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The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happe

The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happen to be a woman. I love the tech industry. I've been in it professionally since 1997, and I've run tech startups as a CEO for the past 13 years. And if there's one thing I can count on, it's the consistent, pervasive assumption that I'm not technical. I hate going to tech events with my fiance (or for that matter, any man), because people will come up to us, acknowledge me, and then ask him brightly: "So why are you here?" I once thought it would be funny to time it and see how long another person could go talking to only him and not making eye contact with me, even when he mentioned that he was at the event because of me. Current record? 13 minutes. 13 minutes of not looking at me, saying a word, or acknowledging that I was there. Every male that I've ever told this story to can't believe it until they go to parties and see it in action. It's so consistent, yet it's unbelievable until you see it. This is what it's like to be a woman in tech, even when you're a technical one. It's assumed that you're non-technical. But don't take that into account and lead with your credentials--whoops, no, that's "aggressive" and you shouldn't do that. Don't go to tech parties with a guy because you're assumed to be "the girlfriend." Don't go alone because you'll get hit on. But don't NOT go to tech parties, because that's where you'll meet investors and other potential contacts. Being a woman in tech is like walking through a maze with minefields at every turn and never knowing which one you'll hit. I'm here because I love this industry and I couldn't imagine doing anything else. But I hate that my physical appearance and gender connotes so many (invalid and ridiculous) assumptions.

