Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by mhurron » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:27 PM UTC

> 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 down". I really don't think they thought about it at all

Yes, they are bad people, and the fact that they didn't have to think about going out of there way to tear someone down is part of why they are bad people.

They didn't have to think about "let's tear the woman down" because they were already at the position 'she didn't belong there.' And yes, there would most likely be something similar with a man and his daughter, it just would simply be along the lines 'she's never going to get married if you teach her to act like a boy.'

> I think there's a lot of unconscious, unconsidered, unthoughtful bias that they (and we) all carry around by default,

Yes there is, and it makes you a bad person. You should be derided for it every time it shows itself.

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

#102

Post by the_fury » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:27 PM UTC

gmarx wrote: post #76

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…

Granted, people should not be distracting class clowns during a conference. The line about the daughter? It's impossible to tell if it was funny without knowing what the speaker had just said. This entire post appears to be a statement about how female speakers are unfairly treated at tech conferences, but in reality it is the poster saying "look everyone, I'm a hero"

The entire post appears to be about female speakers being unfairly treated is because because it's a story about a female speaker who was being unfairly treated.

The "look everyone" jab is completely unwarranted.

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

#103

Post by jacalata » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:27 PM UTC

fdsaaf wrote: post #58

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…

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…

How dare you police his speech by telling him he shouldn't have said anything.

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

#104

Post by smt88 » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:27 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #44

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digression: That's an old tired dead horse. When the minority organizes, somebody always calls 'double standard'. "They're racist/sexist too!" Forgetting these folks don't have the institutional power to harm others. Forgetting that the rest of the world is a de-facto mens/white/whatever club already. Lets just retreat to the ivory tower.

Forgetting these folks don't have the institutional power to harm others. Really? I'd say an accusation from those groups can ruin a career.

That's not institutional power. It takes advantage of public opinion, rather than institutions like the government or powerful corporations.

The accusation could be just as harmful coming from an individual, in most cases. It depends on the type of accusation, though.

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

#105

Post by Kenji » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

DSMan195276 wrote: post #82

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 would agree. I'm not quite sure talks about "being a woman in tech" really solve the problem unfortunately (And I think that was the intent of the article), but clearly there is a problem that has to be fixed. That said, I think the other comments just show how this behavior is allowed, which is really sad. Imagine if the men in your story were making comments about the speaker and their child being black - I doubt…

If you're wiling to say something like that loud enough that others can hear you, then it's not really a joke anymore.

You sure have a strange concept of joke. I define a joke by its contents, not the number of people who hear it.

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

#106

Post by fdsaaf » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

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…

That's an excellent policy. I hope more women follow in the example of your friends. I'm tired of hypocritical and self-serving redefinitions of words like "oppression" that allow certain groups to engage in otherwise-unacceptable behaviors just because of their group identity.

We need to emphasize our common identity as technologists, not atomize ourselves into mutually acrimonious groups based on personal characteristics having nothing to do with technology.

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

#107

Post by throwanem » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #95

samplers wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

When did she actually confront anyone in person?

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

#108

Post by thonos » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

I went to a recent tech conference and a few things came back when I read this article. In particular that the conf had a lot more female talkers than male ones (It was curated and invitation based).

Most talks were good but a handful were nuggets where clearly the deciding factor why that person got the talk was because she was a woman and not her expertise in the area.

Your typical dose of women who code talks were im there too but one that stood our from the rest was a woman who thought she kept having to tell people things like "use your slackbot to tell people to stop using 'guys' and 'team' instead." or "women need remote work so they can cry silently when their male colleagues steal their ideas".

I am not denying that there are gender issues in tech (though in my career path I have yet to encounter them), but I paid good money out of my own pocket for that conference.

I am not going there to see you speak. I am going there to learn and get value for my money.

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

#109

Post by dang » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

clifanatic wrote: post #70

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…

Yikes. All he did was present some data (with references) that you dispute. You banned him for that? You seem to be the one who isn't interested in an open-minded and open-hearted discussion about the truth.

I made it clear why I banned him: repeated creation of accounts to violate the HN guidelines with, a.k.a. serial trolling.

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

#110

Post by throwanem » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:31 PM UTC

johnbm wrote: post #93

[deleted] wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

> What OP described is just heckling

Nah, heckling takes volume. You don't heckle sotto voce for just your buddies to hear. You do it at the top of your lungs for everyone in the room to hear. Say what you like about heckling, it takes a certain degree of grit.