53 ms·

My positive experience as a woman in tech

520 points by sebkomianos 11y ago

anc84 11y ago
> Stories like mine should become the norm, not the exception. We don't know if that is not the case already. The echo chamber is powerful and viral. A great post, thank you!
sktrdie 11y ago
Am I the only one who thinks "sexism" is overrated? It's misinterpreted by so many and I'm not sure I understand what it means most of the time. I think humans are prejudice about so many things that it's hard to keep track and "give a name" to every single prejudice. Obviously "sex" does set us apart much more strongly than, say, race, or probably any other thing, so I really find it normal that there are stereotypes and prejudices about "sex" specifically. Obviously there's a problem if your stereotype, whichever it may be, becomes offensive and disrespectful. But I mean -- " I noticed for the first time that day that I was the only woman in the room. His effort to be courteous made me feel that I was different, the odd one out" -- there's no way you can label this "sexist". It's just a dude who probably thinks a girl is cute and is therefore a little awkward around said person. I guess what I'm trying to say is that labels can mean different things to different people and I really hate using them to express my specific situation.
- blowski 11y ago
  Exactly. Sexism is not identical to misogynism. Where the latter is about being nasty, sexism is believing something about somebody solely based on their gender. So if I assume you don't like pizza and football because you're female, so instead buy you frozen yoghurt, I'm being sexist even if it's with the nicest of intentions. We're all human and we all make mistakes, but sometimes people blow those mistakes out of all proportion. We just need more understanding and patience on both sides of the fence.
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    >So if I assume you don't like pizza and football because you're female, so instead buy you frozen yoghurt, I'm being sexist even if it's with the nicest of intentions. If I'm buying my young niece a toy, and see two otherwise equal toys except one is blue and one is pink, is it sexist to choose the pink one? I have to make a choice, there is no non-colored toy. I only think it crosses into sexism if my niece told me she likes blue better and I still pick a pink one or if there is some reason that the pink option is objectively worse (say if I was buying her a Bumblebee transformer, picking the pink one instead of the yellow one would qualify because the yellow one is the canonical color).
    - blowski 11y ago
      > If I'm buying my young niece a toy, and see two otherwise equal toys except one is blue and one is pink, is it sexist to choose the pink one? It would be sexist if you bought the pink one thinking "She's a girl, she'll prefer pink to blue" because you would be assuming something based solely on her gender. The best course of action might be to ask her "Do you want the blue one or the pink one?". But maybe you couldn't, and so you used your knowledge of your niece and of little girls in general, and you go with the pink one. Sometimes we have no choice but to use our stereotypes, but whenever possible we should get more data rather than just making assumptions.
      - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
        >It would be sexist if you bought the pink one thinking "She's a girl, she'll prefer pink to blue" because you would be assuming something based solely on her gender. What if I think "she is a girl, which means that, given I do not know her preference, she is more likely to prefer pink to blue"? Is using averages sexist/racist/*ist? Would it be genderist to assume someone who displays all the signs of a guy is a guy?
        blowski 11y ago
        The logic of averages works like this: Girls are more likely to prefer pink than blue. My niece is a girl. Therefore she is more likely to prefer pink. So it seems to stand. However, my niece is also Italian, and Italians are more likely to prefer blue to pink. She is also vegetarian and vegetarians are more likely to prefer green to either blue or pink. (I'm making all these stats up in case that wasn't obvious). So which colour toy should I buy for my niece? Humans are complex. They can't be reduced to simple 'this one or that one' probabilities based on a single factor.
- seivan 11y ago
  There is also those who see vulgarity as a form of Sexism/racism. It only helps alienating people if you brand anything as sexism.
- StavrosK 11y ago
  I agree, pretty much our every interaction is full of biases. Not only that, but "bias" is just what we call wrong guesses! We go through life assigning likelihoods to things, because it's useful to know that a stove is more likely than a kitchen counter to burn you (even if it's not on), a road is more likely to require caution than a pavement, men are more likely to be able to lift heavy weights than women, etc. I still haven't been able to pin down what bias is, but I'd say preliminarily, "adhering to the initial judgement for someone even after getting evidence to the contrary". I can't rationally discount that X group of people is more likely to do Y (it would be irrational to claim that all groups of people have exactly the same statistical properties), but if you think that a specific person does Y just because you think their group does Y, even after you've seen that they don't, then you're biased.
- pron 11y ago
  Sexism is not stereotypes or personal feelings or attitudes (although those can by misogynistic). The academic (and consistent) definition of sexism is a property of a society where one of the sexes has less power than the other, and the mechanism by which that imbalance of power is perpetuated. Of course, sexism occurs because of internalized biases that are very hard counter unless people actually seek them out, and try to change the ones that cause an imbalance of power. Because those biases are internalized and widespread, it is very hard to find someone who isn't sexist. Being sexist doesn't imply blame, just like you couldn't blame someone three hundred years ago for not washing their hands and spreading disease, because they didn't know that diseases are caused by microbes. Just as observing disease-causing microbes requires study -- and in particular, distinguishing between disease-causing microbes and harmless or even helpful microbes -- so too does noticing sexism, and learning to distinguish it from harmless forms of non-uniform behavior towards others. But in both cases, the harm caused is real, and it is our duty to learn its mechanism and do our best to fight it.
  - forgottenpass 11y ago
    No. I'm sick of this game. You clarification of the definition isn't clarification. It's unnecessary linguistic prescriptivism. If you want to talk about the type of sexism also often refereed to as "institutional sexism" then that's fine. If you want to call it just "sexism" thats fine too (but puts an unnecessary complication on the reader). But "sexism" is an overloaded term whether you want it to be or not. Just like I can't say "Bi-monthly now and forever forward only means every other month, and never means twice a month," you can't just wave away the regular-prejudice definition of sexism just because you want to. Also, this "academic definition" meme is bullshit. Academic writing is about clarity and making sure the reader understands the author's meaning. So, if at the beginning of the paper the author clarifies when they use "foo" they only mean one of the 3 possible definitions of foo, that's just good writing. But if they say "definition 2 of foo isn't actually foo, it's just bar. For any and all uses of foo, including outside this paper" they're a hack.
    - pron 11y ago
      > If you want to talk about the type of sexism also often refereed to as "institutional sexism" But I was not talking about institutional sexism. Sexism can be individual (and often is), but unlike misogyny it does not imply disdain towards women; simply behavior (that can feel neutral or even positive) that results in increasing the imbalance of power. > But "sexism" is an overloaded term whether you want it to be or not. OK, but it also a term that was coined by a feminist professor fifty years ago and considered a well-accepted academic term regardless of its colloquial meaning(s). > Academic writing is about clarity and making sure the reader understands the author's meaning. Academics seem to understand that writing just fine. You can't claim that physicists' definition of energy is unclear merely because it is also used colloquially to mean other things, and you can't expect an academic to clarify what they mean by "sexism" just as you can't expect them to explain what they mean by "energy", because those are well-established, commonly used academic terms. If you find them confusing, you can either learn the relevant subject or choose not to. Unlike energy, the word sexism started with its academic definition and was only later overloaded (due to confusion) by laymen, rather than the other way around. > But if they say "definition 2 of foo isn't actually foo, it's just bar. For any and all uses of foo, including outside this paper" they're a hack. I didn't say that. I just clarified the original and academic definition of the term, because it is the colloquial term that causes confusion. The academic term is quite clear. Do with it as you like. You're obviously very angry about something.
ZeroGravitas 11y ago
> "Ironically, one of the very few times I have experienced any sexism in the industry was when a dude was trying to be nice to me." I'm not sure how ironic this is. It seems to be setting up a straw man of sexist behaviour being the domain of moustache-twirling villians, rather than something that often perfectly normal men and women inflict on each other and experience unwanted outcomes of because of their culture and the structures of the society they grew up in.
- lmm 11y ago
  I think the point is that deliberately trying to accommodate women can result in being more sexist. Which is pretty ironic.
  - meowface 11y ago
    I'm not a woman, but if I were one, I think I'd be pretty irritated if I was given special privileges or encouragement over male peers to "help me succeed" or something. That seems condescending and unfair.
    - coldpie 11y ago
      I understand what you're saying, but it is a bit more complicated than that. Affirmative action is about leveling an unlevel playing field by giving preferential treatment to those who are on the lower side of the playing field, even if they're "less qualified" than those on the higher end of the field. Yes, when viewed on the micro scale without a picture of the whole field, it may seem "unfair," but that's precisely the point; to raise up those who have been treated unfairly in other arenas. In addition, there is value simply in having viewpoints outside of those you might otherwise receive by valuing people solely on whatever objective "merits" you might be evaluating them on. It is a tricky and difficult subject, I would not be quick to dismiss either argument.
      - meowface 11y ago
        It is certainly a difficult subject. I understand the good intentions of affirmative action, but I think they cause more harm than good in the long run. To be passed up for a position due to your gender or race, or for a company to hire someone with lower technical qualifications than they'd normally accept due to gender or race, creates a lot of resentment and cultural issues. This isn't just negative opinions at the microscale; it creates a large-scale perception that certain companies or industries are giving preferential treatment, even at the expense of their own productivity and cohesion. Already I see a lot of people complaining about this on various websites, though it's probably overexaggerated a bit given that diversity quotas aren't that popular with US companies relative to many European countries (yet). Even worse, it also might encourage more division and more prejudice towards those minority groups. If a company gives preferential treatment to hiring women, then what are many coworkers going to inevitably think when a woman makes a mistake or something? "You only got hired here because you're a woman." And in that case, they actually have some empirical backing for that assumption. I don't belong to a minority group, but I feel like the anxiety of other people wondering or believing I only (or primarily) got into a certain place because of my gender or race, and not my qualifications, would be very uncomfortable and demotivating. Some people may already think that even when it's plainly not true, but a lot more people will think it if it starts becoming more true more often. Not to mention, on top of that, fear that maybe I'm not that great and my gender/race really was a major factor in my hiring decision. Talk about imposter syndrome. Also, just on a more general ethical note: People in certain groups have indeed been treated very unfairly for centuries, but flipping the table feels kind of "eye for an eye". Of course unconscious biases are a major problem and will probably be impossible to get rid of or ignore during a hiring process, but I think blind hiring procedures (no name, gender, age, etc. listed on resume or during the first stages of initial online interviews) are an all around better option. I think if organizations work hard enough, they can eliminate a lot of these issues in the pipeline. If, hypothetically, an equal number of male and female candidates make it through the blind stages, but many more men make it through the following stages, they can look at it and quickly determine if they have a problem that needs addressing.
