
This Industry is Fucked (2015) - Jaruzel
https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/this-industry-is-fucked/
======
_petronius
I think everyone jumping in to say "it's not the industry it's the people" or
"other industries are like this, too" is missing the point.

We tech people tend to think of ourselves as problem-solvers and intellectuals
who would welcome anyone interested in the domain, and who was willing to
contribute. And yet, many, many women in this industry feel marginalized
and/or excluded. _Even if_ that is based on the behaviour of a few bad actors,
_even if_ it is somethat that other male-dominated industries (like finance or
manufacturing) suffer from, why not try and fix this? Why tolerate the
behaviour, or shoot the messenger?

People who get angry at posts like this seem to feel personally attacked
somehow, which is a weird reaction. (I mean, unless you also harass women, in
which case you should feel guilty and take this peronsally, and you should
stop.) Otherwise, why not band together in solidarity with the women who
experience it, and help put a stop to it? It will make your industry better,
your companies more valuable, your workplaces more pleasant, and your
conferences more interesting. And most importantly, people who right now are
getting a lot of shit thrown their way will be treated better. There is
seriously no downside.

~~~
odiroot
> I think everyone jumping in to say "it's not the industry it's the people"
> or "other industries are like this, too" is missing the point.

To the contrary. It's exactly on point. We don't see anyone saying "school
industry is fucked" just because some teachers are abusing the students or
"airline industry is fucked" because pilots pick up stewardesses.

I find it really repulsive how it's somehow okay in our industry to throw
blanket accusations and demand collective responsibility.

This is a huge weakness of our environment. Something that actually makes me
consider leaving the industry from time to time.

~~~
bb88
>> ... or "airline industry is fucked" because pilots pick up stewardesses.

You're right. They don't for the reason you mentioned. They do it for worse
things:

[http://www.westword.com/news/frontier-airlines-subject-of-
ge...](http://www.westword.com/news/frontier-airlines-subject-of-gender-
discrimination-investigation-8004262)

[https://bossip.com/1365175/another-one-second-black-
female-d...](https://bossip.com/1365175/another-one-second-black-female-
doctor-says-delta-airlines-discriminated-against-her/)

[https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-bullying-intimidation-
and-...](https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-bullying-intimidation-and-
discrimination-against-women-on-el-al-flights)

------
fsloth
One charitable hypothesis could be raised that the ratio of harassers in male
population is constant, but in male dominated social groups the number of
potential victims is lower, thus the the frequency of harassment events
females suffer is higher than in social groups with a more balanced ratio.

I have no statistics for or against this.

The test we need is: How often are individuals in social groups with skewed
sex ratios who are of the rarer sex in the said group sexually harassed, and
is this ratio skewed in software engineering.

Generally, from what I can gather from the anecdotal evidence of my female
friends, a certain percentage of us men in general are assholes. It seems that
as a matter of fact they have to suffer the real possibility harassment where
ever they are (not constantly, but they have to consider it a plausible
event). Which to a guy sounds just horrible.

~~~
fapjacks
I think that reduces further to: A certain percentage of _people_ are
assholes.

~~~
fsloth
With the life experience I have, I would claim there is a strong gender bias
here.

I'm a heterosexual male, pushing 40, not too bad looking. No one has ever
asked me to sit in their lap, grabbed my but, catcalled after me, or
"jokingly" appraised my breasts or other body parts. I've never been anywhere,
where I've had to consider the possibility of rape.

How often do you hear females lurking in dark parks, just to hunt down men who
they can rape?

Yes, sexual and psychological violence goes both ways, but still females are
more often the victims.

It might be totally symmetric in female dominated groups with males being the
victims.

What ever that is, males don't get their buts squeezed in elevators by random
strangers. Or I'm missing from some action I'm not aware off.

~~~
belorn
You have never seen a drunk woman acting unappropriated to a man? Odd, as I
see that all the time in the city during weekend nights, or hotels near
conferences. I would go as far as saying that its everyday activity in bars.

The reaction is practically always the same, ie that the man ignores it or at
worst tells the woman to please stop hitting/yelling/acting inappropriate, and
the woman either blowing it off or laugh it off. If the man complains more he
will most likely hear "man up" and just take it, which is the cultural image
of a male victim of female violence.

