The Diversity Pipeline

[Lily Valley]

2 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

I hesitate each time I venture back into this thread as to whether it is worth posting again.  So much of this thread is exactly what we lady types have been talking about.  Like, I could put this as Exhibit AA in my catalog of experiences on the subject.  And yet, here I am again.  So, a few observations:

2.  People on this board don't like anecdotes.  But I have LOTS of anecdata of my lived experiences working as a woman in a male-dominated field.  I also have the lived experiences of good friends in similar situations (hardware developer (fordevicesyouuseandcompaniesyouhaveheardof), surgeon, cardiologist, engineers, financial services folks).  It's funny how we all have similar stories on some level.  The same stuff happens to us.  And, let me tell you, the amount of grief and aggravation that goes along with the job at all levels is substantial.  And, because many in this thread have never experienced it [oh, for example - here's one of mine, in your first job at a tech startup you wear a blouse with the guess! logo over the breast pocket and the founder/boss walks up to you and says "34B, right?"] it's easy to dismiss the drag of the accumulation of this crap over time.  And so people drop out.  And if it is a known thing that the profession isn't particularly friendly to women, that there are plenty of men who think that you aren't interested/aren't good at this kind of thinking/aren't dedicated enough/couldn't possibly want it enough because....lady parts!, wanting to participate at all in the first place means, I think, that you not only have to have an interest and an ability, but a real love for the thing, that wouldn't be satisfied by something else.  

You and me both, however, I do enjoy talking to you.  

AA)  Is it worth it?  No.  It isn't.  None of them are worth teaching and nobody is listening except us.  There is absolutely no fucking way we are going to see a bra-free society.  Ever.  

1.)  Goddamn, you are one hot bitch.  I wouldn't EVER fuck with you.  Why are these motherfuckers so goddamned stupid?  Y'all want some more rope?  I got popcorn, assholes.

2.)  I teach Tech and have a grant specifically for recruitment in "under-represented minorities and women in my field" from NASA.  My program has a nearly 100% success rate at recruitment and retention (all graduates but one over 3 years have gone on to a 4 year university in a STEM field).  Yes, this is anecdotal, but at this point it is stacking up into real data.  Anecdotally, I have ONE student who left school for family and he is returning this Spring.  One.  

Each one of my classes is 8-16 community college students.  All I had to do was fucking recruit them and tell them that they fucking deserved a place at the table.  That's it.  They do everything else.  Our project is 9 months long and they have to present a Flight Readiness Review document to an entire board before they have permission to fly their experiment.  My biggest problem all year is telling them they are good enough.  

As a lady person who has been in tech her whole life, I can tell ALL OF YOU (NOT THAT YOU ARE FUCKING LISTENING BECAUSE OF COURSE YOU AREN'T) that feeling insecure in your intellect when you have a very hard task is HARD.  When you think it's HARD because you're stupid or not good enough or have too many boobs (any or 4 depending on how shit your bra is that day) it makes everything HARDER.  If you are first in family for a college degree, harder, zero support.  If you're a girl and everyone treats you like a fucking bimbo, Hard.  

What works is being treated EARLY with dignity and respect.  What works is seeing others LIKE YOU that have succeeded.  What works is a playing field where your Name and the information it implies do not destroy your chances.  A place where you are allowed to be insecure (AS YOU SHOULD BE.  HERMIONE WAS A FUCKING KNOW-IT-ALL) and THAT IS OK.  IT IS OK NOT TO KNOW EVERYTHING ON YOUR FIRST FUCKING DAY.

Edit:  My Girlfriend says that my brain is being strangled by this bra.  She's probably right.  'scuse my fucking lady brain.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1 hour ago, Lew Theobald said:

Is there something specific you are disagreeing with?  Or is it merely "It's okay when I say it but not when a man says it."

Surely, women can't have it both ways.  If women tend to make different CHOICES from men, the fact that they make those choices cannot be used as proof that they are being unfairly treated.

Sure, women can TRY to have it both ways.  But then perhaps men can also exercise their right to be deeply suspicious.  I really don't think men have a monopoly on trying to get away with things.

