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Right: nobody bonds over building shareholder value. They bond over shared interests. But there are no _universal_ interests, so team-building is a quandary. I think the best you can do is rotate events and make sure most people are interested most of the time.

Maybe after the beer offsite, you can visit a winery, or a famous local coffee house, and then a museum.

Look at the other extreme: the idea that I might be discouraged (or disallowed) from bonding with my coworkers over shared interests sounds dystopian.

You might argue that workplaces shouldn't endorse one particular subculture over another: that's fine. But unless you take stern measures to ban fraternization, you're going to get coworkers forming friendships based on shared interests, and we're lying to ourselves if we think that interests of software people tend not to cluster around what we think of as "geek" culture.

If I understand your parable correctly, you're suggesting that men deliberately mock and reject women trying to enter the field. In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. I have never, not once, witnessed the behavior you describe. I've seen nothing but welcoming behavior toward everyone who wants to learn software.

Even among proponents of the systemic discrimination theory, the consensus these days seems to be that bias must be subconscious, since overt bias is practically extinct in the wild.

A diversity of technical perspectives can be helpful, but there's no reason to suppose that 1) gender diversity correlates to a diversity of technical perspectives, or that 2) to achieve a diversity of technical perspectives, we need to force the demographics of programmers to match that of the population.

If you want to increase diversity of thought, you'd be better off recruiting from schools other than Stanford and the ivys.

So, for clarity: your answer to my second question is "no, such a world is inherently unfair"?

> Programming is a purely intellectual activity, so I would argue that there is no gender or racial advantage one way or the other.

Thank you for so succinctly stating the blank-slate position. I don't see any reason to agree with it. You acknowledge that there are important group differences below the neck; why should there be none above it?

> majority of programmers used to be women

I read that article too. You don't mention that "programming" back then was largely data entry.

You misunderstand. I'm not making a statement on the cause of the gender disparity in computer science. I'm making a higher-order argument about why we're so apt to attribute this difference to discrimination. I hope you understand the distinction even if you disagree with my argument.

The idea is that if you believe that humans have no innate differences and you observe group differences, then you must attribute these group differences to external discrimination, and hence injustice.

If you accept that groups of humans might have innate differences, you are no longer required to attribute group differences to discrimination. Some group differences might arise from discrimination, but it's plausible that they might not.

A lot of people take it as an article of faith that there are no human group differences, so they're forced to look for discrimination in order to explain the world. For these people, no amount of evidence can prove the fairness of the CS world, since the idea that (gender disparity -> discrimination) is a necessary logical consequence of their worldview.

I don't understand the connection between beer and nerd culture --- or masculine culture, actually, since plenty of women I know love beer.

> against its wishes

That's the bone of contention here. Nobody is keeping women out of computer science; they're largely just preferring not to enter the field. The point of the article, echoed by many commentators over the past few years, is that it's a "problem" that women are largely staying out of computer science.

If you believe in the blank slate theory of human nature, of course it's a problem, because under this worldview, women's default preferences are the same as that of men, so some external factor must be pushing them away from computer science. The teach for this factor has become increasingly desperate the past few years: now we're down to Star Wars posters.

I believe it's more parsimonious to reject the blank slate theory and understand the world through the lens of innate differences in life preferences between genders, and that it's this innate difference that leads to different gender balances in various fields.

Do you think that in a fair world, it is necessarily the case that every profession is a microcosm of the population as a whole?

Let me ask a different way: in a world where no unjustice exists, is it possible for programming to be 80% men?

> Why is this a problem

First-order logic: if (A AND ~B -> ~C) AND C, then (~A OR B).

The persistence of the gender gap in technology despite decades of effort to "fix" it is an annoying refutation of the blank-slate theory of human nature on which the entire worldview of many people, particularly gender activists, rests. In other words, if it's simultaneously true that tech is gender-imbalanced and that there is no systemic discrimination involved in this gap, then groups of human being might have innate differences, and acceptance of this fact has far-reaching and upsetting consequences.