~~~
fsloth
"You have never seen a drunk woman acting unappropriated to a man?"

I've used my personal experience, sampled over thirty years as the metric.
It's the only data set I can approach with some certainty it's not polluted
with observer bias. I've never been _personally_ assaulted in such a way. I
did not deny the large spectrum of abusive behaviours that exist.

To quote myself:

"Yes, sexual and psychological violence goes both ways, but still females are
more often the victims."

The original post was about experiences of sexual harassment and I stated few
statistical reasons that come to my mind that can cause it.

There is a tendency for some reason to disregard these sorts of claims
"because that happens to everybody". No. That's just wrong. Two wrongs don't
make a right. Like in engineering, in social settings problems need to be
tackled one at a time. That some men suffer violent attacks from some women
does not make it right that some women are sexually assaulted by some men.

The male to female "sexual predator" pattern is a specific pathology that
exists and needs to be taken seriously. Just like female to male "violent
abuse without retribution" is another - but different kind.

Men don't need to "man up" just like "boys will be boys" is not an acceptable
defence.

I would like to point out that women were more like capital and not like free
citizens even in the most progressive countries until hundred years ago
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage).

Values and attitudes travel across generations. These affect stereotypes,
which affect our mental processing _even if one is against said stereotypes_.
There is a very good reason females can be still considered statistical
underdogs for a while - the fact that can be abused by predatory individuals
as a shield with impunity. The fact that these abuses happen, do not mean we
should not still be in general vigilant in upholding female rights for a few
generations still.

~~~
fapjacks
> with some certainty it's not polluted with observer bias

Except, of course, _your_ bias, which is pretty clear. I think you'd be
surprised at what we do to our own memories.

------
finid
_Ever since I started speaking at conferences and contributing to open source
projects I have been endlessly harassed. I’ve gotten hundreds of private
messages on IRC and emails about sex, rape, and death threats. People emailing
me saying they jerked off to my conference talk video (you’re welcome btw) is
mild in comparison to sending photoshopped pictures of me covered in blood._

I find that shocking. I know people say things about others to their friends,
but to actually direct that to another person is disappointing.

------
fmatthew5876
Guys who behave this way are the insecure loser types who are desperate,
thirsty, socially incapable, selfish, lacking empathy, unable to be attractive
to a woman, and unable get laid. If any of this describes you then pay
attention.

Get off your computer and learn some social skills. Google for advice on
dating, social skills, style / how to dress, seduction, and most importantly
how to get over your insecurities and psychological issues. There are tons of
great resources on all of these subjects for men. Become an actual player
women love to be around instead of an anti-social loser they despise.

We can talk about "the industry" and all this non-sense forever. The ugly
truth is that thirsty men harassing women is as old as the hills. The more
sexually repressed a culture or particular sub-group is (read: socially
awkward computer geeks), the more this shit goes on. It takes tremendous
courage and effort to transform yourself for the better if you weren't lucky
enough to be naturally gifted in these areas. It can be done, but most will be
too cowardly and too lazy to do it. Therefore, unfortunately I see no end to
this problem any time soon.

------
jaxn
I thought that this old post may no longer be as relevant. Maybe we have made
progress.

Then I read the comments on this thread. :(

We must do better.

~~~
coldtea
> _I thought that this old post may no longer be as relevant. Maybe we have
> made progress._

Since 2013?

Also, in human issues (as opposed to technology) there's no monotonically
increasing progress. There periods of the past that are way more tolerant and
peaceful than periods that preceded them, and vice versa.

Like the sixties gave way to the selfish seventies and eighties (and macho
Reaganism, etc), like the cosmopolitan Europe of the 20s and 30s gave way to
the Nazi hell of the late 30s to mid-40s, like the Roman republic decayed into
the rule of crazy emperors, etc.

------
roomey
A recent, and difficult to listen to, ted talk around harassment on social
media this by Ashley Judd.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/ashley_judd_how_online_abuse_of_wom...](http://www.ted.com/talks/ashley_judd_how_online_abuse_of_women_has_spiraled_out_of_control)

It is beyond me where this level of vitriol is coming from, are women that
threatening?

~~~
henrebotha
An eye-opening idea for me was the concept that it is not women that are
fragile, but men. The slightest indication of a threat to masculinity sends
men into a fit of rage.

