>That day in the Family Restroom I threw a fit. Hurled my water bottle at the wall and screamed, "This is not OK!" Oh please, calm down. Closed the tab.
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This is Not ok
51–60 of 165 posts
Re: This is Not ok
#52I definitely agree with your view that there aren't enough women in the field, but starting an article, where most of your readers are going to be men, by saying you threw a temper tantrum because a venue swapped the bathrooms to benefit men is inviting readers to disagree with you before you even started making your point.
I read the first part and immediately thought how immature you were, then I read more, and being more open-minded I read over your point, swallowed my previous thought and agreed. Not everyone will do that.
I agree we need more women representation, I disagree with the manner the article was written.
Re: This is Not ok
#53It is the weekly females in tech industry time again? At the risk of derailing the thread, why do so many people want to get more women into programming? Isn't that just as misguided as trying to get more men into nursing? Just because we strive for gender equality doesn't mean every job has to have exactly the same gender ratios.
> 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?
Re: This is Not ok
#54It is actually pretty interesting that so many commenters here short circuited into thinking she was complaining about the bathroom situation.
It really comes across that way at first. My first reaction was to close the tab at the "throw my water bottle" statement, but after reading the comments here, I read on and saw the author had more to say than just "someone move my bathroom." It's just poorly written, that's all.
Nope, the level of reader comprehension here is too low. She said that there was no line at the family restroom before she said she threw her water bottle. If that isn't enough to clue readers in about the real source of her anguish as opposed to the thing that first tipped her off, there's the whole rest of the article.
Re: This is Not ok
#55In short, it comes down to that she wants more women in the industry. Maybe she seemed a bit lonely among so many men, or maybe something else—I don't know and she didn't tell.
All right. Now what?
Re: This is Not ok
#56I'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 of the misogynistic culture. The stereotype of a computer whiz is a man. Ask yourself why you never considered becoming a nurse (if you are a man) and you will understand why women reject the idea of working in the tech industry.
Re: This is Not ok
#57It is the weekly females in tech industry time again? At the risk of derailing the thread, why do so many people want to get more women into programming? Isn't that just as misguided as trying to get more men into nursing? Just because we strive for gender equality doesn't mean every job has to have exactly the same gender ratios.
Upvoted. It's worse than just females in tech, it's OMG men and women are different! Eeek! I kinda like the difference myself. Not because I don't want women in tech, but because women should be able to pursue whatever they want that makes sense when you consider their differences from men. I assume this makes me a bad person.
Blacks and Whites are different. There's no discrimination, it's just that Blacks are more interested in basketball and driving taxis and making music then getting into Harvard or practising law. We should celebrate these differences instead of trying to tear down barriers that don't exist.
Re: This is Not ok
#58This doesn't really make sense. She's complaining that at an event with 97% of attendance by men (by her own statement), they got, say, 92% of the bathroom facilities, and then throws a fit. Not buying it. If this is the biggest outrage in your life you should consider yourself fortunate.
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?
Re: This is Not ok
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't see why a woman would want to be paid quite handsomely to do work that is mentally challenging, not physically arduous, and -- in many cases -- can have a positive societal effect? So... why do -you- want to work in IT?
Let's compare this to golf, circa 1965. Caving to pressure, a local club opens its memberships to Blacks. One or two tokens with strong business relationships to Whites join, but where are all the other Black businesspeople and professionals? A liberal White member sighs, "I don't understand why the Black people don't want to relax in our luxurious club, play a round on our excellent course, and eat our sumptuous din…
For those of you who will undoubtedly complain that this is an unfair/exaggerated analogy, think back to how many posts have been on HN about the rampant sexism women have experienced at tech conferences.
Re: This is Not ok
#60I had a similar experience when I (a gent) took my grown daughter to a NKOTB reunion concert as a nostalgia trip. The audience was at least 95% female, and the arena restrooms were re-purposed accordingly. I asked an usher and he told me it was common practice to adapt to the gender mix of the audience. I observed many groups of women noting this reallocation with loud triumphant braying laughter. I doubt the Strange…
That is not a similar experience at all. Even if we ignore that you completely missed the point of the article (she's not complaining about the bathroom situation at all, as seventy trillion other commenters have already pointed out - presumably you didn't read them either?) we still have:
First, you wouldn't have gone to a NKOTB (New Kids on the Block) concert if you weren't going with your daughter. You didn't actively want to be there. The author of the article was going to a programming conference of her own will.
Second, I don't think that NKOTB are important enough that it matters what the gender composition of their audiences are. Programming, on the other hand, is very important, and will only get more important in the future. Such a huge gender imbalance at the most important PL conference will be problematic for women in the future (and for men as well, if you can believe it).
Third, you "doubt" that there was a similar reaction at the PL conference. I presume you weren't actually there, then? I wasn't there either, so I wouldn't even begin to think about making up random suppositions and using them to support my argument.