
Sexism in IT - The JavaOne incident - koevet
https://plus.google.com/110635974610895095726/posts/fTygidL33cx
======
bruce511
Adam probably didn't mean to be offensive, but that is perhaps worse. The folk
who laughed at the joke weren't meaning to be offensive either, but again,
that's not a good thing.

There are no easy ways to deal with a situation like this - one group will
advocate a quiet word with the speaker, and while that educates him, it does
little for all the other potential future speakers in the room who learn from
that session (or worse, put the joke away for use later on.) A public display
of offense makes for an uncomfortable moment, which in turn should lead to at
least more awareness that some material is offensive.

Incidentally, one measure of how offensive it is, is to replace the group in
question with the most "politically incorrect" group you can. So had the
phrase been "explain it to a black man" would it be funny? I think perhaps
not.

As a rule you should never make fun of any group, of which you're not a
member, from the podium. Just. Don't. Do. It. Self-deprecating humour is
almost never offensive, even to the group you're a part of. Well almost.
Clearly we can all imagine some exceptions to that rule too.

Yes the computing industry is enormously sexist, and it's behooves both men
and women to point out instances of this sexism when they occur. Only by being
vigilent can we educate people. Small steps that hopefully will lead to an
erradication of this.

well done Shifra.

~~~
mayanksinghal
Though the situation is quite bad in the industry, and female developers might
be feeling alienated but in this particular scenario, I feel that the speaker
is been bashed out on proportion. The speaker is reported to have publicly
apologized at talk and later of twitter. Still continuously and personally
blaming/quoting him as done by Shifra and later commentators on the linked
thread seems unnecessary. Quotes like "Weasel talk, +Adam Bien." really make
the conversation less friendly and less fruitful.

 _Incidentally, one measure of how offensive it is, is to replace the group in
question with the most "politically incorrect" group you can. So had the
phrase been "explain it to a black man" would it be funny? I think perhaps
not._ "Explain it to Java Programmers" or "Explain it to your mom/dad" are
acceptable and are used quite often. The former is considered a really amusing
anecdote and used really frequently at Python Conferences. Now, I was a Java
developer sitting in a Python conference who was already familiar and decently
comfortable with the fundamentals being presented on stage - the presenter was
not a Java developer (so not a self deprecating joke) and still if I stand up
and make the person apologize and then repeatedly blame him of _languagism_
(?), it would not be welcomed by both Java or Python developers!

[edit: typos]

~~~
goodside
Both of my parents are IT professionals and former CS professors. If you're
substantially older than I am (I'm 24) it's not hard to imagine assuming that
everyone's parents are clueless about programming, just for generational
reasons, but you're not going to be able to assume that forever.

~~~
mayanksinghal
I am not, I am just 22. And while my parents are professors (no CS), they are
not so comfortable with computers as I am. Now, this is true for most parents
- and when someone uses the phrase "Explain it to your mom/dad" it is not
meant to be interpreted as "Explain it to dumb cavemen" and it is not, in most
cases (if the content of the actual explanation is not dumb). If some one has
Bill Gates, Dennis Ritchie or Steve Jobs, they are (1) Lucky (2) Minority. I
am not sure whether the statement "Explain it to your mom/dad" would be
offensive to them. Point I am making is this:

1\. Explain it to X. Where X is _known_ to be a minority should be an
acceptable statement. If substituting X with "Black people", "women" etc are
the only cases, where the statement becomes offensive - it is unnecessarily
tabooed.

2\. (Also in reply to the other sarcastic reply to my comment) The mom/dad
example is not the one where you have choice. The context of the statement has
little to do with the choice and more to do with numbers in the industry.

------
DuncanIdaho
Making fun of/uttering/referencing prejudices targeting women == Sexist.

Using prejudices targeting men == Witty and Feminist.

I am a man. I am not a rapist looking for victim. I am not a bumbling buffoon
who can't change a light bulb without falling off a ladder. I do not beat
children and women.

I work hard, I go and do risky and unpleasant shit (digging through human
excrement to unclog the sewage, etc.) so the rest of my family doesn't have
to.

I also make more than I spend and generally try to make myself as useful as
possible. I also like kids, though I don't have any of my own yet, I like to
hang out with other peoples kids.

And I am sick to tears of my gender being portrayed as monsters preying for
our next victim.

