BTW, thanks for not using that "no comments" "YC company hiring" thing. It's really annoying not to let people discuss or ask questions about the opportunity in question.
I think the people getting caught up with the sensitivity of what is a pretty beautifully relevant reference wouldn't be a very good personality fit for working at AdGrok anyway. So it's a doubly good title - it's a great metaphor for a startup, and it performs the same filtering function that the original ad did. Brilliant.
I don't understand why they feel morally superior to people creating games. Have we devolved to the point where search engine marketing is considered so prestigious an occupation that its practitioners feel they are able to make jokes about others?
One big difference is a direct revenue model, making something that creates direct value for clients is vastly different to making something cool and trying to figure out a revenue model later. Not to say that either type can both be a success and failure, just in this case it's much easier to monetize the customers you have.
Not much to say really; I've got work to get to. I'm sure there are plenty of others in this thread who are more than willing to discuss the supposed intentions behind this implicitly sexist job posting that has seemed to generate so much nonsensical noise to where the posters themselves changed it, giving the children the pacifier they so desperately wanted.
Dude, my literacy is pretty up there, and I didn't recognize the quote. I don't know that it would really tarnish its historical relevance to write "Men (or women) wanted for hazardous journey: AdGrok (YC S10) is hiring".
If their Steve Jobs quote is eligible for paraphrasing in order to seem original, I don't know why an old newspaper clipping isn't in order to seem like an equal-opportunity employer.
Its a historical quote from Ernest Shackleton when he was recruiting the crew for infamous 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition with ads in London newspapers that read:
MEN WANTED: For hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success. Sir Ernest Shackleton.
Or "Badasses wanted" or whatever. People who would have recognized the quote would still have recognized it.
I wouldn't immediately think this is a huge issue, but 1) I'm a guy, so I don't have to wait until a tiny footnote at the end to know that they're not trying to exclude me and 2) I can't help noticing all the frantic huffing and puffing by people with no stake in this company to defend the use of "men".
It's really unfortunate that this poorly-chosen title overshadows an otherwise very attractive job posting. Sexism is still sexism, whether or not it's from 1914.
-female and feminist programmer here.
I used to think that programmers were smart because we could talk to machines.
The shallowness of a lot of the posts on this emotional and contentious topic reinforce what I've learned since: on average programmers are not that smart, which is why they need to talk to simple machines.
Basically, try to discuss something that ends in "ism", and otherwise reasonable people go all ape-shit.
Well, actually, it's not up to us to decide whether it is or it isn't.
While there are surely people who are too sensitive, the dismissal-of-complaint-by-invocation-of-oversensitiveness-by-non-aggrieved-group is a classic pattern too.
I.e. it's easy to say someone's oversensitive, if you don't care about (or struggle against) what they do.
Well, actually, it's not up to us to decide whether it is or it isn't.
Bullshit. Who, other than me, should have the right to decide if my statement is too offensive to be spoken? It is absolutely up to the individual to decide if someone else's offense at your statements or opinions is due to oversensitivity or you being wrong. Who else should decide, if not the individual with the opinion in question?
Ok, first of all, I'm not trying to censor you -- I just want that to be clear. So, it's not a question of whether anything you say is "too offensive to be spoken". That was your interpretation -- not mine.
Second, I don't believe that we can or should always avoid offending others -- we don't have a right to never be offended.
What I am specifically focusing on is this attitude that "you shouldn't be offended" is conventionally used to defend the status-quo, by people who are not disadvantaged under the status-quo.
This impedes reasonable discussion and learning. Obviously if I don't have a problem with X, I don't have a problem with X. The people who do have a problem with X seem kind of weird.
The only way we can reasonably start to figure out whether or not X is a problem is by listening honestly to a bunch of people affected by X. As people unaffected by X our opinion simply doesn't count as much -- until we've made a geniune effort to understand, rather than just dismissing.
I think the rational argument is; if you are finding offense in an innocent phrase that was not intended (or even considered as) to imply a sexist attitude then you are a part of the problem you are observing.
If someone said this to belittle or discriminate; that should generate an outcry. Sadly; it does not because examples like this get the same treatment.
So, no, you probably shouldn't be offended by examples such as this. If you do; rational people will try to help by suggesting you are being over sensitive in an attempt to avoid future misunderstandings on your part.
(I'd also point out that suggesting intent in an utterly innocent phrase is not just over sensitive but outright rude to the person writing it)
Disclaimer: Let me point out that I've entered what my wife calls "grad student mode". I'm continuing to argue this point out of proportion to how much it concerns me because I see what I believe is a flaw in your argument that you are failing to acknowledge or apparently unaware of. I want to debug your argument.
