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First you must stop making offensive blanket generalizations about techies. Even if you're a techie yourself, that doesn't give you license. But honestly, to m

First you must stop making offensive blanket generalizations about techies. Even if you're a techie yourself, that doesn't give you license. But honestly, to me it doesn't sound like you're a techie. Or maybe you're just not very self-aware? Because you're exhibiting a very familiar thought pattern: "bluuuuh, those guys over there think they're so smart, let's whoop them". Every nerd who's ever been bullied for being a nerd can recognize this sort of person from a mile away. One of the dreams of the original nerd community was to get away from people like you, yet here you are, fresh as ever.

5hoom 15y ago
What on earth are you talking about? Parent was making some general observations about the nature of sexism in the tech industry and its causes. How did you get from that to this 'you're not a real techie' nonsense and jocks beating up nerds in school? I'll tell you that I am a 'real techie' (but not a true Scotsman) and I am pretty much in agreement with what gordonguthrie said.
- deleted 15y ago
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jaggederest 15y ago
So great, you're exemplifying the shoot-the-messenger style under discussion. Well done.
- deleted 15y ago
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manicdee 15y ago
Truth hurts. If you took offence to the characterisation of the IT community as generally self-absorbed and sexist, you really need to look around. How many women do you work with? It's not the type of work that drives women out of IT, it's the people they have to work with.
- cousin_it 15y ago
  Truth isn't the only thing that can hurt, though. Ignorance and malice can hurt too, especially when combined... Let me try to explain how I understand this issue. When some subgroup is underrepresented in some area even though there's no statistical difference in innate ability, many people tend to automatically blame discrimination. I don't see how that can be right. For example, you could notice that Asians are overrepresented in US universities. The theory concludes that either all US universities are racist in favor of Asians (obvious bullshit), or Asians are innately smarter than whites (more obvious bullshit). Hmm. Isn't it more likely that the theory is mistaken and there can be other factors at work? Same goes for the small number of women programmers. Sorry, you don't get to attack me for sexism until you have data proving sexism is the real culprit. Otherwise it's like blaming witchcraft.
  - bmcleod 15y ago
    There is an interesting issue in the philosophy of science regarding the "hard center" of theories. Basically any prediction about a reasonably complicated situation will rely on a large number of premises. If you happen to be committed to one premise more than the others, you will always blame one of the other premises when an observation doesn't fit your hypothesis. In the case of sexism there are so many confounding factors that you'll never be able to say with certainty that sexism is the root cause, only that there is a good chance that it is. If there is a good chance that something bad is happening then it seems like you could reasonably be expected to produce a non-zero amount of effort in avoiding it.
  - roguecoder 15y ago
    We have data. A brief sampling: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15853.pdf http://www.nber.org/papers/w15853.pdf, http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1508924 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1508924, http://www.advancingwomen.com/awl/fall2002/FERREIRA/FERREIRA.html http://www.advancingwomen.com/awl/fall2002/FERREIRA/FERREIRA..., http://www.scribd.com/doc/18370009/Sources-of-Financing-for-New-Technology-Firms-A-Comparison-by-Gender http://www.scribd.com/doc/18370009/Sources-of-Financing-for-... There is plenty more out there, all suggesting that women are promoted differently, treated differently, more likely to experience active gender-based harassment and are more likely to be excluded from the camaraderie and informal networking that leads to job satisfaction. Don't assume that just because you are ignorant everyone else is too. Some of us have been engaging with, measuring, quantifying and attempting to change these destructive culturally-sanctioned behaviors for a very long time.
gordonguthrie 15y ago
> First you must stop making offensive blanket generalizations about techies. Even if you're a techie yourself, that doesn't give you license. But honestly, to me it doesn't sound like you're a techie. I started programming in 1979. Prior to that people used to beat me up big style. I can techie-you up anyway you like. What we had here was a group of people beating up Rachel By The Bay, and I don't like it because I was a bullied nerd.

5hoom 15y ago

What on earth are you talking about? Parent was making some general observations about the nature of sexism in the tech industry and its causes. How did you get from that to this 'you're not a real techie' nonsense and jocks beating up nerds in school? I'll tell you that I am a 'real techie' (but not a true Scotsman) and I am pretty much in agreement with what gordonguthrie said.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

jaggederest 15y ago

So great, you're exemplifying the shoot-the-messenger style under discussion. Well done.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

manicdee 15y ago

Truth hurts. If you took offence to the characterisation of the IT community as generally self-absorbed and sexist, you really need to look around. How many women do you work with? It's not the type of work that drives women out of IT, it's the people they have to work with.

cousin_it 15y ago
Truth isn't the only thing that can hurt, though. Ignorance and malice can hurt too, especially when combined... Let me try to explain how I understand this issue. When some subgroup is underrepresented in some area even though there's no statistical difference in innate ability, many people tend to automatically blame discrimination. I don't see how that can be right. For example, you could notice that Asians are overrepresented in US universities. The theory concludes that either all US universities are racist in favor of Asians (obvious bullshit), or Asians are innately smarter than whites (more obvious bullshit). Hmm. Isn't it more likely that the theory is mistaken and there can be other factors at work? Same goes for the small number of women programmers. Sorry, you don't get to attack me for sexism until you have data proving sexism is the real culprit. Otherwise it's like blaming witchcraft.
- bmcleod 15y ago
  There is an interesting issue in the philosophy of science regarding the "hard center" of theories. Basically any prediction about a reasonably complicated situation will rely on a large number of premises. If you happen to be committed to one premise more than the others, you will always blame one of the other premises when an observation doesn't fit your hypothesis. In the case of sexism there are so many confounding factors that you'll never be able to say with certainty that sexism is the root cause, only that there is a good chance that it is. If there is a good chance that something bad is happening then it seems like you could reasonably be expected to produce a non-zero amount of effort in avoiding it.
- roguecoder 15y ago
  We have data. A brief sampling: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15853.pdf http://www.nber.org/papers/w15853.pdf, http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1508924 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1508924, http://www.advancingwomen.com/awl/fall2002/FERREIRA/FERREIRA.html http://www.advancingwomen.com/awl/fall2002/FERREIRA/FERREIRA..., http://www.scribd.com/doc/18370009/Sources-of-Financing-for-New-Technology-Firms-A-Comparison-by-Gender http://www.scribd.com/doc/18370009/Sources-of-Financing-for-... There is plenty more out there, all suggesting that women are promoted differently, treated differently, more likely to experience active gender-based harassment and are more likely to be excluded from the camaraderie and informal networking that leads to job satisfaction. Don't assume that just because you are ignorant everyone else is too. Some of us have been engaging with, measuring, quantifying and attempting to change these destructive culturally-sanctioned behaviors for a very long time.

gordonguthrie 15y ago

> First you must stop making offensive blanket generalizations about techies. Even if you're a techie yourself, that doesn't give you license. But honestly, to me it doesn't sound like you're a techie. I started programming in 1979. Prior to that people used to beat me up big style. I can techie-you up anyway you like. What we had here was a group of people beating up Rachel By The Bay, and I don't like it because I was a bullied nerd.