
An open letter on feminism in tech - steveklabnik
http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/an-open-letter-on-feminism-in-tech
======
danshapiro
I appreciate the authors taking the time to write this (unfortunately this HN
comment page emphasizes the uphill climb ahead). But there's one thing in
particular I, selfishly, appreciated them addressing:

"Does this mean we’re going to get angry at you if you try to help and get it
wrong?"

This fear was something that kept me from speaking out for many years. I'm a
guy in tech and I want to see change occur but I'm ignorant about these
things. I don't truly understand the challenges that women face in our
industry. And because I'm relatively ignorant, I worry that I might say
something that was intended as supportive but winds up contributing to the
problem: white-knighting, disempowering, calling attention to something that
the person affected wanted to leave alone.

Personally, I've come to terms that I'm going to try my best and risk screwing
up occasionally. It's scary but I think it's better than the alternative of
sitting by and doing nothing. But it makes me feel a lot better to hear that
I'm not alone in worrying about this.

~~~
taybin
Compare that with [http://jacobian.org/writing/what-can-men-
do/](http://jacobian.org/writing/what-can-men-do/) , which is linked to in the
OP in which he criticizes Jeff Atwood for doing it wrong. So wrong that he
won't even link to him, even though he acknowledges that his intentions are
good.

Edited to fix pronoun.

~~~
freerobby
I assumed that was a dig at Jeff Atwood, who initially refused to link to
Shanley's piece on the grounds that it was hateful.

~~~
mreiland
That isn't actually what he said, and this is the sort of thing that hurts
relations rather than helps them.

What he said is that he doesn't link to Shanley _in general_ because all of
her stuff is so vitriolic. He then went on to post links to twitter posts of
her's showing where she has been _extremely_ vitriolic.

He stated that his reasoning is that he does not want to send people to such a
place.

He didn't simply refuse to link to "Shanley's piece", he refused to link to
Shanley at all. But it should be noted that he _did_ link to other authors who
are feminist in nature. He has every right to have a problem with a specific
person for non-gender reasons, and your portrayal of him otherwise is unfair
and deserves to be moderated in order to preserve actual conversation.

~~~
freerobby
I appreciate the clarification of Jeff's position and rationale. The only
point I was making is that the non-linking struck me as a reference to Jeff
not linking to Shanley.

------
vezzy-fnord
One thing that no one seems to address in these discussions (of which at least
one appears every week) is how will feminism actually solve these problems?

Actually, I'd like to address this paragraph:

 _Feminism is not a dirty word. Feminism is the radical notion that women are
people, and that we want to be treated as equals. Don’t let someone else
pretend otherwise out of their own misguided notions._

The author(s) repeat a very common cliche, and insist on this as the one true
definition of feminism. Yet in reality, feminism is splintered, divided into
many schools, disagrees on fundamental issues (sex-positivity versus sex-
negativity and transgender inclusion versus transgender exclusion, most
notably) and is not a coherent movement. The same applies for virtually all
ideologies.

Some will repeat that quote, some will say "gender equality", others will go
for "women's liberation", "abolition of X concept considered problematic",
"separatism" or a variety of other reasons.

Which school do we adopt? Why? How will it change things? Is feminism really
that seamless of an ideology that it is the one true way to fix things?

~~~
kevingadd
Do you have a better solution to propose, then?

~~~
pgeorgi
I'd propose to be more careful when throwing "feminism" in the ring - it
really is an umbrella term, and it makes it so much harder to discuss things
because so much time is wasted looking for where the goal posts reside today.

One potential downside is that deconstructing the umbrella also removes that
feeling of speaking for a huge majority. I'd consider that a feature because
it's a misleading notion.

~~~
detcader
Indeed. A good post on the shared properties and differences of feminisms:
[https://culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/share...](https://culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/shared-
girlhood-red-herrings-and-the-creation-of-the-third-wave/)

All women are different, but all women experienced girlhood, and experience
male violence. Sadly most in the HN crowd don't have the proper familiarity to
understand that kind of nuance.

------
fred_durst
Sometimes I feel like there are people that confuse just being a jerk in
general, with being a jerk specifically to women.

In this industry I've met a lot of really great people, and unfortunately a
ton of arrogant, egotistical, pretentious and aggressive jerks. I've felt like
crap being around those people tons of times.

Sometimes they say mean things about women, sometimes about liberals or
republicans or people from India or making fun of someone's Github pull
request to an open source project. I've heard things that smell of Social
Darwinism. All kinds of junk. But all of it seems to come from the same jerks.
It doesn't seem like there is like the "I hate women" jerk and the "Stupid
people deserve poverty" etc. It seems like most hateful jerks just hate
everyone.

It seems in tech, people's positions in companies are very much based on a
particular skill or having a bunch of money. And very little to do with
whether or not they are a jerk. So maybe this is just that we end up with a
higher concentration of general jerks? Also, right now this industry is where
the money is, and that always has a tendency to up the jerk ratio as well.

~~~
anuleczka
That's the thing, though. By promoting a more feminist, egalitarian, diverse
culture for tech, we by definition eliminate the jerks. Why do we have to take
as a given that we have to take the jerks along with the money?

~~~
fred_durst
I absolutely agree. I was only relaying that maybe if we focus more on the
jerk part, and less on the specifics of the brand of jerk we might help solve
the problem of all the people who have to deal with jerks in this industry,
not just one specific group.

~~~
anuleczka
Sure! But I guess my point is that by embracing the voices of marginalized
groups, we can solve a huge chunk of that at once. If you think about it,
jerks usually act the way they do because of a perceived power differential.
The guy with enough insecurity to harass a woman (or POC, or LBGTQ person) is
likely to try to power trip other men, too.

~~~
fred_durst
I think I understand your logic here. It does make some sense to use the
harassment of a marginalized group as a sort of "tell" that this person is a
jerk. I do worry though that it is a bit divisive. A lot of terms like "white
male" and "feminist" are very loaded at this point and it feels to me like
focusing on specific groups might be a distraction.

For example if I were to say that one of the most arrogant and aggressive
people I've known was a self described feminist, it starts to distract from
the fact the in reality this person is just a jerk and the feminist part
really doesn't have anything to do with that. And any of the hateful gender
specific things that person said to other people didn't really have to do with
gender issues as much as this person was a total jerk to almost everyone
around them.

~~~
anuleczka
Yeah, it's sad how those terms ("white male", "feminist") have become loaded.
But again, I think it's because of perceived power differences. For some
reason, the term "feminist" has come to mean, in some circles, "person who
wants to take away my power". When in reality, promoting an egalitarian world
benefits both women _and_ men, since it reduces jerk behavior. Promoting equal
rights for women does not take away rights from men, you know?

