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Sexism In The Tech Industry Takes Center Stage
- eli 13y agoNot sure this adds much to the story, but I think it's noteworthy that this was covered in a mainstream news program. I heard it on the radio yesterday.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 13y agoI heard the story too, and I was most offended that the reporter said that I would be offended by what we were about to hear. Also, what do they know about locker room attitudes? My locker room attitude is to get out of the locker room and into the gym, pool, etc. Calling it sexism seems sexist to me, since I'm a guy who wouldn't normally do that kind of thing.
- eli 13y agoYou're offended that other people were offended? I think everyone (even you) knows what they meant by "lockerroom attitude" even if you disapprove of the word choice.
- sp332 13y agoNo, being told that the story would offend him was offensive. That's a very condescending view!
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 13y agoThank you!
- ChuckMcM 13y agoThe whole thing is sad, but hopefully this sort of exposure will have the 'training' effect that folks won't seriously expect us to believe the excuse "Hey, its just a joke, I didn't mean it." which works fine if you're comedian doing a comedy act, not so well if your venue is more serious than that.
- masmullin 13y agoOnce we remove jokes from the workplace, then we can concentrate our focus on removing smiling. Work should be no fun zones, one day our dream of robotic toil will come to fruition.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI love that response. It captures the essence of the maturation process. My kids would use variations on it when we talked about rules and behaviors. And that lead to productive discussions about absolute rules versus (don't kill people), contextual rules (kill people who are enemies), and societal rules (kill people who are trying to kill you) [1]. Clearly in the context of TechCrunch Disrupt making sexist jokes is a problem, but Rickrolling Arrington as our CTO did one year when he showed a backwards search engine (you went from a bunch of results to figure out what the query was that would return those kind of thing) just 'funny' (for some definition of funny, since it was pretty late in the Rickrolling meme but I digress). But the maturation process, the one where you look at a situation and predict which behaviors will be ok for the group or not ok for the group, is something that you can't teach but you can learn. [1] "Murder" is a useful foil to have this discussion around as there are so many different contexts in which one person may feel compelled or desire to take the life of another.
- masmullin 13y agoSo that's one vote for removing satire from internet discussions.
- kmfrk 13y agoThe New Yorker has been covering misogyny in tech for a while, be it a "beat" or just a growing trend of coverage.
- gametheoretic 13y agoA = {all areas ∈ Tech | TNY's staff can cover the area at the level they cover other beats} B = {all areas ∈ Tech | area interests TNY readership} A ∩ B = ________
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rayiner 13y agoI don't see how the masturbation thing is sexism. It's immature, sure, but guys and girls both masturbate... Also, I can get on stage and present an app involving shaking a phone and get hundreds of people in the audience? The hell?
- cognivore 13y agoSo, this has to be said. These fucktards are the people representing our profession on NPR. NPR doesn't run stories about the other apps presented at TechCrunch Disrupt. The public won't here about that, or really, much of the cool tech that goes on. They'll hear about this, and that's what they'll remember. Why the hell doesn't someone go up on that stage and kick those idiots off? Who's the goddamn moderator that is in charge and standing their watching this go on, instead of walking up, killing the power, and getting them an escort from the building. I don't want to be an apologist for my profession, nor my passion. Right now, I am, so it's up to us to put this shit down. Start now.
- parfe 13y agoThe moderators and many people in the room found the presentations funny. It wasn't until later when they tried explaining their behaviour to their mothers that they even began to understand the problems with what occurred.
- zalew 13y ago> TechCrunch issued an apology Sunday for the "two misogynistic presentations," app is sexist yeah, but how is looking at tits misogynistic?
- cmiles74 13y agoThese two apps were in appropriate and offensive, why not apologize for "two inappropriate and offensive presentations"? While some of the behavior is clearly hate-based (threatening posts on Twitter, etc.), it seems like flat-out stupidity and insensitivity is also very common.
- zalew 13y agoTwitter is the greatest platform for people getting offended on behalf of other people. I bet these armchair warriors will tweet-spam those guys to death.
- gametheoretic 13y agoNot a "challenge" or anything: do you do hackathons? When you know you're not going to win, but also know you're going to be on stage later, an intentionally and blatantly stupid app is the way to go.
- gametheoretic 13y agoIt's misogynistic by that hip, new definition of misogynistic that doesn't mean misogynistic.
