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>> Women stay the hell away from hacker-spaces, conferences and tech initiatives because of on-going experiences of misogyny, abuse, threats, put downs, belittlement, harassment, rape. To be clear, anyone who has abused, threatened, or raped someone should be criminally prosecuted. And if you act unprofessionally, you should be disciplined, fired, removed, etc. It doesn't matter what your race, sex, age, sexual orientation, or educational background is, there is no excuse for mistreating or restricting the liberty other another human being. That said some of this post doesn't fit with what I see historically, globally, or in my day to day activities. For example, Ada Lovelace is widely recognized for envisioning the first computer program. Marisa Mayer is the CEO of Yahoo. Meg Whitman runs HP. I work on a team of ridiculously talented software engineers, many of whom are women. Several books I've read to learn how to program were written by women. There are many women who have been tremendously successful and influential in tech. With regard to women's rights and attitudes towards women, we've come a long way, and undoubtedly have further to go. But I'm optimistic that tremendous opportunities await women. I'm hopeful that ultimately intelligence, ingenuity, drive, knowledge, and experience will lift women above the experiences described in this article. |