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On Friday I pitched my company to a room of 150 developers, since my company was a hackathon sponsor. I was the only female speaker out of about 15. Afterwards

On Friday I pitched my company to a room of 150 developers, since my company was a hackathon sponsor. I was the only female speaker out of about 15. Afterwards, a well-known, elite developer asked me if I programmed. When I said yes, he said that made me 50% less attractive. Then he asked me if I cooked and cleaned. To my face. You don't have to be high profile to deal with this stuff. Just being in a room where you're 1 female out of 15 males is enough to get this kind of attention.

rachelbythebay 14y ago
I wonder what would happen if someone found out who this "elite developer" was.
- tedks 14y ago
  Probably nothing. There would maybe be a few blog posts about it. Their comments would be filled with men defending his actions and suggesting that anyone calling him out was lying, that the real problem is "women that get offended too easily" or "women that don't get jokes," and straight-up male superiority.
  - Geekette 14y ago
    Pretty much. I for one have had it up to here though. The next incidence I encounter will be called out at the very least to the person's face on the spot, if not also online.
- DanBC 14y ago
  I don't know how it works in the US, but it's her face and her name, so can't she just get a lawyer to get a court to order the website to hand over some details? And then get another court to get the ISP to hand over some more details? And then give those to the police?
jellicle 14y ago
You know, naming names is probably one of the best ways to combat this. Silence helps the asshole keep doing it. I understand the reasons why you might not want to. It's tragedy of the commons problem; you get no benefit and possible detriment from naming names - only society as a whole benefits. Nevertheless you should. It's the right thing to do.
- mwetzler 14y ago
  It is indeed tricky. I want to give developers a positive association with our company and with me as an individual. Being confrontational does the opposite.
  - Firehed 14y ago
    Being confrontational also brings the issue to light and may take us one step closer to solving the problem. Simply ignoring the matter (as uncomfortable as it would be to deal with both as a victim and as someone who doesn't want to put their company in a bad light; I can only imagine) quietly indicates that we're ok with this kind of behavior. I suppose this is one of those "there's a time and place" issues. I wouldn't likely call out such an asshole while I'm on stage (unless this person tried to humiliate me while I was presenting, in which case I'd simply state that's not an appropriate comment for the conference and move on to the next person), but I'd certainly escalate[1] the issue privately. We need to look into some sort of zero-tolerance[2] policies for this kind of thing until the message that this isn't okay is clearly understood. Certainly if I'm hosting or attending a conference and witness this kind of behavior, I'll be going out of my way to get this person removed from the conference and will also bring it up with their employer. [1] In the "I'd like to speak with a manager" sense, not throwing a loud tantrum. [2] Not that I generally support zero-tolerance policies, or find them effective. But I think the concept is directionally correct; any attendee making another attendee (including speakers) feel uncomfortable or unsafe should be removed form the event. Maybe they get one strict warning; it depends how obviously offensive they were being.
  - rjknight 14y ago
    I think, in this case, being confrontational is the right thing to do (though I don't think you should have to engage in a confrontation if you don't want to). Most people (despite the arguments here, which are mostly about either semantics or arcane ethical points) think that the way the guy you described behaved is unacceptable. You're one of us, a hacker, and you don't deserve to be treated like that. I can't imagine you'd get anything other than a positive association from standing up for the rights of hackers to get on and live their lives free of that kind of harassment and bullying. I don't really understand why people don't mention this more often: the kind of bullying that women in tech receive now is pretty much the kind of bullying that male geeks got from non-geeks twenty years ago. It's not really anti-women so much as it's anti-people-being-geeks; society at large may have (grudgingly!) accepted male geeks, but female geeks are still getting abuse for being more interested in computers or science or whatever than in what society thinks they 'should' be doing. As such, this affects all of us and we all need to be pretty damn clear that we won't stand for it.
whiterabbit2 14y ago
Oh, I would say "none of his f*cking business". As a woman, you don't need to even be a developer to get this kind of "attention" on a regular basis.
rdl 14y ago
I obviously never get comments like this (being a man in a male-dominated field), but I hear about some women in the industry getting it more often than others. I'm sure there's reporting bias, but at least some of the women I've talked to seem to think it's not a common problem for them at least (but happens to others). I wonder if there are specific things which make it more likely for some women to be harassed like this. And, is relatively mild stupidity like this correlated in any way with more serious issues (either assault or serious job discrimination)?
