What Happens to Us Does Not Happen to Most of You
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I'm not happy that such stories take place. But I am happy that a growing number of women are telling their stories, shocking those of us who were able to be blissfully ignorant of what was going on, and forcing us to realize just how poorly our female colleagues are sometimes being treated.
Let's even assume that 90% of the time, things are great for women in high tech. How many women are willing to put up with even 10% (or even 1%) of their time dealing with such behavior? I'm not sure if I would. And then we wonder why so many women aren't interested in technology careers, or leave after a short period of time.
I hope that these stories eventually end. But in order for them to end, we need to hear more of them, to realize just how bad things are, and to make it completely unacceptable, in every way, for things to continue as they currently are.
This seems key. Especially if it's "relatively rare but intensely negative events" (as seems to be the case).
Imagine if for every one of these stories, a colleague of the person dealing with discrimination or peer of the discriminator had tapped them on the shoulder and said, "Professor, what the fuck are you doing? That's sexist, and you're a terrible human for having done that."
And imagine if after three times of the above their peers had said "This is a pattern of behavior with you. We'd feel better if the department were headed by someone with different values."
Discrimination survives on awkward tolerance.
I think the problem is that this stuff can be very hard to detect. If there's even the slightest chance of negative repercussions then the few responsible will stop talking.
In the "Well, why wouldn't you comment on a woman's pregnancy when evaluating her for a job?" sense.
There are certainly overt, aggressive, predatory stories included. But the bulk are things I can see being said in social or professional company.
Or as Colleague B puts it: "When asked for a paragraph, my first reaction was that I didn’t have the sort of big bombshell stories being looked for."
Borderline, casual sexism is important to vocally fight too.
Perhaps. Ideally. Eventually. But in a choose-your-battles context, borderline casual cases are fodder for contrarian denialists to minimize the over-the-line serious cases.
Focus on vocally fighting the most important or most fixable problem first, to make progress.
Can you imagine how stressed and miserable you’d be, how untrusting and isolated, if your every interaction carried significant and unknown risk of turning out as described in the article? How many of the self-styled introverts here would be able to get out of bed after the hundredth time someone they thought was a colleague or a friend acted as described in the article?
What you’re saying was said to black people during civil rights, and women trying to get the vote. What you miss is the pervasive and cumulative effect of casual, constant shit, peppered with outright abuse.
Why do so many people keep insisting on believing that the problem is specific to the technology fields? Women face these kind of problems everywhere that they have to interact with men.
Does me talking about 4 somehow imply all the other real numbers aren't real?
Yes, women face these kinds of problems in more than just computer science or technology in general. However this article and this post are talking specifically. Perhaps they feel that they cannot fix a problem that exists "everywhere" and are focused on their narrow slice of the domain. This does not prevent you from talking about other slices of the domain, or the entire domain, or working to reduce the problems women and others face in whatever piece of the domain you choose.
Also, at the risk of producing a defensive reaction -- why do you believe that the poster believes the problem is specific to the technology fields? What in their statement leads you to the conclusion that they think this is an isolated problem?
"Look, we were harassed and discriminated against all through high school! We would never treat anyone like that."
Straw man? I prefer to think of it as "I work in tech and I am glad these issues are being publicised and (I hope) enough people think it's a big enough problem that finally it's being addressed, I hope seriously."
I can't do anything about, say, mining, construction, advertising, film, retail...but I can have some influence in tech and life sciences businesses.
(1) I'm in technology for 20+ years, and didn't know this sort of thing happens, and
(2) Technology people often like to think that we're in a meritocracy, in which smart/good people do well, regardless of whether they're male or female.
These stories, along with many others, have shattered my naivete. We're just as bad as everyone else -- and maybe worse -- and need to actively combat it.
For example, there's a difference between some of those guys getting physically aggressive and the one guy who basically said he'd never worked with a woman and didn't know how to talk to her.
Is the latter example okay? No, not really, but we must find a way to not lump that guy in with the physically aggressive guy. The second guy appears to be simply ignorant, but at least open minded enough to admit ignorance and try to awkwardly break the ice to move forward cooperatively.
Men and women have only worked together for about 40 years, which in anthropological/cultural time is basically nothing. We haven't figured out the rules yet. Is dating colleagues completely banned? Doubtful. That means we're going to have to accept some awkwardness between people who are trying to figure out if they like each other. But we can simultaneously say it's inappropriate to grope someone, it's not okay to call someone the "token" whatever, etc.
Yes, it's important not to conflate those two very different behaviors. At the same time, however, we need to recognize that both are symptoms of the same underlying issue — and that's the thing that we ultimately have to change, not its case-specific behavioral expressions.
"Not as bad as" is a fallacy.
Maybe that's implicit in what you're saying, but I think it's likely to be more effective when considered consciously. It frames how we think about the interaction.
We need something else to call this guy other than sexist. Something at least slightly positive like likely ally.
It's not quite the same thing as how men and women worked together historically. There was probably more segregation back then too (and rampant sexism).
And yet for years and years and years the constant refrain from the establishment has always been "nah, it must be that women are just bad at this job" or "nah, it must be a pipeline problem". Nobody wants to look themselves in the face and ask whether or not they are part of the problem. Either through not taking women seriously in the workplace, always questioning the work and fitness of women in a way that men don't experience, or allowing a hostile work environment where sexual harassment happens and everyone just sweeps it under the rug or looks the other way.
Women have been telling each other these stories about what it was like to work in tech for decades, and they've been telling anyone, including guys, who would listen for years and years as well. Why has it taken so much work for people to actually pay attention?
I agree completely, and it's incredible that so many people with exceptional critical thinking skills could dismiss the universal, consistent reports of the witnesses to these events, in favor of the analysis of people who have no experience at all - themselves and other men. And that includes me: WTF was I thinking? Everyone who experienced these things said the same thing, people who had no direct experience said otherwise, and I believed the latter? If everyone in Honolulu said the grass in Hawaii is dewy in the mornings, and everyone in Ohio said it isn't - why would you even ask the Ohioans?
The same applies to the treatment of African-Americans by law enforcement. African-Americans have been talking about it for generations, the same stories over time and across the U.S. Why did it take videos for me to believe it?
My guess is that it comes from accepting social norms of the people around me, and dismissing people I didn't interact with. The solution, IMHO, is interacting with people outside your group and people telling their stories, as they did in this article. If you want to know what's really happening on issues like these, forget all your theories - just ask and listen (and zip it). The most ardent theories suddenly become insubstantial in the face of evidence.