See Kal below. One needs to understand why they are making those choices or the true volition in the "choice".  

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

When they say "I choose not to do this because of how I'm treated" it should be, no? Especially when a bunch of men are coming in and saying 'huh, what could possibly the reason be' and the women are saying 'it's because of how I'm treated" and the men are all 'so mysterious, can't imagine what it is'.

I mean, really, there's been pages and pages about why more women don't play chess when there's also pages and pages on study on the deeply held belief that women aren't as good at men playing chess, because they've been told by men that they're not as good. It's not that mysterious!

Thanks Kal for this thoughtful response and the other. 

and Lily, I personally appreciate and enjoy well fitting foundation garments. Just saying - it takes all kinds 

[kairparavel]

1 hour ago, Lily Valley said:

What works is being treated EARLY with dignity and respect.  What works is seeing others LIKE YOU that have succeeded.  What works is a playing field where your Name and the information it implies do not destroy your chances.  A place where you are allowed to be insecure (AS YOU SHOULD BE.  HERMIONE WAS A FUCKING KNOW-IT-ALL) and THAT IS OK.  IT IS OK NOT TO KNOW EVERYTHING ON YOUR FIRST FUCKING DAY.

PREACH.

Signed,

Woman who works in tech

[Starkess]

3 hours ago, Lily Valley said:

As a lady person who has been in tech her whole life, I can tell ALL OF YOU (NOT THAT YOU ARE FUCKING LISTENING BECAUSE OF COURSE YOU AREN'T) that feeling insecure in your intellect when you have a very hard task is HARD.  When you think it's HARD because you're stupid or not good enough or have too many boobs (any or 4 depending on how shit your bra is that day) it makes everything HARDER.  If you are first in family for a college degree, harder, zero support.  If you're a girl and everyone treats you like a fucking bimbo, Hard.  

What works is being treated EARLY with dignity and respect.  What works is seeing others LIKE YOU that have succeeded.  What works is a playing field where your Name and the information it implies do not destroy your chances.  A place where you are allowed to be insecure (AS YOU SHOULD BE.  HERMIONE WAS A FUCKING KNOW-IT-ALL) and THAT IS OK.  IT IS OK NOT TO KNOW EVERYTHING ON YOUR FIRST FUCKING DAY.

yep yep yep yep

Not to mention there is an enormous amount of pressure to represent not only your own ability but the ability of all women*. If you fuck up there are people like Lew T sitting around ready to pontificate about why it is a clear indication that women can't do it. A mistake feels like letting down your entire gender. 

*or other subsection of people

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

33 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Everybody loves chess girls, including Lew Theobald.  

 This just got weird.

[Galactus]

It seems very unlikely that these kind of disparities are any different than the other types of jobs that women have been deemed "less good" at historically. (at one point jobs like teaching were considered as something women were naturally bad at, and factory work was for a brief period considered something mostly women did)

 

 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 This just got weird.

Well, if we're going that way, I think this:

1 hour ago, Lew Theobald said:

Nobody discourages young chess girls, including Lew Theobald.

Is weirder.

[DMC]

...Anyway, I actually ventured here due to something @Galactus unwittingly just alluded to.  I have a colleague that is wholly interested in research but, as is part of our program, has been assigned to teach (or at least TA).  She actually started last year and I tried to encourage her throughout that she will get the hang of running a classroom in due time.  She was rightfully concerned she would not be viewed as an authority due to both her age (she's closer to the undergrads than to me) on top of being a woman and still having minimal confidence in public speaking.  By her reports (she won't let me sit in on a class), these issues have seen little improvement despite two semesters of recitations under her belt.  Along with another (female) cohort I've tried to remain encouraging but I'm frankly ill-equipped to offer any further constructive advice on how she can build confidence - and both the advice and encouragement me and the other cohort regurgitate is understandably being met with eye-rolling.  Any suggestions?   

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Lew Theobald said:

 

Nobody is telling girls they cannot play chess.  Nobody is making them unwelcome in the chess world.  A disparity simply exists.  And it seems the major reason is that if you're just not interested in a game, you are unlikely to develop any skill at it.

