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Being a software engineer means whatever you choose for it to mean to you. Sorry to hear your choice of analogy. Not my choice for sure. I'm not going to try t

by edw519 14y ago

Being a software engineer means whatever you choose for it to mean to you. Sorry to hear your choice of analogy. Not my choice for sure. I'm not going to try to compare my pain with your pain or anyone else's; I just want to say that I've been shit on by almost everyone important in my life from the earliest age. But I found refuge in building software. It became my escape from all the other pain. I found a way to tune out all of that and focus on only 2 things: my customers and the tools they needed. And I found a great equalizer. Not because I had anything to prove, but because I found a natural solution: build what the customer needs and nothing much else matters. Don't build what they need: same thing. Forget about the conferences (you don't really need them anyway). Forget about Facebook, twitter, Hacker News, reddit, etc., etc., etc. They're definitely more of a distraction than a help. Learn how to separate issues from details (it's amazing how little really matters). Try to tune out the negativity. I know it's hard, but just think of it as "systems analysis applied to people". Once you focus on what's really important to your customer, block out the distractions, and build what they need, all the bullshit will fade into the background. Please don't allow your aversion to the negativity of others overwhelm your love of building software. Let the love defeat the hate. I did and I know you can too. Best wishes and please keep us posted.

rmrfrmrf 14y ago
From the Geek Feminism Wiki: Clawed my way up is an excuse for sexism used in some geek discussions: "I clawed my way up all on my own, why can't you?" Essentially, this argument is a denial of the effect of privilege on success. The person making it argues either that: they, despite being oppressed in some way (often but not always experiencing poverty in childhood), are now very successful, and anyone who isn't is lazy they, despite being oppressed in some way, never took advantage of any scheme designed to ameliorate oppression (such as scholarships targeted at certain groups) there is no such thing as institutional privilege, there's just people who work hard and whining people who don't that natural selection operates at the level of success in society, and by attempting to ameliorate oppression, society is in fact doing itself harm There are various problems with these arguments: oppressions don't map perfectly to each other: someone who experienced, say, poverty can't map their experience onto someone who isn't white or is a woman, etc (see Oppression Olympics) the experience of people with intersecting oppressions is generally discounted it is unlikely in the extreme that the person speaking did not in some way benefit from privilege: for example, access to enough resources for the child to have a computer (perhaps a cheap secondhand one, but nevertheless), access to a library and time to read any books borrowed from the library, household members who did chores while the person speaking studied, etc. it is at least unlikely that the person did not in some way benefit from schemes designed to ameliorate oppression, examples include but aren't limited to: free or cheap public schooling and free or cheap healthcare.
- sneak 14y ago
  > I'm not going to try to compare my pain with your pain or anyone else's;
  - zasz 14y ago
    He goes on to do just that, though. His comment is claiming that because he was able to tune out his problems, he just knows that whatever she's going through, she can too.
- hacker789 14y ago
  You're responding to a point he isn't making. He's not claiming that one's circumstances don't contribute to one's success; obviously, we're all "privileged" to be living in the first world in the 21st century. You took this opportunity to dismiss his personal experiences, and bizarrely, you implied that one's insight regarding a situation is entirely unwelcome without having personally experienced that exact same situation. If that's the case, take your own advice and leave him alone. You're poisoning this discussion. Just stop.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - wpietri 14y ago
    The difference being where the discussion started. When a discussion starts with the experience of sexism, then a post that basically says, "well my life as a guy was also hard" derails the discussion. Your criticism would be valid if this were a discussion that had started with Ed's personal experiences. It didn't.
    - triplesec 14y ago
      Do you know this guy? Perhaps there other other unprivileged issues he has had to deal with by being a member of one or more of those groups.
  - triplesec 14y ago
zasz 14y ago
I think she would find it more encouraging if you said something like, "damn, sexism sucks," rather than, "I struggled with a difficult life and made it, and you can too." I know you want to be encouraging, but ignoring the greater gender issues she was bringing up makes it seem like you're missing the point. I'm sure she is capable of getting encouragement from her friends, but publicizing sexism in the tech industry is for, well, the public, which includes men like you.
- nhangen 14y ago
  But he's right, and this isn't sexism...and God I'm so tired of hearing about sexism in tech...this is life. If you are different, people probably won't understand and will react negatively towards it. My wife isn't a math and science person, and she does not have the aptitude to be a programmer. Does that make me a sexist? Does that mean that all women are just like her? The answer is no, it doesn't. People focus on what they want to hear in order to validate their opinions. Who among us that is ambitious hasn't grown up with the pain that is going against the grain? It sucks to be different, but that's the way it goes. Edit: Here is an example of what I mean. "For those of us who aren’t, it’s a regular signal that we’re not considered, that maybe we don’t belong." Absolutely not true. It's just a speaker trying to build rapport with their audience by talking about something they understand. "The heavy drinking makes some of us feel unsafe." So only guys drink heavy? First of all, if you don't want to watch heavy drinking, don't go to an after party at a bar? Second, I've seen just as many wasted females as males at conference parties. "A paper cut for every conference." I've been to maybe a dozen conferences in the past 2-3 years and I haven't seen any of this. Maybe I've missed it, or I'm not looking, who knows.
  - tghw 14y ago
    The problem is when it gets institutionalized. What's more likely, that your wife just happens to be someone who's not good at math and science, or someone who didn't receive enough encouragement to think she could do well in those subjects? Honestly, I have no idea, since I have no idea who your wife is. But the question cannot be dismissed outright. Studies that find things such as "Women perform better in math when tested without men"[1] are an indication that something is very wrong at a very fundamental level. [1] http://brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/2000-01/00-023.html http://brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/2000-01/00-023.h...
slewis 14y ago
The blind-upvoting of celebrities on HN is sometimes appalling. This comment totally sidesteps the point of the article. OP is not asking for advice. You are not being helpful here. She clearly points out "That no matter how tough I get, how thick my skin, the paper cuts still hurt." So telling her to get thicker skin really just adds one more papercut to the pile (and the rest of this thread will heap on a few more). OP your post is well done and paints a clear picture. Hopefully you and others like you will continue to inspire folks to change.
- hacker789 14y ago
  He is allowed to share his life experiences and offer his advice to the readers of an online discussion forum, even if the author of the article linked at the top of the thread didn't solicit personal advice. He doesn't need anyone's permission. Women aren't fragile creatures who need constant protecting. The author of the article is not your personal damsel in distress. She is a human who feels she has faced challenges. So is edw519.
  - rmrfrmrf 14y ago
    He's using his life experiences to explain how "if I can pull myself up by the bootstraps, you can too." He's essentially denying her experience, and he even implies that the two of them have had the exact same experiences in tech when he says that death by 1000 cuts wouldn't be his choice of analogy.
    - mech4bg 14y ago
      I don't think he's denying her experience. I read it as advice on how to deal with how things currently are. The problem is change in the industry takes time, and so without changing how she personally deals with things currently, she is going to continue to be unhappy. Obviously this is a bad situation and we need to make things better in our industry, but arcing up at people trying to help other people cope with current conditions is hardly helpful.
      - 14y ago
sequoia 14y ago
> Try to tune out the negativity. I know it's hard, but just think of it as "systems analysis applied to people". Hahaha... this is a joke, right? This reads like a caricature of someone being patronizing. In case it's not a joke, let me be plain: you are being ridiculously patronizing. "I know it's hard, but..."? This is the way you speak to a child. "Try to tune out..." Do you honestly think OP doesn't do this on a daily basis; that she hasn't been doing this for years? This is not a rhetorical question, I'm truly interested in whether you think that "tuning out negatvity" is a new, novel concept that never occurred to OP. Ed: please take a moment to consider the tone of your post next time you are posting.
rmc 14y ago
Forget about the conferences (you don't really need them anyway). Forget about Facebook, twitter, Hacker News, reddit, etc., etc., etc. They're definitely more of a distraction than a help. Learn how to separate issues from details (it's amazing how little really matters). Try to tune out the negativity Now imagine that was on a techie job advert, or it was said to you during an interview. What would us hackers say?

