Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#81

Post by smt88 » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:19 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #21

sakaloda wrote: post #13

Diversity in tech will never work. You are going against reality if you think everyone has the same aptitude to be good at math/engineering. Look at the data below. SAT Math by race [1] : - Asian/Pacific Islander = 598 - White = 534 - Mexican American = 461 - Black = 429 SAT Math by gender [2] : - Men = 537 - Women = 503 [1] https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=171 [2] http://www.fairtest.org/sat-race-gender-…

This is sleight of hand. Even supposing all that "data" to be accurate, you assume your conclusion by acting as if you know what the reason for it is. But, as we all know, nothing is more highly disputed. This is not the way to an open-minded and open-hearted discussion about the truth; it's a tangent to yet another generic ideological flamewar. That violates the HN guidelines. Since you've done this repeatedly befor…

It's not just sleight of hand. Race isn't even a scientifically defined concept, and it can't currently be defined or measured with existing technology. Everyone is a wide mix of many races.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#82

Post by DSMan195276 » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:19 PM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #28

Personal story time...I was at a recent conference, listening to men, women given talks. One of the women, in her talk, uses an interaction with her daughter as the framing narrative for the talk (imagine Socrates and Glaucon, only this woman and her daughter). Almost immediately, three guys to my right start making fun of the speaker, sotto voce, making all manner of little jokes to themselves, that are becoming inc…

I would agree. I'm not quite sure talks about "being a woman in tech" really solve the problem unfortunately (And I think that was the intent of the article), but clearly there is a problem that has to be fixed. That said, I think the other comments just show how this behavior is allowed, which is really sad. Imagine if the men in your story were making comments about the speaker and their child being black - I doubt the comments here would be as 'kindly' as they're being to these men.

I perfectly understand that it could have been a joke - but if you're going to make a joke like that in a public setting, then you make sure others around you can't hear it. If you're wiling to say something like that loud enough that others can hear you, then it's not really a joke anymore.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#83

Post by StavrosK » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:19 PM UTC

Soledad came to my city (Thessaloniki) for a conference a few months ago, and gave a very interesting talk on the new audio/graphics APIs in browsers. It was a great talk, and, I agree with her, much more interesting than "I'm a woman, here's my experience".

I also dislike the mentality this mindset implies that I, as a man, should be surprised that a woman can code, and should therefore ask her about how she managed that feat, as if it's not pretty much exactly the same as how I started.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#84

Post by dang » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:20 PM UTC

not_anit_woman wrote: post #45

Then why are we not allowed to have Tall well-built white men clubs?

We've banned this account for trolling.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12130026 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#85

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:20 PM UTC

fdsaaf wrote: post #58

Frondo wrote: post #28

Personal story time...I was at a recent conference, listening to men, women given talks. One of the women, in her talk, uses an interaction with her daughter as the framing narrative for the talk (imagine Socrates and Glaucon, only this woman and her daughter). Almost immediately, three guys to my right start making fun of the speaker, sotto voce, making all manner of little jokes to themselves, that are becoming inc…

Policing speech like that just breeds resentment. You not only guaranteed that these people later made the same comments to each other in private, but also inched a bit closer to resenting people like you and your entire cause. Mind your own business. You have no right to interfere in a conversation among friends, even one that triggers you. If you want to encourage change in the world, be the change and set an examp…

[deleted]

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#86

Post by dang » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:20 PM UTC

dont_spout_lies wrote: post #52

not_anit_woman wrote: post #45

Then why are we not allowed to have Tall well-built white men clubs?

You are.

If you abuse HN like this again we will ban not only the throwaway account but your primary account as well.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#87

Post by samplers » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:21 PM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #28

Personal story time...I was at a recent conference, listening to men, women given talks. One of the women, in her talk, uses an interaction with her daughter as the framing narrative for the talk (imagine Socrates and Glaucon, only this woman and her daughter). Almost immediately, three guys to my right start making fun of the speaker, sotto voce, making all manner of little jokes to themselves, that are becoming inc…

>When one of them says loudly enough for me and others to hear, "Your daughter sounds like a real bitch! hur hur", I turned to them and said, "You guys need to knock this off now."

/r/thathappened category

This really sound so fake that I actually created an account to call this out.

>The thing is, I don't think those guys were bad people, I don't think they sat there in their minds thinking, "let's tear the woman down". I really don't think they thought about it at all. I also don't think they'd have sat there, chattering away, if a man had used the same framing story (father and son, father and daughter).

.....

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#88

Post by dang » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:21 PM UTC

not_anit_woman wrote: post #48

Your right, women get hired more easily and get paid more, so it is very much not symmetrical.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12130029 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#89

Post by StavrosK » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:22 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #68

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I don't have anywhere near the empathy for those yokels mouthing off, that others seem to have. Real dipshits. No way they are innocently unthoughtful or unconsidered. They seem to have issues.

I don't think anyone on this thread is expressing empathy for them, or approving of their behavior. They were clearly being disrespectful and immature (i.e., dipshits) during someone's talk, even if the rhetorical mechanic being used came across as silly. The objection is to the too-easily-made assumption that a male presenter using the same setup wouldn't be mocked by these guys. The most you can conclude about that…

Yeah, I agree with you. I attended a similar talk by a woman framing the talk about the time when her mom died, and, guess what. Nobody said that her mom or sister sounded like a bitch. Does that mean sexism doesn't exist? It probably just means that there were no assholes in the audience, like the GP's comment just means that there were a few assholes there.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#90

Post by lalos » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:22 PM UTC

Enjoyed 'but also pigeonholes you into “talking about being a woman in tech”, instead of “woman who knows her tech”.'

Subtle difference, I believe that's the purpose of this up and coming podcast show that I've been following [1]. Women having a space to talk about tech instead of talking about how's it like to be a women in tech.

[1] https://thewomenintechshow.com