
What can men do? - arnauddri
http://blog.codinghorror.com/what-can-men-do/
======
chroma
This topic is radioactive. No matter how kind and understanding you are, many
people on many sides will misinterpret your statements and demonize you. The
only way to win is not to play.

And yet, because I want to further the discussion, I will play...

I think the most effective way to reduce discrimination in tech is to go
underground. Do not think of yourself as a crusader for (insert topic here).
Keep your identity small[1] and simply attack bad ideas no matter where they
come from[2]. Blind yourself when evaluating candidates. Make sure that you do
not know the name of the person applying for a position, since that
information highly correlates with their race and gender. Musicians figured
this out long ago: all that matters the sound. Likewise, with programmers all
that matters is the code. If your code is good, you are good. If it's not
good, be glad: you get to learn something new. Appreciate it, because until
recently, learning new things was a rare event.

I think this mentality can help us not only with this specific problem, but
with similar problems that we will encounter in the future. We owe it to each
other and ourselves. We need to advance our field and pursue excellence no
matter where it comes from, no matter where it leads to.

1\. [http://paulgraham.com/identity.html](http://paulgraham.com/identity.html)

2\. Likewise, endorse good ideas no matter where they come from. If it helps
your ego, think of it as taking advantage of your enemies.

~~~
matthewmacleod
Broadly speaking, that's all true, but I have to take a little exception with
this:

 _Likewise, with programmers all that matters is the code. If it 's good, you
are good._

There's a bit more to it in my experience; I've met some developers who were
good at producing code, but less effective at understanding requirements, or
working within teams, or accepting that they might have to spend time on tasks
they don't want to.

In that sense, it's difficult to hire without getting to know someone at least
a little, which implicitly means knowing their gender and race. I think the
better approach is to just "not be biased" in the first place. Harder than it
sounds, no doubt.

~~~
chroma
I can certainly get behind what you say. I don't have the time/willpower to
spell out my position in detail, but I do agree that there are practicalities
that need to be ameliorated. Thank you for elucidating them.

------
probably_wrong
> Don't attempt romantic relationships at work. (...)The women usually get the
> rough end of this deal, too, because men aren't good at handling the
> inevitable rejection. Just don't do it. Have all the romantic relationships
> you want outside work, but do not bring it to work.

I find this incredibly childish - the idea that men (not _some_ men, just
_men_ ) are childish and cannot behave like grown ups, up to the point in
which the company has to step in and tell them how to behave.

I'm not sold up either on the idea that I'm not allowed to date anyone in the
one place where I spend most of my day, where I'm surrounded by people who
share my interests and where I met most of my friends.

I'm all in for bringing in more women, but this points sounds too much like
"let's protect this delicate, defenseless flower" to me.

~~~
codinghorror
I was mostly speaking about myself there, but yes, I believe it is true of
most men. Tell them they can't have something, and they will suddenly want it
more than they've ever wanted anything in their entire lives.

Also, didn't this _just_ happen at GitHub?

~~~
Cederfjard
I'm a man, so I wouldn't know, but isn't this true of most women too?

------
MarkTee
He specifically mentions "no subtle sexism via public debate" but then he goes
on to do just that near the end of the article.

> women usually get the rough end of this deal [office breakups], too, because
> men aren't good at handling the inevitable rejection.

Not sure I agree that males are likely to act negatively; anecdotally I'd say
it's about equal.

> Men, plus women, plus alcohol is a great recipe for college. [...] But as a
> safe work environment for women? Not so much.

Both sexes are taken advantage of and subject to unsafe environments while
drinking.

I think that the actual recommendations he's made (no dating/drinking at work)
have merit, but they could have been supported better.

~~~
reitzensteinm
I think in general, if reversing the comparison makes you feel uneasy, it's
probably inappropriate both ways and best left unsaid.

"Men usually get the rough end of this deal [office breakups], too, because
women aren't good at handling the inevitable rejection."

You couldn't pay me enough to tweet that.

~~~
tomp
The problem is that (in anecdotal experience) men and women simply handle it
differently - men might get angry, offensive, even aggressive, while women
might cry, gossip and manipulate. Different people might evaluate the negative
effect of different behaviours differently, but that doesn't mean that any sex
is handling rejection any better.

------
mattmanser
I honestly think no drinking, no dating should not be on that list. This
sounds like a married 40+ year old who's forgotten what it's like to be 20-30
(and I must admit I'm starting to forget!). It's so easy to forget that's
simply not how the world works at that age and this debate is not the place to
start proselytizing middle-aged parent morality that you definitely didn't
have when you were 25.

