
Sexism in Tech. Or: CloudMine pulls its sponsorship of API Jam. - mweil
http://blog.cloudmine.me/post/19639692371/sexism-in-tech
======
DarkShikari
_Othering_. Get that word into your head, and keep it there. _Othering_.

 _Othering_ is when you make someone feel as if they don't belong in a
community, that they're _different_ from other people there. Making stupid
(racist) Asian jokes about the only Chinese-American member of your team.
Writing flyers that assume that your entire audience consists of a certain
type of heterosexual man. Even something small, like constantly poking at the
fact that one of your fellow hackers also has an MBA. The list is endless.

Usually it's best to not call attention to such things at all, _even in a
positive way_. Telling someone how awesome they are for being different is
still making a big deal about how different they are, as opposed to helping
them fit into your group.

All of these things make those people feel as if they _don't belong on your
team or in your community_. It doesn't matter if you think it's "in good fun"
or "just a joke". It doesn't matter if you think "oh, it's not really sexist".
It _makes people feel unwelcome_. It's dumb, pointless, and it's the
responsibility of any hacker to just not do it.

Othering can happen in any community that is dominated by a relative
homogenous group. It turns off many hackers who might want to work with you.
There is nothing inherently "straight upper-middle-class Caucasian male" about
wanting to build a working product; stop acting like there is.

~~~
Volpe
I think you need to moderate this view slightly.

Whilst yes, ostracising people doesn't help. Humour and sarcasm are effective
team building/social tools, and "sledging" or "poking fun" are effective ways
to build long term teams. Just spend time in any sports team
(male/female/mixed) and you'll see this kind of joking around is abundant, and
actually helps the team (not hinder it).

I think it is more nuanced than you say, humour has to be combined with
empathy to make sure you aren't offending, but at the same time, making light
of differences with people helps people see past those difference (obviously
within reason).

~~~
ironchef
OTOH, if it's the same humor and sarcasm towards the same "target" groups, it
gets old fast...and can be seen as systemic.

------
angersock
So. Much. Brogramming.

Anyways, in addition to the annoying beer plug, let us observe their other
typos:

 _"Massages: take a brake [sic] from hacking to unwind."_

 _"NO Idea Guys: security is on strick [sic] instructions to bounce anyone who
can't code."_

 _"NO Slow Internet: Let's make buffering a thing of the paste [sic]."_

Fucking clowns.

~~~
MartinCron
How about the nonsensical coupling of "no empty calories" with "free beer"?

Clowns indeed. This is the sort of thing that makes me ashamed of my
profession, my culture, my gender, everything.

------
Jun8
Here's more coverage: [http://bostinno.com/2012/03/20/boston-api-jam-
publishes-even...](http://bostinno.com/2012/03/20/boston-api-jam-publishes-
eventbrite-with-sexist-language-enrages-community-sponsors-quick-to-pull-out/)

The organizers' apology is:

"While we thought this was a fun, harmless comment poking fun at the fact that
hack-a-thons are typically male-dominated, others were offended. That was not
our intention and thus we changed it."

Which completely misses the fact that the other items on the announcement seem
to be written by a 11 year old or someone after downing quite a few beers.

Here's the point though: Getting super worked up about this idiocy and saying
"THIS is why there are few women in tech", as some tweeters did, is not
constructive either and trivializes the problem of women (and minorities) in
tech.

~~~
fruchtose
Their apology is even worse than the original flyer text.

 _Getting super worked up about this idiocy and saying "THIS is why there are
few women in tech", as some tweeters did, is not constructive either and
trivializes the problem of women (and minorities) in tech._

I would argue that pointing out the sexism of the ad doesn't trivialize the
problem of women in software. It's a multi-part problem. Society primes girls
not to go into technology as it is ("Math class is tough!" says Barbie). When
college-admitted students begin the process of choosing a career and choosing
a major, society will weigh heavily on their choice.

Some women remain interested in technology despite this. And when they make
this choice, the industry has to be ready with open arms to embrace women. If
society does not make female programmers feel welcome, and neither do their
peers and mentors, we see low numbers of women in our field. We have to do our
part to eliminate the feeling of _otherness_ in what is currently a male-
dominated field, or female participation will continue to remain low. Sexist
ads set back the entire industry by saying to talented potential engineers
that they are not taken seriously.

~~~
briancurtin
> Their apology is even worse than the original flyer text.

Agreed. To me, the apology boils down to "We thought this was funny and
harmless, but not everyone agreed. In order to keep people interested in our
event, we changed the text."

