
Ask HN: What's up with the trend of calling the Tech industry "sexist". - Jugurtha
It seems everyone thinks blaming the Tech industry practices for the lack of women is &quot;fair game&quot;. One ex Dropbox employee even went as far as saying that the lack of social life of people working there discourages women from joining (huh ? You work in Tech, expect hackers, nerds, and geeks. You go to jail, expect criminals. How&#x27;s that hard to understand? Let&#x27;s not even talk about: It&#x27;s none of your business what they do after work).<p>It is trendy, apparently, to blame the Tech industry. How evil are those hackers. Such nerds and socially inept making it hard for women.<p>But I recently watched a fabulous music video of Miley Cyrus -Jolene-. It was a beautiful song, great notes and lyrics with a 60&#x27;s, 70&#x27;s vibe.<p>I discovered that, it is, indeed, a 70&#x27;s piece originally. But watching the music video, all her musicians were males. And it got me thinking: Wait a minute, I don&#x27;t see that many women musicians.<p>By musicians, I mean people who play instruments (guitar, drum, base, keyboard, etc).. The band itself, not the lead singer.<p>It got me thinking: Why isn&#x27;t the music industry getting as bad a rap as the Tech industry is? I&#x27;m not hearing or reading mean tweets about how there are mostly male producers, male bands, etc..<p>I mean, what are the top 10 women rock bands who made History? And how come nobody is going on a rant about how evil and misogynistic and industry it is..<p>My question is: Why. Why everyone is almost exclusively only talking about &quot;tech&quot;..<p>I already know the answer. And can&#x27;t voice it because it became such a crime to step back, think it through and say something logical, because then I&#x27;d be called all names: You are not allowed to think, you&#x27;re only allowed to react, the same way everyone does, and just condemn and show outrage, to belong and fit in. If not, you are racist and misogynistic and homophobic and a bigot.
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tptacek
So, to sum this up, you feel like the music industry is at least as sexist as
the technology industry, and therefore the heat should be off the technology
industry.

~~~
Jugurtha
Not just that, but can be said this way: I I'm a guy and I approach a 100
women, and not a single one of them wants to get intimate with me.. Will I
blame these 100 women and find flaws in them, or will I see it for what it is
(cognitive dissonance) and ask myself what I'm lacking or _at least_.

To sum it up: If stuff isn't working for you in a lot of industries, maybe
there's a reason other than all those industries conspiring against you.

Can be said for hiring too, most guys I know complained about posting hundreds
of CV's all over the place and finding no jobs, and I put only one CV, in the
company I was interested in, and got a job offer (and all those guys said this
company only hires you if you know someone).

The least one can do is not to take himself out of the responsibility
equation, blaming others for all his misery.

Verbose answer. I don't blame the Illuminati or Area 51 for it. I can't say
more in less. It's _me_ :)

~~~
tptacek
I see. So, in addition to the fact that you believe the music industry to be
at least as sexist as the technology industry, and thus the exclusive priority
of efforts to eliminate sexism (if any such efforts are needed), but also
you've heard of guys sending out 100 resumes and getting only 1 bite, and
therefore concerns about sexism must be overblown.

~~~
Jugurtha
I don't think it is what I said. I know the guys who sent a lot of CVs, and
not getting a bite at all (hence the complaining they don't find jobs, and
blaming companies for being corrupt and only hiring people with connection: It
doesn't mean companies are saints, it just means companies recruits can't all
be incompetent people who only know someone-companies are successful, at least
some have got to be good at their job-).

And the music industry, from my outsider eyes, is at least as sexist -if it is
at all- as the tech industry, or more:

It's easier to be known as a hacker for your work, without people knowing who
you are, which gender and if you smell, than it is to be known as a musician:
I don't know if there has ever been a faceless rockstar, but there have been
faceless hackers. (I don't know what you look like, but I know your nickname
and admire your work: For all I know, you could be a woman).

My point is: There are some women who seem to be respected in the tech
industry.. What are they doing right that made them overcome any sexism that
would exist in their companies, etc..

I didn't mean to say it doesn't exist, I just meant that there seems to be
people for whom it was a hurdle, but somehow they managed to do well for
themselves. And if they can do it, why not strive for that for people in this
demographic (can be stretched to include arguments about racism (There's at
least one black man who's done well, and is the President of a rather
important country, if I were black, I'd say "Why not me, why wouldn't I have
that kind of success/achievement").

My main frustration is when people take themselves out of the responsibility
equation from the get go: "It can not my fault, let's find someone who's
responsible for my misery. Anyone in my situation with success is an
exception".. And the fact it's "trendy" to whine in blog post after blog post
about how unfair the world is.

