I Almost Left Tech Today
code.likeagirl.io
code.likeagirl.io
I would echo this sentiment if it were "What the FUCK is wrong with my colleagues?"
I have never had a sour personal experience involving any coworkers in tech. Not sexism, racism, anything-ism. Never once, I'm over 5 years in (developer as well).
I've had terrible experiences before I moved to tech.
I know it's just an anecdote--like yours--and I feel fortunate and lucky.
Anyway, I can't echo your sentiment that it's an entire industry. Nearly the entire tech industry would be appalled and disgusted by the behavior of the people in your story.
Isn't that the same as saying "not all men" etc?
Hey wait. It IS those things. Gosh maybe we should listen then?
This urge to tell people anecdotes are not data is very very stale, when it comes to this topic. We have data and it's consistent with this anecdote. A woman being harassed in the workplace appears to be plausible and backed by data.
So why does anyone feel like immediately posting a not-all-tech-orgs helps anyone buy the tech org you're representing?
The story wasn't "I almost quit my job" - the story was "I almost quit tech." If you want to keep generalizing - we can keep going to "I almost quit modern cities and went off to live as a hermit."
I think it's important to share her story. However, it's more powerful when people don't overreach, and talk about their specific situation and how it had specific instances & issues because it allows people to understand, empathize & change things that are within their circle of influence.
Saying "tech" has a problem is easy to say, but it doesn't actually provide any actionable insight on what to do about it.
I'm just confused, because this seems like such an obvious statement. Of course not every workplace is this bad. Why does that have to be said here?
The author seems to convey a frustration with what she feels is an industy-level problem. Given the events of the last 5 years and the general statistics for women in tech, maybe that's not unreasonable.
Both your point and hers can coexist in the same narrative. It's just that your point seems a bit like you're mad the article wasn't copy-edited to avoid pedantic objections about implicit quantification.
I'm all about holding people accountable - but in order to do that you have to be specific about who is causing the issue & what they're doing.
Have a good day.
I don't think the author is extrapolating her personal experience to the industry. Her experience is a personal example of a trend she had previously studied.
However, when the individual extrapolates his/her experience to the men in the industry as a whole, comprising of millions of different people, I think “not all men” or “not everyone in this industry” is a perfectly valid response.
You might think the entire industry would be disgusted but stories like these keep coming out, from high profile tech companies to small firms so it seems pretty clear this is a problem.
What is clear is that these cases are publicized to a disproportionate degree when they occur in the tech industry compared to other industries.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Focusing on "fixing sexism in the industry" is hopeless if the problem isn't specific to the industry, I think.
And I would say that while sexism isn't specific to any single place, culture is highly impactful on the amount of racism/sexism/homophobia you may experience and this is what changes the most when you go from country to country. A startup in San Francisco will have a very different culture to a mid-size company in Madrid.
Most of the time, when people talk about "lets fix the broader problem not our specific problem", it is mostly an excuse to do nothing, as opposed to an actual attempt to solve the bigger problem.
People in tech have both the ability and responsibility to fix issues that directly effect the tech industry.
Whereas we don't necessarily have the ability to change worldwide culture as a whole.
So again how exactly is it easier to fix something "in the industry" vs. in the country?
We can make direct contributions by working to solve the problem within our own companies and move the needle that way.
It is also because this whole "it is better to solve a different problem" is basically just an excuse to do nothing, by throwing our hands in the air.
I think the author has more than her personal anecdote to back up her statement.
This issue certainly isn't found in every tech company and I'd argue that it isn't even most.
There's also selection bias (is that what this is called?) in that folks write blog posts about these kinds of negative experiences but very few write blog posts saying "my team is great, everyone is respectful and we all get along swimmingly."
Edit: my bad, I missed the part in which context that repsonse was posted. It changes the perspective a lot.
At my company WTF is acceptable language but saying you don't care about a coworker's valid concern is not.
Totally not trying to justify anything, I just have zero understanding of the cultural context.
I've also worked with several women in tech who very strongly resisted the feminist movement and felt they needed to carve their own path. They are some of the most badass software developers I've ever worked with and without them their teams would falter into a horrible mess of terrible code and documentation. If anything I'm understating how important they are to the companies they work for.
It's my personal belief that the changes with women's rights in our country over the several decades has been one of the best things to ever happen. For the majority of my life growing up it has been just me and my mom, and even in the past two decades I've seen a lot of really good change. I can't imagine the amount of change in the past four decades.
The issue is that much like the BLM movement SOME people, not all, are turning it into an us versus them situation. This mentality is never productive and indefensible. Read the final statement "We won’t let them grind us down."
Right now my Facebook is jam packed full of friends posting about how everyone needs to revolt against white men because of the transsexual military ban that Trump just enacted. I'd love to have a discussion with them about how Trump's actions don't represent white males everywhere, but they will turn hostile and rip me to shreds the moment I say anything which opposes that statement. They've done it before and I don't want to argue with my friends like that.
