The original "Primer On Sexism" : 8 points and dead, 0 comments
The Rebuttal: 150 points and rising, 140+ comments
If that in and of itself doesn't say volumes about the sexist attitudes of the majority of HN readers - and as such, the tech industry as a whole - I don't know what does.
Surely a long, thoughtful article, with tons of context in the form of links and research, written by the creator of Modernizr and a former Appler beats a shouty "enraged me so much" rebuttal by a designer at a minor UK web agency for 7 months and prior to that, a movie usher for 2 years?
People on HN are fond of saying things like, "I couldn't care less whether someone has a vagina or a penis, as long as they write great software". So how come Laura The Troll is getting so much attention for "telling it like it is", just because she is an "actual girl"?
I am an "actual girl" too and I am seriously disappointed. We were offered a 5-star meal but we pounced on a 99-cent gas station burger because it had a picture of a ripe tomato on it, so hey, it must be healthy.
And Laura, if you are reading this, a small bit of advice for you. Next time an article "enrages" you, re-read it and I guarantee you will see that it doesn't say what you think it does.
I'm really disappointed you decided to use phrases like "Laura The Troll."
It's funny. Those who've disagreed with Laura have come down to name calling and such.
Faruk's a good guy. But because he worked for Apple means nothing. Absolutely squat. If you judge people's worth on who they've worked for, then that's worrying. It's not who you've worked for - it's what you've done (Modernizr was a good link in this.) I know many Googler's, Appler's who spend a lot of time writing minor code for example.
But how does working for Apple and writing Modenizr qualify him to speak about sexism? That's got nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Laura's not the only person who's expressed this view. Many people in the comemnts have agreed (and disagreed)
I think it doesn't say volumes about the sexist attitudes. It says volumes that people agree with her more. I'm sorry it doesn't fit in your belief box, but that doesn't make it trolling, nor does it make it wrong.
I ain't touching the whole argument over form, but this:
> Laura's not the only person who's expressed this view. Many people in the comemnts have agreed (and disagreed)
I think gets at precisely the point. Your average HN reader, the one who's making these agreeing or disagreeing comments, is probably a cis man who doesn't think of himself as sexist, and understandably doesn't want to think that his industry is sexist either.
The criticism here is that a relatively thin article denying sexism is being given more weight and credence than a much more exhaustive article documenting sexism, because 1) it's saying what we want to hear, and 2) its author is a woman, which-- well, I shouldn't need to point out the irony there.
Read the comments on her blog too. First is from a woman, and go down.
There are people on both sides of the fence, as you'd expect. But the the original commenter was so blindsided in her views about how she thought the OP was blinded in her views, she didn't even stop to smell the irony.
Could you be a little clearer on what you're hoping I'll take away from those comments? In case it wasn't clear, the gender of commenters isn't that important to me here.
There may be people on both sides of the fence, but there aren't two sets of facts. It's "great", if we can apply that word to what should be normal, that some women today haven't had personal experience with sexism, but that doesn't constitute a point of evidence against women who have.
Our culture as a whole has some very deep-seated not-so-subtle problems with gender politics. Our industry, with its absurd gender disparity, should be assumed ceteris paribus to be at least that bad, though I'd wager it's a little subtler and a little deeper-seated. We, all of us, are basically good people who really wish we didn't have an actual problem, that there's some benign explanation for the gap. We wish all the blog posts and articles about endemic sexism were overblown from a few freak occurrences, regrettable but not something we need to concern ourselves with discussing or fixing.
We should be deeply suspicious of anything which promises to fulfill that wish without evidence.
She has had personal experience with sexism. But her argument was also that according to the original .net magazine article; every woman fears being raped all day every day. It was sensationalist.
I agree with a lot of what you have to say. She generally doesn't concern herself with posts like these but she felt the need to considering a man (I know you don't care about gender but it's important factor that a man is telling her how she feels) is saying what sexism is to EVERYONE. Name calling EVERY man on it (almost as if saying he knows better.)
> But her argument was also that according to the original .net magazine article; every woman fears being raped all day every day.
I contend that this is a sensationalist statement. The source for this claim, if I understand it, is this:
...our world has a history, spanning thousands of years, of
violence as a means to silence and control women. This is
simply not the case for men, and never has been. Every
woman carries that historical weight with her wherever she
goes, whereas very few men even have an understanding of
how heavy that weight is.
That is simply true, as every African American carries the legacy of chattel slavery anywhere they go. Does this mean every black man is constantly afraid he'll be beaten up and arrested? Of course not. But ignoring that legacy will leave you profoundly confused on the subject of race relations.
Because women do fear rape. No, not the way a hyperbolic strawman fears being knocked down, but day by day in little ways the fear of violence becomes another part of your life.
That creepy guy on the bus who said you looked pretty? He's probably just a harmless old dude. But then he moved to sit next to you and didn't say anything and you were worried he was going to touch you. So you get off at the next stop even though you aren't home yet, because the last time something like this happened that guy found out where you worked and took the same bus as you for a week... And you know he's probably harmless and you feel like an idiot waiting for the next bus except your best friend was raped at a party and had to get an abortion and never told anyone but you and God, why are you even thinking about that? Why is it so hard for men to just leave you alone?
Since we're avoiding generalizations, I will be specific: Every single woman that I have known intimately enough to know such things has such stories. Those who had not been victims of rape themselves, that is. Of course, they don't complain about it, because complaining about it has never, ever helped.
Does that mean "every woman fears being raped all day every day"? Stop talking like that. You know what it means.
> She generally doesn't concern herself with posts like these but she felt the need to considering a man (I know you don't care about gender but it's important factor that a man is telling her how she feels) is saying what sexism is to EVERYONE.
I will charitably grant she mistook his speaking in generalities to be making pronouncements. For example, he says "A group of all men just doesn't seem as welcoming to women," to which she retorts "in general I find that men are in fact, more welcoming". They're plainly speaking past each other; he spoke of a statistical fact, such as "Black men are more likely to be arrested", and she responded with a personal fact, such as "I'm not a criminal."
It's obvious why these sorts of general statements are so dangerous, since they're so easy to misinterpret or use for evil (and tacking on some kind of IMHO doesn't help at all). In general, I'd avoid making them in the first place, except there are questions we need them to answer: "Why are so many black men being arrested?" or "Why are so few women entering tech?"
So I think I'd be a lot more charitable toward her position if I saw some indication that she got what the original article was actually about: "I'm concerned about the gender gap in tech. I think it's an important thing for us to be talking about."
Then we can all work to figure out a way to talk about it that doesn't leave some people feeling unrepresented.
I ran out of time to reply to every comment yesterday, but as Faruk linked to this as one of his best comments, I thought I would take the time to reply now.
The example of African Americans carrying the legacy of slavery with them is not a fair comparison to women. African Americans are a group of people who, whilst now large and diverse, mostly share a common history which in the grand scheme of things was not all that long ago. You could use Native Americans or Jewish people as similar examples. Women don't have a shared history in the same way. Women have suffered terribly throughout history (and in some countries they still do now) by either horrible violence, being treated by second class citizens or both. However there was no one cultural atrocity which affected all women.
I'm aware of ways in which women have been persecuted. I'm also aware of how people have been persecuted based on race, religion, sexuality, age. Those things all contribute to my understanding of history, and I think it's extremely important not to ignore them, but not ignoring them, and not being weighed down thinking about them every day are very different things.
Stories like you describe - I can honestly say that I don't have a story like that. It might be that I've been extremely fortunate and I'm in a small minority. It might also be that I try very hard not to jump to conclusions. I don't want to unfairly judge people based on what is probably an entire harmless gesture, but I completely understand why other women do. When writing my post I started to wonder if I was weird because I didn't fear being raped. If the article could have that effect on me, isn't it possible that articles and comments like this are actually detrimental to that problem?
Finally, I don't think that "I'm concerned about the gender gap in tech. I think it's an important thing for us to be talking about" was what the original article was about. It's probably what the original intention of the article was, but it's not how the article turned out. I actually see the gender gap talked about a lot (both by women and men). I barely go a day without seeing someone or other talk about it on Twitter. My Twitter feed clearly is by no means a representation of the whole industry as a) there is a definite bias towards UXers and designers, and b) it's an entirely self-selected list on my part. However it does show that these discussions are already happening, amongst some communities at least, on a regular basis.
I think that an article that was truly about the gender gap in tech would actually talk about the gender gap in tech. There were so many issues that the article actually could have talked about - disparity in pay, women being overlooked for promotions, women getting unfairly let go or not hired because of pregnancy, women finding that their opinions are ignored or not even asked for, women feeling left out because the guys go for drinks after work and they're not asked to go with. The article did briefly touch on speakers at conferences, but for me personally that's a less important issue. I go to conferences a couple of times a year; I go to the office 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year, and issues like pay and promotions affect my whole life.
That last paragraph is something I regret not putting in my original post as it helps to demonstrate that I was not criticising the intention of writing the article; I was criticising the way it was written and the things that it chose to concentrate on.
Thanks for taking the time, I appreciate the thought-out response. I completely see where you're coming from, and I hope I didn't sound too critical of you personally.
I do just want to comment on one tangent:
> However there was no one cultural atrocity which affected all women.
I don't think this is as big a difference as you do. There is no Holocaust, no singular event of great subjugation, in the history of African Americans.
