The Myth of the Cool Tech Girl and Why She's Dangerous | Hacker News Reader

The Myth of the Cool Tech Girl and Why She's Dangerous

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8 pointsrmason5 comments

As an Australian, I find the gender hangup over drinking beer quite funny. It's a gender-inclusive beverage, intended for all. You should see my mother smash down tins. (Edit: Relevant article: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drawingroom/how... )

Same with things she mentioned such as ping-pong tournaments and such... I think the only person I know these days with a ping-pong table is a female friend of mine.

I don't think that just because you aren't "into" something, it doesn't necessarily mean it's gender-biased against you.

I completely agree on not promoting sexist behaviour, aggressiveness or "compulsory bro-culture", but I believe things like having a ping-pong tournament or sharing some beers with the team after a long day are perfectly inclusive and fine things to do and there should be no correlation between interest in these activities and gender. In fact I think this sort of team building things are beneficial.

How widespread is the "toxic bro culture"? Is it regional or a particularly silicon-valley thing. Is it more common in startups or with younger employees?

Do most techies personally relate to this sentiment?

That's going to depend how you define it. I worked at a place where:

    Don’t reward good behaviour with scotch, don’t tap kegs at 12pm, and don’t host video game or ping pong tournaments

Very precisely described the culture. The place was owned by a woman and that was the culture she chose to put in place. Is that a bro culture?

I don't know. It all seems very alien to me. But I often see blog posts like these which make it seem ubiquitous.

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