Therefore, there must be no gender gap or there must be systemic discrimination. Since the existence of the gender gap is obvious, there must be systemic discrimination, and the pundit class has been on the warpath trying to uphold this narrative and cherry-pick evidence supporting it.

I vouched for wtbob's comment. It's important to air these concerns in public; some participants in debates on this topic quickly resort to censorship. I read the deleted comment, and in this instance, and in this instance, the deleted comment added nothing to the discussion.

If the vast majority of HN participants are male, the leaderboard composition is a function of demographics, not some kind of "man filter" you've had to overcome. If your username is so generic that people frequently misgender you, how can it also be the case that you're simultaneously held to a higher standard on account of being a woman?

(Well, you might imagine that commentators here are _deliberately_ misgendering you, which is a suggestion so preposterous that I can't entertain it. It might also conceivably be the case that you've gained so much karma _because_ you have an androgynous username, but see below.)

As a man, I find it extremely frustrating when advocates for women in technology look at a phenomenon where men and women are imbalanced and immediately jump to sexism as the explanation. I've had a long career in technology. Not once have I seen a woman discriminated against or her ideas held to a higher standard than the ideas of men. I've seen plenty of mentoring, encouragement, and outreach however. I've personally worked to mentor women in computer science. The idea that there is some systemic bias against women on Hacker News or in the workplace is inconsistent with my experience and with the professed views of my colleagues.

I think we need additional empathy here. Maybe it's the case that _everyone's_ ideas are dismissed too quickly. Numerous times in my career, I've proposed $FOO, been told $FOO is impossible, and only been believed after actually _implementing_ $FOO, often on my own time after tending to my official responsibilities. When some women get this treatment, they call it sexism. When I get it, I call it the reality of working in a world that combines empiricism and huge egos. I think a lot of women in technology are genuinely unaware that men get this treatment too. Maybe it's shitty for everyone and not just women.

I think sharing culture can create an esprit de corps, improving morale and group cohesion, especially in times of crisis.

> Women are frequently treated in a dismissive fashion by men.

Everyone is treated in a dismissive fashioned by everyone. Only evidence and careful reasoning can rebut this default policy. You have presented none.

It galls me you interpret treatment that everyone receives as hostility directed toward the group to which you happen to belong. I am under no obligation to give additional weight to your argument merely because you are a woman. That you consider my dismissal of your unsupported claims is intellectually dishonest. You're smart enough to know better.

You're essentially claiming that everyone who doesn't accept your unsupported claims is sexist. You're free to do make this claim, but in doing so, you're crying wolf and weakening your cause.

You're right that I'm being dismissive. I'm also veering toward being disrespectful. That's not because you're a woman, but because you're demanding unearned special treatment. You're a technologist. Gaining status on a technologist's forum is no great accomplishment.

Why do you value attention at $0?

You're advocating for sterile, culture-less workplaces. You're free to do that, and companies are free to implement your proposed policies. Personally, I wouldn't work for a company that prohibited my expressing nerd culture.

Yes, I am dismissing your anecdote as mere coincidence. I can't justify on an intellectual basis doing anything else. Am I supposed to just listen and believe?

> I have formally and informally studied certain things about social psychology

Your continuing reliance on credentials isn't helping your credibility.

> This childhood self-discrimination...needs to be fixed

I'm baffled by how you can believe that individual choice can be a problem that needs to be fixed. Do you believe that people should be directed into non-traditional fields against their will? Or do you believe that they're not competent to make their own decisions?

You have an anecdote. I don't know the timeframe for the events you described, but it's a widespread international connectivity to the internet developed much later outside the US than it did inside it, so all things being equal, I suspect there were simply more international participants available during your tenure than during the previous years.

This experience may have convinced you that language policing is effective, but it doesn't convince me. Bragging about your karma likewise has no effect on my evaluation of the merits of your argument.

