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Comment by ksenzee | Hacker News Reader

Right. My title is Senior Software Engineer, with the corresponding experience and salary, but since my degrees are not in one of those three fields, I'm only tangentially involved in tech. Thanks for providing such a succinct demonstration of the kind of dismissal "actual women" in the field get to hear all the time.

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> since my degrees are not in one of those three fields, I'm only tangentially involved in tech

That conclusion cannot reasonably be inferred from the post you are responding to.

Are you being serious? That's exactly what's being implied. Which part of tangentially involved in tech juxtaposed with unlike women with Math, CS, or EE degrees would lead you to read that differently?

I am honestly as confused by your interpretation as you are by mine. I don't have any of those degrees, and I don't infer that Supercomputing is dismissing me as "tangentially" involved in tech. They are suggesting that Adria Richards' "Developer Evangelist" role wasn't a real technical role, which I couldn't really comment on. I don't think they are implying that ksenzee's "Senior Software Engineer" role doesn't count as a technical role.

Certainly, and your interpretation is logical. I agree the original commenter didn't necessarily mean to imply that. However, they appear to have bought into a kind of false dichotomy that gets applied to women and minorities all too often. It's a mindset where there are "fake" woman developers (or gamers, or whatever), and there are "real" woman developers, and you only get perceived as one of the "real" developers if you meet an unusually high standard. It's tiresome to be on the receiving end of it.

You just said you agree the OP didnt mean to imply it yet you're making a rather big statement about dismissal that only you seem to see. Which is just as problematic.

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