A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech • Hacker News Board

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#311

Post by tptacek » Wed, May 09, 2018, 10:07 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #301

tptacek wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say anything about men being bad, I don't believe there is anything intrinsically bad about men, and in fact I reject a lot of hypotheses about gender disparity based on "masculine behavior" explanations, such as the notion that women are put off by competitiveness (I am married to an extremely competitive woman engineer and, through her roller derby escapades, have met more than my fair share of other compe…

I didn't say anything about men being bad I never said that you did. You only impute that from the juxtaposition of the sentences. I only said that vilification wasn't such a good idea. Given that we are talking about the potential downsides of "an insular and chauvinist culture," I think it's useful to say one should be circumspect about vilification. Assume incompetence before maliciousness, and all that. You impli…

I don't know. Are there? The home computing revolution was a weird inflection point. Medicine got more scientific over the last 200 years, steadily so, not less. The law has steadily remained formal and accredited since the founding of the country (and presumably long before). I'm sure there are similar cases, but this might be the biggest one in recent memory.

Again, part of my claim is: this is not really a surprising or weird argument. It's pretty obvious from the recent history of the field. You can argue that it doesn't have as much explanatory power as I'm giving it, but I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that the underlying phenomenon didn't occur.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#312

Post by pvg » Wed, May 09, 2018, 10:07 PM UTC

Zarath wrote: post #304

pvg wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should probably re-examine whether any of these things are necessary for a fruitful professional relationship and to what extent your merger of your social and professional life excludes current and potential coworkers who are not some close variant of you and your pals.

Seriously? Maybe the interactions just make him happy?

Absolutely seriously. The solution to a team member not fitting into your extra-cirricular-but-also-work clique is not tweaking your clique a little so that maybe it's a little less off-putting to the new person. It's being more mindful of the effect your clique has on others that aren't in it and maintaining a better separation between your clique and your professional life.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#313

Post by thau98thh » Wed, May 09, 2018, 10:09 PM UTC

Jackalopiate wrote: post #259

sp332 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because social skills can be practiced and learned. #MeToo is about physical abuse and abuse of power, not some peer who has a hard time making eye contact.

What about the incel hate that feminists are throwing around nowadays? There have been 2-3 instances of self proclaimed incel men lashing out because they can't get laid, and they have been branded as psychopathic women-haters by the far-left. The #MeToo movement was a farce anyway, and led to a lot of false accusations that some men have to deal with forever now.

> There have been 2-3 instances of self proclaimed incel men lashing out because they can't get laid, and they have been branded as psychopathic women-haters by the far-left.

How should men who go on a literal killing spree because they believe they are owed sex be classified? That sounds like pretty psychopathic behavior (or would it be sociopathic? I get those confused).

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#314

Post by Draiken » Wed, May 09, 2018, 10:10 PM UTC

colemickens wrote: post #275

Draiken wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe comparing murder to sexual harassment is plain misleading. If someone acuses someone else of murdering his neighbour they will have to go to all lenghts to prove it and it's a major moral line to cross. If someone acuses someone else of sexually harassing a woman, whether they're guilty or not, they'd most likely lose their job straight away and be labelled as a "perv" or something similar. I can't see how…

>It's easier for you to prove he fired you because of your sexual orientation than for him to prove you harassed him. So, I can't understand as a gay man because I'm immune to accusations of sexual harassment because I can just use my orientation as a discrimination shield? Eh, no, not really. Frankly, it doesn't make sense and er, it doesn't address the fact that the other person could be gay? While I concede that a…

I didn't mean to imply you can't understand that because of being gay. I merely think sexual orientation changes the entire thing. The tension people feel comes from society and IMO that's very different when it's not the traditional heterosexual dynamic.

As much as I'd love to live in a world where everyone is truly equal, that's not the world we live in.

> false accusations are lies and presumably will happen even if you avoid all contact with someone, no?

Absolutely true. But lying about sexual misconduct is relatively easy compared to a murder.

If someone does decide to be malicious against you, it's easier to prove them wrong if it's known that you stay away from the other person. Because of gossip and perception if you're close to someone of the opposite sex on the work environment people assume the worst.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#315

Post by wieghant » Wed, May 09, 2018, 10:10 PM UTC

pvg wrote: post #294

wieghant wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We recently got a new female analyst. We invite her for lunch and sometimes have small talk. Thing is, there's literally zero chemistry. We can't include here in our dumb Skype chat because its usually filled with incredibly dumb offensive memes - so we just try to keep our laughs down. We tried invite her to video game night and even organized board games just because she wasn't into video games that much. But again…

You should probably re-examine whether any of these things are necessary for a fruitful professional relationship and to what extent your merger of your social and professional life excludes current and potential coworkers who are not some close variant of you and your pals.

