Being a woman in business, especially in the tech industry, is hard but gets easier as you grow older: you get isolated, pointed out, 'discussed' and I've had clients marvel at my technical prowess, as if it were some magical gift endowed to but a few women. It took me years to learn to cope, and to have the confidence to say, it's not about me. It's about whoever is saying those things. Every day I am the sole woman in my workplace and that's OK. Most of our customers couldn't give a damn, as long as we fix those bugs and make new features. It's hardest in public, I avoid industry meet-ups, but I'm also very reserved as a person which is probably more related, and why I speak anonymously online. It's hard to read these articles and then see maybe 95% (99.5%?) of the commenters are men. It makes me the 'other' and it's awkward but I love what I do and I love HN because in my workplace, the men around me don't give it a moments thought that I'm the 'other' and I know that the majority of the men here are also the same when it comes down to it.
Sandberg has a right to her own opinions about how things work for her as a leader and a parent. Just like everyone here has their own opinion about pretty much everything.
I don't understand the "hard to read these articles and then see maybe 95% (99.5%?) of the commenters are men" bit.
These articles are typically published in rags like the Atlantic, which I would imagine have fairly equal gender-distributed commenters, or even skewing female. Or if you mean comments on HN, how do you know the genders of the people who are commenting? Not everyone mentions their gender in their comment / profile.
I mean on HN - to say how it feels: it's like being put on show in some glass box, being talked about like a rare specimen. It's just strange. I don't know if it's just me as I can't speak for other women.
Gender discussion on HN can feel like men coming together to discuss their observations of women like a group of biologists. It can be a little dehumanizing.
Decent amount of snark there, but could you back it up and have a women's studies class without discussing some form of male oppression or domination at least once?
Women are defined relative to men, just as men are defined relative to women. If there were no men, women would just be "people". In discussing one, you implicitly discuss the other. Whatever makes women into women, men are not that. Except, "woman" and "man" can also be seen as archetypes, and it's possible to integrate both, at least to some degree.
One can try to visit feminists blogs and web-communities. I am a man, and I'm often left with a feeling of being 'the other', sometimes unfavourably so. The most obvious cause is that it is often a community of mostly women discussing both male and female characteristics. A more subtle clue is that it seems that they refer to men as "males", but women as simply "women". Some communities are even hostile to the idea of male feminists - in turn some male feminists call themselves feminist allies, instead.
Those are my limited experiences, anyway. I'm sure some one will say that I've only encountered the most bigoted communities for me to have this impression.
One can try to visit tech websites, or even tech offices. I am a woman, and I'm often left with a feeling of being 'the other', sometimes unfavourably so. The most obvious cause is that it is often a community of mostly men discussing both male and female characteristics. A more subtle clue is that it seems that they refer to women as "females", but men as simply "men". Some communities are even hostile to the idea of feminists - in turn some feminists forego speaking up about their feelings, and pretending to be "just another bro".
One crucial difference is, of course, that feminists only talk about gender and things that are related to that. Tech-communities might sometimes talk about gender, but most might only talk about it when it is somewhat relevant to their tech-interests. Feminists, on the other hand, have a practical monopoly on gender-opinions as far as mainstream opinion is concerned. And they're mostly women, and might even reject men into their circles. Programmers being mostly men might bias things like technological choices, but the bias towards women in gender-theory (might as well say feminist-theory) doesn't change a niche thing such as what programming language powers the client-side web, it heavily influences popular opinion on what men are and what they should be like, even though they are not really a represented group. That might not be a problem if some vocal feminists didn't try to work against alternative paradigms of gender theory, but in my experience, they do.
Your last point would be more analogous to my own if you said that some communities are even hostile to the idea of women programmers (if that is indeed true).
Another crucial difference is that you can easily choose to not read and participate in feminist blogs and communities, whereas I have to interact with tech communities every single day. Reading tech websites is crucial to my career, and well, I gotta go to the office every day too.
I work at a top tech company in Silicon Valley, in a team of 200 men and 10 women. The men aren't intentionally hostile towards me at all, but they are blissfully ignorant of how their comments and behavior genuinely makes it hard for the few women around them to succeed and be considered equals.
Being 'other' is sometime annoying and hard yes. On HN I am 'other' because I am not from the US and English is not my mother tongue and I don't watch Netflix. At work I am the only foreigner in a Chinese company.
But being other means you are special and provided some sufficient open mindedness, you can bring a fresh point of view to the discussion.
How do women react when they hear you're in the tech industry? I think that would be more enlightening than how a majority acts around a minority and would shed some light on whether there is anecdotal credibility to the author's point about preference between the genders determining societal positions.
I get called by most of my women friends to fix their computer problems or for technical purchasing advice, almost never by men unless it's related to work and I'm the expert on the topic. Anecdote-wise I have a million stories about what it's like to be known socially as a technical person: I'm not sure most of those stories are any different from what it's like to be a technical person in any otherwise non-technical environment.
One thing that is quite special in my life: I have the honour to be around several young girls via my family and friends, and they don't treat me any different at all and often tell me pointedly how they know more about their devices than I do (I don't play games so they delight in showing me the details and beating me).
Sandberg has a right to her own opinions about how things work for her as a leader and a parent. Just like everyone here has their own opinion about pretty much everything.