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Then don't write "I guess it is common", state the number of women who told you such things. Personally I haven't heard many such stories from women in tech. A

Then don't write "I guess it is common", state the number of women who told you such things. Personally I haven't heard many such stories from women in tech. Also differentiate between some colleague being interested in them and boss proposing sex on first day.

socksy 10y ago
Have you tried asking them? It feels vaguely ridiculous to expect hard data and facts on things of "people told me". I know I have female friends who have told me similar stories, but I couldn't for the life of me remember how many, nor would I want to start iterating these anecdotes to a stranger on the internet. In exactly the same way it would be to start statistically analysing any other statement on "people told me [x]". As for the latter, putting lines in the sand is a good way to be seen as not wanting to listen... I'm not saying that's what you're doing in this case, just how it comes across. Like, you've decided in advance what you want the result from the discussion to be, and no woman will be able to cross whatever standard you've chosen for inappropriate propositions (even when this is totally untrue).
- facepalm 10y ago
  I took issue with the "I guess it is very common that women expect that kind of harassment", because it plays into sexist stereotypes. I think in these matters )(sexism, racism, bias), it pays to be precise. How else can you counter bias? What if countless people told me they had been mugged by black people? Don't understand your comment about lines in the sand. What do you mean?
  - kevinburke 10y ago
    A very large part of the problem is that claims of harassment are waved away, and the same people are allowed to harass again and again. There's a lot of evidence pointing to "believe women when they say they are harassed."
    - facepalm 10y ago
      I didn't say anything about disbelieving any women - I take issue with simply "guessing" that stuff like that happens all the time. That is just confirming bias with bias, completely removed from reality. Apart from that, I wonder what evidence you are talking about? References? How often are claims waved away? Or is that just something you intuitively know? And by the way, people coming out in response to such an article is also just classic confirmation bias. You need to put stories in relation to the total workforce before you claim almost everybody gets harassed.
      - tomlock 10y ago
        I remember a thread a few months ago where said the twitter feed google had up for promoting working at google was evidence google wasn't interested in hiring male coders anymore. If only you applied such rigorous quantitative standards of evidence to your own claims.
        facepalm 10y ago
        Huh - that Twitter feed obviously is tilted towards only showing women and PoCs as engineers. It is not just a "guess" - you can look at that feed and check for yourself. And at least you can come to a different conclusion than me, because I cited the source. With "I guess", it is just a reinforcing reference to already existing bias. (For reference, here is the feed: https://twitter.com/lifeatgoogle https://twitter.com/lifeatgoogle )
        tomlock 10y ago
        I did look and we disagree. Perhaps you can quantify what you saw?
        facepalm 10y ago
        I'll give it a shot, going through the first 100 tweets or so counting men, women, skin colors, is that what you mean? Hope to get round to it later in the day. And btw I think it gives the impression they don't want to hire men, it doesn't prove that Google doesn't want to hire (white) men. But if they are interested in hiring white men, they might check the message they are sending out. For sure their reputation is so good that white men will probably still apply in droves, so whatever (same probably goes for women and PoCs, anyway). But in my opinion they will also drive away some people. (edited to add "in my opinion") And as I said - it is fine if you disagree, but at least there is something tangible to disagree on. That's different from simply playing into some stereotypes. Seriously, you are defending here the equivalent of "I have heard all blacks are criminals, and therefore it is true, no matter what you say". Wtf?
  - cbtacy 10y ago
    Exactly. You don't understand. So stop talking and start listening to the women around you, yeah?
    - facepalm 10y ago
      Which women? There were no women mentioned, just a guess that it happens often. There was one article by one woman that is the topic here. Afaik nobody claimed that her story is unbelievable.
visakanv 10y ago
> Personally I haven't heard many such stories from women in tech. Women learn from a very young age to be very selective about who they trust, in a much more nuanced way than men do. If you haven't heard such stories from women, it's quite probably because they're not comfortable telling you such things.
- facepalm 10y ago
  There aren't even that many women in tech who could tell such stories. Your argument is really quite worthless because it could be used to prove anything. In any case, as I mentioned in another comment, a collection of stories is not a good way to gauge the problem. You need to put it into context - number of women in total, and also, what happens to men. Stories like this suggest that only women ever have bad experiences at companies. But you can find lots of male reports of being unhappy at a company, too. Why isn't that reason for men to quit in droves? Presumably the Uber-woman is happy with her new job at Stripe, too.
roguecoder 10y ago
Consider that you may not be a safe person for women to tell such stories too, if your first instinct is going to be to minimize and dismiss.
- facepalm 10y ago
  I didn't minimize or dismiss any woman's story: the isssue here is the reference to imaginary women's imaginary stories. I can not dismiss an imaginary story, because it doesn't exist. The issue is that because of bias against men, few people even realize that they are talking about completely fabricated assumptions in this thread. And again: there are not even that many women who could tell such stories. I'd say 1 in 20 software developers at companies I worked for were female. So it is not a case of me not being told things by women on a significant scale. The women didn't tell me such stories because those women don't exist to begin with.

