10 ms·

I am tech – Real stories from women in technology

56 points by suhail 11y ago

ryanobjc 11y ago
One thing I have learned from my wonderful partner is stories like this can be incredibly alienating to women who don't fit into them. For example, the "all women get catcalled" - my partner notes that since she never gets catcalled, she must be too ugly. So what about the women who have an entirely different kind of experience? This article is a classic: https://medium.com/@maradydd/okay-feminism-its-time-we-had-a-talk-about-empathy-bd6321c66b37 https://medium.com/@maradydd/okay-feminism-its-time-we-had-a...
- untog 11y ago
  Is the implication here that we shouldn't let women tell any stories unless their experience is an utterly universal one experienced by every woman? Just seems like a way to derail a worthwhile project like this. It is clearly collecting a wide variety of stories, and IMO that's worthwhile. After all, minorities - by definition - don't have universal experiences, but surely they're still worth telling?
  - crindy 11y ago
    I thought the poster just wanted people to avoid generalizing. "All women get catcalled" isn't okay, but "I often get catcalled" is fine.
    - nostrebored 11y ago
      I think this would be fine, if more people were talking about it. My fiancee phrasing things in a way like "I often get catcalled" frequently gets derailed by people saying what the OP here mentioned. And at that point the discussion does get shut down, because if she does mention that most of her friends have the same experience, the implication does come up. Depending on where you live, and what you do in your day, attractive women do get cat called. A lot. An upsetting amount, and just because it's not a universal doesn't make the derailing okay either. I'm sure that people saying this don't mean to derail, just as people mentioning the catcalling don't intend it as an insult, but it does shut down conversation.
  - Confusion 11y ago
    Is the implication here that ryanobjc's partner can't tell the story of how alienating these stories are to her, because that would be derailing a worthwhile project? In fact, is the implication here that any story that is not in harmony with such a project's goals may immediately be shot down as 'derailing', without addressing the actual concerns or criticism at all? That is how you get groupthink and echo chambers.
- normloman 11y ago
  That's why there are multiple stories. So someone reading can see the whole range of women's experience in technology. I'm sure there will be some good, some bad.
- jonnybgood 11y ago
  You're correct. Something else that's noticable here is that they're all white women.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - Mz 11y ago
    Just a quick preview of one video indicates they aren't all white. A lot are, but not all.
    - michaelmrose 11y ago
      You mean the demographics of the videos match the actual demographics of tech companies shocking
- crimsonalucard 11y ago
  The page presents multiple stories from multiple perspectives to try to cover all experiences. From looking at the pictures, I'm positive at least one of the women on the front page probably doesn't get catcalled either, so your partner is covered. Another thing I don't like about this page is that they are only focusing on Software Engineering as if it represents the entire world of "Technology" aka "Tech." I'll have you know, there's a lot of "Technology" in the kitchen as well. For example: dishwasher and microwave.
- lambda 11y ago
  > "all women get catcalled" Which one of these videos did that quote come from? I haven't watched them all, but I didn't see it in the few that I watched. > So what about the women who have an entirely different kind of experience? Just because some women have different experiences doesn't mean that there aren't real problems that other women face. For instance, if I have never been a victim of mugging, that doesn't mean that mugging is still not a problem. And hey, I live in a city; so should I say that we should stop talking about problems with urban violence just because I haven't personally been subjected to it?
kefka 11y ago
Why should I care about more social justice demagoguery? I couldn't care less if you have a penis, testicles, breasts, vagina, uterus, or whatever combinations of said organs this unique little butterfly has. "What have you done, and what are you working on?" are important to me. And auxiliary to that would be "What life happenings lead you to addressing those questions?". I'm also curious how they learned the skills they used to succeed in their projects. Edit: Unsurprising. SJW downvotes. Explain to me why I should put an emphasis on someone's gender? Doing that is sexist.
- zxcvvcxz 11y ago
  Amen. I always thought the best way to make females, younger people, minorities, space cowboys, etc more comfortable at work was to just focus on the work. In fact I've had a lot of minorities tell me that they don't like anything along the lines of affirmative action. It just makes them feel like imposters when they actually do succeed. And, surprise surprise, it makes other people feel resentful of them, even though they didn't choose to be in that situation. Not treating anyone special has to be the fairest way to treat others.