All of this said, the manager is horribly sexist with comments like below. Even if that is true, there is a strong context in the situation. Why even bring it up, what point is he trying to make? "Later that night, he also said that women had a smaller brain. That’s when I couldn’t take it anymore and left."
That's really fucked up, go finish the contract and find a better team to work with. Life is too short for shit like that. And please don't turn this into us versus them. Find better people to work with.
EDIT: In the comment section responding to someone suggesting a company for her to work at, she wrote: "Thank you for the tip ! I have to keep fighting but it’s not easy, I know that 42 school is very sexist as well and there are only 7% of women there so I’m not so delighted to go there. But that school is very famous in France and I want to acquire those low level C language skills."
Then don't go! Go work at some place where people treat you with respect.
Thing is, most women absolutely DO NOT respond well to that kind of male bonding. And, honestly, they probably shouldn't--I think this "emotional sonar" is a maladjusted response to men being told they can't express their feelings. Given this, we probably shouldn't be exposing women to that kind of environment either.
I guess this kind of underscores why you need women in the workplace. It's too easy for an all-male space to fall into this kind of emotional language and interaction framework, which is "hostile but comprehensible" to those in the culture, but completely alien to those who aren't--women and foreigners alike. At the very least, we (meaning everyone, not just men) should try to be aware that not everyone bonds the same, and bonding activities for some people and genders may be anti-bonding and hostile to others.
I want to make clear, I'm not trying to justify what happened, but I feel like often these articles are kind of one-sided, which can make it difficult to diagnose what's going on. The problem with saying "don't be misogynist" is I suspect few people identify as one but, on the other hand, we can identify our baggage and try to examine critically how it affects others.
Either way, sorry OP had to experience that, whether mismatched bonding attempts or actual hostility and misogyny.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskWomen/comments/5dpezd/girls_what...
As a guy, this line was pretty funny, and I could see myself saying it (on an all male team). I might not say it in front of female coworkers though, but if I worked closely with one I may say it within earshot without thinking about it. It certainly wasn't an attack on the poster.
Are we just not allowed to talk about genitalia? I guess as a baseline rule it's inappropriate, sure, but he's not being suggestive or soliciting. As described, it's obviously a joke. Not sure where the offense is here other than he said "dick" in the workplace within earshot of someone who doesn't want to hear that.
I'll finish by saying that the rest of it was certainly uncalled for, but this one instance doesn't really stand on it's own as offensive.
Yes. It's highly unprofessional.
In a work environment, if there isn't a solid work-related need to make a literal (not metaphorical) reference to genitalia, it's a good idea not to refer to genitalia. I wouldn't say “not allowed”, but it wouldn't be the worst idea to treat it that way.
> As a guy, this line was pretty funny, and I could see myself saying it (on an all male team). I
As a guy, this line is the kind of thing I would have found funny the year I started high school, but found obnoxious by the time I finished.
> I guess as a baseline rule it's inappropriate, sure, but he's not being suggestive or soliciting.
Perhaps, but while those things would make it more inappropriate, there absence doesn't make it appropriate.
> As described, it's obviously a joke.
Sure, but being intended as a joke doesn't make it appropriate either. Particular jokes, despite being jokes, can be inappropriate for work.
Also, do you really think that's a funny line? To me, it sounds like the type of joke where the room rolls their eyes and cringes. It's not at all clever or original, it's the type of joke made by people who think they're funny but everyone actually thinks they're annoying. I mean shit, at least make some kind of allusion to your genital size through inference, just coming out and saying "LOOK AT THIS BIG THING, MY DICK IS THE SAME SIZE AS THE BIG THING LOL" is about is unfunny as it gets.
It's social aptitude, some people just have less of it. (No wonder they hadn't become lawyers, doctors, politicians.)
Basic rule is try to accomodate others if it's no problem for you. If it is, discuss it, and settle on the professional/formal way if others feel your preferences are too far from theirs.
Constantly monitor others' well being. For most people it's automatic, for some autists it's literally impossible.
Again, it's a safe default to be formal/professional, and then ease up, if all parties feel okay with that.
Also, there is a big distinction between an environment where moderate but restrained use of profanity is accepted as normal adult language and an environment where your co-workers are discussing their genitals and other sexual topics.
So, yes, drama drains productivity, but being a faceless cold drone hurts it too. Team fit is important. (And it's very important to recognize that there's a difference between communication style and abuse, disrespect, lack of empathy, etc. And discussing sexual topics might be ok, might be not. I've seen/heard it done in a fun way and too many times in a cringeworthy way. Luckily, I haven't seen/heard it in a seriously bad/offensive/harrassing way.)
real life people work there and they might want to discuss it. that doesn't mean they can ignore the fact that they might be causing discomfort to others, and since it's a workspace where people go to work, other people's comfort in those cases trumps their desire to dicuss whatever.
> I can guarantee there are lines of sexual discussion that you might find disgusting that others might find acceptable.
yes, no surpirse there, but part of working with others involves being able to signal to them what's not okay to you, and it involves (on their part) the unquestioning acceptance.
"The bug was just a small one, like <coworker>'s dick".
"We missed processing the event because it came too soon, like <coworker>'s dick".
