“Why do women try to get ahead by pulling men down?”
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But you won't end up in the top, right? You'll end up somewhat high in a different spot--which is fine, but then you can't complain about not getting the top spot having voluntarily given up the chance to pursue it.
And I don't understand why one gives up the right to complain about a rigged game simply because one declines to play the game.
For example, I know people who won't work at Google because they think the promotions system there is a terrible one. They can still complain about it, even though they chose to work elsewhere, because it's something that's keeping them from working at Google.
I'm sure a forum where your ordinary physicians socialize, its pretty common to regret their choice to not get into engineering.
Your everyday physician is probably stuck in a quick sand just 5 years into his career.
No. If you are ambitious and confident in your abilities you will take on any challenges on the way to your goal, not take the easy way out by avoiding competition. That is what successful people (including successful women) actually do.
You go where the money is. That is also where the competition is. There is also the high risk, but potentially lucrative option of creating a new market where none existed before.
Or you can play it safe. Lower risk, lower reward.
But tech is too idealistic/libertarian to do something like that. They'll continue to complain and be criticized for the representation of women in the field, even though at this point I think it mostly comes down to a self-perpetuating equilibrium: women self-select out of the field simply because their representation is low in the field and very few people want to bring upon themselves the challenges of being a minority.
For example, I got all my early programming experience because hiding out in my dad's basement soaking up the glow of green phosphor was infinitely more pleasant than dealing with high-school society. Not because that was beneath me, although that's what I surely told myself at the time, but because I was terrible at it.
It took me years to catch up with my peer group as far as social skills went. Until then, I literally could not perceive a lot of the subtle interactions that demonstrate (and perpetuate) this problem.
I think that's where a lot of the field is. And, in some sense, where they want to be. It's really uncomfortable recognizing that some of what you thought was personal achievement is due to shit that shouldn't matter. It was for me, anyhow. And is, really; it's an ongoing process.
Look, as a black male startup founder I recognize I face a steeper uphill battle than my white counterparts. I get that. But I also understand that anytime anyone tries to break into an industry dominated by people unlike them, they're going to face resistance.
For example, white rappers have a far more difficult time breaking into hip hop. Its almost a requirement that their talent surpasses that of black rappers by leaps and bounds. They diligently practice their craft, writing witty punchlines and metaphors, using complex wordplay, (i.e. running up the 'down' elevator) while many black rappers lazily write nursery rhymes about the same tired subjects, (i.e. standing still on the 'up' elevator). I'm certain there are many white guys who get to the lobby, and upon seeing a sea of blacks riding the 'up' elevator, simply say, "Forget this, I'm gonna go learn some Python"
The fact is when you're a minority of any kind, (and I don't mean in terms of race, I mean in terms of any characteristic that makes you outside the majority) you should be prepared to fight for every inch.
Besides, when faced with the choice, I usually choose to take the stairs anyway. :-)
There is an important distinction between women and blacks and hispanics, which is that the various challenges facing the latter groups are deeper and more varied. If you pick a random black man in the U.S., statistically his parents will be poorer and less educated than if you pick a random white man. So equality for those groups is deeply tied up with persistent economic disparities.
But with women that problem doesn't exist. An equal number of boys and girls are born into rich, well-connected families. Which eliminates a whole class of issues that could cause disparities between males and females, and makes the problem of gender representation in a way "easier" to solve.
In the end, it's either high talent, high similarity, or both. We humans simply like to clique up.
1. What is the reason the women's escalator goes down?
2. What is the reason only men can ride the up escalator?
3. What is the elevator?
4. Why not just make everyone take the elevator? Why have a restricted running arrangement at all? Why not just have organized one-at-a-time races on a 100m track with a photo finish setup?
2. It's not that only men can ride it, it's that it's already full men, which is the current situation. Most people trying to get jobs in the technology area are men.
3. The elevator would be policies that help women in the technology areas. Be it affirmative action, or programs designed to help women in the area.