~~~
dgabriel
What on earth are you talking about? At which technical conference were such
accusations or jokes about men? Where in the technical community are men
characterized as buffoons or monsters to general feminist approval?

~~~
_debug_
The parent did not say that the jokes about men were at technical conferences.
I believe he was referring to all domains, not just programming / technical
conferences.

~~~
dgabriel
This is hacker news, so I would expect we would target technical arenas. I'm
not going to argue the other stuff, because it is completely off-topic,
derails the conversation, and is generally uninteresting to other readers. I
have also found that internet arguments about men v. women get ugly and out of
control very quickly.

------
xiaoma
His joke compared communicating with an alien to communicating with a woman.
And then according to her own comment she decided to take extreme offense and
disrupt the entire conference.

> _"I actually got up and made him apologize for his stupid and offensive
> joke. On the way out, one woman thanked me and one man told me I should
> "relax." (I told him he should shut up.)"_

I would never, ever want this sort of person at a conference or a workplace.
Equating the communication with opposite sex to an alien is a common, common
theme. Reaching down, coming up with the worst possible way to take it and
then cutting him off, disrupting the conference, gloating online is just bad
behavior. She even recounts her belligerence to a fellow member of the
audience who probably just wanted to hear the presentation.

Explaining to the speaker afterwards how his words could be taken would
probably have had a genuinely beneficial effect. He might even feel some
empathy for what she had to say and come up with a new joke. But he probably
feels very little empathy for her at all after her attempt to turn a molehill
into a shitstorm.

It's exactly this sort of PC-motivated antagonism that I miss least about
America.

------
voidr
This type of reaction seems a little extreme to me, it was just a silly joke,
I wonder if the opposite would have happened how would the men have reacted?

I like jokes like these: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BxckAMaTDc>

By all means women speakers should make similar jokes instead of overreacting.

I get the feeling that some women just can't take a joke. Of course there are
more serious cases, but stuff like this should be ignored.

I understand that the lack of women in tech(especially open source) is a
barrier to entry for women, but reactions like these only make that barrier
wider. I once read a story about someone who said will never hire a black
person, because if he ever fires him for some reason, the guy will come back
with his lawyer and say he was fired because he was black.

~~~
bruce511
Voidr,

>> I get the feeling that some women just can't take a joke.

Your sentiment will no doubt be shared by many. The point with offense though
is it's not up to the joke-teller to determine if a joke is offensive or not.
It either offends a group, or it does not.

You're right, Adam just made a silly joke. You see it as a silly joke.
However, and this is the point, now that you've been educated to the fact that
the joke was offensive, what is your response?

Your reaction, that they should not have been offended, is unreasonable,
because the joke was not at your expense. Would you become the aribter for
racial jokes? Native American jokes? How about child pornography jokes?
Religious jokes? Why then jokes about a minority gender group?

I suspect, and I mean this with respect, we could find some sensitive area in
your life, or anyone's life which would be "just a funny joke" to some, but
which are deeply offensive to others. Yes, we live in a "politically correct"
world, but there are still lines as to what is ok, and what is not.

And the receiver is the one that determines those lines, not the sender.

~~~
DuncanIdaho
How do you propose a world will look, where we have gone so far, that
offending other people is made taboo?

I honestly propose that some people should realize, that life is not all
unicorns and cute puppies.

Or as it goes: If you think that I have an attitude problem, perhaps you
should check that you don't have a perception problem.

~~~
mjg59
There's a pretty strong distinction between generally offending people in a
social situation and specifically offending a minority in a professional
situation. Life's not all unicorns and cute puppies. But when someone goes to
a professional event, they shouldn't be told that some aspect of their biology
makes them less capable in that field.

------
andos
"it's just a joke!"

Nope. It's joke after joke after joke, and also inappropriate behavior in the
workplace, in conferences, in pubs. Day after day. What is just one post in HN
for us happens _constantly_ to a lot of women in our industry.

Such bringers of the future we are.

~~~
electromagnetic
Agreed, the women in the audience weren't offended by the joke. They were
offended by the laughter.

No one cares if one idiot is sexist, racist or whatever. They care that the
industry is a boys club for men with the social maturity of 12 year olds and
it's absolutely pathetic when there's guys on HN saying essentially "I don't
get whats wrong with that joke".

I don't care if I get downmodded for saying this: HN is the best community on
the web because of the sheer intelligence displayed on a daily basis by our
regular commenters. If our regulars genuinely think there's something okay
with this Adam guys public idiocy then I've lost a huge amount of respect for
this community. In fact if the IT community really thinks this way, then PG
should probably quit his efforts to better it and use his great talent
elsewhere that needs it.

