
The Gray Zone - stanleydrew
http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-gray-zone.html
======
stanleydrew
The "gray zone" problem as stated here is that it is easy for two people who
are unlikely to develop a romantic relationship (say, two heterosexual men) to
form a close working relationship. But in order to tear down the glass ceiling
heterosexual men and women will need to form close working relationships, and
sometimes those are misinterpreted as more romantic than they actually are.

This is the most important paragraph:

"I think the path forward is finding a way to tolerate this gray zone and
accommodate it without simply shutting women out professionally. So I really
do not think these shit shows help women break into business. I think they
just reinforce the current paradigm where the people in power -- mostly men --
have reason to err on the side of shutting women out in order to protect
themselves from potential scandal or accusations or similar."

This is a very complicated issue, but I don't think we are well-served by
slandering one another on social media rather than having a reasoned
discussion. Unfortunately the claims made in the current debacle are not
permitting a reasoned discussion, either by mistake or design, which is
incredibly frustrating.

~~~
Loic
Where I am really surprised is that you have a lot of issues like that in the
computer/programming world (see related issues in conferences) where, we do
not have these problems in other engineering areas. I am is bio/chemical
engineering, working with women in basically all the fields from very men
dominated domains (oil and gas, auto industry) to mixed (pharma/food
industry), the only case I know of issues was in the army provider area. This
is where I am surprised, please note that my contacts are mainly in Europe.

Maybe another question could be why these issues are endemic to the
computer/programming world? Is it because all the other industries are pretty
conservative? We have families and kids when we go home and we are not
supposed to kill our social life by working insane hours to "ship". I have no
answers, but I am happy to be in a field where I can work with men and women
without these sexism issues.

~~~
facepalm
I'd say it's not even that common in the programming world either. But the
internet collects cases from all over the world, and the programming sites
blow them out of proportion (is there a Hacker News for bio chemical
engineering?).

There are sites that try to list all such incidents. If you compare them to
the number of people and companies in the field, you realize not that much is
actually happening...

I think feminists have also set a special sight on programming. I suspect it
is because it is one of the few engineering jobs that seem compatible with
women. Sorry for the stereotypes - I don't speak for all women, but consider
that with programming you don't get oil on your clothes, you don't have to
walk through mud all day, etc. That's why feminists think women should have
more part in programming (at least it's a theory...).

------
yummyfajitas
Michele raises a very good point. This is a problem.

The only successful way I've found to deal with it is rude honesty. "Sorry, I
wasn't interested in writing a paper with you, I wanted to touch your
boobies." "We can totally work together, but lets be realistic - under other
circumstances we'd totally be doing it."

Now it's all out in the open, and can continue in the relationship under
whatever circumstances are desired. Or perhaps not continue, in the case that
I want to make out and she wants me to prove theorems. Everyone's feelings
might be a little hurt ("she doesn't think I'm hot?", "he doesn't think I'm
smart?") but that can be solved by growing a pair.

Unfortunately, in the hypersensitive PC world that feminists are pushing on
the bigger players in the tech world, you simply can't do that. Too much of a
power imbalance - the woman can ruin your reputation with a few tweets. Since
there are so few women, the marginal cost to avoiding close relationships with
women is also fairly low.

No amount of moral posturing will change the incentives.

~~~
com2kid
I cannot determine if your comment is in earnest, or if it is an attempt to
create a parody of a comment that a sexist asshole would post.

Honestly, I cannot tell.

Now I do believe that if society made it acceptable to just outright ask, with
no hard feelings either way "hey, want to go out?" that everything would be
better.

I guess my point is that I see the quotes you put forth as being ridiculously
extreme examples of what would exist in the minds of only the most lowly of
savage males.

~~~
DanBC
The comment is earnest. The fact that people on HN make similar comments and
believe what they say is proof that sexism is a problem.

