I do apologize. People, including me, don’t go spend their lives talking to computers because they are great at talking to people. I’m bad at reading social context, probably on the autism spectrum and many of my colleagues over the last 30 years have been like me. There’s a high chance I’ve expressed what’s called a microagression in the post without intending to so. I can’t tell. I often can’t even tell I offended someone completely unintentionally. I’m a difficult person to be around, there many others like me. And I can’t get better although I have learned to keep myself away from people and be very careful about any interaction, I’m not remotely “normal”.
So maybe it just helps talking to people? There appear to be many jerks around, sure. But I’m willing to bet many of these microagressions are simply a result of social ineptitude. If someone told me I stepped on their toes (some have), I can be more careful around them and assure them of no bad intentions.
Diagnosed autistic person here. I do not use my medical condition as an excuse to create microagressions of any sort. In fact, I consider using autism as an "out" in this case to be selfish to both the person being offended as well as everyone out there with diagnosed autism.
If you're able to go to work everyday and function in society without any extra assistance, then you do not get a pass to insult others needlessly. Go home and rethink your life.
I'd like to add that I am really disappointed that this "So maybe it just helps talking to people?" comment is at the top of the comments here. It is incredibly tone deaf and borderline victim blaming.
It is such an easy explanation that many people here will accept. Yet it is a fallacy, out of touch with reality.
Does anyone really think that the "on the spectum" workforce is the reason for the systemic issues in the tech industry?!
The experiences you describe are such a bummer. I've both witnessed similar situations and, as a man, unintentionally participated over the years while still growing up and maturing my professional "self".
Keep seeing something and saying something with articles like these. The culture is changing, even if it doesn't feel like it some days, and talking about it in the open is part of what fuels that change.
Sure. I'll give you that it seems a bit cherry-picked. In fact, "Angry all the time" is the last phrase that comes to mind for most of my female colleagues. That said, when I look at the list of asks, they are actually quite tame, they mostly go without saying in my opinion (e.g. "report bad behavior").
But when I read all the comments on this thread I think "Wow. If this set of innocuous requests is generating this response, then that speaks volumes. Who am I to say this type of pent-up bitterness doesn't affect her career?"
Women discussing their personal experiences is "controversial"? And we "should expect" trolling and harassment and worse? That's exactly the problem. You think that that's normal and acceptable.
For the record, I didn't say any of this. It's not controversial to talk about your experience. It's certainly controversial to generalize your experience across an entire industry, or sex. And it's not acceptable to be harassed, but yes it's normal and not specific to women.
So when ~50% of women working in tech have experienced harassment is that enough of a pattern to generalize? Or does it need to be 100% before we can talk about it?
I don't trust the results of anonymous online surveys, nor should you. It's amazing that any organization purporting to be journalistic would report such results, but those are the times we live in, I guess.
Anyway, my comment was about base rates of harassment received by anyone saying anything critical of anyone else: they are high, no matter who you are and what you are saying. It's not right, but it's not limited to women.
Every comment so far has been downvoted, I have some internet points to spend.
> My first thought was someone had mailed me anthrax.
That's your first thought? The harassment later described sounds insane - if you are receiving death threats call the police, open a case. It'll strengthen your position if you later need to go to court. What you don't do is post about it online, to let your attacker know they were successful.
Also, don't doxx your own address. If you need to receive mail and post an address online, there are forwarding services - some even offer to search the mail.
I somewhat find the claim incredible though - if you honestly believe you are in immediate danger, most people do something about it.
> Most of us, however, experience constant microaggressions.
The term 'microaggression' doesn't make sense to me, if it's aggression then call it out as such. If it's not meaningful enough to be called out, then you need a better coping mechanism.
> [..] it truly feels like the cancerous misogynistic tumors in our industry in particular run so deep that we may never be able to bisect them all.
Either Silicon Valley produces the worst work culture out there (and homelessness), or I would suggest that you find yourself in a bubble. I think as a general rule, if you believe <some group> to have almost entirely evil intent, then you don't understand them or have some internal bias. People generally don't try or believe themselves to be the villains of their own stories.
> Listen to and believe women.
You go from wanting equality to special treatment. I treat all people with scepticism, but they are innocent until proven guilty. That's how justice works.
In general I feel sad for the author. Anything you try hard enough to find, you will eventually find. I hope instead of trying to find sexism in tech industry, the author tries to find happiness.
How do you think it would go showing anonymous death threats to the police? I can tell you because we’ve tried! Not well. They laugh you out of the station.
