It's hard to take this blog post at face value. My experience with the industry has been that IT people are terrified of offending women and go far out of their way to avoid being perceived as sexist. I do know a couple guys that flirt with women at work but that's a far cry from sexual discrimination.
As long as we're sharing anecdotes:
* My girlfriend of 3 years also works in this industry, and she has never complained about an incident of any kind.
* I worked with a female developer who was fired and complained about discrimination. But this was not the case, she was fired because she was terrible at her job.
* I also worked with a gay developer who was fired. He complained loudly of homosexual discrimination... but I saw his check-ins (or lack thereof)--he was also terrible at his job.
So the two major cases of discrimination I personally know about in Silicon Valley have both been frauds. Is discrimination real in Silicon Valley? Certainly, yes, there's always a few bad apples in any large community. Is the problem being blown out of proportion here? I think so.
Yeah, I am married to someone who got death threats over email for daring to start a group promoting women's participation in free sofware projects. So never mind that most men in the industry aren't like that, a small proportion of toxic people still make for a poisonous environment.
And this is before we start quantifying how small that proportion really is, and how negative other aspects of discrimination can be. Death threats and sexual harassment are only the showy, extreme points of a very wide continuum of discrimination.
"I'm sorry. I can't help but be amused that some opinion on a forum somewhere has made your life a less happy place. The tiniest of my violins mourns your loss."
I agree so much with this. I hate how people in that are in a minority demographics tend to cry wolf and discrimination on everything. Personally, it doesn't even cross my mind that some people are different than me. I've lived all over the world with all kinds of demographics, and now I live and work in one of the most diverse place on earth: SF. It boggles my mind that this is still an issue for people.
An example: I have no problem with gay people, I have a ton of gay friends and spent a year living with a (really cool) gay couple. But what I absolutely cannot stand is people who turn everything into a statement about them being gay. Who try to force me to acknowledge it and use it as an excuse for sucking in general. No, I couldn't give less of a fuck about your sexual preference. But don't try to make it an issues when it's not.
PS: On sexual discrimination: If I'm attracted to a girl, I might flirt with her and see how it goes. If I'm at a party, I may try to hook up with a girl. I don't do it with co-workers because it'd complicate the workplace—but otherwise why not? Since when has it become wrong and inappropriate to hit on a girl…?
"Personally, it doesn't even cross my mind that some people are different than me."
People who aren't rich, white, straight, and male don't have the privilege of forgetting about their own identity the way you do. In the context of tech for women, this means always wondering if you were hired, fired, or asked to coffee because you are a woman or because you are interesting and competent. It's knowing that if you mess up, you are reinforcing stereotypes about all women. When you walk into a room at a conference and you can count the other women on one hand, men may not notice but women definitely do. We don't have the privilege of forgetting our gender in that context. It's not that men are evil, it's just the way privilege works: when you benefit from it, it's hard to see the experience of those who don't.
If you want to hear more about this idea even more eloquently, check out the classic article about white privilege that puts it better than I ever could:
http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf
People who aren't rich, white, straight, and male don't have the privilege of forgetting about their own identity the way you do.
Well, from what I've seen, Korean males of high social status who were born in and live in Korea have that privilege. It's hard to get your head around what this stuff is like as an adult. If you're born as a minority and raised to feel the metaphorical target on you from childhood -- there's just no way to convey what that's like. Face that stuff only as an adult, and you can always draw on your memories from childhood to know that's not true. You can always go back home where you know you are safe.
It's quite an eye opener and really weird, being raised by your parents to expect that sort of privilege, then going out in the world to discover the world at large has a very different story to tell you.
> People who aren't rich, white, straight, and male don't have the privilege of forgetting about their own identity the way you do.
You know, not everyone who isn't rich, white, straight, and male has the burden of being constantly reminded of one's own identity.
As a non-rich, non-white, straight male, I think I can honestly say that I was never particularly aware of my non-richness and non-whiteness until I started attending a large university where people make a big deal about class, race, sexual preference, and sex.
Did I get picked on as a child? Sure. But I never assumed it was because I was non-white, I generally thought it was because I was nerdy and small. Once I started standing up for myself, most of the taunting came to an end. Bullies are often cowards.
I think that some people are taught to believe that anytime that something bad happens to them, it can only be because of sexism, racism, etc. These sorts of beliefs are ultimately counter-productive and negative. In particular, they teach people not to take personal responsibility for their own lives.
In the context of tech for women, this means always
wondering if you were hired, fired, or asked to coffee
because you are a woman or because you are interesting and
competent.
Your example also goes the other way around. As a man, you can never hire, fire or ask a woman to coffee without her doubting your motives. The same goes for a gay man, a black man or an old man. As a man, you can't forget your identity either: you always need to be aware of who you are, in relation to the others around you.