I feel you on the second paragraph, but I think what's really distracting is
the unnecessary stigma of the labels. What if more women and men, especially
those with influence, openly identified as feminist? It's like the xkcd comic
about girls being bad at math
([https://xkcd.com/385/](https://xkcd.com/385/)). If one self-described
feminist behaves poorly, you'd probably blame that on her personally, instead
of writing off all feminists (and feminism, at the same time).

~~~
fred_durst
Personally speaking, I think feminism is a benefit to the world. I think it
has helped, and will continue to help make the world more inclusive place and
increase the understanding of the unique issues women face in society. I hope
I am not coming off as saying that I think feminism should go away or that I'm
speaking generally about the world at large. I was only using the self
described feminist as an example to show that it might distract. I've met
plenty of jerks, only a couple of them considered themselves feminists. ;)

I was more specifically talking about tech, especially the more app/web side
of things as that is my personal zone of experience. There just seems to be a
lot of jerks in general. That said, there are also a lot of inspiring,
compassionate and incredibly intelligent people that I feel so lucky to have
worked with and learned from. I only brought that aspect up as I wonder if
maybe some of the issues with tech is that some women and other people who
might typically face discrimination and harassment in other aspects of their
life, do not realize that in a lot of ways its just a jerky place. That they
might not realize that plenty of tech workers are made fun of, talked down to
and even sometimes outright yelled at. For example all of these things I've
just mentioned have happened to me personally on multiple occasions. The
yelled at was only once a long time ago fortunately.

So maybe we might focus on making tech less jerky in general? Because there
are plenty of people, not just a few specific groups that are treated pretty
poorly in this industry.

------
optimusclimb
It makes me sad to read this stuff, but a genuine question for other male
readers. Have you heard of, or come into contact with any of this abhorrent
behavior that's mentioned? I have never seen it anywhere I worked, or heard of
that sort of thing through word of mouth, but obviously that's a terrible
sample set.

My experiences related to women in tech:

* Everywhere I've worked, it's been a boys club, but we'd LOVE to hire more women. Frankly, hiring is hard in general. When women have come in to interview, I can't speak for others - but I know in the back of my head, my biggest concern is, "Make sure you interview with the same standards as anyone else, but make sure you don't have some subconscious bias because she's a she."

* There are probably good female engineers, and not so good ones. One of the few "not so good ones" I know of (doesn't mean she'll never improve, just at the time) had to be super carefully managed out over a long time. There was no unceremonious firing, that's for sure.

* Is there even a "women in tech" problem? Or is it just "women in the workforce, no matter the industry"? The kinds of ridiculous behavior women are describing in these articles sound to me like they could happen in finance, sales, marketing, HR, or anywhere.

* On any of the open source mailing lists I'm on, I've never seen anything remotely close to, "Your pull request sucks you wh _re, try again ". Are these just the mythical basement dwelling trolls of Slashdot lore reaching out privately via email?

Most of the engineers I know in tech are decent, upstanding guys. If anything,
I feel like if any of us was pulled aside by a female co-worker and she
described shenanigans of the sort I read about in these articles, we'd
probably jump to their defense in a heart beat, almost maybe too easily.

What have the rest of you experienced?

_ __ __ __ __*

Edit: I left the above (my OP) in tact. After re-reading it, and some
responses, it's become clear to me that it gives off an air of, "I don't
believe these reports", and that's not really what I intended.

I suppose my main point was that no, I haven't experienced it, and I think
that's exactly what these women are saying - Just because you haven't seen it,
doesn't mean it's not there. So really, despite getting some up votes, I think
I missed the boat.

I was curious if others on my (the male) side have in fact seen it, but what
does that tell us? Probably not much.

~~~
anildash
You read the story of a range of women from across the industry, said you
haven't had the experience these women have had, and then explicitly asked men
for their opinions. See if you can figure out the bug here.

* "We have this problem with our iOS app."

* "I use Android and have never seen this. Any other Android users encounter this?"

~~~
optimusclimb
Anil - I'd have expected a bit less snarky of tone from someone so public, but
I'll try and answer you anyway:

Yes, I asked other males what they've seen. You can't change reality. Our
industry is about as male as the army. I could probably have counted the
females in my computer science program back in college on one hand.

I'm just wondering if it really all is as behind closed doors/hidden as is
implied, or perhaps I just haven't come across it. People talk. They meet up
in bars. I hear all sorts of things from other people in the industry over
FrieNDA - though I really haven't heard many stories like these.

~~~
anildash
Honestly wasn't trying to be snarky -- it may just come naturally. (Would also
separately argue I'm not particularly well known on HN.)

If "our industry" is defined as the technology industry, it's actually far
_less_ male than the army; We just insist on not counting the women who
frequently lead efforts around communications, corporate development, design,
marketing, office management, and other essential parts of the business. And
even within engineering-focused disciplines, there used to be far _more_ women
involved but the number has been going down in recent decades.

But the question all of us men have to ask ourselves is: Why do you need
another source. You had a whole range of people already telling you what they
saw, and you're looking for people who _by definition_ would have less
information about this topic to provide their opinions. Why do you think
that's the case?

~~~
optimusclimb
I edited my post (only to add, not change it.) After reflection, I think it
was a little off base, even if well intentioned.

~~~
anildash
I appreciate the thought and reflection, especially given that my response
could reasonably be seen as snarky.

------
sama
this is one of the more thoughtful pieces i've read on the issue.

it's obvious to anyone really paying attention the tech industry (and probably
most other industries) has been extremely unfair to women. writing like this--
clear on the problem and supportive of people who want to help--is important,
but it's also important to remember that we all collectively have to act to
actually change things.

~~~
detcader
"this is one of the more thoughtful pieces i've read on the issue" is bull
shit. I'm male and even I can figure this out.

Do you see what you're doing here? Do you even realize? Your comment reads:
"THESE women are actually thoughtful, not like those bra-burning man-hating
diatribes that I've come across from those crazy women in tech. If only all
women were this calm and docile when talking about this subject." Maybe that
wasn't the precise thoughts behind it, but it comes off as that condescending
to everyone (particularly the women) who don't fit to your standards. You are
saying "if you're going to talk about gender in tech, or even gender at all,
be like these women or I don't care/you're crazy."

Every "piece", whatever the tone, is written for specific reasons, and you'd
rather take the lazy route and rank them as "more/less thoughtful" than
actually try to understand those reasons. Hey, I agree, there are some
articles and such on gender-in-tech out there that could make points more
strongly, could be tailored to their audience better, etc etc. You should
respond to those with honest, interested questions. Not this. Edit: from the
actual article itself:

"Being nice doesn’t work. We’ve been nice. Some of us that have written down
our stories here have even been _paraded around by men in the industry_ for
how nice we’ve been in trying to address the social problems in tech as a way
to discredit more vocal, astutely firm feminist voices. We don’t like this,
we’ve never liked it, and it needs to stop."

Parading this article as "more reasonable" is the same dynamic; don't settle
for the speech that you're comfortable with. Go back and try to understand why
the other, louder speech made you uncomfortable.

