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

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#241

Post by Latty » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:56 PM UTC

tarsinge wrote: post #211

Latty wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a short-sighted way to look at it. Yes, of course in an ideal world these things would be non-issues, but they aren't. People are discriminated against, and there are barriers from culture that won't change without intentional scruity. Of course, everyone should be able to just do their job and no more. If you aren't interested in being a role model or trying to push for that equality, that's absolutely fi…

> Things don't magically get fixed culturally and socially - that takes an integration. Not necessarily, I see 2 opinions on how to fix this : - An "active integration" like you explain, where the differences are highlighted (what we mostly see in the US). The idea is that by forcing the change we'll get used to it. - A post-racial/genre approach, where the differences are made as irrelevant as any physical trait, so…

The second isn't a process - it's an end result. That only happens where there is some pressure for that result to come to fruition. That means you need people to get pushed into situations where they interact with others to get that normalisation. That requires some effort to pursue equality and give people chances.

I also think it's morally reprehensible to just sit back and accept generations of people who don't have the chances others do.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#242

Post by bbulkow » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:57 PM UTC

iamatworknow wrote: post #32

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 think you're missing the point of the article. It's not that these things don't exist, or didn't exist for her -- of course they do. The point seems, to me at least, to be that in order to attempt to actually solve these problems you can't actively (or passively) try to exclude yourself from the people causing them. It's like politics -- if you separate yourself into "us" versus "them", how are you ever supposed to…

I think you're missing the point of the discussion. When you have women who are excluded and hit on and passed over simply because they are women, they come up with all kinds of solutions, including raising awareness that there are great women who are WOMEN and you should listen to "women in tech".

The stage of creating women-only and women-focused groups ( and buying into the diminutive labeling the original author hates ), is what happens after you have a bunch of really, really, really shitty interactions.

Thus, I think it is likely the author simply hasn't had the kind of really poor interactions & groping & whatnot, and she doesn't mention it in her post.

I am passionate about this because my significant other is a woman, and she's in tech. I know plenty of other women in technology. Most of them aren't deeply involved in "women-in-tech" and prefer a low-key evangelizing of the great women that have been in tech, combined with fleeing from companies that employ ... jerks ... who harass and ignore.

I was very happy that, in my startup under my leadership, we had a 50% male-female ratio. Subsequently, as CTO without much staff, that ratio has steadily decreased, and we are now down to 0% women in engineering. While that can be sampling error ( we don't have a 1000 member engineering staff ), it does give me pause.

The women technologists I know don't specifically slag the "women-in-tech" movement as the author did, I suspect because they do realize the magnitude of the problem is great enough that multiple points of pressure are required. Simply being great isn't enough, and the problem is getting worse not better - but there are likely other reasons.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#243

Post by zzalpha » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:57 PM UTC

kybernetikos wrote: post #157

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…

Almost everyone has about a million things holding them back. The problem is that for any specific individual, focussing on the things holding them back is usually counter productive. For society as a whole, spotting some of those things and trying to remove them can be very beneficial. Telling yourself that you're a victim of other peoples bigotry even if true tends to lead to paranoid, non-growth mindset attitudes…

The problem is that for any specific individual, focussing on the things holding them back is usually counter productive.

So what is the alternative? To sit back and hope the problem solves itself?

Yes, obviously using minority status as a mental excuse for under-performing is a bad strategy.

But I'd claim it's no better to simply ignore the issue.

In reality, for a person in a minority group, success is a function of personal achievement and minority status. That's just life. To deny that is, to me, simply unrealistic. To use a somewhat incendiary example, this idea is encapsulated in the concept of "white privilege".

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#244

Post by nunez » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:58 PM UTC

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 (black skin/latino ethnicity) used to cringe at those too, but after thinking about why they exist some more, i finally realized that many people really appreciate having a "safe" space where they can be with other people that look or grew up like them.

my family and i usually get along pretty well, but we have very different ideas about things like money or family "closeness" that were only made evident to me from my white fiancee watching "from the sidelines," as someone else above me put it. It also happens that much of the way my family goes about things is very typical for Latino families.

She's asked some really really good questions that made me think hard about why my family does things the way they have. As you can imagine, this puts me between a rock and a hard place, as I don't want my family to think that I "forgot where I came from," but I also don't want to participate in things that can really set my future self back a number of years for the sake of the family.

Very few of my acquaintances and none of my close friends (i only have a handful) are Black or Latino, so I don't really have anyone that isn't family that I can talk about this stuff with. I also spend almost zero time with other people that "look like me" at work; I've run into very few Black or Latino engineers in my nine year career, though I know that there are plenty out there. I was almost always the only black/latino person on the teams i've been on.

