As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People • Hacker News Board

Re: As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People

#101

Post by tptacek » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 10:41 PM UTC

qb45 wrote: post #99

tptacek wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely nobody has argued that people who code in their spare time should be fired. That's something you introduced, pointlessly and disruptively, to the thread. What a tire fire all these threads are. And people are surprised they get flagged!

> flagged How is this not an abuse? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14873001

Because "this thread is a shitshow" is actually a legitimate use of the flag button, and "this post says something I disagree with" isn't?

The HN software has code that literally looks for threads like this and penalizes them.

Re: As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People

#102

Post by msla » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 10:47 PM UTC

Mz wrote: post #34

I was in the throes of a brief, doomed romance. I had attended a concert that Saturday night. I answered the question with an account of both. The guys stared blankly. Then silence. Then one of them said: “I built a fiber-channel network in my basement,” and our co-workers fell all over themselves asking him to describe every step in loving detail. At that moment I realized that fundamentally, these are not my people…

As a man, I'd never presume to talk too deeply with a coworker about their personal life.

It's a gross violation of the boundaries in every sense of the term.

Long way of saying I agree with you, I suppose.

Re: As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People

#103

Post by qb45 » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 10:51 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #101

qb45 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> flagged How is this not an abuse? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14873001

Because "this thread is a shitshow" is actually a legitimate use of the flag button, and "this post says something I disagree with" isn't? The HN software has code that literally looks for threads like this and penalizes them.

They all are equal shitshows. This one even seems to have lower proportion of grey comments than the one I linked.

Re: As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People

#104

Post by dsfjksdf » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 10:51 PM UTC

Archio wrote: post #17

neo4sure wrote: post #6

"And the sexual harassment, while annoying, was just that: annoying. I cannot recall that it ever affected my work, nor that I lost any sleep over it." This says it all. Most women are not like this author. They will loose sleep over it and rightly so.

Here's what I don't understand. Traditionally male-dominated fields rife with harassment issues - like law and medicine - now have much less of a problem, because the gender ratio has been somewhat normalized. Tech companies are actually becoming MORE male dominated - yet medicine and law would be put to shame by the sheer amount of mental and financial resources that tech companies pour into diversity efforts nowada…

Law and medicine are high status jobs, with a lot of people interactions. Yes, programmers have meetings. Not the same level of interaction as medicine, by a long stretch.

There are many TV shows glorifying medicine and law. How many TV shows glorify the job of a programmer? How would you make a TV show glorifying the job of a programmer?

Re: As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People

#105

Post by Individualist » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 10:51 PM UTC

earlyresort wrote: post #46

The idea that you've got to be some sort of obsessive wretch with no life outside of tech in order to successfully fill a role at a tech company is nothing but a pernicious myth. So is the idea that you've got to be some ridiculous super-genius. All you have to do is be reasonably smart and capable of learning on the job. When interviewers at tech companies mistakenly believe that every successful candidate has to be…

This reminds me back when I worked inside the vfx industry. There was always atleast one clique that criticized that others enjoyed film/video games despite us working on them. That it was somehow bad that we were passionate about our field of study and spent our time learning as much as possible. Hell sometimes we would play a game or watch a movie for inspiration god forbid.

I'm fresh in this industry and it amazes me to be seeing the same pattern repeat itself here.

Re: As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People

#106

Post by msla » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 10:52 PM UTC

_jgvg wrote: post #13

I have never seen any career that is so deeply tied to a certain culture as CS/SWE and a certain culture that I'll call X, to avoid any discussions on naming and so on. I see far more diversity in tastes and interests in most other majors and careers, while in CS/SWE, X seems to hold a monopoly. CS/SWE goes far beyond a career, usually becoming close to a religion or way of life. I rarely see doctors, lawyers, or mos…

Doctors and lawyers can't do their work as a hobby. There are laws against that. But I can say from personal experiences that doctors talk about their work in their off-hours, usually in great detail, and over meals. Nurses, too.

Obviously, computer programmers can program anywhere, anytime, and it's legal. It's also possible to get a very early (as in pre-pubescent) start in actual programming, whereas there are, again, legal hurdles to becoming a doctor or a lawyer much younger than the median.

