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Interesting article. One line bothered me >Maybe it’s because of the still prevalent mindset that women shouldn’t be in engineering at all. Is this is an actu

Interesting article. One line bothered me >Maybe it’s because of the still prevalent mindset that women shouldn’t be in engineering at all. Is this is an actual prevalent mindset? I've literally never encountered it in the last two decades, although I also never attended university. I do assume, as a white male, that I would be approached by other males who would confide such prejudices in me. I've certainly been approached by white people (in non-engineering contexts) who assumed I would be comfortable with racist behavior so I feel like I would be soaking in obvious, blatant examples of this claim, but it has literally never happened. Is this just an underlying assumption people have, and it goes unchallenged because of the apparent prevailing belief that contradicting a woman about sexism claims is also sexism? Is it a mindset that one finds primarily on campus? Have I just been lucky in selecting employers? This is true curiosity, although I'll certainly understand if some of you are too emotional about the topic to avoid downvoting me for asking the question. I've had enough tangles over this issue to know that it's fairly rare to find people willing to calmly discuss these things.

hammerdr 11y ago
Just as an opposite anecdote, I find that I run into it all the time. Sometimes, its from people that are outside of the tech industry itself. Sometimes, it is from people that don't realize that they are saying such a thing. Sometimes, its from people of different cultural background (e.g. Chinese developers). I see this in SF, saw it in Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta and in the various countries I've worked in. I also recognized that it has took me a lot of time and a lot of effort to get to a point where I recognize it. 10 years ago, many of the things that would set off the "Hey; that does seem right" alarm bell would be unconsciously ignored and taken at face value. If I may presume, I'm going to suggest that your experience may be because you're more 'attuned' to racism than you are to sexism. For me, at least, it takes effort and willful learning to come to better grips with sexism, racism, ageism, etc. It's hard work!
- zxcvcxz 11y ago
  Can you give an example of this 'coded' sexism that's hard for regular people to spot?
  - mrrrgn 11y ago
    It's pretty mild; but someone sent me a twitter message after finding my GitHub account (hey nice projects, etc....) The left was my profile pic at the time, and the right is their final message. The fellow with a beard is my little brother. :) http://i.imgur.com/UuQMpi2.png http://i.imgur.com/UuQMpi2.png
    - Nadya 11y ago
      In the name of fairness; was your screen name gender neutral or leaning towards masculine at the time? If it's the same as HN (Mr. RRGN, right?) I could see it being a simple parsing error! ;) Although not a certain identifier many people do rely on screen names to discern gender. I ask because if HN had avatars and I had a picture of me and my sister together, with my current nickname, people would likely assume I'm my sister. Even if the photo focused more on me than her (like your profile pic focuses more on you than your little brother). Simply because my username is a female name. Furthermore, without knowing we were family, many people would also assume we were dating. A mistake that actually occurred at school quite frequently from people who didn't know us, since we were nearly always together. I'd understand the mistake. Of course, I'd correct them after. But I wouldn't take offense at the mistake. It's silly to expect people to know everything about you (even if you have a bio! Not everyone actually reads those.) I've been mistaken for a girl even when using a picture of myself and only myself as my profile. The individual who made the mistake actually thought that was a picture of "my boyfriend" and I had a night full of laughter at the mistake (as did they after I corrected them). I've been asked by online friends if I was male or female - months after meeting them - because it never usually gets brought up. I always ask them which they think I am before answering, out of curiosity, and most of them believe me to be female. I guess I need to cut down on my use of emoticons in shorter text forms and work on speaking more manly? I don't know. I have a hard time seeing scenarios like this as sexism rather than honest mistakes that simply happen... E: My real name is a name used by both genders but more predominately by females rather than males. That probably contributes to the confusion over my gender to those who know me long enough to learn my name. I never actually thought about how my name contributes to the confusion until I typed up this post. I can see why people who attribute my name as a feminine name would think I'm female. Enlightening in a small way.
- byerley 11y ago
  Can you elaborate on why spending time and effort to find offensiveness in things makes sense to you? The concept seems so outlandish to me that I'm not sure how to word the question more politely, sorry.
  - erikpukinskis 11y ago