socksy 10y ago

Have you tried asking them? It feels vaguely ridiculous to expect hard data and facts on things of "people told me". I know I have female friends who have told me similar stories, but I couldn't for the life of me remember how many, nor would I want to start iterating these anecdotes to a stranger on the internet. In exactly the same way it would be to start statistically analysing any other statement on "people told me [x]". As for the latter, putting lines in the sand is a good way to be seen as not wanting to listen... I'm not saying that's what you're doing in this case, just how it comes across. Like, you've decided in advance what you want the result from the discussion to be, and no woman will be able to cross whatever standard you've chosen for inappropriate propositions (even when this is totally untrue).

facepalm 10y ago
I took issue with the "I guess it is very common that women expect that kind of harassment", because it plays into sexist stereotypes. I think in these matters )(sexism, racism, bias), it pays to be precise. How else can you counter bias? What if countless people told me they had been mugged by black people? Don't understand your comment about lines in the sand. What do you mean?
- kevinburke 10y ago
  A very large part of the problem is that claims of harassment are waved away, and the same people are allowed to harass again and again. There's a lot of evidence pointing to "believe women when they say they are harassed."
  - facepalm 10y ago
    I didn't say anything about disbelieving any women - I take issue with simply "guessing" that stuff like that happens all the time. That is just confirming bias with bias, completely removed from reality. Apart from that, I wonder what evidence you are talking about? References? How often are claims waved away? Or is that just something you intuitively know? And by the way, people coming out in response to such an article is also just classic confirmation bias. You need to put stories in relation to the total workforce before you claim almost everybody gets harassed.
    - tomlock 10y ago
      I remember a thread a few months ago where said the twitter feed google had up for promoting working at google was evidence google wasn't interested in hiring male coders anymore. If only you applied such rigorous quantitative standards of evidence to your own claims.
      - facepalm 10y ago
        Huh - that Twitter feed obviously is tilted towards only showing women and PoCs as engineers. It is not just a "guess" - you can look at that feed and check for yourself. And at least you can come to a different conclusion than me, because I cited the source. With "I guess", it is just a reinforcing reference to already existing bias. (For reference, here is the feed: https://twitter.com/lifeatgoogle https://twitter.com/lifeatgoogle )
        tomlock 10y ago
        I did look and we disagree. Perhaps you can quantify what you saw?
        facepalm 10y ago
        I'll give it a shot, going through the first 100 tweets or so counting men, women, skin colors, is that what you mean? Hope to get round to it later in the day. And btw I think it gives the impression they don't want to hire men, it doesn't prove that Google doesn't want to hire (white) men. But if they are interested in hiring white men, they might check the message they are sending out. For sure their reputation is so good that white men will probably still apply in droves, so whatever (same probably goes for women and PoCs, anyway). But in my opinion they will also drive away some people. (edited to add "in my opinion") And as I said - it is fine if you disagree, but at least there is something tangible to disagree on. That's different from simply playing into some stereotypes. Seriously, you are defending here the equivalent of "I have heard all blacks are criminals, and therefore it is true, no matter what you say". Wtf?
- cbtacy 10y ago
  Exactly. You don't understand. So stop talking and start listening to the women around you, yeah?
  - facepalm 10y ago
    Which women? There were no women mentioned, just a guess that it happens often. There was one article by one woman that is the topic here. Afaik nobody claimed that her story is unbelievable.

visakanv 10y ago

> Personally I haven't heard many such stories from women in tech. Women learn from a very young age to be very selective about who they trust, in a much more nuanced way than men do. If you haven't heard such stories from women, it's quite probably because they're not comfortable telling you such things.

facepalm 10y ago
There aren't even that many women in tech who could tell such stories. Your argument is really quite worthless because it could be used to prove anything. In any case, as I mentioned in another comment, a collection of stories is not a good way to gauge the problem. You need to put it into context - number of women in total, and also, what happens to men. Stories like this suggest that only women ever have bad experiences at companies. But you can find lots of male reports of being unhappy at a company, too. Why isn't that reason for men to quit in droves? Presumably the Uber-woman is happy with her new job at Stripe, too.

roguecoder 10y ago

Consider that you may not be a safe person for women to tell such stories too, if your first instinct is going to be to minimize and dismiss.

facepalm 10y ago
I didn't minimize or dismiss any woman's story: the isssue here is the reference to imaginary women's imaginary stories. I can not dismiss an imaginary story, because it doesn't exist. The issue is that because of bias against men, few people even realize that they are talking about completely fabricated assumptions in this thread. And again: there are not even that many women who could tell such stories. I'd say 1 in 20 software developers at companies I worked for were female. So it is not a case of me not being told things by women on a significant scale. The women didn't tell me such stories because those women don't exist to begin with.