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Whether or not it compares to standard trolling, it still is trolling. You're not going to fix it by complaining.
We can fix it to some extent through public condemnation, raised awareness and demonstration of support to the victims of this kind of behaviour.
I respectfully disagree. Sometimes you really just can't fix stupid.
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Excuse me? At what point do you stop calling someone a "troll" and start calling them a "stalker"? Perhaps the harassment she received was so much that changing her whole life greatly improves her quality of life. Is she still "just supporting negative stereotypes" then?
Stalker? She should get the police involved then. Oh wait, she did, and they weren't interested because it didn't rise to that level.
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I thought the same thing, and argued (I felt persuasively!) on behalf of that perspective for many years. Then I watched my wife Erin, who has as many years of experience in this industry as I do, interview for tech jobs. Please take my word for it that this is not a "few bad apples" problem.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply the lack of magnitude of the problem. I don't think the problem is as prevalent in YC, one of the main circle of startups I know. Maybe that's because JL does a good job filtering out jerks, or maybe it's something inherent to the YC-compatible startups. Out of curiosity: was she talking to larger companies or startups? I am curious how prevalent the problem is in the larger startup comm…
Very common problem: interviewers asking questions about who was going to take care of the kids.
Actually happened: an interviewer displayed a picture of himself not wearing pants. That interview was in Chicago; I was in Michigan at the time, thankfully.
I see no correlation between company size and occurrence of this stuff.
I have friends who happen to be both notoriously successful in the tech field and female. They are all extremely touchy about this subject. They are touchy because crazy shit like this happens to them all the time.
There is, I think, no magic solution to this problem other than consistent public declamation, and of course being prepared to fire people who engage in this kind of behavior. People who harass women or act out on the belief that women are inferior to men or somehow likely to have obtained their position through anything other than merit have no place in any company I'm affiliated with.
Last year at FooCamp I went to a panel about women in tech (I believe I was the only guy) for two reasons: 1) I have no qualms about offending people if I feel my point is valid, and in fact enjoy being in situations where I risk such things (I find it incredibly rewarding to have meaningful discussions about things that are considered taboo). 2) To find out what the problem was Let me clarify #2: I didn't see a prob…
It's great that you're not the worst offender, but all people commit acts of sexism. All people. People who have been victims of sexism often do it less, but sometimes respond by paying sexism forward. People who put in effort to understand sexism tend to do it less. But we all do it, even the most dedicated of us. Imagine I asked you to write a page of code to do some specific thing, but told you not to run it. Then…
Edit - Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbud8rLejLM
Last year at FooCamp I went to a panel about women in tech (I believe I was the only guy) for two reasons: 1) I have no qualms about offending people if I feel my point is valid, and in fact enjoy being in situations where I risk such things (I find it incredibly rewarding to have meaningful discussions about things that are considered taboo). 2) To find out what the problem was Let me clarify #2: I didn't see a prob…
It's great that you're not the worst offender, but all people commit acts of sexism. All people. People who have been victims of sexism often do it less, but sometimes respond by paying sexism forward. People who put in effort to understand sexism tend to do it less. But we all do it, even the most dedicated of us. Imagine I asked you to write a page of code to do some specific thing, but told you not to run it. Then…
I'm only speaking from personal experience, of course. Take it as you will.
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empathy will fix it. you are illustrative of the problem because you are a) ignorant of what harassment is really like b) apparently unwilling to imagine it and c) BLAMING THE HARASSED
First of all, I never blamed her. In my first point I note how people who give talks are subject to attack because they draw attention to themselves. I note how there are men (men who I know personally) who have been attacked as a result. I posit that this kind of behavior is not solely due to sexism. In my second point I equate running a geek feminist website with running any website wherein people who hate the idea…
No, you didn't say that. You said it was inevitable and that people should suck it up and stop harping on it. You're not the victim here.
Skimming over the comments here, once again I find myself distressed at the large number of men in the tech community who just don't get it . Whether it's sexist jokes, inappropriate language or illustrations, or plain old stereotypes, it sometimes feels like the tech community's firmly stuck in the 70s. The worst thing is that none of this is difficult to solve, it just involves growing up, frankly.
This is mostly nerds wanting to have something to argue about. For reasons I can't put my fingers on, nothing seems to irritate nerds more than the idea that they're oppressing people; it probably has something to do with the fact that so many of them were picked on growing up. The reality is that the stuff we're talking about here would, for the most part, be a firing offense at most companies.
For people who pride themselves on being analytical and meritocratic, it can be a difficult thing to realize that no amount of detailed analysis is going to help because you've been living in a bubble for most of your life -- you have only a small amount real data to work with. It can be even more startling when your meritocracy not ends up not only not really being one, but possibly impossible to achieve given the constraints of human nature.
Another day, another HN thread about misogyny and sexism in STEM, and another sampling of "hackers" who can't seem to agree 100% that sexism, harassment, and stereotyping are categorically wrong. It's not even the overt sexism that is the problem. It's the educated troglodytes making up bullshit like "civilization has always been like this" and "she invited harassment with such bold feminism" and "this just proves wo…
Another day, another HN thread about misogyny and sexism in STEM Actually, we're not talking about STEM in general, we're talking about computer programming in particular. As I was reading this thread, I was just thinking about how other parts of the STEM community aren't nearly so bad. For instance, if you go hang out in your local university's maths (or physics) department, you'll find many of the same conditions.…
There's the trans-gendered (male to female) mathematician who'd disagree. She says that when she used to give talks (as a male) she got respect, but now people say things like "Her brother was better" not realising it's the same person.