91–100 of 174 posts
> I’ve had middle-aged coworkers (not at Facebook, another internship) literally GChat me pickup lines (that aren’t even clever) to the point I’d avoid certain portions of the office altogether
I am a female developer about 6 years older than the author. I absolutely love the end of this article: > Slowly but steadily, I am learning to see my dresses and high-pitched voice not as hurdles to my success, but as symbols of the perspective I bring to the table. This conclusion is fantastic and shows a sense of confidence and maturity that I think all professionals of all genders need to project.
I do sometimes wonder what's added by focusing on sexism in tech, in particular, and suggesting it's uniquely a problem with tech. I can believe it's worse here on average than some other comfortable professional jobs, but seriously, sexism is everywhere and if we want to reduce it, it makes more sense to me to focus on the problem itself in full generality rather than an environment it's found in. Unless you want to…
Same here, especially when I think back on _years_ of solving computer problems where it was just me and some computer that was _incapable_ of caring about my gender or ethnicity. I would say that tech should be more insulated from sexism and racism than most professions, because the compiler simply does not care. Somehow there's _more_ sexism in tech than in jobs that involve talking all day?
Ahhh Stanford undergrads. Whenever I'm thinking this life is too brutal I can always count on them to remind me there are people out there whose entire lives have been shrouded in naiveté and privilege. I wonder how much the media is to blame for this young woman's mindset? Did she ever consider that her boss might not be asking her opinion because she was an intern? Or just jump to I'm not getting 100% attention on…
As for your three questions:
1) How is this relevant? This is a conversation about sexism in tech not an attempt to discredit the author's opinion by claiming she's been brainwashed by the media
2) Probably, although nobody here can really give an answer except her so you should ask her in the article comments
3) Sounds like she has some legitimate complaints so no I don't think this has anything to do with your implication that she is somehow fishing for attention.
For those who are questioning her experience, let's consider a piece of satire about bias at Hogwarts (and mentally substituting gender or other demographic of choice for religion here):
"These facts will likely surprise Hogwarts students today, especially those acquainted with the broader history of Judaism at their school... and though Spinoza’s invitation to deliver a series of lectures, in 1652, was met with protests, organizers were careful to note that it was the philosopher’s virulent anti-wizarding stance that they objected to, not his Jewish extraction.
A turning point in the story of anti-Semitism at Hogwarts came in 1920, when Jewish enrollment, buoyed by excellent Wizarding Admissions Test scores, peaked at thirty per cent. Complaints began to circulate that the “character of the place” was changing. These were vague comments, but no one mistook their meaning. The conservative Board of Governors (which, for the record, did not admit a Jew until Robert Rubin joined, in 1995) exerted enormous pressure on Headmaster Phineas Nigellus Black to “do something about it,” and the Class of 1926 was the first to be subject to the notorious Jewish quotas that would stand for almost fifty years. There were no hard numbers, of course—only a directive to the admissions committee to begin placing less weight on test scores and more on certain vaguely defined categories such as “character,” “fitness,” and “spell diction.” But it was enough.
Of course, the situation at Hogwarts had never been anywhere near as bad as at the universities in Eastern and Central Europe, where Jewish wizards as eminent as Freud and Einstein, unable to secure teaching appointments, were forced to use their magic in the service of formulating bizarre Muggle theories. Nor was Hogwarts ever the site of anti-Semitic violence, seen at too many of the Hungarian and Austrian wizarding schools during the tumultuous years after the First World War. There, student “demonstrations” often included the use of the so-called Jewish spells, cruel incantations that caused the peyes (side curls) to become scalding hot, the phylacteries to tighten around the wearer’s head—and, of course, the notorious “kipa spinner.”
No, Hogwarts was never the setting for any bigotry as brutal as that, and if I persist in recalling the minor injustices it is for the sake of guarding against future anti-Semitism in its most subtle forms." [1]
1. http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/true-history-jew...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing is, bklhp19, we don't need your analasys to tell us whether or not there are sexism and gender issues in tech and tech education. It's a fact and we know it so all you're offering here is a dismissal of this person's concern. Is that how you like to show up in the world, challenging or dismissing people around you when they take the time to communicate their experience of known problem space?
Does the HN community not see how dangerous this line of thinking is? "We don't need your analysis to know that the NSA isn't misusing the data they collect on us. It's a fact and we know it." Is this really how we want arguments to proceed?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Dotzler
I understand people can have wildly outlandish beliefs, ideas, etc. But to outright dismiss discussion this way is a recipe for group-think and, ironically, discrimination.
