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A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

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Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#391

Post by mikeash »

newen wrote: post #376
mikeash wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the discussion consists entirely of people saying they just avoid talking to women entirely, yes, that seems much more likely. I’m not saying they’re happy with it, but prefer it over self improvement? You bet. People usually hate trying to change themselves.

They are talking about the workplace in particular. They are saying, why risk your job being social with women at work when you can be social elsewhere.

Why risk your job being social with anyone at work? Why ever do anything other than exactly what your job requires?

I'm saying, if your social skills are so bad that you're risking your job by being social with women at work, you should make fixing that a top priority.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#392

Post by mikeash »

blattimwind wrote: post #390
mikeash wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the discussion consists entirely of people saying they just avoid talking to women entirely, yes, that seems much more likely. I’m not saying they’re happy with it, but prefer it over self improvement? You bet. People usually hate trying to change themselves.

> I’m not saying they’re happy with it, but prefer it over self improvement? You can want something yet fail to achieve it, that's fairly obvious, no? Compare: fat people who want to be not-fat. Of course, the blatant counter-argument would be that those just don't want it enough; this entire train of thought seems rather damning to me.

You can, but I see no indication of such a desire here.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#393

Post by yosito »

ravenstine wrote: post #384
yosito wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasonable enough, but if that's the case, we should be blaming the avoidance on men for their social incompetence, not on women for having boundaries.

What exactly does a man get for going out of his way like you suggest? Most of the time, nothing. Unless I can read that a woman is receptive to friendship, trying to befriend women because they're women is time better spent on working. It's a two-way street, and while I have had my share of female friends, the majority of women are either not receptive(i.e. won't give men the benefit of the doubt) or content to wait…

A man is not entitled to get anything. And if he's trying to get something, that seems like a pretty good reason for a woman to not be receptive to him. How many times have you walked past a homeless person trying to be "friendly" because you knew their motivation was to get something from you?

I'm a man, nerdy, below average attractiveness, but a majority of my friends are women because I don't approach them trying to get something, and I've found that a majority of women are extremely receptive to being friends.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#394

Post by ravenstine »

indoorfish wrote: post #124

If someone could please explain to me how this is an issue entirely completely uncoupled with the rise of "Tech" to be trendy (read lucrative) and the insistence for some people's assertions that THEY deserve this as much as others, it would be much appreciated. It feels like everyone is just turning a blind eye to the obvious parallels in deep sea welding or some other gender dominated profession because they don't…

Because "tech" as of late has become comfortable and more publicly accepted, even garnering a certain cachet and prestige because of get-rich-coding billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg. It'd be a non-issue if tech was full of geeks with slide-rules who only make an average salary and have to wear a tie to the office.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#395

Post by kasey_junk »

tptacek wrote: post #256
titanix2 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This advice assume that men want to befriend women. It is understandable from a women point of view, but from a man perspective the friendzone is a big no-no. Most men would date a woman or not establish contact at all.

This is an off-the-charts creepy thing to say.

The idea that you had to comment on this freaked me all the way out.

Then I saw the other replies.

For other readers, if you believe that men cannot have platonic relationships with women, or if the idea that women cannot have equal & equivalent beliefs around sex as men is unbelievable to you, you are suffering from an insane social position. Like literally your beliefs are weird & dangerous in ways that should encourage you to seek help.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#396

Post by kasey_junk »

titanix2 wrote: post #298
tptacek wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an off-the-charts creepy thing to say.

Evolution of creepiness: 2018: saying that men are primarily interested in women for sex 2019: saying oceans are made of water Can't wait for 2020 when saying Hello to an unknown person will so creepy it would be called a micro-agression. Oh wait...! https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4txyh4

I don’t know if you are joking or not, but the idea that women are only valuable for sexual gratification is weird and creepy and always has been.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#397

Post by ravenstine »

yosito wrote: post #393
ravenstine wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly does a man get for going out of his way like you suggest? Most of the time, nothing. Unless I can read that a woman is receptive to friendship, trying to befriend women because they're women is time better spent on working. It's a two-way street, and while I have had my share of female friends, the majority of women are either not receptive(i.e. won't give men the benefit of the doubt) or content to wait…

A man is not entitled to get anything. And if he's trying to get something, that seems like a pretty good reason for a woman to not be receptive to him. How many times have you walked past a homeless person trying to be "friendly" because you knew their motivation was to get something from you? I'm a man, nerdy, below average attractiveness, but a majority of my friends are women because I don't approach them trying…

Of course they're not entitled to get anything, but a reasonable person doesn't continue performing the same action when it benefits them in no way. There's nothing irrational about a man not going out of his way to befriend women in the workplace because he's had bad luck doing it, or because of the risks he's not going to have befriending other men.

If you have a lot of women as friends, that's great. Your experience is not the experience of a lot of men. A lot of men can't relate to women on a platonic level, and that doesn't mean they're misogynists.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#398

Post by jenthoven »

Rotdhizon wrote: post #17
jandrese wrote: post #5

Interesting that popular perception is that it is hard to be a woman in STEM because you get so much unwanted attention, but in this case it was exactly the opposite. She wasn't able to find lab partners for projects in male majority classes and felt lonely.

Also notice that even though she had the option, she didn't approach anyone to try an secure a lab partner. She posted her own position opening and waited until all spots were taken. She could very well have clicked on anyones post and that would have been the end of it.

[This is Julia, the OC] I agree, and have many times thought back to why I didn't feel comfortable just claiming a partner for the project. I remember I was doing something else and happened to notice that a few people had posted and been claimed, and that made me insecure, wondering why no one had claimed me.

I think it's more natural to work closely with someone of your same gender, at least when they're a stranger. I'm not blaming men (or women) for that - I'm just describing how that can lead to unintentional exclusion, which is particularly painful for students who values inclusion a lot.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#399

Post by dgudkov »

Tech in general and software in particular is hard to learn. So hard that you can't progress beyond mediocre level unless you have strong passion for it. Only that passion pushes you to spend hours and days fighting a problem. Only that passion makes you stay awake late night reading about beautiful programming concept. Only that passion gives you a bliss when you finally figured out something and made it work. Better social interactions won't replace that passion. So no, I don't support her theory. Innate interest in technology is necessary and sufficient.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#400

Post by Mythanar »

forapurpose wrote: post #330

It's sad to see so many people here saying that social situations, especially with women, induce so much fear. Here are some tips from a geek who was in that position, learned a few things, and now has slightly less crappy social skills: * Stop objectifying people : 'Objectifying' is a kinda intimidating word, but the meaning is essential . Stop making people objects in your mental model of the world; stop making the…

Or alternatively: Skip the females at workplace and focus on the job at hand.
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