- normloman 11y ago
  You shouldn't put an emphasis on gender. But the numbers and stories like these prove that most people do, even if unconsciously. All of us are subject to biases, and pretending like you're above this reeks of hubris.
  - sbarker 11y ago
    So let he hire all college degree holding males and you can hire every colorful butterfly and lets see who succeeds at a hackathon.
    - atrophying 11y ago
      Lady hacker here. Bring it. We'll see who pwns who. (Also, thank you for proving a point in an amazingly effective fashion - as if "college degree holding males" are the only people capable of working with tech. Your testicles don't automatically make you superior, and my vagina doesn't automatically make me inferior.)
Animats 11y ago
The page won't render properly because Ghostery blocks some Adobe feature as a tracker.
- Joeboy 11y ago
  I have the Adobe one whitelisted and it doesn't work for me either. Can't be arsed to work out why. Edit: I guess these are the videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCogU9fanQxHuSDcKXunHOgg/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCogU9fanQxHuSDcKXunHOgg/vid...
- TJSomething 11y ago
  It's actually the Mixpanel tracker, which is unsurprising, since the entire website is Mixpanel.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jkot 11y ago
Hm, company behind such project could be a bit more diverse. Here is picture of their team: https://mixpanel.com/jobs/ https://mixpanel.com/jobs/
- kefka 11y ago
  Great idea... So they should start hiring women who don't have the skills over others (who happen to be male) that do. Wonderful suggestion. But I'm sure they can fake-make a few Social Media fluff positions for women to fill. It's what GitHub did.
  - jkot 11y ago
    Why so angry? If company in Bengalore can have 70% women engineers, it should not be a problem for well funded startup in US.
    - michaelmrose 11y ago
      Men make up 75% of the IT workforce and 82% of computer science graduates. If women aren't even studying the field it makes it a tad harder to hire them don't you think? People should aspire to hire the best people in their field not the "right" gender, color, sexual orientation etc. Anything else is bigotry under the flag of diversity. Also if you can do a little basic math you should be able to see that the average company will be no more diverse than the labor pool. For every company that is 50/50 other companies will have even less than the average.
      - sosuke 11y ago
        I may be stepping on a landmine, but your numbers make me curious. Is the goal of gender diversity 50/50 female/male, or is it 20/80 female/male based off the compsci graduates? What does it mean to have a diverse development team, and how did those numbers happen?
  - braythwayt 11y ago
    You sarcastically state: So they should start hiring women who don't have the skills over others (who happen to be male) that do. This asserts that if a company has hired a preponderance of men, and then it goes out of its way to hire women, that it necessarily must hire women who are inferior to the men it was predisposed to hire. This is based on your axiomatic belief that the company's hiring was already fair and unbiased, and if a company doesn't have any (or has few) women, this is because there weren't any qualified women to hire. Same for people of colour, &c. So if hiring is already objectively fair, seeking diversity must necessarily involve hiring inferior people. But the argument falls apart if hiring ISN'T objectively fair, if the assumption is wrong. And that's the point being debated. Thus, if you feel that hiring is already objectively fair, you should state that outright, not beg the question being raised.
eonw 11y ago
i am still struggling to understand how this is important, and why we should care. men have struggles just the same, this is like reverse sexism.
- no1ne 11y ago
  well said.. unless people start taking a stand against this, we will have intelligence dragged down and innovation and pioneering taken hostage.. as we have already in cases like that of Sir Tim Hunt etc
- pdabbadabba 11y ago
  The reason others are concerned about this while you are not is that many people regard this proposition as wildly incorrect: > men have struggles just the same Yes, men and women both have struggles. But many believe (including myself) that women face many more challenges by virtue of being women, than men do by virtue of being men. Women are more likely to be sexualized in work (and any other) environments, their reactions to events are more likely to be described as "emotional" or "irrational," they are widely considered (without evidence) to be inferior to men in fields like math and science, etc. Don't forget: until relatively recently, women were widely regarded (in both law and society) as the property or either their father or, once married, husband. This is still the prevailing view in much of the world. And debates like this still go on: http://www.debate.org/opinions/are-women-the-property-of-their-husbands http://www.debate.org/opinions/are-women-the-property-of-the... Under these conditions, it seems natural to expect that women face a lot of unique challenges, to put it mildly--and that expectation is indeed born out by the actual experiences of many women. Discussing these issues is important because it is a crucial part of our shared efforts to eliminate these phenomenon.
