[deleted]
Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
161–170 of 375 posts
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#162> 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…
> Yes, they are bad people
Sometimes otherwise good people say stupid things.
Sometimes being called out on that makes them reflect on what they were saying and realise they were being stupid.
That definitely happened to me when I was younger - people called me out on saying stupid things and after thinking about what the other person said I like to think I became a better person as a result.
I wasn't a bad person when I said those stupid things - I was just someone who hadn't thought some things through.
It's a little harsh to say that unconscious, unconsidered, and unthoughtful bias makes someone a bad person. It's how a person reacts after being called out on those biases that is a better indicator of that.
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> You sure have a strange concept of joke. I define a joke by its contents, not the number of people who hear it.
If you define it by its contents, then how is "your daughter sounds like a real bitch!" a joke? Context obviously matters. If you're willing to say something like that loud enough that others can hear it who obviously won't know the context, then you're clearly not that worried about it not coming off as a joke.
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#164I agree Now for the counterpoint, there are a lot of people in the marginalized group that actually do look up to people that advertise their marginalization. Everyone that doesn't advertise that they are a "woman in tech" or a "black executive" flies completely under the radar. There are literally groups I've been invited to where people make lists of these inspirational characters, because they want to support thei…
We're not here to make people feel better about themselves, we're here to get things done. Someone who obsesses over marginalized groups so much that they can only respect people who play the victim are exactly the sort of people I don't want to work with.
ok, except there are other perspectives you have dismissed
such as all of the competent people on the periphery of the industry that really are inspired by the women's list in forbes, or the immigrant that hasn't been exposed to the opportunities available for people like them
yes, a lot of us are annoyed by it. we are annoyed by the pitiful "lead generation rates" these kind of talks have in changing any demographic in tech. but there are people that actually are inspired by them and don't have another adequate way to filter people. People see Elizabeth Holmes and think that "the man won't let them be successful" reinforced by a history of disenfranchisement, when there are plenty less dramatic examples of success that run counter to that theory. But when those examples don't write articles about it on Linkedin and Medium, people assume they don't really exist.
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#165I don't think women have it particularly hard in tech. Some aspects are harder but other aspects are easier.
Some of the "harder" aspects are being sexually harassed and intimidated in ways that aren't possible to do to men. I have a friend who was raped by her boss, and then he raped another coworker. They were afraid of getting fired, so they didn't tell anyone. Finally her friend spoke up and was fired. (This was at a VC-backed, Silicon Valley firm, by the way.)
[deleted]
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#166I can't wait to hear what a bunch of white men think about this article!
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Agreed, identity politics and self segregation are unhealthy and unhelpful, both inside tech and in the larger context.
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
>Maybe identifying as a card carrying member of a "disadvantaged" group isn't the healthiest outlook to have.
Maybe some people don't walk around looking for every opportunity to trumpet their social group like an American Express card and just have certain realities that they deal with that individuals who aren't say a minority, a woman or physically disabled aren't privy to and sometimes have baggage thrust upon them just by virtue of their position.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12090093
This comment comes to mind and I think illustrates an example of what I mean by this.
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#169Earlier 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…
I think the statement that on average women are less likely to be interested in tech careers is likely reasonable. For example, take veterinary science ... this is a rigorous and demanding area of study previously dominated by men, but now dominated by women. You can Google about this yourself, but here's an article I just found [1].
So why has this happened in the veterinary sciences, but not tech? One answer could be that somehow male computer scientists turn out to be horribly sexist compared to male vets. A more plausible explanation could be that with meaningful swathes of societal gender discrimination against women removed they are perfectly capable of moving into and dominating a technical field when that chimes with some aspect of female nature. In the case of veterinary science that synergy would come from the female predilection towards caring and nurturing. I'm not saying every woman cares about things like that, but on average more do than men. The male predilection towards abstract and systematic thinking could in my opinion go a long way to explain their over-representation in the tech industry. I think those are uncontroversial statements, although sadly after 30 years of sub-standard echo chamber research in the social sciences that may not be a popularly held opinion.
The benefit of this way of looking at things is that it doesn't paint women as somehow deficient and needing of special treatment. Rather than bombarding them with negative messaging it recognises that women are perfectly capable of reaching out and taking what they want from society. A more empowering feminist message, no? And indeed neither does it paint an entire industry as systematically sexist - which sounds to me like the sort of oversimplification you take objection to? But there's big social media capital and real world rewards propagating sexism in tech memes.
> We know that women make less than men in most environments ...
> ... it needs to also be the case that women are making equal pay
I'm not sure it's fair to start these sorts of statements with "We know that..." - the most charitable depiction would be to characterise such statements as debatable. In the UK women under 30 now earn more than similarly aged men, in other words they have reversed the pay gap for that age group [2]. Again this suggests to me that until biological imperatives take hold women are more than capable of competing with men in the workplace. What happens post 30 is down to life choices. As a whole women are more likely to value family life and make life choices based on that, whereas men are more likely to devote their energies to their careers. It's not a zero sum game, there are sacrifices on both sides there. And again, that doesn't hold true for every woman and every man, but to claim entrenched massive systematic discrimination seems to me at best tenuous.
[1] https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/100215g.aspx
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/aug/29/women-in-20s-e...
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#170I went to ngconf this year and two of the talks that stood out to me were given by women. One was the angular materials talk / demo and it was amazing. The presenter was exuding tech prowess, I was blown away by how easy she made it look to make a dog adoption website. One of the best talks. The other was by the CEO of girl scouts giving a patronizing 5 minute talk about how we need all help women in tech succeed and…
Well, I don't think it's the goal of a CEO of a social organization to give a talk on tech issues. Their focus is on social issues, so I don't see this as a good example.
To say nothing of the fact that it doesn't seem coherent to distinguish between "tech issues" and "social issues," this literally only makes sense if you think that the lack of diverse folks in tech isn't a social issue. That's deeply, deeply wrong. Of course it is a social issue.