The Atlantic slave trade and the ensuing institution of racial slavery wasn't an event. It happened day by day, one ship, one beating, one auction, one rape, one lynching at a time, generation by generation, for hundreds of years, well into the last century.
It is the same situation with women. No, no one ever decided to round up all the females and shoot them; but day by day, one gospel, one edict, one rape, one revisionist history at a time, backed up by very real violence, women have had their natural rights to life and liberty and property and justice neatly excised and kept in a box for safekeeping. In nearly every civilization for ten thousand years of recorded history.
If we don't call that an atrocity, it is only because the word is not large enough to contain such atrociousness.
Personally, it was painful to read that first comment. The attitude that the issue is somehow minor because one hasn't dealt with it in "x amount of years" in the industry is completely moot. These scenarios depend so much on many different factors and tossing it out the window so willingly paints a very broad stroke of ignorance and privilege.
Oh. She doesn't think it's not important nor does she think it doesn't happen. She thought it was sensationalist. She thought that Faruks comments were incredibly broad themselves. Feeling thay saying that every woman in tech fears rape every day and such were over the top.
But how does working for Apple and writing Modenizr qualify him to speak about sexism?
It doesn't - it sounds like an appeal to authority. My guess is that had the roles been reversed, with Faruk as a male arguing how he didn't see sexism, and Laura as a female arguing otherwise, that the whole "but Faruk worked for Apple and wrote Modenizr" line wouldn't give his viewpoints on sexism more credence with the parent poster.
And I am really disappointed that you've comment-bombed all over this discussion for a good long while before disclosing that you are the author's roommate as well as the copy editor.
Why does that matter? You have an extremely aggressive and dismissive viewpoint when it comes to those who disagree with you.
I'm sorry that you feel HN readers are upvoting the wrong things but maybe (just maybe) it's not so bad. The article you are defending used rape 10 times to make an argument about sexism. I think even Rudy Giuliani would think that excessive.
One of the first comments I wrote explained I am her flat mate. I am also the original poster of this article. So that in itself shows bias. I have been very vigilante to show that I am both, and that I know both authors.
What are your thoughts on the rashness of publishing her post, rather than attempting (more than just Twitter) to improve the article. What we could have had is a truly great (and revised) article on the top of HN rather than this troll inducing post and discussion?
Basically; I copy edited this article once she was done so I'm biased. But I do agree the rashness didn't help. HOWEVER! She was planning on writing something like this for many months.
In the long run, I think a calmer article would have helped her but I absolutely agree with what she has to say.
I don't think either article is really that great or deep, but Laura's is a lot more interesting and better written. Faruk's reads like a well-meaning bland HR presentation that everyone ignores.
I also am disturbed by how dismissive you are, but my experience in tech is that when sexism comes up, it is always the women who are the meanest. Whether it's the experienced woman who insists she has never experienced sexism and you are a silly little fool for bringing it up. Or the woman who can't tolerate anyone questioning the latest politically correct spiel of the day like Faruk's.
So she doesn't have that much experience? How about actually rebutting her arguments? Or do you just not like the idea of someone questioning these things? How about writing your own article?
I'm fully aware I've been in the industry for 6 months. I said so, very clearly, in my post. I wanted very much to make sure that people knew that I have only been in the industry a short time but this was my experience so far. Frankly I find the idea that just because someone has a small amount of experience their opinion is invalid ridiculous and insulting. The only reason a newcomer's opinion might not be worth listening to is if they are pretending they have a wealth of experience. At no point did I do that.
I can only assume that the 2 years as a movie usher you're referring to is the 2 years as a teenager I spent volunteering at my local non-profit cinema whilst also doing my A-level exams and working a part-time job. I'm pretty sure the only place this is even mentioned online is on my LinkedIn profile, at the absolute bottom, after you would have scrolled past the various jobs I have held in sales and marketing, and local government (where as I mentioned in the post, I did in fact experience some sexism).
As for the final comment, I did indeed reread the article several hours later, before I wrote my post, to ensure that I still felt the same way. I actually found MORE that I disagreed with on a second read-through.
And true to form, this entry appears to be sliding down the Hacker News front page (it's the last entry as I write) despite having a ton of upvotes.
The reason? Flagging. This has happened numerous times on HN when any discussion of sexism comes up- when I complained about it before I was told that the article were "not relevant" or "rehashes". It got to the point where a thread with 70+ comments was deleted because so many people flagged it.
Depressing- especially because it means that most people aren't even aware that it's going on.
Agreed. People seem to be incredibly invested in believing that intelligent people could ever be sexist.
When I've called out people over the years for being sexist or racist, often they don't even realize immediately they'd said something offensive because it usually is subtle rather than overt - off-color jokes, sexualized images or inappropriate topics.
90% of regulars here could have written the original article. Therefore, there was little to be gained by reading it.
The rebuttal may not have been of great importance, but we couldn't have written it. It's one person's experience (though there are probably a significant number like her) and it adds to our model of the situation. Also, it makes a significant meta-point: stereotyping is bad even when done by the self-proclaimed champions of the stereotyped group.
Also, her employers are a MAJOR agency. They have been partners of the year for Windows Phone, their client list is both long and high-profile.
"And Laura, if you are reading this, a small bit of advice for you. Next time an article "enrages" you, re-read it and I guarantee you will see that it doesn't say what you think it does."
I think you need to take your own advice.
This is a really unfortunate treatment of a serious topic. There are valuable insights, but the signal to noise ratio is too low.
To be clear, I'm not launching the "I didn't like your TONE"; I'm launching the "I didn't like how you trivialized and subverted your own argument".
To take just the first 3 points made:
1. Is the objection to the inclusion of a glossary? The serious criticism is that sexism is not rape, and makes it sound alarmist, though both are power displays. But to belittle the point by a solipsistic argument ( I don’t know about you but I haven’t exactly read a lot of news about rapes at web agencies lately ) only fuels people who would repurpose that line to say they haven't seen sexism at their company.
2. Is the objection to the inclusion of research? The serious criticism is that she rejects the exclusion of several self-collected data points, even if they have not been compiled by sociologists. But to subvert the point with a general aspersion to research at large ( Some research is great, but a lot of research is totally skewed to prove a point, and it’s not always easy to tell which is which ) only fuels people who would repurpose that line about the point trying to be made.
3. The serious criticism is that he has unsubstantiated assertions ( all women find a male-dominated industry “less appealing” and all-male groups less welcoming ), but the trivialization that immediately follows ( at the very least you need to preface them with ‘some research has found’ or ‘many women find that’ ) fundamentally denies the value that statistics, and empirical measurement, plays in social science.
It sounds like there's a kernel of something valuable, but the signal to noise ratio is too low. I'd love to re-read this after a few revisions.
Just because she didn't write as if her blog were an academic journal doesn't mean she isn't giving a serious topic the treatment it deserves. Her post exists to state that "the whole [.net] article is hyperbolic generalisation."
There is certainly sexism in the tech industry. It's not terribly common or widespread, but it's there.
But the tech industry is also famously self-selective. Many people in the industry self-selected for it when they were pre-teens. Spending hours upon hours programming in BASIC or whatever on their C64s or TRS-80s before they were out of elementary school...before thoughts of sexism enter the consciousness. There is very little preventing young girls from getting involved with tech at a very young age except simple lack of interest.
Anecdotally, I remember growing up and horsing around with many friends on our 8-bit computers before any of us had 2-digit ages. As I grew up the friends and computers changed, but the basic demographic didn't. When my peer group hit puberty we would have killed a member of the peer group to get a girl involved in our group of nerds.
Many of my friends had sisters, none of their sisters cared the first thing about what we were doing. A few of their sisters showed some interest at times, but always seemed to have other priorities. This must be a shared experience as the type of group arrangement in the Big Bang Theory resonates with all of the tech industry males I know.
It wasn't until half-way through high-school that we finally lured a couple of girls into our group, but we spent most of the time teaching them basic computer skills than nerding out with them. Nevertheless I never heard anybody put the female members of our group down, or act like they weren't capable of eventually doing the high-nerd things that we were doing. To the person, everybody was helpful, and the girls hung around and one even tried her hand at majoring in CS...before changing majors to International Relations.
Happily, things have changed for the better. The number of women in tech has dramatically increased since those early days. It's not 50/50 by any stretch of the imagination. But there are actual women in tech these days doing cool things. They've self-selected to enter it and have put in the time to become good at it, and have managed to ignore the real sexism (such as it is) and that's very very cool.
It's an additional barrier that many males don't have to deal with, but I think self-selection at an early age is an even larger one.
> There is very little preventing young girls from getting involved with tech at a very young age except simple lack of interest
I disagree. Various gender roles are pushed onto girls at an incredibly young age. Look at the boys and girls aisles at your local toy shop. We teach our boys to be builders and makers. We teach our girls to be designers and caregivers (at least in US stores). Our society tells many young girls that building stuff on computers is not a womanly thing to do.
That is of course changing as efforts are made to foster a desire to build in younger girls, but at least anecdotally that attitude hasn't hit mainstream.
Its interesting that the tech industry has so high number of people that learned the basic work skills at a very low age.
Very few other professions has this. A plumber did not go around fixing pipes at age 10. A medic, while they might have played doctor, do not really learn any of the basic skills until hitting university education. The lawyer when he was 10 is unlikely to be reading law documents.
Beyond maybe the mechanic profession, what other professions beyond IT has this property?
If that's too cheap a shot, I believe most professional musicians began learning their instrument as children, though I struggle to find a source for that belief.
