4 ms·

Why am I not surprised to see the usual litany of sexist, condescending, dismissive and outright offensive HN comments on what is unquestionably a serious probl

Why am I not surprised to see the usual litany of sexist, condescending, dismissive and outright offensive HN comments on what is unquestionably a serious problem of gender imbalance in the tech industry? Ugh.

bostonpete 14y ago
What comment do you find offensive here? The most dismissive comments I see seem to be arguing that sex should not be a factor in selecting panelists. Maybe that's a debatable stance, but I think it's a little extreme to declare it offensive...
- RyanMcGreal 14y ago
  "I think that's an unfair characterization of women as marketing types. Don't forget HR and recruiting!"
- phaylon 14y ago
  Because it greatly simplifies the issue. It's basically saying "there would be more women in tech if they wanted to". And it completely ignores the issues of "Why don't they want to be part of these communities?" And if that question is asked, the answers usually circle around "Women shouldn't be offended by sexism." I can see how those two combined attitudes could offend people. It's not about fixating on a 50/50 ratio. It's about changing the climate and attitudes so it's a more welcoming environment, so they do want to be part of the communities. If more women go into tech, that doesn't automatically mean less men. My personal belief is that it would increase the amount of capable people in the respective communities. What I find most surprising though, is the vehemence with which these attitudes are defended.
  - bostonpete 14y ago
    This line of reasoning seems to assume that it's sexism that drives women away from tech. But most people chose to go into a technical field when they're still in high school -- long before they would have encountered the sort of workplace/conference/community sexism people gripe about. Colleges have historically had a lot of trouble attracting girls to their technical/engineering programs, despite often bending over backwards to try to improve their ratios. Isn't it possible that there are other factors which cause such a large gender disparity between choices that teenagers are making...?
    - phaylon 14y ago
      Sure, there are lots of factors. But "It is what it is, and we shall not touch the natural order of things" is not a productive part of the discussion, at least to me. Don't you think an IT community more friendly towards the female part of the population would be beneficial and could interest more young females than the status quo? Consider in todays age it is easy to lurk a community over the internet. So, would you think being a teenage female trying to learn language $X and finding lots of sexism is an encouraging experience and would not be a factor in driving them away?
leoedin 14y ago
Gender imbalance is an issue, but forcing panels to be unrepresentative of the fields they're discussing is hardly going to fix it. The fundamental issue is that notable people in technology are almost entirely male. We need to encourage girls to come into technology fields at the bottom. Perhaps ensuring public panels contain notable female role models would be a way of doing that, but if the panels purpose is for very specific technical discussion arbitrarily increasing female participation to levels significantly above what is representative of the field being discussed isn't really going to help anything.
- RyanMcGreal 14y ago
  Girls are less likely to go into a field if they don't see women representatives of that field.
  - leoedin 14y ago
    Certainly in very public non-technical discussion, female representation on panels is important. However, very technical panel discussions are so industry specific that girls are not going to be looking at them for role models. In highly technical panel discussion, membership should be selected on merit not gender.
  - oh_sigh 14y ago
    Girls are less likely to go into a field if they see that they are treated differently because of their gender. See, I can make blanket statements with no proof also.
csallen 14y ago
If you think people are being sexist, condescending, dismissive, or offensive, then you should respond to those people and point out how they are doing so. Otherwise it is you who's being dismissive.
recursive 14y ago
Probably because you expect HN to be as sexist, condescending, dismissive as you usually find it to be.
mediacrisis 14y ago
This post is actually better than most. Granted its only been an hour. Its fair to point out that going out of your way to get a female speaker simply because she is female is not the way to go about things. I don't think this is what the article is proposing so much as making a valiant effort to have a more diverse panel. Frankly, to all out boycott all male panels seems counter productive and a bit extreme. Some conferences have an open call for presenters, and sometimes women just don't apply. At what point is that the fault of the organizer? I can see invitations posing an issue, but not all conferences operate that way.
oh_sigh 14y ago
Why don't you respond to specific posts instead of lamenting vaguely?
nathan_long 14y ago
I want to ask a question that may sound like trolling but isn't. Why is gender imbalance a problem? Do you have in mind: 1) Women have a distinct perspective that the tech industry would benefit from having more of. 2) Tech jobs are nice and women should get to have them too. 3) Gender imbalance proves discrimination is happening, knowingly or not. 4) Something else. I'm curious. It is evident to me that you can't optimize for two selection criteria at the same time. Eg, selecting the fastest vehicle is unlikely to also get you the most fuel efficient one. Hence, selecting women (or men) specifically is unlikely to optimize for speaking ability, technical knowledge, etc. Do you believe that equally-qualified women are being discriminated against now, or do you accept that tradeoff in pursuit of correcting something else?

bostonpete 14y ago

What comment do you find offensive here? The most dismissive comments I see seem to be arguing that sex should not be a factor in selecting panelists. Maybe that's a debatable stance, but I think it's a little extreme to declare it offensive...