jv22222 13y ago
My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it. My friends wife is an F16 fighter pilot. I was surprised to find that out. Truth is I should not have been surprised, but it went against the patterns I'm used to seeing. I wonder if that's at play here?
- booruguru 13y ago
  The thing is...we've been talking about geeks and discrimination for years now. "Ignorance" is no longer a valid excuse.
- parfe 13y ago
  >My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it. Awful lot of words you used to avoid typing "sexism". Hide behind whatever phrasing you prefer, but automatically assigning a person gender roles out of intellectual laziness embodies sexism.
  - roflc0ptic 13y ago
    At risk of sounding flippant, I feel like you're bringing a certain amount of unwarranted pattern matching to this. The person you're responding to is 1. bringing up a cognitive bias, 2. positing that it might be the mechanism that's causing this treatment, and 3. saying he shouldn't exhibit that bias. It's thoughtful, and while he's using different language, describing his approach here as "hiding" is pretty ungenerous. I'd guess that you're used to people being kinda shitty about this stuff, and so you saw someone say something that could be part of some ugly apologetics and just went with your heuristics. (edit) Also, let me add, sometimes it's easier to talk about the mechanisms of sexism rather than the phenomenon. Ideologically I'm super anti-racist/homophobic/sexist/patriarchy/capitalist blah blah blah but talking about those things straight out often feels like the worst place to have a productive conversation from. Compare "The prison industrial complex is a function of white supremacy", vs, "dang, it's messed up that people of color on average get way harsher sentences for the same crime." Context is very important, of course, but sometimes using a lot of words is better communication.
  - nicolethenerd 13y ago
    But it is just pattern matching - 'sexism' seems to connote intent, or at least some kind of discrimination / negativity. Assuming that a woman you meet is more likely to be non-technical than technical is just probability - it's not a great thing, but I do it too, and I am a woman. It doesn't mean that I think women shouldn't be in tech, or that I'm surprised when they are - just more likely than not, in my experience, women in tech companies are found in non-technical roles.
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galago 13y ago
There seems to be a big horrible cycle here. I attended VMWorld last year in San Francisco and was shocked by how many booths were staffed by attractive women who where just hired as like, temps or something. They were aggressively friendly and seemed to have the single task of getting my contact information as a sales lead. Their knowledge of the products was generally no deeper than what was printed on the promotional fliers. I probably did tend to ignore women after a few interactions. So, I'm the kind of person you're complaining about, yet I don't like the situation either. Perhaps "booth babes" are part of a successful sales strategy and I'm an outlier. However, its possible that trade show sleaze is just a pattern propelled forward by inertia. Either way, we should speak out against it. It did occur to me that a correcting mechanism for trade shows would be a gender balance in attendees. Maybe you're working different type of trade shows, but that was my recent experience.
- Thirdegree 13y ago
  'Perhaps "booth babes" are part of a successful sales strategy and I'm an outlier.' Not according to Spencer Chen. http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/13/booth-babes-dont-convert/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/13/booth-babes-dont-convert/
  - Pherdnut 13y ago
    Can't we all just agree to blame it on the sales guys?
- driverdan 13y ago
  The correcting mechanism is banning booth babes.
drawkbox 13y ago
This is a good example of sexism. But also a hint of target marketing, a few things of note... Since there are less women in tech, technical people assume they are boring most people with technical jargon including most women (probabilistically). I bet if you dropped some technical info early it would knock it out of that mode quickly. I know when a women knows or doesn't know about tech I do change how I talk but I do this with anyone that is technical/non-technical. The old Feynman tune it to your crowd when you educate/market type of steward. Also since there are so few women in tech, men don't usually work with them during the day and aren't the most alpha, lots of them could be shy or even have difficulty with eye contact at all. If they are introverted even moreso like many programmers are. Many are also young and not married which leads to awkwardness at times with ladies. I think there are lots of opportunities for really skilled women but these intricacies should be stated more often so people understand and correct their assumptions. People need examples like this to learn how subtle it can be because just hearing 'sexism' doesn't help educate, more women with more examples as it is eye opening and helps understanding of this problem.
- RodericDay 13y ago
  This is a common belief of geeks and maybe most people everywhere, that breaking down concepts into more easily understandable elements and working on outreach is something necessary for progress. They also seem to expect the oppressed group to do all the heavy lifting- figuring how to complain in the right tone as well as mustering the energy to complain in the first place. I'm not sure history suggests that this is the way to go. There's no easy, smooth social change, and self-described "moderates" should give more room for people to be angry. Your post, instead of giving some "advice" on how to help tell the message, should just be doing that instead. Skip this condescending explanation! Stop making it about shy males! More importantly though, many people think they want to be convinced by cause-effect arguments A, B, and C, and they advocate for that kind of context-less discussion forum, but really what they need is to be allowed to discover A, B, and C on their own terms after being presented with a persuasive experience D. But to make it really connect, you need to get the person involved. Calls of sexism help with that. As an intellectually confident person, people calling me out bluntly and confidently about my sexism got way further with me than people trying to sell me some sanitized variant designed for socially stunted males. I don't mean to blow up on you or anything, but seriously it's every day on HN that someone who gives the impression that "he sees both sides" and has got it all figured out seems to be taking some awkward position as mediating sage instead of following their own advice and helping craft the message. The overall impression is, of course, one of endless condescension.
huherto 13y ago
Just a guess. May be they are trying not to appear to be hitting on you. Paraphrasing you ..."Being a man around women is like walking through a maze with minefields at every turn and never knowing which one you'll hit."
- me2i81 13y ago
  I'm not sure where you got that. Treat people professionally and there's no "minefield."
  - geoka9 13y ago
    > I'm not sure where you got that. Simple. The grand parent herself says that it's unusual for a male to make eye contact with her at a conference, except when somebody is trying to hit on her.
    - ericabiz 13y ago
      Not what I said.
      - geoka9 13y ago
        Not literally, no. But that's the impression I got from your post. Sorry if I misconstrued it.
AgathaTheWitch 13y ago
My skin color and gender both connote a number of invalid assumptions. This probably applies to most people at some point in their lives. It just doesn't bother me. I'm sorry if it bothers you and I sympathize with others who are annoyed. I just don't relate.
adrianm 13y ago
