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This is Not ok

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Re: This is Not ok

#131

Post by raganwald »

benatkin wrote: post #122
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?

Certainly less likely to join (unless it made me want to get in and change things, which I hope is what women reading this will do). What that gets me is the criticism of her writing, which seems harsher and less constructive than the average on HN. The thing is that it isn't completely false, and the people who post it think we won't notice they're being mean, because there's some truth to what they're saying. But i…

John Gruber calls this "Grading on a curve." For example, if we make a big fuss over her throwing a water bottle in private but celebrate Steve Jobs for throwing temper tantrums over software quality, we're grading on a curve.

(Not that anybody is doing that, it's just an example).

Re: This is Not ok

#132

Post by lindseybieda »

nitid_name wrote: post #127
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…

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

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents - evidence of misogynistic culture.

Re: This is Not ok

#133

Post by JanneVee »

jeremyarussell wrote: post #117
JanneVee wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

> what causes first, the asocial stigma? And what causes our society to keep girls from asocial activities?

In most western societies there is very little that keeps girls from these activities. But then there is the boob tube, watch some disney channel and study the stereotypes present in the shows. It kind of answers both questions. But it is not only Disney Channel I would consider it pervasive in western culture as a whole. e.g. Like TV shows like The Big Bang Theory.

Re: This is Not ok

#134

Post by wilkie »

pdelgallego wrote: post #58
moistgorilla wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think she has a problem with the fact that men got 92% of the bathroom facilities. Especially when it was logically justified. I just think she was disillusioned by the fact that there were so few woman at the conference that a decision like that could be justified.

Honest question, Are people concern because there are not enough afro-americans/hispanics/etc in the software industry?

Why is this a question. Of course we are. Black computer scientists represent less than one percent: http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/computer-science/cs-peeps.ht...

Re: This is Not ok

#135

Post by jiggy2011 »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #125
shadowfiend wrote: post #106

Empathy, noun: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. I think this is our[1] problem. Or a generalization of it: the ability to share another's viewpoint. To step into their perspective and say “oh. I see.” And to accept that maybe, just maybe, their viewpoint is valid. This isn't always true, by the way. But it is sometimes true, even often true. And even if it is valid, you may not agree with…

It depends on whether you believe women are trying to enter the tech field and are being scared away, or whether they are not interested in the first place. I would suggest it is mainly the latter, look at any IT/CS type course at a college and you will see mainly men and these are people who haven't even entered the field yet to get a chance to be scared off. The point regards passion is an interesting one, I imagin…

Downvotes are fine, but I would appreciate a counter-point.

Re: This is Not ok

#136

Post by juridatenshi »

nitid_name wrote: post #127
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…

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

There are definitely studies that show this is why some women leave the field, even after overcoming the hurdles to get into it in the first place.

http://www.lpfi.org/sites/default/files/tilted_playing_field...

Re: This is Not ok

#137

Post by klaut »

raganwald wrote: post #120
klaut wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-woma…

Love the story! Very inspiring and i think this quote sums up what my belief is, too: “...The computer didn’t care that I was a woman or that I was black..." It is the same with any other passion one might have - you will always come across brick walls and jerks and what not. Perhaps I was lucky or unbeknownst to me, ignored all the obstacles that commenters here are stating, but i never had people stopping me to pursue programming and tech. Or looking down at me. I am in the field not because I want to make a difference and rise up the female % .. actually i do not even notice the ratios at all. To me, we are all just people that share a common interest - tech. And, frankly, I am a bit annoyed with all the winning that is becoming common. It really feels like people complain just for the sake of complaining.

Re: This is Not ok

#138

Post by rmc »

JasonFruit wrote: post #96
rmc wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're using the "Tone Argument" derailing technique: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/complete.html#angry Try to see what she's angry about first. Sometimes people are angry at what they think are gross injustices. Maybe she has a point.

Sometimes inappropriate tone can turn people off of a discussion. That's one of the perks of reading; if you don't care to be shouted at, you can stop reading. Presenting what you think in a way that makes people want to keep reading is important, and failing to do that lost her a reader.

Sometimes. But sometimes it's used as an excuse to not listen to someone. Sometimes no-matter how valid someone's point is, some people always find and excuse to derail the conversation (look at that long list). So not matter what you do, you always lose. Sometimes one gets tired of that.

Re: This is Not ok

#139

Post by __alexs »

verroq wrote: post #53
__alexs wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because we strive for gender equality doesn't mean every job has to have exactly the same gender ratios. Actually for pretty much any job not based on manual labour it does mean that. And even then it's mostly because we don't have enough robots.

You are willing to accept physical differences but not psychological differences between men and women?

Yes because there is no evidence that such differences are anything but a result of variables such as socio-economic status, how stable your upbringing was and the amount of calories you had as a child.

Re: This is Not ok

#140

Post by prodigal_erik »

Ntrails wrote: post #129
jeremyarussell wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Actually, I was intentionally pointing out the absurdity of the blanket statement being made, whilst attempting to apply humour. I did consider being a nurse, when training to help with a family members illness the nurse teaching me suggested I would be good at it. I was not interested, in large part for the exact reasons I listed above. I would also like to point out that the gender imbalance in nursing is not blame…

(Asterisks are markup for italics, see http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc for some details.)
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