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y ago> how is looking at tits misogynistic? The question has been well-covered in a related discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6352595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6352595
- mistermcgruff 13y agoThe reduction of women to a collection of body parts is often seen as a form of dislike for holistic femaleness -- it robs a person of their humanity. 3rd wave feminism might disagree with this to a point, but the 1st wave certainly wouldn't.
- gametheoretic 13y agoQ: Cui bono? /provocateur
- Spooky23 13y agoThe sexist element is just one aspect of the fail. Fratboy behavior is annoying in college. It's particularly annoying in the real world.
- marcuspovey 13y agoCommented earlier on another Women In Tech thread (seems to be the meme of the day). The question is not "Why are there so few women in IT?", it's "Why are so many men in IT such jerks?"
- rozap 13y agoYou say "meme of the day" but I'm sure you don't mean "meme of the day". It's more than a day long issue, and it's not a meme.
- existencebox 13y agoAt the risk of not contributing anything but a negative comment, I feel like saying the latter is as damaging if not more so than the former. Broad generalizations which assume something which I think is fundamentally untrue (aside from whatever the core causes of the gender discrepancies are) do not serve to assist the situation. I've met plenty of nice guys in tech (more than assholes) and plenty of asshole women in tech. I think the problem (And, to be frank, I'm not sure calling it a problem is the best term, at the risk of attracting some ire) is far more complex than that.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 13y agoMy question is, what kind of jerk would brand a whole field as sexist because of the sensationally bad behavior of two people?
- eli 13y agoThe field has a serious problem with sexism, even if many (or even most) of its individual members are not themselves sexist.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 13y agodrat! you again!
- dragonwriter 13y ago> The question is not "Why are there so few women in IT?", it's "Why are so many men in IT such jerks?" Both are questions, neither is the question, and the second is an important question in large part because its premise is part of (but not all of) the answer to the first.
- dexen 13y agoLet our inner knee-jerk selves remember the ``Why defend freedom of icky speech?'' [1]. [1] http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-...
- JulianMorrison 13y agoSpeech isn't free when one group has the podium, and the mike, and the other not so much.
- nicholassmith 13y agoI don't know if I'd agree this is a freedom of speech issue compared to that article (which I've also read, it's great), there's very little the app is trying to say (other than "hey this is me staring at boobs") which is pushing the freedom of speech argument a little far.
- coldtea 13y agoHow is "staring at boobs" bad?
- JulianMorrison 13y agoConsent. You lack it.
- nicholassmith 13y agoThat's quite a loaded question, obviously boobs hold a point of attraction for men as we often like them and you know, they're there, but if you're making an app of you staring at boobs it goes from a fleeting thing to more a situation where you've just turned that lady in an object. That's not super awesome. Look, I like boobs as much as the next guy, but there's got to be a line where we go from "yay boobs are awesome" to "okay this is a bit creepy".
- coldtea 13y ago
- dasil003 13y agoI agree the tech industry has a major sexism problem. Titstare is disgusting, and a lot of men in tech need to be beaten severely with a cluestick as this kind of thing is the worst sort of confluence of aspie anti-empathy and fratboy rape culture. However all that said, I can't help but notice the inseperable confluence of sexism and puritanical taboo of anything related to sex in American culture. A masturbation app might be in poor taste and unprofessional, but there's no inherent reason it should be threatening to women.
- babs474 13y agoInteresting that HN keeps killing threads on this topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6360328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6360328 A stubborn refusal to confront the problem is what helps these attitudes fester.
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y agoHN has had several stories this week on the Techchrunch Disrupt fiasco. The Business Insider story, not so much.
- untog 13y agoEven the stories on Disrupt were very quickly flagged off the front page. Then, when the BI story broke I saw multiple comments asking "What was the Disrupt story?" The lesson is that flagging this stuff off the page works tremendously well.
- nsxwolf 13y agoNot too long ago HN was dominated by a wave of these stories that was not equaled until the NSA revelations.
- Karunamon 13y agoProbably a combination of fatigue and not wanting to deal with the toxicity these type of threads tend to be utterly soaked in. "Confronting the problem" is hard in the company of reasoned discussion and nigh-impossible in the face of extremists. *edit And that's why I flagged it. Not because I'm some horrible sexist, or because I want women to fail, but because I don't want HN turning into Tumblr or SRS. On top of all that, they also tend to be the worst kind of predictable and boring - i.e. the complete polar opposite of what great HN content is. No thanks.