~~~
wwweston
Disallowing people from having/expressing an opinion as to how
helpful/thoughtful a piece is -- particularly a _positive_ opinion -- seems as
problematic as disallowing some pieces.

Maybe it's better to just let people express it when something resonates with
them.

(And while any judgment on how thoughtful a piece is probably subjective, it
seems unlikely that every piece is equivalent in how broadly it leads people
think about issues in a helpful way.)

~~~
detcader
I'm not saying "don't allow men to give their opinions on feminism articles,"
I'm saying that "this feminism article really helped me understand things
better/gave me a new perspective" is infinitely more polite and fair than
"this article is good, better than those other feminism articles I've read."

You don't have to push other women down to congratulate the ones who speak in
the way you like. Feminism, from what I've gathered over the years, involves
working to understand the experiences of _all_ women.

------
dominotw
Just a side note this site is run by a person who thinks

"This is NOT unrelated to the fact that YCombinator built Hacker News, a
platform that has consistently terrorized women in tech for years."

[https://twitter.com/shanley/status/460566412226883584](https://twitter.com/shanley/status/460566412226883584)

~~~
Tycho
I remember reading through that account's tweets when pg was accused of saying
teenage girls can't code or something. Thought the author was pretty
despicable. No surprise there was no apology or retraction when the full
context / truth of that interview was revealed a few days later.

~~~
ddoolin
I followed it for a few weeks/months previously. The amount of hate she
attempts to stir up is insane. That's exactly why I'm not interested in
participating in this discourse 99% of the time.

------
escape_goat
I am going to convey my experience of reading this, in the hopes that it might
be helpful. The message that I get from this essay is as follows.

"We are angry with the way we are treated as women, by men. We are angry with
the way we see other women being treated by men. Even though you might not
personally have treated us like this, we know that you are a man, like other
men, and we hold you responsible for what has happened to us and what we have
seen. You have power, and we don't. It is by your choice and negligence as men
that we are powerless and demeaned. You are not innocent, even though you
think you are. We aren't interested in your opinion. You don't know anything.
You need to change to make us not angry."

The reason I think this might be interesting is that I know (re-reading the
letter, especially) that THIS IS NOT WHAT THE LETTER SAYS. For one thing, it
is far from the only thing discussed in the letter; more importantly, however,
I don't think this interpretation is all that fair a reading of what the
authors have actually written. I know that it's a distorted version of what
they intended to convey, and it might not even represent a correct
interpretation of how any of them feel.

So why is this my impression? Your own conclusions are welcome, of course.
You're free to dismiss me out of hand. But for myself, I think that it has to
do with the confluence of two factors. Firstly, I don't really feel that I
have a lot of power over women. Actually, I feel like women have a lot of
power over me. My life is inextricably entangled with the lives of women, and
it would be a meaningless, barren hell were this not so. But instead, and
secondly, I am being told how separate I actually am --- and always will be
--- from women. I am being told that women are not being treated as people by
writers who go on to talk about women, and men, and the relationship of
victimization between the two, without hardly a word about people, and how
people treat each other, and how some people come to treat other people
differently, and what we can do about it. Instead, I feel, I am being told
that I am wrong to treat people as 'women' by people who are using the power
of that identity as leverage to demand my compliance.

If feminism is the radical notion that women are people, then a feminism that
is not about people is radically flawed. I don't like people having power over
me, either. I don't like being treated as the avatar of someone's fears, pain,
and disappointment, either. I don't like not being treated as if I'm me,
really a person, either.

This is all off the cuff, and I have no time to be writing it, but that's my
experience, and my reaction, and thanks for reading it.

~~~
litmus
I also was worried that there was something wrong with my reading
comprehension. To me, one of the most critical parts of the essay seemed the
most weakly written, namely the "Encouraging greater diversity in the
workspace" section. Here I am thinking "ok, here comes the concrete
suggestions for what men should do"\--and then I'm left with a phrase without
a definition. That section talks about events thrown by women for women it
seems--precisely the things companies that "only pay lip service" would point
to as evidence of their feminist credentials. In other words, those places and
events don't look like "workplaces" at all. They may be encouraging women to
work in tech "in general" and improving their skills but they are no means
directly getting the women hired into the workplaces in question.

So just so I get this right: When they say "Encourage diversity in the
workplace" do they mean "all things being equal, hire the women", or do they
mean "all things being not _immensely_ unequal, hire the women"?

------
hkmurakami
>Kat has started organizing casual lightning talks featuring female speakers.
The talks have now taken place in both San Francisco and New York.

I thought that attending these would help me in various ways (all the words I
can come up with fail to fit my sentiments so I'm going to leave it vague like
this), but the link [1] doesn't lead to any resource where I can find out
about future such events (presumably they'd be held at Stripe since Kat, the
host, is employed there). Does anyone know where I can find this info?

[1]
[https://stripe.com/events/lightningpies](https://stripe.com/events/lightningpies)

------
jack-r-abbit
> _If you see someone engage in bad behavior and you do nothing, you 've
> chosen to let that person think that what they did is okay. This leaves us
> feeling like we’re fighting this alone._

There is easily dozens (hundreds?) of "fights" that I could get into everyday
but I don't. I'm not really a confrontational person. Please don't take it
personally when _this_ fight is also one I don't get into.

~~~
mreiland
It isn't even about that, you pick and choose your fights. If you try to fight
every injustice, you'll succeed at none.

You have to choose when to fight.

------
GHFigs
Article conflates feminism with women. Not all women are Feminist or seek to
be. Women are human beings and should be treated as such. Feminism is an
ideology and should be treated as such. Why confuse people by taking about
them like they're the same thing?

~~~
detcader
>Feminism is an ideology

This is where you're factually (yes, factually) wrong. Try: !w feminism

~~~
GHFigs
What are you trying to say, exactly? If you're trying to say I'm unfamiliar
with feminism, you're wrong. If you're trying to say that feminism isn't an
ideology, you've made the poor choice of suggesting an article that uses the
word _ideologies_ in the first sentence. If you're trying to snipe at me for
using the singular instead of the plural, I shall have to say Q.E.D.

------
dominotw
"Some men made statements that made us feel unwelcome in the tech industry"

We are going to respond my making generailized hate speech towards all men in
the industry.

But seriously, are people expecting 100% support from all sections of society?
Is that even a realistic expectation?

