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Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

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Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#311

Post by kamaal »

tptacek wrote: post #265
VladRussian wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Very common problem: interviewers asking questions about who was going to take care of the kids. how the interviewer would know about the kids to start with? Did he ask about it? That question is already illegal. Or was the fact of having kids brought up by the candidate? Then the candidate got what s/he was asking for. >Actually happened: an interviewer displayed a picture of himself not wearing pants. That intervi…

"I see a gap in your resume. Why were you out of the work force for 10 months?" I'm sure you have some nerdy comeback to this too. Feel free to the last word.

"I see a gap in your resume. Why were you out of the work force for 10 months?"

Is asking this question illegal? Girl or Boy - Shouldn't it be OK for the candidate to give an answer to such a question.

I'm failing to see anything offensive in the nature of the question.

Please let me know about it, I'm about to interview someone and I don't want to look offensive or rude.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#312

Post by chalst »

zoips wrote: post #272
tptacek wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. 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 femal…

> Very common problem: interviewers asking questions about who was going to take care of the kids. Not to excuse this, but it made me think of a rather terrible mistake I recently made, which I am glad has not come back to bite me. I was the last interviewer for a guy who was Jewish and didn't use technology on the Sabbath. As I was walking him back to the lobby I mused out loud that that was interesting since we hav…

I doubt that this is illegal, but it is the kind of thing that can get lawyers involved.

It's much better, one can say with hindsight, to say something like "Just so you are sure, I'll make sure this point about no tech on the Sabbath doesn't count against a good candidate like yourself, actually I think it's great to be able to regularly get your head out of your job, but this doesn't fit with how we are working here. If you get the job, you'll need to be active in figuring out how to make sure that things that are your responsibility can be dealt with by other team members if something urgent comes up then."

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#313

Post by chalst »

hugh3 wrote: post #203
DanBC wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For instance, if you go hang out in your local university's maths (or physics) department 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.

Maybe they just disrespect him because... let's face it, surgically mutilating your penis, taking a bunch of hormones and demanding that everybody call you "she" is just plain weird , regardless of what current orthodoxy says.

If you like, if you can't deal with some things that you find weird, that's your problem and you who are unprofessional. People who can't be professional in their work life do not deserve respect.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#314

Post by chalst »

jxcole wrote: post #178
jxcole wrote: post #33

Somebody sends her an email that she doesn't like to her publicly available email address and she decides to quit working in the community? I hate to say this, but attitudes like this will only make the situation worse. Anybody, anywhere can write an email. You really shouldn't take them to seriously. I am honestly surprised that she let her real email address be publicly available anyway. It's important for communit…

I am apparently not allowed to edit something that has been downvoted but here is my edit: Martin Luther King Jr stood up for his rights and was shot. As we all are, I am very saddened by his loss. However I think that this brings up a very important point. If you stand up for an unpopular belief, you can expect abuse. Should you expect abuse? Should you be forced to endure unpleasantries because you expect the same…

Well, I kind of agree with this in part, but it is often trotted out as a reason why it's the victim's fault. Let's see what's badly wrong with it by looking at things another way.

Standing up for what is right is not something that we weaker mortals should leave to the heroes. We have a breaking point, a point above which we can't take it. That does not mean we should not take risks to do what we find right. You should not be "disappointed" with the victim, but supportive, and we should be encouraging others to take these risks to do what is right as well. The more of us there are, the more we achieve.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#315

Post by Mz »

jxcole wrote: post #178
jxcole wrote: post #33

Somebody sends her an email that she doesn't like to her publicly available email address and she decides to quit working in the community? I hate to say this, but attitudes like this will only make the situation worse. Anybody, anywhere can write an email. You really shouldn't take them to seriously. I am honestly surprised that she let her real email address be publicly available anyway. It's important for communit…

I am apparently not allowed to edit something that has been downvoted but here is my edit: Martin Luther King Jr stood up for his rights and was shot. As we all are, I am very saddened by his loss. However I think that this brings up a very important point. If you stand up for an unpopular belief, you can expect abuse. Should you expect abuse? Should you be forced to endure unpleasantries because you expect the same…

Should you expect abuse? Should you be forced to endure unpleasantries because you expect the same rights as any one else? No, but you will receive it. And if you are really committed to your cause you will stand up for yourself anyway.

Oy. I beg to differ.

I have a medical condition. Doctors told me "people like you don't get well". I got well. Stating that fact is enormously controversial. Since people think you can't get well, stating that you have done so is frequently taken as proof you either don't have the condition or are otherwise a teller of tall tales. I handle controversy fairly well. But being a lightening rod for controversy doesn't get people to think or try new things. I've worked hard at backing away from the controversy and have left a lot of the online forums I used to participate in. I leave my website up and reply privately to some of the questions that come up on the email lists I remain on. Replying publicly makes it about fighting with groupthink and about my ego, when that is not what I want. So it's proven to be mostly counterproductive to take a public stand. Replying privately makes it about trying to help people who are suffering and dying and might be willing to try something new because they are all out of options. One by one, people are trying new things. And this is gradually changing the conversation in group settings.

