
My First Hand Experience With Sexism - interesse
http://becomingmedium.com/blog/2014/02/12/my-first-hand-experience-with-sexism/
======
draugadrotten
> “Women are incapable of making the tough decisions necessary to run a
> profitable company on low margins.” - CEO of a Women’s Product Retailer

Frankly, I think the CEO was pulling this guys leg and wanted to see how he
reacted when his buttons are pushed. That is a situation that frequently
occurs in customer meetings and you don't want your rep to blow up in the
customer's face.

That said, did you see the recent Swedish study of 125.000 companies that
proved women-run companies makes 15% less profit? SOURCE:
[http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&art...](http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=5804631)

> You should know this about me. I don’t do well around alpha males.

Yeah, so the blogger can't deal with CEOs and other authority figures.
Wouldn't hire him/her either.

~~~
tomp
> you see the recent Swedish study of 125.000 companies that proved

Just a minor nitpick, studies don't prove anything. Even experiments (in
Physics) don't prove anything unless different people can reproduce them
repeatedly. But (statistical) studies prove nothing at all, they merely hint
at a correlation.

~~~
aidenn0
Minor nitpick of your minor nitpick:

Statistical studies do measure something. The parent comment didn't claim the
study proved causation, just correlation.

~~~
betenoire
> that proved women-run companies makes 15% less profit

If this quote doesn't claim causation to the common person, then I don't know
what does...

------
protomyth
He says he doesn't like "alpha males" because he believes that code for "type
of person is an inexcusable justification for being an asshole". Then he goes
through with the rest of the interview and realizes "How could I just sit
there and not say anything?".

An alpha male[1] would have stopped the interview right there. Expressed his
displeasure that the CEO could even think such a thing, particularly since he
was running a company with products for women, and further speculated on how
appalled he is that the CEO would then utter such non-sense[2]. Get up and
walk the heck away.

Defend your damn convictions, when the need defending. Not is some whiny blog
post afterwards.

1) or an alpha female, although they wouldn't have got an interview and no one
is that stupid to say those things if they did to them (right?!?)

2) my Dad's favorite saying when his sons did something foolish as youths was
"I am amazed and appalled. Amazed you though up such a thing and appalled you
did it."

------
Fomite
You did the right thing, IMO. Silence is tacitly condoning the status quo. Be
the change you want to see, and when you're in a relative position of power
(like being able to turn down a job), do something.

~~~
Paul_S
> You did the right thing, IMO. Silence is tacitly condoning the status quo.

But that is what the author did - he didn't confront the CEO, nor did he name
the company.

~~~
Fomite
He told the company it was a reason he wasn't accepting. After the fact, I
think that's still laudable.

------
baddox
I'm actually less surprised by the sexism than by the strange ranting behavior
from a President during an interview. Even if the rant was about something
less controversial, it's just bizarre. If that's normal behavior from the guy,
I wonder how they ever recruit talent.

------
wtracy
I say name some names. If this really happened at a company that sells
products to women, I say it's time for a boycott.

------
kingkawn
Live the way you want the world to look, and then it has begun to look that
way.

------
joesmo
I'd have cut the interview short to show them that this is unacceptable. They
know what they've done and that it's wrong. After the fact, there really isn't
much that one can do. Move on and try to find a place where the CEO isn't an
asshole. As for it being a test, I doubt anyone is that stupid. He knew what
he was saying.

~~~
peterwwillis
> I doubt anyone is that stupid

Apparently you haven't met many CEOs.

------
makaveli8
Am I sexist for assuming that the author was a woman right up until the point
where he says "Surprisingly most of my women friends and my wife" ?

------
Zikes
I'm sure this article will spark a serious, reasoned, and very civil
discussion on sexism, which will include verifiable citations for all claims
and absolutely no hearsay or strawmen.

~~~
RankingMember
You could fit Steve Ballmer in this sarchasm.

------
angersock
Author ought to have mentioned the name of the company--otherwise, it's just
more vapid hearsay. If we don't know _who_ was supposed to have done this,
what does it matter?

Morever, this quote got under my skin:

 _" Now I really empathized with all the women who were victims of assault or
rape. To me, this was equivalent to videoing an assault or rape, doing nothing
to stop it and later claiming you didn’t have a part in it."_

That sort of comparison cheapens the suffering of those people; it's hyperbole
of the worst sort.

~~~
innertracks
As someone who has been a victim of sexual assault (rape) I would like to up
vote your comment about a hundred times. The author apparently hasn't had to
deal with the years of healing needed on so many levels. And yeah, it happens
to men, too. By women.

------
meritt
> "Now I really empathized with all the women who were victims of assault or
> rape."

You interacted with a bad person or two and suddenly you're able to empathize
with victims of assault and rape? What? Exactly how minimal is your
understanding of those issues to equate them accordingly?

~~~
skrebbel
You're right, of course, but comments like these teach me only one thing:
don't blog, write or talk about sexism. Someone will find one sentence that
you wrote or said that's not OK and flame your ass about it.

~~~
saraid216
And then you'll get super defensive about it and refuse to actually accept the
useful feedback provided. Everyone loses!

------
jwr
1\. You should have confronted the CEO.

2\. Since you did not do that, you should have at least posted the names
involved.

As it is, I don't see the point of your post.

