6 ms·

This meshes with an experience I had a few years into my career which I'll never forget and had definitely influenced and will continue to influence my future i

by throwaway192874 6y ago

This meshes with an experience I had a few years into my career which I'll never forget and had definitely influenced and will continue to influence my future interactions with women in tech. I, cis white guy in the bay, was hired as a consultant to help build out a product and was pair programming with a woman founder & new engineer and made some passing comment about the CSS quality not being "ideal" or something of the sort. This was later brought up as something that they interpreted as some kind of sexism which completely caught me off guard and put me in a very awkward position of having to respond to that and explain that it was just poorly phrased, not sexism. In the grand scheme this was very minor situation, e.g. no managers, HR, or social media involved, just between a few people on the project, but it's something I'll never forget and had colored how I interact with women going forward. Basically I just want to avoid that ever happening again because if you're on the "No I'm not sexist" side of the argument, you've basically already lost in how society engages these days.

pm90 6y ago
So what happened is that you had one bad experience and decided that it was representative of all people in that group? And you're saying that it wasn't made a big deal, that it was just pointed out to you?
- throwaway192874 6y ago
  It's agree that it was just one experience and my reaction may be too extreme, but I'm not claiming this is everyone. My only claim is that for me, it was such an uncomfortable situation that I'm willing to do a lot to avoid it happening again. And this was >5 years ago, and I think the likelihood of this happening has only gone up in that time. > And you're saying that it wasn't made a big deal, that it was just pointed out to you? Yes, but I suppose my point here is that even that was enough for me to be cautious going forward
  - lgleason 6y ago
    I think your reaction is a normal response given what happened to you.
    - pm90 6y ago
      For the record, it was not a normal reaction in any reasonable way that you could use to classify reactions to feedback.
      - JamesBarney 6y ago
        Judging from the feedback it was certainly is a normal reaction even if you don't believe it's the right reaction.
  - pm90 6y ago
    I think it’s very strange to refuse to work with an entire gender just because one person gave a feedback that you perceived as incorrect. You are free to do as you like, of course. But the future is simply going to be more diverse with people of different genders and races. Anyways. I do not really know of your specific situation, but talking to a professional therapist is always helpful when trying to deal with such issues. (Feel free to ignore any advice I give, I’m sharing what I found useful personally)
    - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
      I think it's very strange you view an accusation of sexism as "feedback that you perceived to be incorrect".
    - spockz 6y ago
      The GP is saying that is coloured how he interacts with women. I interpreted it as being in the context of work. That is not the same as refusing to work with an entire gender.
    - throwaway192874 6y ago
      I never said I refused to work with any gender. I've successful worked with plenty of men & women since this experience without issue and it's not something I'm that particularly concerned about doing in the future. My claim is just that this experience changed how I interact with women in the workplace compared to men. So to me, the point of the article, that men are "clamming up", holds true for me even with this minor situation compared to a much larger public situation. I've had it on the list to get a professional therapist for years, one day I'll finally actually do the work to set it up :)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mitchdaily 6y ago
  I see multiple replies along similar lines, attacking a poster for an experience with a single person making them cautious of a particular group. These replies seem to forget that a single person can destroy your career, livelihood and relationships because they have misunderstood an interaction
- friedman23 6y ago
  Why do you say it's one experience? I don't want to sound like an MRA because I'm not but we have seen the situation of women destroying the reputations of men play out a lot. Many of the times they were warranted but there have also been many innocent men caught in the cross fire. Men and people in general do not have a duty to take risk for the benefit of others. Women expecting men to risk their own reputation to help them is naive and stupid. There are benefits and drawbacks to everything and women not receiving any personal guidance from men is one of the main drawbacks from our new "woke" culture. Also, personally, I don't give advice or criticism to anyone. Man or woman. I don't see how it ever benefits me to do so.