"Dammit...I need to reset this router and don't have a pin to poke the reset hole. <Coworker>, can you use your dick to do it for me?"
Being the butt of dick jokes for a week (especially if some of these making them are women) will probably strongly discourage <coworker> from making future comparisons to his own dick.
Best to avoid eye contact too, someone could misinterpret that as flirting.
And thinking such a comment is funny (and acceptable) at workplace could limit your career in the future. Most good developers don't want to work with someone "joking" about their dicks at work.
Well, I might have found it funny when I was 17. So reserve that kind of joke for a beer night with your high school friends.
* Besides, what kind of developer wants to boast their app is "huge"?
Everybody's taken this to mean that I'd just go around yelling "Dick" every hour on the hour, or that I would be describing last night's penetration to everybody. Of course not.
Yes you would read the room first, but I still think you should have the freedom to express yourself if you're not harming others. Just because you don't like swear words, and you hear one from me, doesn't mean that I'm harming you.
People calling it unprofessional are likely browsing HN or Reddit while at work. Not sure how much that aligns with being professional. By the way, if you're not wearing a suit right now you're being unprofessional. Maybe getting your work done is the only baseline to being professional, and saying "dick" doesn't stop me or you from getting work done.
To the people who don't think dick jokes are funny. I do. You don't. shrug
But please don't say stuff like "if you're not wearing a suit you're being unprofessional": that's absurd false equivalence, and the only thing it signals is that you're a person who hates losing an argument so much that you will pick up any argument you can think of.
It's all fine here at HN, where only imaginary internet points are at stake, but as I have said, earning such a reputation at workplace will hurt your career.
Right... this is the reason we have professional standards, because humor is not universal and some people aren't cool with certain sexual topics. Some people think scat and rape jokes are funny too, but just because they do doesn't mean it should be permissible discussion in the office. In a professional environment we keep sexual discussion to the absolute minimum necessary because sex is a controversial topic that is completely irrelevant to the job (in 99% of jobs).
I remember sitting at the back of the squad bay playing poker with a group of 4-5 other jarheads, and occasionally, the OOD (duty officer) who would periodically walk through the command's barracks, would be a WM (woman marine). First time it happened, one of the corporals said in essence, to avoid saying anything related to sex, male, or female body parts, etc.
It would have been simpler to just tell us to shut the hell up, because take those words away, and we had no other way to express ourselves (apparently). We all just remained completely completely silent from the moment she entered the squad bay on one end until she left out of the hatch on the other end.
I once attended a hackathon around some humanitarian cause. Participants in general were nice. However, I joined a team, which had two kind of strong male characters in them. None of them would be able to discuss and think freely. One guy has worked in various startups. Without him telling me more about this, I could just infer how blame-driven his developer jobs were by seeing him interacting with the others. Really scary. The other imagined himself as an activist. So active, that in the end, we did not produce anything at that hackathon and I believe without these two males it would have been much simpler to actually get a discussion going and to have fun.
In general, the more educated and diverse people are, the more they are able to think and think independently. The more people are responsible for themselves the more they are responsible for creating a work atmosphere, that is healthy for all participants - because hate and exclusion lessen motivation and there is one thing that need to go out to all businesses and managers and hierarchical elements: You cannot motivate people - you can only demotivate them. And this can happen much faster than one might believe.
What rubs me the wrong way though is when people project experiences like these onto their own experiences of lesser magnitude.
For example, a while back a colleague asked me for a sit-down and explained that she was frustrated that i had "mansplained" her in a meeting. She was fuming. At worst, I might have interrupted her at one point or two inadvertently because there was a heated discussion on a technical topic. I don't want to rob her of these feelings but I feel like overall we're talking about some actual sexist idiots and then have a much larger layer of people who are just looking to be mad about something.
Nor have I, albeit in the US (even in the parts that are Trump-land).
You're European, so maybe you know more about French culture than me: is this something that's endemic to French culture perhaps? Over here in the US, I would be shocked to hear about this crap in any place other than one run by a bunch of 25-year-old frat bros.
Currently, I am a data scientist, but prior to that I was an air traffic controller (ATC). ATC training was brutal. You come in at 0530 for work/training, and you better be ready for a simulator first thing in the morning. Make a mistake get ready to be berated in front of everyone, and be scheduled to work the weekend. If you did well, you got to control real planes that day and you better perform exceptional while answering your trainers questions or forget controlling tomorrow. Questions would include, what is the separation between a heavy and small on final inside the approach gate? What is the radial and DME for xxxx point? What ABQ center's frequency?
We treated everyone the same - men and women. Women would often cry, yet they understood they weren't being treated differently from their male counterparts as every trainee was treated as s*. We had a 20% success rate with roughly 2 years of training. When you became a certified controller, it was a big deal and for males, every controller in the facility would punch the metal ATC badge into your chest the day of your final rating- it was a rite of passage.
Men treat each other differently and test each other differently, women are just learning this it seems.
Because of the job environment, as an employee you UNDERSTAND the CONTEXT and INTENT behind the working conditions.
