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Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

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Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#201

Post by rcba »

ue_ wrote: post #146
rcba wrote: post #6

How active should men be in actually helping to solve the gender diversity problem vs sitting on the sidelines and sharing the work of women who are solving the problem? I've been working on an initiative to encourage more of my male peers to do more to make their organisations more diverse and was recently criticised by a female software engineer who told me that I shouldn't "come into a feminist space" where "women…

I really do not mean to be confrontational, as I understand that this is a charged topic on all sides, but I'd like to ask why making tech more diverse (in terms of race or gender) is preferable. My first instinct would be to say that if it's more diverse, women or racial minorities are more likely to come into tech because they might feel more comfortable there. But then we're back at square one: why do we want them…

Bold question but worth asking for sure.

1) Equal opportunity for everyone regardless of race, gender, age, sexuality etc is just the right thing to do

2) The data suggests diversity matters commercially/financially, even if your interests are selfish.

http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-...

http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/diversity-matters

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#202

Post by jasoncchild »

Chinjut wrote: post #189
jasoncchild wrote: post #186

Cue defensive comments from male readers...

Boy oh boy, so many. Any time a woman dares to lament how maybe her experiences in tech are colored by that minority status, Hacker News pounces en masse with little self-awareness. Not everyone on HN, of course. But, overall, threads like this are... distressing to read.

Yes. This.

Most of my career was in electrical engineering and electronics design. Until one month ago, after finally transitioning into a 100% software role with a 100% software shop after 15 years in tech, I work with a female engineer. 15 years, a dozen companies. One, lone female engineer. It is this experience that helps inform me to the problems of inequity in tech. It also has exposed me to many, many defensive colleagues who are all good people...but cannot divorce their own personal worth from the topic. They are hypersensitive to perceived criticisms.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#203

Post by microcolonel »

kaitai wrote: post #173
Teever wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The natural conclusion of this train of thought is to never ask someone out for coffee to begin with as the OP was suggesting.

If you're going to take it that way, don't interact with humans ever. You do you, my friend. But that's black-and-white illogical thinking. "Once I asked a woman to discuss a tech thing and then she mentioned her boyfriend forever." Who cares? One person had a hangup or a bad experience, and the horrible outcome is that she mentioned her boyfriend a few times. Try again with someone else, guy or gal. Try asking two p…

>the horrible outcome is that she mentioned her boyfriend a few times.

You're missing the point. The horrible outcome is that she will forever hold the irrational concern that you're hitting on her. It will colour everything you say or do.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#204

Post by crapolasplatter »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #172
crapolasplatter wrote: post #54

“Ask a Female Engineer” Why leave other important engineering characteristics out? Are you fat,skinny,tall,short,ugly,pretty , white,or black? I really don't see the importance of sex in relations to engineering. Nor understand the desire to get more fat,skinny,tall,short,ugly,pretty , white, black , male or females involved in engineering.

While your request is a little unreasonable, this is actually important. A younger, attractive male teacher at a primary school likely has a very different experience from an obese, older man.

I don't see why it was unreasonable to ask why only state sexuality over other equal characteristics that get discriminated against on the topic.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#205

Post by Kenji »

neom wrote: post #88

The most mind boggling part of this whole thread is it appears that there are many people who don't know how to begin active communication with another human. What isn't being taught in schools?

Uh, no? In schools you get taught to sit still and do your exercises. And don't you dare bother anyone or speak up.

Communication is something you learn on the job and when you go out.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#206

Post by rcba »

ozim wrote: post #8
rcba wrote: post #6

How active should men be in actually helping to solve the gender diversity problem vs sitting on the sidelines and sharing the work of women who are solving the problem? I've been working on an initiative to encourage more of my male peers to do more to make their organisations more diverse and was recently criticised by a female software engineer who told me that I shouldn't "come into a feminist space" where "women…

Dude, politics, stay away from that. Specially if you have to ask such questions.

Is this not part of the problem? How will anything get solved if we all shy away from difficult problems?

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#207

Post by exstudent2 »

Chinjut wrote: post #189
jasoncchild wrote: post #186

Cue defensive comments from male readers...

Boy oh boy, so many. Any time a woman dares to lament how maybe her experiences in tech are colored by that minority status, Hacker News pounces en masse with little self-awareness. Not everyone on HN, of course. But, overall, threads like this are... distressing to read.

I think there's quite a bit of self-awareness and honesty in questioning these types of initiatives.

So many of these "women in tech" discussions are thiny veiled power plays to take economic and decision making power away from developers. In the past few years we've seen feminists call for Linus Torvalds' head, attacks on the _concept_ of meritocracy, codes of conduct forced down many open source project's throats, masses of women only networking and hiring events, diversity drives that favor hiring women over men, many social media witch hunts against engineers of all levels...

At some point you have to step back and question the narrative that's being pushed. There is not, and never has been anything stopping women from learning to code. All you need is a computer, an internet connection and self motivation.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#208

Post by daxorid »

nsxwolf wrote: post #155
wrsh07 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask everyone you work with for coffee. Please don't omit the women. I've mentored new hires, and in that context it's easy to say, "hey can we get tea and talk about how the first few weeks have been?"

My wife would be furious.

Elephant in the room. Nobody seems to want to discuss the very real chilling effect of spousal mate-guarding behavior on workplace camaraderie. Thank you sir.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#209

Post by cynoclast »

20years wrote: post #48
redDictionary wrote: post #22

I would like to ask a female engineer some things. 1) do you think there are more men in engineering exclusively as a result of men being prejudiced against women? 2) do you think your male co-workers are less qualified to be engineers because they were hired for their gender? 3) one of the engineers in this article said she felt uncomfortable being aware of being the only female. Can anyone explain what causes the d…

My answers as a female. 1.) Not completely. This profession isn't appealing to a lot of women for many reasons outside of it being prominently male dominated. 2.) No 3.) In my early career I was always the only female on smaller male dominated teams. New male devs that came in initially automatically assumed I was administration. It only took a few days for them to realize what I did and all had total respect after.…

>I personally think the heavy PR push towards women in code over the last couple of years

It's not been 'the last few years' It's been about 30, now. I can remember them pushing when I was in elementary school.

Also, it's a misnomer to call it '[gender] dominated'. Tech is largely female rejected. Just as most men reject teaching, nursing, or the social sciences. Those aren't female dominated either, but male rejected.

I'm perfectly happy working with competent people of either gender. I don't give a shit what's in their pants. Just don't be an idiot and we're all good.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#210

Post by cynoclast »

20years wrote: post #111
zamalek wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I'm in agreement with the rhetoric that blames the interests that we expose our children to, this tweet[1] really sums up that whole situation (though I'm not so naive to think that this is alone to blame). Some more questions: 1. Did you have [what shouldn't be] atypical interests as a girl? 2. If yes, did other girls discriminate against you because of those interests? My thinking is that it's a compound…

GREAT additional questions. My answers may not be the popular sentiment but here they are. 1. No and never have. Other than interest in boys ;) But I also wasn't boy crazy like a lot of girls. 2. Other girls can't relate to me and I to them. I have a couple of very close girl friends that I have been friends with for a long time but I tend to mesh with men better. I also have 4 sisters all of whom I am very close wit…

>Bottom line is many women just don't want to do this and for reasons that have nothing to do with it being a male dominated industry. Does that make it more difficult for the minority of women who are drawn to this profession? Yep! But trying to force more women into it is not the answer imo.

Exactly! I know exactly how to achieve gender parity in tech, force more women to do it. But alas, that's even worse!

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