Chemistry comes to mind. Actually, all fields of the natural sciences seem to have an extent of people playing around with X when they were just children and then somehow magically going on to doing it after high school as well.
Actually, I would go so far as saying every profession with a high ratio of very passionate people and low-ish barrier to entry will exhibit something like this.
Here's an example from my own experience: There's a significant number of trans women who work in tech. And almost all of them started transitioning as adults, in their 20s and 30s. So, they had the "benefit" of male socialization growing up, and being encouraged more to dabble in computers/tech/engineering. Much fewer trans men (and non trans women) in tech, it seems.
Also, the number of women historically majoring in CS dropped off significantly in the 1980s, when 1. Video gaming culture started to take off and 2. Hardware (something seen as more masculine) started to be emphasized more often. Like, programming historically was something women with math and CS degrees did, then I think there was a greater influence of hardware and tinkering with your hands that was part of being in tech. Stuff that is traditionally seen as more masculine.
The DSM-IV (1994) quotes a prevalence of roughly 1 in 30,000 assigned males and 1 in 100,000 assigned females seek sex reassignment surgery in the USA.
Those numbers are based on statistics from the 1960s, when transitioning was next to impossible, and are probably a couple orders of magnitude too low. More to the point, that threefold difference seems to be much smaller, if it exists at all.
I'm a young, white male, aka privileged person. I've read quite a lot about feminism (and anti-racism for that matter), and struggled to get a clear picture of when my actions are appreciated. I think the most important lesson I've learned is that I must listen; because I do not have any first hand experience.
I think he/she may be referring to this sentence in the original article (on netmagazine.com): "In today's Western society, being male, white and straight gives you three huge privileges over everyone else"
I'm quite curious about how sexism affects the broader tech industry as a whole, as it seems to not affect my niche area much at all.
I work in ASIC design, and we have probably even fewer women than software development. In general, I have never had the impression that sexism is much of a problem in our narrow little field. But since I'm male, I thought that perhaps I was blind to the problem. So I asked a female colleague, and she said she had never experienced any sexism on the job, period. Now, we're a small company, and I like to think we're a pretty progressive, decent bunch, so no surprises that she's never seen it internally. But we're also a professional services company, so we work with many clients, big and small, and we don't control their hiring process. But no - she's never experienced any sort of sexual discrimination at work with clients, either.
I've not been able to come up with a plausible explanation of why the problem does not seem to affect us in the same way that it might in a different sub-field.
Isn't sexism like anything else? There are extreme cases, quite often though just speaking up resolves it.
I have a stutter and I have been in many jobs where I have been the butt of some jokes. I have been overlooked or talked over. People have played 'guess the word' when i get stuck... i could go on.
I find in the vast majority of cases a quiet word, a quick bit of education or just straight up shutting someone down makes such problems perminantly go away.
There is sexism in the tech industry, i am sure there is some racism and whatever else as well. There will always be people who intentionally or not say something that offends. Your work place experience will depend on how you react to that.
My experience of the tech industry has shown that it handles complaints well and deals with issues that arise in a positive way. I think this is what people should focus on.
I saw a documentary about a fish market where women should be good wives at home. The few women who worked there were subject to daily sexist remarks. They had a choice. Ignore it or quit... There are far worse places to work than in technology
So sexism, like any form of discrimination, doesn't just come in shocking bright red, "hey honey, why don't we go into the copy room for some hubba hubba". Rape can be a sexist act of violence, that's an extreme. Just because that extreme exists doesn't mean that less obvious forms of sexism and discrimination aren't ugly and evil.
A really pernicious dirty disgusting thing about sexism (and racism) is that it can be subtle, and hidden, and still hurt people. Pay rates, job discrimination, advancement are examples. Pressure to conform to a feminine ideal or be see as "bitchy" or overly aggressive.
So yeah, that's one bad thing. There are plenty of bad things. And sexism is bad for your business. Because discrimination doesn't just mean that some people are privileged over others. It means viewpoints, ideas, projects etc. from people who are women are not given the attention they deserve not because they are lacking, but because their source lacks testes. Discrimination doesn't just hurt women, it hurts everybody.
You advance a guy over a more deserving woman... you are hurting your business. sexism is suboptimal. It doesn't even have to be that obvious. You make a person feel unhappy or uncomfortable at work and the work their team is doing will suffer, if only because of the communication problems that arise.
Even if you aren't sexist (and it's hard to be a hundred percept free from stuff like that) sexism still informs the industry. The things you do that contribute to you being a programmer are often informed by gender roles and expectations. Math class for example.
Anyway, I recently came up with a test for sexism. It's a test I fail, but it makes me think. Ask yourself, is it better for something, a hobby, a sport, whatever to be manly or womanly?
I only skimmed the original article, and I think this woman makes some great point about how absurd his article is.
She has some good points about her experience, however, as she has only had 6 months in this field, and that is working in one company, I'd say she's not the right person to write a rebuttal to anything about the current state of it's culture.
Someone who has worked in multiple companies, in different regions, and at varying levels of organizations would be much more fit.
Again, I'm not saying her article is crap, the bulk of it is a good counterpoint, I'd just like to see someone with a bit of a broader view way in from a woman's perspective.
Gloria Steinem once remarked that women in our culture are valued when they are young and pretty, while men in our culture are valued when they are old and rich: therefore, as they grow older, women become more radical and men become more conservative.
(As a man, I thought this was a very insightful observation... when I first read it... many years ago. :-)
I'd like to hear a version from someone who has been in the industry a lot longer too. I specifically added the section at the bottom explaining that I hadn't been in the industry all that long so I wasn't pretending to be speaking from a much more experienced position than I am. From the comments I've received so far there are definitely women who have been in the industry a lot longer than I have that share my point of view though.
What, you mean like someone who’s been in the industry for fifteen years, worked at companies both small and large, startups and corporations, and in four different countries?
Interesting article, along with the comment on it.
As a man in the tech industry, I saw sexism quite a long time ago -- in that a coworker benefited from a pay lawsuit. But that was several decades ago.
I haven't seen much sexism in the industry since then, but it could be that my views are limited and the companies and teams I have worked on limited.
So this article felt good to see. Maybe what I think I've been seeing (or not seeing) is not far off the mark.
Related: could it be that after declining for decades that sexism in the population has gotten worse over time? What is with you people?
that's my problem with these articles and posts. They seem to suppose that there aren't more women because of sexism.
I'm not an industry researcher, so all I have to go on is my experiences.
I was a tiny kid, playing with Simons BASIC and having fun. But I never thought of it as a career path. No one I knew was in IT, no one in the family, or friend's families was in IT.
At school it wasn't something that was talked about as a career path (though nursing and teaching were).
I didn't realize I wanted to be a developer until I got a random part time job at university and built websites and databases. (I was majoring in engineering at the time)
That left me with a big gap in skill set from everyone else my age who had been playing around with tech since they were pre-teens.
But things are relatively hunky-dory now.
But I always think, what if I hadn't gotten that random job? Why hadn't I been exposed to this career before then?
Would it have been industry sexism that meant I wasn't a developer? No. It would have been lack of exposure to the possibility at a young age.
> Would it have been industry sexism that meant I wasn't a developer? No. It would have been lack of exposure to the possibility at a young age.
Not being told that certain opportunities are open to you because of your gender is sexism. This goes beyond child hood. People assume because of you're gender you will or will not be into certain job prospects and other activities. This is sexism.
I wasn't told it was a possibility either, and I'm male and went to an all male school. Depending on how old you are (I'm mid 30s now so school in the early 90s) and how behind the times your teachers were, I reckon it was pretty common for people not to understand that there was a career to be had in computers. This could be down to plain ignorance of how important they were going to become. I only realised it was an interest after starting and hating an engineering course in 96, because all school ever told me was 'here is a machine you can use to write documents and make pictures'.
Of course if the reason she wasn't told was because of her gender then sure, inherent sexism.
I don't think that's what thisone was getting at. While I was growing up (late 80's into 90's), developing software and working on computers wasn't encouraged for a career path, for both boys and girls. It was always referred to as a hobby and one that wasn't looked upon very highly. Somehow I had a natural attraction to working with computers and software and that took me to where I am today working as a software engineer. My parents didn't even own a computer until I convinced them that I needed one for high school.
If I hadn't gone into software, I may have ended up in some other engineering discipline. Growing up I saw both boys and girls encouraged to go into engineering, but not into computers. Even as a male, I feel I'm working in software despite the culture I grew up with as a child.
It was always referred to as a hobby and one that wasn't looked upon very highly.
I never see this point come up much but I can tell you that when I was growing up "geek" was a pejorative term and the guys who were into computers were largely social outcasts. I can remember in high school the kinds of guys who sat on IRC chatting with their little "cyber friends" being made fun of. And I don't think they ever got much of a chance to "exclude" girls since my bet is most of them never had much luck getting one to talk to them in the first place. I don't doubt that sexism helps fuel the gender gap we see in tech, but sometimes it seems like people forget that the original demographic in this industry was by and large made up of socially awkward males who pursued their hobby despite being looked down upon and excluded by others, not because of the heaps of encouragement they were receiving.
It's really more of sexism against women, in the sense that nursing (and teaching) is one of a small set of careers traditionally open to women, and so they clustered.