This logic applies to life and all social interactions. Assume innocence, positivity and optimism in the INTENT behind the words of strangers - until they give you a reason to think otherwise.
To anyone who disagrees: If you do not subscribe to this ideal, then what are you advocating as an alternative? Everyone be extremely PC and hyper-aware of everything they say and the indefinite amount of ways their words can be interpreted? it makes just no sense.
Crying foul, fighting to get what you "want" in the moment, rather then what is true and just - I'm just tired of it all, burnt out by the lack of rationality in these sorts of discussions.
1. Some insensitive asshole was lacking respect or maturity or professionalism in general. 2. Women, who are generally more conscientious than men, naturally react more strongly to said assholes.
I think if you could magically make every employee not act like an asshole, reports of sexism would drop by 99%.
And sure. Yes. That's not untrue. But read the article. She's particularly singled out for special treatment.
Redefining the words or claiming it's actually women being "more sensitive" is just a word game to try making excuses. To do anything but agree, "This is sexist behavior."
Where did you read this? In the entire article she didn't even describe anyone speaking to her or about her except when they apologized, how can this be seen as singling her out?
As a male, I wouldn't stand for this type of behavior from my colleagues. Personally, I'd be going up the corporate ladder or human resources until I found someone that make this type of behavior cease, and if it didn't, I would be gone. I can't even imagine being on the receiving end of something like that.
Can anyone come up with a story or things that could be taken as sexist towards a male? I have a hard time knowing if I'm right in that I think I'd be fine with this as I don't take this extremely juvenile crap as seriously or if I'm just really having a hard time being empathetic because I just have never, nor can I fathom, anything rocking my sense of worth so hard.
Maybe I need to experience being marginalized due to my sex or race or whatever to be empathetic? I dunno. I'm sure there's more to it that can cause someone to break down like the person who wrote this. I want to understand.
Do I need a bunch of women to joke about guys with small dicks are worthless or something? Is that comparable? Should I be extremely offended and be willing to quit over that, like the world is against me because of it?
I'm honestly wondering here. Please help me understand. I'm serious. I just don't know what it's like.
The fact that words aren't going to hurt you as much because they aren't coming from an environment of actual systemic discrimination doesn't mean that the people who are hurt by words under discrimination are wrong or irrational.
It just means it's a thing you don't get to experience first-hand and should attempt to have empathy for nonetheless.
Do you think her coworkers were only like this in casual conversations and social situations, and treated her as a complete equal professionally? Or do you think their attitudes might have affected how they viewed her work, what she was assigned, her opportunities for advancement, etc.
It doesn't matter if you "take it seriously" or not when people who have power over you are doing this. It's not about being offended, it's about being unequal.
This nastiness is pervasive, and often carried out by people so blind to their own participation that they deny what they themselves are doing.
I seriously doubt the person behind that account denies what they are doing.
All the best to you.
Clémentine shared an article on her team Slack about "I found an article on why so many women leave engineering, and wanted to share it with my colleagues."
One of her colleagues replied on the channel with a video saying "We don't give a fuck"
The combination of those two things is sexist by any possible interpretation I can think of.
* "Not my circus, not my monkeys."
* "How do things in those other places concern *us*?"
* "People suck, news at 11."
* "You think we haven't been hearing this every day already?"
* "Thanks, but we already have more than enough things to be outraged about."
* "That doesn't look actionable."
* "We're here to do work, not to agitate for social change."
They all convey much more "we heard what you said" than "We don't give a fuck" does. Just MHO.
A closer rephrasing with similar sentiment is: "No one cares"
All the phrasing you provided are combinations of: 1) not applicable to me/us 2) we can't do anything about it
For anyone struggling with empathy, imagine you're feeling frustrated with something, you share with your coworkers, one replies publicly "no one cares" and everyone else laughs. Then the next day the thing that was frustrating you happens a number of times and you can't say anything because it's clear that everyone doesn't care.
I've worked in the industry for a long time, and I have never seen anything like that.
It seems like a very bad move to alienate 50% of the potential workforce.
Pro tip: The next time someone offends you, call them on it. Stand up for yourself. We need more people talking and less "retreat and blog".
Step 2: blame the victim of sexual harassment for being there and not finding a way to not be harassed.
Step 3: Right after telling them to stand up for themselves, immediately shame them for talking about the experience. It might give them resources to actually follow the advice you patronizingly tossed out in step 2.
This playbook is old. It's unacceptable. It's a way to try and shield men from the consequences illegal, unproessional, and immoral actions. It's an attempt to undermine anyone who notices.
You're doing something awful. Stop it.
> "Micro aggressions", rape, lives being "destroyed", "emoji-induced tears", and violence
> Tragically comedic hyperbole.
>> Step 2: blame the victim of sexual harassment for being there and not finding a way to not be harassed.
> The next time someone offends you, call them on it. Stand up for yourself
>> Step 3: Right after telling them to stand up for themselves, immediately shame them for talking about the experience. It might give them resources to actually follow the advice you patronizingly tossed out in step 2.
