

Why it is Awesome to be a Girl in Tech - nerdess
http://www.nerdess.net/waffling/why-it-awesome-be-girl-tech/
This article is about why it's great to work in tech, _especially_ as a girl. Be prepared for some "omg why didn't someone tell me earlier....!!!" facts.
======
Jun8
OK, nobody commented this up to now but I think is important: Among the _many_
posts about this subject I've read on HN recently this was absolutely the
best: Not only it approached the matter in a no-nonsense, practical matter
without preaching from "the height of an unwritten book" or an axe to grind
but it also gives excellent advice to young girls who want to venture into the
field.

With posts like this I wish there was a mega-upvote option on HN, e.g. for 500
points of karma you upvote 10 points.

~~~
belorn
While and rather excellent article on why the IT field is a suitable career,
good grief, the sexism politics has really entrenched itself into people
mindset.

It almost boggles my mind. Here some supposedly sexist snippets from
"scenarios you may occasionally find yourself in when working as a girl in
tech".

 _Colleague: “So...you are the new designer?"_ (As if "so...you are the new
Foobar" would not be said to any new hire. if I got a new boss, my first word
might be "so...you the new boss? hi my name is so and so!". How and in what
way would that be sexist remark, and does it matter if the new boss would be
female or male? would it matter if the position is boss, developer, designer,
sysadmin, or sales?)

 _Useless male developer has written some crappy code that he doesn’t even
understand himself anymore. Now he needs to extend it with new features and
asks you to do it._ (As if female developers get exclusively dumped with
fixing bad code. Especially if its a new hire/consultant/out sourced, how does
this surprise anyone? its even a saying that "the new guy gets all the work no
one else want". Does it matter if its a female or male?

so for mega-upvote, the article has some issues. Its better than the normal
articles we see, but its not 10 times better.

~~~
rmc
_How and in what way would that be sexist remark_

The assumpution behind that question is that women could not be a developer.

To give racist equivalents, it's as if in the USA, imagine you came into the
room and there was a latino man there "Are you the new cleaner?"; or in UK,
imagine one was introduced to a new eastern european member of staff, "Are you
the new cleaner?". These questions are motivated by racist assumptions, and
this OP's examples are motivated by sexist assumption.

~~~
Wintamute
In those situations the assumptions may, or may not, originate from core
racist/sexist beliefs. You need to be careful going around labelling people
like that just because they made an assumption.

For better or worse it's just a fact that at the moment a girl working in a
software shop is more likely to be a graphic designer than a coder. If I was
in a rush looking for the new freelance designer one morning and walked up to
an unfamiliar girl sat at a Mac Pro and asked her "Are you the new designer",
I'm not being sexist, I'm just making an assumption based on the data I have.
Designers and coders, whether male or female, both look the same: they're
likely to be intelligent, smart and trendy looking and sat at a workstation.

Now, if in a similar situation I walked up to an intelligent, smart and trendy
looking Indian freelancer sat at a MacBook and asked "Are you the new
cleaner?", then that's totally different and inexcusable. I had enough data
there not to make any assumptions, and it would betray racist core beliefs.

See the difference? Of course every situation is different, but I think the
OP's example in this case was weak. We don't need everyone walking around on
egg shells, paranoid that people are judging their every stated assumption
against some kind of uber harsh politically correct scale.

~~~
rmc
_it's just a fact that at the moment a girl working in a software shop is more
likely to be a graphic designer than a coder_

Yes, it is _accurate_ to say that "statistically a new female hire in an IT
shop is likely to be a designer, not a coder". It is factually accurate to say
that, but is it _right_ and _moral_ and _nice_ to say it?

Words can affect people, and set tone and expectations. Is it right for all us
men to presume, unless shown otherwise, that the new female hire is not a
coder? Will this help or hurt our industry? Every little teeny thing (like
presuming this (which is a teeny thing)) can be detrimental and can build up.
"Death by a thousand cuts", "Straw that broke the camel's back", our society
recognises that sometimes lots of little things can be Too Much™ sometimes.

Would software/the company/society be a better place if we didn't vocalise
these presumptions about women, especially if it reinforces negative
stereotypes about them?

After all, we all know the mistakes that can come when a female starts getting
bigger and we ask "Are you pregnant?". Manners say to be careful here, let's
apply some manners, rather than fetishising statically accurate deductions, to
presuming women aren't coders.

~~~
jrogers65
I think that the point the guy is trying to make is that there is nothing
sexist about this. If I saw a new guy at work with a beard, jumbo sized cup of
coffee, glasses sitting in front of a dual monitor setup, I would assume that
he is a programmer. Does that make me sexist against men? Or prejudiced
against people with beards or coffee drinkers?

There's an old saying which appears to have been lost somewhere along the way:

"Offense can only be taken"

Live by it and you will never be offended. It is not the job of everybody
around you to constantly walk on eggshells just to keep you happy. You are not
at the center of the universe, after all.