dajohnson89 11y ago
She had me until the very end, with the anecdote about the guy apologizing for swearing in front of her. I would apologize if I said "fuck" near my country's president, or even the president of my small-ish company. Both of whom are male. It's a sign of respect. In the context of women, I see it in a similar light to holding the door open for a lady. It isn't me assuming she's too weak to open a door, it's just a common courtesy. I'm genuinely sorry that the author was offended by the guy apologizing for saying "fuck" near her. I can't speak for him, and perhaps he was a total douchebag. But perhaps he was aware that on average men can be more crude than women, and in a professional (male-dominated, numerically speaking!) setting like that one, it's prudent to avoid language that could make people feel uncomfortable.
- seunosewa 11y ago
  I didn't get the impression that she was offended by the guy who apologized for saying "fuck" near her. I think it just made her feel more self-conscious.
- bramblerose 11y ago
  > it's prudent to avoid language that could make people feel uncomfortable. The weird thing is not that he apologized (that's reasonable), the weird thing is that he apologized /to her/ (and not to the group as a whole).
  - scintill76 11y ago
    What if the reason she was "singled out" was actually that she was the only person the swearer didn't know well enough to feel OK about swearing around? Or was the only one he considered to be in earshot? Or she was just the closest and he felt he should make some gesture because he regretted it, but it wasn't bad enough to personally apologize to every last person? I guess the author's impression trumps ours (and only the swearer's honest account of his thoughts could trump hers), but she didn't really address those, so I have some doubts on whether it's as clear-cut as you say.
    - 11y ago
lifeisstillgood 11y ago
Sexism is not "over-rated" OECD's Social Institutions and Gender Index Is at http://www.genderindex.org http://www.genderindex.org, and is a litany of baked in prejudice, violence, lack of access to education, lack of access to property and other normal legal rights. When we compare the lot of a 16 yo girl in Rwanda to a High schooler in SF, yes it is hard to find where the High schooler is having problems, but we just have to look at the ratio of men and women in tech to see there is a problem - even in modern, western, progressive San Francisco. So globally, sexism is a violent oppressive force holding back progress for billions. In our happier world, it's waaaay better, but still not equal - and where there is inequality, there is profitable arbitrage opportunity. Both for talented women and for companies willing and able to introspect and overcome whatever is blocking their use of talented women. The most obvious example I can see is I should be able to hire the very best development talent, for 80% of the price of the equivalent male talent ! Win!
- smikhanov 11y ago
  When we compare the lot of a 16 yo girl in Rwanda to a High schooler in SF, yes it is hard to find where the High schooler is having problems, but... You should have stopped at this "but". Do you seriously think that it's reasonable to put into the same basket the girls' problems in Rwanda and girls' problems in modern San Francisco?
  - lifeisstillgood 11y ago
    No it's not reasonable - that's the point. The OP came up with "sexism is overrated" - I wanted to point out that if you are a girl in large parts of the world that's a frankly laughable statement. It is also wrong in modern western world, but not to the same degree - but it is still measurably wrong to think sexism is over rated.
    - marrs 11y ago
      I think it's fair to assume that the OP was speaking within the context of working in the IT industry
gloves 11y ago
> "when no positive stories get out, the overall picture painted is bleak, which could scare even more women away." In a world where there is so much bad press and news, it is nice to read something from the other side. Refreshing and encouraging.
indifferentalex 11y ago
10/10 Will read again. The sexism debate has indeed painted a bleak picture, people so often try to show a different side of the picture but end up using the wrong words or simply adding ambiguity to the discussion, most of the time only making the matter more complicated, and worst of all, pulling us even further from a potential solution. This one showed us not only a potential solution, but also proved it's effectiveness. Lea Verou (the author of the article) perfectly explains that even though there is undoubtedly a problem, a problem whose degree is not/can not be calculated (she also indirectly, simply by not giving it more article-time, makes us understand that the lack of statistics doesn't mean this problem doesn't exist or should not be resolved), this problem can and has already been solved, not by company policies or special rules, but simply by people treating others (women included) nicely, or as my first grade teacher taught me, by following the golden rule, treat others the way you want to be treated, and amazingly across all mindsets and ways of thinking this rule means, for anyone beginning from the wee age that they understand what those words mean, that one should be treated in a way that is free of bias, fair and rational. I will read this article again, and I will recommend it to friends and acquaintances and family, because sexism is a problem beyond tech too (in certain industries it might be an even bigger problem). I think this article and hopefully ones like it that either exist already that I do not know of, or ones that will be written afterwards, are a great way to make us realise that all people should be treated the way that we want to be treated, and I truly believe that will be enough to fix the problem of "women in tech".
- DanBC 11y ago
  > treat others the way you want to be treated, You've never had a pathological arsehole for a boss?
  - indifferentalex 11y ago
    I'm still studying and have never encountered obstacles set up by people with institutional power over me, so I am to a degree naive and privileged, however I was talking more about the day to day interactions that happen with a myriad of different people, mostly your peers (which apart from a few instances where it was the "bosses of tech" causing the problems, from what I remember reading the sexism usually came from the coworkers of the women). I definitely wasn't commenting on the application of the author's thoughts to all of human interaction, and didn't mean to come off that naive.
cubano 11y ago
Here is my personal experience with the fringes of this issue over a lifetime of watching it play out before my eyes... If a female is attracted to the guy, things he says or does are considered "cute", "flirtatious", and/or "interesting". If not, the same actions are often considered "creepy", "jerkish", and yes even "sexist". I think its just human nature to perceive things in this way, and since women grow up in such a vastly different, sexually charged environment (I'm watching it happen with my 13 year old daughter right now) as guys do, it is, of course, impossible for me to understand all the nuance. Just my anecdotal thoughts on it...btw it is good to see this woman make an attempt to address the issue.
- mycroft-holmes 11y ago
  I'd say you're absolutely correct. I laugh when I see feminist friends of mine who complain about "creepy" guys approaching them at coffee shops and days later they'll talk about how they hate being single and want to meet someone.
  - erkkie 11y ago
    Those are not mutually exclusive things though, presumably they want to be approached by non-creepy guys (ie ones they happen to like, by whatever measure). I guess this is just how the human mating game goes. We try to make some things make sense intellectually even though there's probably deeper subconscious and chemical messaging going on.
    - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
      It would be nice if they were a bit more honest and switched creepy/non-creepy with unattractive/attractive.
      - erkkie 11y ago
        Humanity would be more nice if everyone would be more honest :) Everyone has a bunch of biases they're more or (mostly) less aware of, thus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational
Kenji 11y ago
As a man, I'm really glad to read things like that. You know, the sexism problem makes both sexes feel bad. I think it is really important for our society in general that we don't let differences like sex get between us. It's silly and petty.
daleharvey 11y ago
It really isnt surprising this is pretty much the only article about gender discrimination that is allowed to be on the hacker news front page. Lea is obviously a talented and confident person and it is great that she has had such a positive experience. Entirely agree that she can and should share it. It is however sadly predictable that the comments on HN lean very much towards self congratulatory 'gender discrimination isnt really a problem!' discussions. The huge amount of discussion around the problematic areas of tech culture are routinely censored from this site giving people who have the privilege of not having to suffer from the systematic discrimination an easy pass to believe that there is no problem when even a token effort to look makes it more than obvious that there is a massive problem of discrimination in our field.
- worldsayshi 11y ago
  But this article doesn't really say or support that "there is no problem". Rather that it's sort of important to have both carrots and sticks. Having just one of them will entirely kill the motivation of doing anything about it. edit: It's quite possible that I misread what you are trying to say here...
- varjag 11y ago
  We must be reading different editions of HN, because I see them here regularly. The GitHub CoC related stuff alone had the frontpage several times.
- golergka 11y ago
  > pretty much the only article about gender discrimination that is allowed to be on the hacker news front page WTF? There have been dozens of articles about gender discrimination on HN front page, and comments have always been supportive. In what alternate reality do you live?
  - DanBC 11y ago
    > and comments have always been supportive. There's a sizable minority of HN commenters who deny sexism exists.
Chris2048 11y ago
I think, when we see things like this, we maybe need to clarify where (country) these experiences come from. I suspect that the worst of sexism in tech comes from the US, and that Europe is generally great...
- burkaman 11y ago
  Why do you suspect that?
  - douche 11y ago
    Because Europe is a socialist, progressive paradise, full to the brim with sunshine and unicorns! /s
    - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
      Well, it's definitely more socialist than the US, on average, that's true. The United States certainly fares worse than most of the key players in Europe in this regard: http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2015/rankings/ http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2015/ran...
    - MattRL 11y ago
      Not the other poster, but it seems like some of these issues people are bringing up just don't exist in the UK at least. I think the big problems will generally correlate, but some of the silly ones like excusing swearing around women or holding doors for women (we do that for everybody if I understand the issue correctly), just flat out don't exist. I'd also hazard a guess that we're probably more polite when dealing with coworkers, but that's complete conjecture on my part.
    - Chris2048 11y ago
      Relative to the US? Socialism isn't a dirty word in Europe. Not that I linked that to the issue at hand..
  - Chris2048 11y ago
golergka 11y ago
