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Might I suggest that you consider taking part in a class dominated by women? Perhaps something discussing the proto-feminist leanings of Woolf?

I'm not kidding.

I think you'll find that you're lonely. That you gravitate towards talking to other men in the group. That you feel like your voice isn't heard. That you sense resentment towards you. That your opinion isn't valid.

Now imagine going through that every day in your college career.

(I'm assuming you're a man. If you're not, then my 97% die roll failed me.)

Indeed. Now add a bunch of chest-pounding chicks writing self-described "controversial rants" about the utter ridiculousness of having a group just for men to feel good about themselves.

Hell, the tone of the parent article alone is enough to justify this group. Guys: we already dominate the industry, and will for the rest of our careers. There's no need to be jerks about it. If you don't see the need for a group to which you'll never belong, just keep quiet.

I find your reply objectionable.

I believe you mischaracterised my argument or completely misjudged my tone. At no point did I suggest the original author's point-of-view was "utterly ridiculous", just that I found it frustrating and to try and emphatically explain the reasons why. There is a world of difference there. The introductory comments about it being a "controversial rant" have been mischaracterised - the idea was to try and minimise any offence to the original author, that I knew it was slightly hijacking the thread, that it may be a fringe viewpoint and that the author would probably disagree with my point-of-view. At no point was I aiming for "chest-beating", nor do I believe that was the tone of the post, but I do apologise if it came across as such. I do believe, however, that had the roles been reversed that I would not be offended if someone put their arguments forward as I did to support their point of view.

I also quite obviously disagree that I'm a "jerk", and I firmly believe that my opinion still matters despite apparently being the "wrong sex" to be able to have one on this matter and that this sort of discussion is not and should not be out of bounds.

> Guys: we already dominate the industry, and will for the rest of our careers.

What do you mean "we"? The fact that some other guys dominate "the industry" does absolutely nothing for me.

If this is like other similar efforts, it's an attempt to help connected women compete with connected men. Meanwhile, "unconnected" women and men remain left out.

Excuse me for not seeing that as a significant improvement.

> If you don't see the need for a group to which you'll never belong, just keep quiet.

Would you say that to anyone other than unconnected white men?

I know exactly what you're talking about. I once worked for a software company where the female engineers/managers way outnumbered the male engineers. It became known as a friendly place for female engineers to work and that, in turn, attracted more female engineers.

But that's not my point. My point is, at that company, I would often go to engineering meetings (with five to seven other people) where I was the only man in attendance. And I can tell you without a doubt that it was hard to get my opinion heard and I felt isolated.

So, I completely agree with your argument. You don't know what it's like until you've been there.

I'm a man, and I've worked as an ER/ICU nurse for the past 15 years. Being a gender FOO in a gender BAZ dominated industry can be unpleasant and challenging at times.

Not to complain, but to make the point:

* I almost got expelled from nursing school because of what I believe was discrimination towards men. I've talked to other men who've had similar experiences.

* I worked on a unit where my charge nurse repeatedly called me a "boy nurse".

* I am frequently referred to as "one of those male nurses".

* Many patients have asked me, "are you going to go on to be a doctor". When I tell them that I'm not, I hear, "Oh." and get a surprised, concerned look.

* I've had my ass pinched/slapped by coworkers. (I'm married. It's not appreciated)

* I had a coworker ask me to help with her, "fertility problems" and don't I look just like her boyfriend.

* Last week, I had a coworker come behind me and start braiding my long hair. I had to tell my coworker that I don't like people messing with my hair. Can you imagine if I did that to a female coworker at Google, IBM or Ford?

* I'm frequently around when women trade child birthing stories, or hear coworkers talk about their menstrual cycles.

* I've had bosses talk to me about how men don't really do foo very well as nurses.

* I'm frequently asked to "be a big, strong man and help me move my patient". I have back problems from 15 years of being asked to do things because of my size and gender.

* I've often been asked to care for hostile, combative, drunk or otherwise chemically altered patients, because I'm a "big, strong man".

I could go on.

Let's just say that I'm happy to mentor any man that comes into this profession. There are certain tricks of the trade that will help a lot that I've picked up along the way. And, there are benefits to being a man in this profession as well.

If the gender FOO's want to get together and help each other out or talk about how to deal with being FOO around so much BAZ... More power to them.

I'm a bit confused about the last two points. If you were a big strong female would they not have asked you to help move patients or take care of hostile patients? Were you asked to help with physical tasks because you are a man or because you are strong?

I suppose that's a good point.

