Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Speaking up

sazzy.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 342 posts

Re: Speaking up

#291

Post by enraged_camel »

mwetzler wrote: post #131
h2s wrote: post #2

Are there any high profile women in this industry who haven't been treated like shit in some way such as this? What a nasty bunch of people we are. Are we (developers) the douchey 80s guy of the 21st century?

On Friday I pitched my company to a room of 150 developers, since my company was a hackathon sponsor. I was the only female speaker out of about 15. Afterwards, a well-known, elite developer asked me if I programmed. When I said yes, he said that made me 50% less attractive. Then he asked me if I cooked and cleaned. To my face. You don't have to be high profile to deal with this stuff. Just being in a room where you'…

>>Afterwards, a well-known, elite developer asked me if I programmed. When I said yes, he said that made me 50% less attractive. Then he asked me if I cooked and cleaned. To my face.

You should have smiled and told him no, because you programmed a robot to do all that stuff for you. Then punched him in the face.

Re: Speaking up

#292

Post by moe »

ender7 wrote: post #287
moe wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever an instance of blatant sexism comes up Excuse me, have you even read the article? Someone uploaded fake porn pictures of her to a forum and then persistently sent the URL to her employers and acquaintances. This was a targeted attack on her reputation, or perhaps malicious stalking, but how on earth does sexism factor into this? The porn pictures were merely a vehicle. If the attack had been carried out agai…

The parent's point is that she is a target because she is a woman , and society gives such people more tools to abuse women than to abuse men. This makes it a sexist act. There are significantly more males in this industry with significantly more popularity. Yet no evidence is presented that these figures also have received this level of harassment. When the OP says that "[women in technology] are scared" it is becau…

How do we know she was targeted because she's a woman?

This whole jumping to conclusions is just a bit much for me.

Couldn't she just as well be targeted because she rejected some nerd who had a crush on her? Or even by another woman who is jealous of her?

That obviously doesn't make the actions any better, but seems a more plausible motivation to me than "a random guy running a smear-campaign against a random woman, only because she's a woman".

Re: Speaking up

#293

Post by enraged_camel »

kstrauser wrote: post #199
mwetzler wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Friday I pitched my company to a room of 150 developers, since my company was a hackathon sponsor. I was the only female speaker out of about 15. Afterwards, a well-known, elite developer asked me if I programmed. When I said yes, he said that made me 50% less attractive. Then he asked me if I cooked and cleaned. To my face. You don't have to be high profile to deal with this stuff. Just being in a room where you'…

I just don't get this. Do these guys not have moms? Sisters? Wives or girlfriends? Daughters? Women friends? I would be incredibly pissed if anyone said those things to my family members; ergo, I can't imagine saying them to someone else. For me, it really is as simple as that. I want my daughters to feel as welcome in their careers as I hope my sons will be. Anything less than that is utterly unacceptable. I'm sorry…

They have moms for sure, and sisters maybe. But that's irrelevant. They are behaving this way because that's how they see their dads treating their moms and sisters growing up. If they see their dad treat the mom with a sexist attitude (such as by expecting her to do the house chores or slapping her ass in front of the kids) then that's how they treat women later in life.

Re: Speaking up

#294

Post by MacsHeadroom »

ender7 wrote: post #287
moe wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever an instance of blatant sexism comes up Excuse me, have you even read the article? Someone uploaded fake porn pictures of her to a forum and then persistently sent the URL to her employers and acquaintances. This was a targeted attack on her reputation, or perhaps malicious stalking, but how on earth does sexism factor into this? The porn pictures were merely a vehicle. If the attack had been carried out agai…

The parent's point is that she is a target because she is a woman , and society gives such people more tools to abuse women than to abuse men. This makes it a sexist act. There are significantly more males in this industry with significantly more popularity. Yet no evidence is presented that these figures also have received this level of harassment. When the OP says that "[women in technology] are scared" it is becau…

>she is a target because she is a woman

We don't know that. This is an assumption made with no meaningful evidence.

Re: Speaking up

#295

Post by mwetzler »

saraid216 wrote: post #262
rjknight wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, in this case, being confrontational is the right thing to do (though I don't think you should have to engage in a confrontation if you don't want to). Most people (despite the arguments here, which are mostly about either semantics or arcane ethical points) think that the way the guy you described behaved is unacceptable. You're one of us , a hacker, and you don't deserve to be treated like that. I can't ima…

> I think, in this case, being confrontational is the right thing to do (though I don't think you should have to engage in a confrontation if you don't want to). I can't agree with that. The situation she describes is where she's acting as a representative of her company, and anything she does is as the face of the company, rather than as a person. The decision to be confrontational about it is her company's decision…

I am absolutely empowered, as an individual or on behalf of my company, to tell this guy he is an ass. Or to ask the conference organizers to boot him. But I didn't feel like doing either. I didn't even cross my mind at the time.

