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Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

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Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#271

Post by acdha »

wingless wrote: post #182
wpietri wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you would talk with some actual women in tech, you would learn that many women choose not to become software engineers (and choose to leave at 2x the rate of men) because it is often a shitty environment for them. You would also learn that plenty of people are working on making a more inclusive industry for reasons that have nothing to do with pushing down their own wages. I'm one of them.

I talk to plenty of actual women in tech. They rarely complain about anything that affects women more than men. And if they do, it usually comes from a die-hard feminist SV hedge fund kid who blows everything out of proportion because of political reasons. So it's equally as shitty for men. Women not choosing to become software engineers or quitting more than men do indicates nothing since there are tons of different…

Your rush to dismiss very well documented problems as coming from “a die-hard feminist SV hedge fund kid who blows everything out of proportion because of political reasons” suggests a far more likely explanation: none of the women you've talked to feel comfortable discussing their frustrations with you because they're afraid of sharing that hostile rejection with the potential for negative career impacts.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#272

Post by Chinjut »

__s wrote: post #268
mrtron wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't know this was a thing. Can you explain why it would be a problem?

Shun women because if I casually mention saying something about having talked to a non male while my wife wasn't around the wife'll beat me. If I don't say anything about talking to non males then I'm hiding things, which never goes well if wife ever meets a non male coworker who doesn't describe me as super shy

Y'all have some super-paranoid jealous partners, if you can't even talk to a colleague of a particular gender, purely as colleagues. I hope both for your partner and for you that they stop being that way someday.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#273

Post by Mz »

gentleteblor wrote: post #267
exstudent2 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want people to take your opinions on gender issues seriously, it's probably best not to use sexist terms like "mansplaining". Edit (for some reason, locked from commenting further): > It describes a specific behavior almost entirely practiced by men Um no it doesn't. Possibly the word your looking for is condescending (that's usually what people mean when they say "mansplaining"). I don't see that here though.…

It's a bummer you couldn't comment further, this thread is going to look a little out of order. But let's get real here. This isn't about male victimization. This is about the inability of a privileged class to see it's own privilege. Read this whole thread and what you see are many men who don't recognize their own privilege, men who are blind to individual and structural biases. And because they don't see it they w…

Let me respectfully suggest that if you wish to be part of the solution instead of paet of the problem, you go thoughtfully engage some of the comments made here by people self identifying as female instead of arguing with a man in this way. Your arguments here are part of the problem because it promotes a "what about da menz" environment while also giving the man you are arguing with reason to dig in his heels. This is likely yo make his position more entrenchedcrather than less.

And, in theory, if I had any sense, I would probably be doing this as a blog post rather than as a reply to you, which risks being experienced by you as an attack. But, in practice, being too careful seems to amount to being ineffectual.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#274

Post by MichaelGG »

20yrs_no_equity wrote: post #215
FT_intern wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many women have? If there are any, it most likely has to do with their political activism instead of their gender.

I once had a twitter handle that whose gender wasn't obvious, leading to people thinking I'm a guy. I used that handle to defend the creator of redis when he was being wrongly convicted of being sexist. As a result, I did get a great many rape threats and violence threats because they thought I was female -- form people whose identities were not hidden at all, in fact (eg: CTOs of startups in SV with more than $40M i…

Did you report the threats? Were they true threats or just shitposting?

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#275

Post by dsfyu404ed »

mrtron wrote: post #255
daxorid wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elephant in the room. Nobody seems to want to discuss the very real chilling effect of spousal mate-guarding behavior on workplace camaraderie. Thank you sir.

Didn't know this was a thing. Can you explain why it would be a problem?

"Who the hell is this $female_name person that you texted about going out to lunch with?!" [throws plate]

[dodges plate] "My coworker!"

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#276

Post by nickpsecurity »

rcba wrote: post #206
ozim wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, politics, stay away from that. Specially if you have to ask such questions.

Is this not part of the problem? How will anything get solved if we all shy away from difficult problems?

