7 ms·

Sexism In Tech: We’re Not Making It Up

48 points by trevin 14y ago

superflit 14y ago
I do think sexism exist, but I think the MAJOR problem is as...ole men. I am not a full gentleman but let's think: 1) I think some woman attractive. I will not touch her as first move or even approach or stand too near. 2) There is better ways to extend the conversation instead of inviting to my 'bedroom'. 3) No or other excuses means no, thanks and farewell. 4) conferences are professional places, no place for flirting (they invented bars for that). 5) Ring on the finger? SHE is NOT interested. Somehow some men think that if the woman is NOT interested she has be 'wrong' or deserve more 'strong' signals. I support more woman at the conferences and I wish more woman take some stand at this cases and say it loud: 'TAKE OUT YOUR FILTHY HANDS from me' Saying that loud will teach a great lesson and avoid some posts. The main problem is not sexism is lack of politeness and manners.
- blablabla123 14y ago
  I think the point is more this: everything is optimized for men, it's like a self-amplifying loop. Sure the things you mention are also a problem, but women face that everywhere.
- eightpersimmons 14y ago
  Lack of manners and as..ole men are enabled by a sexist environment. These are symptoms of an underlying problem. Women don't feel safe in these environments because of the behavior of a relatively small number of individuals, but these individuals are enabled by a system problem in which their behavior is rationalized and ignored as just s social faux pas.
  - coldtea 14y ago
    >Women don't feel safe in these environments Women don't feel safe in tech conferences? Like it's south central Los Angeles or something? I've attended several tech conferences, with women colleagues and friend, and I've not seen all this hoopla people constantly bring up on HN. Heck, those things don't even happen on Linux and OSS conferences, much less in business tech meetings. Groping a woman? WTF have you witnessed that? I don't know, maybe it's that conferences in Europe are different.
    - steveklabnik 14y ago
      http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents
      - coldtea 14y ago
        Not much pertaining to Europe (if anything), plus a lot of unrelated incidents among the list. I mean, how does this qualify: "An offensive tweet was made against the PyLadies group at EuroPython 2012. Lynn Root (a keynote speaker and founder of PyLadies) blogged twice about the incident." Really? One can find thousand of offensive tweets for anything, from your choice of programming editor, to Mac vs PC, to politics, to Twilight, to Coke Light vs Zero. And an "offensive tweet" somehow deserves to be in a list about "sexist incidents"? Other stuff is nearly as lame. Judging from the above list, and compared to, e.g. the fashion or the journalism industry, the tech industry seems comparatively sexism free.
- npfmn 14y ago
  Why is it the responsibility of women to take the stand? Isn't it the responsibility of the people making unprofessional advances to stop and silent bystanders to tell them so? Why is a professional conference ever even thought of as a venue for making advances? I don't understand why you think this is not sexism.
  - lmm 14y ago
    As a bystander who becomes aware of such behaviour of course it's your responsibility to get involved. But if we're talking, as the article does, about a woman and one man alone in an elevator, and that man happens to be an asshole, what can the rest of us realistically do to prevent this happening?
    - npfmn 14y ago
      As the article says: "Be better about putting guidelines in place to show zero tolerance for harassment or inappropriate behavior. Train your staff to be on the lookout and how to handle situations. Respect female attendees by not letting booth babes walk the expo floor and not hanging women from your ceiling and calling it entertainment." It's about creating a positive environment. Of course there will be isolated incidents, but can we really resign ourselves to doing nothing?
  - chc 14y ago
    > Isn't it the responsibility of the people making unprofessional advances to stop Well, yes, but if your plan to stop sexism is something along the lines of "Wait for jerks to suddenly become good people," you're doing a disservice to their victims. > and silent bystanders to tell them so I don't feel like it is my business to step in and speak for a woman who has not implicitly or explicitly asked me to do so. That seems like a really degrading viewpoint. If she clearly wants the guy to go away and he won't, yes, go up and help her. But the idea that it's my job to run around policing women's sexuality is just antediluvian.
