

The Male Programmer Privilege Checklist - j_baker
http://lafalafu.com/krc/privilege.html

======
swolchok
What is the goal of this checklist, other than causing a series of individual
guilt trips for a gender imbalance that results from societal factors and/or
legitimate gender predispositions for/against our field? What are we supposed
to _do_? Do these people think we don't wish there were more women in the
field?

Also, I'm sure the ensuing discussion is going to resemble at least three
other HN discussions.

~~~
likpok
So, if you pay attention to history, you can see that there isn't actually a
predisposition which affects this.

In the 1980's, about half[1] of computer scientists were women. Now? 10-20%.
Something is being done, and it is being done wrong. So it's not as simple as
"They don't want to" or "Society makes them".

[1] I believe it to be about half. However, it might be slightly more or less.
Definitely far higher than today.

~~~
ahoyhere
Based on what metrics?

Where are your #s coming from? What are you defining as "a computer
scientist"?

~~~
likpok
There was an article in the NYT (I think it may be mentioned above) that
discussed this. It appeared on slashdot, and I remember being quite aggravated
at comments akin to 'Maybe they just don't want to', as the article explicitly
dealth with this.

Also, I believe their metric may have been students, but I am not sure.

------
schleyfox
> Never being described as a "hot guy" first and a competent professional
> second.

Oh Really?

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/46457493@N00/230535210/>

> Having potential romantic partners assume from your career that you're smart
> and well-to-do rather than unattractive and unfeeling.

Unattractive, unfeeling, AND with neck beard is our stereotype.

> Joining in appreciation of the sex object du jour without having to be gay
> or bisexual.

This goes the other way too. Johnny Depp doesn't exactly place guys in a less
awkward position, you know, because we're all totally comfortable with our
sexuality in the male community.

> Listening to speakers refer to an inanimate software construct as "this guy"
> without getting distracted.

And ships are referred to as "she"'

All in all, there are some good points hidden among many "grass is always
greener" style arguments. Programming is hard work, people are insecure by
their nature, and yes, there are gender related issues in the community.
Hopefully, the stigma against women programmers will continue to lessen as the
stigma against all programmers (bunch of nerds) also subsides.

~~~
maethorechannen
I'd like to add

> Having your desk near the entrance to your office without visitors assuming
> you're the receptionist.

I'm male, I've had the desk near the entrance and guess what - I got treated
like a recptionist too. It's not gender, it's that your the first person
people come across.

~~~
maethorechannen
also

>Having interests that are unstereotypical for your gender and getting seen as
cool and progressive rather than freaky and asexual for it.

A male (programmer or otherwise) with interests that are unstereotypical for a
male is rarely seen as "cool and progressive" - being seen as freaky and gay
is far more likely.

------
whichdokta
I think that in a healthy society the point of someone talking about things
that make them feel uncomfortable is that you have an opportunity to spend
some time thinking about how what they are saying applies to that society
rather than telling them the one hundred ways how what they just said can't
possibly be true.

If we don't take those opportunities to think about what makes someone else
uncomfortable (maybe because it makes us uncomfortable ourselves?) then, over
time, the people with the willingness to speak out about something which could
be improved simply leave and an opportunity to improve that society vanishes
with them.

Which is a great sadness because I think we've all got our own stories about
things we don't like about the software biz and I think many of us feel a
little bit hopeless about ever being able to change some of that...

...but discouraging folk willing to talk about things that can improve, even
if it's not something we find important ourselves, means that it's a little
less likely that any other conversation about improvement is going to get a
hearing either.

For the record, I'd like to see more women and other types of human than
white&male&alpha in software myself because over fifteen years of doing this I
have found that the most toxic development environments (high levels of
stress, distrust, dishonesty, coercion etc.) have also been the environments
with the lowest human diversity.

It is not difficult to scare away people who are different from you or people
who you expect to silently put up with problems caused by your point of view.

But the problem is, as that happens, without differences your society slowly
stops having anything to communicate about and without communication it
becomes dumber and without intelligence it eventually becomes a target for
attack and takeover by some other failed community with an eye to your
resources. (Sun / Oracle anyone ? ;-D)

------
derefr
Interestingly, she possesses this bias as well:

"If you're married, having people take you to lunch without them speculating
on how your spouse would feel about them taking you to lunch."

She is assuming here that the person "taking them out to lunch" is also male.
If the offerer were female and the offered were male and married, there
definitely _would_ be speculation as to his fidelity, perhaps moreso than with
the roles reversed.

