Appalled by Sexism in the Valley? Meet the Tech Bros of Finland

caterina.net

8 points·NelsonMinar··15 comments

In case people read this as some outsider with sour grapes, Caterina (the author) founded Flickr with her now-ex, Stewart, who is the founder of Slack. So whatever she’s exposed to when visiting Finland is the VIP tech star version of how women are treated.

Conference events centered around drinking and gambling, and when I pointed out that women may feel uncomfortable there, the conference organizers shrugged.

This is Finland, where the party culture is different. What did Finnish women say? Altogether, it's an American woman imposing her viewpoint on a culture that isn't hers. Cultural imperialism at its finest. I wish I wasn't serious.

Wow, this totally explains why Torvalds has taken care to become so polite lately, almost to excess. We used to just blame the usual sort of SV-driven "woke" politics, but really-- who would ever want to be mistaken for one of those guys? The stuff that's reported in this article is surprisingly damning, not even due to the sexism itself but the extent to which ego-driven behavior seems to be supplanting any sort of real professionalism among that group.

I am not sure how I feel about this article and how seriously I want to take it. As of right now, the author is painting a bleak picture of one side only.

It reads like a petty kid overheard something vulgar over the counter and now wants to write a book about it.

If the author can redo the piece without pointing fingers and playing a victim then I would reconsider reading it again.

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