SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 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.