You even mention university. Is college sexist then? Do we need to protect
women at university from all those drunk, lecherous men? Enforce a no dating
rule at university?

Women can't be equals if you refuse to treat them as equals.

~~~
ronaldx
> Do we need to protect women at university from all those drunk, lecherous
> men?

Perhaps this is not your point, but the answer to this question is
emphatically:

Yes, women (and men) everywhere have a right to personal safety.

I agree that a no-dating rule does not achieve this, but drinking culture at a
workplace is just not a good idea. You can drink on your own time, with the
money you get paid to make your own decisions with, without dressing that up
as a work social event which employees feel obliged to attend.

~~~
mattmanser
Again you're moralizing it, all you're doing advocating prohibition.

Drinking is a common social activity. Stop being so judgemental and deal with
reality.

------
draugadrotten
So it's a horrible inequality that more programmers are men, and code would be
so much better with more women.

In Sweden, 57 percent of judges are women[1]. Where do I hear the feminists
shouting that judgements would be so much better with more men? Again in
Sweden, 52% of women gets accepted to University, but only 36% of men[2].
Where do I hear the feminists shouting that University would be so much better
with more men?

The feminist agenda is "more women, more women" and is one way - much more
sexist than any other ideology out there.

[1]
[http://www.advokatsamfundet.se/Nyhetsarkiv/2014/februari/Fle...](http://www.advokatsamfundet.se/Nyhetsarkiv/2014/februari/Flest-
kvinnliga-domare/)

[2]
[https://www.hsv.se/publikationerarkiv/pressmeddelanden/2012/...](https://www.hsv.se/publikationerarkiv/pressmeddelanden/2012/fortfarandeflerkvinnoranmansomvaljerhogskolestudier.5.485f1ec213870b672a680003105.html)

~~~
tomp
57% - 43% does not seem like a statistically significant difference...

~~~
thaumasiotes
I suspect Sweden has enough judges for 50.1 - 49.9% to be statistically
significant.

------
chill1
"No drinking at work events."

".. If you want to drink, be my guest. Drink. You're a grown up. I'm not the
boss of you. But don't drink in a situation or event that is officially
connected with work in any way."

I think this idea is due to the _over_ consumption of alcohol that seems to be
the norm in the U.S. now. Europeans, on the other hand, seem to have much more
mature attitudes around alcohol.

~~~
h1karu
If you're not careful your shop can become a drinking fraternity first, dev
team second. What happens when someone who does not drink wants to join the
team ? Well just the fact that he doesn't drink can make the rest of the team
feel like they're having less fun and that they "can't have as much fun
drinking now" so they might (subconsciously) decide that the highly qualified
non-drinker is not a cultural fit. That's fine in an environment where new
qualified recruits are easy to come by.. but is that the world we live in ?

~~~
chill1
I think if your shop is turning into a fraternity because of a few drinks,
you've got bigger problems than the drinking.

------
Exenith
It doesn't matter how many women there are in the field. If men and women are
of equal worth, then why are you looking to get more women in? The men there
aren't good enough for you?

Now, I understand that some women avoid working developer jobs because they
get mistreated by some men. That is an issue. But it's not an issue limited to
developers, and it's not an issue limited to women. If anyone is treating
anyone else like shit, then they should be fired. Sex doesn't come into
question -- being a decent human being does. If you're afraid to work a job
because someone might mistreat you, then you're afraid of working every job.

Even if we eliminate cases like those of Github/Hovarth, it doesn't
necessarily mean there will be a 50/50 split. And it doesn't matter. It's not
important how many people of a certain gender there are -- what's important is
that people are judged on their skills and character alone. If that means
there is a gender divide, then so be it.

~~~
phaemon
How do you know if your policy of equal opportunity is working, if you refuse
to look at the end result?

~~~
Exenith
Because the proportion of men and women is not a measure of how sexist the
field is.

~~~
phaemon
If you compare it with the expected values if you assume the field is non-
sexist, then yes, actually, it is.

~~~
Exenith
Equal opportunity does not necessarily mean equal interest. A complete lack of
sexism does not necessarily mean equal interest. You are following the
assumption that there would be 50/50 proportions of interest (and therefore
skill, and therefore employment) just because a field meets all your criteria
of "not sexist". This is an unfounded assumption. No matter what the
situation, there is never a guarantee that equal amounts of men and women will
be interested in a particular field -- and this is not necessarily a product
of a flaw in the field, but could be indicative of societal inertia (things go
in and out of fashion with different groups), biological differences, or just
random variation.