> We need more people talking and less "retreat and blog"
There are no straw men here. Only classic deflect-and-gaslight tactics older than either of us. But hey, you go on misusing the phrase "straw man", champ. Credit to your gender, etc.
Stop defending sexism. If your behavior is indistinguishable from sexism save for intent, it is sexism. Period.
Step 3: You're assuming the victim would necessarily feel shame by trying to help them deal with assholes, and you're also assuming that shame was the intended outcome of telling them to stand up/call out idiots in the midst of their idiocy.
I cannot parse your second paragraph. Victim helps "them"?
Also: I repeat. If your actions are indistinguishable from sexism they're sexism. Your intent doesn't matter. Your defense here is that you're reading the gp charitably.
Someone strong enough of character would be able to withstand the initial stupidity and confront the perpetrators and convince them to stop. Should she have to do that? No, but maybe her actions could lead them to be more mature and they'd all respect each other, and the next woman would have that much better of an environment to go into.
By immediately coddling them, you are accomplishing the exact opposite of what you think are doing.
I think that's what the OP was trying to say, but I can't read minds so who knows.
This seems arbitrary.
This is not some punishment game on reality TV. It's a workplace. Being professional with employees is the bare minimum. Even teenagers can do it. Why do you want to coddle these men?
When someone is being subjected to abuse in what is supposed to be a professional setting, the correct strategy for them is to take matters into their own hands and probably begin a disruptive and draining conflict which they are almost certain to lose in the end because the deck is stacked against them. Under absolutely no circumstances should the victim ask for assistance, because that would demonstrate weakness and a lack of self-respect. If only the victim had better strength of character, they could put those assholes in their places and nothing like this would ever happen again.
I really don't think I can make myself see the world that way. I don't think I want to.
If she struggles, it'll be a "poor culture fit." At-will employment means it's very challenging to push back against your boss's toxic culture. But if she doesn't, she isn't "strong enough" for the industry.
The summary is: Get fired, get out, or shut up.
> By dragging in HR, parents or the state you are cultivating a draconian environment where nobody at the job will respect her and she will never respect them, no matter how much they eschew sexism
You say here that if at any point any authority figure (which you curiously include "parents" in the list of) is involved it will disqualify the subject of these treatments any hope of future respect. To name the torment as such is to condemn yourself to it.
I'm starting to think you may be using the phrase "strawman" in the more popular counter-factual sense than have a grasp of how the word is historically used. Because it sure seems here like you're saying, "Never go to an authority or appeal to the rules a group establishes because if you do, you forfeit all respect in perpetuity."
Maybe you didn't mean to say that. Maybe this didn't read like you intended it to. But it's not fair that you call foul on us for reading what you wrote and interpreting it within the scope you defined.
Signal boosting this.
There were examples of sexism in the article but I didn't see anything about sexual harassment, they are very different things and shouldn't be mixed up.
(Lots of harassment stories are about unwanted advances or actual sexual assault, which also is, in the workplace, harassment but is not necessary for harassment.)
Edit: Ah, now I see, I think we read the story a bit differently. I read the following part as being said to everyone and not just her, if he had singled her out then it would be sexual harassment but to me this looks like it is directed at the entire group:
> When this director arrived, we were all seating around a large table, on 2 benches. The first thing he said was "Move over, I need room for my big dick"
The author is injecting their own narrative into the words of her colleagues and is already assuming intent as malicious. The whole racism/sexism view-point comes from a misunderstanding and attribution of malice to innocent parties, it's so god damn ironic.
I will not and do not tolerate sexism and racism. But I will also not blindy accept claims of racism and sexism without intent, context and backstory. Logic and rationality > outrage and ignorance.
I'm sorry. In what professional work environment is "move over I need room for my big dick" an appropriate statement? In what environment is it appropriate to actively mock a team member for posting an article, to the point where they cry in the workplace?
The range in which "intent" would have tipped the ever-sensitive scales of our judgement was somewhere well before, "This app is big like my dick."
It's ironic that people strive to defend this sort of garbage as work appropriate, and pass it off as a norm. It was not, and only recently have some places allowed it to be. Places that open themselves up to justifiable lawsuits, reduce productivity, make tech work more expensive for everyone, and increase the sum of human misery in the world.
> I will not and do not tolerate sexism and racism.
Okay good but...
> But I will also not blindy accept claims of racism and sexism without intent, context and backstory.
I'm sorry, but ... what on earth are you talking about? What context would make this okay? What backstory would permit this behavior? To me, this reads as, "I will oppose it unless I feel like making decisions about unobservable phenomena.
> Logic and rationality > outrage and ignorance.
The cold hard logic is that actions indistinguishable from sexism by both third parties and the aggrieved party ARE sexism. Intent is immeasurable. Pleading intent is asking others to take on an act of faith in defiance of the facts.
It seems that any response other than total outrage gets shot down as heresy. I'm just not sure that's the most pragmatic approach to fixing this problem.
Communicating to these guys, the level of hurt they're inflicting may actually bring a better resolution.