    - npfmn 14y ago
      I don't see why it's degrading for a victim to have someone else (publicly or privately) tell their agressor to stop.
- autarch 14y ago
  I agree with most of your points except for #4. There's nothing inherently wrong with flirting at a conference. Flirting is a very natural type of interaction for people, and asking people to not do it at all doesn't seem realistic. However, men should not assume that flirting means that a woman is inviting you to touch her or sleep with her. In fact, she may not even be flirting. Men often misinterpret simple friendliness as sexual interest. Be conservative in what you say and do. At a professional event, it is far better to miss an opportunity for a casual hook up than to be aggressive and make the conference an unwelcoming place for women.
  - npfmn 14y ago
    If women say there is something wrong with flirting at a conference, then there is something wrong with it. It's a professional event. Why is a professional event even seen as "an opportunity for a casual hook up"? To say that flirting is "natural" is quite a claim; while it might be prevalent in our culture, that doesn't mean it's natural.
    - autarch 14y ago
      At the last programming conference I attended, I saw a man and woman holding hands. These two people had not, to the best of my knowledge, met before the conference. I don't know how far this relationship went (not that it's my business), but it was clearly mutual, and it started at the conference. Conferences are both professional and social. In fact, it's hard to think of anything that is purely professional. People form short- and long-term relationships through all sorts of initial meetings. I don't see any women saying "all flirting all is wrong at a conference". I see them saying they don't want to be harassed. The two things are not the same. I've talked to women at length about these issues and I've championed the adoption of strong anti-harassment policies at conferences I speak at (http://blog.urth.org/2011/09/05/conference-code-of-conduct-considered-crucial/ http://blog.urth.org/2011/09/05/conference-code-of-conduct-c...). Maybe we just have different definitions of flirting. To get back to the original article, the Twitter exchange that it highlights is not flirting. It's just a man being an asshole. I also note that the article makes no mention of the word "flirt". It talks about "harassment", "groping", and "sexism".
- dsr_ 14y ago
  Your primary problem is when you think of "women in tech" as being "sexually interesting people in tech" instead of "people in tech". All the rest follows from that. When you meet somebody at a professional conference, ignore their gender and treat them the way you would want to be treated. Also, a nice person who is rude to the waiter (or barista, or retail clerk, or...) is not a nice person.
papermashea 14y ago
I have had the misfortune of seeing how very deep this sexism goes- it's not just sexual harassment that's an issue (though I will say, it's the most pressing), but also the prejudices women meet in the tech world. It's as if there are two major discussions about women's roles in tech: women are either assumed to be underqualified or over glamorized. Get more women into tech, and then get over having them there.
- coldtea 14y ago
  >it's not just sexual harassment that's an issue How does discern sexual harassment (between adults with no business ties between them) from flirting? I ask because I've also seen flirting remakers being conceived as "harassement". That "the place was not appropriate" or "it was uncalled for" is not a proper answer I think. There would be VERY FEW relationships and/or marriages if people never approached other people out of the blue and in non-appropriate places (in a conference for example).
  - steveklabnik 14y ago
    It's pretty simple: if you're not sure, don't do it.
    - coldtea 14y ago
      Really? That's quite a naive view. Are people (men/women/gay) ever SURE about when to flirt with another person? By this logic, half of the population would have never been born (which might have been a good thing, with respect to overpopulation and all, but that's a different argument).
      - steveklabnik 14y ago
        What you're saying is, "I am willing to possibly sexually assault someone in order to get a date." You're a bad person.
        14y ago
gosukiwi 14y ago
This post again?
- benparsons 14y ago
