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posted by LaminatorX on Monday April 07 2014, @08:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the Don't-be-a-jerk! dept.

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?

 
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  • (Score: 1) by Clev on Tuesday April 08 2014, @05:00AM

    by Clev (2946) on Tuesday April 08 2014, @05:00AM (#27954)

    It goes like this: "Where does an 800lb gorilla sit? Anywhere he wants." In a civil society, being 800lbs means he has a responsibility to pick his seat carefully so that he doesn't harm anyone.

    Which is why when the 800 lb. gorilla enters a room, people tend to shoot first and ask questions later. See also: affirmative action, alimony and custody unfairness, and fathers being detained [groundspeak.com] for being around their own children without female supervision.