  - eonw 11y ago
    that's all fine and dandy, but no one is bitching about the fact we have very very very few men working in the child care industry, for instance... better start subsidizing their jobs too? men and women were both given the same choice of universities and classes in high school. the tech sector did not turn its back on women or minorities, they turned their back on it. now that its profitable they want a piece of that pie.
interactive_guy 11y ago
If you think this is misplaced, that they should just 'buckle down and work,' that silicon valley is a meritocracy or near enough and that the overwhelming number of people there (including, of course, you) deserve to be there because they are smarter and better than 'non-technical people who could have what you have if only the just tried... Then maybe you should strongly consider that you are part of the problem.
Noelkd 11y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_tVT0dhEMU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_tVT0dhEMU Is this a positive story? Is it supposed to be? Is this a story from GitHub? I'm confused about this.
- cpeterso 11y ago
  Whether the events happened at GitHub or elsewhere doesn't matter for the story. She is describing her personal experience so that other people may be find the courage to ask for what they feel is equitable.
MikeKusold 11y ago
Since the page renders terribly for me, here are all the videos the page links to: I am Tech: Challenges - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg_ECYhptDo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg_ECYhptDo I am Tech: Love - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5EzYG-2fss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5EzYG-2fss I am Tech: Advice - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3NqI-0u9sA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3NqI-0u9sA Hilary Stone @ Mixpanel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_STckadkcVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_STckadkcVQ Jenny Finkel @ Mixpanel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-2YaP4UfHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-2YaP4UfHY Liz Clinkenbeard @ Github - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_tVT0dhEMU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_tVT0dhEMU
thelastguy 11y ago
Really hard to hire women in tech. Whenever I interviewed them, turned out they only studied Liberal Arts in college. That is very unqualified. And for the few ones that studied Physics, Engineering, or Computer Science in College, Google and other major compnies alredy hired to them all. So again, no luck there either. In the end, you really can't force women to study something they don't like, like Calculus and Physics, the requirements for Computer Science. Afterall, they're independent, and they will study whatever they want in college, which is usally Liberal Arts, Teaching, Psychology, or Biology. But never math, or physics.
- echlebek 11y ago
  There's plenty of women that study math and physics. I know this because they were in my classes in CS, math and physics, and beside me on graduation day. Your assumption that women don't like these topics is wrong. I'd encourage you to seek an alternative explanation for why you are having trouble hiring women.
  - thelastguy 11y ago
    Although there were women in my math and physics classes to, there were definately way more men than women. And not only that, some of women eneded up doing something different after graduation. Just because you have a degree in something doesn't mean you're will go into that field. A lot graduates ended up with a career different from their degree. Most of the time, the degree is used just as a 'certificate that i finished college' to get a job. The problem is, women are not entering STEM careers. They don't want to. And certain people are trying to force STEM down their throat, without their consent. You can't hire women if they're not in STEM, you can't hire them if they've decided to work in some other field instead.
    - runamok 11y ago
      The argument is: a. Since there are not many women in these professions, young girls and women don't aspire to them. b. A decent amount of women enter the STEM fields but fall out of them because they feel unwelcome, discriminated against, etc. c. The discouragement starts early too. Our culture is very gendered and girls get pushed towards pink and fashion and boys towards soldiers and tech in general. Here are some examples of things that make women feel unwelcome. It's pretty depressing. http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents I don't disagree with you re: the current STEM ratios and I do think it's a hot button issue because tech fields are lucrative (and of course because articles that piss people off get more clicks). You don't see women complaining about the construction, trucker, fisherperson, etc. jobs that are predominantly male nor do they ask for more men in nursing and education to have more gender balance there. So tl;dr: fix the STEM pipeline starting at age 6 or so and treat the women that are here with some common decency.

