
No, I Don't Want a Ticket for the Women's Luncheon - glazskunrukitis
http://stronglikebool.com/post/2013/04/10/No-I-Dont-Want-a-Ticket-for-the-Womens-Luncheon
======
swombat
At the (alarmingly high) risk of being completely misunderstood, I for one
think the whole "sexism in technology" is an issue that isn't worth sparing
time to think about.

Some people are jerks. That's true of all contexts of life. Jerks should be
shunned not because they are sexist, but because they are jerks. If a guy
who's a jerk starts a company, he'll probably hire other guy-jerks, miss out
on having some balance on his team, and have a crappy company no one wants to
work with. If a non-jerk guy starts a company, he'll probably make efforts to
create an environment that's as respectful and balanced as he is, and not hire
jerks. Respect is important - I wouldn't hire someone who's consistently
disrespectful, no matter their gender.

I'd argue that the reason why there's a whole "women in technology" drama
going on at all is because a lot of people (quite independent of them being
male or female) in the tech scene are jerks. (this is also why this is an even
bigger problem online, because as we all know, a large proportion of people
follow the GIFT theory online and act like complete assholes, making
statements that would get them ejected out of any social situation)

Why are there so many jerks in technology? We could spend forever discussing
that, but probably for the same reason that any successful industry attracts
jerks, male or female.

The problem isn't worth worrying about in a generic sense. I look at this as a
"intelligent, civilised person vs jerk" problem, not a "male vs female"
problem. That problem is as old as the world, and as someone who (I hope) is
not a jerk, I don't deal with it using generalities, but targeting specific
jerks if they can't be coached into being civilised.

In other words, if you identify someone who's regularly being a jerk, deal
with them. If you're in charge and you're creating an environment where people
are being jerks, look in the mirror.

Otherwise, don't waste time thinking about this "issue".

Edit: Worth adding that this doesn't mean it isn't worth thinking about the
issue of sexism in general - that is something where we still have to make a
lot of progress, especially in some parts of the world - but that's not
specific to technology at all.

~~~
calibraxis
I think the problem is that, under sexism (and this generalizes to other
-isms), males generally don't know they're being jerks. They're not being
jerks by the standards of their culture, but the culture is sexist.

For example, I know brogrammers, the kind who use pornographic female imagery
in their workplaces and talk slides. The guy who identifies most with
brogrammer culture (and makes such slides) is otherwise an incredibly nice
guy, everytime I've observed.

Take an extreme, like slaveowners. Does anyone think they were all
stereotypical jerks (aside from their institutional role), or grew black
mustaches to twirl?

Anyway, I'm in technology, and that's where I can make the most direct impact.
So naturally, sexism in tech concerns me.

(And BTW, one insititutional problem on HN is that males outnumber females
greatly. I keep that in mind when I see which female voices tend to get
upvoted — and which don't. The ones which blame females' attitudes, rather
than analyze sexist culture?)

~~~
claudius
> I keep that in mind when I see which female voices tend to get upvoted — and
> which don't. The ones which blame females' attitudes, rather than analyze
> sexist culture?

With 95% of the usernames here I have a hard time telling whether the writer
is male or female, so how could this be the basis of an up-/downvote bias that
is greater than the usual noise?

~~~
calibraxis
We can search hnsearch.com for "poll gender". Males consistently outnumber
females more than 10X. We can predict some likely outcomes of such a
voting/commenting system, which I think are borne out by evidence.
([https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=po...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=poll+gender&sortby=create_ts+desc))

(Edit: and this linked article is clearly written by a self-identified female.
Hope I understood your question correctly.)

~~~
Davertron
I think what he's saying is when you're upvoting/downvoting someone, you don't
actually know whether they're male or female based solely on the username.

~~~
claudius
Exactly (though my username might be the one exception to that…) – the post I
replied to specifically said that apparently only _female_ voices were getting
up-/downvoted or that this was only a concern for female voices, so I am a
little confused about it.