~~~
mycroft-holmes
> We are going to respond my making generailized hate speech towards all men
> in the industry.

This is a large part of my problem with some of the MVC writers. If you're a
male, you're guilty. If you're white and male, you're really guilty.

~~~
steveklabnik
I am a straight white male, and I know (and am friends with) many of the MVC
writers. I even sponsored the latest issue. So I can say, empirically, you're
wrong.

~~~
pekk
You seem like a nice guy, but I think this is about what arguments get
deployed if you are perceived not to be toeing a specific kind of feminist
line. Socially, in certain circles, you are not allowed to disagree or even
question and maybe not talk at all unless you have some kind of special
sex/race combination. And the same facts or arguments deployed will be
acceptable or despicable depending on WHO says them.

------
bowlofpetunias
I wish we could leave codebabes.com out of the equation when it comes to women
in tech. This is not an industry thing, and opinions on whether or not it's
okay for these kind of things to exist are divided, and not across gender
lines and including amongst feminists.

It falls in the same category as porn. It's a valid debate, but it's a
separate debate.

------
226jg5
This is a topic I feel very strongly about, but I have to treat like it's
radioactive. Hence, this is a throwaway account and I will not be using it
again.

I am a white male in my early 30s. I'm strongly libertarian and do everything
in my power to make sure that people have the opportunity to work in a safe
and non-threatening environment. I go out of my way to make sure that people
who do not share my "type A" personality are included in group activities, and
spend a good deal of energy monitoring and adjusting my body language to be
inviting without being aggressive. This in particular doesn't come naturally
to me, and as an introvert, is quite exhausting.

The one time I attempted to work with the the social circle that authors and
maintains Model-View-Culture, I was met with the single most obvious and
aggressive display of sexism I've encountered in my professional career. They
used gender-based names to refer to me in a very derogatory and degrading way,
and proceeded to go through my social profiles and mock my private life and
family - because I had the audacity to attempt to engage them in a
conversation while being male.

> Does this mean we’re going to get angry at you if you try to help and get it
> wrong? > This is an a fear that has come to light through side channels. Men
> know there is a problem, and they’re worried the women they know are on the
> defensive - especially when reading a direct call to action like this one.

> They want to help but they’re worried if they don’t get everything just
> right, someone will chastise them into oblivion.

No, I'm not worried that I'll be chastised - I'm worried that my gender will
result in a situation where any action (or inaction) on my part will result in
my being ostracized from the professional community to which I've devoted a
large part of my adult life. Further, I base this fear on my own actual
experience and the direct observation of the experiences of others.

> The people signing this document are patient when they see someone trying to
> make a difference.

Perhaps. To be fair, the people who lashed out at me are not listed on this
document. They are members of the same social circle though, and the thought
of putting my career and my family's livelihood on the line to try and solve
problems that do not directly impact me is terrifying. I am supposed to trust
them not to dox me, spread that information to their entire social circle,
then use it to publicly shame me?

[http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/investigation-online-
gath...](http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/investigation-online-gathering-
information-to-assess-risk)

I want to help. I really do. I have a wife, daughters, and my own mother is a
long-time feminist. I consider _myself_ a feminist, though not of the radical
far-left variety they practice. As much as I've been preached to about how
feminism is hostile because they are not in a position of power, they've
wielded that power arbitrarily and willfully when they found themselves able
to do so.

The only way to win this game is not to play.

~~~
mreiland
And the worst part is that not all of them are that way.

Like you, my mother was also strongly feminist. She had a very strong
personality, and I grew up being a "feminist".

It wasn't until I got older and started seeing the movement as a whole that I
started distancing myself from it.

Because I agree that wrongs need to be righted, and that women have every
right to equality as men.

I just don't agree that means I should be ashamed of my gender, or that I'm
automatically an asshole.

~~~
worksaf
Thank you for making better points than I did. I feel like there is no
"discussion" here, just blatant attacks on anyone who disagrees with any of
the conclusions made by the authors.

------
lhnz

      >> We are not the 'nice feminists' of this community.
      >    Being nice doesn’t work. We’ve been nice.
    

In this article you were actually all nice and I read right to the bottom. I
certainly do find it a lot easier to listen to and agree with people that
aren't spilling hatred at me. I never want to feel like I'm giving time to
somebody trying to extract some psychological harm as revenge on my gender -
whether or not they have a reason to be angry with the status quo, the target
market often doesn't last long enough to receive your message.

    
    
       > We are tired of our male peers pretending that because they 
       > do not participate in bad behavior, that it is not their problem
       > to solve. If you see someone engage in bad behavior and you
       > do nothing, you’ve chosen to let that person think that what they
       > did is okay. This leaves us feeling like we’re fighting this alone. 
       > We can’t work on what we can’t see, but if you’re there when it
       > happens, you can help. It is absolutely imperative that men work
       > with other men to combat bad attitudes and behavior.
    

This is true. Though it's not just heteronormativity or misogyny. It often
seems like there might be the "bystander effect" at play, too. Not that you
were arguing that and not to try to argue that this makes it okay, but just to
argue that people taking responsibility when they have the power to do so are
the exception and not the rule in human nature.

I agree that people should speak up if you see something wrong even if they
just say something small, but I reckon it will be hard/impossible to educate
all to do so. However if those that notice something is up speak up then it
will be a better place for all of us. And for those that notice but are too
shy to kick up a fuss, there is always more subtle signalling that can be
used: tilt your body away from the aggressor, go quiet and start a
conversation with somebody outside the group - disinterest, and "awkwardness"
can be powerful.

    
    
       *   *   *
    

Going slightly off-topic here just to say something that I care about.
Something that has been quite difficult for me to read in other feminist
pieces/tweets is the meme "not all men" which is often quickly followed by
"ALL MEN!". It might be annoying to have guys constantly interrupting to raise
themselves onto a little pedestal as caring gentlemen, but this is creating a
wall between two groups and we both need to work beyond the meme.
@slatestarcodex made a very good point in an article [1] I read recently,
which explains how both sides are affected:

    
    
       > "So the one problem is that people have a right not to have
       > unfair below-the-belt tactics used to discredit them without 
       > ever responding to their real arguments. And the other 
       > problem is that victims of non-representative members of a
       > group have the right to complain, even though those complaints
       > will unfairly rebound upon the other members of that group."
    

