8 ms·

“Why do women try to get ahead by pulling men down?”

51 points by bconway 13y ago

rayiner 13y ago
This is a really great set of analogies that pokes holes in a lot of arguments you often see. There is another one I'd like to add that's very relevant for tech: women come into the lobby of the engineering school building, see the pack of men on the up escalator, see the room full of men who have already made it, and head straight back out the door and over to the med school or law school building, where they don't have to deal with the headwinds that come from being a minority. A lot of the women who see the situation and leave are the most talented and ambitious, because lets face it: if you're gunning for the top, isn't it rational to give yourself the best possible shot by choosing a field where you won't have the challenge of fitting into a male-dominated culture in addition to all the challenges you'll already have?
- elchief 13y ago
  But medicine and law used to be male dominated.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Yes, in the middle of the 20th century almost no doctors or lawyers were women (just a few %). The change in the status quo did not happen by magic. The respective professions made a concerted effort to address the historical disparity, and did so simply by hiring/admitting more women. Eventually, the fields stopped being so blatantly male dominated and the new ratios were "sticky." Today, law schools and med schools don't have to consciously try to hire women--their pool of qualified applicants just breaks down evenly. But tech is too idealistic/libertarian to do something like that. They'll continue to complain and be criticized for the representation of women in the field, even though at this point I think it mostly comes down to a self-perpetuating equilibrium: women self-select out of the field simply because their representation is low in the field and very few people want to bring upon themselves the challenges of being a minority.
    - wpietri 13y ago
      To be fair to people in tech, I think the field also selects for people who are less socially aware. For example, I got all my early programming experience because hiding out in my dad's basement soaking up the glow of green phosphor was infinitely more pleasant than dealing with high-school society. Not because that was beneath me, although that's what I surely told myself at the time, but because I was terrible at it. It took me years to catch up with my peer group as far as social skills went. Until then, I literally could not perceive a lot of the subtle interactions that demonstrate (and perpetuate) this problem. I think that's where a lot of the field is. And, in some sense, where they want to be. It's really uncomfortable recognizing that some of what you thought was personal achievement is due to shit that shouldn't matter. It was for me, anyhow. And is, really; it's an ongoing process.
- angersock 13y ago
  " if you're gunning for the top, isn't it rational to give yourself the best possible shot by choosing a field where you won't have the challenge of fitting into a male-dominated culture in addition to all the challenges you'll already have?" But you won't end up in the top, right? You'll end up somewhat high in a different spot--which is fine, but then you can't complain about not getting the top spot having voluntarily given up the chance to pursue it.
  - wpietri 13y ago
    "Top" here is relative to one's profession. And I don't understand why one gives up the right to complain about a rigged game simply because one declines to play the game. For example, I know people who won't work at Google because they think the promotions system there is a terrible one. They can still complain about it, even though they chose to work elsewhere, because it's something that's keeping them from working at Google.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    I think a lot of ambitious people would rather get the top spot in medicine than hit a glass ceiling in engineering.
    - angersock 13y ago
      Which is a shame, because effort spent in medicine doesn't scale.
      - harryh 13y ago
        Tell that to Jonas Salk.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        True, but the risk weighted return is quite good, at least for now. You won't make a billion dollars as a doctor, but your odds of pulling in $350k/year for 40 years is probably better than your odds of a $3-5m exit (two outcomes with similar present values), at least if you have the personality of a typical doctor.
- Zuider 13y ago
  >if you're gunning for the top, isn't it rational to give yourself the best possible shot by choosing a field where >you won't have the challenge of fitting into a male-dominated culture in addition to all the challenges you'll already have? No. If you are ambitious and confident in your abilities you will take on any challenges on the way to your goal, not take the easy way out by avoiding competition. That is what successful people (including successful women) actually do.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    It's not a matter of "taking the easy way out." It's a matter of strategically setting yourself up for success. If you're an entrepreneur, do you start a Facebook competitor or a company targeting an underserved B2B niche? Smart people don't sabotage themselves by taking on additional challenges without some compensating upside.
    - Zuider 13y ago
      > If you're an entrepreneur, do you start a Facebook competitor or a company targeting an underserved B2B niche? You go where the money is. That is also where the competition is. There is also the high risk, but potentially lucrative option of creating a new market where none existed before. Or you can play it safe. Lower risk, lower reward.
oconnore 13y ago
I was hoping that they would complete the analogy. I was unable to make these connections: (please fill in!) 1. What is the reason the women's escalator goes down? 2. What is the reason only men can ride the up escalator? 3. What is the elevator? 4. Why not just make everyone take the elevator? Why have a restricted running arrangement at all? Why not just have organized one-at-a-time races on a 100m track with a photo finish setup?
- typicalbender 13y ago
  I had the same questions after reading the article. While I feel this helps paint a pretty picture of what's going on it doesn't seem to even attempt to answer the more important question of why its happening? For example, are the people at the top controlling the direction of the escalators or is it just because it's always been a male dominated industry and has strong momentum in that direction? For example the simple fact that the industry is currently male dominant could be a factor in determining the direction of the escalator. Simply being a majority male may be off-putting to women trying to enter the tech industry, however i'm not sure if/how you would go about fairly solving that. I'm also curious about how this problem relates to other sciences, for example did/do chemistry or physics have/had the same problem at some point and how did they overcome it if they did.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- tghw 13y ago
  And why are the number of spots in the room limited? From what I can tell, most software companies are having trouble finding good developers.
  - venomsnake 13y ago
    Most software companies in silicone valley. There are parts of the world that are not California and in which the hunger for talent is less severe. Companies don't have problem hiring - if they had they would have just hire people directly in other countries without all the H1B quotas bullshit. There is nothing you cannot do remotely by VPN and some collaborative tools. I have worked 6 years with half my team in Moscow. It worked wonders. When we had heated discussions we just closed skype instead of beating each other if we were in the same room. They have problem hiring local talent to warm the chairs.