It's also why people flag submissions like this - the comments are full of
vile hateful idiocy.

~~~
yummyfajitas
What do you mean? What did I say that is either "vile and hateful" or "proves
sexism is a problem"?

~~~
vinceguidry
Because your proposed solution to possible working awkwardness is not 'growing
a pair', it's making an already awkward moment even more awkward, or possibly
scary. Now not only does she have to deal with your blustery bravado in the
moment, she also has to worry about unwanted advances in future situations
where you might be alone together.

What you seem to think is candid, useful communication is anything but.

If you are attracted to someone you're going to be working closely with, there
is a time-honored approach for dealing with it. You flirt. If you're good at
flirting, then it is non-serious and does not create a threatening atmosphere.
It shows off your positive personality qualities and hides your negative ones.

Most importantly, it gives the lady in question an out if she doesn't want to
go there with you, she simply doesn't respond. If she doesn't respond to your
flirting, then she's not interested and the stand-up, manly thing to do is to
_stop_ flirting, and carry on your working relationship in a completely
professional manner.

~~~
dhimes
I think you're on to something with the 'flirting' thing. Unfortunately, most
of us probably don't know how to very well- especially when it comes to
reading the other person's intent.

~~~
jamesaguilar
It is OK to get things wrong, too. I mean, ideally, you'll look for romantic
partners outside the workplace, but if you must look at work, it can still be
OK. If you flirt, you think the other person is flirting back, you ask them
out, and they reject you, that is neither sexual harassment nor a grave
offense.

Example approach (in our scenario, this is toward the end of a workday, which
is when you would want to do anything like this): "Hey, I've been having a lot
of fun working with you, would you want to get dinner together sometime?" "Oh,
I'm sorry, I'm [not looking for a relationship right now|seeing someone
else|not interested in you that way|...]." "Oh, shoot. Well, I'll see you
tomorrow then." (Go home.)

It may be a little awkward, but if you do things respectfully, then it will
probably not ruin the working relationship. And more importantly, you'll have
flattered the person you're working with, not creeped them out or made their
workplace environment hostile, not cemented yourself in their mind as a total
asshole, and not put yourself at risk for getting fired for harassment.

Of course, you will never do this to one of your reports or their transitive
reports unless you would like to lose your job. Only peers or members of
another org.

------
munin
okay I don't really know how to say this, but in my limited and man-centric
experience the sexism that I've seen has nothing to do with an ambiguous
relationship or sexual tension and everything to do with toxic attitudes
towards women. The guy who says "you should be making babies" to a woman
engineer is not trying to avoid some kind of "gray zone" caused by getting too
close to this woman and deciding between a professional or romantic
relationship, he's just an asshole. The guy who says "I don't hire women"
isn't doing this because he's afraid of falling in love with them, he's just
an asshole.

I think that this idea gets dangerously close to an idea that men and women
cannot be friends without romantic feelings spontaneously forming. I think
that's crap. It might be true when you're a teenager, but when you grow up I
don't think it's an excuse any more. I think that people use "women and men
can't be friends" as a lead-in to "and that's why women should stay at home",
and that's why it's super confusing to read about it from this perspective.

~~~
stanleydrew
The kind of sexism you describe in your first paragraph is incredibly easy to
see. It's the kind of sexism you'd see in a movie, and it does happen. But I
think we have come far enough to know that if someone said "you should be
making babies" seriously to someone else, it wouldn't be tolerated. In short,
I think your experience is definitely "limited and man-centric". Talk to your
female friends more and see if they agree with your experience.

I'm not a woman, but intuitively I would bet that the awkward gray zone stuff
is a much larger part of what makes women uncomfortable in an office setting.
In fact, I have seen the gray zone affect my girlfriends and close friends who
are women. It's a much bigger problem than the few true misogynists out there.