> It’s impossible to know, especially since they don’t know either! If you confront them on their sexism, they will deny all of it, and truly believe it. It takes a lot of introspection to see one’s internalized stereotypes. Therefore, a lot of the time, you cannot be sure if you have experienced sexist behavior, and there is no way to find out for sure, since the perpetrator doesn’t know either. There are many false positives and false negatives there. Thousand times this. I know that things like racism and sexism is bad and evil. But I also know that I am these things — subconsciously. Having lived in a country with a long tradition of racism and sexism, and given I've ever talked to a black person for a first time half a year ago, I know that there's no chance that I don't have these stereotypes inside on some level. Of course, I try to fight that and become a better person, and on a rational level I know exactly why these traits are evil. But when I'm trying to explain it to someone, too often they just hear "I'm racist" or "I'm sexist" and decide that I'm a total asshole :(
- Malice 11y ago
  I am also racist and sexist although I'd imagine that no one realizes it. I work hard to take individuals as I find them and not prejudge. I think the best thing to do is try to minimize the effect of your biases on your actions and keep working to eliminate them. Not sure what else one could do.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  >It’s impossible to know, especially since they don’t know either! If you confront them on their sexism, they will deny all of it, and truly believe it. It takes a lot of introspection to see one’s internalized stereotypes. My entire problem with this isn't that I deny I have such stereotypes (as I know I have them), but that the people who call others out on this will seem to be the group most likely to deny having their own.
- kelukelugames 11y ago
  My co worker accuses other people of being "tone deaf" and then makes dick jokes. I have about a million examples of this. Of course, some of those stories are about me. :P People are too unwilling to admit and learn from their own mistakes.
hahamrfunnyguy 11y ago
Glad to hear the positive side of this. I can't say I've encountered any negative behavior in the course of my career that I would consider sexism. I typically avoid crude humor and innuendo in the workplace because it's impossible to know who is going to get offended. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if I was more even more cautious around women lest something be construed as harassment.
DrNuke 11y ago
HN is a bubble made of few making it real, mostly in the Bay Area, and a lot of marginal daydreamers from all over the world. For this reason, the mood and the overall narrative is sometimes bizarre: we have a front page with one topic bashing India as corrupt (it may be 90-95% of the planet, actually) and this one where gender (race, age, culture, attitude) does not affect the industry. A bit detached from ordinary life, both the makers and the dreamers, uh?
- gotchange 11y ago
  HN is more of a vanguardia than gatekeepers whether on social or technological change front and that's why these topics appeal to the community and garner a lot of responses and interesting discussions. Welcome to the community.
sonabinu 11y ago
There are definitely good experiences. I think the problem is when management pretends they did not hear something. I remember another female colleague (absent at the meeting) being referred to as a 'chick' and the other men laughing it off. It was a very bad experience. Being the only woman in the room, I did not speak up but I wish I did.
- pdex 11y ago
  Sometimes management needs to be tactfully reminded that they have the power to correct these things, but they need to be made aware and it needs to be done tactfully. I can see how you regretted not speaking up in front of a majority who seemed to bless the bad behavior by indulging in it, but if it happens again you may want to speak to your supervisor in private. We hired a new guy who needed some education from the management on how NOT to speak to female colleagues on the team. He was assigned to some projects with a female colleague of equal position and pay, and he spoke to and treated her like a subordinate although she was not. He was doing this unwittingly and meant no true harm, but it was very insulting. This was likely another case of a youngster who didn't have much experience working with women on a team. It was brought to the management and they spoke with this new guy and his behavior changed immediately, he's now much easier to work with all around and everyone is happy about it. But if no one spoke to the management about the behavior, it would have gone on unchecked and probably escalated.
  - sonabinu 11y ago
    I've since moved. That was one of the many boys club vibe I got there!
ljw1001 11y ago
thank you
tomp 11y ago
That's the general theme of public discourse... Americans killing Muslims in Iraq are "soldiers", wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists". Edit: Looks like I've hit a very sore point...
- reitanqild 11y ago
  Did you ever attend military training? I assume no because then you would know that there is a massive difference between somebody in civilian clothes attacking random people and soldiers in uniform and/or with other clearly visible signs that clearly tells they are combatants attacking people who were likely to be dangerous. That said, there's a lot to say about the notions that "(American) soldiers are good, insurgents are evil" We fought the nazis in every conceivable way, and although we were "terrorists" and they were proper soldiers we still think of ourselves as the good guys.
  - tomp 11y ago
    > people who were likely to be dangerous That's a convenient excuse. The number of civilian causalties in Iraq makes me unlikely to believe it.
    - reitanqild 11y ago
      Totally agree that we have a problem here, see my two last paragraphs. I only pointed out that soldier is very well defined. (And if they shoot at random civilian they should be bought to court and sentenced, although I suspect we see that far to rarely)
- aikah 11y ago
  > That's the general theme of public discourse... Americans killing Muslims in Iraq are "soldiers", wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists". Americans aren't killing Muslims in Iraq just because they are muslims. That's a straw-man. > wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists" (Some) Muslim extremists certainly are killing americans because of what they are and what they believe in. They are effectively called terrorists because they don't kill soldiers. They go kill random civilians in the streets. A soldier that would do the same would be charged with war-crime, and it happened. Quit your post-modernist framework which is making you say despicable things frankly.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
sarahnadav 11y ago
I am glad that this woman had a good experience, but it is the exception rather than the rule. Anyone who wants to use this as social proof that gender discrimination isn't a huge problem in the industry is fooling themselves.
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  For goodness sakes, sentence 1 and 2: "Women speaking up about the sexism they have experienced in tech is great for raising awareness about the issues. However, when no positive stories get out, the overall picture painted is bleak, which could scare even more women away." And: "Yes, there are several women who have had terrible experiences, and I’m in no way discounting them." And: "Those of us who have had incredibly positive experiences, and have always been treated with nothing but respect. That side’s stories need to be heard too, not silenced out of fear that we will become complacent and stop trying for more equality. Stories like mine should become the norm, not the exception." Way to miss half the point in the first three paragraphs.
- madaxe_again 11y ago
  Is it, though? I'd be curious to know what if any statistics there are on this - although perception tends to be reality.
- peterwwillis 11y ago
  Anyone who reads any kind of "personal experience article" and takes it as anything but anecdotal is fooling themselves. It doesn't matter if the article is for or against a particular opinion, or if it takes a measured tone down some middle road. A single experience does the opposite of expose institutional problems: it makes it appear like there may or may not be one, while providing no scientific basis from which to draw a broader conclusion.
- nuclearcheese 11y ago
  Of course you think that it's a big problem, your paycheck depends on it!
pervycreeper 11y ago
Blackstone's formulation for those who didn't bother to click through: >"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" Wise to keep this in mind if you wish to be justice-conscious.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  Given 11 people who each have a 90.9% chance of having significantly harmed a child and the option to release all or jail all, how many would be for releasing all of them? I find that most people don't follow Blackstone's formulation in practice. Maybe if it was 1 guilty person, but not 10.
  - pervycreeper 11y ago
    >how many would be for releasing all of them? I'm not sure; haven't made a survey. Probably most. It doesn't matter in any case.
  - v64 11y ago
    Release them all. Innocent until proven guilty.
  - wfo 11y ago
    It depends on how accurately describe the punishment you are meting out, and very much on the words you use. Given 11 people who you suspect 90.9% chance of having significantly harmed a child and the option to let them live free until you're absolutely certain they are guilty or lock them all in cages to be repeatedly beaten and raped for years at a time without being sure first, which would you pick?
FussyZeus 11y ago
Personally I've only ever witnessed sexism at play in larger companies, startup culture by it's nature I think is anti-sexist, the highly competitive market for employees combined with the sense of "who gives a shit about genders, we gotta get this thing fixed NOW" kind of makes it a defacto meritocracy. Not to say that it can't happen in startups of course, just saying in the Perfect World, a startup culture would eliminate it before it even had a chance to take foothold.
- m0dc 11y ago
  Biases come into play even when judging supposedly objective things like technical merit. In a startup environment where every new hire has a huge impact on the outcome of the company, the subconsciously perceived 'safe bet' will always be to favor the person who talks and acts the most like a young Zuckerberg.
  - FussyZeus 11y ago
    Must be a privilege of startups who have an ample amount of applicants to sift through. When you're in an area with a smaller tech industry, you need be a little more flexible to whats available.
SCHiM 11y ago
Keep in mind that the situation she recalls, the one with the guy that apologizes to her for cussing, is perhaps not the sort of sexism you would want to try and get rid of. The way I see it, this coming from a early 20s male (read, shall we say, constantly aware of the opposing sex), is that that attempt to be polite to a woman has nothing to do with her being a woman in tech, but simply being a woman in a social situation. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's pretty normal for a guy/girl to alter his/her behaviour when in a social situation with a member of sex he/she's interested in. Eveb uf the situation in question is supposed to be 100% platonic and/or work related. There is a limit, of course, to how far we can/should excuse this behaviour in people. But I don't think it's fair to stomp on people when they behave different within limits. Because you _are_ a woman, and it _does_ make a difference, but obviously not in the sense that you'd be any more/less competent because of your gender.
- douche 11y ago
  Women really, really, don't want to be treated the way men treat each other when they get together without external sources of censure. Trust me on that.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    A lot of men really really don't want to be treated like that either.
    - Joeboy 11y ago
      also lots of women seem pretty comfortable in blokeish social settings.
      - pdex 11y ago
        There's lot of women who are more comfortable socializing with men and have hobbies or think about topics that might have once been considered "tom-boyish" that aren't considered so now (thankfully) and they can find a lot of common ground to converse with men.
ionforce 11y ago
I had the pleasure of attending one of her talks at a conference and she was one of the more entertaining, engaged, and articulate speakers there. Glad to have come across her work again here!