4. Because if you allow everyone in the elevator it would be full of men once again, and a line would form, with the same situation that it's happening in the escalator. If you could manage to make a line where people all queue correctly, and cancel both escalators, you would lose the current situation where people more skilled get to the second floor first.
I thought it was pretty clear. Did I manage to explain it better?
Point 1, is the only legitimate issue I see here, but I'm not seeing any suggestions on how to fix it, and no, handing someone a free pass just because they happen to be the right sex or race isn't the answer, it's just as bad as the problem it's supposed to be addressing.
As a straight white male, I've already received a number of unearned bonuses. If I fail to receive another dose of privilege, that is definitely not as bad as somebody who's been unfairly penalized receiving another penalty.
Even in the case where I'm improperly penalized so as to give a bonus to somebody who has less privilege, I don't think that's as bad as the reverse. I've still got my lifetime history of privilege; although it feels locally unfair to me, I don't think it's globally unfair.
What kind of bonuses are those?
(Also, as a straight white male, how do I sign up and get my black Amex?)
I was encouraged from an early age in math and science. I was given computer-ish toys (Big Trak represent!) and, later, computers. When I went with my dad to work and played around with their computing gear, nobody said that wasn't something boys should do. In my computer classes, everybody looked just like me. Nobody ever told me that I was good at these things "for a boy". Nobody suggested I should be spending my time on dolls, or make-up, or being appealing to boys. Nobody told me I should pick a college based on how many well-off men there were there. Nobody ever asked me to make them coffee because they thought I was the receptionist. Nobody ever told me I was too pretty to be a programmer. People listen to me more easily than my female colleagues.
And a zillion more, just for being a guy. Being white is a whole other set of things. As is being straight in a heteronormative society.
If you're really interested, these are some good starting points on examining and acknowledging one's privilege:
http://danilocampos.com/2013/02/unpacking-my-knapsack-the-pr... http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th...
Would a secretary have tried to get you to play with dolls? Would one of the programmers have told you that you'd make a fine keypunch girl? Would an aunt have told your parents that you should be doing something more appropriate?
Even now, kids get a ton of gender policing. Back then, there was a lot more of it. And one of my privileges is that my technical interests happened to match my gender role.
- Owning possessions
- Owning land
- Owning people
- Running a business
- Being owned by family
- Being owned by spouse
- Being actively selected against
- Being discriminated against, in general
- Going to school
- Going to university
- Housekeeping
- Working
- Raising children
- Being pregnant / giving birth / after
- Voting
I'm sure others could think of more.
And note that a penalty that offsets an unearned benefit is, from some angles, no penalty at all.
The expectation that everything should be fair from my perspective is something that I have because I'm a straight, white, upper-middle-class male. I get to assume that it's all about me, because it so often is. People from less privileged backgrounds don't expect that nearly as much.
Which brings us to the whole "sins of thy father" question.
Consider European genocide of Native Americans. Suppose they all had been wiped out. Or consider German genocide of Jews, with the same hypothetical. I think the "sins of thy father" question is: Should the descendants of the criminals be punished for the crimes of their ancestors?
My answer to this is "no". And I think bringing it up in this context mainly confuses things.
I think the question of privilege is about present-day social inequities. If the question is, "Should we work to make society fair to everybody, no matter their race, gender, sexual orientation, or other irrelevant factor?" There, my answer is a firm "yes".
Will that involve people with unearned privilege giving up that privilege? Sure. But that's not a punishment for being among one of the privileged groups, no matter how much it feels like it.
So, mostly point being, I think the escalator is a flawed analogy.
If you'd like to see more examples, Google "male privilege checklist". E.g.: http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/
But if you'd prefer a different analogy, try this one from sci-fi writer John Scalzi: "Straight White Male: The Lowest difficulty Setting": http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th...
That's not what the author says:
> There are also some men who are just standing on the escalator, simply letting the luck of the draw propel them up. Most of these men won’t make it to the room.