You think giving advice to “not doxx yourself” is useful advice? It is not. We are hyper aware of our safety and still have to be afraid of unknown creeps - anonymous trolls who we can’t “do something about”.
“I hope instead of trying to find sexism in tech industry”
You can’t go 1 week without hearing about sexism in our industry. Being in denial about it because it doesn’t impact you personally is a predictable and weak move.
> How do you think it would go showing anonymous death threats to the police? I can tell you because we’ve tried! Not well. They laugh you out of the station.
There's several reasons for reporting anonymous death threats (even if I find it weird that police would openly laugh in your face):
1. If you need to make a case in the future you have documented evidence. You can bring a police report to court.
2. When statistics are being crunched on such things, having the reports on record help identify a problem.
> You think giving advice to “not doxx yourself” is useful advice? It is not. We are hyper aware of our safety and still have to be afraid of unknown creeps - anonymous trolls who we can’t “do something about”.
She is publishing under her real name - if death threats are a serious threat, use a pseudo name. I understand the "she shouldn't have to" argument, and in a perfect society no crimes would ever be committed - but unfortunately humans are not perfect and we must compromise our ideology in favour of realism.
> You can’t go 1 week without hearing about sexism in our industry.
You can't go a day without hearing about murder either, but I don't go hunting it out in the news or writing about it. I pick and choose my battles for my own mental health.
I'm not denying sexism in the workplace is a real problem, I'm just suggesting that the author has over burdened herself with a large problem she has little control over, and it's made her unhappy. She sounds as if she genuinely believes somebody will send her anthrax through the post - do you really believe that is a real possibility or do you think her battle with sexism in the workplace has gone slightly off the rails?
> Being in denial about it because it doesn’t impact you personally is a predictable and weak move.
I'm not denying it's a problem and I haven't suggested that it doesn't impact me personally - you just made these assumptions. It's also not denial to not stress about every problem that impacts you personally.
If I published under a pseudo name then the comments here would be “This is fake. Not even a real person is willing to say this”. You truly can’t win.
I said in the article that not every woman in tech gets death threats. But I have and you seem to want to find reasons to blame me for getting them or make me seem “off the rails” for feeling any fear.
That wasn't clear, apologies - but also now you have tied you HN username that was otherwise anonymous to your real name. If you believe you have a very real risk of death, please do not make it easier for people to determine who you are.
Honestly I am saddened that you see the world through the lens you write about. The path you are on does not lead to happiness, I hope this doesn't play as large a role in your life as your article leads one to believe.
> If I published under a pseudo name then the comments here would be “This is fake. Not even a real person is willing to say this”. You truly can’t win.
There are many cases where there is no good option, but if you believe your life to be in danger, pick the option of self preservation. Also I doubt that putting a name to an article really makes it any more credible to your critics, the goalposts simply move from 'you are not real' to 'your experience is not real'.
> But I have and you seem to want to find reasons to blame me for getting them or make me seem “off the rails” for feeling any fear.
I always look at things with scepticism - especially when I realize somebody is trying to change my world view. That said, I can believe that you have likely received some crazy messages, even if just being a human that creates content on the internet.
What I think is a leap is to believe that some random package that arrives has a very real threat of containing anthrax. If this is a genuinely held belief (and not just story garnish) then it appears like a self-induced paranoia.
You are responding to her yet you use the 3rd person. You meant to write:
“You are publishing under your real name”
This is a complicated use of first person and third person:
“She sounds as if she genuinely believes somebody will send her anthrax through the post - do you really believe that is a real possibility or do you think her battle with sexism in the workplace has gone slightly off the rails?”
You meant to write:
“You sound as if you genuinely believe somebody will send you anthrax through the post - do you really believe that is a real possibility or do you think your battle with sexism in the workplace has gone slightly off the rails?”
This response is 100% victim blaming. There is not a single recognition. No single question. No empathy. It is 100% "it is your fault" and "it is because of your own choices and actions".
I lock my front door at night and I imagine you do too. In an ideal society no crime occurs, and we can all leave our doors unlocked at night. In reality - if we can make small changes to our lifestyle to limit our exposure to risk, we tend to do them.
But that all rides on the assumption that I accept the designation of 'victim' - I already argued against 'Listen to and believe women'. The author speaks of feeling a very feel threat of an anthrax attack, one that is likely inflated. Based on that, it's not unreasonable to believe that other claims in the article may also be inflated.
> bArray - you are the problem here.
I do enjoy the classic "if you're not with me, you're against me" argument. It's not at all possible for us both to agree that sexism in the workplace is bad, but have different opinions about how to solve it.