I've tried the minority only clubs, both in college and after I started working, and found that I don't like being fit into homogenous boxes or participating in echo chambers. So I've stopped joining them.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#245

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:59 PM UTC

Cumulonimbus wrote: post #175

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…

I remember quite some time ago, before Social networks. Before blogs. Before all of what we think of the WWW. We were still in Web 1.0 , with email, usenet, IRC, and other then-essential services. Dial-up was the way online. And when people talked with each other, we were told to not release who we are. Be guarded in your real-identity. And that lead to user1 talks with user2. I didn't know if user2 was white, black,…

[deleted]

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#246

Post by mistermann » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:59 PM UTC

hoosieree wrote: post #76

serg_chernata wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

> make sure criticism is constructive

My new motto (if I can pull it off), is to never criticize, ever. If I see a project on an obvious downward trajectory, rather than pointing out the blatantly obvious things that could turn it around, I am going to smile and repeat the same nonsense feel good crap my coworkers do as if everything is just fine, and watch it crash and burn. And then in my next interview, I will declare it a smashing success! In my experience, this is literally the recipe for success in modern times.

I should note, these observations are based on working in large enterprises where failure of an individual project can be absorbed, as opposed to a smaller shop where success actually matters.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#247

Post by Latty » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:59 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #232

Latty wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you don't understand the core problem. You know what, I think people, in general, should be allowed to discriminate. The whole "right to refuse service" shtick - people shouldn't be forced to do things they don't want to do, even if they are following stupid beliefs. That said, I recognise there are things that have to beat that. Just like free speech doesn't include shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre, we have…

> If everyone won't provide wedding services for you, or everyone won't let you attend a class, or everyone won't sell you food, you can't live your life. True, but socially, we've moved past that. There might be the rare individual baker who would not want to bake a cake for a gay wedding, because he's a devout Christian or Muslim or whatever and thinks homosexuality is a sin. But 98% of businesses won't care, as lo…

> True, but socially, we've moved past that. There might be the rare individual baker who would not want to bake a cake for a gay wedding, because he's a devout Christian or Muslim or whatever and thinks homosexuality is a sin. But 98% of businesses won't care, as long as you can pay the bill.

Untrue. There are still many communities where you can be totally ostracized for those things. Just because you don't notice it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Furthermore, this misses the point - even if there wasn't active discrimination in that way, it doesn't mean there isn't societal pressure or a need for minority groups to get minorities into a community in order to integrate that culture.

> We'll never be rid of all discrimination. It's just a flaw in human nature. We should keep educating and working against it. But I think we're largely past the institutionalized (to say nothing of codified) discrimination of the past centuries.

I mean, sure, but I'm sure people said the same thing about murder, then rape, etc..., etc... - we should always be working to reduce these things.

We are not at the point where discrimination is some crazily rare thing like murder is in modern societies.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#248

Post by swampangel » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 5:01 PM UTC

BearGoesChirp wrote: post #52

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.

>It has always disturbed me when a push for female developers is mentioned; My initial reaction to hearing news like this is that more qualified candidates are going to be passed over in favor of more diverse candidates. This in turn can quickly turn into viewing minority candidates as diversity hires. There is a lot of sexism, racism, and classism in our society. We need to hit it at the root where it occurs and rea…

There is a recent study where they saw the opposite, that quotas caused less-capable in-group members to be pushed out:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2017/04/05/gender-quotas-a...

I haven't seen a lot of discussion around this - it may be bunk. But there are a lot of intuitive ideas about hiring that don't hold up.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#249

Post by toufka » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 5:02 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #207

The thing that makes these kinds of discussions so difficult is that people often aren't clear (even in their own minds) about eventual goals vs. immediate actions. Absolutely, inclusion and color/gender/whatever blindness is where most of us would like to be eventually. Unfortunately, pretending we're already there doesn't get us there. It just preserves the status quo. As painful as it is, we have to accentuate and…

Is that approach not entirely just an opinion of yours though? How can you state so firmly (in opposition to many here) that "you're practically guaranteeing permanent under-correction". I think that statement is only true if those in the majority have no desire for true equity - which then is begging the question.

If the hypothetical 'truly equitable' personality exists, is it not of some moral repugnancy to require them to re-engage with a (by definition) racist or sexist system, even if the racism and sexism being engaged in are to the short term advantage of society? Are you suggesting the end justifies that particular means? And is that not precisely a moral failing? And for the sake of the argument, if you presume some people are more sexist/racist than others, then you also must allow that some are less sexist/racist than others - and precisely those hypothetically equitable personalities would be put in a very real moral quandary by your strategy. And does then requiring sexist/racist actions that such people would otherwise not have taken part in, then act to precisely "preserve the status quo" of sexism and racism?

I would just question your confidence that your strategy is the correct one to get where I think we all want to eventuality arrive. It may be a viable strategy, but it's not yet clear that it is the only viable strategy. And though it might be a fast strategy, it too could be a less morally sound strategy. There are tradeoffs all around, and it's uncharitable to make declarative decisions about those moral tradeoffs on behalf of others.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#250

Post by dang » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 5:02 PM UTC

zzalpha wrote: post #228

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…

It's not the minority that holds you back. It's a class system. Well, I'd counter that and claim it's actually both, and the former frequently contributes to the latter.

Your comments are beginning to make a habit of being uncivil. Would you please fix that?

In particular, please edit the gratuitous provocations like "Hate to break it to you" and "Huh?" out of your comments here. Those things are (minor) violations of HN's civility rule in any thread, but when it comes to flamewar-prone topics like this one they're particularly harmful.