~~~
MagnumOpus
An eye-opening idea for me was the concept that generalisations that pertain
to millions (let alone billions) of people are invariably wrong.

If you'd have worded it "The slightest indication of a threat to masculinity
sends _some_ men into a fit of rage" you might have had a point, rather than
sounding like a troll.

------
ainiriand
I strongly agree. Some time ago I started recriminating some coworkers sexist
attitudes, now I have given up fighting against the current, no more fighting.
And in the advertisement industry is far worse.

------
superplussed
I think you could easily retitle this as "Men are fucked", or probably closer
to the point: "Boys are fucked". It's a male dominated, youth-oriented
industry, and all of the sexism and harassment that a woman will encounter is
an outgrowth of that.

This isn't to excuse the behaviour, but merely to ask if there are any
examples of young-male oriented industries that have better behaviour?

~~~
RantyDave
The harassment is not due to being a male/youth dominated industry, but a
large one and by definition incredibly well connected. It's easy for a very
small percentage of idiots to make a very large noise.

We need to be finding these people and getting them out of our industry on a
permanent basis. They can go work on a landfill as far as I'm concerned.

~~~
masklinn
> We need to be finding these people and getting them out of our industry on a
> permanent basis.

Sadly every time that's tried the freeze peaches crowd descends and claims not
being able to send death threats and say that jews should die is persecution,
and anyway she was probably a slut asking for it.

~~~
FeepingCreature
To be fair, every time that's tried the social justice crowd takes it too far
and tries to kick people out for holding the wrong opinions, even if they
never actually harassed anyone.

Good intentions do not protect from being corrupted by power, who knew?

------
throw2016
There are always going to be disturbed individuals. The important thing is
they are recognized as such and not diffused into the male collective.

The shocking thing for men to quickly realize from all the women speaking out
is they are relating eerily similar stories and there seems to be a rather
large number of disturbed men than one would have thought.

The problem in tech more than other professions is there are far too many self
important individuals who will latch on to anything to think less of others to
maintain their inflated sense of self. The whole mythlogy of 10x engineer,
genius programmer accentuates this. This is not just a job, its identity.

To these neanderthals the idea that women have brains as good as anyone's has
not 'registered' and its convenient to think of women as lesser then them and
their place as 'unearned'. They lash out in any way they can, abusive and
agressive behavior anonymously, and via politics and put downs in the office.
The internet has opened the floodgates for mentally disturbed indivuals to
launch persistent and dedicated rampages against individuals with zero risk
and consequences.

I think it important to distinguish between normal people and those clearly
struggling to come to terms to their social environment. It's even more
important for organizations to quickly identify such individuals and get rid
of them. Once there are consequences people fall in line. Only zero tolerance
works for bigotry.

------
g105b
This industry is so young and naive. Also arrogant for thinking it's the only
industry with a problem.

All industries are f*cked.

It's the human condition.

~~~
coldtea
> _All industries are f_ cked.*

Not much of an answer. And not qualified with any metrics either.

~~~
DanBC
One of your comments is dead. I don't know why, I think it's a word filter
maybe.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13442908](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13442908)

------
kbart
It's not original in tech industry. Probably every girl/woman that has at
least a bit significant online presence encounters similar problems. My GF is
an amateur photomodel, you should see what messages she constantly receives.

------
agounaris
This is irrelevant to the industry. And I feel offended by attacking the
industry. Banking, retail, fashion, you will get such comments everywhere. A
lot of men are jerks indeed but this is a social problem, not an industry one.

~~~
toor2
>Banking, retail, fashion, you will get such comments everywhere. A lot of men
are jerks indeed but this is a social problem, not an industry one.

This is a moral equivalence fallacy, a red herring of sorts. You are saying
this women's frustration with her industry is irrelevant to her industry
because a handful of unrelated indusries have problems that could be similar.

This argument ignores that CS/IT is largely male and notorious are for this
disgusting behavior. It's one of the only industries that had a greater
percentage of women in the 80s than it does now. There are industries that do
not suffer from this problem at all or nearly to the same degree.

