
On sexism in the tech industry - rebuttal - zachinglis
http://laurasanders.net/a-primer-on-sexism-in-the-tech-industry-by-an-actual-girl/
======
rada
The original "Primer On Sexism" : 8 points and dead, 0 comments

The Rebuttal: 150 points and rising, 140+ comments

If that in and of itself doesn't say volumes about the sexist attitudes of the
majority of HN readers - and as such, the tech industry as a whole - I don't
know what does.

Surely a long, thoughtful article, with tons of context in the form of links
and research, written by the creator of Modernizr and a former Appler beats a
shouty "enraged me so much" rebuttal by a designer at a minor UK web agency
for 7 months and prior to that, a movie usher for 2 years?

People on HN are fond of saying things like, "I couldn't care less whether
someone has a vagina or a penis, as long as they write great software". So how
come Laura The Troll is getting so much attention for "telling it like it is",
just because she is an "actual girl"?

I am an "actual girl" too and I am seriously disappointed. We were offered a
5-star meal but we pounced on a 99-cent gas station burger because it had a
picture of a ripe tomato on it, so hey, it must be healthy.

And Laura, if you are reading this, a small bit of advice for you. Next time
an article "enrages" you, re-read it and I guarantee you will see that it
doesn't say what you think it does.

~~~
zachinglis
I'm really disappointed you decided to use phrases like "Laura The Troll."

It's funny. Those who've disagreed with Laura have come down to name calling
and such.

Faruk's a good guy. But because he worked for Apple means nothing. Absolutely
squat. If you judge people's worth on who they've worked for, then that's
worrying. It's not who you've worked for - it's what you've done (Modernizr
was a good link in this.) I know many Googler's, Appler's who spend a lot of
time writing minor code for example.

But how does working for Apple and writing Modenizr qualify him to speak about
sexism? That's got nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Laura's not the only person who's expressed this view. Many people in the
comemnts have agreed (and disagreed)

I think it doesn't say volumes about the sexist attitudes. It says volumes
that people agree with her more. I'm sorry it doesn't fit in your belief box,
but that doesn't make it trolling, nor does it make it wrong.

~~~
Cushman
I ain't touching the whole argument over form, but this:

> Laura's not the only person who's expressed this view. Many people in the
> comemnts have agreed (and disagreed)

I think gets at precisely the point. Your average HN reader, the one who's
making these agreeing or disagreeing comments, is probably a cis man who
doesn't think of himself as sexist, and understandably doesn't want to think
that his industry is sexist either.

The criticism here is that a relatively thin article denying sexism is being
given more weight and credence than a much more exhaustive article documenting
sexism, because 1) it's saying what we want to hear, and 2) its author is a
woman, which-- well, I shouldn't need to point out the irony there.

~~~
zachinglis
Read the comments on her blog too. First is from a woman, and go down.

There are people on both sides of the fence, as you'd expect. But the the
original commenter was so blindsided in her views about how she thought the OP
was blinded in her views, she didn't even stop to smell the irony.

~~~
Cushman
Could you be a little clearer on what you're hoping I'll take away from those
comments? In case it wasn't clear, the gender of commenters isn't that
important to me here.

There may be people on both sides of the fence, but there aren't two sets of
facts. It's "great", if we can apply that word to what should be normal, that
some women today haven't had personal experience with sexism, but that doesn't
constitute a point of evidence against women who _have_.

Our culture as a whole has some very deep-seated not-so-subtle problems with
gender politics. Our industry, with its absurd gender disparity, should be
assumed _ceteris paribus_ to be at least that bad, though I'd wager it's a
little subtler and a little deeper-seated. We, all of us, are basically good
people who really wish we didn't have an actual problem, that there's some
benign explanation for the gap. We wish all the blog posts and articles about
endemic sexism were overblown from a few freak occurrences, regrettable but
not something we need to concern ourselves with discussing or fixing.

We should be deeply suspicious of anything which promises to fulfill that wish
without evidence.

~~~
zachinglis
Of course.

She has had personal experience with sexism. But her argument was also that
according to the original .net magazine article; every woman fears being raped
all day every day. It was sensationalist.

I agree with a lot of what you have to say. She generally doesn't concern
herself with posts like these but she felt the need to considering a man (I
know you don't care about gender but it's important factor that a man is
telling her how she feels) is saying what sexism is to EVERYONE. Name calling
EVERY man on it (almost as if saying he knows better.)

~~~
Cushman
> But her argument was also that according to the original .net magazine
> article; every woman fears being raped all day every day.

I contend that _this_ is a sensationalist statement. The source for this
claim, if I understand it, is this:

    
    
      ...our world has a history, spanning thousands of years, of 
      violence as a means to silence and control women. This is
      simply not the case for men, and never has been. Every 
      woman carries that historical weight with her wherever she
      goes, whereas very few men even have an understanding of
      how heavy that weight is.
    

That is simply true, as every African American carries the legacy of chattel
slavery anywhere they go. Does this mean every black man is constantly afraid
he'll be beaten up and arrested? Of course not. But ignoring that legacy will
leave you profoundly confused on the subject of race relations.

Because women _do_ fear rape. No, not the way a hyperbolic strawman fears
being knocked down, but day by day in little ways the fear of violence becomes
another part of your life.

That creepy guy on the bus who said you looked pretty? He's probably just a
harmless old dude. But then he moved to sit next to you and didn't say
anything and you were worried he was going to touch you. So you get off at the
next stop even though you aren't home yet, because the last time something
like this happened that guy found out where you worked and took the same bus
as you for a week... And you _know_ he's probably harmless and you feel like
an idiot waiting for the next bus except your best friend was raped at a party
and had to get an abortion and never told anyone but you and God, why are you
even thinking about that? Why is it so hard for men to just _leave you alone_?

Since we're avoiding generalizations, I will be specific: _Every single woman_
that I have known intimately enough to know such things has such stories.
Those who had not been victims of rape themselves, that is. Of course, they
don't complain about it, because complaining about it has never, ever helped.

Does that mean "every woman fears being raped all day every day"? Stop talking
like that. You know what it means.