danr4 11y ago
>"It takes a lot of introspection to see one’s internalized stereotypes." I think she hit spot on with this - But that bit was directed at men, when the reality is that it goes both ways. The problem is that it's a cycle hard to break from - it's not just men being sexist, it's women being unconsciously sexist towards themselves because they grew up in a sexist environment. That's why you need to raise awareness, to make men AND women more aware of their thoughts and actions which they did not know were a result of sexism. Gotta break the pattern.
- leaverou 11y ago
  It was absolutely NOT directed just at men. We all have internalized stereotypes and biases.
  - danr4 11y ago
    That came out wrong. I was referring to the whole paragraph, which contains examples of men being sexist, rather than that quote.
michaelwww 11y ago
Some people command respect, others get respect without asking because they deserve it, some are ignored one way or the other, being kind of neutral persons, and some get disrespect for a lot of little things they are not aware of, and some get outright scorn because they deserve it and know it. This has nothing to with gender. As a male, I've always tried to be someone who deserved respect. My first impression of Lea Verou is that she deserves respect and possibly something in her bearing gives off the impression that she commands it (that last part is pure speculation to make my point.) I've noticed a lot of complainers of either gender aren't getting respect for the little things they are not very conscious of (and this is another reason for the disrespect - little self-awareness,) things like being late, doing sloppy work, gossiping, being greedy or careless with common resources, making inappropriate comments, and so on. I'm not saying there isn't gender discrimination, but I feel there are other factors that should be considered as well.
kelukelugames 11y ago
>I would rather not call out sexist behavior ten times, than wrongly accuse someone of it once. Story time! An admin at work complimented me for having a cute girlfriend. Two of the younger women claimed that objectified women. On the other extreme, the CEO made jokes in the hallway about having sex with other people's wives, but no one ever complained. Sexism from management is too often ignored. I suspect people rather nitpick minor issues with peers and subordinates then tackle real problems against people in power.
reitanqild 11y ago
Don't see why this was flagged. It us a well known fact that a lot of women thrive in tech. I've said this to many times already but I've been told by women how much they enjoy working with men because we are so straightforward. Edit: that said, didn't vote at all on this one, but flagged to death? No.
- nv-vn 11y ago
  >Don't see why this was flagged Because some people would rather silence people who disagree with their opinions rather than debate them or just learn to live ignore them if it's too hard.
  - tangled_zans 11y ago
    It's not about disagreement. The poster put "scare quotes" around sexism, implying that the issue does not even exist or is worth discussing. That's not an "opinion" it's an implicit way of saying that everyone talking about it is kind of dumb for even bringing it up. EDIT: OH WOW, I HAVE BEEN DOWNVOTED. Which is not something I normally care about since I post quite controversial things anyway. But downvoted by the same people complaining about being "unfairly downvoted by others"? The hypocrisy of you.
    - reitanqild 11y ago
      It is about one specific incident where a very privileged woman cost two normal developers their jobs because she took offense from a conversation she was not part of.
      - tangled_zans 11y ago
        Yes, "she cost them their jobs". That's a "valid interpretation" of the story.
        reitanqild 11y ago
        ?
vinceguidry 11y ago
> It takes a lot of introspection to see one’s internalized stereotypes. Therefore, a lot of the time, you cannot be sure if you have experienced sexist behavior, and there is no way to find out for sure, since the perpetrator doesn’t know either. I had the thought today that the sexism debate is actually a war, but it's not a war fought by humans against other humans. It's fought by groups of neurons against other groups of neurons, our conscious minds are just pawns. Many times, those groups of neurons war inside the same person's brain. Biological warfare is fierce.
onesixtythree 11y ago
Technology itself isn't especially sexist. It's the swarm of VC-backed startups in Silicon Valley that has the sexism problem. The rest of the industry is much less sexist, far less ageist, and less brash in general. The technology world is much bigger than the toxic unicorns that generate these sexual harassment cultures that make all of us look bad.
anon4 11y ago
Interesting. I was actually expecting a blank page.
kohito 11y ago
I think the reason the overall picture painted of women in tech is bleak because the typical experience of being a woman in the tech industry is bleak. Women are scared away from tech by their experience in tech, not by tech's reputation, so I'm not surprised there aren't more Lea's out there. Women who quit the tech industry (56%) do so at a significantly higher rate than they do in science (47%) and engineering (39%) ("HBR Research Report: The Athena Factor:Reversing the Brain Drain in Science, Engineering, and Technology" -- and I'll add that the report is good about addressing why childcare and the heavy workloads don't entirely account for the quit rate.) Quit rates in the industry shouldn't be higher than other STEM industries. Even if you grant a pipeline problem, in which case sharing positive stories about women in tech improves the situation, once women are involved, positive stories can't impact how they are treated. The quit rate suggests it's a worse situation for women than in similar industries. One commenter here suggests Lea's case shows nothing needs to change, which is odd, since Lea doesn't say that. It's also odd that this commenter suggests rule changes addressing inadequacies ought to be characterized as "special rules" -- special changes to fundamentally sound policy -- instead of "better policy" -- fundamental changes to flawed policies, policies demonstrated to be flawed by their unfair and differential impact on women. Nonetheless, it is great Lea has had a positive experience. I am glad she shared it.
- kazinator 11y ago
  What is "engineering": just mechanical, civil and such? If I'm designing part of the circuit board for a tablet, is that "tech industry" or "engineering"?
kohito 11y ago
I think the reason the overall picture painted of women in tech is bleak because the typical experience of being a woman in the tech industry is bleak. Women are scared away from tech by their experience in tech, not by tech's reputation, so I'm not surprised there aren't more Lea's out there. Women who quit the tech industry (56%) do so at a significantly higher rate than they do in science (47%) and engineering (39%) ("HBR Research Report: The Athena Factor:Reversing the Brain Drain in Science, Engineering, and Technology" -- and I'll add that the report is good about addressing why childcare and the heavy workloads don't entirely account for the quit rate.) Quit rates in the industry shouldn't be higher than other STEM industries. Even if you grant a pipeline problem, in which case sharing positive stories about women in tech improves the situation, once women are involved, positive stories can't impact how they are treated. The quit rate suggests it's a worse situation for women than in similar industries. One commenter here suggests Lea's case shows nothing needs to change, which is odd, since Lea doesn't say that. It's also odd that this commenter suggests rule changes addressing inadequacies ought to be characterized as "special rules" -- special changes to fundamentally sound policy -- instead of "better policy" -- fundamental changes to flawed policies. Policies demonstrated to be flawed by their unfair and differential impact on women. Nonetheless, it is great Lea has had a positive experience. I am glad she shared it.
tangled_zans 11y ago
Great article. Odd though that so many commenter choose to interpret this as "look! clear proof that there is no sexism! everyone has been overreacting about it!" If you don't believe that sexism is a real issue, look at source [0]. It says so right there: "While women have gained many more rights and freedoms in most of the developed world, especially since the beginning of the 20th century, women still face discrimination and harassment worldwide. Until then, women in most of the world did not have the right to vote, and were treated with even greater disrespect than today." https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman
JDiculous 11y ago
Thank you for writing this, this was a much needed post that sheds light on the other side of the story that you never hear about.
jenshoop 11y ago
This is one narrative in an overall spectrum of experiences. Important not to sidebar someone's very real experience or assume every "woman in tech" goes through the same thing, so I welcome the introduction of a new perspective that runs against the grain a bit. I wonder if this was prompted by a well-intentioned friend asking "what it's like to be a female in tech these days"? This is a question I get frequently and I'm just sort of at a loss as to what to say -- I see a lot of problems with the lack of diversity especially at the senior leadership level and have been through my fair share of negative experiences, but I've also been fortunate to have insane mentors -- male and female (well, if I'm keeping score, more male than female) -- to help me progress, learn, develop. For me, and maybe this is fraught with its own issues, I've always just sought to prove myself, demonstrate my value by working hard, and earn respect that way. Few people -- male or female -- can hold you in poor esteem if you constantly work to be an ethical, industrious team-player.
exodust 11y ago
Now we just need a "neutral experience as a woman in tech" piece and we'll have discussed the full spectrum of this topic. I didn't read the article. When someone has a positive experience in tech "as a woman", that is the norm. I don't subscribe to that being noteworthy, regardless of the campaigns insisting otherwise. maybe some stories about nasty manipulative women in tech should be shared. Or not. Bad vibes and all, who needs bad vibes. I worked with a backstabbing IT exec woman in a previous job. Piece of work she was... Won't go into it of course but sometimes people just suck. Male or female. The danger is that poor performance can be insulated by the distraction of over sensitivity to the "women in tech" issue that's memed at campaign levels.
silentplummet 11y ago
This is fair, but let's recognize that the discussion takes place in the context of a few well known individuals who have made an enviably successful career as freelance victims, who stridently prevaricate about the persecution they've experienced in the industry, but by all accounts don't actually do any work on technology at all. One wrote a story for a mediocre video game and claims publicly to be a game developer. Is she a 'woman in tech'? It's like if I painted a mural on a house during construction this one time and went on claiming a career in carpentry. But don't you dare claim I'm not legitimately a carpenter, because hey, stop persecuting me! The dichotomy isn't false, it's quite real and true, and it seems obvious to me that there are a handful of lamentably visible charlatans who are to blame for it. On the other hand, I could list dozens of women in the industry whose output I greatly respect and they seem to experience great success, but you never hear a peep out of them. It's almost like the more "tangentially involved" one is with tech, the more vocal one becomes about this supposed persecution...
- dang 11y ago
  We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10761246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10761246 and marked it off-topic.
  - silentplummet 11y ago
    That's a pretty fast turnaround time. 6 minutes! I don't think the Air Force can even scramble jets that fast. Would you care to point out exactly what part of the comment is "off-topic" pursuant to `the experience of women in tech`?
    - dang 11y ago
      The timing is random. The comment is trying to convert this thread into the most well-rehearsed flamewar of the last several years. That's not just off topic, it's arson. The HN guidelines explicitly ask you not to do such things on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Also, please stop posting inflammatory rhetoric to HN generally. That's not what this site is for.

