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Getting free of toxic tech culture

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Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#361

Post by belorn »

mcv wrote: post #341
brucephillips wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A more equal gender distribution doesn't mean that women are treated better. Take Hollywood, for example.

Does Hollywood have a more equal gender distribution? I heard the average movie has about 6 male roles for every female roles, including extras.

Depend on what movies you include when counting. Many studies prefer to only look at the top 10 or 100 highest gross earning movies and those only cover a tiny portion of the female audience. Selection bias.

Looking at the gender distribution of the movies that a sample of 10000 women and 10000 men has seen, you get very different numbers.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#362

Post by HelloNurse »

tptacek wrote: post #357
carlmr wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>females who are doctors as simply doctors (and likewise for lawyers), not female doctors whereas in tech we have a habit of treating them like female developers instead of developers (and I'm referring to when that's done with the best intentions such as female-only hackathons, bootcamps, and meetups). Female-only hackathons are what's wrong though. It implies that women cannot compete at the adult table, which is u…

I don't think the makeup and construction of hackathons has really any bearing on whether "women can compete at the adult table". No serious developer uses "hackathons" to establish their professional reputation anyways --- but many participate for fun, or to network. (We're reading a blog post written by a woman kernel developer, for what it's worth).

Then events for women mean women can't have fun with adults (or vice versa) or women can't/shouldn't network with adults.

Even worse than forfeiting competition, and particularly sad if women themselves think so.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#364

Post by mcv »

rainbowmverse wrote: post #355
mcv wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Hollywood have a more equal gender distribution? I heard the average movie has about 6 male roles for every female roles, including extras.

Watch the credits roll some time. Actors are a tiny part of making a movie.

They get all of the screen time, though.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#365

Post by mcv »

belorn wrote: post #361
mcv wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Hollywood have a more equal gender distribution? I heard the average movie has about 6 male roles for every female roles, including extras.

Depend on what movies you include when counting. Many studies prefer to only look at the top 10 or 100 highest gross earning movies and those only cover a tiny portion of the female audience. Selection bias. Looking at the gender distribution of the movies that a sample of 10000 women and 10000 men has seen, you get very different numbers.

This sounds like you've got data backing this up. Do you have a link?

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#366

Post by yakitori »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #86

I wonder if a lot of toxicity in tech culture is that it is billed as a lifestyle and identity more than just a job. One of the big drivers for civil rights came from the experience in WWII. In war, there is an overarching purpose. You want to achieve your mission, and survive the war to make it home to your family. The identity of those who help you achieve those goals doesn't matter as much (very few people care ab…

> The identity of those who help you achieve those goals doesn't matter as much (very few people care about the skin color of someone who saves their life).

This is not true. Color lines were reinforced in ww2. It didn't recede. Black soldiers were routinely attacked by white soldiers. And japanese american soldiers couldn't serve in the pacific for a variety of reasons ( including being killed by their fellow white american soldiers ) and in europe, japanese soldiers were essentially killed off by their own white commanders in suicide attacks. Feel free to look up the death rates of japanese american soldiers in europe. It's horrendous. Pretty much a war crime.

Race riots occurred between american white and black soldiers in australia, britain, etc. Feel free to google battle of bamber bridge or the battle of brisbane.

The civil rights movement happened because ww2 WORSENED race relations, not made it better. And with the advent of tremendous economic wealth, people were more willing to confront the race relations.

The civil rights movement was a result of more racism, not less and the wealthy post-ww2 country which provided the environment where people were willing to consider civil rights. You could argue that the post-ww2 economic prosperity had more to do with the civil rights movement than anything else.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#367

Post by thousandautumns »

brucephillips wrote: post #204
tptacek wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A more equal gender distribution doesn't mean that women are treated better. Take Hollywood, for example.

How about gender distribution in positions of power? Yes there are lots of actresses, but how many women directors, producers, or studio executives are there? Not many.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#368

Post by thousandautumns »

staunch wrote: post #239

> white, male, nerds who’ve dropped out of Harvard or Stanford," Literally 99% of white, male, nerds don't fit this description. Every day in Silicon Valley people show favoritism to individuals that, for purely economic reasons , got into Stanford or Harvard. Investors that went to Stanford invest in founders that went to Stanford because their own investors (LPs) that also went to Stanford will favor them. This is…

> Literally 99% of white, male, nerds don't fit this description. Every day in Silicon Valley people show favoritism to individuals that, for purely economic reasons, got into Stanford or Harvard.

Yeah, I was going to say that, in my experience, Stanford/Harvard graduate types are probably disproportionately favored in SV.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#369

Post by belorn »

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…

This is wrong on so many levels. Where are you getting your data that CS is almost uniquely imbalanced?

Sweden has a complete record for what every citizen here work, their education and their gender. The data is gathered as part of tax collection and as a matter of policy they also make this information public so anyone can see what the gender distribution is for any industry or profession. 70%/30% distribution is extremely average, and the wast majority of the working population (equal amount women and men) work in such professions.

If you want the most uniquely imbalanced fields, look at the professions and industries that has over 99% of a single gender. From a few years back, that covers around 5 different professions. If the the professions from the CS field is stuck in the 1960, what should we call the psychology profession with 90% women and 10% men? Nearer the 99% bracket we have professions such as mechanics, midwifes and tile installers. If we again take a look around 90% we see professions such as veterinarians, dentists, construction worker, kindergarten teachers, secretary, truck driver, and the list just goes on and on if we were to list every profession with worse gender distribution that those from CS.

93% of the working population work in a industry that the government classified as having imbalanced gender distribution, ie professions that has above 60% of a single gender. 93% is a very huge number and without a question the norm. A fair distribution is the exception, one which hopefully will grow but where the trend has been in the opposite direction since 1960~1970 and just hopefully have now reached the peak.

The only uniqueness about CS+Mathematics as academic fields is that they have more men and women rather than the opposite.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#370

Post by tptacek »

belorn wrote: post #369
tptacek wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is wrong on so many levels. Where are you getting your data that CS is almost uniquely imbalanced? Sweden has a complete record for what every citizen here work, their education and their gender. The data is gathered as part of tax collection and as a matter of policy they also make this information public so anyone can see what the gender distribution is for any industry or profession. 70%/30% distribution is e…

_Science_, "Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines", Vol 347 Issue 6219, 2011.

Note also that you've unsubtly moved the goalposts. I'm comparing STEM fields, you're comparing all occupations (and: in Sweden, but that's less important to my point). I mean, whatever, make whatever argument you'd like, but modulate your stridency. With some satisfaction, I'll also observe that you're only able to marshal evidence (unsuccessfully, I think?) for _one_ level, not "so many".

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