It's kind of like when a crazy person yells at you on the street. Yeah, you could tell them to stop, because it makes you uncomfortable, but that would require even more interaction, and they'd probably do something to make you even more uncomfortable. Easier to walk away.

At least by sharing it here some people can learn from the example of what not to do :)

Re: Speaking up

#296

Post by mwetzler »

geoka9 wrote: post #251
mwetzler wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think two things make it more likely for me to encounter incidents of sexism: 1) I do some programming for my job, but a majority of it involves going out and meeting other developers, learning about their work, and seeing how we can make our API better for them. I live in SF so I can't get a coffee without bumping into another developer. I bet I have many more interactions than someone who is developing full time…

Come on, guys (and gals). If we accepted that "Beards of Experience" is sexist, we would have to accept that it's also racist (many Asian men can't grow beards like the guy on gun.io) and maybe homophobic. Don't you think it would get ridiculous at that point? What about parenting sites where the design and images are clearly targeted at mothers (and not fathers)? Are they evil? Sexist?

It's not evil. It's not mean-spirited. It is a tad sexist, but not in a super offensive way. Probably the worst thing about it is that it's turning away some women and some feminist men. I doubt Gun.io intended that.

I think it's a good example of an easy thing to change for the tech community to be more inviting to women. If we want to break down stereotypes and gender ratios in tech, one thing we can do is make it more inviting for women to work here.

Re: Speaking up

#297

Post by h2s »

hopeless_case wrote: post #268
andrewcooke wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because discrimination is about power. if two groups have equal amounts of power it really doesn't matter that much (except for social courtesy sake) what they say about each other. discrimination is a problem when it's associated with inequality. it's a big deal when a majority bash a minority. the other way round, not so much. even less so when the criticism is internal to the majority.

I think you are conflating these two statements (the apex fallacy): 1. Most of the those who have power are men. 2. Most of those who are men have power. They are very different statements and one does not imply the other. The average man has no more power than the average woman.

    > The average man has no more power than the average woman.
Can the average woman apply for any given technical position with an equal chance of being interviewed by a person of her gender? When the average woman's colleagues organise a social event outside of work, does she feel as powerful as the average man when she's the only female in a room full of inebriated men? When the average woman's colleague accidentally says something sexist and nobody else notices because she has no female colleagues, is she as powerful as the average man?

Re: Speaking up

#298

Post by mwetzler »

chaostheory wrote: post #278
mwetzler wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Friday I pitched my company to a room of 150 developers, since my company was a hackathon sponsor. I was the only female speaker out of about 15. Afterwards, a well-known, elite developer asked me if I programmed. When I said yes, he said that made me 50% less attractive. Then he asked me if I cooked and cleaned. To my face. You don't have to be high profile to deal with this stuff. Just being in a room where you'…

Where did this happen? I'm reading this and I'm a little shocked. I don't understand why people can be such jerks.

Here is SF. I think the guy thought he was flirting with me. It was not effective :)

Re: Speaking up

#299

Post by dyno12345 »

wilkie wrote: post #260
FireBeyond wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"since men at large are not discriminated against based on their gender" Some examples at random: percentage of males in teaching professions, and/or daycare? Breast cancer funding and research versus prostate cancer funding and research, despite the relative frequency of each? Hint - 1:6 men will get prostate cancer, 1:8 women will get breast cancer. But the National Cancer Institute allows for $1,318 worth of resea…

That's totally a valid point. I wish more men would speak out against this and, honestly, that it is not used to diminish the equally valid point of sexism in technology. But we have to understand that in those situations it is not oppression. And that is a key point. Men are not oppressed by society when they are discriminated, because by-and-large, men make more money, have more opportunity, stay within their indus…

Men die earlier.

Re: Speaking up

#300

Post by kapowaz »

h2s wrote: post #2

Are there any high profile women in this industry who haven't been treated like shit in some way such as this? What a nasty bunch of people we are. Are we (developers) the douchey 80s guy of the 21st century?

Sexism is alive and well in the 21st Century.

Look at how women are treated in the Middle East. Listen to stories of the rape culture in Delhi. Pay inequality the world over. A media industry which sees young women as commodities to sell their product. What we're seeing here is the thin end of the wedge; the individual who committed this disgusting act would probably have felt entitled to behave this way even were they working in another industry.

It's ugly, but this is a very large societal problem that we're still really struggling to address. As pleased as I was to see President Obama address gay rights in his inauguration, it was equally significant that he addressed gender equality. We've a long way to go before this is fixed, but rather than indulging in self-pity or recrimination, how about we work to be the change we want to see in the world?

Post reply on HN