------
mynameisasdf
This article is incredibly badly written and lacks any real thought about the
matter. So he had one interview with some douche CEO and now jumps to the
conclusion that:

>"Sadly, sexism is alive and well in my industry. "

>"Now I really empathized with all the women who were victims of assault or
rape."

Fucking really?

I've been a developer for now over 11 years and must have met thousands of
other devs from countless conferences and meetups. Only once, ONCE, have I
ever met someone who made a women-bashing comment similar to what he is
talking about. This is both infront of women and behind their backs.

The only real sexism prevalent in the tech industry are the groups of militant
feminists setting up endless, patronizing, segregated "coding for girls"
meetups.

~~~
arbutus
"The only real sexism prevalent in the tech industry are the groups of
militant feminists setting up endless, patronizing, segregated "coding for
girls" meetups."

It's easy for this kind of thing to be completely invisible when this is your
attitude. Sexism in the tech industry is alive and well, and there are a lot
of good reasons to have meet-ups for both girls and women.

When you immediately start lashing out about "militant feminists" the second
someone suggests that sexism exists, you're saying that our experiences are
invalid and that you know better than us how welcome we are in the industry.
It should be completely unsurprising that this does not make us feel welcome.

~~~
tomp
I don't understand his post the same way. He said that the only sexism
_prevalent_ in this industry is the "girls code"-type sexism. Sure, sexism
exists everywhere and always, as does racism and other -isms. Simply said,
people will be jerks. However, it is unreasonable to draw conclusions for the
whole industry based on the behaviour of one such jerk, that just happens to
be a male sexist (I'm sure you'd find female sexists and black racists as
well).

~~~
arbutus
I don't need to base my opinion off of one guy's account of an incident in a
blog post - I have a laundry list of my own very unpleasant experiences as a
female developer to base my opinions on. I've also spoken to a great deal of
other women who have a very similar list of very similar experiences. A lot of
these experiences have aspects that are specific to the tech industry.

If you only have insight into industry sexism as far as one or two jerks, it's
likely because you aren't a part of the affected demographic.

~~~
facepalm
"A lot of these experiences have aspects that are specific to the tech
industry."

Huh - how can the tech industry be more sexist than other industries? Please
explain? I mean in what way can such an experience be tech specific? "Woman
can't code" comments perhaps, but what else?

------
facepalm
Jerks exist in the world. Frankly I don't see the big deal. It's clearly not a
company he (or many other people) would like to work for. That happens a lot.
Interviewing is a two sided process - the company has to like the candidate,
and the candidate has to like the company. So it's a case of the candidate not
liking the company. Surprisingly, even among men, not every man likes every
other man.

While I don't agree with the CEOs statement, I think people should be allowed
to hire whoever they want. If somebody doesn't want to hire women, so be it.
There are companies that don't want to hire men, too.

~~~
tbrownaw
_While I don 't agree with the CEOs statement, I think people should be
allowed to hire whoever they want._

The trouble with this is that a set of biases can become near-universal.

I have the right to associate (or not) with whoever I choose. But if
_everyone_ (or nearly everyone) choose not to associate with people from a
particular group, that is harmful to society[1].

So, there are exceptions made to your freedom of association. IIRC these
exceptions only apply to companies with more than 50 employees, which seems a
decent balance between "we're all friends here" small/family businesses
(individual rights win) vs "you are a cog in a wheel" megacorps (the good of
society wins).

[1] For example, I understand that people refusing to hire ex-convicts is a
significant contributor to recidivism.

~~~
facepalm
I know there are such laws - not sure if I agree with them, but OK (literally
not sure - maybe it is good, maybe not - to be sure I wouldn't like it if it
were my own company). But how are they being enforced, with so many possible
candidates? Disabled people, women, different ethnic backgrounds, different
schools, ex-convicts... One you go over 50, you have to have at least one of
each of them? Or if you hire employee 51 and the candidate is an ex-convict,
you have to hire him?

------
NextUserName
OK, bear with me for a moment, but why would a CEO who is so openly and
blatantly sexist have accepted a women interviewee in the first place? I am
inclined to thing that either he was either testing her, or this is fiction.

~~~
taejo
The interviewee appears to be a man.

~~~
NextUserName
Did anyone else think that this was a women? The title should not be _My First
Hand Experience With Sexism_. Because first hand would have been if sexism was
shown toward the author (because of his gender).

~~~
makaveli8
EXACTLY! I also read the blog on the assumption that the author was a woman up
until he began mention of his wife etc. Does that make us sexist?

------
NextUserName
Do you think that speaking out to the CEO would have changed his mind? I think
that if the author really wanted any chance at changing the CEO's mind about
women - he should have accepted the job and planted some seeds of thought here
and there directly or indirectly to the CEO.

Do you think that proceeding, he would be condoning sexism in some way?
Perhaps in his own mind, but one person walking away from a job interview can
hardly be considered a boycott.

If you are one person, your best bet to change something is to engage, not
walk away.

------
NextUserName
> _I then turned inward. I thought of the women in my life, my wife of almost
> 18yrs and my little 4.5 year old daughters. What would they think of their
> father for not saying anything and letting this jerk spew his sexist
> beliefs?_

I am confused. Is she calling herself her child's father? Is she in a Female-
Female marriage?

~~~
taejo
No, he is calling himself his child's father.