The first question we must ask is -- if there is a gender divide, _why is
there a gender divide?_ The second question we must ask is, _is the reason for
it actually problematic? do we have evidence that it is sexism?_ If it is a
problem, we must ask _can we solve it without causing bigger problems_?

It seems we have missed most of these questions, assuming the reasons for the
gender divide, assuming that it is sexism, and not considering if our
solutions will just cause more problems. This is simply irresponsible. It
makes us prone to unnecessary disruption, and our inclination to jump to sides
-- either side -- doesn't help.

~~~
phaemon
>You are following the assumption that there would be 50/50 proportions of
interest (and therefore skill, and therefore employment)

No I'm not. I never said any such thing. Perhaps a non-sexist distribution
would be 80:20 male:female. You can still compare that to the _actual_
distribution and see how they compare.

Your first question is: "if there is a gender divide" but how can you possibly
answer that if you don't look at the actual numbers?

------
belorn
Why is it that every time one want to compare programming to other
professions, we look at professions with low social status like car mechanic,
nurses, metal worker, secretary and so on.

Instead, I suggest that we compare high education professions with other high
education professions. Psychotherapy for example is a highly preferred female
profession with about 80% female to male ratio. Veterinaries are 90% female to
male. Both is similar to programming in that they are heavily sought of, has
high competitive path to employment, and both require years of higher
education.

So turning to this article, I wonder, is the advice the article has actually
sexist? Would they work in equal manner to get more male therapist or
veterinaries, or is the comic strip in the middle of the article much more
relevant in actually getting a change in the ratio of profession male and
female programmers.

------
zimbatm
I don't understand this post. The first part seems to be justifying why there
are more men in the computer field with some pseudo-science. But then he goes
on to amend himself and proposes solutions to the problem. All this is very
ambiguous to me.

~~~
unwind
An accurate description of a problem is not an unreasonable first step to take
in trying to solve it.

You make it sound as if the article "proves" why it has to be the way it is,
to motivate doing nothing. That's not what I think it's trying to do.

~~~
zimbatm
I don't see the connection between the first and the second part. What's the
point of establishing a baseline if it's not going to be used to find a
solution ?

------
lutusp
> In an earlier post I noted that many software developers I've known have
> traits of Aspergers. Aspergers is a spectrum disorder ...

No it isn't. After an epidemic of overdiagnoses about ten years ago that
forced psychologists to accept that they had no way to reliably identify it,
it was voted out of existence by the editors of DSM-5, the current diagnostic
manual. Before you object that Asperger's exists whether or not psychologists
believe in it any more, think about what you're saying about psychology's
scientific standing.

Psychologists rarely abandon established diagnoses, in fact it's happened only
once before. Can you name the behavior, now regarded as a civil right and
defended by a number of federal laws, that was branded a treatable mental
illness until the 1970s?

~~~
etfb
I'm sure there's an Autism spectrum upon which Asperger's syndrome lies, and
I'm sure that psychology (as distinct from psychiatry) is a scientific
discipline, so logic dictates that the weak link is your statement that "it
was voted out of existence".

~~~
mattlutze
For your reading pleasure[1]:

> Researchers found that these separate diagnoses were not consistently
> applied across different clinics and treatment centers. Anyone diagnosed
> with one of the four pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) from DSM-IV
> should still meet the criteria for ASD in DSM-5 or another, more accurate
> DSM-5 diagnosis.

The DSM-V fact sheet indicates that, indeed, rather than being voted out of
existence, Aspergers Syndrome was reclassified to help reduce misdiagnoses
from varying application of DSM-IV criteria, not because it doesn't exist.

1:
[http://www.dsm5.org/Documents/Autism%20Spectrum%20Disorder%2...](http://www.dsm5.org/Documents/Autism%20Spectrum%20Disorder%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf)

~~~
lutusp
> The DSM-V fact sheet indicates that, indeed, rather than being voted out of
> existence, Aspergers Syndrome was reclassified to help reduce misdiagnoses
> from varying application of DSM-IV criteria, not because it doesn't exist.

It doesn't exist. All this reclassification talk is simply psychologists
saving face. At their most candid, they say, "It's not an evidence-based
term." (source:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/health/03asperger.html?pag...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/health/03asperger.html?pagewanted=all)).
Saying something isn't evidence-based is how a scientist says "it's not real."