login1234 13y ago
> mostly white stopped reading there
- sbjustin 13y ago
  yeah... I'm not sure how this added to the article...
  - tghw 13y ago
    Perhaps the author was using it as a demonstration of how easy it is to overlook the direction of your own escalator, being that she certainly has an advantage over some minorities because of her ethnicity.
    - sbjustin 13y ago
      The article is about the difficultly of breaking in the tech industry as a woman vs a man. I'm not sure how the mention of 'white men' adds to this argument.
  - mdisraeli 13y ago
    Because intersectionality[1] is something that needs to be acknowledged. Given the target audience, the proper paragraph about the flaws of the model and how it doesn't address intersectional issues probably wouldn't have gone down well. This small comment, however, ensured that at least some mention was made. [1] Intersectionality is the idea that different combinations of minority issues will have their own, often unique, challenges. In the video games difficulty setting analogy, think of intersectionality being the advanced mode with lots of little sliders for different things, rather than one scale of easy to hard.
- MDCore 13y ago
  Tech is VERY white. Take a look around during the next conference you visit. If you want something more objective, this US-centric chart seems to be a good example: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm
sbjustin 13y ago
First let me start by saying that I believe my wife can do absolutely anything she sets her mind to accomplishing. She has her masters degree while I do not even have a bachelors. However, these articles ignore the obvious difference between men and women. I (a guy) am interested in cars, computer games(FPS), working out, running, playing sports etc. My wife on the other hand is absolutely interested in all of those at a different level than I an interested in other things that I do not particularly enjoy like horseback riding. When I say she's interested in cars, she's interested in having a nice corvette, while I'm interested in working on a nice corvette. She likes working out, to be fit - I like working out to get stronger and more 'manly'. She loves to play sports because they're fun - I like to crush the other team. I bring these things up because there are inherent differences between men and women that people seem to forget. It's not just nurture, but it's nature too. We are physically, mentally and emotionally different (not in all cases, but many). I would love to see more women in the tech industry (I'm trying to get my wife involved). However, there will always be a difference in our mentalities because of our gender and these cannot be ignored so easily.
- tghw 13y ago
  I'm with you until you get to nature vs. nurture. Societal norms are so ingrained in early childhood education that it's extremely difficult to discern one from the other. So, while we currently have different interests between the genders (speaking broadly), there's a good chance it's mostly nurture, which means that different attitudes early on could change that in the future.
  - sbjustin 13y ago
    Societal norms are so ingrained in early childhood education that it's extremely difficult to discern one from the other. -Agreed I think there is a possibility that nurture does play a lot into the equation (I played sports growing up, while my wife went to 'lady' classes). My point with the nature vs nurture (and i can't prove it, merely speculate) is that testosterone/estrogen levels in each gender should not be ignored.
  - cunac 13y ago
cunac 13y ago
all I got from article is implication that somehow women are less skilled (slower in article) otherwise they would be on up escalator as well? I certainly don't agree with that implication.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  If you are a white male you have built in nitro in your car while driving the streets of life. The women are as skilled but you just got the edge. You won't be dismissed after and interview with "girls cannot use oscilloscope". It will be more like my first interview "Self thought C programmer at age 16 - you are hired, don't know what EEPROM is - no worries kid - we will teach you"
  - cunac 13y ago
    I understand that lots of people discriminates by gender,age,you name it and I don't agree with that. Where I am coming from population was (at time of my childhood) 98% white so no advantage being white :-) My high school year had 6 girls and over 200 boy because it was technical school and girls didn't choose to attend , other high schools (medical for example) would have reverse ratio and some would actually be close to 50:50 split. That would later translate in similar ratios at university. I wouldn't dare to say that technical aptitude is ingrained in male population but sure sometimes seems like that.
- munificent 13y ago
  No, the author explicitly states that the escalator is separated by gender specifically, not by speed: > The escalator moving up is full of men. There is no room for women on this escalator. The implication is that the men and women in the analogy both have the same average speed on their own. The men, purely by virtue of being male, then get a positive bonus applied to their speed by the up escalator. The woman get a negative speed penalty from the down escalator. If you want it in pseudo-code: human_speed = rand(min, max) male_bonus = some_positive_number female_bonus = some_negative_number male_speed = human_speed + male_bonus female_speed = human_speed + female_bonus The point of the article is to refute all of the arguments made that presume a simpler model than the above.
dbecker 13y ago
A lot of men (and sometimes women) ... [say] “So you’re saying that in order for women to get ahead, they have to pull men down?! That’s not fair!” I have never heard anyone say anything like this quote. Maybe I'm in an unusual workplaces, or I haven't been listening closely enough. Does this resemble a real statement in the gender inequality dialog?
- eridius 13y ago
  It seems to me to be a paraphrasing of all the complaints against affirmative action.
- king_jester 13y ago
  This is indeed a thing people say. Most of the time I hear this in someone saying outright that feminists are man haters or wish to see men suffer. More subtly, someone will usually complain that we have to treat men and woman equally while completely ignoring any kind of ongoing injustice that women may be dealing with (this goes for a wide variety of discussions).
  - dbecker 13y ago
    I'd agree that the claim "feminists wish to see men suffer" is equivalent to the above quote. I'm surprised to hear that this is a common sentiment in serious conversation. The claim "women and men should be treated equally", even with an ignorance of any ongoing injustices towards women, does not seem equivalent to the above quote. For example, the quote in question implies a zero-sum game, whereby advancing capable women inherently hurts men. This assumption is absent from "men and women should be treated equally."
- wpietri 13y ago
  I have definitely heard this. The loss of privilege feels like a loss. And having to do the work to make things more fair can feel like a burden.
venomsnake 13y ago
I have an anecdote to share - the university in which I was supposed to study CS before coming to my senses and realizing I know more than the tutors had strict 50/50 gender admission policy. The acceptance was based purely on exam results (only math). So that friend of mine (a girl) is ranked among the top - no surprises there. After she is accepted she decides she prefers to study electronics and according to rules the first girl that was left out gets the place. The problem is there are 18 with one and the same score - so they accept them all. What was curious was that the average acceptance score of the admitted girls was higher than for the boys. So the gender policy actually ended discriminating the girls - fewer were admitted than would have been if gender quotas were lifted. That was across the board in all engineering specialties and a few years in a row.
