

Why the 'Women in Tech' Problem May Actually Be a Silicon Valley Problem - ForHackernews
http://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul/women-tech-problem-silicon-valley.html?cid=sy01304

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skinnylatte
I'm a woman in tech who has only been on the periphery of the Valley (mostly
working out of Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar, etc).

The sexism is everywhere. However, the brogrammer culture which has made an
art of condescending to women PLUS all that PUA bs, is quite specific to SV
and may even be an SV export (when I have seen it outside SV, it tends to a
derivative).

In some other places they just treat women like shit outright without writing
long articles about it :) (Like the founder who told me he was going to have a
wet dream about me, after I kicked him out of a startup competition he sucked
at.)

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plikan13
Attitudes towards women in Tech would be a little more relaxed if a fair
number of developers would have the courage to face the truth and come out of
their closets.

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MollyR
I've thought about this a lot. I don't actually think its a tech issue. I
think it's a finance issue ? The finance sector is known for being an old
money boys club driven by highly competitive people. The finance's sector
honed in to Silicon Valley. I would argue Silicon Valley's Women problem is
due to Finance/Business Culture leaking heavily into Silicon Valley for last
decade.

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balls2you
Disagree with that since New York is filled with finance and financial tech
companies too. Clearly, they're doing something right there and not in Silicon
Valley.

It is more likely to be an SV power thing where the nerds finally get to talk
to women and only see them as objects.

Women have always been in finance (not limited to Wall St.) as even though
trading is glamorous but commercial/retail banking employs a very large number
of developers for boring CRUD jobs, as customer service personnel, backoffice
and middle-back-office type work.

So women being treated better in the finance sector is more not less likely.

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MollyR
I would respectfully disagree. I understand there are women in finance
industry, but how many women are wall street traders, investors, brokers ? It
seems like not enough [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-sasha-galbraith/to-
profit-f...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-sasha-galbraith/to-profit-
financial-indus_b_3353762.html) . Not many women are at the top of the finance
sector in the it's specialty, and not many women are at the top of software
development which is silicon valley's specialty.

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ForHackernews
I wonder if the Silicon Valley model of VC-funded startups is particularly
hostile to women?