Remember that, in science, the null hypothesis precept dictates that claims
lacking evidence are assumed to be false. Indeed, the fact that people
continue to insist that Asperger's is real in spite of a complete lack of
evidence, is an accurate measure of the unscientific nature of psychology.

~~~
arrrg
Errors do not make a discipline unscientific …

------
matthewmacleod
Generally this is nice and balanced, but there are a couple of things that I
don't agree with:

 _Do you run a company? Institute a no-dating rule as policy._

I don't really thing that's wise. On a personal level, it's great advice — I'd
imagine that's something most people would take into consideration on a
personal. We've got a "try not to get into a relationship at work, but if you
do, don't be a dick, and make sure we know about it so we can deal with the
fallout if required" policy, and that's more than enough. We're adults, not
children, after all.

Also, this:

 _No drinking at work events._

Okay, work events shouldn't be focused around alcohol, and heavy-drinking
macho culture is bad. But it's exceptionally difficult to construct an
enjoyable and realistic working culture when you're making an effort to
exclude an activity that lots of people (a majority, maybe?) partake in and
enjoy.

So have some wine and cocktails at company events; don't feel ashamed to go
for a couple of drinks with colleagues after work on a Friday. Just make sure
that your culture is sensitive enough that you have a diversity of events so
that individuals who don't want to drink aren't excluded, and don't focus your
events around alcohol (c.f. github's infamous drink-ups).

But I guess what terrifies me most is stuff like this:

 _I like to refer to the anecdotal story of the Apple Store glass stairs.
While visually appealing, there was one unforeseen consequence to their
design: the large groups of strange men that spend hours each day standing
under them looking up. As a woman, the first time I saw them I thought “thank
god I’m not wearing a skirt today.”_

I find it really understandable that stuff like this rubs men up the wrong
way. It shouldn't, but my immediate reaction to that is "wtf, we shouldn't be
compromising things that we want to do because there are people around who
would do that kind of thing!" \- I guess is naïveté in some ways, because I
can't imagine doing that, or being aware of somebody who was doing it without
tackling them on the issue.

It's easy to feel like it's a personal or biased attack on "all men," and I
think that's probably the biggest barrier to overcome. When someone complains
about sexist activity, it's rarely a personal attack, but it can be hard to
remember that sometimes.

~~~
kisielk
I don't really see any problem with alcohol at work events in general, but I
think it heavily depends on your company culture.

The (~40 person) company I worked at before had beer fridays occasionally and
pretty much everyone would join in. We'd all have a beer or two in the
afternoon and call it a day. Nobody got inebriated, weird or uncomfortable.
Our company was ~25% women (scientists, admin) and they all participated.

I think one difference from our situation versus the audience of this article
was that a lot of people in the company had families or were otherwise
"mature". I could see how that sort of could be a problem in companies with
more of a young male-dominated atmosphere.

~~~
matthewmacleod
_I could see how that sort of could be a problem in companies with more of a
young male-dominated atmosphere._

That's a good point that I hadn't considered. I'm used to working with a
pretty diverse bunch of people already, quite a few with kids; I expect in an
environment which is much more 'college-like' the outcome could be very
different.

------
klipt
> Figures vary, but somewhere from 20% to 29% of currently working programmers
> are female.

> Less than 12% of Computer Science bachelor's degrees were awarded to women
> at US PhD-granting institutions in 2010

So men who study computer science are actually _less_ likely than their female
classmates to end up working as programmers?

~~~
dspillett
I think it is partly a case of being more determined.

Many people drift into what they end up studying (even today with it costing
so much: the amount of people getting into a mountain of debt working towards
a degree they ended up in "just because" always surprises me), and with the
social pressures of the past women have been far less likely to coast into
sciency courses then men.

That means more of the one who are in those courses are there because the
specifically want to follow that path, and have the brass ones to help fight
the subconscious (and sometimes more open) sexism that exists in many people
on the matter, rather than just because they need to do _something_ and it
seemed a reasonable choice at the time. The people who have planned out their
path this way (men and women) are more likely to end up following it into a
successful career, the others (of which most are men) are more likely then the
former set to eventually decide on (or otherwise end up in) something else.

This should fade over time - I don't know about other sciency/engineering
areas but the "not a place for women" thing seems to be rapidly falling away
in the techie circles I inhabit (though as I'm not a women and not the most
observant person on the planet, there might still be stuff there that I'm not
at all concious of).

------
sspiff
1\. "So, on average, only about 1 out of every 5 working programmers you'll
encounter will be female."

2\. "And did you know that autism skews heavily towards males at a 4:1 ratio?"

3\. "Interesting. I might even go so far as to say some of those traits are
what makes one good at programming."

1 & 2 => 3 smells an awful lot like equating correlation and causation.

Additionally:

4\. "In an earlier post I noted that many software developers I've known have
traits of Aspergers."

