Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups

audreywatters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 39 posts

Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups

#11

Post by gukjoon »

Why is it un-PC to acknowledge that there are fundamental differences between men and women in terms of both innate talents and, more importantly, motivations? Differences that would lead to huge demographic disparities in incredibly niche fields like software engineering and starting technology companies?

Mike Arrington says flat out that the reason why there aren't enough women in tech is because "not enough women want to become entrepreneurs." It's a question of motivation. This statement is easily falsifiable and I don't think any of the responses make even a meager attempt to do that.

Is there a disproportionately higher number of women-lead start-ups applying for venture funding and then not getting it? Since this is a question of motivation, even showing that a significantly higher percentage of women-lead start-ups fail would suggest that Mike Arrington is wrong.

Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups

#12

Post by philwelch »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #3
kiba wrote: post #2

We cannot and will not eliminate all gender inequality, and some inequality does not alway favors men. (A good example of this is that no matter how accomplished or rich a man is, he will probably be asked to laid down his life for children and women. That's not discrimination, but grim pragmatism.) Some disparity will alway boil down to choices. If women take maternity needs, than she will expect to be behind her pe…

One of the most heartbreaking things smart men do in response to accusations of sexism is to focus on the rare exceptions to women's oppression while failing to even acknowledge the rampant examples of it. Men. Are. Victims. Too. But a conversation about women's oppression is not an appropriate context to explore it. It makes us feel like you don't believe women's oppression is a problem.

And now I finally remember why I stopped arguing with feminists.

Unlike reasonable discussions, where you make a point and the other person points out the flaws in your reasoning, or presents evidence for a counterpoint, or something like that, arguing with feminists always ends up with the feminists expressing their emotions and trying to rule certain arguments "out of bounds", not because the arguments are flawed or invalid, but because they make feminists feel "heartbroken".

Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups

#13

Post by anthonyb »

philwelch wrote: post #12
erikpukinskis wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most heartbreaking things smart men do in response to accusations of sexism is to focus on the rare exceptions to women's oppression while failing to even acknowledge the rampant examples of it. Men. Are. Victims. Too. But a conversation about women's oppression is not an appropriate context to explore it. It makes us feel like you don't believe women's oppression is a problem.

And now I finally remember why I stopped arguing with feminists. Unlike reasonable discussions, where you make a point and the other person points out the flaws in your reasoning, or presents evidence for a counterpoint, or something like that, arguing with feminists always ends up with the feminists expressing their emotions and trying to rule certain arguments "out of bounds", not because the arguments are flawed o…

It's not so much pointing out flaws in the reasoning, as Kiba taking the argument completely off the rails. "Boo hoo, we have it tough in some very specific edge cases" while ignoring the general everyday case doesn't do much for the argument either.

And how can you talk about why there aren't more women or other minorities in tech when you're just going to paint it as vague or emotional and ignore what they say?

Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups

#14

Post by earl »

danilocampos wrote: post #6

I'm really uncomfortable with how other men deal with the subject of women in tech. More than once, I've noticed developers who are women derided as less competent, less capable than their male peers. Their professional success is ascribed to their appearance, their male bed partners, or some other such male-invented loophole. One of these conversations happened just the other day where I work. The really disturbing…

I haven't heard anything like that, and I work in a company with female developers. Further, I have no doubt that it wouldn't be tolerated by any of my friends at the company, and would be a firing offense.

No company name because some commenters here are jackasses and anything I say is representative of my employer :rolleyes: Nonetheless, we're a startup in SOMA you've probably heard of.

edit -- Perhaps you should sack up and tell people you're uncomfortable with them talking about your coworkers / women in such a manner? Much like racism, sexism is aided by ambient acceptance of such stuff. Like, for example, when people hear sexist comments and are quiet about it. It's not necessarily easy to do, but the right thing isn't always easy.

Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups

#15

Post by earl »

gukjoon wrote: post #11

Why is it un-PC to acknowledge that there are fundamental differences between men and women in terms of both innate talents and, more importantly, motivations? Differences that would lead to huge demographic disparities in incredibly niche fields like software engineering and starting technology companies? Mike Arrington says flat out that the reason why there aren't enough women in tech is because "not enough women…

Except I keep meeting female engineers (including several coworkers) who are all foreign -- chinese, indian, british, E European. So it's not unreasonable to infer that culture - specifically American domestic culture - is a big piece of the puzzle.

Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups

#16

Post by ahoyhere »

gukjoon wrote: post #11

Why is it un-PC to acknowledge that there are fundamental differences between men and women in terms of both innate talents and, more importantly, motivations? Differences that would lead to huge demographic disparities in incredibly niche fields like software engineering and starting technology companies? Mike Arrington says flat out that the reason why there aren't enough women in tech is because "not enough women…

There are LOTS of women entrepreneurs in the US. Arrington is full of you-know-what, as usual. However, there aren't a lot of women in the "slave for a couple years, hope to grow big and get bought" arena... which, imo, isn't unreasonable.

Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups

#17

Post by danilocampos »

earl wrote: post #14
danilocampos wrote: post #6

I'm really uncomfortable with how other men deal with the subject of women in tech. More than once, I've noticed developers who are women derided as less competent, less capable than their male peers. Their professional success is ascribed to their appearance, their male bed partners, or some other such male-invented loophole. One of these conversations happened just the other day where I work. The really disturbing…

I haven't heard anything like that, and I work in a company with female developers. Further, I have no doubt that it wouldn't be tolerated by any of my friends at the company, and would be a firing offense. No company name because some commenters here are jackasses and anything I say is representative of my employer :rolleyes: Nonetheless, we're a startup in SOMA you've probably heard of. edit -- Perhaps you should s…

No female developers where I work, so that could be part of it. This conversation wasn't about anyone at the company.

And you're completely right, of course. I, honestly, was too shocked to react. I mean, flabbergasted. It's so... antiquated, like finding out someone resents the Union for that whole abolition thing.

In the days since, I feel bad not to have spoken up.

Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups

#18

Post by anthonyb »

jdminhbg wrote: post #5

It doesn't really seem to me like many of these rebuttals actually read Arrington's article; they're just angry in general about the state of women in tech. Arrington very specifically said that by the time it got to him and TC50 or whatever, it's too late. All this railing about "male privilege" and "ambient un-belonging" is pretty much tangential to what he said.

Arrington's article is a big old whitewash as far as I can tell. On the one hand he's saying "I don't know why women aren't in IT, stop blaming me" but then on the other hand his comments are full of vitriol. Everyone who's commented expressing a differing opinion has been "flagged for review", meanwhile shit like this: http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/28/women-in-tech-stop-blaming-... goes unchecked.

Which is the point of this article: The tech world is a very unwelcoming place if you're an outsider (and sometimes even when you're an insider, which Michelle Greer apparently is).

Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups

#19

Post by nitrogen »

I found this article lacking in concrete suggestions. What can be done to improve the situation? Should we paint the walls of CS classrooms pink? Hire female architects to design the engineering buildings on university campuses?

Maybe one of the reasons for the gender disparity in software engineering in particular is that it revolves around logical analysis and direct steps from problem to resolution, while women are (stereotypically) more adept at emotional reasoning than logical reasoning. If so, what, if anything should be done to correct this?

Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups

#20

Post by philwelch »

anthonyb wrote: post #13
philwelch wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now I finally remember why I stopped arguing with feminists. Unlike reasonable discussions, where you make a point and the other person points out the flaws in your reasoning, or presents evidence for a counterpoint, or something like that, arguing with feminists always ends up with the feminists expressing their emotions and trying to rule certain arguments "out of bounds", not because the arguments are flawed o…

It's not so much pointing out flaws in the reasoning, as Kiba taking the argument completely off the rails. "Boo hoo, we have it tough in some very specific edge cases" while ignoring the general everyday case doesn't do much for the argument either. And how can you talk about why there aren't more women or other minorities in tech when you're just going to paint it as vague or emotional and ignore what they say?

It takes the conversation equally off the rails to flippantly characterize the issue as "oppression".
Post reply on HN