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Tech is the best industry for women

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Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#91

Post by [deleted] »

tryitnow wrote: post #76
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 conserv…

[deleted]

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#92

Post by ue_ »

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…

A question is if we want a meritocracy at all, and whether such a model would be suitable for everyone, and further how merit is even judged; the problem isn't as you've mentioned "weirdness", it's that people can be treated worse for not even being "weird" at all.

There have been various criticisms levelled at the idea of "colur blindness", and I think that when people say they are in favour of a meritocracy, they are in favour of continuing this idea that people start on a level field in which everyone's merit can be fairly assessed. Merit is assessed by each member of the team, and thus personal bias comes into play. The mere operation on the assesment of merit is insufficient to remove these biases, if they do exist.

I don't like the idea of "sit down and do your work", beacuse to me it feels dehumanising. Yes, I know this is how "the system" works in the "real world" but I think this attitude is stopping us from realising that when working in a team we are all human and human issues need to be addressed. So in this sense I can appeal to you too in saying that efficiency may indeed be compromised with the "sit down and work" attitude when some people are clearly facing problems.

Our mode of production does not optimise for the human side of interaction, nor the psychological aspect of the effects of production (joint or not) (i.e alienation) and for this reason I would say that we're already too meritocratic. People turn out to be pretty poor judges of merit, at least from the arguments I have seen. Meritocracy can lead to someone regarded as more experienced or doing more "important" work shutting down someone else who has legitimate criticisms.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#93

Post by rectang »

lilychendances wrote: post #33
tickthokk wrote: post #7

I'm curious if this was a response letter to the other female-tech blog post ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14868390 ). You don't seem like a stick in the mud, which makes me believe that the other poster is. Not a fair comparison, I admit. I don't know either of you, so that's just the impression I get from these two separate posts.

I did not see that post until you put it here

It was "flagged" and quickly vanished from the Hacker News front page.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#94

Post by microcolonel »

bliker wrote: post #68
groby_b wrote: post #29

Ah yes, the "cool tech girl" position. https://code.likeagirl.io/the-myth-of-the-cool-tech-girl-786... I'm glad she has a positive experience. It's far from common. I wish her good luck on the road of discovering empathy.

What exactly is wrong with ping-pong tournaments?

Yeah, I don't get this "I'll criticize everything that I think mainly men enjoy!" mentality. I couple interviewees with this idea in their mind criticized a company I was working at a couple years ago, and I was left scratching my head.

As a guy, I didn't use the foosball table or the ping pong table all that much. They said it was a "brogrammer" thing, but I don't understand how other people wanting to compete on the table top sports among themselves is a somehow bad sign. If anything, it's good that the members of team that want to can bond over fair competition in something unrelated to job performance.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#96

Post by microcolonel »

nickbauman wrote: post #35
hammerzeit wrote: post #4

Please, before this degrades into the inevitable shouting match, let's please consider that there are two things that can both simultaneously be true: 1.Tech is less bad than many, many other industries. I can personally speak to overt, even illegal sexism in the field of medicine at a level that would cause riots in tech. I’ve heard similar stories in academia, to say nothing of fields like manufacturing. We live in…

In Hollywood, men at certain levels throw tantrums and break things when something isn't to their liking. It's changing a little and the film industry is ready for a comeuppance. But in IT and many other industries this kind of behavior would get you flat-out escorted out of the building. What's considered OK on a film set is not tolerated in most offices.

I think you'll find that narcissistic violent temper tantrums are an equal opportunity game in Hollywood. It comes with the territory, due to the "tormented artist" trope having some basis in reality.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#97

Post by dsfyu404ed »

com2kid wrote: post #86
tryitnow wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 conserv…

> Tell that to software engineers past the age of 50. Come work at a BigCorp. Here at Microsoft, every age range is represented, W/L balance is great (people supporting online services who are responsible for The Phone that week aside), and every team I have been on strives for diversity and inclusion. That said, is it a pure meritocracy? Of course not, people who play politics and are good at getting assigned to hig…

x2

BigCorps also have stability which "old" people need to support their families, especially when the kids are going to college.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#98

Post by nsp »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #80
stale2002 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 curre…

A fancy degree not being a prerequisite for a job doesn't mean it's a negative indicator - there are plenty of people with fancy degrees(degrees from prestigious colleges) in the tech industry.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#99

Post by gitlabuser »

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…

I don't think that any of these examples show that Bay Area tech is a meritocracy or inclusive. The truth is the tech community has a culture and almost all the things you mentioned are almost stereotypical parts of it. These all fit within the tech culture:

* Going to burning man

* Going to SXSW

* Working with the LGBT community

* Tattoos / Dyed hair

* Pole dancing

* Wearing Stan Smiths

* Being obsessed with high end coffee

You shouldn't be patting yourself on the back that tech accepts these things. I've seen terrible examples of the community not accepting:

* Those who believe in gun rights

* Those who are strongly religious

* Those who are homeless

* Those who are lower class

* Those who are H-1Bs (Indian outsourcing bias)

* Those who are Republican

* Those who are black

* Those who are old / have grey hair

Being inclusive and meritocratic doesn't mean accepting things that are within your culture. It means accepting those that are outside. I remember a colleague talking about a Dropbox all hands meeting where every one was patting themselves on the backs because the recruiting team had hired many from the LGBT community. He looked at me and said "Why the f* is everyone so happy? We literally have 1 black person in a company of almost 1,000"

Seriously, if you think that having colleagues having dyed hair or going to Burning man is proof that you are meritocratic or inclusive you are in a huge bubble.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#100

Post by xxSparkleSxx »

amackera wrote: post #78
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.

Which industries do you think are MORE meritocratic than tech?

Tech's not perfect, but I think they do it better than most (all?).

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