Looks like unquantified extrapolation and using anecdotes as evidence.

~~~
lutusp
> Looks like unquantified extrapolation and using anecdotes as evidence.

Yes, along with perpetuating the myth of Asperger's, which has been abandoned
as a diagnosis by people who had every reason to defend its continued
existence (clinical psychologists), but who realized they could only do so by
sacrificing more public credibility.

~~~
talideon
Actually, what happened is that it ended up bundled into high functioning
autism in the DSM. That only means that the term "Asperger's" was deprecated
in the context of the DSM.

~~~
lutusp
> Actually, what happened is that it ended up bundled into high functioning
> autism in the DSM.

Yes, that's the psychological version of politics. Did you really think
psychologists would come out and say, "We made a mistake and there's no such
thing as Asperger's"? That would be like the Catholic church saying Galileo
was right.

What they did say was, "It's not an evidence-based term." Source:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/health/03asperger.html?pag...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/health/03asperger.html?pagewanted=all)
That's good enough for me or any other scientist -- it's not real.

The proof that there's no such thing as Asperger's (as a mental illness) has
two parts. One, anyone could get the diagnosis through the simple expedient of
visiting a psychologist and saying, "I think I have Asperger's". Two, the
number of wildly successful people who were said to have Asperger's, including
Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, and Bill Gates, which means if Asperger's
is real, then wealth and fame are reliable diagnostic indicators for the
condition. That would give "mental illness" a whole new meaning.

~~~
tptacek
Apropos nothing, but the Catholic Church not only acknowledges Galileo but
also apologized for its treatment of him (which is a bit weird, given that it
involved people in 1992 apologizing for the actions of people in _1610_ ; let
he who is without a culpable relative in the last four hundred years cast the
first stone).

In 12 years of Catholic school I never once heard a priest, nun, deacon, or
teacher aver to any deficiency in Galileo's work. He was presented to students
as a hero of science, as one would expect.

~~~
lutusp
> ... the Catholic Church not only acknowledges Galileo but also apologized
> for its treatment of him ...

Yes, hundreds of years later, in carefully crafted language meant to excuse
the Church's behavior as understandable under the circumstances. It's not
quite the same thing as acknowledging an error of judgment on the part of a
living Pope.

> In 12 years of Catholic school I never once heard a priest, nun, deacon, or
> teacher aver to any deficiency in Galileo's work. He was presented to
> students as a hero of science, as one would expect.

Yes, and 350 years from now, someone within the Church who today advocates
free access to birth control will be hailed as ahead of his or her time, but
as with Galileo, the praise and forgiveness will come far too late.

I want to emphasize that I think the Catholic church is a fascinating entity
with very many well-intentioned followers, but the thinly veiled intolerance
for ideas outside the canon is a constant irritation.

~~~
tptacek
I'm not remotely interested in litigating most of this. Anyone who tries to
rationalize the legitimacy of the United States is in a similarly tricky
rhetorical position _vis a vis_ slavery and genocide, and within a much
shorter historical timespan. If you cast your net several centuries back, it
would be hard to find _any_ group of people who don't have something truly
appalling to excuse themselves for.

The important point is: I was repeatedly taught about Galileo in Catholic
grade school and Jesuit high school, and those lessons were _invariably_
centered on the genius of Galileo.

There are militantly anti-science flavors of Christianity, but urban
Catholicism isn't one of them. Guess who taught the first lesson I can
remember about evolution? A nun.

Your comment created the perception that Galileo is a divisive issue amongst
Catholics, or the Catholic church. He is not. Galileo is recognized as a hero
of science by the Catholic church, which I assure you has long (as in, for
hundreds of years) since embraced heliocentrism.

 _Later, full disclosure: I polled Catholic school students in my office and
found one person who had a Christian Brother teacher who believed Galileo to
be a heretic. Shows to go you, you can find nutballs anywhere you look for
them._

~~~
lutusp
> I'm not remotely interested in litigating most of this.

This reminds me of the character in "Five Easy Pieces" who repeatedly says, "I
don't want to talk about this," while talking about it nonstop.

> Anyone who tries to rationalize the legitimacy of the United States is in a
> similarly tricky rhetorical position ...

Wait, did you just compare a government to a church? Governments aren't
religions -- they don't posture as morally superior gateways to heaven.

> If you cast your net several centuries back, it would be hard to find any
> group of people who don't have something truly appalling to excuse
> themselves for.

Yes, true, which is why religions are in the impossible logical position of
posturing about a moral superiority they can never substantiate.

> Your comment created the perception that Galileo is a divisive issue amongst
> Catholics, or the Catholic church.

I did nothing of the kind. Prove me wrong -- locate the quote in which I say
that modern Catholics don't think Galileo is a hero of the scientific
revolution. The word "is" in the above sentence is your choice -- by contrast,
I took the position that Galileo _was_ an issue for the church, until 1992
when he was rehabilitated.

It's a simple matter of reading the words. And your reply completely
vindicates the views in the post you replied to, a post in which I say, "I
want to emphasize that I think the Catholic church is a fascinating entity
with very many well-intentioned followers, but the thinly veiled intolerance
for ideas outside the canon is a constant irritation."

> Later, full disclosure: I polled Catholic school students in my office and
> found one person who had a Christian Brother teacher who believed Galileo to
> be a heretic. Shows to go you, you can find nutballs anywhere you look for
> them.

There's a lot of rationalization in your prose. You do see this, yes?