While I'd never make comments like that around at work, I'm very conservative, I was not aware that someone would be as deeply hurt as the author was. I work in an environment where jokes like that are common and often come from the only woman in the office. So I simply had no idea that this could "destroy people".
It's not the same as sexism, but there are often jokes and discussions that mock my deeply held religious beliefs. Again totally different, but I've always felt it was up to me to control my reaction. I can easily get hurt or offended, that they're rejecting me and that the work place is hostile to someone that believes as I do. But I work to avoid thinking along those lines as it will do me no good. I can't change the people around me but I can develop a resilience such that those things don't bother me.
That's sort of the question the author posed, now isn't it?
> but it really is possible they have no idea the impact they're having on this woman
Presumably some did, as they apologized. Again, exactly what are you proposing here? At what point does carelessness become neglignece. Are you suggesting this is a large group of people with a very specific and very similar set of neurodiverse characteristics?
What?
> I was not aware that someone would be as deeply hurt as the author was. I work in an environment where jokes like that are common and often come from the only woman in the office. So I simply had no idea that this could "destroy people".
If at some point people could stop talking about their dicks and start doing their jobs that'd be amazing. How do you find time to work in between all the posturing?
> It's not the same as sexism
Except that it's indistinguishable from sexism without a powerful form of mass telepathy...
> I can't change the people around me but I can develop a resilience such that those things don't bother me
It's impressive that you started off with "Do you think there is room for a little more empathy here?" and ended with this. It's a total around-the-world of the gaslight playbook. Be more sensitive and think about the feelings of the men harassing the woman. And hey, she should be tougher anyways.
What you're saying and promoting is needlessly unfair. Stop it.
I think you are saying there needs to be empathy for the author? If you are, I totally agree. But I was saying also for everyone that is coming down hard on the guys some empathy there might be more constructive. If they knew the degree of impact their behavior was having they might moderate their behavior.
>If at some point people could stop talking about their dicks and start doing their jobs that'd be amazing. How do you find time to work in between all the posturing?
Yeah sure I'm not a fan of that sort of behavior. I don't think it's posturing at least in my workplace it tends to be self deprecating humor, of a sexual nature. But I think you missed my point. I've seen people bond over this kind of behavior, but never seen someone hurt buy it. The degree of hurt described by the author is beyond what I'd have thought possible. This is because it is so commonplace around me. Not because I think it unreasonable.
>Except that it's indistinguishable from sexism without a powerful form of mass telepathy...
My comment was "It's not the same as sexism, but there are often jokes and discussions that mock my deeply held religious beliefs". I think you must have misunderstood? I was saying mocking my beliefs is different to sexism? You disagree?
>It's impressive that you started off with "Do you think there is room for a little more empathy here?" and ended with this. It's a total around-the-world of the gaslight playbook. Be more sensitive and think about the feelings of the men harassing the woman. And hey, she should be tougher anyways.
I'm not saying she should shut up and be okay with this. I'm saying everyone is in control of their own emotions. You can limit the amount of influence you allow others to have over your emotions. If you do this your life will be better. Only let those who love you and you trust be strong influences of your emotions. Because bad people exist and you will have to interact with them. By all means call them out, get them removed from power. But never ever let them get under your skin. You have the ability to rise above that, to be sovereign over your happiness.
I also find the accusation of gaslighting unfair. This is a form of systematic psychological manipulation. It's a big deal to accuse someone of that.
>What you're saying and promoting is needlessly unfair. Stop it.
I think that you've misunderstood me as I don't think anything I'm promoting is unfair.
How would you know? Are you confident everyone around you would be comfortable telling you that your behavior hurt them?
> My comment was "It's not the same as sexism, but there are often jokes and discussions that mock my deeply held religious beliefs".
Hey. I wanna draw a line here as well. These conversations are ALSO not work appropriate, in the same sense that it is not appropriate for a Christian to suggest gay people don't deserve equal rights.
Those topics are best left out of the workplace.
> I'm not saying she should shut up and be okay with this. I'm saying everyone is in control of their own emotions.
This is false, according to the science. What's more, keeping a tight reign on one's behavior comes at a mental cost, and that energy could be better spent elsewhere.
> You can limit the amount of influence you allow others to have over your emotions.
Please consider updating your information here. This is victorian era stuff.
> I also find the accusation of gaslighting unfair. This is a form of systematic psychological manipulation
I think you're complicit in gaslighting. You're suggesting we have more empathy for the people causing pain because they just don't know. You deflect talk of gender harassment by re-centering the conversation on religious beliefs. Then you STILL rebutt her feelings by saying SHE specifically should be in more control.
Yes, it's a pretty big deal. But I think maybe yours is the more honest sort of gaslighting, where you're conditioned to accept this behavior. I suspect if you critically examine it more you'll realize that the cons of allowing it far outweigh the pros.
This story is relevant to tech, compelling and topical. It was receiving upvotes that put it on the front page. But it got flagged to oblivion in under an hour.
Edit: Update, either enough people vouched on an invisible article (via twitter?) to unflag, or the mods intervened. We'll see.
Does this company have a HR department? If so, what was their response?
