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This is Not ok

blog.jessitron.com

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Re: This is Not ok

#111

Post by JanneVee »

moistgorilla wrote: post #56

I'm kind of disappointed by the comments here. Not just by the fact that people couldn't read the entire article before making judgments but more that I would have thought the people of this website would understand why it's important to bring women into tech. Women aren't biologically inclined to not like STEM fields (which I sadly see is a popular sentiment). The reason women don't go into these fields is because o…

>Women aren't biologically inclined to not like STEM fields (which I sadly see is a popular sentiment).

True.

> The reason women don't go into these fields is because of the misogynistic culture.

Ehm... not always. I've found that there is a cultural bias that the STEM fields are considered asocial and culturally women/girls have been raised to dislike asocial activities.

Re: This is Not ok

#112

Post by raganwald »

JasonFruit wrote: post #93
raganwald wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blacks and Whites are different. There's no discrimination, it's just that Blacks are more interested in basketball and driving taxis and making music then getting into Harvard or practising law. We should celebrate these differences instead of trying to tear down barriers that don't exist.

I know you're being sarcastic, but you bring up a point that I wonder about: there's certainly a difference in cultural values that contributes to the racial and gender profile of different occupations. Do we have a responsibility to change those values? Most ways of measuring progress on the problem have the unstated expectation that the difference in values doesn't exist, and you can't meet the measurement goals wi…

Let's switch from talking about race and gender and use the words "Insiders" and "Outsiders" and think of a big structure, we'll callit "The Keep."

I think the first and most urgent job is to change cultural assumptions amongst the insiders. If they are thinking that outsiders aren't biologically inclined towards living in a keep, not qualified to maintain a keep, &c., that's a huge barrier, a moat if you will.

So we remove that. The next problem is that even with the moat gone, the outsiders fear being uncomfortable inside, whether from being one of a very few outsiders amongst a lot of insiders or from other outsiders resenting them moving into the keep.

I think it's important to remove those sources of discomfort and to actively encourage outsiders to consider moving inside so that we get all of those who woud like to come inside but fear unpleasant consequences.

After that, I don't think we need to try to convince people who like living outside to come in. Let them be happy outside! But I do think we should remove barriers to coming inside and encourage coming inside to counteract any fears of negative consequences for those who would otherwise like to come into the Keep.

Re: This is Not ok

#113

Post by jeremyarussell »

Ntrails wrote: post #70
moistgorilla wrote: post #56

I'm kind of disappointed by the comments here. Not just by the fact that people couldn't read the entire article before making judgments but more that I would have thought the people of this website would understand why it's important to bring women into tech. Women aren't biologically inclined to not like STEM fields (which I sadly see is a popular sentiment). The reason women don't go into these fields is because o…

I don't really see why a dislike of hospitals, excrement, and old people would hold women back from working in the tech industry?

I think you missed the point on that by a bit. See the point was men don't generally become nurses as often as women, because of the social stigma that it's a woman's job.

The way I figure there is no biological reason why a girl wouldn't want to expand her mental capacities via technology and programming. It's strictly because it's seen as a nerdy guy stuck in basement thing, then the brogrammers came out and people realized it's also a guy-that-views-women-as-objects field. Yeah, those brogrammers really helped the cause.

Went off on a bit of a tangent there. Sorry.

Re: This is Not ok

#114

Post by dpark »

benatkin wrote: post #54
deelowe wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really comes across that way at first. My first reaction was to close the tab at the "throw my water bottle" statement, but after reading the comments here, I read on and saw the author had more to say than just "someone move my bathroom." It's just poorly written, that's all.

Nope, the level of reader comprehension here is too low. She said that there was no line at the family restroom before she said she threw her water bottle. If that isn't enough to clue readers in about the real source of her anguish as opposed to the thing that first tipped her off, there's the whole rest of the article.

It's also poor writing. It was a third of the way through the article before she clued us in about what she was actually mad about. It very much read as if she were angry about the restroom situation.

However, this isn't especially relevant to the real point of the article.

Re: This is Not ok

#115

Post by raganwald »

mbell wrote: post #90
raganwald wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's compare this to golf, circa 1965. Caving to pressure, a local club opens its memberships to Blacks. One or two tokens with strong business relationships to Whites join, but where are all the other Black businesspeople and professionals? A liberal White member sighs, "I don't understand why the Black people don't want to relax in our luxurious club, play a round on our excellent course, and eat our sumptuous din…

> Did I say 1965? What's the deal with Agusta National and Blacks and/or Women? Augusta National isn't remotely comparable to the issue at hand. Its a VERY private, invite only club. There are numerous private clubs of all sorts that only allow men, only women, only blacks, etc. You can't compare a private club to a employment profession. I don't necessarily agree with Augusta's position but they are a private club,…

I'm familiar with Augusta National even if I just noticed that I misspelled the name!