~~~
tptacek
Nope. Also, you've moved the goalposts, from defending the validity of a
comparison that had nothing to do with "moral superiority" to litigating a
"moral superiority" that I have nowhere invoked or relied on rhetorically. We
can probably stop debating now; you're entitled to have problems and concerns
about Catholicism.

------
Theodores
A while ago the law changed in the UK to allow women to do the official book
signing bit at weddings. Nowadays, if you go to a wedding, it is almost
certain that the person in the role of registrar/vicar is female. For whatever
reason a once exclusive male shop is now dominated by women.

If we look back at the time before the internet, in the days when Wordperfect
was king, you could find that the typical office had more computers in the
hands of women than men. In those days plenty of women went from secretarial
jobs to more technical roles in computing. IT was far from what you might call
a closed shop, women barred from entering. Far from it.

The internet, or rather the www, has created plenty of new opportunities in
programming, design and content creation. Everyone had a fair crack of the
whip, no universities barred women from doing Comp. Sci. degrees and many,
many employers would prefer to take on a female candidate for a programming
role to a male candidate given key criteria of skills are met. Yet here we are
in our gender stereo-typed roles. The die has been cast.

------
mcgwiz
A lot of commenters disagree with the "no dating" and "no alcohol"
recommendations. But how many of these commenters are men and how many are
women? For men to reject a recommendation put forth in the interest of women
might be self-serving and establishmentarian.

A tally of both the ayes and nays to those recommendations from women would be
most interesting to me.

For the record, I'm male and I'd be fine with those rules even if they didn't
make the workplace more supportive of women. I don't pick my job based on
whether I can date at work or drink at work (as long as there's no policy
against pursuing those things with colleagues outside of work). But perhaps
I'm an oddball because I prefer my relationship with coworkers to be strictly
professional by default, and only override that on an individual basis;
however, the norm in tech companies seems to be shifting away from this (even
outside SV).

------
mseebach
> "No well-actuallys. "Well, actually, you can do that without a regular
> expression.""

I don't think that's quite what is meant by "well-actually". In Miguel's blog,
he gives the example of someone injecting a _non-sequitur_ well-actually to
shift attention to themselves and their superior intellect.

The reg-ex example given isn't (necessarily) an example of that. I can easily
imagine a situation where I'm discussing some code with someone and if they're
using a regex for something that's easily achieved without one, it's almost
universally a good idea to do the other thing and I should point that out.
That's not "showcasing my superior intellect", it's teaching.

~~~
wildpeaks
+1 I don't see something wrong with a well-actually for correcting someone's
incorrect statement.

------
petepete
From my experience (in North West England) having worked many contracts in
both the private and public sector, I'd say there are far fewer than one in
five computer programmers is female; I'd guess it was closer to 1/15.

Of course, and this is all completely anecdotal, but at my first job after
university (at a medical data company), there was only one woman in the
'software' section, and about 70 men.

It's a pity.

~~~
etfb
The Rule of Steves says that, in any workplace, the number of female
programmers will never exceed the number of programmers named Steve. I worked
one place where that wasn't true, but only because it was overrun with Johns
rather than Steves.

------
lmm
We all agree that building a better internet is important, but do the
suggested policies actually lead to better products? Will the diversity gained
from a "no well-actually" policy outweigh the quality lost from people being
unwilling to suggest improvements? Are the gains from a team drinking together
bigger or smaller than those from having people who wouldn't join such a team?

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "Are the gains from a team drinking together bigger or smaller than those
from having people who wouldn't join such a team?"