    For me it was just that I had a bunch of experiences where I hurt people and had no idea, only much later finding out, by essentially hearing from a third party about a fourth party doing exactly the same thing I did. And it was clear that I wouldn't have heard those stories unless I had gone out of my way to understand what the "angry" people were mad about, and waded through quite a lot of background material. It was clear that no one would've trusted me with that kind of story until after I demonstrated that I had done some work to learn the basics of "offensiveness". Which, I had honestly only really done because I was in love with this girl who was into it. Kind of ironic really. I think that's how a lot of how this stuff grows though, you're a homophobe until someone you love turns out to be gay and then all of the sudden you figure it out. Anyway after hearing enough stories about people like me carelessly, unknowingly fucking up other peoples' days, it clicked that I could never really know how many people I was hurting. And that knowledge just bugs me. I don't just want the illusion I'm being good to the people around me, I really want to feel secure that I'm doing a good job of that. It's how my Dad felt, not that he (or I) are necessarily the best at it. It's just my personality. And that provides the motivation to slow down and try to understand train wrecks that I could easily scoot on right by.
  - candu 11y ago
    In a strict game-theory sense: if you're aware of what might cause offense to others, you'll inadvertently offend others less frequently, and your conversations/negotiations/etc. will have higher average outcomes. Of course, I wouldn't usually phrase it in such a coldly logical way, so here's a practical example: when I meet someone in a professional context, I usually ask about background/expertise early on. This way, I avoid making unconscious assumptions like "she probably isn't an engineer" or "these people will all grok the super-technical explanation I'm about to launch into". Another example: some of my relatives are more religious/traditional, so I avoid topics and words that wouldn't go over well when around them. Or: I'm in Greece, so I don't ask for Turkish coffee. And so on.
cbhl 11y ago
My understanding is that girls tend to hear this from the people they look to for guidance -- teachers, guidance counsellors, friends, and parents. I'd also recommend an anecdote by Michael Kimmel, see the section "MAKING PRIVILEGE VISIBLE" at http://www.fjaz.com/kimmel.html http://www.fjaz.com/kimmel.html.
- brandonmenc 11y ago
  > My understanding is that girls tend to hear this from the people they look to for guidance -- teachers, guidance counsellors, friends, and parents. Aren't most of their teachers, friends, and roughly half of their parents women?
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > Aren't most of their teachers, friends, and roughly half of their parents women? Social norms which preserve group (race, sex/gender, caste, etc.) roles are rarely present among only the group whose acceptable roles under those norms are also those most valued.
  - uptown 11y ago
    Perhaps. But if you look at the current distribution of gender in engineering they may not advocate exploring those professions because historically it wasn't common for someone to advocate the same for them. The key is breaking that cycle so people feel free to explore whatever they're interested in.
    - brandonmenc 11y ago
      3/4 of teachers in the US are women and almost half of them are in their 30s or younger. I find it nearly impossible to believe that, in this environment, girls aren't encountering "you go girl!" from their teachers, multiple times a day.
      - cbhl 11y ago
        The literature says you are wrong. For example, a 1999 review[0] of the literature noted that teachers "tend to stereotype mathematics as a male domain, [...] overrate male students' mathematics capability, have higher expectations for male students and more positive attitudes about male students". Look, if even ONE woman in computer science said to you that her high school math teacher told her that she wouldn't be well suited for Computer Science, you don't tell her, "I find it impossible to believe you." Chances are, dozens of other men have already said the same thing -- and that can be just as discouraging as the original comment. [0] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0013188990410106 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0013188990410106
balls187 11y ago
As a white male, why would you expect to experience the mindset that is specific to women? Perhaps you do encounter it, but just think it's so normal that you don't even recognize it. The most obvious example I encounter is: a woman who may be of average or above average attraction, and the assumption is she is not an engineer, but instead: a. Marketer b. Sales c. Social Media Manager d. Community Manager e. Office Assistant Further examples--attractiveness means a woman got where she is because of something other than her technical ability. Or even that attractiveness is even relevant at all.
pron 11y ago
> Is this just an underlying assumption people have, and it goes unchallenged because of the apparent prevailing belief that contradicting a woman about sexism claims is also sexism? I think you are not familiar with what sexism is, and confuse it with misogyny. There is nothing about sexism to contradict, and beliefs, prevalent or otherwise, have nothing to do with it. Sexism is simply a state of affairs where women have less power than men in society. Sexism in tech is a fact, especially in software, as it is the only white-collar industry that has seen female participation consistently drop over the past couple of decades, unlike other industries (including science, medicine and other form of engineering) where women participation has been steadily on the rise. As tech is an industry that holds a lot of power, the decline in women participation is sexism. Your claim that you personally have not witnessed overt misogyny has, therefore, little to do with the reality of sexism. Arguing with women or men about the reality of sexism is also unnecessary, as it is a proven fact.