~~~
rmc
There is a difference between "everybody should walk on eggshells" and "there
should be standards". It's not black or white, "eggshells" or "f __* you I can
say what I want", there is (millions of) middle ground(s). HN has rules and
guidelines about how to reply to people
(<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html> ). Does that mean "everyone has
to walk on eggshells around here"? No, there are rules, but it's not mad.
Hence the existence of rules does not mean "everyone has to walk on
eggshells".

~~~
jrogers65
Actually, yes, people do have to walk on eggshells around here. I am walking
on eggshells right now for I can not express myself freely in a forum like
this without suffering from social manipulation (downvoting, hellbanning). And
this is _while_ adhering to practices such as "no personal insults". In a
place like this, you get banned for disagreeing, let alone speaking in an
"unapproved" way. This place is hardly an example of civility.

I agree that there is a middle ground - when someone's quality of life is
seriously suffering because, for example, someone is shouting abuse at them
all day then something must be done. However, taking serious offence at
people's ignorant opinions or ways of expression is unwise and in itself
ignorant.

I'm anticipating prejudice so I shall address it pre-emptively - I am, in
fact, a minority. In many places on this planet, I risk serious injury just
for being what I am. People have expressed extremely ignorant opinions about
the group I fall under in workplaces. I initially took offence upon hearing
what I heard but then I moved past that stage and accepted that one cannot
understand something they haven't dealt with directly. They were not trying to
be mean, they merely did not understand because of their limited experience.
How can I take offence when this is the case?

~~~
illuminate
"I am walking on eggshells right now for I can not express myself freely in a
forum like this without suffering from social manipulation (downvoting,
hellbanning)"

That's certainly a good sign that social sanctions for sexism, racism, etc
work. People ~should~ think before they speak, much more than they do in most
sites and blogs.

~~~
jrogers65
I apologise if I'm misinterpreting but did you just insinuate that I'm holding
back racist comments?

~~~
illuminate
Sexist comments? I have no idea what sort of comments you're self-censoring,
but people should certainly think before they speak more often, I don't see
that as a negative.

------
atomical
"This is a bit of a delicate topic. Quite often I am the only female person in
the team and have to be careful not to take advantage of the perks that come
with it. Guys are fascinated and scared by girls who roll up their sleeves and
take on a job that society labels as “men’s work”. If you’ve ever drilled a
hole, skinned a rabbit, or changed a tyre you know what I mean.

As I mentioned earlier, guys will definitely put you to the test and as a girl
it will be hard to get their respect. On the other hand, you can get away with
a lot of things just by fluttering your eyelashes and being a bit cheeky,
which is a habit that is so easy to get into. I have to confess I’ve done it
myself because if you are surrounded by guys all day you quickly feel
powerful. However, with great power comes great responsibility so don’t take
(too much, hehe) advantage of the nerds treating you like a princess just
because they finally get to work with a girl."

Never experienced this. Sounds like an alternate reality. All the so called
nerds I worked with had girlfriends or wives and didn't wear pocket protectors
and stutter around females when talking to them.

~~~
bitops
_> Sounds like an alternate reality._

I have a hunch that part of this is related to the fact that nerdess is
German. Or at least, she's based in Germany per the site.

I'm from Denmark (and a guy), and I can say from firsthand experience that
attitudes towards women in Europe are still very old-school. Not everywhere,
certainly, and Europeans are open-minded liberal socialists etc, but behind
the scenes the old attitude of "women and technology don't mix" is very much
alive.

For example, many guys in Europe I've spoken to will make jokes about girls
not really being fit to work on cars, working with computers, or doing
anything "technically hard".

Even some years ago, there was an advertising campaign for a lotto (or
something similar) with the tagline "so simple even a woman could understand
it". The advertisement featured a pretty blond woman standing in her kitchen,
listening to the boys hoot and holler about their winnings next door with a
vacant expression on her face. This was plastered all over the main train
station in Copenhagen.

So, while I agree it probably seems like an alternate reality in the US
(assuming that's where you're from), it's not so far-fetched in other parts of
the world. Just my $0.02.

~~~
abrahamsen
Maybe you think of this campaign?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxsMWnK1X7k>

The tag line is "there is a lot of stuff women don't understand", and the
format is a womans literal visualization of a sport metaphor. In this case,
"giving away a goal". The campaign is still running, and considered one of the
most successful advertising campaigns in Denmark.

The company behind it is 80% state owned. and 20% owned by the non-profit
sport organizations. It used to have a monopoly on gambling. The profit goes
to charity.

