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Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

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Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#71

Post by watwut »

gizmo wrote: post #43
dang wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Men of HN No, that's not fair. The commenters you're referring to exist, and so do many others. Edit: There's a pattern on HN, and maybe other internet communities as well, where the first comments to appear on a topic (especially one on which people are divided and have strong feelings) tend to be angry, reflexive ones by people who are quickly triggered and respond from pre-existing judgments. That doesn't mean t…

As a HN moderator maybe reconsider making #notallmen type responses. Sexism on HN is prevalent and it's harmful when moderators minimize this issue by emphasizing not all comments are awful. The barrage of sexist comments that show up every time this subject is discussed is clear evidence this community has a sexism problem.

Common, while there are some sexist comments, majority are not. Paranoia over sexism harms too - there is no reason to promote more fear then is actually reasonable.

Women are not helped by painting the world worst then it really is - that just makes women less likely try things that could turn out enjoyable or profitable.

IMO, that is one of the things that holds women back - the moment we poke out of cocoon helpful people feel the need to inform us about grave imagined dangers and some end up believing that. If you want more females to try out these things, dont overestimate problems (nor ignore them).

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#72

Post by tptacek »

metaphorm wrote: post #60
gizmo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a HN moderator maybe reconsider making #notallmen type responses. Sexism on HN is prevalent and it's harmful when moderators minimize this issue by emphasizing not all comments are awful. The barrage of sexist comments that show up every time this subject is discussed is clear evidence this community has a sexism problem.

I would ask you to reconsider your attitude here. There is a strong element of unfair and unfounded accusation in this thread that has basically created bad-faith dialogue here. While there may be insensitive or even overtly sexist people that comment here, your own minimization of unfair attitudes w.r.t the presence of good men with your snide hashtag reference is a serious part of the problem too.

Your sibling comment is a strong rebuttal to the parent. This comment though basically confirms the suspicion of the parent.

The argument on this subthread is that you can't judge the response of the community based on the most immediate, knee-jerk comments written on a thread. What you're doing is attempting to co-opt that sentiment into rebutting the question the thread is based on.

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#73

Post by HarryHirsch »

fwefwwfe wrote: post #17
emmab wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for culture, I'd say just ask. Ask what the team does for fun. That will more or less tell you if you will fit in or not. How will that tell you if they are accepting of e.g. non-binary people?

It would be a red flag if the team never did anything together, like their team events were solely an outing every 6 months.

Mandatory company-prescribed fun would be a great big red flag. The company wants you to be loyal to it, but it won't ever be loyal to you. A certain Austrian had something to say about mandatory activities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJFtkHOZ7jw

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#74

Post by maxxxxx »

fwefwwfe wrote: post #17
emmab wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for culture, I'd say just ask. Ask what the team does for fun. That will more or less tell you if you will fit in or not. How will that tell you if they are accepting of e.g. non-binary people?

It would be a red flag if the team never did anything together, like their team events were solely an outing every 6 months.

I like people I can work with well but I have no desire to ever do anything outside of work with my colleagues.

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#75

Post by gizmo »

metaphorm wrote: post #60
gizmo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a HN moderator maybe reconsider making #notallmen type responses. Sexism on HN is prevalent and it's harmful when moderators minimize this issue by emphasizing not all comments are awful. The barrage of sexist comments that show up every time this subject is discussed is clear evidence this community has a sexism problem.

I would ask you to reconsider your attitude here. There is a strong element of unfair and unfounded accusation in this thread that has basically created bad-faith dialogue here. While there may be insensitive or even overtly sexist people that comment here, your own minimization of unfair attitudes w.r.t the presence of good men with your snide hashtag reference is a serious part of the problem too.

I'm not being snide with #notallmen. The hashtag exists because denial is such a common response when sexism is pointed out.

dang acts like sexism is just like any other topic on which HN is passionate and divided. Like tabs versus spaces, or whether linux is ready for the desktop.

Sexism is far more pernicious and far more serious than those other hot button topics though, so it should not be piled onto that heap.

I'm baffled by the suggestion that reasonable responses somehow negate the hateful bile others post. If somebody gets sexually harassed by 3 people in the office, does it help to point out the other 17 people have done no sexual harassment at all?