> She generally doesn't concern herself with posts like these but she felt the
> need to considering a man (I know you don't care about gender but it's
> important factor that a man is telling her how she feels) is saying what
> sexism is to EVERYONE.

I will charitably grant she mistook his speaking in generalities to be making
pronouncements. For example, he says "A group of all men just doesn't seem as
welcoming to women," to which she retorts "in general I find that men are in
fact, more welcoming". They're plainly speaking past each other; he spoke of a
statistical fact, such as "Black men are more likely to be arrested", and she
responded with a personal fact, such as "I'm not a criminal."

It's obvious why these sorts of general statements are so dangerous, since
they're so easy to misinterpret or use for evil (and tacking on some kind of
IMHO doesn't help at all). In general, I'd avoid making them in the first
place, except there are questions we need them to answer: "Why are so many
black men being arrested?" or "Why are so few women entering tech?"

So I think I'd be a lot more charitable toward her position if I saw some
indication that she got what the original article was actually _about_ : "I'm
concerned about the gender gap in tech. I think it's an important thing for us
to be talking about."

Then we can all work to figure out a way to talk about it that doesn't leave
some people feeling unrepresented.

~~~
laurasanders
I ran out of time to reply to every comment yesterday, but as Faruk linked to
this as one of his best comments, I thought I would take the time to reply
now.

The example of African Americans carrying the legacy of slavery with them is
not a fair comparison to women. African Americans are a group of people who,
whilst now large and diverse, mostly share a common history which in the grand
scheme of things was not all that long ago. You could use Native Americans or
Jewish people as similar examples. Women don't have a shared history in the
same way. Women have suffered terribly throughout history (and in some
countries they still do now) by either horrible violence, being treated by
second class citizens or both. However there was no one cultural atrocity
which affected all women.

I'm aware of ways in which women have been persecuted. I'm also aware of how
people have been persecuted based on race, religion, sexuality, age. Those
things all contribute to my understanding of history, and I think it's
extremely important not to ignore them, but not ignoring them, and not being
weighed down thinking about them every day are very different things.

Stories like you describe - I can honestly say that I don't have a story like
that. It might be that I've been extremely fortunate and I'm in a small
minority. It might also be that I try very hard not to jump to conclusions. I
don't want to unfairly judge people based on what is probably an entire
harmless gesture, but I completely understand why other women do. When writing
my post I started to wonder if I was weird because I didn't fear being raped.
If the article could have that effect on me, isn't it possible that articles
and comments like this are actually detrimental to that problem?

Finally, I don't think that "I'm concerned about the gender gap in tech. I
think it's an important thing for us to be talking about" was what the
original article was about. It's probably what the original intention of the
article was, but it's not how the article turned out. I actually see the
gender gap talked about a lot (both by women and men). I barely go a day
without seeing someone or other talk about it on Twitter. My Twitter feed
clearly is by no means a representation of the whole industry as a) there is a
definite bias towards UXers and designers, and b) it's an entirely self-
selected list on my part. However it does show that these discussions are
already happening, amongst some communities at least, on a regular basis.

I think that an article that was truly about the gender gap in tech would
actually talk about the gender gap in tech. There were so many issues that the
article actually could have talked about - disparity in pay, women being
overlooked for promotions, women getting unfairly let go or not hired because
of pregnancy, women finding that their opinions are ignored or not even asked
for, women feeling left out because the guys go for drinks after work and
they're not asked to go with. The article did briefly touch on speakers at
conferences, but for me personally that's a less important issue. I go to
conferences a couple of times a year; I go to the office 5 days a week, 48
weeks a year, and issues like pay and promotions affect my whole life.

That last paragraph is something I regret not putting in my original post as
it helps to demonstrate that I was not criticising the intention of writing
the article; I was criticising the way it was written and the things that it
chose to concentrate on.

~~~
Cushman
Thanks for taking the time, I appreciate the thought-out response. I
completely see where you're coming from, and I hope I didn't sound too
critical of you personally.

I do just want to comment on one tangent:

> However there was no one cultural atrocity which affected all women.

I don't think this is as big a difference as you do. There is no Holocaust, no
singular event of great subjugation, in the history of African Americans.

The Atlantic slave trade and the ensuing institution of racial slavery wasn't
an _event_. It happened day by day, one ship, one beating, one auction, one
rape, one lynching at a time, generation by generation, for _hundreds_ of
years, well into the last century.

It is the same situation with women. No, no one ever decided to round up all
the females and shoot them; but day by day, one gospel, one edict, one rape,
one revisionist history at a time, backed up by very real violence, women have
had their natural rights to life and liberty and property and justice neatly
excised and kept in a box for safekeeping. In nearly every civilization for
_ten thousand years of recorded history._

If we don't call that an atrocity, it is only because the word is not large
enough to contain such atrociousness.

------
lsb
This is a really unfortunate treatment of a serious topic. There are valuable
insights, but the signal to noise ratio is too low.

To be clear, I'm not launching the "I didn't like your TONE"; I'm launching
the "I didn't like how you trivialized and subverted your own argument".

To take just the first 3 points made:

1\. Is the objection to the inclusion of a glossary? The serious criticism is
that sexism is not rape, and makes it sound alarmist, though both are power
displays. But to belittle the point by a solipsistic argument ( _I don’t know
about you but I haven’t exactly read a lot of news about rapes at web agencies
lately_ ) only fuels people who would repurpose that line to say they haven't
seen sexism at their company.

2\. Is the objection to the inclusion of research? The serious criticism is
that she rejects the exclusion of several self-collected data points, even if
they have not been compiled by sociologists. But to subvert the point with a
general aspersion to research at large ( _Some research is great, but a lot of
research is totally skewed to prove a point, and it’s not always easy to tell
which is which_ ) only fuels people who would repurpose that line about the
point trying to be made.

3\. The serious criticism is that he has unsubstantiated assertions ( _all
women find a male-dominated industry “less appealing” and all-male groups less
welcoming_ ), but the trivialization that immediately follows ( _at the very
least you need to preface them with ‘some research has found’ or ‘many women
find that’_ ) fundamentally denies the value that statistics, and empirical
measurement, plays in social science.

