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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: 2, Insightful) by SGT CAPSLOCK on Monday April 07 2014, @09:34AM
Seriously, just face it. These women feeling "thousands of tiny paper cuts," by their very admission, feel detached from their male peers. Could it perhaps be because--bear with me here--could it possibly be because they are _different from men_?
Honestly. The first part of the solution is to stop making a problem. Remember that phrase "boys will be boys" and understand that yes, indeed, men are NOT women. The minds of men can not function as the minds of women do; the minds of men have certain primal things innately ingrained within them that separate them from women, and women have their own ingrained, primal essences that further separate them from men.
We've already seen what happens when people repress their human nature by looking at some of the passive-aggressive, backstabbing, double-talking, manipulative monsters in the corporate world.
Rather than to crusade against your peers, wouldn't it be better to just "be yourself" like they do?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by clone141166 on Monday April 07 2014, @10:08AM
The problem with these arguments is that it's almost impossible to draw a single conclusion; *each* case of sexism is *extremely* dependent on context and they can't all be judged as a single issue like this in any meaningful way.
That said, I think what magnifies the incidents in IT is the ratio of men:women. If you are the only woman in a team full of men I would guess that it would, at times, be difficult to relate to other members of the team. So comments that *may* be tolerated by a group of women as "oh that's just men being men", would come across as a lot more hurtful when you are the *only* person that the comment targets. If you are the "odd one out" for any reason it can be more difficult when working in a team - and gender is such an obvious and unchangeable difference. When more women are present I think men are more likely to behave and less likely to make potentially sexist remarks as well.
I am NOT advocating sexism, there are definite lines that just shouldn't be crossed ever in a workplace by either sex. But I think maybe both genders need to be more considerate of each other.
On a related note, I have recently transitioned from IT (a predominately ~75% male dominated field) to Medical Ultrasonography (a predominately ~70% female dominated field) - unfortunately it is still very early days for me so I can't offer any real incites into the differences in work-culture. But I am fascinated to find out if there really are any noticeable or meaningful differences between the two.
(Score: 4, Informative) by lx on Monday April 07 2014, @10:08AM
Boys will be boys, but a grown man should strive to be better than that.
The first step is taking responsibility for your own words and actions and don't hide behind biology whenever it is convenient for you.
(Score: 2) by SGT CAPSLOCK on Monday April 07 2014, @10:36AM
I have to agree that it's important that people take responsibility for their actions, but I just don't think that's the issue here to begin with, nor is it a step toward fixing anything.
That you think grown men "should" strive toward anything is a pretty inconvenient statement, though. Maybe grown men should do what suits their personality, interests, experience, biology, etc. Maybe that involves conforming with your personal ideal image of what they "should" behave like. Maybe it's the opposite.
And I haven't seen anyone hiding behind anything; just open discussion so far.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @10:54AM
That's fine, if you live alone in the woods. For those of us who live in the society of other people "Me first" has proven to be a poor social structure. Instead, humans have generally recognized that stable societies are built on some degree of empathy and compromising one's own desires against the rights of others. For the past few thousand years, the voices in that negotiation have been by-and-large male, so it has been difficult for social rules to properly incorporate the actual desires and rights of women. It's time we listen to them, rather than put them on a pedestal and "protect" them.
(Score: 2) by SGT CAPSLOCK on Monday April 07 2014, @11:25AM
I think I understand what you're getting at, but I think I should say that you might have misunderstood something...
I'm not advocating anything, especially not a "me first" mentality. Personally, my view is that people would be best served by simply living, loving, and experiencing life in whichever way they think is best.
Other than that, the rest of your argument seems a bit off-topic to me. I'll bite, but I'm confused.
> For the past few thousand years, the voices in that negotiation have been by-and-large male ...
I'm not sure what you're getting at. A couple quick searches on DuckDuckGo show me that there are a grand amount of women in powerful positions who currently do and certainly can influence society right now, right this very minute.
> It's time we listen to them, rather than put them on a pedestal and 'protect' them.
Lots of women love to be "put on pedestals" as you say. Lots of women love to be protected. There have already been many who hate both of those things and who indeed have been listened to already.
(Score: 2) by lx on Monday April 07 2014, @11:22AM
I notice that taking care of the interests of others doesn't figure at all in your list of possibilities. Those are the pursuits of a little boy not those of a grown man.
Which takes us back to the topic at hand. Women in tech feel excluded and few of us even consider that it might be up to us to make them feel welcome. Not because of human rights or equality laws, but because it is the right thing to do.