fatjokes 13y ago
That was a really tortured metaphor.
127001brewer 13y ago
Breadwinner in 40% of U.S. Families Is a Woman, Study Finds[1] [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/business/economy/women-as-family-breadwinner-on-the-rise-study-says.html?hp http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/business/economy/women-as-...
- king_jester 13y ago
  From the very article you provided: "Such marriages are still relatively rare, though, even if their share is growing. Of all married couples, 24 percent include a wife who earns more, versus 6.2 percent in 1960." "Demographically and socioeconomically, single mothers and married mothers are different from each others. The median family income for single mothers — who are disproportionately younger, black or Hispanic, and less educated — is $23,000. The median household income for married women who earn more than their husbands — more often white, slightly older and college-educated — is $80,000." I'm not really sure what point you were trying to make, but it sounds like sexism along with classism and racism still have an impact on women's lives.
raganwald 13y ago
I mostly like the article, but the author and I have a different perspective on a basic assumption that is taken as axiomatic in the third paragraph: Let’s say that all the jobs in tech are in a room on the second floor of a building. There are a limited number of people that can fit in that room. I don't personally believe there are a fixed number of spots. I believe that when you find a way to cram more people into the second floor, it expands. A company may seem like it is only hiring five engineers today, but companies that hire good people, grow. Companies operating in an environment where more people are working, can sell more of their products and services. Overall, more people being more productive expands the number of "spots on the second floor" for everyone. Thus, I do not consider this an issue of choosing which people make it up the escalator, but rather a problem in trying to grow the size of the building. When looked at it in terms of growing the size of the building, we arrive at a completely different view of how we should handle escalators and the purpose of getting people to the second floor.
- munificent 13y ago
  That seems orthogonal to me. Say I have a list and I'm taking some number of items off one end. I want to maximize the value of that chunk. A larger chunk is better, of course, but sorting the list so that bigger items are on one also helps. That's what the author is arguing: we're incorrectly ranking people because of a gender bias. Having a larger pool of poorly ranked people won't solve that.
  - raganwald 13y ago
    I don't follow what you're saying about a list, but if you're saying that either or both help, the key thing to remember is that it isn't a dichotomy. In the context of HN, what startup isn't trying to hire all the smart and capable people it can? If it comes down to two people, and there is a perception that A is better than B but both A and B are excellent candidates, a great company hires both.
    - munificent 13y ago
      Right, but by saying "comes down to two people" that implies you've already done some filtering: you've ordered the set of all possible people and then taken the first two. My point is that if the ordering relation is wrong (which is what the article suggests) then it doesn't matter what subset you take: you're still not getting the best possible set of people. You have to get the right people. If your ordering is off, being more inclusive lets in as many more bad candidates as it does good ones.
drharris 13y ago
This is a horrible analogy. It sounds really pretty at first glance, but the question is never addressed as to why that's the situation to begin with. In real life, everybody can equally use an escalator. Does the up escalator have a sign saying "Men only?" No. Are men pushing women down? No. What is preventing women from using the up escalator? Maybe the real question is why her analogous women are looking for elevators and going up the wrong escalator instead of just doing it the way everyone else is?
- king_jester 13y ago
  > Does the up escalator have a sign saying "Men only?" No. Are men pushing women down? No. In terms of the analogy, yes men are pushing women down and the escalator is men only, whether explicitly stated or implicitly understood. This analogy is overstretched though, a lot of the discrimination people face is institutional in nature.
  - drharris 13y ago
    From what I've seen, men who actually push women down get thrown off the escalator, so to speak. I don't think men are actually pushing women down. Crowding them out, maybe, but not pushing them down. Of course I'm not in SV, so who know what brogrammer stuff goes on there.
- john_b 13y ago
  The main problem with the analogy is that it presumes its own conclusions. This isn't usually a big problem for analogies since they're not supposed to be the core of an argument, but in this case the full post is one big analogy, so it doesn't really hold up.
rachelbythebay 13y ago
49 minutes old, and no longer on the front page. I can't find it in the first 200 submissions, even.
- raganwald 13y ago
  Ho hum... https://twitter.com/raganwald/status/339816065297174528 https://twitter.com/raganwald/status/339816065297174528
seferphier 13y ago
"It's important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy." - Elon Musk. the author should have stated the first principles that are fundamentally true and then state her hypothesis of the employment market and justify them. she makes far too much assumptions without justifying them.
portmanteaufu 13y ago
> 2. What is the reason only men can ride the up escalator? I never got past this. I would imagine that in a two-story building full of analytical people, someone would have questioned this immediately.
carlyle4545 13y ago
Interesting metaphor, but the author could've substituted "women" with "blacks", "hispanics", or any non-white male demographic and the article would've had the same effect. Look, as a black male startup founder I recognize I face a steeper uphill battle than my white counterparts. I get that. But I also understand that anytime anyone tries to break into an industry dominated by people unlike them, they're going to face resistance. For example, white rappers have a far more difficult time breaking into hip hop. Its almost a requirement that their talent surpasses that of black rappers by leaps and bounds. They diligently practice their craft, writing witty punchlines and metaphors, using complex wordplay, (i.e. running up the 'down' elevator) while many black rappers lazily write nursery rhymes about the same tired subjects, (i.e. standing still on the 'up' elevator). I'm certain there are many white guys who get to the lobby, and upon seeing a sea of blacks riding the 'up' elevator, simply say, "Forget this, I'm gonna go learn some Python" The fact is when you're a minority of any kind, (and I don't mean in terms of race, I mean in terms of any characteristic that makes you outside the majority) you should be prepared to fight for every inch. Besides, when faced with the choice, I usually choose to take the stairs anyway. :-)
- drharris 13y ago
