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Sexism in Tech. Or: CloudMine pulls its sponsorship of API Jam.

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Re: Sexism in Tech. Or: CloudMine pulls its sponsorship of API Jam.

#101

Post by ironchef »

Volpe wrote: post #76
DarkShikari wrote: post #55

Othering . Get that word into your head, and keep it there. Othering . Othering is when you make someone feel as if they don't belong in a community, that they're different from other people there. Making stupid (racist) Asian jokes about the only Chinese-American member of your team. Writing flyers that assume that your entire audience consists of a certain type of heterosexual man. Even something small, like consta…

I think you need to moderate this view slightly. Whilst yes, ostracising people doesn't help. Humour and sarcasm are effective team building/social tools, and "sledging" or "poking fun" are effective ways to build long term teams. Just spend time in any sports team (male/female/mixed) and you'll see this kind of joking around is abundant, and actually helps the team (not hinder it). I think it is more nuanced than yo…

OTOH, if it's the same humor and sarcasm towards the same "target" groups, it gets old fast...and can be seen as systemic.

Re: Sexism in Tech. Or: CloudMine pulls its sponsorship of API Jam.

#102

Post by fourmii »

Funny thing, I saw this ad just yesterday. The eventbrite page has been pulled I think now. But I remember seeing the no women point and then also saw other points like 'No Ideas People' or something to that effect. The flyer struck me as somewhat offensive, not that I'm usually that sensitive. But it came across as disparaging quite a few groups of people, don't know what they were trying to do. But it seems like it would end up alienating people. Not being a full time dev, I've been mustering the energy and guts to go to a hackathon with the aim of meeting folks I could possibly learn from. My first impression was, I'd be made fun of if I turned up with nothing to offer...

Re: Sexism in Tech. Or: CloudMine pulls its sponsorship of API Jam.

#103

Post by msbarnett »

ars wrote: post #95
tptacek wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Benefits to the event include] Women: Need another beer? Let our friendly (female) staff get that for you.

I feel embarrassed to type this, but could someone explain what's wrong with that? They are offering to give women a beer? Why is that bad? Is it because they are assuming only women drink beer? That seems the reverse of the stereotype if anything. Edit: I think I got it - they are assuming the women will drink beer and not participate intellectually? Is that it? Personally I would assume you would drink and particip…

No, you're misreading it.

What it actually says, under the benefits for attending is "Massages, Live DJ, Gym Access, Food Trucks, Top Shelf Booze, Women, 5 Hour Energy, Perfect Fuel."

Hence the colon after "Women:" isn't addressed too women, it's clarifying how the women will be delivered to you as a perk, just like chocolate, massages, and gym access.

It's incredibly objectifying.

Re: Sexism in Tech. Or: CloudMine pulls its sponsorship of API Jam.

#104

Post by briancurtin »

chernevik wrote: post #44

So, one, whoever wrote this is an idiot. Given the free and easy style of the startup eco-verse, it's pretty hard to say exactly what this does or doesn't say about whoever / whatever was behind the event. Maybe the President approved this. Maybe an intern slapped it up. Maybe the VP of Marketing submitted the wrong copy by accident. Want to know why Big Corporate has so much bureaucracy? This is why. But they didn't…

> Given the free and easy style of the startup eco-verse, it's pretty hard to say exactly what this does or doesn't say about whoever / whatever was behind the event.

So startup culture is an excuse for hosting an offensive event? Think with your head instead of your dick and you'll come up with infinitely better plans than to have beer wenches around to serve geeks at a tech event.

> Maybe the President approved this. Maybe an intern slapped it up. Maybe the VP of Marketing submitted the wrong copy by accident.

Shame on any of them.

> Want to know why Big Corporate has so much bureaucracy? This is why.

Startup kids could learn a thing or two from mature organizations.

> But they didn't fix it immediately! Yeah, or perhaps the responsible parties were meeting with investors or home sick or some such.

"Fixing it" goes beyond editing the text that was written. "Fixing it" would be not writing it in the first place. "Fixing it" is getting people actively thinking about diversity and equality. Just because you wrote something stupid and edited the page doesn't mean you fixed the problem.

Re: Sexism in Tech. Or: CloudMine pulls its sponsorship of API Jam.

#105

Post by hack_edu »

ars wrote: post #95
tptacek wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Benefits to the event include] Women: Need another beer? Let our friendly (female) staff get that for you.

I feel embarrassed to type this, but could someone explain what's wrong with that? They are offering to give women a beer? Why is that bad? Is it because they are assuming only women drink beer? That seems the reverse of the stereotype if anything. Edit: I think I got it - they are assuming the women will drink beer and not participate intellectually? Is that it? Personally I would assume you would drink and particip…

I think I got it - they are assuming the women will drink beer and not participate intellectually? Is that it?

So, where does it say 'Men'?

Re: Sexism in Tech. Or: CloudMine pulls its sponsorship of API Jam.