Maybe it's because I'm self employed, so I don't have regular "colleagues" to tell me these things.
Mybe it's because I (and other men) didn't make it clear that we were willing to listen, although I sure hope not.
For whatever reason, I believed that sexual harassment is occasional. Not as pervasive, and not as constant as the growing number of stories has made clear.
The more stories we hear, the better (I think) things will be. So keep telling these stories.
In my case, it was because I had a frank conversation with a female friend, where she told me a few typical stories. Things like her sitting on the bus, and the guy next to her will suddenly start touching her, or trying to kiss her. With her giving absolutely no sign of interest and not knowing the person beforehand (she's actually gay). And similar stories in other situations.
She said it happened to her about 10 times already. This is the kind of clear-cut sexual harassment which I naively thought was rare, but apparently is so common, that it's just shrugged off as a nuisance in many cases. It completely changed my perspective on just how common this is for women, even if I believe only a minority of men act in this way.
Further, in the era of #MeToo, the chasm between men and women in the workplace will grow wider simply because of liability issues. One man's innocent, casual conversation with a female coworker can these days become that woman's #MeToo moment, aired publicly, both in the court of public opinion and in courts of law. This ultimately causes fewer interactions between men and women in the workplace - especially between direct reports and their managers - which can easily lead to fewer advancement opportunities. This is borne out in data. According to a recent study, almost 30% of male managers say they are not comfortable working alone with a woman — more than twice as many as before, according to the same study [1].
I would suggest that articles like this focus on incidents that everyone can agree is atrocious and actionable behavior. If failure to interrupt a group of women talking amongst themselves at a conference is now a #MeToo moment, it's just going to cause deeper concerns about liability, which will in turn cause even more backlash.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2018/02/06/amid...
It's of course rude to insert yourself into many conversations. That's just a social convention.
> Avoiding women in workplace is essentially sexist. And for non-sexists there is no reason to do so.
So you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Given how easy it is for public opinion to shift, I certainly wouldn't want to take that chance. Who would want to interact with people like that in a professional setting? I wouldn't, and I try not to.
I disagree with you that there is no reason to do so for “non-sexists”. Because no one knows how a given person may interpret a given conversation or activity, combined with the severe consequences from the social media mob that even something as simple as an unsubstantiated tweet can inflict on one’s career or an entire company these days, the only way to avoid liability is to minimize interaction between opposite sexes in the workplace. In this environment, it’s the only rational thing to do.
We have unleashed a virtual lynch mob, ready to instantly torch the life of anyone that stands accused of even moderately inappropriate or questionable behavior. Worse, there is no statute of limitations or standard of proof required to activate the mob - a tweet is enough. That is wrong and creates a toxic environment for everyone.
In other words, people who "battle sexism and discrimination" can very well tip over and become sexist and discriminatory in the attempt to fix those exact issues.
They can become Monsters too.
The second part of this quote applies to. "If you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you".
If you fight sexism and discrimination long enough, you yourself will go under the spotlight and you'll eventually be judged for what you did. Whether good or evil.
"Ressentiment is a reassignment of the pain that accompanies a sense of one's own inferiority/failure onto an external scapegoat. The ego creates the illusion of an enemy, a cause that can be 'blamed' for one's own inferiority/failure. Thus, one was thwarted not by a failure in oneself, but rather by an external 'evil'...Ressentiment comes from reactiveness: the weaker someone is, the less their capability to suppress reaction. According to Nietzsche, the more a person is active, strong-willed, and dynamic, the less place and time is left for contemplating all that is done to them, and their reactions (like imagining they are actually better) become less compulsive. The reaction of a strong-willed person (a "wild beast"), when it happens, is ideally a short action: it is not a prolonged filling of their intellect." [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ressentiment#Kierkegaard_and_N...
History is filled with people who fought for a just cause, only to then turn around and become unjust themselves (IIRC from history, the french were really good at it).
It doesn't matter how much of the way you got and how much of it has yet to be walked, it's completely irrelevant to "becoming the monster".
If a man accuses me of sexual harassment, that would be pretty easy to disprove (I’m straight) and most people would believe me. If a woman accuses me of that, in a MeToo world, my career is over, even if there is no evidence and I didn’t do it (being that we are living in the MeToo world, I guess I should say that for the record I have not ever knowingly sexually harassed anyone, and have never been accused of it).
That's what I thought initially as well. But the proper way to frame this is to ask: out of the population of men who would join a group of 3 men, how many would also join a group of 3 women? You and I aren't even part of the first group.
> This ultimately causes fewer interactions between men and women in the workplace
That's a real problem. The #metoo movement is great in getting the word out, but the backlash suppresses any men of trying to get it right. You can't expect people to make progress if they don't try, and if they try, they will make mistakes. It should be ok to make them and not get demonized in the process.
Tbf, because of stories like this, I feel almost uncomfortable talking to my female coworkers - I immediately tense up and I have no idea what I can or cannot say, I carefully weigh up my every word to make sure it doesn't, even accidentally, have a double meaning or something that could be seen as patronizing, offensive, or flirty. As a consequence, I would genuinely rather not talk with women in the workplace and just avoid the risk altogether, which I am sure is just making the problem worse.
She says team members would openly express that they wouldn't hire women because they would just get married. I don't know about you, but that seems like something obviously dated and wrong. Growing up, both my parents worked, and that was the norm. It's been the norm for a long time. Women aren't new to the work force. So why do people think this? In any case, it should be obvious not to say things like this.
Then she says a professor followed her beck to her room and tried to forcibly kiss her. That's something obviously wrong, right? It should be easy to say "I won't follow and forcibly kiss anyone." That's like good manners 101. Basic stuff we learn in 1st grade.
The sexism described here isn't the sort of thing you'd let slip by accident. There's no double meanings here. It's just bare faced disrespect for women. So please, relax. You don't need to walk on eggshells to avoid being a complete jerk.
And if you still aren't sure how to talk to women, I would take the articles own advice: Try talking to them like a person.
I’m reading this on the phone, so it’s likely I might have missed it, but does the article mention #MeToo in the context of the men vs. women groups complaint you mention? If not, it’s uncharitable to imply that the complainer here is trying to equate sexual assault with discrimination.
