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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

#211

Post by redthrowaway »

kajecounterhack wrote: post #207
redthrowaway wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If there is no gender parity, there is a problem. This seems to be an extraordinary claim made in the complete absence of evidence. Is it a problem that there are more women going into early childhood education or biology, but more men going into petroleum engineering? Why? Why aren't men and women allowed to express their preferences without it being pathologized?

It wouldn't be a problem if inequality wasn't influenced strongly by negative factors for women. The tech industry is rife with evidence of hostility toward women; IT Barbie and gendered toy marketing are other examples of how women are not on equal footing with regards to entering this industry. And there is also the problem of women being paid less to do the same job. To paint a picture that says the current landsc…

>And there is also the problem of women being paid less to do the same job.

How many times does the "wage gap" need to be debunked before people stop spreading it?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/01/no-women-do...

http://time.com/3222543/wage-pay-gap-myth-feminism/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-ga...

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/gende...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/karinagness/2016/04/12/dont-buy-...

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

#212

Post by gluelogic »

pselbert wrote: post #32

Sandy Metz, of "Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby" [1] fame made a comment about this on The Bikeshed[2] recently. She stated that she refuses to make reference to gender when she is giving her talks, though her gender is ultimately what got her the opportunity to write a book and talk in the first place. Ultimately she is regarded as an amazing teacher and a dynamic speaker, not because she is a woman in tech…

I just happened to have listened to that bikeshed episode last night. It's damn good and Sandy Metz is a captivating speaker. Check it out!

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

#213

Post by calibraxis »

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.

I advise women who need advice for the specific gender obstacles they must defeat. (Obviously this is a perverse situation and the first order of business is to find women they can speak with. But its not easy to find trailblazing women.) If you face an obstacle, it's irrational to ignore it. You learn, plan and defeat it.

Wanna see a men's only club? We have some at my workplace — management, dev teams, etc. Same with other companies I work with.

Sexism is about a power dynamic: men dominating women. Male supremacy. Since men benefit and perpetuate it more than women, women's only clubs are simple self-defense against a system loaded against them. (In favor of mediocre men.)

BTW, men often reward women who act like "one of the guys" and snipe at other women. Makes men feel better about their prejudices; gives them an example to point to of how proper women should act.

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

#214

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

Yes. I agree. So much.

These are my metrics for a good tech talk:

1) It is informative

2) It is entertaining

3) It is actually about tech

Well IAWAT (I Am A Woman In Tech) talks can be 1 and 2, they cannot be 3. That would be okay, if they were informative or entertaining, but they so often aren't. Many just quote the same statistics we've heard before, and call for change. There is a reason that I will watch Piotr Szotkowski's "Standard Library, Uncommon Uses," Or Linus Torvalds' talk on Git, or Hilary Mason's opening talk at FutureStack, or absolutely every talk Bryan Cantrill does (even if it IS just to play Bryan Cantrill Bingo), or countless other talks whose names I forget. Because they are informative, they are entertaining, and they are about tech. And male or female, if you give a good talk, I'll listen. If you just want to get on the stage and talk about your gender, then I will be out of your talk faster than an ICMP packet travelling down an empty fiber cable.

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

#215

Post by Tcepsa »

drdeca wrote: post #56
Tcepsa wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going by your extremely tenuous suggestion that genetics is an accurate predictor of math/engineering aptitude because of how people of certain ethnicities or sex perform on the SAT, we should have a distribution in tech that looks like this: - Asian/Pacific Islander = 29.6% - White = 26.4% - Mexican American = 22.8% - Black = 22.1% - Men = 51.6% - Women = 48.4% In other words, roughly equal numbers of all of the dem…

Not that it likely impacts your point much, but does this adjust for population sizes?

I totally misinterpreted the data; for some reason I assumed it was the number of students from each group that scored above some threshold, rather than the average score of that group.

My calculations are completely garbage, and I would withdraw the comment but it looks like I can't at this point.

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

#216

Post by pmiller2 »

busterarm wrote: post #208
Grishnakh wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had colleagues who didn't want to hire someone just because they were "working class"??? Seriously? Were these colleagues a bunch of fedora-wearing hipsters or something?

I would actually argue that classism is far and away the worst problem in this industry. It just plays out in ways that you don't expect. Hiring mostly grads from top schools is exactly that. In my circle are a lot of junior and fresh out of school developers and one guy I know who killed it in his interview was ultimately not hired and told it was because he didn't "look like a developer". He dressed in normal busin…

> hoodie-wearing, ping-pong-playing frat-bro, drink every day at 4pm culture.

A lot of people, including myself, would be glad to be excluded from such a place. I don't wear hoodies, play ping pong, act like a bro, or drink every day, and I especially don't come to work to do those things.

It's nice when an office has beer taps and ping pong tables, but those things don't bring me in to the office every day. Good coworkers and a good environment for working is what makes me want to go into the office.

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

#217

Post by Tcepsa »

tzs wrote: post #146
Tcepsa wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going by your extremely tenuous suggestion that genetics is an accurate predictor of math/engineering aptitude because of how people of certain ethnicities or sex perform on the SAT, we should have a distribution in tech that looks like this: - Asian/Pacific Islander = 29.6% - White = 26.4% - Mexican American = 22.8% - Black = 22.1% - Men = 51.6% - Women = 48.4% In other words, roughly equal numbers of all of the dem…

Aren't you making a big assumption about linearity?

I think it's more that I totally misinterpreted the data. For some reason I assumed it was the number of students from each group that scored above some threshold, rather than the average score of that group.

My calculations are completely garbage, and I would withdraw the comment but it looks like I can't at this point.

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

#218

Post by runeks »

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, 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.
The only power other people have over you is the ability to alter your thoughts. Thoughts, however, can be ignored. Some thoughts are just harder to ignore than others, but practice makes perfect. So while it is possible for other people to instill a thought in your mind of who you supposedly are, when you are aware of this thought, you have the choice of whether or not you want to believe it. Caveat: the pleasant feelings associated with identifying with a positive thought also disappear.

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

#219

Post by [deleted] »

drcoopster wrote: post #54
jonnybgood wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps then she shouldn't have been giving a talk at a tech conference.

[deleted]

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

#220

Post by busterarm »

pmiller2 wrote: post #216
busterarm wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would actually argue that classism is far and away the worst problem in this industry. It just plays out in ways that you don't expect. Hiring mostly grads from top schools is exactly that. In my circle are a lot of junior and fresh out of school developers and one guy I know who killed it in his interview was ultimately not hired and told it was because he didn't "look like a developer". He dressed in normal busin…

> hoodie-wearing, ping-pong-playing frat-bro, drink every day at 4pm culture. A lot of people, including myself, would be glad to be excluded from such a place. I don't wear hoodies, play ping pong, act like a bro, or drink every day, and I especially don't come to work to do those things. It's nice when an office has beer taps and ping pong tables, but those things don't bring me in to the office every day. Good cow…

I am 100% with you, but for "startups" this is increasingly normal. My friends needed jobs and the market is rough for juniors right now.
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