Citation needed for all of this. 

Why do you think no one is telling girls they cannot play chess? Or are unwelcome in the chess world? Surely you have data for such an obvious statement. 

[Happy Ent]

20 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I assume they're accurate. What I don't assume is that this is innately biological in nature, nor do I assume that it is because the work itself is somehow boring to women and interesting to men. 

Two points

1.

Here is another interesting detail where we seem to be completely at odds.

I have no opinion on whether differences are “innately biological”. (I don’t even think that phrase makes sense.)

But in particular, I don’t think biological differences are better. This is a difference between the moral intuitions of you and me. In fact, there are plenty of phenomena that are entirely biological but which I find abhorrent and which must be fought tooth and claw. 

Assume gender differences in attitude or aptitude are entirely biological. This, to me, implies no policy difference. Assume they are entirely social, or something in the water. This, to me, implies no policy difference. I find the entire question about biological differences a distraction. It corrupts the conversation, and even if we magically solved all scientific questions about human nature and arrived at a definite conclusion, we would be no wiser.

(A clumsy way of explaining this: Assume we established that the root causes for the male dominance in violence were biological. That would not make male violence right. )

No moral imperatives follows from an understanding of root causes. Most of the things that are good and decent about modern society are deliberate suppressions of biological realities. We should be happy about that.

Again, to put it clumsy: gender differences in behaviour may very well be entirely social. Then it would still be true that women ought to be encouraged to pursue careers that they find interesting. 

2.

Your are sloppy in your representation of the other side’s argument. I think I’m very careful in repeatedly explaining that men don’t like programming. (They don’t. Just as they don’t like chess.) The normal state of most humans is to dislike this kind of activity. Humans find these activities boring. They are probably correct in that.

Men, in general, find programming boring and difficult. So do women. Same with chess. Also, men suck at math. So do women.

There are just somewhat more men that behave differently than their gender norm, and somewhat fewer women that behave differently than their gender norm. You may think this is a terrible problem in need of fixing. I am less sure. In particular, I have spent most of my life trying to make humans enthusiastic about programming, chess, and math. I have often failed in that. But I have never seen an interesting difference between the sexes as to why I’ve failed.

Men and women seem to agree in the reasons for their rejection of being “like me”. They are probably right.

[Iskaral Pust]

10 hours ago, dmc515 said:

...Anyway, I actually ventured here due to something @Galactus unwittingly just alluded to.  I have a colleague that is wholly interested in research but, as is part of our program, has been assigned to teach (or at least TA).  She actually started last year and I tried to encourage her throughout that she will get the hang of running a classroom in due time.  She was rightfully concerned she would not be viewed as an authority due to both her age (she's closer to the undergrads than to me) on top of being a woman and still having minimal confidence in public speaking.  By her reports (she won't let me sit in on a class), these issues have seen little improvement despite two semesters of recitations under her belt.  Along with another (female) cohort I've tried to remain encouraging but I'm frankly ill-equipped to offer any further constructive advice on how she can build confidence - and both the advice and encouragement me and the other cohort regurgitate is understandably being met with eye-rolling.  Any suggestions?   

Perhaps this post belongs in the career thread instead.  Regardless of age or gender, lots of people lack confidence and ability when new to public speaking roles, and most are self-conscious in some fashion or other.  I've spent many years developing junior consultants who often struggle to transition from quantitative expert to making presentations to clients.  I had to make that transition myself. 

My suggestions would be:

(1) Find a way to have yourself and/or some senior colleagues observe the class to be able to evaluate performance and offer constructive feedback.  Repeat this every month or so to gauge improvement.  I can't believe you threw an inexperienced colleague into that situation for two semesters -- where is your obligation to the students, the institution and to the junior colleague?   It absolutely should not be her choice whether the class is observed, it should be a standard program for any new teacher and even used occasionally on experienced teachers to help encourage high standards across the faculty. 

