Not everyone on HN, of course. But, overall, threads like this are... distressing to read.
So many of these "women in tech" discussions are thiny veiled power plays to take economic and decision making power away from developers. In the past few years we've seen feminists call for Linus Torvalds' head, attacks on the _concept_ of meritocracy, codes of conduct forced down many open source project's throats, masses of women only networking and hiring events, diversity drives that favor hiring women over men, many social media witch hunts against engineers of all levels...
At some point you have to step back and question the narrative that's being pushed. There is not, and never has been anything stopping women from learning to code. All you need is a computer, an internet connection and self motivation.
I think the narrative is more focused on women being treated differently (whether that is intentional or not) in existing social / work settings in the industry. I did not get the impression this article was referring to learning, but perhaps I missed those points.
Sometimes "self awareness" is code for "willingness to limit oneself to 'approved positions'"
Most of my career was in electrical engineering and electronics design. Until one month ago, after finally transitioning into a 100% software role with a 100% software shop after 15 years in tech, I work with a female engineer. 15 years, a dozen companies. One, lone female engineer. It is this experience that helps inform me to the problems of inequity in tech. It also has exposed me to many, many defensive colleagues who are all good people...but cannot divorce their own personal worth from the topic. They are hypersensitive to perceived criticisms.
HN never seems more like Reddit than when we're discussing diversity (gender, race, economic). All the bad habits (mansplaining, straw man arguments etc.) you find elsewhere seem to suddenly rise to the surface.
Distressing indeed.
Edit (for some reason, locked from commenting further):
> It describes a specific behavior almost entirely practiced by men
Um no it doesn't. Possibly the word your looking for is condescending (that's usually what people mean when they say "mansplaining"). I don't see that here though. This is just a thread with men and women voicing their opinions (very respectfully I might add).
Men are allowed to have thoughts and feelings. It's not right to shame them for it and it's not right to gender an attack of any kind. If someone is being a jerk, call out that individual, don't blame a whole gender.
But let's get real here.
This isn't about male victimization. This is about the inability of a privileged class to see it's own privilege. Read this whole thread and what you see are many men who don't recognize their own privilege, men who are blind to individual and structural biases. And because they don't see it they wonder what all the fuss is? They wonder why we keep bugging them with "initiatives" and blog posts.
You get this same behavior with race, gender, money, class etc. The excuses are also the same: "it's not about gender, it's just people being condescending to each other sometimes", "it's not about race, it's just people being mean to each other sometimes". It's an easy trick, it's absolution.
But the inequalities persist. The biases persist. They are unconscious and they are subtle. They are structural. They are written into laws, into company policy, into city ordinances, and work place culture.
We shouldn't be afraid to name these behaviors. We shouldn't get tired of fighting them. And I say we, because I (yes, i'm one of you men) am also guilty.
And, in theory, if I had any sense, I would probably be doing this as a blog post rather than as a reply to you, which risks being experienced by you as an attack. But, in practice, being too careful seems to amount to being ineffectual.
Are you saying that i am simultaneously minimizing gender diversity in tech ("what about da menz") AND encouraging more folks to do so by being too blunt?
If you are (again, i'm not sure what you're saying), i'd say the first point is a wrong reading of my comments. The second point is a little better. I am being blunt, but that's just what the doctor ordered here.
EDIT (can't reply to your comment):
That is better, thank you for clarifying.
I had not thought about silence as the biggest problem for women in tech. I don't know the gender of the first poster i replied to, but maybe i should have made a point to engage with one of the female engineers in the thread.
Maybe it's a blind spot, something i have to keep an eye out for and be better at. Will be thinking about it for sure.
I still believe in my comments about some of these attitudes that are popular on HN. We should all talk about them.
I am saying if you really want progress, talking with women solves the problem of deafening silence in a very immediate way while setting an example to follow. Examples are generally more effective at fomenting positive social change than criticism of those claiming the problem is not real.
Is that clearer?
Thank you for replying.
Edit: I saw your update. Thanks.
The interesting part about "mansplaining" (as it were), is that it's usually slathered in "appeals to reason", logical fallacies, declarations of impartiality etc. etc.
But it's easy to spot.
If you think that other posters have engaged in logical fallacies, why not quote the text, name the fallacy, and explain how you think it applies?
Re: "appeals to reason", we absolutely should strive to be reasonable in our evaluation of claims and positions. I believe this is the main reason that various kinds of ideologues get strong pushback on HN.