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

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#331

Post by tomc1985 » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 7:00 PM UTC

meej wrote: post #267

"You’re victimising me when you do that. You’re indicating that it’s most likely I need special, extra support. Just because I’m female." This is exactly how I felt during my Microsoft internship in 1998 when the internal women's organization, HOPPERS, decided to change their successful "intern buddy" program from opt-in to opt-out. (Well, not really opt-out, because until I got upset with them about it they clearly…

Thank you for helping me find the right word to describe what most of these diversity, minority outreach programs look like -- ghettoization. It seems that many are more interested in highlighting the presence of minorities in their midst than actually rethinking their conduct. It makes most of the initiatives and discussions here on HN look like a sham.

If I were an affected minority (I am a minority but not in any of the ways that are currently fashionable) I would not want to be highlighted because I am a minority. That is treating people like they are animals in a zoo. What I would want to see is people like me quietly working in their field and really, truly appearing (and being) equal to their peers.

Which is amazing, in a way, that that even needs to be specified. That the majority is so incapable of empathizing with their peers and it seems the only visible response is to highlight "diversity" by pointing to diversity hires. Gag -- WASPs :/

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#332

Post by monocasa » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 7:01 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #301

monocasa wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was in 2004. And define widespread? Like was it sure to happen if you were out? No. If you started a GSA club like he did, more likely. I think the term 'uppity' was thrown around.

> And define widespread? Well, was this an isolated incident or not? Better yet, let's use your prior definition: > If someone refuses me, the white straight male, the chance to buy something, I go somewhere else. That's not the case for some minorities however. 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. Comm…

> Well, was this an isolated incident or not?

An event that had the implicit backing of the school administration sent a widespread message.

Lynching in the wasn't 'widespread', but it's message was. According to this: http://time.com/3703386/jim-crow-lynchings Georgia had 586 total lynchings from 1877 until 1950. That's about 1 per county per generation.

> your prior definition:

Check usernames.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#333

Post by rdiddly » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 7:02 PM UTC

Dove wrote: post #318

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…

> but as a group, it's undeniable that there's extra obstacles I'm not sure you can really say that. It's true, women as a group encounter problems with being treated as sex objects, and there are cultural reasons for that, blah blah blah. So women have a unique experience. BUT! Men experience a pressure to succeed that we as women can hardly fathom. Consequently, they wind up in jobs they need , in a way we never wi…

I like how you think - let's just keep it simple and oppose all the things that suck then shall we?

I'll add that the best way to oppose something is to promote its opposite. Only because "opposing" has a tendency to backfire. We should therefore promote, for example, sexismlessness. Yes I made up a word.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#334

Post by amiga-workbench » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 7:04 PM UTC

hyperdunc wrote: post #297

amiga-workbench wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the fault lies at the employment level. I think the societal biases are imprinted in people during their social development. Girls are less likely to be given the equipment and backing to get into software development at an early age, and their peers would rarely understand such an interest. The field and the associated character traits around it are viewed as nerdy or boring, the people who don't give…

Biases are not just socially constructed - they're often rooted in biology. It might just be the case that for biological reasons, females (in general) aren't as interested in creating technology. The gender imbalance in fields like programming and nursing is larger in the most "fair and evolved" societies (e.g. Denmark), because these societies allow biological gender differences to more freely assert themselves.

Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome is something I very strongly agree with, I would be mortified to be given handouts because of a particular box I fit in.

Affirmative action reeks of plastering over a bug instead of squashing it at the root cause.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#335

Post by fav_collector » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 7:04 PM UTC

falsedan wrote: post #21

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 company should be focused on acquiring the best developers they can, not finding ones of a specific gender I agree, that's why I think companies should consider what is putting off women & why the gender balance in tech is so heavily weighted towards males. That is, most companies (regardless of conscious choice) are finding the best (young, white) male developers only.

> That is, most companies (regardless of conscious choice) are finding the best (young, white) male developers only.