56 points by suhail 11y ago

One thing I have learned from my wonderful partner is stories like this can be incredibly alienating to women who don't fit into them. For example, the "all women get catcalled" - my partner notes that since she never gets catcalled, she must be too ugly. So what about the women who have an entirely different kind of experience? This article is a classic: https://medium.com/@maradydd/okay-feminism-its-time-we-had-a-talk-about-empathy-bd6321c66b37 https://medium.com/@maradydd/okay-feminism-its-time-we-had-a...

untog 11y ago
Is the implication here that we shouldn't let women tell any stories unless their experience is an utterly universal one experienced by every woman? Just seems like a way to derail a worthwhile project like this. It is clearly collecting a wide variety of stories, and IMO that's worthwhile. After all, minorities - by definition - don't have universal experiences, but surely they're still worth telling?
- crindy 11y ago
  I thought the poster just wanted people to avoid generalizing. "All women get catcalled" isn't okay, but "I often get catcalled" is fine.
  - nostrebored 11y ago
    I think this would be fine, if more people were talking about it. My fiancee phrasing things in a way like "I often get catcalled" frequently gets derailed by people saying what the OP here mentioned. And at that point the discussion does get shut down, because if she does mention that most of her friends have the same experience, the implication does come up. Depending on where you live, and what you do in your day, attractive women do get cat called. A lot. An upsetting amount, and just because it's not a universal doesn't make the derailing okay either. I'm sure that people saying this don't mean to derail, just as people mentioning the catcalling don't intend it as an insult, but it does shut down conversation.
- Confusion 11y ago
  Is the implication here that ryanobjc's partner can't tell the story of how alienating these stories are to her, because that would be derailing a worthwhile project? In fact, is the implication here that any story that is not in harmony with such a project's goals may immediately be shot down as 'derailing', without addressing the actual concerns or criticism at all? That is how you get groupthink and echo chambers.
normloman 11y ago
That's why there are multiple stories. So someone reading can see the whole range of women's experience in technology. I'm sure there will be some good, some bad.
jonnybgood 11y ago
You're correct. Something else that's noticable here is that they're all white women.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Mz 11y ago
  Just a quick preview of one video indicates they aren't all white. A lot are, but not all.
  - michaelmrose 11y ago
    You mean the demographics of the videos match the actual demographics of tech companies shocking
crimsonalucard 11y ago
The page presents multiple stories from multiple perspectives to try to cover all experiences. From looking at the pictures, I'm positive at least one of the women on the front page probably doesn't get catcalled either, so your partner is covered. Another thing I don't like about this page is that they are only focusing on Software Engineering as if it represents the entire world of "Technology" aka "Tech." I'll have you know, there's a lot of "Technology" in the kitchen as well. For example: dishwasher and microwave.
lambda 11y ago
> "all women get catcalled" Which one of these videos did that quote come from? I haven't watched them all, but I didn't see it in the few that I watched. > So what about the women who have an entirely different kind of experience? Just because some women have different experiences doesn't mean that there aren't real problems that other women face. For instance, if I have never been a victim of mugging, that doesn't mean that mugging is still not a problem. And hey, I live in a city; so should I say that we should stop talking about problems with urban violence just because I haven't personally been subjected to it?

kefka 11y ago

Why should I care about more social justice demagoguery? I couldn't care less if you have a penis, testicles, breasts, vagina, uterus, or whatever combinations of said organs this unique little butterfly has. "What have you done, and what are you working on?" are important to me. And auxiliary to that would be "What life happenings lead you to addressing those questions?". I'm also curious how they learned the skills they used to succeed in their projects. Edit: Unsurprising. SJW downvotes. Explain to me why I should put an emphasis on someone's gender? Doing that is sexist.