IMO the main problem with contemporary gender conflicts isn’t going to be “incidents that everyone can agree is atrocious and actionable behavior”. Because it’s not hard for society (usually) to act on such egregious incidents. It’s I guess a good thing that professional women don’t have to constantly worry about violent sexual assault, but the author is raising the issue that seemingly innocuous behavior can still be substantially harmful.
What is innocuous and what is not can still be a matter of healthy debate. But it’s worth noting how difficult it can be for even egregious behavior to get called out.
I think many people can agree that Susan Fowler’s blog post about her time at Uber constituted outright horrible behavior. HN commenters seemed very united in this sentiment [0] and I think many tech observers would agree that it wasn’t one very huge chip that set off the clusterfuck that was 2017 for Uber.
It may seem looking back that Fowler’s whistleblowing would inevitably cause such massive outrage. But re-read her post, which is almost as nostalgic as it is outraged. It’s not just about the harassment she faced, but the institutional resistance and denial that she, and more than a few other women faced — clearly, their complaints back then were not the level of clear cut incidents that you think should be focused on. And Fowler’s whistleblowing was just a personal blog post — not a big NYTimes expose —- written months after her departure, and likely only possible because she had the time and means to think about things and not worry about career implications. It’s very easy to imagine an alternate timeline in which she just didn’t get around to writing about Uber because even she, as she says herself in that post, was incredibly thankful and fulfilled from her work at Uber, sexual harassment aside.
Do you have any verified example of this happening?
Lets look at some notable #MeToo cases in the last year
1. Harvey Weinstein - Dozens of women accused Weinstein of assaulting, harassing, or raping them.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-ove...
2. Matt Lauer - Fired for inappropriate sexual relationship with a coworker. Not an isolated incedent, as many women came forward through his career with reports of sexual assault and unwanted sexual advances.
http://people.com/tv/matt-lauer-sexual-harassment-assault-al...
3. Mario Batali - Accused of sexual misconduct by multiple female employees. Repeated reports of Batali groping the breasts of women who worked for him.
https://ny.eater.com/2017/12/11/16759540/mario-batali-sexual...
So where is this "innocent conversation" you mention?
I was present, as were a handful of other women. None of us were ever followed up with to ask if this was a legitimate accusation. The accuser was given a red carpet to a choice team. The accusee was given additional workload to carry and taken out of a position of authority and placed in a punitive program.
I have seen this happen twice in the last 3 years.
Do not take this as defense of the examples you mention, but as a warning against unintended consequences that simply don't ever show up in the press because they aren't highly visible and won't draw clicks, especially if they go against the status quo. If you need further evidence, look at the speed to which a concrete, evidence backed accusation with respect to google's hiring practices got flagged off the front page, whereas this thread is still much higher ranked after much longer time and fewer votes.
Not those cherry-picked examples obviously? Do you have access to every single report in the world? Is it impossible that some might not be completely legitimate and can act as a way to retaliate?
I tried to imagine what it was like to tough out that culture back when she was a grad student or junior faculty, long before this was a even a major topic of discussion. I wussed out of the grind I would have faced as a junior faculty, even sporting all the right aesthetics. To those who have stuck it out against major challenges: you are tough as nails, you are improving the system, and it is noticed by and impacts more people than you think.
"For the authors of this article, each negative story is overshadowed by dozens of positive experiences, where someone went out of their way to offer support, provide opportunities, and encourage us."
I think this matters to encouraging both women and men. Yes, jerks exist. Sometimes its good people having bad days, some people are monsters hiding under a veneer (ex Hollywood's Weinstein).
We need to stop dehumanizing each other, and understand all humans have the full expanse of positive and negative emotions.
Most people in technology are not bros, sjws, ceos, and whatever.
They are just people trying to get by.
With substantially different suggestions on how to make things better for each. (Respectively, 'murder all the men' and 'be aware of and active against misogyny and sexism around you')
How about: it's not the pervasive culture!?
First, if you peruse the crime statistics, you will find that the vast majority of victims of violent crime are male.
Second, if you actually look a bit more closely, you will find that our culture is vastly predisposed towards protecting women. So much so, in fact, that our perception is warped sufficiently that we think there is more violence towards women when in fact it is the other way around, by a large margin.
And of course the public narrative is almost exclusively "violence against women", and again, this is taken as gospel so much that even mentioning that there might be men who are victims is viewed as offensive.
Just as small illustrations (not "proof"), think back if you will of the story of Boko Haram kidnapping 200 girls.
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/15/world/africa/nigeria-girl...
It caused a huge outcry and activism from all quarters. Since there was no reporting, you might think that the boys were unharmed. Not so. The boys were actually either burned alive or forced into military service. This happened repeatedly, whereas the incident with the girls was a one-off. Media? Silence. Nobody cares. It's not a story.
There have also been numerous experiments comparing public reaction to violence man vs. woman. If a woman is being abusive towards a man, there will usually be bemusement or laughter, and comments along the lines of "I wonder what he did to deserve it". If it's the other way around, people will intervene. Quickly and fairly decisively. For example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlHVANXh-yg
This is actually even more skewed as she abuses him (no reaction) and when he starts to defend himself, people immediately intervene.
So in our culture that is supposedly so supportive of violence towards women, a man isn't even allowed to defend himself against an abusive woman.
Closer to home, the whole idea of "what happens to us does not happen to you" is actually wrong. Sure, it's not the same things, we don't get asked about our pregnancies, but horrible bosses and working environment affect men just as much as women, and quite probably more, but when it's men that are affected nobody gives a crap.
Case in point, if I told you the things that happened to me over my career and told you that they happened to a woman, you'd be appalled at the horrible treatment women receive and see it as definitive proof of the misogyny of the industry.
"We are sharing these experiences in part because of encouragement by male colleagues who found them shocking. We are all still here because the rewards and great colleagues out weigh the bad experiences. However, we want to raise community awareness and instigate change."
And, the support of their male colleagues exercising what should be common human decency is not the lede of this article.
It was literally a collection of very negative experiences that women in tech faced because of their gender by men. It’s many examples of things men would never experience. It doesn’t matter if they’ve had many positive experiences — the consistent negatives are prevalent across most women in tech (and probably non-tech), not just isolated examples of a few.
Most of these jerks probably don’t even understand what they’re doing or the impact they’re having. It’s important to raise awareness to prevent as much of this as possible, and I applaud the author for sticking her neck out and being willing to put her name on it.
