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Written in a New York Times article and summarily paraphrased here,
Elissa Shevinsky can pinpoint the moment when she felt that she no longer belonged. She was at a friend's house watching the live stream of the TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon, when she saw that it opened with two men who developed an app called Titstare. After some banter, one of Titstare's developers proudly proclaimed, "This is the breast hack ever."
Ms. Shevinsky felt pushed to the edge. Women who enter fields dominated by men often feel this way. "It's a thousand tiny paper cuts," is how Ashe Dryden, a programmer who now consults on increasing diversity in technology, described working in tech. Women in tech like Shevinsky and Dryden advocate working to change the tech culture from inside-out, but other women like Lea Verou write that,
' women-only conferences and hackathons cultivate the notion that women are these weak beings who find their male colleagues too intimidating...As a woman, I find it insulting and patronizing to be viewed that way.'
This all being hot on the heels of engineer Julie Ann Horvath's departure from Github as a result of similar concern.
Any of you care to address your own personal experiences or opinions regarding the subject matter; as well as the accuracy of the articles' stories compared to the industry-at-large?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @09:24AM
Why is it that being overtly a overtly sexual heterosexual male is considered a problem? We are supposed to tolerate overt gay men without being uncomfortable and also women wether straight or gay, but straight men should never display any signs of sexuality? This oppression of the straight males must end.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @09:48AM
The problem isn't being an overtly sexual male. The problem is expressing that sexuality with the grace and mentality of a fourteen year old boy. It's creepy.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @09:56AM
It sounds like you're just throwing out insults here.
So, basically, the gist of this crusade is that a large amount of men "express their sexuality with the grace and mentality of fourteen-year-olds" and that "it's creepy"?
Maybe you haven't been exposed to the world enough to see that it's actually not the case, nor is it actually the problem that's being discussed here.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @10:43AM
I'm sorry if you feel offended by my words.
I sense from your style of commenting that you feel put upon and weak. There is no need for you to feel threatened by women or by gay men.
Realize that adapting your behavior and maybe even taking small losses to make others feel more welcome is the mark of a great man. This is your chance to be that great man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @10:58AM
I'm sorry that you feel that I'm offended. Apology accepted, but a bit unnecessary.
I don't actually feel put upon and weak, either. What's with the insults? A bit emotional about this, aren't you?
I'll try to decipher your last statement later. Can you give some tips on what you're talking about?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @07:05PM
you don't know a thing about men because the most important thing to know about men is that we are all 14 year old boys on the inside. on the opposite side of that, all women are 14 year old drama queens on the inside.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @11:51PM
i don't want to rant, but there's this argument which always annoys me...
and when women (feminists) and lgbt extremists do exactly the same thing, then its okay? look around you, its a rare case where you see men be overtly vocal about sexuality issues while the "minority" is so adamant about it they forcefully shove it down your throat.
weren't we all supposed to be equal?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @10:36AM
Different contexts. In a professional/workplace setting, one should not be overtly sexual, regardless of your own gender or orientation. Seriously: it's as tacky for a woman to wear a blouse open to her xiphiod as it is for a heterosexual man to oogle her cleavage, or a homosexual man to decorate his cubicle with ass-pictures.
Outside of work, if two humans want to hold hands in public or dress up like cowboys in assless chaps, then yeah, you should be tolerant of that, regardless of their genders.
This failure to recognize context seems to be the root of gender/orientation discrimination. The workplace is not supposed to be a meat market. Go to work, do your job, have non-controversial smalltalk. If you want to get laid, go to Joe's Bar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @12:11PM
I start to regret all this time wasted on so many pr0n sites... how can they stay in business without showing that tacky xiphiod? Never seen it once.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 07 2014, @12:12PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @12:15PM
And yet Brendan Eich had to step down as CEO, great doublethink there.
Either the rules are the same for everyone at all times or they are just as unjust as sexism, racism or whatever else.
(Score: 2) by naubol on Tuesday April 08 2014, @03:22AM
The rules are the same for everyone, don't be an intolerant bigot about other people's lives. Let them live as they want, accord them the same rights, and don't promote suffering. Unfortunately, Eich didn't want to follow these rules.
This is sort of like saying that we're against freedom because we make laws against murder. Tolerance is not tolerant of bigotry, it is intolerant of bigotry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 08 2014, @04:34PM
You do of course realize that the idea of putting a label on someone to justify your injustice is not a valid concept, just like labeling someone a witch, traitor, terrorist, whore, nonbeliever or whatever else is in fashion at the moment doesn't automatically mean that you are right and they are wrong.
In this case you are wrong, Brendan did not mistreat people at work, he left his personal opinion at home.
This article is once again the same story, this woman watched something on her free time, nothing to do with anything that happened at work.
