6 ms·

Because it remains unresolved and is one of the biggest social problems faced by the industry that 90% of HN readers are (or aspire to be) in.

by paulgb 15y ago

peterwwillis 15y ago
How is this a problem not faced by any other industry in the world? I have never seen evidence that shows that IT industry people are any more sexist than people in any other field. So someone goes to a conference and there was a slide with something inappropriate on it. That means one asshole was immature and unprofessional enough to publicly shoot himself in the foot. It doesn't mean there are aren't plenty of other sexist people in other careers though. They're just smart enough not to be sexist in the middle of their speech.
- michaelchisari 15y ago
  It doesn't mean there are aren't plenty of other sexist people in other careers though. Sure, but we are in this industry, and pointing fingers at other industries does not get us off the hook.
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    Very often, people push the hypothesis that women avoid the software industry because of sexist behavior. (This particular article did not, but many similar articles in this genre do.) If IT is no more sexist than any other field (as peterwwillis hypothesized), this would refute the hypothesis that women avoid IT due to sexism.
    - michaelchisari 15y ago
      this would refute the hypothesis that women avoid IT due to sexism. No, it wouldn't refute anything. For instance, in the medical field, we've had a hundred years to correct the gender imbalance, and people have fought hard, both in education and in hiring practices, to get it where it is. So, while the medical field may have as many sexist jerks, there have been failsafes put into place to correct for their behavior. IT has no such procedures. So we can either change our culture to be less sexist than other fields, or we can put in those hiring and education procedures. And to be honest, I don't consider it much of a reason to pat ourselves on the back if we're less sexist than, say, the financial industry. This is our house, let's clean it.
      - yummyfajitas 15y ago
        If we are less sexist than the financial industry, but finance has more women, it strongly suggests that sexism isn't what's scaring women away. As for "failsafes" and "procedures", could you tell me how these procedures prevent sexism in JP Morgan Prime Brokerage operation, but not in JP Morgan IT? Or if you want to push things back to the college level, how they prevent sexism in Biology 101 but not in CS 101?
        michaelchisari 15y ago
        As for "failsafes" and "procedures", could you tell me how these procedures prevent sexism in JP Morgan Prime Brokerage operation If you'll re-read my comment, I was talking about failsafes and procedures in the medical field.
  - peterwwillis 15y ago
    The conversation is getting posed like there's this tidal wave of sexism just barreling over the horizon with the word "COMPUTER GEEK" on it. Like in every company there's a huge conspiracy of evil sexist men plotting to objectify and terrorize the lone geek girl who happens to wander into their cube. I'm not saying there are no sexist people in the industry. However, I do think that the level at which the fingers are pointed and this is echoed through the tech blogs is out of proportion with the actual rate of offense. The end result is every man in IT gets a reputation for being sexist because "it's just rampant in that industry." Well I don't believe it. I don't have figures, or examples, or any way to prove how sexist our industry may be. But neither does anyone else. So before you go around saying "the tech industry is sexist", please consider the harm by association to those of us who are not sexist. You may have seen tons of sexist behavior in your career - I have not. No one person's experience defines an industry. Also, if there is indeed some secret cult of disgusting pig men in the industry, let's deal with it like fucking adults, OK? First of all we can have the modern-day equivalent of sensitivity training. Have a frank discussion with your teammates about what is and isn't appropriate behavior for the workplace. Remind them that even if there's no women around, you still can't go objectifying or making jokes about them, just like you wouldn't do the same to people about race or religion or sexual orientation. Have your team agree that whenever someone says something sexist by accident that someone will say something to the guy and remind him that's not appropriate behavior and ask him to apologize. If he doesn't, inform his manager. Pretty simple - this is called holding someone accountable for their actions. This next part is important, too: don't let women be sexist either. Towards their own sex or others. I know women who will gladly joke around with the guys and make misogynist comments because to them it's funny. Well, this is only reinforcing in the guys that it's OK to make those comments. Stop them and make them apologize too so we can stop this behavior from perpetuating. In terms of how people perceive "the industry" as sexist, why do you think it happens that in very public places people say very stupid sexist things? My impression is that our industry is not very professional - especially the startup community. There's a very romantic idea that you should just wander into work with shorts, a t-shirt and sandals, living some bohemian genius programmer lifestyle with cubes that look more like playgrounds than work spaces. That's very nice. It also sets up the environment to be one where non-appropriate behavior can easily thrive. At the last company I worked at it began as a startup and grew into a big company. The attitude of many, many of the employees was still more of joking around than getting work done. It was really annoying, frankly, and I definitely heard a sexist comment or two when women were not around (except for the call center people; they were animals). Fast forward to a more business casual financial IT company and things are a lot different. I've never met a bunch of nicer, non-sexist guys. My theory is it's because the work environment is just relaxed enough that business is on people's minds and acting like a sexist buffoon would not even occur to them. A slightly less educated theory is because we have a very diverse mix of cultural backgrounds (probably 40% indian, 10% asian, 10% russian, the rest a mix of a bunch of other backgrounds) where the typical white american male culture might be more quick to be openly sexist.
- mootothemax 15y ago
  So someone goes to a conference and there was a slide with something inappropriate on it. Go to a few conferences that aren't directly IT-related and see how often that happens. In my experience - and I'm prepared to be proven wrong on this - it pretty much well only happens at IT-related conferences.
hack_edu 15y ago
Absolutely, and I wholeheartedly participate in the discussion. However, my participation shows me that this is not the forum to hash it out. All reasonable points are bombed with pea-shooter arguments that hide all the real content of the thread.