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/women-reportedly-unciv...
As someone living in Europe (who lived and worked in one of more country), some of these "cultural" aspects against a certain gender feel so much out of place. In particular, expecting someone who is pregnant to quit the job is just unthinkable. Most engineering work places in Europe expect the person to take paternity/maternity leave and take care of the children but the job will be secured.
I'm not saying that gender descrimination doesn't happen in Europe but I feel that the US have a lot of more of these extreme and ridiculous scenarios.
If people don't mention their country, they're American.
The other cases of harassment are terrible. But I can sympathize with the managers/business owners on this one - not that I support them. I see their point.
In some more advanced countries than the US or Papua New Guinea there is even mandatory paid leave, go figure.
As an exercise you can take the pregnant woman in your example and replace with a cyclist in a bike accident or someone who was just diagnosed with cancer.
BTW the paid leave is not paid by the employer, it's paid out of mandatory government insurance.
EDIT: please reply and discuss before downvoting. Downvoting adds nothing to the discussion.
In essence, the applicant has a right to demand treatment as if the employer didn't know that information. By not telling them, they're exercising that right, taking precautions so that it wouldn't be violated in a way that's illegal but hard to prove.
The employee has right to be treated as if the information was unknown, I never said the opposite and never wanted to even imply that (and I'm pretty sure that I did not). That doesn't mean that the employer shouldn't have an opportunity to plan accordingly (e.g. start looking for a temporary replacement, stop accepting new projects and so on).
However, giving that information right before a decision point (i.e. when changing jobs, getting a promotion, etc) is just inviting it to be misused, it's a risk they shouldn't be required or always expected to take.
For some context, some time ago I was involved in handling quite a few maternity/replacement situations. Our local laws are quite generous with maternity leave, so for existing employees we (in that company) had often started planning replacements as early as 6 months before start of their leave. However, this is a bit tricky - if there was some promotion issue in the middle of that period (3 months after I'd known but 3 months before she'd leave), I could try acting as if that information was unknown, but it's difficult, I can't magically unlearn things, I couldn't be sure myself if I wasn't biased one way or another (unless we had extremely dry formal procedure based on some arbitrary "objective" metrics that mismeasure as much as they measure), and I definitely couldn't prove that I wasn't influenced if that was contested. So in such an situation I might have even preferred not to know, despite the extra hassle it would cause.
It's probably a question of trust. If an employee is working in a trustworthy environment, they'd likely volunteer that information (which I've seen happen) and the employer would benefit from having created such an environment. But if employees feel a lack of trust, they would likely want to protect themselves and keep it a secret (which I've also seen happen), and IMHO they have (or should have) a right to do so if they really feel the need. The employer's reputation and trustworthiness is their own fault or achievement based on their previous actions, so in some sense they deserve what they get, whether it's trust or lack of it.
I have several points. Let's not blame organizations for the actions of individuals (given that the organization properly deals with said individual). Let's not blame the whole industry or the whole society for the actions of individuals. If something happened to me at a conference, I won't blame my manager who is not connected to the individual that did it in any way for that - and I won't make them suffer because of that.
Of course there might be a reason to not communicate that and that's completely alright, it's business after all, but let's not make it a default choice, please - let's stay human and be nice to each other.
As a growing number have pointed out in response to that claim, no... no it isn’t.
1) normally it isn't (in Europe at least), but I said that I definitely can see situations when it is (in Europe as well as elsewhere) and I never suggested nor said that there aren't any such situations or that it's negligible
2) I'm not talking about them not having a right to do so nor I'm suggesting they shouldn't; I'm saying that using this right should be properly considered before doing so instead of taking it as a default
3) Most companies (again, in Europe, but I'm pretty sure that in the USA as well) don't have any way to do anything about this mismanagement, most companies are small businesses that don't have enough money for that. Not telling them information like this will mean that they will prefer men or risk going under (because the risk of being catched illegally preferring men could be smaller than that). Do you realise that this directly contributes to pay inequality because hiring woman is more riskful than hiring a man (and no, the risk is not the maternal leave itself, the risk lies in being in a situation that you couldn't properly plan for beforehand)?
4) the business is owned by people, possibly women with exactly the same issues as well, but you suggest they don't have the same rights for safety?
I'm sorry to be rude, but did you read what I wrote? Maybe do it again, more carefully? You sound like I suggest depriving women of that right, but I explicitly said that this is not something I want to suggest.
Seems like people completely forgot that having millions of dollars in investments is not common.
The average business in the Czech Republic makes $900 in profit per month.
There of course are some "faceless corporations", I agree, but I'm not talking about these - the cost of an employee going on a leave is a fraction of their monthly budget. But most of businesses are small and can get into serious trouble easily.
And lastly, no one is talking about guaranteeing a profit at all.
Were I hiring in an environment where that was a legally protected right, I'd probably work it into my hiring planning in advance, then if it was occurring more often than I had accounted for, try to evaluate whether my planning was bad.
Can't see the point in getting upset about it.
So maybe you could simply hire her as well as another person who would be less likely to require leave during that period, but then your payroll needs grow - not a great business decision for a startup or whatever.
I think it's easy to see how this could be a predicament for a business without extra money and "get over it" isn't a very good answer IMO - at the very least you'll have discrimination being done in disguise until there's a better answer.
I have a friend whose wife did that in the UK. The employer then let her go. They sued and either won or settled (can't remember which).
I think it was for an executive type role.
But apparently it happens.
These stories wouldn't get the attention they're getting if they weren't shocking to many (men?). So I'd be careful of believing too strongly that it's that different where you are just because you don't see it.
In my experience and previous industries, women getting pregnant usually means baby showers and then going away parties. Marriages not so much but considering the amount of time and care a new baby incurs it is reasonable for a new mother to desire to stay at home, bond, nurse, etc. In fact my wife normally asks that very question with she encounters an expectant mother.
For example, almost every European woman I have talked to about this has been asked either outright or strongly implied whether they were likely to have kids while employed. They have usually followed up with stories of women who were denied employment because of that. In some of those cases it was just because they were in the right age range, and despite their protestation the interviewer thought that they would.
In the U.S. I have never heard of someone being asked things like that (it is specifically illegal, and easy grounds for very expensive lawsuits).
