7 ms·

Devops needs feminism

23 points by danslimmon 13y ago

wnoise 13y ago
The current title on HN of "Feminism is to equality as metrics are to performance" is far more interesting than the title at the blog of "Devops needs feminism", but it's never really elucidated.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  The original title was indeed interesting. I expected a different case to be made, though - that much like metrics can be necessary to improve performance, feminism can be necessary to improve equality, but in both cases it's possible to focus too much on the means and not enough on the end. I'm not entirely sure how much I'd have agreed with such a case, but it's an interesting lens.
aaronem 13y ago
The term 'equality' is frequently used there, but never defined, which seems odd for an article that revolves around performance metrics used as a metaphor for feminism.
rayiner 13y ago
I can't express how infuriating I find the "we just need to treat everyone equally, that's it!" type of comments, and these analogies help me understand why. It's like saying "we just need to write maintainable modular code, that's it!"
- betterunix 13y ago
  I am more infuriated by the idea that if women are underrepresented in technical fields, it must be the fault of the men in those technical fields. After all, if men would just treat women equally, then women would represent half the workforce in those fields, right? Women are underrepresented in applications to engineering school. Are adults who are already in the workforce responsible for that? Do high school girls somehow sense the "hostile environment" in engineering schools before they spend a single day there? If we want to actually solve this problem, we need to go all the way to the beginning: middle school, where girls mysteriously start losing interest in technical fields.
  - Morendil 13y ago
    > I am more infuriated by the idea that if women are underrepresented in technical fields, it must be the fault of the men in those technical fields. Who's saying that? > If we want to actually solve this problem, we need to go all the way to the beginning: middle school, where girls mysteriously start losing interest in technical fields. What do you mean by "go to middle school" - who do you suggest should take what action in that particular venue? > mysteriously What's mysterious about it? What expectations do you have that this observation runs counter to? What needs to be changed in our mental model of this system, so that instead of this being a mystery it becomes a predictable of the system's properties? (At which point we can start asking "how to change the system so that we get different outcomes".) (This is me being curious, not Socratic, BTW.)
    - betterunix 13y ago
      "> I am more infuriated by the idea that if women are underrepresented in technical fields, it must be the fault of the men in those technical fields. Who's saying that?" Well, the article itself: Promoting equality in your organization If you start actively working to attack inequality in your organization, I guarantee you’ll realize you were already a feminist. When your heart’s in the right place and you’re constantly examining your own actions and your organization’s, you start to notice bias and prejudice in more and more places. Most disturbingly, you notice it in yourself. The implication in all of this is that there is inequality in our field that is due to our behavior i.e. the behavior of adults in the workforce. It is simply assumed that if we promote equality in our profession, and make it a team effort, then we will get equality. "What do you mean by "go to middle school" - who do you suggest should take what action in that particular venue?" I did not claim to have a solution, I was just pointing out where the problem lies. At some point in a girl's life, long before she is even thinking about college, something happens to undermine her interest in science and math. Years down the road, she winds up majoring in something that is not engineering or computer science, and fails to acquire the technical skills needed for a career in such fields by any other means. Obviously this is not something that all girls experience, but to a large extent it is the reason that engineering schools have so few women and so many men. Maybe it is something girls are seeing on TV. Maybe it is something they are reading on the Internet. It is pretty clear that a young teenager is not seeing whatever prejudice exists in the workplace (how often do middle schoolers wander into your office?). "What's mysterious about it? What expectations do you have that this observation runs counter to?" Absent some reason to think otherwise, why would anyone assume that girls who have a talent and interest in math before a certain age would suddenly abandon their interest upon reaching that age? If puberty is the answer, why does it not happen to boys? For that matter, why does it seem to happen to a different degree in our country than in others?
- tedunangst 13y ago
  I agree, except I didn't see much "actionable" content here. A blog post rarely just says "write modular code", it tells you how. Let's say I'm the boss at a startup with around 20 employees, but only four women. How do I fix that?
  - Jtsummers 13y ago
    Sometimes you can't, quotas aren't a useful solution. Check your recruiting approach. Are you recruiting from male dominated events? Are there more balanced forums or even female dominated forums you can also recruit from but haven't yet? Do you read the name of all applicants with their resumes? Try sorting applications without knowing the name, gender, race and see if perhaps you had an unintended bias in how you filtered them. Check your behavior. Do your female engineers end up as project tech writers and configuration managers more often than the men? Is that where they want to be or did you just happen to put them there? If so, why? Check the behavior of your staff, is there a guy who keeps hitting on the female staff or a particular person? I've seen this happen and several women leave before management acknowledged that his behavior really was a problem. In the end, your 4:1 ratio may be fine, you may have hired the appropriate people for the position and there's no reason to fret. Same with ratios for other demographics. But recognizing that intended or unintended biases can be at play is important if we want to change STEM at large.
return0 13y ago
Lots of human groups are underrepresented in technology (africans, older people, latinos etc). Why are feminists the only ones that always make it to the frontpage (even superficial pieces like this one)?
- jaibot 13y ago