  This post until the problem is at least acknowledged, let alone addressed. Took me a long time to realise the problem was real ("it's a meritocracy, everyone is welcome in tech!"), and now I can't stand to look at the comments in threads like this http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5279118 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5279118 without cringing.
- lisabarone 14y ago
  Yes. Really. It's still happening.
- MichelleRobbins 14y ago
  When it stops being a problem, it will stop being topical.
  - oh_sigh 14y ago
    Can you name an industry(at least as broad as "tech" field) which has no sexual harassment lawsuits, or exceptionally few? You can tell stories like the one in the blog about any field. Tech is not special. If there is going to be change, it will have to come from society at large, and not by fiddling with the dials of a specific field.
    - MichelleRobbins 14y ago
      You are absolutely correct. It's everywhere, in every industry. Tech is not special. But it is our field, our community, and it is incumbent upon us to change our own community. So you propose sitting on our hands and waiting for some magical shift in society at large? No thanks. And that's not how change happens. We can effect change in our own communities - and if enough communities make change you'll see ripples through society and eventually society at large may change. You have to start somewhere.
danso 14y ago
I'm disappointed that this post focuses on an incident of groping. Not because the incident is "not a big deal" or that it's isolated, but because it's the type of incident that nearly everyone can agree is beyond the pale and should never be tolerated by society. Even sexists. I think the more prevalent problem is the underlying sexism, the institutional bias, the reluctance to speak up, the fear of being judged "the token" -- the fact that a man can think it's appropriate to put his hand on a woman's knee unsolicited is just a blatant, ugly manifestation of the underlying sexism. I know this post had a little more nuance, but it's hard to come away from it without the impression of: "Women aren't on speaker panels because they're afraid of getting molested". Maybe that's the case (and if so, we as a society have serious issues)...but there's at least an equal problem of women just not being considered or being searched for. And as that problem persists, then women continue to become such a minority at these conferences that the aforementioned creep feels perfectly comfortable with invading a woman's personal space.
- lisabarone 14y ago
  I think it's all connected. There are many reasons you don't see women speaking at tech conferences. Some is because they're passed over as non-members of the boys club. Some is because they don't want to attend and be part of the environment. I've had far worse things happen to be at tech shows - there's one I avoid altogether after being sexually assaulted in a hotel room - but like you said, there's a reason women don't feel comfortable talking about. i don't want to be the "token" harassment case. I don't want to become known for that above anything else I may do. So do I speak up or do I shut up. That's just as large of an issue as how do I get that creep from putting his hand on knee. Arguably, it's bigger.
  - danso 14y ago
    Undoubtedly it's all connected in a feedback loop. I guess what I'm simply saying is that the problem of unwanted touching "can be solved" (or at least, ostracized into obscurity), and yet the underlying sexism can persist -- and, in one sense, be affirmed ("Hey I'm can't be a sexist, I never would just touch a random woman) -- and cause the same negative impact: the lack of women participation in conferences and in the tech field (or rather, society in general)
jrogers65 14y ago
In any industry dominated by a given gender, there is prejudice against the opposite gender. People fear what they do not know. http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/rss/1056170/New-calls-end-discrimination-against-male-childcarers/ http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/rss/1056170/New-calls-end...
jroseattle 14y ago
The characterization of this as an industry issue is a red herring. This is a societal issue; the fact we're in the tech industry is simply a commonality.
- RyanMcGreal 14y ago
  It's considerably worse - both more prevalent and less acknowledged - in the tech industry than elsewhere.
  - jroseattle 14y ago
    I would expect you have some data that substantiates that assertion?
- npfmn 14y ago
  It's not a red herring, it's a place to start.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
Hairy_Sandwich 14y ago
