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That a post like this even exists saddens me. Maybe it’s easier to accomplish this outside the Valley, but despite being a woman engineer I’ve never had to exp

That a post like this even exists saddens me. Maybe it’s easier to accomplish this outside the Valley, but despite being a woman engineer I’ve never had to explicitly choose any of these positions. Why not? Because I’ve always worked places where I was taken seriously and treated professionally. It is possible (and at least in NYC, not at all difficult) to find and choose workplaces and teams with high standards of workplace professionalism. Where people know better than to suggest team building in a sauna. It also is a good idea to have an emergency fund that will allow you to say “fuck this” and walk out of any job where they lack that professionalism, but in 15-ish years I’ve yet to sign on to such an environment in the first place. That such toxic environments seem to be so prevalent in SV is infuriating in part because it’s so clear that it doesn’t have to be that way.

draw_down 8y ago
Even if one person chooses not to work in the bad places, someone will end up working in them. So to say it’s possible to avoid isn’t super helpful- sure it’s possible for any given person, but what we care about is who does end up working there, not who doesn’t.
- cimmanom 8y ago
  Of course this list is for the person who does end up working there. What saddens me is that those places exist at all and are so common that instead of just avoiding them, women are making lists about how to deal with them.
zeroname 8y ago
Consider the possibility that these "toxic environments" are in fact not the norm, but the exception, especially in Silicon Valley in 2018. The person who wrote this blog post has never even worked in the US.
- sneak 8y ago
  I think that a lot of people who have not directly experienced this sexism believe this, that it is the exception and not the norm. Even as a guy, I have personally witnessed that it is the norm, and that most organizations that have managed to avoid being sexist by default are very special indeed. There is some bias that makes people (men) want to believe that “it can’t possibly that bad, or if it is, it can’t possibly be that common”. Be aware of this bias.
  - zazen 8y ago
    Whether this is the norm for a large population of employers is a statistical question that you cannot "personally witness" even in principle. We desperately need a better way than anecdata to look at this.
    - GauntletWizard 8y ago
      I don't think it matters whether or not this is "the norm"; what matters, to the large extent, is whether or not these problems are common enough that people write these articles and that people uovote them. "The norm" isn't some magical threshold where if it's below a percentage of environments it doesn't matter - how much effort we should put into fixing these problems is more-or-less directly proportional to how bad they are as measured by how much complaining we see about them. Almost all of these pieces of advice function for anyone, and those specifically about women can be translated for any trait "X" - minority group or even something-common-but-not-here. I've gotten typecast because I like videogames - Freaking everyone likes videogames.
      - zazen 8y ago
        > how bad they are as measured by how much complaining we see about them. > common enough that ... people uovote them. But you must have noticed that social media feeds on outrage? People amplify the extent of things they are shocked by, by sharing and upvoting. Looking at the amount of noise generated in media/social-media would be a very poor way of measuring the true extent of anything, but especially of something so politicized as harassment of women.
fulafel 8y ago
The post's author seems to be outside the valley too, in Norway (from the domain, and also Twitter user info).
badcede 8y ago
They're not more prevalent in SV. What's more prevalent are activists who insist that it is and have made it socially costly to contradict them.
phyller 8y ago
It's really encouraging to see this comment. I wonder about this, not being a woman myself. In my workplace (east coast USA) there are plenty of women in technical roles, definitely a minority but still significant. I don't think it was done on purpose, it just happened as far as I can tell. And I would like to think their experiences haven't been like the author's, where it seems many coworkers are basically enemies to be overcome. But I've definitely seen a coworker or two do some stupid things. No, you are not respecting your female coworker by hitting on her and telling her how good she looks today (that guy got fired, but unfortunately for different reasons). There might be a lot more subtle things going on that I am not sensitive to, but I can't imagine porn actually being up in the office, that's just unprofessional even with all guys, and I would be asking those awkward questions about it myself (not that I am doubting that it happened to the author). It was very difficult for me to adjust as a new engineer, including with code reviews and all that, and I wonder if I had an outsider identity how tempting it would be to blame my problems on that. Never being sure if the difficulty was because of prejudice or not. Probably one of the worst effects of discrimination, causing you to have suspicion and doubt all the time because it might really be warranted. Anyway, a lot of these tips are just in general pretty good advice, even for a guy. And an environment that is friendly to women and that makes her advice unnecessary is better environment for everyone to work in.
jkoudys 8y ago
I've spent my career in Toronto, and while I've visited SV many times I didn't really realize how deep some of that stuff runs. The reaction to the Damore memo really brought out some of the worst of the worst.

