Why women in tech are so angry all the time
mashable.com
mashable.com
So maybe it just helps talking to people? There appear to be many jerks around, sure. But I’m willing to bet many of these microagressions are simply a result of social ineptitude. If someone told me I stepped on their toes (some have), I can be more careful around them and assure them of no bad intentions.
https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Autism_is_to_blame
I'd like to add that I am really disappointed that this "So maybe it just helps talking to people?" comment is at the top of the comments here. It is incredibly tone deaf and borderline victim blaming.
It is such an easy explanation that many people here will accept. Yet it is a fallacy, out of touch with reality.
Does anyone really think that the "on the spectum" workforce is the reason for the systemic issues in the tech industry?!
If you're able to go to work everyday and function in society without any extra assistance, then you do not get a pass to insult others needlessly. Go home and rethink your life.
Keep seeing something and saying something with articles like these. The culture is changing, even if it doesn't feel like it some days, and talking about it in the open is part of what fuels that change.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/16/40percent-of-women-in-tech-s...
Beyond that, harassment is not the only problem I talked about.
Anyway, my comment was about base rates of harassment received by anyone saying anything critical of anyone else: they are high, no matter who you are and what you are saying. It's not right, but it's not limited to women.
But when I read all the comments on this thread I think "Wow. If this set of innocuous requests is generating this response, then that speaks volumes. Who am I to say this type of pent-up bitterness doesn't affect her career?"
The list of asks amounts to "be a decent person and stick up for folk". This is stuff that should, like you say, go without saying.
> My first thought was someone had mailed me anthrax.
That's your first thought? The harassment later described sounds insane - if you are receiving death threats call the police, open a case. It'll strengthen your position if you later need to go to court. What you don't do is post about it online, to let your attacker know they were successful.
Also, don't doxx your own address. If you need to receive mail and post an address online, there are forwarding services - some even offer to search the mail.
I somewhat find the claim incredible though - if you honestly believe you are in immediate danger, most people do something about it.
> Most of us, however, experience constant microaggressions.
The term 'microaggression' doesn't make sense to me, if it's aggression then call it out as such. If it's not meaningful enough to be called out, then you need a better coping mechanism.
> [..] it truly feels like the cancerous misogynistic tumors in our industry in particular run so deep that we may never be able to bisect them all.
Either Silicon Valley produces the worst work culture out there (and homelessness), or I would suggest that you find yourself in a bubble. I think as a general rule, if you believe <some group> to have almost entirely evil intent, then you don't understand them or have some internal bias. People generally don't try or believe themselves to be the villains of their own stories.
> Listen to and believe women.
You go from wanting equality to special treatment. I treat all people with scepticism, but they are innocent until proven guilty. That's how justice works.
In general I feel sad for the author. Anything you try hard enough to find, you will eventually find. I hope instead of trying to find sexism in tech industry, the author tries to find happiness.
It got boring long ago.
If you claim it to be true, it must be. There's no possible way your world view could be wrong.
> You think when you're able to solve a technical problem, you're able to solve every problem.
Are there any other thoughts you can tell me I hold? There's no need for me to actually express an opinion given you already know how I think.
> That's the common combination of arrogance & ignorance so many other dudes are sporting.
Arrogance would perhaps be assuming you can determine who I am by hearing just one opinion I hold. As somebody once said: 'It got boring long ago.'
You think giving advice to “not doxx yourself” is useful advice? It is not. We are hyper aware of our safety and still have to be afraid of unknown creeps - anonymous trolls who we can’t “do something about”.
“I hope instead of trying to find sexism in tech industry”
You can’t go 1 week without hearing about sexism in our industry. Being in denial about it because it doesn’t impact you personally is a predictable and weak move.
There's several reasons for reporting anonymous death threats (even if I find it weird that police would openly laugh in your face):
1. If you need to make a case in the future you have documented evidence. You can bring a police report to court.
2. When statistics are being crunched on such things, having the reports on record help identify a problem.
> You think giving advice to “not doxx yourself” is useful advice? It is not. We are hyper aware of our safety and still have to be afraid of unknown creeps - anonymous trolls who we can’t “do something about”.
She is publishing under her real name - if death threats are a serious threat, use a pseudo name. I understand the "she shouldn't have to" argument, and in a perfect society no crimes would ever be committed - but unfortunately humans are not perfect and we must compromise our ideology in favour of realism.
> You can’t go 1 week without hearing about sexism in our industry.
You can't go a day without hearing about murder either, but I don't go hunting it out in the news or writing about it. I pick and choose my battles for my own mental health.
I'm not denying sexism in the workplace is a real problem, I'm just suggesting that the author has over burdened herself with a large problem she has little control over, and it's made her unhappy. She sounds as if she genuinely believes somebody will send her anthrax through the post - do you really believe that is a real possibility or do you think her battle with sexism in the workplace has gone slightly off the rails?
> Being in denial about it because it doesn’t impact you personally is a predictable and weak move.
I'm not denying it's a problem and I haven't suggested that it doesn't impact me personally - you just made these assumptions. It's also not denial to not stress about every problem that impacts you personally.