It sounds like there's a kernel of something valuable, but the signal to noise
ratio is too low. I'd love to re-read this after a few revisions.

~~~
killahpriest
Just because she didn't write as if her blog were an academic journal doesn't
mean she isn't giving a serious topic the treatment it deserves. Her post
exists to state that "the whole [.net] article is hyperbolic generalisation."

~~~
Tipzntrix
With a million and one blogs out there, you only get prestige and that great
"this is a good blog" status if you have a high signal-to-noise ratio.

Or you're blogging about the next Hollywood celeb breakup...but I think you
see my point.

------
bane
There is certainly sexism in the tech industry. It's not terribly common or
widespread, but it's there.

But the tech industry is also famously self-selective. Many people in the
industry self-selected for it when they were pre-teens. Spending hours upon
hours programming in BASIC or whatever on their C64s or TRS-80s before they
were out of elementary school...before thoughts of sexism enter the
consciousness. There is very little preventing young girls from getting
involved with tech at a very young age except simple lack of interest.

Anecdotally, I remember growing up and horsing around with many friends on our
8-bit computers before any of us had 2-digit ages. As I grew up the friends
and computers changed, but the basic demographic didn't. When my peer group
hit puberty we would have killed a member of the peer group to get a girl
involved in our group of nerds.

Many of my friends had sisters, none of their sisters cared the first thing
about what we were doing. A few of their sisters showed some interest at
times, but always seemed to have other priorities. This must be a shared
experience as the type of group arrangement in the _Big Bang Theory_ resonates
with all of the tech industry males I know.

It wasn't until half-way through high-school that we finally lured a couple of
girls into our group, but we spent most of the time teaching them basic
computer skills than nerding out with them. Nevertheless I never heard anybody
put the female members of our group down, or act like they weren't capable of
eventually doing the high-nerd things that we were doing. To the person,
everybody was helpful, and the girls hung around and one even tried her hand
at majoring in CS...before changing majors to International Relations.

Happily, things have changed for the better. The number of women in tech has
dramatically increased since those early days. It's not 50/50 by any stretch
of the imagination. But there are actual women in tech these days doing cool
things. They've self-selected to enter it and have put in the time to become
good at it, and have managed to ignore the real sexism (such as it is) and
that's very very cool.

It's an additional barrier that many males don't have to deal with, but I
think self-selection at an early age is an even larger one.

~~~
belorn
Its interesting that the tech industry has so high number of people that
learned the basic work skills at a very low age.

Very few other professions has this. A plumber did not go around fixing pipes
at age 10. A medic, while they might have played doctor, do not really learn
any of the basic skills until hitting university education. The lawyer when he
was 10 is unlikely to be reading law documents.

Beyond maybe the mechanic profession, what other professions beyond IT has
this property?

~~~
trhtrsh
> A medic, while they might have played doctor, do not really learn any of the
> basic skills until hitting university education.

The medics I know personally:

* Volunteered in ER in high school -> Doctor

* EMT and high-hours babysitting in college -> Children's Therapist

Also, sports profession :-)

~~~
stephencanon
My wife: Swam competitively, studied philosophy and religion as an undergrad
-> Neurosurgeon.

More anecdata: all of the best engineers I know came to it late, after doing
other things first.

------
shakesbeard
I'm a young, white male, aka privileged person. I've read quite a lot about
feminism (and anti-racism for that matter), and struggled to get a clear
picture of when my actions are appreciated. I think the most important lesson
I've learned is that I must listen; because I do not have any first hand
experience.

~~~
white_young_man
I'm a young, white man too. Care to tell me how this makes me a privileged
person?

~~~
EvilTerran
Does this help?

<http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Privilege_checklist>

------
jgw
I'm quite curious about how sexism affects the broader tech industry as a
whole, as it seems to not affect my niche area much at all.

I work in ASIC design, and we have probably even fewer women than software
development. In general, I have never had the impression that sexism is much
of a problem in our narrow little field. But since I'm male, I thought that
perhaps I was blind to the problem. So I asked a female colleague, and she
said she had never experienced any sexism on the job, period. Now, we're a
small company, and I like to think we're a pretty progressive, decent bunch,
so no surprises that she's never seen it internally. But we're also a
professional services company, so we work with many clients, big and small,
and we don't control their hiring process. But no - she's never experienced
any sort of sexual discrimination at work with clients, either.

I've not been able to come up with a plausible explanation of why the problem
does not seem to affect us in the same way that it might in a different sub-
field.

------
bobsy
Isn't sexism like anything else? There are extreme cases, quite often though
just speaking up resolves it.

I have a stutter and I have been in many jobs where I have been the butt of
some jokes. I have been overlooked or talked over. People have played 'guess
the word' when i get stuck... i could go on.

I find in the vast majority of cases a quiet word, a quick bit of education or
just straight up shutting someone down makes such problems perminantly go
away.

There is sexism in the tech industry, i am sure there is some racism and
whatever else as well. There will always be people who intentionally or not
say something that offends. Your work place experience will depend on how you
react to that.

My experience of the tech industry has shown that it handles complaints well
and deals with issues that arise in a positive way. I think this is what
people should focus on.

I saw a documentary about a fish market where women should be good wives at
home. The few women who worked there were subject to daily sexist remarks.
They had a choice. Ignore it or quit... There are far worse places to work
than in technology

------
lsiebert
So sexism, like any form of discrimination, doesn't just come in shocking
bright red, "hey honey, why don't we go into the copy room for some hubba
hubba". Rape can be a sexist act of violence, that's an extreme. Just because
that extreme exists doesn't mean that less obvious forms of sexism and
discrimination aren't ugly and evil.

A really pernicious dirty disgusting thing about sexism (and racism) is that
it can be subtle, and hidden, and still hurt people. Pay rates, job
discrimination, advancement are examples. Pressure to conform to a feminine
ideal or be see as "bitchy" or overly aggressive.

So yeah, that's one bad thing. There are plenty of bad things. And sexism is
bad for your business. Because discrimination doesn't just mean that some
people are privileged over others. It means viewpoints, ideas, projects etc.
from people who are women are not given the attention they deserve not because
they are lacking, but because their source lacks testes. Discrimination
doesn't just hurt women, it hurts everybody.

You advance a guy over a more deserving woman... you are hurting your
business. sexism is suboptimal. It doesn't even have to be that obvious. You
make a person feel unhappy or uncomfortable at work and the work their team is
doing will suffer, if only because of the communication problems that arise.

Even if you aren't sexist (and it's hard to be a hundred percept free from
stuff like that) sexism still informs the industry. The things you do that
contribute to you being a programmer are often informed by gender roles and
expectations. Math class for example.

Anyway, I recently came up with a test for sexism. It's a test I fail, but it
makes me think. Ask yourself, is it better for something, a hobby, a sport,
whatever to be manly or womanly?

------
covati
I only skimmed the original article, and I think this woman makes some great
point about how absurd his article is.

She has some good points about her experience, however, as she has only had 6
months in this field, and that is working in one company, I'd say she's not
the right person to write a rebuttal to anything about the current state of
it's culture.

Someone who has worked in multiple companies, in different regions, and at
varying levels of organizations would be much more fit.

Again, I'm not saying her article is crap, the bulk of it is a good
counterpoint, I'd just like to see someone with a bit of a broader view way in
from a woman's perspective.