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#77

Post by tptacek »

dang wrote: post #29
hiddencost wrote: post #13

Woman: "Women in tech, I'm looking for help navigating X issues that are specific to my gender's well publicized challenges in the industry." Men of HN: "None of this is real, stop making stuff up." ... I dunno; I've found metafilter has some folks in tech who might be more useful to you. Maybe this thread will become less of a clusterfuck as time goes on. My experience has been that asking to talk to a woman on the…

> Men of HN No, that's not fair. The commenters you're referring to exist, and so do many others. Edit: There's a pattern on HN, and maybe other internet communities as well, where the first comments to appear on a topic (especially one on which people are divided and have strong feelings) tend to be angry, reflexive ones by people who are quickly triggered and respond from pre-existing judgments. That doesn't mean t…

Dan, your argument about the community would be more compelling if it weren't for the fact that threads like these usually wear concrete shoes in the HN ranking pool. The only portions of these threads most normal readers see is the most toxic part.

I spend a lot of time apologizing for the 10-15 toxic minutes these things spend on the front page before they're flagged out of sight. I understand why that happens, but whatever we want to call it, "healthy" probably isn't it.

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#78

Post by watwut »

fwefwwfe wrote: post #17
emmab wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for culture, I'd say just ask. Ask what the team does for fun. That will more or less tell you if you will fit in or not. How will that tell you if they are accepting of e.g. non-binary people?

It would be a red flag if the team never did anything together, like their team events were solely an outing every 6 months.

Why would that be red flag? I was in team that basically never had team outings and it was pretty awesome to work with them - I ended up trusting them a lot and we respected each other a lot.

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#79

Post by metaphorm »

gizmo wrote: post #75
metaphorm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would ask you to reconsider your attitude here. There is a strong element of unfair and unfounded accusation in this thread that has basically created bad-faith dialogue here. While there may be insensitive or even overtly sexist people that comment here, your own minimization of unfair attitudes w.r.t the presence of good men with your snide hashtag reference is a serious part of the problem too.

I'm not being snide with #notallmen. The hashtag exists because denial is such a common response when sexism is pointed out. dang acts like sexism is just like any other topic on which HN is passionate and divided. Like tabs versus spaces, or whether linux is ready for the desktop. Sexism is far more pernicious and far more serious than those other hot button topics though, so it should not be piled onto that heap. I…

> I'm baffled by the suggestion that reasonable responses somehow negate the hateful bile others post. If somebody gets sexually harassed by 3 people in the office, does it help to point out the other 17 people have done no sexual harassment at all?

not a comparable situation. the comparable situation is when one man is accused of sexism, then all other men by proxy are judged as if they are sexists.

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#80

Post by nostrademons »

Disclaimer: not a woman, but this exact question just recently came up among several of my female friends in another forum I follow. I'm not sure I like or agree with their conclusions, but I'll pass them on in the hopes they'll be useful.

They came up with two big questions that have surprising predictive power:

1.) Do you have daughters?

2.) Does your wife work outside the home? (Probably couched in more neutral language like "Oh, what does your wife do for a living?")

[The women in question were director/VP level, and so were directing this toward CEOs and C-level execs. Presumably they'd be asked of your direct boss. Both questions can be easily worked into basic rapport-building smalltalk, i.e. you don't directly ask them this in the interview, you just casually inquire about their family. Also, this assumes a male boss; the conversation mostly ignored the question of female bosses, other than to note that women who had to fight hard to get where they are during the 70s and 80s can be surprisingly tyrannical towards younger women coming up.]

The daughter effect has been pretty well-documented in the media [1][2]; it appears that even the most sexist men want their daughters to succeed, and that rubs off in how they treat women in the workplace. (See eg. Ivanna vs. Ivanka Trump.) The reason for asking about whether the wife works outside the home is that in two-career couples, the husband necessarily needs to take on a larger share of the housework & childcare, which makes them more sympathetic to the constraints & sacrifices that a working mother has to make.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/fatherhood/1093...

[2] https://www.fastcompany.com/3032432/why-men-with-daughters-m...

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