Ahhh Stanford undergrads. Whenever I'm thinking this life is too brutal I can always count on them to remind me there are people out there whose entire lives have been shrouded in naiveté and privilege. I wonder how much the media is to blame for this young woman's mindset? Did she ever consider that her boss might not be asking her opinion because she was an intern? Or just jump to I'm not getting 100% attention on…
"I’ve had middle-aged coworkers ... GChat me pickup lines" She is also kind of age-biased. Age doesn't matter, all kind of gender/legal-age/race relations are accepted by modern society.
So you're suggesting that objecting to getting pickup lines from people literally old enough to be her father is "age-biased", and not, you know, "creepy"? Hmm.
I do sometimes wonder what's added by focusing on sexism in tech, in particular, and suggesting it's uniquely a problem with tech. I can believe it's worse here on average than some other comfortable professional jobs, but seriously, sexism is everywhere and if we want to reduce it, it makes more sense to me to focus on the problem itself in full generality rather than an environment it's found in. Unless you want to…
> I do sometimes wonder what's added by focusing on sexism in tech, in particular, and suggesting it's uniquely a problem with tech. Same here, especially when I think back on _years_ of solving computer problems where it was just me and some computer that was _incapable_ of caring about my gender or ethnicity. I would say that tech should be more insulated from sexism and racism than most professions, because the co…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've successfully completed steps 1 and 2: 1. Acknowledge there is a real problem. 2. Acknowledge you are part of the problem. Now, on to steps 3-n! 3. Don't be discouraged, accept that there are things you can do to help! This is good , you're about to become a more valuable member of society. 4. Accept that you need to put in some effort. Not much, don't worry. Most of it is shutting up. 5. Read what women write…
You seem certain that that you know exactly what the problem is, and exactly how to solve it, down to a list of steps. You even seem certain that a stranger on the Internet is part of the problem. Well, give me a break -- that's really presumptuous and condescending. Listening to the aggrieved seems like a good idea, but there's no guarantee that they have the answers.
> I myself have been a disgusting example of a male engineer at times.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't really read it as "invalidating" so much as pointing out the possibility of misattribution. A concrete example: my car broke down. It's a Ford, that's blue, and is a two door, and is rear wheel drive. Is the right conclusion that it broke because it's a Ford and all Fords are pieces of crap? Are there possible causes? Missed maintenance, a lemon, driving it too hard, etc. I realize that it's crazy to suggest…
Well, duh, but the whole thing about "invalidation" is there is a subtext here: that she wouldn't know that she had been misattributing sexism to someone. If all your friends with Fords of various colors and models had problems -- you would rightfully have cause to focus in on Ford as the problem. Do not pretend to be objective by discounting context, or acting like everyone else is an imbecile. I'm not saying that e…
Wow, way to go! I read HN so I must be a PG cheerleader and ergo I'm definitely sexist!
PG makes some good points and some of them are a lot less tenable. I don't switch off my brain because I'm reading PG (though I do occasionally read his articles) any more than I turn it up extra high because a woman is saying critical stuff about men.
What I do try and do, though, is look at the kinds of psychological errors that people tend to make and see if that's influenced them at all. And misattribution is a big one. When a person has many attributes visible to anyone they interact with, any one of them could be the cause.
For example she complains that wearing dresses caused her grief. Should anyone be able to wear anything to any job without any consequence? If it should be OK for her to wear a dress, what about a man? If it's OK for girls to wear short-shorts can boys too? Can I ride my bike and continue to wear sweaty, smelly cycling gear and clippity-cloppity shoes instead of taking a shower and changing? Could a dude wear just a speedo? A girl a bikini? In the other direction, a suit? A three piece? A Matrix-style leather full-length leather jacket? Full on ski gear?
Yes these examples quickly go from maybe reasonable to clearly unreasonable. But just where EXACTLY should the line get drawn? It's not clear to me that there are absolute, definite answers that have narrow applicability, nevermind broad applicability.
What's appropriate for one job is terrible for another. Nurses and doctors (of both sexes in both professions) tend to wear scrubs to work, and it's appropriate. If I tried to wear scrubs to a construction site, or to a machine shop, I would rightly get told to go home. Coveralls, steel toes, and a hard hat are just right if I'm out on an oil rig but entirely inappropriate when I'm at the office and that's for a single job description! I have no less than four different kinds of clothing that I might need to wear when I go to work.
The point that I'm trying to make is that if it's possible for men to not get taken seriously (or worse sent home!) based on what they wear at the office then it's POSSIBLE though not necessarily DEFINITE that women might have the same thing happen to them AND that it's not sexism.
TL;DR
Please realize that there's a difference between saying "it might not be sexism" and "it's definitely not sexism" and that I'm trying to very cautiously propose the former, not the latter.