hammerdr 11y ago

Just as an opposite anecdote, I find that I run into it all the time. Sometimes, its from people that are outside of the tech industry itself. Sometimes, it is from people that don't realize that they are saying such a thing. Sometimes, its from people of different cultural background (e.g. Chinese developers). I see this in SF, saw it in Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta and in the various countries I've worked in. I also recognized that it has took me a lot of time and a lot of effort to get to a point where I recognize it. 10 years ago, many of the things that would set off the "Hey; that does seem right" alarm bell would be unconsciously ignored and taken at face value. If I may presume, I'm going to suggest that your experience may be because you're more 'attuned' to racism than you are to sexism. For me, at least, it takes effort and willful learning to come to better grips with sexism, racism, ageism, etc. It's hard work!

zxcvcxz 11y ago
Can you give an example of this 'coded' sexism that's hard for regular people to spot?
- mrrrgn 11y ago
  It's pretty mild; but someone sent me a twitter message after finding my GitHub account (hey nice projects, etc....) The left was my profile pic at the time, and the right is their final message. The fellow with a beard is my little brother. :) http://i.imgur.com/UuQMpi2.png http://i.imgur.com/UuQMpi2.png
  - Nadya 11y ago
    In the name of fairness; was your screen name gender neutral or leaning towards masculine at the time? If it's the same as HN (Mr. RRGN, right?) I could see it being a simple parsing error! ;) Although not a certain identifier many people do rely on screen names to discern gender. I ask because if HN had avatars and I had a picture of me and my sister together, with my current nickname, people would likely assume I'm my sister. Even if the photo focused more on me than her (like your profile pic focuses more on you than your little brother). Simply because my username is a female name. Furthermore, without knowing we were family, many people would also assume we were dating. A mistake that actually occurred at school quite frequently from people who didn't know us, since we were nearly always together. I'd understand the mistake. Of course, I'd correct them after. But I wouldn't take offense at the mistake. It's silly to expect people to know everything about you (even if you have a bio! Not everyone actually reads those.) I've been mistaken for a girl even when using a picture of myself and only myself as my profile. The individual who made the mistake actually thought that was a picture of "my boyfriend" and I had a night full of laughter at the mistake (as did they after I corrected them). I've been asked by online friends if I was male or female - months after meeting them - because it never usually gets brought up. I always ask them which they think I am before answering, out of curiosity, and most of them believe me to be female. I guess I need to cut down on my use of emoticons in shorter text forms and work on speaking more manly? I don't know. I have a hard time seeing scenarios like this as sexism rather than honest mistakes that simply happen... E: My real name is a name used by both genders but more predominately by females rather than males. That probably contributes to the confusion over my gender to those who know me long enough to learn my name. I never actually thought about how my name contributes to the confusion until I typed up this post. I can see why people who attribute my name as a feminine name would think I'm female. Enlightening in a small way.
byerley 11y ago
Can you elaborate on why spending time and effort to find offensiveness in things makes sense to you? The concept seems so outlandish to me that I'm not sure how to word the question more politely, sorry.
- erikpukinskis 11y ago
  For me it was just that I had a bunch of experiences where I hurt people and had no idea, only much later finding out, by essentially hearing from a third party about a fourth party doing exactly the same thing I did. And it was clear that I wouldn't have heard those stories unless I had gone out of my way to understand what the "angry" people were mad about, and waded through quite a lot of background material. It was clear that no one would've trusted me with that kind of story until after I demonstrated that I had done some work to learn the basics of "offensiveness". Which, I had honestly only really done because I was in love with this girl who was into it. Kind of ironic really. I think that's how a lot of how this stuff grows though, you're a homophobe until someone you love turns out to be gay and then all of the sudden you figure it out. Anyway after hearing enough stories about people like me carelessly, unknowingly fucking up other peoples' days, it clicked that I could never really know how many people I was hurting. And that knowledge just bugs me. I don't just want the illusion I'm being good to the people around me, I really want to feel secure that I'm doing a good job of that. It's how my Dad felt, not that he (or I) are necessarily the best at it. It's just my personality. And that provides the motivation to slow down and try to understand train wrecks that I could easily scoot on right by.
- candu 11y ago
  In a strict game-theory sense: if you're aware of what might cause offense to others, you'll inadvertently offend others less frequently, and your conversations/negotiations/etc. will have higher average outcomes. Of course, I wouldn't usually phrase it in such a coldly logical way, so here's a practical example: when I meet someone in a professional context, I usually ask about background/expertise early on. This way, I avoid making unconscious assumptions like "she probably isn't an engineer" or "these people will all grok the super-technical explanation I'm about to launch into". Another example: some of my relatives are more religious/traditional, so I avoid topics and words that wouldn't go over well when around them. Or: I'm in Greece, so I don't ask for Turkish coffee. And so on.