In nerd-speak what he's saying is that you have a right to be angry with
people that are victimising you and need to be able to speak about this, but
at the same time when you say it anybody else in that group that didn't
victimise you often feels that they are collateral damage (and this is
actually the case, the connotations will affect them.) I don't know a
solution. I side with you but some activist somewhere will hopefully step up
and find a way of talking about groups in a way that doesn't turn all men into
misogynists, all germans into nazis, all whites into walking privileges, and
all feminists into fat, angry, lesbians (or whatever people say to discredit
you.) It clearly isn't fair to individuals.

    
    
      *   *   *
    

I don't think all men are out to get you. I also don't think there's a huge
misogyny problem in the industry in comparison to some other industries and
cultures I've mixed with. (Perhaps my bad luck.) This is my opinion from
listening to the perspectives of the people around me and watching their
behaviour around women.

However I do think we have a significant diversity problem and that it's
altering the interactions between men and women in the tech industry in a very
bad way. We're unfortunately at a point where it's probably most difficult for
women. There are enough of you to talk about the problems you face, but not
enough that you don't have your environment dominated by us.

I often hear tech men desperately wishing they had more women working in their
company. And here is a big problem: it's not because they want to give you
economic choices but because of sexual deprivation. I'm sorry if communication
is nasty for you right now, I think a more diverse group would stamp out the
majority of shitty interactions and we'll get there eventually. Until then
some of those men are going to be acting nice trying to get close to you so
they can eventually flip to their ulterior motives, while others will be
running asshole PUA game on you to see what they can "get away with". Finally
of course there'll be a large percentage of misogynistic or bitter (MRA) jerks
that want to make you feel small so they can feel good - and unfortunately
with the current diversity levels they have a voice. I can imagine it's
enraging.

Sorry if I inadvertently said something that clashes with whatever feminism
you all share. I just wanted to speak truthfully about how I see everything.

[1] [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-
superweapo...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-
superweapons/)

~~~
mreiland
>I don't think all men are out to get you. I also don't think there's a huge
misogyny problem in the industry in comparison to some other industries and
cultures I've mixed with. (Perhaps my bad luck.) This is my opinion from
listening to the perspectives of the people around me and watching their
behaviour around women. However I do think we have a significant diversity
problem and that it's altering the interactions between men and women in the
tech industry in a very bad way.

I think this is a fair assessment.

> Finally of course there'll be a large percentage of misogynistic or bitter
> (MRA) jerks that want to make you feel small so they can feel good - and
> unfortunately with the current diversity levels they have a voice. I can
> imagine it's enraging.

This is where the wheels come off, and the bias shows.

There's a large percentage of men who are either misogynistic, and /or MRA
jerks? Why aren't feminists characterized as jerks? Why are you painting MRA
as jerks, but apologizing to feminists if you've accidentally offended them?

This is where those of us who really hold no bias start getting annoyed about
the portrayal of the male gender. Men who care about men's rights are jerks,
but women who care about women's rights get apologies if they get offended by
reasonable arguments?

And this was done by a male. If the feminists were really _honest_ they'd call
this man to task for being biased _towards_ women, and they would tell him
they don't want to be held above the other gender either.

The person who posted this goes into depth about the men who have an "ulterior
motive" about hiring women. What is this person's ulterior motive for
pandering to women in this way?

Why do I have to be ok with being told how terrible my gender is in order to
work in this industry anymore?

For the more moderate feminists, consider that. You have a lot of would be
allies who get just as tired of being told how terrible they are, and just
want you go to away as a result. And folks like the person who posted the
above are not helping, they are pandering. A rational person can look at it
and think "this isn't right either".

~~~
detcader
There's no such thing as the "male gender" ('male' refers to sex). You have a
bias. For one thing, it's your years of socializaton as a boy and now a
(young?) man. Understanding what feminists are trying to say takes work. You
haven't done enough work yet. No one in 2014 is saying that it's terrible that
you're male.

~~~
user24
> There's no such thing as the "male gender"

Maybe it's a cultural thing but here in the UK at least I think male and
female are seen as genders... What word should the parent commenter have used?
"man gender" is not grammatical, so I can only think of one other option;
"male".

(edit: and in case I'm misunderstood, I don't mean any kind of subtext on the
wider debate here, I'm just asking because I think 'male' is a gender and am
confused).

(edit: right, found this:
[http://www.med.monash.edu.au/gendermed/sexandgender.html](http://www.med.monash.edu.au/gendermed/sexandgender.html)
so basically it's the difference between sex and gender. I wasn't acutely
aware that the words male vs masculine carried such an important distinction.
I'm not sure if they are commonly used in that distinct way).

~~~
mreiland
The poster was just trying to find something to attack.

If you read the wiki article here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender)

You can see the following quote: _Depending on the context, the term may refer
to biological sex (i.e. the state of being male, female or intersex), ..._

LGBT has a tendency to use the term gender to mean gender roles, where the
lines are a bit more obscure. I believe psychologists do as well.

But in every day vernacular, gender refers to sex for most people, and as the
wiki article suggests, it's completely acceptable to use it in that manner.

I'll repeat what I said before, the poster was just looking for something to
attack.

------
cheez
FTA:

> The last few weeks have been very difficult for women in tech:

> Gurbaksh Chahal - then-CEO of a startup, was allegedly video taped violently
> attacking a former partner 117 times in 30 mins (He was finally fired some
> time after this was made public)

My reaction when I first read this: "wow, the guy beat up his company partner
AND a woman, at that. What an asshole." Then I clicked through (note: he's
still an asshole).

If you actually click through and read this, it is completely unrelated to
tech. The partner that was attacked was a girlfriend. Not a company partner at
all.

I'm not condoning the behaviour, obviously, but I feel like this article is
setting the stage to create a "men vs women" thing in tech. If we spell it
out, a full ___two out of five_ __points the authors use to make their case
can be summarized as:

A guy who has a temper problem and runs a tech company attacked a girlfriend
who had nothing to do with the tech company. Everyone wanted to see proof.

Why is this particular instance difficult for women in tech? Why not
everywhere? Why is this not used as an example of perhaps the stresses that
people are under that cause them to behave this way? Is there a link to
aggression and CEOs? This would be a better set of questions to take away from
that incident than "if you work in tech and you are a woman, will you get beat
up on a daily basis?"

> The last thing we want is for people reading this to be put on the defensive

The last thing I want is for people who want to bend the truth this much to be
on the front page of HN.

The other stuff you wrote about? All great stuff. No one wants rapey emails.
Even if you are fine as hell, you should be free from getting groped or
otherwise harassed.