- omd 13y agoExtremists? Is that what you call anyone who isn't a sexist like you? And what does SRS have to do with anything? I left reddit to get away from the r/mensrights freaks like you so you might want to keep your bullshit there.
- maddddddddddddd 13y agothe problem isn't that girls are being attacked for being girls... it's that any technical person is going to be broken down to their flaws (their humanity), and then attacked for it. that is what technology does. did girls not see the terminator when they were growing up? the reason that "sexism" is on any stage is because women can't handle being judged, and would rather cry about it on a podium in front of people without microphones, than sit in an office and develop technology.
- JonFish85 13y agoOn top of being embarrassed for doing this on stage, these people should be embarrassed for presenting such a fucking dumb idea for a hackathon. On an 100% unrelated note, Adria Richards has transitioned from "Technology Evangelist" to "Programmer"?
- minimaxir 13y agoPer their apology, the two guys had a different idea for a hack (hence the name issue) that didn't pan out, hence their Hail Mary in order to get free Disrupt tickets. (You must present to get a ticket.)
- JonFish85 13y agoRegardless, I stand by my statement: dumb fucking idea. Even if it was supposed to be a joke. That's when you make the "Hillary Clinton Quote Generator", "Virtual High 5 App", "I'm Pissed Button" or whatever. If you're trying to get laughs by going with sexual jokes, you're not funny.
- benjamincburns 13y agoHer title is a bit of minutia, and to be fair I believe she does write code. I don't know if she does so professionally, but I'd imagine it's more than enough to be accurately referred to as a programmer in the context of a hackathon.
- Torgo 13y agoPerhaps it's just for the convenience of their audience. Instead of 99% of people not knowing what her job description entails, by substituting "programmer" it is reduced to to 90%.
- desireco42 13y agoI consider my profession fantastic, with a lot of beautiful and exceptionally smart people. I haven't encountered this nearly as much. It must be happening more in Silicon Valley and NY more, but generally I can't see sexism as a part of culture in our profession. I am in Chicago if that matters, as a consultant I changed a lot of companies. On other hand, developers, both male and those few females are not the most eloquent people, however women were always welcomed, especially developers.
- thomasfromcdnjs 13y agoA masturbation joke being sexist? ...stop giving pious people a megaphone
- nubb 13y agoBest comment on the article from Bob Costas... For years people (and yes, mostly guys) who were involved in the tech industry and engineering in general were shunned and dismissed by culture at large to be losers and sexual non-entities and therefore lacking in social currency. As a result of this mass dismissal and social rejection, and since most women aren't raised or brought up to deal with rejection and social stigmatization, while some actively participated and reinforced the stigmatization, women in general didn't feel comfortable being in or pursuing a career in a field that garnered such negative attention for a very long time. To this day people in the tech field are often marginalized and in order to attract women to the field companies like Google have to produce promo videos that try to convince women to join the industry by suggesting that there aren't that many weirdos in the industry and that most people in the industry are "normal" as opposed to celebrating the beautiful weird male personalities that achieved great things because of their weirdness not in spite of it and helping women realize and embrace the male nerd ethic the went into building this new world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... Notice the attention given to showering and how they gloss over the fact that in reality, the current leaders in the tech world didn't bath regularly when they were building their companies. Bill Gates comes to mind. The reason why you get push-back from males from the industry when it comes to involving more women in tech isn't because they have some "jock, locker room, and frat" mentality that women are somehow mentally inferior to males and aren't capable of understanding tech. Actually, women in science and engineering classes at major universities tend to be the top students in those classes. Its because they don't think women in general have the fortitude nor the willingness to not shower for days and be content with not going outside while living off cold pizza. While most tech experiences these days don't involve this sort of lifestyle, the anti-social behavior and culture that are associated with the lifestyle still exist and instead of women decrying these prevailing attitudes in tech they should embrace these traits. Case in point, Elon Musk's ex-wife. Instead of dealing with his borderline autism for what it was, in her blog she attacked him being arrogant and uncaring. Elon Musk is a weirdo and natural introvert who forces himself to be an extrovert to be able to do the interesting and unique things he wants and needs to do in life.
- theorique 13y agoExactly. See "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" for many examples of the early days of computing.
- MattyRad 13y agoThe only thing I found offensive about this story was the environment in which the app was presented, which was definitely inappropriate. If the app was presented by Daniel Tosh on his TV show, we'd probably all have a chuckle and move on.
