If they need to explicitly mention that "women are welcome" in a footnote, that pretty much confirms that their choice of headline is saying that women are somewhat less than welcome.
I don't see why being too sensitive is seen as somehow worse in the startup/developer community than being too insensitive.
You'd think it would be smarter to err in the other direction...
I'll venture a guess: because many of us find it incredibly tiring and annoying to have to constantly stop and think "is there any possible way the following sentence could be interpreted as prejudiced against any group?" when communicating.
If person A says something non-sexual and person B finds a way to make it so (ie "that's what she said") we think person B is the dirty minded one, not A. However if person A says something non-racial and person B finds a way to make it so, we act like A has committed a grave offense and needs to apologize.
Too many people in America can't look at an ink-blot without seeing sexism or racism or discrimination of some stripe. Being "too sensitive" is often just causing controversy or problems where none needed to exist. It also makes it so that legitimate discrimination is harder to notice because it gets lost in a sea of false accusations.
The tl;dr is: save the outrage for legitimate discrimination, don't waste time & energy trying to manufacture it everywhere
However, things like:
* porn passed around chatrooms
* rape jokes around the water cooler
* comments on women's attractiveness every time one leaves the room, or every time a photo is posted online.
* etc
don't really need statistics, do they?
I know plenty of women who would have no problem with any of the above. These things happen at some startups, don't happen at others, some women wouldn't want a workplace like this, others would enjoy it. And this is just one of many, many factors. Again, without more information you can't really say anything intelligent.
Not that I totally disagree with you, and most of my peer group is under 30. Just saying.
Note: I'm talking about in professional settings.
p.s.: watch out for your friend. ;)
To tell you the truth I must be so far in category B that I still don't understand the protest. Man has been used as a synonym for human for as long as I can remember. That would make men being the plural of man a synonym for people.
But does this mean that we should avoid all references to a past in which people were less enlightened? Must we pretend that the world was never that way, or pretend that everything that happened in that world was evil because of it?
Those who jump on the slightest whisper that men and women, or people of different races, or cultures, or whatever, might be different in some ways are deluding themselves. That's not to say that we can put a value on any of these differences, nor that these differences are any more than statistical tendencies and not applicable to individuals.
Our work just isn't appealing to most women.
I'm going to say it's the latter, given that these aspects of it aren't appealing to me either.
I grew up hacking away on my own in my bedroom floor hunched in front of a PC making raycasting demos at 4am. WTF has culture got to do with me doing that???
Are you trying to say that I started programming because I was embraced by some culture??? Are you saying that women are put off solely because of this mythical culture you speak of? Grow up.
Once you have a few kids, you learn that most differences in the sexes are genetic.
Women enjoy communicating. They're social beings on the whole. Sitting talking to a computer does not appeal. This is not rocket science. It's not environmental. It's hard wiring. Women = nurturing, communication. Men = hunt, build. If you can't see that, I'm not sure what hope there is for you.
Let's ignore all the mountains of evidence to the contrary and say that, on average, you are absolutely correct.
Have you read Harrison Bergeron? Go on, it's easy to find on google. I'll wait.
Okay, done? Good. Now think about this:
No matter how correct you may be about genetic predestination, your sexist attitudes, and the actions you take based upon those assumptions and beliefs, create a deep moral wrong against any woman who dares to be exceptional.
Get it now, you fucking jackass?
Same with their bodies. In fact I can't tell men apart from women. They're biologically identical!
Have you actually had any interactions with real women?
Please, trot out some of the evidence. I can find plenty that agrees with his statement that men and women are wired differently. I'll get you started:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=men+and+women+...
Aside from that, it makes zero sense from an evolutionary standpoint that both genders would adapt to have the same abilities, preferences, and attitudes. I know it's hard for your PC worldview, but you need to step back from your anger and self-righteousness and examine the evidence.
If a woman wants to move beyond what is 'normal' for her gender, why is it acceptable to discriminate against her?
It doesn't matter a bit whether 'normal' is biological in origin or cultural.
If it was an advert for a nursery assistant which said "Do you love acting all mommy to your kids?" etc no one would care either.