Why does the team have to drink together? Why not go out for dinner, play
pool, have an office BBQ? I like to drink but I've never wanted to do it with
my superiors. The risks involved if it goes wrong (i.e. you get too drunk and
say something stupid) are too high.

~~~
lmm
Drinking together builds trust in a way that sober events don't, precisely
because of those "risks". Doing it regularly creates an environment where it's
much harder for parts of the team to lie (maybe not even intentionally) or
keep secrets from each other, and it adds a channel of communication where
criticism is more welcome or at least excusable/deniable. When I've seen
companies fail it's largely been because communication broke down and the
people on one end knew what the people on the other end were doing wrong but
had no way to tell them.

------
QuadDamaged
No drinking at work?

London-based companies are doomed.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
That's a US-centric article. I think those rules will have to be relaxed
_slightly_ here in London. Still, leave the heavy drinking for those who want
to go on the the pub, which is not strictly a "work event". If your London
workplace has much diversity, you may have several co-workers who don't drink
at all.

~~~
QuadDamaged
Indeed, although there are extremes here I feel are quite detrimental.

I am not a fan of the "Liquid Lunch" culture I've seen from contractors
working for some crown-owned banks who can't pay 200% bonuses this year, nor
am I 100% sold on the mandatory company pub-quizz for new media agencies,
feels too much like mandatory fun.

Beer trolley OTOH, I'm in :) IIRC the German SAP dev team breakroom is
garnished with beer taps. Might explain a lot about ABAP.

------
slavoingilizov
Equality is not the answer. There is no equality in nature. We have a
discrimination problem, but the opposite of that is not equality, it's
respect. Somewhere along the way, people started assuming that if women are
equal to men, they would be respected. No. You don't want to be respected
because you are equal to other respected people. You should be respected for
who you are. If you are a woman, great. Make sure people appreciate that. But
don't try to be equal.

Gender equality is a dirty term. Let's end this and stop using it. Gender
collaboration and respect is what we need.

------
neilellis
Next an article on religion, maybe race or maybe politics.

I feel compassion for anyone who tries to share their thoughts on topics like
these. Because _whatever_ your opinions are you _will_ be shouted down.

As @chroma says it's 'radioactive'; but that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk
about it.

It would be nice not to see so much vitriol but hey, a lot of us are good with
computers because we are/were rubbish with people. So it's probably to be
expected, but something we can all try to work on.

------
h1karu
women bought into stereotypes 10 or so years ago which prevented them from
learning the key skills. Quite recently geek has become sheek so those
stereotypes are no longer a barrier to entry, but never the less the belief in
those old stereotypes already skewed the numbers heavily in the favor of men.
Programming just has not been "cool" long enough for enough women to have
learned the skills... it takes years, perhaps decades to become a strong
developer

------
ohwp
I think a lot of rules shouldn't be created. It's just enough to speak up.

Someone behaving bad while drinking? Talk to the person the next day.

Two people starting a relationship at work? Talk to them about having a bad
time at work when they break up.

There should be only one policy: everyone is equal and deserves respect.

------
harrystone
>Less than 12% of Computer Science bachelor's degrees were awarded to women at
US PhD-granting institutions in 2010.

There's your problem right there. I have a hard time believing that there is a
systematic effort to keep women out of CS programs.

------
fberg
Social constructivism again. Including, as usual: 1) cherry-picked statistics,
2) made-up anecdotal explanations without any scientific base, 3) a couple of
dogmas about how it can and should be, and 4) a made-up solution wihout any
scientific base.

~~~
mlnhd
I take it this is the first Jeff Atwood blog post you've read.

------
netcan
I don't think there are two real strong reasons for wanting to see
representative distribution in a profession: distributing power & vestiges.
Power is the important one.

1\. Power - Near equal representation in some professions is more important
that in others is because these are positions of power. Law, medicine,
journalism, film etc. Are expressions and sources of power and status/

The central component of discrimination against woman or minorities was always
disempowerment. Most things stem from that. Under representation in positions
of power is a way that disempowerment is expressed.

There's a self re-enforcing dynamic to these things. Under/over representation
in certain professions also create and enforce the power dynamic.

Women becoming lawyers, journalists & politicians was both a cause and an
effect of a more equal distribution of power. This leaks into other areas. A
housewife in a world of female ministers and lawyers is more powerful within
her family.

So, is programming a position of power? Does the profession have that kind of
importance. In my opinion, it is. Technology is _the_ agent of change in our
times. Programming & engineering are the root and stem of technology. It's not
a traditionally important profession, but I think it is one now.

2\. Killing off vestiges of the old discriminatory world.

A male dominant profession can be hard for women to penetrate just because of
momentum. Take a simple example from the list of female dominated professions:
maternity nursing or child care. Maternity leave, career breaks & part time
are probably more common and therefore tolerated in these fields than in
construction or truck driving.

OTOH, many variants of political correctness are awful and dehumanizing.
Sometimes they're a price we need to pay for just social change, but IMO it is
a price. _(3)If you see bad behavior from other men, speak up. (4)Don 't
attempt romantic relationships. (5) No drinking_

This is one of the things which leads to (and has led to) a neutered, reserved
and false work culture. It encourages trolls who find ways to misinterpret
intentions and "take offense." It creates this dualism where people must
discipline their work avatar. I don't want to single out female inclusions.
This is a complicated issue and I don't have all my thoughts on it straight.
There are a lot of casualties in honesty. Part of this forced reservedness is
just the need to be diplomatic and reserved in general.

For me, this falseness of the "corporate me" people play is what makes work
unpleasant. So, when I here someone cheerfully suggest some simple rules like
Jeff has, I see a cost.

------
return0
Basically, with rule (1, hacker school rules) they are asking to lower the
standards. That's not how things work. Would it be OK if this was about
Medicine, not programming? Would it be OK that your colleague does not know
where the bladder is? Have a surgery without anesthesia? Sometimes you can't
change the culture without substantially changing the standards, and it is NOT
OK to hold women to lower standards of rigorousness.