  I think this is the best analogy, much better than the OP. It's really a question of who your audience is, and whether or not they will understand you. For your example, a white hip-hop artist has to speak to an audience that is quite different, finding similarities between them to bridge the gap. It is also very difficult for poor people to become part of the rich crowd, or geeks to fit in with jocks. In the end, we don't really advance socially past our sixth-grade selves. It's possible to fit in with different crowds, but it does take a balance between being exceptionally talented and trying to bridge the gap with similarities. No football team will turn away a geeky kicker with a 50 yard field goal kick. In the end, it's either high talent, high similarity, or both. We humans simply like to clique up.
- rayiner 13y ago
  > Interesting metaphor, but the author could've substituted "women" with "blacks", "hispanics", or any non-white male demographic and the article would've had the same effect. There is an important distinction between women and blacks and hispanics, which is that the various challenges facing the latter groups are deeper and more varied. If you pick a random black man in the U.S., statistically his parents will be poorer and less educated than if you pick a random white man. So equality for those groups is deeply tied up with persistent economic disparities. But with women that problem doesn't exist. An equal number of boys and girls are born into rich, well-connected families. Which eliminates a whole class of issues that could cause disparities between males and females, and makes the problem of gender representation in a way "easier" to solve.
john_b 13y ago
This is perhaps a tangential issue, but I don't think the author addressed the question she posed. I was looking forward to seeing the author thoroughly dissect the ignorance inherent in the title, so I followed along with the methaphor as it lengthened. I also didn't object to the metaphor presuming the conclusions she set out to make, since metaphors are expository instruments intended to clarify and shed light on a complex underlying issue. But when I skimmed to the end and saw that she never moved on from the metaphor to an actual argument, I lost interest. A metaphor is not an argument. It can be a great way to introduce or conclude one, but it should never be the main course at an idea buffet.
- portmanteaufu 13y ago
  > A metaphor is not an argument. It can be a great way to introduce or conclude one, but it should never be the main course at an idea buffet. I liked how you illustrated this by making an argument and then concluding with a metaphor.
patmcguire 13y ago
This is how the stereotype of men not getting metaphors gets started.
nlindig 13y ago
I went looking for some examples of male privilege. These might be helpful in understanding why the escalators are going the directions they are: http://sap.mit.edu/content/pdf/male_privilege.pdf http://sap.mit.edu/content/pdf/male_privilege.pdf
MetaCosm 13y ago
This is one of the worst analogies I have even been exposed too. It is a straightforward issue, we don't need an analogy to grasp it, it was almost explicitly designed to muddy the waters. It did a good job of hiding circle reasoning, logical fallacies and other failures of critical thinking. EDIT: I do believe there is a real issue around gender in both the technology and nursing industries. This article just adds nothing to the conversation.
- wpietri 13y ago
  Protip: "I don't like this article" is not the same thing as "Nobody in the entire universe could benefit from this article." If you don't find it useful, fine. But lay off the drama.
Hinrik 13y ago
In OP's analogy, a new male applicant has no edge over a new female applicant. He's still faced with an overcrowded escalator. In the real world, things can be quite different of course, and the analogy doesn't reflect that very well.
monkey13 13y ago
I think the premise is absurd. In two decades programming I've never personally seen evidence of women being held back in CS -- usually it's just the opposite in fact. I'd like for there to be more women in CS, but being honest I haven't seen anything holding them back except for themselves. For instance even way back in my CS program for one of the women they actually made an exception to the rule that you need a 2.0 GPA to graduate in CS. This after years of official department women-only support groups and special instruction. What happened to the guys with less than 2.0? They didn't graduate CS. This same woman had six job offers after graduation.
taylodl 13y ago
If more men learned to put away their privilege Stopped me cold. Maybe that mindset worked in the 1960s but this is the twenty-teens and that "privilege" left long ago.
canibanoglu 13y ago
I think the idea's good but the analogy presented is ridiculous. As far as I could see, there isn't an escalator reserved for only men and one that is reserved for only women. The article touches on women having to use the one that is usually going down, and I kind of understand that to mean they are presented with extra difficulties, but in the given situation if someone wants a job more than the others and tries to climb the harder escalator, I believe that deserves a round of applause whether it's a man or a woman. Another problem is that being most skilled is equated to being the fastest in the analogy. Here's where things go hard to explain without offending anyone but I'll try to take my chances. Just keep in mind that I'm not against females in any industry. If the real world is like the analogy and females can't get a tech job because they aren't as fast as men, then it is a good thing. Being a women is nothing special. For every woman who can't get a job because they aren't skilled enough, I bet there are 2 or more men who also can't get a job because they aren't skilled enough compared to others. I don't see men complaining in this situation. And to be perfectly honest I myself have lived through something like this recently. I am a very new comer to the programming world and I was turned down on my application to GSoC. I didn't think of trying to find nonexistent reasons, I knew it was because I was good enough (yet). From what I've been reading about female take on these situations, I'm led to believe that about half of them (or perhaps even more) would think that they were turned down because they are not male. What I mean to say is that the article inherently implies that there are so many fast men that women can't get a job. I believe that is warping the truth to make people feel sorry into women. I'll most likely be crucified for saying this, but I would be glad if an unskilled woman can't get a job because there are more skilled men, I say that's a good thing. (I have long learned that the internet community and extreme feminists like to cherry pick on what you say while missing your point just to make a case against you, so I'll say that I would also be happy if the reverse is true, that is a man gets turned down because he isn't skilled enough). And the last thing. The article mentions women who see that the escalator is overflowing with men largely turn around and not even try. This is a very female-centric approach. Men don't see something entirely else magically, they also see the escalator flowing with men. If anyone, male or female, turns around because the escalator is overflowing, then s/he does not want the job enough, s/he wants an easy ride. This part of the analogy both degrades women and shows something entirely unlikable about the author's view. It implies that most women give up in the face of difficulty (the difficulty being that there are too many men). If that is the case this is not a case that can be argued against male domination in any industry. If women want to be represented more, then they should try more. Keep in mind this is assuming that what the author is implying. And the author's silent implication (which is very offensive to me) that women should have a women only escalator that will overflow with women in time. Go ahead, crucify me because this apparently is against what most people defend but it is important to keep everything fair while defending women's positions.

