7 ms·

My First Hand Experience With Sexism

46 points by interesse 13y ago

Fomite 13y ago
You did the right thing, IMO. Silence is tacitly condoning the status quo. Be the change you want to see, and when you're in a relative position of power (like being able to turn down a job), do something.
- Paul_S 13y ago
  > You did the right thing, IMO. Silence is tacitly condoning the status quo. But that is what the author did - he didn't confront the CEO, nor did he name the company.
  - Fomite 13y ago
    He told the company it was a reason he wasn't accepting. After the fact, I think that's still laudable.
facepalm 13y ago
Jerks exist in the world. Frankly I don't see the big deal. It's clearly not a company he (or many other people) would like to work for. That happens a lot. Interviewing is a two sided process - the company has to like the candidate, and the candidate has to like the company. So it's a case of the candidate not liking the company. Surprisingly, even among men, not every man likes every other man. While I don't agree with the CEOs statement, I think people should be allowed to hire whoever they want. If somebody doesn't want to hire women, so be it. There are companies that don't want to hire men, too.
- fleshweasel 13y ago
  This kind of silly shit is much easier to say when you're a member of that racial or gender group that more people want to hire.
  - facepalm 13y ago
    The reverse exists, too, and I am pretty sure there are enough companies who want to hire women to give all women in IT sufficient choices. What do you suggest - should the CEO be imprisoned? Disallowed from doing business? Go to brainwashing camp to set his brain right? It's easy to get angry about such cases, but think about what you want to achieve. Perhaps he had some bad experiences with women. It's unfortunate, but perhaps it should be respected if he doesn't want to work with women. The opposite way, women not wanting to work with men, is being cheered on by the "good people" all the time. Also, in recent months I had lots of interviews where I didn't get hired. So what is it to me if certain groups are more likely to be hired? Even assuming it is true - it didn't help me that I am a man, the companies still didn't like me.
    - pessimizer 13y ago
      >I am pretty sure there are enough companies who want to hire women to give all women in IT sufficient choices. Why are you sure of that? Is it because you have to be to overcome the cognitive dissonance of supporting the right to discriminate against women but not feeling like you yourself are a sexist, or because you have information that I'm not privy to? edit: Maybe the "law of averages" tells you that for each group with an opinion, there's an equally large counterbalancing group with the opposite opinion?
      - facepalm 13y ago
        I am sure because every week there are stories on HN about companies paying extra to lure women into IT. So apparently there are not enough IT women on the market to satisfy the demand of companies. And even the companies who don't make a public announcement about it - many of them will probably also want to hire women, because it just seems slightly weird if an office is all-male. It's like a party without women.
    - mmatants 13y ago
      This may not be about changing that particular CEO's attitudes but about sharing the experience with the rest of us, so that we all may extract something out of it. It's a statement that "this happened" - we make of it what we will.
- tbrownaw 13y ago
  While I don't agree with the CEOs statement, I think people should be allowed to hire whoever they want. The trouble with this is that a set of biases can become near-universal. I have the right to associate (or not) with whoever I choose. But if everyone (or nearly everyone) choose not to associate with people from a particular group, that is harmful to society[1]. So, there are exceptions made to your freedom of association. IIRC these exceptions only apply to companies with more than 50 employees, which seems a decent balance between "we're all friends here" small/family businesses (individual rights win) vs "you are a cog in a wheel" megacorps (the good of society wins). [1] For example, I understand that people refusing to hire ex-convicts is a significant contributor to recidivism.
  - facepalm 13y ago
    I know there are such laws - not sure if I agree with them, but OK (literally not sure - maybe it is good, maybe not - to be sure I wouldn't like it if it were my own company). But how are they being enforced, with so many possible candidates? Disabled people, women, different ethnic backgrounds, different schools, ex-convicts... One you go over 50, you have to have at least one of each of them? Or if you hire employee 51 and the candidate is an ex-convict, you have to hire him?
  - gizmo686 13y ago
    Economic theory would suggest a limit on this effect with regards to hiring.
angersock 13y ago
