Are there any high profile women in this industry who haven't been treated like shit in some way such as this? What a nasty bunch of people we are. Are we (developers) the douchey 80s guy of the 21st century?
Afterwards, a well-known, elite developer asked me if I programmed. When I said yes, he said that made me 50% less attractive. Then he asked me if I cooked and cleaned. To my face.
You don't have to be high profile to deal with this stuff. Just being in a room where you're 1 female out of 15 males is enough to get this kind of attention.
I understand the reasons why you might not want to. It's tragedy of the commons problem; you get no benefit and possible detriment from naming names - only society as a whole benefits.
Nevertheless you should. It's the right thing to do.
I suppose this is one of those "there's a time and place" issues. I wouldn't likely call out such an asshole while I'm on stage (unless this person tried to humiliate me while I was presenting, in which case I'd simply state that's not an appropriate comment for the conference and move on to the next person), but I'd certainly escalate[1] the issue privately.
We need to look into some sort of zero-tolerance[2] policies for this kind of thing until the message that this isn't okay is clearly understood. Certainly if I'm hosting or attending a conference and witness this kind of behavior, I'll be going out of my way to get this person removed from the conference and will also bring it up with their employer.
[1] In the "I'd like to speak with a manager" sense, not throwing a loud tantrum. [2] Not that I generally support zero-tolerance policies, or find them effective. But I think the concept is directionally correct; any attendee making another attendee (including speakers) feel uncomfortable or unsafe should be removed form the event. Maybe they get one strict warning; it depends how obviously offensive they were being.
Most people (despite the arguments here, which are mostly about either semantics or arcane ethical points) think that the way the guy you described behaved is unacceptable. You're one of us, a hacker, and you don't deserve to be treated like that. I can't imagine you'd get anything other than a positive association from standing up for the rights of hackers to get on and live their lives free of that kind of harassment and bullying.
I don't really understand why people don't mention this more often: the kind of bullying that women in tech receive now is pretty much the kind of bullying that male geeks got from non-geeks twenty years ago. It's not really anti-women so much as it's anti-people-being-geeks; society at large may have (grudgingly!) accepted male geeks, but female geeks are still getting abuse for being more interested in computers or science or whatever than in what society thinks they 'should' be doing. As such, this affects all of us and we all need to be pretty damn clear that we won't stand for it.
I can't agree with that. The situation she describes is where she's acting as a representative of her company, and anything she does is as the face of the company, rather than as a person.
The decision to be confrontational about it is her company's decision, not hers.
It's kind of like when a crazy person yells at you on the street. Yeah, you could tell them to stop, because it makes you uncomfortable, but that would require even more interaction, and they'd probably do something to make you even more uncomfortable. Easier to walk away.
At least by sharing it here some people can learn from the example of what not to do :)
It's entirely possible that the guy thought he was being funny, has no idea he wasn't and genuinely finds women painful because he's so ignorant. By adopting the role of teacher, you may win a valuable ally.
But there is a more subtle effect here (if you're still reading and haven't thrown something at the monitor yet). This response from you, if you do it the way I have in mind (even if I'm not articulating it properly), will be entirely patronizing, in fact it will be patronizing in exactly the way men like this patronize you (and I know you know what I'm talking about-- see below). It is delivered from a position of strength, not weakness, in the sense that you are giving sage advice: is he smart enough to see it? Some will be, some won't.
Beyond this, remember to trust your gut. Sometimes the guy is just an asshole (a big clue is if other guys think he's an asshole) and words like I've written above are totally off-the-mark for the situation.
My wife is in a male-dominated (at her level) role, and I hear these stories all the time. Sometimes my advice is helpful- often she tells me to just STFU and listen. YMMV.
http://www.seductionscience.com/2010/negging-women/
Just threw up in my mouth a little.
Yeah, maybe someday he'll meet someone who cares enough to set him straight.
I wonder if there are specific things which make it more likely for some women to be harassed like this. And, is relatively mild stupidity like this correlated in any way with more serious issues (either assault or serious job discrimination)?
