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> The tech industry is rife with sexism, racism, homophobia, and discrimination. Talking about myth that needs to die. The tech industry is not rife with the a

by Mikushi 11y ago

> The tech industry is rife with sexism, racism, homophobia, and discrimination. Talking about myth that needs to die. The tech industry is not rife with the aforementioned issues, they might exists, but not any more than other industries.

cholantesh 11y ago
But we are practitioners in _this_ industry. We should be concerned with issues that exist within it, regardless of how more or less prevalent they are elsewhere.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- pc86 11y ago
  But that's not the implication in any of the sexism-related articles that occasionally make there way onto the front page. It's always "tech is literally a boys club where women are assaulted and fired with no recourse," never "there are issues that we should address, but it's really not that bad compared to just about any other industry." To use contrived numbers but a common example, if 90% of applications are male and 10% of applicants are female, hiring the women 5% of the time is probably a sign of some latent issue that can be addressed. It is not at all evidence of the same kind of rampant, malicious sexism that would be the case if the applicants were split 50/50 yet still hires were 95% male.
- CyberDildonics 11y ago
  That's not the issue at hand. The idea that the tech industry is somehow extremely sexist and racist is not true.
zwieback 11y ago
Agreed. I did a couple SW projects in sawmills. I'll take the tech side over the sawmills any day.
mattmanser 11y ago
Remember the 'brogrammer' movement a few years back? Companies were actually starting to advertise for brogrammers to the point where I called out a company on HN doing it. What other industry have you heard of that came up with such a sexist movement like that? There definitely was a problem, though I think it's getting better. The big problem was that nerd culture, which was predominantly male until recently, was very closely tied to programming for several decades, making the industry fundamentally hostile to people not from that white/asian nerd male culture. Brogrammers were a bit of a backlash against that, but in a still male-orientated way.
- thirdtruck 11y ago
  And even then, programmers of Asian descent apparently get sidelined into the purely technical work, to the exclusion of managerial or the like. EDIT: s/those/then/.
onion2k 11y ago
That's the sort of statement that needs evidence to show it's true. Anecdotally, from what I see based on 20 years experience working in software, it's a very, very discriminatory industry. People who are from an ethnic minority, women, and gay people find it much harder to find a job. Managers (particularly non-technical managers) assume that those people won't be as good or that they won't fit in with the rest of the team or the company culture. Startups are much better than established companies but it's still a problem.
- jjaredsimpson 11y ago
  How is this any different than all industries? Why should I believe this discrimination is worse in my field?
  - pionar 11y ago
    Why does it need to be worse to deserve attention? To paraphrase Office Space, do we really want to do the bare minimum?
    - nilkn 11y ago
      It doesn't, but a lot of people try very hard to imply that it's worse in the technology industry. If this is not the case, then this sort of rhetoric is just adding noise that distracts attention away from just fixing the issue.
  - onion2k 11y ago
    Why should I believe this discrimination is worse in my field? Because you've read testimonials of people who say they've been discriminated against and you haven't casually dismissed them all? As a white, middle-class male developer who hasn't ever been discriminated against in my entire life I find it hard to empathise with people facing discrimination, but that doesn't mean anything as all the evidence makes it abundantly clear that they do. I hadn't seen it first hand until I heard a manager at a relatively big company talking about how he wouldn't hire women because they'd be a distraction to the rest of his team. If you can ignore the weight of all that then you're quite a big part of the problem. At some point you have to stop dismissing people and start trying to understand what's going on, and try to help make the industry better.
the_af 11y ago
My own experience, which is of course anecdotal, is that the tech industry is strongly sexist and to some degree, homophobic. I cannot compare with other industries which I'm less familiar with, but it seems there are less sexist industries out there. Women must demonstrate double the smarts of a male developer in order to be considered their peers. If a male developer is in a bad mood one day, that's annoying but understandable. If the same happens to a woman, "it's one of those days" -- which is infuriating. Women in most places I've worked are consistently thought of as naive, newbies and "not as good". The very few women who are unarguably good (and therefore assertive in their knowledge) are considered "bitchy". Sorry, but tech jobs are pretty much boy's clubs, and women still have it pretty rough there. PS: my anecdotal evidence includes my wife's experience. After three jobs in a row with bad experiences (which match what I see in my own job), it's hard to call this a coincidence. In one job she was the team leader of a small team, but whenever the CEO met with them, he looked at and spoke directly to the senior male developer of the team as if he was the lead, in some cases even "forgetting" to tell my wife he was calling a meeting at all.
- kabouseng 11y ago
  Serious question, how do you know it is not your own perception of attitudes at play here. Similar question is how do I know (who are not aware of the same disproportionate amount of sexism / racism / homophoby) that I am not simply blind to it / unaffected? Similarly you could argue the industry has a feminism problem, and I could point you out to various news articles of incidents.
  - the_af 11y ago
    You are right: I do not know. I'm aware this is only anecdotal evidence. I can only say this: I do not know anyone from my own work environment and friends in the tech industry who is male and has the same kind of problems as my wife. Conversely, I know plenty of women mistreated in similar ways. I only need to listen my coworkers ("so-and-so got the job by waving her ass at the boss"). I once had a transsexual coworker -- which is tremendously uncommon -- and all I ever heard about her were jokes about her sexual orientation. Not in her presence, of course. She later quit the job, and to this day I don't know if she was any good at it, because I never worked directly with her and I never heard anyone commenting on her technical skills... I guess they were not relevant to anyone. Don't take this the wrong way, but I have to say it: the notion that our industry has a "feminism problem" is so ridiculous it leaves me speechless.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
joesmo 11y ago
I haven't seen much homophobia, but the number of minorities and women tech employs contradicts your claim, not to mention my own personal experiences.

