6 ms·

Woman at a ~100 person startup here - Wanted to comment because there are a lot of posts on here that seem to promote some idea that the company has to really

Woman at a ~100 person startup here - Wanted to comment because there are a lot of posts on here that seem to promote some idea that the company has to really push for women-friendly policies/activities to be a great place for women to work, which I happen to completely disagree with (save for policies that could be classified as human-friendly such as leave and flexible hours). I work at a mediocre startup (first engineering job, don't judge!) and therefore we have some trouble hiring people. We've got the ping pong and kegs, which I couldn't care less about, and plenty of brogrammers and other bromployees, but day to day those really are irrelevant if you're getting interesting work and have a good manager. We absolutely have a diversity issue - I'm the only female engineer on a team of about 20, the company as a whole has maybe 1/3 women, it took the company about 6 years before they had their first woman go on maternity leave (many men are fathers, though their paternity leaves were short), and I don't work with anyone who would be considered underrepresented in tech. Because we have trouble hiring, we've tended to get people who are super green but excellent coworkers, or who are great programmers with mediocre-to-awful people skills. Of the latter, 2 had very clear misogynist tendencies, and both were fired after complaints made by men. One of the two made my life really uncomfortable when I surpassed his skill level, but only for about a week and then he was fired. I didn't even have to complain - my manager saw it and acted immediately. We don't have a very active diversity group, though we tried to at one point and it fizzled out. But honestly, my boyfriend works at a company with a diversity group and they do the most ridiculous, cringe-worthy activities that really do not make women look very sensible, unfortunately (arts and crafts, etc). Basically, my company looks like the exact type of place you might want to avoid if you want a female-friendly workplace, but it's been a wonderful place for me to grow as an engineer. It has some major problems, but is really trying to take concrete steps to improve. I'd love to have some female role models and a more diverse group of coworkers, so please don't discount companies like mine for looking like the stereotype!