What he wrote was a primer.. describing the basics of what sexism is.. in fact in his terminology portion he pretty much breaks down what any gender equality book would break down, and he does so in a very concise manor. Also you MUST address rape culture when addressing sexism. Being dismissive of it is what leads to sexism.
Reminds me of that kixeye manager "Let me tell you, it's ok to make jokes about slavery because that's over."
Rape is genderless. Despite the fact that rape happens more to women, it happens to both genders.
Secondly, just because someone is sexist it doesn't correlate to whether they're rapists or not. Sexism is about ignorance, rape is about many things often anger or control.
If you mention rape any time someone says "I get paid less because I'm a girl", it sensationalizes it. It's like mentioning slavery, every time someone says "I'm only paid minimum wage"
So blacks don't get paid less, get higher interest rates, and jailed more frequently; because of slavery?
All class systems invoke a behaviors which is the complete opposite of Meritocracy; They are sensational from one viewpoint but are still prevalent in the class system. If you do not openly address those then you are in fact being passive in allowing the system to continue.
Just because you treat women with dignity, and you have friends of multiple races.. Simply means you are not bigoted. You still could be a racist, and sexist. These are some things Faruk Ateş is bringing up in his primer, but is being lost by those who in general are privileged.
He's bringing up valid points surrounded by the word rape. It's almost a Godwin's Law. He's presenting the most extreme example again and again in a post that otherwise has some validity.
Of course I disagree with rape. It's a very personal matter close to my heart for many reasons. But it is an extreme outcome of sexism, it is not the problem because of sexism nor is it the reason sexism happens.
Zach, sexism is exactly as genderless as rape is. You (and Laura) should read up on rape culture and how intertwined it is with the culture of sexism in society. They’re kind of like government debt and government spending: yes, they’re separate issues, but they influence each other _quite a bit_.
Also, please stop spreading the utter lie that I discounted rape against men. I never did that, nor would I. The primer is just not the right place to go in-depth on the subtleties of rape culture and how they affect men and women differently under different circumstances and at different ages. It's a primer.
> The point of this is simply to show that, unlike what the article will have you believe, it is entirely possible to be a woman in the tech industry, like your job, get on well with your colleagues (even when most of them are, shock horror, men), and be treated in a totally fair way.
I don't think any of that is contrary to the original article. I'm not sure that implying it is is entirely honest.
The tone of our debates – which often get quite heated – is frequently different based on the gender of the author(s).
Sanders' article seems a little more rant-y than it should be for someone who is basing her experiences "in the industry" (UK) since April 2012. Not that a relatively small amount of experience means you can't have an opinion, but it can't be good to become totally blind to something just because you don't want to see it.
Given a little bit of time, perhaps she will see that some sexism-based discrimination does exist -- not just in tech but pretty much every industry. But it's not the kind related to violence or "rape culture", but rather of pay. It is a cold, hard fact: women make less than men.
Let's just say "I know a gal" who was fired from a company in the Valley because of that very discrimination. She had a master's degree and had been at the company almost 1+ year when she discovered that than the guy she was training, a dropout art school student whose "industry experience" amounted to working at Home Depot as a cashier was earning more. When my friend asked for equal pay for equal work, citing Obama's signing of Lily Ledbetter, her employers cut her salary to hourly, started writing her up for even the most minor infraction, and eventually ended up firing her. From what she tells me, she was unable to afford legal representation, Silicon Valley attorneys literally laughed at her (said they would not take the case for free), so she ended up signing a stack of legal mumbo jumbo that literally raped her of all her legal rights.
Let's just say "I know a gal" who was fired from a company in the Valley because of that very discrimination. She had a master's degree and had been at the company almost 1+ year when she discovered that than the guy she was training, a dropout art school student whose "industry experience" amounted to working at Home Depot as a cashier was earning more. When my friend asked for equal pay for equal work, citing Obama's signing of Lily Ledbetter, her employers cut her salary to hourly, started writing her up for even the most minor infraction, and eventually ended up firing her. From what she tells me, she was unable to afford legal representation, Silicon Valley attorneys literally laughed at her (said they would not take the case for free), so she ended up signing a stack of legal mumbo jumbo that literally raped her of all her legal rights.
> "It's very hard to take this story at face value."
Why? Because it disproves your world view? Because it makes you uncomfortable to acknowledge that this kind of shit can (and does) happen in an industry you like to idolize?
This story is outrageous, but entirely in line with many other, very similar stories I’ve heard personally by various women. Men reacting dishearteningly poorly to women raising the issue of mistreatment is A Thing™. A COMMON thing, even. Yes, even in our industry.
Hey, pretty funny that KuraFire is a nym for Faruk Ateş, but you responded to me as KuraFire not as Faruk Ateş. Since my criticism goes to Faruk Ates, in the interest of full disclosure you probably should have told us who you were.
Uh, dude. I very clearly, openly and publicly use KuraFire as my nickname, everywhere in conjunction with my real name, Faruk Ateş. I wasn’t trying to hide anything _on purpose_. By posting as myself, I told you who I was. Blame Hacker News’ awful design if you think I was trying to hide my author-ship.
Let's just say "I know a gal" who was fired from a company in the Valley because of that very discrimination. She had a master's degree and had been at the company almost 1+ year when she discovered that than the guy she was training, a dropout art school student whose "industry experience" amounted to working at Home Depot as a cashier was earning more. When my friend asked for equal pay for equal work, citing Obama's signing of Lily Ledbetter, her employers cut her salary to hourly, started writing her up for even the most minor infraction, and eventually ended up firing her. From what she tells me, she was unable to afford legal representation, Silicon Valley attorneys literally laughed at her (said they would not take the case for free), so she ended up signing a stack of legal mumbo jumbo that literally raped her of all her legal rights.
Think of the actions that are alleged to have taken place.
What are the motivations of these actions? How does the villain profit by those actions?
Why would an employer pay a long time employee with a Masters degree less than a new hire with no experience, and then prefer to fire her rather than bring her salary up to par.
When given evidence of this unfairness, especially in light of Lilly Ledbetter as well as the Equal Pay Act of 1963, why is it that there were no attorneys willing to take this case.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and the story is entirely OUT of line with what we know of the behaviors of lawyers as well as the behavior of modern HR departments or CEOs or managers.
Because it makes you uncomfortable to acknowledge that this kind of shit can (and does) happen in an industry you like to idolize?
So now you're speculating, and actually being pretty insulting, about my inner states of mind in at least two regards.
Since you don't know me, you might find it less insulting, more productive, and more persuasive to stick to fact based questioning:
1) Show the claim is rather common and not extraordinary
2) Provide motives for this behavior to occur
3) Provide reasoning why lawyers wouldn't take this case in a heartbeat.
He was probably a better negotiator. And citing laws that say you should be paid a certain amount, instead of showing her value to the company, is not a good tactic for getting a raise.
>Given a little bit of time, perhaps she will see that some sexism-based discrimination does exist
Did you skip the "reading the article" part? She made it quite clear that she has experienced sexism before, just not yet in the web industry. She didn't say sexism doesn't exist, just that it doesn't seem to be a web/it problem.
>It is a cold, hard fact: women make less than men.
No, it isn't. The wage gap myth is just that, a myth. Women are paid the same as men when they work the same number of hours in the same job. Averaging the pay of all women and the pay of all men shows men making more, but they are also working more hours and are disproportionally represented in high risk, high pay jobs.
It is unclear whose fault this gap is. For instance when people get a job offer, men are more likely to try to negotiate than women. That fact can cause significant wage discrimination at a company that is not trying to discriminate at all.
It does not say that. It says one single economist testified to that affect. And that others offered rebuttals. Controlling for hours worked, education, experience, etc leaves you with the opposite of what you think: there is no gap. And the exact page you are linking to points out that the gap also goes the other direction when you don't account for confounding factors, do you also think there is widespread sexism against men lowering their income?
"According to an analysis of Census Bureau data released by Reach Advisors in 2008, single childless women between ages 22 and 30 were earning more than their male counterparts in most United States cities, with incomes that were 8% greater than males on average"
The only studies I've seen that claim there is still an unexplained difference after accounting for confounding factors all have the same flaw. They do not actually account for hours worked. They classify "full time" as all the same. When 60 hours and 40 hours are considered the same, you are not controlling for hours worked. They end up with figures at around 5% pay gap. Which confirms the nonexistence of this gap, as the average full time hours per day of a man is 8.14, and a woman is 7.75.
The US department of labor commissioned a report on the subject. They found that there is no wage gap, the pay gap can be fully explained by differences in work (job choice, hours worked, etc): http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20...
Did you read the paragraph you quoted? It contradicts your claim.
> According to an analysis of Census Bureau data released by Reach Advisors in 2008, single childless women between ages 22 and 30 were earning more than their male counterparts in most United States cities, with incomes that were 8% greater than males on average. This shift is driven by the growing ranks of women who attend colleges and move on to high-earning jobs.[7]
> While these particular women earn more than their male peers, women on the whole haven't reached equal status in any particular job or education level. For instance, women with a bachelor's degree had median earnings of $39,571 between 2006 and 2008, compared with $59,079 for men at the same education level, according to the Census.
> At every education level, from high-school dropouts to Ph.D.s, women continue to earn less than their male peers.
the "8% advantage", and all the differences quoted in this article, clearly do not control for the type of work performed.
It always astonishes me to see people selectively quote a source that says the exact opposite of what they want it to say. I've seen it happen often enough that I shouldn't be surprised, but I have trouble understanding the level of fundamental dishonesty that is required to do that.