I would not generalize the Danish peculiar brand of humor to all of Europe.
One of the advices to Danes going abroad is "stay away from humor, foreigners
don't understand our brand of humor". Same for visitors, they are told "the
Danish jokes are not meant as insulting as they sound".

In our own self image, we are so liberal and open minded that we can safely
joke about all kind of stereotypes. E.g. Danish state owned children tv has a
running gag about how lazy and incompetent Polish workers (our "Mexicans")
are. It is probably also no accident that the Mohammed cartoons were made in
Denmark. Although that particular incident taught Danes something about how
different humor can be viewed in the rest of the world.

Edit: Two more details. 1) Most high profile ad campaigns in Denmark are based
on humor. 2) This is the only one I can think of where women are shown as
stupid. The common pattern is that the man is being goofy while the sensible
woman is buying the advertisers product.

~~~
theorique
Interesting - I hadn't known that about Danish humor.

 _It is probably also no accident that the Mohammed cartoons were made in
Denmark._

The thing is, those weren't even offensive or derogatory. The rest of the
world overreacted and rolled over because of overblown threats from the
Islamic world.

~~~
kalkin
You don't think an image of Muhammad where he's wearing a bomb for a turban is
derogatory?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptions_of_the_Jyllands-
Po...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptions_of_the_Jyllands-
Posten_Muhammad_cartoons)

~~~
theorique
It's controversial political speech; I wouldn't personally call it derogatory.

If I understand correctly, the reaction was to the mere fact of Mohammed being
rendered in drawing, not about the content of those drawings.

~~~
abrahamsen
It was both. The view on depictions of Mohammed differ within Islam. Insulting
Mohammed on the other hand, it pretty much universally condemned.

------
RandallBrown
Articles like this are what are going to get girls into computing. They need
to know that there are other normal girls, just like them, that do this for a
living.

I got my ex-girlfriend into software development. She comes off as a very
stereotypical girly girl. She likes clothes, shopping, and top 40 pop music. I
convinced her to take an intro programming class her sophomore year of
college. Now she's a software engineer at Amazon.

All it took her was a little convincing that she could do it, and that normal
people (I suppose I seemed normal to her) do it too.

~~~
lloeki
> All it took her was a little convincing that she could do it

I don't know if it's society or what, but it seems a lot of girls suffer from
this (conscious or not) line of thinking.

I'm versed in science (esp. math and physics) and like to talk about such
subjects so I've been regularly asked for help, and every single time I helped
a girl the cause of their demise was lack of confidence. Contrary to guys
(which seem to have confidence in excess but need some form of support),
telling them upfront is useless because it's so ingrained that I have to take
a more subtle route. I explain her something complex, and keep going deeper
until (usually takes about ten minutes) there's a a-ha, not about the subject
at hand but about herself, a moment where she realizes that at every step she
got everything I said, and now she gets a glimpse something so complex that
ten minutes ago she thought it would forever be unfathomable to her, when I
did not actually explain so much as pragmatically but subtly demonstrate that
yes, she can do it. Subsequent results at school, even in unrelated
disciplines and without more training, are off the charts.

It seems the "mens do the real stuff" society thing is so pervasive that it
permeates through and makes them lose the confidence required, and they just
need to be bootstrapped out of it so that they can finally say "This is within
my reach".

------
sandollars
Progress is being made, but there is still a long way to go.

This happened in a talk at a programming/web/tech event two weeks ago:
<http://i.imgur.com/4hL6X.jpg>

~~~
scotty79
Do tech women identify somehow with this girl in the picture and feel
offended?

When guy sees some looser made fun of on some picture he thinks: "Hehe. What a
looser!" as he sees almost no resemblance between him and the looser.

Does women feel more strongly connected to other women because of shared
gender than men?

~~~
grey-area
I'd feel offended if presented with this sort of nonsense at a tech talk. The
implication of the picture, given the structure and history of our society, is
that women are there to be pretty and submissive and men are there to control
women with money. That and it makes absolutely no sense as an analogy for MVC,
it's just a cheap shot in an attempt to titillate an assumed audience of
sexist men. So yes, women in an audience presented with that sort of image are
probably going to feel alienated and offended, and no that is not some special
sensitivity or empathy for other women, it's because of all the assumptions
which come with using a picture like that (women are not my audience, pretty
women are controlled by men with money, women are there to be looked at by
men, etc).

PS When referring to losers, use the correct spelling

~~~
scotty79
Thanks for the correction. Sorry. Not native speaker. Spellchecker didn't kick
in.