Author ought to have mentioned the name of the company--otherwise, it's just more vapid hearsay. If we don't know who was supposed to have done this, what does it matter? Morever, this quote got under my skin: "Now I really empathized with all the women who were victims of assault or rape. To me, this was equivalent to videoing an assault or rape, doing nothing to stop it and later claiming you didn’t have a part in it." That sort of comparison cheapens the suffering of those people; it's hyperbole of the worst sort.
- innertracks 13y ago
  As someone who has been a victim of sexual assault (rape) I would like to up vote your comment about a hundred times. The author apparently hasn't had to deal with the years of healing needed on so many levels. And yeah, it happens to men, too. By women.
mynameisasdf 13y ago
This article is incredibly badly written and lacks any real thought about the matter. So he had one interview with some douche CEO and now jumps to the conclusion that: >"Sadly, sexism is alive and well in my industry. " >"Now I really empathized with all the women who were victims of assault or rape." Fucking really? I've been a developer for now over 11 years and must have met thousands of other devs from countless conferences and meetups. Only once, ONCE, have I ever met someone who made a women-bashing comment similar to what he is talking about. This is both infront of women and behind their backs. The only real sexism prevalent in the tech industry are the groups of militant feminists setting up endless, patronizing, segregated "coding for girls" meetups.
- angersock 13y ago
  "The only real sexism prevalent in the tech industry are the groups of militant feminists setting up endless, patronizing, segregated "coding for girls" meetups." ahahahahaha no try again
- untog 13y ago
  Only once, ONCE, have I ever met someone who made a women-bashing comment similar to what he is talking about. I'm guessing you're not a woman. Now, I'm not trying to make judgement on the article either way, but I don't think you can really say "I've only ever seen sexism in tech once" when you aren't someone that actually experiences it.
  - gagege 13y ago
    Why not? That's like saying, "You have to have been shot by a gun to be able to say 'I've only seen someone get shot one time.'"
    - untog 13y ago
      It's absolutely nothing like that. I'm not even sure where to start on breaking down how wrong that comparison is. To attempt to mirror your example, it's actually like an Army general sitting in HQ saying "Well, I've only ever seen our guys get shot at once!" when his units are being decimated on the battlefield. (Please don't read into that comparison. I am not actually attempting to compare women to battle-ready soldiers and men to lazy generals)
jwr 13y ago
1. You should have confronted the CEO. 2. Since you did not do that, you should have at least posted the names involved. As it is, I don't see the point of your post.
kingkawn 13y ago
Live the way you want the world to look, and then it has begun to look that way.
wtracy 13y ago
I say name some names. If this really happened at a company that sells products to women, I say it's time for a boycott.
Zikes 13y ago
I'm sure this article will spark a serious, reasoned, and very civil discussion on sexism, which will include verifiable citations for all claims and absolutely no hearsay or strawmen.
- RankingMember 13y ago
  You could fit Steve Ballmer in this sarchasm.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
draugadrotten 13y ago
> “Women are incapable of making the tough decisions necessary to run a profitable company on low margins.” - CEO of a Women’s Product Retailer Frankly, I think the CEO was pulling this guys leg and wanted to see how he reacted when his buttons are pushed. That is a situation that frequently occurs in customer meetings and you don't want your rep to blow up in the customer's face. That said, did you see the recent Swedish study of 125.000 companies that proved women-run companies makes 15% less profit? SOURCE: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=5804631 http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&art... > You should know this about me. I don’t do well around alpha males. Yeah, so the blogger can't deal with CEOs and other authority figures. Wouldn't hire him/her either.
- tomp 13y ago
  > you see the recent Swedish study of 125.000 companies that proved Just a minor nitpick, studies don't prove anything. Even experiments (in Physics) don't prove anything unless different people can reproduce them repeatedly. But (statistical) studies prove nothing at all, they merely hint at a correlation.
  - aidenn0 13y ago
    Minor nitpick of your minor nitpick: Statistical studies do measure something. The parent comment didn't claim the study proved causation, just correlation.
    - betenoire 13y ago
      > that proved women-run companies makes 15% less profit If this quote doesn't claim causation to the common person, then I don't know what does...
  - SilasX 13y ago
    What if I told you there are standard meanings of "prove" that aren't so strict?
- epistasis 13y ago
meritt 13y ago