I'm inclined to agree with much of what you said, but I don't think sexism is always at fault here. If I were that person who struck up a conversation with your fiance, I know I would personally find it difficult to make the "first move" in initiating a conversation with you. Is it because I'm sexist? No! I'm not a very extroverted or social person and I find it personally very difficult to make initial contact with anyone I don't already know. Given that I'm already talking to your fiance, we can infer that something or someone has broken the ice and hence we are engaged in a conversation. If you were the person with whom the ice was broken with first, it would be your fiance who would be seemingly "snubbed" by me, unless introduced explicitly by yourself. Maybe non-extroverts, shy, or just socially awkward individuals need to wear a public service announcement or something to make this clear to everyone. "Disclaimer: I'm not sexist; I'm just socially awkward. Please break the ice and say hello to me!" I'd also like to add, for your consideration, that some people are better at one-on-ones than navigating the social jungle that is multi-person conversations. I have no idea how to engage multiple persons at once outside of the context of a formal or informal presentation of some sort. This could be that the topics of conversation that I usually engage in with others are not usually of the anecdotal variety, which I imagine are amenable to group conversation, where others can more easily "participate" passively. Finally, I'd like to point out that I think your social party experiment as you framed it will always generate results that are biased toward your assumption. Just because a phenomena has been observed to exist (in this case the phenomena, according to your testimony, is "men in a technical environment are more inclined to strike up technical conversations with men to the exclusion of the women also present") does not actually tell us anything about -why- this is so. You can come up with any number of anecdotally reasonable hypotheses, but until you actually test these hypotheses in a well defined and scientific manner with an experiment designed to eliminate all of the potential biases, your experiment is no better (rhetorically speaking) at proving anything than a sexist diatribe along the lines of "why my ex-{girlfriend or wife}'s {anecdotally negative conduct} proves women are {some universal claim about all women}".
- frandroid 13y ago
  You're not sexist, but you have less problems breaking the ice with men than women...
rodly 13y ago
Find a field that has been woman-dominated for the last 50 years. Now put a man in that field, who is rather successful (like yourself in technology), and you will get the exact same result in the contexts you describe. I'm sick of this paradox where men and women are equal and yet men (and only men) are capable of making this mistake. It's simple pattern matching, and when the pattern tells you one thing and it's actually the other you're now a giant sexist pig. Now if a guy ignores you for more than a few seconds at one of these events then I agree, the guy needs to wake up, it's 2014. Also complaining about getting hit on? Really? A person finds you attractive and wants to talk to you. What a monster. "But I hate that my physical appearance and gender connotes so many (invalid and ridiculous) assumptions." What is ridiculous about an assumption that is 95% correct in today's world? Perhaps it will be a ridiculous assumption in 5 years, and definitely 10, but it's not far-fetched to run into guys at these events who don't interact with women ever in their day-to-day work lives.
- melindajb 13y ago
  We are humans and with that comes the ability to override animal thinking. Dare I say, I expect the person to have that thought to override it, think rationally, and say something other than what most of them do? We've been discussing this issue long enough that the people who keep doing this, need to not be tolerated. We need to stop expecting those without power to always be the ones to take the high road.
- stephp 13y ago
  Sorry, I hate to be this person, but do you know who the high-paid, "celebrity" hair stylists are? Men. If you look at all the communications careers-- teachers, psychologists, marketers. Men make the most money and have the most prestige in female-dominated professions. "Flipping" a scenario is rarely the best way of formulating an argument.
  - vbuterin 13y ago
    Meanwhile: * 93% of prisoners are male: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1... * 92% of all occupational deaths are male: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_fatality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_fatality * 84% of homeless people are male: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/07/men-gender-divide-feminism http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/07/men-gen... The general statistical consensus is actually that men have higher variance in general. You're more likely as a man to be rich and famous, but you're also more likely to end up in a ditch.
your_throwaway 13y ago
Yeah, except when I do start a conversation with you, I'm hitting on you, and probably being "creepy". I have to navigate a mental minefield of "don't say this" "don't say that too much" or "don't be overly aggressive", otherwise I get screamed about on twitter, labeled as a misogynist, and possibly fired from my job. (Uh-oh, I said dongle! Or...[1]meritocracy!) I'm not saying women in tech don't have problems, they do, but I'm really sick of hearing this like it's a completely one-sided problem. The stupid evil men are holding the women down and keeping them from succeeding! Gender dynamics are hard, for EVERYBODY. Men are having to deal with the fact that suddenly (or maybe not suddenly?) doing things like getting beer after conferences is bad, telling jokes to one another is bad, thinking certain thoughts is bad, using certain words[2] is bad. I'm sorry if you come to a conference and I don't behave in the ultra-narrowly-defined way that you have determined makes me not part of the problem (although I recently found out that asking if I did it wrong makes me part of the problem). I don't have a context for this! And it seems like everything I, and other men like me, try to do to make you feel included is WRONG, and we're BAD for doing it! Invite you to beers after a conference? Hitting on you! Compliment you on what you're wearing? Hitting on you! Objectifying you! Noticing that you are a partially-physical entity! THE HORROR! Ask you about your projects? Flirting with you! Make a suggestion about your project? Mansplaining at you! Men have to navigate a constantly changing, and VERY hazardous minefield every time we talk to you. I'm really sorry (really, genuinely, that is not sarcasm) that sometimes we get it wrong, or sometimes we just forego trying at all and stay quite around you. A lot of it is really just because we don't want to mess it up and make you angry. Women have a LOT of power over men in these situations, and if we screw up even a tiny tiny bit, it can ruin our lives. [1]:http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug#awesm=~oyPjTP04I01sg5 http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug#awesm... [2]:http://banbossy.com http://banbossy.com
- melindajb 13y ago
  If you can override the animal instincts to kill other humans, why is it so hard to override your thoughts and just treat all other humans with the same respect you'd give your best friend, at least until you see a valid reason not to? No one is saying that getting a beer after work is bad, or telling jokes is bad, or that thinking is bad. this is hand waving. We're asking you, again, to a) understand that lots of drinking leads to situations where women are harassed; b) telling sexist, racist, homophobic jokes is not appropriate in any professional context, and that you should be human enough to override your animal instincts. To be frank, your post comes off as irrational, and immature. You sound very young, and very entitled.
Pherdnut 13y ago
Booth-babe stuff aside, I thought the article was primarily about being non-technical at a startup.
hippich 13y ago
I believe no matter if you are technical or not, you still can find certain correlation between person's sex and if he or she is technical or not. I understand that there are a lot of gals in tech, but it is less likely to happen to see couple where female party is technical and male - is not. It is just statistics. Just like it is more likely for gals to have longish hair and for guys - shorter one. It is just how current overall earth as large system evolved. Just like everybody assumed I am boring when I was young and nerdish, same would happen to gals in tech. I bet that if instead of waiting for 13 minutes you would join conversation whoever approached you and your fiance would happily continue conversation with you two. Yes, his initial assumptions were incorrect, but they are based on current expectations. As soon as there will be close to 50/50 female/male ration in tech I bet these assumptions will disappear. Don't try hard to find samples of sexism. Just join a conversation.
ipince 13y ago
Erica, I don't know the particulars of your situation, but may I suggest that maybe you're reading too much into (some of) this? I've seen the lack of eye contact problem happen many times, with a mix of genders/races/etc. Sometimes I'm the one being ignored (I'm male); sometimes I feel weird because the person talking is only looking at me and ignoring everyone else in the group. It feels random to me. IMHO, it points more to a general lack of social skills than a sexist/racist thing. I try not to take it personally. And I try, in my own conversations, to always be very inclusive (e.g. eye contact with everyone, even if I'm answering one particular person's question) and encourage others to be inclusive as well (e.g. deliberately introducing people, asking questions, or simply giving others in the group eye contact even when I'm on the listening end). I think steps like these can go a long way.
