Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tech is the best industry for women

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 193 posts

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#71

Post by stale2002 »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #32
barsonme wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly here. School wasn't the best fit for me and tech was great because (like politics, which I also spent ~5 years in) you didn't need a fancy degree to get a job.

> you didn't need a fancy degree to get a job. What's wrong with a fancy degree? I don't understand why fancy degree is used as a pejorative around here. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that most people these days that come from bootcamps make more money than people with "fancy degree"s.

It is not that there is anything wrong with a fancy degree per se.

The problem is the opposite. People with fancy degrees often look down on others who DON'T have fancy degrees.

Thus, other people often engage in defense, counter ribbing at the other side. But we need to be aware that the current culture context of this it is very common for Fancy Degree people to be praised and everyone else to be looked down upon.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#72

Post by Rjevski »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #43
Rjevski wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing wrong per se, but personally I see it as a waste of time - you could've built real products and actually improved the world during the time wasted on that fancy degree.

> actually improved the world during the time You're gonna have to really qualify that statement. The vast majority of tech startups do not improve the world in any way.

Okay, so does the vast majority of degrees improve the world? Even if 1 out of 1000 startups improved the world it's still an improvement over students writing (often crappy) code just to prove their university they're worth enough to get that degree.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#73

Post by civilian »

rdiddly wrote: post #63
civilian wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're implying that there could be something wrong with treating a stripper "just fine". How should a person treat a stripper?

I'm implying nothing of the sort. I'm saying OF COURSE they treated her well. When they treat the unattractive and "not fun" (i.e. strictly professional) women that way, is when you'll know there's no sexism going on.

Ah, okay. Thanks for the elaboration.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#74

Post by burkaman »

tickthokk wrote: post #52
burkaman wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "stick in the mud"? Do you not see anything wrong with what the other poster experienced?

Of course the other post's experience was horrible. And I know this is a core tenant of not understanding the situation, but it seemed like some of it was purely in jest, and if that poster was a little more... fun? then maybe the post wouldn't exist.

I wrote this in another comment somewhere, but do you think her coworkers were only like this in casual conversations and social situations, and treated her as a complete equal professionally? Or do you think their attitudes might have affected how they viewed her work, what she was assigned, her opportunities for advancement, etc.

It doesn't matter how "fun" you are when people who have power over you are doing this. It's not about being offended, it's about being unequal.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#75

Post by pyroinferno »

civilian wrote: post #40

I think tech represents a good implementation of a meritocracy. You are welcomed to be weird and yourself, as long as you get your work done. Think about your coworkers-- you've got some weird ones. Dyed hair? Check. Burlesque dancing? Check. Gender non-conforming? Check. Goes to Burning Man? Check, check, self-check. Any of these things could get you fired from teaching kindergarten. Let's keep tech inclusive and ac…

None of my coworkers are like.

Also, if you want to keep tech weird doesn't that mean you need to reject the non-weird, the "conformists". How is that accepting at all?

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#76

Post by tryitnow »

civilian wrote: post #40

I think tech represents a good implementation of a meritocracy. You are welcomed to be weird and yourself, as long as you get your work done. Think about your coworkers-- you've got some weird ones. Dyed hair? Check. Burlesque dancing? Check. Gender non-conforming? Check. Goes to Burning Man? Check, check, self-check. Any of these things could get you fired from teaching kindergarten. Let's keep tech inclusive and ac…

Lol, really?

Tell that to software engineers past the age of 50.

Look, every industry has its pros and cons. Sure tech is good for the Burning Man crowd (if you live in the Bay Area or other major American liberal city), but it certainly suffers from a ton of ageism, among other maladies.

I think it all comes down to what sort of industry you personally feel more comfortable in. For me, that's tech, but if my conservative Christian grandmother were alive today she sure as heck wouldn't be comfortable in the Bay Area tech scene.

Whenever you find yourself patting yourself on your back for being inclusive, just do the math - is your group really inclusive or is it just symbolically signifying inclusiveness?

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#77

Post by ghaff »

greenshackle2 wrote: post #31
jmcgough wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you get hundreds of companies that will reject a more qualitifed male for a less qualified female because she will make the workforce more "diverse" I have never ever ever heard of this happening, as much as some people like to scream "preferential treatment" with no evidence.

For a single case study, see what happened with speaker selection for GitHub ElectronConf. After gender-blinding their process, they found they had too many men to their liking, so they re-did the process to have a more pro-woman bias. (But I don't think this is indicative of the industry as a whole.)

With conferences specifically, if you don't make specific efforts to get more diversity (across any axes you care to name) generally, you may (probably will) end up with neither the range of perspectives or topics you'd like. This isn't limited to gender by the way. At many conferences, it means you end up with too many vendors pitching their wares (because that's their job) and fewer customers who actually use products.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#78

Post by amackera »

civilian wrote: post #40

I think tech represents a good implementation of a meritocracy. You are welcomed to be weird and yourself, as long as you get your work done. Think about your coworkers-- you've got some weird ones. Dyed hair? Check. Burlesque dancing? Check. Gender non-conforming? Check. Goes to Burning Man? Check, check, self-check. Any of these things could get you fired from teaching kindergarten. Let's keep tech inclusive and ac…

It's a nice sentiment, but tech is very far from any sort of meritocracy. Falsely believing that it is a meritocracy can do more harm than good.

I'm not trying to be negative towards your experience --- I'm glad you have a happy perception of the industry --- I just want to reinforce how important it is for us to improve diversity in all its forms before we start congratulating ourselves.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#79

Post by a13n »

gitlabuser wrote: post #25

Personally, I think this article title is clickbait. Nowhere does the author show that it's the best industry for women, only that in her experience, it was a better industry than medicine and a biology lab. And then some fluff about meritocracy. No exhaustive comparison across all the industry areas, no dive into data beyond one singular experience. I'm tired of titles that don't explain what the article is about. S…

And as a result, people clicked on it. And then they voted on it. And then it got to the top of Hacker News. And then it'll probably go on to get 10k+ reads.

Now, remind me why we shouldn't use smart headlines?

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#80

Post by Karrot_Kream »

stale2002 wrote: post #71
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you didn't need a fancy degree to get a job. What's wrong with a fancy degree? I don't understand why fancy degree is used as a pejorative around here. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that most people these days that come from bootcamps make more money than people with "fancy degree"s.

It is not that there is anything wrong with a fancy degree per se. The problem is the opposite. People with fancy degrees often look down on others who DON'T have fancy degrees. Thus, other people often engage in defense, counter ribbing at the other side. But we need to be aware that the current culture context of this it is very common for Fancy Degree people to be praised and everyone else to be looked down upon.

> The problem is the opposite. People with fancy degrees often look down on others who DON'T have fancy degrees.

Arrogance is not a desirable trait in any person, but doesn't a fancy degree take work? I find it interesting that on HN we seem to hold up startup employees as shining examples but fancy degree holders as corrupt power brokers, when both take quite a bit of effort.

> But we need to be aware that the current culture context of this it is very common for Fancy Degree people to be praised and everyone else to be looked down upon.

Right, but in tech, where most are paid astronomically high salaries, if the Fancy Degree is looked down upon, then aren't the non-Fancy-Degree people in a fairly privileged position? Maybe this attitude is only prevalent in the online HN forum, and Fancy Degrees are actually valued in industry.

Post reply on HN