I also asked myself, what does it mean to say "Men should give up their privilege"? I'm not saying men aren't privileged, but at least spell out what that privilege is before embarking on a confusing metaphor that doesn't actually explain a whole lot.
If you want to know the basics, there are plenty of places to look. E.g., the Geek Feminism Wiki: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Geek_Feminism_Wiki
Nobody is obligated to do anything, but if they want their argument to be widely understood, which it's obvious (at least from these comments) that it's not, it's helpful to at least explain your premise.
And on this particular topic, it's reasonable to suspect that the people who have the "please spoon-feed me the basics" objection would just have a different objection.
For example, despite being provided a good starting point, you didn't say something like, "Thanks, now I'll go do my homework." Or, "Ah, now I understand." You just continued grumbling. And from an account fresh-created to comment on this topic.
This is a common enough problem that it's listed in a catalog of anti-patterns: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/derail-using-education/
> 2. What is the reason only men can ride the up escalator?
It's a simulation of unequal privilege.
> 3. What is the elevator?
Support programs, quotas, empathy
> 4. Why not just make everyone take the elevator?
That is what was mentioned as stopping all the escalators (privilege), and making everyone use the stairs.
Companies don't have problem hiring - if they had they would have just hire people directly in other countries without all the H1B quotas bullshit. There is nothing you cannot do remotely by VPN and some collaborative tools. I have worked 6 years with half my team in Moscow. It worked wonders. When we had heated discussions we just closed skype instead of beating each other if we were in the same room.
They have problem hiring local talent to warm the chairs.
Most software companies in silicone valley. There are parts of the world that are not California and in which the hunger for talent is less severe.
Just looking at two other comment threads today - the guy on the doomed project and the guy sacked from Facebook within his first six months (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5784751 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5785759) - I have an alternative analogy. Y'all can let me know if this is more accurate:
There's a whole row of elevators. Some slowly head upwards, some downwards, some don't move at all - however, elevators can change speed or direction at any time. More often than not the change is in the downwards direction. Some of the faster-moving upwards elevators have velvet ropes or guards blocking them. It's hard to tell, because you can't really see more than one or two elevators at a time, and the guards are inconsistent, but it seems that to get onto the upward-moving elevators it helps to be straight, white and male. But to get on the really fast moving upwards elevators it's more helpful to be rich, well-educated, socially polished, and connected.
Complicating the picture is the shit cannons. Patrolling the top of the elevators are grinning guys in suits holding super-soakers filled with raw sewage. They blast the climbers at random. A few climbers make it to the top from their own efforts, fortunately avoiding any shit. They believe their success was down to hard work - onlookers say that they merely got lucky. What they really mean is that they weren't unlucky enough to be blasted in the chest with enough shit to send them back down to the bottom. Some people get blasted with a weaker, endurable stream of shit - these people often say that shit sucks but that you just have to deal with it. If you thought that it was grossly unfair that some people had access to the super high speed escalators, keep in mind that these escalators also feature the most brutal and indiscriminate shit cannons. A lot of the shit guards intentionally target women, though a few intentionally leave women alone. Others have other prejudices. It's pretty arbitrary.
Sometimes an entire escalator collapses. Everyone falls to the bottom and has to start again. Except the guys at the top, they're safe.
It's generally agreed that in the past, many more escalators moved upwards. With a few exceptions, a lot of escalators have collapsed or starting moving downwards in recent years. Still, everyone agrees that they're luckier than the guys born far away, who have to fight desperately just to get access to the least desirable escalators.
The author is pretty clear that she isn't trying to prove that men have a steady rise to the top. From the first paragraph she sets out to explain why criticisms like "Why do women try to get ahead by pulling men down?" are incorrect.
I have never heard anyone say anything like this quote. Maybe I'm in an unusual workplaces, or I haven't been listening closely enough. Does this resemble a real statement in the gender inequality dialog?
The claim "women and men should be treated equally", even with an ignorance of any ongoing injustices towards women, does not seem equivalent to the above quote.