jtfrench 13y ago
I've seen this happen as well. As a black male CEO of a VC-funded startup, I've also seen it happen to me in a slightly different way. I gotta hype up the nerdiness, the glasses, and casually name-drop my college degree just to help those around me not embarrass themselves by assuming "I'm not the guy writing the code". Unfortunately, I'm quite used to this though and rarely think to share this experience with anyone because this has been My Whole Life.
Jugurtha 13y ago
You have a kid, you look for a nanny to look after him. You put it on news-paper, there's a 45 year old dude who comes offering his services to look after your kid. Now tell me that you're so awesome that you'll not think what you are thinking right now. Exactly. People use stereotypes to save time. Many stereotypes are wrong, because you'll get them from CNN or Fox. People don't get on the news for being normal. When you're in a hurry, you don't want to change. You don't have that luxury because you want the result now. You're not in "experimenting, expanding comfort zone, increasing awareness" mode. You're in "Getting it done" mode with as few new parameters. Usual is better than confusing. Besides, some stereotypes are true so one can understand people behaviour. Black people go to jail more, geeks don't do well with girls, etc. And I know that some people will be butt-hurt and cry foul and it's 2014 and how it's a stone age thinking, but the stats are there. http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet (I don't have stats on the sex life of geeks, though). Someone might be offended at first, but there's a reason for these stereotypes to have had such a long, established life: If they don't represent the truth, they at least reflect it in some distorted way. The person coming to a booth has probably had a long life where, comparatively, he's met really fewer females in tech and come on, it's not like us humans are so pure that we'll go: Hmm, this is the first time I meet a female in tech. I'll speak to her in spite of being in a hurry, in spite of my question being complex, in spite of being used to talk with dudes all my life and this one comes out now. When you're in a hurry, you don't want to change, you don't want surprises: Usual is better than confusing. A lot of time, people won't deal with you simply because they don't like you. A lot of times, people won't deal with you simply because they don't know you. People who'll talk to you and give you the benefit of the doubt are giving you the benefit of the doubt. Meaning it's a privilege they're granting you, so having an entiteled attitude about it goes against the meaning of the words.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  > Black people go to jail more, geeks don't do well with girls, etc. Neither is accurate. Both are exaggerations. Comparing crime between blacks and non-blacks may seem like it's useful data, the rates are pretty significantly different. But it's not, because the majority of people, white, black, whatever, aren't criminals. So if you use that "data" to treat people differently you'll be making an error far more often than being right. That's the danger of stereotypes, because they are so seductive from a confirmation bias perspective. There are no stereotypes that aren't backed by some kernel of "truth". But stereotypes lead to more bad behavior, more ill-treatment of others than they avoid.
Fuxy 13y ago
I feel I have to apologize on behalf of all clueless men out there unfortunately we were brainwashed by the media that all women are non technical. On the other hand i see nothing wrong with you being aggressive and it would be extremely hilarious if you were to go with your boyfriend to an event and just whisper in his ear what he needs to say every time he gets asked something technical he might not know. I always enjoy playing on peoples assumptions and making them feel awkward for making them. P.S. There's no gender neutral interactions so make the most of your gender's image and strengths. If you want to be treated for who you are and not just a member of your gender you will have to show a strong personality and don't be afraid of being assertive or slightly aggressive sometimes. It gets you respect.
odonnellryan 13y ago
I'm not trying to be insulting here in any way, and I hope I come across correctly. It's not your fault, and it's a horrible situation that many people would love to see changed. I love talking about technology, and it's unfortunate the culture is the way it is where it alienates part of the community for discussion. However, with all such things -- while it is worthwhile to push for change -- they must be taken in stride and seen as obstacles to overcome. Take what you think is a weakness in your situation: that you're underestimated, or maybe ignored, as your strength.
mathattack 13y ago
Given that this is a hot topic... Wouldn't a tech company have an enormous competitive advantage if they treated women better?
- lmm 13y ago
  If it is, great, it'll sort itself out. I was kind of hoping Etsy would resolve this one way or another (they seemed to be heavily feminist as a core corporate value), but I haven't heard much from them lately - which suggests maybe they aren't doing so well?
  - mathattack 13y ago
    It may not sort itself out. There could be non-performance reasons why companies behave poorly. Managers could have incentives for bad behavior (they like going to strip clubs with customers, for example) that present principal-agent problems. I once observed a Japanese subsidiary of an American firm. They gave women the same career opportunities as men. As a result, they could get highly competent women from top schools (who wouldn't want to be office ladies at traditional Japanese firms) even though they couldn't get as competent men. As a result, the women at the subsidiary substantially outperformed the men at every level.
- merrua 13y ago
  The ones that do, usually do. Mixed boards have better performance. Company's producing products that don't actively drive away some of the market make more sales. Unfortunately people don't always act based on economic best choice, but based on learned behavior.
citadelgrad 13y ago
I've seen this "non-technical" assumption many times and I always cringe.
fwiwreally 13y ago
FWIW, You are pretty much an affiliate marketer. Being a CEO of a hosting company is not synonymous with being technical. From what I know of you... You paid sysadmins and engineers to build a company and your new company again was the fruit of others work. Please don't proclaim to the world that you are technical when in reality you do not have technical chops. If you would like to back up your claim to being technical please point out any code you have written... Any major contribution to the technical field or open source. I would talk to anyone for 13 minutes to avoid talking to a affiliate marketer. This is nothing to do with gender and everything to do with not like marketing assholes.
JoeAltmaier 13y ago
Lots of projection about why men are ignoring women. Maybe sometimes its nothing to do with assumptions about competence. Could be awkward unfamiliarity with what to do with a women in an admittedly male-filled industry. I don't mean that you ought to shoulder the burden of conditioning all the males; or that its fair. Mostly the world isn't fair. But its the current state of affairs.
hmason 13y ago
+1
NicheDiver 13y ago
I am a self-employed technical female as well but in my case I'm also a semi-recluse so my exposure to such things is greatly limited. Outside of being a developer I'm also known to occasionally fix my own cars and large appliances in lieu of taking them to be repaired. In that context I have experienced similar issues but I chalk it up to people simply not being exposed enough to oddities like me. I am guilty of it too towards people I come across who break my mental image of how something "is." For example, I live near Austin, Texas. I recently saw a really tall, very handsome black man wearing a cowboy hat and full-length duster. Certainly that's not the norm for me to see but not too incredibly odd either. That is until I heard him speak with the most refined British accent I'd ever heard in my life. I completely lost my composure and started viewing him if he were a novelty act. I have no doubt I was at least as much of an ass as the men you describe. As other commenters have pondered, I wonder if these situations will actually start to decrease as the commonality of females in tech starts to increase.
- driverdan 13y ago
  In case you weren't aware Erica (OP of the parent comment) lives in Austin. The two of you should meet.