~~~
mtrimpe
I interpreted it as which _kind_ of female voices got up-/downvoted: the ones
that go along with general consensus or those that are critical of male
privilege.

~~~
belorn
People who try to accuse a society with generalized claims like "male
privilege" get down voted because they are non-specific, non-discussable
"facts", negative, and non-constructive in nature. Comments with those
attributes are in direct contrast to a discussion board or for that matter, a
scientific mind.

Comments that are specific, who's facts is discussable, are constructive in
both identifying with facts what is wrong, and suggest solution in a
scientific manner will be up voted.

It doesn't matter if its male or female voice doing this.

~~~
wonderzombie
As mtrimpe says, there's plenty of discussion that goes on here which does not
have a scientific basis. It's a rigorous standard which is unrealistic to
apply across the board.

And I'm sure it's just a coincidence that we as a male-dominated community get
especially skeptical whenever feminism comes up.

~~~
belorn
There many people here with skepticism on this board when argument based on
anecdote is stated as facts. You might think that this is because of the male-
dominated community, but I see the same skepticism when people bring up claim
about security by obscurity, the speed of statics vs dynamic languages, flat
vs non-flat design and so on. As long the arguments are demanded to be taken
on faith, people here rejects them most days.

Why normally demand performance tests and security validation on claims
regarding software, but I hear people argue that somehow we should not demand
any proof for anything related to sexism? In what way is it unrealistic to
demand that people test and confirm statements such as "irc comments are the
major reason why women don't participate in software projects". I for one
would like to see the average number of sexist comments on 100-2000 observed
IRC channels over a set of months, and compare that to a control group of irc
channels not related to software development. More or less?

Testing and verification is not unrealistic. Its is unrealistic to demand that
we don't ask for it.

------
PakG1
I don't get the not wanting to attend a luncheon like this. Men have had their
boys clubs for a long time. Why can't women have their girls clubs?

If she had a bad experience clothing teddy bears, sipping cocoa, and talking
about boys, that's not the fault of these types of events. That's the fault of
the event organizer. You don't swear to never receive cash from someone again
because you once got burned by receiving counterfeit money.

When I was in high school, I was part of the science club. Ironically (I guess
because I'm a guy?), one of the events I helped to organize every year was the
Ms. Infinity Conference, a conference where young girls were invited to learn
about opportunities in science, hear from women in science, learn about what
was interesting about science, etc. I can assure you there was an agenda that
kept the attendees focused on the subject at hand. It was respectful and
hopefully helpful and inspirational.

~~~
stmchn
While I agree it would be silly or her to refuse to go just based on some club
she was in in high school, I'd be willing to bet she's been exposed to more
women in tech groups throughout her career as well.

This is just speaking from personal experience but a lot of these groups are
the "clothing teddy bears and sipping cocoa" variety. It's a little bizarre
actually how patronizing some of these events are and it's all self-imposed.
It's just too easy to fall into a circlejerk of meaningless talks and
discussions about sexism and empty compliments, awards and recognition. I know
that's kind of a generalization and not all organizations are like this but I
doubt I'd ever go to a women in tech luncheon again either.

~~~
PakG1
Self-imposed is an interesting phrase. Interesting anecdote:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandberg-sitting-at-
th...](http://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandberg-sitting-at-the-
table-2013-3)

------
stmchn
I'm really glad to see an article like this and it's exactly how I feel about
a lot of women in tech events. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only woman who
feels this way and it's a betrayal to denounce these groups in the midst of
all these gender debates we're having in the hacker community.

I joined a women in tech group in college when I started Computer Science. I
was super excited and sincerely believed in the cause and I threw myself into
it 100%. By the end of the semester, what had I accomplished, really? I had
made countless posters and pink ribbons and cutesy giveaways for our school
fair booth and what felt like zero progress on making things better for women
in tech. Instead, it was just a monthly meeting where we patted each other on
the back without really doing anything.

I'm sure there are groups out there that accomplish real and admirable things
but I think it's far too easy to fall into just self-congratulating each other
and approaching all the wrong issues.

~~~
astrieanna
I agree with you.

It may be that I'm just partially missing the point of the groups, but I think
that what I was actually looking for from women-in-CS groups is "doing very
technical things with other women". Most women-in-cs/tech groups I've
encountered are more "doing/talking about female-focused things with women who
are technical".

