12 ms·

Ask HN: What about women on HN?

12 points by baxtr 9y ago

Out of curiosity: I wonder what the share of women on HN is. There are no real names or pictures on profiles so it’s really hard to say. Somehow though in my head all HN users appear as men. I hope that’s not true. Is there any way to falsify?

lovelearning 9y ago
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=I%27m%20woman&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=I%27m%20woman&sort=byPopularit...
- wirddin 9y ago
  Funny, it also displays "I'm not a woman" results in the first few pages.
- miguelrochefort 9y ago
  As expected, it's mostly threads talking about women, sexism, etc.
  - lovelearning 9y ago
    The question was "Somehow though in my head all HN users appear as men...Is there any way to falsify?" The results list multiple "I'm a woman in tech and <blah> <blah>", thus falsifying OP's assumption. What they were talking about is irrelevant to OP's question.
danieltillett 9y ago
Well yes. If one woman posts on HN then your theory is false. To answer your question yes there are women who post here, but they are in the minority.
thisone 9y ago
why do you picture all posters on HN to be men? that seems to say more about you than anything else.
- mbrock 9y ago
  Maybe all the ones you see with a public profile seem to be male. Could be that everyone they've met in person who's on HN is male. You could argue there are more subtle cultural clues in something like typically male styles of interaction (the classic HN nitpicking is easy to imagine as related to "mansplaining"). Etc.
  - thisone 9y ago
    I see no reason in that for anyone to assume an entire internet forum to be exclusively one gender. Someone sees a set of interactions that they assume to be between a single gender, so they assume everyone is that gender?
    - mbrock 9y ago
      The original poster is saying "somehow in my head HN posters appear as male". That doesn't really mean the poster is assuming that HN is actually 100% male. It's a description of his or her imaginative process, which is a matter of great psychological and sociological complexity.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    It could be that it really is overwhelmingly male and that the women who do participate often downplay their gender, thereby making it look even more overwhelmingly male than it actually is, thus fostering the impression that it could be 100% male. It could also be that the lack of "social" elements, like avatars, makes it inherently hard to signal such details or ferret them out if you are curious about it. (That is not a criticism. It is an observation. I like the way profiles are handled here.)
DoreenMichele 9y ago
There are women here. Some of them actively hide or downplay their gender. My experience has been that even with being very open about my gender, I am sometimes misgendered by people assuming I am male. I know no means to put a stop to that and I feel that being too pushy about it would be counterproductive. This is a new handle, but my original handle has 25k karma and is still on the leaderboard. As far as I know, I am the only woman on the leaderboard. If so, out of 100 names showing on the leaderboard, only one is a woman. This is really low even in comparison to the 17 percent figure often cited for female CEOs. So, yeah, it is an overwhelmingly male forum, but I have been here over 8 years and I am fairly confident that the appearance of male domination is even worse than the reality. I see questions like yours from time to time, and the best I can tell you is that data over the years suggests that a) at least 2 to 3 percent of the active membership is female and b) this figure is probably a case of underreporting. There are probably more women here, it just doesn't look it. It seems to me to be getting better.
- owebmaster 9y ago
  > It seems to me to be getting better. Why more women in a forum where apparently not many women want to participate is getting better? I mean, I'm black and we are also disproportionately represented here and I hope this to change sometime, but it would make HN atmost more suitable to me and other people of color, not necessarily better at what HN is made for.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    I find your phrasing unclear, so I don't really understand what you are asking.
    - owebmaster 9y ago
      > Why more women in a forum where apparently not many women want to participate is getting better? s/is/would be
      - 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
twobyfour 9y ago
(Raises hand.) I don't advertise my gender, and most people who refer to me by a gendered pronoun assume I'm male. I don't usually bother to disabuse them of that notion, because it's typically irrelevant to the current topic of conversation. Exactly once did someone call out that assumption, which I appreciated. HN is a perfectly comfortable place to be a woman... in conversations that don't touch at all on social issues. On those that touch on lifestyle and family structure, I find that the assumptions here tend to be different than in other (not tech or startup oriented) communities I frequent. The direction of the discussion often implicitly hinges on the notion that anyone participating in the conversation either is single and childless or has a partner who is responsible for all things related to home and childrearing. That if one parent is going to prioritize childrearing over career it will be the mother. Etc. It's not hostile. It's just... uncomfortable. The source of a lot of cognitive dissonance and a sense of being an outsider. A lack of identification and support within the community. If I brought it up in those contexts, I would expect to be shouted down by some for being off-topic and by others for being "shrill". Then there are the topics that touch explicitly on gendered issues. Gender equality and the imbalance in tech. Sexual harassment in the workplace. Etc. Those discussions are much less excruciating than they were even five years ago. And that's saying a lot because they are still extremely uncomfortable for me. Oh, if it's about something truly egregious and inexcusable like a rape caught on video, I'm confident that the community here will express appropriate outrage. (Despite the very vocal 0.5% who post enough to make themselves look like 5% and will inevitably find a way to blame the victim. At least these days those schmucks generally get downvoted into oblivion. That wasn't always the case.) But if there's even the slightest bit of uncertainty, the community as a whole seems to get defensive and use that as an excuse to question any claim that a man wronged a woman or that there might be society-wide biases that interfere with women a) getting equal consideration for opportunities or b) being able to just do their damn jobs or disagree with someone in discussions on the internet without having to fend off anything from leering to rape-and-murder threats. That's probably, again, a tiny group of reactionaries being extremely vocal. But I don't see enough of the rest of the community making it clear that that's what they are. In short, there are times (not all the time, but sometimes) when HN feels like a hostile place to be as a woman. There have been at least a few times when I've rage-quit (for a few weeks at least, the addiction is too strong). I've even abandoned a few accounts here in the past out of frustration or even fear generated by that hostility. Those conversations are a tiny minority of the ones I have here, but they have a hold on my perception of the community that's disproportionate to their frequency because, well, adrenaline will do that to the brain. In short, MOST of the time HN is a perfectly fine place to be a woman. Sometimes it's uncomfortable, but heck, to some degree the world is an uncomfortable place to be a woman. But on occasion it's hostile. It's come a long way, but there's still a lot farther to go. And if women who check out the community don't register accounts or don't stick around or don't participate... or even if they don't reveal their gender, those may be some of the reasons why. By the way, I've been a member of co-ed communities where the default assumption upon meeting someone with a non-gendered handle was that they were female. The perception and assumption here that everyone is male is a self-reinforcing stereotype. It's like walking into a mall and thinking you don't see anyone who's gay if you don't see any men holding hands with one another. There are almost certainly gay people there, they're just invisible to you because you don't think to question the assumption that each person you encounter is straight. There are more women here than you think.