~~~
laurasanders
I'd like to hear a version from someone who has been in the industry a lot
longer too. I specifically added the section at the bottom explaining that I
hadn't been in the industry all that long so I wasn't pretending to be
speaking from a much more experienced position than I am. From the comments
I've received so far there are definitely women who have been in the industry
a lot longer than I have that share my point of view though.

~~~
KuraFire
What, you mean like someone who’s been in the industry for fifteen years,
worked at companies both small and large, startups and corporations, and in
four different countries?

------
jerrya
Interesting article, along with the comment on it.

As a man in the tech industry, I saw sexism quite a long time ago -- in that a
coworker benefited from a pay lawsuit. But that was several decades ago.

I haven't seen much sexism in the industry since then, but it could be that my
views are limited and the companies and teams I have worked on limited.

So this article felt good to see. Maybe what I think I've been seeing (or not
seeing) is not far off the mark.

Related: could it be that after declining for decades that sexism in the
population has gotten worse over time? What is with you people?

~~~
thisone
that's my problem with these articles and posts. They seem to suppose that
there aren't more women because of sexism.

I'm not an industry researcher, so all I have to go on is my experiences.

I was a tiny kid, playing with Simons BASIC and having fun. But I never
thought of it as a career path. No one I knew was in IT, no one in the family,
or friend's families was in IT.

At school it wasn't something that was talked about as a career path (though
nursing and teaching were).

I didn't realize I wanted to be a developer until I got a random part time job
at university and built websites and databases. (I was majoring in engineering
at the time)

That left me with a big gap in skill set from everyone else my age who had
been playing around with tech since they were pre-teens.

But things are relatively hunky-dory now.

But I always think, what if I hadn't gotten that random job? Why hadn't I been
exposed to this career before then?

Would it have been industry sexism that meant I wasn't a developer? No. It
would have been lack of exposure to the possibility at a young age.

~~~
__alexs
> Would it have been industry sexism that meant I wasn't a developer? No. It
> would have been lack of exposure to the possibility at a young age.

Not being told that certain opportunities are open to you because of your
gender is sexism. This goes beyond child hood. People assume because of you're
gender you will or will not be into certain job prospects and other
activities. This is sexism.

~~~
km3k
I don't think that's what thisone was getting at. While I was growing up (late
80's into 90's), developing software and working on computers wasn't
encouraged for a career path, for both boys and girls. It was always referred
to as a hobby and one that wasn't looked upon very highly. Somehow I had a
natural attraction to working with computers and software and that took me to
where I am today working as a software engineer. My parents didn't even own a
computer until I convinced them that I needed one for high school.

If I hadn't gone into software, I may have ended up in some other engineering
discipline. Growing up I saw both boys and girls encouraged to go into
engineering, but not into computers. Even as a male, I feel I'm working in
software despite the culture I grew up with as a child.

~~~
mtoddh
_It was always referred to as a hobby and one that wasn't looked upon very
highly._

I never see this point come up much but I can tell you that when I was growing
up "geek" was a pejorative term and the guys who were into computers were
largely social outcasts. I can remember in high school the kinds of guys who
sat on IRC chatting with their little "cyber friends" being made fun of. And I
don't think they ever got much of a chance to "exclude" girls since my bet is
most of them never had much luck getting one to talk to them in the first
place. I don't doubt that sexism helps fuel the gender gap we see in tech, but
sometimes it seems like people forget that the original demographic in this
industry was by and large made up of socially awkward males who pursued their
hobby despite being looked down upon and excluded by others, not because of
the heaps of encouragement they were receiving.

------
rootedbox
What he wrote was a primer.. describing the basics of what sexism is.. in fact
in his terminology portion he pretty much breaks down what any gender equality
book would break down, and he does so in a very concise manor. Also you MUST
address rape culture when addressing sexism. Being dismissive of it is what
leads to sexism.

Reminds me of that kixeye manager "Let me tell you, it's ok to make jokes
about slavery because that's over."

~~~
zachinglis
Rape and sexism are not the same thing.

Rape is genderless. Despite the fact that rape happens more to women, it
happens to both genders.

Secondly, just because someone is sexist it doesn't correlate to whether
they're rapists or not. Sexism is about ignorance, rape is about many things
often anger or control.

If you mention rape any time someone says "I get paid less because I'm a
girl", it sensationalizes it. It's like mentioning slavery, every time someone
says "I'm only paid minimum wage"

~~~
rootedbox
So blacks don't get paid less, get higher interest rates, and jailed more
frequently; because of slavery?

All class systems invoke a behaviors which is the complete opposite of
Meritocracy; They are sensational from one viewpoint but are still prevalent
in the class system. If you do not openly address those then you are in fact
being passive in allowing the system to continue.

Just because you treat women with dignity, and you have friends of multiple
races.. Simply means you are not bigoted. You still could be a racist, and
sexist. These are some things Faruk Ateş is bringing up in his primer, but is
being lost by those who in general are privileged.

