This Industry is Fucked (2015)
blog.jessfraz.com
blog.jessfraz.com
We tech people tend to think of ourselves as problem-solvers and intellectuals who would welcome anyone interested in the domain, and who was willing to contribute. And yet, many, many women in this industry feel marginalized and/or excluded. Even if that is based on the behaviour of a few bad actors, even if it is somethat that other male-dominated industries (like finance or manufacturing) suffer from, why not try and fix this? Why tolerate the behaviour, or shoot the messenger?
People who get angry at posts like this seem to feel personally attacked somehow, which is a weird reaction. (I mean, unless you also harass women, in which case you should feel guilty and take this peronsally, and you should stop.) Otherwise, why not band together in solidarity with the women who experience it, and help put a stop to it? It will make your industry better, your companies more valuable, your workplaces more pleasant, and your conferences more interesting. And most importantly, people who right now are getting a lot of shit thrown their way will be treated better. There is seriously no downside.
My other comment addresses "if the problem is the people, what's wrong with them exactly, and how can we fix it?"
To the contrary. It's exactly on point. We don't see anyone saying "school industry is fucked" just because some teachers are abusing the students or "airline industry is fucked" because pilots pick up stewardesses.
I find it really repulsive how it's somehow okay in our industry to throw blanket accusations and demand collective responsibility.
This is a huge weakness of our environment. Something that actually makes me consider leaving the industry from time to time.
You're right. They don't for the reason you mentioned. They do it for worse things:
http://www.westword.com/news/frontier-airlines-subject-of-ge...
https://bossip.com/1365175/another-one-second-black-female-d...
https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-bullying-intimidation-and-...
To bring in some numbers (from Sweden since our government collects it), only 12.5% of those that are employed work in a profession that are consider gender equal and thus have more than 40% of both women and men. 87.5% of people do not, and the tech industry with its ~79%-21% ratio is very average in that group. In contrast we got 38 different profession with 90%-10% gender distribution which employ a very large portion of all employed.
Maybe a reason why we tend to inflate the tech industry problems are that there simply are more people here that can be marginalized (for which a subset will write a blog post which then has a chance to end up on HN). A profession that is 99,6 women, or male profession with 99,4 men, will simply not have many people complain that they are feeling marginalized, since the minority gender could almost be seen as a statistical error.
Google translation of the statistics: (https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...)
And arguments like that in some cases raise a valid point. But when "X" is morally repugnant, your argument appears cold, calculating and statistical.
If you want warm, emotional and opinionated point, let me bring one that also is supported by the available data. 12.5% is horrible, and that the underlying trend today is steadying pointing downwards is nothing less than a complete failure of gender equality politics. A society that speak of gender equality should not accept it, and even more it should be repulsed by the fact that many of the 90%+ profession have the government as the employer. It shows a strong lack of compassion and understanding on what such work environment do to people, and by focusing the political discussion elsewhere it cowardly avoids scrutiny. If we see people feeling marginalized for being one odd in every 5, imagine how exposed it would be to be 1 odd out of every 300.
In short? Because it's not a technical problem, it's a political problem; it involves dealing with people and their motivations, irrationalities, hangups, biases, etc.
It's a common stereotype that most engineers make terrible managers for the very same reason, and it's not an unreasonable stereotype. If we could break this down to a technical problem, it would be solved. It's not a technical problem, and most of us don't know how (or can't afford the massive time cost) to fix it on the larger scale.
So those who care do what we can do best: attempt to fix ourselves: we strive to overcome our internal hangups and biases, to act rationally, to not become part of the problem. And frankly, for most of us, that's the most we could hope to realistically do.
What the author experienced is criminal. Until we treat it as such, and the perpetrators experience consequences for their actions, these problems will continue to plague victims - of all genders.
I have no statistics for or against this.
The test we need is: How often are individuals in social groups with skewed sex ratios who are of the rarer sex in the said group sexually harassed, and is this ratio skewed in software engineering.
