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Sexism In The Tech Industry Takes Center Stage

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Re: Sexism In The Tech Industry Takes Center Stage

#121

Post by esw »

betterunix wrote: post #97
esw wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was more or less the argument against women in the armed forces, too. You know, it's not that they're stupid , it's just that they're just too dainty and precious for our rough and tumble profession.

It does not really help when someone goes ballistic over jokes about "dongles." My mother works in a rough profession (a railroad), and one more than one occasion someone has made immature jokes about certain long, slender tools on the job. Guess what? My mother joins in on the fun, or else just ignores it when she considers it to be beneath her humor. This might have something to do with the fact that everyone is to…

I understand where you're coming from, but there is an actual problem here - and it's not that these women can't take a joke. When a woman speaks at a tech conference for the first time and audience members shout "show us your tits", that's a hostile fucking environment, and it's a problem with men, not with women. When women write about how experiences like that make them feel uncomfortable in our industry, and men respond by threatening to rape and murder them, that's a problem with men, not with women.

Re: Sexism In The Tech Industry Takes Center Stage

#122

Post by dragonwriter »

marcuspovey wrote: post #17

Commented earlier on another Women In Tech thread (seems to be the meme of the day). The question is not "Why are there so few women in IT?", it's "Why are so many men in IT such jerks?"

> The question is not "Why are there so few women in IT?", it's "Why are so many men in IT such jerks?"

Both are questions, neither is the question, and the second is an important question in large part because its premise is part of (but not all of) the answer to the first.

Re: Sexism In The Tech Industry Takes Center Stage

#123

Post by bcheung »

dragonwriter wrote: post #119
bcheung wrote: post #115

"Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex." Talking about sex or using crude sexual humor is NOT sexism. It may be inappropriate for a professional environment (especially if kids are around) but it is not sexism; there is no discrimination nor an intent to put someone else down.

> > "Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex." > Talking about sex or using crude sexual humor is NOT sexism Creating a selectively hostile environment is a (fairly significant) legally recognized form of discrimination based on sex, and both of these can be (and not infrequently are) mechanisms that create such an environment, so it is, at best, an oversimplification to say that they are not se…

I agree it may be a offensive environment but how is it selective or discriminatory though? People can be offended by just about anything. Doesn't mean they are the target. Religion offends me—being around it makes me uncomfortable—but that doesn't give me the right to tell people to stop talking about.

Re: Sexism In The Tech Industry Takes Center Stage

#124

Post by dragonwriter »

bcheung wrote: post #123
dragonwriter wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > "Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex." > Talking about sex or using crude sexual humor is NOT sexism Creating a selectively hostile environment is a (fairly significant) legally recognized form of discrimination based on sex, and both of these can be (and not infrequently are) mechanisms that create such an environment, so it is, at best, an oversimplification to say that they are not se…

I agree it may be a offensive environment but how is it selective or discriminatory though? People can be offended by just about anything. Doesn't mean they are the target. Religion offends me—being around it makes me uncomfortable—but that doesn't give me the right to tell people to stop talking about.

> I agree it may be a offensive environment but how is it selective or discriminatory though?

Its selectively hostile because of disparate impact due to occurring within a cultural context in which sensitivity to these issues is not even approximately evenly distributed by sex.

> Religion offends me—being around it makes me uncomfortable—but that doesn't give me the right to tell people to stop talking about.

Being human gives you the right to do that (just as the same thing gives other people the right to ignore you when you do, in most circumstances.)

This, of course, is completely orthogonal to the question on discrimination, as something being discrimination is not a pre-requisite for someone to have a right to tell people to stop doing it.

Re: Sexism In The Tech Industry Takes Center Stage

#125

Post by nicholassmith »

coldtea wrote: post #114
nicholassmith wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite a loaded question, obviously boobs hold a point of attraction for men as we often like them and you know, they're there, but if you're making an app of you staring at boobs it goes from a fleeting thing to more a situation where you've just turned that lady in an object. That's not super awesome. Look, I like boobs as much as the next guy, but there's got to be a line where we go from "yay boobs are awes…

> but if you're making an app of you staring at boobs it goes from a fleeting thing to more a situation where you've just turned that lady in an object How is that different from going to see people play music or act in a movie? Is an actor "an object"? How about other people we see as objects/machines to do stuff for us, like someone serving meals at McDondals (or a programmer)? In that interaction, we only value wh…

Because those people are there to fulfil a role.

So there's looking at boobs and there's looking at boobs. There's looking at the boobs of someone who wants you to look at their boobs, either they are an adult model or a consenting adult who's thought "Hey, this guy/gal is alright, I'm okay with them seeing my boobs". In that situation all is well with the world, they're either fulfilling a role for cash purpose or they've decided to extend a level of intimacy.

(sidenote: not a puritan, I think sex and sexuality is a big part of our society and we ignore at far too often, and discuss it even less)

Re: Sexism In The Tech Industry Takes Center Stage

#126

Post by coldtea »

nicholassmith wrote: post #125
coldtea wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if you're making an app of you staring at boobs it goes from a fleeting thing to more a situation where you've just turned that lady in an object How is that different from going to see people play music or act in a movie? Is an actor "an object"? How about other people we see as objects/machines to do stuff for us, like someone serving meals at McDondals (or a programmer)? In that interaction, we only value wh…

Because those people are there to fulfil a role. So there's looking at boobs and there's looking at boobs. There's looking at the boobs of someone who wants you to look at their boobs, either they are an adult model or a consenting adult who's thought "Hey, this guy/gal is alright, I'm okay with them seeing my boobs". In that situation all is well with the world, they're either fulfilling a role for cash purpose or t…

>Because those people are there to fulfil a role.

Isn't that exactly what bikini models are also there to do?

>There's looking at the boobs of someone who wants you to look at their boobs, either they are an adult model or a consenting adult who's thought "Hey, this guy/gal is alright, I'm okay with them seeing my boobs". In that situation all is well with the world, they're either fulfilling a role for cash purpose or they've decided to extend a level of intimacy.

And how's that different from what that app was about out?

Didn't it use professional models and such?

(Seriously asking, haven't read about that part)

Re: Sexism In The Tech Industry Takes Center Stage

#127

Post by Torgo »

JonFish85 wrote: post #30

On top of being embarrassed for doing this on stage, these people should be embarrassed for presenting such a fucking dumb idea for a hackathon. On an 100% unrelated note, Adria Richards has transitioned from "Technology Evangelist" to "Programmer"?

Perhaps it's just for the convenience of their audience. Instead of 99% of people not knowing what her job description entails, by substituting "programmer" it is reduced to to 90%.

Re: Sexism In The Tech Industry Takes Center Stage

#128

Post by masmullin »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #105
masmullin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once we remove jokes from the workplace, then we can concentrate our focus on removing smiling. Work should be no fun zones, one day our dream of robotic toil will come to fruition.

I love that response. It captures the essence of the maturation process. My kids would use variations on it when we talked about rules and behaviors. And that lead to productive discussions about absolute rules versus (don't kill people), contextual rules (kill people who are enemies), and societal rules (kill people who are trying to kill you) [1]. Clearly in the context of TechCrunch Disrupt making sexist jokes is…

So that's one vote for removing satire from internet discussions.
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