
Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women? - prostoalex
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-silicon-valley-so-awful-to-women/517788/?single_page=true
======
sudosteph
Everyone saying "SV isn't worse than X" is missing the point of the article.
Yes, we know plenty of industries are more awful. The point is that SV talks a
big game when it comes to taking care of workers (high pay, perks, unlimited
vacation), but doesn't always walk the walk when it comes to improving the
treatment of female or minority workers.

Relevant quote:

> That the tech industry would prove so hostile to women is more than a little
> counterintuitive. Silicon Valley is populated with progressive, hyper-
> educated people who talk a lot about making the world better. It’s also a
> young field, with none of the history of, say, law or medicine, where women
> were long denied spots in graduate schools intended for “breadwinning men.”

~~~
steeef
quote from "Snowcrash":

> “It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent type
> espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be
> sexists.”

------
tabeth
The answer is obvious: it's bias. I'll never forget the day I removed my
picture from my LinkedIn profile and the amount of random spam I received
increase substantially.

People don't like the answer, but there's only one: anonymity. Any other
solution simply changes _who_ will be discriminated against.

~~~
oconnor663
Whether or not anonymity would change the "fairness" of the outcome, it's not
at all clear that it would change the outcome itself:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_bias_on_Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_bias_on_Wikipedia)

~~~
tabeth
The goal is not to change the outcome, the goal is to remove bias. If the
outcome is the same under perfect anonymity, then so be it.

------
jdietrich
I don't have a dog in this fight, but this is a clear case of begging the
question. Is Silicon Valley really awful to women? Do we have any comparative
data that suggests that SV is any more sexist than most industries? I hear a
lot of unpleasant anecdotes, but very little data.

I think that the answer to this question is very important. If we operate on
the presumption that SV is uniquely awful, then we may be looking for
solutions to sexism in all the wrong places.

~~~
eli
What sort of data do you need? Is this simple chart not enough to conclude
there's a problem?
[https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/Computer_information_technology...](https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/Computer_information_technology_2014.htm)

~~~
jdietrich
Representation tells us almost nothing, because of the problems further up the
pipeline. Women aren't studying CS in large numbers, which may or may not have
anything to do with SV. Women make up only 18% of computer science graduates,
so one could easily argue that your data shows that women are significantly
over-represented in the industry.

Why so few women study computer science is an important question. Again, I
think it's dangerous to presume the answer without sufficient data.

[https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_349.asp](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_349.asp)

~~~
eli
Fewer women studying CS is a problem SV should care about, not an excuse.

~~~
jdietrich
If SV is actually a great place for women to work, then front-page stories
about it being awful isn't going to help increase the number of female CS
students.

~~~
eli
If truthful news reports make SV look bad, the problem ain't the news media.

~~~
LyndsySimon
News can be both truthful and misleading. The frequency and tone of this type
of article is completely disproportional to reality.

There are definitely problems in how women are treated in tech, just as there
are in every other field with similar demographics that comes to mind. Those
problems need to be addressed.

The title of this article is "Why is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?",
though. "Awful". Do you really believe that it's "awful", particularly
relative to all other professions?

~~~
eli
Yes, I really believe it's awful and I don't think other professions are
relevant in making that call.

------
TheLilHipster
> Why is [Insert location of choice] So Awful to Male Babysitters?

Culture and everything else that comes along with gender minority work
environments. You adapt, like everyone else.

The push for institutionally enforced advantages is just insane:

> “Tying bonuses to diversity outcomes signals that diversity is something the
> company cares about and thinks is important,”

Equal opportunity does not mean equal outcome. Giving a minority share an
unfair advantage in the market just because "they're a minority" is not
progress. I'm so disappointed at how manipulative these sorts of ideals are in
reality. Their proponent's hearts are in the right place, but the outcomes are
just so backwards.

Regardless of your gender, if you're in an environment and you're
discriminated against in an illegal way, go through the appropriate legal
channels and crush it. Stop wasting our time trying to police culture.

/rant

~~~
rayiner
If there is not equality of outcome, then either: (1) no equality of
opportunity exists; or (2) there is some confounding factor.

Ironically, you identify the thing that creates unequal opportunity: the
"culture" that "comes along with gender minority work environments." Men have
the opportunity to go into programming and be in a culture that is not stacked
against them. Women don't. That's not equality of opportunity.

Acknowledging that the existence of a gender disparity _in and of itself_
creates a hostile culture for the minority gets you halfway to understanding
why attempts at eliminating the disparity directly are justified. And such
measures are inherently temporary: once you eliminate then disparity that
creates the hostile culture, you eliminate the need to take any affirmative
measures to keep the new ratio.

You also precisely identify why you can't fix past institutional
discrimination simply by no longer doing it. The past discrimination creates a
culture that's hostile to the minority gender. That culture is self-
perpetuating without active intervention (the "policing" you complain of).