You're a scumbag when you make fun of the vast minority. You're a comedian
when you make fun of the vast majority. Adam isn't a comedian, he wasn't
telling a joke he was making a public display of patheticness.

------
suprgeek
Calling out the speaker and making him apologize - Gutsy move, well done

Making an official compliant to the organizers for _story about a mildly
offensive joke_ that was never actually made at said conference - Bordering on
overreaction but maybe ok

Writing a G+ post "...JavaOne Incident" publicly slamming said person
repeatedly in spite of multiple apologies - Overreaction gone nuts (possibly
hurting the original cause - leading to - "this woman can't take a harmless
joke" in the minds of more than a few people)

Ageism/sexism/*ism needs to be certainly discouraged but proportional response
has its own merits.

~~~
z_
Some might even call it attention whoring.

------
vilda
I heard many times women making jokes about men and especially their common
incompetence in fashion. Interestingly, I never thought about that as sexism,
although I should.

~~~
craigmc
Are you suggesting that slighting the intellect of women and doing likewise in
respect of the fashion sense of a (minority/majority?) of men are equatable
wrongs?

And if you are (p.s. they're not), then what relevance does it have to this
topic?

Should the original author not have taken offence the 'joke' she heard during
a work conference because at various points history an unspecified number of
women laughed at the shirt you were wearing?

As an aside, would you be cool with this sort of advertising in 2011:
[http://www.oddee.com/_media/imgs/articles2/a96674_ifyourhusb...](http://www.oddee.com/_media/imgs/articles2/a96674_ifyourhusband.jpg)

[http://www.oddee.com/_media/imgs/articles2/a96674_Blowher.jp...](http://www.oddee.com/_media/imgs/articles2/a96674_Blowher.jpg)

Or do you accept that the world has moved on from these sort of visuals in
advertising, and thus it is not unreasonable to expect the same to apply to
the telling of [____]ist jokes in professional/work settings?

~~~
MatthewPhillips
> Are you suggesting that slighting the intellect of women and doing likewise
> in respect of the fashion sense of a (minority/majority?) of men are
> equatable wrongs?

He wasn't slighting the general intellect of women, he was slighting their
intellect in regards to java best practices. Saying a gender isn't
knowledgeable about java best practices seems equitable to saying a gender
isn't knowledgeable about color/design complements. Please explain how they
are not so.

~~~
craigmc
Perhaps because one (an individual's fashion sense) is entirely subjective
(and ultimately fairly trivial) and the other is not.

Anyway, my main point was that introducing the existence of another perceived
injustice is completely irrelevant to whether a wrong was perpetuated in this
case.

Or are you suggesting that the underlying premise of the initial comment was
not: "man up love, you lot are just as bad"?

~~~
MatthewPhillips
I'm suggesting that insulting someone (male or female) on their supposed lack
of intellect in regards to (what is perceived to be) a masculine interest is
taken different than insulting someone on their supposed lack of intellect in
regards to (what is perceived to be) a feminine interest. Cultural we perceive
these masculine interests to be of greater importance (both male and female).

------
quantumhobbit
There seem to be two kinds of sexism in IT: politically incorrect and
insensitive jokes (basically frat boy culture), and a semi-underground culture
of men who think it is ok to stalk women online and pass them over for
promotions.

Both are bad but the second is far worse. "The JavaOne incident" is probably
the wrong battle to fight. Regardless of whether Adam's joke was appropriate,
attacking him for it provokes a defensive reaction from the frat boy culture
(I'm going to keep calling it frat boy culture for lack of a better term).
Some people won't see the big deal about how the joke was offensive and will
instead be repulsed by the reaction to it. In fact, Adam's joke seems to be
just the kind of push back you would expect from a frat boy tired of being
told to be more sensitive to his female colleagues.

Most men are like this. We make inappropriate jokes to our friends and aren't
afraid of offending them because they give as good as they get. When a woman
complains about this the hypothetical frat boy gets defensive because now he
can't "be himself". It creates a culture of us vs. them which is not at all
healthy.

The real creeps thrive in an us vs. them environment. Now they feel justified
to harras women. They go out of their way not to hire women, because "all
women do is complain". They can get away with, because the average rank and
file frat guy doesn't feel any need to stand up for the feminist who has
aligned herself against him.

------
mjg59
Men don't generally spend their entire lives being told that they're less able
to do a job, so jokes targeted at men are generally less offensive. Women in
the technology industry have generally spent a significant part of their
career being told that women are less good at it, and so perpetuating that
perception (by implying that women are, in general, less capable of
understanding technical subjects than men) is offensive.

Argument to symmetry is only effective if both groups are equal. That's
clearly not the case here. If you want symmetry, ask male nurses whether they
think they find jokes about them having somehow given up their masculinity for
their career are amusing.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_If you want symmetry, ask male nurses whether they think they find jokes
about them having somehow given up their masculinity for their career are
amusing._

Two of my martial arts instructors (as well as a student) work as male nurses
for their day job. They make such jokes themselves, so I assume they find them
amusing.

Of course, it's easier to laugh at such jokes when they obviously don't apply
to you.

