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Comment by Daishiman | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotally, the biggest piece of advice when I mentor friends in the earlier stages of their career is to fake it till they make it, as no one has the answers to anything and in this field everything is learnable given enough time and research.

Surely enough, men seem to take the advice to heart much more, with women questioning their abilities and feeling something morally off about the advice.

I have no suggestions on how this gets fixed; there's evidently something wrong in hiring when young people need to "fake" their credentials and still do very well while people who to try to be honest and humble but of objectively similar performance get rejected.

Hiring and performance in our field is still very much in the pre-science stage where we mostly do with ancient incantations and magical beliefs and vibes.

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We had one developer woman in our 200 people team, we all respected. She quit "because she didnt feel as good as the rest" she said (ofc, one says what one wants in these circumstances).

It felt weird, if I see someone better than me, I ask him to teach me. If he s an ass, he becomes my worst enemy and I wont sleep until I beat him.

Objectively she was above the average dude we had, to top all...

Overall, I get the feeling that women have far more confidence issues than men do, sadly.

Women aren't being systematically oppressed ~ but confidence issues might lead them to believe that they are, even if they can't identify any actual causes.

The real systematic issue seems to me to be that women aren't getting help in the confidence apartment, hence they can't easily stay standing in the face of something that may well crush one's self-confidence.

And there may be many, many things in workplace, not just interviews, that can feel defeating... interviewers are there to filter out those who can't handle the strain of the job, those who don't have the qualifications, etc. And even if that's overcome, then the job itself may overtime wear one down.

Burnout and imposter syndrome aren't nice to run into... :/

> Women aren't being systematically oppressed ~ but confidence issues might lead them to believe that they are, even if they can't identify any actual causes.

I'm not sure how you can come to that conclusion.

Most women do not have career role models in our profession, or even most positions of power. Young women don't have examples of successful female computer scientists or engineers they can relate to.

And many women still come from households where their grandparents or parents told them that their main purpose in life is to be submissive and supportive of a breadwinner husband and anything else is degenerate deviation.

What's more, too many men discriminate against confident women; there's several studies that show that confident men are perceived as strong but confident women are perceived and oppressive or difficult to work with.

> Young women don't have examples of successful female computer scientists or engineers they can relate to.

Why not? It feels like there's a movie made about them every other year. They also cannot go into politics, because ... women chancellors don't count, apparently.

> And many women still come from households where their grandparents or parents told them that their main purpose in life is to be submissive and supportive of a breadwinner husband and anything else is degenerate deviation.

"Many"? Granted, self-selection and all that, but zero of my female friends have said that this was a thing. I'm sure it's "many" in absolute terms, but relative to the whole population ... are you sure it's "many"?

> Why not? It feels like there's a movie made about them every other year.

Hmm, no? Aside from Grace Hopper and Ada Lovelace there aren't many female computer scientists who are well known and shown to be exemplary. Historic figures and people you know firsthand impact much more than fictional characters.

> They also cannot go into politics, because ... women chancellors don't count, apparently.

Who said this? An important phenomenon is that we've seen a wave of increased female participation into politics and those figures have certainly helped young women find role models.

Is it confidence or aggression? I remember sizing people up in meetings and studying them as my goal was to be the smartest.

What I didn't realize is how boring it becomes when you are that person.

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