I think it's very relevant to the discussion at hand. We're talking about a profession that outght to be nothing at all like a private club, but the point is that it does behave like a private club. if we in fact didn't behave as if we were members of a club, not only would my comment be irrelevant, these kind sof blog posts wouldn't exist in the first place.

So.

Yes, I agree that the social dynamics of a private club ought not to have anything to do with the social dynamics of a profession, but alas they do in this case.

Re: This is Not ok

#116

Post by protomyth »

First, I didn't read it as she was mad about the bathrooms other than what that implied about the ratio of attendance between men and women[1].

I'm not real fond of the ratio, mainly because lack of female programmers means we get a lack of female managers with programming experience. Women who came up through the ranks and get the gig. I have encountered too many men and women who have no clue how to manage technical projects.

I should point out that at least female programmers are not subjected to the crap that happens to male ECE (early childhood education) instructors. Many places will say to an applicant's face that, because of potential lawsuits, they will not hire males.

[1] There are actually a lot of facilities that have sliding partitions that allow the number of stalls to be changed between events. I cannot find it right now, but there is a video explaining research done into average time using the stalls - male vs female and percentage of people doing #1 vs #2.

Re: This is Not ok

#117

Post by jeremyarussell »

JanneVee wrote: post #111
moistgorilla wrote: post #56

I'm kind of disappointed by the comments here. Not just by the fact that people couldn't read the entire article before making judgments but more that I would have thought the people of this website would understand why it's important to bring women into tech. Women aren't biologically inclined to not like STEM fields (which I sadly see is a popular sentiment). The reason women don't go into these fields is because o…

>Women aren't biologically inclined to not like STEM fields (which I sadly see is a popular sentiment). True. > The reason women don't go into these fields is because of the misogynistic culture. Ehm... not always. I've found that there is a cultural bias that the STEM fields are considered asocial and culturally women/girls have been raised to dislike asocial activities.

+ for recognizing that. Consider this though, what causes first, the asocial stigma? And what causes our society to keep girls from asocial activities?

An argument could be made for a broader more general form of misogyny.

Re: This is Not ok

#118

Post by klaut »

raganwald wrote: post #92

Meta-question for both men and women. If you were a woman considering a career in IT and you were to read the comments on a thread like this, would you be more likely to join, less likely, or unaffected by reading the thread?

If i was reading a thread like this, it would mean that I am already interested in tech and there was NO WAY that a thread like this would put me off continuing doing what i am interested in.

Re: This is Not ok

#119

Post by JulianMorrison »

steele wrote: post #86
JulianMorrison wrote: post #38

Everyone who rushed in here to say "calm down, dear" in a patronisingly male tone of voice, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM. Stop being sexist.

How does one type in a patronizingly male tone of voice? I hope you don't mean "calm down, dear" is characteristically male.

Yes, I absolutely do. The concept of women as "emotional" AKA "hysterical" is an old, untrue, patronizing and dismissive stereotype, with a long history of being used to oppress women (sometimes in the most horrific of ways). "Calm down dear" and its close paraphrases are a way of asserting male privilege to ignore a woman's reasoned argument, because she got angry.

Re: This is Not ok

#120

Post by raganwald »

klaut wrote: post #118
raganwald wrote: post #92

Meta-question for both men and women. If you were a woman considering a career in IT and you were to read the comments on a thread like this, would you be more likely to join, less likely, or unaffected by reading the thread?

If i was reading a thread like this, it would mean that I am already interested in tech and there was NO WAY that a thread like this would put me off continuing doing what i am interested in.

Not necessarily. What if you are following @raganwald because you know him from mountain biking and he tweets about this thread?

More importantly, I think it's valid for you to have a very binary perspective on tech, either you aren't interested or you're so interested that "To hell with the torpedos, full speed ahead." I know of at least one such woman with the same perspective:

http://raganwald.posterous.com/a-womans-story

Of course, that doesn't mean everyone will have the same reaction. Some might be more inclined to join, perhaps some less. I'm not a woman, and I don't want to be patronizing and try to suggest that there's going to be one overwhelmingly consistent reaction.

I was just trying to point out that our discussions about gender are as much a part of our culture as the culture we're allegedly discussing.

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