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

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#191

Post by laurasanders » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 8:45 PM UTC

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 fully aware I've been in the industry for 6 months. I said so, very clearly, in my post. I wanted very much to make sure that people knew that I have only been in the industry a short time but this was my experience so far. Frankly I find the idea that just because someone has a small amount of experience their opinion is invalid ridiculous and insulting. The only reason a newcomer's opinion might not be worth listening to is if they are pretending they have a wealth of experience. At no point did I do that.

I can only assume that the 2 years as a movie usher you're referring to is the 2 years as a teenager I spent volunteering at my local non-profit cinema whilst also doing my A-level exams and working a part-time job. I'm pretty sure the only place this is even mentioned online is on my LinkedIn profile, at the absolute bottom, after you would have scrolled past the various jobs I have held in sales and marketing, and local government (where as I mentioned in the post, I did in fact experience some sexism).

As for the final comment, I did indeed reread the article several hours later, before I wrote my post, to ensure that I still felt the same way. I actually found MORE that I disagreed with on a second read-through.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#192

Post by laurasanders » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 8:50 PM UTC

Cushman wrote: post #125

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…

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…

a) The article at no point denies sexism exists. b) At least half of the positive responses I have received have been from women.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#193

Post by Cushman » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 9:22 PM UTC

papsosouid wrote: post #188

Cushman wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Radical gender feminists took over feminism and alienated women. Bullshit. The third wave took over feminism and included homosexuals, transgender and transexual women, and men . Anyone who feels alienated by feminism is being lied to.

Even now plenty of feminists are hostile towards transgender and transexual women, it wasn't just a second wave thing. And second wave feminists didn't vanish into nothingness, they still exist, and still advocate hatred. Why would you suggest that people who choose not to identify with that are "being lied to"? Who is lying to them, and what is the lie? As to your "bullshit" claim, why do you believe that radical ge…

It might be more accurate to say that mainstream feminists think the idea of "equity feminism" is a made up concept promoted by anti-feminists to try to devalue second- and third-wave feminism.

I wonder why they think that.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#194

Post by papsosouid » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 9:40 PM UTC

Cushman wrote: post #193

papsosouid wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even now plenty of feminists are hostile towards transgender and transexual women, it wasn't just a second wave thing. And second wave feminists didn't vanish into nothingness, they still exist, and still advocate hatred. Why would you suggest that people who choose not to identify with that are "being lied to"? Who is lying to them, and what is the lie? As to your "bullshit" claim, why do you believe that radical ge…

It might be more accurate to say that mainstream feminists think the idea of "equity feminism" is a made up concept promoted by anti-feminists to try to devalue second- and third-wave feminism. I wonder why they think that.

Sure, you can use their rhetoric if it makes you feel good. It doesn't change the fact that those mainstream feminists who call people whose beliefs align with the dictionary definition of feminism "anti-feminists" are the ones who drove women away from identifying themselves as feminists.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#195

Post by btilly » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 10:11 PM UTC

papsosouid wrote: post #186

btilly wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, when you don't control for anything, you see a gap. The gap dissappears when you actually control for those factors. How does that contradict what I said? According to the evidence cited in the Wikipedia link, the consensus of MOST researchers is that, even after accounting for every factor that we can account for, there remains a persistent male/female gap. The existence of this gap may not be the result of s…

See, if you just say "the evidence says I am right", while the evidence says the opposite, it is hard to have a reasonable conversation. Rather than cite anecdotes and your perception of how many "researchers" are on your side, how about cite an actual study that controlled for all the factors that can effect income? I posted one, it was even commissioned by the department of labour specifically for policy guidance s…

Gah, I had a big reply ready, and I lost it. This will be shorter.

Here is the long and short of it. If you're honest, you can follow the references at the bottom of Wikipedia and read them to come to wind up at studies like http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-279 that found a 7% persistent unexplained gap in the federal workforce. There are a bunch of those you could wind up at.

But I'm not interested in doing that. I'm not an expert. I don't claim to be an expert. I don't want to become one. And if I did become one, I'm not sure anyone on this site wants to watch the resulting debate.

You made a claim. I sanity checked against Wikipedia (which tends to be relatively neutral), found that your view appears to be a minority position, and pointed that out. I also dug up a relevant memory of a factor not related to work history, qualifications, performance or deliberate sexism in the workplace which systemically disadvantages women, and mentioned THAT. I later dug up relevant links.

I don't think that there is much of a point in further conversation. You have shown no openness to considering any possible theories that do not agree with your preconceptions of there not being a difference. (Even when those possibilities are supported both by research and anecdotal experience.) Your past selective quoting of links makes me distrust anything you have to say. You are unwilling to acknowledge the existence of research that you disagree with, even though it obviously exists.

In short the only "conversation" that you seem to want uses only facts that you select, starts with only theories that you agree with, and generally denies the legitimacy of any viewpoint other than your own. There is no point in that sort of "discussion".

