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Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

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Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#91

Post by AngrySkillzz »

btilly wrote: post #23

I personally know several successful professional women who have a policy of refusing to belong to any women-only groups. Their reason is that in their experience such groups are populated by people seeking reassurance. The result is that they offer the "support" of lowered expectations. Which won't help you succeed. One also pointed out to me that if a group of men were to form a men's only business club, that would…

If you are a member of a disadvantaged group, you often do not have the ability to identify as a professional first and a group member second. That is the effect of being disadvantaged. Other people will make your life seem primarily about being a group member. Think about dealing with sexist/sexually-charged comments, racial tension at the office. Even if you want to just be a professional, other people will get in your way (and not always intentionally). Maybe imagine what life would be like for one of those people.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#92

Post by colmvp »

I think it depends on the state of knowledge. The tech industry is well aware of the gender/ethnicity distribution. And quite frankly, at least companies, community groups, and profound leaders have progressively been doing something about it for the last number of years. It just takes time to make progress. Look at other industries which have poor representation of men or ethnicities and see how many inroads they've made in say, the last five years compared to tech.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#93

Post by johnbm »

[deleted] wrote: post #85
fdsaaf wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Policing speech like that just breeds resentment. You not only guaranteed that these people later made the same comments to each other in private, but also inched a bit closer to resenting people like you and your entire cause. Mind your own business. You have no right to interfere in a conversation among friends, even one that triggers you. If you want to encourage change in the world, be the change and set an examp…

[deleted]

Criticizing a woman, even calling her a bitch, is not misogyny. Misogyny is hating women because they are women. What OP described is just heckling.

And what OP did is white knighting, i.e. a man defending a woman, because she's a woman, in order to appear virtuous. Like posting about it on HackerNews.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#94

Post by fdsaaf »

DSMan195276 wrote: post #77
fdsaaf wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Policing speech like that just breeds resentment. You not only guaranteed that these people later made the same comments to each other in private, but also inched a bit closer to resenting people like you and your entire cause. Mind your own business. You have no right to interfere in a conversation among friends, even one that triggers you. If you want to encourage change in the world, be the change and set an examp…

That's just dumb. It would be one thing if they were having a quiet conversation among themselves whispering back and forth and were told to stop. But clearly OP could hear them, they weren't being quiet. And allowing such behavior to go on where people can clearly hear it is the same thing as condoning it. That's besides the fact that if you're going to act like that during a talk, you shouldn't be in the room anywa…

> allowing such behavior to go on where people can clearly hear it is the same thing as condoning it

Toleration is what allows people who have different views to work together toward common goals. You can't have civilization without it, because no two people will agree on everything. If these people were really as boorish as the OP described, the best approach would have been to let them embarrass themselves.

What's next, hushing someone who dares admit he voted for a Republican? (I can imagine the rationale now: "you're enabling war and bigotry by proxy! Public GOPism is unacceptable!")

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#95

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

samplers wrote: post #87
Frondo wrote: post #28

Personal story time...I was at a recent conference, listening to men, women given talks. One of the women, in her talk, uses an interaction with her daughter as the framing narrative for the talk (imagine Socrates and Glaucon, only this woman and her daughter). Almost immediately, three guys to my right start making fun of the speaker, sotto voce, making all manner of little jokes to themselves, that are becoming inc…

>When one of them says loudly enough for me and others to hear, "Your daughter sounds like a real bitch! hur hur", I turned to them and said, "You guys need to knock this off now." /r/thathappened category This really sound so fake that I actually created an account to call this out. >The thing is, I don't think those guys were bad people, I don't think they sat there in their minds thinking, "let's tear the woman do…

> This really sound so fake that I actually created an account to call this out

Do you remember Adria Richards.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#96

Post by douche »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #39
Frondo wrote: post #28

Personal story time...I was at a recent conference, listening to men, women given talks. One of the women, in her talk, uses an interaction with her daughter as the framing narrative for the talk (imagine Socrates and Glaucon, only this woman and her daughter). Almost immediately, three guys to my right start making fun of the speaker, sotto voce, making all manner of little jokes to themselves, that are becoming inc…

>Of course, I'm a tall well-built, well-dressed white guy, i.e. all the things that automatically command respect. ? None of those things automatically command respect.

Except they do, because they signal wealth, power, and authority - at least in European/European-descended countries.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#97

Post by smt88 »

yAnonymous wrote: post #51
dang wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sleight of hand. Even supposing all that "data" to be accurate, you assume your conclusion by acting as if you know what the reason for it is. But, as we all know, nothing is more highly disputed. This is not the way to an open-minded and open-hearted discussion about the truth; it's a tangent to yet another generic ideological flamewar. That violates the HN guidelines. Since you've done this repeatedly befor…

Ycombinator themselves are acting reverse racist by preferring to hire minority groups, so these rules are very hypocritical. Just saying. And banning for a post that provides evidence is ridiculous. You should apply for a government job in Turkey.

> reverse racist

Racism implies an overarching ideology. A true racist would say something like, "White employees are better than black employees."

Y Combinator has never suggested that minorities are categorically better employees. Preferring to hire from minority groups has many benefits unrelated to race: increased diversity boosts profits[1], for starters. There's a huge difference between racism (trying to keep minorities out of your office) than what you're calling "reverse racism" (trying to have a diverse office).

1. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090331091252.h...

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#100

Post by throwanem »

Frondo wrote: post #28

Personal story time...I was at a recent conference, listening to men, women given talks. One of the women, in her talk, uses an interaction with her daughter as the framing narrative for the talk (imagine Socrates and Glaucon, only this woman and her daughter). Almost immediately, three guys to my right start making fun of the speaker, sotto voce, making all manner of little jokes to themselves, that are becoming inc…

> I also don't think they'd have sat there, chattering away, if a man had used the same framing story (father and son, father and daughter).

What would you have said if they had?

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