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Comment by bh42222 | Hacker News Reader

I can't seem to find a study which showed that while only %3 of men ever make such comments, women involved in our community experience this a steady stream of subtle harassment. And the sad fact is that this is due to the lopsided share of men to women.

If we had a 50/50 split some women would never hear such comments, some would hear then extremely rarely, while the percentage of men making them would stay the same.

And can we ever hope to get 100% of any large group anywhere, to never make occasionally offensive remarks? The crux here really is that this type of offensive remarks have only one target - women, and that combined with the lop-sided sex ratio results in harassment.

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This reminds me of growing up Asian in rural northern Appalachia. It also reminds me of discussions I've heard on local African American radio talk shows. There's this constant subtle pressure one feels, and it is the result of knowing one is subject to arbitrary disrespect coming from out of the woodwork. The fact that it's often "plausibly" deniable doesn't make it better.

Knowing that you have a target on you does have an effect. That it's fairly uncommon doesn't make it better, if it happens often enough that the possibility is always lurking in the background. It's easy to see how this could impact someone involved in creative activities.

Thank you for your comments. What you said about subtle, constant pressure made a lot of sense to me and put things into perspective. I have a better understanding now.

Sorry, but if one person in 30 is being a jerk, that is a steady stream of subtle harassment. Most professionals deal with what, 60 people on a weekly basis? That's two jerks every week.

And your math is off. Even if there was only one woman in tech anywhere, reducing 100% male interaction to 50% male interaction would only decrease the jerk count by a factor of two.

I don't know about you, but I deal with jerks all of the damn time. But luckily no more or less than all of my peers. This would be very different if I was a woman.

And we wouldn't reduce male interaction by 50%, we would increase female participation by hundreds of percents.

That way if someone is being a jerk, many people can all confirm he's being a jerk.

...I deal with jerks all of the damn time. But luckily no more or less than all of my peers. This would be very different if I was a woman.

Indeed. Jerks like this often associate in groups. As a result, women sometimes find themselves in a bizarro social context where their inferiority is just a good joke and the resulting humiliation is considered something like a blow for truth and "good clean fun."

That way if someone is being a jerk, many people can all confirm he's being a jerk.

Since women are such a minority in tech, they are sometimes subject to this sort of mob scene. Unless you've been in those shoes, it would be difficult to understand.

I like the bizarro social context expression. It's a great way to describe how I work with female programmers and both my project managers are female and nothing like the described behavior would ever be tolerated for a second, and yet each female programmer I know has such horror stories.

I guess the best advice is when you find yourself in a situation like that, get the hell out. But even I as a top notch experienced white male coder can't change jobs at the drop of a hat.

I would expect most professionals deal with fewer than 30 people on a weekly basis. Thinking back on my last four jobs, I don't know if I ever dealt with more than fifteen, and I was a project manager in two of those roles.

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