In thinking about it, however, I haven't noticed when working in an ICU that stronger women are asked to care for the 400+ lb patients more often.

It is a fairly common occurrence, however for men to be asked to care for certain patients because "men are stronger". I've also been told by women that they are glad to have more men in the industry because "men are stronger".

I could be wrong, but I struggle to think of an instance where it would be okay for me to to categorize female coworkers as being inherently better or worse because of a physical attribute, however.

Somehow, I've managed to have more women bosses than men bosses in my programming career. I've never had a problem communicating with them, or felt uncomfortable voicing my opinion. I suppose that's different, though, than having the coworkers mostly female, too.

Mind you, I am not saying that I have any complaints about my own experience. The women in question have been good bosses, and mostly have let me use my own judgment in deciding how to complete the tasks assigned to me. For those of us programming as an employee, for the most part I think this is all we really want.

Maybe this is why I have a hard time accepting programs that seek to pump indifferent women into computer science/programming fields. I can't relate to the idea that women are discriminated against in this field when, more often than not, it has been a woman telling me what to do. For what it's worth, most of these women seemed more than happy to let others do the implementation and make technical decisions, while they focused more on the parts of the work that require human interaction. This is not to say that they did not understand the technical questions or were incapable of doing the implementation, just that it did not seem to interest them as strongly as the inter-personal aspects.

Having said that, I don't have any objections to this program being offered to help women entrepreneurs. I agree with the sentiments expressed elsewhere that men in women dominated fields find the same need to talk to men who have "been there" and can relate to the minority experience.

I took a course at Mt. Holyoke in college (I'm male, Mt. Holyoke is an all-women's college). I also spent quite a while in the Harry Potter fandom, which is literally 99% female.

In neither situation did I ever feel marginalized, or excluded, or ignored. Occasionally I felt like I was an object of curiosity, but I can deal with that.

It is a bit of a culture shock, and in both situations I was careful to observe first and talk later. I saw some guys who entered fandom, immediately started acting like...men, and had a rather unwelcome reception as a result. But that's social skills 101: being aware of existing culture and norms of a group.

That said, I don't have any problem with a group like this. It's not really a sex issue: it's connecting experienced entrepreneurs with like-minded people, which is kinda the point of mentoring. Arguably, PG started YCombinator because he wanted to mentor people like himself; I don't see any reason why a group of women should not be able to do the same thing.

PG's actions imply that it's okay to discriminate on the basis of intelligence and ability. Here we probably all agree. This woman's actions imply that it's okay to discriminate on the basis of gender. If you don't have a problem with it, then would you also not have a problem with a society that excludes women?

It's not society that's excluding anyone, it's one particular mentoring group.

I have no problem with all-male groups like the Freemasons, Boy Scouts, or fraternities.

I meant a society, not the society. I should have used a different word.

The things you've listed are all-male for traditional reasons. If someone were to start an all-male group now (like, say, an all-male mentoring group), it would generally be frowned upon. I was just wondering if you'd frown upon it also.

I'd think it kinda pointless and wouldn't participate myself, but no, I wouldn't frown upon it in a "should this exist?" way. People have a right to associate with folks they choose.

Edit: actually - I can't say that I wouldn't participate myself. Mentoring is mentoring - if I liked the people involved, I'd get involved.

I had no qualms when students at my college started a new all-male acapella group, or when they started "The Men's Project" (which, somewhat ironically, spent a lot of time discussing how to prevent violence against women).

* Mentoring is mentoring - if I liked the people involved, I'd get involved*

Yeah, but if it's a 50 year old male executive privately mentoring a 22 year old female CS grad, it might get a little creepy. Same thing goes for a 50 year old female executive privately mentoring a 22 year old new grad.

That's not to say that it's wrong for older people to mentor young people of another gender. It's just that the potential for creepiness is higher.

Not really. There are groups that are men's only and nobody bats an eye about it. (Sport teams, dating/relationship support groups). They just have to be something unique to men.

If there is some functional reason why a group might be all one sex, then few people would argue against it. For example, the way men act, think, are expected to behave, etc, in a dating/relationship setting is different from how women do; and importantly the behaviours that lead to success differ depending on whether you are male or femaile. So in that setting it'd be entirely appropriate to have a all-male or all-female support group.

Is being a startup founder like that? I don't know, but it seems plausible that it might be.

The boy scouts allow women it's just rare that one wants to join and there are lots of co-ed fraternities.

Oh yeah? tell that twelve year old me, who was not allowed to become a Boy Scout. Both of my brothers were Eagle Scouts.

