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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, Interesting) by NaN on Monday April 07 2014, @02:54PM
Perhaps part of the trouble is that the overt misogyny is unfortunately still often on display in the tech world -- whether it's a high-profile startup personality like Pax Dickinson making over-the-top remarks or /. trolls exhorting women to go back to the kitchen. They may be more vocal than their actual representation in the population, and the media may enjoy blowing up the situation in exchange for clicks, but that's no excuse for the people who go on to defend these assholes.
So let's assume that the majority of the trouble is with people who do suffer from unconscious bias -- and furthermore that both men and women are subject to those biases. (Possibly relevant: http://www.catalyst.org/system/files/The_Double_Bi nd_Dilemma_for_Women_in_Leadership_Damned_if_You_D o_Doomed_if_You_Dont.pdf [catalyst.org] ) The trouble with the defensiveness around the unconscious bias is that the defensive reactions are easy to interpret as hostile. Less hostile than the overt misogyny, but the fact that at least half of the commenters on a typical post about women-in-tech defend the existence of the boys' club and the "right" to act unprofessionally (and with hostility) suggests to both the women and the men reading along at home that this is the norm in technology and women aren't fully welcome.
Yes, in general, to some degree, men and women act and react in different manners (not the qualifiers). I, too, happen to believe that this is primarily a result of social/cultural pressures, but whether it's learned or innate is largely irrelevant in the end -- particularly given that it's not likely to change any time soon. (On the flip side, my co-founder wanted at least one woman on the founding team to ensure that we take into account the perspective of the female half of our audience -- only to discover that, ironically, our other male co-founder is far more likely than me to take a stereotypically female perspective on any given issue. There's a huge overlap between the gaussian distributions for males and females.)
The important thing is that neither way of dealing with the world (cooperative vs. assertive) is inherently better than the other. Having both modes of interaction makes for a stronger organization (as thought diversity generally does), and -- regardless -- an adult needs to learn to get along with more than just the half of the population that shares the same genital structure.
In most fields, this has largely been accomplished by accepting that *in a professional setting* there are certain types of interactions, certain types of jokes, that are considered disrespectful and thus inappropriate.
How is it less reasonable to ask men to self-censor in the workplace the things they wouldn't say to their proverbial grandmother or 14y/o sister, than to expect all women to be sufficiently thick-skinned to not be made at all uncomfortable by objectifying "humor" and other subtle "you're not welcome" cues? Isn't the goal of the workplace to *get work done*? Do you really expect people to do their best work in an environment with an undercurrent of hostility? Shouldn't we be creating an environment where all members of the workforce have a chance to feel welcome and respected?
These not-particularly-onerous behavioral standards have largely been accepted in most other professions. Why do so many people in the computing world continue to defend the notion that it's OK -- or even "right" -- for our field to have an immature "boys' club" culture that marginalizes women?
This is not a demand for "special treatment". It's a request for 1) a minimum level of professionalism; 2) restraint from pre-judging people based on their external attributes; and 3) a culture of consideration and respect for *all* team members.
(Score: 2) by Sir Garlon on Monday April 07 2014, @03:59PM
It also requires at least as much effort as lifting a finger, and when it comes right down to it, a lot of people are not willing to do that. Far easier to deny there's a problem than to become part of the solution.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.