> But it is possible to have empathy for others, which clearly you have none of.
To show how much empathy I have, I'm going to write a post named "Ask HN: Let's talk about how much empathy I have" [1].
Addressing a few points here:
> But with your lack of empathy and obvious lack of respect for original human thought and emotion, I decided to come back and post this.
It's not original if a large number of people think in the same way, create bubbles and reinforce preconceived ideas about a subject, it's group think. You then get annoyed because somebody with an actually original thought challenges your own.
If you have something to argue then please do, otherwise claiming that I am less than human or lack human traits is not exactly going to progress any conversation. If you assume other people argue in bad faith, there is no way for us to move forwards productively.
> What you are doing is hurting people and is holding this industry back.
Open discussions are not holding the industry back. Debate is not holding the industry back. It's a lack of these things that hold the industry back - when a woman for example is treated in a sexist manner and people refuse to speak.
To push an ideology you must win hearts and minds. Your point here is that you want me to shut-up for the sake of your cause.
> Being online behind a username does not give you a pass to treat someone less than human.
I don't say anything here I wouldn't say to you in person. The difference would probably be that when I listen to what you say, you'll see that I'm not without empathy, I simply disagree with your opinion.
> To show how much empathy I have, I'm going to write a post named "Ask HN: Let's talk about how much empathy I have"
To show how much empathy I _don't_ have, I'm going to comment on this guy's submission because it's totally because of my comment and I have totally no understanding of others xD [1]
That's you. That's what you sound like. And you're confirming a lot of what I had to say in that post.
Looks like you're the prototype of the spoiled brat that populates the male part of the tech industry. You think when you're able to solve a technical problem, you're able to solve every problem. That's the common combination of arrogance & ignorance so many other dudes are sporting.
This "women are so angry" stuff is just a damaging, sexist stereotype. Men are far more aggressive than women, and nobody's calling them "angry" as a result. What an awful, clickbait article.
Vouched, despite this generally being against the guidelines, because this isn't actually a question. GP wouldn't be so dismissive if they'd read the article.
Many women in tech, myself and the author included, are angry, because of how we're treated. The fact that this plays into a stereotype that's used as a dismissal is a problem we need to talk about. Related issue: abuse victims are less productive at work, because of the abuse. Trump said the quiet part loud: "He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured." That's subtext behind every claim of a "pipeline problem."
Let me start by saying that I've seen some really horrible and disgusting treatment of women compared to men. At one place. Out of 10.
At least around here I also see that if two persons, one woman and one man, apply for the same position, and they are seen as exactly equally qualified, the woman gets hired first.
Why? Because amount of women in the department is a KPI.
I also see men walking circles around these issues, taking quite a lot more stupidity from a girl than from a man. I tried to wait a few weeks with one particular know-it-all that was a master in my field (or so she behaved) after 18 months of work.
There are many brilliant women in tech, and then there is those that get paid as dev evangelist and get people booted from PyCon after listening in to someone elses conversation for something far less insulting then whatever she herself had posted publicly on Twitter short time before.
I think the actual women in tech would do well to stand up to these who abuse it.
And if you live in the Nordics at least and experience actual discrimination, look for a new job.
> At least around here I also see that if two persons, one woman and one man, apply for the same position, and they are seen as exactly equally qualified, the woman gets hired first. Why? Because amount of women in the department is a KPI.
Explain why this is a problem? You say these two candidates are equally great. Should the man have been picked?
I'm just pointing out that at least around here, and in the companies I want to work in, women has an advantage from before they are hired.
I don't think this is necessarily true in USA and many other places.
But together with the PyCon story and others where men are massively disadvantaged while everyone pretend it is always easy for all men it might explain a bit of the feelings you sometimes see.
It is interesting that you say "men are massively disadvantaged". Because as a hiring manager I can tell you that my experience is that usually for engineering positions, 99 out of 100 applicants are ... men ...
Does anybody find it strange how there's never a single post by man in female dominated industry? Yet i see headlines about 'women in tech', almost every day.
And please can we call it IT, not 'tech'. As a dev, 'tech' always sounded as though you were doing things much harder than IT.
Can you name a "female dominated industry"? I can only come up with industries, where the labor force is dominated by women. But the executive positions are still mostly owned by men.
Network admins and software developers have different goals, and pretty much every company bigger than three had us in different sections of the org chart. Calling it all “IT” will be misunderstood.
