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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

#141

Post by untog »

rada wrote: post #99

The original "Primer On Sexism" : 8 points and dead, 0 comments The Rebuttal: 150 points and rising, 140+ comments If that in and of itself doesn't say volumes about the sexist attitudes of the majority of HN readers - and as such, the tech industry as a whole - I don't know what does. Surely a long, thoughtful article, with tons of context in the form of links and research, written by the creator of Modernizr and a…

And true to form, this entry appears to be sliding down the Hacker News front page (it's the last entry as I write) despite having a ton of upvotes.

The reason? Flagging. This has happened numerous times on HN when any discussion of sexism comes up- when I complained about it before I was told that the article were "not relevant" or "rehashes". It got to the point where a thread with 70+ comments was deleted because so many people flagged it.

Depressing- especially because it means that most people aren't even aware that it's going on.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#142

Post by trhtrsh »

zachinglis wrote: post #102
konstruktor wrote: post #96

I would lever call a woman I interact with in a professional context a girl. That's so Mad Men. Am I the only one who considers this headline inappropriate for a posting about gender issues at work?

I'm confused. She's not allowed to call herself a girl?

She can, you can't. Similar to the use of "nigga" or "[black] boy"

It's a (short-term) tactical subversion move to reduce the power imbalance in cases of extreme sexism, but as a long-term strategy it is incapable of reaching equality.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#143

Post by Cushman »

zachinglis wrote: post #128
Cushman wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ain't touching the whole argument over form, but this: > Laura's not the only person who's expressed this view. Many people in the comemnts have agreed (and disagreed) I think gets at precisely the point. Your average HN reader, the one who's making these agreeing or disagreeing comments, is probably a cis man who doesn't think of himself as sexist, and understandably doesn't want to think that his industry is sexi…

Read the comments on her blog too. First is from a woman, and go down. There are people on both sides of the fence, as you'd expect. But the the original commenter was so blindsided in her views about how she thought the OP was blinded in her views, she didn't even stop to smell the irony.

Could you be a little clearer on what you're hoping I'll take away from those comments? In case it wasn't clear, the gender of commenters isn't that important to me here.

There may be people on both sides of the fence, but there aren't two sets of facts. It's "great", if we can apply that word to what should be normal, that some women today haven't had personal experience with sexism, but that doesn't constitute a point of evidence against women who have.

Our culture as a whole has some very deep-seated not-so-subtle problems with gender politics. Our industry, with its absurd gender disparity, should be assumed ceteris paribus to be at least that bad, though I'd wager it's a little subtler and a little deeper-seated. We, all of us, are basically good people who really wish we didn't have an actual problem, that there's some benign explanation for the gap. We wish all the blog posts and articles about endemic sexism were overblown from a few freak occurrences, regrettable but not something we need to concern ourselves with discussing or fixing.

We should be deeply suspicious of anything which promises to fulfill that wish without evidence.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#144

Post by trhtrsh »

panda_person wrote: post #97
desireco42 wrote: post #69

I would say that sexism in IT is not the major issue, there will always be places where there might be some, but I frankly never encountered those and women were treated well in all the places. Point that @mdkess makes about when female dev is bad it kind of is more visible and projects more to others is also good. I worked with some exceptional girls that code like best of us. However some other roles in IT might be…

"However some other roles in IT might be better for women to start, like BA and QA and project management where frankly they excel." Yeah, that's not itself sexist or condescending or anything...

GP was bizarrely tone-deaf in his comment, but BA, QA, PM are a could vantage point form which to attack gender inequality.

They are jobs expect less technical prowess, and thus leave open an opportunity for a woman to show crossover talent (a BA knows how to write SQL? Wow!) and chisel away stereotypes.

Now, it's a ridiculous rigamarole to have to go through, but it may be strategically effective in wearing down barriers.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#145

Post by gargury »

bane wrote: post #31

There is certainly sexism in the tech industry. It's not terribly common or widespread, but it's there. But the tech industry is also famously self-selective. Many people in the industry self-selected for it when they were pre-teens. Spending hours upon hours programming in BASIC or whatever on their C64s or TRS-80s before they were out of elementary school...before thoughts of sexism enter the consciousness. There i…

> There is very little preventing young girls from getting involved with tech at a very young age except simple lack of interest

I disagree. Various gender roles are pushed onto girls at an incredibly young age. Look at the boys and girls aisles at your local toy shop. We teach our boys to be builders and makers. We teach our girls to be designers and caregivers (at least in US stores). Our society tells many young girls that building stuff on computers is not a womanly thing to do.