Okay, the crux here is this term "innocent phrase". By describing it as such, you're presupposing that which you're trying to prove.
A deeper analysis would be to ask "what evidence could convince me that this thing I consider innocent is actually not innocent, but a symptom of a systematic problem?"
Following from that -- if there is this thing that is hidden from me -- because I think it's nothing, what practices would tend to reveal these kinds of things, and what practices would tend to keep them hidden? Am I doing things that would tend to keep it hidden?
The broader issue is that irrational discrimination does not require ill intent, only a lack of understanding. People generally don't try to be assholes -- and yet they still will be unless they question the status quo.
Is there a systematic problem? The answer to that question is complex; and the solution is not here. In fact; it is persisting the problem.
You actually see the solution in one of your other posts. The woman who uses the phrase "nigger brown". Such things are simply not an issue for this generation. It will not take many generations before people forget what racism was. People may tell you there is a systemic racist attitude in the society - but try going back 50 years. There wasn't a load of overt racism, but the systemic problem was apparent and troublesome. The improvement is dramatic.
In the next generations there is unlikely to be a gender issue; we are just in a transition where gender differences previously not considered an issue are a problem. It's not a fast process; but it is kicked off. And we are approaching the end game. A point where it is crucial to be less sensitive about specific words and actively reject true sexism.
In the short term the best solution is to avoid taking personal offence at things that mean or have no offence. It's unavoidable that people will be over sensitive; that is a systemic problem too. But we can work on that also. And by applying common sense the real sexist will become irrelevant.
Does the wording of the title imply a possibly underlying sexist attitude in the company? Not in the slightest (especially given the context). Suggesting it does is recreating a problem we are fixing. :)
I apologise for going on about it; but this is an issue that strongly concerns me. I'll leave it for now; wrong forum :)
If they need to explicitly mention that "women are welcome" in a footnote, that pretty much confirms that their choice of headline is saying that women are somewhat less than welcome.
I don't see why being too sensitive is seen as somehow worse in the startup/developer community than being too insensitive.
You'd think it would be smarter to err in the other direction...
"I don't see why being too sensitive is seen as somehow worse in the startup/developer community than being too insensitive."
I'll venture a guess: because many of us find it incredibly tiring and annoying to have to constantly stop and think "is there any possible way the following sentence could be interpreted as prejudiced against any group?" when communicating.
If person A says something non-sexual and person B finds a way to make it so (ie "that's what she said") we think person B is the dirty minded one, not A. However if person A says something non-racial and person B finds a way to make it so, we act like A has committed a grave offense and needs to apologize.
Too many people in America can't look at an ink-blot without seeing sexism or racism or discrimination of some stripe. Being "too sensitive" is often just causing controversy or problems where none needed to exist. It also makes it so that legitimate discrimination is harder to notice because it gets lost in a sea of false accusations.
The tl;dr is: save the outrage for legitimate discrimination, don't waste time & energy trying to manufacture it everywhere
I understand your sentiment, but who gets to decide what is legitimate discrimination, and what is not? Surely, it should be a compromise.
Let's take discrimination out of the picture, and look at a less contentious example.
In a relationship, how often does saying "you're overreacting, just calm down" get someone to calm down? The alternative is to, perhaps, listen to the complaint, rather than dismissing it immediately.
Finally, let me point out that there's an interesting systems thing going on here. Imagine you're raised / cultured in a system that is stacked in your favour. Would you notice it, or would you just notice that there are these annoying people who keep complaining about nothing?
While there are a number of telling studies and statistics relating to gender issues, I think there is enough missing information that it isn't really possible to say much of anything intelligent on the subject. Given that we literally can't even tell the difference between a mental illness and a physical illness much of the time, I don't think science is ready to put a number on the percentage of the entrepreneurship gender gap that's attributable to sexism. For all we know it could be due to social factors or biological factors that are so non-obvious that no one has even thought of them yet.
I know plenty of women who would have no problem with any of the above. These things happen at some startups, don't happen at others, some women wouldn't want a workplace like this, others would enjoy it. And this is just one of many, many factors. Again, without more information you can't really say anything intelligent.
I know plenty of women that look at porn, one female friend continually makes jokes about raping me, and if you don't think that women talk about men when they're not around...
Not that I totally disagree with you, and most of my peer group is under 30. Just saying.
> I know plenty of women that look at porn, one female friend continually makes jokes about raping me, and if you don't think that women talk about men when they're not around...
