4 ms·

As a women in tech i'm starting to see another of these posts and thing URG Another* Give some some more interesting tech posts dammit! I've suffered sexism e

As a women in tech i'm starting to see another of these posts and thing URG Another* Give some some more interesting tech posts dammit! I've suffered sexism everywhere - not just in tech. Maybe i'm different because I enjoy writing code on my weekends, enjoy looking up the latest machine learning tools - that I really just ignore the sexism, because I want to make more things. As long as you're not explicitly stopping me writing interesting things, say what you like about me. Stop me from writing stuff I want, and i'll just leave with my hefty portfolio of diverse projects. I was the kid in school who would play football with other guys who would try and stop me, I just learnt to play better than them, because I loved playing, more than I cared about their sexism. (note, not trying to belittle anyone, I understand these are real issues and each story is different! Mine is in no way representitive). But I hate the rhetoric even coming from women's posts - that seems to put us down ourselves. Even if there's sexism, as i've encountered from a kid, I'm staying because I love to code and make new things and it's a natural part of where the world is at the moment. I can change it, by staying and breaking people's perceptions.

deorder 9y ago
Not only that, but many men suffer(ed) from these kind of biases / prejudices as well. For example macspoofing's post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14988299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14988299 I had the same experience. Being into computers used to be "uncool". Tech becoming more accepted by the general people is a pretty recent thing.
- mgkimsal 9y ago
  At the risk of incurring some pushback (which has happened when I've posted this topic before), some of the situations highlighted when discussing sexism against females ("in tech", usually, based on where I read them), has been something I and others have experienced as well, even though I'm not a female. The stories of "getting ignored in meetings" and "having your ideas glossed over until someone else ('a man') puts them forward" resonate with me and other men I know as well. There are real power dynamics in some companies/orgs which usually mean that not only do ideas generally only get to come from men, but usually only certain types of men: the men who 'fit in' with management already. But when pointing this out, I've been accused of ignoring sexism, or trying to downplay sexism, or trying to say it doesn't exist. None of those are true; I know it's a thing, but sometimes some of the symptoms seen may not actually be the result of gender bias (or race bias), but 'culture bias'. Sometimes someone's just being a jerk, not a 'sexist jerk', but if there's a gender difference, somehow 'sexism' is automatically applied to the equation, which may not always be warranted. The impact of the biases I've experienced is still likely less detrimental than the effects of sexism on women in tech.
  - LifeQuestioner 9y ago
    Sorry to hear that :(. And to be honest - no matter what is happening whether it's sexism or watever the reason. I can understand how horrible that must feel. 40 years ago - Stephanie Shirely did have to sign her name as "Steve" in order to get contracts. If they saw a female name she would not get them. Only 40 years ago - the sexism is still going to be there somewhere in people. But "sexism" could be replaced by many other bias's - culture etc. The only people who seem less likely to be affected by Bias's and sterotypes are people on the autistic spectrum! Maybe we should be hiring these guys as our managers, seriously.
    - mgkimsal 9y ago
      Thanks, although I'm not in massive need of sympathy on this front :) Getting passed over or ignored or bullied or silenced hurts no matter what the motivating factors.
  - mickronome 9y ago
    I'm a senior developer 20+ years of experience, but due to whatever reason most people tend to assume I'm between 25 and 30, which is more than a decade off. My experience is that the kind of extrovert personalities we more often see in management or sales tend to undervalue both competency and experience unless I either prove myself spectacularly, or use a much more assertive, and to my sensibilities almost aggressive, style of communication. Only rarely does this kind of problem occur with more introvert and/or majorly creative personalities commonly found on the tech side. My belief is that while there obviously are straight up gender discrimination of a more structural nature, there also exist multiple trait dependent discrimination/biases which affects anyone regardless of gender, but sometimes to different extent. A mild mannered 6' giant will still be listened to, a similarly mild mannered rail thin 120 pound brute will be ignored to some extent, I can only imagine that a similarly mild mannered petite woman will face quite brutal ignorance.
    - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
      IMO this is very much more of a problem than "sexism". The reality is that business and politics are full of noisy self-regarding idiots, a fair proportion of whom are spectacularly incompetent. Feminism seems to assume that there's a homogenous social and political group called "men" which is made up of people like this, and which automatically gives males free entry, with corresponding privileges. Conversely being female means you are excluded from this group. Both positions are nonsense. The problem is behaviour, not gender. While it's - arguably, but probably - true that a disproportionate number of these idiots are male, it's absolutely not true that all males are like this. It's also not true that no women are like this. Again - the problem is behaviour. Not gender. So when one of these annoying people talks over a woman in a meeting, women assume it's because of sexism. When in fact it's because of a political and cultural phenomenon that treats quieter and more thoughtful men in exactly the same ways. Even though this phenomenon is absolutely endemic in business and politics, it doesn't even have a name.
freetime2 9y ago
So this probably isn't a legitimate concern on my part, apologies in advance if this comes out sounding offensive or just plain dumb. But it's an honest thought that I've had as a male in tech... One of the things that scares me about all of the outreach programs, networking events, mentoring programs, etc. is that I worry it's going to bring in a lot of people into the industry who don't really enjoy programming but are in it for the prestige, money, etc. Computer programming is the only productive thing that I've ever enjoyed doing in my life. I taught myself to program as a teenager, studied CS in college and loved it, and have been working in industry ever since. I don't ever want to manage people, or meet with customers, or do anything else - I only want to write code. Say what you will about the "frat boy monoculture" - for all of its shittiness at least it's mostly made up of people who are passionate about code, largely self-taught and self-motivated, and enjoy what they do. And almost all of the women programmers that I've worked with (and it sounds like the parent poster as well) have been the same... maybe even more so since they have had to deal with so much more shit along the way and are still here. And I don't want that to change (the part about working with passionate, fun people.. The discrimination and bias part needs to stop).
- ejfox 9y ago
  I have had exactly the opposite reaction to the "frat boy monoculture"- self-taught and self-motivated, maybe, but I have run into more people than I can count who came into the industry for the money. 10 years ago they would have been on Wall St.
- imesh 9y ago
  I think with the outreach stuff that I have seen we just get more nerdy minorities. It's still basically the same kinda people.
- d3ad1ysp0rk 9y ago
  It may be beneficial to volunteer with one of these outreach programs to get a first hand look at the people that are being targeted / latching onto them.
- wcummings 9y ago
  >Say what you will about the "frat boy monoculture" - for all of its shittiness at least it's mostly made up of people who are passionate about code, largely self-taught and self-motivated, and enjoy what they do. Having worked at companies that employ tons of recent grads, I haven't found this to be the case at all. Pretty much everyone I've worked with who has a college degree (so almost everyone) is more "brogrammer" than "hacker" and didn't write code until they went to school. Many don't know their way around a UNIX environment and have never written code outside IntelliJ on a fancy macbook. They'll tell you lisp is scary because it has too many parens, and call software "apps". They don't use or are actively hostile to Free Software and uncritically consume marketing. This is the "frat boy monoculture", I find little redeeming about it, to say nothing of the bigotry. I find the opposite is true of the weirdos, slackers and dropouts, who taught themselves for fun and were working when their better educated but less cultured peers were in school, but that is a small cohort.
contrast 9y ago
I think that's a great perspective as an individual, but the people making the decisions here are not the coders (they may have been, but it's not their job now). If you're running a team, and someone has a legitimate complaint, you can't ignore it, because your job is to deal with it. Would you say to the coder with the complaint, "Well you should just quit, then"? Or maybe just, "Stop complaining and do your job"? What change do you think that have on people's perceptions?
- LifeQuestioner 9y ago
  But i'm not proposing "Stop complaining and do your job" :). Or just quit at the first sign of crap. It's actually the complete opposite.
dbtqgoat 9y ago
This is 100% the correct mindset. You can't police others thoughts, you can only ever control your own actions. If people doubt you: prove them wrong.