(2) Before a new teacher, or any kind of presenter, starts that role they should have a program of preparation, including review of their planned content, mock presentations to senior colleagues, self-awareness of their delivery (video record each of the mock presentations for the individual to view -- as painful as that is), and basic coaching on public speaking techniques. 

Public speaking is difficult for most but is absolutely a learned skill.  But you need to give people the tools to be aware of their performance and improve.

 

[Happy Ent]

I’m shy to the point of it being socially handicapping. I’ve always been like that. I want to flee public spaces, and am extremely uncomfortable around people. At a party, I will be the guy standing alone in a corner, and being really happy with that. I would never approach a conversation. The prospect of public speaking used to give me panic attacks. I turned red, stuttered, sweated.

But I just faked confidence until I made it. It worked, at least for me. It took many years.

Today I am an eager lecturer, a confident public speaker, participate in panel debates, appear on tv, regularly win “best lecturer ever”-awards and people envy my confidence. (If only they knew.) 

So this is doable and learnable, mostly by doing and faking, for some, I was lucky to be among those. (I don’t presume that the “fake-it-till-you-make-it” solution works for everybody, just that not all confident speakers and teacher started out like that.) 

One generally useful tip: start singing (say, by joining a choral society and taking solo lessons). It helps with some very central skills, including stage fright, breathing, and using your voice. It’s also fun, and allows one to engage with these skills in a different setting than the classroom. It gives you a better speaking voice, which projects better, and makes you speak loudly without fatigue. (I stopped singing regularly for a few years. After a while I became sore after large lectures. I starting singing again. Post-lecture sore throat was gone.)

Large, public lectures are the easiest now. The smaller and more intimate, the harder it still is. I still hate watching myself (I am not attractive), and hate listening to myself.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Happy Ent said:

Two points

1.

Here is another interesting detail where we seem to be completely at odds.

I have no opinion on whether differences are “innately biological”. (I don’t even think that phrase makes sense.)

But in particular, I don’t think biological differences are better. This is a difference between the moral intuitions of you and me. In fact, there are plenty of phenomena that are entirely biological but which I find abhorrent and which must be fought tooth and claw. 

Assume gender differences in attitude or aptitude are entirely biological. This, to me, implies no policy difference. Assume they are entirely social, or something in the water. This, to me, implies no policy difference. I find the entire question about biological differences a distraction. It corrupts the conversation, and even if we magically solved all scientific questions about human nature and arrived at a definite conclusion, we would be no wiser.

I don't understand then. If they are biological or social implies one aspect can be changed (namely, the cultural aspects about the thing) and one can be controlled but not changed. 

Moreover, that hasn't been my argument, exactly; my argument is that women who would likely succeed in tech or at least do decently are not even bothering to try, and my hypothesis is that the culture around tech - especially programming - is hostile to women. Your hypothesis appears to be that there are things that are either social or more likely biological which makes women simply not like programming as an activity. 

1 hour ago, Happy Ent said:

No moral imperatives follows from an understanding of root causes. Most of the things that are good and decent about modern society are deliberate suppressions of biological realities. We should be happy about that.

 

Again, to put it clumsy: gender differences in behaviour may very well be entirely social. Then it would still be true that women ought to be encouraged to pursue careers that they find interesting. 

And that's where I differ; the unproved and unsupported hypothesis that women aren't going into tech jobs because or even primarily because they don't find it interesting. 

1 hour ago, Happy Ent said:

2.

Your are sloppy in your representation of the other side’s argument. I think I’m very careful in repeatedly explaining that men don’t like programming. (They don’t. Just as they don’t like chess.) The normal state of most humans is to dislike this kind of activity. Humans find these activities boring. They are probably correct in that.

Men, in general, find programming boring and difficult. So do women. Same with chess. Also, men suck at math. So do women.

There are just somewhat more men that behave differently than their gender norm, and somewhat fewer women that behave differently than their gender norm. You may think this is a terrible problem in need of fixing. I am less sure. In particular, I have spent most of my life trying to make humans enthusiastic about programming, chess, and math. I have often failed in that. But I have never seen an interesting difference between the sexes as to why I’ve failed.