Don't adopt tangentially related stories to create a narrative that is more
dire than real life. It just makes me shut off to anything else you want to
say and then I don't want to work with you at all.

~~~
steveklabnik
> The partner that was attacked was a girlfriend. Not a company partner at
> all.

Many people have switched to saying 'partner' for all relationships to help
demonstrate their support for gay marriage.

> Everyone wanted to see proof.

He already pled guilty.

> Why is this particular instance difficult for women in tech?

Well, it's an example of someone's incredibly personal abuse story possibly
being shown to millions of people against their will.

Also, he was the CEO of a tech startup, and the tech startup media did all the
reporting on it, and all his investors literally said 'congratulations, I'm
glad this is behind you' after he pled guilty.

> Why not everywhere?

Something can be a problem in a certain industry, and also in general. Both
statements can be true.

~~~
mreiland
> Also, he was the CEO of a tech startup, and the tech startup media did all
> the reporting on it, and all his investors literally said 'congratulations,
> I'm glad this is behind you' after he pled guilty.

Still has little to do with gender bias. The investors are there for the
money. I've seen companies keep known alcoholics around because they provide
enough value for said company to deal with it.

The issue isn't that it happened, it's attributing it to simple gender bias.
It's dishonest.

~~~
steveklabnik
Nobody is claiming that it's cause is simply bias. It's a particular instance
of the general structural issues women face.

~~~
mreiland
men face the exact same issues. It's akin to women complaining that they have
to purchase gasoline in order to make it to work daily. So do men, why is that
something the women are rallying around?

~~~
steveklabnik
If men and women face the same issues, and women are working towards fixing
those issues, I'm not sure why you're so upset. Isn't that positive?

~~~
mreiland
I think the travesty is how quickly you choose to mis-characterize me as being
upset for no other reason than the idea that I disagree with you.

Can we be more honest than that?

------
dang
This post has fallen in rank because users flagged it. No moderator penalized
it.

------
aaronem
[Quick prefatory update: HN's throttling algorithm has decided, on the basis
of five comments counting this one over the space of the last hour, that I'm
"submitting too fast". It'll therefore be a fair while before I am able to
respond to the replies I confidently expect this post to provoke.]

You know, at base, I think this is a class issue.

No, I don't mean in the Marxist sense, so all you libertarians who're even now
clearing for action and double-shotting your broadsides, hold off a minute and
finish reading first.

I mean it's a class issue in the sense that acting like the assholes these
women have found themselves forced to put up with, throughout their careers in
our industry, is stigmatic of a _complete lack of class_.

Our industry, after all, revolves around a profession. We arrogate unto
ourselves the title of "engineer", despite the complete lack of licensure or
regulation commensurate with every other industry whose professionals bear
that title. It is therefore incumbent upon us to behave in accordance with our
pretensions -- and especially so, I'd argue, given the relative lack of rigor
which characterizes our industry as a whole.

Now, maybe I'm just an effete, precious little snowflake. But I have
absolutely no desire to associate with people who behave in the fashions
described in the open letter published by Manian et al., and in a thousand
other places, by a thousand other women, who are themselves remarkable among
their fellows in our industry only in that they're courageous enough to tell
their stories -- despite the excoriation they know full well will come their
way in response -- in hopes of provoking change.

Such people lack class. They lack taste and refinement. If nothing else, they
lack the basic good sense to recognize unprofessional behavior in themselves,
and to acknowledge the solid reasons why the constraints of professionalism
exist at all.

Speaking of which: I've recently participated in a couple of HN discussions
around the topic of office politics. From them I have gleaned the impression
that a lot of engineers consider office politicking to be something which just
gets in the way of getting the job done, and is undesirable therefore.

To engineers who share that opinion, I point out that what we're talking about
here _also gets in the way_. Unless you're willing to declare flat out that
women have nothing to offer the industry, or unless you prefer to imagine that
the women who've described maltreatment at the hands of their supposedly
professional male peers are just lying out of some conspiratorial urge or
other, I don't see how you can evaluate this situation any other way.

Anyone who reviews my comment history on HN will recognize quickly enough that
I have no particular fondness for feminism as a movement, or for feminist
theory, much of which strikes me as ill-argued and overly reliant on an
axiomatic infrastructure which is not so sturdy as its proponents seem to
believe. Worse, by the lights of feminism _per se_ , someone like Adria
Richards, who reacted to a vaguely tasteless joke in so spectacularly ill-
considered fashion as to end up getting three people fired, has no cause for
reproach.

On the other hand, I see no reason why it's necessary to have any fondness at
all for either of those things, when the problem, at its base, is that there
are too many assholes in our industry with no sense of how to behave. It's not
a question of "how to treat a woman", as though that were some sort of magical
separate category. None of the shit we're talking about here is anything you'd
be inclined to put up with for one _minute_ , if anyone directed it at you.
That it's directed almost universally at women, instead, makes no difference.
These behaviors, in themselves, are utterly unacceptable in any even remotely
professional context. That they're so widespread in our industry -- indeed,
that they're suffered to exist at all in our industry, to say nothing of the
degree to which they're actually tolerated -- gives every one of us a bad
name.

I don't like that. I refuse to tolerate the company of the people who are
responsible for it. I'm not looking to start a movement; I'd be crap at it and
there are already far too many of those to begin with. I'm just looking to see
those of us in the industry who _do_ have class, who _do_ have taste, behave
accordingly with regard to those who don't.

No doubt some of them will realize why they've been excluded, and will learn
better. Great! That's what ostracism is _for_. If they can show they know how
to behave themselves like grown adults, they're welcome to join those of us
who never needed remedial education on the subject to begin with.

And, equally without doubt, some of them will never figure it out, and, like
MRAs, MGTOWs, and others who prefer abandoning society over learning to
interact with it, will grow bitter in their increasingly self-inflicted
solitude. Those, we're better off without, and to hell with them.

~~~
stackcollision
s/class/common human decency/g

I think a lot of what you're talking about has more to do with an apparent
inability of some people to act with any sort of common sense around other
human beings rather than 'class'. This happens in any workplace (my mother was
a secretary, and had to leave one of her companies because her boss was
consistently making advances), but in technology especially so.

Perhaps this is a symptom of the social environment a lot of programmers seem
to have in common. A lot of us spend our teenage years alone or with a small
group of very close friends. Because of that, certain people might not develop
a full understanding of social customs, or worse: deride them as 'silly'. This
is a fundamental mark of immaturity, and most people and most programmers grow
out of it. Some people don't, and I think it's especially common among
programmers because they (and yes, this is stereotype) tend to be very
solitary.

People like us tend to spend a lot of time online, where you can make sure you
only talk to people who are very similar to you (case in point: HN). Not being
forced to talk to people with different opinions results in stunted social
growth. A huge part of life is learning to interact with people who are
different than you.

When you throw someone who doesn't have a lot of experience with social norms
and is used to having everything their way into an office work environment,
they generally don't mesh well.