Do you think there are groups that do what I was really looking for?

~~~
stmchn
There was a blog post a couple days ago that said it really well:
<http://trishkhoo.com/2013/04/i-knew-exactly-how-she-felt/>

"that’s what happens when we hold events for women in IT when there aren’t
that many women in this industry – we tend to broaden the definition of women
in IT."

There's so few women in tech that groups like this tends to draw some women
who are not even remotely technical (I remember for our women in tech group in
college, we held an annual networking event where we invited "real women
industry professionals" but the vast majority of them were marketing or HR).
I'd like to optimistically think that "women that do technical things with
other women" groups will become more prevalent the more women enter the field.
I'd love to join a group like that but it's difficult in my area where there
are two female CS students in my senior level classes (one of them is me).

------
subsystem
"I don't know, I couldn't bring myself to go."

This made the argument far less interesting. Preconceived notions are easy.
Exposing yourself to something with an open mind, less so.

------
_delirium
I don't think there's a bright-line answer for when having groups dedicated to
specific issues or points of identity is useful and when it isn't useful. Some
women find meetups specifically aimed at discussing issues related to women in
technology useful, and others don't. The woman who wrote this article doesn't,
and appears to be generalizing, based on a rather limited understanding of
feminism and not having even attended the event in question, to argue that no
other woman should either.

You find some similar splits of opinion relating to LGBT organizations: some
people join them, attend events, etc., while others studiously avoid them and
sometimes even resent their existence or any implication that they should
attend.

------
claudius
What I never quite get…if feminism is exactly the same as humanism, why the
hell invent a new word for this wonderful, 200 years-old concept?

~~~
JonnieCache
Because there's a crossover between feminism the philosophical worldview,
which is arguably very close to humanism, and feminism the activist movement
which has the rather more immediate goal of liberating women from the
threat(s) of physical violence which apply to them specifically. Obviously
that kind of thing requires a banner for people to rally under.

But you're right it's a pretty nebulous thing. I guess that's why people keep
trying to redefine it with successive "waves."

EDIT: also feminism isn't exactly a recent thing either:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette>

~~~
madaxe
I find the whole "threat of physical violence" thing objectionable,
personally.

Sure, men are generally bigger than women, but culturally, men are trained to
not raise a finger against women, whereas women are trained to have no such
compunction.

Apocryphal, I know, but I have never, ever, ever, and never will, raise a hand
or my voice to a woman, yet have been on the receiving end of domestic
violence more than a few times. I'm not a small chap, at 200lbs and 6'3", but:

I've been stabbed in the leg by a stilleto (a heel, not a dagger), for
accusing a girlfriend of cheating with my housemate (she was).

I was given a fractured eyesocket by another ex who pushed me down the stairs
while she (and I, admittedly) was drunk, "because".

I can cite plenty of other examples of woman-on-man violence immediate to me,
but shan't, as my point isn't one of "oh but women are the perpetrators", but
one of "humans are the perpetrators".

In a world where practically anyone can lay their hands on an object that in
_any_ hands can become a weapon with ease, I don't think it's valid to say
that "domestic violence is a result of men, and women, specifically, are its
victims".

~~~
samastur
I am sure you can, but statistics are not on your side. Domestic violence is
mostly done by men. I hope your choice of companions have improved since.

~~~
madaxe
Statistics are derived from crime reports. Men do not report domestic violence
against them by women. I went to hospital for "sitting on a shoe" and
"tripping and smacking my face on a bannister".

Ergo, whatever statistics you're looking at, sample bias, sample bias, sample
bias.

------
shared4you
The site seems to be down for me. So, Webcache:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:strongl...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:stronglikebool.com/post/2013/04/10/No-
I-Dont-Want-a-Ticket-for-the-Womens-Luncheon)

~~~
darxius
Looks like even this link is having problems

~~~
erre
Click "text only", at the top-right corner. The Google Cache version loads the
original images, and this sometimes makes it stall as well.

~~~
darxius
Ah yes, thanks that worked.

