[edanm]

Despite you getting some bad feedback on this comment, I think you're right and I bumped on that phrase too.

This reminds me of a billboard campaign to hire developers that ran a few years ago, and featured a few SEs, including one woman considered attractive. A lot of people said things along the lines of "this isn't what a real SE looks like", along with many... less nice things. Of course, she actually was a full stack engineer at that company. This prompted her to start a campaign (#ILookLikeAnEngineer). For more details read her blog: https://medium.com/the-coffeelicious/you-may-have-seen-my-fa...

Note to some commenters: I'm not saying that you can't tell a fake profile from a not fake profile. I'm saying that a sentence like "they look more like models than software engineers" is implicitly hinting that software engineers are not attractive females. That's the objection that I believe teux was raising, and it's a valid one.

[BlargMcLarg]

You and GP both need to take a step back and consider the context since both of you seem to conveniently forget one very important thing: why would anyone get harrassed by software developers on LinkedIn as just another workerbee? Now multiply that by whatever factor you believe a software developer is a gorgeous woman. Maybe now it makes sense why people are skeptical.

With your line of reasoning, people would be defending phishing emails because "some representatives have bad grammar skills". Think of how lubricous that would be in a discussion on phishing.

[edanm]

To clarify, I totally understand the context.

I'm specifically saying that saying a phrase like "they don't look like software developers" just because they're good looking women is in itself a bad (and false!) meme to circulate, which in itself is a bad thing, regardless of context.

[teux]

Yeah. That’s all I was trying to say. I’m not speaking about anything related to shitty recruiters, how hard it is to be a man online (??), or how much it sucks to be the target of sex-based scams.

Just. Saying it sucks to be a woman in tech and statements and sentiments like this are part of the reason why.

Still no one answered my question: “What does a software engineer look like then?”

I think it was a combination of me being not explicit enough and touching on an obviously sore subject for others. But I don’t have the energy to unravel it or debate.