I just want to say whatever "ism" is involved you can find it in any industry you wish. It's a person thing not an industry thing.
Have you seen any discussions about "sexism in the coal mining industry"?
Somehow in tech people attribute each and every personal experience and anecdote to the industry and as far as I can see it's unique to tech.
When a female employee has her ass grabbed in your average boring accounting firm it doesn't make headlines. But if it happens in a tech startup office in SV suddenly it's treated like a crisis in the entire industry.
I don't get it.
To be 100% clear: I'm not justifying this behavior at all. My point is that when having a beer with friends, its common to joke around like that. I'm just wondering if in French culture, when going out for drinks, if its common or socially acceptable to make these jokes. From the lady's viewpoint, it seems like its not.
At a bar, drinking beer? I dunno, sounds like they were joking around. If I can't talk about body parts at a bar while drinking beer, I'm not sure where you can.
I can't talk about these parts at the bar. And I'll feel very uncomfortable and will have to ask that person in the group to stop if they were to do that.
I hold a belief that one needs to maintain professional (or at least semi-professional) conduct in the bar too. Otherwise, it is just too immature.
In a workplace environment though it's definitely be a weird comment to hear
I believe these stories, as they're shared and read, are making a difference which will end up being a better industry for all sexes. I believe that because stories like this have educated me and my intuition is that it's educated and influenced others too. Which means more change is coming.
I also think that young men learn the lesson of disregarding women early. I started coaching co-ed youth basketball recently. At ages 10-12, boys are already disregarding their female teammates as potential contributors. The boys aren't overtly hostile. They just don't even think about passing to the girls. They don't trust the girls to play good defense, so the boys try to cover too much floor, ironically allowing more points to be scored against us. I'm steadily working with them on trust and inclusiveness. But, it amazes me that they're so young and already need to unlearn negative behaviors.
However, looking at the article itself, there is some irony in using a picture of a woman in a bra, tousled hair, as a title picture for an article on sexism.
Is this how the author comes to work? Is this how a woman programmer should be pictured? Its also not the first time these type of articles, with these type of pictures appear, even here on HN.
Maybe it's time to publicly shame those workplaces.
Focus on a different and more important problem. Find a Director/VP level employee to be your mentor. Basically, I feel, to fix these issues we need more leadership diversity. Focus on getting more power.
It sucks that this is able to happen. It's even worse that its common enough to be thought of as an industry standard.
I don't really have anything to add (for op) other than leave that company immediately, shame them, and move on.
I'm sure those experiences can exist in this world, but data we have paints a picture that these "socially awkward weirdos" aren't so weird and special and snowflake. They're garden variety sexists of the most boring and hurtful sort.
Whether they were emulating the corresponding male behaviours to get ahead or are just awful human beings is inconsequential, but my vote was for, "Why not both?"
You have to challenge these people for your own mental well being. If it doesn't work out for your career prospects, oh well, at least you remain a content and happy human being.
I can see why gp wouldn't want to see it as a gender debate, because it negates the negative experience some men have around other toxic male engineers.
I can also see why you wouldn't want to deny the sexist element's existence, that would just seem counter-factual.
I also want to express a hesitation to reduce this to a gender issue, because I find it so often creates an US-vs-THEM mentality. Because I'm a guy, and I think many managers in engineering are abusive, and I don't think the fact that the abuse isn't throwing out the word "pussy" negates the severity of the situation.
Consider Japan, where stress at work has gotten so bad, the country has made a goal of reducing suicide rates. I think we need to unite around work standards before we get to that point, not as guys vs girls, but as workers vs investors.
Maybe if workplaces were not deliberately enforcing a men-at-the-expense-of-women social norm, this notion wouldn't exist.
> Consider Japan
No, I'd rather not. A reductive analysis of Japan's workplace dynamics isn't helpful here.
I don't understand on what basis you can discount the realities of alternative cultures.
Then you are perceptive. I have no interest in discussing the complex landscape of Japan's gender roles, historical context, current economic issues, their declining birthrate, and their intersection with the current prime minister.
We need not point to any of that to agree that this behavior reported in the article is indefensible.
Your first instinct upon hearing this is to say, "Yes, well, that seems inappropriate but really I think this isn't about how we treat women but how we treat engineers." Yet you follow through later in the thread with the contextually audacious claim that I'm overly dismissive?
Productivity here will be limited.
> Your first instinct upon hearing this is to say, "Yes, well, that seems inappropriate but really I think this isn't about how we treat women but how we treat engineers." Yet you follow through later in the thread with the contextually audacious claim that I'm overly dismissive?
I definitely did not say that. Perhaps you should reread what I did say: that we have a choice of how to interpret things like this. I'm sensing that you think if one doesn't interpret this as sexist that this is somehow an attack on women, because you seem really defensive.
I'd also challenge you to examine your own motivations, because if you think this short back-and-forth has furthered a cause it has only served to reinforce my caution in trying to intellectually engage on prickly topics [and make snarky "triggered" jokes amongst friends / reddit].