You are responding to her yet you use the 3rd person. You meant to write:
“You are publishing under your real name”
This is a complicated use of first person and third person:
“She sounds as if she genuinely believes somebody will send her anthrax through the post - do you really believe that is a real possibility or do you think her battle with sexism in the workplace has gone slightly off the rails?”
You meant to write:
“You sound as if you genuinely believe somebody will send you anthrax through the post - do you really believe that is a real possibility or do you think your battle with sexism in the workplace has gone slightly off the rails?”
Since she wrote it, she probably does believe it.
If I published under a pseudo name then the comments here would be “This is fake. Not even a real person is willing to say this”. You truly can’t win.
I said in the article that not every woman in tech gets death threats. But I have and you seem to want to find reasons to blame me for getting them or make me seem “off the rails” for feeling any fear.
That wasn't clear, apologies - but also now you have tied you HN username that was otherwise anonymous to your real name. If you believe you have a very real risk of death, please do not make it easier for people to determine who you are.
Honestly I am saddened that you see the world through the lens you write about. The path you are on does not lead to happiness, I hope this doesn't play as large a role in your life as your article leads one to believe.
> If I published under a pseudo name then the comments here would be “This is fake. Not even a real person is willing to say this”. You truly can’t win.
There are many cases where there is no good option, but if you believe your life to be in danger, pick the option of self preservation. Also I doubt that putting a name to an article really makes it any more credible to your critics, the goalposts simply move from 'you are not real' to 'your experience is not real'.
> But I have and you seem to want to find reasons to blame me for getting them or make me seem “off the rails” for feeling any fear.
I always look at things with scepticism - especially when I realize somebody is trying to change my world view. That said, I can believe that you have likely received some crazy messages, even if just being a human that creates content on the internet.
What I think is a leap is to believe that some random package that arrives has a very real threat of containing anthrax. If this is a genuinely held belief (and not just story garnish) then it appears like a self-induced paranoia.
bArray - you are the problem here.
I lock my front door at night and I imagine you do too. In an ideal society no crime occurs, and we can all leave our doors unlocked at night. In reality - if we can make small changes to our lifestyle to limit our exposure to risk, we tend to do them.
But that all rides on the assumption that I accept the designation of 'victim' - I already argued against 'Listen to and believe women'. The author speaks of feeling a very feel threat of an anthrax attack, one that is likely inflated. Based on that, it's not unreasonable to believe that other claims in the article may also be inflated.
> bArray - you are the problem here.
I do enjoy the classic "if you're not with me, you're against me" argument. It's not at all possible for us both to agree that sexism in the workplace is bad, but have different opinions about how to solve it.
But it is possible to have empathy for others, which clearly you have none of.
To show how much empathy I have, I'm going to write a post named "Ask HN: Let's talk about how much empathy I have" [1].
Addressing a few points here:
> But with your lack of empathy and obvious lack of respect for original human thought and emotion, I decided to come back and post this.
It's not original if a large number of people think in the same way, create bubbles and reinforce preconceived ideas about a subject, it's group think. You then get annoyed because somebody with an actually original thought challenges your own.
If you have something to argue then please do, otherwise claiming that I am less than human or lack human traits is not exactly going to progress any conversation. If you assume other people argue in bad faith, there is no way for us to move forwards productively.
> What you are doing is hurting people and is holding this industry back.
Open discussions are not holding the industry back. Debate is not holding the industry back. It's a lack of these things that hold the industry back - when a woman for example is treated in a sexist manner and people refuse to speak.
To push an ideology you must win hearts and minds. Your point here is that you want me to shut-up for the sake of your cause.
> Being online behind a username does not give you a pass to treat someone less than human.
I don't say anything here I wouldn't say to you in person. The difference would probably be that when I listen to what you say, you'll see that I'm not without empathy, I simply disagree with your opinion.
That's you. That's what you sound like. And you're confirming a lot of what I had to say in that post.
At least around here I also see that if two persons, one woman and one man, apply for the same position, and they are seen as exactly equally qualified, the woman gets hired first.
Why? Because amount of women in the department is a KPI.
I also see men walking circles around these issues, taking quite a lot more stupidity from a girl than from a man. I tried to wait a few weeks with one particular know-it-all that was a master in my field (or so she behaved) after 18 months of work.
There are many brilliant women in tech, and then there is those that get paid as dev evangelist and get people booted from PyCon after listening in to someone elses conversation for something far less insulting then whatever she herself had posted publicly on Twitter short time before.
I think the actual women in tech would do well to stand up to these who abuse it.
And if you live in the Nordics at least and experience actual discrimination, look for a new job.
Explain why this is a problem? You say these two candidates are equally great. Should the man have been picked?
I'm just pointing out that at least around here, and in the companies I want to work in, women has an advantage from before they are hired.
I don't think this is necessarily true in USA and many other places.
But together with the PyCon story and others where men are massively disadvantaged while everyone pretend it is always easy for all men it might explain a bit of the feelings you sometimes see.