> "Now I really empathized with all the women who were victims of assault or rape." You interacted with a bad person or two and suddenly you're able to empathize with victims of assault and rape? What? Exactly how minimal is your understanding of those issues to equate them accordingly?
- skrebbel 13y ago
  You're right, of course, but comments like these teach me only one thing: don't blog, write or talk about sexism. Someone will find one sentence that you wrote or said that's not OK and flame your ass about it.
  - saraid216 13y ago
    And then you'll get super defensive about it and refuse to actually accept the useful feedback provided. Everyone loses!
- krstck 13y ago
  I didn't read that as the author actually claiming to have some understanding of what it was like to be assaulted, but rather that he gained an understanding of how people often blame women for their own assaults.
- sp332 13y ago
  He didn't say anything about equating them. He also didn't say he felt the same as those people. (You might be confusing empathy with sympathy?) Edit: she -> he
  - meritt 13y ago
    I didn't confuse empathy with sympathy.
    - sp332 13y ago
      Hm, maybe. Anyway I don't think the empathy was for being raped, but for being ignored.
baddox 13y ago
I'm actually less surprised by the sexism than by the strange ranting behavior from a President during an interview. Even if the rant was about something less controversial, it's just bizarre. If that's normal behavior from the guy, I wonder how they ever recruit talent.
joesmo 13y ago
I'd have cut the interview short to show them that this is unacceptable. They know what they've done and that it's wrong. After the fact, there really isn't much that one can do. Move on and try to find a place where the CEO isn't an asshole. As for it being a test, I doubt anyone is that stupid. He knew what he was saying.
- peterwwillis 13y ago
  > I doubt anyone is that stupid Apparently you haven't met many CEOs.
protomyth 13y ago
He says he doesn't like "alpha males" because he believes that code for "type of person is an inexcusable justification for being an asshole". Then he goes through with the rest of the interview and realizes "How could I just sit there and not say anything?". An alpha male[1] would have stopped the interview right there. Expressed his displeasure that the CEO could even think such a thing, particularly since he was running a company with products for women, and further speculated on how appalled he is that the CEO would then utter such non-sense[2]. Get up and walk the heck away. Defend your damn convictions, when the need defending. Not is some whiny blog post afterwards. 1) or an alpha female, although they wouldn't have got an interview and no one is that stupid to say those things if they did to them (right?!?) 2) my Dad's favorite saying when his sons did something foolish as youths was "I am amazed and appalled. Amazed you though up such a thing and appalled you did it."
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
NextUserName 13y ago
>I then turned inward. I thought of the women in my life, my wife of almost 18yrs and my little 4.5 year old daughters. What would they think of their father for not saying anything and letting this jerk spew his sexist beliefs? I am confused. Is she calling herself her child's father? Is she in a Female-Female marriage?
- taejo 13y ago
  No, he is calling himself his child's father.
  - NextUserName 13y ago
    Did anyone else think that this was a women? The title should not be My First Hand Experience With Sexism. Because first hand would have been if sexism was shown toward the author (because of his gender).
NextUserName 13y ago
OK, bear with me for a moment, but why would a CEO who is so openly and blatantly sexist have accepted a women interviewee in the first place? I am inclined to thing that either he was either testing her, or this is fiction.
- taejo 13y ago
  The interviewee appears to be a man.
  - NextUserName 13y ago
    Did anyone else think that this was a women? The title should not be My First Hand Experience With Sexism. Because first hand would have been if sexism was shown toward the author (because of his gender).
    - makaveli8 13y ago
      EXACTLY! I also read the blog on the assumption that the author was a woman up until he began mention of his wife etc. Does that make us sexist?
NextUserName 13y ago
Do you think that speaking out to the CEO would have changed his mind? I think that if the author really wanted any chance at changing the CEO's mind about women - he should have accepted the job and planted some seeds of thought here and there directly or indirectly to the CEO. Do you think that proceeding, he would be condoning sexism in some way? Perhaps in his own mind, but one person walking away from a job interview can hardly be considered a boycott. If you are one person, your best bet to change something is to engage, not walk away.
makaveli8 13y ago
Am I sexist for assuming that the author was a woman right up until the point where he says "Surprisingly most of my women friends and my wife" ?