~~~
munin
I'm not sure I agree totally with you. I've talked about this a lot with my
women friends and in 2014 consistent complaints I hear are people using
diminutive or sexist language towards women in professional contexts. It's
just that blatant and it's totally tolerated, across government, academia and
industry. It takes a lot of effort to stick your head up and say "I'm sorry, I
don't want that to happen" and some friends of mine have just stopped trying
and go with it because fighting it and working professionally is just too
hard.

I'd be interested in seeing if the gray zone exists in an office that's absent
toxic attitudes towards women but in ten years of working I haven't seen such
an office. The women are uncomfortable because John leers at them when they
walk past his office, or everyone keeps asking Mary to take notes at the
meeting and fetch coffee, or Joe keeps talking about porn on his lunch break.
You should read Nancy Hauge's "Consulting Adult" series about life working at
Sun - it was depressing how little had changed in a corporate setting with
regards to the treatment of women! In my experience at least...

~~~
zobzu
im a guy and apparently im cute enough so that i sometimes get "sexy jokes"
from women at my office. Everyone sees it as good fun. Even me. It's not that
bad, and if anything I suppose I'm a little flattered - even if i've ZERO
interest in the person and I'm in a work environment.

I'm not making any joke back to them tho. It's risky, and I don't want
problems with anyone, anyway, I frankly think it's not worth my time.

I however see posts, tweets, blogs etc from coworkers who blame other men.
Example: "we're going bro-coding tonight, anyone wanna join?"

To them that means "women not allowed". It says brothers. Some even threaten
others of legal action and talk about it in public too, trying to shame
people.

The disconnect is HUGE. To be blunt, I think they're fucking crazy.

------
calinet6
I'll just say the only thing that occurs to me...

This is remarkably mature, and astute, and human. It touches at the reality of
the situation when you assume most of the players have good intentions. It
avoids sinking to the platitudes and trivialities that cloud this discussion.

It's enormously complex, beyond this. But this is a truth I haven't heard yet,
and it's part of the kernel of the problem.

~~~
secstate
Perhaps the most unsettling part of Michele's observation is that it is not
clear how to get around it. Calls for gender neutrality in the work place are
a bit like asking for world peace. There is no neutral, so long as sex and
instinct are involved.

When I am tasked to work one-on-one with an attractive female co-worker, shit
gets cloudy really quickly. I'm a happily married man. I telecommute. There is
no reason for these situations to be awkward. But yet, here we are. The gray
zone certainly exists and it will be a very tough nut to crack.

Basically, kudos to Michele for calling out the uselessness of public shame
sessions, and advocating a new tack. Because the old one sure as hell wasn't
going to get us across the finish line.

------
Difwif
I'm sure most people are as tired of this issue as it sounds the author is. I
finished the article and couldn't help feeling some sense of dread. Knowing
full well what should be the most controversial and opinionated comment will
likely become the most upvoted. Again the author will have to re-evaluate if
she wants to continue reading HN and if she decides to leave, our community
bias will continue to grow. This is one of the toughest issues that our
industry faces. Their doesn't seem to be a clear answer and because of that it
seems to be shunned. There's just so much momentum to overcome behind the
culture of our species, add on to the fact that we can really only agree that
it's "broken" with lots of opinions on how to improve it.

