[ericabiz]

The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happen to be a woman.

I love the tech industry. I've been in it professionally since 1997, and I've run tech startups as a CEO for the past 13 years. And if there's one thing I can count on, it's the consistent, pervasive assumption that I'm not technical.

I hate going to tech events with my fiance (or for that matter, any man), because people will come up to us, acknowledge me, and then ask him brightly: "So why are you here?"

I once thought it would be funny to time it and see how long another person could go talking to only him and not making eye contact with me, even when he mentioned that he was at the event because of me. Current record? 13 minutes. 13 minutes of not looking at me, saying a word, or acknowledging that I was there.

Every male that I've ever told this story to can't believe it until they go to parties and see it in action. It's so consistent, yet it's unbelievable until you see it.

This is what it's like to be a woman in tech, even when you're a technical one. It's assumed that you're non-technical. But don't take that into account and lead with your credentials--whoops, no, that's "aggressive" and you shouldn't do that. Don't go to tech parties with a guy because you're assumed to be "the girlfriend." Don't go alone because you'll get hit on. But don't NOT go to tech parties, because that's where you'll meet investors and other potential contacts.

Being a woman in tech is like walking through a maze with minefields at every turn and never knowing which one you'll hit. I'm here because I love this industry and I couldn't imagine doing anything else. But I hate that my physical appearance and gender connotes so many (invalid and ridiculous) assumptions.

[galago]

There seems to be a big horrible cycle here. I attended VMWorld last year in San Francisco and was shocked by how many booths were staffed by attractive women who where just hired as like, temps or something. They were aggressively friendly and seemed to have the single task of getting my contact information as a sales lead. Their knowledge of the products was generally no deeper than what was printed on the promotional fliers. I probably did tend to ignore women after a few interactions. So, I'm the kind of person you're complaining about, yet I don't like the situation either. Perhaps "booth babes" are part of a successful sales strategy and I'm an outlier. However, its possible that trade show sleaze is just a pattern propelled forward by inertia. Either way, we should speak out against it.

It did occur to me that a correcting mechanism for trade shows would be a gender balance in attendees. Maybe you're working different type of trade shows, but that was my recent experience.

[Thirdegree]

'Perhaps "booth babes" are part of a successful sales strategy and I'm an outlier.'

Not according to Spencer Chen.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/13/booth-babes-dont-convert/

[Pherdnut]

Can't we all just agree to blame it on the sales guys?

[driverdan]

The correcting mechanism is banning booth babes.

[your_throwaway]

Yeah, except when I do start a conversation with you, I'm hitting on you, and probably being "creepy".

I have to navigate a mental minefield of "don't say this" "don't say that too much" or "don't be overly aggressive", otherwise I get screamed about on twitter, labeled as a misogynist, and possibly fired from my job. (Uh-oh, I said dongle! Or...[1]meritocracy!)

I'm not saying women in tech don't have problems, they do, but I'm really sick of hearing this like it's a completely one-sided problem. The stupid evil men are holding the women down and keeping them from succeeding!

Gender dynamics are hard, for EVERYBODY. Men are having to deal with the fact that suddenly (or maybe not suddenly?) doing things like getting beer after conferences is bad, telling jokes to one another is bad, thinking certain thoughts is bad, using certain words[2] is bad.

I'm sorry if you come to a conference and I don't behave in the ultra-narrowly-defined way that you have determined makes me not part of the problem (although I recently found out that asking if I did it wrong makes me part of the problem).

I don't have a context for this! And it seems like everything I, and other men like me, try to do to make you feel included is WRONG, and we're BAD for doing it!

Invite you to beers after a conference? Hitting on you!

Compliment you on what you're wearing? Hitting on you! Objectifying you! Noticing that you are a partially-physical entity! THE HORROR!

Ask you about your projects? Flirting with you!

Make a suggestion about your project? Mansplaining at you!

Men have to navigate a constantly changing, and VERY hazardous minefield every time we talk to you. I'm really sorry (really, genuinely, that is not sarcasm) that sometimes we get it wrong, or sometimes we just forego trying at all and stay quite around you. A lot of it is really just because we don't want to mess it up and make you angry. Women have a LOT of power over men in these situations, and if we screw up even a tiny tiny bit, it can ruin our lives.

[1]:http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug#awesm...

[2]:http://banbossy.com

[lambda]

Dude, it's really not hard to have a technical conversation with someone and not come off as creepy. If you feel like you have to worry about this all the time, there's something seriously off about your interpersonal instincts. I'm a pretty socially awkward nerdy guy, and I've never had a problem with being able to have a technical conversation with a woman without being accused of "mansplaining", "being overly aggressive", being "screamed about on twitter" or the like. If all of those things are happening to you, you're probably going about it wrong.