zxcvvcxz 11y ago
Amen. I always thought the best way to make females, younger people, minorities, space cowboys, etc more comfortable at work was to just focus on the work. In fact I've had a lot of minorities tell me that they don't like anything along the lines of affirmative action. It just makes them feel like imposters when they actually do succeed. And, surprise surprise, it makes other people feel resentful of them, even though they didn't choose to be in that situation. Not treating anyone special has to be the fairest way to treat others.
normloman 11y ago
You shouldn't put an emphasis on gender. But the numbers and stories like these prove that most people do, even if unconsciously. All of us are subject to biases, and pretending like you're above this reeks of hubris.
- sbarker 11y ago
  So let he hire all college degree holding males and you can hire every colorful butterfly and lets see who succeeds at a hackathon.
  - atrophying 11y ago
    Lady hacker here. Bring it. We'll see who pwns who. (Also, thank you for proving a point in an amazingly effective fashion - as if "college degree holding males" are the only people capable of working with tech. Your testicles don't automatically make you superior, and my vagina doesn't automatically make me inferior.)

Animats 11y ago

The page won't render properly because Ghostery blocks some Adobe feature as a tracker.

Joeboy 11y ago
I have the Adobe one whitelisted and it doesn't work for me either. Can't be arsed to work out why. Edit: I guess these are the videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCogU9fanQxHuSDcKXunHOgg/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCogU9fanQxHuSDcKXunHOgg/vid...
TJSomething 11y ago
It's actually the Mixpanel tracker, which is unsurprising, since the entire website is Mixpanel.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

jkot 11y ago

Hm, company behind such project could be a bit more diverse. Here is picture of their team: https://mixpanel.com/jobs/ https://mixpanel.com/jobs/

kefka 11y ago
Great idea... So they should start hiring women who don't have the skills over others (who happen to be male) that do. Wonderful suggestion. But I'm sure they can fake-make a few Social Media fluff positions for women to fill. It's what GitHub did.
- jkot 11y ago
  Why so angry? If company in Bengalore can have 70% women engineers, it should not be a problem for well funded startup in US.
  - michaelmrose 11y ago
    Men make up 75% of the IT workforce and 82% of computer science graduates. If women aren't even studying the field it makes it a tad harder to hire them don't you think? People should aspire to hire the best people in their field not the "right" gender, color, sexual orientation etc. Anything else is bigotry under the flag of diversity. Also if you can do a little basic math you should be able to see that the average company will be no more diverse than the labor pool. For every company that is 50/50 other companies will have even less than the average.
    - sosuke 11y ago
      I may be stepping on a landmine, but your numbers make me curious. Is the goal of gender diversity 50/50 female/male, or is it 20/80 female/male based off the compsci graduates? What does it mean to have a diverse development team, and how did those numbers happen?
- braythwayt 11y ago
  You sarcastically state: So they should start hiring women who don't have the skills over others (who happen to be male) that do. This asserts that if a company has hired a preponderance of men, and then it goes out of its way to hire women, that it necessarily must hire women who are inferior to the men it was predisposed to hire. This is based on your axiomatic belief that the company's hiring was already fair and unbiased, and if a company doesn't have any (or has few) women, this is because there weren't any qualified women to hire. Same for people of colour, &c. So if hiring is already objectively fair, seeking diversity must necessarily involve hiring inferior people. But the argument falls apart if hiring ISN'T objectively fair, if the assumption is wrong. And that's the point being debated. Thus, if you feel that hiring is already objectively fair, you should state that outright, not beg the question being raised.

eonw 11y ago

i am still struggling to understand how this is important, and why we should care. men have struggles just the same, this is like reverse sexism.

no1ne 11y ago
well said.. unless people start taking a stand against this, we will have intelligence dragged down and innovation and pioneering taken hostage.. as we have already in cases like that of Sir Tim Hunt etc
pdabbadabba 11y ago
The reason others are concerned about this while you are not is that many people regard this proposition as wildly incorrect: > men have struggles just the same Yes, men and women both have struggles. But many believe (including myself) that women face many more challenges by virtue of being women, than men do by virtue of being men. Women are more likely to be sexualized in work (and any other) environments, their reactions to events are more likely to be described as "emotional" or "irrational," they are widely considered (without evidence) to be inferior to men in fields like math and science, etc. Don't forget: until relatively recently, women were widely regarded (in both law and society) as the property or either their father or, once married, husband. This is still the prevailing view in much of the world. And debates like this still go on: http://www.debate.org/opinions/are-women-the-property-of-their-husbands http://www.debate.org/opinions/are-women-the-property-of-the... Under these conditions, it seems natural to expect that women face a lot of unique challenges, to put it mildly--and that expectation is indeed born out by the actual experiences of many women. Discussing these issues is important because it is a crucial part of our shared efforts to eliminate these phenomenon.
- eonw 11y ago
  that's all fine and dandy, but no one is bitching about the fact we have very very very few men working in the child care industry, for instance... better start subsidizing their jobs too? men and women were both given the same choice of universities and classes in high school. the tech sector did not turn its back on women or minorities, they turned their back on it. now that its profitable they want a piece of that pie.