~~~
tptacek
Alright. So, in addition to the fact that you believe the music industry to be
at least as sexist as the technology industry, and thus the exclusive priority
of efforts to eliminate sexism (if any such efforts are needed), and that
you've heard of guys sending out 100 resumes and getting only 1 bite,
indicating that concerns about sexism must be overblown, you are also aware of
some women who are successful in the tech industry. Therefore, it's hard for
you to believe that there's rampant sexism.

Do you see how vapid these points are when they're expressed in single
sentences, rather than 5 paragraphs? Because these points seem pretty vapid to
me. They don't even work as logic:

* Two wrongs obviously don't make a right.

* Your conclusion about sexism doesn't follow from the premise that there are men who have a hard time getting resume responses. For one thing, sending blind resumes is a terribly stupid job hunting strategy.

* Your conclusion about sexism doesn't follow from the premise that some women are successful. Sexism in the industry, no matter what level you might believe it to be at, obviously isn't homogenous across all companies.

~~~
selmnoo
It it possible for you to respond to a good faith question by _not_ being a
flippant prima donna?

I actually agree more with you than him, but my goodness you have the worst
attitude ever when you talk to people who have misguided notions on things.
Try the being nice approach once in a while if you want to convince others of
your viewpoints, rather than going berserk and putting a caustic contrarian
spin on everything.

~~~
tptacek
Probably not on this issue, no. But if you see me being a flippant prima donna
on some other issue, please do let me know. Actually, axe the "flippant" part
of that; it's just the prima donnaism that I actually care about. I'm sure
you're right that there's a strain of it in there.

~~~
selmnoo
I have called you out on this issue before.

Seriously, understand that the reason you'll be more effective if you're nice
on this issue is that a significant subset of folks who behave in a way that
keeps women away is because of the things that happened to them when they were
adolescents. A significant subset of them thought they weren't handsome
enough, tall enough, buff enough to ever be loved by a woman. And then they
lived their lives away from them, in their own cliques and IRC channels,
fulfilling their physical needs by porn and beginning to see the greatest
value of women not to be their personhood or humanity, but something that
provides material to jerk one off. I'm not pulling all of this out of my ass,
this is from my personal experiences of 15 years of spending nights with
programmers in person and in IRC.

To reorient their minds and thoughts you have to show them love, not belittle
them -- if you belittle them that's only going to frame the situation into a
confrontational battle where the other side will naturally start feeling the
need to defend itself just because it's their side.

~~~
tptacek
Respectfully: I'm not interested in coaching on gender equality issues. At
all. Not even a little bit.

However, if you see me behaving like a "flippant prima donna" on some other
issue, I'm happy for the feedback. I'm not _unhappy_ for the feedback here;
I'm just _not the least bit interested in it_.

------
0x420
Plenty of people have criticized the music industry for the things you're
citing, you just haven't been exposed to them, presumably because you follow
more tech news than you do music industry news. All industries should be
subject to those kinds of criticisms if it is warranted; some are better at
handling it than others.

~~~
Jugurtha
You're right, I'm not that exposed to it.. I just see criticism towards the
tech industry mainly because it's all over, all the time, and this may be my
mind being selective.

I wrote an answer[0] to an article GE shared on LinkedIn about the situation
of women in the Oil and Gas industry. They wanted to make it easier, and my
thoughts were that: Some things _are_ hard and you can't make them easier. My
analogy was that, if you can't stand blood, don't blame "Surgery" for being
the way it is and being filled with blood.

To each his calling, abilities, etc. Nothing is for everyone.

[0][http://mydamnthesis.tumblr.com/post/82126504664/women-in-
the...](http://mydamnthesis.tumblr.com/post/82126504664/women-in-the-oil-and-
gas-industry)

------
loumf
One thing to consider: does the success of newcomers depend at all on the
current power structures and wealth holders?

If it does, then some part of the success of new people is dependent on the
power holders tastes and biases, conscious or unconscious.

------
Zigurd
The tech industry was male dominated up through the 1980s. Very few women
graduated from technology oriented universities. It's not difficult to discern
the roots of sexism, and the lingering effects in tech in general, and
computing, specifically.

I don't know what music industry commentary you are looking at but sexism in
hip hop is pretty widely commented on. What's the analogy you are going for?
How might it excuse sexism in tech? I'm not getting it.

