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

kapwing.com

411–420 of 482 posts

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

#411

>Invest in social events: It can take a lot of time to set up opportunities for your team to hang out , but casual socializing is awesome for the extroverts on your team and crucial for retention... and go out of your way to include everyone. Going through this at work. The extroverts took over my department and now our (mandatory) team meetings have (mandatory) fun events that give extroverts time to brag about what…

> bleats of an attractive-enough women who's upset that she has to put in effort and other people aren't giving her the attention she feels entitled to

Between this personal attack and the rest of your gender-war comments, we've banned this account for violating the site guidelines. Please don't create accounts to post like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#412
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dont give up, learn the basics of human interactions and get interested in people, your life will change.

I think it's a bit unfair to assume that people who are considered creepy must not know basic human interactions. A lot of people's initial opinion of you is guided subconsciously by how attractive you are. It's foolish to believe that looks don't play a huge role.

Science says creepiness is more about how well you can follow social norms, not about how attractive you are. https://dacemirror.sci-hub.tw/journal-article/189a70c9d3a2a3...

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

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dont give up, learn the basics of human interactions and get interested in people, your life will change.

People who do that get regularly called creepy for just trying to talk to women. You're telling someone not to give up on the very thing getting them called out as "a creep". Hell in some countries, you get called creepy for doing that for trying to befriend anyone outside of very specific social situations. When I was in Stockholm, approaching strangers and striking up a conversation was seen as generally rude.

Creepiness just means that you don't follow social norms so people aren't sure if you're a threat or not. Learning social norms will help. It's science: https://dacemirror.sci-hub.tw/journal-article/189a70c9d3a2a3...

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

#414

>Between the ages of 16 and 24, girls have more sophisticated social lives than boys of the same age. Young women talk to their friends more often [1], care more about their reputation [2], spend more time talking about their friends [3], and assign more emotional value to close relationships [4] I admire that she provided links for these, but I really don't believe any of those statements. That list of 4 things is d…

It seems to me that the author would generally be sympathetic to Damore's memo (but who knows for sure) based on the views espoused in this post, so I don't quite understand your point.

The point seems fairly clear to me. arkis22 is pointing out that this author is making unfavorable generalizations about men, and stating that these generalizations are probably partly due to biology. Here, it is that women assign greater value to close friendships. Later, she states that:

"My experience confirms that teenage and college-age girls care more than boys do about solving real human problem (as opposed to competitive, self-oriented gain), forming close bonds with peers, and earning colleagues’ respect. I will not comment on whether this is caused by society or by biology; likely, it’s both and many factors in between."

This isn't wildly slanderous, but I think we can agree that caring more about real human problems is more admirable that pursuing "self-oriented" gain (or maybe not, randians might say self-oriented gain is the highest moral pursuit there is. I'd disagree, and I suspect the author here would as well).

So, we have that men pursue self-oriented gain, and women pursue solution to real world human problems, and this is partly due to biological differences between men and women.

Personally, I'm really not offended or bothered by this. She has every right to make this claim, and overall, I though it was a good essay.

I also think that arkis22 is interpreting these comments somewhat uncharitably. I don't need someone to go through a million footnotes and provisos and stating repeatedly that these are just averages. I am nearly certain that this writer would agree that some men care deeply about real human problems and relationships, and some women care more about self-oriented gain. I certainly don't think it improves the conversation when people get bogged down because they have to protect themselves against every possible uncharitable interpretation of an argument (she didn't say that arkis22 cares less about his friendships).

But we do live in a world where people who make comparable (perhaps less dramatic) claims about women face pretty serious censure.

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

#415
post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Okay, but if my social skills are that bad then I certainly wouldn't try fixing them at work.

Also, in response to your first sentence, it's about relative risk.

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

#416
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CMD+F unatt I'm not gonna do your work for you.

Most of these commenters don't appear to be whining about their situation, but rather replying to the question of why men in tech positions don't try to befriend more women. Their answer is that they're concerned about the optics of trying to initiate the friendship. And by unattractive, they don't necessarily mean "ugly" but rather geeky, asocial, with niche interests, no fashion sense, little in common with most wo…

And by unattractive, they don't necessarily mean "ugly" but rather geeky, asocial, with niche interests, no fashion sense, little in common with most women, etc

Young men and women in their 20's usually don't have a very good self awareness of their own inherent attractiveness. There's that which Iain M. Banks termed, "the elegance of the newly matured." By that, I mean something which is natural, and of the natural world and natural beauty. That cat over there might have a slightly squished face and a weird toe, but hell, it's still a cat. You don't have to have much in common with women/men. Dress neatly and be well groomed. Genuinely have fun with something and genuinely be yourself. Do socialize, but don't limit yourself by thinking that bros or sociopaths need to rule your life. Do try dancing and see if you genuinely have fun with that. If you do, then know that it's very potent, but you have to be in the moment to let the real magic happen. Actually, that last part applies to everything else as well.

Most 20-somethings, males and females, are too mired in their preconceptions and their contention in the social hierarchy competition to have a full appreciation of their own natural beauty. (And often, each other's.)

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

#417

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

You're getting into self-parody here, but unfortunately such comments are still poisonous. Please stop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#418

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.

[deleted]

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

#419
post #81

Pretend you're a woman and then read the comments on this post. That makes it pretty obvious that one of the reasons women have a hard time feeling welcome in tech is because men don't listen to or empathize with them when they speak about their opinions or perspectives.

It's a problem for HN if the threads fill up with disgruntled comments, but it doesn't say much about the world at large, because of sample bias. People are more motivated to comment if they feel strongly about something, especially strongly negatively. Here that means they've self-selected for the quality you're talking about.

Fortunately we're also getting comments from men who enjoy talking to women at work (shock!) and don't have an ideology about it. Those comments take longer to appear because they only emerge as a reaction to the first kind of comment. Why would you bother to post such a thing unless some other comment denied it?

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

#420
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "statement" is hopelessly wrong even if GP is saying exactly that. You have failed at logic, probably because of your privilege. You cannot imagine being conventionally ugly (poor, unstylish, socially inept, etc.) enough that your every communication would be viewed with suspicion. GP informs us that GP is at least that conventionally ugly. If GP says "good morning" while maintaining eye contact and smiling slig…

For someone accusing me of making assumptions, you sure are making a lot of assumptions about me. You've made assumptions about; * My privilege * My attractiveness * My style * My social skills * My life experiences * GP's actions * GP's experiences Not having a woman be attracted to you is not systematic oppression, or even oppression at all. No one is entitled to the attention or affection of another. People are, h…

You're still arguing with your imagination. GP did not complain that women aren't attracted. GP complained that because GP is unattractive, GP is destined always to be "creepy", which presumably entails a variety of social difficulties. Why don't you care about those difficulties? I really don't know! Privilege was merely the most charitable explanation. You're free to correct the misunderstanding. What you can't correct are the literal assumptions you typed about "intentions". We can read.

Any ethical person knows that no one is entitled to affection. No one has suggested otherwise.

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