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Paul Graham Isn't Keeping Women out of Tech

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Re: Paul Graham Isn't Keeping Women out of Tech

#151

Post by aredridel »

rfnslyr wrote: post #67
DanBC wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not blacks? Why not midgets? Yes, those people too. > Women are so entitled nowadays. GODDAMN THOSE LAZY WHORES FOR WANTING EQUAL PAY FOR THE SAME WORK.

> GODDAMN THOSE LAZY WHORES FOR WANTING EQUAL PAY FOR THE SAME WORK. From personal experience, a little anecdote: When I was first hired as a junior developer, I was offered 40k. Me, along with a few women, and a few junior guys. Now, is it sexism that: a) I demanded hire pay and was in pay negotiation for 2 months before I was bumped to 60 because I made a compelling case, a long with a few of the guys? b) That the…

It is. You have less to lose than the average woman in the same spot.

We get fired, we get DEMOTED when asking for a raise. We have a lot less to negotiate with. So we stop when it's tolerable, because the stakes are different for us. We have to be the absolute top of our game to compete.

Re: Paul Graham Isn't Keeping Women out of Tech

#152

Post by aredridel »

baddox wrote: post #74
jfarmer wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I'll say, tptacek, virtually everything you write on HN is spot on, but it's most on when you're talking about issues of sexism, racism, power, and privilege. The tech industry suffers from a collective privilege-blindness and I appreciate anyone who spends any amount of their time and energy talking about it coherently and persuasively. When I was in seventh grade, we were assigned to write a little speech ab…

But what is your proposed solution to this idea of privilege? It seems like you're more disappointed with a lack of awareness of it (although a young child shouldn't be blamed for ignorance of what everyone else's home is like), rather than the existence of it. So if I say "yes, I get it, I'm a white male and therefore life is statistically easier for me," have I sufficiently recognized my "privilege"? Or do I have t…

It's not easy. Call it out. Respond to the biases that come from that position.

Yield the floor to those with less structural support when speaking. Encourage people who are ordinarily excluded. NOTICE AND CALL OUT. Use your privileged position to help where you can, and step out of the way when you can't.

It's pretty powerful when a room full of dudebros is silenced by the one guy who says "Uh ... that 'Aunt Tillie' you're designing for is actually damn smart, just hasn't used a computer yet" or "Uh, guys, you're forgetting HALF THE POPULATION". Or "That was sexist, jackass. Don't ever do that again." Or "Maybe we should acknowledge that having people who have families and would like to see them might like to participate here."

Some of these are actual statements of differing values. They are sharp instruments on wall of the bubble of the echo chamber. They're powerful.

And then, when you've women on your team, listen to them. Remember that status isn't conferred as readily on us. "She's just a junior dev" ... well, yeah, and might have been passed for a couple promotions. When you go out for an expensive meal with folks from a funding firm or industry cohorts, remember who might have had to check their bank balance before coming and may have passed. Try to include those voices. Call 'em up. Offer to pay for a meal -- or if you're in a position of company power, fix it structurally by making it not an individual problem.

And look for sources of bias and privilege. Don't just focus on women. Look for all the myriad ways that you can explain how someone ended up in the social heirarchy how they did, and think long and hard about what's fair. It won't feel nice if you came out on top by accident and you'll try to explain it away. Don't.

Even more telling is when you fail: What are the repercussions of failure for you? What might the repercussions for a woman on your team be? Are they different? That's an especially telling place to look, and it explains a lot of why women are paid less: their risks are bigger for the same gains.

Do spend your life checking it. Don't spend your entire life keeping your experiences to yourself: just be aware that your experiences aren't universal nor even prototypical. Don't be the default voice. Just a voice.