It should be said that maternity leave (especially paid portions of it) is much longer in large parts of Europe. My sister-in-law has been on paid maternity leave now for 4 years. That ended a few weeks ago, but her employer informed her that during that leave she had build up x-and-x vacation, so she decided to take that, so she has been on "vacation" now for about a month.
That huge cost may be part of the push there. For people outside the U.S.: there is no national requirement for any paid leave, but it does require 12-weeks of non-paid leave (at least for larger companies). California was the first state to require 6 weeks of partially paid leave, but I am not aware of any states that have followed suit. It also should be said that many companied have their own more-generous policies, but those are more often the larger companies, especially ones with a mostly high-skilled workforce.
I understand where you're coming from, but my guess would be that the situation is much more similar between the US, Europe and other countries than you think.
For instance:
> Noting how if two women are talking to each other at a conference, it becomes highly unlikely any guys will walk up and join us. If three women are talking, forget about it.
Yes, indeed, and there are a number of reasons for this. From my point of view, I would avoid approaching a group of women talking by themselves since I'd be the odd one out.
> My “mentor” told me he had never worked with a woman before and wasn’t sure how to talk to me. I suggested he try talking to me like a person.
Depending on the tone, it may mean something completely different than what you are trying to say.
In fact, to me, it looks to me like he was talking about an insecurity he has, and it's not directly related to you... and you are tagging this as sexism.
Long story short, there is a clear line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, and that is respect. It's clear that this line was crossed in a number of times in these stories, but just because you are in a position where you didn't like something doesn't mean the line was automatically crossed.
Women in male-dominated workplaces already feel like this every day.
I would submit that, while it is important to be cognizant that there are cases in which you may be intruding[0], the overwhelming majority of situations that's really not likely to be the case. It's work. You're working. Joining co-workers to talk about work is fine and overthinking it will bite you.
[0] - and yes, this may be identity-based and that may in a vacuum feel unfair, but we've held most of the cards for the run of human history and we can deal with it.
Note that "work" and "conference" are two very different environments. I have no problem joining co-workers in a conversation.
That section begins "But it’s important to portray the drip-drip-drip of smaller stories as well, so here goes."
> I would avoid approaching a group of women talking by themselves since I'd be the odd one out.
In what world is that not sexism? It's at least "sex-separatist", which isn't a good thing either. The fact that it is theoretically symmetrical doesn't make it OK. (And in practice it's not symmetrical, since women are an extreme minority at these events.) That is treating people differently because of gender, in a situation where gender is irrelevant.
That extra subtext isn't there as much with men.
That's really weird. Why would you assume--in a professional environment, specifically--that it's less acceptable to approach a pair of strangers based exclusively on their gender?
> In fact, to me, it looks to me like he was talking about an insecurity he has, and it's not directly related to you... and you are tagging this as sexism.
How would you feel if the mentor had said they'd never worked with black people before, and weren't sure how to talk to them?
You mentioned "alternative explanations besides sexism," but I don't see any way that these explanations aren't sexism.
I wonder if you're assuming that "sexist" only applies to harassers and open bigots. If you mean well but are unable to treat colleagues equally because of their gender, that's sexist. It doesn't mean you're a monster or a bad person, but it does mean that you have some real problems that you need to address.
> Yes, indeed, and there are a number of reasons for this. From my point of view, I would avoid approaching a group of women talking by themselves since I'd be the odd one out.
The outcome for the women is similar regardless of the motivations behind the behavior. The motivations matter in terms of how to solve the problem, but do not indicate there isn't a problem.
>> My “mentor” told me he had never worked with a woman before and wasn’t sure how to talk to me. I suggested he try talking to me like a person.
> Depending on the tone, it may mean something completely different than what you are trying to say.
I can't read this as not implying that the individual believes that the way he talks with male students is inappropriate for talking with female students. This implication is worrisome no matter which direction you take it in.
> In fact, to me, it looks to me like he was talking about an insecurity he has, and it's not directly related to you... and you are tagging this as sexism.
If I say "I've never performed trigonometric substitution before so I'm not sure how to solve this math problem." m I may be talking about an insecurity I have, but it certainly is directly related to them math problem.
That is exactly sexism – the subtle, insidious kind that us men tend not to even notice. You aren't the odd one out; you and them are all professionals at a conference.
That many men – the majority of attendees at most tech conferences – make decisions like yours is a major reason why it is more difficult for women to advance in tech fields than men. Behavior like this is exactly what people mean when they talk about "patriarchy". That it's subtle and "innocent" – "I'd be the odd one out" – is what makes us not recognize it in ourselves.
Suppose there is a group of girls at a high school is approached by a single guy that doesn't know them. What is the odds of being welcomed into the conversation without any questioning looks? At least at the high school I went to, it'd pretty low odds. As a consequence, guys learned not to do that.
That stuff carries forward, even if the situation has changed somewhat. You have a population of men trying to be polite. They're not going to approach groups that have given them negative feedback before, because they don't want to be a jerk.
You aren't in high school.
You aren't facing a clique of girls who happen to all live in the same neighborhood and have radically different interests likes and dislikes from you.
You're facing a group of top industry professionals self-selected from around the region/country/world (depending on how large/prestigious of a conference it is).
And the fact that you don't understand this distinction, the fact that you think it's legitimate for a man to categories "groups of women" as "cliques of mean girls" from high school onwards without reflecting or reevaluating the changing circumstances is why society (and more specifically YOU) still have a long way to go to understand what sexism is and is not.
There is a difference between explaining why people do things and approving of it? I was literally explaining why the "insidious" sexism existed. I even quoted what I wanted to elaborate on.
Maybe I would if I had something to add to the conversation, but to simply socialize? No.
In another context, a social one, maybe... but otherwise I don't see how that would work out.
And that says nothing about any bias, at least I cannot see it that way. Maybe it reflects some sort of insecurity, fear of rejection? Yes for sure. But that goes really far from sexism.
However, if I were to observe such an event happening, I'd be frozen. One half of me thinks, the woman is an individual and can stand up for herself. If she's uncomfortable, she'll say or do something. She's of equal standing.
The other half of me, I feel like I should say something. But by doing so, that asserts my male patriarchy views, protecting women from the danger. Women wouldn't be considered an equal in this scenario.
Edit: I am absolutely baffled by the downvotes. What am I missing?
I would feel intimidated walking up to a group of women because I might be criticized for anything I did. And wouldn't a woman feel intimidated walking up to a group of men too?