There is nothing in the article (IMO) that is unique to the tech sector. These complaints could be made of men in general anywhere in any industry or context. Some guy can put a hand on your knee at the home show too, but not a lot of men go to those events (I assume, I wouldn't know since I don't go to them either). However, there will always be a set of socially retarded people, there will always be horny people, and there will always be people who posses both attributes at the same time. There are a lot of socially awkward people in tech, I don't know what you can do about this problem. If you have an attractive physique as a woman, and you wear clothes that don't hide or minimize this fact, then men will notice, and some will comment on it, and some will even be inappropriate about it. As a remedy the women should get mad, she should tell them off. However you could even make inappropriate comments punishable by DEATH. I guarantee that not even the death penalty will stop inappropriate comments, or some guy putting a hand on your knee type of stuff. Even if the women wore a burqua, that wouldn't stop it, some guy would find that hot, "hey baby, what's under the burqua?". I don't have the answer, I don't think there is an answer. Possibly when these issues occur the women are reacting politely when they should react angrily so the offender gets the correct feedback often enough to realize that he is the problem.
- npfmn 14y ago
  "they should react angrily" That might be part of the solution, but isn't it important for us to make a proactive effort to do whatever we can to encourage a professional, non-sexist environment? You say there will always be horny people, but isn't it our place to make this a taboo? None of this may be unique to the tech sector, but aren't we a forward-looking industry that isn't afraid of changing the world?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- jasonshen 14y ago
  Your suggestion that "there will always be socially restarted people" perpetuates the idea that things can't improve. Violent crime and overt prejudice to minorities and LGBT folks have gone down over time because it became a big deal. What we just said "there will always be bigots" and then stopped caring, that progress never would have happened. Change is possible and we should strive to make it happen.
oh_sigh 14y ago
I have a hypothesis: When women are represented close to 50% in the military, there will be none of this so-called sexism in other, unrelated sectors
oh_sigh 14y ago
Lechers exist in all fields, even in fields where it is agreed upon by everyone that sexism does not exist, or is at least at some level lower than general sexism in society as a whole. Feel free to call them out, but don't impugn the insanely broad field of "tech" because of some creeps.
stevenameyer 14y ago
The number of comments on this thread stating sexism exists in all areas and seemly dismiss this as an issue that needs to be addressed in our industry is very surprising to me. Just because the problem is not specific to the tech industry doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to solve it. If women feel uncomfortable working or contributing to the industry because of their gender then we are missing out on possible contributions from a massive section of the population. Will cases of sexism always exist? Probably, their will always be a bad apple or two. But we need to work to make these these cases the exception to how the industry works. We need people to feel safe contributing regardless of who they are. If you have something to contribute you should be able to, that is one of the things I personally love about this industry. Just because we can never fully solve a problem doesn't mean we shouldn't try to minimize it.
- onemorepassword 14y ago
  It's not that it shouldn't be addressed in our industry, but it shouldn't be addressed as "sexism in tech", because that is an entirely separate issue. The kind of sexism that is described here occurs just as much in industries that are 50% women. It's not the cause of the under-representation of women in tech, and addressing it is unlikely to solve that issue. On the one hand, the industry should make an additional effort to address the general social sexism on order to not further alienate women, but the suggestion that tech is more sexist than other areas is blatantly false, and leads to a automatic defensive response because it suggests a certain causality. It is simply not very constructive to conflate the two issues, no matter how closely related they are. Sexism in general is too sensitive an issue for that, and not just for women.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