How far did you push it? I've met one or two female scouts. Maybe they were ventures wearing the wrong uniform. :)

In order to correct for a demographic imbalance, you have to put extra attention on minority recruitment and retention in the group.

She is clearly discriminating based on gender, but she's doing it because of an observed gender imbalance.

Why do you consider a 50-50 gender balance "correct"? Few extend this idea of "correctness" to apply to homeless rates or prison populations.

I said no such thing.

I recognize there may be a biological reason why the gender split in our field is the way it is, but I feel it is probably mostly cultural. I'm using lots of qualifying words because I just don't know. It may be a combination of biological and cultural. But since I think there is a cultural component to the disparity, I'm sympathetic to people who make attempts to address it.

"It's not really a sex issue:"

Nope. It's totally a sex issue.

I still think it's a fine thing to do. But this is just a ridiculous statement.

I'll admit that I haven't personally taken such a class - sadly it's very unlikely I'll be able to do so.

I would find it very sad if that you described happened, though. I think a male point of view would be valuable on a discussion of an issue like proto-feminism, for example. The idea that someone would get shouted down from a discussion for having a dissenting point of view to me seems bizarre assuming they facilitate the discussion, but perhaps that's just me.

I doubt you'd get 'shouted down.' The poster you're responding to never said anything like that. He (I'm assuming) suggested that you'd feel isolated, and have difficulty communicating your ideas in a way that makes you feel you're being understood.

This could happen (to a man in such a class, or to a woman in a male-dominated workplace) with no one shouting at anyone, or expressing any kind of hostility, or even really doing anything wrong. These are difficult problems.

I would place that responsibility on the person to get better at communicating. People of the opposite sex aren't aliens. It should be possible to get your ideas across if you put effort into understanding their world view.

Now, if your ideas are not received because of existing prejudice, that's a different issue.

I've always heard things like "I think you'll find that you're lonely." Hm. Well, yeah, I (male) do find that! But it doesn't seem to matter where I am or what "group" I'm in, I'm lonely as hell. I connect on a meaningful level with a very low percentage of people. Most of the others can be classified as disconnected from me and apathetic about me (not "wrong" per se) or actively malignant, in that they are bullies or otherwise seek to use\abuse me, probably in a totem pole ego gratification move or just in a political\profit based one.

I dunno. I think what it comes down to is that in most things, male\female is much the same experience, even if it expresses it self in different ways. You can rant on about all the sucky hard experiences one side gets, but I think if you really look, you'll find the otherside has a very similar set of problems as well.

OK, I'll bite. In college my minor was archaeology, a field completely dominated (at least at my school) by women. I've been the one guy in otherwise all-women classes.

Compared to my CS classes, it was like a breath of fresh air. (I actually double-booked my afternoons, and walked out of Operating Systems halfway through class to go study ancient Peruvian pottery. It was therapeutic.) I felt like a curiosity at first, but never trivialized or resented. As always, I gravitated towards a couple other people in the department as friends, but they didn't happen to be men.

The pattern I saw was not that men (or the dominant sex) are trivializing and resentment-laden, but that specific departments were. Even the women in the CS department were into the macho-geek BS, and a lot of us men hated it.

That's why we're offended by the suggestion that there should be special anything for women in CS. A lot of us men want computing to grow up, too, and we feel excluded by these women-only programs. There's your sex discrimination.

"Now imagine going through that every day in your college career."

Except for the US college system is dominated by women. There are roughly 6.4 million men and 8.7 million women currently enrolled in college. By 2016 the gap will jump to 7 million men and 10.3 million women. And since the top colleges can get away with accepting more men to even out the gender ratios, that means the median college classroom is entirely dominated by women except for a few niche departments like computer science and physics.

I'm all for such groups targeted exclusively for minorities, even if there were no longer any discrimination.

Suppose you're a member of minority M, looking to get into group G, which is dominated by members of group D, who are all significantly different in some very obvious way. Wouldn't you personally like a little reassurance from someone else in M who's made it in G, that you too can do well? It's just plain human insecurity. As a girl who takes a lot of CS classes, even though I never experience any hostility from the guys in the classes, it just feels a little weird. I certainly do feel more insecure. Like it or not, just because so many more guys are in these classes, girls form a stereotype of CS as being something for guys and not for them. They have to hear that message from a girl, a living counterexample, to shake that stereotype. Being outnumbered by guys everywhere does nothing but reinforce stereotypes.

I lived in Japan twice for the summer, and once for a whole year.

I was really into Japanese culture and language, and was very excited to immerse myself in the whole experience all 3 times. For the two summers, this was not a problem. I took the same approach for my year long stay.

