Ask HN: What's up with the trend of calling the Tech industry "sexist". | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's up with the trend of calling the Tech industry "sexist".

10 pointsJugurtha22 comments

It seems everyone thinks blaming the Tech industry practices for the lack of women is "fair game". One ex Dropbox employee even went as far as saying that the lack of social life of people working there discourages women from joining (huh ? You work in Tech, expect hackers, nerds, and geeks. You go to jail, expect criminals. How's that hard to understand? Let's not even talk about: It's none of your business what they do after work).

It is trendy, apparently, to blame the Tech industry. How evil are those hackers. Such nerds and socially inept making it hard for women.

But I recently watched a fabulous music video of Miley Cyrus -Jolene-. It was a beautiful song, great notes and lyrics with a 60's, 70's vibe.

I discovered that, it is, indeed, a 70's piece originally. But watching the music video, all her musicians were males. And it got me thinking: Wait a minute, I don't see that many women musicians.

By musicians, I mean people who play instruments (guitar, drum, base, keyboard, etc).. The band itself, not the lead singer.

It got me thinking: Why isn't the music industry getting as bad a rap as the Tech industry is? I'm not hearing or reading mean tweets about how there are mostly male producers, male bands, etc..

I mean, what are the top 10 women rock bands who made History? And how come nobody is going on a rant about how evil and misogynistic and industry it is..

My question is: Why. Why everyone is almost exclusively only talking about "tech"..

I already know the answer. And can't voice it because it became such a crime to step back, think it through and say something logical, because then I'd be called all names: You are not allowed to think, you're only allowed to react, the same way everyone does, and just condemn and show outrage, to belong and fit in. If not, you are racist and misogynistic and homophobic and a bigot.

So, to sum this up, you feel like the music industry is at least as sexist as the technology industry, and therefore the heat should be off the technology industry.

Not just that, but can be said this way: I I'm a guy and I approach a 100 women, and not a single one of them wants to get intimate with me.. Will I blame these 100 women and find flaws in them, or will I see it for what it is (cognitive dissonance) and ask myself what I'm lacking or at least.

To sum it up: If stuff isn't working for you in a lot of industries, maybe there's a reason other than all those industries conspiring against you.

Can be said for hiring too, most guys I know complained about posting hundreds of CV's all over the place and finding no jobs, and I put only one CV, in the company I was interested in, and got a job offer (and all those guys said this company only hires you if you know someone).

The least one can do is not to take himself out of the responsibility equation, blaming others for all his misery.

Verbose answer. I don't blame the Illuminati or Area 51 for it. I can't say more in less. It's me :)

I see. So, in addition to the fact that you believe the music industry to be at least as sexist as the technology industry, and thus the exclusive priority of efforts to eliminate sexism (if any such efforts are needed), but also you've heard of guys sending out 100 resumes and getting only 1 bite, and therefore concerns about sexism must be overblown.

You seem to be overlooking the most important part, which is that the OP is very smart.

Not very smart. Just smart enough to be where very smart people are.

Proof: I'm here.

I don't think it is what I said. I know the guys who sent a lot of CVs, and not getting a bite at all (hence the complaining they don't find jobs, and blaming companies for being corrupt and only hiring people with connection: It doesn't mean companies are saints, it just means companies recruits can't all be incompetent people who only know someone-companies are successful, at least some have got to be good at their job-).

And the music industry, from my outsider eyes, is at least as sexist -if it is at all- as the tech industry, or more:

It's easier to be known as a hacker for your work, without people knowing who you are, which gender and if you smell, than it is to be known as a musician: I don't know if there has ever been a faceless rockstar, but there have been faceless hackers. (I don't know what you look like, but I know your nickname and admire your work: For all I know, you could be a woman).

My point is: There are some women who seem to be respected in the tech industry.. What are they doing right that made them overcome any sexism that would exist in their companies, etc..

