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The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

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Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#101

Post by teacup50 »

frandroid wrote: post #88
adrianm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm inclined to agree with much of what you said, but I don't think sexism is always at fault here. If I were that person who struck up a conversation with your fiance, I know I would personally find it difficult to make the "first move" in initiating a conversation with you. Is it because I'm sexist? No! I'm not a very extroverted or social person and I find it personally very difficult to make initial contact with…

You're not sexist, but you have less problems breaking the ice with men than women...

That's not particularly unusual; it's easier to break the ice when there's no question of ulterior motive or interest.

I feel off-kilter speaking with strangers that I find attractive in a professional setting; I have to keep telling my brain to ignore itself and act normally. This isn't unique to any gender -- the other day I was ordering lunch in the neighborhood, and the person behind the counter was mooning at me to a degree that actually made the interaction uncomfortable.

I don't take it personally; that's how people are, myself included. I know it can be slightly uncomfortable, but as long as we're trying to be professional with and understanding of each other, things generally work out.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#102

Post by melindajb »

balls187 wrote: post #86
melindajb wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that I have the access to reply again. Suggesting that it's ok to accept that automatically thinking a woman at a trade show is not an engineer is simply irrational. We are humans and with that comes the ability to override animal thinking. Dare I say, I expect the person to have that thought to override it, think rationally, and say something other than what most of them do? And is asking for that somehow in and…

> Suggesting that it's ok to accept that automatically thinking a woman at a trade show is not an engineer is simply irrational. Agreed, mostly. What if it was a women who was dressed provocatively, i.e. a booth babe? Would that change the circumstance. In the case of the main article, the woman at the trade show WASNT and engineer. But that's beside the point. Slight semantics here--I think it's okay to make assumpt…

Working backwards: Throwing around the word rational on hacker news is a bit misleading, don't you think? The original comments reek of irrationality and bias. Also, "irrational" is a word men love to throw at women when they disagree with what they say. That's typically called "tone policing" but I'm not going to assign you that label at the moment.

Regarding the two men, as I've said repeatedly on this thread, it's not the assumptions I'm making, it's the actions I take as a result. What I might do is look at both of them, for example, and say, "Who's the right person to talk to me about your APIs?"

Now regarding your question vis a vis the booth babe: booth babes are a terrible invention. they are a huge part of the problem. But I'll ask it this way: wouldn't you rather be known as a man who treats a booth babe like an engineer, than the douchebag who treats an engineer like a booth babe?

In general, when it comes to women (ahem and all other humans too) you're much more likely to get along with them if you treat them as if they have brains first.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#104

Post by dragonwriter »

zorpner wrote: post #66
jv22222 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the post you linked to... "So pattern recognition is a useless heuristic made up by a group of rich white men as a way to quantify something" If that statement isn't racist, biased, and, well, just quite mean really, then I'm not sure what is.

I always hesitate to post this on HN, because it almost never goes well, but here it is: Racism (sexism/classism/etc) is not about race (sex/class/etc). It's about power. For this reason alone (let alone all the other good ones), there is no symmetry in these biases (e.g. the false equivalence of misogyny and misandry).

> Racism (sexism/classism/etc) is not about race (sex/class/etc). It's about power.

That's, frankly, bullshit. It about allocating power by race, etc., and is, therefore, necessarily about race (or whatever else defines the -ism in question) and power.

> there is no symmetry in these biases

There is a difference in effect (in a short time window, but see below) between whether the group favored is the currently in-power group or whether its an out-of-power group.

But there is a symmetry in essence. And, furthermore, the long-time-window effect of accepting racism (etc.) from below (or redefining the terms to exclude it) is a reversal in power structure in which the group whose bias has been licensed becomes the power group -- and is unlikely to suddenly renounce the bias that established that position in favor of the formerly-dominant and now subjected group.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#105

Post by teacup50 »

zorpner wrote: post #97
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a sly redefinition of racism that largely fails to withstand scrutiny: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Prejudice_plus_power

From that link: "It is important to push for the understanding that racism is 'prejudice plus power' and therefore people of color cannot be racist against whites in the United States. People of color can be prejudiced against whites but clearly do not have the power as a group to enforce that prejudice." That's pretty much exactly the case! Thanks for the great quote.