watwut 9y ago
> But honestly, my boyfriend works at a company with a diversity group and they do the most ridiculous, cringe-worthy activities that really do not make women look very sensible, unfortunately (arts and crafts, etc). That would make me uncomfortable. Not people who like art and thus do art&craft together, that is cool. But people who tie that to femininity for no good reason.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  Maybe controversially, I'm going to suggest that this kind of diversity culture and brogrammer culture are both manifestations of the same misguided mindset - one where people try to engineer a culture from scratch, but end up creating something that only works for the kinds of people they're personally comfortable with. The comments about more formal workspaces are interesting. Adult-oriented workspaces may be more bland and superficially less creative, but a space where you can be left alone to get on with your work and where "culture" isn't being forced on employees seems like it could be more likely to give everyone freedom to simply be professional.
  - asnowman 9y ago
    How would you describe brogammer culture? I haven't really considered this topic at all so I may be entirely blind to it.
- baddox 9y ago
  It seems similar to tying ping pong or beer to masculinity.
  - watwut 9y ago
    Oh, I agree. Besides, I find that puzzling. Women drink too. (Tho girls that wear girly high heels are at disadvantage at ping pong.)
jansho 9y ago
> company has to really push for women-friendly policies to be a great place for women to work, which I happen to completely disagree with. Could you elaborate a little bit more please, beyond the cringey paper-scissor activities?
- seaknoll 9y ago
  Thanks, I shot off my comment kind of quickly so should clarify that I definitely think that many policies touted as "women-friendly" are incredibly important but I think of them more as family/age-group-friendly or human-friendly (maternity & paternity leave, flexible hours, etc). My comment was basically just referring to diversity groups (as I've experienced them) and women-only events.
  - jansho 9y ago
    Ah ok, I was curious to know your opinion since for me, "women-friendly policies" mean consideration for pregnancy, childcare and so on! Regarding diversity events, I slightly disagree with you. Ironically I became an advocate only after my engineering education, when I suddenly experienced 'different' treatment. Welcome to the real world, they say, but it affected me quite badly. I suddenly found those women support groups comforting. None of the meetups I went was ever "Down with the opposite sex!" although yes, I find myself wishing that there's more rad startups than just fashion and makeup. But there is something refreshing about just listening to leaders, entrepreneurs and hopefuls, all driven and comfortable with their identities, including being female. I mean, if they can do it, I can do it too, right??
    - goodcanadian 9y ago
      Ah ok, I was curious to know your opinion since for me, "women-friendly policies" mean consideration for pregnancy, childcare and so on! As a father, it bothers me to see those considerations described as "women-friendly." Why is it assumed that my wife is the one who has to leave early to pick our daughter up from school? The most "woman friendly" policy would also involve changing the expectations on men to allow women's partners to take on more of the care giving role (for example). I strongly agree with seaknoll in characterizing them as "human friendly" policies.
bethly 9y ago
Being willing to fire people for "just" sexism is a great sign, and one many Big Name companies fail to manage.
lr4444lr 9y ago
One of the two made my life really uncomfortable when I surpassed his skill level Can you give us a sample interaction that concretizes this, if it doesn't compromise the anonymity of you, this individual, or your company? I think some men can fall prey to perpetrating this even subconsciously, and it could be very useful for a lot of people, myself included, to see an example.
- seaknoll 9y ago
  It started when our manager gave me a project that this coworker struggled to make progress on (the transition was made in a way that allowed the coworker to save face, if he wanted to). Prior to that, he tried to talk to me as though he was a mentor, which I mostly just nodded at - some of it was useful, at least at first. After the project transition though, he complained that I made gratuitous style changes, opened several PRs to try to fix the problem before I could and then in response to my code review publicly told me that he had more experience than me so maybe I should listen to him. All of that might be attributed to his own self-consciousness if it weren't for the fact that he was deferential to male engineers in code review, and during the height of the tension with me, during scrum he started openly criticizing/mocking a female contractor's work (on an entirely unrelated project that he knew very little about). This is a pretty egregious example, but I could imagine that a much subtler version happens more often (possibly it's happened to me but it seems more pragmatic to assume it's not related to sexism if at all possible).
  - lr4444lr 9y ago
    Thank you. This was useful to have articulated for me (and I hope for others).
  - mikekchar 9y ago
    One of the things that's always interesting to me about these kinds of issues is how the inappropriate behaviour is usually inappropriate regardless of the reasons the person targets someone. I see this kind of stuff all the time on teams and it is really frustrating. In a very strange sense, it's actually nice if the person is targeting only people of a particular gender or race because then you can easily fire them. It's much, much, much harder if these people mistreat others indiscriminately. In my home country I'm part of the racial majority. In my adopted country, I'm a racial minority and I've worked in offices both places. I've experienced bullying in my home country and racism in my adopted country and it really doesn't feel any different to me. If someone is targeting you for abuse, it doesn't really matter what the reason is. I wish both were recognised as being inappropriate in the workplace.
capkutay 9y ago
Not a woman but just wanted to chime in and agree that just because a company markets itself as a great place for diversity, women, people from different cultures doesn't really mean much at an individual level. There are definitely companies where you see 'women in tech' programs and fliers on the wall while still incubating a chauvinistic, aggressive male culture in parallel during day to day operations. That's why everyone just needs to be very familiar with who they are working with on a daily basis.
mythrwy 9y ago
You have a very balanced view IMOP.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
throwaway321980 9y ago
Disclaimer - I am a man. Just to provide some balance to this discussion and to confirm your perception that this might not be sexism... the behavior you're describing here really isn't inherently misogynistic. Talking down to your coworkers is perhaps more likely to happen from a man, to a female, but certainly isn't restricted to that domain. I've experienced basically the same thing as you, where a female colleague was excessively aggressive in treating me as a pupil, and regularly talked down to me. She was new at the company, and immediately took to treating me like a pupil of hers (despite my 5 years, and an MS on her, which in fairness, she didn't know about due to vague company titles). I'll spare you all the details, but suffice it to say, there were many "1+1 = 2" instances where she asserted that "1+1 = 3", despite clear, undeniable 3rd party documentation to the contrary. Needless to say, she was fired.
therealdrag0 9y ago
From what I've seen 1/20 female engineers isn't something to be ashamed of for a small company. There just aren't that many available, and I suspect many are scooped up by Amazon/Microsoft/etc to pad their numbers, and that's hard to compete with. Source: I worked at a ~75 person consulting company; we had two female recruiters who tried really hard to get more female engineers. I think we had like 4.

watwut 9y ago

> But honestly, my boyfriend works at a company with a diversity group and they do the most ridiculous, cringe-worthy activities that really do not make women look very sensible, unfortunately (arts and crafts, etc). That would make me uncomfortable. Not people who like art and thus do art&craft together, that is cool. But people who tie that to femininity for no good reason.

TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
Maybe controversially, I'm going to suggest that this kind of diversity culture and brogrammer culture are both manifestations of the same misguided mindset - one where people try to engineer a culture from scratch, but end up creating something that only works for the kinds of people they're personally comfortable with. The comments about more formal workspaces are interesting. Adult-oriented workspaces may be more bland and superficially less creative, but a space where you can be left alone to get on with your work and where "culture" isn't being forced on employees seems like it could be more likely to give everyone freedom to simply be professional.
- asnowman 9y ago
  How would you describe brogammer culture? I haven't really considered this topic at all so I may be entirely blind to it.
baddox 9y ago
It seems similar to tying ping pong or beer to masculinity.
- watwut 9y ago
  Oh, I agree. Besides, I find that puzzling. Women drink too. (Tho girls that wear girly high heels are at disadvantage at ping pong.)

jansho 9y ago

> company has to really push for women-friendly policies to be a great place for women to work, which I happen to completely disagree with. Could you elaborate a little bit more please, beyond the cringey paper-scissor activities?