~~~
zachinglis
He's bringing up valid points surrounded by the word rape. It's almost a
Godwin's Law. He's presenting the most extreme example again and again in a
post that otherwise has some validity.

Of course I disagree with rape. It's a very personal matter close to my heart
for many reasons. But it is an extreme outcome of sexism, it is not the
problem because of sexism nor is it the reason sexism happens.

------
stcredzero
_> The point of this is simply to show that, unlike what the article will have
you believe, it is entirely possible to be a woman in the tech industry, like
your job, get on well with your colleagues (even when most of them are, shock
horror, men), and be treated in a totally fair way._

I don't think any of that is contrary to the original article. I'm not sure
that implying it is is entirely honest.

------
shawnee_
Faruk Ateş' at least got this part right:

 _The tone of our debates – which often get quite heated – is frequently
different based on the gender of the author(s)._

Sanders' article seems a little more rant-y than it should be for someone who
is basing her experiences "in the industry" (UK) since April 2012. Not that a
relatively small amount of experience means you can't have an opinion, but it
can't be good to become totally blind to something just because you don't want
to see it.

Given a little bit of time, perhaps she will see that some sexism-based
discrimination does exist -- not just in tech but pretty much every industry.
But it's not the kind related to violence or "rape culture", but rather of
pay. It is a cold, hard fact: women make less than men.

Let's just say "I know a gal" who was fired from a company in the Valley
because of that very discrimination. She had a master's degree and had been at
the company almost 1+ year when she discovered that than the guy _she was
training_ , a dropout art school student whose "industry experience" amounted
to working at Home Depot as a cashier was earning more. When my friend asked
for equal pay for equal work, citing Obama's signing of Lily Ledbetter, her
employers cut her salary to hourly, started writing her up for even the most
minor infraction, and eventually ended up firing her. From what she tells me,
she was unable to afford legal representation, Silicon Valley attorneys
literally laughed at her (said they would not take the case for free), so she
ended up signing a stack of legal mumbo jumbo that literally raped her of all
her legal rights.

~~~
jerrya
_Let's just say "I know a gal" who was fired from a company in the Valley
because of that very discrimination. She had a master's degree and had been at
the company almost 1+ year when she discovered that than the guy she was
training, a dropout art school student whose "industry experience" amounted to
working at Home Depot as a cashier was earning more. When my friend asked for
equal pay for equal work, citing Obama's signing of Lily Ledbetter, her
employers cut her salary to hourly, started writing her up for even the most
minor infraction, and eventually ended up firing her. From what she tells me,
she was unable to afford legal representation, Silicon Valley attorneys
literally laughed at her (said they would not take the case for free), so she
ended up signing a stack of legal mumbo jumbo that literally raped her of all
her legal rights._

It's very hard to take this story at face value.

~~~
KuraFire
> "It's very hard to take this story at face value."

Why? Because it disproves your world view? Because it makes you uncomfortable
to acknowledge that this kind of shit can (and does) happen in an industry you
like to idolize?

This story is outrageous, but entirely in line with many other, very similar
stories I’ve heard personally by various women. Men reacting dishearteningly
poorly to women raising the issue of mistreatment is A Thing™. A COMMON thing,
even. Yes, even in our industry.

~~~
jerrya
Hey, pretty funny that KuraFire is a nym for Faruk Ateş, but you responded to
me as KuraFire not as Faruk Ateş. Since my criticism goes to Faruk Ates, in
the interest of full disclosure you probably should have told us who you were.

<http://i.imgur.com/NGe1D.jpg>

<http://i.imgur.com/V9I4y.jpg>

Sigh. You should be careful that your use of nyms does not make you look
intellectually dishonest.

~~~
KuraFire
Uh, dude. I very clearly, openly and publicly use KuraFire as my nickname,
everywhere in conjunction with my real name, Faruk Ateş. I wasn’t trying to
hide anything _on purpose_. By posting as myself, I told you who I was. Blame
Hacker News’ awful design if you think I was trying to hide my author-ship.

------
jenandre
Ehh... Yeah. The original article was kind of a pile of crap, but it's hard to
give this any credibility either.

1) She's only worked for 6 months 2) She works in UX, which is actually pretty
well represented by women.

My two cents from a woman who actually works in a technical position (I'm a
developer) for > 10 years now. Also working in infosec, which is one of the
least represented when it comes to gender balance. Note: this is all totally
anecdotal.

IMHO, "Imposter Syndrome" is one of the primary reasons we don't have more
women in the industry, and it's reinforced heavily because of the culture of
most workplaces. Why? When you emphasize a "brogrammer" and "rockstar" culture
it's hard to believe that you can step in there and be just as "good as the
guys."

When I'm talking about brogramming culture, I am not talking about silly shit
like they turned the woman's bathroom to a man's one (lol, they did this at
one company I worked at) or that you need to stop making fart jokes etc. I
mean the idea we are all super awesome rockstars that sling amazing code and
everyone else around you is shit and an idiot for not knowing something that
you (and the other guys) know. When you're already feeling kind of alienated
for being different, this can be really intimidating (and it's worse when
people point it out -- I was asked an interview for a programming teaching
position at a university BY A PROFESSOR "how will you handle it if people
don't take you seriously as a female?")

I struggled with this for many years. I always assumed everyone around me knew
more about computers (they didn't) and their code was 100% perfect (lol, it
wasn't).

The effect for me was I was afraid to ask questions and when I wanted to
figure out something, I did the research/reading on my own because I felt I
had to prove that I was 110% competent - imagine how much time I could have
saved and how much faster I would have progressed if in those early days I had
just felt more comfortable asking people for help.

Because of this, I think corporate environments are an easier more comfortable
place for a woman to work in a programming job than startups and small
companies (again, this isn't universal). Which is sad, because I love working
at a small company. And the startup space could benefit from women (since
there are so few people usually in a startup, esp if you're building a product
that will be widely used by women, it is invaluable to have that perspective).

