[marcuspovey]

Commented earlier on another Women In Tech thread (seems to be the meme of the day).

The question is not "Why are there so few women in IT?", it's "Why are so many men in IT such jerks?"

[rozap]

You say "meme of the day" but I'm sure you don't mean "meme of the day". It's more than a day long issue, and it's not a meme.

[0xdeadbeefbabe]

My question is, what kind of jerk would brand a whole field as sexist because of the sensationally bad behavior of two people?

[eli]

The field has a serious problem with sexism, even if many (or even most) of its individual members are not themselves sexist.

[0xdeadbeefbabe]

drat! you again!

[existencebox]

At the risk of not contributing anything but a negative comment, I feel like saying the latter is as damaging if not more so than the former. Broad generalizations which assume something which I think is fundamentally untrue (aside from whatever the core causes of the gender discrepancies are) do not serve to assist the situation. I've met plenty of nice guys in tech (more than assholes) and plenty of asshole women in tech. I think the problem (And, to be frank, I'm not sure calling it a problem is the best term, at the risk of attracting some ire) is far more complex than that.

[dragonwriter]

> The question is not "Why are there so few women in IT?", it's "Why are so many men in IT such jerks?"

Both are questions, neither is the question, and the second is an important question in large part because its premise is part of (but not all of) the answer to the first.