  Hypothesis one: Women are a majority of the population; Their absence is more surprising, and the number of people interested in changing it is higher. Hypothesis two: There is a perception that the absence of women in tech is more a function of tech culture than broader socioeconomic issues (e.g. There's no racial equivalent of "Code Like a Pornstar") Hypothesis Three: It's possible that the female gap is bigger than that of other groups.
- scarmig 13y ago
  Why do people instantly put up ideological blinders at the first mention of feminism in response to an interesting article? I mean, do you find anything at all objectionable in what it says? Please share! Or a subtlety that it leaves out? Totally! I agree with you that racial issues are underemphasized in technical communities, and in the same way we should use feminism as a framework for achieving the organizational and social goal of equality, we should try to do the same for race.
  - return0 13y ago
    I find it objectionable that blindly applying feminist recipes in IT will have any effect. Feminism is not a framework but a set of ideologies, and even if we assume it is, applying it out of context, it is just stupid (e.g. a company claiming it is 'pro choice' in order to attract women). Most IT jobs are in countries where feminism already works for decades. Clearly you need something more than feminism to achieve total equality.
- bcj 13y ago
  I would hazard to guess that is related to two factors: women are the largest group that are underrepresented; and it is harder to explain women's underrepresentation as a result of socio-economic factors. No matter where you live, you can expect women to represent ~50% of the population. That makes it very easy to notice if there is a discrepancy, even if you work in a tiny office. To tell whether an ethnic/age group is, you first need to know the prevalence, then you need to have enough people that a discrepency is noticeable. With a number of groups you can explain why a group is underrepresented by looking at socio-economic factors like their average income, access to technology, access to schooling, etc. For any socio-economic group, there should be (roughly) the same number of men and women in that group, so it can't be used as an explanation of the under-representation of women. EDIT: I didn't notice that jailbot had already said what I said, but in a less wordy fashion.
DanielBMarkham 13y ago
Yeah, but people-based metrics are subjective, even if they have hard numbers stuck in there. That's the problem. The mistake here is viewing the entire system as simple, instead of emergent. Emergent systems are not usefully measured by simplistic top-down metrics. You have one piece of code, yep, you set up some measurements and have fun with it. You have a thousand programs, running across a hundred different platforms? The idea that you can determine cause and effect by a simple top-down metric is a problem in itself. Yes, you may be able to determine that overall the system is not working as you would like it to be, and you may certainly decide that some kind of action is required, but that gives you no clue whatsoever what the required changes would be! In fact, by looking from the top-down in an aggregate fashion, it's even arguable whether or not your metric is the one to be optimized! That's the difference between complex systems and simple systems. Stop over-simplifying. We all might be able to agree that some aggregate statistic is out of whack. Maybe. But that's a freaking long way from actually knowing anything about the problem or what to start doing to address it. Instead, we wrap it all up like that answer is straightforward, wave our arms around, get all emotional, and demand action. This is not a recipe for success, whether in complex systems of programs or complex systems of people.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- jeremiep 13y ago
  If "feminism" is really about equality then why on earth is it named after one sex? This seems a little odd to me. Why not merely name it "humanism" and call it a day?
  - jaibot 13y ago
    It' focused on inequality along a particular axis and inherits from a historical tradition which has focused mainly on the disadvantages faced by one side of that axis. By way of analogy, there are tools to optimize loops during compliation. This is part of the broader goal of optimizing software, but to call them simply "optimizers" and call it a day would be to pointlessly forfeit semantic bandwidth. Fixing problems requires getting specific. And yes, sometimes loops don't need optimization, and of course there are other things to take care of, but there's still value in talking about the specifics.
Dewie 13y ago
The author doesn't seem to know much about feminism (self-admitted); he seems to be using the first and best definitions he can find, find that that definition/decription resonates with him, and then tries to sell it. So anyone who believes in equality (and isn't an asshole) is a feminist. Okay. Then I'll similarly assert that everyone who believes in equal opportunity is a communist, that everyone who believes in freedom is a capitalist, etc. Now, everyone is at least superficially acquainted with these ideologies, so they won't simply take such assertions at face value, even if I say that 'there are many definitions and this is just my definition'. To assert that an ideology (or school of thought, or what have you) is about this and that, a handy 'definition' is not enough for me, personally. One should perhaps make an assessment based on what it's members do and say, such as bloggers, academics, etc.. Or restrict oneself to a particular wave of feminism. At least a more comprehensive description and/or analysis is in order if you want to correct others, than to simply cite a single definition from a single Wiki. That is just my opinion, OP.
xkiwi 13y ago
As a founder in tech field, I use a few steps to detect feminism, 1. If they have equal opportunities/equipments? 2. If the statements are bias based on other people instead of looking problem within themselves first. 3. Do they have the right/enough knowledge in the field. In my experiences, Number 3 is very important. I never meet anyone with enough practice & knowledge about programming complains about gender problem. Stories I read is about people cannot write a single line of code but wants to be the executive/Project Manger.
carsongross 13y ago
Devops needs feminism like a fish needs a bicycle.
fruzz 13y ago
The biggest issue I've come to see in this industry is the denial that there's even an issue. That's what makes sexism so hard to address. You'll find no shortage of those who don't experience that marginalization deny its existence. Meanwhile, those who do experience it and try to share how they experience it are ignored or talked over.
omonra 13y ago
I don't care how many women are in tech. Likewise I don't care how many straight men are in fashion or Mexicans in the NBA. There - I said it.