~~~
mjg59
Self-deprecating humour is in no way comparable to having the majority direct
the same joke at you. You know you didn't mean it. Do you know they didn't?

~~~
yummyfajitas
Well, at my company, everyone makes fun of the ethnicity of everyone else.
Southerners made fun of the bling bling on northerners, people made fun of
marathi's homely attitudes, etc. Once I showed up, americans also became a
topic of humor [1]. At companies which have gujus, their mercantilist habits
are a topic of humor.

No one really cared since it was all in good fun and Indian's don't have the
same culture of victimhood that we do in the US.

[1] "Don't make fun of Chris, Americans will sue you if you tell a joke."

~~~
mjg59
It's always interesting when someone blames all of this on the "Culture of
victimhood in the US", because I'm not from the US and I still don't think
it's acceptable. Personally, I've never felt sufficiently slighted by another
to complain. But when a coworker tells me that they're unenthusiastic about
continuing to work in the field because of this kind of shit, I pay attention.

If your specific social situation allows this kind of behaviour, then that's
fine. I really don't have any complaints at all. But if there are people who
are in your social situation who are unhappy about it, you don't get to just
tell them that they're oversensitive. That's not actually something that makes
things better.

------
dgottlieb
A lot of the arguments I hear about why making jokes of women in computer
fields is wrong is that these jokes make women (and some men) uncomfortable
which is irreproachably wrong.

I couldn't respond to the thread directly on google because I was
uncomfortable expressing any sympathy for Adam. I felt people I know would
judge me in a negative light if they saw it in their feed. I feel here, the
thin layer of anonymity/indirection is enough to say this small tidbit.

I don't think Adam woke up that morning, or any morning in fact, and thought
to himself that he wants to hurt or harm anyone, physically or emotionally. I
think Adam is a good person as are the vastly overwhelming majority of the
human population.

I feel the continuation of being hostile towards him by some posters
(including Shifra despite accepting the apology) after he apologized is
unwarranted and furthermore, unproductive. Adam ate a huge piece of humble pie
by posting that, regardless of whether the joke was meant in good faith or not
and for others to come back with more negativity just encourages others that
make a similar mistake in the future to not acknowledge it as such. People
that want to participate in a reasonable debate focused on results can have
their voices oppressed by a feeling of discomfort.

I'm not sure if I have anything of real value to add to the women in IT issue
(and I'm sure most people that do also doubt the value of their own ideas),
but I can say I am one person who is dissuaded of trying to help the issue
because I don't want to offend people or alienate them and make them
uncomfortable.

~~~
Mz
_I feel the continuation of being hostile towards him by some posters
(including Shifra despite accepting the apology) after he apologized is
unwarranted and furthermore, unproductive._

I went through 22 months of withdrawal from medication fairly publicly while a
member of an email list. I was incapable of keeping both feet out of my mouth
and it seemed to not matter how hard I tried, things just came out all wrong.
I wrote many heart-felt, sincere apologies. I had no agenda in terms of my
public reputation or whatever. My only intent was to take genuine
responsibility for my actions in spite of the burden I was living with and to
try to take away whatever hurt I had done.

The result? I became the list scapegoat and if some asshole attacked me out of
the blue for no apparent reason on some flimsy excuse, the entire list went
"there she goes again!" It's been, oh, maybe six or eight years since then.
Some of those folks have never forgiven me. I no longer feel responsible for
their on-going hostility. They have a personal issue.

I'm a lot less apologetic than I used to be. Someone once said (in essence)
that real justice must mean justice for both sides.

