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Comment by kremlin | Hacker News Reader

I didn't find any of the quotes that I read, even if they were out of context, remotely offensive. But I can see how someone who makes it a point to be offended by things might deliberately interpret it in a bad way, and convince other people that that is in fact what was meant by it.

For example, you say that you don't know how you'd convince 13 year old girls to be interested in programming. The normal interpretation is, 'Clearly 13 year old girls are very rarely interested in programming, and Paul Graham doesn't know how to change that.' The nasty interpretation is 'Paul Graham thinks that girls are intrinsically incapable of being interested in programming'.

It's easy to be offended by things. It's also obnoxious and often irresponsible.

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As a woman in this industry that has been programming since I was ~8, I wasn't offended in the slightest. In my opinion he said there was a problem that he'd have to think about before offering a solution.

"It's easy to be offended by things. It's also obnoxious and often irresponsible."

Personally, this sort of behavior affects my career. When I first started at my current job people were afraid to speak to me because they expected me to get offended at the slightest thing. I want people to treat me equally, but I don't want people to be afraid to come to work because I might sue them for looking at me. That's not what I'm about at all but unfortunately I'm pre-judged to lash out at people when I see something I don't like.

I want everyone to come to work and get fair treatment/compensation/etc. but I feel that incidents like this set all of us back. The discrimination is different now. People don't see me as incapable of STEM, they see me as incapable of working with other people. It sucks. A lot.

It is undeniably the case that men are more...cautious about what they say and how they behave around women, particularly in the workplace. As a man, I'd have to say that such caution has precedent - you may be an exception, but (this incident being a great example) in my experience women are much more easily offended.

And I could see how that could make things less enjoyable for women who aren't so up tight; women who are easy going and just want to get along with their co-workers and share a laugh and get good work done.

It is unfortunate.

You're exactly the sort of person I'm talking about. People like you are afraid to be comfortable in a work environment for fear that they'll be fired for saying or doing the wrong thing. Provided you aren't a sexist/rapist, I see no reason why you need to be walking on eggshells all the time at a place where you spend a large percentage of your day. It makes me sad that my presence would make you uncomfortable when I haven't said or done anything to you. While you and you alone have the power to change your behavior (and it would be awesome if you gave women the benefit of the doubt because we're not all this way...promise), I really can't place 100% of the blame on you either. Events like this are conditioning people to be afraid of these issues, not solve them.

I just want to come to work, maybe draw stupid things on a white board, make cool shit, and go home. I'd really love it if my vagina wasn't the deciding factor in whether or not I was capable of STEM or whether or not I was capable of working around other human beings.

You can thank people like Adria Richards and the Ada Initiative for this. They taught us that you can get fired and become internet infamous for joking about dongles.

>"Provided you aren't a sexist/rapist"

Well, rapist is easy. But me and you may have very different ideas as what constitutes a "sexist". That's the crux of the problem; that's what causes men to walk on eggshells.

>it would be awesome if you gave women the benefit of the doubt because we're not all this way

Most people are not willing to risk their job to find out.

"Most people are not willing to risk their job to find out."

And that's the part that makes me sad about all of this. People are all about "Consider the woman's feelings here!" but no one wants to consider how men feel about it because they're "privileged."

>>Provided you aren't a sexist/rapist, I see no reason why you need to be walking on eggshells all the time at a place where you spend a large percentage of your day.

It's been my experience that when men feel like they're walking on eggshells around women in the workplace it's because they're normally comfortable making sexists/rape jokes and/or have sexist beliefs. The feeling of eggshell walking is them trying to cover that up. I say this as a guy who has seen other male coworkers' behavior when there are no women around and how difficult it is for them to clean up their act when there is a lady in the room.

That hasn't been my experience. After I settled in here people eventually approached me and said they were afraid to talk to me about anything not work-related out of fear that I'd take something the wrong way.

I think men are less concerned about their ability to tell rape jokes and more concerned that anything can be blown out of proportion and taken to social media. This sort of stuff can ruin lives and I think THAT is why many men walk on eggshells. In this case, people went after pg without even hearing his side of things, and a quick browse of Twitter leads me to believe that even though he's stated his side of things people are still unwilling to change their stance on this. Instead, they'd rather be pissed off and label him as part of the problem.

