4 ms·

tl;dr: The culture of tech was boring compared to other areas.

parennoob 12y ago
This aspect of the problem is underrated compared to others. Thankfully, there are a lot of strong admissions about it in this article, which is unfortunately not seen too often. "But to be good at maths was to be in solitude – or elitist and removed from friends." "It was my secret shame – hanging out with the most beautifully intelligent (yet socially inept) kids of the school did not bode well on my social resume." "In high school I sat an IQ test and got accelerated in mathematics and in science. It was social suicide." I have stressed this on HN before in articles about "why aren't there more women in tech" -- one of the major un-addressed problems is that younger women don't think of tech as a cool thing to go into. Younger men don't mind being social outcasts as much, and tend to deal with the solitude that results from such activities, because they are often socially isolated anyway. If we want to get more women in tech, we have to make it socially cool, not just socially acceptable. I think this also explains why a lot of men have knee-jerk negative reactions to "we should do more to get women in tech" articles. They believe that suffering through all that social ostracism at school was the price they paid for getting into tech.
- Houshalter 12y ago
  Except that has nothing to do with gender. It's just as "boring"/"uncool" for boys too. Boys are also discouraged from going into tech. Being good at math/science/technology skill are stereotyped as "nerd" and considered low-social status by our culture. I think this is even moreso for boys than girls but maybe it's both.
  - parennoob 12y ago
    My hypothesis (although it is not proven by any means, it is somewhat bolstered by the social experiences of many men and women I have talked to about this) is that men prefer to take the social hit of being ostracized, since they work alone on their pursuits anyway, more often than women. (e.g. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/why-women-prefer-working-together-and-why-men-prefer-working-alone/278888/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/why-wome...) Totally agree though, that both men and women do face this social ostracism, and that eliminating it would be hugely beneficial. I think we differ in the belief that it is the primary reason for the low number of women in the tech sector.
- krick 12y ago
  That's nonsense. The same way it could be "Why aren’t there more men in tech?" or "Why aren’t there more people in tech?" whatsoever. The whole article consists of telling how good and capable she was (and by arguments she uses you can suspect that she really is not) and concludes it by "I wasn't appreciated by society, so that's it". Stereotypically, being a guy-programmer isn't "cool" as well. Never really was. These "nerds" were't appreciated as well. Did they care? No. Because they simply liked and valued what they were doing much more than somebody's opinion on that. And that is what really makes them "good". They do not need appreciation to do what they do. I know quite a few women in tech that can be called "good" indeed and I never heard a single one of them blaming others for attitude or talking about all these "social justice" nonsense at all. They write blogposts about DSP and compiler optimization instead. And for some reason it is always somebody who has nothing to really be proud of (in sense of technical achievements) who writes posts like that one. It is so obvious that I still can't understand why it finds enough social response to be on top of HN. Again and again.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- meric 12y ago
  I wonder what's up with that, why is it a shame to hang out with intelligent yet socially inept people? Note that she used the word "shame", rather than "guilt". Where "guilt" is an emotion one experiences after one does something "wrong", "shame" means she felt her self was deficient, because she hung out with people who weren't good at being social. "If we want to get more women in tech, we have to make it socially cool, not just socially acceptable" So, what you're saying is, in the name of equality, we should make it easier for women to join tech, so that men and women are more equally represented in tech. Since an environment with socially inept people is less cool, and therefore less welcoming to women, we should change the environment such that socially inept people are discouraged from joining tech, so that tech becomes cool, and so that more women gets to join.

This aspect of the problem is underrated compared to others. Thankfully, there are a lot of strong admissions about it in this article, which is unfortunately not seen too often. "But to be good at maths was to be in solitude – or elitist and removed from friends." "It was my secret shame – hanging out with the most beautifully intelligent (yet socially inept) kids of the school did not bode well on my social resume." "In high school I sat an IQ test and got accelerated in mathematics and in science. It was social suicide." I have stressed this on HN before in articles about "why aren't there more women in tech" -- one of the major un-addressed problems is that younger women don't think of tech as a cool thing to go into. Younger men don't mind being social outcasts as much, and tend to deal with the solitude that results from such activities, because they are often socially isolated anyway. If we want to get more women in tech, we have to make it socially cool, not just socially acceptable. I think this also explains why a lot of men have knee-jerk negative reactions to "we should do more to get women in tech" articles. They believe that suffering through all that social ostracism at school was the price they paid for getting into tech.

Houshalter 12y ago
Except that has nothing to do with gender. It's just as "boring"/"uncool" for boys too. Boys are also discouraged from going into tech. Being good at math/science/technology skill are stereotyped as "nerd" and considered low-social status by our culture. I think this is even moreso for boys than girls but maybe it's both.
- parennoob 12y ago
  My hypothesis (although it is not proven by any means, it is somewhat bolstered by the social experiences of many men and women I have talked to about this) is that men prefer to take the social hit of being ostracized, since they work alone on their pursuits anyway, more often than women. (e.g. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/why-women-prefer-working-together-and-why-men-prefer-working-alone/278888/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/why-wome...) Totally agree though, that both men and women do face this social ostracism, and that eliminating it would be hugely beneficial. I think we differ in the belief that it is the primary reason for the low number of women in the tech sector.
krick 12y ago
That's nonsense. The same way it could be "Why aren’t there more men in tech?" or "Why aren’t there more people in tech?" whatsoever. The whole article consists of telling how good and capable she was (and by arguments she uses you can suspect that she really is not) and concludes it by "I wasn't appreciated by society, so that's it". Stereotypically, being a guy-programmer isn't "cool" as well. Never really was. These "nerds" were't appreciated as well. Did they care? No. Because they simply liked and valued what they were doing much more than somebody's opinion on that. And that is what really makes them "good". They do not need appreciation to do what they do. I know quite a few women in tech that can be called "good" indeed and I never heard a single one of them blaming others for attitude or talking about all these "social justice" nonsense at all. They write blogposts about DSP and compiler optimization instead. And for some reason it is always somebody who has nothing to really be proud of (in sense of technical achievements) who writes posts like that one. It is so obvious that I still can't understand why it finds enough social response to be on top of HN. Again and again.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
meric 12y ago
I wonder what's up with that, why is it a shame to hang out with intelligent yet socially inept people? Note that she used the word "shame", rather than "guilt". Where "guilt" is an emotion one experiences after one does something "wrong", "shame" means she felt her self was deficient, because she hung out with people who weren't good at being social. "If we want to get more women in tech, we have to make it socially cool, not just socially acceptable" So, what you're saying is, in the name of equality, we should make it easier for women to join tech, so that men and women are more equally represented in tech. Since an environment with socially inept people is less cool, and therefore less welcoming to women, we should change the environment such that socially inept people are discouraged from joining tech, so that tech becomes cool, and so that more women gets to join.