If the goal is to have more women in tech, the messaging is wrong. If women in tech are "so angry all the time", that does not encourage a company to hire women, women to enter the field, or parents to encourage their daughters to consider a tech careers.
What "messaging"? The point the author is making is that the anger is wholly justified.
Would it make you feel better if women pretended everything was okay? How on earth would that help young girls considering tech careers? Should young women entering the workforce also pretend everything is okay? When does it end?
I'm going to assume you didn't mean it, but this comment came across to me as tone-deaf victim blaming. In fact, it sounds exactly like the kind of flippant and dismissive responses the author complained about.
At some point you have to document it and take the risk. Otherwise, it keeps being a he-said-she-said game restricted to internal HR reports and nothing improves.
Just because men do a bad thing, doesn't mean every single man is responsible for that. Not to mention all men have mothers, and they play a huge part in how their children grow up to treat others.
To solve a problem, the root cause must be found, and the root cause of harassment is NOT other men. Sure men could help, but articles like this seem to demand it, like they're yelling at men, as a group, for the actions of individuals. This doesn't make sense, and it doesn't help either.
>Just because men do a bad thing, doesn't mean every single man is responsible for that.
Where in the heck did you get that from? The author made no such claim. Anywhere.
I also didn't feel like the author was "yelling at men". I felt she was trying to get us to understand her frustration.
Confident, respectful men don't get offended by posts like this. She's not talking about me (generally speaking that is - I know I'll never be perfect). But, I also know that I can help. I can be an ally. I don't mind being reminded of that.
Sheesh, the early comments here tell me that the author could actually be understating the problem.
The tone of the article is dealing in general terms. For example the closing part:
> Next time you go to ask yourself why women in tech are so angry, ask yourself why you’re not angry with them.
Is that for everyone? It sounds to be directed at the party that would not be angry, which is hyperbole for caring, and why would any women not care about this issue? Therefore this sounds like it's directed at men, at least implicitly.
It's an angry article after all, why wouldn't it be pointing fingers. I'm just saying there's no one to blame but the individual culprits of those behaviors / actions.
Change "women" to "black people" in the sentence you quoted and it's not at all controversial. That is to say — white people who aren't guilty of racism in their industry should still be angry about the racism that does exist in it.
i disagree, that is group-think and unfortunately the status quo right now is to encourage group-think. This is why someone who has nothing to do with something can be responsible for actions of someone else... because they are part of the same "group".
The assumption is that somehow every man is complicit. Like we all know about every bad thing that happens to women in our lives and workplace. Not only that, it assumes we have the power to fix things or make changes and we just choose not to.
I don't know about other men but it absolutely alienates me from "the cause". I'm not having anything to do with people who start out by assuming I'm part of their problem.
I find articles like this annoying but this woman doesn't speak for all women in tech. Presumably some women can relate to her experiences, others can't. Some women will agree with her proposed solutions, others won't. Assuming the goal here is just to provide a workplace where women are treated fairly and not subject to harassment, I think that is a fair thing to ask for. I agree that as a man, it shouldn't be my job to police other men. If a woman comes to me and asks me for help with something, I will try to help her, but I'm not going to monitor interactions between my male and female colleagues for improper behavior.
This isn't really a fair comparison. If someone is doing something blatantly and obviously illegal, then that is different. If I saw a male coworker punch a female coworker in the face, then obviously I am going to do something. I'm assuming the majority of workplace interactions that women have issue with are not blatantly and obviously illegal. Advances/flirting that is unwanted, crude jokes, condescension, etc. I have no idea if a woman is perceiving an interaction with a male colleague as one of these things without her telling me. I don't know what kind of relationship she has with this guy who is engaging in this behavior. I feel it would be premature of me to assume that every time I saw something that I think a woman would perceive as harassment that she is actually perceiving this as harassment AND that she needs my help to deal with it. Many women are perfectly capable of sticking up for themselves and don't want or need a "white knight" to rush in and help them.
It is a societal problem where the vast majority of people give boys a long leash for bad behaviour and then expect men to acquire good habits from somewhere on their own between childhood and adolescence.
It is not men’s fault that they were socialised and habituated by people who tolerated or even encouraged poor behaviour.
Well, it may not be the fault of the bad actors' mothers but it's _also_ not the fault of the bad actors' other peers who happen to be men, unless the peers are bad too, (as well as the mothers if they happen to be bad too). We all know stereotyping is not the way to go.
Women as a class are harassed and worse by men because men as a class allow it. They may not even be aware if it -- male privilege affords them that. Men have the moral obligation to get aware of it, and to take action to ensure that the male culture that allows it is ended. This requires cultivation of difficult skills such as shutting up, not mansplaining, and listening to women speaking their truth. And prioritizing the human rights of women over solidarity with their bros.