~~~
fruchtose
You hit the nail on the head. It's placing the blame on the people who were
offended, rather than taking responsibility. And not only that, there's no
mention of them actually _changing_ the event. Presumably, the hired event
staff will still be female. Everything just points to Sqoot being clueless
about how to handle themselves in the public sphere.

------
Androsynth
Although that line has a bit stupid to put on there, the entire flyer stinks
of meatheadedness in general.

 _Recommendation & personalization technologies are acquired as fast as they
are launched. You could be next!_

^that made me laugh harder than the women statement.

------
ohyes
This is insulting to everyone... Why would I take a break from a two day
Hackathon to drink beer, work out, and chase women? It is only two days.
Presumably, if I wanted to do that, I would go to a bar or the gym. Who the
hell do they think their target audience is?

------
decklin
There's something discomforting about seeing an apology "for any offense" from
a party who is not the offender. A common derailing technique is the non-
apology-apology: rather than apologizing for what I did, I apologize for your
taking offense, which makes it look like you're the one who has a problem.
Here, Cloudmine does this _on behalf_ of the creeps at Boston API Jam!

Why? It seems clear to me, based on their actions, that Cloudmine's intentions
are good and that they don't mean to blame the victims. Comparing this post to
other blogs and Twitter messages, I think I see why, and it's the same reason
the post doesn't quote or directly link to API Jam: it's written in a
different register -- "professional" communication.

It's absolutely necessary to do that if your company takes a public action,
like pulling sponsorship, and needs to publicly address it. What interests me
here is that the non-apology-apology is creeping into the English language by
sounding "more formal", because our ruling classes use it so much (and no one
seems to care when they're called out on it). So, I hypothesize that whoever
wrote this up was trying to stay calm, detached, and respectful, and
unconsciously hit on this rhetorical device because of it.

Note, I do not think that CloudMine is under any obligation to apologize for
other people's actions, or that the writer is stupid. I'm just rubbernecking a
collective lingustic maladaptation.

------
grandalf
With all the hubbub over sexism in tech over the past year or two, what kind
of idiot uses language like that in the description? It shows a tremendous
lack of a clue more than it shows sexism (though it shows that too).

------
zethraeus
What a crappy thing to write.

[https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.p...](https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.png)

It says under 'Great Perks': Women: Need another beer? Let one of our friendly
(female) event staff get that for you.

------
pavel_lishin
What was the sexist language in question?

~~~
tptacek
[Benefits to the event include] Women: Need another beer? Let our friendly
(female) staff get that for you.

~~~
ars
I feel embarrassed to type this, but could someone explain what's wrong with
that?

They are offering to give women a beer? Why is that bad? Is it because they
are assuming only women drink beer? That seems the reverse of the stereotype
if anything.

Edit: I think I got it - they are assuming the women will drink beer and not
participate intellectually? Is that it?

Personally I would assume you would drink and participate at the same time, so
maybe that's not it.

~~~
msbarnett
No, you're misreading it.

What it actually says, under the benefits for attending is "Massages, Live DJ,
Gym Access, Food Trucks, Top Shelf Booze, Women, 5 Hour Energy, Perfect Fuel."

Hence the colon after "Women:" isn't addressed _too_ women, it's clarifying
how the women will be delivered to you as a perk, just like chocolate,
massages, and gym access.

It's incredibly objectifying.

------
gojomo
Super-dumb thing to write. Plus the other misspellings indicate the writer had
little other writing talent, as well. Maybe he was drunk.

But, enthusiastic young event promoters aren't the most enlightened crew.
(Indeed, too much enlightenment could kill your chances of launching a hot new
bar, 'energy drink', or various other kinds of youth-oriented
events/venues/local-deals.)

So there's a message here about culture and the reckless generalizations of
youth, but not especially one about tech events. (Other than: at a tech event,
this sort of thing is noted and corrected very quickly.)

As with a dog and a carpet, sometimes shit happens. The dog only learns
slowly, and by the time it learns: there's another puppy making the same
mistakes. Give quick and firm feedback – one wap with the newspaper! – and get
a correction/apology, but don't dwell on it. It's not something that stains
everyone vaguely associated to the Nth-degree.

------
angusgr
I think sqoot should also reconsider autospamming their "apology" message to
anyone who mentions them on Twitter: <https://twitter.com/#!/sqoot>

(Not because they shouldn't apologise, but because there are better ways to do
it than spam.)

------
fourmii
Funny thing, I saw this ad just yesterday. The eventbrite page has been pulled
I think now. But I remember seeing the no women point and then also saw other
points like 'No Ideas People' or something to that effect. The flyer struck me
as somewhat offensive, not that I'm usually that sensitive. But it came across
as disparaging quite a few groups of people, don't know what they were trying
to do. But it seems like it would end up alienating people. Not being a full
time dev, I've been mustering the energy and guts to go to a hackathon with
the aim of meeting folks I could possibly learn from. My first impression was,
I'd be made fun of if I turned up with nothing to offer...

------
OneBytePerGreen
Sexist comments like the one on the flyer are dumb, and these people deserve
to be called out on it, but to imply they are keeping women out of tech
careers is ridiculous (and in itself, sounds kind of sexist to me - like we
are tender plants who change our career paths because some jerks like to see
boobies).

If the flyer reflected the spirit of the event and the attitude of the
organizers, I'm glad for the heads up so I know not to attend, free beer
notwithstanding.