~~~
dgottlieb
I saw the line you edited out. I hope that means there was some minor mis-
communication because as far as I can tell, we're on the same side of the
fence!

~~~
Mz
No miscommunication (that I'm aware of). It just seemed extraneous -- beating
a dead horse. I'm the sort of person who "would have written a shorter letter,
but didn't have that much time". So, yeah, I sometimes go back and snip a
little. No big.

------
davidu
The comment the speaker made was in poor taste and it was inappropriate.
Simple as that.

The speaker should recognize that and simply say as much. Not a lot more needs
to be said. There's no way to defend or explain the comment.

And as for @DuncanIdaho who thinks this is vilifying all men. No, it's just
calling out a recurring trend at tech conferences to do things which make
women feel unwelcome. That's wrong and needs to stop.

------
electromagnetic
So let me get this right. Adam originally titled a slide "Explain it to a
woman" and got criticism for it being sexist, so he changed it. So in front of
a convention audience he decided to tell everyone this anecdote and was too
stupid to predict how this would go over. Wow.

If you tell 10 people and you get enough shit that you have to change a title.
Don't tell 1000 and expect a better response. I don't think the big news here
is that this guy is sexist, because I honestly doubt he is. I think the big
news is that this guy is a fucking idiot.

Here's a heads up to everyone who doesn't know "why the women are offended".
It's not that he made the joke, it's that people laughed. Sexism isn't
offensive, it's the culture that's offensive. 1 guy thinking women are stupid
is just pathetic, it's that people agree with him and think there's nothing
wrong with it.

Every time I hear of incidents like this all I can think is that these are
pathetic little men who haven't grown up socially since middle school. It's
that they've allowed themselves to be so socially isolated that in their group
they get away with sexism.

I work in construction, it's a 99% male industry and yes sexist jokes get made
between the guys. What happens though when a woman comes along who can do the
job is that they get 10 times the respect. Why? Because when you physically
are the weaker sex, it takes a lot of character to balls up and get the job
done. I like when women come into the industry because they actually want to
learn and work. I don't like when guys come into the industry because they're
lazy idiots looking for enough cash to buy more drugs or to work enough time
to get on unemployment for another 6 months.

Women coming into IT should be exalted, because when they're the 1% it means
that 99% of them got into the business to try to become great. When you're 99%
of the people in the industry, it means 98% of you are simply there to earn a
pay check.

~~~
srazzaque
I totally agree with what you're saying about minority group entrants into
industries dominated by another group - and I've seen this myself, they are
generally quite talented and driven. However I think this comes at the cost of
being scrutinised to a MUCH higher degree than everyone else (lets not argue
chicken and egg here).

A friend of mine put it perfectly - "when you're amongst the dominant group,
you can get away with being mediocre" (i.e. the 98% you're referring to).
Meaning that when you're the minority group - your every move will probably be
scrutinised/analysed/categorised more closely.

That said - I'm not sure if the personal attacks ("fucking idiot") are
completely warranted here (though I suspect you wrote that in the heat of the
moment). We all go through learning experiences, some of our learnings just
happen to be on a much larger scale than others (and for Adam this was
unfortunate). I know I've certainly offended people without meaning to ("it
wouldn't have offended my friend Joe - and he's Asian too!"), but now I've
learnt the fine art of holding my tongue with regard to such jokes amongst
crowds that I don't know too well... sure, I guess I was an "idiot" too in
that moment, but no more or less of an idiot than Adam here - despite the
difference in scale.

~~~
electromagnetic
Adam would have just been an idiot had he made a mistake. He's a fucking idiot
because he self-admittedly remade the mistake. IE he had the learning
opportunity he said he had to change the slides name, but did so repeating the
same insult.

You had a learning opportunity, and you self-admittedly learnt. You didn't
then go in front of a hundred-fold bigger crowd and repeat the same mistake.

Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

I've been an idiot, many many times. I don't repeat mistakes on a much grander
scale expecting a better result. I don't try putting out a candle with my
fingers and burn myself and then try to snuff out my gas stove with my hand.
There's a logical progression that if a small scale attempt fails, just
abandon it.

What I'm wondering is whats wrong with this guys brain that he got burned in
his small scale and then thought "I know, this will surely go down great in a
convention hall!"

------
sp332
Hm, this is odd to me. I thought it was pretty common for people to say that
men and women don't understand each other?

