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The power of role models

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Re: The power of role models

#371

Post by nielsabel »

DanBC wrote: post #370
nielsabel wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, what was so horribly offensive and insulting about my post? I don't see it. Sure, I wasn't sugar coating. But all I'm getting here is: “You're not polite, because ”.

You've got a new account. Several people are trying to tell you that your posting style is not appropriate for HN. People are giving you this information by flagging your posts, by downvoting your posts, and by replying to your posts. One of the people replying to your posts is a mod. You can ignore those people, but that tends to mean your account will end up banned. > Sure, I wasn't sugar coating. This is a mistake…

But still, nobody has told me yet what was so rude about my post. How do you expect me to fix my behavior if you don't explain me what was wrong about it? “You're rude.” “well, how exactly?”

Re: The power of role models

#372

Post by zigzigzag »

watwut wrote: post #316
zigzigzag wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seem to be far more female programmers in India and former Soviet bloc countries. Poverty is the obvious link. When you want a well paid job, niceties like role models or what your friends think are less important, and gender ratios become more balanced.

I am from former Soviet block country and there is no surge of female programmers. Also, poor people don't become programmers - only middle class kids do. Poor don't have computers at home and schools don't teach programming. You have to learn from elsewhere.

Yeah, but I've worked in software in Europe for years and my experience has been that if a developer is female, it's a solid bet that she's from eastern Europe or Russia. This is an incredibly strong and noticeable correlation. I don't think there's been a recent surge or anything - it feels like it's always been this way.

Poor is obviously relative in this context. Poor relative to western women.

Re: The power of role models

#373

Post by jordanlev »

4ad wrote: post #334
jordanlev wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer, it seems pretty clear to me that there is implicit bias going on in our industry. I don't know how or why, but I don't believe that men are inherently better than women at the skills it takes to succeed, so I'm not sure what else would explain the discrepancy. So if my assumption is correct, then I want to ask your help (as someone who fights discrimination with all their being) -- what can I do to he…

> As a developer, it seems pretty clear to me that there is implicit bias going on in our industry. It doesn't seem clear to me at all. I have seen and lived through, or had many close acquaintances who lived through many specific example of discrimination, including sexual discrimination (in both directions!) but I would not dream of generalising from them. Even if many, or most of them were of a truly appalling nat…

I'm basing my assumption solely on the numbers... the vast majority of programmers are male, which can only mean either men are "better" at the job, or that some other factor is causing it. Since I don't believe men are necessarily better at it than women, then I'm assuming it's the "other factors". That's the bias I'm talking about. I don't know exactly what it is (surely a combination of factors), but there has to be some sort of cultural explanation for it if you don't subscribe to the notion that it's in the DNA.

Bias doesn't necessarily mean discrimantion per se... it could be biased views of women themselves towards careers (which I think is what Rob Pike was getting at in this blog post... and hence that having more role models might offset this bias).

Re: The power of role models

#374

Post by dang »

nielsabel wrote: post #364
dang wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like peeing in a swimming pool and concluding people don't like your butterfly stroke.

So far, I only heard complaints about me being not polite enough and not about the actual content of what I said. Why do we always have to put our words into sugar coated ass kissery? Just so that nobody's feelings get hurt? I mean, what I'm trying to point out here is that shouldn't matter how I say what I say. And, really, what is so vile and offensive about my post? Please, tell me, because I don't see it (really,…

> have to put our words into sugar coated ass kissery

If you frame it this way then sure, it's cowardly to do that and it becomes a matter of principle not to. But you know the phrase 'all models are wrong, some are useful'? On HN, this is not a useful model.

There are some systems in which no-holds-barred aggression actually works, i.e. leads to interesting outcomes. Examples include rugby teams that beat the crap out of each other on the pitch and then go out drinking together, literary circles where the game is to be as poisonously witty as possible, or the mathematical world, where the only thing that matters is whether you can prove what you say (though people tend to exaggerate that aspect and ignore the social one). These systems have in common that they're small, well-defined, and strongly cohesive. Such communities can withstand violence because other forces hold them together.

HN is not like that. The community is large, ill-defined and weakly cohesive, and there are no forces other than civility holding it together. What happens here if people start throwing their elbows around (as you did in your comment above) is that we get massive flareups, all the interesting animals leave the forest, only the people with grievances and flamethrowers remain and then ('hey, where did everybody go?') even they leave. Then we have scorched earth, or heat death—not an interesting outcome. For this not to happen, HN needs protecting. HN users need to understand that participating here means optimizing for curiosity, which requires a sustainably interesting community.

You complain that people aren't judging your content, but actually everything you post is content—there's nothing else there. You don't get to decide how that content gets classified. If you put turds in the punch bowl and expect people to consider your punch on its merits, that's another unhelpful model.

Re: The power of role models

#375

Post by dang »

nielsabel wrote: post #371
DanBC wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got a new account. Several people are trying to tell you that your posting style is not appropriate for HN. People are giving you this information by flagging your posts, by downvoting your posts, and by replying to your posts. One of the people replying to your posts is a mod. You can ignore those people, but that tends to mean your account will end up banned. > Sure, I wasn't sugar coating. This is a mistake…

But still, nobody has told me yet what was so rude about my post. How do you expect me to fix my behavior if you don't explain me what was wrong about it? “You're rude.” “well, how exactly?”

> nobody has told me yet what was so rude

You haven't made it clear that you sincerely want to know. It takes a lot of time and energy to respond to a question like that—I'd guess a couple orders of magnitude more than it costs to post the question.

The risk/reward of giving you a sincere answer is very different if your goal is to become a good HN contributor vs. merely continue an argument which interests no one. If you want people to answer, you need to show that it won't be a waste of their investment to do so.