Maybe I'm desensitized to gender issues because I never disrespected a woman
for being a woman, and never noticed any adult during my childhood who did
that even jokingly but I can imagine conference room of techy women with
female presenter showing this picture and all laughing partly exactly because
it has nothing to do with MVC and absurd humor is always funny and also
because the girl in the picture is obviously inferior to the women in the room
even though she could be better off if she learned useful stuff properly like
they did and led independent life like they do. I am aware that this probably
won't happen anywhere in another 50 years or so.

Personally I hate inappropriate jokes in public appearances because they make
presenter look silly and in some twisted form of empathy I feel the shame that
presenter should feel.

This joke made me laugh probably because I'm in front of the computer
following anonymous link not in the room full of people seeing some boring
poor chap desperately trying to lighten the mood. I was mostly amused by the
View part, then the Model, not at all at the Controller. I'm so indoorsy (and
living in non english speaking country) that when I'm thinking of View the
thing that you can see on holidays is one of the last things that come to my
mind. I don't own a TV and don't follow celebrity gossip and/or fashion so the
connection between what I know as Model and being a model as occupation was
also hard for me to make. Controller was I think the easiest (so already least
funny) because money is a mean to control a lot (your life for example) also
controlling people of opposite gender with money brings "eww.." factor that
spoils the joke. 2 out of 3 ... so somewhat funny.

Sorry for trolling you with insensitive question.

------
vacri
_I (100% female) work as a web developer and are not sure if the lack of
female colleagues bothers me or not. Political correctness dictates that it
should_

Political correctness isn't really about groupthink or how you should feel.
It's about not making other people feel shitty because you're too lazy to use
inclusive language. It's simply an extension of 'manners', and gets demonised
when it shouldn't be.

~~~
crusso
Political Correctness is about hypersensitivity to possible insult to the
point that using direct and clear communication is frowned upon in the public
discourse.

Political Correctness is an extraordinarily sad advance of style over
substance that has attempted to address the language used to describe problems
in our society over actually addressing the problems themselves.

Ultimately, Political Correctness is yet another societal/political power grab
in an attempt to control the very words that come out of everyones' mouths.
Free speech is just too much individual power for many Utopians in society,
but they've had so much trouble trying to legislate against the First
Amendment[or other country's free speech protection]. Political Correctness is
the next best thing for them, I guess.

~~~
illuminate
Your assumption that "direct and clear communication" requires that you use
offensive and exclusive phrasings is false, and your complaints about your
inability to exert "power" over others are unmoving.

"they've had so much trouble trying to legislate against the First Amendment"

If you believe proper behavior has anything to do with the First Amendment it
would do you better to read the US Constitution.

~~~
crusso
_your complaints about your inability to exert "power" over others are
unmoving_

Huh? Were you trying to reply to someone else's post? That's the OPPOSITE of
what I said and your other two "points" are straw men at best.

Ironic that you'd attempt to defend control of speech to prevent giving
offense by offensively misrepresenting my position. Ranks right up there with
the grandfather poster's accusation that those committing the sin of Political
Incorrectness are "lazy".

------
nickporter
Why is it that people group IT and software development together? To me, they
are two completely different fields.

For example, I see an IT person as a mail server administrator in a large
company, and a developer as the person who would write the mail server
software.

I'm not saying that an IT professional never writes code, or a developer won't
ever touch a Nginx config file. I just mean they are two different types of
work.

It's something I have noticed for a while now, not only with your article.

~~~
zh
It's not like this any more. That's why recently there are so many "software
engineers" - you write your Ruby code, install and configure NginX, Passenger
etc., even support a cluster of machines (LB, DB, Apps), maybe with a little
help for Chef.

~~~
sounders
I think it's interesting that people with a computer science and technical
background are often referred to as "engineers" in tech.

It seems like such a general label that can apply to anyone from a chemical
engineer to a CS major, it all depends on the context.

~~~
alexchamberlain
I just graduated from Uni (in Maths). I had a lot of engineering friends, who
didn't mind the CS students going into "engineering" jobs. They got really
annoyed with a "telephone engineer" installing their telephone line - they
were like "No, you're a technician". The difference in their eyes is that
engineers are designing and implementing systems, which we ofc do in software
development, whereas technicians solve low-level problems in those systems.

------
minamea
"This is a bit of a delicate topic. Quite often I am the only female person in
the team and have to be careful not to take advantage of the perks that come
with it."

"you can get away with a lot of things just by fluttering your eyelashes and
being a bit cheeky, which is a habit that is so easy to get into. I have to
confess I’ve done it myself because if you are surrounded by guys all day you
quickly feel powerful."

"Technical directors are really keen to hire girls because we boost the
morale."

"If a male and a female developer with a similar skill level apply for a job,
I bet that in 99.9% of the cases the girl will get the job."