draw_down 8y ago

Even if one person chooses not to work in the bad places, someone will end up working in them. So to say it’s possible to avoid isn’t super helpful- sure it’s possible for any given person, but what we care about is who does end up working there, not who doesn’t.

cimmanom 8y ago
Of course this list is for the person who does end up working there. What saddens me is that those places exist at all and are so common that instead of just avoiding them, women are making lists about how to deal with them.

zeroname 8y ago

Consider the possibility that these "toxic environments" are in fact not the norm, but the exception, especially in Silicon Valley in 2018. The person who wrote this blog post has never even worked in the US.

sneak 8y ago
I think that a lot of people who have not directly experienced this sexism believe this, that it is the exception and not the norm. Even as a guy, I have personally witnessed that it is the norm, and that most organizations that have managed to avoid being sexist by default are very special indeed. There is some bias that makes people (men) want to believe that “it can’t possibly that bad, or if it is, it can’t possibly be that common”. Be aware of this bias.
- zazen 8y ago
  Whether this is the norm for a large population of employers is a statistical question that you cannot "personally witness" even in principle. We desperately need a better way than anecdata to look at this.
  - GauntletWizard 8y ago
    I don't think it matters whether or not this is "the norm"; what matters, to the large extent, is whether or not these problems are common enough that people write these articles and that people uovote them. "The norm" isn't some magical threshold where if it's below a percentage of environments it doesn't matter - how much effort we should put into fixing these problems is more-or-less directly proportional to how bad they are as measured by how much complaining we see about them. Almost all of these pieces of advice function for anyone, and those specifically about women can be translated for any trait "X" - minority group or even something-common-but-not-here. I've gotten typecast because I like videogames - Freaking everyone likes videogames.
    - zazen 8y ago
      > how bad they are as measured by how much complaining we see about them. > common enough that ... people uovote them. But you must have noticed that social media feeds on outrage? People amplify the extent of things they are shocked by, by sharing and upvoting. Looking at the amount of noise generated in media/social-media would be a very poor way of measuring the true extent of anything, but especially of something so politicized as harassment of women.

fulafel 8y ago

The post's author seems to be outside the valley too, in Norway (from the domain, and also Twitter user info).

badcede 8y ago

They're not more prevalent in SV. What's more prevalent are activists who insist that it is and have made it socially costly to contradict them.

phyller 8y ago

It's really encouraging to see this comment. I wonder about this, not being a woman myself. In my workplace (east coast USA) there are plenty of women in technical roles, definitely a minority but still significant. I don't think it was done on purpose, it just happened as far as I can tell. And I would like to think their experiences haven't been like the author's, where it seems many coworkers are basically enemies to be overcome. But I've definitely seen a coworker or two do some stupid things. No, you are not respecting your female coworker by hitting on her and telling her how good she looks today (that guy got fired, but unfortunately for different reasons). There might be a lot more subtle things going on that I am not sensitive to, but I can't imagine porn actually being up in the office, that's just unprofessional even with all guys, and I would be asking those awkward questions about it myself (not that I am doubting that it happened to the author). It was very difficult for me to adjust as a new engineer, including with code reviews and all that, and I wonder if I had an outsider identity how tempting it would be to blame my problems on that. Never being sure if the difficulty was because of prejudice or not. Probably one of the worst effects of discrimination, causing you to have suspicion and doubt all the time because it might really be warranted. Anyway, a lot of these tips are just in general pretty good advice, even for a guy. And an environment that is friendly to women and that makes her advice unnecessary is better environment for everyone to work in.

jkoudys 8y ago

I've spent my career in Toronto, and while I've visited SV many times I didn't really realize how deep some of that stuff runs. The reaction to the Damore memo really brought out some of the worst of the worst.