Do you believe you have power to change how other women behave towards men? Because I as a guy, have little to no power to change what other guys believe about women or how their beliefs affect their behavior towards women.
As a guy, I pretty strongly disagree with this. I may not be able to change their beliefs, but by actively calling out their behavior, I can sure as heck change their behavior. When people know that saying something awful or treating someone poorly is going to make for a really awkward conversation at best, and possibly lead to being socially ostracized, they tend not to do those things.
Maybe you are particularly persuasive, but the guys I have known who harassed women would not take anyone seriously if they were told they are being inappropriate. They may stop in that moment but will go right back to it the next day. Based on my own experiences, men who are fairly conscientious to begin with and listen when someone tells them they are being jerk are generally not the problem.
Here's the problem. Not one of these tips is "work hard and try be a the best at what you do."
Instead, she leads with tips on how to be a proactive bridge-burner. Death threats, discrimination, etc. are obviously insane, but a lot of this frustration is self-induced.
> Call out bad behavior you see or hear about, even when it’s uncomfortable.
> Help to report offenders.
> Give credit to and call out great work you see from the women you work with.
> Offer to share your compensation packages to help your women-in-tech peers know their worth.
> Advocate in your own teams for debiasing the interview/promotion process.
> Advocate for events you're attending or organizing to include a more diverse set of voices and refer underrepresented experts you know for opportunities.
> Don't rely on marginalized groups to educate you.
The issue here is it's asking women to be activists. Few companies want activists. Most companies want to achieve fairness and equal opportunity, but they also do not like agitators (because one can never have control over agitators, you never can know their next target, so to be safe, most companies tend to not want them around).
It's the same conundrum with double agents. You agree with them helping your intelligence org, but you can never fully trust them. You cannot control their motivations (unless you hold their family hostage like they did in the USSR, etc.)
From that standpoint, this is not good advice. Leadership is key. You have to schmooze leadership and convince them it's the right thing, but not via these activist methods.
I hire teams and I absolutely encourage everyone to snitch if they see bad behavior. I will not tolerate abuse on a team I manage. Anyone who works for me is well aware they should snitch if they see bad behavior. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Substitute race for gender and this argument totally falls apart.
If you see a black colleague being treated unfairly and do nothing because you don't want to be seen as an "agitator" or "activist" then you are part of the problem. Full stop.
There is an interesting face to this coin though, the "don't be a snitch". You're saying "be a snitch".
Yes, being a snitch would probably improve the lives of people in lots of places, and yet it does not happen often because it can be destabilizing (despite people not liking the people they could snitch on). Companies do not like this "unknown". They do want to do the right thing, just not via activism/snitching. Because just as other groups of people who see the downsides of snitching, companies see the same.
This is asking too much from other women. Sure it’s a good thing for the group to pint out bad behavior, but it comes at a price for the individual doing the reporting.
I would never use the word "snitching" to describe sticking up for marginalized/mistreated people. Nor would I ever work for a company that sees it as such.
For me, no amount of money is worth compromising basic human decency but YMMV.
Whether it's in school or your neighborhood or work. Stick up for what's proper in school or neighborhood labels you a snitch. You're trying to do what's right. And it is the right thing, it's just that people cannot trust that person from then on.
On a side note: companies usually don't want to do the right thing. They want to be perceived as wanting to do the right thing, while going down the easiest route.
But the easiest route won't cover applying the changes needed for the tech industry to become a place that's not a misogynistic dumpster fire.
Calling out what's wrong and pressing companies to leave the easiest route and actually do something about it will help. And that's — by the way — not snitching. It's called criticism.
I'm explaining why this isn't the best path toward equal treatment. Companies may agree with your specifics but not the method.
Snitching on the neighborhood bully would be a good thing. Snitching on a company cooking the books, etc. But people also can't trust the snitch. Companies can't trust activists (whatever their persuasion).
Some other expressions of this are seen as “men clam up” in front of me. Basically they now don’t want something to be misinterpreted. It’s to be expected.
This feels like a non-solution; implying that working harder solves mistreatment simply glosses over the work that women do, and could implicitly associate harassment with "poor performance".
So maybe it just helps talking to people? There appear to be many jerks around, sure. But I’m willing to bet many of these microagressions are simply a result of social ineptitude. If someone told me I stepped on their toes (some have), I can be more careful around them and assure them of no bad intentions.