jv22222 13y ago

My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it. My friends wife is an F16 fighter pilot. I was surprised to find that out. Truth is I should not have been surprised, but it went against the patterns I'm used to seeing. I wonder if that's at play here?

booruguru 13y ago
The thing is...we've been talking about geeks and discrimination for years now. "Ignorance" is no longer a valid excuse.
parfe 13y ago
>My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it. Awful lot of words you used to avoid typing "sexism". Hide behind whatever phrasing you prefer, but automatically assigning a person gender roles out of intellectual laziness embodies sexism.
- roflc0ptic 13y ago
  At risk of sounding flippant, I feel like you're bringing a certain amount of unwarranted pattern matching to this. The person you're responding to is 1. bringing up a cognitive bias, 2. positing that it might be the mechanism that's causing this treatment, and 3. saying he shouldn't exhibit that bias. It's thoughtful, and while he's using different language, describing his approach here as "hiding" is pretty ungenerous. I'd guess that you're used to people being kinda shitty about this stuff, and so you saw someone say something that could be part of some ugly apologetics and just went with your heuristics. (edit) Also, let me add, sometimes it's easier to talk about the mechanisms of sexism rather than the phenomenon. Ideologically I'm super anti-racist/homophobic/sexist/patriarchy/capitalist blah blah blah but talking about those things straight out often feels like the worst place to have a productive conversation from. Compare "The prison industrial complex is a function of white supremacy", vs, "dang, it's messed up that people of color on average get way harsher sentences for the same crime." Context is very important, of course, but sometimes using a lot of words is better communication.
- nicolethenerd 13y ago
  But it is just pattern matching - 'sexism' seems to connote intent, or at least some kind of discrimination / negativity. Assuming that a woman you meet is more likely to be non-technical than technical is just probability - it's not a great thing, but I do it too, and I am a woman. It doesn't mean that I think women shouldn't be in tech, or that I'm surprised when they are - just more likely than not, in my experience, women in tech companies are found in non-technical roles.

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galago 13y ago

There seems to be a big horrible cycle here. I attended VMWorld last year in San Francisco and was shocked by how many booths were staffed by attractive women who where just hired as like, temps or something. They were aggressively friendly and seemed to have the single task of getting my contact information as a sales lead. Their knowledge of the products was generally no deeper than what was printed on the promotional fliers. I probably did tend to ignore women after a few interactions. So, I'm the kind of person you're complaining about, yet I don't like the situation either. Perhaps "booth babes" are part of a successful sales strategy and I'm an outlier. However, its possible that trade show sleaze is just a pattern propelled forward by inertia. Either way, we should speak out against it. It did occur to me that a correcting mechanism for trade shows would be a gender balance in attendees. Maybe you're working different type of trade shows, but that was my recent experience.

Thirdegree 13y ago
'Perhaps "booth babes" are part of a successful sales strategy and I'm an outlier.' Not according to Spencer Chen. http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/13/booth-babes-dont-convert/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/13/booth-babes-dont-convert/
- Pherdnut 13y ago
  Can't we all just agree to blame it on the sales guys?
driverdan 13y ago
The correcting mechanism is banning booth babes.

drawkbox 13y ago

This is a good example of sexism. But also a hint of target marketing, a few things of note... Since there are less women in tech, technical people assume they are boring most people with technical jargon including most women (probabilistically). I bet if you dropped some technical info early it would knock it out of that mode quickly. I know when a women knows or doesn't know about tech I do change how I talk but I do this with anyone that is technical/non-technical. The old Feynman tune it to your crowd when you educate/market type of steward. Also since there are so few women in tech, men don't usually work with them during the day and aren't the most alpha, lots of them could be shy or even have difficulty with eye contact at all. If they are introverted even moreso like many programmers are. Many are also young and not married which leads to awkwardness at times with ladies. I think there are lots of opportunities for really skilled women but these intricacies should be stated more often so people understand and correct their assumptions. People need examples like this to learn how subtle it can be because just hearing 'sexism' doesn't help educate, more women with more examples as it is eye opening and helps understanding of this problem.