While you're right that this isn't in a professional setting, I've also seen plenty of shenanigans on the job, too... admittedly, this has a lot to do with the individuals and the culture.
Yes, I believe that among developers in general and software startups in particular you will find an average to below average number of people with a sexism problem. You will however find an above average number of people who a) can't take a joke b) are somewhat bone headed in making inappropriate jokes. c) people who fall in to categories A and B at the same time.
People believe lots of different things. What is inappropriate to say in front of one person is not inappropriate to say in front of another. I believe that given their target audience nothing in the post was inappropriate. The slight but vocal response would seem to back that claim.
To tell you the truth I must be so far in category B that I still don't understand the protest. Man has been used as a synonym for human for as long as I can remember. That would make men being the plural of man a synonym for people.
To be completely fair, the original ad that was referenced really was looking exclusively for males.
But does this mean that we should avoid all references to a past in which people were less enlightened? Must we pretend that the world was never that way, or pretend that everything that happened in that world was evil because of it?
Those who jump on the slightest whisper that men and women, or people of different races, or cultures, or whatever, might be different in some ways are deluding themselves. That's not to say that we can put a value on any of these differences, nor that these differences are any more than statistical tendencies and not applicable to individuals.
I'm a male. I don't give a flying fuck about 'culture'. There is no culture. It matters not a jot to me. It never has. Why should it???
I grew up hacking away on my own in my bedroom floor hunched in front of a PC making raycasting demos at 4am. WTF has culture got to do with me doing that???
Are you trying to say that I started programming because I was embraced by some culture??? Are you saying that women are put off solely because of this mythical culture you speak of? Grow up.
Once you have a few kids, you learn that most differences in the sexes are genetic.
Women enjoy communicating. They're social beings on the whole. Sitting talking to a computer does not appeal. This is not rocket science. It's not environmental. It's hard wiring. Women = nurturing, communication. Men = hunt, build. If you can't see that, I'm not sure what hope there is for you.
You realize that the average man doesn't enjoy programming either, right?
Why shit on the exceptional women who do?
Also regarding kids -- my experience is that while there are differences in wiring, parents and friends do subtle things from even before birth that tend to skew things differently for different genders. Whoa anecdote deadlock.
Why are you so angry? People rarely make sense when they're angry -- perhaps this is true here, too?
It's just so tiring people being offended by this sort of thing.
Also, TBH, I kinda find it offensive to suggest that the only reason I started programming was because I'm a male, and because there's apparently some 'male friendly culture'.
I'm angry because I hate the whole "Everyone is absolutely equal" movement. They're not. Everyone is not equal. We're all different. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. Embrace those differences. Especially in the sexes.
I hear you. I find a lot of activist arguments annoying, because I'm a wealthy focused guy with a 150 IQ, who's happy to sit in the basement working on the next big thing. :)
It doesn't mean they're wrong, though. I've seen many examples of just gross sexism from techies who were convinced those other people with the shirt-bumps were just whiners.
> It's hard wiring. Women = nurturing, communication. Men = hunt, build.
Let's ignore all the mountains of evidence to the contrary and say that, on average, you are absolutely correct.
Have you read Harrison Bergeron? Go on, it's easy to find on google. I'll wait.
Okay, done? Good. Now think about this:
No matter how correct you may be about genetic predestination, your sexist attitudes, and the actions you take based upon those assumptions and beliefs, create a deep moral wrong against any woman who dares to be exceptional.
Let's ignore all the mountains of evidence to the contrary and say that, on average, you are absolutely correct.
Please, trot out some of the evidence. I can find plenty that agrees with his statement that men and women are wired differently. I'll get you started:
Aside from that, it makes zero sense from an evolutionary standpoint that both genders would adapt to have the same abilities, preferences, and attitudes. I know it's hard for your PC worldview, but you need to step back from your anger and self-righteousness and examine the evidence.
I'm not interested in debating about just how different men and women are, and in which respects, and what parts are environmental and what parts genetic. At the end of the day it doesn't matter, which is why I said "let's ignore...".
If a woman wants to move beyond what is 'normal' for her gender, why is it acceptable to discriminate against her?
It doesn't matter a bit whether 'normal' is biological in origin or cultural.
Anyone who is offended by a sexist title (this one is an apt historical reference as well) is probably going to have a problem in a startup where employees "[t]ell jokes that would make sailors blush". I bet a fair number of those jokes are sexist, too.
This may be an effective filter for a sexual harassment lawsuit.
It's not so much "offended" as the fact that I do not like what developer culture has become.
