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Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t
151–160 of 577 posts
Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that reality is subjective, how would you separate "lots of men are being jerks and don't realise" from "lots of women are hyper-sensitive to perceived slights that aren't there and don't realise it"? I've seen so many accusations of sexism in tech by now that I tire of it. When investigated, it seems to always boil down to one of two things: 1. Some guy hit on me and I thought it was gross^Wharassment. 2. I fe…
> Nobody is ever actually offended by science I'm not going to look it up, but it wouldn't surprise me if science shows that men are more aggressive than women. It does hurt my feelings when people assume that I'm going to be aggressive/dangerous because I'm a man. There are many other examples of how science can offend people, but this one affects me the most.
The problem happens when you start digging into such science as the data isn't clean cut. It makes the outrage over scientific data that more complicated.
For example, aggression is context bound by the cultural environment. In some cultures aggression would be to talk to an elder without being spoken to first. To argue then that men are biologically more disposed to mechanically perform such aggression is silly, so we would need to disassemble what aggression is and how it plays out in our culture.
If we take violence, we find a similar patterns. Researchers have tried and failed to find any correlation to violent crime and testosterone levels (as long those are within naturally occurring). Similar, a household with two men has equal risk to have a domestic violence happening as a household with two women. Passive aggression is a different topic all by itself, but is clearly defined as aggression.
The science isn't what is hurtful. What hurts is when people hate me for what I am. Being hated for attributes that a person has (but not necessary defines them) is very harmful. Scientific data can sometime cause this and I would say often do when data is taken out of the cultural context in which it is observed. It doesn't make science the culprit, but it does require a more careful discussion by all sides in order for the data to be useful. The Damore memo is an example where such discussion fell apart almost the instant it was created and blame can be pointed at many places except for science.
Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t
#153Imagine being constantly reduced to your body. No matter what you do. That hurts. It simply does. It takes away everything you are responsible for, your intelligence, your success, your ideas. You are nothing more than an object for the opposite gender (in most cases women are objectified as a matter of fact, but there is also objectification by women). A little more empathy would do much good.
Are you talking about Jenna Jameson or Ellen Pao?
Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "rightful reasons" Not according to the judge. You may say they were rightful, and many people are discussing it. But at the same time you have to understand that a person trained and appointed to determine if the reasons are rightful, said they are not. That's were the story started to have two sides.
Not according to the judge. Jury.
Right, I am not used to the American system, and I assumed that the decision had been taken by a judge.
Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with your "how utilitarian the hiring process is" but be aware that this starts earlier. As a CTO I was wondering how to hire more women for more diversity [1] because not enough women applied. After going to girls camps, meetups, talking to women with not much success (not due to the women), I asked some female engineers - especially one from Soundcloud, thanks! They told me my job ad is already wrong. This…
Can you give a more explicit example of how the job Ad should look? I don't quite understand.
(These are generalizations as happens with marketing personas [1] - individual targetting with ads would be better, also for real I would spend more than 5 min to create those personas)
Many women are more self-critical than many men. So if you have a huge list of needed skills, women might apply less often. Do write only the really relevant skills, don't copy and past from previous apps. Do not require what can easily be learned (e.g. JS frameworks). Add more about they why of your company, why do you exist? What makes your company really unique? Women might think about maternity, are you especially equipped to handle this? Women - again generalized - be interested in social interactions, how does your company provide them? They might fear sexism, how do you deal with that? Write one ad for this persona.
Students from university are eager to try out the stuff they've learned, they want to learn new stuff and use the shiniest toys. They don't care if working longer. Write one ad for this persona.
35 year old dads have different priorities, and the job might not be their biggest priority to spend time on. So they might prefer 9-5 jobs. Write one ad for this persona.
Senior developers might be older, have seen it all. They've been in the mill of new shiny toys for years, and everything looks the same. Write one ad for this persona.
[1] http://www.romanpichler.com/blog/persona-template-for-agile-...
Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t
#156It's easy to get hung up on the particulars of Pao's story and get sidetracked into defending or judging her, but I feel that is besides the point. I am more interested in the wider notion of why she wrote this article: to point out that sexism in tech is a thing, and that it shouldn't be. I'm wondering though: is this just about sexism, or is it about professionalism and maturity? Getting hit on by someone higher up…
I've thought since the 90's that programmers need a professional body with teeth. Doctors have them, lawyers have them, civil engineers have them. Lots of software written is at least as critical as what the above professionals do. But software is a young field compared to all the above so I think it'll take time (or several really serious disasters...which is how the civil engineers got theirs).
Well there is the BCS but it is completely irrelevant and it's a mystery how it still exists. It does absolutely nothing for working engineers and seems to be just a front for large employers to perpetuate the skills shortage myth while unemployment among CS grads hovers between 10 and 13%.
Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t
#157Men often have to deal with loads of shit at work also, but if you are a straight white man you don't have a handy discrimination card to play.
Discrimination and harassment laws are gender neutral and sexual preference neutral. If you are sexually harassed by someone in the workplace, female or male, you have the right to file a complaint and/or a lawsuit. If you are discriminated against because of age, disability, religion, orientation, etc, then skin color is not relevant. Skin color is relevant if you are discriminated against because of your race.
Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t
#158It's easy to get hung up on the particulars of Pao's story and get sidetracked into defending or judging her, but I feel that is besides the point. I am more interested in the wider notion of why she wrote this article: to point out that sexism in tech is a thing, and that it shouldn't be. I'm wondering though: is this just about sexism, or is it about professionalism and maturity? Getting hit on by someone higher up…
> In tech people get away with wildly unprofessional behavior as long as "they get stuff done", and personally I never felt that was acceptable.
As a decent software developer, if my less talented co-workers, or, god forbid, some HR-type, started telling me constantly about how I needed to be more "professional", I would hand in my resignation the next day and go somewhere that didn't absolutely suck to work.
Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t
#159It's easy to get hung up on the particulars of Pao's story and get sidetracked into defending or judging her, but I feel that is besides the point. I am more interested in the wider notion of why she wrote this article: to point out that sexism in tech is a thing, and that it shouldn't be. I'm wondering though: is this just about sexism, or is it about professionalism and maturity? Getting hit on by someone higher up…
I've thought since the 90's that programmers need a professional body with teeth. Doctors have them, lawyers have them, civil engineers have them. Lots of software written is at least as critical as what the above professionals do. But software is a young field compared to all the above so I think it'll take time (or several really serious disasters...which is how the civil engineers got theirs).
I have opposed a professional body with teeth because it ends up like a zombie, the original goals look alive but they're really dead. What is left is
a. Protectionism that prevents lowering of wages too much
b. The organization being subverted by its loudest members because everybody else is too busy living their lives.
The examples we see, AMA included, are all plagued with problems. There's a quote about doing the same things and expecting different outcomes but dang made a special request for this thread.
Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t
#160Please quote a part of the Damore original memo where he explained women were inferior (except, maybe, in numbers as far as the computer science field is concerned)?
Please quote a part of vertex-four's comment where they claim that Damore's memo explains that women are inferior. Charitable readings and all that.
Although vertex-four probably did mean to imply what you are challenging, I can still agree with the denotation. Someone who gives a scientific explanation (or worse, a "scientific" "explanation") for the status quo to suggest that nothing can be changed about it, would offend a lot of people. Especially those who are disadvantaged under the status quo and want to see that change.
Edit: Ironically, it seems like my explanation of the things that offend people offended some people. (Or maybe it's something about my tone. Not sure.)