23 points by danslimmon 13y ago

The current title on HN of "Feminism is to equality as metrics are to performance" is far more interesting than the title at the blog of "Devops needs feminism", but it's never really elucidated.

dllthomas 13y ago
The original title was indeed interesting. I expected a different case to be made, though - that much like metrics can be necessary to improve performance, feminism can be necessary to improve equality, but in both cases it's possible to focus too much on the means and not enough on the end. I'm not entirely sure how much I'd have agreed with such a case, but it's an interesting lens.

aaronem 13y ago

The term 'equality' is frequently used there, but never defined, which seems odd for an article that revolves around performance metrics used as a metaphor for feminism.

rayiner 13y ago

I can't express how infuriating I find the "we just need to treat everyone equally, that's it!" type of comments, and these analogies help me understand why. It's like saying "we just need to write maintainable modular code, that's it!"

betterunix 13y ago
I am more infuriated by the idea that if women are underrepresented in technical fields, it must be the fault of the men in those technical fields. After all, if men would just treat women equally, then women would represent half the workforce in those fields, right? Women are underrepresented in applications to engineering school. Are adults who are already in the workforce responsible for that? Do high school girls somehow sense the "hostile environment" in engineering schools before they spend a single day there? If we want to actually solve this problem, we need to go all the way to the beginning: middle school, where girls mysteriously start losing interest in technical fields.
- Morendil 13y ago
  > I am more infuriated by the idea that if women are underrepresented in technical fields, it must be the fault of the men in those technical fields. Who's saying that? > If we want to actually solve this problem, we need to go all the way to the beginning: middle school, where girls mysteriously start losing interest in technical fields. What do you mean by "go to middle school" - who do you suggest should take what action in that particular venue? > mysteriously What's mysterious about it? What expectations do you have that this observation runs counter to? What needs to be changed in our mental model of this system, so that instead of this being a mystery it becomes a predictable of the system's properties? (At which point we can start asking "how to change the system so that we get different outcomes".) (This is me being curious, not Socratic, BTW.)
  - betterunix 13y ago
    "> I am more infuriated by the idea that if women are underrepresented in technical fields, it must be the fault of the men in those technical fields. Who's saying that?" Well, the article itself: Promoting equality in your organization If you start actively working to attack inequality in your organization, I guarantee you’ll realize you were already a feminist. When your heart’s in the right place and you’re constantly examining your own actions and your organization’s, you start to notice bias and prejudice in more and more places. Most disturbingly, you notice it in yourself. The implication in all of this is that there is inequality in our field that is due to our behavior i.e. the behavior of adults in the workforce. It is simply assumed that if we promote equality in our profession, and make it a team effort, then we will get equality. "What do you mean by "go to middle school" - who do you suggest should take what action in that particular venue?" I did not claim to have a solution, I was just pointing out where the problem lies. At some point in a girl's life, long before she is even thinking about college, something happens to undermine her interest in science and math. Years down the road, she winds up majoring in something that is not engineering or computer science, and fails to acquire the technical skills needed for a career in such fields by any other means. Obviously this is not something that all girls experience, but to a large extent it is the reason that engineering schools have so few women and so many men. Maybe it is something girls are seeing on TV. Maybe it is something they are reading on the Internet. It is pretty clear that a young teenager is not seeing whatever prejudice exists in the workplace (how often do middle schoolers wander into your office?). "What's mysterious about it? What expectations do you have that this observation runs counter to?" Absent some reason to think otherwise, why would anyone assume that girls who have a talent and interest in math before a certain age would suddenly abandon their interest upon reaching that age? If puberty is the answer, why does it not happen to boys? For that matter, why does it seem to happen to a different degree in our country than in others?