46 points by interesse 13y ago

You did the right thing, IMO. Silence is tacitly condoning the status quo. Be the change you want to see, and when you're in a relative position of power (like being able to turn down a job), do something.

Paul_S 13y ago
> You did the right thing, IMO. Silence is tacitly condoning the status quo. But that is what the author did - he didn't confront the CEO, nor did he name the company.
- Fomite 13y ago
  He told the company it was a reason he wasn't accepting. After the fact, I think that's still laudable.

facepalm 13y ago

Jerks exist in the world. Frankly I don't see the big deal. It's clearly not a company he (or many other people) would like to work for. That happens a lot. Interviewing is a two sided process - the company has to like the candidate, and the candidate has to like the company. So it's a case of the candidate not liking the company. Surprisingly, even among men, not every man likes every other man. While I don't agree with the CEOs statement, I think people should be allowed to hire whoever they want. If somebody doesn't want to hire women, so be it. There are companies that don't want to hire men, too.

fleshweasel 13y ago
This kind of silly shit is much easier to say when you're a member of that racial or gender group that more people want to hire.
- facepalm 13y ago
  The reverse exists, too, and I am pretty sure there are enough companies who want to hire women to give all women in IT sufficient choices. What do you suggest - should the CEO be imprisoned? Disallowed from doing business? Go to brainwashing camp to set his brain right? It's easy to get angry about such cases, but think about what you want to achieve. Perhaps he had some bad experiences with women. It's unfortunate, but perhaps it should be respected if he doesn't want to work with women. The opposite way, women not wanting to work with men, is being cheered on by the "good people" all the time. Also, in recent months I had lots of interviews where I didn't get hired. So what is it to me if certain groups are more likely to be hired? Even assuming it is true - it didn't help me that I am a man, the companies still didn't like me.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    >I am pretty sure there are enough companies who want to hire women to give all women in IT sufficient choices. Why are you sure of that? Is it because you have to be to overcome the cognitive dissonance of supporting the right to discriminate against women but not feeling like you yourself are a sexist, or because you have information that I'm not privy to? edit: Maybe the "law of averages" tells you that for each group with an opinion, there's an equally large counterbalancing group with the opposite opinion?
    - facepalm 13y ago
      I am sure because every week there are stories on HN about companies paying extra to lure women into IT. So apparently there are not enough IT women on the market to satisfy the demand of companies. And even the companies who don't make a public announcement about it - many of them will probably also want to hire women, because it just seems slightly weird if an office is all-male. It's like a party without women.
  - mmatants 13y ago
    This may not be about changing that particular CEO's attitudes but about sharing the experience with the rest of us, so that we all may extract something out of it. It's a statement that "this happened" - we make of it what we will.
tbrownaw 13y ago
While I don't agree with the CEOs statement, I think people should be allowed to hire whoever they want. The trouble with this is that a set of biases can become near-universal. I have the right to associate (or not) with whoever I choose. But if everyone (or nearly everyone) choose not to associate with people from a particular group, that is harmful to society[1]. So, there are exceptions made to your freedom of association. IIRC these exceptions only apply to companies with more than 50 employees, which seems a decent balance between "we're all friends here" small/family businesses (individual rights win) vs "you are a cog in a wheel" megacorps (the good of society wins). [1] For example, I understand that people refusing to hire ex-convicts is a significant contributor to recidivism.
- facepalm 13y ago
  I know there are such laws - not sure if I agree with them, but OK (literally not sure - maybe it is good, maybe not - to be sure I wouldn't like it if it were my own company). But how are they being enforced, with so many possible candidates? Disabled people, women, different ethnic backgrounds, different schools, ex-convicts... One you go over 50, you have to have at least one of each of them? Or if you hire employee 51 and the candidate is an ex-convict, you have to hire him?
- gizmo686 13y ago
  Economic theory would suggest a limit on this effect with regards to hiring.