I plan to win the war. For my cause, the fewer public "heroic" battles, the better. Winning hearts and minds and making real change does not require all kinds of sturm and drang. I'm also a woman and post on Hacker News as very openly female. In my experience, "the battle of the sexes" is equally counterproductive. I'd rather "dance" with men than fight, so to speak. Learning to do this dance without stepping on too many toes is a more humane and productive pursuit in my experience.

I will also add that she is "standing up" for herself in much the same way I am standing up for myself: By looking out for our own best interests and concluding that subjecting ourselves to abuse is not in our best interests.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#316

Post by gldalmaso »

peterwwillis wrote: post #249
gldalmaso wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The contributing factors you pointed out seem to signal the message that minorities should expect hatred and suck it up. That's a normalization of the status quo and does not address the issue, it's just being complacent with behavior that should be reprimended but is often taken with the same lack of empathy and thus is ignored. Most men can't empathyze because they are priviliged (as in, they do not suffer from the…

...I don't really care to understand. What little i've read on feminism leads me to think that modern feminism is a passe joke. My guess is modern feminism doesn't connect well enough with the average woman who doesn't complain when the boss grabs her ass or passes her up for the unqualified white male in the boys' club. They need a new strategy and better marketing. Most of all they need solidarity. And maybe a less…

If you wanna read further than just a little, I suggest: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/14/faq-i-ask...

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#317

Post by CJefferson »

scott_s wrote: post #284
CJefferson wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to address your first point. The harassment women get is much, much worse than men. Me and my wife are both computer scientists, and have both given talks at many conferences. My wife and our female friends consistently get much more, and much worse, harassment than me and our male friends. There is no comparison, and over time I've seen it grind several women down to the point where they just give up (fo…

If you don't mind giving the information, what kind of conferences? Industry, academic or both?

Academic conferences are by far the best behaved, which makes sense because everyone there is (generally) being paid to go there by their university.

In general people behave worse when there are less repercussions from work, so at conferences which are free / many people paid out of their own pocket, the behaviour is worse.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#318

Post by gldalmaso »

peterwwillis wrote: post #280
Tangurena wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She started a "geek feminist" website, so that didn't help... This comes across similar to the excuse: "well of course she got raped - look at how she was dressed". Feminism only became a "dirty word" during President Reagan's term. Susan Faludi wrote a very good book titled Backlash explaining how the backlash against feminism started, who did it and what motivated them. http://www.amazon.com/Backlash-Undeclared-A…

My response to the victim-blaming part is here ( http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3164269 ) and here ( http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3165026 ). That there is such a difference points out that there is a problem. No, it points out that there is a difference. There's thousands of differences between men and women. This one happens to be about employment in engineering jobs. You could claim it's just because of sexism, but it wo…

> But it would be really nice to have real evidence of something rather than wildly speculate.

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Issues

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#319

Post by gldalmaso »

peterwwillis wrote: post #237
drhayes9 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first two points are classic victim-blaming. "You are going to get unwanted attention." Well, yes: there are assholes out there. But you seem to be implying that she is at fault for attracting the assholes, rather than saying there shouldn't be assholes in the first place. We should focus on rooting out the assholes rather than throwing up our hands and saying there's nothing we can do. I admit there's a fine li…

See here ( http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3164269 ) on why i'm not victim-blaming. I am not trying to imply anything. I'm simply pointing out what potentially motivates sexist assholes. I only advocate a "grin and bear it" attitude when it comes to getting trolled on the internet in relation to publishing material you know some people will disagree with greatly. You can not wipe out sexists completely just like you can't…

> getting trolled on the internet

Online mysoginy is quite well beyong trolling. And the troll starts writing frequent death/rape threats and posts your real address to boot, it's not trolling. See that it does happen: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Kathy_Sierra_incident

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#320

Post by Mz »

peterwwillis wrote: post #237
drhayes9 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first two points are classic victim-blaming. "You are going to get unwanted attention." Well, yes: there are assholes out there. But you seem to be implying that she is at fault for attracting the assholes, rather than saying there shouldn't be assholes in the first place. We should focus on rooting out the assholes rather than throwing up our hands and saying there's nothing we can do. I admit there's a fine li…

See here ( http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3164269 ) on why i'm not victim-blaming. I am not trying to imply anything. I'm simply pointing out what potentially motivates sexist assholes. I only advocate a "grin and bear it" attitude when it comes to getting trolled on the internet in relation to publishing material you know some people will disagree with greatly. You can not wipe out sexists completely just like you can't…

And maybe a less antagonistic approach to equality, like "human equality" instead of "women's equality."

I am pulling this out of something else you said to say I am female and agree with some of your points. But I will also note that a) You need to stop yelling and stuff. It's hurting your cause. b) If you can't stay calm in the face of the relatively mild "attack" you are being subjected to, what makes you think women should just be able to take something far worse?

I agree with some of your points. But what you are advocating is very hard to do and you are not doing a good job of walking the walk. If you can't walk the walk, then it's best to shut up and quit while you are behind. Talking the talk is the easy part.

Peace.

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