What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech • Hacker News Board

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#151

Post by tptacek » Sun, Oct 11, 2015, 11:17 PM UTC

rewqfdsa wrote: post #122

Mz wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you are, in fact, dismissing it as merely coincidence, as I predicted. Nor did I say it gets done to me because I am a woman. It does get done to me a lot. I don't know that it has anything to do with my gender. It may have more to do with the fact that I have formally and informally studied certain things about social psychology and I have well developed mental models for how these things work that most people…

Yes, I am dismissing your anecdote as mere coincidence. I can't justify on an intellectual basis doing anything else. Am I supposed to just listen and believe? > I have formally and informally studied certain things about social psychology Your continuing reliance on credentials isn't helping your credibility.

How are these kinds of rebuttals helpful? How are we learning anything more about your perspective on this issue by watching you police another commenter for providing their own narrative?

Do you have something more to say than "I would need many thousands more narratives like this to care what you have to say"? Do you have a substantial criticism of what this particular narrative suggests?

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#152

Post by vacri » Sun, Oct 11, 2015, 11:19 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #146

vacri wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see that at all. Lawyers in general dress better than most other professions except finance. I've worked in hospitals and never saw the doctors dressing as well as lawyers[1] - some consultants do, but far from the majority doctors. Friends of mine are in architecture, and I don't see that there either. Same with engineering in general - neat casual seems much more par for the course. Academics also don't oft…

I think you're making observations from a biased selection of lawyers. BigLaw corporate lawyers wear suits and ties. But most lawyers aren't that, and most of them wear business casual just like everybody else. Meanwhile: if you select down to consulting software developers, particularly those working at major (500+ headcount) firms selling to Fortune 500 companies, you're going to find that they don't dress like the…

I don't think "I've ... liaised with techies in enterprise from time to time" marries up well with "if you select down to consulting software developers". :)

The biggest headcount of a company I've worked in tech with is 60, most of whom were not in IT. The other tech companies are all 10-20 people, including part-timers. Only one company I worked for sold to Fortune 500 - ironically this one had the shabbiest dress of all.

Three of those companies had lawyers - they all dressed in suit-with-optional-tie. As did their visitors (visitors rarely optioned out of the tie) and the lawyers I'd talk to from other companies (admittedly a rare occurrence). Apart from the medical sales at the waterfall place and finance staff, I rarely see a suit jacket in the neat casual dress of other staff (IT or otherwise).

I realise this is all anecdata, but at the same time, the 'neckbeard and t-shirt' idiom is a grossly incorrect stereotype.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#153

Post by tptacek » Sun, Oct 11, 2015, 11:19 PM UTC

rewqfdsa wrote: post #130

rayiner wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I am. I think work places should be neutral places where the focus is on work. I'm a professional--I don't need to bond with my teammates over unrelated bullshit in order to work effectively with them.

I think sharing culture can create an esprit de corps, improving morale and group cohesion, especially in times of crisis.

That's an argument that gets you a team of people who all like the same video games and all pick which beer to drink by maximizing IBUs.

There's a point at which can safely say that this kind of studiously groomed, exclusionary "cohesion" is doing more harm than good. I mean, there's obviously that point: if you refused to hire someone because they were a woman, you'd get sued; if you refused to hire someone because they didn't drink, you'd (rightfully) be ostracized in the community.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#154

Post by tptacek » Sun, Oct 11, 2015, 11:22 PM UTC

vacri wrote: post #152

tptacek wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're making observations from a biased selection of lawyers. BigLaw corporate lawyers wear suits and ties. But most lawyers aren't that, and most of them wear business casual just like everybody else. Meanwhile: if you select down to consulting software developers, particularly those working at major (500+ headcount) firms selling to Fortune 500 companies, you're going to find that they don't dress like the…

I don't think "I've ... liaised with techies in enterprise from time to time" marries up well with "if you select down to consulting software developers". :) The biggest headcount of a company I've worked in tech with is 60, most of whom were not in IT. The other tech companies are all 10-20 people, including part-timers. Only one company I worked for sold to Fortune 500 - ironically this one had the shabbiest dress…

This particular argument is just not interesting to me. I disagree with you: I think lawyers dress like pretty much all the rest of the accountants, salespeople, marketing managers, and project managers that make up the modern workforce. I think that if there's any profession that does have an informally enforced and idiosyncratic dress code, it's the programmers, with their surreptitious warnings to preferred job candidates not to wear a suit to the interview.