These are all very sexist remarks. If the equivalent has been written from a
male's perspective it would have been an outrage.

~~~
astrofinch
I think from a harm minimization perspective, it makes sense to treat
complaints of sexism from the minority faction more seriously than complaints
of sexism from the majority faction.

Also, I disagree that people would complain if the same stuff was written by a
guy working in nursing.

~~~
kalkin
You don't mean minority/majority, but yes.

~~~
sejje
If he means women in tech, he probably means minority/majority.

------
physcab
I'd love to use this opportunity to do a little promotion. My sister and I
just launched a site to connect women in industry with girls taking math and
science called Girls Love Math (<http://www.glmclub.org>).

It would make my day if women like nerdess became mentors. I have a feeling
that lots of girls are looking up to them.

------
victorhn
"If a male and a female developer with a similar skill level apply for a job,
I bet that in 99.9% of the cases the girl will get the job."

That looks like sexism to me.

~~~
arrrg
If the qualification is equal I would very much hope that the person that
increases diversity is hired. Why would you do anything else?

~~~
abduhl
I would probably pick the person that meshes with the team best rather than
the one that panders to my internal sense of injustice.

~~~
arrrg
If you think someone doesn’t fir your team because of their gender there is
something seriously wrong with you.

~~~
moistgorilla
He didn't say he would...

~~~
arrrg
And I didn’t say he or she would.

------
laumars
"Computer languages and “real” languages are actually very similar."

I really couldn't disagree with that more. Sure, some languages' syntax borrow
English words (Python, Pascal, VB, etc), but that's such a minor similarity.
Those words are completely arbitrary and the syntax could have been in Klingon
for all the difference it would make to the compiler.

Computer languages are a maths language; albeit a very very dumbed down
dialect of maths, but maths all the same.

I think the trap many web developers fall in is that PHP teaches some terrible
programming practices (no variable declarations nor types, etc) and ANSI SQL
isn't Turing complete, so feel that all other languages by extension are
equally easy to grasp. However if you look at a number of other languages
-particularly the ones with C-derived syntax- then it becomes painfully
obvious that any similarities to human languages are just skin deep (which is
lucky for me as I majorly suck at writing yet can code proficiently in around
a dozen different computer languages).

~~~
asnyder
Don't know why you felt it was necessary to take a dig at PHP, as if PHP is
the cause of all bad web programming practices. Nowadays, PHP is very much
evolved, and the abundance of mature frameworks have completely removed the
most of the inconsistency issues.There are in fact variable declarations and
types in PHP, there's even type-hinting to enforce types.

The fact of the matter is that many web developers fall into bad practices via
laziness, copy & paste syndrome, regardless of whether the language they're
using has strict types or not.

~~~
laumars
While I agree that a bad programmer will write bad code in any language -and
visa versa- my point was that PHP doesn't enforce good practices thus allowing
many less experienced developers to accidentally fall into easily avoided
pitfalls (lets be honest, having to === to force type matching is just plain
dumb). So by the time you've properly hardened your code, it's anything but
pseudo-English - which was my point (ie programming languages are not similar
to human languages).

------
zandomatter
Am I the only one that thought that while most of the points made in the
article were generally true, the follow-up and examples were lackluster.

Comments like these:

"you can get away with a lot of things just by fluttering your eyelashes and
being a bit cheeky ... so don’t take (too much, hehe) advantage of the nerds
treating you like a princess just because they finally get to work with a
girl."

are insulting to both genders, as well as being grossly overstated.

------
cbsmith
I'm starting to think it is impossible for someone to write about gender
issues in the tech industry without at least one reference to porn.

~~~
nerdess
my article isn't about gender issues....the intention is merely to show the
perks of working in IT to a normal average girl that might not be sure about
what career path to choose.

however, my writing style is indeed rather bold but i have no interest of
watering it down with some political correctness filter. sorry, no chance :D

~~~
cbsmith
> my article isn't about gender issues....the intention is merely to show the
> perks of working in IT to a normal average girl that might not be sure about
> what career path to choose.

I'm trying to comprehend how that _isn't_ about gender issues in the IT
business, but let's just say that whatever the appropriate semantic expression
was for what it is I was referring to, it includes your work.

>however, my writing style is indeed rather bold but i have no interest of
watering it down with some political correctness filter. sorry, no chance :D

Sorry, I wasn't intending to imply you should filter your writing. My comment
wasn't really meant to be a criticism of your writing in particular...
actually, it wasn't even really a criticism of writing at all. It's more
just... I doubt there are other industries where EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE like
this would have a reference to porn (well, except for the porn industry ;-).

I don't think it necessarily speaks poorly of the people engaging in the
discussion; it reflects where the industry is.