#106

Post by briancurtin »

fruchtose wrote: post #77
Jun8 wrote: post #20

Here's more coverage: http://bostinno.com/2012/03/20/boston-api-jam-publishes-even... The organizers' apology is: "While we thought this was a fun, harmless comment poking fun at the fact that hack-a-thons are typically male-dominated, others were offended. That was not our intention and thus we changed it." Which completely misses the fact that the other items on the announcement seem to be written by a 11 year old…

Their apology is even worse than the original flyer text. Getting super worked up about this idiocy and saying "THIS is why there are few women in tech", as some tweeters did, is not constructive either and trivializes the problem of women (and minorities) in tech. I would argue that pointing out the sexism of the ad doesn't trivialize the problem of women in software. It's a multi-part problem. Society primes girls…

> Their apology is even worse than the original flyer text.

Agreed. To me, the apology boils down to "We thought this was funny and harmless, but not everyone agreed. In order to keep people interested in our event, we changed the text."

Re: Sexism in Tech. Or: CloudMine pulls its sponsorship of API Jam.

#107

Post by fruchtose »

einhverfr wrote: post #96
fruchtose wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their apology is even worse than the original flyer text. Getting super worked up about this idiocy and saying "THIS is why there are few women in tech", as some tweeters did, is not constructive either and trivializes the problem of women (and minorities) in tech. I would argue that pointing out the sexism of the ad doesn't trivialize the problem of women in software. It's a multi-part problem. Society primes girls…

I think we have to be careful about defining "in tech." If it means founding employees of technology startups, that's very different from working in technical fields. The latter is approaching gender parity albeit slowly.

In many cases, this distinction is unnecessary. Even big companies like Microsoft have a long ways to go; their workforce is 76% male.

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/inside_ms.mspx

Re: Sexism in Tech. Or: CloudMine pulls its sponsorship of API Jam.

#108

Post by srl »

DarkShikari wrote: post #91
srl wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take what I say with a few grains of salt - I'm one of those weirdos whose always tried to be at least a little bit different - to avoid ever becoming wholly "in". But, in my experience, othering isn't going to drive people away, not in any significant numbers. Sure, it can make people feel uncomfortable in the wrong context, and cause social tension, but so can criticizing ideas, or mocking political parties. What y…

But, in my experience, othering isn't going to drive people away, not in any significant numbers. Are you a straight white male? If so, you probably shouldn't be generalizing your own experience to everyone who isn't. Try talking with some people who aren't. Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of many examples of people who have spoken out on this topic, and there are many open source advocates who can give you their own expe…

> Are you a straight white male?

Close. Bisexual. Good guess though. /sarcasm

> If someone wants to make a point of a difference they're proud of, they'll do it themselves. Don't force it upon them!

I fundamentally disagree with this. That's not to say that people should be dragged kicking and screaming into acknowledgment of trivial differences, but occasionally being reminded, in a friendly environment, that those differences do exist - and more importantly, that nobody cares - is incredibly important.

(Of course, some people do care, and that's a problem. But you don't get it fixed by attacking the surface symptoms!)

This is the sort of argument liable to rapidly descend into flaming, and I'm happy to leave it here if you are. ;-) (Although I will bring it up again the next time another one of these links is posted.)

Re: Sexism in Tech. Or: CloudMine pulls its sponsorship of API Jam.

#109

Post by Jun8 »

fruchtose wrote: post #77
Jun8 wrote: post #20

Here's more coverage: http://bostinno.com/2012/03/20/boston-api-jam-publishes-even... The organizers' apology is: "While we thought this was a fun, harmless comment poking fun at the fact that hack-a-thons are typically male-dominated, others were offended. That was not our intention and thus we changed it." Which completely misses the fact that the other items on the announcement seem to be written by a 11 year old…

Their apology is even worse than the original flyer text. Getting super worked up about this idiocy and saying "THIS is why there are few women in tech", as some tweeters did, is not constructive either and trivializes the problem of women (and minorities) in tech. I would argue that pointing out the sexism of the ad doesn't trivialize the problem of women in software. It's a multi-part problem. Society primes girls…

You're right, it's a multi-part problem. I don't quite agree with "society primes girls not to go into technology" part; although it does have some truth to it, I don't think all the gender gap in the filed can be attributed to societal factors. I can give two arguments:

(i) Not all technical fields have the gender gap, e.g. in biological and agricultural studies 51% of PhDs were awarded to women in 2009, whereas it was 22% in engineering and 27% in math and computer science (so engineering is worse but people usually don't tackle, say, the gender gap in civil or electrical engineering) (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/09/14/doctorates);

(ii) It's a widely popularized finding that, when adjusted for gender equality in the country, the gender gap in sciences, e.g. math, disappears (http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/32949/title/Math_...). This fits in with your society influence theory. Yet, AFAIK (the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo aside) the hacker cultures for those top (generally Scandinavian) countries are still dominated by males (can't point to a study, anecdotal evidence, will be happy to retract if given convincing evidence to teh contrary).

Re: Sexism in Tech. Or: CloudMine pulls its sponsorship of API Jam.

#110

Post by Jun8 »

icebraining wrote: post #64
Jun8 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure: Let's focus on the women in tech problem, leaving aside minorities, which has also been previously discussed on HN (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3169475 ). This was discussed many times on HN in the context of sexist language, booth babes in conferences, etc. My thoughts on the subject are: 1) There is a gender imbalance in the tech community, regardless of how you slice it (e.g. founders, developer…

Well, there were female ninjas too. And I frankly don't see how Martyr or Evangelist are male oriented.

Your comment led to a TIL: women ninjas exist and were called kunoichi. Thanks.
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