~~~
aaronem
> I think a lot of what you're talking about has more to do with an apparent
> inability of some people to act with any sort of common sense around other
> human beings rather than 'class'.

Some of it, maybe. A lowered standard of functional adulthood for such people
doesn't seem like it would do them any favors; instead, it'd deny them the
very feedback they need to learn better.

Immaturity doesn't strike me as the major problem here, though, unless you
want to argue that the average degree of social maturity in our industry
resembles that more commonly expected on a grade-school playground.

Even if that were true, then the maltreatment under discussion would be a lot
more evident than it is to those of us who aren't its targets, because those
who engage in it would lack the necessary cunning to choose their target and
their context so that a complaint can be dismissed as he-said-she-said. Such
cunning requires at least some capacity, whether cognitive or intuitive, for
social analysis -- enough so, in fact, to exceed the minimum threshold for "I
didn't understand what I was doing was wrong".

This being true, your choices are either to assume the existence of a feminist
conspiracy aimed at the overthrow of the existing industry, or to assume that
those men who are most responsible for the problem under discussion know very
well that most of us would utterly refuse to put up with their shit if we saw
it going on, and that's why they make sure that we _don 't_.

------
arzugula
> Feminism is the radical notion that women are people, and that we want to be
> treated as equals. Don’t let someone else pretend otherwise out of their own
> misguided notions.

So what do we call the feminists who work to suppress research that shows
gender symmetry in domestic violence?

What do we call the feminists who demonize men as rapists, deadbeats, child
molesters, and abusers?

What do we call the feminists who lobby against equal parenting rights for
fathers and for stripping the right to due process of those accused of
domestic or sexual violence?

Feminism is not about equality - that would be called humanism or
egalitarianism and would not focus on one specific identity group.

Feminism is the dying ideology of demonizing and subjugating men. Feminism is
Marxist ideology maladroitly applied to the genders in order to paint the male
gender as sub-human, innately heartless, and evil oppressors, while painting
women as perpetually innocent victims.

A movement truly concerned with equality would address areas where human
rights are actually unequal such as the outcomes of family courts or no-fault
divorce law. Instead we see feminism focusing on non-issues to further their
political agenda (#banbossy) or in warping every situation in which a woman
gets slighted by an asshole male into proof of "patriarchy".

~~~
minikites
It's disappointing that you think advances in rights for women have to come at
the expense of men.

~~~
stackcollision
I knew a feminist in high school who wanted to photocopy my draft papers so
she could sign up too. Definitely not legal, but she was absolutely adamant
that if men and women were to be equal, women should have to defend the
country too.

Feminism _is_ about equality, when it's done right. Unfortunately, it's been
perverted into "down with the patriarchy". We call those people "Feminazis".

------
FD3SA
Such a fascinating article. Let's break this post down:

\- Anecdotes used for evidence (check)

\- Moral outrage declared (check)

\- Call to arms based on emotion (check)

\- Appeal to baseless fanatical ideology (check)

\- Vilification of a massive segment of the population as homogeneous villians
(check)

There really appears to be a massive disconnect between very high intelligence
and the ability to accurately observe the real world. Or perhaps in the age
when page views reign supreme, rational empirical analysis becomes a vestigial
burden from a bygone era.

For you rebels out there who still demand scientific rigor in your articles,
please consider an expert's opinion on the matter at your discretion [1].

1\.
[http://edge.org/memberbio/helena_cronin](http://edge.org/memberbio/helena_cronin)

~~~
beat
\- And how do you get evidence without anecdotes?

\- If true, should we not be morally outraged?

\- If true, should we not be emotional? Should there not be a call to arms?

\- ( _expletive deleted_ )

\- Are men truly treated homogeneously in this article?

\- Is every opinion you don't like stupid and/or irrational?

------
smokeyj
My only questions is why we're making bullying a gender issue. Bullying
affects boys and girls from childhood, and learning how to deal with bullies
seems like a gender agnostic issue. But maybe that's my privilege speaking..

Edit: Maybe I seem dismissive of the issue, but I'm really not. I just feel
like there's a core problem here that has been incubating since the recess
playground. I don't think people turn into bullies over night, rather they've
grown to accept their role as aggressors due to never being confronted, and
consequently grow even more empowered.

What we're witnessing as adults is what we see on the school yard. Everyone
can see that the bully is a jerk, but everyone passively goes along with the
flow. Why? Fear of retaliation and ostracization. Maybe everyone will think
you're a looser for sticking up for the other looser. You want to be in the
cool club so keep your mouth shut. Anyways, that's my two cents.

------
mreiland
I just want to develop software, and I don't personally give a shit about the
gender of the people I'm working with.

...Until they start shoving these sorts of issues down my throat. If I get to
choose between the male that just wants to develop software and the female who
wants to tell me all about how terrible it is working in our industry as a
woman, I'm going to pick the male. Why? Because I'm very goal oriented and I
just want to develop software. Take your fucking crusade somewhere else
please.

OTOH, and this is the mystifying part, I've seen just as many men complaining
about it as women. Guess which I'd choose if it was the female just working
and the male going on about the female inequality? I'd prefer working with the
female. That's what a lack of gender bias gets you.

Did you know I was once dismissed early from a job interview because I refused
something to drink when it was offered to me(I had a weird suspicions and had
it confirmed that the offer was a 'test')? I once got feedback from a job
interview that the reason they didn't hire me was because I didn't show up
with a notepad to take notes. And l lets be honest, that's not the real
reason, I have it on good authority they already found who they wanted, but
were fulfilling obligations.

I once had a CEO roll his eyes at me in the middle of a meeting and say
something to the effect of "you software people...".

We've all experienced the bullshit. The truth is, people are stupid, biased
creatures. yes. EVEN YOU.

Do you think ugly people have it harder than attractive people? Do you think
younger people have it harder than older people in most industries? What about
southern accents in a northing US state? Southern accents are considered
"dumb", after all. I know of atleast 1 man from Rhode Island who _refused_ to
work with anyone from southern states because they were all dumb. That's a
true story.

There are _so_ many things that people can be biased about, yes, including
gender.

The problem is that nothing has been so divisive in our industry in recent
years as much as the "discussion" surrounding gender equality.

And me? I just want to fucking get work done. I don't care, not because I'm an
asshole, but because I myself am not biased. Nor have I really seen a lot of
bias in the places I've chosen to be. I have seen behavior that's resulted
from the fact that males and females have a tendency to be attracted to each
other. It's a fact of pretty much every facet of our lives. It isn't good, it
isn't bad, it just is.

One thing I would like to address though.

I saw a complaint about "being called a cunt on a mailing list, and no one
said anything about/to the person saying it".

That's equality for you. If someone called me a dick, or an asshole, on a
mailing list, in no way would I expect others to rally to my defense. I'd have
to make a choice. Do I respond in kind, do I not respond in kind, do I not
respond at all? Do I escalate, do I de-escalate? Do I walk away for a few
hours/days while I contemplate what to do, or do I simply blacklist the
individual?

But at no point would I expect others to step in and defend me _for me_. I'll
defend myself. I expect it of myself, and everyone else expects it of me as
well, including the women. Is that gender bias on the women's part?

No, it's differing expectations. _everyone_ will think the person is an
asshole, whether they called the female a cunt, or the male a
dick/asshole/what have you. But they may not say anything, that's life on both
sides of that coin.

Someone calling you a bad name on a mailing list just means you got called a
bad name. The name chosen may have been gender specific since you're female,
but that doesn't indicate a bias. We live in a society with gender specific
insults... and people not defending you isn't a bias either. Learn to defend
yourself.

Now being groped is completely unacceptable behavior for both sides. That
person should be dealt with immediately. There are few things I would agree
someone needs to be called out for, but that sort of behavior is one of them.

tl;dr; STFU, develop software, and learn to defend yourself. I have shit I
have to deal with too, but I didn't enter this industry to be told how
terrible my gender is, I entered this industry because I love building
software.

edit: One thing I should note. I've had women walk up to me and grab my ass
before. It may not be as prevalent, but it happens both ways, and it's just as
inappropriate both ways.