For example, the quote in question implies a zero-sum game, whereby advancing capable women inherently hurts men. This assumption is absent from "men and women should be treated equally."
I was looking forward to seeing the author thoroughly dissect the ignorance inherent in the title, so I followed along with the methaphor as it lengthened. I also didn't object to the metaphor presuming the conclusions she set out to make, since metaphors are expository instruments intended to clarify and shed light on a complex underlying issue. But when I skimmed to the end and saw that she never moved on from the metaphor to an actual argument, I lost interest. A metaphor is not an argument. It can be a great way to introduce or conclude one, but it should never be the main course at an idea buffet.
I liked how you illustrated this by making an argument and then concluding with a metaphor.
However, these articles ignore the obvious difference between men and women. I (a guy) am interested in cars, computer games(FPS), working out, running, playing sports etc. My wife on the other hand is absolutely interested in all of those at a different level than I an interested in other things that I do not particularly enjoy like horseback riding. When I say she's interested in cars, she's interested in having a nice corvette, while I'm interested in working on a nice corvette. She likes working out, to be fit - I like working out to get stronger and more 'manly'. She loves to play sports because they're fun - I like to crush the other team.
I bring these things up because there are inherent differences between men and women that people seem to forget. It's not just nurture, but it's nature too. We are physically, mentally and emotionally different (not in all cases, but many).
I would love to see more women in the tech industry (I'm trying to get my wife involved). However, there will always be a difference in our mentalities because of our gender and these cannot be ignored so easily.
Today, 50% of people who get degrees in law, medicine, or accounting are women (up from basically nil in the middle of the 20th century). Is there anything more "masculine" about looking through a hex dump to debug a program than there is about poring through Excel spreadsheets to tie a deduction to an expenditure? It's all dry, analytical detail work at the end of the day. If anything, going by the usual stereotypes, programming is more suited to women--it requires a lot of patience and involves a creative aspect.
Is it a matter of mathematical ability? Possibly, but that doesn't explain the disparities you see. The differential between men and women among people with perfect SAT Math scores is 65:35. At the 700 level, its 60:40. Even if math skills are the most important thing, they don't explain the gender disparity among programmers (though it might explain the gender disparity among Fields medalists). If ~40% of all engineers were women, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation.
The article suggests that women are not 'doing well' in the tech industry because men are holding them back while completely ignoring that fact that many, many more men that are interested in tech, than women. Many women are just not interested in the field and never even make it to the scenario the author suggested.
No, but when fields that are very similar in terms of intellectual demands have dramatically different gender representations, there is reason to be suspicious about what is really driving the disparity.
A good example is teaching. There is no reason teaching should be more attractive to women than men, yet in the U.S. most teachers are women. But this disparity is entirely cultural--in some countries there is not only no stigma against male teachers, but a preference for them. Isn't it valid to ask why social structure is keeping men out of a solid, socially useful career?
It seems to be accepted that these characteristics are beneficial for coding.
So why wouldn't a 50/50 split in CS be evidence of discrimination against men?
So, while we currently have different interests between the genders (speaking broadly), there's a good chance it's mostly nurture, which means that different attitudes early on could change that in the future.
While this isn't the whole story, it's important to understand what may be attributed to innate differences and what may be attributed to cultural forces.
I think there is a possibility that nurture does play a lot into the equation (I played sports growing up, while my wife went to 'lady' classes). My point with the nature vs nurture (and i can't prove it, merely speculate) is that testosterone/estrogen levels in each gender should not be ignored.
You say "I bring these things up because there are inherent differences between men and women that people seem to forget," but the fact is, differences between men and women (true or not) are emphasized all the time. This holds true for toy advertising [2], discussion of career options [3], or political speech [4]. The idea that men and women are different is hardly forgotten — it's ubiquitous.