- volkk 6y ago
  that's akin to saying, "so just because a gun misfired and almost blew your head off, you're just always going to be afraid of guns?" in this case the gun being your career shattered by idiotic accusations of sexism in the form of calling out bad CSS. being called a sexist is almost like being called a racist. the accusation is enough for people to believe it to be true. so yes, a normal human being will instead be extremely wary, and rather than trying to shoot more guns in the future, will instead shy away from that experience entirely. you seem to be posting in this thread everywhere that every man should just be a hero and after a close call with having their career derailed, they should continue on and ignore the past. realistically, this will never happen given the state of how society deals with these issues. it's also a very privileged POV to have because if you're a father with a family/kids etc, the last thing you're likely to do is stick out like a sore thumb and continue doing the thing that almost made you lose your job and reputation in the industry.
  - pm90 6y ago
    On the contrary. People who refuse to engage with coworkers of a different gender because they were the target of a complaint which didn’t actually make a damn difference in their life are harming every single one of those coworkers. This sort of overreaction to even the simplest steps taken in direction of correcting incorrect behavior is ridiculous. This person had the opportunity to find out more about what about his action made the person he was working with report it as a “sort of sexist remark”. People don’t casually levy accusations like that, and if you believe this is widespread (it isn’t, for the record) then you’re living a privileged life. We only have one side of the story and people are quick to jump to his defense. Sorry, I am not so quick to accept anything. There could be more at play here and we just don’t know. But people in this thread and on HN in generally are quick to accept this incident at face value which just points to how the tech culture is indeed rife with toxic masculinity.
    - mfkp 6y ago
      I think you're reading much too far into this situation. At no point did he say anything resembling "refusing to engage with coworkers of a different gender".
therealdrag0 6y ago
Wow that’s hilariously absurd. Complaining about code quality is an incredibly common occurrence on every team I’ve worked on.
h0l0cube 6y ago
> made some passing comment about the CSS quality not being "ideal" or something of the sort Not saying you weren't the subject of over-reaction, or not, but I think this is an example of sub-par feedback. It would be better to point out the issues in concrete terms, and say this is something that should be addressed, and why. And if you can't do that, you should ruminate on it until you can reify whether it is wrong, and what ought to be done, and why. Do this with anybody. If they argue with you, they'll be arguing only on technicalities, not personalities.
- virgilp 6y ago
  This is good advice but it cuts both ways. The other side of the same coin is whenever you receive nasty and undeserved feedback, you don't reply or argue.. You say "thank you for the feedback" and ruminate what good you can take out of that, if any. You don't fight back - not if you actually want to receive feedback in the future. It's exactly what the article is saying: men are clamming up. If one doesn't know how to deliver excellent feedback/is worried about the packaging, the sane strategy is to just shut up. There's seldom a personal upside for delivering constructive feedback to anybody - and in a situation where bad delivery has unlimited downside, it's smart to just refrain from it.
  - h0l0cube 6y ago
    I didn't neglect to read the article, and largely agree with its central plaint. I also agree there's a chilling effect. I don't think it applies as much to coding practices, where you can provide specific and constructive advice and there's a concrete thing that can be debated (i.e., the changes to the code-base). What makes good business reasoning relies upon intangibles, like experience. But even here, one could point to examples of a strategy being used in the past and failing. You can't argue with the historical facts as being innately sexist. You could argue that the variables have changed, but then there's something concrete to talk about. Edit: minor clarification
- mbar84 6y ago
  It has only been in recent years that I have even been able to articulate what the issues are with the code of some junior developers. I was fortunate to find "Semantic Compression" by Casey Muratori and now I have something I can point to and language to use. Before that, junior devs may have perceived the feedback as either an undue imposition of my taste, intimidation or (if any of them had ever been a woman) toxic masculinity. Should we refrain from giving feedback before we have fully articulated the principles by which we would like our code to be written? What about the abundance of tacit knowledge that we can only hope others to learn by osmosis?

