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None of the problems she describes have to do with sexism. She felt isolated, alone, unseen, unappreciated, and unable to teach others. These feelings have les

None of the problems she describes have to do with sexism. She felt isolated, alone, unseen, unappreciated, and unable to teach others. These feelings have less to do with being a woman in tech, and more to do with her own social habits and communication skills. If she felt alone and isolated, why didn't she socialize with her teammates more? Organize some social events to bring everyone together? If she felt so isolated, what was she doing to address that? Was she isolating herself? Becoming an effective manager isn't easy or automatic. For someone to learn from you, you need to first develop mutual trust and respect, and that can take time. I certainly have worked for people I wasn't willing to learn from, and that had nothing to do with their gender. I didn't respect them or trust them as a mentor. It sounds like she resented her struggle to be a lead, and blamed it on sexism rather than work on communication skills to learn how to be an effective mentor. The only sexism here seems to be her viewpoint of the men around her as unloved, unseen, and needy for female attention. If she treated her coworkers that way, or felt the need to distance herself because of this perspective, that might explain why she felt isolated. Sometimes when we're insecure about something, it makes us more brittle and sensitive. This can make it difficult to be comfortable around others.

pyrocat 13y ago
Yes let's blame the victim.
- coldtea 13y ago
  Maybe we should first examine if there is a victim there in the first place? Instead of, you know, taking their word for granted (something not even their own lawyer would do), and spouting silly unwaranted "rape" metaphors against anyone arguing?
  - pyrocat 13y ago
    This isn't a legal case. When articles are posted by men, people normally take their word for granted. But you're right, the analogy was probably a bit much.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      >When articles are posted by men, people normally take their word for granted. Do they? If anything, most articles on HN are met with a "why was this posted", "this is BS", "not worth our time", "You call that a project, I could code this in a weekend", "you don't know shit about monads" etc attitude. I haven't seen any shortage of people NOT taking what male posters write for granted on HN.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
- overgryphon 13y ago
  Are we supposed to conclude that men never feel isolated, alone, or struggle to mentor others? She describes very common feelings and struggles related to working in a corporate environment, and then blames them on her gender. This made leaving tech her only option, since she can't change who she is. Had she been a little less quick to assign sexism to fairly common struggles, perhaps she could have explored ways to effectively address those feelings.
  - kaitai 13y ago
    Didn't you read the article? She addresses exactly the point that men feel isolated, alone, and struggle to mentor others in paragraph 7. She also addresses your idea that she "blames [it] on her gender." Please respond to the article under discussion rather than a similar, but different, article.
    - overgryphon 13y ago
      Yes, which of course she attributes to men's problems with needing attention from women who understand them.
smacktoward 13y ago
So your argument is that she was asking for it?
FuzzyDunlop 13y ago
There's a startling lack of empathy here. Overcoming feelings of isolation and trying to get more involved is easier said than done for some, and the whole concept of taking something by the horns and just fucking dealing with it, or offering advice by 'telling it like it is' is astonishingly unhelpful to anyone who feels upset or down because of something. Not just sexism, or isolation, but depression, anxiety, loneliness, and all manner of things which will cause a person to feel like they're on the outside looking in, or beyond reproach. The entire post cries out for such an empathetic response and I'm not surprised in the slightest that none is forthcoming in this thread. I've had experiences myself relating to this attitude to things, and know that posts like this are incredibly difficult to write, and the emotions are difficult to discuss. I'm glad the author found the courage to publish it.
- overgryphon 13y ago
  I'm not trying to say that she should "just deal with it". These are legitimate feelings and struggles, but they have nothing to do with sexism. Her attributing these problems and feelings to sexism prevents any actual discussion of how to effectively address these feelings because that's sexist, obviously she plays no role in this if it's because of her gender. She's victimizing herself, and by association all of the other women in tech who only work with men. Honestly, I'm a bit defensive here because I'm tired of being told by other women that any problem I encounter at work is because of my gender. Getting involved is hard, and takes practice. Same goes for mentoring others. Had she simply wrote about those struggles, the comments would be filled with similar anecdotes and empathy from all the people in HN who have been there regardless of gender. But claiming all of these feelings are because of her gender is, well, sexist.
  - jacalata 13y ago
    It sounds like you are so defensive that you're not willing to recognise that any problems could be because of their gender, which is just as likely to be wrong as the people who insist that all problems are because of gender. How do you know that she wasn't a perfectly capable lead with team members who didn't take her seriously because she was female? Do you literally believe that's an impossible scenario? From the article, while I can't judge her abilities as a lead, at least part of her problems were to do with feeling like she was being treated differently because she was a woman and having no way to verify this. If she was one of a number of women, then it would be much easier for her to check on that feeling and see if it was true. When you are the only one of your kind, you can't look for people with similar backgrounds to look for correlations, so you can't really tell if there is a pattern or not. If I thought that it was completely unrealistic and impossible for any developers to be sexist, then I might write this story off as entirely her own neuroses - but I am not convinced that is the case. (also, given the numerous comments along the lines of 'you don't like assholes well get out of tech then', I suspect she would have hit pushback no matter how she phrased any stories of struggles with dealing with assholes)
kalensh 13y ago
I disagree, at least partially. Feeling isolated, alone, or unappreciated are not, in any way, issues that only happen to women. However, the fact that she was often the only woman at the very least exacerbated these issues. If she had had female colleagues to share experiences with and provide encouragement, she might have come out of it with a different perspective. Female colleagues who already get along with with the rest of the team might have also provided an easier route to socializing with everyone. I don't think she's trying to highlight that the men she worked with were sexist. She brings up one incident but then acknowledges that was only her interpretation of it at the time. Instead, the more general sexism issue has to do with the lack of women in the tech field. She might have still faced some form of these issues in a team that was more evenly divided, but having that support could help distinguish what's caused by sexism and what's due to other reasons, including her own inexperience or insecurity.

