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Comment by jansho | Hacker News Reader

> company has to really push for women-friendly policies to be a great place for women to work, which I happen to completely disagree with.

Could you elaborate a little bit more please, beyond the cringey paper-scissor activities?

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It is extremely common for something like "women-friendly policies" to be code for "we talk a good game, so shut the fuck up and quit making us look bad, you whiny bitch."

I do not have a tech job, but I have taken classes on things like social psychology. Attempts to address sexism, racism, etc often suffers from a problem of tokenism. This is not just the problem described in Dedeh Howard's "Black Mirror" of "We already have one black model on staff, so there is no room for you" but also just looking good superficial BS that amounts to metaphorically including pink decor, but not actually promoting women or taking them seriously.

At some point, I saw an article on HN by a woman who wrote that, no, she will not show up at your thing and be the woman talking about women in tech. It isn't her area of expertise. If you want her there to talk about the actual tech she actually knows something about, she is happy to sign up for that. But, no, she won't give speeches on women in tech. This is a widespread form of tokenism where women in tech only get invited to talk about the issues women in tech face for being women in tech while never being invited to actually talk about tech per se. It is hugely soul sucking and suffers from the problem of being belittling and demeaning in a way that makes it hard to rebut or complain about.

Tokenism is definitely an ass. I happen to come with a baggage of other labels (minority within minority within minority...) and even in so-called open environments, I often find myself on this super awkward scale:

- Ignored (only for the same idea to be suggested by another, receiving whoop-whoop, pat on the back)

- Disdained (do your job yeah but you're not supposed to do it so well it makes your colleagues inferior)

- Tokenistic photo add-on

I ain't taking that crap anymore so I'm flying solo now.

I basically also fly solo. I worked for a few years for a company with an excellent track record on things like diversity and I would go home to my sons sometimes and say "If this is excellent, good thing I don't work someplace average because I would be postal already." If BigCo with all the awards for awesomeness is as good as it gets, the only response I can come up with is "Fuck this noise. NO."

To be fair, I was usually saying this about some issue other than being a woman with a job. But I did decide I had no future there and could blithely move on after a senior programmer in the department I wanted a job in asked me for a date. He was the only guy at the entire company in five years of working there who even knew what GIS was without me explaining it and he did not go "OMG. You have a Certificate in GIS? My department could use your skillz!" Or even "Gee, I wonder if she is networking with me and hoping to further her career." Nope, he went straight to "OMG It's a girl and she is interested in some of the same things as me. I wonder if I can get a date!"

"other labels (minority within minority within minority..."

Your description has me curious and sympathetic. What is a "minority within a minority within a minority" in your case?

The more company advertises being woman friendly, the more they are not on the inside, and are usually trying to convince the public they are after multiple women have spoken out. In fact every company I've worked for who had a woman leave because of issues with men and the company realzied they handled it poorly, ramped up their we have lots of women bs campaign right after, and they bring SWE in once a month and all that crap but it has no effect on yoru day to day quality of interaction as a woman in the workplace.

ignore the hype, tune into the culture.

Thanks, I shot off my comment kind of quickly so should clarify that I definitely think that many policies touted as "women-friendly" are incredibly important but I think of them more as family/age-group-friendly or human-friendly (maternity & paternity leave, flexible hours, etc). My comment was basically just referring to diversity groups (as I've experienced them) and women-only events.

Ah ok, I was curious to know your opinion since for me, "women-friendly policies" mean consideration for pregnancy, childcare and so on!

Regarding diversity events, I slightly disagree with you. Ironically I became an advocate only after my engineering education, when I suddenly experienced 'different' treatment. Welcome to the real world, they say, but it affected me quite badly. I suddenly found those women support groups comforting. None of the meetups I went was ever "Down with the opposite sex!" although yes, I find myself wishing that there's more rad startups than just fashion and makeup. But there is something refreshing about just listening to leaders, entrepreneurs and hopefuls, all driven and comfortable with their identities, including being female. I mean, if they can do it, I can do it too, right??

Ah ok, I was curious to know your opinion since for me, "women-friendly policies" mean consideration for pregnancy, childcare and so on!

As a father, it bothers me to see those considerations described as "women-friendly." Why is it assumed that my wife is the one who has to leave early to pick our daughter up from school? The most "woman friendly" policy would also involve changing the expectations on men to allow women's partners to take on more of the care giving role (for example). I strongly agree with seaknoll in characterizing them as "human friendly" policies.

"Women-friendly policies" don't just cover things like maternity leave. Ultimately they do boil down to "human-friendly policies." How: they accommodate women more and thus balance a culture that's traditionally male-dominated. At least that's the idea.

(I was going to quote seaknoll's comment until I realised that you already mentioned it!)

It is possible that we are on the same page, but from your choice of language, I feel you are still subtly missing my point. You talk about "accommodating women more" in order to "balance a culture that's traditionally male-dominated." My point is that we also need to accommodate men more to balance that culture. Again, just for example, if I want to be an equal partner in raising my child (and I like to think I am), I need the same sort of considerations that a woman in my position does. In other words, it is not just about breaking women out of their traditional roles; we need to break men out of their traditional roles as well. I suppose that you can call these ideas "women friendly," but to me, that is putting the focus unfairly on women, when it should really be about accommodating both genders to help them meet in the middle, so to speak.

Considering that US federal law seems to be gender agnostic, from skimming Wikipedia, I'm not so sure about this criticism. At least there seems to be a ground work for caring for parents and not only mothers.

While I agree with your sentiment (as a father with ~18 month parental leave behind me) It would be nice to know if there are common policies that are problematic in your view.

You seem to misunderstand. I don't object to the policies; I am strongly in favour of them. After all, I benefit from them as well. I object to it being characterized as primarily a women's issue. That does a disservice to both sexes 1) by implying that women's gender is the problem when it is not, and 2) by failing to recognize that in order to live a balanced life, men need exactly the same policies. In other words, it is not a "women's issue," it is a "human issue."

They're not "women-friendly" because they just cover women. The most women-friendly policy in the world is one that provides plenty of these opportunities to both sexes in equal, or almost equal measure.

If HR doesn't have to worry that I'm a bigger liability because of my gender (after all, the man sitting next to me also gets flex time and leeway to pick up his kids) that's a bonus for me.

The worst case is when there are no opportunities, or when they're so lopsided (14 weeks paid parental leave for women, 2 weeks for men) that you become a liability.

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