~~~
TheLilHipster
> Men have the opportunity to go into programming and be in a culture that is
> not stacked against them. Women don't. That's not equality of opportunity.

Depends where you define the line between opportunity and outcome. You could
take a step back and argue that equal opportunity exists in the education
space for both women and men to thrive in said field. The fact that this
doesn't result in a 50/50 split in gender in the market is an indicator to me
that the cause isn't institutional, it's cultural.

You can't police culture and you shouldn't be trying to police the outcomes of
a "free market". I appreciate your perspective, but I think you've honed in on
symptoms, not the cause.

If the cause is institutional, fix it 100%. All hands on board, sign me up.

If its cultural - adapt. Cultures will also adapt in-time to the individuals
that make up said culture.

~~~
rayiner
To me, equality of opportunity means "substitution equality." _I.e._ you
should be able to swap someone's gender and the way the external world treats
them should be identical at every step.

~~~
TheLilHipster
> I.e. you should be able to swap someone's gender and the way the external
> world treats them should be identical at every step.

This is equal outcome in my eyes, not equal opportunity. It's a stance of
absolutes, a "perfect-world" scenario - a practical impossibility.

You've got to align your goals and perspectives to the reality of the world.
Men and women are genetically and physically different which manifests in many
different ways culturally. There are so many variables here that I'd be
writing an essay if I wanted to list everything that shapes my bias - but the
point I'm getting at here is; as individuals we're all different in varying
ways and this is a great thing (I'd rather not be genderless, featureless
clones).

Focusing on eliminating negative bias is great, sure. But its not a gender
issue and should never be institutionally enforced as such. Hell, cultural
issues and differences should never be institutionally enforced in my eyes.
It's just trading in negative discrimination for positive discrimination.

------
Spooky23
IMO the reason is that most IT wasn't really engineering until fairly
recently. Back in the 90s, which weren't long ago, you could make a ton of
money without really knowing anything at all.

Nowadays those people are senior leaders. So they do what people do in these
situations: gather the tribe. (Aka old boys network) More than in any other
line of business that I have seen, IT has lots of old school ethnic and
cultural fiefdoms. Bro guys, various south asian groups, school alumni, etc.

The places I have worked at that had more women in technology also had fewer
of these networks.

Look at the story about the dude stealing tech from Google, starting a fake
company to get bought out by his pals at Uber. In what other industry is
bullshit like that even possible!

------
bsder
It isn't.

If you want horror stories, ask lots of intelligent women from western
Pennsylvania why they are now sitting in Silicon Valley.

There is a big difference between a couple of socially inept brogrammers
making shitty comments and _every single relative_ asking you why you're
planning to go to college instead of getting pregnant like your sister.

~~~
viraptor
You're not saying SV isn't awful with this comment. You're just saying western
Pennsylvania is awful as well. It's not like it's some kind of a race to the
bottom.

~~~
bsder
I am adjusting your level of "awful".

"Awful" is going into court _3 times_ because the court couldn't get your
house title right because you are married but didn't take your husband's last
name.

"Awful" is being told you don't need a scholarship because you're just going
to get pregnant anyway.

"Awful" is being a female in Japan who felt that suicide was her only option
because if she got fired she was never going to get another job.

Does Silicon Valley need work on fairness? Yeah, on a lot of fronts. However,
almost all of them are malfunctions of "power". Trump wasn't grabbing pussies
because he's in Silicon Valley.

It's not specific to sexism, and it's not specific to Silicon Valley. It's
about the fact that the powerful feel they can abuse their position.

~~~
viraptor
Not sure I understand. Why do you want to adjust my level of awful? It's not
like we've got to prioritise - they're different areas. It's not like we have
to solve one to solve the other - the are problems that can be addressed at
the same time. They're both awful situations in their local context. I don't
think we need to have a race or classification between those, unless they lead
to difference in how we approach them. If it's just to say this is more awful
than that... what's the point?

~~~
bsder
I am pointing out that Silicon Valley sexism is an edge case and is a fire on
top of your stove at best while your entire house is burning down around you
_everywhere else_.

If you want a more geeky description and I'm being charitable, consider it an
Amdahl's Law problem. You're optimizing a tiny case while leaving the big case
go.

If I'm being uncharitable, it's a case of "Why do animal protesters throw
paint on old ladies and not Hell's Angels?"