- eli 13y agoBut you see why that's a really significant difference, right? One is a professional gathering for people who work in a certian field and the other is a basic cable comedy show.
- efa 13y agoThese guys are idiots and there is definitely sexism in the IT industry. But every time I see these stories saying there is sexism in IT I think compared to what? Finance (Wall Street!)? Marketing? Law? Government? Military? Manufacturing? Construction? I guess the disturbing part is what makes these guys think they can be this open about it. Wall Street has rampant sexism but I'm thinking they are smart enough not to show it is a public forum.
- eli 13y agoThe tech industry has a real problem. What happens in other industries doesn't change that.
- alexholehouse 13y agoSo while the Business Insider story was just in tech circles I can image everyone's favourite brogrammer Pax Dickinson may have been able to casually sidestep into another sector. With it hitting NPR, I suspect this has irreversibly damaged his professional reputation.
- minimaxir 13y agoPax Dickinson is now creating and running a tech startup. https://medium.com/glimpse-labs/4aa5b6a6a665 https://medium.com/glimpse-labs/4aa5b6a6a665
- option_greek 13y agoWould it still be sexist if the event was branded as R rated or adults only ?
- eli 13y agoYes.
- scc 13y agoUnsurprisingly, the guys who demoed "Titstare" are part of AngelHack - they are from the "Hate-You Cards" team which was accepted into AngelHack's "pre-accelerator" program.
- dobbsbob 13y agoWhere I live a very out, flaming gay dev once presented an app as a joke to detect what he called gaydar and was pointing it at uncomfortable suit guys and saying stuff like "you're a faggot dude, math doesn't lie". I thought it was a hilarious small moment of anarchy in an otherwise very dull conference full of banking apps. A Jewish programmer also had a lol app to determine holocaust survival and the outcomes ranged from 'Nazi comfort boy' to 'gassed immediately' after analyzing your picture. This was a tradeshow/conference for payment solutions. Lots of uncomfortable silence. Later found out the presenter was a comedian some casino had hired. If he had done that at a US tradeshow all of twitter would've exploded in faux outrage I don't get the Business Insider troll tweets though. I think he forgot Twitter isn't 4chan
- pjbrunet 13y agoI don't think they should make such broad generalizations about the tech industry because of three 20-something guys from San Francisco, New York City, who aren't even employed by any large, reputable technology company.
- robomartin 13y agoThe most amazing thing to me is that nobody stood up during these presentations and read these idiots the riot act. If I were sitting there with my daughter and some fucking moron got up on stage and started showing a masturbation app, well, let's just say the presentation would have been interrupted. He would not have left that stage without a solid public shaming. Very loud and extremely intense. So I have to wonder. How many people were there? Why didn't the dad with his nine year old daughter get up and raise hell? Why didn't the organizers? Why didn't women? Aologizing after the fact is one thing. If you want to send a solid message you have to publicly shame these morons then and there. Te problem is that a lot of these young guys in tech are still, mentally speaking, teenagers, which makes them socially inept and, in some cases, complete idiots.
- bcheung 13y ago"Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex." Talking about sex or using crude sexual humor is NOT sexism. It may be inappropriate for a professional environment (especially if kids are around) but it is not sexism; there is no discrimination nor an intent to put someone else down.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> > "Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex." > Talking about sex or using crude sexual humor is NOT sexism Creating a selectively hostile environment is a (fairly significant) legally recognized form of discrimination based on sex, and both of these can be (and not infrequently are) mechanisms that create such an environment, so it is, at best, an oversimplification to say that they are not sexism.
- bcheung 13y agoI agree it may be a offensive environment but how is it selective or discriminatory though? People can be offended by just about anything. Doesn't mean they are the target. Religion offends me—being around it makes me uncomfortable—but that doesn't give me the right to tell people to stop talking about.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> I agree it may be a offensive environment but how is it selective or discriminatory though? Its selectively hostile because of disparate impact due to occurring within a cultural context in which sensitivity to these issues is not even approximately evenly distributed by sex. > Religion offends me—being around it makes me uncomfortable—but that doesn't give me the right to tell people to stop talking about. Being human gives you the right to do that (just as the same thing gives other people the right to ignore you when you do, in most circumstances.) This, of course, is completely orthogonal to the question on discrimination, as something being discrimination is not a pre-requisite for someone to have a right to tell people to stop doing it.