------
sebcat
"Guys are fascinated and scared by girls who roll up their sleeves and take on
a job that society labels as “men’s work”"

Actually, I'm fascinated and scared by all IT people who roll up their sleeves
and do manual labour.

~~~
archangel_one
An in return, I'm always slightly shocked by this kind of attitude. Just
because I write code for a living doesn't mean that I had to forget how to do
everything remotely practical first. If I'm confronted by a job that requires
manual labour, I don't just stand there saying "oh I'm an IT person, I can't
possibly do this".

~~~
lurker14
It's the reverse. I can't carry a bottle of chemicals without spilling it on
myself, or take apart an machine without dropping a few pieces in the sewer,
so I stick to the virtual world where my poor hand-eye coordination won't get
me killed.

------
dschiptsov
My personal favorite example:

<http://sachachua.com/blog/>

She wrote org-mode for Emacs. Now she is at IBM Research.

~~~
sjm
Carsten Dominik wrote org-mode. Looks like she maintained Remember-mode and
Planner-mode at one point though.

~~~
dschiptsov
My fault - I remember that she wrote a popular Emacs package, but forgot the
name.

~~~
lurker14
Maintained, not wrote. John Wiegley wrote both.

<http://www.emacswiki.org/PlannerMode>

It is cool that Sacha maintained it, volunteering is awesome.

I am pointing this correction out because Sacha's primary career is as a self-
promotion specialist (<http://sachachua.com/blog/>), so I have to be skeptical
of how her name gets attached to technical work, more so than someone who
doesn't pursue celebrity for profit.

People shouldn't think that it's so easy to be famous and a technical
contributor. The larger contributors (like John Wiegley in this case) tend to
be less famous.

Example: Sure, Linus Torvalds is a celebrity and massive contrbutor, but there
are dozens (hundreds?) of other massive Linux kernel contributors who are less
famous than, say, Jeff Atwood.

------
crusso
I really liked this article. Most blogs about women in Tech these days are
centered around the mindset of victimhood.

Having gone to an engineering school, I know full well the power that women
can exert in an environment full of socially-hapless geeky guys.

------
unimpressive
Why doesn't your blog have an RSS feed?

EDIT: That was supposed to be a subtle compliment; I want more.

~~~
chanux
Yes! you are appreciating her :D

------
TheCapn
This is a weird subject. I think, as a social group, we're on a hinging point
where women will be making equal footing in the tech industry, but haven't
yet. Its coming.

Women are going to get disproportionate treatment during this transition in
one or two different ways, and it depends on who they're interacting with.
Should they land themselves alongside the stereotypical basement dweller
they'll be cast aside and thought less of. They'll first need to prove
themselves in an uphill battle. This will take great self confidence because
there is _a lot_ of misogyny still in the tech workplace. Too many tech gurus
grew up being shunned socially and still have those emotional barriers
preventing them from being rational and fair.

On the other swing of things though we have the opposite treatment: "A girl?
Oooo!" I feel jealous sometimes of my female friends in the industry because
of just how easy getting face to face for new jobs comes for them. I fight to
keep myself in check because they're damn good professionals who deserve it
but the thought remains: what sets them apart from me? Directly out of
university I was competing locally with a lot of them for jobs and the
treatment of women in the profession was quite apparent. I still see it a bit
in my jobs now and its slightly disheartening.

Ultimately I think this problem will solve itself in time. Tech jobs aren't
about the basement dweller anymore, they haven't been for years. The natural
transition where everyone in the workforce has been part of it for the years
where equal woman representation has been around and the awkward or
preferential treatment is happening. We need vocal women to encourage more to
join. Those classes in university will definitely be unsettling when 20
slobbering unkempt males are trying to wrestle their way to the only female
group partner but to push through is going to be tough.

------
talmir
It is a nice article. Interesting read for me as a male programmer. But this
line kinda caught my eye under the "Gender-advantage" headline:

"If a male and a female developer with a similar skill level apply for a job,
I bet that in 99.9% of the cases the girl will get the job."

This is a problem.

~~~
talmir
After reading all of this again, it strikes me that she works with a LOT of
sexually frustrated nerds. She says she has to be careful not using her
appearant super power of girlyness too much to manipulate the nerds and such
stuff.

Is this seriously the reality somewhere, that coders are 99% sexually
frustrated super nerds? I always considered that to be a old stereotype :P

~~~
thisone
I've seen it happen (female myself), though not to my advantage, that I know
of.

I've had bugs sent to me for another woman's code, time and again, without
formal bug reports for them.

Double edged sword: they know I can fix it, and generally quickly, but it
looks like performance is being swept under the rug.

And I do put in bug reports for them once they get to me. Damned if I'm going
to have the work unaccounted for.

edit: should probably mention that when she was hired, I was told she would
look good at conferences.

------
whiterabbit2
Except women have a good chance to be turned down before even being seen in
person... (unless, their resume clearly indicates they are juniors and they
have nice pictures on FB).