People are happy to attack sexism in Silicon Valley because it's pain-free.
Attacking sexism around our current Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief is likely to
provoke a response that people are not prepared to face.

Unfortunately that's the _important_ battle.

------
pascalxus
>“Workplace conditions, a lack of access to key creative roles, and a sense of
feeling stalled” are the main reasons women leave tech.

Based on what I've seen over the last 10 years working at a variety of
software companies: both men and women get mistreated, roughly equally, at
least at the places I've worked. People often assume the reason they are being
mistreated is due to some factor of themselves (race, gender, etc), but this
is the fundamental attribution fallacy (see social pyschology) that colors our
perceptions.

But, i haven't worked at every company. Perhaps, there are some where
egregious conditions do exist, as mentioned in the article.

As long as the talent oversupply exists, it will be hard for men & women
affected by these adverse conditions to move to companies with better
cultures.

~~~
itsdrewmiller
But women are leaving at a higher rate than men. And if you look at the
diversity stats that come out it is usually the case that women are less
represented in management than even tech, which suggests their complaints
about access/stalling may be more correct in aggregate.

~~~
wry_discontent
There was an article a while back (I can't link it right now because I'm in
mobile) that showed that even when they masked voices, women did worse in
programming interviews.

The problem? They didn't bounce back from failure as well as men did. They
failed and quit, while the men continued to fail until they had success. How
can you know this isn't a similar effect?

~~~
wry_discontent
[https://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-
ma...](https://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-mask-gender-
in-technical-interviews-heres-what-happened/)

This is the article I mentioned.

------
A1phab3t
Are any of the commenters on this thread female?

I read or skimmed every comment up to this moment, and every single one sounds
like it's written by a male.

Perhaps I'm silly but I feel a female commenting here would have mentioned
their experience-- and nobody so far does as far as I could tell.

------
Main_
I was watching the "Silicon Valley" TV show and was surprised how women are
presented. Whether they are coders or non-tech, the theme went like this:

Women who Code: always ask fellow men for help with their coding skills or
just appear to not know what they were doing. Present them as sex objects,
where men are thinking of them just for sex

Women who can't code: generally presented either as stupid, dumb or as
assistants of men who knew better.

It seem that Hollywood is also complicit in presenting women as sex object.
But I wasn't sure if this really is the truth about the culture in general in
SV.

~~~
prostoalex
> Women who Code: always ask fellow men for help with their coding skills or
> just appear to not know what they were doing. Present them as sex objects,
> where men are thinking of them just for sex

Carla played by [http://www.hbo.com/silicon-valley/cast-and-crew/alice-
wetter...](http://www.hbo.com/silicon-valley/cast-and-crew/alice-
wetterlund/index.html) was a prominent woman coder with none of what you
described exhibited.

Granted, I can't think of any other female coding characters on that show.

Did you mean the HBO "Silicon Valley" show or a Bravo TV series with the same
name (later re-branded "Start-Ups")?

~~~
Main_
I meant the HBO one. I didn't see Carla yet, I'm in season 1 still. But so far
it's not really women friendly.

------
username223
I think most of it can be explained by this:

> The percentage of female computer- and information-science majors peaked in
> 1984, at about 37 percent. It has declined, more or less steadily, ever
> since. Today it stands at 18 percent.

In an environment that's over 80% male, not to mention largely young and/or
single, women will have a rough time. I don't think SV is necessarily any
worse than any other similar environment (e.g. infantry, oilfield work), but
that's not high praise.

~~~
justincormack
You don't think to ask why the ratio of women has halved?

~~~
username223
I do, but I don't have a good answer. Maybe 65/35 is already beyond the
cultural tipping point. Maybe women, who are more mature at college age and
now make up a sizable majority of the undergrad population, realize that there
are better options than tech.

It's a bit off-topic, but this old Phil Greenspun article comes to mind:
[http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-
science](http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science)

~~~
ForHackernews
> realize that there are better options than tech.