deorder 9y ago

Not only that, but many men suffer(ed) from these kind of biases / prejudices as well. For example macspoofing's post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14988299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14988299 I had the same experience. Being into computers used to be "uncool". Tech becoming more accepted by the general people is a pretty recent thing.

mgkimsal 9y ago
At the risk of incurring some pushback (which has happened when I've posted this topic before), some of the situations highlighted when discussing sexism against females ("in tech", usually, based on where I read them), has been something I and others have experienced as well, even though I'm not a female. The stories of "getting ignored in meetings" and "having your ideas glossed over until someone else ('a man') puts them forward" resonate with me and other men I know as well. There are real power dynamics in some companies/orgs which usually mean that not only do ideas generally only get to come from men, but usually only certain types of men: the men who 'fit in' with management already. But when pointing this out, I've been accused of ignoring sexism, or trying to downplay sexism, or trying to say it doesn't exist. None of those are true; I know it's a thing, but sometimes some of the symptoms seen may not actually be the result of gender bias (or race bias), but 'culture bias'. Sometimes someone's just being a jerk, not a 'sexist jerk', but if there's a gender difference, somehow 'sexism' is automatically applied to the equation, which may not always be warranted. The impact of the biases I've experienced is still likely less detrimental than the effects of sexism on women in tech.
- LifeQuestioner 9y ago
  Sorry to hear that :(. And to be honest - no matter what is happening whether it's sexism or watever the reason. I can understand how horrible that must feel. 40 years ago - Stephanie Shirely did have to sign her name as "Steve" in order to get contracts. If they saw a female name she would not get them. Only 40 years ago - the sexism is still going to be there somewhere in people. But "sexism" could be replaced by many other bias's - culture etc. The only people who seem less likely to be affected by Bias's and sterotypes are people on the autistic spectrum! Maybe we should be hiring these guys as our managers, seriously.
  - mgkimsal 9y ago
    Thanks, although I'm not in massive need of sympathy on this front :) Getting passed over or ignored or bullied or silenced hurts no matter what the motivating factors.
- mickronome 9y ago
  I'm a senior developer 20+ years of experience, but due to whatever reason most people tend to assume I'm between 25 and 30, which is more than a decade off. My experience is that the kind of extrovert personalities we more often see in management or sales tend to undervalue both competency and experience unless I either prove myself spectacularly, or use a much more assertive, and to my sensibilities almost aggressive, style of communication. Only rarely does this kind of problem occur with more introvert and/or majorly creative personalities commonly found on the tech side. My belief is that while there obviously are straight up gender discrimination of a more structural nature, there also exist multiple trait dependent discrimination/biases which affects anyone regardless of gender, but sometimes to different extent. A mild mannered 6' giant will still be listened to, a similarly mild mannered rail thin 120 pound brute will be ignored to some extent, I can only imagine that a similarly mild mannered petite woman will face quite brutal ignorance.
  - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    IMO this is very much more of a problem than "sexism". The reality is that business and politics are full of noisy self-regarding idiots, a fair proportion of whom are spectacularly incompetent. Feminism seems to assume that there's a homogenous social and political group called "men" which is made up of people like this, and which automatically gives males free entry, with corresponding privileges. Conversely being female means you are excluded from this group. Both positions are nonsense. The problem is behaviour, not gender. While it's - arguably, but probably - true that a disproportionate number of these idiots are male, it's absolutely not true that all males are like this. It's also not true that no women are like this. Again - the problem is behaviour. Not gender. So when one of these annoying people talks over a woman in a meeting, women assume it's because of sexism. When in fact it's because of a political and cultural phenomenon that treats quieter and more thoughtful men in exactly the same ways. Even though this phenomenon is absolutely endemic in business and politics, it doesn't even have a name.

freetime2 9y ago

So this probably isn't a legitimate concern on my part, apologies in advance if this comes out sounding offensive or just plain dumb. But it's an honest thought that I've had as a male in tech... One of the things that scares me about all of the outreach programs, networking events, mentoring programs, etc. is that I worry it's going to bring in a lot of people into the industry who don't really enjoy programming but are in it for the prestige, money, etc. Computer programming is the only productive thing that I've ever enjoyed doing in my life. I taught myself to program as a teenager, studied CS in college and loved it, and have been working in industry ever since. I don't ever want to manage people, or meet with customers, or do anything else - I only want to write code. Say what you will about the "frat boy monoculture" - for all of its shittiness at least it's mostly made up of people who are passionate about code, largely self-taught and self-motivated, and enjoy what they do. And almost all of the women programmers that I've worked with (and it sounds like the parent poster as well) have been the same... maybe even more so since they have had to deal with so much more shit along the way and are still here. And I don't want that to change (the part about working with passionate, fun people.. The discrimination and bias part needs to stop).

ejfox 9y ago
I have had exactly the opposite reaction to the "frat boy monoculture"- self-taught and self-motivated, maybe, but I have run into more people than I can count who came into the industry for the money. 10 years ago they would have been on Wall St.
imesh 9y ago
I think with the outreach stuff that I have seen we just get more nerdy minorities. It's still basically the same kinda people.
d3ad1ysp0rk 9y ago
It may be beneficial to volunteer with one of these outreach programs to get a first hand look at the people that are being targeted / latching onto them.
wcummings 9y ago
>Say what you will about the "frat boy monoculture" - for all of its shittiness at least it's mostly made up of people who are passionate about code, largely self-taught and self-motivated, and enjoy what they do. Having worked at companies that employ tons of recent grads, I haven't found this to be the case at all. Pretty much everyone I've worked with who has a college degree (so almost everyone) is more "brogrammer" than "hacker" and didn't write code until they went to school. Many don't know their way around a UNIX environment and have never written code outside IntelliJ on a fancy macbook. They'll tell you lisp is scary because it has too many parens, and call software "apps". They don't use or are actively hostile to Free Software and uncritically consume marketing. This is the "frat boy monoculture", I find little redeeming about it, to say nothing of the bigotry. I find the opposite is true of the weirdos, slackers and dropouts, who taught themselves for fun and were working when their better educated but less cultured peers were in school, but that is a small cohort.

contrast 9y ago

I think that's a great perspective as an individual, but the people making the decisions here are not the coders (they may have been, but it's not their job now). If you're running a team, and someone has a legitimate complaint, you can't ignore it, because your job is to deal with it. Would you say to the coder with the complaint, "Well you should just quit, then"? Or maybe just, "Stop complaining and do your job"? What change do you think that have on people's perceptions?

LifeQuestioner 9y ago
But i'm not proposing "Stop complaining and do your job" :). Or just quit at the first sign of crap. It's actually the complete opposite.

dbtqgoat 9y ago

This is 100% the correct mindset. You can't police others thoughts, you can only ever control your own actions. If people doubt you: prove them wrong.