2) What can you do about it? Well, if you're a woman, and you want to be in
the tech field because you love working with computers, and you continue to
pursue it, you're doing something already. You're an example to every other
woman. I think only in this way, eventually the gender balance will even out.
If you're a guy, and you want to hire a woman to join your technical team,
emphasize the collaborative nature and how much they will learn on the job.
Hire for smarts and ability to learn, not just knowing how to write a rails
app in one day and knowing how to debug a deadlock with gdb etc.

~~~
coroxout
Your experiences chime with my own, as another woman with just over 10 years
of experience - especially the part about being afraid to ask questions. This
extends to being afraid to try new tasks, take on new projects, or even just
ask for critiques of my code, all of which I know are important in this line
of work. Obviously these fears are not solely experienced by women, but I
think there are some feedback loops which are particularly likely to lead
women into this rut.

As an example, after university I discovered that when I'd been struggling
alone to do my assignments and assuming all the guys were just finding it
easy, all the guys were going round to each other's rooms, hanging out
together, discussing work and looking at each other's code. They didn't think
to invite me, possibly out of fear that I'd misinterpret it as a date or that
I'd ruin the boys' club atmosphere, and I rarely asked them about work for
fear of looking like I wasn't up to their level.

While it's not quite so obvious in the workplace, there's still some of that
going on over lunchbreaks, after work or in impromptu meetings. And once
you've been unintentionally out of that loop for so long, it's very hard to
feel confident enough to ask people for a quick primer in what they're doing,
because you feel like the only one who doesn't already know. Again, not
intentional and by no means exclusive to women, but as a woman in a mostly-
male workplace you are automatically something of an outsider and that can be
hard to shake off, especially when trying to shake it off could get you
labelled as "pushy", something women are generally socialised not to be.

~~~
jenandre
"As an example, after university I discovered that when I'd been struggling
alone to do my assignments and assuming all the guys were just finding it
easy, all the guys were going round to each other's rooms, hanging out
together, discussing work and looking at each other's code. They didn't think
to invite me, possibly out of fear that I'd misinterpret it as a date or that
I'd ruin the boys' club atmosphere, and I rarely asked them about work for
fear of looking like I wasn't up to their level." - this x1000. It doesn't
help when you're attending a super competitive CS program with a bunch of
people who seem (or give the appearance of) knowing everything. I'm not saying
they really could have done anything about it, or it's anyone's fault I felt
excluded. In fact, it was entirely my fault I did all my group assignments
alone; had I overcome my introversion, I have no doubt I would have gotten
friendly responses. However, I think CS is going to be attractive for a higher
proportion of introverted people than not. How do we make those environments
friendlier to sensitive outsiders like this? It's not an easy problem to
solve.

------
mdkess
Sexism that I've noticed has been very subtle. I work with some very
intelligent people, so I can't imagine anyone is overtly sexist (ie. thinking
that women can't do this job, would not hire a person simply based on gender
etc.), but still, there are problems. It's hard to write about sexism as a guy
without feeling like you're coming off as sexist, but hey, I probably am.
Also, it's hard to write about things without generalizing, so I don't think
that these apply equally to all organizations, or all members of either
gender, but as a population (of people and of companies), my thoughts are:

For one, I think that recruiting is very masculine. "Solve impossible
problems! Be a rockstar! Join the most hardcore developers in the world!". It
works, but I think that men find a lot more appeal in it than women do. I
think that things like mentoring and career growth are also important - not
that that detracts from the end result of solving really hard problems, but I
think that it presents it to a more growth oriented way. So I think that
especially college recruiting should still focus on the fun, hard engineering
aspect of the job, it should also focus on the growth side. We'll train you,
you'll work with people - we want smart people, we'll make you into an awesome
developer.

Aggressiveness. If I want a raise, I'll go and ask for a raise. If I want
something changed, I'll speak up about it. If I'm not happy with things, I'll
quit and find another job. I think that this trait is more common in men, but
it has certainly led to my success - pay quickly diverges with this strategy.

Then there's the social aspect. Within the office, I think that everyone talks
with everyone else on pretty equal footing. That said, while I'd be totally
comfortable asking one of my male colleagues if he wanted to grab a beer after
work, I'd be at least more hesitant to do so with a female colleague so as not
to make them uncomfortable (being married makes this a little bit less awkward
for me) and I think that's not unique. People don't want to come off as
flirting with a co-worker, or make them uncomfortable, and so they don't go
out after work except in a group (and have no other recourse when they are the
only female developer in a staff of 50). The people who do go out though end
up talking about work, and end up solving problems that they wouldn't have
otherwise. They also get more opportunity to move between projects as their
friends move around within the company.

Then there's the awful problem of low numbers. If you meet a crummy male
developer, well, he's a crummy developer. If you meet a bad female developer,
she's probably a significant portion of all female developers that you've met
- and so at least subconsciously, I think that for many the association
becomes that female developers are bad (since hey, 33.3% of all female
developers you've worked with aren't that great).

Those are the main things I think. I think that all of these can be fixed, but
I think that it takes conscious effort on the part of the company and the
staff to get around them. I think at the heart of it is a bootstrapping
problem - there are too few female developers because there are too few female
developers, and as that changes culturally things will get better. We can
definitely speed it up though.

