4 ms·

> I see misogyny and abuse as part of the system of control that maintains gendered work. (As is male willingness to tolerate it. Note the all the male pearl-cl

> I see misogyny and abuse as part of the system of control that maintains gendered work. (As is male willingness to tolerate it. Note the all the male pearl-clutching that has taken place around codes of conduct.) It's similar to the way that police (and much of society) are more accepting of the rape of women who "dressed wrong" or were otherwise not following a very gendered code of sexuality. This is absolutely true, but it also indicates that tech merits no special treatment or concern in this regard. The attrition problem is actually systemic. (The harassment problem probably is tech-specific, at least the online-troll harassment rather than the paternalism and more "artful" in-person unwelcome advances more common in medicine or law.) > So this concerns me; it sounds like you're treating feminism as an other. That says much more about you than it says about me.

wpietri 12y ago
No, that there is a broad systemic problem doesn't mean that tech doesn't also have specific problems. And even if the problems were only endemic, it doesn't mean that we can't make a difference in tech by acting in tech. See, for example, this HBR report: http://documents.library.nsf.gov/edocs/HD6060-.A84-2008-PDF-Athena-factor-Reversing-the-brain-drain-in-science,-engineering,-and-technology.pdf http://documents.library.nsf.gov/edocs/HD6060-.A84-2008-PDF-... Chapter 8, "Unnecessary Losses", in particular documents that there is a specific problem in high tech. > That says much more about you than it says about me. Sure, it says I've been participating in Hacker News discussions on sexism for the last few years, where there has been an overabundance of anonymous dudes who just happen to be vehemently opposed to anything that might reduce the advantages they have now.
- empthought 12y ago
  Thanks for the link. There was one sidebar about "tech in finance" that was especially illuminating to me -- half my career was at a large financial institution, and it did reflect the more positive attributes with respect to women technologists and managers described in the paper. Another factor that may warp my perception (or alternatively, maybe yours is warped if you're in Seattle or the Bay Area) is that my career has been entirely in the Midwest. There's not very much skew at all among tech workers from the culture at large, with respect to gender equality. If anything, a male tech worker's efforts and opinions skew toward equality, relative to the average worker's efforts and opinions. So I just see sexism problems as society problems; maybe tech companies in some tech hubs are way behind the curve of the regions where they are located? Or perhaps we shipped the most toxic programmers among us to the coasts? :)
  - wpietri 12y ago
    Interesting. I've worked in both the Midwest and in the Bay Area, but I've been too long in SF to compare fairly. The stats are definitely worse than the general population here. Look at Google's diversity stats in their tech positions: http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html#tab=tech http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html#tab=tech Although now that I look, that's no worse than the CS graduate numbers, which have been sliding for 30 years: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-wom... So maybe it's more a function of Google hiring young than being male-biased. As to the culture, I think there is definitely a lot more humility in the midwest, which could help. I notice that people who think their evaluations are objective are more likely to display gender bias: https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/uhlmann_et_2005.pdf https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/uhlmann_et_2005.... And yes, I think there's definitely some shipping of toxic people going on. I was here for Bubble 1.0; a lot of opportunistic people turned up during the boom and then left when the bust came. I would not mind another bubble popping to cool things off and send the greedy back to Wall Street.

wpietri 12y ago

No, that there is a broad systemic problem doesn't mean that tech doesn't also have specific problems. And even if the problems were only endemic, it doesn't mean that we can't make a difference in tech by acting in tech. See, for example, this HBR report: http://documents.library.nsf.gov/edocs/HD6060-.A84-2008-PDF-Athena-factor-Reversing-the-brain-drain-in-science,-engineering,-and-technology.pdf http://documents.library.nsf.gov/edocs/HD6060-.A84-2008-PDF-... Chapter 8, "Unnecessary Losses", in particular documents that there is a specific problem in high tech. > That says much more about you than it says about me. Sure, it says I've been participating in Hacker News discussions on sexism for the last few years, where there has been an overabundance of anonymous dudes who just happen to be vehemently opposed to anything that might reduce the advantages they have now.

empthought 12y ago
Thanks for the link. There was one sidebar about "tech in finance" that was especially illuminating to me -- half my career was at a large financial institution, and it did reflect the more positive attributes with respect to women technologists and managers described in the paper. Another factor that may warp my perception (or alternatively, maybe yours is warped if you're in Seattle or the Bay Area) is that my career has been entirely in the Midwest. There's not very much skew at all among tech workers from the culture at large, with respect to gender equality. If anything, a male tech worker's efforts and opinions skew toward equality, relative to the average worker's efforts and opinions. So I just see sexism problems as society problems; maybe tech companies in some tech hubs are way behind the curve of the regions where they are located? Or perhaps we shipped the most toxic programmers among us to the coasts? :)
- wpietri 12y ago
  Interesting. I've worked in both the Midwest and in the Bay Area, but I've been too long in SF to compare fairly. The stats are definitely worse than the general population here. Look at Google's diversity stats in their tech positions: http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html#tab=tech http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html#tab=tech Although now that I look, that's no worse than the CS graduate numbers, which have been sliding for 30 years: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-wom... So maybe it's more a function of Google hiring young than being male-biased. As to the culture, I think there is definitely a lot more humility in the midwest, which could help. I notice that people who think their evaluations are objective are more likely to display gender bias: https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/uhlmann_et_2005.pdf https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/uhlmann_et_2005.... And yes, I think there's definitely some shipping of toxic people going on. I was here for Bubble 1.0; a lot of opportunistic people turned up during the boom and then left when the bust came. I would not mind another bubble popping to cool things off and send the greedy back to Wall Street.