Tech is the best industry for women • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#121

Post by needlessly » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 9:37 PM UTC

gitlabuser wrote: post #99

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 en…

the problem is that liberals in the tech industries loves to pick and choose what constitutes as diversity while pretending that it accepts everyone.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#122

Post by krapp » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 9:37 PM UTC

bhnmmhmd wrote: post #81

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 agree with what you said about meritocracy, mostly. A few months ago, I made a sexist statement here on HN about women and that they don't think logically [0]. Well, I couldn't be more ashamed and sorry for that. I've known some incredible women in tech ever since, and came to realize that I was wrong. Tech is actually a place where women can shine. [0] That statement got my account banned and I couldn't get it bac…

>A few months ago, I made a sexist statement here on HN about women and the fact that they don't think logically.

For the future, if you're actually contrite, you should probably stop referring to that belief as a "fact".

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#123

Post by beaner » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 9:38 PM UTC

mratzloff wrote: post #117

beaner wrote: post #83

Pieces like this sometimes make me wonder if sexism is not actually more rampant in tech, men in tech are just more open to self-criticism and accepting that something is wrong with themselves and their industry. All the things you hear about in tech, you hear about elsewhere. But the men in them don't seem to compete with each other over who can be the most self deprecating and sympathetic with those calling them ou…

Yeah, I'm definitely going to see this thread on n-gate. "One hackernews points out that the problem in tech isn't endemic sexism, but that male engineers are just so much better than all other men."

If you read my comment as saying men in tech are superior, you got the wrong message.

Edit: By that, I mean the traits I pointed out above are debatable in terms of desirability. Things like self-sacrificial and feebleness definitely seem like flaws to me at least. I am somewhat surprised that you interpreted these descriptors as superior.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#124

Post by seppin » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 9:40 PM UTC

xxSparkleSxx wrote: post #100

amackera wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?).

> Which industries do you think are MORE meritocratic than tech?

None of them are, but tech isn't any better.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#125

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 9:40 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #112

gitlabuser wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 en…

> Being inclusive and meritocratic doesn't mean accepting things that are within your culture. I think there's some subtle definition creep in the word "inclusive" these days. It's starting to mean "cosmopolitan". I recall the recent STEM girl scouts story. One of the commenters called the initiative "inclusive", which isn't quite the right. It's the same girls scouts doing something different, so it's not more inclu…

> It's the same girls scouts doing something different

Alternatively, it's a change by scout leadership which broadens the set of interests to which the Girl Scouts appeal, increasing the diversity of the population the scouts will be able to recruit and retain.

Hence, inclusive.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#126

Post by Karrot_Kream » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 9:42 PM UTC

civilian wrote: post #113

gitlabuser wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 en…

:[ I'm a gun-shooting libertarian. Don't assume my Tribe. You're right, the "tech tribe" does have improvements to make in inclusivity, but at least it's a home for some people who would otherwise be outcasts in socially conservative businesses. As for a few things: - I think we're just as accepting of blacks, our high school education system has just utterly failed them so much that we don't have a good pipeline for…

> The homeless and lower class are, almost by definition, not people who are achieving a ton.

:(

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#127

Post by gitlabuser » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 9:42 PM UTC

civilian wrote: post #113

gitlabuser wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 en…

:[ I'm a gun-shooting libertarian. Don't assume my Tribe. You're right, the "tech tribe" does have improvements to make in inclusivity, but at least it's a home for some people who would otherwise be outcasts in socially conservative businesses. As for a few things: - I think we're just as accepting of blacks, our high school education system has just utterly failed them so much that we don't have a good pipeline for…

I agree that tech has been a haven for some who would be outcasts in other areas. Specifically the LGBT community.

To address your other points:

* I don't buy the pipeline argument. I've seen huge bias is how the tech community treats blacks. For example, I've seen a few black colleagues try to transfer into software engineering and get huge amounts of push back. Ironically I did the same thing (transfer from product management to dev) and I was supported. Why was I treated differently? Probably because I'm Indian so I am supposed to be a developer. In all the interviews I do, people assume I have a CS degree and lots of experience even though my resume says the complete opposite. I benefit a lot from the assumptions around my skin color while a black person gets the opposite experience.

* I get why people don't like offshore centers but that doesn't mean they should assume there aren't some very talented H1B developers. I have seen many. India has some of the best computer science programs in the world.

* I don't understand your comment on the homeless but the point I was trying to make was that verbally insulting poor people, the homeless, or old people is not inclusive or meritocratic. I've seen many examples of that in the tech community. I'm not asking people in tech to give free jobs to the homeless I'm asking people not to verbally insult them.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#128

Post by needlessly » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 9:43 PM UTC

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…

What do you consider the best industry for women?

None?

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#129

Post by reitanqild » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 9:46 PM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #120

reitanqild wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's far from common. Are things really that different between here and there? All the stuff described in your linked piece: I've never seen any of it in tech. In garages? Sure they are full of what would otherwise be nsfw. But IT? Can't remember ever seing anything. 5 years ago I heard a couple of colleagues discussing the title of an NSFW video that someone had started playing or their computer as a prank after the…

I'm sure you've noticed the news that the industry has a bit of a harassment problem, right? As for the "never experienced" - you're lucky. Or just didn't see. I've worked at openly sexist companies, I've worked with teams that had a regular lunch at a strip club, and I've seen a lot of the "oh, girls can't code" bullshit. I've seen black and latinx people completely excluded from team activities. A lot of the people…

Ok. Just saying that you have a crazy culture.

None of that would fly around here.

So you are right: the things you mention are deeply unprofessional.

Re: Tech is the best industry for women

#130

Post by stale2002 » Thu, Jul 27, 2017, 9:47 PM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #116

stale2002 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fancy degree is certainly an accomplishment and potentially a good path to follow, but it is one path among many. There are lots and lots of other paths that one could follow, and they all have both advantages and disadvantages. One path is not automatically better than any of the others 100% of the time. The problem is that the common, pro-fancy degree perspective comes from a very hierarchical perspective that ju…

>Because of the hierarchical cultural context in which we are in, I am not going to criticize Info systems majors for making fun of CS majors, nor will I criticize startupy, non-fancy degree holders on HN for making fun of the fancy degree holders. Sure but then we're just replacing one form of hierarchy with another, where we replace company tiers with school tiers, and job titles with degrees. > The problem is that…

It depends.

Lets say you have two people.

1 who went to an ivy league and gets a great job at an investment bank and another who went to a community college, but spent most of their free time self studying and building a startup that ends up being valued at, say, 10 million dollars.

Which of these two people is smarter, more successful, and/or a harder worker?

My answer is "I don't know". Both people have their strengths and weaknesses.

The school that you went to, no matter if it is an ivy league or a community college, is just a single aspect about you.

There are many paths to success and aspects about you as a person, and I would not say that what college degree someone got is even close to the most important or predictive factor about a person's life or how successful they are going to be.