RodericDay 13y ago
This is a common belief of geeks and maybe most people everywhere, that breaking down concepts into more easily understandable elements and working on outreach is something necessary for progress. They also seem to expect the oppressed group to do all the heavy lifting- figuring how to complain in the right tone as well as mustering the energy to complain in the first place. I'm not sure history suggests that this is the way to go. There's no easy, smooth social change, and self-described "moderates" should give more room for people to be angry. Your post, instead of giving some "advice" on how to help tell the message, should just be doing that instead. Skip this condescending explanation! Stop making it about shy males! More importantly though, many people think they want to be convinced by cause-effect arguments A, B, and C, and they advocate for that kind of context-less discussion forum, but really what they need is to be allowed to discover A, B, and C on their own terms after being presented with a persuasive experience D. But to make it really connect, you need to get the person involved. Calls of sexism help with that. As an intellectually confident person, people calling me out bluntly and confidently about my sexism got way further with me than people trying to sell me some sanitized variant designed for socially stunted males. I don't mean to blow up on you or anything, but seriously it's every day on HN that someone who gives the impression that "he sees both sides" and has got it all figured out seems to be taking some awkward position as mediating sage instead of following their own advice and helping craft the message. The overall impression is, of course, one of endless condescension.

huherto 13y ago

Just a guess. May be they are trying not to appear to be hitting on you. Paraphrasing you ..."Being a man around women is like walking through a maze with minefields at every turn and never knowing which one you'll hit."

me2i81 13y ago
I'm not sure where you got that. Treat people professionally and there's no "minefield."
- geoka9 13y ago
  > I'm not sure where you got that. Simple. The grand parent herself says that it's unusual for a male to make eye contact with her at a conference, except when somebody is trying to hit on her.
  - ericabiz 13y ago
    Not what I said.
    - geoka9 13y ago
      Not literally, no. But that's the impression I got from your post. Sorry if I misconstrued it.

AgathaTheWitch 13y ago

My skin color and gender both connote a number of invalid assumptions. This probably applies to most people at some point in their lives. It just doesn't bother me. I'm sorry if it bothers you and I sympathize with others who are annoyed. I just don't relate.

adrianm 13y ago

I'm inclined to agree with much of what you said, but I don't think sexism is always at fault here. If I were that person who struck up a conversation with your fiance, I know I would personally find it difficult to make the "first move" in initiating a conversation with you. Is it because I'm sexist? No! I'm not a very extroverted or social person and I find it personally very difficult to make initial contact with anyone I don't already know. Given that I'm already talking to your fiance, we can infer that something or someone has broken the ice and hence we are engaged in a conversation. If you were the person with whom the ice was broken with first, it would be your fiance who would be seemingly "snubbed" by me, unless introduced explicitly by yourself. Maybe non-extroverts, shy, or just socially awkward individuals need to wear a public service announcement or something to make this clear to everyone. "Disclaimer: I'm not sexist; I'm just socially awkward. Please break the ice and say hello to me!" I'd also like to add, for your consideration, that some people are better at one-on-ones than navigating the social jungle that is multi-person conversations. I have no idea how to engage multiple persons at once outside of the context of a formal or informal presentation of some sort. This could be that the topics of conversation that I usually engage in with others are not usually of the anecdotal variety, which I imagine are amenable to group conversation, where others can more easily "participate" passively. Finally, I'd like to point out that I think your social party experiment as you framed it will always generate results that are biased toward your assumption. Just because a phenomena has been observed to exist (in this case the phenomena, according to your testimony, is "men in a technical environment are more inclined to strike up technical conversations with men to the exclusion of the women also present") does not actually tell us anything about -why- this is so. You can come up with any number of anecdotally reasonable hypotheses, but until you actually test these hypotheses in a well defined and scientific manner with an experiment designed to eliminate all of the potential biases, your experiment is no better (rhetorically speaking) at proving anything than a sexist diatribe along the lines of "why my ex-{girlfriend or wife}'s {anecdotally negative conduct} proves women are {some universal claim about all women}".

frandroid 13y ago
You're not sexist, but you have less problems breaking the ice with men than women...

rodly 13y ago

Find a field that has been woman-dominated for the last 50 years. Now put a man in that field, who is rather successful (like yourself in technology), and you will get the exact same result in the contexts you describe. I'm sick of this paradox where men and women are equal and yet men (and only men) are capable of making this mistake. It's simple pattern matching, and when the pattern tells you one thing and it's actually the other you're now a giant sexist pig. Now if a guy ignores you for more than a few seconds at one of these events then I agree, the guy needs to wake up, it's 2014. Also complaining about getting hit on? Really? A person finds you attractive and wants to talk to you. What a monster. "But I hate that my physical appearance and gender connotes so many (invalid and ridiculous) assumptions." What is ridiculous about an assumption that is 95% correct in today's world? Perhaps it will be a ridiculous assumption in 5 years, and definitely 10, but it's not far-fetched to run into guys at these events who don't interact with women ever in their day-to-day work lives.

melindajb 13y ago
We are humans and with that comes the ability to override animal thinking. Dare I say, I expect the person to have that thought to override it, think rationally, and say something other than what most of them do? We've been discussing this issue long enough that the people who keep doing this, need to not be tolerated. We need to stop expecting those without power to always be the ones to take the high road.
stephp 13y ago
Sorry, I hate to be this person, but do you know who the high-paid, "celebrity" hair stylists are? Men. If you look at all the communications careers-- teachers, psychologists, marketers. Men make the most money and have the most prestige in female-dominated professions. "Flipping" a scenario is rarely the best way of formulating an argument.
- vbuterin 13y ago
  Meanwhile: * 93% of prisoners are male: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1... * 92% of all occupational deaths are male: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_fatality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_fatality * 84% of homeless people are male: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/07/men-gender-divide-feminism http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/07/men-gen... The general statistical consensus is actually that men have higher variance in general. You're more likely as a man to be rich and famous, but you're also more likely to end up in a ditch.