------
realrocker
The women who are beating their "bosoms" to get more attention, probably come
off as irritating to some people. But the matter of the fact is, IT "is" a
male dominated field. It's not just about women equality in the sense that
they should be treated "equally" and not "fairly". As long as the balance of
representation is tipped towards men, these women, however loud and tangential
they might be, are needed. They are like lightning bolts attracting debate. If
everyone just shuts up, there is danger of passively moving back to an even
more male dominated sector.

------
mtowle
I hesitate to write the following, because I don't see anyone say it - maybe
I'm not looking in the right places?

But Stephanie's description here... it's of course non-coincidental that the
teddy bear party is para 1, the luncheon invite is para 2, and both were held
under the guise of Celebrating Women in Tech. (I know, I'm Captain Obvious
SS3.)

Which makes this maybe 10 blog posts I, personally, have come across (just me,
maybe not you) written by women in tech who all have low opinions of Women in
Tech conferences/Tech Conferences, _Guest Starring:_ Women. Reasons for the
low opinions vary from post to post and/or writer to writer (I can't tell
which). If you're reading this, you're familiar with all of them and their
various refactored forms, so we don't need to reiterate.

It can't be a coincidence. It just can't be random that so many of these
meetups and luncheons and what-have-you's, according to Stephanie, et al., are
all teddy-bear-terrible. _I've never been to one, so I have zero clue - all I
have to go on is blogger opinion and my own flawed guesstimations of the
writer's basis for opinion (intellect, lived experience, etc). So if, after
reading the next two paras, you think I'm indeed taking crazy pills, you need
to tell me._

It would seem to me, to speak freely, that the common thread in that links
Encourage/Celebrate/Defend Women in Tech and teddy-bear-terribleness is:
organizers with an agenda _other than encouraging/celebrating/defending women
in tech._ Like, okay, yes, Mrs. Weber had her heart in the right place and
just Didn't Get It, but I don't mean her. I mean to submit to you that there's
a kind of response bias/selection bias/something-or-other bias at play that
makes it so that the organizers putting on these conferences are extremely
likely to volunteer themselves for lowercase-p political reasons. If I had to
guess, I'd guess that they're i) Vitamin-C junkies ("C" for connections, i.e.
networking), and ii) they've (rightly?) identified WiTC as their perfect
target, their mile-wide bullseye. In an industry of subdivided technical
interest after subdivided technical interest, of high/impossible standards,
harsh feedback, and of fickle audiences whose attention spans are exactly
equal to the number of milliseconds it takes them to hit CTRL-T.... WiT confs
are guaranteed high turnout (by tech meetup standards - and if you haven't
attended a meetup without a buzzword in the title, don't talk), they're
guaranteed to be lauded (by some vocal fraction), the content standards are
Marianas-low, and the "return customers," whatever fraction they represent,
are amazingly passionate toward the subject and therefore you, the organizer.
From the look of it, WitC organizers may as well have invented a perpetual
orange juicing machine. Or if any of you read Phantom Tollbooth as a kid,
"Subtraction Soup" (the more you eat, the hungrier you get) but like with lots
of Vitamin-C in it or something and also the secret ingredient is heroin.

Oh and as for why there aren't (m)any good organizers, i.e. the kind that
hated the teddy bear factory: if there were an equation that described Eternal
Septembering, it would include p^3 where p is how mainstream party-political
(as opposed to body-political, the way Assange uses the terms) the topic of
discussion is. So like r/politics has seen several geological epochs worth of
Septembers at this point. The bigger and louder and more influential your pet
WiT conference grows, the faster Jezebel & Co. will show up and start beating
their bosoms, as Stephanie so eloquently put it.

No TL;DR. First time submitting a crazy pills idea for public criticism, you
have to say things the way you've been thinking them.

------
LekkoscPiwa
Over 90% of children whose parents went through divorce end up with mother.
Somehow we came to believe that women can be as good employees as men and we
enforce it by law. At the same time we're still in middle-ages thinking that a
male can't be as a good parent as a female. It's all very one-sided. As long
as women get what they want. It definitely is not about _equal_ places in the
society. Women got more in the past 50 years, men lost their natural advantage
in the workforce but still are destined to fullfil typical, stereotypical
roles in their families (a.k.a 'providers'). I'm sorry, but it just doesn't
add up.

~~~
oinksoft

      Somehow we came to believe that women can be as good
      employees as men
    
      men lost their natural advantage in the workforce
    

To be able to make these claims so boldly .. you must have no shame
whatsoever.