As an aside, I talked to a professor once about sexism in the computer science
faculty, and he said something really interesting: while the top few students
in the class are typically men due to the sheer number of people (if 90% of
students are men, 10% are women, by pure statistics the top 1% will mostly be
men), very rarely are women in the bottom 75% of the class. He attributed this
to a lack of ego - there's a real masculine competitiveness to the computer
science faculty (the goal to be "hardcore"), which women were generally
excluded from. Without this ego drive, they weren't too proud to learn.

~~~
tommorris
The rockstar shit is a filter for me. If a company advertises itself as
wanting rockstars, ninjas, "hardcore" people, or whatever brogrammer bullshit
of the week is, I put that job advert to the bottom of my list. The thought of
working around the sort of people who would apply because they consider
themselves a hardcore ninja rockstar puts me off. (I spent more than enough
time with homophobic macho fuckwits when I was at school, I'd rather not have
to deal with them at work.)

There are gendered problems in tech: social bugs, really.

There's the putting-yourself-forward problem. I was at an event a while back
and ran a birds-of-a-feather session on open source geo stuff (I'm an
OpenStreetMap editor). At the session was a woman who is involved with a
startup in the same area, but she didn't seem to have the confidence to run
the session, even though her involvement in open source geo is much higher
than mine (I just piss around editing maps). Ensuring that our community
institutions invite women in is a good step: they don't have to accept the
invitation, but many will. And that's good.

Another problem some women I know face: social expectations. They have to
dress more masculine in order to be taken seriously at real-life gatherings.
We as hackers like to say we don't judge people based on their appearances but
based on their code. Then at the same time, we like to judge the "suits". I
know women who have said they have to go home and change out of feminine wear
(of all levels of formality) into jeans and a t-shirt in order for the hacker
crowd to take them seriously. If a guy turns up to an event in a suit, people
will just naturally assume he needs to wear it because he's doing coding in
some kind of corporate environment. But if women turn up in a dress, they just
get the presumption that they are in sales or PR or something. That's
bullshit. (This stems from the geeky hackery idea that dressing nice makes
someone untrustworthy. Sorry, no, I've worked with utter assholes who come to
work in jeans every day, and I've worked with people who are awesome, ethical
and never fuck people over who–gasp!–wear formal or dressy clothing.)

Is there an endemic problem of malicious deliberate sexism? No. That exists in
some companies, sure, but I don't think that's the primary problem. Instead,
there's lots of little nagging bugs, some of which stem from unconscious
attitudes perpetuated by geek culture. The sexism problems such as they are
consist of lots of little nagging bugs that taken together exclude women.
Unless you are some kind of hardcore misogynist, fixing them will have
generally positive side effects for everybody.

~~~
prodigal_erik
We judge people who dress to manipulate, whether it's "trust me" or "pay
attention to me". The fact that a cheap costume might influence others'
decisions is a social bug, and I kind of resent anyone knowingly exploiting
it.

~~~
tommorris
Okay, so consistency question.

A male friend of mine recently testified before a parliamentary committee on
computer security. He wore a suit, as one might expect. If he hadn't dressed
formally, the committee wouldn't have trusted him, even if he'd said exactly
the same things (which consisted of being highly critical of a proposed
government technology policy).

A female software developer friend of mine has gone home after work and
changed into a less formal outfit before going to a developer event in order
so that people don't assume that she is a marketing or sales person or just
there to accompany her boyfriend.

Both of these are uses of dress to influence other people's decisions and
attitudes. Are either one, or both of them, worthy of the resentment you
describe? And why do we pick, say, dress out as something where manipulation
for social ends is bad but, say, typography isn't? If someone is preparing a
resume for a job and uses an inappropriate font (Comic Sans, maybe), I'll tell
him not to do so. But if he wears a tie during the interview, is he trying to
emotionally manipulate people?

~~~
prodigal_erik
> If he hadn't dressed formally, the committee wouldn't have trusted him

I can't blame your friend for accommodating their foolish demands. He treated
them no worse than they deserved for it, and refusing would have made it a
waste of everyone's time.

> gone home after work and changed

I guess I'm wondering whether she thinks her coworkers are incapable of
judging her genuine merit, or something else is going on.

~~~
tommorris
> I guess I'm wondering whether she thinks her coworkers are incapable of
> judging her genuine merit

Numerous female friends have had the same experience. I don't think it's about
coworkers. I think it's more to do with idiotic dudes thinking that pretty
woman in a dress just a priori cannot be a software developer.

------
peterwwillis
<Insert experience of a single person and accept them as gospel for an entire
industry>

Also pretty ironic that the author uses sweeping generalizations to dismiss
the cited article's sweeping generalizations.

Is this what we've regressed to? Meta-useless articles of people ranting about
issues without any proactive work towards understanding, or god forbid,
solutions?

When are people going to stop ranting about the problem and start fixing it?

 _clicks next story_

------
jinxedID
My workplace's content filter denied access to this page. Sexism is
everywhere.

~~~
lucb1e
Seriously, you have a content filter? I mean, like the ones in primary school?
Your boss trusts you that much? I'd seriously go looking for a better work
place...

------
toadburglar
I think the original article touches on some good points, and I can understand
the need for Laura to voice her opinion, but the author MUST have wrote the
article with good intentions.

Personally, if I were really affected by an article I get in touch with the
author, have a skype call and get all the concerns out in the open, and work
together to revise the article so that both parties are happy with it. Then if
the author didn't want to know etc, THEN I'd write the rebuttal.

I don't want to be harsh here, but Laura could have shared her input privately
and together created a exceptional article with valid points and different
perspectives, but instead when to route of going public and (potentially)
damaging the authors name in the process.

We're all professionals, and can take criticisms, especially if they were
voiced in a constructive way as a means to create something better. Laura's
article begs the question whether her intentions are destructive, or whether
her aim was to build and improve.

~~~
prodigal_erik
I don't view the low proportion of women in tech as a serious problem (I think
it's determined by the typical obsessions of twelve-year-olds). I do view the
expectation that they be kinder and less assertive as a problem. It's healthy
that she's debating honestly, rather than settling for a compromised version
of her points in someone else's work.

~~~
panda_person
"I don't view the low proportion of women in tech as a serious problem (I
think it's determined by the typical obsessions of twelve-year-olds)."

Which also has to do with sexism and gender roles in society.

------
eavc
"Isn’t social research by its nature normally based on anecdotal evidence?"

No. That's the very antithesis of what social research is, by its nature.

~~~
zachinglis
If you read his Tweets, when Laura tried to contact him on Twitter before.
Anything she said was "wrong" because of evidence suggests otherwise. She
literally couldn't give her personal views, because evidence denies it.

But let's be fair, you can make research say whatever you want. Especially
social research. It's a very valid thing, but it should not be taken as
gospel.

------
desireco42
I would say that sexism in IT is not the major issue, there will always be
places where there might be some, but I frankly never encountered those and
women were treated well in all the places. Point that @mdkess makes about when
female dev is bad it kind of is more visible and projects more to others is
also good. I worked with some exceptional girls that code like best of us.
However some other roles in IT might be better for women to start, like BA and
QA and project management where frankly they excel.

What IT or tech industry could use more is professionalism which would also
help with work/life balance. I think that would bring up pay which I consider
low, even though it is better then other fields. It would benefit from more
women entering the field, but how to attract them is tough problem to solve.