520 points by sebkomianos 11y ago

anc84 11y ago

> Stories like mine should become the norm, not the exception. We don't know if that is not the case already. The echo chamber is powerful and viral. A great post, thank you!

sktrdie 11y ago

Am I the only one who thinks "sexism" is overrated? It's misinterpreted by so many and I'm not sure I understand what it means most of the time. I think humans are prejudice about so many things that it's hard to keep track and "give a name" to every single prejudice. Obviously "sex" does set us apart much more strongly than, say, race, or probably any other thing, so I really find it normal that there are stereotypes and prejudices about "sex" specifically. Obviously there's a problem if your stereotype, whichever it may be, becomes offensive and disrespectful. But I mean -- " I noticed for the first time that day that I was the only woman in the room. His effort to be courteous made me feel that I was different, the odd one out" -- there's no way you can label this "sexist". It's just a dude who probably thinks a girl is cute and is therefore a little awkward around said person. I guess what I'm trying to say is that labels can mean different things to different people and I really hate using them to express my specific situation.

blowski 11y ago
Exactly. Sexism is not identical to misogynism. Where the latter is about being nasty, sexism is believing something about somebody solely based on their gender. So if I assume you don't like pizza and football because you're female, so instead buy you frozen yoghurt, I'm being sexist even if it's with the nicest of intentions. We're all human and we all make mistakes, but sometimes people blow those mistakes out of all proportion. We just need more understanding and patience on both sides of the fence.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  >So if I assume you don't like pizza and football because you're female, so instead buy you frozen yoghurt, I'm being sexist even if it's with the nicest of intentions. If I'm buying my young niece a toy, and see two otherwise equal toys except one is blue and one is pink, is it sexist to choose the pink one? I have to make a choice, there is no non-colored toy. I only think it crosses into sexism if my niece told me she likes blue better and I still pick a pink one or if there is some reason that the pink option is objectively worse (say if I was buying her a Bumblebee transformer, picking the pink one instead of the yellow one would qualify because the yellow one is the canonical color).
  - blowski 11y ago
    > If I'm buying my young niece a toy, and see two otherwise equal toys except one is blue and one is pink, is it sexist to choose the pink one? It would be sexist if you bought the pink one thinking "She's a girl, she'll prefer pink to blue" because you would be assuming something based solely on her gender. The best course of action might be to ask her "Do you want the blue one or the pink one?". But maybe you couldn't, and so you used your knowledge of your niece and of little girls in general, and you go with the pink one. Sometimes we have no choice but to use our stereotypes, but whenever possible we should get more data rather than just making assumptions.
    - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
      >It would be sexist if you bought the pink one thinking "She's a girl, she'll prefer pink to blue" because you would be assuming something based solely on her gender. What if I think "she is a girl, which means that, given I do not know her preference, she is more likely to prefer pink to blue"? Is using averages sexist/racist/*ist? Would it be genderist to assume someone who displays all the signs of a guy is a guy?
      - blowski 11y ago
        The logic of averages works like this: Girls are more likely to prefer pink than blue. My niece is a girl. Therefore she is more likely to prefer pink. So it seems to stand. However, my niece is also Italian, and Italians are more likely to prefer blue to pink. She is also vegetarian and vegetarians are more likely to prefer green to either blue or pink. (I'm making all these stats up in case that wasn't obvious). So which colour toy should I buy for my niece? Humans are complex. They can't be reduced to simple 'this one or that one' probabilities based on a single factor.
seivan 11y ago
There is also those who see vulgarity as a form of Sexism/racism. It only helps alienating people if you brand anything as sexism.
StavrosK 11y ago
I agree, pretty much our every interaction is full of biases. Not only that, but "bias" is just what we call wrong guesses! We go through life assigning likelihoods to things, because it's useful to know that a stove is more likely than a kitchen counter to burn you (even if it's not on), a road is more likely to require caution than a pavement, men are more likely to be able to lift heavy weights than women, etc. I still haven't been able to pin down what bias is, but I'd say preliminarily, "adhering to the initial judgement for someone even after getting evidence to the contrary". I can't rationally discount that X group of people is more likely to do Y (it would be irrational to claim that all groups of people have exactly the same statistical properties), but if you think that a specific person does Y just because you think their group does Y, even after you've seen that they don't, then you're biased.
pron 11y ago
Sexism is not stereotypes or personal feelings or attitudes (although those can by misogynistic). The academic (and consistent) definition of sexism is a property of a society where one of the sexes has less power than the other, and the mechanism by which that imbalance of power is perpetuated. Of course, sexism occurs because of internalized biases that are very hard counter unless people actually seek them out, and try to change the ones that cause an imbalance of power. Because those biases are internalized and widespread, it is very hard to find someone who isn't sexist. Being sexist doesn't imply blame, just like you couldn't blame someone three hundred years ago for not washing their hands and spreading disease, because they didn't know that diseases are caused by microbes. Just as observing disease-causing microbes requires study -- and in particular, distinguishing between disease-causing microbes and harmless or even helpful microbes -- so too does noticing sexism, and learning to distinguish it from harmless forms of non-uniform behavior towards others. But in both cases, the harm caused is real, and it is our duty to learn its mechanism and do our best to fight it.
- forgottenpass 11y ago
  No. I'm sick of this game. You clarification of the definition isn't clarification. It's unnecessary linguistic prescriptivism. If you want to talk about the type of sexism also often refereed to as "institutional sexism" then that's fine. If you want to call it just "sexism" thats fine too (but puts an unnecessary complication on the reader). But "sexism" is an overloaded term whether you want it to be or not. Just like I can't say "Bi-monthly now and forever forward only means every other month, and never means twice a month," you can't just wave away the regular-prejudice definition of sexism just because you want to. Also, this "academic definition" meme is bullshit. Academic writing is about clarity and making sure the reader understands the author's meaning. So, if at the beginning of the paper the author clarifies when they use "foo" they only mean one of the 3 possible definitions of foo, that's just good writing. But if they say "definition 2 of foo isn't actually foo, it's just bar. For any and all uses of foo, including outside this paper" they're a hack.
  - pron 11y ago
    > If you want to talk about the type of sexism also often refereed to as "institutional sexism" But I was not talking about institutional sexism. Sexism can be individual (and often is), but unlike misogyny it does not imply disdain towards women; simply behavior (that can feel neutral or even positive) that results in increasing the imbalance of power. > But "sexism" is an overloaded term whether you want it to be or not. OK, but it also a term that was coined by a feminist professor fifty years ago and considered a well-accepted academic term regardless of its colloquial meaning(s). > Academic writing is about clarity and making sure the reader understands the author's meaning. Academics seem to understand that writing just fine. You can't claim that physicists' definition of energy is unclear merely because it is also used colloquially to mean other things, and you can't expect an academic to clarify what they mean by "sexism" just as you can't expect them to explain what they mean by "energy", because those are well-established, commonly used academic terms. If you find them confusing, you can either learn the relevant subject or choose not to. Unlike energy, the word sexism started with its academic definition and was only later overloaded (due to confusion) by laymen, rather than the other way around. > But if they say "definition 2 of foo isn't actually foo, it's just bar. For any and all uses of foo, including outside this paper" they're a hack. I didn't say that. I just clarified the original and academic definition of the term, because it is the colloquial term that causes confusion. The academic term is quite clear. Do with it as you like. You're obviously very angry about something.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago

> "Ironically, one of the very few times I have experienced any sexism in the industry was when a dude was trying to be nice to me." I'm not sure how ironic this is. It seems to be setting up a straw man of sexist behaviour being the domain of moustache-twirling villians, rather than something that often perfectly normal men and women inflict on each other and experience unwanted outcomes of because of their culture and the structures of the society they grew up in.

lmm 11y ago
I think the point is that deliberately trying to accommodate women can result in being more sexist. Which is pretty ironic.
- meowface 11y ago
  I'm not a woman, but if I were one, I think I'd be pretty irritated if I was given special privileges or encouragement over male peers to "help me succeed" or something. That seems condescending and unfair.
  - coldpie 11y ago
    I understand what you're saying, but it is a bit more complicated than that. Affirmative action is about leveling an unlevel playing field by giving preferential treatment to those who are on the lower side of the playing field, even if they're "less qualified" than those on the higher end of the field. Yes, when viewed on the micro scale without a picture of the whole field, it may seem "unfair," but that's precisely the point; to raise up those who have been treated unfairly in other arenas. In addition, there is value simply in having viewpoints outside of those you might otherwise receive by valuing people solely on whatever objective "merits" you might be evaluating them on. It is a tricky and difficult subject, I would not be quick to dismiss either argument.
    - meowface 11y ago
      It is certainly a difficult subject. I understand the good intentions of affirmative action, but I think they cause more harm than good in the long run. To be passed up for a position due to your gender or race, or for a company to hire someone with lower technical qualifications than they'd normally accept due to gender or race, creates a lot of resentment and cultural issues. This isn't just negative opinions at the microscale; it creates a large-scale perception that certain companies or industries are giving preferential treatment, even at the expense of their own productivity and cohesion. Already I see a lot of people complaining about this on various websites, though it's probably overexaggerated a bit given that diversity quotas aren't that popular with US companies relative to many European countries (yet). Even worse, it also might encourage more division and more prejudice towards those minority groups. If a company gives preferential treatment to hiring women, then what are many coworkers going to inevitably think when a woman makes a mistake or something? "You only got hired here because you're a woman." And in that case, they actually have some empirical backing for that assumption. I don't belong to a minority group, but I feel like the anxiety of other people wondering or believing I only (or primarily) got into a certain place because of my gender or race, and not my qualifications, would be very uncomfortable and demotivating. Some people may already think that even when it's plainly not true, but a lot more people will think it if it starts becoming more true more often. Not to mention, on top of that, fear that maybe I'm not that great and my gender/race really was a major factor in my hiring decision. Talk about imposter syndrome. Also, just on a more general ethical note: People in certain groups have indeed been treated very unfairly for centuries, but flipping the table feels kind of "eye for an eye". Of course unconscious biases are a major problem and will probably be impossible to get rid of or ignore during a hiring process, but I think blind hiring procedures (no name, gender, age, etc. listed on resume or during the first stages of initial online interviews) are an all around better option. I think if organizations work hard enough, they can eliminate a lot of these issues in the pipeline. If, hypothetically, an equal number of male and female candidates make it through the blind stages, but many more men make it through the following stages, they can look at it and quickly determine if they have a problem that needs addressing.