1) I do some programming for my job, but a majority of it involves going out and meeting other developers, learning about their work, and seeing how we can make our API better for them. I live in SF so I can't get a coffee without bumping into another developer. I bet I have many more interactions than someone who is developing full time in their home or office. More interactions increases chances for good and bad types of interactions.
2) Since I have been researching sexism in the industry, I have started to notice small slights and snubs more. I went for years brushing off countless minor incidents. I still don't get offended easily, but I do notice things more. For example, checkout the gun.io landing page right now (Beards of Experience). I like gun.io, but their homepage is definitely not female-friendly, and I noticed it immediately.
I'd wager that people who have had some kind of experience that really bothered them, or ones who have recently started learning more about gender bias, will suddenly start to notice all the little "micro agressions" more. Even my male colleagues have started noticing them more since we have been discussing it recently.
One of them even said "it's like when you get a new car, you suddenly start to notice how many people drive the same car as you do".
I don't know how I feel about the "Beards of Experience" thing. I guess I'd be annoyed if it were a permanent branding of the site, but as a one-off short campaign, I'm I think I'm fine with it. It does only focus on a specific group (I assume it is "unix neckbeards vs. hipster/corporate/suave designer developers", ignoring women entirely), but for a short marketing message, it's probably better to strongly appeal to a subset vs. be "meh" for everyone. It's not on its face offensive, which would be bad even if 5-10% of people were seriously offended and 50% were approving, just narrowly scoped. But it's obviously bad if that kind of exclusion is the default across the whole industry all the time.
It's not offensive, but it is mildly sexist (implying that only those who have beards can be that experienced, and as women cannot generally grow beards…)
The solution, in my view, has less to do with going out of our way to bring women into the fold and more to do with not putting stupid shit like "Beards of Experience" on your homepage.
The key word in mwetzler's comment is "microaggressions". It's the small things which are probably defensible in isolation but when viewed together exhibit some pretty obvious patterns.
If we accepted that "Beards of Experience" is sexist, we would have to accept that it's also racist (many Asian men can't grow beards like the guy on gun.io) and maybe homophobic. Don't you think it would get ridiculous at that point?
What about parenting sites where the design and images are clearly targeted at mothers (and not fathers)? Are they evil? Sexist?
And yes. Parenting sites that assume that fathers can't be parents are sexist. Parenting sites that assume that fathers won't be primary caretakers because their target demographic's culture is sexist and doesn't understand that male parents are important are fence-sitting and sexist by omission.
Me neither. But then again, I don't see anything that makes me think it's sexist. Or racist, for that matter.
And yes. Parenting sites that assume that fathers can't be parents are sexist.
Well, that's the problem I'm trying to highlight. They probably assume no such thing. But we must brand them as sexist by the same token that we are not supposed to tolerate a guy with a beard on an IT recruitment site.
Here's another example: when Nike uses a photograph of a tall black guy to advertise their basketball shoes - are they being racist, sexist and disrespectful to short people?
That's true. It's a good thing someone points it out, then.
> Here's another example: when Nike uses a photograph of a tall black guy to advertise their basketball shoes - are they being racist, sexist and disrespectful to short people?
Yes.
It's even more wrong to criticize someone aggressively for sexism in this case, but overall I think there would be net gains to everyone by attracting and retaining more women in technology. So, while it's not evil or sexist, "beards in technology" is counter to one's own interests even as a male in technology.
I think it's a good example of an easy thing to change for the tech community to be more inviting to women. If we want to break down stereotypes and gender ratios in tech, one thing we can do is make it more inviting for women to work here.
For me, it really is as simple as that. I want my daughters to feel as welcome in their careers as I hope my sons will be. Anything less than that is utterly unacceptable.
I'm sorry this happened to you and I hope you believe me that not all guys think this way.
Join us on #geekfeminism sometime on freenode (if you're not already there) :)
The last part better explains it. It doesn't change the fact that it was sexism, but I categorize this one as stupidity and awkwardness instead of malice.