by edw519 14y ago

rmrfrmrf 14y ago

From the Geek Feminism Wiki: Clawed my way up is an excuse for sexism used in some geek discussions: "I clawed my way up all on my own, why can't you?" Essentially, this argument is a denial of the effect of privilege on success. The person making it argues either that: they, despite being oppressed in some way (often but not always experiencing poverty in childhood), are now very successful, and anyone who isn't is lazy they, despite being oppressed in some way, never took advantage of any scheme designed to ameliorate oppression (such as scholarships targeted at certain groups) there is no such thing as institutional privilege, there's just people who work hard and whining people who don't that natural selection operates at the level of success in society, and by attempting to ameliorate oppression, society is in fact doing itself harm There are various problems with these arguments: oppressions don't map perfectly to each other: someone who experienced, say, poverty can't map their experience onto someone who isn't white or is a woman, etc (see Oppression Olympics) the experience of people with intersecting oppressions is generally discounted it is unlikely in the extreme that the person speaking did not in some way benefit from privilege: for example, access to enough resources for the child to have a computer (perhaps a cheap secondhand one, but nevertheless), access to a library and time to read any books borrowed from the library, household members who did chores while the person speaking studied, etc. it is at least unlikely that the person did not in some way benefit from schemes designed to ameliorate oppression, examples include but aren't limited to: free or cheap public schooling and free or cheap healthcare.