And, yeah, the "approval" thing is actually something like "admiration" and
implies that this woman is an inferior professional. If she happens to be a
strong professional, it's not desirable for a man to be next to this woman, as
it will bring down his own value. It would be more desirable to be next to an
older superior man.

------
gaving

        When I started as a developer in the UK I earned a bit less than £30k a year
        and wondered: How can whole families live of this? How can anyone save money
        for a mortgage? 
    
        [...]
    
        It might sound arrogant but since I am an IT contractor I don’t have to think
        twice about that Halston Heritage dress I fell in love with the other day, I
        just buy it.
    

Yeah, you're right, that does sound arrogant.

------
dmansen
Men of HN: please tell more people what you think is and isn't sexist. It's
good, your input on the matter is valuable and important.

------
gprasanth
"Guys are fascinated and scared by girls who roll up their sleeves and take on
a job that society labels as “men’s work”"

I always opined that, "women have a lot of emotional strength". You can just
imagine how difficult it is to take care of, and raise a toddler. It is so
hard. But, somehow women are naturally good at this, and I am just as
fascinated by this fact.

~~~
Adirael
I don't think women are naturally better (than men) at raising kids. That's
what a lot of people thinks and single dads are automatically diminished. Not
good.

------
nantes
Appears to be down, CoralCache link at
[http://www.nerdess.net.nyud.net/waffling/why-it-awesome-
be-g...](http://www.nerdess.net.nyud.net/waffling/why-it-awesome-be-girl-
tech/)

------
jayc
Can we please stop making generalizations about women in tech and go back to
discussing and upvoting articles about technology again?

Signed, a female developer

------
wavesounds
Can anyone recommend some of the "tech superstars" to follow on twitter that
she mentions?

~~~
nerdess
what kind of nerdism are you into? web development? then you can look at the
people i follow on twitter :)

------
tete
This is maybe the best article I've ever found on HN.

~~~
kalkin
It is a good article, but it's sad that even in a good article like this,
which talks explicitly about the realities of sexism, the author feels the
need to distance herself from "the feminists."

------
nazgulnarsil
I suspect a big driving factor is that being forced to be around tons of low
status guys all the time is literally worse than hitler for women.

~~~
a_bonobo
This is not /r9k/, please take your misogyny there.

------
yock
Sorry for being off-topic, but why in the world would the net filter here at
work have blocked this as "adult content?"

~~~
rmc
Just a guest, but there is a music video with some men in underwear dancing
around embedded in the page ( This is the video itself
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pivLTWIJ7xo&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pivLTWIJ7xo&feature=player_embedded)
)

------
michaelochurch
I'll make a controversial observation, but it's worthy of discussion.

If you're a woman of average or better looks, you have one under-spoken
superpower. Namely, how you interact with other men will have a _huge_ effect
on their social status. I'm not talking about overt flirtation (don't do it)
or office relationships (avoid, avoid, avoid). I'm talking about more subtle
stuff, like who a woman smiles at, who she initiates conversations with, and
what her body language is toward various people. This will have huge ripple
effects on the male status hierarchy. Much of the reason why men tend to seem
"afraid of" women in the office is that they're afraid she'll judge him lowly
and send out "loser signals" about him, bringing him down a notch or two.
Since everything that happens at most workplaces ( _especially_ cliquish
startups, so don't give me this "meritocratic" bullshit) is _really_ about
social status-- "performance" is a myth made up to justify firings and scare
the mediocre-- this is huge.

Overtly flirting with the men in the office will destroy a woman's reputation,
for sure. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the subtle fact
that, among groups of people, women have the capability to exert a
disproportionate influence on the status ordering. In fact, the best way to
use this is to do exactly what a young man would do: be nice to everyone,
reach out and try to make allies, seek mentors... but also take a small
comfort in the fact that men have an added incentive to be nice to you-- you
have a disproportionate effect on their image, and they want to be seen with
you.

For example, a 23-year-old with 6 months on the job comes into the office of a
powerful person (MD in banking, Partner in a law firm) and says that (s/)he is
bored with the work that (s/)he is getting. If male, he's just another
entitled fuck looking for an advantage. The response usually is: go away, pay
your dues, and come back in 7 years after you've proven yourself (if I haven't
fired you before that). That's because humans have a visceral hatred of low-
status males, and in the workplace, men in the youngest 15% are almost always
of low status (hence, they get the shittiest work).

If the 23-year-old is female, this 45-year-old executive might realize that
having a 23-year-old woman come into his office once a week might give him a
younger, "cooler" image and prevent him from getting "managed out" (read:
fired) for being "resistant to change" (read: old). So he might give her the
kind of work that most people have to wait a few years to have a crack at.

Again, she's not flirting with him, or compromising herself in any way. She's
doing exactly what a man would do if he had the courage: going into a powerful
person's office and asking for better work.

It doesn't always happen this way, but it can. Career advancement is about
stringing together a large number of high-impact, low-probability prospects
(with enough parallelism that the likelihood of _some_ success becomes high)
and waiting for one to hit. The "superpower" that an attractive woman has
doesn't turn the low probability into a high one; it makes it slightly less
low.

I'm not saying life is fair and, on the whole, women almost certainly have to
deal with more bullshit than men. It's wrong that women's looks are taken to
matter so much. It's wrong that people are huge dicks to women about aging.
Some of the "old lady" comments I heard when Clinton was running for President
in 2008 made me want to vomit.

Men have a huge and unfair advantage after 32, which is that they can have
children with their careers interrupted, and that their social status (being
abysmal, in the workplace, at 22-24) peaks around 40-50. Men can (and are
expected to) work through child-rearing, while for it to make sense for a
woman to keep working after having children, she has to make about 2.5 times
the average income (to hire help, day care, etc.) On the other hand, women
have a huge advantage from 22 to 32, which is that they have the subtle but
potent ability to determine who's "cool", and if they're aware of how to use
it, they can speed up their careers. And given the heaping plate of bullshit
that society gives women once they get older (and it starts in the 30s) they
pretty much have to use this advantage while it's there.