Yes, I did read it. You misunderstood "my claim". I was not trying to imply that the study in question supports the idea that men make less than women, rather using it to demonstrate that not controlling all the other factors that effect income shows wildly varying results depending on which factors you do try to control and which you let effect it.
>women on the whole haven't reached equal status in any particular job or education level. For instance, women with a bachelor's degree had median earnings of $39,571 between 2006 and 2008, compared with $59,079 for men at the same education level, according to the Census.
Right, when you don't control for anything, you see a gap. The gap dissappears when you actually control for those factors. How does that contradict what I said?
>the "8% advantage", and all the differences quoted in this article, clearly do not control for the type of work performed.
Right, I was not suggesting that the pay gap is reversed, I am suggesting it is entirely accounted for by factors other than sexism. That you aren't complaining about men making less than women shows that you already accept that fact, you just only accept it when it is men making less, and discard it when it is women making less. Despite those two scenarios being just a case of controlling for different factors.
Right, when you don't control for anything, you see a gap. The gap dissappears when you actually control for those factors. How does that contradict what I said?
According to the evidence cited in the Wikipedia link, the consensus of MOST researchers is that, even after accounting for every factor that we can account for, there remains a persistent male/female gap.
See, if you just say "the evidence says I am right", while the evidence says the opposite, it is hard to have a reasonable conversation. Rather than cite anecdotes and your perception of how many "researchers" are on your side, how about cite an actual study that controlled for all the factors that can effect income? I posted one, it was even commissioned by the department of labour specifically for policy guidance so they knew how to address the problem that they assumed existed. And yet, it showed there being no gap.
Gah, I had a big reply ready, and I lost it. This will be shorter.
Here is the long and short of it. If you're honest, you can follow the references at the bottom of Wikipedia and read them to come to wind up at studies like http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-279 that found a 7% persistent unexplained gap in the federal workforce. There are a bunch of those you could wind up at.
But I'm not interested in doing that. I'm not an expert. I don't claim to be an expert. I don't want to become one. And if I did become one, I'm not sure anyone on this site wants to watch the resulting debate.
You made a claim. I sanity checked against Wikipedia (which tends to be relatively neutral), found that your view appears to be a minority position, and pointed that out. I also dug up a relevant memory of a factor not related to work history, qualifications, performance or deliberate sexism in the workplace which systemically disadvantages women, and mentioned THAT. I later dug up relevant links.
I don't think that there is much of a point in further conversation. You have shown no openness to considering any possible theories that do not agree with your preconceptions of there not being a difference. (Even when those possibilities are supported both by research and anecdotal experience.) Your past selective quoting of links makes me distrust anything you have to say. You are unwilling to acknowledge the existence of research that you disagree with, even though it obviously exists.
In short the only "conversation" that you seem to want uses only facts that you select, starts with only theories that you agree with, and generally denies the legitimacy of any viewpoint other than your own. There is no point in that sort of "discussion".
Let me summarize where we stand.
1. There are very large wage differences on the whole between men and women.
2. A large part of that can be explained by obvious factors like work history and choice of profession.
3. The fact that women generally do better academically has even caused, in some places and among some populations, there to be a reversal where women make more!
4. If we control for all relevant factors that we know how to control for, the size of any remaining unexplained gap becomes small. In a quick search I've seen careful studies getting results of 0%, 4% and 7%.
5. There is disagreement among experts over how large that unexplained gap is, and what potential causes it might have. Your belief is that there is none. The opinion on Wikipedia indicates that the majority view is that there is a real gap.
6. I have cited specific evidence of a non-sexist cause for a potential gap. That cause is that men are culturally more likely to try to negotiate on salary. I have cited both anecdotal evidence and actual surveys indicating the existence of this difference. Given this, I would expect there to be a persistent gap.
And here I stop. Feel free to reply and malign me any way you want. I've given up on conversation with you.
>If you're honest, you can follow the references at the bottom of Wikipedia and read them to come to wind up at studies like http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-279 that found a 7% persistent unexplained gap in the federal workforce.
A study which did not control for hours worked. This is exactly what I said before, more than once. If you lump all "full time workers" together, of course it will look skewed. Because men work more hours than women.
>I sanity checked against Wikipedia (which tends to be relatively neutral), found that your view appears to be a minority position, and pointed that out.
An abundance of ignorance does not make the facts change. Lots of incorrect ideas are believed by a majority, especially when lobbying groups spend lots of time, effort and money publicizing them.
>You have shown no openness to considering any possible theories that do not agree with your preconceptions of there not being a difference
That is simply lying, how do you reconcile that with your idea that you are trying to engage in an honest conversation? I have already spent many hours studying the subject, I have considered the possibility quite extensively, and used to be one of the majority of people who mistakenly believe there is such a gap. Being open to considering does not mean "ignore facts and change your mind cause I said so". As I said, I am very interested in seeing any evidence of such a gap. But in all my research, I have never found a single study that controls for all other factors, and still find a gap of statistical significance. And in response, I consistently get dishonest rhetoric like yours, pointing me at studies which do not control for all other factors.
Ehh... Yeah. The original article was kind of a pile of crap, but it's hard to give this any credibility either.
1) She's only worked for 6 months
2) She works in UX, which is actually pretty well represented by women.
My two cents from a woman who actually works in a technical position (I'm a developer) for > 10 years now. Also working in infosec, which is one of the least represented when it comes to gender balance. Note: this is all totally anecdotal.
IMHO, "Imposter Syndrome" is one of the primary reasons we don't have more women in the industry, and it's reinforced heavily because of the culture of most workplaces. Why? When you emphasize a "brogrammer" and "rockstar" culture it's hard to believe that you can step in there and be just as "good as the guys."
When I'm talking about brogramming culture, I am not talking about silly shit like they turned the woman's bathroom to a man's one (lol, they did this at one company I worked at) or that you need to stop making fart jokes etc. I mean the idea we are all super awesome rockstars that sling amazing code and everyone else around you is shit and an idiot for not knowing something that you (and the other guys) know. When you're already feeling kind of alienated for being different, this can be really intimidating (and it's worse when people point it out -- I was asked an interview for a programming teaching position at a university BY A PROFESSOR "how will you handle it if people don't take you seriously as a female?")
I struggled with this for many years. I always assumed everyone around me knew more about computers (they didn't) and their code was 100% perfect (lol, it wasn't).
The effect for me was I was afraid to ask questions and when I wanted to figure out something, I did the research/reading on my own because I felt I had to prove that I was 110% competent - imagine how much time I could have saved and how much faster I would have progressed if in those early days I had just felt more comfortable asking people for help.
Because of this, I think corporate environments are an easier more comfortable place for a woman to work in a programming job than startups and small companies (again, this isn't universal). Which is sad, because I love working at a small company. And the startup space could benefit from women (since there are so few people usually in a startup, esp if you're building a product that will be widely used by women, it is invaluable to have that perspective).
2) What can you do about it? Well, if you're a woman, and you want to be in the tech field because you love working with computers, and you continue to pursue it, you're doing something already. You're an example to every other woman. I think only in this way, eventually the gender balance will even out. If you're a guy, and you want to hire a woman to join your technical team, emphasize the collaborative nature and how much they will learn on the job. Hire for smarts and ability to learn, not just knowing how to write a rails app in one day and knowing how to debug a deadlock with gdb etc.
Your experiences chime with my own, as another woman with just over 10 years of experience - especially the part about being afraid to ask questions. This extends to being afraid to try new tasks, take on new projects, or even just ask for critiques of my code, all of which I know are important in this line of work. Obviously these fears are not solely experienced by women, but I think there are some feedback loops which are particularly likely to lead women into this rut.
As an example, after university I discovered that when I'd been struggling alone to do my assignments and assuming all the guys were just finding it easy, all the guys were going round to each other's rooms, hanging out together, discussing work and looking at each other's code. They didn't think to invite me, possibly out of fear that I'd misinterpret it as a date or that I'd ruin the boys' club atmosphere, and I rarely asked them about work for fear of looking like I wasn't up to their level.
While it's not quite so obvious in the workplace, there's still some of that going on over lunchbreaks, after work or in impromptu meetings. And once you've been unintentionally out of that loop for so long, it's very hard to feel confident enough to ask people for a quick primer in what they're doing, because you feel like the only one who doesn't already know. Again, not intentional and by no means exclusive to women, but as a woman in a mostly-male workplace you are automatically something of an outsider and that can be hard to shake off, especially when trying to shake it off could get you labelled as "pushy", something women are generally socialised not to be.
"As an example, after university I discovered that when I'd been struggling alone to do my assignments and assuming all the guys were just finding it easy, all the guys were going round to each other's rooms, hanging out together, discussing work and looking at each other's code. They didn't think to invite me, possibly out of fear that I'd misinterpret it as a date or that I'd ruin the boys' club atmosphere, and I rarely asked them about work for fear of looking like I wasn't up to their level." - this x1000. It doesn't help when you're attending a super competitive CS program with a bunch of people who seem (or give the appearance of) knowing everything. I'm not saying they really could have done anything about it, or it's anyone's fault I felt excluded. In fact, it was entirely my fault I did all my group assignments alone; had I overcome my introversion, I have no doubt I would have gotten friendly responses. However, I think CS is going to be attractive for a higher proportion of introverted people than not. How do we make those environments friendlier to sensitive outsiders like this? It's not an easy problem to solve.