cbhl 11y ago

My understanding is that girls tend to hear this from the people they look to for guidance -- teachers, guidance counsellors, friends, and parents. I'd also recommend an anecdote by Michael Kimmel, see the section "MAKING PRIVILEGE VISIBLE" at http://www.fjaz.com/kimmel.html http://www.fjaz.com/kimmel.html.

brandonmenc 11y ago
> My understanding is that girls tend to hear this from the people they look to for guidance -- teachers, guidance counsellors, friends, and parents. Aren't most of their teachers, friends, and roughly half of their parents women?
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Aren't most of their teachers, friends, and roughly half of their parents women? Social norms which preserve group (race, sex/gender, caste, etc.) roles are rarely present among only the group whose acceptable roles under those norms are also those most valued.
- uptown 11y ago
  Perhaps. But if you look at the current distribution of gender in engineering they may not advocate exploring those professions because historically it wasn't common for someone to advocate the same for them. The key is breaking that cycle so people feel free to explore whatever they're interested in.
  - brandonmenc 11y ago
    3/4 of teachers in the US are women and almost half of them are in their 30s or younger. I find it nearly impossible to believe that, in this environment, girls aren't encountering "you go girl!" from their teachers, multiple times a day.
    - cbhl 11y ago
      The literature says you are wrong. For example, a 1999 review[0] of the literature noted that teachers "tend to stereotype mathematics as a male domain, [...] overrate male students' mathematics capability, have higher expectations for male students and more positive attitudes about male students". Look, if even ONE woman in computer science said to you that her high school math teacher told her that she wouldn't be well suited for Computer Science, you don't tell her, "I find it impossible to believe you." Chances are, dozens of other men have already said the same thing -- and that can be just as discouraging as the original comment. [0] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0013188990410106 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0013188990410106

balls187 11y ago

As a white male, why would you expect to experience the mindset that is specific to women? Perhaps you do encounter it, but just think it's so normal that you don't even recognize it. The most obvious example I encounter is: a woman who may be of average or above average attraction, and the assumption is she is not an engineer, but instead: a. Marketer b. Sales c. Social Media Manager d. Community Manager e. Office Assistant Further examples--attractiveness means a woman got where she is because of something other than her technical ability. Or even that attractiveness is even relevant at all.

pron 11y ago

> Is this just an underlying assumption people have, and it goes unchallenged because of the apparent prevailing belief that contradicting a woman about sexism claims is also sexism? I think you are not familiar with what sexism is, and confuse it with misogyny. There is nothing about sexism to contradict, and beliefs, prevalent or otherwise, have nothing to do with it. Sexism is simply a state of affairs where women have less power than men in society. Sexism in tech is a fact, especially in software, as it is the only white-collar industry that has seen female participation consistently drop over the past couple of decades, unlike other industries (including science, medicine and other form of engineering) where women participation has been steadily on the rise. As tech is an industry that holds a lot of power, the decline in women participation is sexism. Your claim that you personally have not witnessed overt misogyny has, therefore, little to do with the reality of sexism. Arguing with women or men about the reality of sexism is also unnecessary, as it is a proven fact.