pyrocat 13y ago

Yes let's blame the victim.

coldtea 13y ago
Maybe we should first examine if there is a victim there in the first place? Instead of, you know, taking their word for granted (something not even their own lawyer would do), and spouting silly unwaranted "rape" metaphors against anyone arguing?
- pyrocat 13y ago
  This isn't a legal case. When articles are posted by men, people normally take their word for granted. But you're right, the analogy was probably a bit much.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >When articles are posted by men, people normally take their word for granted. Do they? If anything, most articles on HN are met with a "why was this posted", "this is BS", "not worth our time", "You call that a project, I could code this in a weekend", "you don't know shit about monads" etc attitude. I haven't seen any shortage of people NOT taking what male posters write for granted on HN.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
overgryphon 13y ago
Are we supposed to conclude that men never feel isolated, alone, or struggle to mentor others? She describes very common feelings and struggles related to working in a corporate environment, and then blames them on her gender. This made leaving tech her only option, since she can't change who she is. Had she been a little less quick to assign sexism to fairly common struggles, perhaps she could have explored ways to effectively address those feelings.
- kaitai 13y ago
  Didn't you read the article? She addresses exactly the point that men feel isolated, alone, and struggle to mentor others in paragraph 7. She also addresses your idea that she "blames [it] on her gender." Please respond to the article under discussion rather than a similar, but different, article.
  - overgryphon 13y ago
    Yes, which of course she attributes to men's problems with needing attention from women who understand them.

smacktoward 13y ago

So your argument is that she was asking for it?

FuzzyDunlop 13y ago

There's a startling lack of empathy here. Overcoming feelings of isolation and trying to get more involved is easier said than done for some, and the whole concept of taking something by the horns and just fucking dealing with it, or offering advice by 'telling it like it is' is astonishingly unhelpful to anyone who feels upset or down because of something. Not just sexism, or isolation, but depression, anxiety, loneliness, and all manner of things which will cause a person to feel like they're on the outside looking in, or beyond reproach. The entire post cries out for such an empathetic response and I'm not surprised in the slightest that none is forthcoming in this thread. I've had experiences myself relating to this attitude to things, and know that posts like this are incredibly difficult to write, and the emotions are difficult to discuss. I'm glad the author found the courage to publish it.

overgryphon 13y ago
I'm not trying to say that she should "just deal with it". These are legitimate feelings and struggles, but they have nothing to do with sexism. Her attributing these problems and feelings to sexism prevents any actual discussion of how to effectively address these feelings because that's sexist, obviously she plays no role in this if it's because of her gender. She's victimizing herself, and by association all of the other women in tech who only work with men. Honestly, I'm a bit defensive here because I'm tired of being told by other women that any problem I encounter at work is because of my gender. Getting involved is hard, and takes practice. Same goes for mentoring others. Had she simply wrote about those struggles, the comments would be filled with similar anecdotes and empathy from all the people in HN who have been there regardless of gender. But claiming all of these feelings are because of her gender is, well, sexist.
- jacalata 13y ago
  It sounds like you are so defensive that you're not willing to recognise that any problems could be because of their gender, which is just as likely to be wrong as the people who insist that all problems are because of gender. How do you know that she wasn't a perfectly capable lead with team members who didn't take her seriously because she was female? Do you literally believe that's an impossible scenario? From the article, while I can't judge her abilities as a lead, at least part of her problems were to do with feeling like she was being treated differently because she was a woman and having no way to verify this. If she was one of a number of women, then it would be much easier for her to check on that feeling and see if it was true. When you are the only one of your kind, you can't look for people with similar backgrounds to look for correlations, so you can't really tell if there is a pattern or not. If I thought that it was completely unrealistic and impossible for any developers to be sexist, then I might write this story off as entirely her own neuroses - but I am not convinced that is the case. (also, given the numerous comments along the lines of 'you don't like assholes well get out of tech then', I suspect she would have hit pushback no matter how she phrased any stories of struggles with dealing with assholes)

kalensh 13y ago

I disagree, at least partially. Feeling isolated, alone, or unappreciated are not, in any way, issues that only happen to women. However, the fact that she was often the only woman at the very least exacerbated these issues. If she had had female colleagues to share experiences with and provide encouragement, she might have come out of it with a different perspective. Female colleagues who already get along with with the rest of the team might have also provided an easier route to socializing with everyone. I don't think she's trying to highlight that the men she worked with were sexist. She brings up one incident but then acknowledges that was only her interpretation of it at the time. Instead, the more general sexism issue has to do with the lack of women in the tech field. She might have still faced some form of these issues in a team that was more evenly divided, but having that support could help distinguish what's caused by sexism and what's due to other reasons, including her own inexperience or insecurity.