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Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

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Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#471

Post by taejo »

wolco wrote: post #453
watwut wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the bros in question assume I am competent, they are milion times easier to work with then dudes who assume my idead are bad without listening to them. Not that it would be exclusive. The things parent poster listed affect you career and ability to achieve more then sex jokes.

Focus on the code. Who cares how others see you.

How others see you determines whether they will cooperate with you, give you information you need to do your job, hire you, fire you, promote you, and how much they will pay you. Jobs where you can "focus on the code" to the total exclusion of dealing with other humans are practically non-existent.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#472

Post by angry-hacker »

emodendroket wrote: post #418
angry-hacker wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know very well how tough it is... but for a lot of guys, things like that are not a priority. For different reasons... I personally believe this is what makes the difference between women and men. Women tend to appreciate real things like family, kids, healthy lifestyle more than the geeks who are fine with staring a screen all day long.

It sounds more like the difference between 20-year-olds and older people with responsibilities other than themselves and work.

Not really, men tend to care more about work than family. That's just the way it is.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#473

Post by collyw »

cthalupa wrote: post #407
anothercomment wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not "obviously" something wrong. Would you say there is obviously something wrong with the plumbing industry that keeps women away? Or is it just that the smell of shit is too unpleasant? Likewise, some aspects of tech could simply be unpleasant to women, and there are reasons why men are more likely to put up with unpleasant work (like the need to feed a family). I have personally experienced a lot of unple…

Women are just as interested in STEM fields until about the middle school/high school level. What changes around that age? All sorts of external peer pressures. I work with a lot of women. They're not anything near a majority, but the org I'm in is big enough that there are plenty to speak with. They almost universally have many bad experiences and stories to tell that are specifically due to their gender. By no mean…

Interestingly I worked in a DNA sequencing centre - so very STEM related. Around 50% of the staff worked in the wet lab and 50% in the bioinformatics part. Around 50% of the staff were female and the vast majority of them worked in the wet lab part. Most of the males worked in the bioinformatics side. So even within STEM there appear to be some clear divisions with the disciplines that attract females / males.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#474

Post by Chris2048 »

Arizhel wrote: post #448
Chris2048 wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or perhaps at a decent sit-down restaurant And what about people who choose not to go to restaurants? Seems like you have a chip on your shoulder about drinking.

A "chip"? So what's your answer to people who get physically ill when consuming alcohol? Don't get a job? Because in American drinking culture, they're going to look bad if they don't drink with everyone else at one of these stupid happy hours. Sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder about people who don't participate in American drinking culture and binge drinking.

> So what's your answer to people who get physically ill when consuming alcohol

My answer is it's a rarity, and a distraction that you included it.

> Sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder about people who don't participate in American drinking culture and binge drinking.

Does it? Strange given I neither binge drink (which isn't the same as a drink after work anyway, and so I reiterate that you have a chip) nor am I American.

I couldn't care less if people don't want to participate, I'm not going to suggest they be forced - unlike your suggestion that people be forced not to.

When your team visits this hypothetical restaurant, will you ban anyone from ordering steaks, because because a baby can't chew it...

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#475

Post by anothercomment »

rejschaap wrote: post #469
anothercomment wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not just cultural norms, the strongest female athletes are about as strong as average men: http://media.townhall.com/_townhall/uploads/2015/11/13/8.jpg (linking to this chart without context because I don't have a lot of time to Google - but if you google, you will find lots of information on the differences in strength). Or specifically for weight lifting, consider this recent case of a transgender woman winni…

"women/girls who choose to compete in weight lifting" That is where the problem lies. When a 6 year old girl tells her parents she wants to become a weight lifter, her parents will say "how about ballet instead?". When a 12 year old girl tells her class mates she is a weight lifter all her friends will laugh at her. The cultural norms prevent girls to participate. If they are strong-willed and decide to pursue weight…

But there are female weight lifters. You mean they probably only started later in life, and they would be as strong as men if they started at 6? Not sure if weight lifting is even recommended for kids, what is the average starting age?

Also, I googled and a lot of the best female weight lifters look Chinese. I have a suspicion that they might be recruited by the Chinese system at early age and pushed for the glory of China, at the expense of their health. So cultural norms wouldn't be the issue here.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#476

Post by Chris2048 »

emodendroket wrote: post #465
Chris2048 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big assumption then..

I don't think the presence of the man's partner is enough to make the invitation not seem sexual in nature, is what I'm getting at.

What makes it seem sexual in nature?

Surely inviting a female employee, alone, is the unusual aspect that would make it appear suspect?

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#477

Post by Chris2048 »

vidarh wrote: post #441
misnome wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that there isn't enough context. The example doesn't even specify that it's being sent to a female employee (that's an assumption everyone is making) and I can imagine plenty of scenarios - with context - where it wouldn't necessarily be inappropriate.

The context here includes the parent comment to the one setting out the scenario, and the reaction of sending a message copied to the boss's boss complaining about it. They make it clear that it was sent to a woman, and that the scenario at the very least was interpreted by the recipient as inappropriate. Yes, there are scenarios where it could be acceptable, but consider that they are (much) narrower than you might…

> or a feeling that you are forced to socialise with your boss

Would you feel you'd be fired? Because sometimes getting to know someone is an appropriate pathway to success.

Scenarios like this are more common at start-ups, aren't they? If you just want to drone through work, with no social connections, the average american mega-corp might be more appropriate.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#478

Post by Arizhel »

Nadya wrote: post #464
Arizhel wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "chip"? So what's your answer to people who get physically ill when consuming alcohol? Don't get a job? Because in American drinking culture, they're going to look bad if they don't drink with everyone else at one of these stupid happy hours. Sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder about people who don't participate in American drinking culture and binge drinking.

I become ill at the smell of alcohol. I sit out the usual Friday bar nights and have to turn down the occasional offers of alcohol from coworkers that don't interact with me frequently (and thus either don't know or have forgotten that I don't drink) They get to go get wasted at the local bar. I get to enjoy my Friday night playing video games alone. Win-win. If they do something like GoKarting I get dragged into som…

Right, and then you miss out on important work dealings and decision-making, you're seen as "not a team player", you're passed over for promotions, etc. Staying out of all work "team-building" events eventually looks really bad for you and will work against you.

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#479

Post by emodendroket »

Chris2048 wrote: post #476
emodendroket wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the presence of the man's partner is enough to make the invitation not seem sexual in nature, is what I'm getting at.

What makes it seem sexual in nature? Surely inviting a female employee, alone , is the unusual aspect that would make it appear suspect?

I'm not going to explain it any better than the other guy. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13970336

Re: Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

#480

Post by throwaway729 »

ccc111 wrote: post #445
throwaway729 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now women don't belong in tech not because they're under qualified, because you can't imagine not wanting to have sex with them? At least we are all clear on what the actual problem is.

You are ignoring the fact that i said males like to hang around other males, and it makes it exponentially hard for a woman to enter the "club". I assume you are a woman. Is your best friend a man or girl?

I'm a man and work in a sane work environment where genitals and drinking habits don't effect promotions -- especially among engineering staff where the whole point is to minimize the impact of those sorts of petty politics and instead focus on shipping product.

It's a shame we probably aren't in competing companies.

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