~~~
tim_chevalier
I'm a guy.

~~~
derefr
Sorry, I was using the politically-correct singular-second-person-of-unknown-
gender pronoun (I couldn't tell from the post that you were male.)

People don't seem to care as much when you assume a girl on the Internet is a
guy, but assume a guy is a girl and everyone is up in arms. (This may be a
point toward your post.)

~~~
tim_chevalier
_puzzled_

My name, as the author, is at the top. Do you know a lot of women named "Tim"?
(Kake, the original author, is a woman, but I contributed that particular
item. Yes, I know that's not obvious from the list, which is why I clarified.)

------
stavrianos
As a man, I'd like to point out that I really can't help sexualizing basically
anything. Studies have shown that straight men will ogle other men if they've
got chest. Frankly, I don't like how it can hang over everything either, but I
do my best to minimize it. If anyone can actually propose a solution to this
"problem", great, but otherwise can we collectively move on?

~~~
j_baker
I'd just like to point out that I also am a man and I don't have your problem.
I have the capability of keeping my professional work environment
_professional_.

~~~
teilo
Look, here's the deal. If you are a man, you have to actively move the eyes
away, but the pull is always there. Now that does not mean you cannot be
professional, but it does mean you have to constantly and actively choose to
be so.

A woman who dresses provocatively in the office is a distraction. Far be it
from me to tell women how to dress, but most women do not understand the
effect they have on men, and of those who do, very few understand that men
are, essentially, helpless when it comes to their reaction (even, as I said,
if it is a reaction that they suppress). Heterosexual men who do NOT have this
aspect of male nature are in the vast minority, although thy do exist. It is a
part of being male, and as such, I refuse to apologize for it.

~~~
jrockway
What exactly does "a woman who dresses provocatively" distract you from? I can
see how it might be enjoyable, but I'm not sure how that would prevent you
from doing work. I also don't see why you can't keep those thoughts to
yourself, just like you don't make fun of "a provocatively stupid guy" to
their face.

On the other side of the coin, if you work closely with 10 other people of the
opposite sex, it confuses me as to why you wouldn't think one of those people
would be attracted to you. Who else would they be attracted to?

~~~
derefr
It's not an active distraction: there is a certain type of woman (a minority,
but a very vocal one) that will get pissed off when a man's visual autonomic
systems examine them differently than they examine men. A man's eyes are doing
something passive that he's completely unaware of; this woman is actively
watching the man's eyes to see where he's looking in order to decide whether
to be offended by his "distractedness."

~~~
jrockway
I guess the next logical question is "who cares if they are offended". People
get offended when they find out that I am an atheist. It's their problem,
though, not mine.

------
gruseom
Prissy social correctors are no less annoying than boors.

~~~
timr
"Prissy" social correctors are at least smart enough to critically analyze the
world around them. Boors are completely clueless. I'd take the former over the
latter any day of the week.

~~~
gruseom
_"Prissy" social correctors are at least smart enough to critically analyze
the world around them._

That's not true in my observation. Most adopt a prefab ideology that they try
to impose on the world around them. They like to label this "critical
analysis" (or that old stalwart, "thinking for yourself"), but it isn't: if it
were, their ideas and positions and tone wouldn't be so predictable. Actually,
trying to impose a rigid ideology on others is a large part of what makes them
prissy. The OP seems to me a nice example.

~~~
timr
That's entirely your opinion. Say what you want about the list, the author put
in at least enough critical thought to compile it. So far, you've insulted the
author and dismissed her (him?), but you haven't addressed any of the
arguments in the list.