48 points by trevin 14y ago

I do think sexism exist, but I think the MAJOR problem is as...ole men. I am not a full gentleman but let's think: 1) I think some woman attractive. I will not touch her as first move or even approach or stand too near. 2) There is better ways to extend the conversation instead of inviting to my 'bedroom'. 3) No or other excuses means no, thanks and farewell. 4) conferences are professional places, no place for flirting (they invented bars for that). 5) Ring on the finger? SHE is NOT interested. Somehow some men think that if the woman is NOT interested she has be 'wrong' or deserve more 'strong' signals. I support more woman at the conferences and I wish more woman take some stand at this cases and say it loud: 'TAKE OUT YOUR FILTHY HANDS from me' Saying that loud will teach a great lesson and avoid some posts. The main problem is not sexism is lack of politeness and manners.

blablabla123 14y ago
I think the point is more this: everything is optimized for men, it's like a self-amplifying loop. Sure the things you mention are also a problem, but women face that everywhere.
eightpersimmons 14y ago
Lack of manners and as..ole men are enabled by a sexist environment. These are symptoms of an underlying problem. Women don't feel safe in these environments because of the behavior of a relatively small number of individuals, but these individuals are enabled by a system problem in which their behavior is rationalized and ignored as just s social faux pas.
- coldtea 14y ago
  >Women don't feel safe in these environments Women don't feel safe in tech conferences? Like it's south central Los Angeles or something? I've attended several tech conferences, with women colleagues and friend, and I've not seen all this hoopla people constantly bring up on HN. Heck, those things don't even happen on Linux and OSS conferences, much less in business tech meetings. Groping a woman? WTF have you witnessed that? I don't know, maybe it's that conferences in Europe are different.
  - steveklabnik 14y ago
    http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents
    - coldtea 14y ago
      Not much pertaining to Europe (if anything), plus a lot of unrelated incidents among the list. I mean, how does this qualify: "An offensive tweet was made against the PyLadies group at EuroPython 2012. Lynn Root (a keynote speaker and founder of PyLadies) blogged twice about the incident." Really? One can find thousand of offensive tweets for anything, from your choice of programming editor, to Mac vs PC, to politics, to Twilight, to Coke Light vs Zero. And an "offensive tweet" somehow deserves to be in a list about "sexist incidents"? Other stuff is nearly as lame. Judging from the above list, and compared to, e.g. the fashion or the journalism industry, the tech industry seems comparatively sexism free.
npfmn 14y ago
Why is it the responsibility of women to take the stand? Isn't it the responsibility of the people making unprofessional advances to stop and silent bystanders to tell them so? Why is a professional conference ever even thought of as a venue for making advances? I don't understand why you think this is not sexism.
- lmm 14y ago
  As a bystander who becomes aware of such behaviour of course it's your responsibility to get involved. But if we're talking, as the article does, about a woman and one man alone in an elevator, and that man happens to be an asshole, what can the rest of us realistically do to prevent this happening?
  - npfmn 14y ago
    As the article says: "Be better about putting guidelines in place to show zero tolerance for harassment or inappropriate behavior. Train your staff to be on the lookout and how to handle situations. Respect female attendees by not letting booth babes walk the expo floor and not hanging women from your ceiling and calling it entertainment." It's about creating a positive environment. Of course there will be isolated incidents, but can we really resign ourselves to doing nothing?
- chc 14y ago
  > Isn't it the responsibility of the people making unprofessional advances to stop Well, yes, but if your plan to stop sexism is something along the lines of "Wait for jerks to suddenly become good people," you're doing a disservice to their victims. > and silent bystanders to tell them so I don't feel like it is my business to step in and speak for a woman who has not implicitly or explicitly asked me to do so. That seems like a really degrading viewpoint. If she clearly wants the guy to go away and he won't, yes, go up and help her. But the idea that it's my job to run around policing women's sexuality is just antediluvian.
  - npfmn 14y ago
    I don't see why it's degrading for a victim to have someone else (publicly or privately) tell their agressor to stop.
autarch 14y ago
I agree with most of your points except for #4. There's nothing inherently wrong with flirting at a conference. Flirting is a very natural type of interaction for people, and asking people to not do it at all doesn't seem realistic. However, men should not assume that flirting means that a woman is inviting you to touch her or sleep with her. In fact, she may not even be flirting. Men often misinterpret simple friendliness as sexual interest. Be conservative in what you say and do. At a professional event, it is far better to miss an opportunity for a casual hook up than to be aggressive and make the conference an unwelcoming place for women.
- npfmn 14y ago
  If women say there is something wrong with flirting at a conference, then there is something wrong with it. It's a professional event. Why is a professional event even seen as "an opportunity for a casual hook up"? To say that flirting is "natural" is quite a claim; while it might be prevalent in our culture, that doesn't mean it's natural.
  - autarch 14y ago
    At the last programming conference I attended, I saw a man and woman holding hands. These two people had not, to the best of my knowledge, met before the conference. I don't know how far this relationship went (not that it's my business), but it was clearly mutual, and it started at the conference. Conferences are both professional and social. In fact, it's hard to think of anything that is purely professional. People form short- and long-term relationships through all sorts of initial meetings. I don't see any women saying "all flirting all is wrong at a conference". I see them saying they don't want to be harassed. The two things are not the same. I've talked to women at length about these issues and I've championed the adoption of strong anti-harassment policies at conferences I speak at (http://blog.urth.org/2011/09/05/conference-code-of-conduct-considered-crucial/ http://blog.urth.org/2011/09/05/conference-code-of-conduct-c...). Maybe we just have different definitions of flirting. To get back to the original article, the Twitter exchange that it highlights is not flirting. It's just a man being an asshole. I also note that the article makes no mention of the word "flirt". It talks about "harassment", "groping", and "sexism".
dsr_ 14y ago
Your primary problem is when you think of "women in tech" as being "sexually interesting people in tech" instead of "people in tech". All the rest follows from that. When you meet somebody at a professional conference, ignore their gender and treat them the way you would want to be treated. Also, a nice person who is rude to the waiter (or barista, or retail clerk, or...) is not a nice person.