Annoying cads exist everywhere. How you deal with them is what matters and it doesn't just happen to women and minorities, as much as our culture of identity politics and victimhood would lead us to believe. I'm a white guy (oh so privileged) and have had plenty of horrifying incidents with people whom I have worked with, some to the point where I quit the job I had just to be free from my antagonists, which is exactly what they wanted.
What I am trying to tell you is that there are sociopaths and people with Borderline Personality Disorder and they are everywhere in corporate America and waiting for their next victim to walk by. There is no avoiding all of them. All you can do is learn to deal with them in such a way that it does not tear you down psychologically--and yes, sometimes that means getting away from your abuser.
I once had a co-worker who had it out for me for no particular reason other than he is an out-and-out asshole seeking to protect his comfy, do-nothing job that my software would eventually have automated out of existence. He would seed distrust and fear about my project behind my back to all the major stakeholders, every meeting I was in with him was nothing but a knife-fight with me defending my team of developers from outrageous allegations, he used every sneaky trick in the book to attack my credibility without once taking a direct, personal jab at me. Despite that, I was completely undermined and ineffective in my role. I talked to my manager, to HR, none of them did a damn thing about this guy. He was absolute poison to that company...crickets. So I know a thing or two about these kinds of issues having been harassed for months on end albeit not in a sexual manner.
In another case, there was a VMS administrator at a major healthcare company who didn't want to see his comfy VMS admin job end by my team replacing the crappy, way out of date, COBOL-based shit system that barely worked. He won--I gave up and left that place for greener pastures and that company is still stupidly running that piece of crap system at the cost of millions of dollars and it was so bad that it cost them all their profits in a major line of business. All because of one intractable personality and really nothing else.
What to Submit
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
I too normally dislike things disappearing from the front page in 5 minutes but I made an exception for this submission and flagged it because such stories are dime in a dozen and this one brings zero new information, solves nothing and mainly just perpetuates hostility.
Because you dislike the narrative it establishes?
[0]https://500hats.com/im-a-creep-i-m-sorry-d2c13e996ea0 [1]https://cherylyeoh.com/2017/07/03/shedding-light-on-the-blac...
Because you know about them? That's arbitrary.
People can reasonably differ on how to assess it, what the underlying problem is, how best to correct it, and many other aspects. But forcing a relitigation ab initio every time it comes up is unhelpful to begin with, and when you sprinkle in aggressive argumentation, you're over the line in a way that leads nowhere good.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14868537 and marked it off-topic.
If sexism was rampant and common through out the entire software development industry, more so than other industries, I think we would see a lot of evidence supporting that. Look at the evidence, and form your conclusions based on that. The reason why I discounted Uber is because Uber is just one company and is no where near representative of the industry as a whole.
Silicon Valley is _also_ not representative of the whole industry.
The evidence that people did provide:
https://500hats.com/im-a-creep-i-m-sorry-d2c13e996ea0 https://cherylyeoh.com/2017/07/03/shedding-light-on-the-blac...
That's one messed up guy. His post places much emphasis on the fact that this shortcoming is his own and that the rest of the company does not have the same weird ideals and that his co-founder + senior management are sound. One guy is not representative of the whole industry.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/18/11262888/microsoft-gdc-20...
This article is grasping on straws. I fail to see what a gaming conference has to do with the software development industry. Also, this presumes that the adult entertainment industry is sexist/misogynistic, which is a conflicted position to say the least.
https://qz.com/659196/i-had-so-many-advantages-and-i-barely-...
I think this is the most honest and realistic view of the industry. Yes, I would say there is sexism in that women _are_ treated _differently_, in part simply due to the rarity of female software engineers. That is a far cry from the picture some are trying to paint.
Suppose you're living in Saudi Arabia as a woman, and men there are treating you very poorly and in a sexist manner. Should you conclude that "men have a big problem with sexism"? No. The correct conclusion is that "men in Saudi Arabia have a big problem with sexism". Go to someplace like Norway and you're probably not going to see the same dynamic.
The same is likely true here: she's in France. I've never worked in the tech industry in France. However, I've worked in a bunch of different companies, in different industries, as a software engineer here in the US, and on both coasts too. I've never seen behavior like this. So IMO, the conclusion should be "the tech industry in France is misogynistic". The answer for her, therefore, IMO is to get the hell out of France.
Regional and cultural differences are real, and have a much larger influence on Hacker News than is commonly realized. But bringing that up as you did in this thread, by pouring national flamebait into a gender flamewar, is definitely not using HN as intended.
Moreover we've warned you repeatedly and asked you to fix this and you haven't. Therefore I've banned you again. If you genuinely want to use HN as intended you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com, but would you please stop creating accounts to break HN's rules with?
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14868502 and marked it off-topic.
But sure. Tell her to 'grow up.' Tell her that because there are bad people in the world, it's her responsibility and role to accept and cater to them.
Anyway, if I saw what OP saw at her company, I would quit. And I identify as male. And I think we owe it to women to deny sexist companies access to hiring the 90% of programmers who aren't jerks. Well, 80%.
Grab as much evidence of the unacceptable behavior and put it online for all to see.