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On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

laurasanders.net

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Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#21

Post by zachinglis »

an_actual_man wrote: post #20
Toshio wrote: post #11

Randi Harper a.k.a. FreeBSD Girl was interviewed for the FLOSS Weekly podcast and she said that every minute spent on discussing gender issues in technology is a wasted minute that should be better spent building free software.

Cool. I've been saying it for years, but because I don't have a vagina, my opinion is considered sexist. B-but feminism is about equality, r-right?

Aggressive behavior will get you nowhere. ESPECIALLY because of your earlier post.

This is not against men having a view. But a woman is far more likely to understand sexism AGAINST women - because of (shock horror) being women.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#22

Post by laurasanders »

Toshio wrote: post #11

Randi Harper a.k.a. FreeBSD Girl was interviewed for the FLOSS Weekly podcast and she said that every minute spent on discussing gender issues in technology is a wasted minute that should be better spent building free software.

I very much agree in general. I often feel like people would be better off just getting on with their work rather than wasting their time discussing some of these issues. In this case though I just felt so strongly that the article was patronising and sensationalist that I felt something needed to be said.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#23

Post by shakesbeard »

I'm a young, white male, aka privileged person. I've read quite a lot about feminism (and anti-racism for that matter), and struggled to get a clear picture of when my actions are appreciated. I think the most important lesson I've learned is that I must listen; because I do not have any first hand experience.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#25

Post by __alexs »

thisone wrote: post #17
jerrya wrote: post #10

Interesting article, along with the comment on it. As a man in the tech industry, I saw sexism quite a long time ago -- in that a coworker benefited from a pay lawsuit. But that was several decades ago. I haven't seen much sexism in the industry since then, but it could be that my views are limited and the companies and teams I have worked on limited. So this article felt good to see. Maybe what I think I've been see…

that's my problem with these articles and posts. They seem to suppose that there aren't more women because of sexism. I'm not an industry researcher, so all I have to go on is my experiences. I was a tiny kid, playing with Simons BASIC and having fun. But I never thought of it as a career path. No one I knew was in IT, no one in the family, or friend's families was in IT. At school it wasn't something that was talked…

> Would it have been industry sexism that meant I wasn't a developer? No. It would have been lack of exposure to the possibility at a young age.

Not being told that certain opportunities are open to you because of your gender is sexism. This goes beyond child hood. People assume because of you're gender you will or will not be into certain job prospects and other activities. This is sexism.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#26

Post by an_actual_man »

novalis wrote: post #12
an_actual_man wrote: post #3

How does such a waste of bandwidth even get 27 points? Is this site infested with feminists or what?

I think this is living proof that throw away accounts should be dealt with on here. If someone really wants to participate, a good 6/12 hours cool down without posting privileges would do nicely. I don't think anyone wins anything on here with this sort of reddit novelty account phenomenon. It will not stop all trolling, just this sort of troll.

Poor thing, you actually have to read different opinions now! The horror, the horror.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#27

Post by laurasanders »

covati wrote: post #18

I only skimmed the original article, and I think this woman makes some great point about how absurd his article is. She has some good points about her experience, however, as she has only had 6 months in this field, and that is working in one company, I'd say she's not the right person to write a rebuttal to anything about the current state of it's culture. Someone who has worked in multiple companies, in different r…

I'd like to hear a version from someone who has been in the industry a lot longer too. I specifically added the section at the bottom explaining that I hadn't been in the industry all that long so I wasn't pretending to be speaking from a much more experienced position than I am. From the comments I've received so far there are definitely women who have been in the industry a lot longer than I have that share my point of view though.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#28

Post by thisone »

__alexs wrote: post #25
thisone wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's my problem with these articles and posts. They seem to suppose that there aren't more women because of sexism. I'm not an industry researcher, so all I have to go on is my experiences. I was a tiny kid, playing with Simons BASIC and having fun. But I never thought of it as a career path. No one I knew was in IT, no one in the family, or friend's families was in IT. At school it wasn't something that was talked…

> Would it have been industry sexism that meant I wasn't a developer? No. It would have been lack of exposure to the possibility at a young age. Not being told that certain opportunities are open to you because of your gender is sexism. This goes beyond child hood. People assume because of you're gender you will or will not be into certain job prospects and other activities. This is sexism.

But is that sexism in the IT industry, or is that stereotyping in the larger community about the IT industry?

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#29

Post by an_actual_man »

zachinglis wrote: post #21
an_actual_man wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. I've been saying it for years, but because I don't have a vagina, my opinion is considered sexist. B-but feminism is about equality, r-right?

Aggressive behavior will get you nowhere. ESPECIALLY because of your earlier post. This is not against men having a view. But a woman is far more likely to understand sexism AGAINST women - because of (shock horror) being women.

Expressing an opinion is considered "aggressive behavior" now? Ahahaha, oh feminists, you're so crazy. Anyway, you're saying that being female per se makes someone's opinion more valuable, which is a blatantly sexist opinion itself. Congratulations for shooting yourself in the foot and saying goodbye to what little credibility you had.

Next!

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#30

Post by Nursie »

__alexs wrote: post #25
thisone wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's my problem with these articles and posts. They seem to suppose that there aren't more women because of sexism. I'm not an industry researcher, so all I have to go on is my experiences. I was a tiny kid, playing with Simons BASIC and having fun. But I never thought of it as a career path. No one I knew was in IT, no one in the family, or friend's families was in IT. At school it wasn't something that was talked…

> Would it have been industry sexism that meant I wasn't a developer? No. It would have been lack of exposure to the possibility at a young age. Not being told that certain opportunities are open to you because of your gender is sexism. This goes beyond child hood. People assume because of you're gender you will or will not be into certain job prospects and other activities. This is sexism.

Meh.

I wasn't told it was a possibility either, and I'm male and went to an all male school. Depending on how old you are (I'm mid 30s now so school in the early 90s) and how behind the times your teachers were, I reckon it was pretty common for people not to understand that there was a career to be had in computers. This could be down to plain ignorance of how important they were going to become. I only realised it was an interest after starting and hating an engineering course in 96, because all school ever told me was 'here is a machine you can use to write documents and make pictures'.

Of course if the reason she wasn't told was because of her gender then sure, inherent sexism.

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