Re: The power of role models

#376

Post by brennen »

zigzigzag wrote: post #311
brennen wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. As I've asserted a few comments over, there's an ample body of detailed, firsthand observation available to men who are sincerely interested in the problem. It's also possible for us to talk to women who work in the field and listen as they describe their experiences. The existing gender imbalance, routine discrimination in hiring and promotion, rampant harassment, and profoundly toxic social dynamics are all r…

This sort of post comes up in every HN discussion of feminism or sexism in programming: someone says "just listen to women" followed by "this entire discussion is embarrassing". I virtually never downvote on this site, but I did in your case because you're simply trying to make an entire area of discussion taboo, by writing off any views you disagree with as "embarrassing" and a "trainwreck". This is the school of th…

I sort of want to engage with this. I understand that people have good-faith qualms about the fairness of hiring practices intended (implicitly or explicitly) to increase diversity and access. There are problems to wrestle with here, and it's inevitable that some bad actors will take advantage of attitudes like Pike's (or mine).

And yet: I don't have the sense that I'm going to get anywhere by acknowledging the problematics of the thing. There's just too much committed misogyny embedded in this community as a whole. It feels like a safe bet that "I don't need to listen to women" may as well be the entirety of this particular comment, and many of the others in this thread.

I've been feeling conflicted about participating in comment threads on HN. This one is enough to convince me that I should stop investing the energy.

Re: The power of role models

#377

Post by zigzigzag »

brennen wrote: post #376
zigzigzag wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of post comes up in every HN discussion of feminism or sexism in programming: someone says "just listen to women" followed by "this entire discussion is embarrassing". I virtually never downvote on this site, but I did in your case because you're simply trying to make an entire area of discussion taboo, by writing off any views you disagree with as "embarrassing" and a "trainwreck". This is the school of th…

I sort of want to engage with this. I understand that people have good-faith qualms about the fairness of hiring practices intended (implicitly or explicitly) to increase diversity and access. There are problems to wrestle with here, and it's inevitable that some bad actors will take advantage of attitudes like Pike's (or mine). And yet: I don't have the sense that I'm going to get anywhere by acknowledging the probl…

If you go into a discussion convinced that the other side is filled with an illogical hatred for women, you're going to see what you expect to see.

In your case, you chopped off half my sentence which modified the meaning to make me fit your preconceived expectations, and then wrote off the rest of my comment. I might suggest that if that's your approach to debate, committing the energy is indeed worthless. You'll never understand the people who disagree with you like that, so why bother trying? Go back to believing anyone who isn't a feminist is a misogynist, it's wrong but at least it's easily packaged.

Re: The power of role models

#378

Post by alphapapa »

stale2002 wrote: post #177
alphapapa wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a company which exists entirely online: no physical office, all employees work from home over the Internet. Imagine that all employees and managers and executives use gender-ambiguous screennames, and no one is allowed to ask any questions which would reveal identity, gender, etc. (Perhaps there's a small HR department that handles the real identities, but it's not allowed to share them with anyone else, nor…

This would be much more meritocratic than our current system. And it would result in much better diversity. You don't even have to be as extreme as your example (nobody could work in the conditions that you mentioned). Things like blind resume screening have been shown to significantly reduce hiring bias, and more companies should be doing it. Also, the biggest discrimination problems in tech aren't even direct hirin…

I'm not sure if I understand you correctly. You seem to be saying that, in order to promote meritocracy, women should be given preferential treatment over men (i.e. hiring, promotions, compensation, etc). You also said that the hypothetical environment I mentioned--in which gender is not a factor whatsoever--would be more meritocratic than current environments.

So you seem to be simultaneously saying that 1) a system in which gender was a non-factor would be more meritocratic than contemporary systems; and 2) that a system in which women are given preferential treatment over men would be more meritocratic than contemporary systems; and 3) that a system in which women are given preferential treatment over men would be still more meritocratic than the hypothetical system.

Point 3 seems a natural conclusion given that you have argued for point 2; if point 3 were not true, it would seem logical to argue for point 1.

Am I misunderstanding you?

Re: The power of role models

#379

Post by alphapapa »

watwut wrote: post #213
alphapapa wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a company which exists entirely online: no physical office, all employees work from home over the Internet. Imagine that all employees and managers and executives use gender-ambiguous screennames, and no one is allowed to ask any questions which would reveal identity, gender, etc. (Perhaps there's a small HR department that handles the real identities, but it's not allowed to share them with anyone else, nor…

I think that many skilled people would perform pretty bad and leave. Maybe especially in tech, I mean no other industry tout "culture fit" among most important criteria. For some reason, guys in tech need that social aspect of work.

You may be right. But what about open-source software projects on the Internet? Many participants in them don't know anything more about their "co-workers" than their username, but they seem to accomplish a lot.

Re: The power of role models

#380

Post by sagichmal »

4ad wrote: post #332
sagichmal wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "strong feelings" are misguided. As a society or [sub]culture we are not judged on our efforts or philosophies but on our outcomes. And the stakes are higher proportional to the power we collectively wield. If women or other minorities are disproportionately under-represented in our communities then that fact, that outcome, deserves direct acknowledgement, attention, and recompense.

Society is only the collection of individuals, you are ascribing features to it, and implying some sort of moral order when there is no such thing. The society is not judged by anybody and there is no universal moral rule that distributes outcomes to demographics. There are only people interacting with other people. As a human, I am concerned about the personal freedom of individuals. I will do whatever it is in my p…

> Society is only the collection of individuals

Society is obviously and inarguably more than the collection of individuals. As soon as a contract is made and adjudicated, this becomes clear.

Aram, I and many others appreciate your technical contributions. Your strong feelings on this topic are misguided and, in their consequence, malicious.

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