~~~
groby_b
I wouldn't change my career path because there are idiots around, but there
_are_ quite a few women who don't even want to embark on that path because it
feels like you're entering frathouse central some days.

Especially since there are a few other (related) fields that seem to have a
slightly lower jerk quotient.

------
rjdagost
While I don't condone the choice of words used in the ad I am underwhelmed at
the "offensive" content.

If you are offended by this you need to get some thicker skin.

~~~
ugh
It’s blatant sexism and misogyny. That is always offensive. I’m not sure why
you don’t seem to have a problem with sexism and misogyny. That’s all being
offended means: I have a problem with you saying stuff like that. That seems
reasonable enough to me.

No, whoever is offended by this is exactly right. They do not need a thicker
skin.

~~~
niete
"misogyny" has become such a buzzword it is meaningless. I imagine that it is
true that some men really do _hate_ women, but the 'offensive' sentence could
have come from a broad spectrum of perspectives about women.

Now, I know feminists have tried to redefine the term into [anything they
don't like], but that is a pretty good illustration of what intellectually
dishonest offense seekers they are.

~~~
ugh
Yeah, and you are a Niete, niete.

Do you think the kid who calls everyone she dislikes gay – and thus uses
homophobic language – really fears gay people? No, because that's not really
what that word means, even if the dictionary says it means that. That’s how
language works. Misogyny describes a very specific kind of sexism, and that’s
just the case here.

Peace out from a dishonest offense seeker.

------
drivebyacct2
God. This stuff is beyond tacky. It's not just insulting for females but it
reminds other LGBT geeks that they're outliers. Who cares whether a man or
woman is delivering my drink? Like seriously, I'm gay and I don't think I've
ever thought "Damn, a woman delivered my drink instead of a dude".

~~~
ArtB
> Who cares whether a man or woman is delivering my drink?

If you don't get this, then you are missing a lot. _Generally_ speaking men on
average will enjoy themselves a lot more if there are pretty girls around.
There is a restaurant in town that serves Swiss Chalet grade food in town but
all the chicks wear miniskirts and look like models. Even on a week night it
is packed with businessmen tipping extravagantly. Sex sells, and sex appeal is
a real perk.

The problem is that what is a perk targetting 90% of the target demographic
and appeals to probably 85% of those, happens to be off-putting to minorities
some want to attract into the industry.

~~~
lomegor
Do you have sources to back that up? (That it appeals to 85% of the target
demographics).

Either way, you are treating women as objects, as perks, as things that men
want to look at. And you are treating men as cavemen who want to see women all
the time. These ideas have affected (and are affecting) society in a bad way.
By using women in that sense, they are promoting the idea that women _can_ be
used in that way if you like.

~~~
angersock
_"Do you have sources to back that up?"_

Interesting article here covering sex (not gender) gap:
[http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/programming-and-
development...](http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/programming-and-
development/it-gender-gap-where-are-the-female-programmers/2386)

...and then there's the actual BLS stats here
(ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/lf/aat11.txt) which suggest something
like 20% females in the workforce.

In the game industry, at least as of the IGDA survey in '05, we see something
like 92% identify as straight
([http://archives.igda.org/diversity/IGDA_DeveloperDemographic...](http://archives.igda.org/diversity/IGDA_DeveloperDemographics_Oct05.pdf)).

So, we could back-of-the-envelope that perhaps a figure of 75% is reasonable,
and 85% is not absurd as a guesstimate if you don't fact check.

~~~
groby_b
That makes the assumption that pretty much every straight male loves looking
at women all the time, even when coding.

I'm so glad my co-workers occasionally manage to focus on the work at hand
instead ;)

------
funkah
Guy in a polo shirt talking about "chicks": Garden-variety moron.

Guy in a C++ shirt talking about "chicks": Representative of the RAMPANT
MISOGYNY in our industry.

