“Most of the time, I don’t feel like a girl, I feel like a programmer”
sarahbradburyblog.wordpress.com
sarahbradburyblog.wordpress.com
It was a refreshing surprise to see a quote like that in an article like this!
First, the citation of the github study. I don't know if the author or the editor put it in, but it's a woefully incomplete, cherry-picked result that shouldn't have made the press in the first place and shouldn't be repeated.
Second, the thing about IDEs. I don't disagree that they're bad, but is that really a diversity issue? Most of the straight white male engineers I know hate most IDEs with a burning passion. The general issue seems to be that they're hard to build and ill-considered, not that they're made by the wrong people.
Still, this is a good take on the real-but-limited role of gender in tech, and the role of code as a tool rather than an end in itself. Thanks for sharing it.
My favorite and most technical women coworkers in the past never, ever mention gender and actively avoid discussions about it. Professionally, it's irrelevant and their quality of work and attitude completely overshadows the quality of work of those who make gender an issue.
A very technical ex of mine would even go as far as calling those who make their gender relevant, even towards posts like this one, idiots.
The problem with these anti-label canned posts (sorry, but when I see info graphics like that, "canned" feels pretty accurate) is that they give off the same vibe as a the usual "I'm $LABEL, so treat me as such" crowd.
There are clear problems with gender issues in tech, but I can't shake the feeling that posts like this are more damaging than good.
I have bipolar which causes ADD-like symptoms. When I try to address these problems with requests like "Please don't install three TVs in my peripheral vision", I'm often ignored, laughed at, or my problems are completely minimized (eg, "My cousin was given an ADD misdiagnosis at 2, so clearly that's the case with you", "Grow a thicker skin.", "Get used to it."). How can we expect to address gender issues if we can't even discuss mental health issues?
The problem doesn't start and end in employment, so treating it as a problem within employment and implementing "fixes" on top of employment/employment culture will only make things more complex and exclusionary (particularly for the fringe). As with security, adding a layer of complexity can often have incredibly undesired results, while making the implementers (HR) feel good and secure with their "fix".
It would be nice as a culture to address things from the problem sources, not just the symptoms. Any time I try to have similar serious discussions at workplaces, nobody wants to talk about the root. It's incredibly frustrating, particularly since protecting the fringe is something I'm personally vested in.
But when there is an imbalance, or signs of general passive discrimination like with woman in tech, then initiatives that may not be perfect but which go some way towards helping address the problem ARE valid I think.
And if there are problems with a given approach, well, that's what iteration and metrics/analysis are for right? Continuous Improvement?
Replace "women" with "medicated schizophrenics" (no subtext there..) and you'll find that the problems are very similar. A solution that addresses workplace gender issues could potentially be used to address workplace mental health issues. Yet, instead of addressing the problem with a wide and possibly empathy based solution, we're stuck with incredibly specific solutions and enormous gaps where solutions should exist.
I'm convinced that the whole issue stems from a lack of empathy in the workplace, and studies like [0] seem to hint towards the same.
[0] http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/7724-empathy-college-studen...
Edit: another point to add - I once went to HR to talk about my mental health issues. The HR head who had a degree in psychology didn't know what bipolar was, outside of the fact that it's a thing that exists. The number of things wrong with that talk was mind boggling, especially after literally zero came from it. This was at a relatively large company, too.
I'm sorry that where you are seems like it doesn't deal with mental health very well (or at all, it sounds like). I'm from NZ and we have both very good gender equality (though not perfect, especially in tech) and very good support for those with health problems, psychological or otherwise (though again, not perfect - no government initiative can cover all scenarios and companies are fallible like anyone else).
Rather than arguing that gender problems shouldn't be addressed or should not receive as much focus, shouldn't you be arguing 'great, now can we also work on other areas of difficulty like ADHD?'
I totally think that we should be using what we've learned from employment gender/racial issues to help out mental health problems. Not saying we shouldn't. I'm suggesting that the conversation should be much broader to address it at the level of empathy, without resorting to ego compartmentalization. If the empathy problems can be fixed, I highly suspect that everything else will fall in line.
As bold of a statement as that is, it matches my experience where simply telling someone "I have bipolar" increases communicative empathy. That's almost never an option though, since the subject is taboo enough that mentioning it has negative consequences.
Why should we wait until gender issues are "fixed" to try to address that taboo?
One step forward and two steps back.
Change that to:
"Why can't someone with bipolar/schizophrenia be more like someone without?"
and you'll find that the two things should be treated similarly, but they never are from personal experience.
It's not an issue restricted to gender. The issue is elsewhere, and your video flippantly minimizes a complex problem.
Couldn't this be true for any group though? Not to lessen what she's trying to say, but if you're in any way a minority in a field, aren't you in some way representing that whole group?
If a work mate is a member of the Jewish/Mormon/atheist minority, I may not even know. And if I know, it's easier to forget. If I am a man (and I am), I am not gonna forget that the person next to me is a woman.
It may be also true of, for instance, rate. There was no black people, and very few Asian and Latin American, where I studied and in most companies I've worked for.
I, of course, don't consider myself a bigot (who does), but I guess I'm as likely to hold that kind of bias against black people than woman. Or significantly more, since I have worked with several women, and I have never worked with a black person (obviously not American).
(Answer: no. Same with anyone, regardless of minority status. Just because I'm a member of a minority doesn't mean the entire minority is homogeneous.)
So, no I'm not suggesting that I represent all men. I'm saying it's possible a male nurse may in some way be representing all male nurses to his female nurse coworkers.