I respect that you've had a different set of experiences and drawn different conclusions, but respectfully: I think I'm just going to be hard to convince otherwise on these points, and having a message board slapfight over which jobs wear more ties --- I can visualize myself trying to Google my way to a survey answer to this question now --- shudder --- just seems like a terrible use of our time.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#155

Post by dang » Sun, Oct 11, 2015, 11:34 PM UTC

mwhuang2 wrote: post #46

I'm a hardcore fan of My Little Pony. Gender stereotypes mean nothing to me.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10370773 and marked it off-topic.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#156

Post by jay_kyburz » Sun, Oct 11, 2015, 11:39 PM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #140

twic wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, sewing is pretty useful. I have had many pairs of trousers whose lives were greatly extended by my making repairs to them. Although at some point, i discovered that superglue was much easier than sewing.

I just darned some slacks and fixed a button yesterday. It's a good skill to have.

I fixed a button on my shorts. It's not pretty but my pants stay up.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#157

Post by vacri » Sun, Oct 11, 2015, 11:45 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #154

vacri wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think "I've ... liaised with techies in enterprise from time to time" marries up well with "if you select down to consulting software developers". :) The biggest headcount of a company I've worked in tech with is 60, most of whom were not in IT. The other tech companies are all 10-20 people, including part-timers. Only one company I worked for sold to Fortune 500 - ironically this one had the shabbiest dress…

This particular argument is just not interesting to me. I disagree with you: I think lawyers dress like pretty much all the rest of the accountants, salespeople, marketing managers, and project managers that make up the modern workforce. I think that if there's any profession that does have an informally enforced and idiosyncratic dress code, it's the programmers, with their surreptitious warnings to preferred job ca…

I'm happy to agree to disagree, though we both agree that IT is more tolerant of shabbiness. I do think that your definition of 'professional' is too narrow - 'professionals' are more than finance, sales, and middle-managers. I guess my point was primarily that the stereotype of developers doesn't seem to match up with the actuality of developers. I just get verbose and waffley at times.

And yes, this isn't a debate that should send either of us a-searching :)

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#158

Post by natmaster » Sun, Oct 11, 2015, 11:51 PM UTC

Female students are more interested in enrolling in CS if they think it doesn't involve computers or science... maybe instead of trying to trick them encourage them to like computers and science? If you think solving problems by looking pretty rather than thinking is 'being female' then you don't think being a Computer Scientist is very 'female'.

(Obviously I think being female is orthogonal to such concerns.)

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#159

Post by angersock » Sun, Oct 11, 2015, 11:52 PM UTC

jkyle wrote: post #24

mpweiher wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Boy nerds get beaten up, girl nerds get ostracised. Exactly: both boys and girls get strong negative feedback for being nerdy. Yet, somehow more boys are sufficiently interested that they find their interest more important than the negative feedback.

> Yet, somehow more boys are sufficiently interested that they find their interest more important than the negative feedback. In these scenarios, boys find groups that are supportive. In their case the video game playing, computer oriented, math/physics/etc. "nerds" are one such social group. The entire point of the article is that those same groups are not supportive for women and girls. It has nothing to do with th…

This is a very good point--the friends I had that were guys an nerdy tended to work together to form our own merry band of misfits.

Girls in secondary education, though, seem to be all-too-ready to screw over each other and throw "friends" under the bus if there is any perceived benefit socially (saw this happen with family and female friends).

It's downright ugly.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#160

Post by saint_fiasco » Sun, Oct 11, 2015, 11:58 PM UTC

jkyle wrote: post #16

zamalek wrote: post #5

We've known this for a while, it boils down to: barbies. Fixing this problem is really, really hard. Assuming I gave my daughters equal access to both barbies and chemistry kits, which would they choose? Kids want to fit in with their friends. Boy nerds get beaten up, girl nerds get ostracised. What does that lead to? The child choosing their gender stereotype (applies both ways) so that they can fit in. It's what th…

> Boy nerds get beaten up, girl nerds get ostracised. The key is to make it a priority to move to an area where all the families promote a culture that views academic excellence as a good thing. I know this isn't available to everyone due to financial limitations. But it's probably available to more than realize it.

>The key is to make it a priority to move to an area where...

Plans that begin with that phrase are never sustainable. All sane people will want to move to the same places, rising prices substantially until people are forced to borrow huge amounts of money to buy houses in nice places, causing a housing bubble, causing a crash.