------
buugs
<http://xkcd.com/385/>

------
nopassrecover
"Not having to explain why the term "gentlemen" doesn't include you. " - So no
"Hi gentleman", fair enough

"# Listening to speakers refer to an inanimate software construct as "this
guy" without getting distracted. " - So no "Hi guys", fair enough

"Not being the special case ("hi guys and girls, I guess, too, if you want to
get really technical about it!!") " - So no "Hi guys and girls", err..

~~~
tim_chevalier
The second point was meant to be about inanimate software constructs: for
example, "This guy jumps to that guy without pushing a new stack frame."

The difference between "hi guys and girls" and "hi guys and girls, I guess,
too, if you want to get really technical about it!!" is that the second
sentence goes out of its way to call attention to the Other-ness of the
marginalized group. But why not circumvent the issue entirely and use a
gender-neutral term like "folks", "everyone", or (depending on the formality
of the occasion) "distinguished colleagues"? It perplexes me that people who
have no trouble writing a compiler or debugging device drivers apparently find
it so difficult to phrase a simple sentence in a way that doesn't exclude
anyone.

~~~
nopassrecover
I see your point but guys has come to become gender neutral. Sure a guy is
still male but "you guys" is anyone.

~~~
tim_chevalier
On this point, I recommend Douglas Hofstadter's "Person Paper on Purity in
Language": <http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html>

Hofstadter makes the same point (that words that claim to be both gendered and
gender-neutral are never the latter) in a less snarky way in Chapter 7 of his
book _Metamagical Themas_, entitled "Changes in Default Words and Images,
Engendered by Rising Consciousness". You can find it on Google Books.

------
pookleblinky
The first programmer was a woman.

Perhaps a better checklist would be "actual reasons why the average human,
without regard to gender, does not enter technical fields"

------
thristian
> Listening to speakers refer to an inanimate software construct as "this guy"
> without getting distracted.

I wasn't sure why this particular item was included, but I suppose I too am
momentarily distracted when I hear a woman personify an inanimate object as
'she'. I mean, I understand it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but
there's just that split second where the world seems to turn inside-out and I
have to recollect my thoughts.

I wouldn't call it a Male Privilege, though.

~~~
enneff
I find the whole anthropomorphising abstract objects to be an annoying and
distracting trait, anyway, whether they're saying "he" or "she". (My mind is
saying inside "It's an IT, damn it!")

------
sdurkin
Female Programmer Privilege Checklist:

Guilting every male programmer for both real and imagined slights.

The beauty of startups is that no one cares who or what you are, so long as
you can deliver. So stop complaining , AND BUILD SOMETHING ALREADY.

~~~
rw140
Sure, "so long as you can deliver". Are we going to be treated equally when we
fail? Even worse, are we going to be treated as representatives of half the
species (someone's already linked to that XKCD cartoon). It may be paranoia,
but it doesn't help.

PS. Mostly I try not to guilt my co-workers about stuff. I don't think it
makes them or me any more productive.

~~~
Tichy
"Are we going to be treated equally when we fail?"

I don't get this. You think men don't get problems if they fail? And why do
you even ask, how about trying it out? It sounds as if you don't even want to
try it because of all the prejudice.

~~~
rw140
Well, I've not been employed all that long, no-one's waved a study at me, and
I don't know so many girls in my field that I can figure this out just by
talking about it to other people (I'd have to talk to an equal number of boys
as well, but for some reason they're a lot easier to find).

I already have one (fairly minor) failure under my belt. I seem to have got
away with it. I'm still in my job, still working on the same kind of stuff I
was before, and no-one told me not to bother my pretty little head about that
bit because I'm clearly not so good at things like that.

Yes, I think everyone gets problems if they fail. But my worry is about second
chances, and blocking off areas of computing for other people.

Someone I know made an off-hand comment about every girl who has worked in
this department has worked on the UI. I don't know if they've ever had a girl
on the build team. I don't know if they've ever had a girl working on the
really low-level stuff. There certainly aren't any at the moment. Is there an
underlying current of 'girls are better at the touchy-feely UI stuff'? Do
girls overall really tend to work better with UIs? Am I comparing teams with a
high turnover with teams with a low one? Am I trying to generalise from too
little data again?

So, let's have a hypothetical opportunity for me to go and work on some
arbitrary low-level stuff. Maybe it's to do with networking protocols. And
maybe for one reason or another I'm blindingly obviously no good at it
whatsoever. Will this affect my ability to go into unrelated areas with
similarly few past examples of successful ladies later? Will it affect Alice
(who knows not just about networking protocols, but also basic cryptography)
when she is hired next week? Will she then have to work harder than Bob to
persuade everyone that she is competent in that area? Maybe I should play it
safe and work on something that is less challenging and that I know I can
succeed at. After all, if Alice fails as well, then Eve may be looked over
entirely. And that would make me feel really guilty. So the penalty for
failure is higher.

Of course, there's a good chance there is no bias whatsoever. And I'm fairly
likely to take a few risks. But you don't need actual bias for this to have an
effect. If there is enough fear of bias you'll end up with too much risk-
averse behaviour, and thus under-performing ladies.