- mwetzler 14y ago
  I think two things make it more likely for me to encounter incidents of sexism: 1) I do some programming for my job, but a majority of it involves going out and meeting other developers, learning about their work, and seeing how we can make our API better for them. I live in SF so I can't get a coffee without bumping into another developer. I bet I have many more interactions than someone who is developing full time in their home or office. More interactions increases chances for good and bad types of interactions. 2) Since I have been researching sexism in the industry, I have started to notice small slights and snubs more. I went for years brushing off countless minor incidents. I still don't get offended easily, but I do notice things more. For example, checkout the gun.io landing page right now (Beards of Experience). I like gun.io, but their homepage is definitely not female-friendly, and I noticed it immediately. I'd wager that people who have had some kind of experience that really bothered them, or ones who have recently started learning more about gender bias, will suddenly start to notice all the little "micro agressions" more. Even my male colleagues have started noticing them more since we have been discussing it recently. One of them even said "it's like when you get a new car, you suddenly start to notice how many people drive the same car as you do".
  - rdl 14y ago
    Also I guess people are more likely to either be "careful" or to adapt their behavior successfully if there's one woman on a 5 person team and one or more of the guys are in some way sexist or inappropriate, than if it's a casual interaction with someone at a coffeeshop or conference. I don't know how I feel about the "Beards of Experience" thing. I guess I'd be annoyed if it were a permanent branding of the site, but as a one-off short campaign, I'm I think I'm fine with it. It does only focus on a specific group (I assume it is "unix neckbeards vs. hipster/corporate/suave designer developers", ignoring women entirely), but for a short marketing message, it's probably better to strongly appeal to a subset vs. be "meh" for everyone. It's not on its face offensive, which would be bad even if 5-10% of people were seriously offended and 50% were approving, just narrowly scoped. But it's obviously bad if that kind of exclusion is the default across the whole industry all the time.
kstrauser 14y ago
I just don't get this. Do these guys not have moms? Sisters? Wives or girlfriends? Daughters? Women friends? I would be incredibly pissed if anyone said those things to my family members; ergo, I can't imagine saying them to someone else. For me, it really is as simple as that. I want my daughters to feel as welcome in their careers as I hope my sons will be. Anything less than that is utterly unacceptable. I'm sorry this happened to you and I hope you believe me that not all guys think this way.
- tlrobinson 14y ago
  They most likely have a mom, possibly sisters, the rest are unlikely.
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  They have moms for sure, and sisters maybe. But that's irrelevant. They are behaving this way because that's how they see their dads treating their moms and sisters growing up. If they see their dad treat the mom with a sexist attitude (such as by expecting her to do the house chores or slapping her ass in front of the kids) then that's how they treat women later in life.
gfodor 14y ago
What the fuck, I really can't wrap my mind around the fact that stuff like this happens. Who are these idiots? It would be pretty useful if there were a way to get these types of things anonymously reported so the accusers could have some way to publicize it, the accuser have their chance to voice their side of the story, and failing to clear the issue up (in your case, there is no excuse for that kind of response) the rest of the entire industry could never, ever hire that person. It's embarrassing that interactions like this happen in a professional setting and there are no good measures in place to report and prevent them.
lizzard 14y ago
Wish I could even be surprised at this. Join us on #geekfeminism sometime on freenode (if you're not already there) :)
chaostheory 14y ago
Where did this happen? I'm reading this and I'm a little shocked. I don't understand why people can be such jerks.
- mwetzler 14y ago
  Here is SF. I think the guy thought he was flirting with me. It was not effective :)
  - chaostheory 14y ago
    When I think about it, people in SF should know better; but based on personal experience bad offensive remarks happen a lot more often than most people would think for such a progressive city. It's one reason I hate the thought of working in the city again. The last part better explains it. It doesn't change the fact that it was sexism, but I categorize this one as stupidity and awkwardness instead of malice.
enraged_camel 14y ago
>>Afterwards, a well-known, elite developer asked me if I programmed. When I said yes, he said that made me 50% less attractive. Then he asked me if I cooked and cleaned. To my face. You should have smiled and told him no, because you programmed a robot to do all that stuff for you. Then punched him in the face.

