I'm not a Woman in Tech • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#141

Post by tanilama » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 3:59 PM UTC

mercurysmessage wrote: post #103

adventured wrote: post #96

edit Why did my comment get dislodged from being underneath another comment that I was replying to? It's now showing as a stand-alone comment under the thread. ------------------------------------------- I'm doing a similar thing. I stopped posting anything personal on Facebook about a year ago and I never post to Twitter. I'll never go back to posting personal thoughts on social media, not under any circumstances. I…

I don't think you are approaching this right. You are painting an entire group of people under the same brush... Also, feminism is promoting equality.

Feminism is not simple as that.

> People ask me sometimes, when — when do you think it will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine.

This is from Justice Ginsburg, and a widely shared quote by a lot of feminist articles. This claim feels pretty vindictive to me and definitely not about equality. In the other words, it is not about REDUCE the inequality, it is about REVERSE the inequality.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#142

Post by michaelscott » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:02 PM UTC

emsy wrote: post #58

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.

I recently watched an answer on this by Steven Pinker as to why this "re-segregation" is happening. He basically says that legitimate movements don't stop as soon as they've reached their goal and at that point, they start to become regressive. Interestingly he provides an example that hasn't to do with any ism: child protection. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFnP5UUXuTk

My personal thought on this is that those who devote themselves to these movements internalise them in such a way that the movements define their identity.

Once the goal of the movement is achieved, that part of their identity necessarily needs to disappear and because this is such a difficult thing to do they simply shift the movement's goalposts to keep their internal purpose alive (usually toward a regressive point).

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#143

Post by root_axis » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:02 PM UTC

sotojuan wrote: post #17

There's an interesting dichotomy on the "women in tech" question between "SV tech" and non-SV tech. I briefly worked at a tech company making oil industry software in .NET in a Houston suburb. Not trendy, cubicles, but they paid fine (and unlike my current job the office was quiet). I quickly noticed that half of my coworkers were not only women, but a lot were people of color and older (I actually think I was the on…

I think you make an excellent point here. The standards of professionalism have shifted to accommodate the "startup culture" ethos which tends to favor a "fun and productive" office environment instead of the traditional "professional and productive" office environment. This is the result of individuals from younger generations building companies with an idealistic vision of what a company can be. They imagine they want to come into a workplace where everyone is friends and everyone is comfortable joking around and we're all just here to have fun and make money, nobody ever takes it too far and there's really no need for HR because we're all friends here... but of course, the reality is often quite different from what is imagined and you end up in a situation where people start brushing inappropriate behavior under the rug because it causes cognitive dissonance for those who are champions of the "fun" culture.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#144

Post by mercurysmessage » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:02 PM UTC

tanilama wrote: post #141

mercurysmessage wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you are approaching this right. You are painting an entire group of people under the same brush... Also, feminism is promoting equality.

Feminism is not simple as that. > People ask me sometimes, when — when do you think it will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine. This is from Justice Ginsburg, and a widely shared quote by a lot of feminist articles. This claim feels pretty vindictive to me and definitely not about equality. In the other words, it is not about REDUCE the inequality, it is a…

So it's fine if there are nine men in court but not nine women? I don't get your point. Shouldn't it not matter? You are also arguing that one persons opinion represents an entire group.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#145

Post by sotojuan » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:04 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #110

te_chris wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. People are rarely willing to talk about class in these discussions, but the reality is that not only have we created an industry with a gender imbalance, we've created an industry with a culture that prioritises the values of one class (middle/upper-class urban men) over everything else. Thus you have 'casual' workplaces with games consoles, beer, lame forced socialising, chill zones etc in which some peo…

My experience is exactly the opposite - "professional" workplaces are all about middle/upper-class values of dress/speech/behaviour and only comfortable for those with a middle/upper-class cultural/educational background, while the SV-casual workplace is a lot more welcoming for those of us from working/lower-middle class.

There are bad professional places and good professional places - law and finance and rife with the things you describe. However, my "enterprise .NET software" experience was not bad. I just wore a button up, pants, and leather shoes and no one cared about my class background.