~~~
Tichy
"If there is enough fear of bias you'll end up with too much risk-averse
behaviour"

But why start out with the fear of bias? For what it's worth, there are a lot
of bad male programmers. I even suspect most programmers think that most other
programmers are bad. And for men, there can be bias, too, like "we have always
been disappointed by coders who did not study to university level" or "coders
from India" or "Java developers" or whatever.

------
mnemonicsloth
_Having potential romantic partners assume from your career that you're smart
and well-to-do rather than unattractive and unfeeling._

Res Ipsa Loquitur. This is called "confirmation bias."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias>

------
knowtheory
Some of the things that have been added to the list since it was posted to HN
are actually obnoxious:

 _Laughing at jokes like this
(<http://codetojoy.blogspot.com/2007/08/closures-are-hot.html>) because women
holding bumper stickers about closures is funny in the same way pictures of
cats "reading" calculus books is funny, rather than wondering whether your
colleagues see you in the same way as those women._

I do think the Code To Joy thing is funny. Why? Because the discussion about
closures in java (so far as i am aware) has left the realm of technical
discussion, and now is just gridlocked. The opinion on closures of women at
bars (however well informed), at this point is just as relevant to me as other
discussions on the pros and cons of including closures.

It's not funny because girls are stupid, or because being hot precludes one's
knowledge of pros and cons of closures. I would not expect random strangers at
bars (be they male or female) to have an informed opinion about closures in
java. The fact that Code To Joy picked only pictures of women to post may be
sexist in the sense that they show a bias, but i don't think that the joke is
demeaning to women.

------
jldugger
Chief among those privileges not in the checklist: attendance at Wellesley
College!

~~~
tim_chevalier
Interestingly enough, the maintainer of the checklist (me) is a man who went
to Wellesley.

------
ahoyhere
I find this kind of thing absolutely nauseating, divisive, and thoroughly
unhelpful.

I'm sure it makes you feel good, Mr Ultra Feminist, but you're not advancing
"your" cause whatsoever by trying to guilt people - and with such weak, whiny
examples, too.

You just make women look weak and whiny. (And, by extension, yourself, since
you're not even a woman.)

That's unproductive and leads to - guess what! - women being not taken
seriously, and being avoided because well-meaning men will assume everything
they say will cause offense, and women not getting hired or picked because
they make everyone else uncomfortable.

Isn't that ironic?

You also treat all women the same when you presume to speak for them. That's
just more plain old sexism dressed up in a suit of righteousness.

I hate people grouping me with all other breast-and-vagina people, and
assuming I like them, and agree with them, and share their agenda... and
support them speaking on _my_ behalf, as if we are all alike.

If you want to create change, you have to stop whining, stop laying blame,
stop pointing fingers and saying "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE WHEN THEY CALL
OBJECTS 'GUYS'!!!!" and do useful, productive things. This is not it.

For what it's worth, men in IT are more likeable than women, because when men
fail, they don't blame it on other people's oppression of them due to their
sexual equipment.

~~~
Tichy
My favorite was from another article where they claimed that all programming
languages were tailored towards male ways of thinking. If that would be the
case, why not set out to create a programing language tailored towards the
female way of thinking. I for one would be really curious to see that.

~~~
j_baker
Just out of curiosity, would you happen to have a link to the article? I'm
genuinely curious as to what makes a programming language "male oriented".

~~~
Tichy
I tried to yahoo it, but did not find it. It came up during the recent "male
vs female programmers" surge.