~~~
rjknight
No, no, no.

This is where the debate goes wrong. Being a decent person to women isn't some
kind of personal sacrifice you need to make, it's a strict subset of being a
decent person _in general_. If someone knows less than you about something,
you should not mock that person or make them feel inferior, you should help
them. That is the right thing to do, irrespective of the gender of the person
you're dealing with.

We should think of programming as a large fellowship (the word 'community' is
overused, but it would also work here). You meet another person who is
interested enough in programming to get started, then that person is your
brother or sister. You want to help them, partly because it's the right thing
to do and partly because _it is in our collective interest to do so_. We don't
need bad programmers out there, screwing up because nobody helped them, and we
don't need to scare off the beginners before they've even had a chance to
learn much. Sure, people should have their mistakes corrected just as a
journalist might expect to have their typos corrected by a sub-editor, but
there's no reason to do it in a harsh or critical way. Just be a nice person
about it, it's really not so complicated.

~~~
h1karu
> If someone knows less than you about something, you should not mock that
> person or make them feel inferior, you should help them. That is the right
> thing to do, irrespective of the gender of the person you're dealing with.

Why do you assume that merely telling someone that they are not qualified is
the same as mocking them ? Sometimes the best way to help someone is to let
them know that they're going to need a year or more of disciplined study in a
particular area before they'll be capable of contributing in a meaningful way
to the given project. It's better to tell them that up front than to string
them along under the false pretense that they'll be able to "pick up" what is
needed along the way

~~~
rjknight
That would be good advice in that situation. Certainly, allowing people to
believe that they can "pick up" programming knowledge without working hard at
it would be irresponsible. Telling someone the truth about their work is
generally a good idea. You can easily do this in a helpful, non-mocking way,
so I don't really see the conflict here.

The OP linked to the Hacker School Rules, which state that people should not
be _humiliated_ for their lack of knowledge. These rules say that the
following responses to encountering an inexperienced person would be wrong:

 _" omg, you call yourself a programmer but you don't know how to write a
thread-safe hash map?"

"well, actually, if you knew how to use git properly you would have done a
rebase there"

"you're using MegaTest? everyone knows SuperDuperTest is the best testing
framework, use that instead"_

Those are all unprofessional and unhelpful things to say. In contrast:

 _" that's OK, concurrency is pretty hard. if you want to learn more about it,
I can give you some pointers but you probably want to build up your knowledge
a bit more before attempting this."

"ok, let's take a look at the git log now. you see how the history has some of
your 'figuring stuff out' commits in there? well, there's a way of tidying up
your commit history before merging it in - there's this thing called rebasing,
which we can use to make our history easier to understand. here's a good
tutorial on it - give me a shout if you need some help"

"the MegaTest library is OK, but it's not that well-maintained any more and
quite a few people have migrated to SuperDuperTest. there's a really good post
about the differences here, and you might want to pick that up for your next
project"_

Obviously, these are caricatures to some extent. But the point is not that
people who are getting stuff wrong should not be corrected, the point is that
there's a good way and a bad way to correct them, and choosing the good way
makes the world a better place for everyone.

~~~
h1karu
Agreed.

This is one of the reasons why I like remote work so much. If most of the work
conversation is happening in a basecamp or hipchat which is logged then if a
particular team member is phrasing his communication in a demeaning way or
doing anything else to discourage others from group-learning then that
behavior pattern will be discerned by everyone else relatively quickly and it
can be dealt with. In an office team people can get away with being a dick for
years without anyone being able to call them on it to correct the situation.

more on these themes here:
[http://37signals.com/remote/](http://37signals.com/remote/)

