On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal • Hacker News Board

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#71

Post by corin_ » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 2:14 PM UTC

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.

9 times out of 10 I agree with you, but HN is a rare site on which there are often genuine causes for a throwaway account, when people have good input to make on a thread but for work related reasons can't do it under a name that their colleagues/boss/etc. might recognise.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#72

Post by stcredzero » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 2:15 PM UTC

> The point of this is simply to show that, unlike what the article will have you believe, it is entirely possible to be a woman in the tech industry, like your job, get on well with your colleagues (even when most of them are, shock horror, men), and be treated in a totally fair way.

I don't think any of that is contrary to the original article. I'm not sure that implying it is is entirely honest.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#73

Post by papsosouid » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 2:17 PM UTC

shawnee_ wrote: post #45

Faruk Ateş' at least got this part right: The tone of our debates – which often get quite heated – is frequently different based on the gender of the author(s). Sanders' article seems a little more rant-y than it should be for someone who is basing her experiences "in the industry" (UK) since April 2012. Not that a relatively small amount of experience means you can't have an opinion, but it can't be good to become t…

>Given a little bit of time, perhaps she will see that some sexism-based discrimination does exist

Did you skip the "reading the article" part? She made it quite clear that she has experienced sexism before, just not yet in the web industry. She didn't say sexism doesn't exist, just that it doesn't seem to be a web/it problem.

>It is a cold, hard fact: women make less than men.

No, it isn't. The wage gap myth is just that, a myth. Women are paid the same as men when they work the same number of hours in the same job. Averaging the pay of all women and the pay of all men shows men making more, but they are also working more hours and are disproportionally represented in high risk, high pay jobs.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#74

Post by skylan_q » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 2:18 PM UTC

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…

The same kind of logic would lead us to believe that the dearth of men in nursing is a result of sexism against men.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#75

Post by monksy » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 2:22 PM UTC

sarah2079 wrote: post #67

mdkess wrote: post #32

Sexism that I've noticed has been very subtle. I work with some very intelligent people, so I can't imagine anyone is overtly sexist (ie. thinking that women can't do this job, would not hire a person simply based on gender etc.), but still, there are problems. It's hard to write about sexism as a guy without feeling like you're coming off as sexist, but hey, I probably am. Also, it's hard to write about things witho…

I really like your point about how men are more likely to be reluctant to grab a casual drink (or even one-on-one lunch, I would say) with women to talk about work because they are worried it will be seen as "flirty." Based on my experience this can have a really big impact, but I don't see it discussed very often. Being able to have easy, casual friendships and one-on-one conversations with your coworkers can be ext…

One reason for the reluctance of personal contact outside of work is the fear of a sexual harassment suit. There have been lots of stories going around how small things have been twisted into a "hostile" work environment. In a previous workplace, they got sued by a woman who claimed that one of the employees having a britiney spears poster in his cube constituted as sexual harassment.

Also, men tend to censor what they say when women are arround.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#76

Post by zachinglis » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 2:22 PM UTC

jenandre wrote: post #50

Ehh... Yeah. The original article was kind of a pile of crap, but it's hard to give this any credibility either. 1) She's only worked for 6 months 2) She works in UX, which is actually pretty well represented by women. My two cents from a woman who actually works in a technical position (I'm a developer) for > 10 years now. Also working in infosec, which is one of the least represented when it comes to gender balance…

While I (and she) do agree that she's not the best person to represent women in tech (she says so herself) a lot of people who have been do agree in the comments, and she does work with a big company that does development (.net, Windows Phone work, design and everything else in between too in a giant open plan office. So she does see more than you'd initially think)

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#77

Post by darkarmani » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 2:23 PM UTC

shawnee_ wrote: post #45

Faruk Ateş' at least got this part right: The tone of our debates – which often get quite heated – is frequently different based on the gender of the author(s). Sanders' article seems a little more rant-y than it should be for someone who is basing her experiences "in the industry" (UK) since April 2012. Not that a relatively small amount of experience means you can't have an opinion, but it can't be good to become t…

> literally raped her of all her legal rights

Really? That's the way you want to describe this?

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#78

Post by papsosouid » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 2:25 PM UTC

AndrewDucker wrote: post #33

an_actual_man wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're describing egalitarianism, not feminism. When you see an article being advertised as "by an actual girl", you know it's not about equality.

"Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women."

The problem with that is that people's perception of what it means is more important than what is in a dictionary. Given the dictionary definition, one would have to assume 100% of women would be feminists. By the dictionary definition, it makes no sense for any women not to be a feminist. Yet 75% of women refuse to self-identify as feminists. The baggage that comes with the term has too much weight for the dictionary definition to matter any more.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#79

Post by zachinglis » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 2:26 PM UTC

toadburglar wrote: post #46

I think the original article touches on some good points, and I can understand the need for Laura to voice her opinion, but the author MUST have wrote the article with good intentions. Personally, if I were really affected by an article I get in touch with the author, have a skype call and get all the concerns out in the open, and work together to revise the article so that both parties are happy with it. Then if the…

I know both the writers very well.

Faruk and I have known each other for 8 years, we tried to start a business together and I have a lot of respect for him.

Laura is my flatmate and best friend.

They tried to talk on Twitter beforehand, and it wasn't going very well (as Twitter does.)

She wanted to write a post on sexism for a very long while now. This was a catalyst to finally get it done. She also wanted it to be public so people got a full view of the opinions.

I, as a man, feel if I don't agree with posts like Faruk's, a lot of people take it as I don't care about women's rights. It can get messy easily.

Her opinions were not destructive in my opinion. She was frustrated that yet another man was telling all us what sexism was and that she felt his intentions weren't necessarily good, but more "holier than thou" and that it didn't help anything.

I have biases, so take it with a grain of salt.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#80

Post by jgw » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 2:30 PM UTC

I'm quite curious about how sexism affects the broader tech industry as a whole, as it seems to not affect my niche area much at all.

I work in ASIC design, and we have probably even fewer women than software development. In general, I have never had the impression that sexism is much of a problem in our narrow little field. But since I'm male, I thought that perhaps I was blind to the problem. So I asked a female colleague, and she said she had never experienced any sexism on the job, period. Now, we're a small company, and I like to think we're a pretty progressive, decent bunch, so no surprises that she's never seen it internally. But we're also a professional services company, so we work with many clients, big and small, and we don't control their hiring process. But no - she's never experienced any sort of sexual discrimination at work with clients, either.

I've not been able to come up with a plausible explanation of why the problem does not seem to affect us in the same way that it might in a different sub-field.