papermashea 14y ago

I have had the misfortune of seeing how very deep this sexism goes- it's not just sexual harassment that's an issue (though I will say, it's the most pressing), but also the prejudices women meet in the tech world. It's as if there are two major discussions about women's roles in tech: women are either assumed to be underqualified or over glamorized. Get more women into tech, and then get over having them there.

coldtea 14y ago
>it's not just sexual harassment that's an issue How does discern sexual harassment (between adults with no business ties between them) from flirting? I ask because I've also seen flirting remakers being conceived as "harassement". That "the place was not appropriate" or "it was uncalled for" is not a proper answer I think. There would be VERY FEW relationships and/or marriages if people never approached other people out of the blue and in non-appropriate places (in a conference for example).
- steveklabnik 14y ago
  It's pretty simple: if you're not sure, don't do it.
  - coldtea 14y ago
    Really? That's quite a naive view. Are people (men/women/gay) ever SURE about when to flirt with another person? By this logic, half of the population would have never been born (which might have been a good thing, with respect to overpopulation and all, but that's a different argument).
    - steveklabnik 14y ago
      What you're saying is, "I am willing to possibly sexually assault someone in order to get a date." You're a bad person.
      - 14y ago

gosukiwi 14y ago

This post again?

benparsons 14y ago
This post until the problem is at least acknowledged, let alone addressed. Took me a long time to realise the problem was real ("it's a meritocracy, everyone is welcome in tech!"), and now I can't stand to look at the comments in threads like this http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5279118 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5279118 without cringing.
lisabarone 14y ago
Yes. Really. It's still happening.
MichelleRobbins 14y ago
When it stops being a problem, it will stop being topical.
- oh_sigh 14y ago
  Can you name an industry(at least as broad as "tech" field) which has no sexual harassment lawsuits, or exceptionally few? You can tell stories like the one in the blog about any field. Tech is not special. If there is going to be change, it will have to come from society at large, and not by fiddling with the dials of a specific field.
  - MichelleRobbins 14y ago
    You are absolutely correct. It's everywhere, in every industry. Tech is not special. But it is our field, our community, and it is incumbent upon us to change our own community. So you propose sitting on our hands and waiting for some magical shift in society at large? No thanks. And that's not how change happens. We can effect change in our own communities - and if enough communities make change you'll see ripples through society and eventually society at large may change. You have to start somewhere.

danso 14y ago

I'm disappointed that this post focuses on an incident of groping. Not because the incident is "not a big deal" or that it's isolated, but because it's the type of incident that nearly everyone can agree is beyond the pale and should never be tolerated by society. Even sexists. I think the more prevalent problem is the underlying sexism, the institutional bias, the reluctance to speak up, the fear of being judged "the token" -- the fact that a man can think it's appropriate to put his hand on a woman's knee unsolicited is just a blatant, ugly manifestation of the underlying sexism. I know this post had a little more nuance, but it's hard to come away from it without the impression of: "Women aren't on speaker panels because they're afraid of getting molested". Maybe that's the case (and if so, we as a society have serious issues)...but there's at least an equal problem of women just not being considered or being searched for. And as that problem persists, then women continue to become such a minority at these conferences that the aforementioned creep feels perfectly comfortable with invading a woman's personal space.

lisabarone 14y ago
I think it's all connected. There are many reasons you don't see women speaking at tech conferences. Some is because they're passed over as non-members of the boys club. Some is because they don't want to attend and be part of the environment. I've had far worse things happen to be at tech shows - there's one I avoid altogether after being sexually assaulted in a hotel room - but like you said, there's a reason women don't feel comfortable talking about. i don't want to be the "token" harassment case. I don't want to become known for that above anything else I may do. So do I speak up or do I shut up. That's just as large of an issue as how do I get that creep from putting his hand on knee. Arguably, it's bigger.
- danso 14y ago
  Undoubtedly it's all connected in a feedback loop. I guess what I'm simply saying is that the problem of unwanted touching "can be solved" (or at least, ostracized into obscurity), and yet the underlying sexism can persist -- and, in one sense, be affirmed ("Hey I'm can't be a sexist, I never would just touch a random woman) -- and cause the same negative impact: the lack of women participation in conferences and in the tech field (or rather, society in general)

jrogers65 14y ago

In any industry dominated by a given gender, there is prejudice against the opposite gender. People fear what they do not know. http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/rss/1056170/New-calls-end-discrimination-against-male-childcarers/ http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/rss/1056170/New-calls-end...

jroseattle 14y ago

The characterization of this as an industry issue is a red herring. This is a societal issue; the fact we're in the tech industry is simply a commonality.