Generally, from what I can gather from the anecdotal evidence of my female friends, a certain percentage of us men in general are assholes. It seems that as a matter of fact they have to suffer the real possibility harassment where ever they are (not constantly, but they have to consider it a plausible event). Which to a guy sounds just horrible.
I'm a heterosexual male, pushing 40, not too bad looking. No one has ever asked me to sit in their lap, grabbed my but, catcalled after me, or "jokingly" appraised my breasts or other body parts. I've never been anywhere, where I've had to consider the possibility of rape.
How often do you hear females lurking in dark parks, just to hunt down men who they can rape?
Yes, sexual and psychological violence goes both ways, but still females are more often the victims.
It might be totally symmetric in female dominated groups with males being the victims.
What ever that is, males don't get their buts squeezed in elevators by random strangers. Or I'm missing from some action I'm not aware off.
The reaction is practically always the same, ie that the man ignores it or at worst tells the woman to please stop hitting/yelling/acting inappropriate, and the woman either blowing it off or laugh it off. If the man complains more he will most likely hear "man up" and just take it, which is the cultural image of a male victim of female violence.
I've used my personal experience, sampled over thirty years as the metric. It's the only data set I can approach with some certainty it's not polluted with observer bias. I've never been personally assaulted in such a way. I did not deny the large spectrum of abusive behaviours that exist.
To quote myself:
"Yes, sexual and psychological violence goes both ways, but still females are more often the victims."
The original post was about experiences of sexual harassment and I stated few statistical reasons that come to my mind that can cause it.
There is a tendency for some reason to disregard these sorts of claims "because that happens to everybody". No. That's just wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right. Like in engineering, in social settings problems need to be tackled one at a time. That some men suffer violent attacks from some women does not make it right that some women are sexually assaulted by some men.
The male to female "sexual predator" pattern is a specific pathology that exists and needs to be taken seriously. Just like female to male "violent abuse without retribution" is another - but different kind.
Men don't need to "man up" just like "boys will be boys" is not an acceptable defence.
I would like to point out that women were more like capital and not like free citizens even in the most progressive countries until hundred years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage.
Values and attitudes travel across generations. These affect stereotypes, which affect our mental processing even if one is against said stereotypes. There is a very good reason females can be still considered statistical underdogs for a while - the fact that can be abused by predatory individuals as a shield with impunity. The fact that these abuses happen, do not mean we should not still be in general vigilant in upholding female rights for a few generations still.
Except, of course, your bias, which is pretty clear. I think you'd be surprised at what we do to our own memories.
"Some people are likely to spontaneously sexually abuse members of opposite sex in their vicinity and there are more men than female in this group" would have been more accurate.
I find that shocking. I know people say things about others to their friends, but to actually direct that to another person is disappointing.
Get off your computer and learn some social skills. Google for advice on dating, social skills, style / how to dress, seduction, and most importantly how to get over your insecurities and psychological issues. There are tons of great resources on all of these subjects for men. Become an actual player women love to be around instead of an anti-social loser they despise.
We can talk about "the industry" and all this non-sense forever. The ugly truth is that thirsty men harassing women is as old as the hills. The more sexually repressed a culture or particular sub-group is (read: socially awkward computer geeks), the more this shit goes on. It takes tremendous courage and effort to transform yourself for the better if you weren't lucky enough to be naturally gifted in these areas. It can be done, but most will be too cowardly and too lazy to do it. Therefore, unfortunately I see no end to this problem any time soon.
Then I read the comments on this thread. :(
We must do better.
Since 2013?
Also, in human issues (as opposed to technology) there's no monotonically increasing progress. There periods of the past that are way more tolerant and peaceful than periods that preceded them, and vice versa.
Like the sixties gave way to the selfish seventies and eighties (and macho Reaganism, etc), like the cosmopolitan Europe of the 20s and 30s gave way to the Nazi hell of the late 30s to mid-40s, like the Roman republic decayed into the rule of crazy emperors, etc.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ashley_judd_how_online_abuse_of_wom...
It is beyond me where this level of vitriol is coming from, are women that threatening?