When I have been in these situations, the root problem has been someone being shitty to a friend/colleague/co-worker/whatever. Saying "that's shitty, stop" doesn't mean you're speaking for any particular person or that you're defending her person specifically--what you are doing, and you can explain if asked, is that you are establishing social norms with your behavior that you are telling the group that you expect everybody to follow.
There are many axes along which one can be shitty, and it is not a reinforcement of patriarchal structures to set expectations that people be decent to one another--so long, of course, as you're doing so evenly. I have gone hard at co-workers who were shitty to women. I have also gone hard at co-workers who were jerks in code reviews.
What I quoted strikes me as perhaps a misapplication of the idea of patriarchy and what it does to society--at least, in the sort of case you're describing. Could this be taken to an extreme that would validate your concerns? Totally. But in practice? It never has been the case for me (and I am solicitous about asking if I am out of my lane). It is important to be willing to listen, in case that, yes, you are out of your lane--but I have never seen a default posture of "no, we don't allow shitty behavior up in here" cause friction with anybody it shouldn't cause friction with.
https://twitter.com/akaij/status/968968751063490562
Kelly Ellis:
"But, y'know, thanks for being the dude chiming in with unnecessary remarks intended to undermine both my point, and the plaintiff's lawsuit, while we discuss the topic of gender-based discrimination and harassment.
Super helpful and appreciated."
akay:
"not at all what I was trying to do, sorry if it came across that way. I just don't see how confirming the existence of nerf guns within that team helps the discussion in any way.
unnecessarily harsh, this tweet."
So sometimes we men just remain silent.
I agree it's good to share awareness of these problems. However, I think there's nothing more for me to do. None of my female coworkers have ever reported something fishy, and if they did I'd simply report it to HR where I know the situation would be handled.
I also wonder if it'd be productive to stop singling out tech (which seems much less sexist than say, finance).
The single most powerful thing you can do is engage women as serious professionals.
My biggest frustration is not with the guys who want to talk to me to hit on me. It is with the countless others who will not engage me in a substantive manner for fear of it being misconstrued. They de facto leave me alone with the creeps, trolls and assholes and are, on some level, equally guilty of treating me as nothing but a vagina. It gives far too much weight to my gender and far too little to my education, skills, competence, interests and character.
Whether a man is talking to me solely in hopes of a hookup or avoiding me for fear of offending or something, he is equally guilty of treating me like the single most important thing about me, the thing that drives all social decisions, is what bits are between my legs. This is the essence of sexism.
I have a problem with that statement.
This is exactly why progress is so painfully slow. For every one man pushing a woman into the river to intentionally drown her, a thousand more stand idly by and say "Not my problem" and then worry vastly more about defending their right to do nothing than about the injustice they witness daily.
However, I can probably count on one hand the number of times a woman has come up to me in my professional career to talk to me about anything of professional significance.
Every time I approach a woman first however, there’s always an anxiety that I’ll be perceived as a creep, trying to play a really long game of hooking up with her. I know women must think this, because I constantly hear their stories about the various ways men hit on them in nearly any situation, and there always seems to be a bit of an awkwardness that isn’t there when they approach me first.
And if the woman I approach happens to be attractive and younger than me? It looks real bad. Indeed, if someone could have any reasonable doubt that my professional conversation with a woman is anything more than platonic, I would be uncomfortable in that conversation. Men would look at this and think “Yea he’s probably trying to get with her”.
I do not get the same anxiety when talking to a woman with her husband or boyfriend, or a woman who is much older than me, or homosexual women.
The thing about standing by and saying this is “not my problem” is that it really isn’t my problem. My problem is completely different from yours, even though it’s in the same domain, and nobody helps me with it either. As a basic straight white male, I’m a dime a dozen and if I voice any kind of problem the response is to go fuck myself.
This has nothing to do with you being a woman, there are also men with problems that I do nothing for. It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.
Work-wise, I have my "go-to" people when I need something done. I don't care what their gender is, I just know they've performed well in the past and get it done in time to help me make my deliverable date. Once a person demonstrates reliable performance of getting the right answer, I don't need to go to others. How does that help solve the problems mentioned in the post? Not really clear to me.
It sets an example. Examples are far more powerful than most people recognize.
Currently, if a man is talking to a woman, he is probably hitting on her. This becomes self reinforcing behavior. Women assume that men talking to them are hitting on them. Observers assume it is a personal relationship, not a professional one. Men avoid talking to women unless they are hitting on them because they don't want a problematic misunderstanding. This helps entrench sexism.
Meaty engagement as a professional breaks that expectation. If enough men will do it, good will crowd out bad.
Currently, women are overly vulnerable because they are professionally isolated. They get insufficient legitimate interest. This leaves them in a needy position. They can't easily afford to turn away the creeps if the only people talking to them are the creeps. They hold out hope that maybe this time it will be different.
If there are people they can reliably access who are taking them seriously, it gets vastly easier to walk away from the creeps. It also can help signal to the creeps (or the non creepy clueless) "This is how you talk to a female colleague."
What do you mean by that?
Networking was one of the things I hoped to get here. There are men who network via HN. It has not worked for me.
I was homeless for 5.7 years. I remain dirt poor. My attempts to point out that my gender is a barrier to making strong professional connections is a root cause of my poverty have largely fallen on deaf ears for years and what minimal headway I have made is extremely recent.
One outcome related to that: I let some young punk talk to me for some weeks who was pretending to be my friend because he was basically the only person talking to me and I desperately need professional connections. Ultimately, he let me know he needed a shoulder to cry on because his marriage was falling apart.
I did the decent thing and was supportive for a time. Then he resumed sleeping with his wife, repeating things to her that I had told him in confidence and talking at me as if we were lovers, a thing I told him was absolutely a non starter.
The relationship made me uncomfortable from the start. There were a lot of weird issues with it that suddenly made sense after I learned he was married and hiding it from me.
I took a no harm, no foul position on it initially. The more I think about it, the more I feel I was used, deceived and set up. He had no plans to ever take me seriously. He withheld his age and marital status knowing he could not get close to me romantically if I did know those things.
All the uncomfortable red flag stuff got ignored by me because I have literally zero strong professional connections to anyone at all. I simply don't know what that looks like. Further, I am dirt poor. I am in very desperate need of connections and opportunities and cannot get that.
If I had plenty of professional connections, I would have never let this guy string me along and set me up to be his shoulder to cry on.
