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I'm not a Woman in Tech

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Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#71

Post by seaknoll »

SerpentJoe wrote: post #8
076ae80a-3c97-4 wrote: post #3

I really agree with this. It has always disturbed me when a push for female developers is mentioned; a company should be focused on acquiring the best developers they can, not finding ones of a specific gender. This behaviour is literally an example of the problem it is trying to resolve. To the company I work for, I am a software engineer, not a man or woman.

A refinement would be that the company should focus on acquiring the developers who will provide the most marginal benefit. For an organization that values diversity but that currently has a non-diverse team, this could tip the scales toward a competent developer who exists outside that monoculture.

and/or making higher offers to developers outside that monoculture.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#72

Post by billions »

aphextron wrote: post #2

>I want inclusivity, not exclusivity. Thank you. I find myself feeling the exact same way as a black man in this industry, and cringe at "minority only" events and clubs. We don't need token inclusion and separate praise for being "brave" and "fighting against the odds". We need a world where those things are irrelevant.

Top performers will not let their accomplishments be belittled through association with a marginalized sub-group. Sub-group leaders, often not masters in their field, find opportunity in leading sub-groups. Everyone in between, that fits the sub-group demographics, quietly takes advantage of the new benefits from the sidelines. The only group that does not have political power is the treat 'everybody' decent group, which has insufficient incentive to push back.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#73

Post by icebraining »

djsumdog wrote: post #63
icebraining wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my favorite quote from one my favorite characters of Red Mars : “It was a mistake to speak one's mind at any time, unless it perfectly matched your political purpose; and it never did.”

Which character was that? John? Frank? Man I loved that series.

Frank. Coincidentally, he was reflecting on having spoken up about the treatment of women (in a certain community).

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#74

Post by kfk »

djsumdog wrote: post #63
icebraining wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my favorite quote from one my favorite characters of Red Mars : “It was a mistake to speak one's mind at any time, unless it perfectly matched your political purpose; and it never did.”

Which character was that? John? Frank? Man I loved that series.

Frank, book 1, after a rant on women condition in muslim culture I believe

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#75

Post by escapetech »

fruzz wrote: post #14

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 m…

>> I'm glad her experiences are such that she hasn't encountered these barriers,

According to whom? Just because one doesn't address or mention the obstacles faced in their personal life doesn't necessarily mean that none were faced.

>> I've never seen men, as a group, encounter the obstacles I've seen many female peers discuss.

The solution is not to ignore the individual instances of these problems occurring within a group or across other groups that aren't necessarily by gender.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#76

Post by hoosieree »

serg_chernata wrote: post #4
aphextron wrote: post #2

>I want inclusivity, not exclusivity. Thank you. I find myself feeling the exact same way as a black man in this industry, and cringe at "minority only" events and clubs. We don't need token inclusion and separate praise for being "brave" and "fighting against the odds". We need a world where those things are irrelevant.

Watching from the sidelines as a white male, I have to say that I find these kinds of situations so confusing. Some people want these differences to be highlighted, while others like yourself want the complete opposite. I'm left believing that my only choice is to have no opinion. Though I lean towards your stance across the board.

I deeply understand this sentiment, especially the "what can/should I do?" aspect, but I think "watching from the sidelines" is a mistake. If we do nothing then the status quo will tend toward more segregation, not less.

Some simple things I do to try to make things better in my workplace:

With others:

  * actually listen
  * never interrupt
  * make sure criticism is constructive
  * in a shared codebase, use the lightest possible touch (avoid aesthetic refactoring)
With myself:

  * acknowledge my own privileges/biases, and be aware of the fact that simply what I look like/how I speak etc. can affect other people
  * be open to the possibility that my own opinions may not be immutable objective truths (this is hard)

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#77

Post by tawayyy »

I agree with what Maria says. One huge problem at this point, is that the "women in tech" problem is completely dominated by activists in this field, that does not happen to be always very balanced in their visions. Normal people try to disappear when there are those kind of discussions, because they escalate easily, and you can get hurt in many ways. So we as a community of programmers, should try to get more involved to avoid that only people with extreme over-reacting thoughts handle it.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#78

Post by dang »

rootlocus wrote: post #48
buf wrote: post #7

Unpopular opinion: I think when you're in a minority and you are not rising to the top as fast as you expect, you use your minority as leverage to propel yourself. I am also in a minority. I've often felt cheated that my career isn't Musk-esque. And sometimes I even ask the question, "Am I being held back because I'm [in my minority]?" Then I snap back to reality. It's not the minority that holds you back. It's a cla…

If you think it's the class system that's holding you back from being Elon Musk, you're the one holding yourself back.

That's not what buf said. On HN, please be charitable when interpreting others, in the sense of responding to the strongest plausible interpretation of their meaning. It makes discussions more interesting and flamewars less likely.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#79

Post by djsumdog »

msimpson wrote: post #54

> Studies are showing that more diverse teams have higher collective intelligence... Yet the evidence provided for this claim regards preliminary findings of a singular study conducted six years ago. > Is it a problem that of computer science degrees earned, only 28% are earned by women? Again, the evidence provided for this claim is an article about an article about an infographic stating, "Among all students holdin…

I really like how you broke down the sources, statistics and try to put things in perspective. I really tend to agree here.

There is no mention of pay in this article, but there are plenty of other sources that dispel the myth that women get paid less than men (it's more like people of lower confidence simply do not ask for as much money -- both men and women; see The Confidence Gap).

I also think part of the reason we see fewer women in Tech is they don't want shitty jobs. We have everything from Dilbert to Office Space to We The Robots, all showing how terrible life in a cube can be. Women often take jobs that pay less but are more fulfilling (teachers, nurses, non-profits).

If we want more women in tech, I think we'd need to make tech more fulfilling and less miserable for everyone.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#80

Post by dang »

Caveman_Coder wrote: post #44

You can and should have an opinion, its a part of being a discerning human being trying to navigate this world. It doesn't mean you should never listen to others opinions, but having your own informed opinion is a good thing. If others tell you that you can't because you're a white male, tell them to piss off. EDIT: Downvotes for saying that a white male should have an opinion??

This comment breaks the HN guidelines by going on about downvotes. Please don't do that: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

It wasn't a great HN comment before that either, because of the combination of gratuitous resentment and category invocation in the last sentence. It probably seemed innocuous when you posted it, but this is the equivalent of dropping a lit match or a cigarette butt in a dry forest: the sort of thing that sparks other resentments and then a huge flamewar. People downvote such comments as a way of trying to protect the thread from the danger. No doubt we'd all prefer a robust discussion in which a comment like yours wasn't a problem but that, unfortunately, is not the fragile container we're working with.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14702833 and marked it off-topic.

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