rachelbythebay 14y ago

I wonder what would happen if someone found out who this "elite developer" was.

tedks 14y ago
Probably nothing. There would maybe be a few blog posts about it. Their comments would be filled with men defending his actions and suggesting that anyone calling him out was lying, that the real problem is "women that get offended too easily" or "women that don't get jokes," and straight-up male superiority.
- Geekette 14y ago
  Pretty much. I for one have had it up to here though. The next incidence I encounter will be called out at the very least to the person's face on the spot, if not also online.
DanBC 14y ago
I don't know how it works in the US, but it's her face and her name, so can't she just get a lawyer to get a court to order the website to hand over some details? And then get another court to get the ISP to hand over some more details? And then give those to the police?

jellicle 14y ago

You know, naming names is probably one of the best ways to combat this. Silence helps the asshole keep doing it. I understand the reasons why you might not want to. It's tragedy of the commons problem; you get no benefit and possible detriment from naming names - only society as a whole benefits. Nevertheless you should. It's the right thing to do.

mwetzler 14y ago
It is indeed tricky. I want to give developers a positive association with our company and with me as an individual. Being confrontational does the opposite.
- Firehed 14y ago
  Being confrontational also brings the issue to light and may take us one step closer to solving the problem. Simply ignoring the matter (as uncomfortable as it would be to deal with both as a victim and as someone who doesn't want to put their company in a bad light; I can only imagine) quietly indicates that we're ok with this kind of behavior. I suppose this is one of those "there's a time and place" issues. I wouldn't likely call out such an asshole while I'm on stage (unless this person tried to humiliate me while I was presenting, in which case I'd simply state that's not an appropriate comment for the conference and move on to the next person), but I'd certainly escalate[1] the issue privately. We need to look into some sort of zero-tolerance[2] policies for this kind of thing until the message that this isn't okay is clearly understood. Certainly if I'm hosting or attending a conference and witness this kind of behavior, I'll be going out of my way to get this person removed from the conference and will also bring it up with their employer. [1] In the "I'd like to speak with a manager" sense, not throwing a loud tantrum. [2] Not that I generally support zero-tolerance policies, or find them effective. But I think the concept is directionally correct; any attendee making another attendee (including speakers) feel uncomfortable or unsafe should be removed form the event. Maybe they get one strict warning; it depends how obviously offensive they were being.
- rjknight 14y ago
  I think, in this case, being confrontational is the right thing to do (though I don't think you should have to engage in a confrontation if you don't want to). Most people (despite the arguments here, which are mostly about either semantics or arcane ethical points) think that the way the guy you described behaved is unacceptable. You're one of us, a hacker, and you don't deserve to be treated like that. I can't imagine you'd get anything other than a positive association from standing up for the rights of hackers to get on and live their lives free of that kind of harassment and bullying. I don't really understand why people don't mention this more often: the kind of bullying that women in tech receive now is pretty much the kind of bullying that male geeks got from non-geeks twenty years ago. It's not really anti-women so much as it's anti-people-being-geeks; society at large may have (grudgingly!) accepted male geeks, but female geeks are still getting abuse for being more interested in computers or science or whatever than in what society thinks they 'should' be doing. As such, this affects all of us and we all need to be pretty damn clear that we won't stand for it.

whiterabbit2 14y ago

Oh, I would say "none of his f*cking business". As a woman, you don't need to even be a developer to get this kind of "attention" on a regular basis.

rdl 14y ago

I obviously never get comments like this (being a man in a male-dominated field), but I hear about some women in the industry getting it more often than others. I'm sure there's reporting bias, but at least some of the women I've talked to seem to think it's not a common problem for them at least (but happens to others). I wonder if there are specific things which make it more likely for some women to be harassed like this. And, is relatively mild stupidity like this correlated in any way with more serious issues (either assault or serious job discrimination)?