~~~
tptacek
Guy in a polo shirt talking about "chicks": Garden-variety moron.

Guy in a C++† shirt erecting a billboard pointing geeks to "chicks":
Representative of the RAMPANT MISOGYNY in our industry.

† _Really?_

~~~
bitops
Replace C++ with whatever programming language you like, the statement still
stands.

------
funkah
So, they've posted an apology: <http://t.co/h5jZOfb7>

It doesn't really make sense to me though. The original does not read as sharp
satire or parody at all, just regular old tone-deaf "haha chicks bro!!!!"
idiocy.

------
jsavimbi
Well, it looks like @sqoot was unable to weather the storm and has now pulled
the event from Eventbrite.

~~~
cjbprime
The company that was hosting it pulled out too, so I don't imagine they had
any choice.

------
icebraining
I wouldn't have written this either and it is off-putting, but I always feel
funny about criticizing the objectification of a group of women when they
themselves accepted it. It feels paternalistic.

~~~
cjbprime
I don't understand. Which women were accepting it? Most of today's backlash
came from women who code, which is the group being objectified.

~~~
icebraining
The ones hired to provide the beers?

------
mirsadm
I wonder if the brackets were not around the word female if it would be
considered as offensive. Regardless it was a stupid thing to put on there. I
don't even get why they added "female" to that sentence.

~~~
olliej
um, read it more carefully. It's saying women are a perk, then clarifies by
saying that the women in question will be the ones serving drinks.
Paraphrased: Perks: * women: they're there to serve drinks.

The problem is not the "(female)" bit, it was the fact that the existence of
women is reported as a "perk". Because after all, women are just objects that
exist to serve drinks to men.

~~~
MartinCron
Yeah, defining women as a "perk" is pretty textbook objectification.

------
chernevik
So, one, whoever wrote this is an idiot.

Given the free and easy style of the startup eco-verse, it's pretty hard to
say exactly what this does or doesn't say about whoever / whatever was behind
the event. Maybe the President approved this. Maybe an intern slapped it up.
Maybe the VP of Marketing submitted the wrong copy by accident. Want to know
why Big Corporate has so much bureaucracy? This is why.

But they didn't fix it immediately! Yeah, or perhaps the responsible parties
were meeting with investors or home sick or some such.

Things move fast on the intertubes but maybe giving management an evening to
1) realize something's wrong and 2) fix it would provide a better signal of
who is and isn't completely out of their minds.

~~~
briancurtin
> Given the free and easy style of the startup eco-verse, it's pretty hard to
> say exactly what this does or doesn't say about whoever / whatever was
> behind the event.

So startup culture is an excuse for hosting an offensive event? Think with
your head instead of your dick and you'll come up with infinitely better plans
than to have beer wenches around to serve geeks at a tech event.

> Maybe the President approved this. Maybe an intern slapped it up. Maybe the
> VP of Marketing submitted the wrong copy by accident.

Shame on any of them.

> Want to know why Big Corporate has so much bureaucracy? This is why.

Startup kids could learn a thing or two from mature organizations.

> But they didn't fix it immediately! Yeah, or perhaps the responsible parties
> were meeting with investors or home sick or some such.

"Fixing it" goes beyond editing the text that was written. "Fixing it" would
be not writing it in the first place. "Fixing it" is getting people actively
thinking about diversity and equality. Just because you wrote something stupid
and edited the page doesn't mean you fixed the problem.

~~~
chernevik
"Shame on any of them."

You're saying shame on all of them, without any moment to hear how this might
have been a mistake and not reflective of their organization.

I know zero about these people, they might be every bit as bad as all that.
But my suggestion was that perhaps people withhold judgment until the
organization has a moment to respond. It's remarkable to see active objection
to that. This positive refusal to think or inquire, the justification of
reflex, is dangerous.

~~~
briancurtin
They did take the time to respond, and up until that response I think most
people were just looking for an explanation to know what the real deal was.
The response surely gave you that.

They spammed hundreds of people who mentioned them on Twitter with "we're
sorry" and linked an apology letter that blamed the people who were offended.
The apology letter solidifies the point that they think it's fun and harmless
to objectify women, but since some people thought it was in bad taste, they'd
edit the page to save their event.

~~~
chernevik
Their response is neither thoughtful nor convincing.

But my bit was about the haste to draw conclusions. That some of those
conclusions turned out to be more right than wrong says more about luck than
the process by which they were drawn.

------
srl
Ugh... the reactions to these idiotic, misogynistic statements always feel
overblown. Yes, sexism is a pretty big problem in the industry (and adjacent
ones). But you're not going to fix it by griping about a horny 20-something
saying something stupid about women (surprise!). You're not even going to
help. You're just going to walk away with a "there I helped" endorphin rush
and go back to not really caring for the vast majority of your life.