> That gets done to me quite a lot.

It happens to everyone a lot. In context, I get the feeling that you're suggesting it happens to you because you're a woman. Am I wrong? These sly implications of sexism where none really exist are extremely offensive and offputting and make me less likely to sympathize with your cause.

The basic dogma of the modern activist is that reality follows language and culture, which implies that if activists can only adequately police language and fiction, real life will eventually match their desires. The world doesn't work that way, and activists efforts in this area are doomed to produce only frustration and an inevitable backlash, the beginnings of which we're now seeing.

This article isn't talking about taking away "exclusive access to jobs" from men. It's hinting at separating geek culture from software development. Let's be honest: the two interests correlate well. You're talking about stripping many practitioners of software development from their culture. Why is that just?

> It does, however, make it harder for most women to participate here

I've seen many people make this claim, but I haven't seen anyone back it up with evidence. What do you mean by "harder"? Do you mean "more difficult"? In what way?

Right now, I believe claims that tiny linguistic differences create meaningful barriers to female participation in technology are all specious. I could be convinced otherwise, but have seen no evidence that might move me.

> If you do not know my gender, it takes very little effort to speak in a way that admits you do not know it

English is not structured to be gender-neutral. I'm not going to use awkward circumlocutions to avoid the possibility of offending someone.

Let's suppose I worked at a desk next to yours, and one day, I brought in an elaborate lego Millennium Falcon to put next to my monitor. Would you support a policy that required me to remove this icon of geekdom in the name of making the workspace more welcoming for women?

It's very sad how many people (both male and female) I knew growing up were "extremely good at math and science" until they ran headlong into anti-intellectual American high school culture. I saw people who loved science fiction spiral into useless party culture and end up with unfulfilling low-value service jobs. That's a tremendous waste of talent, and I don't think it's very much a gender issue.

I favor an approach where we separate kids who've shown some aptitude for the sciences and concentrate them in schools full of their peers. We can't do anything for the anti-intellectual types, but we can at least stop their ruining perfectly good raw talent.

Let's suppose that most HN readers are men. There's no obvious gender signaling in your username. (It's two letters long, after all.) What's wrong with someone using the male pronoun as a default until being corrected? Do you expect commentators to read a user's profile before choosing a pronoun for that user? That would be a big efficiency loss for no real benefit. It's unfortunate that this default bothers you, but it's not the responsibility of anyone to prevent offense-taking on the part of another.

I believe that girls and boys naturally (either through differences in neural architecture, hormone exposure, or early acculturation) simply have different average preferences, and that these preferences manifest over their lifetimes as differences in life stories and career choices.

I don't think this difference is a problem we need to solve. Diversity is supposed to make our culture richer, right? If so, why are some people trying so hard to make us all the same?

Of course we shouldn't artificial barriers to non-gender-normative career choices --- but gender disparity in a particular field is not itself evidence that these barriers exist. We've already done quite a bit to draw women into technical professions. Whatever disparity remains is on them.

This gem is in the comments:

> The average programmer spends only about 30 percent of his/her time working alone.

That's nowhere close to my figure. In fact, I can pretty much _only_ program alone. Individual investigation and discovery is most of the fun in the field.

Being gay is fine as far as the influencer class is concerned though. Imagine the brouhaha that would have resulted if instead he'd, say, been outed as being opposed to abortion.

Substitute the tech buzzwords for real estate ones and your terrifying comment could have come straight out of 2007. You shouldn't be building anything to "flip". That attitude does not lead to a society full of people doing productive things. It leads to a shake silo of charlatans doing their best to dupe VCs until the bubble comes crashing down on all our heads.

Mozilla lost me today. It's no longer an organization I can support. Let this be a lesson to you. Don't indulge the perpetually offended. They will never be happy. Their presence is a cancer in your organization. Should they apply, reject their applications. Should they be hired, fire them. Should the cancer metastasize, leave.