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We're not discussing "crazy people trolling public figures" here. No one wants to do anything about your favourite sunday newspaper cartoonist and his daily Oba

We're not discussing "crazy people trolling public figures" here. No one wants to do anything about your favourite sunday newspaper cartoonist and his daily Obama caricatures. We're not talking about your neighbour kid playing phone pranks on you. What we're talking about here are death threats, sexual harassment, and calling your boss to get you fired. Deliberate, organized hate. Effective and planned activities to harm an individual who doesn't represent the in-group you're happening to be in. I couldn't care less how the gender distribution remains after we've solved THAT issue. This is a showstopper bug that has to be solved BEFORE we even begin to debug the gender gap. Anything else would be ridiculous: "Yeah, we're trying to find ways to get more women in tech, but since we don't have any scientific evidence to back up that the harassment, hate and verbal abuse against women in tech is a root cause of too few women in tech, we're still investigating and solving other possible causes" If you were a woman (I suppose you aren't), would you want to work in an environment that is obviously this toxic?

yummyfajitas 12y ago
If you were a woman (I suppose you aren't), would you want to work in an environment that is obviously this toxic? I don't think tech is "toxic". I've put as much of my money where my mouth is as my plumbing allows. I recently (read: past few months) did everything I could to help a girl I care about get into tech. I think she'll be happier in the field than in her various alternatives.
- purerandomness 12y ago
  Well, that's because I assume you're a decent human being, and that's great - and I try to do the same (while not having experiences specifically with girls, I try to support women in tech where I can) We both are fortunate to not see a problem in our specific peer groups, but strangely seem to disagree that the problem still exists for some other peer groups, and that we should do anything possible to stop that toxicity.

yummyfajitas 12y ago

If you were a woman (I suppose you aren't), would you want to work in an environment that is obviously this toxic? I don't think tech is "toxic". I've put as much of my money where my mouth is as my plumbing allows. I recently (read: past few months) did everything I could to help a girl I care about get into tech. I think she'll be happier in the field than in her various alternatives.

purerandomness 12y ago
Well, that's because I assume you're a decent human being, and that's great - and I try to do the same (while not having experiences specifically with girls, I try to support women in tech where I can) We both are fortunate to not see a problem in our specific peer groups, but strangely seem to disagree that the problem still exists for some other peer groups, and that we should do anything possible to stop that toxicity.