~~~
panda_person
"However some other roles in IT might be better for women to start, like BA
and QA and project management where frankly they excel."

Yeah, that's not itself sexist or condescending or anything...

~~~
trhtrsh
GP was bizarrely tone-deaf in his comment, but BA, QA, PM are a could vantage
point form which to attack gender inequality.

They are jobs expect less technical prowess, and thus leave open an
opportunity for a woman to show crossover talent (a BA knows how to write SQL?
Wow!) and chisel away stereotypes.

Now, it's a ridiculous rigamarole to have to go through, but it may be
strategically effective in wearing down barriers.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
Nice post. But I would like to hear on whether or not you disagree with the
actual point that he's making.

Do you think rape jokes can be brushed off or should the tellers be actively
censured instead?

------
pwf
> I’ve found men to be more laid back, friendlier, and easier to talk to than
> women.

I had to stop reading there. Is this article supposed to be an example of what
real sexism looks like?

------
smoyer
My experience with women in technology matches the author's but I'll also add
that I don't understand why the women in an office together are so cut-throat
and brutal towards each other.

If you're trying to answer the question of why there are so few women in IT
related roles, the best argument I've heard is that only men are stupid enough
to accept the life-style often required by those positions. Sounds plausible
to me.

------
collegeappz
10/2 article on dearth of women in the tech industry. It mentions a key point,
in its first paragraph copied below. I agree (and I'm a woman).

It’s an important question: why are there so few women working in the IT and
telecoms sector? It might be one of the rare times that The Guardian has
actually asked an interesting question in fact. The answer is, I’m afraid,
that on average men and women are different.

~~~
mamoswined
I think it is interesting, but what really fascinates me is that I'm one of
the only America women in my office and the only one who doesn't come from an
Asian immigrant family. When I talk to my American female friends, most of
them seem to think IT and computing in general is boring and dull. They wanted
interesting careers and didn't think our sector fit the bill. The
immigrant/first gen women in my office have a totally different attitude. They
were encouraged by their family to pursue the career with the most stable
potential, not the most interesting one.

~~~
collegeappz
Funny. Being a newer-bie into the tech world, this arena has so much more to
offer than just straight coding, which I think is like learning a language -
as intelligent as learning French, Spanish, or any other. And more crafting
the code to produce an awesome product - front end or back end is pretty
thrilling. Especially for people who like instant gratification, which
includes lawyers, teachers, and others in non-boring and dull communities.

But alas, the only way attract more females (and of the box ones, too) is to
have those in the world. Like attracts like - a universal axiom.

~~~
mamoswined
Yeah, I like it to. I wish I could convince other ladies otherwise. Plus, it's
just a job, and it's a good job that allows me to have good job security. I
think their jobs are boring. Sure, they are working in "cool" fields, but a
lot of them are essentially doing secretary work.

------
army
I don't think the original article was very good, and I'm glad Laura has had
positive experiences (plenty of us guys do try to make sure its a welcoming
environment for everyone). There are certainly plenty of well-meaning people
out there who have subconscious biases (and plenty of assholes too) so I think
at least its good that the topic is brought up occasionally.

------
sndr
Whoever asks questions or needs an opinnion(woman or man) must understand that
first: before you begin to do so, you took a responsibility to accept what
ever is being said, because you don't know the other end whos anwsering. let
me ......... 1nce more.... !!!!!you don't know!!!!! there are too many
variables

Woman or men, what ever.... there are always 2 sides of the story

sexism = vicious circle

------
godisdad
This reminds me of the so-called Tiger Mother. Someone who reinforces the
prevailing beliefs but claims credibility due to their status as a member of
the group in situ.

I suspect the author is actually a male graduate student in the UK.

------
konstruktor
I would lever call a woman I interact with in a professional context a girl.
That's so Mad Men. Am I the only one who considers this headline inappropriate
for a posting about gender issues at work?

~~~
zachinglis
I'm confused. She's not allowed to call herself a girl?

~~~
trhtrsh
She can, you can't. Similar to the use of "nigga" or "[black] boy"

It's a (short-term) tactical subversion move to reduce the power imbalance in
cases of extreme sexism, but as a long-term strategy it is incapable of
reaching equality.

~~~
zachinglis
Did I call her a girl? And as far as she's concerned, I'm allowed to call her
anything I like (within reason.)

Granted, that doesn't mean I should.

------
Tipzntrix
I actually have to wonder if "owned" ever had this much of an effect on black
people as "raped" did on women when it came about in gaming slang.

~~~
trhtrsh
"owned" comes from a different meaning originally (owning a machine, and then
identifying the machine with its user), whereas as the "rape" etymology is
direct, but then convergent evolution leads us to insults like "I owned you
like Thomas Jefferson owned slaves".

------
s_baby
On a sidenote, her food blog looks delicious.

~~~
laurasanders
Thanks!

------
Toshio
Randi Harper a.k.a. FreeBSD Girl was interviewed for the FLOSS Weekly podcast
and she said that every minute spent on discussing gender issues in technology
is a wasted minute that should be better spent building free software.

~~~
rickmb
And if people in every field and every community felt that way gender issues
would never get discussed, let alone dealt with.

Unless you truly believe that there are no issues, this attitude is just
intellectual laziness. Whether it comes from a woman or not is irrelevant.

~~~
nmcfarl
I'm thinking she means what dfxm12 is saying in his reply: Do, Lead, Build
something, and Make a statement with the thing you build.

------
an_actual_man
How does such a waste of bandwidth even get 27 points? Is this site infested
with feminists or what?

~~~
novalis
I think this is living proof that throw away accounts should be dealt with on
here. If someone really wants to participate, a good 6/12 hours cool down
without posting privileges would do nicely. I don't think anyone wins anything
on here with this sort of reddit novelty account phenomenon. It will not stop
all trolling, just this sort of troll.

~~~
corin_
9 times out of 10 I agree with you, but HN is a rare site on which there are
often genuine causes for a throwaway account, when people have good input to
make on a thread but for work related reasons can't do it under a name that
their colleagues/boss/etc. might recognise.