While I (and she) do agree that she's not the best person to represent women in tech (she says so herself) a lot of people who have been do agree in the comments, and she does work with a big company that does development (.net, Windows Phone work, design and everything else in between too in a giant open plan office. So she does see more than you'd initially think)
That's like saying "I work as a nurse in a hospital in the 1950s". Sure, you may see some sexism second hand, but if you're a female doctor in the same position, it's a totally different experience.
The primary thing I didn't like about the author's article was that her criticism of the original article (which were totally valid, by the way) kind of concluded with the impression (given by her anecdotal experience) that "sexism isn't as bad as it's made out to be, look, I haven't seen any."
The truth is it is there, and it can be pretty bad in some cases, although these scare articles by the author she was criticizing isn't really giving any meaningful advice on how to do deal with it.
Interesting she works in a big shop... coincides with my experiences that larger orgs tend to be more comfortable/friendly to women.
Of course. But is it any less valid that she says than Faruk, a guy. He's particularly talking about sexism for women - something by his own line he can never understand or experience.
I'm not saying her opinion is more or less valid than Faruk's, but in terms of the antecdotal "arguments" of her blog her authority may be less meaningful than, say, someone who works with 99% male neckbeards hacking linux kernel for 15 years (just as his anecdotal arguments would be less valuable than hers).
> (and it's worse when people point it out -- I was asked an interview for a programming teaching position at a university BY A PROFESSOR "how will you handle it if people don't take you seriously as a female?")
There are good ways and bad ways to broach the topic, but this is an important question to answer. Not as a hiring filter per se, but as a likely problem that needs a solution.
I went to college with (And teaching-assisted / tutored) classmates older than me, and I had to deal with the issue of "how will you handle it if people don't take you seriously as a young person?" (I didn't deal with it very well, until I got old enough that a couple of years of age difference wasn't significant anymore. Gender doesn't fade away like youth does, so gender-related issues needs active problem-solving)
I agree, it's a valid problem to deal with, but the wrong time/place for it. Remember, at an interview, you are putting the impression in that young person's mind: "wait, people won't take me seriously as a female?" -- that's something they carry with them beyond the interview.
I agree with almost all of this save the part about the gender balance eventually evening out.
I don't know that there ever will be parity and I don't know that that is a problem.
Proportional representation is not always desirable or natural. Different groups do things in different proportions. Such is true of men and women; in aggregate, they do things in different amounts. This is not de facto evidence of insidious discrimination; we don't seem to assume so in the case of men not being in female-dominated industries like education.
Ultimately the lack of proportional representation is mostly the result of real differences between men and women. To try to create proportional representation would either demand hiring tokens or heavy duty social engineering to reduce gender differences. I don't like either option.
I think "even out" was a bad/lazy choice of words on my part. What I mean is, it will get to a point where the ratio of women in tech will be more or less equivalent to the ratio of women that WANT to be in tech. This may or may not be exactly 50%. It could be 25%. I don't know myself. It's getting better in certain areas, but when you talk about "technical" positions e.g. programming, sysadmin, etc the ratio seems to be pretty bad and far less than what it could be.
Right now I suspect too many women that are kind of interested and may want to do this kind of work are scared off/intimidated (or worse, they never even consider it because of the thought "I'm not that kind of person") by the stereotypes/culture/etc and that's too bad.
I agree totally with what you say. She really doesn't have the experience in age or diversity of tech career fields to base her opinion.
Women are underrepresented in tech, and that is a big problem. Just look at college CS classes, hackerspaces, meetup groups for various programming languages, etc. I think that in a lot of bigger companies, there are institutional pressures to keep this stuff on the downlow, but are more prevalent in startups.
Sexism that I've noticed has been very subtle. I work with some very intelligent people, so I can't imagine anyone is overtly sexist (ie. thinking that women can't do this job, would not hire a person simply based on gender etc.), but still, there are problems. It's hard to write about sexism as a guy without feeling like you're coming off as sexist, but hey, I probably am. Also, it's hard to write about things without generalizing, so I don't think that these apply equally to all organizations, or all members of either gender, but as a population (of people and of companies), my thoughts are:
For one, I think that recruiting is very masculine. "Solve impossible problems! Be a rockstar! Join the most hardcore developers in the world!". It works, but I think that men find a lot more appeal in it than women do. I think that things like mentoring and career growth are also important - not that that detracts from the end result of solving really hard problems, but I think that it presents it to a more growth oriented way. So I think that especially college recruiting should still focus on the fun, hard engineering aspect of the job, it should also focus on the growth side. We'll train you, you'll work with people - we want smart people, we'll make you into an awesome developer.
Aggressiveness. If I want a raise, I'll go and ask for a raise. If I want something changed, I'll speak up about it. If I'm not happy with things, I'll quit and find another job. I think that this trait is more common in men, but it has certainly led to my success - pay quickly diverges with this strategy.
Then there's the social aspect. Within the office, I think that everyone talks with everyone else on pretty equal footing. That said, while I'd be totally comfortable asking one of my male colleagues if he wanted to grab a beer after work, I'd be at least more hesitant to do so with a female colleague so as not to make them uncomfortable (being married makes this a little bit less awkward for me) and I think that's not unique. People don't want to come off as flirting with a co-worker, or make them uncomfortable, and so they don't go out after work except in a group (and have no other recourse when they are the only female developer in a staff of 50). The people who do go out though end up talking about work, and end up solving problems that they wouldn't have otherwise. They also get more opportunity to move between projects as their friends move around within the company.
Then there's the awful problem of low numbers. If you meet a crummy male developer, well, he's a crummy developer. If you meet a bad female developer, she's probably a significant portion of all female developers that you've met - and so at least subconsciously, I think that for many the association becomes that female developers are bad (since hey, 33.3% of all female developers you've worked with aren't that great).
Those are the main things I think. I think that all of these can be fixed, but I think that it takes conscious effort on the part of the company and the staff to get around them. I think at the heart of it is a bootstrapping problem - there are too few female developers because there are too few female developers, and as that changes culturally things will get better. We can definitely speed it up though.
As an aside, I talked to a professor once about sexism in the computer science faculty, and he said something really interesting: while the top few students in the class are typically men due to the sheer number of people (if 90% of students are men, 10% are women, by pure statistics the top 1% will mostly be men), very rarely are women in the bottom 75% of the class. He attributed this to a lack of ego - there's a real masculine competitiveness to the computer science faculty (the goal to be "hardcore"), which women were generally excluded from. Without this ego drive, they weren't too proud to learn.
I really like your point about how men are more likely to be reluctant to grab a casual drink (or even one-on-one lunch, I would say) with women to talk about work because they are worried it will be seen as "flirty." Based on my experience this can have a really big impact, but I don't see it discussed very often.
Being able to have easy, casual friendships and one-on-one conversations with your coworkers can be extremely important to knowing what is going on and what you should be doing to succeed. Like you said, there are opportunities that come up in these meetings that you just don't get otherwise.
I don't think this is even a conscious decision to avoid seeming flirty a lot of the time, wanting to do things outside of work with same-gender colleagues might just feel more natural. This can make it easy to miss the fact that women are being left out, and I think a lot of men don't even realize what a disadvantage this can be.
One reason for the reluctance of personal contact outside of work is the fear of a sexual harassment suit. There have been lots of stories going around how small things have been twisted into a "hostile" work environment. In a previous workplace, they got sued by a woman who claimed that one of the employees having a britiney spears poster in his cube constituted as sexual harassment.
Also, men tend to censor what they say when women are arround.
>Then there's the awful problem of low numbers. If you meet a crummy male developer, well, he's a crummy developer. If you meet a bad female developer, she's probably a significant portion of all female developers that you've met - and so at least subconsciously, I think that for many the association becomes that female developers are bad (since hey, 33.3% of all female developers you've worked with aren't that great).
This class of bias works both ways. When a man is wronged it's an injustice towards the individual. When a woman is wronged it's an injustice towards women.
About aggressiveness: It turns out that when women act aggressive, they are often treated differently than men who act the same way. This is a perfect example of where unconscious biases fuck up the system.
This is something actual research has been done on, though I don't have any links handy. :(
I don't really understand what you're implication is. The poster I was responding to used the word aggressive to describe how men are "supposed" to seek raises and otherwise negotiate in the workplace, and said that women often didn't act that way.
You can replace the word aggressive with assertive if you think it describes the style of negotiation better, but that has nothing to do with my point.
The rockstar shit is a filter for me. If a company advertises itself as wanting rockstars, ninjas, "hardcore" people, or whatever brogrammer bullshit of the week is, I put that job advert to the bottom of my list. The thought of working around the sort of people who would apply because they consider themselves a hardcore ninja rockstar puts me off. (I spent more than enough time with homophobic macho fuckwits when I was at school, I'd rather not have to deal with them at work.)
There are gendered problems in tech: social bugs, really.
There's the putting-yourself-forward problem. I was at an event a while back and ran a birds-of-a-feather session on open source geo stuff (I'm an OpenStreetMap editor). At the session was a woman who is involved with a startup in the same area, but she didn't seem to have the confidence to run the session, even though her involvement in open source geo is much higher than mine (I just piss around editing maps). Ensuring that our community institutions invite women in is a good step: they don't have to accept the invitation, but many will. And that's good.