tedunangst 13y ago
I agree, except I didn't see much "actionable" content here. A blog post rarely just says "write modular code", it tells you how. Let's say I'm the boss at a startup with around 20 employees, but only four women. How do I fix that?
- Jtsummers 13y ago
  Sometimes you can't, quotas aren't a useful solution. Check your recruiting approach. Are you recruiting from male dominated events? Are there more balanced forums or even female dominated forums you can also recruit from but haven't yet? Do you read the name of all applicants with their resumes? Try sorting applications without knowing the name, gender, race and see if perhaps you had an unintended bias in how you filtered them. Check your behavior. Do your female engineers end up as project tech writers and configuration managers more often than the men? Is that where they want to be or did you just happen to put them there? If so, why? Check the behavior of your staff, is there a guy who keeps hitting on the female staff or a particular person? I've seen this happen and several women leave before management acknowledged that his behavior really was a problem. In the end, your 4:1 ratio may be fine, you may have hired the appropriate people for the position and there's no reason to fret. Same with ratios for other demographics. But recognizing that intended or unintended biases can be at play is important if we want to change STEM at large.

return0 13y ago

Lots of human groups are underrepresented in technology (africans, older people, latinos etc). Why are feminists the only ones that always make it to the frontpage (even superficial pieces like this one)?

jaibot 13y ago
Hypothesis one: Women are a majority of the population; Their absence is more surprising, and the number of people interested in changing it is higher. Hypothesis two: There is a perception that the absence of women in tech is more a function of tech culture than broader socioeconomic issues (e.g. There's no racial equivalent of "Code Like a Pornstar") Hypothesis Three: It's possible that the female gap is bigger than that of other groups.
scarmig 13y ago
Why do people instantly put up ideological blinders at the first mention of feminism in response to an interesting article? I mean, do you find anything at all objectionable in what it says? Please share! Or a subtlety that it leaves out? Totally! I agree with you that racial issues are underemphasized in technical communities, and in the same way we should use feminism as a framework for achieving the organizational and social goal of equality, we should try to do the same for race.
- return0 13y ago
  I find it objectionable that blindly applying feminist recipes in IT will have any effect. Feminism is not a framework but a set of ideologies, and even if we assume it is, applying it out of context, it is just stupid (e.g. a company claiming it is 'pro choice' in order to attract women). Most IT jobs are in countries where feminism already works for decades. Clearly you need something more than feminism to achieve total equality.
bcj 13y ago
I would hazard to guess that is related to two factors: women are the largest group that are underrepresented; and it is harder to explain women's underrepresentation as a result of socio-economic factors. No matter where you live, you can expect women to represent ~50% of the population. That makes it very easy to notice if there is a discrepancy, even if you work in a tiny office. To tell whether an ethnic/age group is, you first need to know the prevalence, then you need to have enough people that a discrepency is noticeable. With a number of groups you can explain why a group is underrepresented by looking at socio-economic factors like their average income, access to technology, access to schooling, etc. For any socio-economic group, there should be (roughly) the same number of men and women in that group, so it can't be used as an explanation of the under-representation of women. EDIT: I didn't notice that jailbot had already said what I said, but in a less wordy fashion.