dajohnson89 11y ago

She had me until the very end, with the anecdote about the guy apologizing for swearing in front of her. I would apologize if I said "fuck" near my country's president, or even the president of my small-ish company. Both of whom are male. It's a sign of respect. In the context of women, I see it in a similar light to holding the door open for a lady. It isn't me assuming she's too weak to open a door, it's just a common courtesy. I'm genuinely sorry that the author was offended by the guy apologizing for saying "fuck" near her. I can't speak for him, and perhaps he was a total douchebag. But perhaps he was aware that on average men can be more crude than women, and in a professional (male-dominated, numerically speaking!) setting like that one, it's prudent to avoid language that could make people feel uncomfortable.

seunosewa 11y ago
I didn't get the impression that she was offended by the guy who apologized for saying "fuck" near her. I think it just made her feel more self-conscious.
bramblerose 11y ago
> it's prudent to avoid language that could make people feel uncomfortable. The weird thing is not that he apologized (that's reasonable), the weird thing is that he apologized /to her/ (and not to the group as a whole).
- scintill76 11y ago
  What if the reason she was "singled out" was actually that she was the only person the swearer didn't know well enough to feel OK about swearing around? Or was the only one he considered to be in earshot? Or she was just the closest and he felt he should make some gesture because he regretted it, but it wasn't bad enough to personally apologize to every last person? I guess the author's impression trumps ours (and only the swearer's honest account of his thoughts could trump hers), but she didn't really address those, so I have some doubts on whether it's as clear-cut as you say.
  - 11y ago

lifeisstillgood 11y ago

Sexism is not "over-rated" OECD's Social Institutions and Gender Index Is at http://www.genderindex.org http://www.genderindex.org, and is a litany of baked in prejudice, violence, lack of access to education, lack of access to property and other normal legal rights. When we compare the lot of a 16 yo girl in Rwanda to a High schooler in SF, yes it is hard to find where the High schooler is having problems, but we just have to look at the ratio of men and women in tech to see there is a problem - even in modern, western, progressive San Francisco. So globally, sexism is a violent oppressive force holding back progress for billions. In our happier world, it's waaaay better, but still not equal - and where there is inequality, there is profitable arbitrage opportunity. Both for talented women and for companies willing and able to introspect and overcome whatever is blocking their use of talented women. The most obvious example I can see is I should be able to hire the very best development talent, for 80% of the price of the equivalent male talent ! Win!

smikhanov 11y ago
When we compare the lot of a 16 yo girl in Rwanda to a High schooler in SF, yes it is hard to find where the High schooler is having problems, but... You should have stopped at this "but". Do you seriously think that it's reasonable to put into the same basket the girls' problems in Rwanda and girls' problems in modern San Francisco?
- lifeisstillgood 11y ago
  No it's not reasonable - that's the point. The OP came up with "sexism is overrated" - I wanted to point out that if you are a girl in large parts of the world that's a frankly laughable statement. It is also wrong in modern western world, but not to the same degree - but it is still measurably wrong to think sexism is over rated.
  - marrs 11y ago
    I think it's fair to assume that the OP was speaking within the context of working in the IT industry

gloves 11y ago

> "when no positive stories get out, the overall picture painted is bleak, which could scare even more women away." In a world where there is so much bad press and news, it is nice to read something from the other side. Refreshing and encouraging.

indifferentalex 11y ago

10/10 Will read again. The sexism debate has indeed painted a bleak picture, people so often try to show a different side of the picture but end up using the wrong words or simply adding ambiguity to the discussion, most of the time only making the matter more complicated, and worst of all, pulling us even further from a potential solution. This one showed us not only a potential solution, but also proved it's effectiveness. Lea Verou (the author of the article) perfectly explains that even though there is undoubtedly a problem, a problem whose degree is not/can not be calculated (she also indirectly, simply by not giving it more article-time, makes us understand that the lack of statistics doesn't mean this problem doesn't exist or should not be resolved), this problem can and has already been solved, not by company policies or special rules, but simply by people treating others (women included) nicely, or as my first grade teacher taught me, by following the golden rule, treat others the way you want to be treated, and amazingly across all mindsets and ways of thinking this rule means, for anyone beginning from the wee age that they understand what those words mean, that one should be treated in a way that is free of bias, fair and rational. I will read this article again, and I will recommend it to friends and acquaintances and family, because sexism is a problem beyond tech too (in certain industries it might be an even bigger problem). I think this article and hopefully ones like it that either exist already that I do not know of, or ones that will be written afterwards, are a great way to make us realise that all people should be treated the way that we want to be treated, and I truly believe that will be enough to fix the problem of "women in tech".

DanBC 11y ago
> treat others the way you want to be treated, You've never had a pathological arsehole for a boss?
- indifferentalex 11y ago
  I'm still studying and have never encountered obstacles set up by people with institutional power over me, so I am to a degree naive and privileged, however I was talking more about the day to day interactions that happen with a myriad of different people, mostly your peers (which apart from a few instances where it was the "bosses of tech" causing the problems, from what I remember reading the sexism usually came from the coworkers of the women). I definitely wasn't commenting on the application of the author's thoughts to all of human interaction, and didn't mean to come off that naive.

cubano 11y ago

Here is my personal experience with the fringes of this issue over a lifetime of watching it play out before my eyes... If a female is attracted to the guy, things he says or does are considered "cute", "flirtatious", and/or "interesting". If not, the same actions are often considered "creepy", "jerkish", and yes even "sexist". I think its just human nature to perceive things in this way, and since women grow up in such a vastly different, sexually charged environment (I'm watching it happen with my 13 year old daughter right now) as guys do, it is, of course, impossible for me to understand all the nuance. Just my anecdotal thoughts on it...btw it is good to see this woman make an attempt to address the issue.

mycroft-holmes 11y ago
I'd say you're absolutely correct. I laugh when I see feminist friends of mine who complain about "creepy" guys approaching them at coffee shops and days later they'll talk about how they hate being single and want to meet someone.
- erkkie 11y ago
  Those are not mutually exclusive things though, presumably they want to be approached by non-creepy guys (ie ones they happen to like, by whatever measure). I guess this is just how the human mating game goes. We try to make some things make sense intellectually even though there's probably deeper subconscious and chemical messaging going on.
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    It would be nice if they were a bit more honest and switched creepy/non-creepy with unattractive/attractive.
    - erkkie 11y ago
      Humanity would be more nice if everyone would be more honest :) Everyone has a bunch of biases they're more or (mostly) less aware of, thus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational

Kenji 11y ago

As a man, I'm really glad to read things like that. You know, the sexism problem makes both sexes feel bad. I think it is really important for our society in general that we don't let differences like sex get between us. It's silly and petty.

daleharvey 11y ago

It really isnt surprising this is pretty much the only article about gender discrimination that is allowed to be on the hacker news front page. Lea is obviously a talented and confident person and it is great that she has had such a positive experience. Entirely agree that she can and should share it. It is however sadly predictable that the comments on HN lean very much towards self congratulatory 'gender discrimination isnt really a problem!' discussions. The huge amount of discussion around the problematic areas of tech culture are routinely censored from this site giving people who have the privilege of not having to suffer from the systematic discrimination an easy pass to believe that there is no problem when even a token effort to look makes it more than obvious that there is a massive problem of discrimination in our field.

worldsayshi 11y ago
But this article doesn't really say or support that "there is no problem". Rather that it's sort of important to have both carrots and sticks. Having just one of them will entirely kill the motivation of doing anything about it. edit: It's quite possible that I misread what you are trying to say here...
varjag 11y ago
We must be reading different editions of HN, because I see them here regularly. The GitHub CoC related stuff alone had the frontpage several times.
golergka 11y ago
> pretty much the only article about gender discrimination that is allowed to be on the hacker news front page WTF? There have been dozens of articles about gender discrimination on HN front page, and comments have always been supportive. In what alternate reality do you live?
- DanBC 11y ago
  > and comments have always been supportive. There's a sizable minority of HN commenters who deny sexism exists.