sneak 14y ago
> I'm not going to try to compare my pain with your pain or anyone else's;
- zasz 14y ago
  He goes on to do just that, though. His comment is claiming that because he was able to tune out his problems, he just knows that whatever she's going through, she can too.
hacker789 14y ago
You're responding to a point he isn't making. He's not claiming that one's circumstances don't contribute to one's success; obviously, we're all "privileged" to be living in the first world in the 21st century. You took this opportunity to dismiss his personal experiences, and bizarrely, you implied that one's insight regarding a situation is entirely unwelcome without having personally experienced that exact same situation. If that's the case, take your own advice and leave him alone. You're poisoning this discussion. Just stop.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- wpietri 14y ago
  The difference being where the discussion started. When a discussion starts with the experience of sexism, then a post that basically says, "well my life as a guy was also hard" derails the discussion. Your criticism would be valid if this were a discussion that had started with Ed's personal experiences. It didn't.
  - triplesec 14y ago
    Do you know this guy? Perhaps there other other unprivileged issues he has had to deal with by being a member of one or more of those groups.
- triplesec 14y ago

zasz 14y ago

I think she would find it more encouraging if you said something like, "damn, sexism sucks," rather than, "I struggled with a difficult life and made it, and you can too." I know you want to be encouraging, but ignoring the greater gender issues she was bringing up makes it seem like you're missing the point. I'm sure she is capable of getting encouragement from her friends, but publicizing sexism in the tech industry is for, well, the public, which includes men like you.

nhangen 14y ago
But he's right, and this isn't sexism...and God I'm so tired of hearing about sexism in tech...this is life. If you are different, people probably won't understand and will react negatively towards it. My wife isn't a math and science person, and she does not have the aptitude to be a programmer. Does that make me a sexist? Does that mean that all women are just like her? The answer is no, it doesn't. People focus on what they want to hear in order to validate their opinions. Who among us that is ambitious hasn't grown up with the pain that is going against the grain? It sucks to be different, but that's the way it goes. Edit: Here is an example of what I mean. "For those of us who aren’t, it’s a regular signal that we’re not considered, that maybe we don’t belong." Absolutely not true. It's just a speaker trying to build rapport with their audience by talking about something they understand. "The heavy drinking makes some of us feel unsafe." So only guys drink heavy? First of all, if you don't want to watch heavy drinking, don't go to an after party at a bar? Second, I've seen just as many wasted females as males at conference parties. "A paper cut for every conference." I've been to maybe a dozen conferences in the past 2-3 years and I haven't seen any of this. Maybe I've missed it, or I'm not looking, who knows.
- tghw 14y ago
  The problem is when it gets institutionalized. What's more likely, that your wife just happens to be someone who's not good at math and science, or someone who didn't receive enough encouragement to think she could do well in those subjects? Honestly, I have no idea, since I have no idea who your wife is. But the question cannot be dismissed outright. Studies that find things such as "Women perform better in math when tested without men"[1] are an indication that something is very wrong at a very fundamental level. [1] http://brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/2000-01/00-023.html http://brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/2000-01/00-023.h...

slewis 14y ago

The blind-upvoting of celebrities on HN is sometimes appalling. This comment totally sidesteps the point of the article. OP is not asking for advice. You are not being helpful here. She clearly points out "That no matter how tough I get, how thick my skin, the paper cuts still hurt." So telling her to get thicker skin really just adds one more papercut to the pile (and the rest of this thread will heap on a few more). OP your post is well done and paints a clear picture. Hopefully you and others like you will continue to inspire folks to change.

hacker789 14y ago
He is allowed to share his life experiences and offer his advice to the readers of an online discussion forum, even if the author of the article linked at the top of the thread didn't solicit personal advice. He doesn't need anyone's permission. Women aren't fragile creatures who need constant protecting. The author of the article is not your personal damsel in distress. She is a human who feels she has faced challenges. So is edw519.
- rmrfrmrf 14y ago
  He's using his life experiences to explain how "if I can pull myself up by the bootstraps, you can too." He's essentially denying her experience, and he even implies that the two of them have had the exact same experiences in tech when he says that death by 1000 cuts wouldn't be his choice of analogy.
  - mech4bg 14y ago
    I don't think he's denying her experience. I read it as advice on how to deal with how things currently are. The problem is change in the industry takes time, and so without changing how she personally deals with things currently, she is going to continue to be unhappy. Obviously this is a bad situation and we need to make things better in our industry, but arcing up at people trying to help other people cope with current conditions is hardly helpful.
    - 14y ago

sequoia 14y ago

> Try to tune out the negativity. I know it's hard, but just think of it as "systems analysis applied to people". Hahaha... this is a joke, right? This reads like a caricature of someone being patronizing. In case it's not a joke, let me be plain: you are being ridiculously patronizing. "I know it's hard, but..."? This is the way you speak to a child. "Try to tune out..." Do you honestly think OP doesn't do this on a daily basis; that she hasn't been doing this for years? This is not a rhetorical question, I'm truly interested in whether you think that "tuning out negatvity" is a new, novel concept that never occurred to OP. Ed: please take a moment to consider the tone of your post next time you are posting.

rmc 14y ago

Forget about the conferences (you don't really need them anyway). Forget about Facebook, twitter, Hacker News, reddit, etc., etc., etc. They're definitely more of a distraction than a help. Learn how to separate issues from details (it's amazing how little really matters). Try to tune out the negativity Now imagine that was on a techie job advert, or it was said to you during an interview. What would us hackers say?