That is of course changing as efforts are made to foster a desire to build in younger girls, but at least anecdotally that attitude hasn't hit mainstream.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#146

Post by rada »

zachinglis wrote: post #112
rada wrote: post #99

The original "Primer On Sexism" : 8 points and dead, 0 comments The Rebuttal: 150 points and rising, 140+ comments If that in and of itself doesn't say volumes about the sexist attitudes of the majority of HN readers - and as such, the tech industry as a whole - I don't know what does. Surely a long, thoughtful article, with tons of context in the form of links and research, written by the creator of Modernizr and a…

I'm really disappointed you decided to use phrases like "Laura The Troll." It's funny. Those who've disagreed with Laura have come down to name calling and such. Faruk's a good guy. But because he worked for Apple means nothing. Absolutely squat. If you judge people's worth on who they've worked for, then that's worrying. It's not who you've worked for - it's what you've done (Modernizr was a good link in this.) I kn…

And I am really disappointed that you've comment-bombed all over this discussion for a good long while before disclosing that you are the author's roommate as well as the copy editor.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#147

Post by trhtrsh »

Tipzntrix wrote: post #103

I actually have to wonder if "owned" ever had this much of an effect on black people as "raped" did on women when it came about in gaming slang.

"owned" comes from a different meaning originally (owning a machine, and then identifying the machine with its user), whereas as the "rape" etymology is direct, but then convergent evolution leads us to insults like "I owned you like Thomas Jefferson owned slaves".

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#148

Post by mamoswined »

collegeappz wrote: post #86

10/2 article on dearth of women in the tech industry. It mentions a key point, in its first paragraph copied below. I agree (and I'm a woman). It’s an important question: why are there so few women working in the IT and telecoms sector? It might be one of the rare times that The Guardian has actually asked an interesting question in fact. The answer is, I’m afraid, that on average men and women are different.

I think it is interesting, but what really fascinates me is that I'm one of the only America women in my office and the only one who doesn't come from an Asian immigrant family. When I talk to my American female friends, most of them seem to think IT and computing in general is boring and dull. They wanted interesting careers and didn't think our sector fit the bill. The immigrant/first gen women in my office have a totally different attitude. They were encouraged by their family to pursue the career with the most stable potential, not the most interesting one.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#149

Post by zachinglis »

Cushman wrote: post #143
zachinglis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the comments on her blog too. First is from a woman, and go down. There are people on both sides of the fence, as you'd expect. But the the original commenter was so blindsided in her views about how she thought the OP was blinded in her views, she didn't even stop to smell the irony.

Could you be a little clearer on what you're hoping I'll take away from those comments? In case it wasn't clear, the gender of commenters isn't that important to me here. There may be people on both sides of the fence, but there aren't two sets of facts. It's "great", if we can apply that word to what should be normal, that some women today haven't had personal experience with sexism, but that doesn't constitute a po…

Of course.

She has had personal experience with sexism. But her argument was also that according to the original .net magazine article; every woman fears being raped all day every day. It was sensationalist.

I agree with a lot of what you have to say. She generally doesn't concern herself with posts like these but she felt the need to considering a man (I know you don't care about gender but it's important factor that a man is telling her how she feels) is saying what sexism is to EVERYONE. Name calling EVERY man on it (almost as if saying he knows better.)

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#150

Post by zachinglis »

rada wrote: post #146
zachinglis wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really disappointed you decided to use phrases like "Laura The Troll." It's funny. Those who've disagreed with Laura have come down to name calling and such. Faruk's a good guy. But because he worked for Apple means nothing. Absolutely squat. If you judge people's worth on who they've worked for, then that's worrying. It's not who you've worked for - it's what you've done (Modernizr was a good link in this.) I kn…

And I am really disappointed that you've comment-bombed all over this discussion for a good long while before disclosing that you are the author's roommate as well as the copy editor.

One of the first comments I wrote explained I am her flat mate. I am also the original poster of this article. So that in itself shows bias. I have been very vigilante to show that I am both, and that I know both authors.
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