4 ms·

I can see a response article "Women rants about women ranting about women in tech. Look at that women who has nothing better to do. I have to spend 16 hours a d

I can see a response article "Women rants about women ranting about women in tech. Look at that women who has nothing better to do. I have to spend 16 hours a day just to survive and shes just complaining about complaining". Where does it end? "From what I have experienced, it looks to me like an awful lot of men do not want to engage women professionally for fear that it will lead to scandal of some sort" - any comments from guys on this? Are you ever hesitant to engage out of fear of a scandal?

HelloNurse 11y ago
Seeing the USA tech sector from the very skewed point of view of Hacker News stories, I'm horrified by the apparent abundance of women like Ellen Pao or Julie Ann Horvath, or much worse, and by the terrifying threat they represent even for men who don't make the mistake of hiring them. It's like camping in a forest that is home to a man-eating tiger, completely unarmed. When hiring, or even contacting, a woman is more dangerous than a bad business decision, any uncomfortably immature and sexist "boys' club" becomes better, in all practical and moral senses, than attempting to be nice to predators and sociopaths and being punished for that. Socially responsible people would try to avoid driving the "enemy" into justified paranoia, because (as the linked article argues) everybody loses. I'm afraid there's not enough social pressure to behave normally.
th0waway 11y ago
Yes. As a married, white, heterosexual male, being seen having a dinner alone with a single female (or even lunch) would be enough to cause questions from friends. So it's not worth it. And I'm no one, with no fame or high position.
- deleted 11y ago
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Nadya 11y ago
> any comments from guys on this? Are you ever hesitant to engage out of fear of a scandal? Yes. Absolutely yes. As far as I'm concerned my female coworkers don't exist. I think it is sad, but I'd rather treat them like ghosts than lose my job because one of them felt I looked at them funny or in the wrong way. Any meetings require a minimum of 3 people - I refuse to be alone in the same room because if it comes down to a he said/she said, she is the default. Same reason why male college professors avoid being alone with female students. It's absolutely stupid that I have to be a sexist asshole because my other option is to risk my job due to the very real possibility of fraudulent claims of being a sexist asshole. I suppose there is a bit of irony in there as well.
throwaway3232 11y ago
Generally, I like to give all people benefit of the doubt irrespective of gender identity. That said, it doesn't take many interactions with individuals to get an idea of why kind of things they care about and are vocal about. People who are actively like the person referenced in the blog post become their own self-fulfilling prophecy and fail to see how their whining/complaining contributes to them not progressing in their career by isolating them from their colleagues. I work with amazing people that span the gender spectrum. Most are heterosexual males. Regardless of where a colleague lies on the identity spectrum, I respect and work with them all. I did however have a coworker on a previous team that frequently interpreted many interactions and events through victim-colored glasses. On occasion we would get in debates, especially if bad statistics were presented (I'm easily nerd-sniped by bad stats, https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/), especially the base rate fallacy. It got a tad uncivil at times because my retorts and corrections to the bad state were unwelcome. Another behavior of their's that caused discomfort for me and others, were frequent unambiguously negative comments stereotyping a gender identity, gender orientation and race that is generally perceived as have greater privileges. Despite the occasional unpleasant interaction, I made sure to provide mentorship to this colleague when appropriate. I eventually switched teams for a far more interesting opportunity. Avoiding this colleague with a victim mentality was not at all a motivating factor for my move, but I can't say that it wasn't a huge relief to no longer work with this person directly. The entire time we worked together, I assumed that it was possible that I may eventually end up at the wrong end of one of those unpleasant interaction that would end up biting me in the ass because I have the privilege of being assumed to be the transgressor in such situations due to my perceived gender identity and perceived race (fwiw, I'm a mixed race pomosexual, but people don't know that unless I tell them). I actively/consciously make sure not to single out people based on their identity, but observed behavior is another manner entirely. Once someone outs themselves as a wearer of victim-colored glasses, I get especially leery. I recognize however that most people aren't going to give the benefit of the doubt and identify this nuance, so I can see how many colleagues would avoid working with those whose identity correlates statistically with wearing victim-colored glasses. The threat of scandal with those wearing victim colored glasses begets avoidant behavior in those who perceived identity puts them in the group most likely to be the loser in the event of any ambiguous scandal. Overall I consider victimhood culture to be a super toxic approach that fosters isolation. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-rise-of-victimhood-culture/404794/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-rise...
sridca 11y ago
I'm a man of Indian origin living in Western Canada, and I have had to deal with issues like this in personal life outside of tech. For eg., once I was accused by a female neighbor as stalking them (peeking at their window), which is a really crazy accusation. Incidents like that make me generally be wary of, if not downright withdraw from, the female of the population, especially as some of them seem quite good at switching emotions at whim (making it harder to assess what they are up to).