If you'd have worded it "The slightest indication of a threat to masculinity sends some men into a fit of rage" you might have had a point, rather than sounding like a troll.
This isn't to excuse the behaviour, but merely to ask if there are any examples of young-male oriented industries that have better behaviour?
We need to be finding these people and getting them out of our industry on a permanent basis. They can go work on a landfill as far as I'm concerned.
THIS
Sadly every time that's tried the freeze peaches crowd descends and claims not being able to send death threats and say that jews should die is persecution, and anyway she was probably a slut asking for it.
Good intentions do not protect from being corrupted by power, who knew?
Exactly this. These people push out men with their behavior as well. I truly doubt any one of these people are worth the 2 or 3 that get fed up with it and leave.
The shocking thing for men to quickly realize from all the women speaking out is they are relating eerily similar stories and there seems to be a rather large number of disturbed men than one would have thought.
The problem in tech more than other professions is there are far too many self important individuals who will latch on to anything to think less of others to maintain their inflated sense of self. The whole mythlogy of 10x engineer, genius programmer accentuates this. This is not just a job, its identity.
To these neanderthals the idea that women have brains as good as anyone's has not 'registered' and its convenient to think of women as lesser then them and their place as 'unearned'. They lash out in any way they can, abusive and agressive behavior anonymously, and via politics and put downs in the office. The internet has opened the floodgates for mentally disturbed indivuals to launch persistent and dedicated rampages against individuals with zero risk and consequences.
I think it important to distinguish between normal people and those clearly struggling to come to terms to their social environment. It's even more important for organizations to quickly identify such individuals and get rid of them. Once there are consequences people fall in line. Only zero tolerance works for bigotry.
All industries are f*cked.
It's the human condition.
Not much of an answer. And not qualified with any metrics either.
This is a moral equivalence fallacy, a red herring of sorts. You are saying this women's frustration with her industry is irrelevant to her industry because a handful of unrelated indusries have problems that could be similar.
This argument ignores that CS/IT is largely male and notorious are for this disgusting behavior. It's one of the only industries that had a greater percentage of women in the 80s than it does now. There are industries that do not suffer from this problem at all or nearly to the same degree.
In full, this women's expirence is directly related to overt mysogeny in industry culture and labeling it as a "social problem" willfully ignores this problem in tech thus perpetuating it further.
Studies highly welcome. Hearsay somewhat less.
This argument is a fallacy fallacy. Sure I made a unsubstantiated claim but it doesn't contradict or invalidate my general argument.
>I don't know weather other fields with a similar proportion of men have similar problems.
How is this relevant? I get the feeling that you read my comment looking for some insignificant hyperbole you could attack in order to derail my general argument to perpetuate your willful ignorance enabled by your male priveldge.
>Studies highly welcome
How about listening to the _women_ in tech like the one who wrote the blog post we are commenting on?
Nope a social problem is by definition a social problem which by definition is applicable to all industries. Men will always want women and idiots will always treat women with disrespect no matter if they are programmers, doctors, footballers or dancers. You don't solve the problem by attacking the tech industry. It's a matter of education, mental health and society principles. I kinda of agree that you should start from somewhere, but this somewhere should be the schools and the family.
CEOs, men and women, ancient and contemporary have had to find ways to avoid crowds and their envy/anger/pettiness for centuries. Just make yourself less accessible.
Not true. E-mail addresses of famous people are quite public, and your e-mail to lloyd.blankfein_at_gs.com or billg_at_microsoft.com will get read. Though - like you point out - it will likely be read by a team of secretaries or aides and only flagged to Lloyd if the message is deemed important or you are deemed important enough.
The point is that public figures have always had to shield themselves from the mediocrity of crowds, because it's easier to free yourself up from that than to change the whole society or industry.
This is only a problem because of a) the immaturity of the average tech guy, relative to other professions and b) the lack of success with women of the average tech guy, again relative to the overall population.