I think the question of whether differences really exist is too much to address in one comment and probably off-topic [5]. But I suggest that you consider the possibility that "there will always be a difference in our mentalities because of our gender" is, in fact, part of the problem.
[1]: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/01/14/0910967107.full...
[2]: http://youtu.be/oe65EGkB9kA?t=8m56s
[3]: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/01/04/gendering-on...
[4]: http://mediamatters.org/research/2008/10/08/la-times-debate-...
[5]: Though there is certainly evidence that differences are exaggerated. See: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/03/07/the-truth-ab...
"Boys are affected with ASDs [autism] more frequently than are girls with an average male-to-female ratio of 4.3:1"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism#cite_note-Newschaffer-11
This is just one characteristic that varies by sex of a great many. By saying "even if" there are differences you are ignoring objective reality that there are such differences.
Note also the equivalent argument for race was used enthusiastically to justify slavery in the US. If you'd like to see it in action, go read the Cornerstone Speech, or the Texas Declaration of Secession.
You could be right that this time it is actually valid, but I think the burden of proof is on you. And given the company you're keeping with that style of rhetoric, I'd encourage you to set a pretty high bar.
The majority of men I have worked with, when asked, can't see themselves doing anything else. I have met exactly one woman in my life who has said anything like this to me.
The best programmer I ever knew was an Indian woman. I worked with her for six years. She became pregnant and was a stay-at-home mother for a few years, no doubt in my mind she gave that 100% too. Now she is doing something related to the legal profession and is doing quite well. It is the industry's loss, and will probably be chalked up to sexism when it is included in aggregate numbers. But in the end I believe it's because she had a wide array of options for conventional salary work, and chose something that gave her more money and more social prestige.
I don't personally believe there are a fixed number of spots. I believe that when you find a way to cram more people into the second floor, it expands.
A company may seem like it is only hiring five engineers today, but companies that hire good people, grow. Companies operating in an environment where more people are working, can sell more of their products and services.
Overall, more people being more productive expands the number of "spots on the second floor" for everyone.
Thus, I do not consider this an issue of choosing which people make it up the escalator, but rather a problem in trying to grow the size of the building. When looked at it in terms of growing the size of the building, we arrive at a completely different view of how we should handle escalators and the purpose of getting people to the second floor.
That's what the author is arguing: we're incorrectly ranking people because of a gender bias. Having a larger pool of poorly ranked people won't solve that.
If it comes down to two people, and there is a perception that A is better than B but both A and B are excellent candidates, a great company hires both.
My point is that if the ordering relation is wrong (which is what the article suggests) then it doesn't matter what subset you take: you're still not getting the best possible set of people. You have to get the right people. If your ordering is off, being more inclusive lets in as many more bad candidates as it does good ones.
Maybe the real question is why her analogous women are looking for elevators and going up the wrong escalator instead of just doing it the way everyone else is?
In terms of the analogy, yes men are pushing women down and the escalator is men only, whether explicitly stated or implicitly understood. This analogy is overstretched though, a lot of the discrimination people face is institutional in nature.
What was curious was that the average acceptance score of the admitted girls was higher than for the boys. So the gender policy actually ended discriminating the girls - fewer were admitted than would have been if gender quotas were lifted. That was across the board in all engineering specialties and a few years in a row.
the author should have stated the first principles that are fundamentally true and then state her hypothesis of the employment market and justify them. she makes far too much assumptions without justifying them.
It did a good job of hiding circle reasoning, logical fallacies and other failures of critical thinking.
EDIT: I do believe there is a real issue around gender in both the technology and nursing industries. This article just adds nothing to the conversation.
stopped reading there
If you want something more objective, this US-centric chart seems to be a good example: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm
But you're right that the 20something hipster demo in tech definitely skews to the white.
[1] Intersectionality is the idea that different combinations of minority issues will have their own, often unique, challenges. In the video games difficulty setting analogy, think of intersectionality being the advanced mode with lots of little sliders for different things, rather than one scale of easy to hard.