Then why are you spending so much effort arguing that it's acceptable to do so?
Why shit on the exceptional women who do?
Also regarding kids -- my experience is that while there are differences in wiring, parents and friends do subtle things from even before birth that tend to skew things differently for different genders. Whoa anecdote deadlock.
Why are you so angry? People rarely make sense when they're angry -- perhaps this is true here, too?
Also, TBH, I kinda find it offensive to suggest that the only reason I started programming was because I'm a male, and because there's apparently some 'male friendly culture'.
I'm angry because I hate the whole "Everyone is absolutely equal" movement. They're not. Everyone is not equal. We're all different. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. Embrace those differences. Especially in the sexes.
It doesn't mean they're wrong, though. I've seen many examples of just gross sexism from techies who were convinced those other people with the shirt-bumps were just whiners.
Let's take discrimination out of the picture, and look at a less contentious example.
In a relationship, how often does saying "you're overreacting, just calm down" get someone to calm down? The alternative is to, perhaps, listen to the complaint, rather than dismissing it immediately.
Finally, let me point out that there's an interesting systems thing going on here. Imagine you're raised / cultured in a system that is stacked in your favour. Would you notice it, or would you just notice that there are these annoying people who keep complaining about nothing?
This may be an effective filter for a sexual harassment lawsuit.
Speaking up about it seems to be a small way to create some change in that culture.
If I keep quiet, then the hive-minded sausage-fest will march on, assuming I share its beliefs.
On the other hand, speaking up about it really is just tilting at windmills, and incredibly frustrating each time.
I'm not a fucking wallflower.
It's not that the fashion world is not welcoming of straight men, it's that most straight men don't care about being in the fashion world.
If the fashion world were shitting all over straight men, it would be wrong whether it was one straight guy looking to make it as a designer or a hundred thousand.
Yeah, it always breaks my heart when I hear the horror stories from female hackers. For every well-publicized groping at a conference or porn-filled slide deck, there's a dozen female hackers who stay silent or just complain to friends.
A weird fact: Decent, non-sexist guys have much less data about what goes on than either female hackers or sexist jerks. There's some sort of protocol the sexist jerks use to identify each other, and they generally don't act out unless they think they're among either friends, or targets.
Is the job dangerous? Do they expect to accomplish something epic and historic?
No. It's bravado, nothing more.
If it were me choosing the headline, and I had a desire to reference Shackleton's journey, what's wrong with "Wanted for hazardous journey: [...]"?
Second, there's a difference between "anti-PC" and anti-equality.
For example, I can say "fuck political correctness" because I think running around mincing your words in a (pointless and futile) attempt to avoid offending anyone is cowardly, but that doesn't mean that I hate minorities or am against equality. It just means that I think "political correctness" is stupid. If you're offended by my opinions, that's really not my problem; it's yours.
Not specific gender bias, but we can both agree it's likely.
> For example, I can say "fuck political correctness"
Sure you can, just like every other startup/developer type has said ten thousand times -- hell, you aren't even the first in this thread.
Isn't there room for a more nuanced view?
HP Lovecraft's poem "On the Creation of the Nigger" is also a historical document from a century ago. We should not bury it, as it's an important document. I like the Cthulhu mythos, but I wouldn't quote that poem in a job ad in 2010.
Now of course people will reply "saying 'Men' isn't as bad as saying 'Nigger'", and miss the point.
It's more of a signal to marketing professionals. That 'men wanted for hazardous journey' ad is famous enough to be cited in just about any textbook/college course on advertising and marketing - it generated a huge volume of replies when published, confounding the intuitive belief that effective advertising requires exclusive focus on the positive. They're seeking to attract people with a similar ability to see the big picture (both superficially and in the abstracted context of the ad biz), and emphasizing that their actual hiring will be extremely selective.
You probably don't believe that the job is actually physically hazardous (I hope), and can appreciate the metaphorical use of the quotation in relation to the uncertainty of disrupting an extremely competitive established market. Within that context, it makes no sense to interpret a single word in purely literal terms, any more than it's sensible to think that citing Alice in Wonderland means one is addressing oneself exclusively to people named Alice.