~~~
eliza1wright
I think your theory hinges on the idea that most, if not all, of the players
in this scenario are single. I work in a start-up environment with a bunch of
men, but most of them are married or in a committed relationship. For what
it's worth, I'm engaged. The whole "mysterious feminine influence" thing that
you're talking about tends to disappear when people don't see you as a
potential romantic/flirting partner. I think I'm seen as off-limits,
especially because I try not to flirt with the guys in the office. At that
point, it doesn't matter how attractive or competent I am. I'm seen as just
another member of the team, and probably subconsciously devalued because of my
gender.

~~~
papsosouid
>I think your theory hinges on the idea that most, if not all, of the players
in this scenario are single

Not at all. In fact, he was quite clear that this has nothing to do with
flirting or relationships in any way. It is simply that female approval is a
huge factor in social status. Men instinctively view other men as more
powerful, more competent, and respect them more if a women asks him a question
instead of asking one of the other dozen men. There is nothing sexual about
it, relationship status doesn't matter at all.

~~~
eliza1wright
I apologize because I can't find the exact quote, but I believe Miss Manners
said something to the effect of "Flirting, when done properly, means that both
parties can claim they meant nothing by it." That's the flirting I speak of,
the same sort of flirting/friendliness that was originally mentioned. It's
foolish to assert that female approval matters, but darn it, no one knows why!
It's just the way it is! In my experience, female approval matters because of
the perception of sexual and romantic prowess that it grants to the receiver,
especially in the eyes of other men. It's the idea of "Hey, she might sleep
with that guy, under the right circumstances..." And that little sexual
undercurrent is a huge part of your life when you're single.

~~~
papsosouid
>That's the flirting I speak of, the same sort of flirting/friendliness that
was originally mentioned

I was responding to the idea that being single or not has some effect on the
scenario. Flirting (whether deniable or not) is neither exclusive to single
people, nor required to affect the social status of men you interact with.

>It's foolish to assert that female approval matters, but darn it, no one
knows why!

It is foolish to assert that the universe exists, but darn it, no one knows
why! We observe things, then we develop hypotheses to try to figure out why
they are as they are. Then we test those hypotheses to see if they are
accurate. The observation does not cease to exist simply because there are no
hypotheses that have made it to proven theory.

>In my experience, female approval matters because of the perception of sexual
and romantic prowess that it grants to the receiver, especially in the eyes of
other men

That may well be the case at a subconscious level. But that doesn't go away
because any or all of the people involved are in relationships. I have been
married for over a decade. I do not actively seek the attention of women as a
result of this fact, but I still treat them the same way, and they are still
able to coerce me into doing what they want even though both of us are fully
aware that there will be no sex rewards happening.

~~~
eliza1wright
"That may well be the case at a subconscious level. But that doesn't go away
because any or all of the people involved are in relationships."

Agreed. I'm lucky to work with men who don't seem to be looking for any
extramarital dalliances, and our interactions reflect that. Being friendly and
warm--what many would consider flirting--isn't _required_ to affect the social
status of those I interact with, but it can certainly help. And I think that's
something that many people in a monogamous relationship learn to suppress, for
various reasons.

~~~
papsosouid
You lost me. His point only applies to single people because people in
monogamous relationships have learned to suppress "being friendly"? I have not
seen anything that would suggest that is true, I could not guess the
relationship status of anyone in my office based on their friendliness.