You should have smiled and told him no, because you programmed a robot to do all that stuff for you. Then punched him in the face.
Very often it's women. I don't know why but either there's a class of developers who feel personally threatened by women in their chosen profession, or it's personal: some individual has believed themselves to be entitled to that woman's attention & when it was not forthcoming begin a cruel campaign of punishment to make up for the perceived insult. Maybe even both?
It's been said that sunlight is the best disinfectant: I know that I'd be completely unaware of this behaviour if some of the women involved weren't brave enough to speak out about it. I don't have any good solutions though: the best I can do is to refuse to tolerate any sexism in my own circles, on the grounds that the people who do this kind of thing take other people's silence (not wanting to be "that guy") as implicit affirmation of their actions.
Software development has a broader appeal now than it did twenty years ago, and in spite of the numerous cases like this one, there seems to still be a growing population of women in the community. (I hope that continues, we need all the talent available.) So, hopefully this will sort itself out in time.
In the meantime, I'm more intrigued by the idea of gated communities than I am of moderated communities. Moderation seems to require a lot of resources and lead to conflict. Gated (online) communities don't seem to have been tried as much, and I'm curious about whether or not a lot of social problems would simply solve themselves if not everyone were invited to participate.
Gated communities still need moderation: someone has to decide whether or not to kick people out if they behave badly!
Just keep in mind that, whatever growth you've observed, the number of women in programming now is much lower than it was in the 1980s.
For some historical statistics see http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-08-26/opinions/35268...
How does notion work to you - is there some sort of cosmic female hive-mind that determines the quotas of them that can be part of any given activity? Is it some sort of feedback loop so that we as a species are approaching the limit of $MAX_FEMALE_DEVS?
For example, most of the software development community would see a 22yo guy persistently pursuing a girl who clearly isn't interested as innocent, awkward, and empathize with the guy's rejection (or lack there of, since he probably doesn't have the courage to directly ask her out). They wouldn't consider how it feels to the girl have someone watching you, following you, looking up private information online, and invading her space.
> ...a 22yo guy persistently pursuing a girl who clearly isn't interested...
To be fair, you came >this< close to describing the plot of the average romcom here. The only difference between "sweet" and "creepy" is in judging whether or not the person is interested, or might become interested. A lot of nerds (I use the term with love here) aren't even good at mingling at social events, let alone reading whether or not their advances towards someone are going to turn out well. (This isn't limited to man-woman relationships either, as a recent case shows.)
...I wonder if maybe a huge root cause of this problem is simply that there are few enough women in our field that any attention from men feels like it's too much? I have to imagine that if you got regular, "Hey, are you busy Saturday night?" inquiries from different guys, you'd start to feel a little like chum in shark-infested waters.
When I mentioned the romcom stuff, it wasn't because I was arguing that it was a how-to or that nerds couldn't distinguish fiction from reality. It was only there to illustrate that the line between "creepy" behavior and behavior that in the ideal sense might be considered "sweet" is really blurry, and that it's dependent largely on receptivity of the people involved, and that as a trend, people in software development have a more difficult time correctly interpreting these situations.
I could go a lot more in-depth on this. I think there's a lot of very interesting cultural stuff happening in the U.S. (and to a larger extent, Japan) in male-female relations, I think there's a lot of uncertainty now about what constitutes "attractive" behavior and what doesn't, and I think that the ability to correctly interpret body language and other subtle cues is the only substantial edge anyone has over other people in this environment.
However, none of that should be read as a defense of behavior like posting fake nudge images of someone or outright harassment or any of the other things that women have recently been rightly complaining about. I was only wondering aloud earlier whether the combination of the ratio of men to women in software, combined with social impairment by a significant number of people in the industry, might be contributing to the problem.
I'm not really sure what else to say to defend my earlier comment; I honestly wasn't expecting it to be controversial. At this point though, if you'd like to continue to disagree, and you expect me to respond, I'd like for you to at least argue against what I actually write (e.g., I did not say, "nerds are incapable of 'reading' the difference between fantasy and reality"), and I'd love it if you bundled some kind of insight or evidence with your argument.
