61–70 of 169 posts
Putting obnoxious pastel colors in a powerpoint is bad regardless of your gender. Fidgeting while presenting is bad regardless of gender.
People tell me I don't look like a programmer all the time, mostly because I hardly ever wear branded t-shirts and shorts.
This one confuses me. I would expect that at these workshops all the TAs are introduced to each other before teaching begins, and so if the male TAs are trying to be funny, this would stop after the second one does this and is dismissed from the event (I'm presuming that after the first one does it, she tells him that she does not find it funny, and so the second one constitutes harassment). This should not be happening constantly, and I'd expect word to spread so it no longer happens at future events.
If the TAs are not introduced to each other, and are not wearing prominent tags or something that identifies them as TAs (and the students are not wearing anything that prominently identifies them as students), then given that women are are very underrepresented among programmers and that women are massively overrepresented among the students (it's a workshop to teach women to code), then the male TAs are doing nothing wrong. TAs should be proactively asking students if they are enjoying themselves. Note that if they first asked if the person was a student, they would be kind of committing the "you don't look like a programmer" offense.
I find the second case hard to believe, because I doubt these workshops would be so huge that the TAs would not all learn who all the other TAs are when setting up before the students arrive, so what the heck is going on?
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It's a feature heavily associated with female voices. So it is discrimination against female voices. It's also not something people do consciously, it is a feature of dialect. And studies show that why people dislike a dialect has nothing to do with its actual aural qualities, and everything to do with its social status .
You can say what you want, and studies can say what they do, but but vocal fry is annoying. It literally makes me cringe and it grates my ears to hear it.
This may be an unconscious bias at play.
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It's a feature heavily associated with female voices. So it is discrimination against female voices. It's also not something people do consciously, it is a feature of dialect. And studies show that why people dislike a dialect has nothing to do with its actual aural qualities, and everything to do with its social status .
> its social status. Link? I've found dislike for dialects spoken by poorer people (chavs for example), richer people (valley talk) and completely normal average people of a wide range (bavarian) in myself. In my experience how much i dislike a dialect has always been about how difficult it makes it for me to understand it, in both english and german, and there's literally no pattern to the social status in it.
Of course the claim is not that people's dislike will always be targeted at groups with a low socio-economic status. E.g. as a British person, I quite dislike "posh" dialects. And that is entirely my problem -- not the problem of people who happen to speak that way.
This is no different from assumptions based on race, age, or sexual preferences. Assumptions, wrong or right, are the way our mind optimize/systemize knowledge, and removing all assumptions whatsoever - I don't think it is good idea (if it would be possible.) I am afraid, there is no quick hack and culturally we as a whole should steer our perception. This is hard work which will take time.
I think this article has some excellent advice - we should be considering what men & women say purely on merit, not who is most tireless in arguing a point, or emotional over a perspective - exploring the depths of what each person is suggesting is important. For those on the opposite end of a result, we need to show empathy towards them - they are still our co-workers. Otherwise, we are not putting them in the position to succeed, and are putting undue burden on other people's lives that often are not accounted for in performance reviews.
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It's a feature heavily associated with female voices. So it is discrimination against female voices. It's also not something people do consciously, it is a feature of dialect. And studies show that why people dislike a dialect has nothing to do with its actual aural qualities, and everything to do with its social status .
Are you serious? Just because it's more common with females doesn't make it discrimination. Just because poor black people are more likely to commit crimes doesn't mean that criticizing criminals makes you racist and classist. Come on now, this is basic logic.
"Who are you here with?" might be indicating... what company are you here with? Are you with Google, or MS, or... whatever. "Who do you work for?" might be more appropriately direct.
I have a pink macbook. I wear pink headphones. You wouldn't believe the number of weird/sexist comments I get from time to time. Or maybe you would.
There was a piece floating around a couple weeks ago about women in tech leaving because they felt bullied out because they were women. While I don't doubt that can happen, the 'bullying' that was described in that article has happened to me - a male - at companies as well. It's more cliquish asshole group/hivemind behavior than it is sexist. I had multiple people chastise me that I was part of the problem because I was too blind to see it as sexism, and of course a male would simply ascribe this to asshole/politics in a company, vs sexism. Even though the exact same behavior (and outcomes) had been leveled at me, a male, apparently if the same behavior happens to a female, the motivation/intention must be sexism and dealt with through that filter.
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That's really the core issue: too many people believe that they can evaluate a person's technical knowledge based on physical appearance, which ends up including gender, race/ethnicity, sometimes even religion (if the person is wearing religious attire). It's just easier to get to know people instead of assuming. Also: environments that are unpleasant/hostile/uncomfortable for "people outside the norm" make it diffic…
> It's just easier to get to know people instead of assuming. I hate to be the one to say it, but no, it's not easier. It's much more accurate, but it's not easier. Getting to know someone involves overcoming biases, stereotypes, first impressions, and a lot of time. The payout from expending this effort is a much richer experience, but it comes at the cost of having fewer experiences. I personally don't have the tim…
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This feedback makes it clear that acting feminine is considered a weakness, instead of a strength. You shouldn't be ashamed to look beautiful, wear dresses and make-up, and present cute slides with a pink theme and occasional kitty picture. This is what the whole "like a girl" is about: if you express your femininity in the things you do and the way you look, people associate that with incompetence.
Exactly. If you were to make a stereotypically "masculine" presentation, you wouldn't get negative comments on it.
EDIT: I must go to the wrong programming conferences, never see suits. Wish the down voters would just share their experiences!