Remember, you hear about the worst incidents online. The things that make it to the news do so because they're newsworthy, not because they're commonplace.

Since many of us are socially awkward nerds here, let me give you a few hints:

Inviting someone for beers after a conference is not hitting on them. But if you're really worried it appearing that way, make sure you invite more than one person; it feels much more like an after-conference beer than an invitation to a date if there's a group of people.

Complementing someone on what they're wearing? I complement my male coworkers on their new sneakers or spiffy new jackets sometimes; it's no more creepy to do the same for a female coworker. But I wouldn't do that to some guy I just met, only someone I've known for a while and already have a professional relationship with. If the first thing I said to a guy was a complement on his shoes, that would sound a little weird, wouldn't it, like I might be hitting on him? Same rule goes. Don't make a complement on a woman's clothes or appearance be the first thing you say to her, that makes it sound like you're hitting on her. But if you've known her a while and you notice that she's gotten a new haircut or new jacket, it's not a problem to mention it.

Asking about someone's projects? How would you imagine that would sound like flirting? Just make sure you're actually interested in someone's projects, and not just using it as a "get to know you" before trying to ask them on a date.

[your_throwaway]

We are literally on the exact same page. You're enumerating my point.

Inviting somebody for beers isn't hitting on them, but I have been told by women exactly why this is not okay. (In conversations like this one. This sort of "hey that's not okay" doesn't ever seem to actually come up in real life)

I agree that it's totally normal to compliment people on what they're wearing, and I, like you, do this to my coworkers all the time.

Except, again, there are lots of vocal people screaming how this is not okay.

That's my point. "Normal" human interactions are being cast as not okay by some vocal tech writers, which is what can create a mental minefield.

[lambda]

> Inviting somebody for beers isn't hitting on them

That's not true. It can be hitting on them, or it can not be. If you think you might be in a grey area, maybe err on the side of making it feel safer by making it a group outing rather than putting them on the spot. Don't use that doubt about the grey area as an excuse for avoiding talking to women at all, however.

> Except, again, there are lots of vocal people screaming how this is not okay.

I have never heard someone scream such a thing. Jesus, if I complimented someone and they screamed at me, I'd think they were crazy. Do people really scream about that at you?

Remember, don't confuse vocal debate on Twitter or HN with screaming. It's really not the same. People are frequently more blunt online than they are in real life. This happens in all directions. But don't act like it's the end of the world when a few people are overly vocal on the internet.

Also, don't respond to legitimate, reasonable complaints, like "I'm the technical person coming to this conference and people ignore me and talk to my fiance instead" with "well yeah, but this other thing over here blew up way out of proportion on the internet, so I can't treat you like a normal person in real life."

Yes, there is occasional overreaction that has real life consequences, like the unfortunate PyCon "dongle" incident. That's really the exception rather than the rule, however, and the real-life consequences happened in both directions. Note that many, many prominent feminist writers came out against both Adria Richard's actions and those of the the company that fired the guy making the joke.

[teacup50]

> That's not true. It can be hitting on them, or it can not be.

Isn't that the point of many beer invites? It's a chance to socialize, and if you don't have an established relationship, it's a chance to establish one.

> If you think you might be in a grey area, maybe err on the side of making it feel safer by making it a group outing rather than putting them on the spot.

Safer?

I'm sorry, are we talking about children or adults? If someone can't manage a potentially ambiguous beer invite -- for instance, by inviting other people along themselves -- they ought to keep it to themselves and just say "no thanks"

> That's really the exception rather than the rule, however, and the real-life consequences happened in both directions.

Yes, it is the exception, but angry rhetorical baseball bats like "mansplaining" and "privilege" are being plastered all over the tech community these days, and it stops seeming like the exception.

I already feel uncomfortable attending an event that has adopted Ada Initiative-derived code of conduct, or otherwise aligned themselves with that vocal sector of the technology community.

It's clear that focus is being redirected to politics, and when people start using hostile language to describe my gender and race in broad strokes, I'm clearly in the cross-hairs for a small, vocal, and highly volatile minority; there are safer and more comfortable places for me to be.

[lambda]

(warning: strong, potentially triggering language contained in this post)

> I'm sorry, are we talking about children or adults? If someone can't manage a potentially ambiguous beer invite -- for instance, by inviting other people along -- they ought to keep it to themselves and just say "no thanks"

I was responding to someone who was acting as if he had to be on his toes any time he invited a woman for a beer, as if he'd be immediately be branded a sexist for ever thinking about inviting her for beer.