What would those be? Tech is relatively easy, relatively highly paid, it
involves no hazardous work conditions, and it can be done from almost anywhere
in the world with good internet connectivity.

~~~
username223
Travel nursing, for some people. Instead of putting in hours sitting and
staring at a screen (which is somewhat hazardous in the long term), you work a
3-month stint for premium pay, then do whatever you want until you need more
money.

Or if you like interacting with people more than machines, sales and marketing
are universal skills that are always in demand.

------
convolvatron
ok, just to start let me acknowledge that sexism is pervasive in tech as well
as elsewhere.

but maybe Silicon Valley is awful to everyone. the reality distortion field
that sustains the notion that these people are special, in fact gods among
men, twists the normal social contract into something unrecognizable.

put that in the context of a fairly sexist society, add a healthy dose of
people who are in tech because they couldn't hack it in the normal world, and
voila

------
HoppedUpMenace
Everyone has a bias, plain and simple. You don't overcome the bias with
programs or incentives, it takes a fundamental change of attitude among the
people perpetuating the bias. Its something that should be acknowledged and
pointed out but not forced down people's throats.

------
supercanuck
Because Silicon Valley can't even agree there is a problem.

Just look at this thread of all the people whining for more data on this
supposed "problem". Some of the folks won't be happy until there are secret
Amazon Echo's tabulating all the shitty comments and passive aggression in
every office or emails being scanned and categorized for domineering and
condescension.

and even then you'll get a bunch of "correlation doesn't equal causation,
dummy!"

~~~
jdietrich
I will not apologise for being driven by evidence. If we accept claims we
agree with on face value, we lose the moral high ground to reject claims we
disagree with on the basis of evidence. Without good evidence, all is lost. We
do not blithely accept the claims made by Trump, nor should we blithely accept
the claims made by our allies.

If sexism is a major problem in the technology industry, it should be easy to
produce data demonstrating that fact. Until we understand the magnitude and
nature of the problem we face, any attempts to find a solution are, in a very
literal sense, completely misguided.

~~~
joshuamorton
So what counts as evidence? Differences in hiring rates, different percentages
of the workforce, pay gaps, lack of advancement, mountains of anecdata?
Because it seems like when confronted with data, people are quick to shout
"correlation" and "cultural factors".

~~~
flukus
> So what counts as evidence?

Solid comparative studies that account for confounding factors. Something
obviously not taught in gender studies.

------
mgarfias
Cuz geeks are often assholes.

------
throwawaysbdi
I don't get why this isn't obvious. Software is seen as the wild west of
engineering. Exciting, competitive, reckless, sometimes brutal.

It's like Wall Street, selling cars, working oilfields. The popular perception
has been fuelled by megafounders who struck gold, becoming the richest people
in the world by their mid 20's. SV is in a 40 gold rush for the next big thing
and it doesn't seem to be slowing down.

For all sorts of reasons that have been beaten to death, most women won't
stick around in such a field.

For gender balance to return in our lifetimes software engineering would need
to lose much of the existing culture

~~~
nazka
But what does it have to do with gender? Yes SV is highly competitive but are
we in a place where it's common for men to put down women just because of
that?? It seems extrem to me.

------
candiodari
Silicon Valley is awful to many groups. From Spanish speakers, to non-
homeowner natives, to women.

I feel like maybe we ought to give some attention to the situation of the
masses of Spanish speakers in the bay area. They're certainly facing far worse
than women in tech companies, and it's a much more fundamental problem.

------
mybrid
Engineers are a __holes. How the negativity manifests itself is different
between genders but the fact remains, Engineers are a __holes. Nonstop, 24
/7\. As a software contractor I interview more than most I can tell interview
horror stories that will peel paint. Has little to do with my gender though.
Key man is common problem in the valley. Some person makes themselves a key
man in the company and then reign down holy hell on everyone around them. This
scenario plays out every day in Silicon Valley. The point is the problem is
much larger than just how women are treated, but how people are treated. If
you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen is the mind set. Its a dog-eat-
dog world and I'm wearing Milkbone shorts, as they comedian quipped. Root
cause is not gender specific. Root cause is mean people in general. Mean
people are going to be mean people, independent of gender. It doesn't help
that Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, Bill Joy, Scott McNealy, Larry Elison, Steve
Jobs are pretty much mean people role model CEOs people understand being mean
as necessary. It would be interesting to redo this study and swap being mean
for gender as the bias. I have no data but I suspect that being mean is a far
bigger factor than gender bias. At a minimum being mean plays a large role and
if addressing part of the root cause is not part of the solution then all of
the bias related solutions are sure to fall short.

~~~
sudosteph
If everyone was respectful then of course the problem would resolve itself.

But imagining for a second that the story did somehow manage to get statistics
and quantify the "mean"-ness of an individual, there would still be case for
sexism being a factor that uniquely impacts women more negatively.

For example, many people are somewhat "mean" but 1\. Are these people only
mean to women? 2\. Are they "meaner" to women than men? 3\. Are they mean in
different ways to women? (ie, sexual harassment is usually only towards women)

Interesting thoughts though. I wonder though if emphasizing a more radically
respectful culture in general would make a difference. It would definitely
curb the resentment that men feel over stuff like diversity hiring goals, but
without data, we do not know if it would meaningfully make women and
minorities experiences any better.