I don't have an answer and I'm not even going to try to offer one because I
honestly feel like I'm still far too entrenched in my own biases to really
offer something viable. My only wish is that more people would realize the
same and be less prone to slandering someone because they tried to help.

~~~
Mz
I am sorry it fills you with dread. I am actually extremely encouraged by my
recent experiences on HN and pleasantly surprised to see this piece discussed
in earnest. I hope that, over time, I will be able to blog about some things
that have been helpful to me personally in hopes of getting some solutions in
place. Since some people here are taking my premise seriously, that looks a
great deal more do-able to me than it ever has before.

------
__pThrow
I have found I often agree with Michele, but I think she makes some basic
errors in this piece.

1) That most power is in the hands of a few people, who at this moment are
primarily men, does not generalize to mean that most men have any power over
most women. Most men, most women, at work are powerless. Bosses, leads, vps
from other departments -- they have power and they are frequently women.

2) She frames the problem as one of active male behavior and passive female
behavior. Women are acted upon. Men at work want sex or romance -- I guess
women at work do not want sex or romance. It may very well be that at work she
does not want sex or romance. And my guess is that at work most men do not
want sex or romance. But there are some men, and there are some women that do.

That's not to say that her path out may not have some virtues.

I do think it would be good for everyone to turn the knob back down to 10, or
9, or perhaps even 3, and talk about the issues of sex and romance and sexism
at work, while recognizing this isn't a problem of "Men" and isn't a problem
of "Women" but is perhaps a problem of "homo sapiens in the 21st century".

------
oelmekki
My comment may appear incredibly naive, I'm sorry about that.

But I wonder if this gray zone is not simply the symptom of massive
loneliness.

I often say to friends that I'm surprised how much, when I'm in a
relationship, I see all (other) women as men. Even when other women try to
engage me into seduction play, it just makes me laugh or mocking them, just
like I would with men (providing they know I'm with someone, of course, or
else I try to be less rude).

This gray zone seems to me like people are incredibly lonely and craving for
sexual activity, and I think we can spot that in our societies way beyond
those "sexism at work" problems (the "dating" thing where you meet people you
hardly know, "social" activities like facebook, etc).

It could be also a thing for people that are prone to cheat, but I can't think
it's a majority of people.

~~~
NoodleIncident
Fair enough assessment. This problem applies mostly to people not in a
relationship.

Is that helpful? Lots of people are not in a relationship. Most of them would
like that not to be the case.

Also, you can't tell just when meeting people whether or not they're in a
relationship, so it's a problem regardless.

~~~
eric_h
> Also, you can't tell just when meeting people whether or not they're in a
> relationship, so it's a problem regardless.

Well, you can if they're wearing a wedding ring.

~~~
gfodor
Uh, that's not the same thing. Many (the majority?) of twenty something's who
are in a relationship are not married.

~~~
eric_h
Agreed, I was merely pointing out an edge case in the GP's generalization.

------
bittercynic
This is the most thoughtful thing I've ever read on the topic, and it gives me
some new insight into my own thoughts and feelings.

I'm a straight, happily married man, and count myself lucky to work with many
gay and straight men and gay and straight women who I enjoy being around. Of
those four groups, I have noticed that I'm the least at ease around straight
women, and I think this article does a good job of explaining the reason for
that.

With the other three groups there is far less risk of friendliness being
mistaken as flirtatiousness.

------
err4nt
To be clear: I may be in the minority

I'm a young male. Maybe too young to matter, but I do not, and I can't stress
enough, I literally give no merit to the gender of my coworkers.

I was I raised to treat everybody equal. In my family as well as in general
society today, women are MORE highly educated on average than men. And that's
a great thing!

Men can act weird toward women at times, and men will never understand what
that feels like. But I AM a man. Trust me when I say that women will never
understand what it feels like when a man talks to a man in the absence of
women.

I know people can be dicks, they can be terrible, and that's across both
genders, but there IS a 'straight man to straight man' dynamic that women will
always be protected from that isn't terribly pleasant.

TL;DR: The old boys club isn't fun for all boys, it's still only fun for the
ones on top and that doesn't represent most of us.

~~~
SolarNet
Which is why you shouldn't participate in it?

I realize there are serious societal pressures to conform and be part of that
'old boys club'. But that is exactly the problem, your support of it (even if
mostly implicit by merely being present, is made explicit when you laugh along
with the sexist jokes or nod in agreement) is what perpetuates your male
privilege. I have a lot of privilege too, so I'm not talking from some
theoretical moral high ground of being less privileged than you. But I try not
to participate.

It's one of the hardest things to stand up to society and your peers. But next
time, try walking away. It isn't as good as telling the others why they are
being bigoted, but it's better than contributing.