I didn't mean to say it doesn't exist, I just meant that there seems to be people for whom it was a hurdle, but somehow they managed to do well for themselves. And if they can do it, why not strive for that for people in this demographic (can be stretched to include arguments about racism (There's at least one black man who's done well, and is the President of a rather important country, if I were black, I'd say "Why not me, why wouldn't I have that kind of success/achievement").

My main frustration is when people take themselves out of the responsibility equation from the get go: "It can not my fault, let's find someone who's responsible for my misery. Anyone in my situation with success is an exception".. And the fact it's "trendy" to whine in blog post after blog post about how unfair the world is.

Alright. So, in addition to the fact that you believe the music industry to be at least as sexist as the technology industry, and thus the exclusive priority of efforts to eliminate sexism (if any such efforts are needed), and that you've heard of guys sending out 100 resumes and getting only 1 bite, indicating that concerns about sexism must be overblown, you are also aware of some women who are successful in the tech industry. Therefore, it's hard for you to believe that there's rampant sexism.

Do you see how vapid these points are when they're expressed in single sentences, rather than 5 paragraphs? Because these points seem pretty vapid to me. They don't even work as logic:

* Two wrongs obviously don't make a right.

* Your conclusion about sexism doesn't follow from the premise that there are men who have a hard time getting resume responses. For one thing, sending blind resumes is a terribly stupid job hunting strategy.

* Your conclusion about sexism doesn't follow from the premise that some women are successful. Sexism in the industry, no matter what level you might believe it to be at, obviously isn't homogenous across all companies.

It it possible for you to respond to a good faith question by not being a flippant prima donna?

I actually agree more with you than him, but my goodness you have the worst attitude ever when you talk to people who have misguided notions on things. Try the being nice approach once in a while if you want to convince others of your viewpoints, rather than going berserk and putting a caustic contrarian spin on everything.

Probably not on this issue, no. But if you see me being a flippant prima donna on some other issue, please do let me know. Actually, axe the "flippant" part of that; it's just the prima donnaism that I actually care about. I'm sure you're right that there's a strain of it in there.

I have called you out on this issue before.

Seriously, understand that the reason you'll be more effective if you're nice on this issue is that a significant subset of folks who behave in a way that keeps women away is because of the things that happened to them when they were adolescents. A significant subset of them thought they weren't handsome enough, tall enough, buff enough to ever be loved by a woman. And then they lived their lives away from them, in their own cliques and IRC channels, fulfilling their physical needs by porn and beginning to see the greatest value of women not to be their personhood or humanity, but something that provides material to jerk one off. I'm not pulling all of this out of my ass, this is from my personal experiences of 15 years of spending nights with programmers in person and in IRC.

To reorient their minds and thoughts you have to show them love, not belittle them -- if you belittle them that's only going to frame the situation into a confrontational battle where the other side will naturally start feeling the need to defend itself just because it's their side.

Respectfully: I'm not interested in coaching on gender equality issues. At all. Not even a little bit.

However, if you see me behaving like a "flippant prima donna" on some other issue, I'm happy for the feedback. I'm not unhappy for the feedback here; I'm just not the least bit interested in it.

As I said, it is my bad not to express more with less. English is my fifth language I picked only few years ago.

Furthermore, I'm walking on eggs here, as some people are way too reactive, so I try to make sure to light the matter from different angles, so the shape of my thoughts would appear clearer.

My point, and this is why I went to Ask HN (to ask, to voice my thoughts and get feedback and debate, not to put them as hard truths).

My points were:

- If sexism exists, it seems it does over all industries. - If you are someone, whether a woman or not, having trouble getting into an industry, it's good practice to question yourself, too. It's not always "them".

To your first point:

(a) The existence of sexism in other industries does not in fact take pressure off this industry for correcting sexism, and,

(b) more importantly, you're incorrect; of the "prestige professions" (law, medicine, accounting, engineering), it's only engineering that remains stubbornly imbalanced.