~~~
LekkoscPiwa
so you need to take it out of the context to call me shameless? You changed
the meaning and you know it.

Better downvote without commenting if you have to employ dirty tactics like
this.

EDIT: typo meaning instead of meaning _s_

~~~
oinksoft
In what context could those statements (1) make any sense, or (2) be in any
way acceptable? And further, you wrote one piddling paragraph. Any reader can
plainly find the context: It is that you believe in gender roles so strong, it
sounds as though you are an early 19th-century time traveler who just hopped
out his ship. You conceal this in what I think boils down to, "men are better
at everything," but it's clear you think that women belong in the kitchen and
men in the mineshaft (especially when reading your other comments for this
article).

~~~
LekkoscPiwa
If traditional gender roles are NOT so strong with you, why you are the one so
strongly defending "XIX Century" role of a father "provider" who can't be a
good parent and gets the children in less than 10% of divorce rulings?

Somehow when talking about employment 50/50 rule is very forward thinking, but
if somebody would dare to employ the same rule to divorce court rulings it's
"19th century".

So when at work we are all forgetting about the traditional family rules, but
when in the court law having a divorce case we can be as sexist as we were 100
years ago?

That's your progress? As long as it is better just for one gender it is good?
That's how you fight sexism?

~~~
oinksoft
I'm not sure if your original choice of words was regrettable, or if you're
trying to cover a retreat. The tenor of your comments (here and elsewhere)
certainly suggests the latter. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and
assume the former .. never use "natural" when you mean "historic." And "
_Somehow (emphasis added)_ we came to believe that women can be as good
employees as men" implies that you find this unbelievable. Maybe you didn't
mean it that way, but that is exactly how it sounds.

~~~
LekkoscPiwa
No, no, no. I did use the word "natural" as intended. I did mean that there
are natural roles in the society for men and for women. As the proof I
provided that the natural roles are still there in the courts of law.
Apparently in the eyes of courts males are not as good parents as females.
That's the law. Because apparently that's _natural_. And you seem to be fine
with that _natural_.

If the natural order of things works in women advantage, you're fine with it
not being changed in the past 100 years or so. Let the courts rule in favor of
women to have right to the kids. You seem to have a problem only and only when
female sex is at disadvantage.

Let me be cynical here to get my point accross: I strongly believe that it is
natural for men to be income providers. As you seem to strongly agree that it
is _natural_ that women are the ones getting rights to the children in over
90% of divorce cases. So, isn't that dishonest to laugh at me that I believe
in natural sex roles in the society when you obviously do believe in them as
well?

You see, why don't we talk about this that it is 19th Century mentality to
give kids to mother in over 90% of the divorce cases? How came it works only
one way?

That's the point I wanted to get across, not to argue about single words
semantics.

~~~
oinksoft
You've really gone off the deep end now. At least you've completely
contradicted your "progressive" defense earlier, and now it is transparent
that you have antiquated views about very strong gender roles.

    
    
      So, isn't that dishonest to laugh at me that I believe in
      natural sex roles in the society when you obviously do
      believe in them as well?
    

Seeing that I haven't stated any of my own views, other than that I find yours
very distasteful, I've got a hunch we agree on very few things about this.

    
    
      And you seem to be fine with that natural.
    
      You seem to have a problem only and only when female sex is at
      disadvantage.
    
      So, isn't that dishonest to laugh at me that I believe in natural sex
      roles in the society when you obviously do believe in them as well?
    

Don't use me as your straw man, please.

~~~
LekkoscPiwa
>Don't use me as your straw man, please.

Well, I'm sorry, but you should have stated where you stand on the issues
instead of worrying about semantics. Not to mention first patronizing me and
now victimizing yourself.

Would you be in favor of a law requiring that the half of all the divorce
cases must end with the kids staying with the father?