your_throwaway 13y ago

Yeah, except when I do start a conversation with you, I'm hitting on you, and probably being "creepy". I have to navigate a mental minefield of "don't say this" "don't say that too much" or "don't be overly aggressive", otherwise I get screamed about on twitter, labeled as a misogynist, and possibly fired from my job. (Uh-oh, I said dongle! Or...[1]meritocracy!) I'm not saying women in tech don't have problems, they do, but I'm really sick of hearing this like it's a completely one-sided problem. The stupid evil men are holding the women down and keeping them from succeeding! Gender dynamics are hard, for EVERYBODY. Men are having to deal with the fact that suddenly (or maybe not suddenly?) doing things like getting beer after conferences is bad, telling jokes to one another is bad, thinking certain thoughts is bad, using certain words[2] is bad. I'm sorry if you come to a conference and I don't behave in the ultra-narrowly-defined way that you have determined makes me not part of the problem (although I recently found out that asking if I did it wrong makes me part of the problem). I don't have a context for this! And it seems like everything I, and other men like me, try to do to make you feel included is WRONG, and we're BAD for doing it! Invite you to beers after a conference? Hitting on you! Compliment you on what you're wearing? Hitting on you! Objectifying you! Noticing that you are a partially-physical entity! THE HORROR! Ask you about your projects? Flirting with you! Make a suggestion about your project? Mansplaining at you! Men have to navigate a constantly changing, and VERY hazardous minefield every time we talk to you. I'm really sorry (really, genuinely, that is not sarcasm) that sometimes we get it wrong, or sometimes we just forego trying at all and stay quite around you. A lot of it is really just because we don't want to mess it up and make you angry. Women have a LOT of power over men in these situations, and if we screw up even a tiny tiny bit, it can ruin our lives. [1]:http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug#awesm=~oyPjTP04I01sg5 http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug#awesm... [2]:http://banbossy.com http://banbossy.com

melindajb 13y ago
If you can override the animal instincts to kill other humans, why is it so hard to override your thoughts and just treat all other humans with the same respect you'd give your best friend, at least until you see a valid reason not to? No one is saying that getting a beer after work is bad, or telling jokes is bad, or that thinking is bad. this is hand waving. We're asking you, again, to a) understand that lots of drinking leads to situations where women are harassed; b) telling sexist, racist, homophobic jokes is not appropriate in any professional context, and that you should be human enough to override your animal instincts. To be frank, your post comes off as irrational, and immature. You sound very young, and very entitled.

Pherdnut 13y ago

Booth-babe stuff aside, I thought the article was primarily about being non-technical at a startup.

hippich 13y ago

I believe no matter if you are technical or not, you still can find certain correlation between person's sex and if he or she is technical or not. I understand that there are a lot of gals in tech, but it is less likely to happen to see couple where female party is technical and male - is not. It is just statistics. Just like it is more likely for gals to have longish hair and for guys - shorter one. It is just how current overall earth as large system evolved. Just like everybody assumed I am boring when I was young and nerdish, same would happen to gals in tech. I bet that if instead of waiting for 13 minutes you would join conversation whoever approached you and your fiance would happily continue conversation with you two. Yes, his initial assumptions were incorrect, but they are based on current expectations. As soon as there will be close to 50/50 female/male ration in tech I bet these assumptions will disappear. Don't try hard to find samples of sexism. Just join a conversation.

ipince 13y ago

Erica, I don't know the particulars of your situation, but may I suggest that maybe you're reading too much into (some of) this? I've seen the lack of eye contact problem happen many times, with a mix of genders/races/etc. Sometimes I'm the one being ignored (I'm male); sometimes I feel weird because the person talking is only looking at me and ignoring everyone else in the group. It feels random to me. IMHO, it points more to a general lack of social skills than a sexist/racist thing. I try not to take it personally. And I try, in my own conversations, to always be very inclusive (e.g. eye contact with everyone, even if I'm answering one particular person's question) and encourage others to be inclusive as well (e.g. deliberately introducing people, asking questions, or simply giving others in the group eye contact even when I'm on the listening end). I think steps like these can go a long way.

jtfrench 13y ago

I've seen this happen as well. As a black male CEO of a VC-funded startup, I've also seen it happen to me in a slightly different way. I gotta hype up the nerdiness, the glasses, and casually name-drop my college degree just to help those around me not embarrass themselves by assuming "I'm not the guy writing the code". Unfortunately, I'm quite used to this though and rarely think to share this experience with anyone because this has been My Whole Life.

Jugurtha 13y ago

You have a kid, you look for a nanny to look after him. You put it on news-paper, there's a 45 year old dude who comes offering his services to look after your kid. Now tell me that you're so awesome that you'll not think what you are thinking right now. Exactly. People use stereotypes to save time. Many stereotypes are wrong, because you'll get them from CNN or Fox. People don't get on the news for being normal. When you're in a hurry, you don't want to change. You don't have that luxury because you want the result now. You're not in "experimenting, expanding comfort zone, increasing awareness" mode. You're in "Getting it done" mode with as few new parameters. Usual is better than confusing. Besides, some stereotypes are true so one can understand people behaviour. Black people go to jail more, geeks don't do well with girls, etc. And I know that some people will be butt-hurt and cry foul and it's 2014 and how it's a stone age thinking, but the stats are there. http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet (I don't have stats on the sex life of geeks, though). Someone might be offended at first, but there's a reason for these stereotypes to have had such a long, established life: If they don't represent the truth, they at least reflect it in some distorted way. The person coming to a booth has probably had a long life where, comparatively, he's met really fewer females in tech and come on, it's not like us humans are so pure that we'll go: Hmm, this is the first time I meet a female in tech. I'll speak to her in spite of being in a hurry, in spite of my question being complex, in spite of being used to talk with dudes all my life and this one comes out now. When you're in a hurry, you don't want to change, you don't want surprises: Usual is better than confusing. A lot of time, people won't deal with you simply because they don't like you. A lot of times, people won't deal with you simply because they don't know you. People who'll talk to you and give you the benefit of the doubt are giving you the benefit of the doubt. Meaning it's a privilege they're granting you, so having an entiteled attitude about it goes against the meaning of the words.