Yes, I'm making this sound childish, because his complaint was childish. I was giving him some advice, in case he actually believed that there was a risk of being branded a sexist for inviting someone to a beer, for how to resolve such situations that he seems to be so afraid of safely, without any potential hint of ambiguity. I was only half serious. It is fine advice if you really are so socially inept as to not know where that line is; however, I suspect that his argument was more of a strawman, built up so he could complain about some perceived wrong online, rather than an actual legitimate explanation for why he thinks that men frequently ignore women at technical conferences.

> Yes, it is the exception, but angry rhetorical baseball bats like "mansplaining" and "privilege" are being plastered all over the tech community these days, and it stops seeming like the exception.

Hm? The fact that people are bigger assholes online than they are in real life is news to you? I was pointing out that real life consequences are relatively rare, while online rhetoric can be much more heated, so your response about heated online rhetoric doesn't really contradict what I was saying.

And think about this for a minute. People who are criticizing sexism online and go over the line use such horrible "rhetorical baseball bats" as "mansplaining" and "privilege", while those who criticize perceived over-sensitivity to sexism use things like murder and rape threats: http://www.dailydot.com/news/adria-richards-fired-sendgrid-v... If you are going to complain about "rhetorical basebal bats", I think that death threats are a bit more severe than being accused of "mansplaining."

> I already feel uncomfortable attending an event that has adopted Ada Initiative-derived code of conduct

Really? This code of conduct makes you feel uncomfortable?

https://us.pycon.org/2012/codeofconduct/

What part of that makes you feel uncomfortable? I think it's pretty unobjectionable.

> when people start using hostile language to describe my gender and race in broad strokes, I'm clearly in the cross-hairs for a small, vocal, and highly volatile minority

No, you really aren't in any cross hairs. Come on. Unless you are actively harassing people, or making inappropriate jokes in professional venues, there is no one who is against you or out to get you.

None of the people proposing these codes of conduct are against white men at all (I'm assuming that's the "gender and race" you are referring to, please correct me if I'm wrong); if they were, why would they be going to programming conferences in the first place, which are full of white men? What they are looking for is recognition that there are other people at the conference, who may not feel the same sense of safety as you do.

One problem is that without a code of conduct, it can be hard to know where to draw the line, or hard to adequately enforce that line as there is no written guideline for how to deal with such situations. With the code of conduct, it becomes more clear; blatantly sexual language is over the line, and it can be dealt with by expulsion from the conference. It's simple, and it lets you not worry about it; as a conference organizer, you don't have to worry about how prominent in the community someone is when they make a porn-based presentation, you can just firmly say "no."

[pseut]

>Gender dynamics are hard, for EVERYBODY.

I know. But they're probably harder when you're also making less money and having your credentials questioned.

[melindajb]

If you can override the animal instincts to kill other humans, why is it so hard to override your thoughts and just treat all other humans with the same respect you'd give your best friend, at least until you see a valid reason not to?

No one is saying that getting a beer after work is bad, or telling jokes is bad, or that thinking is bad. this is hand waving. We're asking you, again, to a) understand that lots of drinking leads to situations where women are harassed; b) telling sexist, racist, homophobic jokes is not appropriate in any professional context, and that you should be human enough to override your animal instincts.

To be frank, your post comes off as irrational, and immature. You sound very young, and very entitled.

[your_throwaway]

With the same respect I treat my best friend?

Well, first: my best friend is a woman. And could you please enumerate for me what constitutes a sexist joke?

My aforementioned best friend (who I have had this conversation with) as well as most of the women friends I've had this conversation with agree that things like "dongle" jokes are hilarious.

So are racist jokes (do you seriously not tell any racist jokes? Ever? Do you avoid all of contemporary stand up and sketch comedy while you're at it?)

And very young. Huh? Like how young? Possibly right around the age of most of the people who are attending conferences and hackathons? Right around that 20-30 year old range that constantly gets touted as the age of startup founders on hacker news?

I'm 29. Old by HN standards, but you're right: young.

[codr]

> but you're right: young.

You forgot entitled.

Also - racist jokes, really? Tell us a good one.

[Tossrock]

How does every racist joke start?

(Pause)

looks over both shoulders

[melindajb]

Just because your best friend is a woman doesn't mean you're incapable of being a sexist. For example, she might be one of those women who enforce some pretty crappy old patriarchial shit. I have no idea. But it's not evidence you can use to say you aren't sexist. Are you trolling?