Let me summarize where we stand.

1. There are very large wage differences on the whole between men and women.

2. A large part of that can be explained by obvious factors like work history and choice of profession.

3. The fact that women generally do better academically has even caused, in some places and among some populations, there to be a reversal where women make more!

4. If we control for all relevant factors that we know how to control for, the size of any remaining unexplained gap becomes small. In a quick search I've seen careful studies getting results of 0%, 4% and 7%.

5. There is disagreement among experts over how large that unexplained gap is, and what potential causes it might have. Your belief is that there is none. The opinion on Wikipedia indicates that the majority view is that there is a real gap.

6. I have cited specific evidence of a non-sexist cause for a potential gap. That cause is that men are culturally more likely to try to negotiate on salary. I have cited both anecdotal evidence and actual surveys indicating the existence of this difference. Given this, I would expect there to be a persistent gap.

And here I stop. Feel free to reply and malign me any way you want. I've given up on conversation with you.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#196

Post by dgordon » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 10:43 PM UTC

trhtrsh wrote: post #122

panda_person wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an example from my own experience: There's a significant number of trans women who work in tech. And almost all of them started transitioning as adults, in their 20s and 30s. So, they had the "benefit" of male socialization growing up, and being encouraged more to dabble in computers/tech/engineering. Much fewer trans men (and non trans women) in tech, it seems. Also, the number of women historically majoring…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexualism#Prevalence The DSM-IV (1994) quotes a prevalence of roughly 1 in 30,000 assigned males and 1 in 100,000 assigned females seek sex reassignment surgery in the USA. So there's a 3x factor feeding into that.

Those numbers are based on statistics from the 1960s, when transitioning was next to impossible, and are probably a couple orders of magnitude too low. More to the point, that threefold difference seems to be much smaller, if it exists at all.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#197

Post by shardling » Fri, Oct 12, 2012, 11:53 PM UTC

ajslater wrote: post #183

shardling wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About aggressiveness : It turns out that when women act aggressive, they are often treated differently than men who act the same way. This is a perfect example of where unconscious biases fuck up the system. This is something actual research has been done on, though I don't have any links handy. :(

You may be talking about people who confuse 'aggressive' with 'assertive', which would apply to either gender.

I don't really understand what you're implication is. The poster I was responding to used the word aggressive to describe how men are "supposed" to seek raises and otherwise negotiate in the workplace, and said that women often didn't act that way.

You can replace the word aggressive with assertive if you think it describes the style of negotiation better, but that has nothing to do with my point.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#198

Post by KuraFire » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 5:13 AM UTC

jerrya wrote: post #58

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…

Let's just say "I know a gal" who was fired from a company in the Valley because of that very discrimination. She had a master's degree and had been at the company almost 1+ year when she discovered that than the guy she was training, a dropout art school student whose "industry experience" amounted to working at Home Depot as a cashier was earning more. When my friend asked for equal pay for equal work, citing Obama…

> "It's very hard to take this story at face value."

Why? Because it disproves your world view? Because it makes you uncomfortable to acknowledge that this kind of shit can (and does) happen in an industry you like to idolize?

This story is outrageous, but entirely in line with many other, very similar stories I’ve heard personally by various women. Men reacting dishearteningly poorly to women raising the issue of mistreatment is A Thing™. A COMMON thing, even. Yes, even in our industry.

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#199

Post by KuraFire » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 5:25 AM UTC

laurasanders wrote: post #27

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 poin…

What, you mean like someone who’s been in the industry for fifteen years, worked at companies both small and large, startups and corporations, and in four different countries?

Re: On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal

#200

Post by KuraFire » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 6:07 AM UTC

zachinglis wrote: post #106

rootedbox wrote: post #87

What he wrote was a primer.. describing the basics of what sexism is.. in fact in his terminology portion he pretty much breaks down what any gender equality book would break down, and he does so in a very concise manor. Also you MUST address rape culture when addressing sexism. Being dismissive of it is what leads to sexism. Reminds me of that kixeye manager "Let me tell you, it's ok to make jokes about slavery beca…

Rape and sexism are not the same thing. Rape is genderless. Despite the fact that rape happens more to women, it happens to both genders. Secondly, just because someone is sexist it doesn't correlate to whether they're rapists or not. Sexism is about ignorance, rape is about many things often anger or control. If you mention rape any time someone says "I get paid less because I'm a girl", it sensationalizes it. It's…

Zach, sexism is exactly as genderless as rape is. You (and Laura) should read up on rape culture and how intertwined it is with the culture of sexism in society. They’re kind of like government debt and government spending: yes, they’re separate issues, but they influence each other _quite a bit_.

Also, please stop spreading the utter lie that I discounted rape against men. I never did that, nor would I. The primer is just not the right place to go in-depth on the subtleties of rape culture and how they affect men and women differently under different circumstances and at different ages. It's a primer.