owebmaster 9y ago
So the problem wasn't my english, you already had understood the question. Now your reply doesn't help me. It is not logical to ask why put more people that don't enjoy hang around would improve something? So I'm asking why should HN actively change itself to be more engaging to women? And how?
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  You assume women don't want to be here. I see it otherwise. Women want to be here, but the climate is not very welcoming of them. So I'm asking why should HN actively change itself to be more engaging to women? And how? HN isn't required to do anything at all. It looks to me like both YC and the moderating staff of HN would like to foster diversity. That is their choice. I try to respect that fact. I have worked hard at trying to fit in because I want to be here. I know a lot about social phenomenon. If one woman can figure it out, this will tend to open doors for others. That is simple reality and has nothing to do with me trying to change HN. In fact, to the degree that new women so often take it for granted that they are welcome here, have no idea how hard I have worked to fit in and how that makes it easier for them and then quite often are personally ugly to me, I often regret any role I have played in opening doors for other women here. It seems to be of zero benefit to me and to very often bite me in the butt. Your hostility in this most recent comment seems to be much more blatant and not a matter of misunderstanding. So, if you will excuse me, I don't plan to engage you further.
  - owebmaster 9y ago
    > Your hostility in this most recent comment seems to be much more blatant and not a matter of misunderstanding. All your replies to me were hostiles and some of them complaining about my hostility. I wasn't hostile at any time, my question was on the subject of the topic but every answer of yours you tried to frame me as hostile. Because you feel that women are hostilized here. I feel that black men are hostilized here too. By men and women. But most of the times I'm hostilized it is directly correlated to the angriness in some of my replies. I don't think that bring more black people ready to engage in flamewars about why there aren't many of us here will do any good to HN and neither them will enjoy the experience. Tech savvy black people will. And I think exactly the same about women on HN. "Ask HN: What about women on HN?"
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      My initial request for clarification was in no way hostile, nor a criticism of you. I am sorry you are so very angry, but I see no reason why I should be the target of your anger. Also, there is no requirement here to be in tech. There are men on the leaderboard in other professions. There are plenty of respected members here who are teachers, doctors or lawyers. The suggestion that a woman or black person needs to be "tech savvy" is just another means to exclude them. Since you are black, it really isn't in your best interest to suggest that people who are not white males need to pass additional tests to be here. And if you think flamewars will degrade the site, then look to the man in the mirror. Your anger is part of the problem. I do all in my power to be the antithesis of an angry woman just here to start fights. I imagine my commitment to trying to engage in good faith in spite of it being an uphill battle to do so is a key element of how I became the first woman on the leaderboard.
      - owebmaster 9y ago
        > I do all in my power to be the antithesis of an angry woman just here to start fights. Doesn't look like that at all. I weren't the one with weapons at hand in this thread. > Since you are black, it really isn't in your best interest to suggest that people who are not white males need to pass additional tests to be here. My only test is that someone here has to fit and add to this tech community to not feel hostilized otherwise it'd be in their best interest to find over time their position here in place of screaming out loud that they should be more accepted (of course, respecting the guidelines objectively, not subjectively). Show, don't tell. The same way you got your position in the leaderboard. I've remember reading a lot of comments from you (Mz?) that I sure upvoted because it contributed to the discussion.