Men and women seem to agree in the reasons for their rejection of being “like me”. They are probably right.

How am I being sloppy? Your argument is that there is something about programming - social or biological - that doesn't appeal to women. I'm saying that the thing that doesn't appeal to women is that they are harassed, mistreated and marginalized when they work in programming fields. And I am stating for the record that it is a moral failing that we are harassing and mistreating women in programming who are genuinely interested in doing the work and have to deal with this bullshit. 

The notion that there are more men that are behaving differently than their gender norm might have some evidence, but as pointed out elsewhere there's a whole lot of evidence that says women don't want to do it because they don't want to be harassed left and right.

Another example: computer gaming. Women in general play just as many games as men do. They play different types, but they are business wise just as likely to play. Women are even less represented in the gaming industry than men are, by a massive margin. Why would that be? it's the same work, after all, with the same kinds of pressures, but there's even a cool factor that working for, say, office, lacks. 

Is there something innate about the work of working on computer games that is even more predisposed towards making women like it less? I suppose that's possible, though I don't know what it is, given that working on computer games is more social, more interactive with customers and players, and more team-oriented than a lot of other programming. 

Could it be that the gaming culture is incredibly toxic and chases women away in droves? 

[Happy Ent]

26 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

How am I being sloppy? Your argument is that there is something about programming - social or biological - that doesn't appeal to women.

I’m disheartened that we’re miscommunicating even on this very simple point.

So let me rephrase what you just pretended was my position:

I suspect that there is something about programming that doesn’t appeal to humans.

In particular, I find nothing strange about women. Women are not broken, according to me, nor are the men who don’t find programming (or chess or math or typography or Hebrew grammar …) appealing. 

However, there may be something strange about the minority of men who are actually attracted to clearly boring activities such as programming, or chess, or math. I belong to that minority. You are all a mystery to me. But it’s me who is different. Maybe for biological reasons, maybe it’s something I drank when I was 3. I have no idea, nor do I care.

I don’t think women are wrong, or broken. For me, this is not even about women. It’s about humans. It’s about the wonderful diversity of human nature, which includes nerds who are fascinated by certain things that are socially maladaptive.

Women reject programming for the same reasons that men do. Women like programming for the same reasons that men do. Programming, uniquely among semi-well-paid professions, gives you a clear path to a steady job, or a fascinating hobby, without ever setting foot in an educational setting, or even showing up at work.

Women are not broken in what makes them tick, nor are they misinformed in what they find interesting.

Women are also not helpless. If women want something, they have been able to overcome considerable discrimination and stereotyping (priests, lawyers, doctors, politicians, soldiers), orders of magnitude worse than what a tech job today (or uni education) offers. And women dominate education. And there is structural discrimination in favour of women. 

In sum, the argument “from attitude” is an extremely convincing first approximation of what is probably a very complicated explanation for the observed phenomenon. The argument “from discrimination” has never in the history of the labour market had a weaker position.

The Nordic gender paradox remains (to me) the biggest hint that the argument from attitude is on the right track.

—

I would be happy to be wrong. I get nothing positive from the sad fact that  women are underrepresented in tech. But unlike most here, I actually want to solve this. And I have no hope of solving this by not thinking clearly about it. And this includes using our best intellectual tools for evaluating the evidence.

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

I suspect that there is something about programming that doesn’t appeal to humans.

In particular, I find nothing strange about women. Women are not broken, according to me, nor are the men who don’t find programming (or chess or math or typography or Hebrew grammar …) appealing. 

However, there may be something strange about the minority of men who are actually attracted to clearly boring activities such as programming, or chess, or math. I belong to that minority. You are all a mystery to me. But it’s me who is different. Maybe for biological reasons, maybe it’s something I drank when I was 3. I have no idea, nor do I care.

Amusingly enough, I'm a software engineer, so your talking to me as if I don't know what I'm talking about in the industry is pretty funny to me. Even better, I suspect I have a lot more experience actually working in software engineering than you do. 