interactive_guy 11y ago

If you think this is misplaced, that they should just 'buckle down and work,' that silicon valley is a meritocracy or near enough and that the overwhelming number of people there (including, of course, you) deserve to be there because they are smarter and better than 'non-technical people who could have what you have if only the just tried... Then maybe you should strongly consider that you are part of the problem.

Noelkd 11y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_tVT0dhEMU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_tVT0dhEMU Is this a positive story? Is it supposed to be? Is this a story from GitHub? I'm confused about this.

cpeterso 11y ago
Whether the events happened at GitHub or elsewhere doesn't matter for the story. She is describing her personal experience so that other people may be find the courage to ask for what they feel is equitable.

MikeKusold 11y ago

Since the page renders terribly for me, here are all the videos the page links to: I am Tech: Challenges - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg_ECYhptDo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg_ECYhptDo I am Tech: Love - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5EzYG-2fss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5EzYG-2fss I am Tech: Advice - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3NqI-0u9sA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3NqI-0u9sA Hilary Stone @ Mixpanel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_STckadkcVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_STckadkcVQ Jenny Finkel @ Mixpanel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-2YaP4UfHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-2YaP4UfHY Liz Clinkenbeard @ Github - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_tVT0dhEMU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_tVT0dhEMU

thelastguy 11y ago

Really hard to hire women in tech. Whenever I interviewed them, turned out they only studied Liberal Arts in college. That is very unqualified. And for the few ones that studied Physics, Engineering, or Computer Science in College, Google and other major compnies alredy hired to them all. So again, no luck there either. In the end, you really can't force women to study something they don't like, like Calculus and Physics, the requirements for Computer Science. Afterall, they're independent, and they will study whatever they want in college, which is usally Liberal Arts, Teaching, Psychology, or Biology. But never math, or physics.

echlebek 11y ago
There's plenty of women that study math and physics. I know this because they were in my classes in CS, math and physics, and beside me on graduation day. Your assumption that women don't like these topics is wrong. I'd encourage you to seek an alternative explanation for why you are having trouble hiring women.
- thelastguy 11y ago
  Although there were women in my math and physics classes to, there were definately way more men than women. And not only that, some of women eneded up doing something different after graduation. Just because you have a degree in something doesn't mean you're will go into that field. A lot graduates ended up with a career different from their degree. Most of the time, the degree is used just as a 'certificate that i finished college' to get a job. The problem is, women are not entering STEM careers. They don't want to. And certain people are trying to force STEM down their throat, without their consent. You can't hire women if they're not in STEM, you can't hire them if they've decided to work in some other field instead.
  - runamok 11y ago
    The argument is: a. Since there are not many women in these professions, young girls and women don't aspire to them. b. A decent amount of women enter the STEM fields but fall out of them because they feel unwelcome, discriminated against, etc. c. The discouragement starts early too. Our culture is very gendered and girls get pushed towards pink and fashion and boys towards soldiers and tech in general. Here are some examples of things that make women feel unwelcome. It's pretty depressing. http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents I don't disagree with you re: the current STEM ratios and I do think it's a hot button issue because tech fields are lucrative (and of course because articles that piss people off get more clicks). You don't see women complaining about the construction, trucker, fisherperson, etc. jobs that are predominantly male nor do they ask for more men in nursing and education to have more gender balance there. So tl;dr: fix the STEM pipeline starting at age 6 or so and treat the women that are here with some common decency.