And I realize that isn't always possible. But the next time you get a job, or
promotion, and you get that 'old boys club' vibe. Realize that someone else
might have gotten that if they had been male (or white, or straight, or
Christian, or American, or ...).

~~~
tomp
> But that is exactly the problem, your support of it (even if mostly implicit
> by merely being present, is made explicit when you laugh along with the
> sexist jokes or nod in agreement) is what perpetuates your male privilege.

The choice, for me and him and maybe other people (men included) is very
simple: we can either accept reality, conform to the "old boy's club" (you
call that "supporting it"), and progress in our careers, or fight moral
battles we cannot win and stagnate professionally or even be fired. It's easy
to take the moral high ground from a position of power, but from a position of
a young male, it's not very wise.

Personally, I find that all great employees I've worked with have also been
great people, so I haven't had this problem myself. But I think that your
position is not the most reasonable.

~~~
SolarNet
Did you not read what I said? Conforming is supporting it! It's a hard choice
to not to, but it is still a choice to conform.

So it may hurt your career. Many people don't have careers to advance because
of the assholes you are "conforming" with. And so you perpetuate it. Well
done! So brave! And people wonder how people who aren’t white or male (or
straight, or christian) make less money.

~~~
tomp
> Did you not read what I said?

Have you?

> And people wonder how people who aren’t white or male (or straight, or
> christian) make less money.

And you're suggesting that therefore I, too, should make less money, even
though my choice not to do so will make no difference in the world.

Sorry, but I don't think your demands are reasonable. I'd rather make the most
money I can (without abusing others), and help others when I'm already in
power.

Speaking of morality and supporting the evil status quo, how many loafs of
bread did you throw away this year (while people in India are starving), how
many Chinese T-shirts have you bought (while the child workers making them are
worked to death), how many times did you not donate your hard-earned money
(while the children in Africa are dying of malaria), how many times did you
not protest while your government's agents were abroad, killing "terrorists"
and their children without any judicial (or any other) oversight? Morality is
a bitch.

~~~
SolarNet
> And you're suggesting that therefore I, too, should make less money, even
> though my choice not to do so will make no difference in the world.

It's great that you may one day be powerful enough to help with equality. But
in the meantime you are going to be fine with gaining that power by abusing
your privilege? How's that equality coming along then?

Doing the right thing isn't a fucking cost/benefit analysis. What you
(apparently) participate in is the fucking problem [0]. The next time you
think, 'why aren't there more women in tech', go look in a fucking mirror.

> Morality is a bitch.

Yes but I at least protest those things. And I do volunteer, and donate.
Apparently because the world is horrible we can all just be passive about the
injustices we can fix. Go fuck yourself.

[0]
[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/319212/Why_Women_Quit...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/319212/Why_Women_Quit_Technology)

~~~
tomp
I'm going to ignore your insulting tone... :/

> But in the meantime you are going to be fine with gaining that power by
> abusing your privilege?

What I had in mind (and I tried to communicate to you in the above post) is
more that I will be _using_ my privilege, not _ab_ using it. If you find that
objectionable, what else do you suggest? That I give my flat to the homeless
guy, so that he will be forced to move out in a month because he won't afford
the rent, just because I was lucky enough to learn programming while young and
can make a good living now? That I move to India and use all my money to buy
food for the poor and when it's gone starve along with them, just because I
was lucky enough to be born in a first-world country?

Maybe I misunderstood you, and you're only suggesting that I don't perpetuate
inequal, discriminatory treatment towards others. If so, I totally agree with
that and always try to do my best. If, however, you're suggesting that I
should put myself, my family and my future at a disadvantage just so that I
can fight some class war against unspecified enemies for an unspecified gain,
I'm not going to do that. And even if I would, I would dedicate my resources
to more serious problems than sex inequality in tech.