However, after month 4 or 5, I totally burned out. I was spending all week and all weekend speaking Japanese, which I was improving at a lot, but still required a lot more mental effort than speaking English. Beyond that, there are just lots of little cultural things to always be mindful of and this added a small but constant burden, too.

It was at this time that I started attending an English speaking church, attended by ex-pats. One thing I discovered was that, even if the person was Taiwanese and we were speaking Japanese because that was the one common language between us, we still agreed on the same things that were weird about Japan.

Having this support group made a world of difference. I was still in a Japanese environment, spending most days speaking mostly Japanese, but I had an outlet.

I suspect this is what women get from having female connections in the CS/programming world. As much as our society sometimes tries to ignore the fact, men and women are different enough that it is occasionally necessary to get away from the other culture and retreat into your own, even if only to hear someone agree about how weird the other culture can be.

Startup life is a lot easier when you have a mentor, and it's easier to form that mentor relationship when you have things in common. I don't see anything wrong with female mentors reaching out to other women and offering the opportunity to form these relationships.

"... I don't see how sex matters when you're a business person, when you're programming, when you're building things ..."

Maybe because you are a member (myself included) of a homogeneous monk-like cloistered society that meets daily with your own kind where everyone knows the secret hand-shake and acknowledges you. Given that nobody does lone-programming anymore if you are different you are going to be side-lined.

I guess the argument killer here is "put your hands up all those who would trade places as a man to be a women in a male dominated - some say one of the last - in the software industry?".

Your argument of course is not a new one. The best example I can think of is hiring musicians for Orchestra. You would think that gender would not be a problem. Surely a musician who is good enough would get a job in a Orchestra based on musical ability in the "12 minute recital" alone? Yet Orchestras have been a male dominated industry ~ http://www.polyphonic.org/panels.php?id=7&day=1 Read here more on the debate on Orchestral selection and among other things gender.

Is this issue another structural issue within Startups where gender dominance is only skills based? Or are there entry hurdles that can be knocked down with some small changes? Don't we all want as many high quality entrepreneurs and Startups to florish? Or is it a "foo only club?" where you can join in as long as you are one of "us"?

> Given that nobody does lone-programming anymore

Really? I need a support group.

Me too :-)

"... > Given that nobody does lone-programming anymore Really? I need a support group. ..."

I'm being facetious.

This was a throw away line Doug Crockford gave in a talk I was listening to, "Quality" talk I was listening to the other day (about 10-15m in) ~ http://developer.yahoo.net/blogs/theater/archives/2007/05/do...

For most SoftCo. management this is probably what they think.

I thought some orchestras started having blind auditions, where the performer is behind some kind of opaque barrier?

"... I thought some orchestras started having blind auditions ..."

That's what I thought and was the reason I chose this instance. I remember seeing an example of perceived vs actual performance and more women where hired because of bias selection. How many Orchestras try this I don't know.

>I don't see how sex matters when you're a business person, when you're programming, when you're building things.

Sex shouldn't matter, but how people perceive me due to my sex could have an impact on how I do things.

I know the following would make me sound like a really passive aggressive person, but I write some awful code when someone pisses me off. One time in school I had no choice over who to partner with, and my partner was this awful guy who told me explicitly that he didn't want to work with me because I was female. In the end I wrote most of the code anyway (all he'd provide is copy-pasted code labelled file1, file2, file3 etc. either cause he just didn't know how to do anything or it was just him being passive aggressive at being forced to work with me), but it ended up being the most obfuscated, profanity-laced code I had ever written. I spent quite a bit of time refactoring and deleting comments before submitting it.

I would never do that professionally (instead I go and rant on IRC or twitter for a bit to friends), but I can say I am sometimes tired of the sexism (just like you are tired of the double standard) and it affects me once in a while, and that certainly affects the work I do in myriad ways.

Though clearly well-intentioned, these sorts of things have always rubbed me the wrong way, too. It seems they are only acceptable for categories outside the "dominant" set {white, male}. "Women in Engineering" is fine, as is "African Americans in Medicine". And unlike, say, a Gay Men's Chorus, I'd bet they're not particularly accepting of people who don't fit the profile.

As a white male, I'm sure I enjoy all sorts of implicit advantages I don't even notice, but it still weirds me out to see groups wear their exclusionary nature not only openly, but with pride.

Is your opposition with the fact that minorities are forming groups or that they might be exclusive in nature? If it's the latter, most of them actually aren't--feel free to join your local National Society of Black Engineers chapter.