The online hacker/development community's continuous excuses and empathy for members of their own community who behave inappropriately towards women makes this a field where prominent women are expected to be harassed on a regular basis.
It isn't even a matter of rejecting the person for bad behavior. You didn't even reject the behavior, you justified it.
No, it's not. You misread my comment.
> You didn't even reject the behavior, you justified it.
HN is large enough now that I can't expect you to know that I've never done any such thing, and in fact have said exactly the opposite pretty frequently.
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We certainly need to address the problems of sexism within our community, but I think it's a mistake to assume that it's part of the community's particular quirks that produce said sexism. Especially when there are some far more obvious indicators of where the sexism comes from: the larger cultural discourse and ambience, for instance.
To paraphrase Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, one problem is guys believing that they're too smart to be sexist.
I also believe that a lot of people involved can't handle the idea that they're being bullies, and so further attempt to rationalise their actions with terrible analogies and arguments that boil down to "I'm a geek - I'm incapable of oppressing someone!"
35% or so of geeks are closet sexists in reform: aware that their belief systems are wrong / socially unacceptable and trying to change.
5% or so aren't sexists but misogynists: men who truly feel wronged by women and wish to retaliate.
60% are perfectly stand-up men who wouldn't do a bit of harm
Now the trick is that whenever the sexist and misogynists form a group where they have a significant majority, the closet sexists will give the misogynists a platform to damage women.
Meanwhile the other 60% sees nothing but 95% of perfectly respectful men who would do no harm against women and can't even imagine something like that happening in their company.
The vast majority of people who participate in conference are good people. However, it only takes one person (out of thousands!) who has this kind of personality dysfunction to lead an attack, and women are much much more likely to be the target of their dysfunction.
But, I've said it before and I'll say it again: men have even more of a responsibility than women to speak up and combat this kind of sexism. We (men) have the utmost responsibility to make sure that we are fighting to allow women a place in our industry, a place where they feel safe enough so that they can be equal participants without worrying about being looked down upon, harassed or concerned for their safety.
The sad reality is, more than having courageous women speaking up about sexism, men speaking up about sexism convinces other men to treat women respectfully.
Some advice on how to do this, for anyone looking: http://www.anamardoll.com/2012/11/deconstruction-how-to-be-m...
- Unless you're all using your real names and on the same campus or convention floor, how does that even work, logistically?
- Treating people with basic levels of respect does not magically make them attracted to you, though it will make them more comfortable hanging around you.
- If the only (or even the most notable) reason someone can think of for trying to argue against misogyny or other flavors of assholiery is to get laid, that person needs to go home and rethink their fundamental values in life. Implying this is true of men generally is pretty misadrist.
I suspect you aren't actually using knowyourmeme's definition, so could you clarify the behavior you're referring to when you say "white-knighting"?
Your typical Internet White Knight is most likely not explicitly aiming to get laid, but simply following the classical role model they've absorbed via Hollywood: women are weak and need to be defended, good men defend them (and get the girl in the end).
It can get a bit comical but the real problem is that it takes the form of personal defense in specific cases, and is focused on women. So males getting treated like shit are unlikely to get any help or even sympathy from a White Knight, and they're unlikely to spend any effort on actual solutions to a toxic atmosphere.
This doesn't mean that it is wrong to argue against misogyny.
It just points to a real phenomenon among men, where they are trying to look like they are calling out an asshole when what is really going on is logically much more similar to acting holy in a bar fight over a woman.
If you think observing actual idiotic behavior which occurs sometimes among men is misandrist then I am happy to be a "misandrist" in your perception. I think the condition of men in our society can withstand a small amount of anthropological observation.
What indications do you have that defending a woman is a sexually motivated act?
Found out later he was doing this same thing with other girls, too, and was kicked out of the group.
Can I get a clarification on the downvote, given that the parent asked for examples and I provided one? I've elaborated on the specific situation.