51 points by bconway 13y ago

This is a really great set of analogies that pokes holes in a lot of arguments you often see. There is another one I'd like to add that's very relevant for tech: women come into the lobby of the engineering school building, see the pack of men on the up escalator, see the room full of men who have already made it, and head straight back out the door and over to the med school or law school building, where they don't have to deal with the headwinds that come from being a minority. A lot of the women who see the situation and leave are the most talented and ambitious, because lets face it: if you're gunning for the top, isn't it rational to give yourself the best possible shot by choosing a field where you won't have the challenge of fitting into a male-dominated culture in addition to all the challenges you'll already have?

elchief 13y ago
But medicine and law used to be male dominated.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Yes, in the middle of the 20th century almost no doctors or lawyers were women (just a few %). The change in the status quo did not happen by magic. The respective professions made a concerted effort to address the historical disparity, and did so simply by hiring/admitting more women. Eventually, the fields stopped being so blatantly male dominated and the new ratios were "sticky." Today, law schools and med schools don't have to consciously try to hire women--their pool of qualified applicants just breaks down evenly. But tech is too idealistic/libertarian to do something like that. They'll continue to complain and be criticized for the representation of women in the field, even though at this point I think it mostly comes down to a self-perpetuating equilibrium: women self-select out of the field simply because their representation is low in the field and very few people want to bring upon themselves the challenges of being a minority.
  - wpietri 13y ago
    To be fair to people in tech, I think the field also selects for people who are less socially aware. For example, I got all my early programming experience because hiding out in my dad's basement soaking up the glow of green phosphor was infinitely more pleasant than dealing with high-school society. Not because that was beneath me, although that's what I surely told myself at the time, but because I was terrible at it. It took me years to catch up with my peer group as far as social skills went. Until then, I literally could not perceive a lot of the subtle interactions that demonstrate (and perpetuate) this problem. I think that's where a lot of the field is. And, in some sense, where they want to be. It's really uncomfortable recognizing that some of what you thought was personal achievement is due to shit that shouldn't matter. It was for me, anyhow. And is, really; it's an ongoing process.
angersock 13y ago
" if you're gunning for the top, isn't it rational to give yourself the best possible shot by choosing a field where you won't have the challenge of fitting into a male-dominated culture in addition to all the challenges you'll already have?" But you won't end up in the top, right? You'll end up somewhat high in a different spot--which is fine, but then you can't complain about not getting the top spot having voluntarily given up the chance to pursue it.
- wpietri 13y ago
  "Top" here is relative to one's profession. And I don't understand why one gives up the right to complain about a rigged game simply because one declines to play the game. For example, I know people who won't work at Google because they think the promotions system there is a terrible one. They can still complain about it, even though they chose to work elsewhere, because it's something that's keeping them from working at Google.
- rayiner 13y ago
  I think a lot of ambitious people would rather get the top spot in medicine than hit a glass ceiling in engineering.
  - angersock 13y ago
    Which is a shame, because effort spent in medicine doesn't scale.
    - harryh 13y ago
      Tell that to Jonas Salk.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      True, but the risk weighted return is quite good, at least for now. You won't make a billion dollars as a doctor, but your odds of pulling in $350k/year for 40 years is probably better than your odds of a $3-5m exit (two outcomes with similar present values), at least if you have the personality of a typical doctor.
Zuider 13y ago
>if you're gunning for the top, isn't it rational to give yourself the best possible shot by choosing a field where >you won't have the challenge of fitting into a male-dominated culture in addition to all the challenges you'll already have? No. If you are ambitious and confident in your abilities you will take on any challenges on the way to your goal, not take the easy way out by avoiding competition. That is what successful people (including successful women) actually do.
- rayiner 13y ago
  It's not a matter of "taking the easy way out." It's a matter of strategically setting yourself up for success. If you're an entrepreneur, do you start a Facebook competitor or a company targeting an underserved B2B niche? Smart people don't sabotage themselves by taking on additional challenges without some compensating upside.
  - Zuider 13y ago
    > If you're an entrepreneur, do you start a Facebook competitor or a company targeting an underserved B2B niche? You go where the money is. That is also where the competition is. There is also the high risk, but potentially lucrative option of creating a new market where none existed before. Or you can play it safe. Lower risk, lower reward.

oconnore 13y ago

I was hoping that they would complete the analogy. I was unable to make these connections: (please fill in!) 1. What is the reason the women's escalator goes down? 2. What is the reason only men can ride the up escalator? 3. What is the elevator? 4. Why not just make everyone take the elevator? Why have a restricted running arrangement at all? Why not just have organized one-at-a-time races on a 100m track with a photo finish setup?

typicalbender 13y ago
I had the same questions after reading the article. While I feel this helps paint a pretty picture of what's going on it doesn't seem to even attempt to answer the more important question of why its happening? For example, are the people at the top controlling the direction of the escalators or is it just because it's always been a male dominated industry and has strong momentum in that direction? For example the simple fact that the industry is currently male dominant could be a factor in determining the direction of the escalator. Simply being a majority male may be off-putting to women trying to enter the tech industry, however i'm not sure if/how you would go about fairly solving that. I'm also curious about how this problem relates to other sciences, for example did/do chemistry or physics have/had the same problem at some point and how did they overcome it if they did.
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tghw 13y ago
And why are the number of spots in the room limited? From what I can tell, most software companies are having trouble finding good developers.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  Most software companies in silicone valley. There are parts of the world that are not California and in which the hunger for talent is less severe. Companies don't have problem hiring - if they had they would have just hire people directly in other countries without all the H1B quotas bullshit. There is nothing you cannot do remotely by VPN and some collaborative tools. I have worked 6 years with half my team in Moscow. It worked wonders. When we had heated discussions we just closed skype instead of beating each other if we were in the same room. They have problem hiring local talent to warm the chairs.