~~~
SolarNet
There is a middle ground I would hope, and you do appear to be in it.
Apologies about the tone, but getting screwed out of opportunities by
(supremely obvious, to the point I suspect less obvious ones in other cases)
'old boy' connections is infuriating. Especially when I actually like the
people benefiting from it, and none of them actually like participating in it.
So I'm taking my anger out on anonymous people on the internet while I still
have no empathy for them...

Perhaps it's a definition problem. When I say 'old boys club' I'm thinking of
those groups of powerful people who scratch each others backs for jobs. People
who promote based off of networking rather than qualifications, and who often
discriminate against many other groups, often not promoting them in favour of
under-qualified people who are part of the network.

I'm not saying tell them they are stupid or anything. But perhaps stop
participating in their group?

------
tunesmith
I don't know, if the author's only experience of male coworkers is that they
either don't want to work with her, or they want to get busy, then it
basically sounds to me like she is surrounded by a bunch of arrested-
development coworkers with poor boundaries.

Restricting this to heterosexual dynamics, a bonding platonic interaction with
the opposite gender very well might feel different than a bonding interaction
with the same gender. But that doesn't by definition mean that it has to be
distracting, with the participants wondering whether they're about to shag.

That's what having boundaries is all about. It's what professionalism is
about. It's erring towards the professional interpretation rather than the
suggestive interpretation.

If some other coworker sees you laughing together and gets all gossipy about
if something is going on, then that is simply an immature reaction, and it is
not professional. I just can't quite fathom simply "tolerating" a gray zone
when it really sounds like people need to do a better job of shutting it down
and being professional.

I see snippets of this conversation and it's hard to wrap my hands around it
because it just seems like the entire conversation is stuck in a paradigm from
a few decades ago. It sounds like people in this industry just need some more
experiences with having positive, bonding professional experiences with
compatibly-gendered coworkers, without it getting all weird and dramatic,
before they'll start to accept that it is actually normal and expected, and
that there's no reason to get all distracted by whether or not there's any
subtext there. Maybe that's all it is, just something where the community
needs more experience and socialization...

~~~
InclinedPlane
> * it basically sounds to me like she is surrounded by a bunch of arrested-
> development coworkers with poor boundaries.*

That's extraordinarily common in the industry, especially in startups.

------
zobzu
This article is much more reasonable that the previous one i've read from you.

Yeah, women will be women and men will be men. There is always some kind of
sexual attraction between the two, and there are always physical and even
mental differences between the 2 genders. It's how we're made.

There will always be a divide - its about how we behave about it:

This seems to be much more of an issue in the US than anywhere else tho. The
US default expectation seems to be to always over-exaggerate stuff, and always
takes the over-defensive position.

It's seen as "good person". It's seen as OK for the minority to attack the
majority and is considered legitimate regardless of the attack or argument
being made (in this case, women using their gender as a weapon, so it's really
just a minority within the minority).

Sometimes the same happens with black vs white, and so on, too.

In fact "think of the children" attacks are based on the _exact_ same concept.
(remove internet neutrality, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!)

If anything, it deserves the ones who really get harassed IMO, because
eventually those might not be defended when they really should be.

------
hrktb
Somehow I'd hope puting homosexuality more in the spotlight, with more
realistic depiction in fiction would indirectly aleviate this problem. Even if
it would still be statisticly low, making it that two men closely working
together face the same gray zoning problem would move the problem from a
gender problem to a generic human relation problem involving the majority of
workers, and we could see effective solutions to it.

------
aragot
> So I really do not think these shit shows help women break into business. I
> think they just reinforce the current paradigm where the people in power --
> mostly men -- have reason to err on the side of shutting women out in order
> to protect themselves from potential scandal or accusations or similar.

As a male, I approve. I'd like to talk more about my needs regarding this
topic, but it's hard to do in a perfectly politically correct way.

------
Ryel
If I reply to this with constructive criticism, would that be sexist?

~~~
MartinCron
Why don't you try?

------
eruditely
Is she really, a "prominent" engineer?

