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Getting free of toxic tech culture

blog.valerieaurora.org

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Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#321

Post by hypatiadotca »

tailrecursion wrote: post #251

Women should start up their own companies and show men how to do it better. They can make a company that pursues financial rewards and also balances humanity, compassion, does not seek to enrich itself by hurting others. The fact that corporations tend not to treat employees as multifaceted human beings does not strike me as a gender issue. In fact none of the feminist items that I've heard since the late 80s strike…

Perhaps you missed this in the post, but both Susan and Valerie have founded companies.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#322

Post by adamsea »

dominotw wrote: post #269
adamsea wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has there been any factory floor, farm, private or government office where things have been different? If anything, then the concern would be "out of the frying pan and into the fire", i.e., leaving tech because of real problems in the industry, but then finding it just as bad or worse in other fields. Does anyone know of anecdotes where someone says "I left tech because of discrimination, but it was way worse in t…

> Does anyone know of anecdotes where someone says "I left tech because of discrimination, but it was way worse in this other industry, so I returned?" Office Space ? Hard to believe that movie is almost two decades old now.

Didn’t the main character not return to tech and end up in construction? And none of his buddies left tech because of the toxic environment ... they were let go. Forgive me if I misunderstood your comment.

And yeah, it’s hard to believe it’s been that long. And it’s an awesome movie

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#323

Post by hypatiadotca »

adamsea wrote: post #235
wcarron wrote: post #111

I think this was well written. There were a few instances where, upon first reading it, I objected. But rereading it, I thought the language used was chosen well. I have one main gripe, though: The scope limitation to tech. > "Toxic tech cultures are those that demean and devalue you as holistic, multifaceted human beings. Toxic tech cultures are those that prioritize profits and growth over human and societal well b…

Perhaps you could say there is a specific instantiation of this problem in tech.

Well put. I’m always amused by arguments of the form “but this isn’t just a tech problem” - people get so mad about limiting the scope to one’s own expertise and experience, but also accuse you of overreach when you try to generalize beyond it! Can’t win.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#324

Post by hypatiadotca »

brucephillips wrote: post #300
cloverich wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for purely economic reasons, got into Stanford or Harvard. Can you elaborate on this? I assume Stanford and Harvard had higher admissions requirements (grades, test scores) than my state university? Or is the comparison relative to other elite educational institutions?

Stanford and Harvard do have higher admissions standards, though they also take legacy status and donations into account, which might be what staunch is referring to. However, they also practice affirmative action, which means some VCs who have a bias towards these institutions may consider minorities who they never otherwise would. So it's not nearly as unfair as staunch is describing.

Legacy, or, as I like to call it: affirmative action for rich people :)

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#326

Post by adamsea »

dang wrote: post #262
adamsea wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, James Damore, the guy who thought he knew stuff. Seems like that is the worst possible example. It's like, self-defeating. It's like, yes, lets pick the guy who yet again wants to rationalize institutionalized sexism with bad science and thought it would be OK to tell his _coworkers_ why some of them are, scientifically, inferior to him. And expect for nobody to take offense to this and that he would not get fire…

This veers way off topic, guarantees a flamewar, and is nothing that HN hasn't gone over dozens of times by now. Please don't wreak this kind of damage here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sorry.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#327

Post by hueving »

tptacek wrote: post #121
wcarron wrote: post #111

I think this was well written. There were a few instances where, upon first reading it, I objected. But rereading it, I thought the language used was chosen well. I have one main gripe, though: The scope limitation to tech. > "Toxic tech cultures are those that demean and devalue you as holistic, multifaceted human beings. Toxic tech cultures are those that prioritize profits and growth over human and societal well b…

In fact, it very probably is a tech-specific problem. Among the STEM fields, CS is almost uniquely imbalanced. STEM fields in general range from ~30-55% women, and those fields include things like Mathematics --- anyone who has gone to an academic cryptography workshop has probably noticed how many more women there are in the room --- which are strong proxies for CS ability. And, of course, among the professions in g…

>anyone who has gone to an academic cryptography workshop has probably noticed how many more women there are in the room

As someone who has spent a lot of time in academic security conferences, I have to wonder what you are comparing them to. The only field with a worse female participation rate in my experience is networking (e.g. SIGCOMM). Check out this picture from EuroCrypt in 97 and count the ratio of women to men. It looks like under 1 in 10 which is worse than general CS enrollment numbers: http://www.crypto-uni.lu/jscoron/misc/euro_97.jpg

Anyway, back to the main point.

>CS is almost uniquely imbalanced.

I agree. However, a 1/4 female/male ratio coming out of CS programs is going to be reflected in the industry and attempting to bring the balance on the industry side to 50/50 is folly while the enrollment balance stays the same.

Clearly something is discouraging women from enrolling at the college level, but I can't fathom how 50/50 quotas are supposed to help solve that problem. Implementing things like Google's "extra interview retries" for minorities just seems to cause division and make it worse for minorities because some people assume they are there for the wrong reason.

Are you aware of programs focusing on getting more women enrolled at the high-school and college level? It seems like it would be significantly more productive as a community to put a significant focus there in terms of resources (money, advocacy, etc).

I know almost nobody that has a problem with improving enrollment numbers of women in CS (equality of opportunity). However, there is a significant chunk of people that have problems with the "white males are over-represented and we need to give everyone else an advantage" approach (equality of outcomes).

What am I missing here? Why are so many resources being poured into something as fundamentally flawed as trying to get equal representation with a supply that doesn't have equal representation?

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#328

Post by adamsea »

malvosenior wrote: post #249
adamsea wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never my intent to offend anyone; I apologize. I wasn't trying to suggest there that anyone needed a handout. However, yeah, I do think affirmative action has its place, and also that it can be challenging to implement well. Same with diversity programs in the workplace. Personally I don't think it makes sense to characterize these program as a handout, since it's a particular policy meant to try and make up for…

> I am genuinely curious - do you think it makes sense to extrapolate from your own individual experience to all other nonwhite people, or to women? I'm speaking of my own personal experience but you seem to be speaking for all of these other groups (nonwhite people and women). There's no way we're going to agree on things like affirmative action and diversity programs but I hope you can at least understand how some…

Yes.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#329

Post by venatiodecorus »

This post reads very much like an elitist realizing her own elitism. She talks about how she viewed others who weren't in tech as inferior, but blames other engineers for that viewpoint. She talks about people choosing to leave their jobs, and doesn't consider that lots of folks can't just choose to leave their job. She talks about conferences and talks and social events, none of which have ever been a part of my job as a mere developer.
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