RyanMcGreal 14y ago
It's considerably worse - both more prevalent and less acknowledged - in the tech industry than elsewhere.
- jroseattle 14y ago
  I would expect you have some data that substantiates that assertion?
npfmn 14y ago
It's not a red herring, it's a place to start.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

Hairy_Sandwich 14y ago

There is nothing in the article (IMO) that is unique to the tech sector. These complaints could be made of men in general anywhere in any industry or context. Some guy can put a hand on your knee at the home show too, but not a lot of men go to those events (I assume, I wouldn't know since I don't go to them either). However, there will always be a set of socially retarded people, there will always be horny people, and there will always be people who posses both attributes at the same time. There are a lot of socially awkward people in tech, I don't know what you can do about this problem. If you have an attractive physique as a woman, and you wear clothes that don't hide or minimize this fact, then men will notice, and some will comment on it, and some will even be inappropriate about it. As a remedy the women should get mad, she should tell them off. However you could even make inappropriate comments punishable by DEATH. I guarantee that not even the death penalty will stop inappropriate comments, or some guy putting a hand on your knee type of stuff. Even if the women wore a burqua, that wouldn't stop it, some guy would find that hot, "hey baby, what's under the burqua?". I don't have the answer, I don't think there is an answer. Possibly when these issues occur the women are reacting politely when they should react angrily so the offender gets the correct feedback often enough to realize that he is the problem.

npfmn 14y ago
"they should react angrily" That might be part of the solution, but isn't it important for us to make a proactive effort to do whatever we can to encourage a professional, non-sexist environment? You say there will always be horny people, but isn't it our place to make this a taboo? None of this may be unique to the tech sector, but aren't we a forward-looking industry that isn't afraid of changing the world?
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jasonshen 14y ago
Your suggestion that "there will always be socially restarted people" perpetuates the idea that things can't improve. Violent crime and overt prejudice to minorities and LGBT folks have gone down over time because it became a big deal. What we just said "there will always be bigots" and then stopped caring, that progress never would have happened. Change is possible and we should strive to make it happen.

oh_sigh 14y ago

I have a hypothesis: When women are represented close to 50% in the military, there will be none of this so-called sexism in other, unrelated sectors

oh_sigh 14y ago

Lechers exist in all fields, even in fields where it is agreed upon by everyone that sexism does not exist, or is at least at some level lower than general sexism in society as a whole. Feel free to call them out, but don't impugn the insanely broad field of "tech" because of some creeps.

stevenameyer 14y ago

The number of comments on this thread stating sexism exists in all areas and seemly dismiss this as an issue that needs to be addressed in our industry is very surprising to me. Just because the problem is not specific to the tech industry doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to solve it. If women feel uncomfortable working or contributing to the industry because of their gender then we are missing out on possible contributions from a massive section of the population. Will cases of sexism always exist? Probably, their will always be a bad apple or two. But we need to work to make these these cases the exception to how the industry works. We need people to feel safe contributing regardless of who they are. If you have something to contribute you should be able to, that is one of the things I personally love about this industry. Just because we can never fully solve a problem doesn't mean we shouldn't try to minimize it.

onemorepassword 14y ago
It's not that it shouldn't be addressed in our industry, but it shouldn't be addressed as "sexism in tech", because that is an entirely separate issue. The kind of sexism that is described here occurs just as much in industries that are 50% women. It's not the cause of the under-representation of women in tech, and addressing it is unlikely to solve that issue. On the one hand, the industry should make an additional effort to address the general social sexism on order to not further alienate women, but the suggestion that tech is more sexist than other areas is blatantly false, and leads to a automatic defensive response because it suggests a certain causality. It is simply not very constructive to conflate the two issues, no matter how closely related they are. Sexism in general is too sensitive an issue for that, and not just for women.

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