"You shouldn't hit a girl!" <-- white knighting "You are being violent; if you do not stop we will ban you from this space." <-- insisting on basic, reasonable standards of behavior.
It's not about women needing special protection, it is about the community not welcoming people who act like assholes. Of course women can defend themselves, but no one should have to defend themselves against that kind of behavior. And the only reason I believe it is important to talk about gender in this context is because women are being targeted because of their gender and using cultural weapons specific to their gender. Again, it is about the people behaving badly, not their targets.
You don't have to be sensitive or show yourself off to shut down misogynists and you definitely don't have to go looking for unclear offenses which the purported victims have no complaint about.
If a man hits his wife, I call the police. If she says, "No, it's ok, I provoked him, I deserve it," do I shrug and say, "Well that's all right then?"
Attempting to intimidate me out of speaking up by labelling me a "white knight" and questioning whether my motivation is to seduce women is pretty low and vile, but what I expect from the kind of apologist scum that perpetuate these kinds of social bullying behaviours.
"Reg, shut up, you're just trying to sleep with dykes" is not going to work in this or any century.
To be very clear: I haven't labeled you a "white knight," accused you of "trying to sleep with dykes" (!?), said that you shouldn't report men hitting their wife, approved of racial slurs or anything like that.
I have simply made an observation about an certain, occasional obnoxious behavior by certain males... I have never said that arguing against misogyny, or speaking out against bullying (etc.) are wrong. I certainly don't think those things. I certainly don't "apologize" for people behaving in a discriminatory way. I simply say that sometimes people aren't doing what they say they're doing. I refuse to give men carte blanche provided only that they claim or pretend to be defending someone weaker than themselves, but this doesn't in any way imply that I reject people trying to defend those weaker than themselves. Why does this seem to be so controversial?
I don't give a rat's ass what the definition of "white knighting is. I'm calling you out now to be much more specific about what kind of slighting is involved and what you're rolling your eyes at. Give examples. Justify yourself.
I never once hear a DE, SDE, SDET, or any other technical person say anything remotely along the lines of "women suck at programming because they're women." Not once, amongst the hundreds of people I worked with there. That's an anecdote - take it for what it's worth.
Why is wondering aloud how sexist/creepy the bulk of male programmers are more acceptable than wondering aloud how untalented the bulk of female programmers are?
I think both behaviors are rather low shaming behaviors.
1. Most of the those who have power are men.
2. Most of those who are men have power.
They are very different statements and one does not imply the other.
The average man has no more power than the average woman.
> The average man has no more power than the average woman.
second, arguments based on the apex fallacy assumes that power can be treated in some "average" way, so even if the top has power, if the bottom doesn't it somehow "averages out". and that's pretty clearly not a good model for how society works (which is why these kinds of arguments are popular only in fringe anti-feminist groups).
I don't get how dominating the tech sector translates into a general dominance of the society, whereby a woman's sexist remark against a man can be thought less damaging than a man's sexist remark against a woman.
>which is why these kinds of arguments are popular only in fringe anti-feminist groups)
I think feminists have a long and proud tradition of employing the apex fallacy, whereby they argue that men have all the power worth talking about because of their representation at the top (CEOs, high government posts, ...) and ignore their over-representation at the bottom (prison, homeless, suicides (3x), high school and college drop outs, lower educational attainment (college enrollement and graduation is skewed 60/40 in favor of women now)).
Which anti-feminist apex fallacy arguments have you run into?
Look at how women are treated in the Middle East. Listen to stories of the rape culture in Delhi. Pay inequality the world over. A media industry which sees young women as commodities to sell their product. What we're seeing here is the thin end of the wedge; the individual who committed this disgusting act would probably have felt entitled to behave this way even were they working in another industry.
It's ugly, but this is a very large societal problem that we're still really struggling to address. As pleased as I was to see President Obama address gay rights in his inauguration, it was equally significant that he addressed gender equality. We've a long way to go before this is fixed, but rather than indulging in self-pity or recrimination, how about we work to be the change we want to see in the world?