But yes, this grey zone is valid, but people cannot pretend that these black-
swan type gender scandals do not make men err on the side of caution when
employing women; so they do not awaken the unconscious twitter opinion cartels
one day unintentionally.

The fact that this unconcious opinion farming cartel will pick on the good
guys(PG)[1], and not only the bad-guys show that they are indiscriminate in
their wake, and these people don't give a shit before publishing on valley-wag
or going to twitter.

[1]no scare-quotes, because they are good guys, IE Paul Graham)

------
jellicle
While I agree with the writer that sometimes mating behavior can be observed
in office settings, that's not actually the main problem in the tech industry.

The problem in the tech industry is that there are a lot of misogynist
assholes who are put into positions of power and encourage that behavior in
their businesses.

The average techie is a male who has spent a lot more time interacting with
his computer than he has interacting with women. He does not understand women,
he fears women, and what he fears, he hates.

~~~
selmnoo
> The problem in the tech industry is that there are a lot of misogynist
> assholes who are put into positions of power and encourage that behavior in
> their businesses.

It's really, really weird that I keep reading this. Are you sure you want to
single out _tech industry_ as having a lot of assholes? Because, I'm a person
who's come to the tech industry after being in various different industries
over the years -- particularly, I've worked alongside a lot of mechanical
engineering folk, sales folk, and construction folk. And let me tell you, _far
and away_ the tech industry folk have been the least misogynistic I have ever
had to deal with. I can't even tell you the kind of things my fellow engineers
used to tell me, how they depicted their relationships with women (invariably
viewing them as just sex objects, etc.).

I'm not really sure why there isn't much public and vocal outrage about
problems in those industries. I totally don't understand it.

~~~
gfodor
Two potential explanations: the tech industry can't stop talking about itself
on twitter and blogs. How many mechanical engineers do you know that spend a
large % of their day procrastinating by surfing the web and participating in
meta-talk about the industry. Our day-to-day tool for doing our jobs also
_just so happens to be_ a worldwide communication device. Just like the media
loves to report on themselves, the tech industry loves to post on the internet
about the tech industry, so the effect of a single asshole's comment is
magnified by a social network powered shitstorm, further entrenching the meme
that tech is full of bigots and causing a flood of discussion and hyper-
analysis of it.

