6 ms·

Where are the technical articles written by women? There are plenty of contributions complaining about oppression, while attacking men and claiming absurd stere

by iamdave 14y ago

Where are the technical articles written by women? There are plenty of contributions complaining about oppression, while attacking men and claiming absurd stereotypes. Where are the technical contributions? I think the author does a great job starting out by highlighting her own contributions via the linked write-up on Git submodules, but beyond the first couple of sentences on the topic nothing, and spends the rest of the article on a tear about the he/she dichotomy in comments. While I can certainly understand the frustration when people get gender wrong, that seems to be the wrong place to focus on in this topic of women in tech. Is it possibly an indicator of the problem at large? Sure. Does it answer the question "Where are the tech articles written by women"? No. It does play right into the exact same mold the commenter was talking about, that set this entire entry into motion: There are plenty of contributions complaining about oppression...where are the technical contributions? Instead of highlighting great articles from the women in tech, or linking to other women in the industry with well trafficked blogs and talking about their contributions, the author fell right into the category that perpetuates this problem. Mind you, I agree that there is a rift that rises when people make the wrong assumption, but that's nil imo.

vibrunazo 14y ago
The point is that she shouldn't need to point out individual contributions by women. Because you'd hopefully understand that women don't go out of the way and say "hey, btw, I'm a girl!". So you'd understand technical articles by women are plenty, but they're not immediately obvious. Because women are not trying to make it immediately obvious. Because the internet is supposed to be gender neutral. And hopefully, if you understand all that, you won't ask be asking "where are the technical contributions from women?" in the first place. So the question is mute, which is why she didn't answer.
- Arelius 14y ago
  > So you'd understand technical articles by women are plenty, but they're not immediately obvious. Actually, we have insufficient evidence to know that they are in fact plenty. However, we also have insufficient evidence to say they are rare. Also, I think you mean moot, not mute. ;)
aiiane 14y ago
There are other articles that are meant to be lists of female tech bloggers, e.g. http://www.javaworld.com/community/node/3512/ http://www.javaworld.com/community/node/3512/ http://www.webteacher.ws/2010/07/06/10-terrific-tech-blogs-by-women/ http://www.webteacher.ws/2010/07/06/10-terrific-tech-blogs-b... This article is not one of them. Just because it doesn't answer the question the way you want it to be answered doesn't mean it's "perpetuating the problem". In fact, one of the indirect points of this article is that demanding lists of female bloggers in the first place is silly - who demands lists of male bloggers?
- Tichy 14y ago
  Regarding you last post: it seems curious that there are actually lots of decidedly female tech groups (like geek girls or whatever), whereas male only tech groups would probably be met with outrage. That said, personally I don't need a list of female bloggers.
  - aiiane 14y ago
    Because there's no need to create a space specifically to be occupied primarily by men - it already exists in the form of the entire field. The reason why groups devoted specifically to women exist is to provide spaces that aren't male-dominated, unlike most other spaces.
    - Tichy 14y ago
      By that reason it seems a list of female tech bloggers would also make sense.
      - aiiane 14y ago
        If it was created as a resource for women, sure. But as the response to a demand by men? No so much.
        Tichy 14y ago
wickedchicken 14y ago
> the author fell right into the category that perpetuates this problem. You're missing the point of the article. The point is that if she does 'highlight great articles from the women in tech,' then she would be labeled a "female developer" instead of just a "developer." If she doesn't do this, then she gets labeled a male developer. She would like to be labeled "developer," but the two options she can see lead to undesirable outcomes. This has been said before, but the key thing to take away is the concept of "othering." The author would like to be seen as a developer, not a subcategory of a developer that is somehow different from the norm. Perhaps a better way to demonstrate is to take this to the extreme: "Instead of highlighting great articles from brown-eyed people in tech, or linking to other brown-eyed people in the industry with well trafficked blogs and talking about their contributions, the author fell right into the category that perpetuates this problem." Sounds pretty absurd right? Who cares what their eye color is. On the other hand, imagine if everyone got it wrong. Imagine if you had brown eyes but there was a 'default assumption' that everyone had blue eyes. You wouldn't want to make a fuss every time people got it wrong, for fear of being "that person" who is annoying and pedantic, and "hey, it shouldn't matter! Technology is eye-color blind!" But if you don't do it, it gets a little grating when EVERYONE assumes you are something that you're not. It's a catch-22. The solution is to remove the default assumption that developers are male. That is something that you, not the author, have to do.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  Imagine if there was a 'default assumption' that everyone had blue eyes. Maybe you just picked a bad example, but that would mean nothing to me. I actually generally assume brown eyes- but I don't have brown eyes myself...
  - khuey 14y ago
    It's a bad example because there's no history of discrimination and oppression against brown-eyed people.
- g544s 14y ago
  What is the OP's point? That people don't pay attention to the gender of the writer? If someone did a dedicated study about the last 6 months of top Hacker News and top r/programming articles what percentage do we think would be male authors? I would set the over-under at 95%. (Please don't point out that those audiences are sexist because the OP just showed that the readers don't pay attention to the gender of authors.) For the record I think there is sexism in tech but it mostly starts in jr high and high school - at least in the US.
inopinatus 14y ago
The author falls into no such category, having clearly made a considerable contribution already. You've missed the point of the article. It doesn't set out to answer your quoted question with some faux-positive ra-ra laundry list of women's writing. Instead it unasks the question. On the other hand, you've exhibited a classic indicator of unconscious bias by assuming that a woman was complaining. Especially when, as in this case, she clearly isn't.
- rcfox 14y ago
  > On the other hand, you've exhibited a classic indicator of unconscious bias by assuming that a woman was complaining. Especially when, as in this case, she clearly isn't. "complain: to express dissatisfaction, pain, uneasiness, censure, resentment, or grief" If people can't disagree with you without being accused of bias at the drop of a hat, then we can't have a true discussion.
  - inopinatus 14y ago
    I'm not sure why you're supplying a definition of "complain" except to confirm my point? Because none of those things are present in the OP. Recognising bias is important in gender discussions. It doesn't provide many truths but it reveals the falsehoods.
- clockstrikesten 14y ago
  The stereotype is primarily accepted by two groups of males: 1. Men who believe women do not succeed in the tech world due to social pressures 2. Men who believe women do not succeed in the tech world due to differences that are genetic in nature For the second group, author Amber Yust only fuels the fire of the stereotype, because she was born a man. For the first group, using herself as an example of a woman succeeding in the tech world is invalid, because she was a man for most of her life and benefitted from all the consequent privileges. I find it dumbfounding that she wrote this article.
  - roguecoder 14y ago
    She is not presenting a story of "a woman succeeding in the tech world"; she is presenting a story of how everyone assumes anyone who writes a tech article is male. It is like the New York Times saying, "men invented the Internet", or all the people who have written, "Why are there no women programmers?" There are women programmers (22% in the US according to the Department of Labor.) There were women involved in the creation of the net (8% of RFC 1336). Just because there is not equal representation no excuse for erasing those that do exist. If you mentally turn everyone male unless they are speaking about gender it is unfair to then turn around and complain that women only ever speak about gender. When you were listening to them talk about other things it wasn't that they were men, it was that you assumed they were. That is all about you, and has nothing to do with the cis* status of the people pointing it out.
danso 14y ago
> Mind you, I agree that there is a rift that rises when people make the wrong assumption, but that's nil imo. It's possible you are very open minded in such a way that even though you don't "see" a group, and its accomplishments, you still consciously afford them the same benefit of doubt as you do for the majority group. Unfortunately, this is not a trait shared by societies and social groups at large.

by iamdave 14y ago

vibrunazo 14y ago

The point is that she shouldn't need to point out individual contributions by women. Because you'd hopefully understand that women don't go out of the way and say "hey, btw, I'm a girl!". So you'd understand technical articles by women are plenty, but they're not immediately obvious. Because women are not trying to make it immediately obvious. Because the internet is supposed to be gender neutral. And hopefully, if you understand all that, you won't ask be asking "where are the technical contributions from women?" in the first place. So the question is mute, which is why she didn't answer.

Arelius 14y ago
> So you'd understand technical articles by women are plenty, but they're not immediately obvious. Actually, we have insufficient evidence to know that they are in fact plenty. However, we also have insufficient evidence to say they are rare. Also, I think you mean moot, not mute. ;)

aiiane 14y ago

There are other articles that are meant to be lists of female tech bloggers, e.g. http://www.javaworld.com/community/node/3512/ http://www.javaworld.com/community/node/3512/ http://www.webteacher.ws/2010/07/06/10-terrific-tech-blogs-by-women/ http://www.webteacher.ws/2010/07/06/10-terrific-tech-blogs-b... This article is not one of them. Just because it doesn't answer the question the way you want it to be answered doesn't mean it's "perpetuating the problem". In fact, one of the indirect points of this article is that demanding lists of female bloggers in the first place is silly - who demands lists of male bloggers?

Tichy 14y ago
Regarding you last post: it seems curious that there are actually lots of decidedly female tech groups (like geek girls or whatever), whereas male only tech groups would probably be met with outrage. That said, personally I don't need a list of female bloggers.
- aiiane 14y ago
  Because there's no need to create a space specifically to be occupied primarily by men - it already exists in the form of the entire field. The reason why groups devoted specifically to women exist is to provide spaces that aren't male-dominated, unlike most other spaces.
  - Tichy 14y ago
    By that reason it seems a list of female tech bloggers would also make sense.
    - aiiane 14y ago
      If it was created as a resource for women, sure. But as the response to a demand by men? No so much.
      - Tichy 14y ago

wickedchicken 14y ago

> the author fell right into the category that perpetuates this problem. You're missing the point of the article. The point is that if she does 'highlight great articles from the women in tech,' then she would be labeled a "female developer" instead of just a "developer." If she doesn't do this, then she gets labeled a male developer. She would like to be labeled "developer," but the two options she can see lead to undesirable outcomes. This has been said before, but the key thing to take away is the concept of "othering." The author would like to be seen as a developer, not a subcategory of a developer that is somehow different from the norm. Perhaps a better way to demonstrate is to take this to the extreme: "Instead of highlighting great articles from brown-eyed people in tech, or linking to other brown-eyed people in the industry with well trafficked blogs and talking about their contributions, the author fell right into the category that perpetuates this problem." Sounds pretty absurd right? Who cares what their eye color is. On the other hand, imagine if everyone got it wrong. Imagine if you had brown eyes but there was a 'default assumption' that everyone had blue eyes. You wouldn't want to make a fuss every time people got it wrong, for fear of being "that person" who is annoying and pedantic, and "hey, it shouldn't matter! Technology is eye-color blind!" But if you don't do it, it gets a little grating when EVERYONE assumes you are something that you're not. It's a catch-22. The solution is to remove the default assumption that developers are male. That is something that you, not the author, have to do.

sliverstorm 14y ago
Imagine if there was a 'default assumption' that everyone had blue eyes. Maybe you just picked a bad example, but that would mean nothing to me. I actually generally assume brown eyes- but I don't have brown eyes myself...
- khuey 14y ago
  It's a bad example because there's no history of discrimination and oppression against brown-eyed people.
g544s 14y ago
What is the OP's point? That people don't pay attention to the gender of the writer? If someone did a dedicated study about the last 6 months of top Hacker News and top r/programming articles what percentage do we think would be male authors? I would set the over-under at 95%. (Please don't point out that those audiences are sexist because the OP just showed that the readers don't pay attention to the gender of authors.) For the record I think there is sexism in tech but it mostly starts in jr high and high school - at least in the US.

inopinatus 14y ago

The author falls into no such category, having clearly made a considerable contribution already. You've missed the point of the article. It doesn't set out to answer your quoted question with some faux-positive ra-ra laundry list of women's writing. Instead it unasks the question. On the other hand, you've exhibited a classic indicator of unconscious bias by assuming that a woman was complaining. Especially when, as in this case, she clearly isn't.

rcfox 14y ago
> On the other hand, you've exhibited a classic indicator of unconscious bias by assuming that a woman was complaining. Especially when, as in this case, she clearly isn't. "complain: to express dissatisfaction, pain, uneasiness, censure, resentment, or grief" If people can't disagree with you without being accused of bias at the drop of a hat, then we can't have a true discussion.
- inopinatus 14y ago
  I'm not sure why you're supplying a definition of "complain" except to confirm my point? Because none of those things are present in the OP. Recognising bias is important in gender discussions. It doesn't provide many truths but it reveals the falsehoods.
clockstrikesten 14y ago
The stereotype is primarily accepted by two groups of males: 1. Men who believe women do not succeed in the tech world due to social pressures 2. Men who believe women do not succeed in the tech world due to differences that are genetic in nature For the second group, author Amber Yust only fuels the fire of the stereotype, because she was born a man. For the first group, using herself as an example of a woman succeeding in the tech world is invalid, because she was a man for most of her life and benefitted from all the consequent privileges. I find it dumbfounding that she wrote this article.
- roguecoder 14y ago
  She is not presenting a story of "a woman succeeding in the tech world"; she is presenting a story of how everyone assumes anyone who writes a tech article is male. It is like the New York Times saying, "men invented the Internet", or all the people who have written, "Why are there no women programmers?" There are women programmers (22% in the US according to the Department of Labor.) There were women involved in the creation of the net (8% of RFC 1336). Just because there is not equal representation no excuse for erasing those that do exist. If you mentally turn everyone male unless they are speaking about gender it is unfair to then turn around and complain that women only ever speak about gender. When you were listening to them talk about other things it wasn't that they were men, it was that you assumed they were. That is all about you, and has nothing to do with the cis* status of the people pointing it out.

danso 14y ago

> Mind you, I agree that there is a rift that rises when people make the wrong assumption, but that's nil imo. It's possible you are very open minded in such a way that even though you don't "see" a group, and its accomplishments, you still consciously afford them the same benefit of doubt as you do for the majority group. Unfortunately, this is not a trait shared by societies and social groups at large.