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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @09:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @09:46PM (#30303)

    No, you feel like you are losing the debate. That's because you are.

    How on Earth did you come to the conclusion that those figures demonstrate that males are more prone to social awkwardness? It says nothing of the sort, unless you happen to be defining introverted as socially awkward and extroverted as socially normal. Even if that's the case, the difference is a mere 5 percent.

    The part of note, which you are conveniently ignoring, is that males fit in the thinking archetype about 2/3 of the time, and females fit in the feeling archetype about (greater than) 2/3 of the time. Those figures alone line up very well with employment figures in the tech sector.

    MEN AND WOMEN THINK DIFFERENTLY ON AVERAGE. This is supported by all kinds of evidence, physical, statistical, and anecdotal (everybody knows it's the case from personal experience, some people just can't admit it for silly existential reasons). Either you accept this as fact, in which case the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that in spite of these cognitive differences women, on average, are just as employable and just as eager to obtain employment in the tech sector as men are, or you reject what is obviously the case, in which case the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate how there aren't significant cognitive differences between men and women despite all the evidence to the contrary.

  • (Score: 1) by cubancigar11 on Saturday April 12 2014, @06:58AM

    by cubancigar11 (330) on Saturday April 12 2014, @06:58AM (#30464) Homepage Journal

    you feel like you are losing the debate

    No, I feel like I am talking with a sexist who is intent a "winning" what he considers a debate. You win, here is your internet.

    How on Earth did you come to the conclusion that those figures demonstrate that males are more prone to social awkwardness?

    Did you read my comment? I will repeat in case you didn't:
    "Your citation doesn't say why females are biased against tech development or the 'traits and characteristics' of tech development.

    I am assuming what you meant to say was that tech development lends itself to 'socialy awkard' people and men, according to your citation, are more prone to it."
    Any literate person IN THE UNIVERSE will know that a URL with some numerical figures does not an argument make. I gave you a benefit of doubt based on your previous reply. You have demostrated your inablity to comprehend before going on offensive. Sexist and Arrogant! YAY! Two internets!

    The part of note, which you are conveniently ignoring,

    Jumping over conclusions is not very masculine, cognitively speaking, you know!

    is that males fit in the thinking archetype about 2/3 of the time, and females fit in the feeling archetype about (greater than) 2/3 of the time. Those figures alone line up very well with employment figures in the tech sector.

    Are you series? First you use MBTI [wikipedia.org] to draw sweeping conclusions that MBTI itself is not designed to measure (thinking type doesn't mean what you think it means), then you declare 2/3 as some golden female-male sex ratio in tech sector? Let us do some calculations:
    1. Maximum % of men in T type = 67%
    2. Minimum % of women in T type = 24%
    3. Maxium of men / minimum of women = 67/24 = 2.79
    4. Acual ratio of men / women in tech sector: > 4 [oycf.org] in domestic industries, ~ 7.11 [qz.com], ~ 10.11 [forbes.com] for CIOs in USA
    5. Standard deviation between 2.79 and 4, 2.79 and 7.11, and 2.79 and 10.11 is left as an excercise. Hope you will do it if you are anywhere close to average male cognitive abilities.

    MEN AND WOMEN THINK DIFFERENTLY ON AVERAGE.

    Any married person will attest to that, why are you yelling?

    This is supported by all kinds of evidence, physical, statistical, and anecdotal (everybody knows it's the case from personal experience, some people just can't admit it for silly existential reasons).

    You made your point by yelling before, no need for snarky rhetoric about 'some people'.

    Either you accept this as fact, in which case the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that in spite of these cognitive differences women, on average, are just as employable

    Even after I have provided you with enough research material that points to me being correct, the burden of proof falls squarely on you because you cannot replace 'MBTI' scores with 'cognitive abilities' in middle of your argument without even declaring which 'cognitive abilities' are the basis of tech industry. Reminder: 'thinking type' doesn't mean someone is a better thinker than the other and you cannot use the words: 'women' and 'illogical' in the same sentence.

    and just as eager to obtain employment in the tech sector as men are,

    A lot of people are not eager to work under a sexist boss whether it is tech industry or not. But just to prove you wrong: "As an example, women's employment ratio in the manufacturing of electronic and communication products is 42% in 2000 in Beijing, which was higher than the average female employment ratio (38%) of that year."

    But that is not tech sector!!! That is manufacturing! I hear you.

    or you reject what is obviously the case, in which case the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate how there aren't significant cognitive differences between men and women despite all the evidence to the contrary.

    You win 3 internets and this "debate". Bye bye.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:42PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:42PM (#30994)

      Dammit, I've got a whole bunch of internets laying around. What I really wanted was a cheeseburger! :p