It's not really opposition, just uneasiness. I believe in voluntary associations, but I think it's a warning sign that it would be hard to form the "National Society of White Engineers" without seeming racist or a "Men in Engineering" group without seeming sexist, even if they accepted anyone who wanted to join. The National Society of Black Engineers, no matter how welcoming they may be in practice, just don't sound like they really want me to show up at their next meeting. And I'm pretty sure the Women in Engineering group at Caltech would have been pissed off if I or any other male Techers had crashed their parties...

Well, the pattern isn't "random group of people get-together," it's "severe minority group get-together." Less of a warning sign and more of a general pattern. I think it makes a lot of sense to look for the familiar when you're surrounded by something that is somehow alien to you. And since the groups are often formed because of some exclusion (perceived or real), they're very rarely exclusionary themselves.

As a white male in tech, I can see how you might find it difficult to empathize with someone in that situation. Best sort of "imagine if" scenario would be if I dropped you in the middle of a foreign country and you looked around and realized that there were a few Techers there with you. You guys (and gals?) might have some beers together, and if anyone from Turkmenistanians wanted to join you, they could.

I describe experiencing this kind of thing in Japan elsewhere in this thread.

I recruit from my alma mater first. I help people who grew up in my hometown. It's a comfort level thing.

"And unlike, say, a Gay Men's Chorus"

Did you see the episode of Will and Grace, where Matt Damon pretends to be gay because that is the only way he can get accepted into the men's chorus group?

I haven't seen that episode, but it sounds funny. For what it's worth, I have been invited to join a Gay Men's Chorus, despite not being gay. Though maybe it was just because, like all choruses, they were desperately short of tenors. :-)

I think most arguments for "diversity" are bullshyt. However, I can see how otherwise qualified female applicants might feel intimidated by an organization that is 95%+ male. Increasing the number of females in the program could therefore increase the average quality of the founder pool.

But yes, I don't see any worth in "diversity" for its own sake, unless we are talking about a diversity of skill-sets, knowledge, or something else worth talking about.

Diversity is good because when members have different experiences, and thus point of views.

"Point of view is worth 80 IQ points"

> Diversity is good because when members have different experiences, and thus point of views.

Wrong. Diversity that brings in useful points of view is good. Diversity that brings in other points of view is bad.

> "Point of view is worth 80 IQ points"

My cat has a different point of view but I'm pretty sure that she doesn't have anything useful to say about Google App Engine.

If I thought you meant to equate women's point of view with your cat's in any way I would be highly amused--at what you reveal about your own perspectives.

> If I thought you meant to equate women's point of view with your cat's in any way I would be highly amused--at what you reveal about your own perspectives.

Cute insinuation.

Do you really want to argue that every person can add something useful to any discussion of Google App Engine? Or is it just every woman?

If not, then the "diversity" argument fails, at least wrt Google App Engine.

While the right points of view add 80 IQ points, some points of view don't add any IQ points, and some even subtract. Gender, orientation, and ethnicity are sometimes good predictors for "useful point of view" but not always.

The advantage of using my cat is that she isn't offended when I point out that she doesn't have a useful perspective on something.

> I guess it comes down to this: I don't see how sex matters when you're a business person, when you're programming, when you're building things.

I'm sure you believe this yourself, you behave like this, and you have probably witnessed this a great deal - but this doesn't necessarily generalize.

However, there has been a lot of (empirical) research into this area and it's shown that this still is an issue. For example: http://psy.ex.ac.uk/seorg/glasscliff/

While I agree with you for the last two paragraphs, I've started to think that it might be very useful to have a female in the founders or first employees circle. The reason isn't because they are necessarily better, but they are aware of facets of culture that we are not aware of because they grew up in that tribe and we didn't. They would have the same problem vica versa.

If you're selling to a broad multisexual audiance, it makes sense to have a confederate in your midst to point out any faux pas you may make.

I can see your point although I'm not necessarily sure I agree with it. I don't think I'm any more away of the facets of culture of the average man any more than most women and I don't like to think that women-kind is that distant that it's easy to make faux-pas.

I don't object to employing someone for their knowledge of a market though when it's relevant. When in Rome, it might be handy to hire some Romans...

please watch the

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It stretches the page.

This is about equity, not equality.

And we do talk about the same things for men when it comes to reading ability and scholastic performance. In fact just a couple weeks ago I posted a review of Peg Tyre's new book The Trouble With Boys.

Your second paragraph is why attempts like this author's exist. The assumption is that the gender imbalance in our field is cultural, not biological. She's trying to fix that imbalance.