HelloNurse 11y ago

Seeing the USA tech sector from the very skewed point of view of Hacker News stories, I'm horrified by the apparent abundance of women like Ellen Pao or Julie Ann Horvath, or much worse, and by the terrifying threat they represent even for men who don't make the mistake of hiring them. It's like camping in a forest that is home to a man-eating tiger, completely unarmed. When hiring, or even contacting, a woman is more dangerous than a bad business decision, any uncomfortably immature and sexist "boys' club" becomes better, in all practical and moral senses, than attempting to be nice to predators and sociopaths and being punished for that. Socially responsible people would try to avoid driving the "enemy" into justified paranoia, because (as the linked article argues) everybody loses. I'm afraid there's not enough social pressure to behave normally.

th0waway 11y ago

Yes. As a married, white, heterosexual male, being seen having a dinner alone with a single female (or even lunch) would be enough to cause questions from friends. So it's not worth it. And I'm no one, with no fame or high position.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

Nadya 11y ago

> any comments from guys on this? Are you ever hesitant to engage out of fear of a scandal? Yes. Absolutely yes. As far as I'm concerned my female coworkers don't exist. I think it is sad, but I'd rather treat them like ghosts than lose my job because one of them felt I looked at them funny or in the wrong way. Any meetings require a minimum of 3 people - I refuse to be alone in the same room because if it comes down to a he said/she said, she is the default. Same reason why male college professors avoid being alone with female students. It's absolutely stupid that I have to be a sexist asshole because my other option is to risk my job due to the very real possibility of fraudulent claims of being a sexist asshole. I suppose there is a bit of irony in there as well.

throwaway3232 11y ago

Generally, I like to give all people benefit of the doubt irrespective of gender identity. That said, it doesn't take many interactions with individuals to get an idea of why kind of things they care about and are vocal about. People who are actively like the person referenced in the blog post become their own self-fulfilling prophecy and fail to see how their whining/complaining contributes to them not progressing in their career by isolating them from their colleagues. I work with amazing people that span the gender spectrum. Most are heterosexual males. Regardless of where a colleague lies on the identity spectrum, I respect and work with them all. I did however have a coworker on a previous team that frequently interpreted many interactions and events through victim-colored glasses. On occasion we would get in debates, especially if bad statistics were presented (I'm easily nerd-sniped by bad stats, https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/), especially the base rate fallacy. It got a tad uncivil at times because my retorts and corrections to the bad state were unwelcome. Another behavior of their's that caused discomfort for me and others, were frequent unambiguously negative comments stereotyping a gender identity, gender orientation and race that is generally perceived as have greater privileges. Despite the occasional unpleasant interaction, I made sure to provide mentorship to this colleague when appropriate. I eventually switched teams for a far more interesting opportunity. Avoiding this colleague with a victim mentality was not at all a motivating factor for my move, but I can't say that it wasn't a huge relief to no longer work with this person directly. The entire time we worked together, I assumed that it was possible that I may eventually end up at the wrong end of one of those unpleasant interaction that would end up biting me in the ass because I have the privilege of being assumed to be the transgressor in such situations due to my perceived gender identity and perceived race (fwiw, I'm a mixed race pomosexual, but people don't know that unless I tell them). I actively/consciously make sure not to single out people based on their identity, but observed behavior is another manner entirely. Once someone outs themselves as a wearer of victim-colored glasses, I get especially leery. I recognize however that most people aren't going to give the benefit of the doubt and identify this nuance, so I can see how many colleagues would avoid working with those whose identity correlates statistically with wearing victim-colored glasses. The threat of scandal with those wearing victim colored glasses begets avoidant behavior in those who perceived identity puts them in the group most likely to be the loser in the event of any ambiguous scandal. Overall I consider victimhood culture to be a super toxic approach that fosters isolation. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-rise-of-victimhood-culture/404794/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-rise...

sridca 11y ago

I'm a man of Indian origin living in Western Canada, and I have had to deal with issues like this in personal life outside of tech. For eg., once I was accused by a female neighbor as stalking them (peeking at their window), which is a really crazy accusation. Incidents like that make me generally be wary of, if not downright withdraw from, the female of the population, especially as some of them seem quite good at switching emotions at whim (making it harder to assess what they are up to).