The response to funkah's "garden-variety moron" objection has brought out the
excuse of, "well, this was an _official_ flier, so it's a big deal". IMO, the
fact that this happened on something "official" is less an indication of
rampant misogyny (not that I'm denying it exists!), and more an indication of
our ridiculously informal, fast-and-loose culture. (The poor quality of the
rest of the flier bears this interpretation out.) So what it comes down to is,
someone decided to turn a massive brain-fart into an "official" flier, and
part of that brain fart was a stupid, misogynistic comment. Surprise,
surprise.

I'm sure everybody's real proud that they've managed to detect and criticize
blatant, overbearing misogyny, but I don't see many submissions focusing on
the persistent discouragement of young girls from participating in science - a
very real, and ultimately more fundamental problem. Lets have some. And lets
give them more attention than this "moronic person is moronic" stuff.

~~~
xibernetik
Fixing stupid mistakes like this is a lot more straight-forward than figuring
out how to encourage young girls to participate in science - it's a completely
different order of complexity and the former can be acted upon immediately and
effectively whilst the latter cannot. It's the difference between having a
recycling bin in your house and changing the idealization of suburbia and car-
culture in North America.

It does help. From the perspective of a female, this sort of "overblown"
reaction makes it clear that this sort of mentality is not considered
acceptable by the community as a whole. If it was a case of people shrugging
it off, if this sort of thing could occur without anyone batting an eyelash...
I'd have a lot more second-thoughts about my career path for one, and I'd have
turned away from the start-up community on top of that.

~~~
srl
> If it was a case of people shrugging it off, if this sort of thing could
> occur without anyone batting an eyelash... I'd have a lot more second-
> thoughts about my career path for one, and I'd have turned away from the
> start-up community on top of that.

I'm not suggesting we shrug it off, not batting an eyelash. It's completely
idiotic and should be mocked appropriately. But I'm guessing (with high
confidence) that if the frequent posts about this brand of stupidity were
replaced by articles discussing the actual roots of the "science/technology is
for men" prejudice, and blog posts from, say, the khan academy, on how they're
working to fight those conceptions, you'd feel a heck of a lot more welcome,
and the many, many women who are just on the "no" side of getting involved in
the tech industry would be much more likely to get involved.

I'm not trying to replace criticizing language with fixing deep problems. I'm
trying to replace criticizing language with _discussing_ , directly, deep
social problems. They're the same order of complexity, and one helps much,
much more.

~~~
xibernetik
You're guessing wrong. I wouldn't feel more welcome (nor do I understand why I
should feel more welcome as a result of that sort of discussion) but I don't
speak for all women. I want it to be a given that a woman can be in an
engineering/tech environment, and that it's No Big Deal. Making a big deal out
of prejudice and fighting societal conceptions just puts me off -- if I was
into that sort of thing, I'd be browsing some sort of sociology site or
attending conferences on the matter.

While I'd love a deep, interesting discussion on the matter... I love deep,
interesting discussions. Just because it's about my gender doesn't mean it's
more welcoming to me. That aside, I fail to see how women would be much more
likely to get involved as a result of discussion on HN -- the issues run a lot
deeper than a lack of conversation on the matter.

In response to your later comments, I absolutely agree that the subtle
prejudice is a huge problem -- but I don't know if this is the right venue to
attack it, or if there even exists a correct venue or method. (Perhaps it's
just a matter of time.) I do know that a sudden influx of articles on "making
women feel welcome" and "breaking prejudice against women in STEM" would
alienate me for one, and most certainly cause me to leave if they became of
regular prominence on the front page.

EDIT: A good explanation of my negative feelings towards bringing more
attention to the matter is the current top comment:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3732078>

~~~
Czarnian
I imagine "Don't make women feel unwelcome." would go a long way towards
reducing the need for "Make women feel welcome."

------
mcbaby
I'd like to point out that if we replaced the "Womens" perk with the "Perfect
Fuel" perk, nobody would be complaining about how this insulted people who
don't eat dark chocolate. Obviously not every guy cares whose serving their
drinks, the same way not every guy attending the event cares to eat dark
chocolate. They're trying to get people to go to their event. I'd imagine most
people going to Hackathon's are heterosexual males. It makes sense for Sqoot,
and it's saddening for me to see how we blindly kowtow to the PC police.

~~~
acdha
You are aware that women are sentient beings, right? I hope it was
unintentional but your post reeks of objectification.