mwetzler 14y ago
I think two things make it more likely for me to encounter incidents of sexism: 1) I do some programming for my job, but a majority of it involves going out and meeting other developers, learning about their work, and seeing how we can make our API better for them. I live in SF so I can't get a coffee without bumping into another developer. I bet I have many more interactions than someone who is developing full time in their home or office. More interactions increases chances for good and bad types of interactions. 2) Since I have been researching sexism in the industry, I have started to notice small slights and snubs more. I went for years brushing off countless minor incidents. I still don't get offended easily, but I do notice things more. For example, checkout the gun.io landing page right now (Beards of Experience). I like gun.io, but their homepage is definitely not female-friendly, and I noticed it immediately. I'd wager that people who have had some kind of experience that really bothered them, or ones who have recently started learning more about gender bias, will suddenly start to notice all the little "micro agressions" more. Even my male colleagues have started noticing them more since we have been discussing it recently. One of them even said "it's like when you get a new car, you suddenly start to notice how many people drive the same car as you do".
- rdl 14y ago
  Also I guess people are more likely to either be "careful" or to adapt their behavior successfully if there's one woman on a 5 person team and one or more of the guys are in some way sexist or inappropriate, than if it's a casual interaction with someone at a coffeeshop or conference. I don't know how I feel about the "Beards of Experience" thing. I guess I'd be annoyed if it were a permanent branding of the site, but as a one-off short campaign, I'm I think I'm fine with it. It does only focus on a specific group (I assume it is "unix neckbeards vs. hipster/corporate/suave designer developers", ignoring women entirely), but for a short marketing message, it's probably better to strongly appeal to a subset vs. be "meh" for everyone. It's not on its face offensive, which would be bad even if 5-10% of people were seriously offended and 50% were approving, just narrowly scoped. But it's obviously bad if that kind of exclusion is the default across the whole industry all the time.

kstrauser 14y ago

I just don't get this. Do these guys not have moms? Sisters? Wives or girlfriends? Daughters? Women friends? I would be incredibly pissed if anyone said those things to my family members; ergo, I can't imagine saying them to someone else. For me, it really is as simple as that. I want my daughters to feel as welcome in their careers as I hope my sons will be. Anything less than that is utterly unacceptable. I'm sorry this happened to you and I hope you believe me that not all guys think this way.

tlrobinson 14y ago
They most likely have a mom, possibly sisters, the rest are unlikely.
enraged_camel 14y ago
They have moms for sure, and sisters maybe. But that's irrelevant. They are behaving this way because that's how they see their dads treating their moms and sisters growing up. If they see their dad treat the mom with a sexist attitude (such as by expecting her to do the house chores or slapping her ass in front of the kids) then that's how they treat women later in life.

gfodor 14y ago

What the fuck, I really can't wrap my mind around the fact that stuff like this happens. Who are these idiots? It would be pretty useful if there were a way to get these types of things anonymously reported so the accusers could have some way to publicize it, the accuser have their chance to voice their side of the story, and failing to clear the issue up (in your case, there is no excuse for that kind of response) the rest of the entire industry could never, ever hire that person. It's embarrassing that interactions like this happen in a professional setting and there are no good measures in place to report and prevent them.

lizzard 14y ago

Wish I could even be surprised at this. Join us on #geekfeminism sometime on freenode (if you're not already there) :)

chaostheory 14y ago

Where did this happen? I'm reading this and I'm a little shocked. I don't understand why people can be such jerks.

mwetzler 14y ago
Here is SF. I think the guy thought he was flirting with me. It was not effective :)
- chaostheory 14y ago
  When I think about it, people in SF should know better; but based on personal experience bad offensive remarks happen a lot more often than most people would think for such a progressive city. It's one reason I hate the thought of working in the city again. The last part better explains it. It doesn't change the fact that it was sexism, but I categorize this one as stupidity and awkwardness instead of malice.

enraged_camel 14y ago

>>Afterwards, a well-known, elite developer asked me if I programmed. When I said yes, he said that made me 50% less attractive. Then he asked me if I cooked and cleaned. To my face. You should have smiled and told him no, because you programmed a robot to do all that stuff for you. Then punched him in the face.