RyanMcGreal 14y ago
"I think that's an unfair characterization of women as marketing types. Don't forget HR and recruiting!"
phaylon 14y ago
Because it greatly simplifies the issue. It's basically saying "there would be more women in tech if they wanted to". And it completely ignores the issues of "Why don't they want to be part of these communities?" And if that question is asked, the answers usually circle around "Women shouldn't be offended by sexism." I can see how those two combined attitudes could offend people. It's not about fixating on a 50/50 ratio. It's about changing the climate and attitudes so it's a more welcoming environment, so they do want to be part of the communities. If more women go into tech, that doesn't automatically mean less men. My personal belief is that it would increase the amount of capable people in the respective communities. What I find most surprising though, is the vehemence with which these attitudes are defended.
- bostonpete 14y ago
  This line of reasoning seems to assume that it's sexism that drives women away from tech. But most people chose to go into a technical field when they're still in high school -- long before they would have encountered the sort of workplace/conference/community sexism people gripe about. Colleges have historically had a lot of trouble attracting girls to their technical/engineering programs, despite often bending over backwards to try to improve their ratios. Isn't it possible that there are other factors which cause such a large gender disparity between choices that teenagers are making...?
  - phaylon 14y ago
    Sure, there are lots of factors. But "It is what it is, and we shall not touch the natural order of things" is not a productive part of the discussion, at least to me. Don't you think an IT community more friendly towards the female part of the population would be beneficial and could interest more young females than the status quo? Consider in todays age it is easy to lurk a community over the internet. So, would you think being a teenage female trying to learn language $X and finding lots of sexism is an encouraging experience and would not be a factor in driving them away?

leoedin 14y ago

Gender imbalance is an issue, but forcing panels to be unrepresentative of the fields they're discussing is hardly going to fix it. The fundamental issue is that notable people in technology are almost entirely male. We need to encourage girls to come into technology fields at the bottom. Perhaps ensuring public panels contain notable female role models would be a way of doing that, but if the panels purpose is for very specific technical discussion arbitrarily increasing female participation to levels significantly above what is representative of the field being discussed isn't really going to help anything.

RyanMcGreal 14y ago
Girls are less likely to go into a field if they don't see women representatives of that field.
- leoedin 14y ago
  Certainly in very public non-technical discussion, female representation on panels is important. However, very technical panel discussions are so industry specific that girls are not going to be looking at them for role models. In highly technical panel discussion, membership should be selected on merit not gender.
- oh_sigh 14y ago
  Girls are less likely to go into a field if they see that they are treated differently because of their gender. See, I can make blanket statements with no proof also.

csallen 14y ago

If you think people are being sexist, condescending, dismissive, or offensive, then you should respond to those people and point out how they are doing so. Otherwise it is you who's being dismissive.

recursive 14y ago

Probably because you expect HN to be as sexist, condescending, dismissive as you usually find it to be.

mediacrisis 14y ago

This post is actually better than most. Granted its only been an hour. Its fair to point out that going out of your way to get a female speaker simply because she is female is not the way to go about things. I don't think this is what the article is proposing so much as making a valiant effort to have a more diverse panel. Frankly, to all out boycott all male panels seems counter productive and a bit extreme. Some conferences have an open call for presenters, and sometimes women just don't apply. At what point is that the fault of the organizer? I can see invitations posing an issue, but not all conferences operate that way.

oh_sigh 14y ago

Why don't you respond to specific posts instead of lamenting vaguely?

nathan_long 14y ago

I want to ask a question that may sound like trolling but isn't. Why is gender imbalance a problem? Do you have in mind: 1) Women have a distinct perspective that the tech industry would benefit from having more of. 2) Tech jobs are nice and women should get to have them too. 3) Gender imbalance proves discrimination is happening, knowingly or not. 4) Something else. I'm curious. It is evident to me that you can't optimize for two selection criteria at the same time. Eg, selecting the fastest vehicle is unlikely to also get you the most fuel efficient one. Hence, selecting women (or men) specifically is unlikely to optimize for speaking ability, technical knowledge, etc. Do you believe that equally-qualified women are being discriminated against now, or do you accept that tradeoff in pursuit of correcting something else?