Another problem some women I know face: social expectations. They have to dress more masculine in order to be taken seriously at real-life gatherings. We as hackers like to say we don't judge people based on their appearances but based on their code. Then at the same time, we like to judge the "suits". I know women who have said they have to go home and change out of feminine wear (of all levels of formality) into jeans and a t-shirt in order for the hacker crowd to take them seriously. If a guy turns up to an event in a suit, people will just naturally assume he needs to wear it because he's doing coding in some kind of corporate environment. But if women turn up in a dress, they just get the presumption that they are in sales or PR or something. That's bullshit. (This stems from the geeky hackery idea that dressing nice makes someone untrustworthy. Sorry, no, I've worked with utter assholes who come to work in jeans every day, and I've worked with people who are awesome, ethical and never fuck people over who–gasp!–wear formal or dressy clothing.)
Is there an endemic problem of malicious deliberate sexism? No. That exists in some companies, sure, but I don't think that's the primary problem. Instead, there's lots of little nagging bugs, some of which stem from unconscious attitudes perpetuated by geek culture. The sexism problems such as they are consist of lots of little nagging bugs that taken together exclude women. Unless you are some kind of hardcore misogynist, fixing them will have generally positive side effects for everybody.
These nagging bugs pay back dividends in the long term if you are on the right side of them though, which was my point. Let's say that I get a 6% raise every year because I ask for it (either directly, or through promotion), while people who don't get a 4% raise. If someone starts out making $80k a year, after 10 years, the person not asking is making $118k per year, while the person asking for it is making $143k/year. Over the 10 years, that means that the first person makes about $1.078 million, while the second makes $1.198 million - a difference of $120k before taxes. After 5 more years of this, that difference turns into over $300k.
If I see a guy in a suit I think he is probably a recruiter or a PHB.
I wonder how much of the macho stuff you point out is unique to tech. I see way more aggressive posturing in sales for example, and all the sales departments I've seen are very well balanced gender-wise
Ah, it depends on context: in my mind, I was thinking about some of the user groups I go to where there's often a fair few enterprise devs who turn up in suits.
But the point stands: for a group of people who take pride in judging people on their code and skills, we seem to quite like judging people on their appearance.
We judge people who dress to manipulate, whether it's "trust me" or "pay attention to me". The fact that a cheap costume might influence others' decisions is a social bug, and I kind of resent anyone knowingly exploiting it.
A male friend of mine recently testified before a parliamentary committee on computer security. He wore a suit, as one might expect. If he hadn't dressed formally, the committee wouldn't have trusted him, even if he'd said exactly the same things (which consisted of being highly critical of a proposed government technology policy).
A female software developer friend of mine has gone home after work and changed into a less formal outfit before going to a developer event in order so that people don't assume that she is a marketing or sales person or just there to accompany her boyfriend.
Both of these are uses of dress to influence other people's decisions and attitudes. Are either one, or both of them, worthy of the resentment you describe? And why do we pick, say, dress out as something where manipulation for social ends is bad but, say, typography isn't? If someone is preparing a resume for a job and uses an inappropriate font (Comic Sans, maybe), I'll tell him not to do so. But if he wears a tie during the interview, is he trying to emotionally manipulate people?
> If he hadn't dressed formally, the committee wouldn't have trusted him
I can't blame your friend for accommodating their foolish demands. He treated them no worse than they deserved for it, and refusing would have made it a waste of everyone's time.
> gone home after work and changed
I guess I'm wondering whether she thinks her coworkers are incapable of judging her genuine merit, or something else is going on.
> I guess I'm wondering whether she thinks her coworkers are incapable of judging her genuine merit
Numerous female friends have had the same experience. I don't think it's about coworkers. I think it's more to do with idiotic dudes thinking that pretty woman in a dress just a priori cannot be a software developer.
Every form of dress is a form of communication, and has the potential for influence.
Even taking no thought and wearing the simplest possible thing communicates "I invested no effort in putting my outfit on today". Which can itself be a status play - the person doing this is saying, I don't have to dress to impress others.
I think that there is an important difference between suits and dresses. Suits are purely formal attire whereas dresses are formal, but are also designed to present the wearer as sexy. I don't think that there is any mens attire that is analogous to a dress. Anything that a man can wear that is revealing or sexually suggestive is really casual (eg. shorts and no shirt on a beach) or really cheesy/sleazy (eg. deep v-cut t-shirt and super tight pants).
The idea is that they know it's business, not personal. There's no potential hidden agenda about trying to bang your co-worker that there might be if you were single.
Because adultery is unheard of? I am not denying that when you are married or in a known committed relationship the tendency is to interpret things in a purely "two co-workers going to lunch" kind of way, but to assume marriage guarantees that end goal, at least in America, is probably a bit hasty.
In particular: "so many of the attitudes her work unveils are of an 'unconscious nature,' which makes beating them back particularly difficult" and "male leaders may think they are elevating women, not stifling them."
There's other research suggesting that "being made aware" of the problem helps male leaders adjust behavior.
There's significant pressure to not talk about sexism directly and just address this as a conflict between two individiuals (see antirez's rant) -- even though the research says that talking about about sexism and fairness concepts changes the behavior of management.
You may be the kind of guy who can do that, but after a couple of those outings one of you will probably start to develop affection for the other one, and that is why I would recommend sticking to a group.
With regards to what your professor said regarding the performance of women in computer science programs:
I think that generally when there is a minority group within a program, that minority does relatively well. So many people choose their program because it's the status quo for their gender/race/social status/etc. The people who choose a program outside of what is expected of them probably do so because they have a strong aptitude in that area or are very interested and motivated by the subject.
<Insert experience of a single person and accept them as gospel for an entire industry>
Also pretty ironic that the author uses sweeping generalizations to dismiss the cited article's sweeping generalizations.
Is this what we've regressed to? Meta-useless articles of people ranting about issues without any proactive work towards understanding, or god forbid, solutions?
When are people going to stop ranting about the problem and start fixing it?
Seriously, you have a content filter? I mean, like the ones in primary school? Your boss trusts you that much? I'd seriously go looking for a better work place...
I think the original article touches on some good points, and I can understand the need for Laura to voice her opinion, but the author MUST have wrote the article with good intentions.
Personally, if I were really affected by an article I get in touch with the author, have a skype call and get all the concerns out in the open, and work together to revise the article so that both parties are happy with it. Then if the author didn't want to know etc, THEN I'd write the rebuttal.
I don't want to be harsh here, but Laura could have shared her input privately and together created a exceptional article with valid points and different perspectives, but instead when to route of going public and (potentially) damaging the authors name in the process.
We're all professionals, and can take criticisms, especially if they were voiced in a constructive way as a means to create something better. Laura's article begs the question whether her intentions are destructive, or whether her aim was to build and improve.
Faruk and I have known each other for 8 years, we tried to start a business together and I have a lot of respect for him.
Laura is my flatmate and best friend.
They tried to talk on Twitter beforehand, and it wasn't going very well (as Twitter does.)
She wanted to write a post on sexism for a very long while now. This was a catalyst to finally get it done. She also wanted it to be public so people got a full view of the opinions.
I, as a man, feel if I don't agree with posts like Faruk's, a lot of people take it as I don't care about women's rights. It can get messy easily.
Her opinions were not destructive in my opinion. She was frustrated that yet another man was telling all us what sexism was and that she felt his intentions weren't necessarily good, but more "holier than thou" and that it didn't help anything.
I don't view the low proportion of women in tech as a serious problem (I think it's determined by the typical obsessions of twelve-year-olds). I do view the expectation that they be kinder and less assertive as a problem. It's healthy that she's debating honestly, rather than settling for a compromised version of her points in someone else's work.
If you read his Tweets, when Laura tried to contact him on Twitter before. Anything she said was "wrong" because of evidence suggests otherwise. She literally couldn't give her personal views, because evidence denies it.
But let's be fair, you can make research say whatever you want. Especially social research. It's a very valid thing, but it should not be taken as gospel.
I would say that sexism in IT is not the major issue, there will always be places where there might be some, but I frankly never encountered those and women were treated well in all the places. Point that @mdkess makes about when female dev is bad it kind of is more visible and projects more to others is also good. I worked with some exceptional girls that code like best of us. However some other roles in IT might be better for women to start, like BA and QA and project management where frankly they excel.
What IT or tech industry could use more is professionalism which would also help with work/life balance. I think that would bring up pay which I consider low, even though it is better then other fields. It would benefit from more women entering the field, but how to attract them is tough problem to solve.
GP was bizarrely tone-deaf in his comment, but BA, QA, PM are a could vantage point form which to attack gender inequality.
They are jobs expect less technical prowess, and thus leave open an opportunity for a woman to show crossover talent (a BA knows how to write SQL? Wow!) and chisel away stereotypes.
Now, it's a ridiculous rigamarole to have to go through, but it may be strategically effective in wearing down barriers.
My experience with women in technology matches the author's but I'll also add that I don't understand why the women in an office together are so cut-throat and brutal towards each other.
If you're trying to answer the question of why there are so few women in IT related roles, the best argument I've heard is that only men are stupid enough to accept the life-style often required by those positions. Sounds plausible to me.
10/2 article on dearth of women in the tech industry. It mentions a key point, in its first paragraph copied below. I agree (and I'm a woman).
It’s an important question: why are there so few women working in the IT and telecoms sector? It might be one of the rare times that The Guardian has actually asked an interesting question in fact. The answer is, I’m afraid, that on average men and women are different.