pm90 6y ago

So what happened is that you had one bad experience and decided that it was representative of all people in that group? And you're saying that it wasn't made a big deal, that it was just pointed out to you?

throwaway192874 6y ago
It's agree that it was just one experience and my reaction may be too extreme, but I'm not claiming this is everyone. My only claim is that for me, it was such an uncomfortable situation that I'm willing to do a lot to avoid it happening again. And this was >5 years ago, and I think the likelihood of this happening has only gone up in that time. > And you're saying that it wasn't made a big deal, that it was just pointed out to you? Yes, but I suppose my point here is that even that was enough for me to be cautious going forward
- lgleason 6y ago
  I think your reaction is a normal response given what happened to you.
  - pm90 6y ago
    For the record, it was not a normal reaction in any reasonable way that you could use to classify reactions to feedback.
    - JamesBarney 6y ago
      Judging from the feedback it was certainly is a normal reaction even if you don't believe it's the right reaction.
- pm90 6y ago
  I think it’s very strange to refuse to work with an entire gender just because one person gave a feedback that you perceived as incorrect. You are free to do as you like, of course. But the future is simply going to be more diverse with people of different genders and races. Anyways. I do not really know of your specific situation, but talking to a professional therapist is always helpful when trying to deal with such issues. (Feel free to ignore any advice I give, I’m sharing what I found useful personally)
  - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
    I think it's very strange you view an accusation of sexism as "feedback that you perceived to be incorrect".
  - spockz 6y ago
    The GP is saying that is coloured how he interacts with women. I interpreted it as being in the context of work. That is not the same as refusing to work with an entire gender.
  - throwaway192874 6y ago
    I never said I refused to work with any gender. I've successful worked with plenty of men & women since this experience without issue and it's not something I'm that particularly concerned about doing in the future. My claim is just that this experience changed how I interact with women in the workplace compared to men. So to me, the point of the article, that men are "clamming up", holds true for me even with this minor situation compared to a much larger public situation. I've had it on the list to get a professional therapist for years, one day I'll finally actually do the work to set it up :)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mitchdaily 6y ago
I see multiple replies along similar lines, attacking a poster for an experience with a single person making them cautious of a particular group. These replies seem to forget that a single person can destroy your career, livelihood and relationships because they have misunderstood an interaction
friedman23 6y ago
Why do you say it's one experience? I don't want to sound like an MRA because I'm not but we have seen the situation of women destroying the reputations of men play out a lot. Many of the times they were warranted but there have also been many innocent men caught in the cross fire. Men and people in general do not have a duty to take risk for the benefit of others. Women expecting men to risk their own reputation to help them is naive and stupid. There are benefits and drawbacks to everything and women not receiving any personal guidance from men is one of the main drawbacks from our new "woke" culture. Also, personally, I don't give advice or criticism to anyone. Man or woman. I don't see how it ever benefits me to do so.
volkk 6y ago
that's akin to saying, "so just because a gun misfired and almost blew your head off, you're just always going to be afraid of guns?" in this case the gun being your career shattered by idiotic accusations of sexism in the form of calling out bad CSS. being called a sexist is almost like being called a racist. the accusation is enough for people to believe it to be true. so yes, a normal human being will instead be extremely wary, and rather than trying to shoot more guns in the future, will instead shy away from that experience entirely. you seem to be posting in this thread everywhere that every man should just be a hero and after a close call with having their career derailed, they should continue on and ignore the past. realistically, this will never happen given the state of how society deals with these issues. it's also a very privileged POV to have because if you're a father with a family/kids etc, the last thing you're likely to do is stick out like a sore thumb and continue doing the thing that almost made you lose your job and reputation in the industry.
- pm90 6y ago
  On the contrary. People who refuse to engage with coworkers of a different gender because they were the target of a complaint which didn’t actually make a damn difference in their life are harming every single one of those coworkers. This sort of overreaction to even the simplest steps taken in direction of correcting incorrect behavior is ridiculous. This person had the opportunity to find out more about what about his action made the person he was working with report it as a “sort of sexist remark”. People don’t casually levy accusations like that, and if you believe this is widespread (it isn’t, for the record) then you’re living a privileged life. We only have one side of the story and people are quick to jump to his defense. Sorry, I am not so quick to accept anything. There could be more at play here and we just don’t know. But people in this thread and on HN in generally are quick to accept this incident at face value which just points to how the tech culture is indeed rife with toxic masculinity.
  - mfkp 6y ago
    I think you're reading much too far into this situation. At no point did he say anything resembling "refusing to engage with coworkers of a different gender".

therealdrag0 6y ago

Wow that’s hilariously absurd. Complaining about code quality is an incredibly common occurrence on every team I’ve worked on.

h0l0cube 6y ago

> made some passing comment about the CSS quality not being "ideal" or something of the sort Not saying you weren't the subject of over-reaction, or not, but I think this is an example of sub-par feedback. It would be better to point out the issues in concrete terms, and say this is something that should be addressed, and why. And if you can't do that, you should ruminate on it until you can reify whether it is wrong, and what ought to be done, and why. Do this with anybody. If they argue with you, they'll be arguing only on technicalities, not personalities.

virgilp 6y ago
This is good advice but it cuts both ways. The other side of the same coin is whenever you receive nasty and undeserved feedback, you don't reply or argue.. You say "thank you for the feedback" and ruminate what good you can take out of that, if any. You don't fight back - not if you actually want to receive feedback in the future. It's exactly what the article is saying: men are clamming up. If one doesn't know how to deliver excellent feedback/is worried about the packaging, the sane strategy is to just shut up. There's seldom a personal upside for delivering constructive feedback to anybody - and in a situation where bad delivery has unlimited downside, it's smart to just refrain from it.
- h0l0cube 6y ago
  I didn't neglect to read the article, and largely agree with its central plaint. I also agree there's a chilling effect. I don't think it applies as much to coding practices, where you can provide specific and constructive advice and there's a concrete thing that can be debated (i.e., the changes to the code-base). What makes good business reasoning relies upon intangibles, like experience. But even here, one could point to examples of a strategy being used in the past and failing. You can't argue with the historical facts as being innately sexist. You could argue that the variables have changed, but then there's something concrete to talk about. Edit: minor clarification
mbar84 6y ago
It has only been in recent years that I have even been able to articulate what the issues are with the code of some junior developers. I was fortunate to find "Semantic Compression" by Casey Muratori and now I have something I can point to and language to use. Before that, junior devs may have perceived the feedback as either an undue imposition of my taste, intimidation or (if any of them had ever been a woman) toxic masculinity. Should we refrain from giving feedback before we have fully articulated the principles by which we would like our code to be written? What about the abundance of tacit knowledge that we can only hope others to learn by osmosis?