My goal wasn't to bolster a "fruitful professional relationship". She probably wouldn't have been hired if that was not the case. She excels at her work and there are no HR problems. Article focused on women feeling anti-social in the workplace. I don't think it implied being anti-social will put you in a rut. It will however deter future generations. Goal of the 'merger' was not to put her on a scale and see if she measures up to be in our "in-group". The goal was to get to know our new employee. That being said, it was clear that there is a culture divide and while the relationship is fruitful, it's not as fruitful as it could be.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#316

Post by gnulinux » Wed, May 09, 2018, 10:11 PM UTC

mikeleeorg wrote: post #255

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #58

> [If you’re a dude and you’re reading this article] Go befriend a girl in your class or company. It’s not creepy. Include her, ask her for advice, introduce her, learn about her work and her life in the same way you would with any male friend or coworker. If you’re an investor, professor, journalist, or manager, take it on yourself to sponsor a young woman’s career. While I totally agree with this advice, I think th…

I see this not as a consequence of the #metoo movement and more of a consequence of the lack of social intelligence & skills education. Because it IS entirely possible to befriend a women and not come across creepy, regardless of your physical appearance. As the author mentioned, girls tend to "engage in more prosocial behaviors" than boys. This means teenage and college-age men - especially those who gravitate towar…

> Because it IS entirely possible to befriend a women and not come across creepy, regardless of your physical appearance.

This depends on a lot more than your social abilities such your the way you look and your social status, none of which can be changed easily.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#317

Post by Safyia » Wed, May 09, 2018, 10:11 PM UTC

I am a female engineer and I studied CS in Europe. I never had issues socializing. My classmates were fortunately very inclusive, maybe because the men-women friendships have a different dynamic in Europe, or I was just lucky. Either way, my class was still 95% male. I would say we have to look at even younger girls to see the issue.

I have a brother who is really into computer games. When we were children, my parents got him games and didn't mind when he was sitting behind the computer for hours. I also liked games and I was trying to write stories, draw, install programs to get(ehm, pirate) music too. We had one computer and when my brother was using it I had to wait for him to finish playing. When I was using it, I was sent to play outside or read. Computers were always a boy thing, so I was never really seriously considering studying CS until we did a career test in high school where they encouraged me to go to a STEM field and do something like math or computer science. I gave it a try and loved it.

I think we have to start early and stop dividing professions into for men or women. Let men be nurses and women firefighters. Look at your childrens personalities and let them grow in whatever they enjoy, girly or not.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#318

Post by pvg » Wed, May 09, 2018, 10:12 PM UTC

Mythanar wrote: post #309

pvg wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should probably re-examine whether any of these things are necessary for a fruitful professional relationship and to what extent your merger of your social and professional life excludes current and potential coworkers who are not some close variant of you and your pals.

He should probably not. If it works for the majority of the team (which from the grandparent comments seems it does), the impetus is on candidates to fit in existing culture, not the culture to change to fit candidates. Most effective teams are usually ones with least communication impedance. The less you have to judge your words and go through diplomacy/"re-examination" dance in routine conversations, the more time…

impetus

Maybe you mean onus? And no, it isn't because that's exactly the sort of thinking that keeps the field as non-diverse and exclusionary as it is. What you're describing isn't some sort of property of an effective team. It's one of a hostile workplace.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#319

Post by heyyyouu » Wed, May 09, 2018, 10:13 PM UTC

I think the author may really be onto something here. I have teenage and twenty-something daughters. My youngest is very excited about her stats minor but when I suggested computer science to her the horror that crossed her face...like it was a personal insult. Another one is into math and science and also wouldn't consider CS if her life depended on it -- physics or chemical engineering, sure, but never CS. Both do have very active social lives -- maybe that's it, or maybe it's because their parent wants them to do it -- kids never want to do what their parent suggests. Whatever it is, as a mom who fell into tech who would love her daughters to get a CS degree, I have yet to find way to make the degree appealing to them, even though they like what I do and actually find the act of coding enjoyable.

Re: A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech

#320

Post by gnulinux » Wed, May 09, 2018, 10:13 PM UTC

lilactown wrote: post #118

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #58

> [If you’re a dude and you’re reading this article] Go befriend a girl in your class or company. It’s not creepy. Include her, ask her for advice, introduce her, learn about her work and her life in the same way you would with any male friend or coworker. If you’re an investor, professor, journalist, or manager, take it on yourself to sponsor a young woman’s career. While I totally agree with this advice, I think th…

JFC. If you're afraid of accidentally harassing or molesting someone I think you have the wrong idea of how to interact with people.

This is the problem. I have enough friends that I feel content, guy friends and some women friends. Why the fuck do I risk my life and job by trying to interact with women in office and accidentally come off as harassing. There is absolutely no benefit for me with a risk of losing a great deal.