For instance even way back in my CS program for one of the women they actually made an exception to the rule that you need a 2.0 GPA to graduate in CS. This after years of official department women-only support groups and special instruction. What happened to the guys with less than 2.0? They didn't graduate CS. This same woman had six job offers after graduation.
I never got past this. I would imagine that in a two-story building full of analytical people, someone would have questioned this immediately.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/business/economy/women-as-...
"Such marriages are still relatively rare, though, even if their share is growing. Of all married couples, 24 percent include a wife who earns more, versus 6.2 percent in 1960."
"Demographically and socioeconomically, single mothers and married mothers are different from each others. The median family income for single mothers — who are disproportionately younger, black or Hispanic, and less educated — is $23,000. The median household income for married women who earn more than their husbands — more often white, slightly older and college-educated — is $80,000."
I'm not really sure what point you were trying to make, but it sounds like sexism along with classism and racism still have an impact on women's lives.
I can't find it in the first 200 submissions, even.
> The escalator moving up is full of men. There is no room for women on this escalator.
The implication is that the men and women in the analogy both have the same average speed on their own. The men, purely by virtue of being male, then get a positive bonus applied to their speed by the up escalator. The woman get a negative speed penalty from the down escalator.
If you want it in pseudo-code:
human_speed = rand(min, max)
male_bonus = some_positive_number
female_bonus = some_negative_number
male_speed = human_speed + male_bonus
female_speed = human_speed + female_bonus
Stopped me cold. Maybe that mindset worked in the 1960s but this is the twenty-teens and that "privilege" left long ago.
As far as I could see, there isn't an escalator reserved for only men and one that is reserved for only women. The article touches on women having to use the one that is usually going down, and I kind of understand that to mean they are presented with extra difficulties, but in the given situation if someone wants a job more than the others and tries to climb the harder escalator, I believe that deserves a round of applause whether it's a man or a woman.
Another problem is that being most skilled is equated to being the fastest in the analogy. Here's where things go hard to explain without offending anyone but I'll try to take my chances. Just keep in mind that I'm not against females in any industry. If the real world is like the analogy and females can't get a tech job because they aren't as fast as men, then it is a good thing. Being a women is nothing special. For every woman who can't get a job because they aren't skilled enough, I bet there are 2 or more men who also can't get a job because they aren't skilled enough compared to others. I don't see men complaining in this situation. And to be perfectly honest I myself have lived through something like this recently. I am a very new comer to the programming world and I was turned down on my application to GSoC. I didn't think of trying to find nonexistent reasons, I knew it was because I was good enough (yet). From what I've been reading about female take on these situations, I'm led to believe that about half of them (or perhaps even more) would think that they were turned down because they are not male.
What I mean to say is that the article inherently implies that there are so many fast men that women can't get a job. I believe that is warping the truth to make people feel sorry into women. I'll most likely be crucified for saying this, but I would be glad if an unskilled woman can't get a job because there are more skilled men, I say that's a good thing. (I have long learned that the internet community and extreme feminists like to cherry pick on what you say while missing your point just to make a case against you, so I'll say that I would also be happy if the reverse is true, that is a man gets turned down because he isn't skilled enough).
And the last thing. The article mentions women who see that the escalator is overflowing with men largely turn around and not even try. This is a very female-centric approach. Men don't see something entirely else magically, they also see the escalator flowing with men. If anyone, male or female, turns around because the escalator is overflowing, then s/he does not want the job enough, s/he wants an easy ride.
This part of the analogy both degrades women and shows something entirely unlikable about the author's view. It implies that most women give up in the face of difficulty (the difficulty being that there are too many men). If that is the case this is not a case that can be argued against male domination in any industry. If women want to be represented more, then they should try more. Keep in mind this is assuming that what the author is implying.
And the author's silent implication (which is very offensive to me) that women should have a women only escalator that will overflow with women in time.
Go ahead, crucify me because this apparently is against what most people defend but it is important to keep everything fair while defending women's positions.