3 ms·

I certainly don't want to discount the presence of sexism (by the way you can just call it that, "gender bias" feels a bit euphemistic IMO). But I've had some i

I certainly don't want to discount the presence of sexism (by the way you can just call it that, "gender bias" feels a bit euphemistic IMO). But I've had some interesting conversations with female colleagues wherein they are surprised that I share many of the same frustrating experiences they do. (I'm white and male.) I think this stuff happens if you don't fit someone's idea of what a developer "should be", and that occurs not only in sexist ways but other ways as well. Of course it's rare for a person to just come out and admit they don't respect you, let alone why. But I suspect things like my appearance and my manner of speaking represent me as insufficiently nerdy to people who care about such things, which results in the type of shit they describe. Again, I don't want to diminish the problem of sexism or other forms of discrimination in our industry. I just suspect that for those who are affected by it, all would not be well even if the discrimination were to evaporate overnight. Sadly.

jaemison 10y ago
That feeling of being "insufficiently nerdy" and the mild paranoia that arises from being subconsciously labelled as such by your peers is one of many things I've learned to deal with on a daily basis. I'm certain there are many others that can relate. I think part of the problem is that we don't have these empathy-building conversations at work, which is a shame because there is evidence that empathy towards teammates is part of building successful teams[1]. In general, I wish we would stop framing discussions of improving diversity in tech as a zero-sum game in which the collective experience of one group is by default more valid than the collective experience of another group. Bad hiring heuristics and mental shortcuts for what makes a person a good engineer hurt everyone who gets eliminated from contention before being given a chance to do the job, not just the person who checks off the most boxes on the EEOC reporting section of the job application. [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-lear...

jaemison 10y ago

That feeling of being "insufficiently nerdy" and the mild paranoia that arises from being subconsciously labelled as such by your peers is one of many things I've learned to deal with on a daily basis. I'm certain there are many others that can relate. I think part of the problem is that we don't have these empathy-building conversations at work, which is a shame because there is evidence that empathy towards teammates is part of building successful teams[1]. In general, I wish we would stop framing discussions of improving diversity in tech as a zero-sum game in which the collective experience of one group is by default more valid than the collective experience of another group. Bad hiring heuristics and mental shortcuts for what makes a person a good engineer hurt everyone who gets eliminated from contention before being given a chance to do the job, not just the person who checks off the most boxes on the EEOC reporting section of the job application. [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-lear...