In full, this women's expirence is directly related to overt mysogeny in
industry culture and labeling it as a "social problem" willfully ignores this
problem in tech thus perpetuating it further.

~~~
FeepingCreature
Notoriety is not direct evidence. People can be notorious without being
guilty. I don't know whether other fields with a similar proportion of men
have similar problems.

Studies highly welcome. Hearsay somewhat less.

~~~
toor2
>Notoriety is not direct evidence. People can be notorious without being
guilty.

This argument is a fallacy fallacy. Sure I made a unsubstantiated claim but it
doesn't contradict or invalidate my general argument.

>I don't know weather other fields with a similar proportion of men have
similar problems.

How is this relevant? I get the feeling that you read my comment looking for
some insignificant hyperbole you could attack in order to derail my general
argument to perpetuate your willful ignorance enabled by your male priveldge.

>Studies highly welcome

How about listening to the _women_ in tech like the one who wrote the blog
post we are commenting on?

------
codecamper
Programmers are kittens, from my experience. they are usually some of the best
people. They are often shy as well.

~~~
FeepingCreature
Sampling bias, exacerbated by what you said. Sampling programmers you see what
you observe, but sampling _messages received_ you select for the bad crowd.
Especially considering how cheap messages are and the outsize effect a bad
apple can have.

~~~
concinds
A lot of it can be managed. This probably isn't something most people want to
hear, but Justin Bieber and Donald Trump don't get harassed. They don't read
their Twitter notifications, and have people reading their mail for them.
Public figures need to risk-manage, for example you'll never meet the Goldman
Sachs CEO at some random bar, for obvious reasons. You also can't send him an
email, since you don't know his address.

CEOs, men and women, ancient and contemporary have had to find ways to avoid
crowds and their envy/anger/pettiness for centuries. Just make yourself less
accessible.

~~~
MagnumOpus
> You also can't send him an email, since you don't know his address

Not true. E-mail addresses of famous people are quite public, and your e-mail
to lloyd.blankfein_at_gs.com or billg_at_microsoft.com _will_ get read. Though
- like you point out - it will likely be read by a team of secretaries or
aides and only flagged to Lloyd if the message is deemed important or you are
deemed important enough.

~~~
concinds
Interesting.

The point is that public figures have always had to shield themselves from the
mediocrity of crowds, because it's easier to free yourself up from that than
to change the whole society or industry.

------
concinds
Hopefully this will be constructive. It's a tough pill to swallow but it's
needed:

This is only a problem because of a) the immaturity of the average tech guy,
_relative to other professions_ and b) the lack of success with women of the
average tech guy, _again relative to the overall population_.

Tech professions attract _mostly_ left-brained people, and attract some
personality types _much more_ than other types. A tech guy is more likely to
be an introvert. He's also more likely to have poor social skills, which
relates to both A and B. It would be interesting to know if insecure
attachment styles are more prevalent in the tech industry (likely), if anxiety
disorders are more prevalent (likely; and someone with anxiety might be more
likely to spend their free time indoors harassing people than playing football
outside) and if low self-esteem is more prevalent (sadly, in my experience,
likely; obviously 'harassment behavior' isn't something to be proud of, so
doing it, while apparently desirable for some, would just result in lowered
self-respect for them).

This is _more prevalent_ in the open-source community, since there are no
selection standards. You need neither a degree from MIT or Stanford, or to go
through the tough Google interview standards, so you'll end up with the crap
that's left on top of the sieve.

This problem will not get fixed anytime soon, and certainly can't get fixed
through politics of any kind, since it's founded in personality and
psychology. Mandatory pre-school with screening of all children for attachment
disorders would help a lot, and hopefully someone reading this will be
convinced to promote that as a solution.

To those who would say this is just speculation and ad hominem: it's
_conjecture_ , not speculation, and can be debated. It isn't ad hominem: to
find a solution, asking "why" is necessary. There's no contempt here, though
some of what I said may not be nice, I'm not assigning lower worth to anyone.

~~~
RantyDave
I really don't care what the cause is, they can go. Why have them?

~~~
concinds
Go where? How do you get rid of them?