I think it is interesting, but what really fascinates me is that I'm one of the only America women in my office and the only one who doesn't come from an Asian immigrant family. When I talk to my American female friends, most of them seem to think IT and computing in general is boring and dull. They wanted interesting careers and didn't think our sector fit the bill. The immigrant/first gen women in my office have a totally different attitude. They were encouraged by their family to pursue the career with the most stable potential, not the most interesting one.
Funny. Being a newer-bie into the tech world, this arena has so much more to offer than just straight coding, which I think is like learning a language - as intelligent as learning French, Spanish, or any other. And more crafting the code to produce an awesome product - front end or back end is pretty thrilling. Especially for people who like instant gratification, which includes lawyers, teachers, and others in non-boring and dull communities.
But alas, the only way attract more females (and of the box ones, too) is to have those in the world. Like attracts like - a universal axiom.
Yeah, I like it to. I wish I could convince other ladies otherwise. Plus, it's just a job, and it's a good job that allows me to have good job security. I think their jobs are boring. Sure, they are working in "cool" fields, but a lot of them are essentially doing secretary work.
I don't think the original article was very good, and I'm glad Laura has had positive experiences (plenty of us guys do try to make sure its a welcoming environment for everyone). There are certainly plenty of well-meaning people out there who have subconscious biases (and plenty of assholes too) so I think at least its good that the topic is brought up occasionally.
Whoever asks questions or needs an opinnion(woman or man) must understand that first:
before you begin to do so, you took a responsibility to accept what ever is being said, because you don't know the other end whos anwsering. let me ......... 1nce more....
!!!!!you don't know!!!!! there are too many variables
Woman or men, what ever.... there are always 2 sides of the story
This reminds me of the so-called Tiger Mother. Someone who reinforces the prevailing beliefs but claims credibility due to their status as a member of the group in situ.
I suspect the author is actually a male graduate student in the UK.
I would lever call a woman I interact with in a professional context a girl. That's so Mad Men. Am I the only one who considers this headline inappropriate for a posting about gender issues at work?
I think some of that is generational. The women I work with who are my generation (I'm in my 50s) find that offensive, whereas the ones from the generation younger don't see anything wrong with it. I think the language is changing, where the previous generation would say men and girls, and my generation would say men and women, the next generation seems to be moving toward girls and boys.
She can, you can't. Similar to the use of "nigga" or "[black] boy"
It's a (short-term) tactical subversion move to reduce the power imbalance in cases of extreme sexism, but as a long-term strategy it is incapable of reaching equality.
"owned" comes from a different meaning originally (owning a machine, and then identifying the machine with its user), whereas as the "rape" etymology is direct, but then convergent evolution leads us to insults like "I owned you like Thomas Jefferson owned slaves".
Randi Harper a.k.a. FreeBSD Girl was interviewed for the FLOSS Weekly podcast and she said that every minute spent on discussing gender issues in technology is a wasted minute that should be better spent building free software.
Great quote. I try to convey this to people. Melvin Van Peebles didn't complain that blacks were underrepresented in Hollywood. He just went out and made Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (and it wasn't easy). That movie ushered a new era of black cinema. He solved the problem by doing, not pontificating.
I'm not saying there's no room for talking, but at this point no one is bringing anything new to the table; I'm saying if you want to solve a problem do something about it. Lead by example.
> I Spy's contribution to American television and society by being the first series to star a black and a white actor together,
> (Culp revealed in his audio commentary on the DVD release that he and Cosby agreed early on that "Our statement is a non-statement" regarding race, and the subject was never discussed again.) As a strait-laced Rhodes scholar fluent in many languages, Cosby's "Scotty" was really the brains of the team. His partner (Culp) was the athlete and playboy who lived by his wits.
Then, of course, came The Cosby Show's years of illustrating a non-stereotypical black family, almost never talking directly about it.
And every minute spent denigrating another human being about being different than yourself, or different than the group you are with, or for any other reason is a wasted minute that should be better spent building free software. If we would just concentrate on A) getting our jobs done (or rather, just living our lives) and B) not being assholes, sexism wouldn't be an issue.
I very much agree in general. I often feel like people would be better off just getting on with their work rather than wasting their time discussing some of these issues. In this case though I just felt so strongly that the article was patronising and sensationalist that I felt something needed to be said.
I'm pretty sure every minute spent listening to someone who calls themselves "FreeBSD Girl" is a wasted minute. Also listening to anyone who hasn't studied the issue for years is a wasted minute. You're actually wasting two minutes for every minute.
Expressing an opinion is considered "aggressive behavior" now? Ahahaha, oh feminists, you're so crazy. Anyway, you're saying that being female per se makes someone's opinion more valuable, which is a blatantly sexist opinion itself. Congratulations for shooting yourself in the foot and saying goodbye to what little credibility you had.
So, you have only just registered an hour ago under a username that is chosen to reference the title of one article, purely in order to troll that article.
You should probably not bother trying to argue from a position of credibility really.
Taking feminism to be broadly the belief that women and men should have equal social, political and economic rights, I would be very upset if the site wasn't infested with feminists.
"Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women."
The problem with that is that people's perception of what it means is more important than what is in a dictionary. Given the dictionary definition, one would have to assume 100% of women would be feminists. By the dictionary definition, it makes no sense for any women not to be a feminist. Yet 75% of women refuse to self-identify as feminists. The baggage that comes with the term has too much weight for the dictionary definition to matter any more.
For example, the dictionary definition of atheism is a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods. However, many religious people believe that atheism is a conscious rejection of an existing God, a deliberate embracing of evil, and that all atheists are intrinsically amoral or indeed immoral. This understanding is so common that most people who do not believe in a god refuse to self-identify as atheists, and those who do are reviled somewhat less than child molesters.
My point here should be obvious: You're right. If you don't believe in God, you are an atheist. If you think your social rights should be independent of your genitals or gender identity, you are a feminist. But if you don't use the word to describe yourself (and that's forgivable), it's not because it has "baggage"-- it's because hateful organizations and individuals have been attacking the word as a proxy for attacking the concept, and it is working.
I'm not sure what you were hoping to get from that post. I have thought about it. I know people in the US don't identify as atheists because the word has lost its original meaning there. So?
People don't refuse to self-identify as feminists because "hateful organizations and individuals have been attacking the word as a proxy for attacking the concept", they refuse because other self-identified feminists promote hatred and radicalism that most people find objectionable.
Who is being let off of the hook? Radical gender feminists took over feminism and alienated women. What hook are they supposed to be on and how are they being let off?
> Radical gender feminists took over feminism and alienated women.
Bullshit. The third wave took over feminism and included homosexuals, transgender and transexual women, and men. Anyone who feels alienated by feminism is being lied to.
Even now plenty of feminists are hostile towards transgender and transexual women, it wasn't just a second wave thing. And second wave feminists didn't vanish into nothingness, they still exist, and still advocate hatred. Why would you suggest that people who choose not to identify with that are "being lied to"? Who is lying to them, and what is the lie?
As to your "bullshit" claim, why do you believe that radical gender feminists and third wave feminists are mutually exclusive groups? Mainstream third wave feminists are almost exclusively gender feminists, and they actively seek to deny equity feminists their views and their identity as feminists. They call equity feminists "anti-feminists" and "self-hating misogynists".
It might be more accurate to say that mainstream feminists think the idea of "equity feminism" is a made up concept promoted by anti-feminists to try to devalue second- and third-wave feminism.
Sure, you can use their rhetoric if it makes you feel good. It doesn't change the fact that those mainstream feminists who call people whose beliefs align with the dictionary definition of feminism "anti-feminists" are the ones who drove women away from identifying themselves as feminists.
I think this is living proof that throw away accounts should be dealt with on here. If someone really wants to participate, a good 6/12 hours cool down without posting privileges would do nicely. I don't think anyone wins anything on here with this sort of reddit novelty account phenomenon. It will not stop all trolling, just this sort of troll.
9 times out of 10 I agree with you, but HN is a rare site on which there are often genuine causes for a throwaway account, when people have good input to make on a thread but for work related reasons can't do it under a name that their colleagues/boss/etc. might recognise.
Did you actually read the post? It's an argument AGAINST the .net article that argues that all women are constantly subjected to sexism in this industry
As a male feminist. I wouldn't even up vote this. She does point out why the article is stupid but I think most people would agree on that point already.
You'd be surprised. A lot of people took the original post as gospel. Some because if they didn't, they'd be labelled against women. (It's a sort-of mob mentality.)
The Rebuttal: 150 points and rising, 140+ comments
If that in and of itself doesn't say volumes about the sexist attitudes of the majority of HN readers - and as such, the tech industry as a whole - I don't know what does.
Surely a long, thoughtful article, with tons of context in the form of links and research, written by the creator of Modernizr and a former Appler beats a shouty "enraged me so much" rebuttal by a designer at a minor UK web agency for 7 months and prior to that, a movie usher for 2 years?
People on HN are fond of saying things like, "I couldn't care less whether someone has a vagina or a penis, as long as they write great software". So how come Laura The Troll is getting so much attention for "telling it like it is", just because she is an "actual girl"?
I am an "actual girl" too and I am seriously disappointed. We were offered a 5-star meal but we pounced on a 99-cent gas station burger because it had a picture of a ripe tomato on it, so hey, it must be healthy.
And Laura, if you are reading this, a small bit of advice for you. Next time an article "enrages" you, re-read it and I guarantee you will see that it doesn't say what you think it does.