Chris2048 11y ago

I think, when we see things like this, we maybe need to clarify where (country) these experiences come from. I suspect that the worst of sexism in tech comes from the US, and that Europe is generally great...

burkaman 11y ago
Why do you suspect that?
- douche 11y ago
  Because Europe is a socialist, progressive paradise, full to the brim with sunshine and unicorns! /s
  - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
    Well, it's definitely more socialist than the US, on average, that's true. The United States certainly fares worse than most of the key players in Europe in this regard: http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2015/rankings/ http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2015/ran...
  - MattRL 11y ago
    Not the other poster, but it seems like some of these issues people are bringing up just don't exist in the UK at least. I think the big problems will generally correlate, but some of the silly ones like excusing swearing around women or holding doors for women (we do that for everybody if I understand the issue correctly), just flat out don't exist. I'd also hazard a guess that we're probably more polite when dealing with coworkers, but that's complete conjecture on my part.
  - Chris2048 11y ago
    Relative to the US? Socialism isn't a dirty word in Europe. Not that I linked that to the issue at hand..
- Chris2048 11y ago

golergka 11y ago

> It’s impossible to know, especially since they don’t know either! If you confront them on their sexism, they will deny all of it, and truly believe it. It takes a lot of introspection to see one’s internalized stereotypes. Therefore, a lot of the time, you cannot be sure if you have experienced sexist behavior, and there is no way to find out for sure, since the perpetrator doesn’t know either. There are many false positives and false negatives there. Thousand times this. I know that things like racism and sexism is bad and evil. But I also know that I am these things — subconsciously. Having lived in a country with a long tradition of racism and sexism, and given I've ever talked to a black person for a first time half a year ago, I know that there's no chance that I don't have these stereotypes inside on some level. Of course, I try to fight that and become a better person, and on a rational level I know exactly why these traits are evil. But when I'm trying to explain it to someone, too often they just hear "I'm racist" or "I'm sexist" and decide that I'm a total asshole :(

Malice 11y ago
I am also racist and sexist although I'd imagine that no one realizes it. I work hard to take individuals as I find them and not prejudge. I think the best thing to do is try to minimize the effect of your biases on your actions and keep working to eliminate them. Not sure what else one could do.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>It’s impossible to know, especially since they don’t know either! If you confront them on their sexism, they will deny all of it, and truly believe it. It takes a lot of introspection to see one’s internalized stereotypes. My entire problem with this isn't that I deny I have such stereotypes (as I know I have them), but that the people who call others out on this will seem to be the group most likely to deny having their own.
kelukelugames 11y ago
My co worker accuses other people of being "tone deaf" and then makes dick jokes. I have about a million examples of this. Of course, some of those stories are about me. :P People are too unwilling to admit and learn from their own mistakes.

hahamrfunnyguy 11y ago

Glad to hear the positive side of this. I can't say I've encountered any negative behavior in the course of my career that I would consider sexism. I typically avoid crude humor and innuendo in the workplace because it's impossible to know who is going to get offended. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if I was more even more cautious around women lest something be construed as harassment.

DrNuke 11y ago

HN is a bubble made of few making it real, mostly in the Bay Area, and a lot of marginal daydreamers from all over the world. For this reason, the mood and the overall narrative is sometimes bizarre: we have a front page with one topic bashing India as corrupt (it may be 90-95% of the planet, actually) and this one where gender (race, age, culture, attitude) does not affect the industry. A bit detached from ordinary life, both the makers and the dreamers, uh?

gotchange 11y ago
HN is more of a vanguardia than gatekeepers whether on social or technological change front and that's why these topics appeal to the community and garner a lot of responses and interesting discussions. Welcome to the community.

sonabinu 11y ago

There are definitely good experiences. I think the problem is when management pretends they did not hear something. I remember another female colleague (absent at the meeting) being referred to as a 'chick' and the other men laughing it off. It was a very bad experience. Being the only woman in the room, I did not speak up but I wish I did.

pdex 11y ago
Sometimes management needs to be tactfully reminded that they have the power to correct these things, but they need to be made aware and it needs to be done tactfully. I can see how you regretted not speaking up in front of a majority who seemed to bless the bad behavior by indulging in it, but if it happens again you may want to speak to your supervisor in private. We hired a new guy who needed some education from the management on how NOT to speak to female colleagues on the team. He was assigned to some projects with a female colleague of equal position and pay, and he spoke to and treated her like a subordinate although she was not. He was doing this unwittingly and meant no true harm, but it was very insulting. This was likely another case of a youngster who didn't have much experience working with women on a team. It was brought to the management and they spoke with this new guy and his behavior changed immediately, he's now much easier to work with all around and everyone is happy about it. But if no one spoke to the management about the behavior, it would have gone on unchecked and probably escalated.
- sonabinu 11y ago
  I've since moved. That was one of the many boys club vibe I got there!

ljw1001 11y ago

thank you

tomp 11y ago

That's the general theme of public discourse... Americans killing Muslims in Iraq are "soldiers", wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists". Edit: Looks like I've hit a very sore point...

reitanqild 11y ago
Did you ever attend military training? I assume no because then you would know that there is a massive difference between somebody in civilian clothes attacking random people and soldiers in uniform and/or with other clearly visible signs that clearly tells they are combatants attacking people who were likely to be dangerous. That said, there's a lot to say about the notions that "(American) soldiers are good, insurgents are evil" We fought the nazis in every conceivable way, and although we were "terrorists" and they were proper soldiers we still think of ourselves as the good guys.
- tomp 11y ago
  > people who were likely to be dangerous That's a convenient excuse. The number of civilian causalties in Iraq makes me unlikely to believe it.
  - reitanqild 11y ago
    Totally agree that we have a problem here, see my two last paragraphs. I only pointed out that soldier is very well defined. (And if they shoot at random civilian they should be bought to court and sentenced, although I suspect we see that far to rarely)
aikah 11y ago
> That's the general theme of public discourse... Americans killing Muslims in Iraq are "soldiers", wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists". Americans aren't killing Muslims in Iraq just because they are muslims. That's a straw-man. > wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists" (Some) Muslim extremists certainly are killing americans because of what they are and what they believe in. They are effectively called terrorists because they don't kill soldiers. They go kill random civilians in the streets. A soldier that would do the same would be charged with war-crime, and it happened. Quit your post-modernist framework which is making you say despicable things frankly.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

sarahnadav 11y ago

I am glad that this woman had a good experience, but it is the exception rather than the rule. Anyone who wants to use this as social proof that gender discrimination isn't a huge problem in the industry is fooling themselves.

FussyZeus 11y ago
For goodness sakes, sentence 1 and 2: "Women speaking up about the sexism they have experienced in tech is great for raising awareness about the issues. However, when no positive stories get out, the overall picture painted is bleak, which could scare even more women away." And: "Yes, there are several women who have had terrible experiences, and I’m in no way discounting them." And: "Those of us who have had incredibly positive experiences, and have always been treated with nothing but respect. That side’s stories need to be heard too, not silenced out of fear that we will become complacent and stop trying for more equality. Stories like mine should become the norm, not the exception." Way to miss half the point in the first three paragraphs.
madaxe_again 11y ago
Is it, though? I'd be curious to know what if any statistics there are on this - although perception tends to be reality.
peterwwillis 11y ago
Anyone who reads any kind of "personal experience article" and takes it as anything but anecdotal is fooling themselves. It doesn't matter if the article is for or against a particular opinion, or if it takes a measured tone down some middle road. A single experience does the opposite of expose institutional problems: it makes it appear like there may or may not be one, while providing no scientific basis from which to draw a broader conclusion.
nuclearcheese 11y ago
Of course you think that it's a big problem, your paycheck depends on it!

pervycreeper 11y ago

Blackstone's formulation for those who didn't bother to click through: >"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" Wise to keep this in mind if you wish to be justice-conscious.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Given 11 people who each have a 90.9% chance of having significantly harmed a child and the option to release all or jail all, how many would be for releasing all of them? I find that most people don't follow Blackstone's formulation in practice. Maybe if it was 1 guilty person, but not 10.
- pervycreeper 11y ago
  >how many would be for releasing all of them? I'm not sure; haven't made a survey. Probably most. It doesn't matter in any case.
- v64 11y ago
  Release them all. Innocent until proven guilty.
- wfo 11y ago
  It depends on how accurately describe the punishment you are meting out, and very much on the words you use. Given 11 people who you suspect 90.9% chance of having significantly harmed a child and the option to let them live free until you're absolutely certain they are guilty or lock them all in cages to be repeatedly beaten and raped for years at a time without being sure first, which would you pick?

FussyZeus 11y ago

Personally I've only ever witnessed sexism at play in larger companies, startup culture by it's nature I think is anti-sexist, the highly competitive market for employees combined with the sense of "who gives a shit about genders, we gotta get this thing fixed NOW" kind of makes it a defacto meritocracy. Not to say that it can't happen in startups of course, just saying in the Perfect World, a startup culture would eliminate it before it even had a chance to take foothold.

m0dc 11y ago
Biases come into play even when judging supposedly objective things like technical merit. In a startup environment where every new hire has a huge impact on the outcome of the company, the subconsciously perceived 'safe bet' will always be to favor the person who talks and acts the most like a young Zuckerberg.
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  Must be a privilege of startups who have an ample amount of applicants to sift through. When you're in an area with a smaller tech industry, you need be a little more flexible to whats available.

SCHiM 11y ago

Keep in mind that the situation she recalls, the one with the guy that apologizes to her for cussing, is perhaps not the sort of sexism you would want to try and get rid of. The way I see it, this coming from a early 20s male (read, shall we say, constantly aware of the opposing sex), is that that attempt to be polite to a woman has nothing to do with her being a woman in tech, but simply being a woman in a social situation. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's pretty normal for a guy/girl to alter his/her behaviour when in a social situation with a member of sex he/she's interested in. Eveb uf the situation in question is supposed to be 100% platonic and/or work related. There is a limit, of course, to how far we can/should excuse this behaviour in people. But I don't think it's fair to stomp on people when they behave different within limits. Because you _are_ a woman, and it _does_ make a difference, but obviously not in the sense that you'd be any more/less competent because of your gender.

douche 11y ago
Women really, really, don't want to be treated the way men treat each other when they get together without external sources of censure. Trust me on that.
- DanBC 11y ago
  A lot of men really really don't want to be treated like that either.
  - Joeboy 11y ago
    also lots of women seem pretty comfortable in blokeish social settings.
    - pdex 11y ago
      There's lot of women who are more comfortable socializing with men and have hobbies or think about topics that might have once been considered "tom-boyish" that aren't considered so now (thankfully) and they can find a lot of common ground to converse with men.

ionforce 11y ago

I had the pleasure of attending one of her talks at a conference and she was one of the more entertaining, engaged, and articulate speakers there. Glad to have come across her work again here!

