feminism finding "fuck" offensive, and in the "dongle" incident, one single woman who found it offensive at the time. Obviously not all women find these things offensive. Not all people (women or otherwise) us…

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