13 ms·

> It's also not necessarily an unhealthy/toxic environment. Honestly this is very close to gender discrimination, which is clearly illegal. If you created an

by efuquen 13y ago

> It's also not necessarily an unhealthy/toxic environment. Honestly this is very close to gender discrimination, which is clearly illegal. If you created an environment that only young male developers will enjoy how is that much different then explicitly saying you won't hire any female developers? To me it's in a similar vein of when literacy tests were employed in the South to prevent African Americans from voting. It wasn't saying you couldn't vote if you were black but it had the same effect of denying most blacks suffrage anyway. So you're not saying women can't work here, but we're just going to encourage/promote a culture that isn't one most women would want to be a part of anyway.

tw268 13y ago
A couple hundred mostly-males built a company that was wildly successful where they loved to work. Now it sounds like they have to destroy that, build a culture that is professional and antiseptic, to make feminists feel welcome.
- aurumpotest 13y ago
  It doesn't have to be "antiseptic" at all - there are plenty of thriving, wildly-successful, mostly-males companies with great cultures where women feel comfortable too. Also, it wouldn't be changing it "for feminists" - it's changing it to welcome any people, of either sex, who aren't comfortable in that environment. Just because feminists might be the most vocal about it doesn't mean it doesn't affect others too. They don't even have to change their culture at all; all they need to do is to tone down the more aggressive parts of that culture towards certain people. Which shouldn't be difficult - I'm sure all of them have friends with whom they're more calm and less aggressive, or family members. They just need to transfer a bit of this thoughtfulness to the office. It's not about changing because feminism, it's just the human decency of being reasonable and respectable to everyone, as far as is possible.

by efuquen 13y ago

tw268 13y ago

A couple hundred mostly-males built a company that was wildly successful where they loved to work. Now it sounds like they have to destroy that, build a culture that is professional and antiseptic, to make feminists feel welcome.

aurumpotest 13y ago
It doesn't have to be "antiseptic" at all - there are plenty of thriving, wildly-successful, mostly-males companies with great cultures where women feel comfortable too. Also, it wouldn't be changing it "for feminists" - it's changing it to welcome any people, of either sex, who aren't comfortable in that environment. Just because feminists might be the most vocal about it doesn't mean it doesn't affect others too. They don't even have to change their culture at all; all they need to do is to tone down the more aggressive parts of that culture towards certain people. Which shouldn't be difficult - I'm sure all of them have friends with whom they're more calm and less aggressive, or family members. They just need to transfer a bit of this thoughtfulness to the office. It's not about changing because feminism, it's just the human decency of being reasonable and respectable to everyone, as far as is possible.