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Comment by blindhippo | Hacker News Reader

As someone who would be in attendance at a tech conference I will tell you: I do not care at all what the gender is of the presenter.

It has ZERO impact on my judgement of the content, discussion or presentation. I do not believe that a person's gender provides any meaningful impact to a presentation unless the topic is specifically about that person's gender.

To think otherwise is sexist and discriminatory.

Now if the best participants for panels are female and are being actively excluded because of their gender, this is a problem. But simply refusing to go to "all male panels" is a useless call to action and will not solve anything. Neither will forcing a gender count.

Find specific instances of qualified and capable women being overlooked by organizers in favor of less qualified men simply because of gender stereotyping and then publicize the crap out those incidents. Boycott those specific conferences.

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> As someone who would be in attendance at a tech conference I will tell you: I do not care at all what the gender is of the presenter. It has ZERO impact on my judgement of the content, discussion or presentation.

It's awesome that you're so noble, but there are other viewpoints. I presented at Microsoft TechEd 2012 in both North America (Orlando) and Europe (Amsterdam), and because I'm a fairly well-rated speaker, I watched the ratings board like a hawk. I was pretty disappointed in some of the feedback comments for the attractive female speakers in Amsterdam. They said things like, "I could watch her talk about anything" and "She needs to talk less so I can just look at her."

I didn't see a similar set of feedback in the US, but I can't say the US folks are above/below that. Just wanted to mention that it's great that you're so noble, but...not everybody is.

Yes, clearly I am nobel. I look past gender in nearly everything.

Everyone else should as well.

I am highly intolerant of anyone who talks like the examples you give. Those people need to be discouraged and ostracized.

But abstaining from all male panels is not the way to combat sexism.

Ok, but how does that (http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/diversit...) panel look to a 20 year old female student trying to decide between a career in programming (which she enjoys) and teaching (which she also enjoys).

I'm not saying that this is the right solution, nor can I propose a better one. It's a very difficult problem, and I don't think we can dismiss it by saying that gender doesn't matter.

> As someone who would be in attendance at a tech conference I will tell you: I do not care at all what the gender is of the presenter.

Aaaaand that's the problem.

When half of the population isn't participating in one of the most important fields for the advancement of our prosperity, and the other half doesn't give a fuck, nothing gets better.

All the time we hear that it's tough to find skilled engineers. Guess what? We can double those numbers – as soon as this perma-adolscent male monoculture gives way to a healthy balance of both men and women.

But it's going to take your learning how to care about inclusion. Yes, you. And everyone else.

I don't understand this and I think I ultimately disagree with you deeply. Women clearly are not that interested in computing per se. There are other fields that "advance our prosperity" where the situation is the other way around. That it would somehow make the world a better place if we force an artificial ratio of genders in all fields, is incorrect.

You say women aren't interested in computing per se. Can you elaborate on what you believe the reasons for this to be?

I don't know the reason and I don't care to guess. The same applies to sciences as well. It's certainly not limited to CS or IT.

I agree, it's a problem of a larger scope. But do you think it has to be like that because of biology or any such reason, or do you think it's a result of historical and social factors?

Some people think it might be worth to sacrifice a little so things might get a bit better in the long run, and that every small step counts to be welcoming to anyone.

Edit: Note that I ask for either or in the first paragraph because I believe the latter would be a more easily fixable scenario than the former.

> But do you think it has to be like that because of biology or any such reason, or do you think it's a result of historical and social factors?

I _think_ it's both. Certainly it is plausible that female and male brains are wired at least slightly differently. But there must be some social factors is play as well.

> Women clearly are not that interested in computing per se.

Clearly to whom, sir? Not to me. Many of the women I know are interested in computing. The ones who've made a career in tech continually lament to me the attitude you've just demonstrated.

Look, I don't think I personally have any 'attitude' here. Girls like to be doctors or biologists, rather than staring at the screen for 8 hours a day. Perhaps boys have higher frequency of introvert temperament traits. I don't know.

> Girls like to be doctors or biologists, rather than staring at the screen for 8 hours a day.

> Look, I don't think I personally have any 'attitude' here.

Wooooooow.

No, it really isn't the problem at all - you are clearly misunderstanding me.

It is no one's job to encourage any gender specifically to join any specific discipline. Women offer nothing over men when it comes to engineering discipines, and men offer nothing over women - they are EQUAL. Therefore focussing on gender as an attribute is pointless. Any policy or approach that trys to encourage women specifically to join our disciline is unethical and sexist by it's very definition. This is what I'm talking about in relation to the article. The proposed solution is wrong and pointless to pursue - should we add a woman to every tech panel even if she has no business being on that panel intellectually? Adding a "woman's voice" would add nothing, solve nothing and merely perpetuate pointless gender wars.

> when it comes to engineering discipines, and men offer nothing over women - they are EQUAL.

Agreed completely.

And yet here we are with our sausage party.

What a shame to have half our potential minds excluded for reasons we're all just too culturally lazy to examine or fix.

Actually 99+% of the population isn't participating in any given field. So what? That's called specialization. If women are better at something than men - let them focus in that field -- no need to forcefully mixing genders.

If men are just... "better" at computers than women, why was Grace Hopper first to create the compiler?

The potential for contribution is equal from both sexes. The slanted distribution comes from cultural pressures, not innate talent, nor its absence. Cultures are changeable.

If you can stomach talking at walls often enough.

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