Yeah, it always breaks my heart when I hear the horror stories from female hackers. For every well-publicized groping at a conference or porn-filled slide deck, there's a dozen female hackers who stay silent or just complain to friends.
A weird fact: Decent, non-sexist guys have much less data about what goes on than either female hackers or sexist jerks. There's some sort of protocol the sexist jerks use to identify each other, and they generally don't act out unless they think they're among either friends, or targets.
If the fashion world were shitting all over straight men, it would be wrong whether it was one straight guy looking to make it as a designer or a hundred thousand.
Their choice of headline is a reference to a historical document from almost a century ago. Would it be better if we: a) rewrite history, or b) never reference it?
Dude, we're not talking about The 300 here. It's not a scholarly work, a historical piece, nor even a stand-up-comedy routine. It's a job ad. That matters.
HP Lovecraft's poem "On the Creation of the Nigger" is also a historical document from a century ago. We should not bury it, as it's an important document. I like the Cthulhu mythos, but I wouldn't quote that poem in a job ad in 2010.
Now of course people will reply "saying 'Men' isn't as bad as saying 'Nigger'", and miss the point.
They chose the headline; I did not -- and it seems pretty clear from more than just the headline that the AdGrok folks value anti-PC posturing quite highly.
If it were me choosing the headline, and I had a desire to reference Shackleton's journey, what's wrong with "Wanted for hazardous journey: [...]"?
First, point to anything else in that blog post that indicates any kind of "anti-PC posturing". Specifically anything that reveals any kind of gender bias. I'm guessing that you can't without revealing some gender biases of your own, but try me.
Second, there's a difference between "anti-PC" and anti-equality.
For example, I can say "fuck political correctness" because I think running around mincing your words in a (pointless and futile) attempt to avoid offending anyone is cowardly, but that doesn't mean that I hate minorities or am against equality. It just means that I think "political correctness" is stupid. If you're offended by my opinions, that's really not my problem; it's yours.
is saying that women are somewhat less than welcome.
It's more of a signal to marketing professionals. That 'men wanted for hazardous journey' ad is famous enough to be cited in just about any textbook/college course on advertising and marketing - it generated a huge volume of replies when published, confounding the intuitive belief that effective advertising requires exclusive focus on the positive. They're seeking to attract people with a similar ability to see the big picture (both superficially and in the abstracted context of the ad biz), and emphasizing that their actual hiring will be extremely selective.
You probably don't believe that the job is actually physically hazardous (I hope), and can appreciate the metaphorical use of the quotation in relation to the uncertainty of disrupting an extremely competitive established market. Within that context, it makes no sense to interpret a single word in purely literal terms, any more than it's sensible to think that citing Alice in Wonderland means one is addressing oneself exclusively to people named Alice.
Let's say, for the sake of devil's advocacy, the historical quote was "Women wanted for hazardous journey". If the ad had used that as its headline, would you males feel encouraged to apply?
It depends, in this alternate history has women been used as a common word to mean person of either sex? If it has, like man has in this history, then I would not be discouraged.
I have used AdGrok to some degree, and while I have no interest in applying for the job, I can express my confidence in their can-do attitude and sense of humor. To the Pole!
It may be worth noting that although the expedition was a failure, that was pretty much a matter of bad luck with the behavior of the ice floes.
And as awful an experience as it must have been for the men involved, it's also worth noting (perhaps especially in this context) that not a single person lost his life, owing largely to some incredible leadership from Shackleton, and amazing skills from much of his crew.
It's pretty obvious that your intent was innocent. But the fact that you didn't realize how awful a headline that is sends a different message.
On the other hand, it's not just you guys -- i.e. you're no worse than the avg. tech company, FWIW.
This is a classic example of the techie "we're a meritocracy, so we couldn't possibly be sexist" thinking that's so common. It's not the pat on the ass and glass-ceiling kind of sexism, to be sure, but it's the STFU 'cause no one's grabbing your ass kind of sexism.
It's pretty obvious that your intent was innocent. But the fact that you didn't realize how awful a headline that is sends a different message.
An apt way of putting it. Thank you. I wasn't familiar with the historical quote, and I only saw the headline on Hacker News. My initial reaction was, "Oh, good grief. Do we have to go through GenderFail, SmutOnRails, etc., every 15 minutes? I hate this conversation. It must be even less fun for female hackers, who can't win either way."
It shouldn't be an awful headline; that's the sad thing. I submit that those taking issue with it (i.e. those pointing out a potential offence) are actually part of the problem.