Tech professions attract mostly left-brained people, and attract some personality types much more than other types. A tech guy is more likely to be an introvert. He's also more likely to have poor social skills, which relates to both A and B. It would be interesting to know if insecure attachment styles are more prevalent in the tech industry (likely), if anxiety disorders are more prevalent (likely; and someone with anxiety might be more likely to spend their free time indoors harassing people than playing football outside) and if low self-esteem is more prevalent (sadly, in my experience, likely; obviously 'harassment behavior' isn't something to be proud of, so doing it, while apparently desirable for some, would just result in lowered self-respect for them).
This is more prevalent in the open-source community, since there are no selection standards. You need neither a degree from MIT or Stanford, or to go through the tough Google interview standards, so you'll end up with the crap that's left on top of the sieve.
This problem will not get fixed anytime soon, and certainly can't get fixed through politics of any kind, since it's founded in personality and psychology. Mandatory pre-school with screening of all children for attachment disorders would help a lot, and hopefully someone reading this will be convinced to promote that as a solution.
To those who would say this is just speculation and ad hominem: it's conjecture, not speculation, and can be debated. It isn't ad hominem: to find a solution, asking "why" is necessary. There's no contempt here, though some of what I said may not be nice, I'm not assigning lower worth to anyone.
Having them is the default case. To exclude them, you have to make a specific argument to that extent. That's the only way civil society can exist without falling into constant tribal battles.
The problem is exactly the same as the following:
In an organization, you'll have some employees that are more psychologically healthy, and some less. Some will have substance abuse problems. The employees with substance abuse problems will be less productive, on average. In other words, they're dragging the organization down.
There's no "getting rid of them". They'll just burden another company. Same as here, in open-source, you can't "get rid of them", it's logistically impossible.
This problem logistically can't get fixed through exclusion. It can only get fixed by "raising the floor" (in other words, making sure that the most troubled men become less troubled). Raising the median/average won't help. Same as raising the median income won't help the people in poverty, raising the minimum wage will.
In the original metaphor, since substance abuse and attachment disorders are correlated, again the best solution is early detection of attachment disorders in young children, and improving their situation.
Why not help the least fortunate? I can guarantee you, the kinds of guys sending Photoshopped pics of bloody cadavers are not happy people. There's psychological inequality just as much as economic inequality, though for psychology, most people find it harder to be compassionate.
The behaviour she witnessed is not about technology, industry or gender -yet I agree that the women is targeted more. It's just people when they think they are unreachable, they can get away with it. Internet is the perfect place for them to be themselves.
I am not saying it's how it should be but it's kind of unavoidable in the current state of internet. So the best is dealing with this as you do in real life: keep your distance, ignore them as much as possible, use your rights when you can (let the authorities deal with them if there are threats for example) and don't let them get into your skin.
TFA's 5th paragraph states that she will not, in fact, quit the industry. Why would you infer that she'd have quit?
Not only that, but more and more women are taking Computer Science and getting into programming here in Turkey.
I'm also an American (born and raised) so I'd have to say it's a cultural issue, not an industry one. Fix your culture.
Industries have cultures. Cultural issues and issues within an industry's culture are not mutually exclusive by definition.
>Fix your culture
That's the point of this blog post and conversation. We aren't going to fix anything by skirting blame onto greater societal forces and continue on business as normal
1) Would I do/say this to another male (person of a sex I'm not sexually oriented towards)? If not, don't do it any other person/gender either.
That's basically it.
TLDR; Treat everyone as a person first and foremost, and a potential partner/mate later.
I know I've received threatening mail from lawyers, and have been advised not to share it publicly. So not sure if it can get you in trouble.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13442281
Judging from the disaster that is this thread, it should probably be flagged into the ground before a flamewar starts.
However what we got was, 80+ comments of basically flame war, and over half telling her to 'get over herself'. :(
So based on that, then yes she's right. This Industry is Fucked[1]. And I am ashamed to be part of it these days.
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[1] And it's not just sexism; The whole industry has been taken over by the suits and wide-boys, who are busily destroying it from the inside out.