login1234 13y ago

> mostly white stopped reading there

sbjustin 13y ago
yeah... I'm not sure how this added to the article...
- tghw 13y ago
  Perhaps the author was using it as a demonstration of how easy it is to overlook the direction of your own escalator, being that she certainly has an advantage over some minorities because of her ethnicity.
  - sbjustin 13y ago
    The article is about the difficultly of breaking in the tech industry as a woman vs a man. I'm not sure how the mention of 'white men' adds to this argument.
- mdisraeli 13y ago
  Because intersectionality[1] is something that needs to be acknowledged. Given the target audience, the proper paragraph about the flaws of the model and how it doesn't address intersectional issues probably wouldn't have gone down well. This small comment, however, ensured that at least some mention was made. [1] Intersectionality is the idea that different combinations of minority issues will have their own, often unique, challenges. In the video games difficulty setting analogy, think of intersectionality being the advanced mode with lots of little sliders for different things, rather than one scale of easy to hard.
MDCore 13y ago
Tech is VERY white. Take a look around during the next conference you visit. If you want something more objective, this US-centric chart seems to be a good example: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm

sbjustin 13y ago

First let me start by saying that I believe my wife can do absolutely anything she sets her mind to accomplishing. She has her masters degree while I do not even have a bachelors. However, these articles ignore the obvious difference between men and women. I (a guy) am interested in cars, computer games(FPS), working out, running, playing sports etc. My wife on the other hand is absolutely interested in all of those at a different level than I an interested in other things that I do not particularly enjoy like horseback riding. When I say she's interested in cars, she's interested in having a nice corvette, while I'm interested in working on a nice corvette. She likes working out, to be fit - I like working out to get stronger and more 'manly'. She loves to play sports because they're fun - I like to crush the other team. I bring these things up because there are inherent differences between men and women that people seem to forget. It's not just nurture, but it's nature too. We are physically, mentally and emotionally different (not in all cases, but many). I would love to see more women in the tech industry (I'm trying to get my wife involved). However, there will always be a difference in our mentalities because of our gender and these cannot be ignored so easily.

tghw 13y ago
I'm with you until you get to nature vs. nurture. Societal norms are so ingrained in early childhood education that it's extremely difficult to discern one from the other. So, while we currently have different interests between the genders (speaking broadly), there's a good chance it's mostly nurture, which means that different attitudes early on could change that in the future.
- sbjustin 13y ago
  Societal norms are so ingrained in early childhood education that it's extremely difficult to discern one from the other. -Agreed I think there is a possibility that nurture does play a lot into the equation (I played sports growing up, while my wife went to 'lady' classes). My point with the nature vs nurture (and i can't prove it, merely speculate) is that testosterone/estrogen levels in each gender should not be ignored.
- cunac 13y ago

cunac 13y ago

all I got from article is implication that somehow women are less skilled (slower in article) otherwise they would be on up escalator as well? I certainly don't agree with that implication.

venomsnake 13y ago
If you are a white male you have built in nitro in your car while driving the streets of life. The women are as skilled but you just got the edge. You won't be dismissed after and interview with "girls cannot use oscilloscope". It will be more like my first interview "Self thought C programmer at age 16 - you are hired, don't know what EEPROM is - no worries kid - we will teach you"
- cunac 13y ago
  I understand that lots of people discriminates by gender,age,you name it and I don't agree with that. Where I am coming from population was (at time of my childhood) 98% white so no advantage being white :-) My high school year had 6 girls and over 200 boy because it was technical school and girls didn't choose to attend , other high schools (medical for example) would have reverse ratio and some would actually be close to 50:50 split. That would later translate in similar ratios at university. I wouldn't dare to say that technical aptitude is ingrained in male population but sure sometimes seems like that.
munificent 13y ago
No, the author explicitly states that the escalator is separated by gender specifically, not by speed: > The escalator moving up is full of men. There is no room for women on this escalator. The implication is that the men and women in the analogy both have the same average speed on their own. The men, purely by virtue of being male, then get a positive bonus applied to their speed by the up escalator. The woman get a negative speed penalty from the down escalator. If you want it in pseudo-code: human_speed = rand(min, max) male_bonus = some_positive_number female_bonus = some_negative_number male_speed = human_speed + male_bonus female_speed = human_speed + female_bonus The point of the article is to refute all of the arguments made that presume a simpler model than the above.

dbecker 13y ago

A lot of men (and sometimes women) ... [say] “So you’re saying that in order for women to get ahead, they have to pull men down?! That’s not fair!” I have never heard anyone say anything like this quote. Maybe I'm in an unusual workplaces, or I haven't been listening closely enough. Does this resemble a real statement in the gender inequality dialog?

eridius 13y ago
It seems to me to be a paraphrasing of all the complaints against affirmative action.
king_jester 13y ago
This is indeed a thing people say. Most of the time I hear this in someone saying outright that feminists are man haters or wish to see men suffer. More subtly, someone will usually complain that we have to treat men and woman equally while completely ignoring any kind of ongoing injustice that women may be dealing with (this goes for a wide variety of discussions).
- dbecker 13y ago
  I'd agree that the claim "feminists wish to see men suffer" is equivalent to the above quote. I'm surprised to hear that this is a common sentiment in serious conversation. The claim "women and men should be treated equally", even with an ignorance of any ongoing injustices towards women, does not seem equivalent to the above quote. For example, the quote in question implies a zero-sum game, whereby advancing capable women inherently hurts men. This assumption is absent from "men and women should be treated equally."
wpietri 13y ago
I have definitely heard this. The loss of privilege feels like a loss. And having to do the work to make things more fair can feel like a burden.

venomsnake 13y ago

I have an anecdote to share - the university in which I was supposed to study CS before coming to my senses and realizing I know more than the tutors had strict 50/50 gender admission policy. The acceptance was based purely on exam results (only math). So that friend of mine (a girl) is ranked among the top - no surprises there. After she is accepted she decides she prefers to study electronics and according to rules the first girl that was left out gets the place. The problem is there are 18 with one and the same score - so they accept them all. What was curious was that the average acceptance score of the admitted girls was higher than for the boys. So the gender policy actually ended discriminating the girls - fewer were admitted than would have been if gender quotas were lifted. That was across the board in all engineering specialties and a few years in a row.

fatjokes 13y ago

That was a really tortured metaphor.