The implication here is that earned (through training) software and programming skills are equally distributed among the entire population. This is simply not true just by looking at StackOverflow/CS major demographics.

They are finding the best female developers. There just aren't that many (for whatever reason)

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#336

Post by belorn » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 7:06 PM UTC

alistproducer2 wrote: post #64

iamatworknow wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But you also can't solve a problem if everyone pretends it doesn't exist.

And others say that you can't solve the problem of exclusion by having exclusivity. You can instead lead by example, which is not the same as pretending that the problem don't exist.

Then there are alternatives solutions which don't include either inclusivity nor exclusivity. Instead you address underlying issues that create the unwanted behavior. That too would not be people pretending that the problem don't exist, but rather a indirect way to solve the problem.

Different solutions have different drawbacks and benefits. Criticism of one don't mean the denial of the problem.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#337

Post by alaaibrahim » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 7:08 PM UTC

problems wrote: post #111

nazgul17 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media can become mass media, and it's not up to you to decide if and when that happens. In the past, you could just vocalise your opinion, and it would not survive many hops in the real-world social network. So yeah, you can express your opinion, but your chance of being crucified for it has risen significantly.

If you express your opinion on a private forum instead of a public one, you're much less likely to be crucified for it. I can make nasty off-handed comments to my friends in private chat all day, with very little fear that it'll see the light. Ultimately sheer quantity of people is the bigger problem than anything else.

> I can make nasty off-handed comments to my friends in private chat all day, with very little fear that it'll see the light.

And then, someone decides to take a screenshot, out of context, and post it somewhere for the whole world to see.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#338

Post by toufka » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 7:10 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #302

toufka wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was Joe Rogan who mentioned a similar point where, until a goal is reached those who want equity and those who just want a position of power are pointed in the exact same direction. It is only once the goal is reached that the difference between the two ideals becomes apparent.

That idea has existed since before Joe Rogan was born, and been explored in far more depth. Crediting it to him seems a bit odd, but perhaps it's telling.

There's no credit being given other than a mention of where it was heard. He said it recently, I remembered it, I said as much.

It's not a profound or difficult concept, but interesting to have articulated.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#339

Post by soundwave106 » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

nazgul17 wrote: post #94

problems wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not dead - you can speak your mind - just you pay a social price to do so. Free speech, even in the most libertarian concept I have doesn't prevent other people's right to criticize your speech - in fact, I'd say it encourages just that. Speak out against stuff you don't like rather than censoring it. Ultimately it's an effect of large, diverse communities and deep political divisions. If you want to have political d…

Social media can become mass media, and it's not up to you to decide if and when that happens. In the past, you could just vocalise your opinion, and it would not survive many hops in the real-world social network. So yeah, you can express your opinion, but your chance of being crucified for it has risen significantly.

Personally, I don't think tribalism / group-think, as well as public / private image spaces are very new things at all. Scandals, blacklisting, even execution for having the "wrong opinion" for the social norm of the time -- that's unfortunately pretty common throughout history.

From my viewpoint, an issue with a lot of today's social media is it doesn't feel as nakedly public as it really is. Personally, I wouldn't go into a large room of often random people that you don't know well, and loudly break traditional rules of etiquette by broadcasting inflammatory viewpoints on potentially pot-stirring topics like politics, religion, etc. Likewise, I feel the same with Facebook: that is not the place to discuss these sorts of topics due to how very public Facebook is. Yet a lot of people do that on Facebook and Twitter every day.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#340

Post by politician » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #273

vxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fresh US immigrant from the middle of Europe yet visually passing as an average white man, I haven't even shared the style of upbringing that people assume I did, and yet I lean closer to the opinion expressed above because I fear that a determined person with an agenda can find a way to use my story or opinions to illustrate their point and paint me and broad classes of people as problematic in the process. I e…

You could create an online persona to have those "tough conversations". And use VPN services and/or Tor to keep it isolated from your real-world identity.

One invites scrutiny by advertising one's anonymity.