And please can we call it IT, not 'tech'. As a dev, 'tech' always sounded as though you were doing things much harder than IT.
I don't know what point you're trying to communicate here. Which female dominated industries do you regularly see discussed on Hacker News?
> And please call it IT, not 'tech'
Why should anyone do this? I have worked in tech for 20 years and refer to it as such.
But anyway, is there a female-dominated industry that promises upward mobility that men are clamoring for acceptance in and failing to get it?
And, speak for yourself, I only did IT when I was in high school and now I work in cutting edge technolgy.
Would it make you feel better if women pretended everything was okay? How on earth would that help young girls considering tech careers? Should young women entering the workforce also pretend everything is okay? When does it end?
I'm going to assume you didn't mean it, but this comment came across to me as tone-deaf victim blaming. In fact, it sounds exactly like the kind of flippant and dismissive responses the author complained about.
It's no wonder women in tech are angry.
I'm not angry with you, I'm saddened. You've told them they've gotten to you deeply, and provided a blueprint on how to go further.
Want to be angry? Keep feeding the trolls. Is that the plan? Why?
Edit: I don't understand this response and silence. You all want this?
To solve a problem, the root cause must be found, and the root cause of harassment is NOT other men. Sure men could help, but articles like this seem to demand it, like they're yelling at men, as a group, for the actions of individuals. This doesn't make sense, and it doesn't help either.
I don't know about other men but it absolutely alienates me from "the cause". I'm not having anything to do with people who start out by assuming I'm part of their problem.
That's cool. If I steal somebody's wallet at work, you've got my back?
Not all men - how discussing womens issues gets derailed: https://slate.com/technology/2014/05/not-all-men-how-discuss...
Where in the heck did you get that from? The author made no such claim. Anywhere.
I also didn't feel like the author was "yelling at men". I felt she was trying to get us to understand her frustration.
Confident, respectful men don't get offended by posts like this. She's not talking about me (generally speaking that is - I know I'll never be perfect). But, I also know that I can help. I can be an ally. I don't mind being reminded of that.
Sheesh, the early comments here tell me that the author could actually be understating the problem.
> Next time you go to ask yourself why women in tech are so angry, ask yourself why you’re not angry with them.
Is that for everyone? It sounds to be directed at the party that would not be angry, which is hyperbole for caring, and why would any women not care about this issue? Therefore this sounds like it's directed at men, at least implicitly.
It's an angry article after all, why wouldn't it be pointing fingers. I'm just saying there's no one to blame but the individual culprits of those behaviors / actions.
It's the same general principle.
The post author just said all men should be pissed off about its continuing prevalence.
You don't have to be pissed off. Just like you don't have to be pissed off about the continuing prevalence of racism.
> Call out bad behavior you see or hear about, even when it’s uncomfortable.
> Help to report offenders.
> Give credit to and call out great work you see from the women you work with.
> Offer to share your compensation packages to help your women-in-tech peers know their worth.
> Advocate in your own teams for debiasing the interview/promotion process.
> Advocate for events you're attending or organizing to include a more diverse set of voices and refer underrepresented experts you know for opportunities.
> Don't rely on marginalized groups to educate you.
> Listen to and believe women.
It's the same conundrum with double agents. You agree with them helping your intelligence org, but you can never fully trust them. You cannot control their motivations (unless you hold their family hostage like they did in the USSR, etc.)
From that standpoint, this is not good advice. Leadership is key. You have to schmooze leadership and convince them it's the right thing, but not via these activist methods.
If you see a black colleague being treated unfairly and do nothing because you don't want to be seen as an "agitator" or "activist" then you are part of the problem. Full stop.
The same goes for women.
Yes, being a snitch would probably improve the lives of people in lots of places, and yet it does not happen often because it can be destabilizing (despite people not liking the people they could snitch on). Companies do not like this "unknown". They do want to do the right thing, just not via activism/snitching. Because just as other groups of people who see the downsides of snitching, companies see the same.
This is asking too much from other women. Sure it’s a good thing for the group to pint out bad behavior, but it comes at a price for the individual doing the reporting.
Snitching on the neighborhood bully would be a good thing. Snitching on a company cooking the books, etc. But people also can't trust the snitch. Companies can't trust activists (whatever their persuasion).
Some other expressions of this are seen as “men clam up” in front of me. Basically they now don’t want something to be misinterpreted. It’s to be expected.
You're projecting. Maybe you wouldn't trust the "snitch". Most educated people would see him/her as a victim and show sympathy.
This isn't prison for crying out loud.
For me, no amount of money is worth compromising basic human decency but YMMV.
Whether it's in school or your neighborhood or work. Stick up for what's proper in school or neighborhood labels you a snitch. You're trying to do what's right. And it is the right thing, it's just that people cannot trust that person from then on.
But the easiest route won't cover applying the changes needed for the tech industry to become a place that's not a misogynistic dumpster fire.
Calling out what's wrong and pressing companies to leave the easiest route and actually do something about it will help. And that's — by the way — not snitching. It's called criticism.