Anyway, thanking you for engaging with me. It's been a good exchange.
Best.
> I have been on HN 8.5 years.
I think I can solve that conundrum for you: HN is not the right place for looking for professional connections.
So maybe your problem with getting professional connections is looking for same where none are to be had.
Look elsewhere.
Nothing to do with gender.
If, as a man, I am basically an asshole to you, then maybe I don't want to interact with you, period.
And let's be clear: I don't know you, I don't know whether you are a robot or whatever, I just know what you wrote here. And what you wrote here makes me hope not to have to interact with you in real life.
I appear to be the only woman to have ever made the leaderboard of HN (under a different handle). As far as I can tell, other women are not generally being more warmly welcomed with open arms by the community than I am.
I do everything in my power to examine my behavior and correct any defects I can find. This only goes so far because there are, in fact, larger societal forces at work.
If all women are incapable of getting the results they need, it is disingenuous to blame them as individuals and deny that society has some problem.
If you witness this kind of behaviour, denounce it publicly.
As for being clueless, well, here is a suggestion. If you see some man hitting on or trying to dominate a woman, you can approach both and just intrude yourself into the conversation. It should be possible to change the course of the interaction by redirecting things (including asking about some relevant conference or workplace activities). Do it in a way that says to the man that you are ignorant of goals, frustrate the living daylights out of him.
It is irrelevant if the recipient of the unwanted attention is a women or a man, protection and respect is something that should be applied to all. Protecting women (children and other men) from danger is a characteristic of what it is to be a man, that is one of our functions. This is not a function of equality. The same goes for women - if they are in a position to provide protection for other women, children or men, then do so. It is a part of who women are.
Men are deadly and rightly so, they should be. Deadly to protect those who need protecting. Women are fierce and dangerous and rightly so, they should be. Fierce and dangerous to protect those who need protecting.
Men and women are different and that is a good thing. Without each other, this world would be a sadder, darker and more injurious place.
There will be those who have no care for anyone other than themselves, these will abuse and destroy anyone else they can to get ahead. It is up to all of us to counteract these individuals when we have the opportunity.
The base problem is that people do not know how to respect and protect one another. Respect is not about equality, it is about recognising the differences between people (including the differences between men and women) and honouring each other. Equality of the sexes is a farcical mindset. Men and women are complimentary, each providing what the other doesn't have to produce a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. Each looks at things in a different light and that is to the advantage of us all.
As a personal example, I have the deepest respect for one of my former (male, obviously) bosses who took a chance on me and fed me high-profile projects despite being a double/triple minority. (I hate the need to disclaim that last bit, but y'know, take it as illustrating the situation). Not a single interaction was awkward - there were group meetings aplenty, professional one-on-ones, silly one-on-ones where we were both cracking up at corporate shenanigans, water-cooler chats to triage the crazy amount of work we were getting, y'know, normal stuff. Good people exist, and there can be light moments too. Not all of this has to be The Most Srs.
He left a few years later due to natural company reorgs, but that extra limb out is something that's remembered quite dearly. Just standing by wouldn't have cut it.
I really don't understand how this could ever be resolved. Talking about it seems like a start, but it really makes me feel like I am part of the problem as a man, and I don't feel this is positive tone to this conversation.
Help?
I hope that there is a positive to find: that socially we can empower those who would otherwise be victims through our support. I'm not sure what exactly that looks like yet, but we're figuring that out. We're talking about it. That's positive :)
Step 2. Think about if you might accidentally disrespecting people. Read stories like OP and think if you'd done something that was unintentionally hurtful.
Step 3. Look out for abuse, and call it out where you see it.
Step 4. Look out for people being overlooked and ignored, and give them a platform and a microphone (figuratively or literally).
Yes? I'd rather not work with dicks and I will do whatever I can in my professional capacity to ensure that dicks are not hired or promoted.
The lack of understanding that those biases can be reversed is what needs to be corrected. This is the other camp, the camp that understands this and proactively fixes things, that needs to be made bigger.
I think, such things start very young. They starts in pre-schools where girls are given a doll and boys are given the lego blocks or children are not sensitized to color of the skin issues.
What's this?
This has been discussed on HN in the past, usually in threads about female CS pioneers working at NASA and so on. I believe the consensus is that there wasn't a single individual cause for the change, but rather a number of conditions changed around the same time, discouraging women from CS-related jobs.
It starts before then. Babies only a few days old show a preference for Duplo or dolls depending on their biological sex.
I can't find the paper, though.
I just wanted to make a simple mathematical point, which the article kind of alludes to: the more X-dominated a field is, the more you would have run-ins with X, and thus more stories of inappropriate behavior by X.
I wonder what stories guys have of joining female-dominated fields. Are they called the token guy? Do women make sexual remarks about them? The degree to which the answer is "yes" will be greatly affected by the imbalance in the first place. The bigger it is, the more likely they are to bump up against something bad in everyday life.
Not saying we just have to accept this. Just saying we have to understand that no matter how much we all personally make an effort to act better, these stories will continue. So don't beat yourself up over it and continue to treat everyone as a fellow human being. And don't take it as a criticism of all men.
The same phenomenon happens if you turn on the news and see crimes and murders all the time. That doesn't mean the city is overrun by crime but rather that the stories merited special attention. It doesn't mean YOU necessarily have to constantly keep in mind not to rob or murder someone.
Who tf are these people?
The answer is: some of our colleagues.
We’re still a ways from an article like this being met with something more constructive than the usual deflections, excuses, and ideological fights. We’re still stuck with arguments that wouldn’t have been out of place during various civil rights and suffragette movements.
It’s coming though, and I for one can’t wait. It’s just sad that we’re missing out on the talents of many women who make a rational choice to avoid STEM and it’s frequn toxic culture of asocial/antisocial asses. It’s sad that a site full of bright, educated poeple can still so frequtmly come off as a pack of deflecting, equivocating, terrified boys. Everyone involved deserves better than this.
So speak up, take a risk, and most of all act like and be someone that other people know would stand up for them. Be the kind of person who an absuive prick would never think of saying or doing what’s described in this article, around. Talk to and listen to your coworkers, and try to have some ideals beyond personal advancement.
How many tech CEOs will stand up and say: "I have an 80% (or 90% or a 100%) male tech team because there are not enough qualified women to achieve gender balance."
No CEO will be caught dead saying that explicitly but they are saying it implicitly every single day with how they are staffing their companies.