Im not answering your main question because Im not sure I have a good one. I will address the risk. What's happening is an Us vs Them situation developing around that very issue. You might end up fighting with this group in a way that impacts your career badly. If any SJW's in there, they will passive-aggressively bait you into saying or doing something they can portray as sexist or unprofessional while appearing blameless themselves. These people are small percentage of people who take action but quite effective and in groups like you describe more than average. It took me months to counter a talented one years back that wanted my higher position at any cost. I got lucky some women in power knew the both of us enough to find my evidence most believable.

So, it's the kind of thing that can be anywhere from a situation you can talk out to a hornets nest that will light you on fire. Be careful. Id say ask more women online for advise focusing on those with stronger, personal skills. Get more opinions.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#277

Post by bgilroy26 »

user5994461 wrote: post #97

The solution to all gender problems: Actively ignore all topics and articles with "woman" or "female" in the title. People are who they are and go where they want. Tech is no exception. When one walks into a car garage, one doesn't make a fuss about mechanics being all men. When one walks into a kindergarden, one doesn't make a fuss about teachers being all women.

So we know you are satisfied with sexual politics in the US in 2016. Do the women in your life feel the same way?

Have you had conversations with other people about this stuff or have you deduced it all from first principles?

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#278

Post by nickpsecurity »

Mz wrote: post #125
rcba wrote: post #6

How active should men be in actually helping to solve the gender diversity problem vs sitting on the sidelines and sharing the work of women who are solving the problem? I've been working on an initiative to encourage more of my male peers to do more to make their organisations more diverse and was recently criticised by a female software engineer who told me that I shouldn't "come into a feminist space" where "women…

The primary thing men need to do is become more self aware of ways in which they unintentionally exclude women and stop doing that. I am a bit leery of your description of trying to encourage more male peers to do more to make their organizations more diverse. In my experience, trying to be inclusive is generally a poor approach to this problem space. Just work on not being exclusive and the people who want to be the…

I find both approaches combined to be most effective. People do show up more often if you knock out barriers. This leaves the common preconceptions, expectations, and do on that can reduce entry attempts if its employment or sustained effort if it's something like getting women to learn IT stuff or enjoy computers. That said, I believe it's important that the situation stays meritocratic where women know they earned their place based on skill. It's why I favor mentoring, blind auditions, women-oriented events in parallel to business/projects, and so on. They get increase diversity without problems from approaches like pure quotas or focusing on employee gender more than skill in how they're treated.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#279

Post by crapolasplatter »

hnbroseph wrote: post #167
crapolasplatter wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"that expression is too vague to really say anything about" The same goes for "Ask a Female Engineer" hence I wanted more information about other non engineering characteristics such as her height,weight, color, height, etc. "this seems non-sequitur or a strawman" Its not a strawman it was a valid question , why did she only decide to single out her sex. Why not disclose her weight,height,color,etc?

> The same goes for "Ask a Female Engineer" non-sequitur. it's a q&a with a particular segment of individuals. if you're not interested in the experiences and insights of a segment of the workforce, you don't have to ask anything. however, asking about "the importance of sex in relations to engineering" requires explanation of what you mean by "importance" and "engineering". otherwise it's a bit of a weaselly questio…

"otherwise it's a bit of a weaselly question."

Its not a weaselly question or a strawman. Its a fair and valid question. Why was it important to state being a female engineer in the title versus stating other non engineering characteristics such as height,weight,color,etc?

what is the value of stating they are female when not all females are the same , nor do they automatically have the same experiences simply because of their sex.

surely a fat , short , ugly , female engineer would not have the same experience or struggles as a skinny,tall, pretty female engineer. Perhaps one finds it as a positive experience and as an advantage while the other has the exact opposite experience.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#280

Post by enraged_camel »

user5994461 wrote: post #97

The solution to all gender problems: Actively ignore all topics and articles with "woman" or "female" in the title. People are who they are and go where they want. Tech is no exception. When one walks into a car garage, one doesn't make a fuss about mechanics being all men. When one walks into a kindergarden, one doesn't make a fuss about teachers being all women.

Not quite sure how putting your head in the sand is a solution to anything.
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