That's racist nonsense. Racism is extrapolating a set of unfounded biases across an entire race, which is exactly what you're doing.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#106

Post by malyk »

jv22222 wrote: post #23
ericabiz wrote: post #14

The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happen to be a woman. I love the tech industry. I've been in it professionally since 1997, and I've run tech startups as a CEO for the past 13 years. And if there's one thing I can count on, it's the consistent, pervasive assumption that I'm not technical. I hate g…

My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it. My friends wife is an F16 fighter pilot. I was surprised to find that out. Truth is I should not have been surprised, but it went against the patterns I'm used to seeing. I wonder if that's at play here?

The pattern matching IS SEXIST! That's the whole issue. Your using gender as a "pattern" to match against.

The point is to try to overcome making that match.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#107

Post by sliverstorm »

rodly wrote: post #79
ericabiz wrote: post #14

The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happen to be a woman. I love the tech industry. I've been in it professionally since 1997, and I've run tech startups as a CEO for the past 13 years. And if there's one thing I can count on, it's the consistent, pervasive assumption that I'm not technical. I hate g…

Find a field that has been woman-dominated for the last 50 years. Now put a man in that field, who is rather successful (like yourself in technology), and you will get the exact same result in the contexts you describe. I'm sick of this paradox where men and women are equal and yet men (and only men) are capable of making this mistake. It's simple pattern matching, and when the pattern tells you one thing and it's ac…

Also complaining about getting hit on? Really? A person finds you attractive and wants to talk to you. What a monster.

Amusingly enough, I was just reading an article by a woman, complaining that not enough men hit on her in SF.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#108

Post by sliverstorm »

adrianm wrote: post #92
frandroid wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not sexist, but you have less problems breaking the ice with men than women...

I don't understand what you're implying here, I'm afraid.

He's implying that it is sexist to be bad at talking to women.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#109

Post by srpablo »

rodly wrote: post #79
ericabiz wrote: post #14

The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happen to be a woman. I love the tech industry. I've been in it professionally since 1997, and I've run tech startups as a CEO for the past 13 years. And if there's one thing I can count on, it's the consistent, pervasive assumption that I'm not technical. I hate g…

Find a field that has been woman-dominated for the last 50 years. Now put a man in that field, who is rather successful (like yourself in technology), and you will get the exact same result in the contexts you describe. I'm sick of this paradox where men and women are equal and yet men (and only men) are capable of making this mistake. It's simple pattern matching, and when the pattern tells you one thing and it's ac…

Piling on to other commenters: Modern Dance & Ballet. Most of the coveted, paid choreographer positions go to men, despite being a tiny fraction of the dancers.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#110

Post by your_throwaway »

ericabiz wrote: post #14

The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happen to be a woman. I love the tech industry. I've been in it professionally since 1997, and I've run tech startups as a CEO for the past 13 years. And if there's one thing I can count on, it's the consistent, pervasive assumption that I'm not technical. I hate g…

Yeah, except when I do start a conversation with you, I'm hitting on you, and probably being "creepy".

I have to navigate a mental minefield of "don't say this" "don't say that too much" or "don't be overly aggressive", otherwise I get screamed about on twitter, labeled as a misogynist, and possibly fired from my job. (Uh-oh, I said dongle! Or...[1]meritocracy!)

I'm not saying women in tech don't have problems, they do, but I'm really sick of hearing this like it's a completely one-sided problem. The stupid evil men are holding the women down and keeping them from succeeding!

Gender dynamics are hard, for EVERYBODY. Men are having to deal with the fact that suddenly (or maybe not suddenly?) doing things like getting beer after conferences is bad, telling jokes to one another is bad, thinking certain thoughts is bad, using certain words[2] is bad.

I'm sorry if you come to a conference and I don't behave in the ultra-narrowly-defined way that you have determined makes me not part of the problem (although I recently found out that asking if I did it wrong makes me part of the problem).

I don't have a context for this! And it seems like everything I, and other men like me, try to do to make you feel included is WRONG, and we're BAD for doing it!

Invite you to beers after a conference? Hitting on you!

Compliment you on what you're wearing? Hitting on you! Objectifying you! Noticing that you are a partially-physical entity! THE HORROR!

Ask you about your projects? Flirting with you!

Make a suggestion about your project? Mansplaining at you!

Men have to navigate a constantly changing, and VERY hazardous minefield every time we talk to you. I'm really sorry (really, genuinely, that is not sarcasm) that sometimes we get it wrong, or sometimes we just forego trying at all and stay quite around you. A lot of it is really just because we don't want to mess it up and make you angry. Women have a LOT of power over men in these situations, and if we screw up even a tiny tiny bit, it can ruin our lives.

[1]:http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug#awesm...

[2]:http://banbossy.com

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