To your second point:

It's easily possible for you to be correct that people need to take responsibility for their own careers while at the same time recognizing persistent biases against women.

http://firstround.com/article/An-Inside-Look-at-Facebooks-Me...

One female speaker, a bunch-load of men in the audience. Maybe if female attended more events, there would be more females working.

Maybe if more females did engineering, there would be more females to choose from. How many females in Engineering careers ?

I hate talking with smart people who completely dismiss statistics and only stress on one point.

Come on, most of you on Hacker News did something tech related, in college, etc. How many girls were there in your Microelectronics class ? OS class ?

From all your programmer friends, how many girls are there ?

I mean, it can drive a man insane talking to a wall.

If your response to the logic flaws in your original argument about the technology industry is to apply the same logic to engineering school, my response is to point out that the same logic flaws apply to engineering school.

I'm Algerian, from Algeria (North Africa). I'll start a movement bitching about how there are not enough Algerians in Silicon Valley, and how it is unfair and xenophobic, and how companies must start programs and what-not to include more Algerians. Start paying teachers to teach Algerians to code, but not pay them if they teach other nationalities. And I'll sue because most people working in Silicon Valley are American.

Who cares about the fact that there are less Algerians that Americans in the U.S. Or the fact there are less Algerians than Americans in Silicon Valley. Or the fact there are less Algerian Engineers than American Engineers in Silicon Valley. I mean, who cares, right? It's just wrong and everyone is whining. Why not whine, too. It's trendy and hip these days to be a special flower.

This is exactly what

Tptacek, with all due respect... There's no amount of rhetoric fu that would make the unwillingness to face reality overcome, well, reality.

Most women don't pursue tech. Most people in tech are males. 1+1 = Most people working in tech will be men.

Anyone would agree on that if it were on another issue, but since it's women it is about, and people don't want to appear sexist if they ever even question the main points, they all jump on the White Knight train, wear their Social Justice SWAT Protective gear, and smash anyone who disagrees.

Defining the problem away doesn't do much to help your argument either.

Meanwhile, rhetorical devices like the term "white knight" and "social justice SWAT" harm your argument further, by making you sound unserious --- you're not just attacking the person making the argument instead of their arguments (the true ad-hom fallacy), but you're attacking a caricature of them.

A moment's thought will show you why there would be more women in any given field in the US than Algerians. If you can't understand why, are you sure you want to advertise that fact?

Outbound leads (investment, jobs, customers) are way, way harder than inbound. Even for YC alums, inbound is your friend.

[0] http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/15/was-y-combinator-worth-it/

Plenty of people have criticized the music industry for the things you're citing, you just haven't been exposed to them, presumably because you follow more tech news than you do music industry news. All industries should be subject to those kinds of criticisms if it is warranted; some are better at handling it than others.

You're right, I'm not that exposed to it.. I just see criticism towards the tech industry mainly because it's all over, all the time, and this may be my mind being selective.

I wrote an answer[0] to an article GE shared on LinkedIn about the situation of women in the Oil and Gas industry. They wanted to make it easier, and my thoughts were that: Some things are hard and you can't make them easier. My analogy was that, if you can't stand blood, don't blame "Surgery" for being the way it is and being filled with blood.

To each his calling, abilities, etc. Nothing is for everyone.

[0]http://mydamnthesis.tumblr.com/post/82126504664/women-in-the...

One thing to consider: does the success of newcomers depend at all on the current power structures and wealth holders?

If it does, then some part of the success of new people is dependent on the power holders tastes and biases, conscious or unconscious.

The tech industry was male dominated up through the 1980s. Very few women graduated from technology oriented universities. It's not difficult to discern the roots of sexism, and the lingering effects in tech in general, and computing, specifically.

I don't know what music industry commentary you are looking at but sexism in hip hop is pretty widely commented on. What's the analogy you are going for? How might it excuse sexism in tech? I'm not getting it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com