In some cases what you said is probably true, but based on what I've seen they seem to be a minority. I don't think your average person honestly thinks that rape is okay, even if they find humor in rape jokes.

Or, we're concerned about being misinterpreted and that misinterpretation being escalated instead of discussed with us so we can clear it up. But yeah, it's easier to just label us as sexists that like to joke about rape, right?

That's just an excuse. Why are you more worried that a female coworker will misunderstand you than a male one?

I'm not. I'm more worried that people, regardless of gender, will escalate said misunderstanding rather than talk to me about it, which is training I'm receiving from observing these folks on Twitter. I realize now my earlier comments made the unintended implication that I was painting solely women with this brush and that's my bad, and not what I meant. In context with your comment it looks that way but I lament this behavior regardless of gender or creed.

I see a LOT more drama surrounding the things that men have said/done. If I were a man I would absolutely be more concerned about my interactions with female coworkers over male ones.

Don't take this to mean that I think I can say/do whatever I want in this industry on account of being female -- no one is bulletproof. It just seems men are vilified more than women when it comes to these sorts of things. Maybe that's just my world view.

Hmm, so let's see. If this kind of stuff is going on with gender relations, does it exist with race too? Orientation?

For the tech-world, I guess a black lesbian would be a triple-concern? I would say that is a problem. Not sure how to fix it, but that's a problem. I personally don't have to change my behavior or speech when a lady is in the room. But then again, I'm probably unique in that... I never, ever use profanity and never make jokes that wouldn't be safe on the Disney channel. I don't know anyone who can claim that besides me. But, I will say compared to my time at at&t... the men there seemed to be less frat-housey than the SV-startup-culture. The men at at&t seemed to be more "gentlemanly", more socially acceptable. SV-startup-culture I think allows the frat-house/bro-grammer attitude to grow thus making it more difficult to the men who are use to that to clean up when a lady is around. At least, that's what I've seen.

I'll agree with you partially. This sort of thing is definitely going down based on race/orientation as well, but I see less of that and more men vs women sorts of discussions.

It's not just a tech problem either. This stuff is going on all around the world. I don't claim to have solutions to these problems, but I would appreciate it if the public shaming and witch hunts would stop. I'm tired, SV. So very tired.

I've never worked at AT&T but I'd wager the same stuff went on. Perhaps you experienced the same sort of thing I did where people assumed you wouldn't appreciate their words/actions and elected to avoid you?

>>Perhaps you experienced the same sort of thing I did where people assumed you wouldn't appreciate their words/actions and elected to avoid you?

Being a black male myself, it saddens me to think that you're probably right in more ways than one....

I can't really imagine a man complaining about (percieved) sexism being taken very seriously. (But maybe we're talking more broadly than about sexism in particular.)

> "It's been my experience that when men feel like they're walking on eggshells around women in the workplace it's because they're normally comfortable making sexists/rape jokes and/or have sexist beliefs."

translated - "If you're afraid of being labeled a witch, you're probably a witch."

I disagree. There's a reason that the term "witch hunt" has the connotation that it does.

> While you and you alone have the power to change your behavior (and it would be awesome if you gave women the benefit of the doubt because we're not all this way...promise), I really can't place 100% of the blame on you either.

Yet this seems to imply that you place most of the blame on him... though it seems that you are both (potential) victims here.

I apologize if it came off this way. I actually allocate blame 50% to him and 50% to the people that do this sort of thing. This is a circular problem to me. Some people seem quick to be angry about things and they lash out at people. Then the people being lashed are like "These people are CRAZY. I'd better steer clear of them." The ones lashing out may have been on the receiving end of something *ist and read into things that people say/do. This issue seems to be feeding itself. What it comes down to is this: Everyone needs to stop judging everyone based on the actions of a few people who make great waves. The tech industry isn't the only place this could be beneficial, either.