5 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

Women are also not helpless. If women want something, they have been able to overcome considerable discrimination and stereotyping (priests, lawyers, doctors, politicians, soldiers), orders of magnitude worse than what a tech job today (or uni education) offers. And women dominate education. And there is structural discrimination in favour of women. 

In sum, the argument “from attitude” is an extremely convincing first approximation of what is probably a very complicated explanation for the observed phenomenon. The argument “from discrimination” has never in the history of the labour market had a weaker position.

The Nordic gender paradox remains (to me) the biggest hint that the argument from attitude is on the right track.

Okay, I think we can solve this nicely.

Let's suppose that there are no discriminatory reasons (IE, hiring or promotional reasons) to hire women right now. (this is not true, but let's go with it). Let's suppose that you are right and that women face no major barriers here with respect to hiring, and it is entirely their choice as to which of many careers they choose.

Your hypothesis, then, is that women find other careers more interesting than programming, and only men who cannot get into those other, better careers (though how education is better than programming is left as an exercise to the reader). Is that accurate?

My hypothesis in the framework of the Nordic gender paradox is that there is not perfect behavior in workplaces, and some workplaces will be more hostile to women than others will. It is naturally reasonable to conclude that women, given the choices between an environment with less hostility and harassment and more hostility and harassment will choose the one with less. This hypothesis is nice in that it explains the gender paradox while also recognizing the massive amount of harassment data that comes from the programming industry. 

5 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

—

I would be happy to be wrong. I get nothing positive from the sad fact that  women are underrepresented in tech. But unlike most here, I actually want to solve this. And I have no hope of solving this by not thinking clearly about it. And this includes using our best intellectual tools for evaluating the evidence.

My position is that until you reduce significantly the hostility in the workplace in tech - often by actually bringing in more women to start with, as it's been shown time and again that a higher percentage of women in the workplace leads to less harassment - you're not going to solve it in egalitarian environments. 

[Happy Ent]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Amusingly enough, I'm a software engineer, so your talking to me as if I don't know what I'm talking about in the industry is pretty funny to me.

That was not my intention. I apologise if I’ve come off like that.

Let's suppose that you are right and that women face no major barriers here with respect to hiring, and it is entirely their choice as to which of many careers they choose.

Your hypothesis, then, is that women find other careers more interesting than programming, and only men who cannot get into those other, better careers (though how education is better than programming is left as an exercise to the reader). Is that accurate?

Hm… I believe women face major barriers with respect to hiring. As do men. I absolutely don’t think it’s entirely their choice which career they pursue, just as it wasn’t mine.

The second part is a caricature, but close enough. Outstanding women (which is not “women”) often have better things to do than programming. Outstanding men often don’t. (This is because of verbal skills, I quoted the relevant paper a few pages back.) This is a claim about exceptional people. These people don’t go into education. This aspect has very little to do with “women”. 

My hypothesis in the framework of the Nordic gender paradox is that there is not perfect behavior in workplaces, and some workplaces will be more hostile to women than others will. It is naturally reasonable to conclude that women, given the choices between an environment with less hostility and harassment and more hostility and harassment will choose the one with less.

This is the kind of reasoning I’m soliciting! Great!

I think your explanation is false. There are some workplaces with extreme hostility and harassment (nursing, for instance) which are completely dominated by women. (Or talk to women who have gone to med school about toxic masculinity.) Education is another. Women are subject to extreme verbal abuse in education. Heartbreaking, soul-destroying. In particular in the Nordic countries, where teaching has become bizarrely stressful because of lack of authority. (Thus, women in the Nordic countries should flee education. They don’t.) There is nothing like this in tech.

But these are just hunches, and I could be wrong. I’d be happy to read a study of this.

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

Hm… I believe women face major barriers with respect to hiring. As do men. I absolutely don’t think it’s entirely their choice which career they pursue, just as it wasn’t mine.

The second part is a caricature, but close enough. Outstanding women (which is not “women”) often have better things to do than programming. Outstanding men often don’t. (This is because of verbal skills, I quoted the relevant paper a few pages back.) This is a claim about exceptional people. These people don’t go into education. This aspect has very little to do with “women”. 

