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

#181

Post by ZeroGravitas » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:55 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.

I've been reading some depressing articles recently about top scientists who have been accused repeatedly, and who kept their careers for decades.

http://mashable.com/2016/01/12/astronomy-professor-sexual-ha...

So maybe one day a single false accusation will be able to ruin a career, but it seems at the moment, multiple factual accusations won't.

Meanwhile, these men do threaten to, and follow through on threats to, ruin the careers of the women unlucky enough to find themselves trapped in professional settings with these sociopaths.

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

#182

Post by clifanatic » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

jondubois wrote: post #61

I don't think women have it particularly hard in tech. Some aspects are harder but other aspects are easier.

> I don't think women have it particularly hard in tech.

That's the thing: we'll never know, because no one person has ever really been both. What's disheartening is that everybody seems to think that they _do_ know, men and women alike.

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

#183

Post by clifanatic » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #88

not_anit_woman wrote: post #48

Your right, women get hired more easily and get paid more, so it is very much not symmetrical.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12130029 and marked it off-topic.

The original post was about sexism. If any sub-discussion about sexism is off-topic, why not just delete the entire post?

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

#184

Post by clifanatic » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

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.

I don't think he was being sarcastic at all. I'm sure it's true of younger women.

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

#185

Post by jordigh » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:58 PM UTC

ionforce wrote: post #173

someone7x wrote: post #15

I 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…

Some people are completely lost on the idea of intent vs the result. If we're not 50/50 on gender balance apparently we're all super racist.

It's pointless to argue about whom to blame as it is to defend oneself against accusations of blame. Fix the problem, not the blame. If there is no gender parity, there is a problem. You didn't do it, I didn't do it, but it still needs to be fixed.

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

#186

Post by soundwave106 » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:59 PM UTC

pythia__ wrote: post #25

netsharc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say at the moment there's still a feedback loop. Little girls somehow learn that they're expected to be not as good at math, and maybe they try less hard and give up more easily. Not to mention socio-economic backgrounds when you bring race into it.

What you are describing is stereotype threat. High-quality evidence for it is scarce to none; a recent meta-analysis: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022440514... .

The evidence for poverty affecting education performance, however, seems pretty high here. Example paper out of many: http://www.academicjournals.org/article/article1379765941_La...

And there's more too it, of course. I chose this link primarily because I found another observation very interesting: "In many studies, [the] mother’s education [level] had a more significant effect on children’s scores than income."

Equating inborn aptitude to SAT scores alone seems very short-sighted.

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

#187

Post by busterarm » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:59 PM UTC

ionforce wrote: post #173

someone7x wrote: post #15

I 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…

Some people are completely lost on the idea of intent vs the result. If we're not 50/50 on gender balance apparently we're all super racist.

Sexist. ;)

I do wish we made as much of an effort breaking racial and class barriers in this industry.

Unfortunately I have sat in on hiring discussions trying to argue for why we should hire the strongest engineer and my colleagues in the room are trying to come up with reasons not to hire because the candidate was black and/or working-class.

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

#188

Post by skylan_q » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 6:00 PM UTC

If there is no gender parity, there is a problem.

No, there isn't. We don't have a "gender parity problem" in nursing, pre-k education, garbage collection, nor boilermaking. Just because it isn't 50/50 doesn't mean it's a problem.

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

#189

Post by busterarm » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 6:02 PM UTC

skylan_q wrote: post #188

If there is no gender parity, there is a problem. No, there isn't. We don't have a "gender parity problem" in nursing, pre-k education, garbage collection, nor boilermaking. Just because it isn't 50/50 doesn't mean it's a problem.

Where's my Barbie Sanitation Shift Supervisor and matching Ken Stay-At-Home Parent/Blogger dolls?

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

#190

Post by socalnate1 » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 6:02 PM UTC

Meegul wrote: post #177

socalnate1 wrote: post #166

I can't wait to hear what a bunch of white men think about this article!

Because people's opinions should totally be discounted based on the color of their skin! Privileged or not, I will never support those who try to fight that privilege with discrimination and censorship.

Not discounting, but we really must at acknowledge the irony that this discussion on women/diversity in tech is largely being undertaken by white men.