From reading HN it seems like a large percentage of people here believe that the gender gap is due to a qualifications gap and they might dump on people like James Damore for being dumb enough to say it in public but most of them believe it and the way they act shows it.
The bottom line is that if you are not achieving gender balance on your teams what you are telling women and what you are telling the world is that you believe men are superior to women and that women are not qualified for these jobs.
Actions speak louder than words and as long as the actions of companies and individuals reflect this attitude no amount of words is going to change anything.
Achieving gender balance in tech is possible and is only a matter of choice.
There are more than enough qualified women to fill tech jobs in roughly equal proportion with men.
It doesn't happen because (among other reasons):
1) The people doing the hiring are overwhelmingly men and set rules and standards for hiring that discriminate against women
2) Companies believe that young men are more profitable employees and so they do nothing to seriously discourage discrimination
Unless this changes the experience of women in tech will be a negative one.
All a woman has to do to know that she is undervalued and seen as an inferior is walk into a company that has a overwhelmingly male tech team and that is most of them.
I'm also not so sure about your claim that "there are more than enough qualified women to fill tech jobs in roughly equal proportion with men." I rarely have the chance to talk to women who are similarly interested in computers, and at my university there are very few women who are in any of my CS classes, despite that I feel that those who are there feel welcome (hopefully. I am not all-knowing, this is my best guess).
I think a better solution to the problem than pressuring people into hiring women simply for the virtue of being female and aiming for 50% would be to call sexism what it is. Call out when people who do the bad of hiring a less qualified man instead of a woman (this is a contrived example, hopefully you're understanding my point).
Solving sexism with more sexism probably won't work.
These are my honest thoughts, hope that's ok.
This is probably true, but the idea that you have to be "passionate about computers" to do the job is one of those things that men have made up to exclude women.
In order to have gender equality you have to identify these areas of gender difference and eliminate them from hiring criteria.
> pressuring people into hiring women simply for the virtue of being female
That is the mischaracterization that everyone falls back on. They assume that if you have a gender balanced team it is because you hired people "because they are women."
That logic implies that those women are not qualified for the job and that you could never build a gender balanced team with qualified women.
Until we make gender balanced teams the norm people are going to keep thinking like that, which is why it is so important to take corrective action.
I didn't say that they need passion. I am saying, however, that I am less likely to go into medicine because I am not interested in it. Maybe the same could be the case for women? (meaning, if there is a general trend that less women are interested, then less will join said field of work, because it is their choice not to).
> That logic implies that those women are not qualified for the job and that you could never build a gender balanced team with qualified women.
You have a good point. This sentence does have a negative connotation as you say, but it is not exclusively said. Could it also be possible that a push to hire more females (explicitly because of needed gender balance, something that is, in my opinion, contrived) has happened enough recently that people's minds go there first?
> Until we make gender balanced teams the norm people are going to keep thinking like that, which is why it is so important to take corrective action.
Interesting point. I'm not willing to say you're wrong, because you might be right. I'll admit, I thought that less women graduate with CS degrees than men though. Am I wrong? If not, how do we get more women to enter that major? And what if they don't want to simply because they're not interested?
edit: I appreciate that we can talk about this btw, and that you seem to respect my opinion. I think this is a valuable part of this discussion. Thanks.
This is absolutely true but it is also true that there are many successful people working in the tech industry at all levels with very little formal comp sci education.
If men can get software engineering jobs with no formal comp sci education, which they certainly can, then the fact that there is an imbalance in degrees does not mean that we have to have an imbalance in employment.
The low representation of women in CS at university level needs to be addressed as well but the best way to do that is by making software development a job that women want and believe that they can succeed in.
People go to college to get training for a career and so if women feel like software development is a profession that excludes women they aren't going to waste their time and money training for it.
"the percentage of CS-degree holders who were women peaked in the 1980s at 34% and has been on a downward trend ever since, even though women currently earn 57% of all undergraduate degrees."
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/cracking-the-code:-why-aren...
The fact that there has been a sharp decline in female participation in CS in just the past few decades demonstrates that this is a temporary anomaly and not some "fundamental difference between genders" and further demonstrates that large changes are possible with the correct policies.
I mean if you've been programming since you were 8 and consider it your identity its not that far to go into believing that anyone who is good has to have the same background. Gender doesn't have anything to do with it.
For what its worth I thought this way until it was proven otherwise to me after enough time in the industry.
It is just a matter of choice. If companies make it a priority they can do it.
I don't think companies should ever hire someone based on anything other than their qualifications for the job so of course the actual distribution should vary from company to company but if it is 60:40 m/f at one company then it should be 40:60 m/f at another (SHOCKING CRAZY IDEA) and the average should come out somewhere near the middle..
https://blog.dol.gov/2017/03/01/12-stats-about-working-women https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...
Even if that was true, having enough qualified women is not sufficient. You need enough women who are both qualified AND want to fill tech jobs.
When you look at measurements of STEM ability and of reading comprehension in high school students in the US and Europe, an interesting pattern emerges. For boys who are good in STEM, STEM tends to be what they are best at. For girls who good in STEM, they tend to be even better at reading comprehension [1] [2].
Scoring high on reading comprehension correlates well with being good at things that are important in various non-STEM fields (or in the "soft" sciences part of STEM).
People generally have to narrow their focus as they move on to college, maybe graduate school, and into a career. They strongly tend to narrow that focus to what they are best at. That means we lose a lot of those "good at STEM" in high school girls because they are even better at non-STEM.
[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180214150132.h...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...
The conduct of interviewers when hiring cold is stunningly asinine for everybody, so I have the utmost sympathy for women who have to deal with gender bias on top of that. Talent shortage my ass. Interviewers make up their mind based on something - some kind of projection that isn't you - and then make clowns of themselves while trying to rationalize whatever the prejudice was. Take this gem, from the lead engineer: "Well we get a lot of applicants who know C#, but they don't understand low-level." And? How is that my problem? Now how many idiotic interviewers out there are secretly thinking, "Yeah actually all the hardcore low-level coders I know are men, so..."
I've been ranting for years about how there is no talent shortage. It's just that hiring is broken, asinine, and fear-driven. I think I'll pivot to: There is no shortage of talented women. Not to the extent that it is made out to be. TL;DR: parent is correct. It isn't that they aren't there; it's that whoever isn't hiring them.