danr4 11y ago

>"It takes a lot of introspection to see one’s internalized stereotypes." I think she hit spot on with this - But that bit was directed at men, when the reality is that it goes both ways. The problem is that it's a cycle hard to break from - it's not just men being sexist, it's women being unconsciously sexist towards themselves because they grew up in a sexist environment. That's why you need to raise awareness, to make men AND women more aware of their thoughts and actions which they did not know were a result of sexism. Gotta break the pattern.

leaverou 11y ago
It was absolutely NOT directed just at men. We all have internalized stereotypes and biases.
- danr4 11y ago
  That came out wrong. I was referring to the whole paragraph, which contains examples of men being sexist, rather than that quote.

michaelwww 11y ago

Some people command respect, others get respect without asking because they deserve it, some are ignored one way or the other, being kind of neutral persons, and some get disrespect for a lot of little things they are not aware of, and some get outright scorn because they deserve it and know it. This has nothing to with gender. As a male, I've always tried to be someone who deserved respect. My first impression of Lea Verou is that she deserves respect and possibly something in her bearing gives off the impression that she commands it (that last part is pure speculation to make my point.) I've noticed a lot of complainers of either gender aren't getting respect for the little things they are not very conscious of (and this is another reason for the disrespect - little self-awareness,) things like being late, doing sloppy work, gossiping, being greedy or careless with common resources, making inappropriate comments, and so on. I'm not saying there isn't gender discrimination, but I feel there are other factors that should be considered as well.

kelukelugames 11y ago

>I would rather not call out sexist behavior ten times, than wrongly accuse someone of it once. Story time! An admin at work complimented me for having a cute girlfriend. Two of the younger women claimed that objectified women. On the other extreme, the CEO made jokes in the hallway about having sex with other people's wives, but no one ever complained. Sexism from management is too often ignored. I suspect people rather nitpick minor issues with peers and subordinates then tackle real problems against people in power.

reitanqild 11y ago

Don't see why this was flagged. It us a well known fact that a lot of women thrive in tech. I've said this to many times already but I've been told by women how much they enjoy working with men because we are so straightforward. Edit: that said, didn't vote at all on this one, but flagged to death? No.

nv-vn 11y ago
>Don't see why this was flagged Because some people would rather silence people who disagree with their opinions rather than debate them or just learn to live ignore them if it's too hard.
- tangled_zans 11y ago
  It's not about disagreement. The poster put "scare quotes" around sexism, implying that the issue does not even exist or is worth discussing. That's not an "opinion" it's an implicit way of saying that everyone talking about it is kind of dumb for even bringing it up. EDIT: OH WOW, I HAVE BEEN DOWNVOTED. Which is not something I normally care about since I post quite controversial things anyway. But downvoted by the same people complaining about being "unfairly downvoted by others"? The hypocrisy of you.
  - reitanqild 11y ago
    It is about one specific incident where a very privileged woman cost two normal developers their jobs because she took offense from a conversation she was not part of.
    - tangled_zans 11y ago
      Yes, "she cost them their jobs". That's a "valid interpretation" of the story.
      - reitanqild 11y ago
        ?

vinceguidry 11y ago

> It takes a lot of introspection to see one’s internalized stereotypes. Therefore, a lot of the time, you cannot be sure if you have experienced sexist behavior, and there is no way to find out for sure, since the perpetrator doesn’t know either. I had the thought today that the sexism debate is actually a war, but it's not a war fought by humans against other humans. It's fought by groups of neurons against other groups of neurons, our conscious minds are just pawns. Many times, those groups of neurons war inside the same person's brain. Biological warfare is fierce.

onesixtythree 11y ago

Technology itself isn't especially sexist. It's the swarm of VC-backed startups in Silicon Valley that has the sexism problem. The rest of the industry is much less sexist, far less ageist, and less brash in general. The technology world is much bigger than the toxic unicorns that generate these sexual harassment cultures that make all of us look bad.

anon4 11y ago

Interesting. I was actually expecting a blank page.

kohito 11y ago

I think the reason the overall picture painted of women in tech is bleak because the typical experience of being a woman in the tech industry is bleak. Women are scared away from tech by their experience in tech, not by tech's reputation, so I'm not surprised there aren't more Lea's out there. Women who quit the tech industry (56%) do so at a significantly higher rate than they do in science (47%) and engineering (39%) ("HBR Research Report: The Athena Factor:Reversing the Brain Drain in Science, Engineering, and Technology" -- and I'll add that the report is good about addressing why childcare and the heavy workloads don't entirely account for the quit rate.) Quit rates in the industry shouldn't be higher than other STEM industries. Even if you grant a pipeline problem, in which case sharing positive stories about women in tech improves the situation, once women are involved, positive stories can't impact how they are treated. The quit rate suggests it's a worse situation for women than in similar industries. One commenter here suggests Lea's case shows nothing needs to change, which is odd, since Lea doesn't say that. It's also odd that this commenter suggests rule changes addressing inadequacies ought to be characterized as "special rules" -- special changes to fundamentally sound policy -- instead of "better policy" -- fundamental changes to flawed policies, policies demonstrated to be flawed by their unfair and differential impact on women. Nonetheless, it is great Lea has had a positive experience. I am glad she shared it.

kazinator 11y ago
What is "engineering": just mechanical, civil and such? If I'm designing part of the circuit board for a tablet, is that "tech industry" or "engineering"?

kohito 11y ago

I think the reason the overall picture painted of women in tech is bleak because the typical experience of being a woman in the tech industry is bleak. Women are scared away from tech by their experience in tech, not by tech's reputation, so I'm not surprised there aren't more Lea's out there. Women who quit the tech industry (56%) do so at a significantly higher rate than they do in science (47%) and engineering (39%) ("HBR Research Report: The Athena Factor:Reversing the Brain Drain in Science, Engineering, and Technology" -- and I'll add that the report is good about addressing why childcare and the heavy workloads don't entirely account for the quit rate.) Quit rates in the industry shouldn't be higher than other STEM industries. Even if you grant a pipeline problem, in which case sharing positive stories about women in tech improves the situation, once women are involved, positive stories can't impact how they are treated. The quit rate suggests it's a worse situation for women than in similar industries. One commenter here suggests Lea's case shows nothing needs to change, which is odd, since Lea doesn't say that. It's also odd that this commenter suggests rule changes addressing inadequacies ought to be characterized as "special rules" -- special changes to fundamentally sound policy -- instead of "better policy" -- fundamental changes to flawed policies. Policies demonstrated to be flawed by their unfair and differential impact on women. Nonetheless, it is great Lea has had a positive experience. I am glad she shared it.

tangled_zans 11y ago

Great article. Odd though that so many commenter choose to interpret this as "look! clear proof that there is no sexism! everyone has been overreacting about it!" If you don't believe that sexism is a real issue, look at source [0]. It says so right there: "While women have gained many more rights and freedoms in most of the developed world, especially since the beginning of the 20th century, women still face discrimination and harassment worldwide. Until then, women in most of the world did not have the right to vote, and were treated with even greater disrespect than today." https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman

JDiculous 11y ago

Thank you for writing this, this was a much needed post that sheds light on the other side of the story that you never hear about.

jenshoop 11y ago

This is one narrative in an overall spectrum of experiences. Important not to sidebar someone's very real experience or assume every "woman in tech" goes through the same thing, so I welcome the introduction of a new perspective that runs against the grain a bit. I wonder if this was prompted by a well-intentioned friend asking "what it's like to be a female in tech these days"? This is a question I get frequently and I'm just sort of at a loss as to what to say -- I see a lot of problems with the lack of diversity especially at the senior leadership level and have been through my fair share of negative experiences, but I've also been fortunate to have insane mentors -- male and female (well, if I'm keeping score, more male than female) -- to help me progress, learn, develop. For me, and maybe this is fraught with its own issues, I've always just sought to prove myself, demonstrate my value by working hard, and earn respect that way. Few people -- male or female -- can hold you in poor esteem if you constantly work to be an ethical, industrious team-player.

exodust 11y ago

Now we just need a "neutral experience as a woman in tech" piece and we'll have discussed the full spectrum of this topic. I didn't read the article. When someone has a positive experience in tech "as a woman", that is the norm. I don't subscribe to that being noteworthy, regardless of the campaigns insisting otherwise. maybe some stories about nasty manipulative women in tech should be shared. Or not. Bad vibes and all, who needs bad vibes. I worked with a backstabbing IT exec woman in a previous job. Piece of work she was... Won't go into it of course but sometimes people just suck. Male or female. The danger is that poor performance can be insulated by the distraction of over sensitivity to the "women in tech" issue that's memed at campaign levels.

silentplummet 11y ago

This is fair, but let's recognize that the discussion takes place in the context of a few well known individuals who have made an enviably successful career as freelance victims, who stridently prevaricate about the persecution they've experienced in the industry, but by all accounts don't actually do any work on technology at all. One wrote a story for a mediocre video game and claims publicly to be a game developer. Is she a 'woman in tech'? It's like if I painted a mural on a house during construction this one time and went on claiming a career in carpentry. But don't you dare claim I'm not legitimately a carpenter, because hey, stop persecuting me! The dichotomy isn't false, it's quite real and true, and it seems obvious to me that there are a handful of lamentably visible charlatans who are to blame for it. On the other hand, I could list dozens of women in the industry whose output I greatly respect and they seem to experience great success, but you never hear a peep out of them. It's almost like the more "tangentially involved" one is with tech, the more vocal one becomes about this supposed persecution...

dang 11y ago
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10761246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10761246 and marked it off-topic.
- silentplummet 11y ago
  That's a pretty fast turnaround time. 6 minutes! I don't think the Air Force can even scramble jets that fast. Would you care to point out exactly what part of the comment is "off-topic" pursuant to `the experience of women in tech`?
  - dang 11y ago
    The timing is random. The comment is trying to convert this thread into the most well-rehearsed flamewar of the last several years. That's not just off topic, it's arson. The HN guidelines explicitly ask you not to do such things on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Also, please stop posting inflammatory rhetoric to HN generally. That's not what this site is for.