If anything, SV tech is commonly full of (and targets as consumers) out-of-touch-with-working-class urban upper middle class people.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#146

Post by adventured » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:04 PM UTC

tanilama wrote: post #141

mercurysmessage wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you are approaching this right. You are painting an entire group of people under the same brush... Also, feminism is promoting equality.

Feminism is not simple as that. > People ask me sometimes, when — when do you think it will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine. This is from Justice Ginsburg, and a widely shared quote by a lot of feminist articles. This claim feels pretty vindictive to me and definitely not about equality. In the other words, it is not about REDUCE the inequality, it is a…

> Feminism is not simple as that.

I never said it was simple and I fully recognize there are countless gradients of all sorts in feminism. I believe it's unnecessary as a concept. Pursuing and agreeing with the concept of equality nullifies feminism - that is my opinion. It's a very unpopular opinion with the left today. I've been having discussions about feminism for two decades online, there is hardly any conversational ground I haven't covered in the process.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#147

Post by thegayngler » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

As a black man I am going to disagree with some of what she said even if I can relate on some level. You need support when you are hired especially as an "under represented" person. If the company didn't think you needed support they simply wouldn't be offering it. Most of the "not under represented" people have support that helps them become more successful.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#148

Post by Latty » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

monksy wrote: post #100

zzalpha wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, this is just the standard argument against "identity politics". The obvious counterpoint is that, by working together as an identified sub-group, you have greater power than you would otherwise. Dedicated venues for those sub-groups offer a place to organize, provide communal support, etc. Frankly, I think it's sadly naive to believe that we can simply "Lose all the labels" and that'll magically fix things. "Iden…

That only works if you want to bully others for the resources. (That's how unions work). That, however, will re-enfonce negative stereotypes for the group and will not improve anything. If you want to overcome the stereotype, work with other people. Get to know them. Learn the rules of the game and play by the same rules as everyone in society does. If you want to identify as that subgroup based on (gender/race/etc)…

While there are obviously cases of unions bullying companies, there are many, many more cases of companies bullying employees - unions were originally intended (and still are, in most cases) as a defense against bullying by creating an equivalently powerful entity, not a way to bully.

The rest... it strikes me as incredibly hypocritical - you blame these people for creating groups for support and social which you think stop integration of culture, but these groups are created precisely because that integration isn't happening. If you are a young girl who has an interest in computing, but is dissuaded from joining the computing club at school because "only boys like computers" and the club members make fun of her, how are you meant to get into that general community?

Now, if there is a girl's computing club and she can join that with no stigma, learn about the hobby and then integrate with that interest already there, it helps make that happen. You can't integrate if you never gain that interest or skill because you are rejected at the beginning.

It's like expecting slavery to end by saying black people can be slave owners or own themselves. If you don't recongnise the barrier to entry and integration, then sure, you can paint these groups as negative, but that's just missing the point.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#149

Post by burkaman » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:06 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #96

edit Why did my comment get dislodged from being underneath another comment that I was replying to? It's now showing as a stand-alone comment under the thread. ------------------------------------------- I'm doing a similar thing. I stopped posting anything personal on Facebook about a year ago and I never post to Twitter. I'll never go back to posting personal thoughts on social media, not under any circumstances. I…

What do you mean by "the left", and who do you consider to be part of it?

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#150

Post by ams6110 » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:06 PM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #34

treehau5 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm left believing that my only choice is to have no opinion. I learned this lesson a long time ago from the role models in my life that ended up getting burned because of having a differing viewpoint from whatever societal winds were blowing. I, and I realize probably cynically, now only elect to share, post, tweet, or whatnot whatever only can positively benefit my "brand". Sometimes I have to act like my own PR…

Here is the thing. You can have private opinions but when you express them publicly, the larger the audience the larger the chance that someone can totally misinterpret / take out of context / take IN context but write a diatribe against / etc. what you say. It could be someone who is outraged or someone who actually uses your words to further their ideological agenda against those who are outraged. In short, the mor…

My personal view is that Trump is deliberately trolling the media, and they are taking the bait every time. There's also a "they can dish it out but can't take it" element to it.