(Score: 2) by SGT CAPSLOCK on Monday April 07 2014, @11:36AM
> I notice that taking care of the interests of others doesn't figure at all in your list of possibilities.
How did you come to such an opposite conclusion?
> Those are the pursuits of a little boy not those of a grown man.
You're wrong. "personality, interests, experience, biology, etc," to quote myself, are odd activities for the, ahh... insult(?) that you're trying to shame them with.
> Which takes us back to the topic at hand.
At last!
> Women in tech feel excluded and few of us even consider that it might be up to us to make them feel welcome.
Please do!
> Not because of human rights or equality laws, but because it is the right thing to do.
Doing the right thing always feels good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @11:43AM
Why the hell should it? The only person interested in your interests is you. You take care of them. I'm not interested, and that you think anyone else should be is what is so laughable.
And nice attempt at shaming language: "the pursuits of a little boy". I'm surprised you didn't include the classic "Man up!".
If you feel excluded, perhaps it's because you're going around telling coworkers that you think they're acting like children and that their primary purpose in life should be to work tirelessly for whatever YOU are interested in. I'd exclude anyone trying to get me to be their slave, too.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 07 2014, @12:22PM
Making special allowances for women is sexist, professional women want to be treated like employees and trying exceptionally hard to make them feel welcome is singling them out, breeding disdain from employees who don't receive the same treatment and the opposite of what this article is about and how professionals expect to be treated. It's completely undermining.
Stop and ask yourself, do we do that for <inverse of group x>? If you aren't then you're singling out group x, which isn't doing any favors for anyone.
I'm pretty sure the answer here is no, we expect men to get in and do the job they're hired to do without hand holding. Men or women, they're employees, their gender shouldn't factor into it. Gender shouldn't even be a factor with sexual harassment. Men can sexually harass other men, and women other women. If an employee is bringing inappropriate private behavior to the work place then that needs to stop, but this isn't an "us vs. them" situation. Some groups try to make it a men vs. women situation because it's beneficial to them.
Some of the *WORST* sexual harassment behavior I've seen in my life was when I was visiting my wife at her office, a mostly female work environment, where the mail boy, and he was a boy, was being extremely mistreated by women, most several decades older. I almost called out my wife's manager who was actively participating by smacking the mail boy on the ass. Had this situation been reversed, there would have been a sexual harassment suit and, given the boy's age, probably a lot worse.
This behavior isn't exclusive to the tech industry and we're all capable of it. We need to stop acting like it's exclusively men and exclusively in IT. I'm not misdirecting, but there's a bigger problem here, some of which is people being too sensitive, some of which is people being overly offensive.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday April 07 2014, @12:08PM
"The first step is taking responsibility for your own words and actions and don't hide behind biology whenever it is convenient for you."
Note that this applies to women, not just men.
I don't live on the coast, but everyone around here sees coastie women as total doormats compared to the locals. Women around here stick together, and guys who behave like jackasses toward them don't get to have "fun", at least not with ANY of the women. Like there is a female union or something. And they make it very clear to us men that mistreating one woman is the same as mistreating them all. And when enough are "forced" to not behave as jackasses, it becomes culturally unacceptable in general to behave as jackasses, so its just not as much of an issue in a civilized locale or civilized culture.
Didn't any of you coasties ever observe some social interactions, perhaps in high school, where a dude dumps a girl, and there's lots of girl talk, and then the poor guy, allegations true or not, may as well become a celibate monk? Or a guy is talking to a new girl at the bar, things are looking good, all the girls go to the bathroom together and they come back and the new girl is now the ice queen toward the guy because of something she was told about him? Not saying you have to be a participant, just have some minimal powers of observation and hear guys complaining about it? Seriously, compared to the locals, coastie girls are total doormats when they're mistreated. As if they like it or something. Don't want to live in some backwards cultural backwater, stop complaining and move somewhere more civilized. Don't like dirtbags? Hmm I've got a crazy idea... stop hanging out with dirtbags! The world has plenty of civilized men in it, just because you live in an area full of the extreme left tail of the bell curve doesn't imply a whole lot about the rest of them.