One solution would be t encourage as many innocent headlines as it takes till it simple doesn't matter whether you say men, women or Martian - it just means people.... (unfortunately that means people will be offended, so possibly not the sanest approach)
Ascribing an intent to someone who clearly doesn't mean it is just not cricket :)
> Ascribing an intent to someone who clearly doesn't mean it is just not cricket :)
Sure, but it betrays a certain cluelessness. I.e. It's not so much that this is an outrageous headline -- ZOMG off with their heads, public apology, blah blah.
It's more a case of -- if they're clueless about this, then what else are they clueless about -- especially from the POV of a prospective female employee.
E.g. I know of a sweet old grandma who described the colour of her sofa as "nigger brown". She had no ill intent, and I don't ascribe any to her. BUT ... it's evidence that she may have other ideas that I may not agree with -- especially if she's my boss.
Evidence of cluelessness is ... at the very least ... evidence of cluelessness.
BUT ... it's evidence that she may have other ideas that I may not agree with -- especially if she's my boss.
The cluelessness there is simply a lack of understanding that modern society is not the same as older society. You could, of course, take offence at what she said. But that is disingenuous.
However; if she treats you differently, directs it at you, makes it a bad thing - that is a problem to address. Sadly; by addressing every perceived offence it trivializes the issue and persists the problem.
Treating someone differently because they have attitude incompatible with current society (with the caveat, of course, that it is someone from the older generation) is problematic.
It is not right to consider things such as this as cluelessness. Because the cluenessness is in the people taking offence at very little. Actually; I can understand those taking personal offence. And indeed support a reasoned plea for more sensitivity.
But I can't agree with those pointing out possible or perceived offence. Sure, if there is intent to be sexist or imply female developers are not welcome, I am with you. But as there is not, this is simply creating a problem that does not exist. The cluelessness is in believing there is a problem here; there is only a problem if one is created.
I'm sure such things are done in good faith; but it is casing more problem and masking genuine offence.
There is never anything wrong in a word. Only in the intent.
There is never anything wrong in a word. Only in the intent.
I have no horse in this race at all. But to suggest (as the above quote suggests to me - I hope I'm misreading!) that words have no power, or choice of words doesn't matter, is naive in the extreme.
Don't think it's obvious, if you just look at the headline. Is the integrity of the quote more important than looking non-biased against women programmers?
I usually come out pretty strongly against programmer-culture misogyny, however subtle, but here we're talking about a pretty famous quotation and I would answer to your question, "yes". There's a difference between sexism and historically-weighted badassness.
One could argue there's a literacy-filter being applied here more than a gender-filter.
> Yes, absolutely. It also pre-selects for those that have a sense of humor.
Why do minorities need to have a sense of humour about themselves? I do, but why do I have to to get into your club?
FWIW, I've made countless raunchy jokes that would have gotten me flagged by HR in a staid shop. The thing is -- I take responsibility for that. I.e. if I offended someone it's not necessarily because they have no sense of humour.
Because if the majority can't universally dismiss someone else taking offense as "having no sense of humor", then they run the risk of admitting that they might have said something wrong, or that they could have said it in a better way.
Dangit, answering rhetorical questions again...
Personally, the funny part to me is people arguing that the "integrity" of a quote that's already been hacked up must be "maintained".
The men who posted the ad would have laughed their socks off if a woman responded. Sure, it's immensely inspiring, but I wouldn't have been allowed to go on that expedition back in the day and it kind of makes me feel like I wouldn't be allowed to work at AdGrok as well, or at least looked down upon ("A woman programmer? Psh! Get back to the kitchen.")
Unfortunately for the purposes of this argument, am male. I would say that I'm OK with the quote for artistic purposes, perhaps vary the call to action in other contexts to avoid arousing any problems of bias...
What I would really like to see, although of course you may not want to disclose this, is what sort of projects this person would work on in the first couple of months.
For everybody else, I spent 2 years working on SEM and I think AdGrok is a great product, fwiw. See eg Clickable or KeyMetric as competitors; Clickable is self serve SEM on GYM, at least when I interviewed there. This is a much better interface and helps solve the biggest problem for small business sem, which isn't technical but is convincing people of value and helping nontechnical people use SEM without burning through too much money on account managers.
Too bad I hate writing web apps, because this looks like an awesome opportunity.
Are you planning on setting up call fowarding ala clickable / yodle / reachlocal? Overlaying that information would be awesome, though it's a huge pita...
I support this headline. I'm sure these men would hire a female capable of providing the talent they require, and of fitting in with the culture of their workplace. I long to escape to such a place that doesn't cater to people looking for a reason to be offended, when no offense is warranted or intended.