The second explanation is that the tech industry is actually less mysogenistic
than others, as you have noticed, but ironically due to the lack of widespread
mysogeny like you see in areas like finance, when an "incident" occurs, a
lively discussion happens _because_ there is a critical mass of non-sexist
males, not due to a lack of them. Off course, this feeds into the meme which
cements it more as accepted truth, despite any real data or study showing that
tech has a above average rate of male mysogeny.

~~~
nostrademons
Another possibility is that the tech industry is currently a desirable place
to work. People generally don't care if you exclude them from jobs that they
wouldn't want anyway, but if other people are having a lot of fun, changing
the world, and getting paid for it, it really sucks if you're excluded from
that because you lack a Y chromosome. Hence when stories appear about
"software eating the world" or Google engineers getting paid $300K/year with
$6M retention bonuses or startups getting sold for $19B after 4 years of work,
everybody wants a piece of that, and any hint that it may not be a perfect
meritocracy is problematic.

------
ryanpardieck
I think a lot of the problems regarding the gray zone come from not being
clear, not understanding boundaries, and not knowing when to move on. These,
of course, are things I've learnt the hard way ...

And anyway, is the gray zone itself really such a problem? Being close to
someone and sometimes wondering whether there's something "else" there seems
pretty normal. Maybe we should just be OK with a bit of ambiguity in some of
our friendships. It won't kill you ...

I think a few principles, once applied, make navigating the gray zone almost
trivial:

-First, if you think you might be interested, engage in light harmless flirting and gauge the response. If there is no/negative response, then move on. The flirting should truly be harmless. If you friend feels uncomfortable, unsafe, or demeaned, then you have flirted wrongly. Apologize and move on.

-If you've determined you're interested, decide whether it is worth acting on. Sometimes it isn't - for instance, if you're married, or you're just too busy or whatever. Just move on.

-If you're interested and it's worth acting on, promptly express interest in a way that is clear and firm, but not embarrassing or intimidating to your friend. Do _not_ express interest if you are not ready to take "no" for an answer. If you can't take "no" for an answer, just move on and try to figure out why. Where a lot of people go wrong here is instead of actually asking, they half-ask and half-demand. _That_ is going to frighten your friend, and you probably won't be friends any longer.

-If you're rejected, accept it and don't lash out. If you goofed and made things super-awkward and uncomfortable, then lighten the air with a silly joke or something (ie make it clear that you're not going to flip, and that you're cool). Lashing out is going to create a toxic environment for everyone, and it's going to suck. Instead, deal with your feelings on your own, and continue to treat your friend with respect. And, of course, move on.

It's maybe a little awkward to continue working next to stop who rejected you
--or who you rejected--but in my experience, it really isn't that bad at all,
and it goes away quickly. What's much worse is to ignore one of these steps,
and then have things end in a massive immature blow-out. Just take
responsibility and be clear, and don't have undue expectations.

And it's often not too late to save yourself. In one case I was a massive
douche, but I owned up to my behavior, apologized, and said I hoped we could
eventually put this behind us. We did eventually, and it was fun.

Basically, you just have to be considerate and know when to move the hell on.

------
michaelochurch
The problem isn't sexism. It's _corruption_ , and it's all throughout
business. Most of "business" has nothing to do with discounted cash flows or
customer needs or building new products, but about leveraging the emotional
vulnerabilities and drives of corrupt humans with more power than they
deserve. That's 95% of it. That's why more is learned in MBA school at the bar
than in the courses.

Aside: the above also explains why being a non-drinker (like me, for health
reasons) impedes your career. When you get sloshed, you see a much wider range
of human behavior (some people hitting their worst) and you learn things that
are otherwise impossible to learn about guarded, intelligent, 25+ year-old
people with a lot to lose. You can read about that stuff (how to negotiate
enormous deals with irrational humans) in books; or you can get hammered with
10 other people and _interact_ with it, on a smaller scale where the points
(unless you get severely fucked up in a bar fight) mostly don't matter.

The problem is that most of the work isn't hard, and doesn't require talented
people. If the work is legitimately hard (i.e. someone might fail) that's
viewed as a management failure. This means that anyone can be "groomed" to
appear as a leader and as a success, which means that the whole process is
already (justifiably) under suspicion. Ergo, the promotion of a woman (even if
she's the most talented, because it's impossible to tell in most cases) raises
doubts. People assume she was mentored because she was female and pretty, and
not because she had the most potential. It's wrong, but you can expect those
kinds of attacks in a system where everyone already knows that corruption is
the norm. People will use whatever they have to discredit someone who rose
faster than they did: female and pretty, boss's son, "had something" (i.e.
extorted his way into the sun). It doesn't have to be true.

The sexism battle here is a minor one, really, in the much grander theater of
corporate dysfunction. What's more obvious is that the corporate world is
_not_ a meritocracy. Most people are forced to work 3 levels below their
ability and become deeply resentful, and anyone who gets promoted on potential
is immediately thrown into suspicion.

The sad thing is that the companies that were coming closest to fixing this
are the ones prominently using open allocation: Valve and Github, the latter
now under attack. (To make it clear, I'm not taking sides because it's pretty
clear that almost none of us have _any_ real information at this point.) With
managerial power being a major source of corruption in the past, it seems wise
to get rid of it. But it's also clear that getting rid of _all_ management
functions is a non-starter. Even if you do everything right in a no-management
company, people will distrust you (was HR asleep on this? you mean there _was_
no HR?) as soon anything goes wrong.