WRT calling him out on his behavior, all I was trying to say is that I disagree and wish he would consider changing his mentality going forward. I'm not mad at him for it, I'm sad that the actions of a few have caused him to think this. At the same time I was hoping to imply that I won't twist his arm because I see where he's coming from. No malice intended!

Things like this can ruin lives (this according to you), yet you seem to write about this as if it is a simple attitude problem, in need of a "change in mentality" like being more reflected and aware of one's biases, and not (also) a matter of self preservation on his part.

No, I recognized that this is a self-preservation tactic and (thought) I implied I wished it weren't needed.

Please read some of the other things I said -- I'm actually on the same side as him.

> No, I recognized that this is a self-preservation tactic and (thought) I implied I wished it weren't needed.

This seems to contradict when you previously wrote that it is up to him, and him alone, to change his behavior, when here it seems to be actually a needed tactic bourn of forces outside of his control. Allocating 50% blame doesn't seem terribly sympathetic, either.

But never mind, I have probably nitpicked more than my fair share for today.

Well, at the end of the day he really is the only one who can change his behavior. I'm not saying I'll be mad if he doesn't, it was simply my way of saying "Don't give up on us because we're not all bitches."

I didn't feel that this warranted more or less blame on anyone's part. He seems like he might assume a woman is up tight based on his experiences -- I can't change how he feels about that. Unfortunately I also can't change the women that caused him to feel that way. All I can do is try my hardest to not be like the women he speaks of and ask him to reconsider his position.

I appreciate the nitpicking fwiw. I think you misinterpreted what I said, possibly due to the fact that I sometimes suck with words.

Work on Wall Street. It's one of the last bastions of political incorrectness that you're likely to find in the USA. (I mean that in a complimentary way - people tend to take your words with a grain of salt, don't get butthurt unnecessarily, and if they are offended, they tell you off and then you put it behind you.)

Funny, that's also the industry where my sister had to literally campaign to get the office porn collection off the walls when she became the first female trader at her company in 2008. I think if this 'over-sensitivity' that men in tech say they are suffering from actually exists in a large percentage of developers, then it's a healthy backlash from such behaviour as Wall St, and eventually we'll find an equilibrium.

Porn on the walls is going a bit far, especially for 2008.

I'm talking more about the tone of jokes (non-individually directed) and things like that. Stuff that you don't need to remember to hide when clients or the Board of Directors come to the office, and that doesn't turn up in an email log that will be reviewed later on by regulators. Stuff that you can switch off right away when you need to go in to "serious professional mode".

There are things in the edited version of the interview that are problematic - not offensive, and PG also points this out. The very first incorrect quote - "We can't make women look at the world through hacker eyes and start Facebook because they haven't been hacking for the past 10 years." is problematic because it says women are NOT hackers. Given the number of women who are founders of YC companies, or are engineers, this is patently false and therefore problematic.

I for one care about when problematic or false things are said not because I am offended, but because falsehoods make it harder to accurately deal with problems like the low number of women in STEM careers, including tech startups.

I can see how that quote would be problematic.

That's a quote that, when I read it the first time, I tried to interpret charitably. It's one that I read as, 'Women generally (but with exceptions) don't start hacking at the age of 13, and there's nothing we can do to make these women see the world through hacker eyes.'

Rather than, 'There's no such thing as a woman who's hacked since she was 13, and thus no woman can see the world through hacker eyes.'

Saying the quote is 'problematic' and that it needs clarifying -- I have no problem with that, and in fact I totally agree. What I don't like is how large swaths of the blog-o-sphere didn't even consider the first interpretation; they talk as if the second interpretation is just clearly without qualifiers what he must have meant.

Exactly my thoughts. Reading all the quotes on Gawker, I fail to see how they arrived at the conclusion that PG's implying that one needs to be male in order to be a good programer.

I see a few points being made ("out of context"): - You want to start programming at 13 to be a hacker. - 13 year old girls are not interested in programming. - PG doesn't know how to make programming more attractive to this group.

As far as I can tell these are neutral observations and opinions. Even if his statement is plainly incorrect, simply being wrong doesn't make it offensive.

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