seaknoll 9y ago
Thanks, I shot off my comment kind of quickly so should clarify that I definitely think that many policies touted as "women-friendly" are incredibly important but I think of them more as family/age-group-friendly or human-friendly (maternity & paternity leave, flexible hours, etc). My comment was basically just referring to diversity groups (as I've experienced them) and women-only events.
- jansho 9y ago
  Ah ok, I was curious to know your opinion since for me, "women-friendly policies" mean consideration for pregnancy, childcare and so on! Regarding diversity events, I slightly disagree with you. Ironically I became an advocate only after my engineering education, when I suddenly experienced 'different' treatment. Welcome to the real world, they say, but it affected me quite badly. I suddenly found those women support groups comforting. None of the meetups I went was ever "Down with the opposite sex!" although yes, I find myself wishing that there's more rad startups than just fashion and makeup. But there is something refreshing about just listening to leaders, entrepreneurs and hopefuls, all driven and comfortable with their identities, including being female. I mean, if they can do it, I can do it too, right??
  - goodcanadian 9y ago
    Ah ok, I was curious to know your opinion since for me, "women-friendly policies" mean consideration for pregnancy, childcare and so on! As a father, it bothers me to see those considerations described as "women-friendly." Why is it assumed that my wife is the one who has to leave early to pick our daughter up from school? The most "woman friendly" policy would also involve changing the expectations on men to allow women's partners to take on more of the care giving role (for example). I strongly agree with seaknoll in characterizing them as "human friendly" policies.

bethly 9y ago

Being willing to fire people for "just" sexism is a great sign, and one many Big Name companies fail to manage.

lr4444lr 9y ago

One of the two made my life really uncomfortable when I surpassed his skill level Can you give us a sample interaction that concretizes this, if it doesn't compromise the anonymity of you, this individual, or your company? I think some men can fall prey to perpetrating this even subconsciously, and it could be very useful for a lot of people, myself included, to see an example.

seaknoll 9y ago
It started when our manager gave me a project that this coworker struggled to make progress on (the transition was made in a way that allowed the coworker to save face, if he wanted to). Prior to that, he tried to talk to me as though he was a mentor, which I mostly just nodded at - some of it was useful, at least at first. After the project transition though, he complained that I made gratuitous style changes, opened several PRs to try to fix the problem before I could and then in response to my code review publicly told me that he had more experience than me so maybe I should listen to him. All of that might be attributed to his own self-consciousness if it weren't for the fact that he was deferential to male engineers in code review, and during the height of the tension with me, during scrum he started openly criticizing/mocking a female contractor's work (on an entirely unrelated project that he knew very little about). This is a pretty egregious example, but I could imagine that a much subtler version happens more often (possibly it's happened to me but it seems more pragmatic to assume it's not related to sexism if at all possible).
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  Thank you. This was useful to have articulated for me (and I hope for others).
- mikekchar 9y ago
  One of the things that's always interesting to me about these kinds of issues is how the inappropriate behaviour is usually inappropriate regardless of the reasons the person targets someone. I see this kind of stuff all the time on teams and it is really frustrating. In a very strange sense, it's actually nice if the person is targeting only people of a particular gender or race because then you can easily fire them. It's much, much, much harder if these people mistreat others indiscriminately. In my home country I'm part of the racial majority. In my adopted country, I'm a racial minority and I've worked in offices both places. I've experienced bullying in my home country and racism in my adopted country and it really doesn't feel any different to me. If someone is targeting you for abuse, it doesn't really matter what the reason is. I wish both were recognised as being inappropriate in the workplace.

capkutay 9y ago

Not a woman but just wanted to chime in and agree that just because a company markets itself as a great place for diversity, women, people from different cultures doesn't really mean much at an individual level. There are definitely companies where you see 'women in tech' programs and fliers on the wall while still incubating a chauvinistic, aggressive male culture in parallel during day to day operations. That's why everyone just needs to be very familiar with who they are working with on a daily basis.

mythrwy 9y ago

You have a very balanced view IMOP.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

throwaway321980 9y ago

Disclaimer - I am a man. Just to provide some balance to this discussion and to confirm your perception that this might not be sexism... the behavior you're describing here really isn't inherently misogynistic. Talking down to your coworkers is perhaps more likely to happen from a man, to a female, but certainly isn't restricted to that domain. I've experienced basically the same thing as you, where a female colleague was excessively aggressive in treating me as a pupil, and regularly talked down to me. She was new at the company, and immediately took to treating me like a pupil of hers (despite my 5 years, and an MS on her, which in fairness, she didn't know about due to vague company titles). I'll spare you all the details, but suffice it to say, there were many "1+1 = 2" instances where she asserted that "1+1 = 3", despite clear, undeniable 3rd party documentation to the contrary. Needless to say, she was fired.

therealdrag0 9y ago

From what I've seen 1/20 female engineers isn't something to be ashamed of for a small company. There just aren't that many available, and I suspect many are scooped up by Amazon/Microsoft/etc to pad their numbers, and that's hard to compete with. Source: I worked at a ~75 person consulting company; we had two female recruiters who tried really hard to get more female engineers. I think we had like 4.