angersock 13y ago

Author ought to have mentioned the name of the company--otherwise, it's just more vapid hearsay. If we don't know who was supposed to have done this, what does it matter? Morever, this quote got under my skin: "Now I really empathized with all the women who were victims of assault or rape. To me, this was equivalent to videoing an assault or rape, doing nothing to stop it and later claiming you didn’t have a part in it." That sort of comparison cheapens the suffering of those people; it's hyperbole of the worst sort.

innertracks 13y ago
As someone who has been a victim of sexual assault (rape) I would like to up vote your comment about a hundred times. The author apparently hasn't had to deal with the years of healing needed on so many levels. And yeah, it happens to men, too. By women.

mynameisasdf 13y ago

This article is incredibly badly written and lacks any real thought about the matter. So he had one interview with some douche CEO and now jumps to the conclusion that: >"Sadly, sexism is alive and well in my industry. " >"Now I really empathized with all the women who were victims of assault or rape." Fucking really? I've been a developer for now over 11 years and must have met thousands of other devs from countless conferences and meetups. Only once, ONCE, have I ever met someone who made a women-bashing comment similar to what he is talking about. This is both infront of women and behind their backs. The only real sexism prevalent in the tech industry are the groups of militant feminists setting up endless, patronizing, segregated "coding for girls" meetups.

angersock 13y ago
"The only real sexism prevalent in the tech industry are the groups of militant feminists setting up endless, patronizing, segregated "coding for girls" meetups." ahahahahaha no try again
untog 13y ago
Only once, ONCE, have I ever met someone who made a women-bashing comment similar to what he is talking about. I'm guessing you're not a woman. Now, I'm not trying to make judgement on the article either way, but I don't think you can really say "I've only ever seen sexism in tech once" when you aren't someone that actually experiences it.
- gagege 13y ago
  Why not? That's like saying, "You have to have been shot by a gun to be able to say 'I've only seen someone get shot one time.'"
  - untog 13y ago
    It's absolutely nothing like that. I'm not even sure where to start on breaking down how wrong that comparison is. To attempt to mirror your example, it's actually like an Army general sitting in HQ saying "Well, I've only ever seen our guys get shot at once!" when his units are being decimated on the battlefield. (Please don't read into that comparison. I am not actually attempting to compare women to battle-ready soldiers and men to lazy generals)

jwr 13y ago

1. You should have confronted the CEO. 2. Since you did not do that, you should have at least posted the names involved. As it is, I don't see the point of your post.

kingkawn 13y ago

Live the way you want the world to look, and then it has begun to look that way.

wtracy 13y ago

I say name some names. If this really happened at a company that sells products to women, I say it's time for a boycott.

Zikes 13y ago

I'm sure this article will spark a serious, reasoned, and very civil discussion on sexism, which will include verifiable citations for all claims and absolutely no hearsay or strawmen.

RankingMember 13y ago
You could fit Steve Ballmer in this sarchasm.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

draugadrotten 13y ago

> “Women are incapable of making the tough decisions necessary to run a profitable company on low margins.” - CEO of a Women’s Product Retailer Frankly, I think the CEO was pulling this guys leg and wanted to see how he reacted when his buttons are pushed. That is a situation that frequently occurs in customer meetings and you don't want your rep to blow up in the customer's face. That said, did you see the recent Swedish study of 125.000 companies that proved women-run companies makes 15% less profit? SOURCE: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=5804631 http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&art... > You should know this about me. I don’t do well around alpha males. Yeah, so the blogger can't deal with CEOs and other authority figures. Wouldn't hire him/her either.

tomp 13y ago
> you see the recent Swedish study of 125.000 companies that proved Just a minor nitpick, studies don't prove anything. Even experiments (in Physics) don't prove anything unless different people can reproduce them repeatedly. But (statistical) studies prove nothing at all, they merely hint at a correlation.
- aidenn0 13y ago
  Minor nitpick of your minor nitpick: Statistical studies do measure something. The parent comment didn't claim the study proved causation, just correlation.
  - betenoire 13y ago
    > that proved women-run companies makes 15% less profit If this quote doesn't claim causation to the common person, then I don't know what does...
- SilasX 13y ago
  What if I told you there are standard meanings of "prove" that aren't so strict?
epistasis 13y ago

meritt 13y ago

> "Now I really empathized with all the women who were victims of assault or rape." You interacted with a bad person or two and suddenly you're able to empathize with victims of assault and rape? What? Exactly how minimal is your understanding of those issues to equate them accordingly?