~~~
danieldk
Yes, but the 'joke' doesn't say that, it suggests that women have a lesser
understanding of programming concepts, which is outright discrimination.

~~~
sp332
It explicitly replaces "women" with "alien", not "retard".

------
vijayr
This is definitely wrong. But the other side of the story is women make sexist
jokes about men, all the time (fashion, shoes etc), nobody complains about
that, why the double standard?

Sexist behavior is wrong, whoever does it.

------
larryfreeman
Most racism and sexism appears mildly offensive to those who are racist and
sexist. If you watch a non-US television station with subtitles (or if you
understand the language), you may be very surprised to see the amount of
racism and sexism (depending on the country) that occurs regularly.

It's easier to see it when it's outside of our own culture. It's often very
hard to see the significance when it's coming from the people that we identify
with.

I was not at the JavaOne talk but the statement made is clear. I understand
why these statements can be made. If a technical person is boring and goes on
enough dates, it is easier to blame the opposite sex rather than blaming
himself or herself. If a person is comparing women to space aliens, that
probably says it all. It's easier to say that 'they' are space aliens rather
than admitting that dating makes him feel like a space alien.

He could have easily made his point without reference to a space alien. He
could have said: explain it to a nontechnical person or explain it to a child.
These points become more clear, if we focus on the point on hand and the best
way to express it in a non-offensive way.

------
yummyfajitas
The original comment was mildly amusing. The (over)reaction to it is
hilarious.

------
vijayr
May be it is time for conference organizers to explicitly make it clear that
sexist, racist etc behavior won't be tolerated. If one makes an inappropriate
joke on the stage, ban that person for the next 1-2 years from the conference
or something.

This should apply equally to both men AND women (and transgender etc). People
are naive, if they think only men make sexist jokes.

However, if someone apologizes for stupid behavior, I don't see a point in
continuously making noise about his/her behavior, even after the apology. This
only adds noise, and doesn't contribute anything.

------
funkah
One of the early comments says that women don't study engineering because of
stuff like this. While I agree this attitude is a problem and the joke was
tasteless, is that really the reason? I just can't see a young person
rejecting a field because it's too sexist. It could be a reason for switching
to a different field, though. I wonder what percentage of women who start in
an engineering discipline end up somewhere else.

~~~
craigmc
"I just can't see a young person rejecting a field because it's too sexist"

In the field of law (which is my original background) you can pretty much walk
into any sizeable firm, look around for the female partners and know you have
identified the family law or employment law team.

Is this because all women who become lawyers have a burning desire to handle
divorces or employment tribunals?

Perhaps?

Or perhaps was it the case that historically law firms (then run exclusively
by men) were most willing to admit females into the partnership in areas
deemed "feminine" before they did likewise for macho stuff like construction
or commercial litigation. Thereafter, a meaningful % of female trainees looked
around on their first day and figured out where their most likely root to a
partnership lay. And so the cycle perpetuated.

That this cycle is increasingly being broken in the legal sector is, I'd
argue, as much because of the sheer weight of numbers (more than 50% of law
grads are women), as it is down to a more enlightened approach by male
partners.

In the abstract, I'd argue that it is not sexism that puts people off choosing
a career path, but rather it is a combination of not wanting to fight against
the current (not everyone fancies being a trailblazer) as well as the innate
human desire to belong to a tribe that physically resembles themselves.

Or to put it another way, I greatly enjoy the company of women, but if I had
walked into a lecture theatre and been the only guy present, I'd have felt
very much that I was in the wrong room no matter how much I loved the subject
(or the attention!)

(Edit: Despite what I wrote in the last paragraph, I must acknowledge that
currently I am working in a 4 person startup, three of whom are female
including the technical lead.)

~~~
quantumhobbit
The importance of trailblazers cannot be overstated.

My wife is a surgeon. Surgery twenty years ago was far more sexist than IT
ever was. But in medical school she was taught by some incredibly badass
female surgeons who dealt with far worse sexism than bad jokes. They inspired
her to be a surgeon while most of her peer went into pediatrics.

Surgery can still be sexist. While interviewing for residency, my then fiance
was advised to take off her engagement ring. Apparently some programs won't
hire a woman they think will take time off for pregnancy. But it is getting a
lot better. Her current residency class is majority female.

IT needs some badass women who can ignore the sexism and just write awesome
code. It is the only way to change the culture.