127001brewer 13y ago

Breadwinner in 40% of U.S. Families Is a Woman, Study Finds[1] [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/business/economy/women-as-family-breadwinner-on-the-rise-study-says.html?hp http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/business/economy/women-as-...

king_jester 13y ago
From the very article you provided: "Such marriages are still relatively rare, though, even if their share is growing. Of all married couples, 24 percent include a wife who earns more, versus 6.2 percent in 1960." "Demographically and socioeconomically, single mothers and married mothers are different from each others. The median family income for single mothers — who are disproportionately younger, black or Hispanic, and less educated — is $23,000. The median household income for married women who earn more than their husbands — more often white, slightly older and college-educated — is $80,000." I'm not really sure what point you were trying to make, but it sounds like sexism along with classism and racism still have an impact on women's lives.

raganwald 13y ago

I mostly like the article, but the author and I have a different perspective on a basic assumption that is taken as axiomatic in the third paragraph: Let’s say that all the jobs in tech are in a room on the second floor of a building. There are a limited number of people that can fit in that room. I don't personally believe there are a fixed number of spots. I believe that when you find a way to cram more people into the second floor, it expands. A company may seem like it is only hiring five engineers today, but companies that hire good people, grow. Companies operating in an environment where more people are working, can sell more of their products and services. Overall, more people being more productive expands the number of "spots on the second floor" for everyone. Thus, I do not consider this an issue of choosing which people make it up the escalator, but rather a problem in trying to grow the size of the building. When looked at it in terms of growing the size of the building, we arrive at a completely different view of how we should handle escalators and the purpose of getting people to the second floor.

munificent 13y ago
That seems orthogonal to me. Say I have a list and I'm taking some number of items off one end. I want to maximize the value of that chunk. A larger chunk is better, of course, but sorting the list so that bigger items are on one also helps. That's what the author is arguing: we're incorrectly ranking people because of a gender bias. Having a larger pool of poorly ranked people won't solve that.
- raganwald 13y ago
  I don't follow what you're saying about a list, but if you're saying that either or both help, the key thing to remember is that it isn't a dichotomy. In the context of HN, what startup isn't trying to hire all the smart and capable people it can? If it comes down to two people, and there is a perception that A is better than B but both A and B are excellent candidates, a great company hires both.
  - munificent 13y ago
    Right, but by saying "comes down to two people" that implies you've already done some filtering: you've ordered the set of all possible people and then taken the first two. My point is that if the ordering relation is wrong (which is what the article suggests) then it doesn't matter what subset you take: you're still not getting the best possible set of people. You have to get the right people. If your ordering is off, being more inclusive lets in as many more bad candidates as it does good ones.

drharris 13y ago

This is a horrible analogy. It sounds really pretty at first glance, but the question is never addressed as to why that's the situation to begin with. In real life, everybody can equally use an escalator. Does the up escalator have a sign saying "Men only?" No. Are men pushing women down? No. What is preventing women from using the up escalator? Maybe the real question is why her analogous women are looking for elevators and going up the wrong escalator instead of just doing it the way everyone else is?

king_jester 13y ago
> Does the up escalator have a sign saying "Men only?" No. Are men pushing women down? No. In terms of the analogy, yes men are pushing women down and the escalator is men only, whether explicitly stated or implicitly understood. This analogy is overstretched though, a lot of the discrimination people face is institutional in nature.
- drharris 13y ago
  From what I've seen, men who actually push women down get thrown off the escalator, so to speak. I don't think men are actually pushing women down. Crowding them out, maybe, but not pushing them down. Of course I'm not in SV, so who know what brogrammer stuff goes on there.
john_b 13y ago
The main problem with the analogy is that it presumes its own conclusions. This isn't usually a big problem for analogies since they're not supposed to be the core of an argument, but in this case the full post is one big analogy, so it doesn't really hold up.

rachelbythebay 13y ago

49 minutes old, and no longer on the front page. I can't find it in the first 200 submissions, even.

raganwald 13y ago
Ho hum... https://twitter.com/raganwald/status/339816065297174528 https://twitter.com/raganwald/status/339816065297174528

seferphier 13y ago

"It's important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy." - Elon Musk. the author should have stated the first principles that are fundamentally true and then state her hypothesis of the employment market and justify them. she makes far too much assumptions without justifying them.

portmanteaufu 13y ago

> 2. What is the reason only men can ride the up escalator? I never got past this. I would imagine that in a two-story building full of analytical people, someone would have questioned this immediately.

carlyle4545 13y ago

Interesting metaphor, but the author could've substituted "women" with "blacks", "hispanics", or any non-white male demographic and the article would've had the same effect. Look, as a black male startup founder I recognize I face a steeper uphill battle than my white counterparts. I get that. But I also understand that anytime anyone tries to break into an industry dominated by people unlike them, they're going to face resistance. For example, white rappers have a far more difficult time breaking into hip hop. Its almost a requirement that their talent surpasses that of black rappers by leaps and bounds. They diligently practice their craft, writing witty punchlines and metaphors, using complex wordplay, (i.e. running up the 'down' elevator) while many black rappers lazily write nursery rhymes about the same tired subjects, (i.e. standing still on the 'up' elevator). I'm certain there are many white guys who get to the lobby, and upon seeing a sea of blacks riding the 'up' elevator, simply say, "Forget this, I'm gonna go learn some Python" The fact is when you're a minority of any kind, (and I don't mean in terms of race, I mean in terms of any characteristic that makes you outside the majority) you should be prepared to fight for every inch. Besides, when faced with the choice, I usually choose to take the stairs anyway. :-)