Well you can, as evidenced by the attitude of the person I was responding to. That doesn't mean you should, which is I think what you really mean.
But yes, having such an imbalance in our community leads to this being a salient part of social interaction when there are much more important characteristics that should rise to the top.
I hate how people in that are in a minority demographics tend to cry wolf and discrimination on everything.
Isn't concluding that people in minority demographics are either deluded or engaging in deception -- a form of prejudice?
now I live and work in one of the most diverse place on earth: SF. It boggles my mind that this is still an issue for people.
It boggles my mind as well, even though I live in Houston. I've never been harassed in SF, but I've been racially harassed by strangers in Houston, Cincinnati, Oregon outside of Portland (shock!), County Wexford Ireland, and probably a bunch of other places if I try and remember. I attended a New Year's party at a frat-house in Seattle, where my big bruiser square-headed friend told me he had to talk a bunch of frat brothers out of beating the crap out of me for no reason other than that I have asian features.
I don't go looking for trouble, and it doesn't find me very often -- maybe only once in several years or so -- but it does find me from time to time. Most people are good people, but there are a few bad ones out there. (Just like there are a few misogynist douchebags who would rape a woman.)
So don't be disgusted or surprised if I wonder why certain strangers seem to take an instant dislike to me before I've even finished my first sentence or talk over me or don't even deign to look at me even though we're clearly in the same conversation group. That occasional bad person might come out of the woodwork with no warning or provocation to ruin my day.
Unfortunately this is one topic area on the Internet where one person's limited anecdotal experience is treated as Gospel Truth and another person's is considered, well, mere limited anecdotal experience.
Oh well. This particular flame fest has been going on (on the net) since at least the 80's. I don't expect it to ever end.
When the proportion of women in technology is similar to the proportion of women in the work place in general, you can probably say that the problem of discrimination is over blown. Until then, the situation at least looks a bit suspicious.
Mindful that not all discrimination is malicious or even conscious.
That assumes that across all jobs and professions that there is some uniform distribution of the sexes. But I don't believe that to be the case.
The sexes do divide themselves differently depending on profession and there are many reasons for that: some are just natural nature gender divides, some are socially constructed nurture gender divides, and some are discrimination.
It's not clear that any problem of women in technology actually exists, and it's not clear that if it exists it is a result of discrimination.
Discriminate involves distinction or differentiation. Given this, whenever an uneven distribution exists, some kind of discrimination or bias has occurred. Of course this does not demand that the discrimination was bad, it's just the definition of words. For example, the discrimination done by the semipermeable membrane in your cells is a very good.
So there is not actually a question of whether or not gender discrimination is occurring in technology at a large scale, it certainly is, by about 3 to 1, I think. The question is rather, who is doing the discrimination and why are they doing it. From briefly looking at this thread, I see that at least 3 cases involved sexual objectification by men, and I would venture to guess that this has happen to more than 3 women. I don't think there is enough evidence to suppose that this is the most prevalent form of discrimination, at least I've never heard of it when reading about the gender disparity; though it would certainly be interesting to learn what affect stories like this have on dissuading woman from entering male dominated fields.
I'm not sure how long the study has been out, but I recently became aware of an investigation regarding the disparity of women in professorships. This was actually kind of humorous to me. For some time, it had been assumed that this disparity was related to discriminatory practices by those doing the hiring. But, the investigation didn't find any significant evidence of this, instead, they found that it was the women who were making the distinction; working 70 or 80hrs/week isn't very practical if you want to start a family. Maybe academia is broken, I have no idea, but at least it isn't malicious and yet there is still discrimination.
Regarding technology, or, at least math specifically, there is some evidence that suggests that girls are involved in biasing other girls against it (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2573548). Also, there's evidence that suggests that the different genders respond better to different language (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2571075), so if you have a field mostly dominated by men, it's not unreasonable to see why it would mostly attach men, all else being equal. Again, these aren't malicious and are probably, generally, not well known. But, I think that these sorts of things can be agreed upon by most people as not being good.
Also, regarding some malicious or ignorant discrimination, I think Dave Thomas makes some good points in his keynote during last year's RubyConf about 33mins in to his talk (http://confreaks.net/videos/368-rubyconf2010-keynote).
As long as we're sharing anecdotes:
* My girlfriend of 3 years also works in this industry, and she has never complained about an incident of any kind.
* I worked with a female developer who was fired and complained about discrimination. But this was not the case, she was fired because she was terrible at her job.
* I also worked with a gay developer who was fired. He complained loudly of homosexual discrimination... but I saw his check-ins (or lack thereof)--he was also terrible at his job.
So the two major cases of discrimination I personally know about in Silicon Valley have both been frauds. Is discrimination real in Silicon Valley? Certainly, yes, there's always a few bad apples in any large community. Is the problem being blown out of proportion here? I think so.