As I pointed out earlier however, this isn't about 'exceptional' people. There are a whole lot of fairly unexceptional people in tech. People without college degrees, people who took a 3-month bootcamp, people who self-taught, people who know how to file bugs and whatnot. One of the things that I continually find baffling is that tech isn't some kind of insanely hard place for a large chunk of the jobs, and any hypothesis that tries to explain tech being dominated by men due to the higher variability hypothesis has to explain why so many low-level jobs that require low barriers to entry ALSO do not have the same values of women. If the higher variability hypothesis held, you'd expect to see men at the top of the career ladder in the most important positions, with women becoming more common as you go lower in the ranks to the point of typical variability; what we see is few women in the most important positions, but also few women as a whole in the entire industry or even in the educational parts, as early as age 7. 

4 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

This is the kind of reasoning I’m soliciting! Great!

I think your explanation is false. There are some workplaces with extreme hostility and harassment (nursing, for instance) which are completely dominated by women. (Or talk to women who have gone to med school about toxic masculinity.) Education is another. Women are subject to extreme verbal abuse in education. Heartbreaking, soul-destroying. In particular in the Nordic countries, where teaching has become bizarrely stressful because of lack of authority. (Thus, women in the Nordic countries should flee education. They don’t.) There is nothing like this in tech.

But these are just hunches, and I could be wrong. I’d be happy to read a study of this.

The hostility and harassment in nursing is bad - but it is also not from coworkers typically (especially as most nurses are women). Education gets a lot of harassment from the people that they're working for, but not from the other teachers as much. 

There is a LOT of this in tech. Enough so that everyone retreats, because the environment outside is so toxic. But the big difference is that even when you're 'off' - IE, with other coworkers who do not have authority - they still treat women like dirt. They still talk over them constantly, they still downplay their ideas, they still sexually harass them consistently, they still make it so that unless you're talking about fucking women or going to strip clubs you don't hang out. And we don't need a study for this; we have huge examples like Uber and Tesla. 

And here's the real scary thing to me - that even if most companies don't act like this, the public perception is that they do. They see Silicon Valley, watch the Social Network and see Zuckerberg stalking his ex-girlfriend, hear about Uber and Tesla, hear about the booth babes at E3 and CES (which are long gone, but still), hear about GamerGate and Zoe Quinn, hear about James Damore - and they say 'fuck that noise'. Or the parents do, and they say 'let's not encourage going into that field, let's push them for lawyer camp instead'. 

The reality is that in general women face harassment constantly regardless of what job they have; the difference is that some jobs don't have it as a minute-to-minute piece of work.

And here's the thing, @Happy Ent - people are telling you this straight up. Women are telling you straight up their own personal experiences in tech and in law and in teaching and you are ignoring them and telling them that they're wrong. My challenge to you is this: find a woman who hasn't experienced it. 

[Kalbear]

Just now, Lew Theobald said:

You did not come across like that, and have nothing to apologise for.  Kalbear is posturing.

He did; telling me, a programmer for 20 years, how weird programming and tech are is certainly is coming across that way. I'd ask you to not tell others what I feel. Thanks.

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

If you agreed with him, all you had to do was say so.

If you disagreed with him, all you had to do was say so.

Be polite.  If you are polite to others, I will politely take your word for it that you have been a programmer for 20 years.   If you posture and give people attitudes, I'll just assume you are a bully who would say anything to win an argument.

I didn't appreciate him explaining to me how alien and weird programming is, and I said so. It is not particularly polite to assume the other person has no possible idea what your career is like, especially when they are in that career. Being talked down to is not polite. 

For that matter, telling other people how someone else feels is especially not polite, nor is butting in. 

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Step down off your throne.  You are just an anonymous person on the internet, like the rest of us.  You are not entitled to the special privileges you are demanding.

On this forum I'm not, as it turns out. A whole lot of people know each other's real name in real life and interact outside this forum. I know @Happy Ent's, for instance, and we have a number of mutual friends. 

Anyway, I'll solve this in a better way. Peace out, and enjoy your loving chess girls.