Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

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I have an unpopular opinion on the types of people who keep harping on about sexism in tech.

And I'm not in a position to say it doesn't exist- (being a white guy and full of privilege), however it does seem that a lot of girls in tech are making a career of painting all other engineers as being inherently misogynistic, vacuous or malicious.

I mean, I don't believe we should put barriers up for women who want to be in tech, I have a few female colleagues who work in this field and they're brilliant.. but making an entire career out of getting more diversity into the technology is strange to me. If I saw people being exclusionary then this would have merit.. but the females I know are embraced (not especially more than men, admittedly, usually the same).

We're at a strange time where 90% of occasions I find a new engineer/hacker/programmer to follow on twitter, I have to check that they're not total social justice people, and it's overwhelmingly female techs that simply stop posting anything interesting technologically and start posting news articles about how we're all women hating or suppressing feminist views for not turning all characters in games into women immune from taking damage. (shitty example, I'm ranting, sorry)

I think it's very popular to be a social justice kind of person, who can say no to equality! but maybe people are using it to identify themselves too much.

--- in regards to the author of this piece, I would surmise that India is inherently more sexist than the US (given what my Indian friend says about the crime rate against women in India), therefore the expectations to be treated better than men in STEM fields doesn't exist? Not sure. And I don't really have enough knowledge to explain any disparity between the two.

I cannot reply for whole of India but from where i come(Karnataka) girls usually do very well in exams be it Math or Science. I didn't know the notion that women do not do well in STEM fields until i was exposed to western media. Now whether they can pursue it further is a different topic.

I think people in tech circles in India are compartively liberal and progressive. That said, sexism does exist. And people aren't even remotely as vocal as folks in the US are.

India is complicated and not as individualistic as the West is. It is also corrupted and racist. The thing is, even the victim doesn't realise s/he is a victim of racism or sexism and so on. Ignorance is bliss...

Like the author said... You're reading viewpoint of exactly one woman in tech in India.

> not as individualistic as the West is

Why is America representative of the west? It's a sample point. I have many European colleagues who have similar values as Indians. Collective mentality is prevalent in many western societies too. Reason Americans are individualistic is because of foundations of American democracy which glorifies individualism. It's not necessarily bad.

>It is also corrupted and racist. The thing is, even the victim doesn't realise s/he is a victim of racism or sexism and so on.

This is rather a naive statement. Victims definitely would realize if something is sexist/racist. They might not be in a position to fix it. India has pretty significant legislation (Prevention of Atrocities Act) protecting minorities. Problem is enforcement.

>Like the author said... You're reading viewpoint of exactly one woman in tech in India.

I could argue the same about the opposite viewpoint derived on a society by reading isolated rape cases or corruption cases in India. I don't want to trivialize the problem of rape or corruption but I think it is unreasonable to think that every woman will be raped if she walks alone in India which is what the western media mostly portrays. My undergraduate class in India where I studied engineering had 40% women students. Most laboratory work was in mixed groups. My advisor was a woman. There were 40% woman lecturers. So I am definitely used to seeing women in Engineering. My mother is one too. If you will, this is an observation of society I grew up in.

> ...it does seem that a lot of girls in tech are making a career of painting > all other engineers as being inherently misogynistic, vacuous or malicious.

Be very wary of hyperbole on topics like this. It's deeply divisive. If you can't make your point without exaggerating then maybe rethink?

> I think it's very popular to be a social justice kind of person...

So you're saying that people are promoting an equitable tech industry because they think it's cool?

  > So you're saying that people are promoting an equitable
  > tech industry because they think it's cool?

It is not cool, it is just easy. No effort to understand a problem even less effort to understand is there really a problem, just band your keyboard and rant how offended you are by this or by that. I think this is a result of responsibility collapse—by that I mean that some topics have become so knee-jerky, so when even some words are taboo the concepts behind them are inaccessible so people are not able to think about them. This results in people not really understanding what racism is (so any mention of color of the skin is regarded racist, religion get mixed with race, the whole notion that "black people cannot be racist", etc.) The same goes for sexism and other -isms. When you no longer know if something is a problem you just react to trigger words and take a SJW stance—I guess it somehow assures that you are not *ist of some kind. A lot like homophobes are vocal against gay people so god forbid someone will thin they are gay themselves. And of course if one does indeed has some tendencies the volume of their vocality increases just to drown that quiet voice of doubt.

  It is not cool, it is just easy. No effort to understand a problem even less 
  effort to understand is there really a problem...

So people who talk on this topic aren't thoughtful? Sure some aren't, but that's the same for any topic. You're cherry picking there, it doesn't stick.

I'm currently working in an organisation that specialises in behavioural science, we have the actual data on this. If you look at the studies there's overwhelming evidence to support an opinion that these problems are real. Women and different ethnic groups are treated in different ways with regard to things like hiring, performance reviews, etc. and there's a significant enough difference that the system could be defined as racist and sexist, even though no individual feels that they themselves are racist or sexist.

If you want citations... here are some just relating to the field of gender and employment...

Female job applicants with children considered less warm, likeable and committed than male applicants with children. Successful mothers penalized for promotion, hire, and salary (Benard and Correll, 2010). Women expressing anger more penalised than men (Brescoll & Uhlmann, 2008). People in gender-incongruent roles penalised more heavily for mistakes (Brescoll, Dawson, & Uhlmann, 2010). Voluble women perceived as less competent and less suitable leaders, inverse true for men (Brescoll, 2011). Men who work for women in stereotypically male dominated fields accorded less status and lower salaries (Brescoll et al, 2012). Women who succeed in male-dominated fields percieved as not likeable (Heilman et al, 2004). Students question the competence of female teachers who evaluate them negatively, less so than male teachers (Sinclair & Kunda 2000). Female students seen as less competent than identical male students, offered lower starting salaries (Moss-Racusin et al, 2012)

  ... even some words are taboo the concepts behind them are inaccessible 
  so people are not able to think about them. This results in people not 
  really understanding what racism is...

This point is broadly right (you have cause and effect inverted), but it doesn't just apply to "SJWs" as you're implying. People in general don't have a vocabulary to talk about racism and sexism. People don't typically identify as racists. They think "racists are 'bad people' and I'm a 'good person' so I can't be one", but in fact race is a more complex beast in the 21st century so we need a more complex vocabulary to describe it without triggering defensiveness.

Using 'social justice warrior' as a snarl-word is a sign that you feel defensive and uncomfortable. But that discomfort doesn't mean the 'SJWs' are wrong, it just means we as a species don't have a good set of verbal tools to communicate with each other about what's happening.

I'd recommend reading this, it's long but worth it if you actually care about this topic: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/good-men-project/why-its-so-ha...

> Women and different ethnic groups are treated in different ways with regard to things like hiring, performance reviews, etc. and there's a significant enough difference that the system could be defined as racist and sexist, even though no individual feels that they themselves are racist or sexist.

I think the issue here is that the difference in treatment is only an issue for a subset of races and genders in certain industries.

> only an issue for a subset of races and genders in certain industries

Firstly there isn't one issue, there are many. Discussing them in aggregate isn't useful other than to highlight the extent of the problem.

Secondly, only some of the citations I gave in my previous post relate to fields percieved as male-dominated, the others are general.

What basis do you have for holding that opinion?

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