As for the rest of the cultural markers, I wouldn't presume to say too much, because I don't know that many programmers.

Re: As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People

#107

Post by dunkelheit » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 10:53 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #54

jasode wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Companies that attempt to cram 60 hours of productivity into 40 hour weeks suffer for it: Sorry for not being clear. I'm not talking about burning 60+ hours for the company . I'm talking about the attraction to programming personalities that truly enjoy programming on their own time . E.g... The programmer spends exactly 40 hours for Google/Facebook/Microsoft and another 20 on his weekend programming side project be…

Plenty of seriously hardcore people do not spend 20 hours on their weekends writing more code. Obviously, there are lots of programmers who do, but I think what's happening here is pretty simple: the people who have "writing more computer code" as their personal hobby are excited to feel superior to those who don't.

> I think what's happening here is pretty simple: the people who have "writing more computer code" as their personal hobby are excited to feel superior to those who don't.

Wait, all of them? That's a pretty sweeping generalization. I think you should allow for the possibility that a substantial fraction of them do it because they enjoy it.

Also, often the sentiment goes the other way. Like:

- So, how was the weekend?

- Awesome! I've learned about this cool algorithm...

- Hey, what's wrong with you? Get a life, like, go see some movies or something...

Re: As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People

#108

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 10:55 PM UTC

Boothroid wrote: post #98

noncoml wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The google memo argued that altering the job to be more people-focused instead of thing-focused - e.g. more pair programming - would achieve the same goal without what may be seen as affirmative action. While it did mentioned that, it didn't really argue that. After all this is something that happens after you are in the company. The main argument was that Google should stop conscious efforts to increase representa…

And quite honestly I don't think anyone has done me any special favours because I have a penis - in fact in my experience possession of a vagina is a fast track to the top, simply because companies are so desperate to even things up. I've had to work hard for what I've got. How is it fair that someone without the same passion and possibly also without the same ability to deliver should be given opportunities purely t…

[deleted]

Re: As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People

#109

Post by leggomylibro » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 10:59 PM UTC

earlyresort wrote: post #46

The idea that you've got to be some sort of obsessive wretch with no life outside of tech in order to successfully fill a role at a tech company is nothing but a pernicious myth. So is the idea that you've got to be some ridiculous super-genius. All you have to do is be reasonably smart and capable of learning on the job. When interviewers at tech companies mistakenly believe that every successful candidate has to be…

So what do you tell someone who does genuinely enjoy doing that sort of thing in their free time? Someone who isn't a workaholic but who, in the article's conversation, would sooner wrestle a cobra than ask a co-worker about romantic issues (especially considering the potential consequences,) and who doesn't know the difference between a bass guitar and a bassoon?

Should they be recusing themselves from the organization's social structures entirely, if that's a significant problem for others? There's probably enough seclusion outside of work already, but at some point you just start to feel like you're contributing to the problem by existing.

Re: As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People

#110

Post by strken » Wed, Aug 09, 2017, 11:00 PM UTC

earlyresort wrote: post #46

The idea that you've got to be some sort of obsessive wretch with no life outside of tech in order to successfully fill a role at a tech company is nothing but a pernicious myth. So is the idea that you've got to be some ridiculous super-genius. All you have to do is be reasonably smart and capable of learning on the job. When interviewers at tech companies mistakenly believe that every successful candidate has to be…

While this is true, knowing someone set up a fibre channel network on the weekend is hardly a reason to call that person an obsessive wretch.

I know a very smart woman who's a professor of English literature at a university, and I know for a fact that she goes home on weekends and reads Sue Grafton murder mysteries ("M for Murder" etc.). This doesn't indicate that she's obsessive or wretched or has no life, and I don't think "are you reading anything at the moment?" would be an inappropriate question for someone in her field. Certainly we wouldn't want to force her to read all the time, and certainly we wouldn't want to force her to read Finnegan's Wake on Saturday morning, but for someone who wants to study literature for a living liking literature is important, and realising you don't might cause an epiphany.