Leave your personal opinion at home and respect others that do the same, wether they happen to share your beliefs or not.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday April 07 2014, @12:35PM
The defining characteristic of a context in which hitting on women is fine is that the woman you're hitting on doesn't have to be there, and can leave whenever she chooses without repercussions. Among other things, that means other patrons of Joe's Bar are probably OK, but the barmaid is not unless she's clearly inviting that kind of behavior. Bonus points if she has friends in the vicinity who will help protect her if she decides you're a creep but you refuse to back off when told to do so (which happens frequently).
A lot of guys don't realize why, so let me spell it out for you: 1 in 4 women in the United States will be sexually assaulted or raped and roughly 1200 women are killed each year in the US by a current or former intimate partner. That means that smart straight women who are talking to a man they just met are in part deciding whether he's a danger to her. To get an idea of what the world feels like to women, especially physically smaller women, imagine that every single female person over age 13 or so has the ability to beat or kill you - suddenly going out or even going to the bathroom without some friends for backup seems like a really stupid idea.
A woman who is at work probably has to be there to earn the money she needs to do whatever it is her non-work life entails. Just like you. Hitting on her at work is out of line, because she can't choose to not be there and often can't just tell you to go away and leave her alone. If you do like somebody at work, there are ways of handling it politely, but start out by getting lunch, not telling her how hot she is.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @12:51PM
Continuing to harrass a woman that makes it clear that the attention is unwanted is clearly not ok and not what this discussion is about. It's the "thousand cuts" whiners that complain about things that are not directed at them personally, making problems where there are none and in the process devaluing words such as sexual harrassment and sexist.
As far as rapists are concerned I have no sympathy for them and would have no problems with implementing death penalties for rape.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 07 2014, @01:18PM
It politically correct to say such things, but there are a lot of cases of false accusations and often very little evidence. Evidence is one of the main reasons more women don't come forward when they've been raped. If there's solid proof and the rapist is a repeat offender I might side with you on that, but I'm definitely not ok with being put to death if some girl from my past claimed I raped her, Julian Assange anyone?
Up until I was in my twenties I had no idea how screwed I could have been if one of the girls I'd slept with in my teens got pregnant and decided to claim I'd raped her as a way of redirecting mommy and daddy's rage.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @01:41PM
Of course it's not ok to judge someone unless there is solid evidence regardless of the crime, this is hardly unique to rape, merely accusing someone doesn't make them guilty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @05:32PM
Mere rape accusations have ruined many mens' lives. Oftentimes those accusations are found to be lacking for evidence, and sometimes they are found to be baseless or even fabricated, sometimes maliciously. In the cases where a rape accusation is made up, the lying female almost always gets off scot-free, usually she isn't even named and shamed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @01:06PM
As long as we're being statistically hysterical, let's imagine we live in the real world, under the laws of physics, where we don't have to imagine that every single female person over the age of 13 has the ability to kill you.
Because they do.
Welcome to real life. It's dangerous to go alone. Take this kitten.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @07:50PM
Now explain how watching something on tv with friends and getting outraged is a workplace situation you can't walk away from, as that was what the article was about.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by naubol on Monday April 07 2014, @02:36PM
// warning, playing fast and loose with stereotypes I don't really believe, to make a point. Please accord me some latitude!
Tolerating gay men is not analogous. But, it is instructive to explore this analogy. It would be like 99% of the advertising, movies, billboards, television socials, and socially acceptable workplace discussions would revolve around gay men and their relationships. Not only that, but you as a het male would have to put up with serious sexual aggression by your bosses that ranges from the subtle but pressing to the less subtle and more arm-twisting kind.
If you can imagine this, but it will be hard for you, you are basically told, over and over again, that you are more valuable as the object of a gay male's desire than you are as a worker. Here the analogy sort of fails, because gay men in charge could still refrain from being sexist or treating you as just an object. But, if it holds, you will be expected to wear sexy clothing even though you don't care to wear that, you will be expected to shut it in any meeting, to be unassuming, to be polite, etc. If, on the off chance you insist on speaking your mind in any business discussion, you run the risk of being labelled a "bitch".
You might be less likely to be hired because you might ask for family leave for when your wife has a baby, or you might be perceived as less focused on the job in general due to family. And, the stigma will be intense. Sense you don't wear gingham shirts and tailored pants to work, speak in a gender fluid way, or don't keep up with the latest fantasy drag race contest, they will /look/ at you as a bit of an interloper, and there will be awkward moments of silence as you try to disengage from what the culture is doing. Or, you could choose to suppress your "hetness" and participate in things you don't particularly care for in order to be perceived as "one of the gayth".
If you tried to bring up your family life, people around you might very well get uncomfortable. Knowing this, you would be less reticent to speak about it. One of my favorite complaints from het people about gay people is that gay people talk about their private lives entirely too much. Het people are talking about who they banged, who they want to bang, and their families all the time. They think it is perfectly acceptable. This complaint is really about, "why do I have to sit and listen to this when it makes me uncomfortable? It should be unacceptable, dammit!" Women, similarly, are expected not to talk about feminine issues or concerns, and if they choose to do so are labelled in ways that are shockingly rude.
