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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

#111

Post by Snargorf »

jordigh wrote: post #40
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…

> It is no less sexist to form a women's only club, but nobody sees fit to criticize it. It is not -ist if a disadvantaged group does something to counteract its disadvantage without considering the privileged group. If women are disadvantaged, it is reasonable to do something to fix their disadvantage without having to interject "but what about men!?" So, for example, Ubuntu/Debian/Arch Women groups are not sexist a…

>If women are disadvantaged

Except they're not. In fact, in tech, they're advantaged. Female names on resumes get more callback than male names. This has been studied.

The reason there are fewer of them is because fewer of them are interested.

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

#112

Post by Shoop »

BrainInAJar wrote: post #62
refurb wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

whose career ? Name one.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681

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

#113

Post by lmmlzxx »

mark-r wrote: post #26
sakaloda wrote: post #13

Diversity in tech will never work. You are going against reality if you think everyone has the same aptitude to be good at math/engineering. Look at the data below. SAT Math by race [1] : - Asian/Pacific Islander = 598 - White = 534 - Mexican American = 461 - Black = 429 SAT Math by gender [2] : - Men = 537 - Women = 503 [1] https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=171 [2] http://www.fairtest.org/sat-race-gender-…

These numbers tell you where the bump is in the bell curve, but tell you nothing about who's out on the long tail. Learn to treat people as individuals, not statistics. This list also says nothing about cause/effect. Do the scores represent innate aptitude, or rather the result of a lifetime of societal biases?

> result of a lifetime of societal biases.

Not just societal biases, but simple demographic realities that are not controlled for at all looking solely at scores on a test.

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

#114

Post by jacalata »

btilly wrote: post #74
xenophonf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the U.S., women get paid less: http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gend... I couldn't quickly locate a study comparing employment rates. Perhaps you have data backing up your claims?

The claim was pretty clearly meant as sarcasm.

It's not clear to me, I would not be at all surprised to see someone make that claim here.

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

#115

Post by fdsaaf »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #59
refurb wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, maybe. But consider their very limited career options, maybe they have little to lose by trying to call attention to the biases they constantly live with. A man's career is ruined! Cry for him - because now he's living like a woman? There's some hypocrisy there.

Are you seriously claiming that random innocent men deserve to be ruined because of their gender? Are you really claiming that this state of ruin is "living like a woman"? I like to think that women can amount to something.

When you're approving of driving innocent people out of work because of their chromosomal makeup, maybe you need to step back and reconsider your principles.

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

#116

Post by dsfyu404ed »

BrainInAJar wrote: post #62
refurb wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

whose career ? Name one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Elliott

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

#117

Post by [deleted] »

douche wrote: post #96
jsprogrammer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

[deleted]

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

#118

Post by mdorazio »

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.

Yes, they do. Tall people make more money and are more successful in the workplace [1]. Wearing higher-class clothing elicits more responsiveness and lowers the perceived social status of others [2]. And of course, leadership is associated with being white and male, which leads to better responsiveness in work-type environments to white males [3]. I also seem to recall a talk by a professor at Berkeley showing that having some gray hair and wearing glasses commands more respect as well, though I can't find the research to back that up at the moment.

[1] http://timothy-judge.com/Height%20paper--JAP%20published.pdf

[2] http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/xge0...

[3] http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/conferences/2013-w50-research-sym...

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

#119

Post by dang »

mhurron wrote: post #101

> 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 a…

Please don't pour internet vitriol on HN. Rushing to denounce others as "bad people" is not compatible with the civil, substantive discourse we're hoping for.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12129958 and marked it off-topic.

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

#120

Post by tzs »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #31
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…

Wow I don't have anywhere near the empathy for those yokels mouthing off, that others seem to have. Real dipshits. No way they are innocently unthoughtful or unconsidered. They seem to have issues.

> yokels

A yokel is, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, "an uneducated and unsophisticated person from the countryside". Do you have any reason to actually believe they were from the countryside, or do you just assume that if someone is a dipshit they obviously must be country people?

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