The problem is exactly the same as the following:

In an organization, you'll have some employees that are more psychologically
healthy, and some less. Some will have substance abuse problems. The employees
with substance abuse problems will be less productive, on average. In other
words, they're dragging the organization down.

There's no "getting rid of them". They'll just burden another company. Same as
here, in open-source, you can't "get rid of them", it's logistically
impossible.

This problem logistically can't get fixed through exclusion. It can only get
fixed by "raising the floor" (in other words, making sure that the most
troubled men become less troubled). Raising the median/average won't help.
Same as raising the median income won't help the people in poverty, raising
the minimum wage will.

In the original metaphor, since substance abuse and attachment disorders are
correlated, again the best solution is early detection of attachment disorders
in young children, and improving their situation.

Why not help the least fortunate? I can guarantee you, the kinds of guys
sending Photoshopped pics of bloody cadavers are not happy people. There's
psychological inequality just as much as economic inequality, though for
psychology, most people find it harder to be compassionate.

------
Timucin
I haven't read all the comments but must say this;

The behaviour she witnessed is not about technology, industry or gender -yet I
agree that the women is targeted more. It's just people when they think they
are unreachable, they can get away with it. Internet is the perfect place for
them to be themselves.

I am not saying it's how it should be but it's kind of unavoidable in the
current state of internet. So the best is dealing with this as you do in real
life: keep your distance, ignore them as much as possible, use your rights
when you can (let the authorities deal with them if there are threats for
example) and don't let them get into your skin.

------
gcp
[https://blog.jessfraz.com/](https://blog.jessfraz.com/) seems to suggest she
did not, in fact, quit the industry. (Good, it would only make the problem
worse, no?)

~~~
masklinn
> suggest she did not, in fact, quit the industry.

TFA's 5th paragraph states that she will not, in fact, quit the industry. Why
would you infer that she'd have quit?

~~~
gcp
Oh thanks, I actually misread that part!

------
Musaab
I'll just say that in Turkey I have worked with many female programmers and
different females on the periphery (ones who interact with programmers on a
daily basis, but may not be, themselves, programmers) and we do not have that
problem here. No one disrespects them or makes advances towards or anything
like that.

Not only that, but more and more women are taking Computer Science and getting
into programming here in Turkey.

I'm also an American (born and raised) so I'd have to say it's a cultural
issue, not an industry one. Fix your culture.

~~~
toor2
>it's a cultural issue, not an industry one

Industries have cultures. Cultural issues and issues within an industry's
culture are not mutually exclusive by definition.

>Fix your culture

That's the point of this blog post and conversation. We aren't going to fix
anything by skirting blame onto greater societal forces and continue on
business as normal

------
croon
Things every male (person) should be taught by their parents:

1) Would I do/say this to another male (person of a sex I'm not sexually
oriented towards)? If not, don't do it any other person/gender either.

That's basically it.

TLDR; Treat everyone as a person first and foremost, and a potential
partner/mate later.

------
zigzigzag
It was discussed previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9835375](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9835375)

------
Neliquat
Extrapolating your personal issues to a whole gender and industry is asinine
at best. Can we rise above this?

------
AnthonyLloyd
Awful. Report & publicly out them.

~~~
masklinn
Of course that generally ends up with even more harassment and basically
nothing done.

------
romanovcode
You could add [2015] to the title

~~~
rl3
The only reason this was posted is that the author has a recent technical blog
post trending on the main page right now, and it's quite good:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13442281](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13442281)

Judging from the disaster that is this thread, it should probably be flagged
into the ground before a flamewar starts.

~~~
Jaruzel
I posted it, with a 90% expectation of it going nowhere, and 10% expectation
of a few comments that showed the general viewpoint of a community that I felt
has some of better elements of humanity in it.

However what we got was, 80+ comments of basically flame war, and over half
telling her to 'get over herself'. :(

So based on that, then yes she's right. This Industry is Fucked[1]. And I am
ashamed to be part of it these days.

\--

[1] And it's not just sexism; The whole industry has been taken over by the
suits and wide-boys, who are busily destroying it from the inside out.

------
akjainaj
I think she means this video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qlLUf7KtAw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qlLUf7KtAw)