Because it remains unresolved and is one of the biggest social problems faced by the industry that 90% of HN readers are (or aspire to be) in.

by paulgb 15y ago

Because it remains unresolved and is one of the biggest social problems faced by the industry that 90% of HN readers are (or aspire to be) in.

peterwwillis 15y ago

How is this a problem not faced by any other industry in the world? I have never seen evidence that shows that IT industry people are any more sexist than people in any other field. So someone goes to a conference and there was a slide with something inappropriate on it. That means one asshole was immature and unprofessional enough to publicly shoot himself in the foot. It doesn't mean there are aren't plenty of other sexist people in other careers though. They're just smart enough not to be sexist in the middle of their speech.

michaelchisari 15y ago
It doesn't mean there are aren't plenty of other sexist people in other careers though. Sure, but we are in this industry, and pointing fingers at other industries does not get us off the hook.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  Very often, people push the hypothesis that women avoid the software industry because of sexist behavior. (This particular article did not, but many similar articles in this genre do.) If IT is no more sexist than any other field (as peterwwillis hypothesized), this would refute the hypothesis that women avoid IT due to sexism.
  - michaelchisari 15y ago
    this would refute the hypothesis that women avoid IT due to sexism. No, it wouldn't refute anything. For instance, in the medical field, we've had a hundred years to correct the gender imbalance, and people have fought hard, both in education and in hiring practices, to get it where it is. So, while the medical field may have as many sexist jerks, there have been failsafes put into place to correct for their behavior. IT has no such procedures. So we can either change our culture to be less sexist than other fields, or we can put in those hiring and education procedures. And to be honest, I don't consider it much of a reason to pat ourselves on the back if we're less sexist than, say, the financial industry. This is our house, let's clean it.
    - yummyfajitas 15y ago
      If we are less sexist than the financial industry, but finance has more women, it strongly suggests that sexism isn't what's scaring women away. As for "failsafes" and "procedures", could you tell me how these procedures prevent sexism in JP Morgan Prime Brokerage operation, but not in JP Morgan IT? Or if you want to push things back to the college level, how they prevent sexism in Biology 101 but not in CS 101?
      - michaelchisari 15y ago
        As for "failsafes" and "procedures", could you tell me how these procedures prevent sexism in JP Morgan Prime Brokerage operation If you'll re-read my comment, I was talking about failsafes and procedures in the medical field.
- peterwwillis 15y ago
  The conversation is getting posed like there's this tidal wave of sexism just barreling over the horizon with the word "COMPUTER GEEK" on it. Like in every company there's a huge conspiracy of evil sexist men plotting to objectify and terrorize the lone geek girl who happens to wander into their cube. I'm not saying there are no sexist people in the industry. However, I do think that the level at which the fingers are pointed and this is echoed through the tech blogs is out of proportion with the actual rate of offense. The end result is every man in IT gets a reputation for being sexist because "it's just rampant in that industry." Well I don't believe it. I don't have figures, or examples, or any way to prove how sexist our industry may be. But neither does anyone else. So before you go around saying "the tech industry is sexist", please consider the harm by association to those of us who are not sexist. You may have seen tons of sexist behavior in your career - I have not. No one person's experience defines an industry. Also, if there is indeed some secret cult of disgusting pig men in the industry, let's deal with it like fucking adults, OK? First of all we can have the modern-day equivalent of sensitivity training. Have a frank discussion with your teammates about what is and isn't appropriate behavior for the workplace. Remind them that even if there's no women around, you still can't go objectifying or making jokes about them, just like you wouldn't do the same to people about race or religion or sexual orientation. Have your team agree that whenever someone says something sexist by accident that someone will say something to the guy and remind him that's not appropriate behavior and ask him to apologize. If he doesn't, inform his manager. Pretty simple - this is called holding someone accountable for their actions. This next part is important, too: don't let women be sexist either. Towards their own sex or others. I know women who will gladly joke around with the guys and make misogynist comments because to them it's funny. Well, this is only reinforcing in the guys that it's OK to make those comments. Stop them and make them apologize too so we can stop this behavior from perpetuating. In terms of how people perceive "the industry" as sexist, why do you think it happens that in very public places people say very stupid sexist things? My impression is that our industry is not very professional - especially the startup community. There's a very romantic idea that you should just wander into work with shorts, a t-shirt and sandals, living some bohemian genius programmer lifestyle with cubes that look more like playgrounds than work spaces. That's very nice. It also sets up the environment to be one where non-appropriate behavior can easily thrive. At the last company I worked at it began as a startup and grew into a big company. The attitude of many, many of the employees was still more of joking around than getting work done. It was really annoying, frankly, and I definitely heard a sexist comment or two when women were not around (except for the call center people; they were animals). Fast forward to a more business casual financial IT company and things are a lot different. I've never met a bunch of nicer, non-sexist guys. My theory is it's because the work environment is just relaxed enough that business is on people's minds and acting like a sexist buffoon would not even occur to them. A slightly less educated theory is because we have a very diverse mix of cultural backgrounds (probably 40% indian, 10% asian, 10% russian, the rest a mix of a bunch of other backgrounds) where the typical white american male culture might be more quick to be openly sexist.
mootothemax 15y ago
So someone goes to a conference and there was a slide with something inappropriate on it. Go to a few conferences that aren't directly IT-related and see how often that happens. In my experience - and I'm prepared to be proven wrong on this - it pretty much well only happens at IT-related conferences.

hack_edu 15y ago

Absolutely, and I wholeheartedly participate in the discussion. However, my participation shows me that this is not the forum to hash it out. All reasonable points are bombed with pea-shooter arguments that hide all the real content of the thread.