The other part is employees occasionally treat other employees very poorly. And if they're two guys thats just fine, some dysfunctional workplaces even encourage it, but if a victim happens to be a woman then its all boo hoo all biology oh my privilege that you bully all men but I'm a defenseless girl so NOW its suddenly wrong to bully. Oh spare me. If a woman works in a bullying oriented workplace and gets bullied, it has nothing to do with her genitals other than a very much side issue (like if the bullies know they can mess with her by discussing her womanliness rather than making fun of her source code or whatever traditional bullying topics). Guarantee if github is a workplace where bullying is tolerated, which sounds vaguely likely, they're treating "someone" like shit right now, and it isn't her because she left, and it doesn't much matter which set of genitals is involved. They are statistically likely to be bullying a guy right now, and its not because he's a guy, its because they're bullies. I could repeat my dirtbag line above. Sounds like its a shitty place to work, which may or may not be actually true, and supposedly there's a massive labor shortage on the coasts (maybe because the coasts have too many dirtbags, repelling good people away?) so she's better off having left. Some workplaces just happen to suck, and hiding behind biology, although convenient, doesn't help. If you're too cowardly to report bullying and want to hide behind sexism you have to accept that some people are not going to be very impressed.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 07 2014, @12:16PM
Nostalgically recalling those times... no matter how much you strive, there's nothing better than being a boy: everything is fresh and seems easy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by SuggestiveLanguage on Monday April 07 2014, @12:49PM
Software developers, SAs and EEs want to be considered a mature, respected profession alongside accountants, doctors, structural engineers etc., yet indulge and excuse behavior and gross ethical violations worthy of a board review and a suspension of license or immediate dismissal. Are we professionals or are we not?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @04:03PM
Note that you didn't include "App Developers" in your list of professions.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday April 07 2014, @05:36PM
Hey, don't lump the EEs in with the app developers and IT people.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday April 07 2014, @05:55PM
Also, electrical engineering has been a mature, respected profession for over 100 years now. Did you think that the power distribution network which supplies power to your PC to write that message was invented within the last few years?
(Score: 1) by SuggestiveLanguage on Monday April 07 2014, @08:10PM
You are indeed correct. Unlike far too many app cobblers and hackers, EEs have at least a minimal exposure professional ethics. Please accept my apologies.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Geezer on Monday April 07 2014, @10:29AM
The corollary to this is that the evolution of social norms relating to inter-gender interaction is incomplete. Whether it's in tech or on a construction site, we still have the problem of slut-shaming every woman outside of show business who honestly expresses her independence and sexuality. Men are almost universally guilty of this hypocrisy, and Victorian-minded women are too.
Yeah, men and women are wired differently. So we string men with bare copper, and it's OK, but we expect 100 Megohm insulation resistance from women. That's just not right.
I served with a bunch of women in the Navy back in the 1970's who were tough enough mentally and emotionally to overcome the bullshit and actually thrive on being assertive, self-secure, individuals. This despite the military boys-club culture. They earned the respect of their male peers and never stopped being women for a second. And FWIW, the sexiest woman I ever dated was a line handler on a tug boat. You'd think by 2014 we'd have come further in terms of wide (see, I didn't say "broad"!) acceptance.
We need to foster that cultural evolution everywhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @10:51AM
Male or female has nothing to do with it, I would not treat people like that.
Based on the article, it sounds like immature personalities and a generally ill corporate culture.
Obviously this story is one-sided so far.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday April 07 2014, @02:47PM
I'm a guy who's different from many of my male coworkers in a lot of important ways. I prefer Mozart to Metallica, don't like getting drunk, I do my best work from 9-11 AM, and in some workplaces I've been the only white guy. None of that ever caused a major problem for me or made me feel isolated from my coworkers.
My impression from my female colleagues is that the reason they often feel detached is that too many men in IT don't get laid enough or deal with women in a non-sexual way enough to view women as anything other than sex objects, and that often comes through in their behavior. Popular culture, such as every teen comedy movie on the planet, actively teaches men that the way they're supposed to relate to women is solely to try to get them into bed.
The countervailing force for this, according to the psych stuff I've read on the subject, is a sister. If a guy has a sister, then he's used to relating to female-type people as peers without any kind of sexual interest (because eww). If he doesn't have a sister, then it's quite possible that for him women will seem strange and confusing and the only reason to deal with one would be for sex.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by rochrist on Monday April 07 2014, @06:29PM
Here's a thought. How about the 'men' grow up and start acting like adults instead of little boys who've never seen a pair of tits before.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 08 2014, @08:42PM
Well, we are talking about a bunch of IT guys. My guess is that most of them have never seen a pair of tits unless they go looking at pr0n sites.