But it's sad to see this biased statement in a great article discussing the negative effects of bias:
“It’s easier to create a software-based business: there are low start-up costs, things move quickly, its dynamic – the people doing it tend to be younger, more liberal.”
Younger? More liberal? hmmm.
Some people have sex for fun, some have sex for money, others pursue yet other goals. What happened to sex-positive feminism? Oh, right, I forgot - non-judgement is reserved for women only...
The reason it would make her feel uncomfortable is because he would probably look at her the same way, because objectifying isn't something you just turn on and turn off.
Also, it's not really a topic you should bring up at work.
You can't. Objectification isn't a sin. It isn't inherently evil. Much like stereotyping, it's an epiphenomenon of our finite human brains. We naturally tend to jump to conclusions and take mental shortcuts from external signifiers. (Stereotyping.) We naturally process our goal seeking in terms of instrumental causes and effects, and we sometimes forget to take into account the subjective experience of other people in our plans. (Objectification.) This is why cultures have manners that encourage active mental compensations for the deficiencies of our brains.
Are these manners as received from tradition perfect? No. There needs to be some further iteration. But I would contend that taking brand new stances of vilification and shaming will be just as toxic and problematic as such stances were in the past.
Not defending any actions in the article. I just want to straighten out the way people process these concepts: Objectification and stereotyping are information processing problems, not moral ones. They are not sins!
It makes no sense whatsoever to think about sexual objectification in terms of "information processing". If men can understand other men as more than purely sexual beings, then they can do the same with women. I hardly think that taking the non-sexual aspects of any particular woman into account is going to lead to some kind of information overload.
False dichotomy. Fallacy. I think there is a certain range of behavior that's toxic. We would probably largely agree on what that is. However, no one who actually understands cognitive and social psychology would say that people can actually never objectify, no more than any expert would reasonably expect a person to never stereotype.
I think your comment is basically a long-winded way of saying that you're ok with it
I think your comment is a prime example of the toxicity that results from people thinking of such things as a sin. Also, nice job projecting fictional thoughts and ideas on someone with scant evidence. (Exactly what is your evidence?)
without all the patronizing verbiage and pseudoscience.
Please provide a quote as to where I patronized anyone. As far as I an tell, you are simply offended at my suggestion that objectification isn't a sin. (As opposed to a potentially toxic side effect of the way humans process information and goals.) Surprisingly and quite troubling, your primary focus seems to be to ensure such a thing is seen as a moral issue. (Thanks for being obvious about it.)
Generic objectification is the underlying mechanism, and the specific referent in my comments. My whole point is that the underlying mechanism is morally neutral. (Objectification as formulated by feminist scholars is largely pseudoscience, and requires the addition of an arbitrary gender direction to make ideological sense.)
regard the sexual objectification of women as inevitable
Did you honestly think I was taking the position that the sexual objectification of women is inevitable? You are the one primarily using the words "sexual" and "inevitable." Please provide a quote where I say something to this effect. It would seem you are engaging in a tactic of tacking on adjectives to what another is saying. (Nice strawman fallacy.) This analogy works well: Objectification is certainly avoidable, in much the same way that hitting a pedestrian is. Willfully objectifying someone is harmful and morally objectionable in much the same way that purposely hitting a pedestrian is. In much the same way, objectification can happen incidentally in contexts that are badly engineered. The correct approach is to change the environment in ways that minimize the possibility of incidents. Likewise, automatically ascribing a moral position in such cases makes as little sense as automatically assuming a moral stance on the part of someone in an auto accident. More information is needed beyond the mere incident to be able to say anything about morality. (Thought about in this way, the various formulations of avoidance of certain topics in the workplace makes eminent sense.)
The addition of a the moral stance seems particularly useful in terms of the use of such accusations as a power grab. The purpose is to enable vilification of people based on subjective standards. Really, the equivalent of "You're either for us or against us" should raise hackles in any humanist and liberal worthy of the name. It was unconvincing to me when George W. Bush used it as a silencing tactic to his opponents, and it hasn't developed any more substance since.
I certainly do take a moral stance on sexual objectification — why not? It is of course true that merely condemning people will not necessarily cause behaviors to change, but you could use the same argument to show that we shouldn’t take a moral stance against anything. That doesn’t show that we shouldn’t condemn bad things, only that we need to do more than just condemn them.
And yes, you certainly seemed to be suggesting that the sexual objectification of women was inevitable, since you linked it to “objectification” in your generic sense, and argued that objectification in this sense is an inevitable result of human limitations on information processing.
Feminist pseudoscience has basically filled the searches.
That doesn’t show that we shouldn’t condemn bad things, only that we need to do more than just condemn them.
Please read the whole thread again. This is pretty much my position.
And yes, you certainly seemed to be suggesting that the sexual objectification of women was inevitable, since you linked it to “objectification” in your generic sense, and argued that objectification in this sense is an inevitable result of human limitations on information processing.
Be careful. Your biases are showing. Blind spots in a car are inevitable. Collisions because of blind spots aren't inevitable, especially when there is some caution, good design, and prudent driving involved. Just because a certain kind of error exists, doesn't mean that a certain specific subset of those errors are inevitable. That's another kind of fallacy.
>Feminist pseudoscience has basically filled the searches.
I don't understand what you mean by this. I was asking you to explain the link which you appeared to be making between sexual objectification and limits on information processing capacity.
FWIW, he didn't bring this up at work, and my reading of your comment implies that he did/would. She doesn't work with this guy, and she doesn't suggest that he said this in a work-related context.
If everyone's suitability as a colleague were judged by what they said outside of work, I imagine that most of us would fare poorly.