There is an air of oppression in any office in which many men are just oblivious, but which women feel all too keenly, I assure you. This air mixes in with general society, and it wraps into it all sorts of other cultures, like minorities and "urban" culture. Obliviousness to the fact that it is often harder to get hired, harder to speak your mind, harder to be listened to, harder to get paid equally well, harder to be promoted, harder to be accepted and liked for the things that make you you, etc, makes such ignorance that people whine about how the world is equal and why do we have to be so sensitive? The truth is, if you're saying that, you're not sensitive to much of anything.
If you think this is too off the mark, hard to believe, etc... Consider that there are empirical studies, reams of literature, people speaking about it to you, this article, a whole movement, etc. People aren't crying wolf, this is an issue.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Monday April 07 2014, @03:24PM
One of my favorite complaints from het people about gay people is that gay people talk about their private lives entirely too much. Het people are talking about who they banged, who they want to bang, and their families all the time. They think it is perfectly acceptable. This complaint is really about, "why do I have to sit and listen to this when it makes me uncomfortable? It should be unacceptable, dammit!" Women, similarly, are expected not to talk about feminine issues or concerns, and if they choose to do so are labelled in ways that are shockingly rude.
I just had to listen to several of my cow-orkers talk about how the wife of one of them had a baby, how much it weighed, that it was delivered by C-section, etc. etc. Personally, I feel totally excluded since I don't have any children, and these guys are all standing around talking about their kids.
You don't even have to mismatch on gender or sexual orientation to feel alienated; just being single among married people, or being childless among people with children, can be alienating as well.
I don't really have a solution here; it seems odd and oppressive to say that people shouldn't talk about their kids or whatever. What would be better is if we had better work environments where I don't have to overhear everyone's conversations, and where I have privacy and don't have to be part of conversations I don't want to be. In an open-plan work area, I look completely anti-social when I avoid these conversations that take place right next to me.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday April 07 2014, @04:16PM
> It would be like 99% of the advertising, movies, billboards, television socials, and socially acceptable workplace discussions would revolve around gay men and their relationships.
Are you suggesting that women are marginalised because all advertising panders to men? Even if women still aren't earning as much as men, they still do more of the spending. This isn't a lame stereotypical jab about women liking shopping, it's because women are still more likely to be in control of the household budget.
For this reason, advertisers pander to women. Oh sure, for the minority of products that men buy directly and more-or-less exclusively (beer, power tools) you can expect ads full of swimsuits and boobs and macho-geekery. However for everything else, you'll notice that the message is aimed squarely at females.
Switch on your TV and watch 10 minutes of adverts. Count how many times men - and in particular fathers - are portrayed as bumbling, slow-witted, lazy clods, constantly making fools of themselves and causing messes and crises that have to be cleared up by a woman. Now watch a few sitcom episodes and see that the trope has leaped from the ads to the portrayal of men in general.
This stereotype is not just unfair and offensive to men, but damaging to families. It's because of this that many women don't trust their male partners with things like childcare or housework, all the while complaining that the men don't spend enough time with the kids or do enough to help around the home. Dad misses out on time with the kids, while feeling he is being unfairly hen-pecked by the mother. That's not a recipe for a happy family.
Wish I could find the original article that switched me on to this, but here's some further reading I googled up:
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/selling-abbott-lets- bin-the-patronising-doofus-dad-20130830-2swba.html [smh.com.au]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/18/opinion/18tierne y.html?_r=1& [nytimes.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @04:49PM
Your "one of the gayth" comment cracks me up, just thought I would mention that.
I actually worked at a job like the one you described. The manager was gay, he hired mostly gay employees, and hired me and 2 others either because a) we were highly skilled and he had no choice, or b) he found us attractive. To give this context for "why didn't you quit!" this was 2000 and the economy in that area had tanked.
I won't go into the details (you are welcome) but after working there a year and a half my self esteem was shot, they had managed to make me feel worthless, that the only reason I had this shitty job was that my gay boss liked making me uncomfortable. They all got into it, and they all thought it was so fucking funny. When I finally did get a different job, it took a long time before I felt pride in my work again, that I was actually good at this thing I was so passionate about, not just tolerated because someone liked how I looked.
Most of that had to do with the economy, as I mentioned, but being trapped in a job because it's the only thing paying your bills, then having co-workers and worse yet a boss that demean you and make you uncomfortable is just SUCH a shitty experience.
I think that is how some of these women feel, and if you are not supremely self-confident it can leave you in a state of depression. One crude joke? no. Crude-jokes all of the time, always feeling like it's at your expense, always feeling like what you do isn't seen as being good enough, or else they wouldn't treat you so poorly, it's a sucky way to work.
(Score: 1) by dpp on Tuesday April 08 2014, @02:43AM
I'm completely certain that your example is the minority situation.
Considering just the #s - a much larger percentage of gays has to put up with hetero tax, often harassment.
It's sad to hear about your story and situation and very unexpected to hear about such an odd/uncommon reversal of fortune.