DanielBMarkham 13y ago

Yeah, but people-based metrics are subjective, even if they have hard numbers stuck in there. That's the problem. The mistake here is viewing the entire system as simple, instead of emergent. Emergent systems are not usefully measured by simplistic top-down metrics. You have one piece of code, yep, you set up some measurements and have fun with it. You have a thousand programs, running across a hundred different platforms? The idea that you can determine cause and effect by a simple top-down metric is a problem in itself. Yes, you may be able to determine that overall the system is not working as you would like it to be, and you may certainly decide that some kind of action is required, but that gives you no clue whatsoever what the required changes would be! In fact, by looking from the top-down in an aggregate fashion, it's even arguable whether or not your metric is the one to be optimized! That's the difference between complex systems and simple systems. Stop over-simplifying. We all might be able to agree that some aggregate statistic is out of whack. Maybe. But that's a freaking long way from actually knowing anything about the problem or what to start doing to address it. Instead, we wrap it all up like that answer is straightforward, wave our arms around, get all emotional, and demand action. This is not a recipe for success, whether in complex systems of programs or complex systems of people.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jeremiep 13y ago
If "feminism" is really about equality then why on earth is it named after one sex? This seems a little odd to me. Why not merely name it "humanism" and call it a day?
- jaibot 13y ago
  It' focused on inequality along a particular axis and inherits from a historical tradition which has focused mainly on the disadvantages faced by one side of that axis. By way of analogy, there are tools to optimize loops during compliation. This is part of the broader goal of optimizing software, but to call them simply "optimizers" and call it a day would be to pointlessly forfeit semantic bandwidth. Fixing problems requires getting specific. And yes, sometimes loops don't need optimization, and of course there are other things to take care of, but there's still value in talking about the specifics.

Dewie 13y ago

The author doesn't seem to know much about feminism (self-admitted); he seems to be using the first and best definitions he can find, find that that definition/decription resonates with him, and then tries to sell it. So anyone who believes in equality (and isn't an asshole) is a feminist. Okay. Then I'll similarly assert that everyone who believes in equal opportunity is a communist, that everyone who believes in freedom is a capitalist, etc. Now, everyone is at least superficially acquainted with these ideologies, so they won't simply take such assertions at face value, even if I say that 'there are many definitions and this is just my definition'. To assert that an ideology (or school of thought, or what have you) is about this and that, a handy 'definition' is not enough for me, personally. One should perhaps make an assessment based on what it's members do and say, such as bloggers, academics, etc.. Or restrict oneself to a particular wave of feminism. At least a more comprehensive description and/or analysis is in order if you want to correct others, than to simply cite a single definition from a single Wiki. That is just my opinion, OP.

xkiwi 13y ago

As a founder in tech field, I use a few steps to detect feminism, 1. If they have equal opportunities/equipments? 2. If the statements are bias based on other people instead of looking problem within themselves first. 3. Do they have the right/enough knowledge in the field. In my experiences, Number 3 is very important. I never meet anyone with enough practice & knowledge about programming complains about gender problem. Stories I read is about people cannot write a single line of code but wants to be the executive/Project Manger.

carsongross 13y ago

Devops needs feminism like a fish needs a bicycle.

fruzz 13y ago

The biggest issue I've come to see in this industry is the denial that there's even an issue. That's what makes sexism so hard to address. You'll find no shortage of those who don't experience that marginalization deny its existence. Meanwhile, those who do experience it and try to share how they experience it are ignored or talked over.

omonra 13y ago

I don't care how many women are in tech. Likewise I don't care how many straight men are in fashion or Mexicans in the NBA. There - I said it.