by Mikushi 11y ago

cholantesh 11y ago

But we are practitioners in _this_ industry. We should be concerned with issues that exist within it, regardless of how more or less prevalent they are elsewhere.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
pc86 11y ago
But that's not the implication in any of the sexism-related articles that occasionally make there way onto the front page. It's always "tech is literally a boys club where women are assaulted and fired with no recourse," never "there are issues that we should address, but it's really not that bad compared to just about any other industry." To use contrived numbers but a common example, if 90% of applications are male and 10% of applicants are female, hiring the women 5% of the time is probably a sign of some latent issue that can be addressed. It is not at all evidence of the same kind of rampant, malicious sexism that would be the case if the applicants were split 50/50 yet still hires were 95% male.
CyberDildonics 11y ago
That's not the issue at hand. The idea that the tech industry is somehow extremely sexist and racist is not true.

zwieback 11y ago

Agreed. I did a couple SW projects in sawmills. I'll take the tech side over the sawmills any day.

mattmanser 11y ago

Remember the 'brogrammer' movement a few years back? Companies were actually starting to advertise for brogrammers to the point where I called out a company on HN doing it. What other industry have you heard of that came up with such a sexist movement like that? There definitely was a problem, though I think it's getting better. The big problem was that nerd culture, which was predominantly male until recently, was very closely tied to programming for several decades, making the industry fundamentally hostile to people not from that white/asian nerd male culture. Brogrammers were a bit of a backlash against that, but in a still male-orientated way.

thirdtruck 11y ago
And even then, programmers of Asian descent apparently get sidelined into the purely technical work, to the exclusion of managerial or the like. EDIT: s/those/then/.

onion2k 11y ago

That's the sort of statement that needs evidence to show it's true. Anecdotally, from what I see based on 20 years experience working in software, it's a very, very discriminatory industry. People who are from an ethnic minority, women, and gay people find it much harder to find a job. Managers (particularly non-technical managers) assume that those people won't be as good or that they won't fit in with the rest of the team or the company culture. Startups are much better than established companies but it's still a problem.

jjaredsimpson 11y ago
How is this any different than all industries? Why should I believe this discrimination is worse in my field?
- pionar 11y ago
  Why does it need to be worse to deserve attention? To paraphrase Office Space, do we really want to do the bare minimum?
  - nilkn 11y ago
    It doesn't, but a lot of people try very hard to imply that it's worse in the technology industry. If this is not the case, then this sort of rhetoric is just adding noise that distracts attention away from just fixing the issue.
- onion2k 11y ago
  Why should I believe this discrimination is worse in my field? Because you've read testimonials of people who say they've been discriminated against and you haven't casually dismissed them all? As a white, middle-class male developer who hasn't ever been discriminated against in my entire life I find it hard to empathise with people facing discrimination, but that doesn't mean anything as all the evidence makes it abundantly clear that they do. I hadn't seen it first hand until I heard a manager at a relatively big company talking about how he wouldn't hire women because they'd be a distraction to the rest of his team. If you can ignore the weight of all that then you're quite a big part of the problem. At some point you have to stop dismissing people and start trying to understand what's going on, and try to help make the industry better.

the_af 11y ago

My own experience, which is of course anecdotal, is that the tech industry is strongly sexist and to some degree, homophobic. I cannot compare with other industries which I'm less familiar with, but it seems there are less sexist industries out there. Women must demonstrate double the smarts of a male developer in order to be considered their peers. If a male developer is in a bad mood one day, that's annoying but understandable. If the same happens to a woman, "it's one of those days" -- which is infuriating. Women in most places I've worked are consistently thought of as naive, newbies and "not as good". The very few women who are unarguably good (and therefore assertive in their knowledge) are considered "bitchy". Sorry, but tech jobs are pretty much boy's clubs, and women still have it pretty rough there. PS: my anecdotal evidence includes my wife's experience. After three jobs in a row with bad experiences (which match what I see in my own job), it's hard to call this a coincidence. In one job she was the team leader of a small team, but whenever the CEO met with them, he looked at and spoke directly to the senior male developer of the team as if he was the lead, in some cases even "forgetting" to tell my wife he was calling a meeting at all.

kabouseng 11y ago
Serious question, how do you know it is not your own perception of attitudes at play here. Similar question is how do I know (who are not aware of the same disproportionate amount of sexism / racism / homophoby) that I am not simply blind to it / unaffected? Similarly you could argue the industry has a feminism problem, and I could point you out to various news articles of incidents.
- the_af 11y ago
  You are right: I do not know. I'm aware this is only anecdotal evidence. I can only say this: I do not know anyone from my own work environment and friends in the tech industry who is male and has the same kind of problems as my wife. Conversely, I know plenty of women mistreated in similar ways. I only need to listen my coworkers ("so-and-so got the job by waving her ass at the boss"). I once had a transsexual coworker -- which is tremendously uncommon -- and all I ever heard about her were jokes about her sexual orientation. Not in her presence, of course. She later quit the job, and to this day I don't know if she was any good at it, because I never worked directly with her and I never heard anyone commenting on her technical skills... I guess they were not relevant to anyone. Don't take this the wrong way, but I have to say it: the notion that our industry has a "feminism problem" is so ridiculous it leaves me speechless.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

joesmo 11y ago

I haven't seen much homophobia, but the number of minorities and women tech employs contradicts your claim, not to mention my own personal experiences.