Re: Paul Graham Isn't Keeping Women out of Tech

#153

Post by aredridel »

baddox wrote: post #132
cokernel wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an excellent list of suggestions at http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-03-08_146 . The short answer is, no, you don't quit your job and forfeit your college degree; you aren't bad for having privilege and "checking your privilege" isn't supposed to make you feel guilty for having it. The post is a little long, but I think you would get more benefit out of reading it yourself than you would out of my…

That post is extremely long, and there's no way I'll make it far when it begins with things like: > One of the greatest things we, as privileged people, can bring to a discussion being held by non-privileged groups is our closed mouths and open ears/minds. When you enter a minority space, you need to realize that this is their soapbox, not yours. Your privilege gives you many other soapboxes that you can take advanta…

You're really into protecting your rhetorical devices, aren't you?

Re: Paul Graham Isn't Keeping Women out of Tech

#154

Post by rayiner »

harryh wrote: post #130
rayiner wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I think is problemetic in the tech community is the failure to separate the profession itself from unrelated cultural aspects of the people in the profession. The industry has trouble conceiving of what makes an excellent programmer except by reference to the characteristics of existing programmers. But there is no objective insight into the probitivity of these characteristics. Nobody really can measure ho…

> Because the industry doesn't have objective ways to > evaluate programmers, it over-relies on heuristics and > cultural traits that favor people who "fit the mold." I think this is mostly wrong. It's hard to objectively evaluate many professions. How do you evaluate marketing professionals, or lawyers, or graphic designers? It's all fuzzy. And it's especially fuzzy for 22 years olds without a track record of experi…

I don't know anything about graphic design, but the marketing and legal fields approach recruiting differently, at least at the entry level. Companies hire people that they think can be trained, and train them using the extensive institutional knowledge companies hold and pass on internally. There's no belief that say the best marketing folks were the ones doing neighborhood projects as teenagers. Marketing folks usually are subject to very intensive internships or entry level jobs that teach them everything they need to know. The prevailing model in law or banking or consulting or accounting is to take people with aptitude and train them to do things "the firm's way."

There's a lot more similarity at the level of experienced hiring obviously. And this model of hiring is expensive. But it also has benefits. Firms create new professionals from raw materials. They don't have to wait for trained professionals to walk in the door.

Re: Paul Graham Isn't Keeping Women out of Tech

#155

Post by harryh »

rayiner wrote: post #154
harryh wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the industry doesn't have objective ways to > evaluate programmers, it over-relies on heuristics and > cultural traits that favor people who "fit the mold." I think this is mostly wrong. It's hard to objectively evaluate many professions. How do you evaluate marketing professionals, or lawyers, or graphic designers? It's all fuzzy. And it's especially fuzzy for 22 years olds without a track record of experi…

I don't know anything about graphic design, but the marketing and legal fields approach recruiting differently, at least at the entry level. Companies hire people that they think can be trained, and train them using the extensive institutional knowledge companies hold and pass on internally. There's no belief that say the best marketing folks were the ones doing neighborhood projects as teenagers. Marketing folks usu…

Your comment really had two separate points one around training practices and another around hiring standards and occasional cargo culting. It was only the latter that I was objecting to.

It's interesting to think about the first point though. Why are training practices different in software? I can think of a couple of hypotheses:

A) Programming is one of few fields where it's possible to self train. B) Programming is a relatively young field that hasn't matured enough to develop rigorous training practices. C) Software companies aren't profitable enough to support expensive training programs. D) Training of programmers is a relatively futile endeavor as most programming success will come from innate talent that is either present or not in any given individual.

Just off the top of my head I put the most weight on A and C (especially for startups) though I'm fairly uncertain. There might also be other reasons I haven't thought of.