~~~
danilocampos
> I just want to develop software

So do they.

~~~
mreiland
Many of them do. The ones going on crusades do not, they are the ones I'm
specifically referring to.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I hear you.

But I hear them, too. They just want to develop software, and to ignore all
this other BS, and the BS keeps hitting them, and they're tired of having to
deal with it. I can see why, too. I can see how this stuff would get to you
after a year or two, or a decade or two.

I think the takeaway from their point is, they need to attack specifics when
they occur. But I think your point is, they need to not make that their focus,
or it's going to ruin their ability to actually work with males.

That's a tough balance to maintain. It stinks that they have to do so.

~~~
mreiland
> That's a tough balance to maintain. It stinks that they have to do so.

That's true, but it's also life in general, I'll explain what I mean.

I'm an agnostic who tends towards atheism with a very specific policy. I will
not lie to people about my religious views, but I will let them make
assumptions. Many people assume I'm Christian and I never disabuse them of
that notion. The reason is simple: For me, the issue isn't important. I
believe more in people than ideologies. For them, it is important, so let them
have their comfort. Their beliefs do not offend me, and I defend their right
to have them without harassment (I dislike Atheism in general even though I
tend towards that thought process).

In all my years, I've only ever had a single person ask me straight out if I
was Christian (in a work environment). I was working through an outsourcing
company, and a week later they were asked to replace me with someone else. In
essence I was "fired".

It's was unfair, and it was crap. I doubt you'll find many people who will
disagree with you. Could it truly have been a coincidence? Possibly, but I
find the likelihood of it very doubtful.

I took it as just more bullshit that's happened. I didn't get particularly
offended by it, I certainly didn't start painting everyone with the brush that
I'm a victim and they're terrible.

people are shit sometimes, you just move on. You deal with your own shit.

This is all to say that I _understand_ their point of view, and this is one of
the reasons why I reject them in general.

To bring it back on topic, it is tough, and maybe it is unfair. But woman have
a right to an opportunity, they do not have a right to no bullshit. Someone
making unwanted sexual advances isn't a problem. Someone doing it after it's
been made clear they're unwanted is. Someone playing grabass is absolutely a
problem that needs to be dealt with immediately.

However, someone dismissing an opinion because they have a bias against women
is not something they need to be crusading against, and the reason is quite
simple: I've had my opinion dismissed for being male (by them), for being a
software developer (by business people), for political reasons (I'm a
freelance software dev... I'm sure you can imagine).

There are shit environments no matter who you are, what you believe, or what
you look like. But you deal with them and move on because that's life, it
isn't perfect, and you do not have a right to everyone being perfectly fair to
you.

This is a separate issue from why women do not join our industry, but it gets
conflated. We do not have a problem with women entering our industry and then
leaving (anymore than men). We have a problem with women not entering at all.

They hurt themselves by conflating the two, and causing many people (like me)
to stop listening to them. At the end of the day, we have to deal with shit
too, and when they put themselves on the list of shit we have to deal with, we
have a tendency to simply move on. We cannot emotionally engage, because we'll
get angry.

If they want us to emotionally engage, they need to approach it differently.

------
jugglingcode
From the stories that have come out it sounds that avoiding this behaviour is
practically impossible to avoid if you are woman. That's a terrible working
env.

This also appears to be an American problem. I find this difficult to imagine
happening as pervasively ( not saying it doesn't happen at all) in London or
Berlin or any of the other European tech hubs. The problem may be more evident
in America because it has the largest and most successful tech community
presenting more opportunities for alienating behaviour around women to be
amplified. The reasons are likely to be more multi-faceted and complex.

~~~
jugglingcode
It looks like I may have unwittingly offended a few people with an idea that
wasn't expressed as eloquently as I would have liked. Some may have read the
post and thought I was voicing a common male position of it not being a
problem or something that should be swept under the rug and dismissed.

There are indeed many explanations for the appearance of what I described and
some have rightly mentioned that it may just be under-reported in Europe due
to culture differences. I don't pretend to know what those may be but can only
offer my experience and anecdotal evidence, just like most have done here.

Sexism does exist in Europe and I have not said in my post that it doesn't I
think we are all talking specifically about tech culture here and let's not
conflate this to sexism in Europe across all industries. I've had friends
experience inappropriate male attention at work but it's frequently in Law or
Finance, and more recently in Education. Friends (more than a handful) in
London and in Brussels have experienced this directly. That's a lot
considering that 1 in 10 women experience some form of harassment at work.
I've rarely ever heard it happen in tech over here. Not to say that it doesn't
happen, from my experience I've heard a lot less.

I'd understand better some of the reactions to my post if it was clearly and
strongly entrenched in a dismissive or an unsympathetic position but the post
is littered with words like 'may' and 'appears' and suggests the problem
requires a deeper exposition than what can be stated in an HN comment.

------
gfosco
"We are your community leaders, your open source contributors, your keynote
speakers, and many call us role models."

.... Yeah, ok.

