Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

soledadpenades.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 375 posts

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

#151

Post by smokeyj »

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #91
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…

> If you are a member of a disadvantaged group

Short, fat, scrawny, aging, young, poor, immigrant, religious, atheist, nose-picker.

Maybe identifying as a card carrying member of a "disadvantaged" group isn't the healthiest outlook to have.

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

#152

Post by popmystack »

ajkjk wrote: post #138
jonnybgood wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That falls under the purview of the organizers.

But it's well within the public's right to criticize them for doing a bad job at.. 'purviewing'.

No one is saying it's not. Stick with the subject instead of addressing nothing no one has stated.

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

#153

Post by onetwotree »

It's really bullshit to ask people from disadvantaged groups to take on additional responsibilities and "educate" their less disadvantaged peers.

To give an example that is, in my opinion, much more disturbing, but qualitatively similar, my friend, who's a trans guy, was living in a sober house a while back. The manager demanded that he reveal his gender identity (he passes like a pro, beard and everything) to his conservative, homophobic roommates. The manager seemed to be well intentioned and wanted to "teach the roommates a less about diversity", but hey guess what, that's not my friend's fucking job. His "job" in sober living, simply put, is to stay sober. He did so with flying colors, but someone with a more tenuous recovery could easily have been pushed over the edge by this bs.

Similarly, it's not the job of women in tech to represent other women and try to force cultural changes. It's their job to be good at tech.

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

#154

Post by throwanem »

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #91
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…

Does it still count as mansplaining when the subject is why all women should agree with, and behave like, people who use the word "mansplaining"?

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

#155

Post by imron »

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.

> Criticizing a woman, even calling her a bitch, is not misogyny

It might not be misogyny, but it sure says a lot about the person using such language.

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

#156

Post by droopybuns »

I respect this person's rationale. I'm thankful to hear her perspective.

I know lots of incredible women in tech doing great things. I assume they and everyone else wakes up each day and has to figure out what challenges they'll be overcoming, and how they will end up spending their one life on this earth.

So this public rejection of gender-specific talks nourishes me, because I am dropping all packets when someone starts to talk about gender or privilege issues.

I feel that enthusiasm for these topics is a tell that the speaker is a narcissist who believes other people exist to either validate their own opinions or serve as an adversary. It is uncompassionate.

I suspect a group of academics organically instrumented a taxonomy that directly mirrors established trolling tactics. They have spent the last 10 years providing gender studies philosophies that are being implemented by graduates- who will now get to discover firsthand whether these ideas are constructive.

Kids now think that disagreement is evidence of cultural misogyny and racism. Well, I disagree, but I'm not going to bother trying to engage with this type of person. Where is your diversity now? How is your behavior going to cultivate the outcome you desire?

It's left me feeling exhausted and repulsed by the topic. I'm wary of some women in tech now because of their enthusiasm for these ideas. It is very frustrating. I'd like to support them, but I also want to lead a happy life. I want positive, encouraging people around me. The privilege crowd just doesn't seem healthy.

This person seems pretty thoughtful. She has nothing to gain from posting something like this. I feel a little less cynical after reading her post.

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

#157

Post by smt88 »

fdsaaf wrote: post #129
smt88 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just sleight of hand. Race isn't even a scientifically defined concept, and it can't currently be defined or measured with existing technology. Everyone is a wide mix of many races.

Genome-wide clustering algorithms that are run with no a priori assumptions about population structure end up discovering human population groups that match almost perfectly with self-identified "race". The claim that race doesn't exist is simply false. We can talk about whether or not it's useful to make policy decisions based on race, but if we're respecting the data, we can't say that there are no coherent human p…

Again, there is no scientific consensus on how to define race, and many scientists see it as an impossible or meaningless taxonomy[1]. That's the core problem. You've chosen to use a purely genetic definition.

My assertion is that everyone is a mixture, which is true. People exist on a continuum of race without discrete borders[2].

1. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-c...

2. http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1435.html

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

#158

Post by dragonwriter »

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.

> Criticizing a woman, even calling her a bitch, is not misogyny.

Calling a black person a "nigger" isn't racism -- but (outside of specific contexts that weaken this conclusion) its a pretty strong indication of racism, and (subject to pretty much the same contextual considerations) not addressing it normalizes racism, whether or not the actual utterance was motivated by racism. The same is true with "woman", "bitch", and "misogyny" in place of "black person", "nigger", and "racism".

> And what OP did is white knighting, i.e. a man defending a woman, because she's a woman, in order to appear virtuous.

I don't see any indication that it was done "in order to appear virtuous", which is, you correctly note, an essential feature of white knighting.

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

#159

Post by belorn »

FungalRaincloud wrote: post #136
Snargorf wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I would like to see the studies you're referencing. However, taking what you're saying as truth (a thing I am reluctant to do), I still find it a big leap to claim that the reason that there are fewer women in tech is that fewer women are interested in tech, and I would still be inclined to believe that women in tech are at a disadvantage. Proving lack of interest seems difficult, at best - for instance, is it that w…

> Women in tech are part of an out-group, just by being in the minority.

A key insight I also saw in a study about gender equality in the teaching profession (done by the Swedish institute for higher education). If you are a male student entering a profession with 80% women, you are naturally going to doubt and question that decision. If you pass that first wave of doubt, you get hit by a second wave as soon the first road bump hits (like a failed exam). Male students (studying to be a teacher) are much more likely to ask: "Should I be doing this?" compared to female students in the same class. Then third wave hits when the person is entering the working profession and has to work in a culture that has integrated gender identity.

The big question should be how we can fix this problem in a general way. Based on Swedish statistics, only about 10% of women and men work in a profession with equal gender distribution, and about similar number for people who work in a profession with a dominated gender of opposite gender. About 80% of the work force, both women and men, work in a profession where their gender is the dominating gender. The trend from the last 30 years has been steadily in the wrong direction, with more gender separation in the work force.

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

#160

Post by [deleted] »

smt88 wrote: post #97
yAnonymous wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN