6 ms·

One of the smartest people I know almost quit software her first year out of school, because her all-male team spent an afternoon teasing her about how they wer

by pavl- 2y ago

One of the smartest people I know almost quit software her first year out of school, because her all-male team spent an afternoon teasing her about how they were going to start a strip poker game and they think she'd be "a natural", or some nonsense like that. Do you think such dynamics introduce barriers to female participation in tech? Do you think focusing solely at the "bottom of the funnel" could still result in a lack of diversity if the "top of the funnel" isn't pleasant for certain demographics to work? Do you think such an event would've occurred without pushback on a team with more than 1 woman? Do you think what you consider to be "common sense" is shaped very much by your personal experience, and that you'd have no "common sense" intuition for how frequently things like this happen because it doesn't personally impact you?

gedy 2y ago
I hear stories like this, but now after 25 years in the industry, no place I've worked at would have ever tolerated this, nor have I seen or heard this happen from colleagues. Granted I've worked mostly in California, but still seems so foreign to me.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Seriously, every instance I'm aware of men having done something like that where I worked (and it's happened more than once), they've been fired either the next day or the same week. The solution there has nothing to do with hiring more women, and everything to do with zero tolerance for a sexist environment. I mean, that happening is just insane. This isn't the 1950's.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Even in Chicago 30 years ago I cannot imagine that happening where I worked. Women were pretty well represented in tech there, incidentally. My immediate supervisor was a woman and I was the only male on my team. This was in IT in financial services. I would guess the whole department was 60:40 male:female.
- pavl- 2y ago
  I have a first-hand experience once or twice a year that make me stop and think -- if I were a woman in this situation I'd probably be doubting my career path. The example I cited is particularly egregious, but I have seen several other examples from a variety of companies: - two guys on a zoom call joking that someone's camera was off because they were doing "weird stuff" - manager from another team drunkenly telling a 24 year old at a holiday party that he would leave his wife for her - software system named "naggy_wife" - coworker telling younger coworker to "not get married because you will never have sex again" I am passing along these anecdotes because they're more easy to empathize with than some of the more general arguments of why it can be hard to succeed in tech as a woman (but they really only tell part of the story). Some of my other anecdotes might also sound closer to things you've seen or heard at the work place, or perhaps it's easier to see how some of these things might have happened without you being aware of them, given their (relative) infrequency and the contexts in which they arise. All of them happened without an HR incident (like, really, should a guy who wrote a system called "naggy-wife" get in trouble? a choice was made like 20 years ago... and maybe the guy doesn't even work there anymore). But you can also see how negative experiences like this can build up and contribute to the relatively common feeling among female engineers that they "don't belong".
  - bradlys 2y ago
    This won’t be a popular sentiment among the woke mafia that puruses HN but I’ve seen far more women drop out of tech roles due to the general work environment than due to some sexist commentary. In fact, I don’t know any who left due to some sexist commentary. I know many who left due to how toxic the work environment is for everyone. Tech workers are one of the least sexist groups out of any. If you think techies are sexist, you’d never last a day in medicine, law, or finance. Yet, women sign up for those in far higher percentages. Genuinely, it is actually hard to find a more left/progressive leaning professional field. It is not sexism that is the one thing keeping women out of tech. It is that it’s not an attractive or high status field to women. The people working in it are not seen as socially competent, it is highly outsourced, and depending on role has relatively little socializing. It’s also insanely competitive and you have to fight to keep your job from an army of H1B workers invading the country due to CEOs looking for slave labor. There are so many reasons to not be in tech and sexism should be one of the lowest reasons out there. I don’t know any women complaining about sexism in comparison to the level of “holy fuck, when will I ever get a break?” It is an unrelenting field that constantly has you worried you’ll lose your job next month. On top of requiring you study at least 500 leetcode problems before you do any interviews. Go figure, most women don’t enjoy that.
dijit 2y ago
I’m 35 now, at no point in my career have I ever been in an environment that would have tolerated that, school- college or workplace. And I haven’t been trying exceptionally hard to avoid it. If such jibes had happened those people would not have a job, point blank. Given the average seniority for a full stack engineer is 10 years, I should have encountered at least one, or worked with someone who had been in such an environment. I think chud behaviour is an excuse, because it’s not tolerated for at least my lifetime.
- segasaturn 2y ago
  Even if it's very uncommon, unfortunately even one incident like the one in GP's comment is enough to convince someone that they're unwelcome and abandon working in the field. In fact, an argument for workplace diversity initiatives is that it can re-assure people that they are welcome, and that kind behavior of is fireable. Personally the kind of "DEI" I most strongly support are the initiatives that lay out clear rules and expectations for what kind of employee behavior is allowed, and tell people who to go to if they see it occurring.
  - dijit 2y ago
    if everyone openly has your back, consistently, and for years yet you’re so fragile that a single dickhead (who will be fired) derails your entire career then honestly you were too fragile to do the job anyway.. I don’t know a single engineer who doesn’t get imposter syndrome. As a man, I have been openly derided for doing something stupid, if I were a woman I might internalise that as if it was sexism- so how do you deal with that? When people are so convinced that if anything critical could be based on gender? At some point you're treating people like children. Again I’ll say it: every single educational institution and workplace I have ever been in has intentionally mentioned that anything that could be perceived as misogyny or sexual harassment have a zero tolerance policy. Am I really the outlier? I’ve worked so many places and across so many countries and industries…
    - KittenInABox 2y ago
      > Again I’ll say it: every single educational institution and workplace I have ever been in has intentionally mentioned that anything that could be perceived as misogyny or sexual harassment have a zero tolerance policy. Just because they say that doesn't mean they'll do that. People lie, they systematically sexually harass for years, and only if its made public will they actually do anything about it. https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/uber-pay-44-million-resolve-eeoc-sexual-harassment-and-retaliation-charge https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/uber-pay-44-million-resolve-ee... https://www.axios.com/2023/12/16/activision-blizzard-gender-descrimination-settlement https://www.axios.com/2023/12/16/activision-blizzard-gender-...
cindycindy 2y ago
[dead]
Dove 2y ago
Your suggestion that bad behavior by all-male teams would be improved by the addition of women rests on a couple of assumptions that are not true: that women are inherently better behaved than men, and that women naturally see each other as being on the same team. I have been through some really awful experiences in the workplace in the last few years, and some of the most egregiously abusive behavior came from another woman. Women can be incredibly cruel to each other, and this woman in particular seemed to have it out for other women. Women are not inherently saints, and they are not inherently kind to other women. On the other hand, I have often, often worked on teams that were (except for me) all men, but by and large they were men who had mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters that they loved, and who therefore had no trouble relating to me with respect and affection. While it is true that some men treat women specifically badly, and that some men treat people generally badly, it is not true that men in general treat women badly. Quite the opposite. It does take a moment, as a woman, to find your feet socially in an all male space. But does it not always take a moment to find your feet in any new space? I have generally found that what makes it go smoothly is the fact that we are all hackers. If anything, it is all the walking on eggshells about sexism that makes social integration awkward at first. People are trying to figure out how they are "supposed" to behave around me, worried that I will be aggressive socially and legally. When we focus on the work we do together and the love we have in common for the field, we become friends naturally and get along well. I myself think all the hand-wringing over demographics has been a waste of time at best and counterproductive at worst. I think it makes more sense to focus on developing virtue, civility, and good leadership among the people who find themselves here.
- akoboldfrying 2y ago
  It is always so refreshing to read this kind of thing. For a number of years I had the sense that I might be going crazy, because it seemed that throughout my whole working life I'd encountered good and bad people of both sexes, but never witnessed the kind of systematic targeting of women that both mainstream and alternative media sources told me was rife. How could it be that I couldn't see what was apparently right under my nose? So it's reassuring to know that there are also women who have had a similar experience.
- pavl- 2y ago
wyager 2y ago
Extreme examples like this provide a nice attention-grabbing narrative, but they're not responsible for driving the central 99.5% of the workforce distribution
Manuel_D 2y ago
> Do you think such an event would've occurred without pushback on a team with more than 1 woman? Sure. One of the women I dated detailed a story about how a man at a conference she attended suggested it'd be more fun if she was roofies. To her face, in front of her co-workers (many of them women). She was in a majority female industry (healthcare). Why do we just assume that men stop doing cringe stuff just because women are around?

by pavl- 2y ago

gedy 2y ago

I hear stories like this, but now after 25 years in the industry, no place I've worked at would have ever tolerated this, nor have I seen or heard this happen from colleagues. Granted I've worked mostly in California, but still seems so foreign to me.

crazygringo 2y ago
Seriously, every instance I'm aware of men having done something like that where I worked (and it's happened more than once), they've been fired either the next day or the same week. The solution there has nothing to do with hiring more women, and everything to do with zero tolerance for a sexist environment. I mean, that happening is just insane. This isn't the 1950's.
SoftTalker 2y ago
Even in Chicago 30 years ago I cannot imagine that happening where I worked. Women were pretty well represented in tech there, incidentally. My immediate supervisor was a woman and I was the only male on my team. This was in IT in financial services. I would guess the whole department was 60:40 male:female.
pavl- 2y ago
I have a first-hand experience once or twice a year that make me stop and think -- if I were a woman in this situation I'd probably be doubting my career path. The example I cited is particularly egregious, but I have seen several other examples from a variety of companies: - two guys on a zoom call joking that someone's camera was off because they were doing "weird stuff" - manager from another team drunkenly telling a 24 year old at a holiday party that he would leave his wife for her - software system named "naggy_wife" - coworker telling younger coworker to "not get married because you will never have sex again" I am passing along these anecdotes because they're more easy to empathize with than some of the more general arguments of why it can be hard to succeed in tech as a woman (but they really only tell part of the story). Some of my other anecdotes might also sound closer to things you've seen or heard at the work place, or perhaps it's easier to see how some of these things might have happened without you being aware of them, given their (relative) infrequency and the contexts in which they arise. All of them happened without an HR incident (like, really, should a guy who wrote a system called "naggy-wife" get in trouble? a choice was made like 20 years ago... and maybe the guy doesn't even work there anymore). But you can also see how negative experiences like this can build up and contribute to the relatively common feeling among female engineers that they "don't belong".
- bradlys 2y ago
  This won’t be a popular sentiment among the woke mafia that puruses HN but I’ve seen far more women drop out of tech roles due to the general work environment than due to some sexist commentary. In fact, I don’t know any who left due to some sexist commentary. I know many who left due to how toxic the work environment is for everyone. Tech workers are one of the least sexist groups out of any. If you think techies are sexist, you’d never last a day in medicine, law, or finance. Yet, women sign up for those in far higher percentages. Genuinely, it is actually hard to find a more left/progressive leaning professional field. It is not sexism that is the one thing keeping women out of tech. It is that it’s not an attractive or high status field to women. The people working in it are not seen as socially competent, it is highly outsourced, and depending on role has relatively little socializing. It’s also insanely competitive and you have to fight to keep your job from an army of H1B workers invading the country due to CEOs looking for slave labor. There are so many reasons to not be in tech and sexism should be one of the lowest reasons out there. I don’t know any women complaining about sexism in comparison to the level of “holy fuck, when will I ever get a break?” It is an unrelenting field that constantly has you worried you’ll lose your job next month. On top of requiring you study at least 500 leetcode problems before you do any interviews. Go figure, most women don’t enjoy that.

dijit 2y ago

I’m 35 now, at no point in my career have I ever been in an environment that would have tolerated that, school- college or workplace. And I haven’t been trying exceptionally hard to avoid it. If such jibes had happened those people would not have a job, point blank. Given the average seniority for a full stack engineer is 10 years, I should have encountered at least one, or worked with someone who had been in such an environment. I think chud behaviour is an excuse, because it’s not tolerated for at least my lifetime.

segasaturn 2y ago
Even if it's very uncommon, unfortunately even one incident like the one in GP's comment is enough to convince someone that they're unwelcome and abandon working in the field. In fact, an argument for workplace diversity initiatives is that it can re-assure people that they are welcome, and that kind behavior of is fireable. Personally the kind of "DEI" I most strongly support are the initiatives that lay out clear rules and expectations for what kind of employee behavior is allowed, and tell people who to go to if they see it occurring.
- dijit 2y ago
  if everyone openly has your back, consistently, and for years yet you’re so fragile that a single dickhead (who will be fired) derails your entire career then honestly you were too fragile to do the job anyway.. I don’t know a single engineer who doesn’t get imposter syndrome. As a man, I have been openly derided for doing something stupid, if I were a woman I might internalise that as if it was sexism- so how do you deal with that? When people are so convinced that if anything critical could be based on gender? At some point you're treating people like children. Again I’ll say it: every single educational institution and workplace I have ever been in has intentionally mentioned that anything that could be perceived as misogyny or sexual harassment have a zero tolerance policy. Am I really the outlier? I’ve worked so many places and across so many countries and industries…
  - KittenInABox 2y ago
    > Again I’ll say it: every single educational institution and workplace I have ever been in has intentionally mentioned that anything that could be perceived as misogyny or sexual harassment have a zero tolerance policy. Just because they say that doesn't mean they'll do that. People lie, they systematically sexually harass for years, and only if its made public will they actually do anything about it. https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/uber-pay-44-million-resolve-eeoc-sexual-harassment-and-retaliation-charge https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/uber-pay-44-million-resolve-ee... https://www.axios.com/2023/12/16/activision-blizzard-gender-descrimination-settlement https://www.axios.com/2023/12/16/activision-blizzard-gender-...

cindycindy 2y ago

[dead]

Dove 2y ago

Your suggestion that bad behavior by all-male teams would be improved by the addition of women rests on a couple of assumptions that are not true: that women are inherently better behaved than men, and that women naturally see each other as being on the same team. I have been through some really awful experiences in the workplace in the last few years, and some of the most egregiously abusive behavior came from another woman. Women can be incredibly cruel to each other, and this woman in particular seemed to have it out for other women. Women are not inherently saints, and they are not inherently kind to other women. On the other hand, I have often, often worked on teams that were (except for me) all men, but by and large they were men who had mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters that they loved, and who therefore had no trouble relating to me with respect and affection. While it is true that some men treat women specifically badly, and that some men treat people generally badly, it is not true that men in general treat women badly. Quite the opposite. It does take a moment, as a woman, to find your feet socially in an all male space. But does it not always take a moment to find your feet in any new space? I have generally found that what makes it go smoothly is the fact that we are all hackers. If anything, it is all the walking on eggshells about sexism that makes social integration awkward at first. People are trying to figure out how they are "supposed" to behave around me, worried that I will be aggressive socially and legally. When we focus on the work we do together and the love we have in common for the field, we become friends naturally and get along well. I myself think all the hand-wringing over demographics has been a waste of time at best and counterproductive at worst. I think it makes more sense to focus on developing virtue, civility, and good leadership among the people who find themselves here.

akoboldfrying 2y ago
It is always so refreshing to read this kind of thing. For a number of years I had the sense that I might be going crazy, because it seemed that throughout my whole working life I'd encountered good and bad people of both sexes, but never witnessed the kind of systematic targeting of women that both mainstream and alternative media sources told me was rife. How could it be that I couldn't see what was apparently right under my nose? So it's reassuring to know that there are also women who have had a similar experience.
pavl- 2y ago

wyager 2y ago

Extreme examples like this provide a nice attention-grabbing narrative, but they're not responsible for driving the central 99.5% of the workforce distribution

Manuel_D 2y ago

> Do you think such an event would've occurred without pushback on a team with more than 1 woman? Sure. One of the women I dated detailed a story about how a man at a conference she attended suggested it'd be more fun if she was roofies. To her face, in front of her co-workers (many of them women). She was in a majority female industry (healthcare). Why do we just assume that men stop doing cringe stuff just because women are around?