drharris 13y ago
I think this is the best analogy, much better than the OP. It's really a question of who your audience is, and whether or not they will understand you. For your example, a white hip-hop artist has to speak to an audience that is quite different, finding similarities between them to bridge the gap. It is also very difficult for poor people to become part of the rich crowd, or geeks to fit in with jocks. In the end, we don't really advance socially past our sixth-grade selves. It's possible to fit in with different crowds, but it does take a balance between being exceptionally talented and trying to bridge the gap with similarities. No football team will turn away a geeky kicker with a 50 yard field goal kick. In the end, it's either high talent, high similarity, or both. We humans simply like to clique up.
rayiner 13y ago
> Interesting metaphor, but the author could've substituted "women" with "blacks", "hispanics", or any non-white male demographic and the article would've had the same effect. There is an important distinction between women and blacks and hispanics, which is that the various challenges facing the latter groups are deeper and more varied. If you pick a random black man in the U.S., statistically his parents will be poorer and less educated than if you pick a random white man. So equality for those groups is deeply tied up with persistent economic disparities. But with women that problem doesn't exist. An equal number of boys and girls are born into rich, well-connected families. Which eliminates a whole class of issues that could cause disparities between males and females, and makes the problem of gender representation in a way "easier" to solve.

john_b 13y ago

This is perhaps a tangential issue, but I don't think the author addressed the question she posed. I was looking forward to seeing the author thoroughly dissect the ignorance inherent in the title, so I followed along with the methaphor as it lengthened. I also didn't object to the metaphor presuming the conclusions she set out to make, since metaphors are expository instruments intended to clarify and shed light on a complex underlying issue. But when I skimmed to the end and saw that she never moved on from the metaphor to an actual argument, I lost interest. A metaphor is not an argument. It can be a great way to introduce or conclude one, but it should never be the main course at an idea buffet.

portmanteaufu 13y ago
> A metaphor is not an argument. It can be a great way to introduce or conclude one, but it should never be the main course at an idea buffet. I liked how you illustrated this by making an argument and then concluding with a metaphor.

patmcguire 13y ago

This is how the stereotype of men not getting metaphors gets started.

nlindig 13y ago

I went looking for some examples of male privilege. These might be helpful in understanding why the escalators are going the directions they are: http://sap.mit.edu/content/pdf/male_privilege.pdf http://sap.mit.edu/content/pdf/male_privilege.pdf

MetaCosm 13y ago

This is one of the worst analogies I have even been exposed too. It is a straightforward issue, we don't need an analogy to grasp it, it was almost explicitly designed to muddy the waters. It did a good job of hiding circle reasoning, logical fallacies and other failures of critical thinking. EDIT: I do believe there is a real issue around gender in both the technology and nursing industries. This article just adds nothing to the conversation.

wpietri 13y ago
Protip: "I don't like this article" is not the same thing as "Nobody in the entire universe could benefit from this article." If you don't find it useful, fine. But lay off the drama.

Hinrik 13y ago

In OP's analogy, a new male applicant has no edge over a new female applicant. He's still faced with an overcrowded escalator. In the real world, things can be quite different of course, and the analogy doesn't reflect that very well.

monkey13 13y ago

I think the premise is absurd. In two decades programming I've never personally seen evidence of women being held back in CS -- usually it's just the opposite in fact. I'd like for there to be more women in CS, but being honest I haven't seen anything holding them back except for themselves. For instance even way back in my CS program for one of the women they actually made an exception to the rule that you need a 2.0 GPA to graduate in CS. This after years of official department women-only support groups and special instruction. What happened to the guys with less than 2.0? They didn't graduate CS. This same woman had six job offers after graduation.

taylodl 13y ago

If more men learned to put away their privilege Stopped me cold. Maybe that mindset worked in the 1960s but this is the twenty-teens and that "privilege" left long ago.

canibanoglu 13y ago

I think the idea's good but the analogy presented is ridiculous. As far as I could see, there isn't an escalator reserved for only men and one that is reserved for only women. The article touches on women having to use the one that is usually going down, and I kind of understand that to mean they are presented with extra difficulties, but in the given situation if someone wants a job more than the others and tries to climb the harder escalator, I believe that deserves a round of applause whether it's a man or a woman. Another problem is that being most skilled is equated to being the fastest in the analogy. Here's where things go hard to explain without offending anyone but I'll try to take my chances. Just keep in mind that I'm not against females in any industry. If the real world is like the analogy and females can't get a tech job because they aren't as fast as men, then it is a good thing. Being a women is nothing special. For every woman who can't get a job because they aren't skilled enough, I bet there are 2 or more men who also can't get a job because they aren't skilled enough compared to others. I don't see men complaining in this situation. And to be perfectly honest I myself have lived through something like this recently. I am a very new comer to the programming world and I was turned down on my application to GSoC. I didn't think of trying to find nonexistent reasons, I knew it was because I was good enough (yet). From what I've been reading about female take on these situations, I'm led to believe that about half of them (or perhaps even more) would think that they were turned down because they are not male. What I mean to say is that the article inherently implies that there are so many fast men that women can't get a job. I believe that is warping the truth to make people feel sorry into women. I'll most likely be crucified for saying this, but I would be glad if an unskilled woman can't get a job because there are more skilled men, I say that's a good thing. (I have long learned that the internet community and extreme feminists like to cherry pick on what you say while missing your point just to make a case against you, so I'll say that I would also be happy if the reverse is true, that is a man gets turned down because he isn't skilled enough). And the last thing. The article mentions women who see that the escalator is overflowing with men largely turn around and not even try. This is a very female-centric approach. Men don't see something entirely else magically, they also see the escalator flowing with men. If anyone, male or female, turns around because the escalator is overflowing, then s/he does not want the job enough, s/he wants an easy ride. This part of the analogy both degrades women and shows something entirely unlikable about the author's view. It implies that most women give up in the face of difficulty (the difficulty being that there are too many men). If that is the case this is not a case that can be argued against male domination in any industry. If women want to be represented more, then they should try more. Keep in mind this is assuming that what the author is implying. And the author's silent implication (which is very offensive to me) that women should have a women only escalator that will overflow with women in time. Go ahead, crucify me because this apparently is against what most people defend but it is important to keep everything fair while defending women's positions.