I'm not a Woman in Tech

I agree. The problem isn't 'women in tech', it's more like 'assholes in tech' caused by some perverse glorification of Asperger syndrome (not to disparage those truly suffering from Asperger's.) It wasn't this way when I started my career in the mid 80's but somewhere along the way things have gone haywire.

There's sexism in tech, and to address it you have to call it for what it is. I'm glad her experiences are such that she hasn't encountered these barriers, but other people have, and they need these words and spaces.

Take my previous job. Women were objectified on Slack. A woman was groped, though she didn't report it out of concern for the repercussions. In meetings execs, male execs would only address/look at the men, not the women. The company was 91% men, even though 24% of the workforce for those jobs in the area was female.

My friends in another high-profile company in the area were sexually harassed, though they felt like they couldn't report it. They simply left the job.

I've mentored young women in high school interested in STEM in a program specific for them. The content is the same, but there's value in having these to counter the obstacles specific to women that they'll face.

I've never seen men, as a group, encounter the obstacles I've seen many female peers discuss. Not all women encounter these, but as a group, it's undeniable that there's extra obstacles.

Okay, so here is the thing: nobody wants to make the labels explicit, or to think about the minority or female labels.

The reason that has come into style is because people have implicit associations and biases. And the theory is the best way to deal with them is to explicitly think about it.

Example.

You're hiring for a position. It is very technical. You see a bunch of candidates and then you just think some would be better suited to the technical role than the others.

Now, let's say you think: let me notice the gender.

Oh, this is funny. All the ones I rejected from the technical role as being "better suited to marketing" happen to be female. Am I being fair to them?

Now you reread the resume only focusing on the actual skills and you find that some of the people you rejected have stronger technical skills but you unconsciously downplayed it because of the female name.

(Or, vice versa, you rejected a male name for not being "the marketing type" when perhaps their resume suggests otherwise).

It would be better to read the resume without the gender clues. (Names removed, sorority and fraternity info removed, women organization removed etc) But without that I think we make it explicit just so we have a shot at examining the things we don't make explicit.

That is the theory, anyway.

I totally agree with the premise of the article.

If the problem is that unconscious bias makes a specific demographic under-represented in an area, industry, award, etc.. then how does making a target-demographic-specific area, quota, award, etc. solve that problem?

It just further exacerbates, or even serves to justify, the original bias-- you can continue to perpetuate the original discrimination on the grounds that there is a specific pool, quota, or designated award for "those people".

These policies strike me as really shitty band-aid solutions that treat the symptoms, not the causes, and-- if anything-- delay the wound from closing.

This is a really important blog post.

A lot of commentators from the SV world (and more worryingly recently also from Western Europe) completely miss the point and actually create new, worse divides and new, worse discrimination.

I applaud Maria on her strength and bravery to post a piece like this.