InclinedPlane 13y ago
> Black people go to jail more, geeks don't do well with girls, etc. Neither is accurate. Both are exaggerations. Comparing crime between blacks and non-blacks may seem like it's useful data, the rates are pretty significantly different. But it's not, because the majority of people, white, black, whatever, aren't criminals. So if you use that "data" to treat people differently you'll be making an error far more often than being right. That's the danger of stereotypes, because they are so seductive from a confirmation bias perspective. There are no stereotypes that aren't backed by some kernel of "truth". But stereotypes lead to more bad behavior, more ill-treatment of others than they avoid.

Fuxy 13y ago

I feel I have to apologize on behalf of all clueless men out there unfortunately we were brainwashed by the media that all women are non technical. On the other hand i see nothing wrong with you being aggressive and it would be extremely hilarious if you were to go with your boyfriend to an event and just whisper in his ear what he needs to say every time he gets asked something technical he might not know. I always enjoy playing on peoples assumptions and making them feel awkward for making them. P.S. There's no gender neutral interactions so make the most of your gender's image and strengths. If you want to be treated for who you are and not just a member of your gender you will have to show a strong personality and don't be afraid of being assertive or slightly aggressive sometimes. It gets you respect.

odonnellryan 13y ago

I'm not trying to be insulting here in any way, and I hope I come across correctly. It's not your fault, and it's a horrible situation that many people would love to see changed. I love talking about technology, and it's unfortunate the culture is the way it is where it alienates part of the community for discussion. However, with all such things -- while it is worthwhile to push for change -- they must be taken in stride and seen as obstacles to overcome. Take what you think is a weakness in your situation: that you're underestimated, or maybe ignored, as your strength.

mathattack 13y ago

Given that this is a hot topic... Wouldn't a tech company have an enormous competitive advantage if they treated women better?

lmm 13y ago
If it is, great, it'll sort itself out. I was kind of hoping Etsy would resolve this one way or another (they seemed to be heavily feminist as a core corporate value), but I haven't heard much from them lately - which suggests maybe they aren't doing so well?
- mathattack 13y ago
  It may not sort itself out. There could be non-performance reasons why companies behave poorly. Managers could have incentives for bad behavior (they like going to strip clubs with customers, for example) that present principal-agent problems. I once observed a Japanese subsidiary of an American firm. They gave women the same career opportunities as men. As a result, they could get highly competent women from top schools (who wouldn't want to be office ladies at traditional Japanese firms) even though they couldn't get as competent men. As a result, the women at the subsidiary substantially outperformed the men at every level.
merrua 13y ago
The ones that do, usually do. Mixed boards have better performance. Company's producing products that don't actively drive away some of the market make more sales. Unfortunately people don't always act based on economic best choice, but based on learned behavior.

citadelgrad 13y ago

I've seen this "non-technical" assumption many times and I always cringe.

fwiwreally 13y ago

FWIW, You are pretty much an affiliate marketer. Being a CEO of a hosting company is not synonymous with being technical. From what I know of you... You paid sysadmins and engineers to build a company and your new company again was the fruit of others work. Please don't proclaim to the world that you are technical when in reality you do not have technical chops. If you would like to back up your claim to being technical please point out any code you have written... Any major contribution to the technical field or open source. I would talk to anyone for 13 minutes to avoid talking to a affiliate marketer. This is nothing to do with gender and everything to do with not like marketing assholes.

JoeAltmaier 13y ago

Lots of projection about why men are ignoring women. Maybe sometimes its nothing to do with assumptions about competence. Could be awkward unfamiliarity with what to do with a women in an admittedly male-filled industry. I don't mean that you ought to shoulder the burden of conditioning all the males; or that its fair. Mostly the world isn't fair. But its the current state of affairs.

hmason 13y ago

NicheDiver 13y ago

I am a self-employed technical female as well but in my case I'm also a semi-recluse so my exposure to such things is greatly limited. Outside of being a developer I'm also known to occasionally fix my own cars and large appliances in lieu of taking them to be repaired. In that context I have experienced similar issues but I chalk it up to people simply not being exposed enough to oddities like me. I am guilty of it too towards people I come across who break my mental image of how something "is." For example, I live near Austin, Texas. I recently saw a really tall, very handsome black man wearing a cowboy hat and full-length duster. Certainly that's not the norm for me to see but not too incredibly odd either. That is until I heard him speak with the most refined British accent I'd ever heard in my life. I completely lost my composure and started viewing him if he were a novelty act. I have no doubt I was at least as much of an ass as the men you describe. As other commenters have pondered, I wonder if these situations will actually start to decrease as the commonality of females in tech starts to increase.

driverdan 13y ago
In case you weren't aware Erica (OP of the parent comment) lives in Austin. The two of you should meet.