skrebbel 13y ago
You're right, of course, but comments like these teach me only one thing: don't blog, write or talk about sexism. Someone will find one sentence that you wrote or said that's not OK and flame your ass about it.
- saraid216 13y ago
  And then you'll get super defensive about it and refuse to actually accept the useful feedback provided. Everyone loses!
krstck 13y ago
I didn't read that as the author actually claiming to have some understanding of what it was like to be assaulted, but rather that he gained an understanding of how people often blame women for their own assaults.
sp332 13y ago
He didn't say anything about equating them. He also didn't say he felt the same as those people. (You might be confusing empathy with sympathy?) Edit: she -> he
- meritt 13y ago
  I didn't confuse empathy with sympathy.
  - sp332 13y ago
    Hm, maybe. Anyway I don't think the empathy was for being raped, but for being ignored.

baddox 13y ago

I'm actually less surprised by the sexism than by the strange ranting behavior from a President during an interview. Even if the rant was about something less controversial, it's just bizarre. If that's normal behavior from the guy, I wonder how they ever recruit talent.

joesmo 13y ago

I'd have cut the interview short to show them that this is unacceptable. They know what they've done and that it's wrong. After the fact, there really isn't much that one can do. Move on and try to find a place where the CEO isn't an asshole. As for it being a test, I doubt anyone is that stupid. He knew what he was saying.

peterwwillis 13y ago
> I doubt anyone is that stupid Apparently you haven't met many CEOs.

protomyth 13y ago

He says he doesn't like "alpha males" because he believes that code for "type of person is an inexcusable justification for being an asshole". Then he goes through with the rest of the interview and realizes "How could I just sit there and not say anything?". An alpha male[1] would have stopped the interview right there. Expressed his displeasure that the CEO could even think such a thing, particularly since he was running a company with products for women, and further speculated on how appalled he is that the CEO would then utter such non-sense[2]. Get up and walk the heck away. Defend your damn convictions, when the need defending. Not is some whiny blog post afterwards. 1) or an alpha female, although they wouldn't have got an interview and no one is that stupid to say those things if they did to them (right?!?) 2) my Dad's favorite saying when his sons did something foolish as youths was "I am amazed and appalled. Amazed you though up such a thing and appalled you did it."

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

NextUserName 13y ago

>I then turned inward. I thought of the women in my life, my wife of almost 18yrs and my little 4.5 year old daughters. What would they think of their father for not saying anything and letting this jerk spew his sexist beliefs? I am confused. Is she calling herself her child's father? Is she in a Female-Female marriage?

taejo 13y ago
No, he is calling himself his child's father.
- NextUserName 13y ago
  Did anyone else think that this was a women? The title should not be My First Hand Experience With Sexism. Because first hand would have been if sexism was shown toward the author (because of his gender).

NextUserName 13y ago

OK, bear with me for a moment, but why would a CEO who is so openly and blatantly sexist have accepted a women interviewee in the first place? I am inclined to thing that either he was either testing her, or this is fiction.

taejo 13y ago
The interviewee appears to be a man.
- NextUserName 13y ago
  Did anyone else think that this was a women? The title should not be My First Hand Experience With Sexism. Because first hand would have been if sexism was shown toward the author (because of his gender).
  - makaveli8 13y ago
    EXACTLY! I also read the blog on the assumption that the author was a woman up until he began mention of his wife etc. Does that make us sexist?

NextUserName 13y ago

Do you think that speaking out to the CEO would have changed his mind? I think that if the author really wanted any chance at changing the CEO's mind about women - he should have accepted the job and planted some seeds of thought here and there directly or indirectly to the CEO. Do you think that proceeding, he would be condoning sexism in some way? Perhaps in his own mind, but one person walking away from a job interview can hardly be considered a boycott. If you are one person, your best bet to change something is to engage, not walk away.

makaveli8 13y ago

Am I sexist for assuming that the author was a woman right up until the point where he says "Surprisingly most of my women friends and my wife" ?