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This is Not ok

blog.jessitron.com

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Re: This is Not ok

#71

Post by andrewem »

masterponomo wrote: post #42

I 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…

There was probably triumphalism because in nearly all large arenas the lines for the women's room are routinely much longer than those for the men's room. So for the men at Strange Loop not having to wait was normal, but for the women at the NKOTB concert it was a highly unusual, pleasant surprise.

No, I don't have statistics to prove this, but it's been the case throughout my 30+ year life living in various places throughout the US. The only time there's typically a longer men's room line in my life is at tech gathering, and it's usually still not the kind of wait where people give up, as often happens to women I know.

Re: This is Not ok

#72

Post by rmc »

hnriot wrote: post #24

"That day in the Family Restroom I threw a fit. Hurled my water bottle at the wall and screamed, "This is not OK!"" How exactly after this do you expect anyone to take you seriously? Gender equality isn't about having just as many women programmers, and it certainly isn't well servered by having tantrums over the bathroom arrangements.

You have just used the "Tone Argument" which derails the argument. It's a common response (it's in Derailing for Dummies http://www.derailingfordummies.com/complete.html#angry ). Please try to stay on topic.

Re: This is Not ok

#73

Post by mitjak »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #66
Pewpewarrows wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point isn't to have exact same gender ratios in the tech industry. There are women out there who would make great programmers / sysadmins / etc, but never finish the process of becoming one, are dissuaded from ever starting, or flat-out quit the industry after N number of years, simply because of the barriers put in place by men assuming that the field is only for men.

What sort of barriers? Most of this seems to come down to "Women feel uncomfortable in tech because there are too many men" which of course prevents there from being more Women in tech. It's also possible that some of the pressure comes from other women , not just men. A woman might be considered weird by other women for wanting to hang around in an environment dominated by geeky men. I know tech women who have been…

Example from the article: at a conference, the audience thought the author is a recruiter because she's a woman.

Re: This is Not ok

#74

Post by rmc »

mertd wrote: post #23

It is actually pretty interesting that so many commenters here short circuited into thinking she was complaining about the bathroom situation.

It's an easier point to address that than talk about endemic sexism in tech.

Re: This is Not ok

#75

Post by mitjak »

enraged_camel wrote: post #67

People always complain that there aren't enough women in tech fields, yet no one ever complains about there not being enough men in, say, fashion. I've always found this odd.

How many fashion publications and forums do you read a day?

Re: This is Not ok

#76

Post by jacalata »

verroq wrote: post #3

It 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.

Because if there were more women in programming I might not have to deal with people doing a double take as they walk into my office and saying 'oh I expected you to be a guy!'

Re: This is Not ok

#77

Post by rmc »

sergiotapia wrote: post #6

>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.

You're using the "Tone Argument" derailing technique: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/complete.html#angry

Try to see what she's angry about first. Sometimes people are angry at what they think are gross injustices. Maybe she has a point.

Re: This is Not ok

#78

Post by raganwald »

BCM43 wrote: post #59
raganwald wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To be perfectly clear, I am not saying that conferences are sexist. I'm not denying it either, but I'm trying to make a slightly different point, which is that when a group is overwhelmingly underrepresented, members of that group might fear that they will feel uncomfortable if they join.

I can't really speak for women (for that matter, in 1965 I was too busy potty training to join any golf clubs). But I do wonder whether a certain number of them might look at the industry and shy away even if they haven't been personally exposed to any hostility or overt discouragement.

Just a conjecture, I am not speaking from data or anecdotes.

Re: This is Not ok

#79

Post by Cushman »

mcormier wrote: post #50
artumi-richard wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you realised that "this doesn't make sense", that was the time you should have asked "or is it me..." As for women in IT, I can see why IT would want women, but I can't see why women would want IT.

Not exactly. It's poorly written. It takes a lot of effort to read this and determine the author's point. She does a poor job of transferring from her bathroom story to the general issue of there being an absence of women in IT. Then she starts throwing around statistics in paragraph 6 with absolutely no segue. She goes from whiny complainer about something trivial to I'm gonna fix the world's problems by talking to…

Oh, come off it. It's not in the least hard to understand what she's talking about, and it's objectively no worse than any other self-indulgent post that gets fawned over here. Come back when you have a critique grounded in content rather than form.

Re: This is Not ok

#80

Post by rmc »

bking wrote: post #47

I 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 bei…

Even without the "temper tantrum" sentances, people would find something else to disagree with.

These debates are often not logical or rational.

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