Re: Paul Graham Isn't Keeping Women out of Tech

#156

Post by nollidge »

baddox wrote: post #132
cokernel wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an excellent list of suggestions at http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-03-08_146 . The short answer is, no, you don't quit your job and forfeit your college degree; you aren't bad for having privilege and "checking your privilege" isn't supposed to make you feel guilty for having it. The post is a little long, but I think you would get more benefit out of reading it yourself than you would out of my…

That post is extremely long, and there's no way I'll make it far when it begins with things like: > One of the greatest things we, as privileged people, can bring to a discussion being held by non-privileged groups is our closed mouths and open ears/minds. When you enter a minority space, you need to realize that this is their soapbox, not yours. Your privilege gives you many other soapboxes that you can take advanta…

You say your questions are genuine, and then you obtusely interpret the answers you're given to suit the attitude you wish to project on your interlocutors. You could've saved everybody a lot of time if you didn't lie about your defensive intentions from the start.

Re: Paul Graham Isn't Keeping Women out of Tech

#157

Post by kmfrk »

Camillo wrote: post #15
Caligula wrote: post #2

This article seems to be related to http://valleywag.gawker.com/paul-graham-says-women-havent-be... It is the first time I saw Paul Graham appear on my Facebook. It is not worth reading, the author is just going for clicks by making baseless accusations. Paul also claims he was misquoted and thinks he should start bringing a recorder to interviews. It is a shame, one of the appeals of reading a Paul Graham interview…

Was the ValleyWag article discussed on HN? I seem to have missed it.

People have tried submitting it a handful of times through the mentions of other sites, but they all get censored from the frontpage.

Re: Paul Graham Isn't Keeping Women out of Tech

#158

Post by Cabal »

aredridel wrote: post #151
rfnslyr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GODDAMN THOSE LAZY WHORES FOR WANTING EQUAL PAY FOR THE SAME WORK. From personal experience, a little anecdote: When I was first hired as a junior developer, I was offered 40k. Me, along with a few women, and a few junior guys. Now, is it sexism that: a) I demanded hire pay and was in pay negotiation for 2 months before I was bumped to 60 because I made a compelling case, a long with a few of the guys? b) That the…

It is. You have less to lose than the average woman in the same spot. We get fired, we get DEMOTED when asking for a raise. We have a lot less to negotiate with. So we stop when it's tolerable, because the stakes are different for us. We have to be the absolute top of our game to compete.

We get fired, we get DEMOTED when asking for a raise.

Citation needed.

Re: Paul Graham Isn't Keeping Women out of Tech

#159

Post by baddox »

nollidge wrote: post #156
baddox wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That post is extremely long, and there's no way I'll make it far when it begins with things like: > One of the greatest things we, as privileged people, can bring to a discussion being held by non-privileged groups is our closed mouths and open ears/minds. When you enter a minority space, you need to realize that this is their soapbox, not yours. Your privilege gives you many other soapboxes that you can take advanta…

You say your questions are genuine, and then you obtusely interpret the answers you're given to suit the attitude you wish to project on your interlocutors. You could've saved everybody a lot of time if you didn't lie about your defensive intentions from the start.

My questions are genuine. That doesn't mean I can't point out ridiculous answers.

Re: Paul Graham Isn't Keeping Women out of Tech

#160

Post by aredridel »

hajile wrote: post #126
jfarmer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, privilege is not a bogus concept. If you really believe that — about anything, not just privilege — you'll have a hard time learning it or amending your understanding of it because of things like confirmation bias. Second, your probability is bad. You're confusing P(A|B) and P(B|A). This is understandable — lots of people do this all the time without realizing it, myself included. Third, your understanding of…

While the first article describes poor rather well, the second article is meaningless. I grew up in one of those poor families. I know (unlike him apparently) that the biggest problem with escaping is the good'ol boy system that exists in many fields (but is far less prevalent in technology in my experience and doesn't discriminate on gender or even race so much as it discriminates against the unknown) That said, tec…

From the study abstract:

"Men and women apparently achieve similar IQ results with different brain regions, suggesting that there is no singular underlying neuroanatomical structure to general intelligence and that different types of brain designs may manifest equivalent intellectual performance."

So as always, MUCH more research needed before drawing that conclusion

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