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How is this a problem not faced by any other industry in the world? I have never seen evidence that shows that IT industry people are any more sexist than people in any other field. So someone goes to a conference and there was a slide with something inappropriate on it. That means one asshole was immature and unprofessional enough to publicly shoot himself in the foot. It doesn't mean there are aren't plenty of othe…
It doesn't mean there are aren't plenty of other sexist people in other careers though. Sure, but we are in this industry, and pointing fingers at other industries does not get us off the hook.
I don't have figures, or examples, or any way to prove how sexist our industry may be. But neither does anyone else. So before you go around saying "the tech industry is sexist", please consider the harm by association to those of us who are not sexist. You may have seen tons of sexist behavior in your career - I have not. No one person's experience defines an industry.
Also, if there is indeed some secret cult of disgusting pig men in the industry, let's deal with it like fucking adults, OK? First of all we can have the modern-day equivalent of sensitivity training. Have a frank discussion with your teammates about what is and isn't appropriate behavior for the workplace. Remind them that even if there's no women around, you still can't go objectifying or making jokes about them, just like you wouldn't do the same to people about race or religion or sexual orientation.
Have your team agree that whenever someone says something sexist by accident that someone will say something to the guy and remind him that's not appropriate behavior and ask him to apologize. If he doesn't, inform his manager. Pretty simple - this is called holding someone accountable for their actions.
This next part is important, too: don't let women be sexist either. Towards their own sex or others. I know women who will gladly joke around with the guys and make misogynist comments because to them it's funny. Well, this is only reinforcing in the guys that it's OK to make those comments. Stop them and make them apologize too so we can stop this behavior from perpetuating.
In terms of how people perceive "the industry" as sexist, why do you think it happens that in very public places people say very stupid sexist things? My impression is that our industry is not very professional - especially the startup community. There's a very romantic idea that you should just wander into work with shorts, a t-shirt and sandals, living some bohemian genius programmer lifestyle with cubes that look more like playgrounds than work spaces. That's very nice. It also sets up the environment to be one where non-appropriate behavior can easily thrive.
At the last company I worked at it began as a startup and grew into a big company. The attitude of many, many of the employees was still more of joking around than getting work done. It was really annoying, frankly, and I definitely heard a sexist comment or two when women were not around (except for the call center people; they were animals). Fast forward to a more business casual financial IT company and things are a lot different. I've never met a bunch of nicer, non-sexist guys. My theory is it's because the work environment is just relaxed enough that business is on people's minds and acting like a sexist buffoon would not even occur to them. A slightly less educated theory is because we have a very diverse mix of cultural backgrounds (probably 40% indian, 10% asian, 10% russian, the rest a mix of a bunch of other backgrounds) where the typical white american male culture might be more quick to be openly sexist.