I do not tell racist jokes. ever. period. Why would I ever risk offending someone I really care about for something so stupid? I enjoy Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, and Louis CK as much as the next person, but I make sure I understand why're they are funny, to laugh with them, not at them.

your simplistic thinking really makes me question a lot about you. Are you very young also? Perhaps you haven't heard stories from people you respect about the pain they've suffered in silicon valley? Because otherwise you wouldn't be so flippant, and so defensive about such things.

[sergiosgc]

The fact of the matter is that not telling racist jokes probably means you are racist. Mocking people for their faults is the most basic kind of humour. Stuff kids do in early school, to the point of being mean, and then scale back to socially acceptable levels. However, this is an humour class that never completely disappears. Whole comedian careers have been built on it (look at the TV show Seinfeld for an example).

When you actively avoid mocking someone because they have a visibly different skin tone, subconsciously you believe this is something they should be ashamed of. Racist, qed.

It is as ok to mock someone for being "african-american" as it is mocking someone for their closed Texan accent. And it is ok. Mock away, and take it in stride when it's your turn to be the target.

[your_throwaway]

Enlighten me.

And while you're at it: why is okay for Louis CK to make a racist joke, but not okay for you?

If the joke is hurtful, then shouldn't you be against Louis CK telling it? Why are you okay with that? Why are you giving him support for doing something hurtful?

And I didn't say I wasn't capable of being sexist because my best friend is a woman. I said that if I treated a woman at a conference the same way that I treated my best friend, I would probably come across as a creepy asshole.

Similarly, if I treated some guy walking down the street the same way that I treat my best friend, I'd probably get labeled as a creepy asshole.

I've known my best friend for over a decade. I'm close enough with her to have a shorthand for jokes, or mannerisms, that doesn't exist with random people I've just met.

My point was that your post is using some extremely faulty reasoning.

No I'm 12: who cares? What does it matter how old I am? Maybe I am a woman! Then what?

Does what I'm saying depend on my age, or its content?

Do you apply the same logic when assigning validity to things that men and women say? The content doesn't matter, just the person saying it?

That's...dare I say it? Possibly pretty sexist of you.

[jfarmer]

> And while you're at it: why is okay for Louis CK to make a racist joke, but not okay for you?

Why it is ok for the jester to mock the king, but not for the king to mock the jester?

On a related note, Louis CK is Mexican, as in a Mexican citizen born in Mexico. Spanish is his first language and he came to the US as a little kid.

[melindajb]

Louis CK, to the best of my knowledge, is not considered a racist. I would not be the best judge of that as a white person, and when I am, I look to my black friends to tell me. I don't make them "explain" it to me. I just accept it. The know better than I do what makes something racist. And usually it's something I had never considered because of my white privilege.

The fault, is not in my logic, but your dogged insistence on reductionist thinking to the absurd. Most of the men around me know how not to be a creep, so I an assure it is possible to tell funny jokes, have beers with coworkers without harassment, and other such things. They will ask if they aren't certain, and they listen if I ask them to stop doing something.

That's what it's all about. Not reducing people to stereotypes. Giving respect immediately and willingly. At least until the other person demonstrates they aren't worth it.

So all this handwaving about not knowing how to behave in the world because the girls send mixed signals? Horseshit. my tribe of male friends, coworkers, mentors, advisors, and family is living proof that men do know how to behave honorably and respectfully in Silicon Valley, even Stanford trained engineers.

So instead of putting your questions at me, put them at yourself, why have you not yet learned what so many other successful men have learned?

[drawkbox]

This is a good example of sexism. But also a hint of target marketing, a few things of note...

Since there are less women in tech, technical people assume they are boring most people with technical jargon including most women (probabilistically). I bet if you dropped some technical info early it would knock it out of that mode quickly. I know when a women knows or doesn't know about tech I do change how I talk but I do this with anyone that is technical/non-technical. The old Feynman tune it to your crowd when you educate/market type of steward.

Also since there are so few women in tech, men don't usually work with them during the day and aren't the most alpha, lots of them could be shy or even have difficulty with eye contact at all. If they are introverted even moreso like many programmers are. Many are also young and not married which leads to awkwardness at times with ladies.

I think there are lots of opportunities for really skilled women but these intricacies should be stated more often so people understand and correct their assumptions. People need examples like this to learn how subtle it can be because just hearing 'sexism' doesn't help educate, more women with more examples as it is eye opening and helps understanding of this problem.

[RodericDay]

This is a common belief of geeks and maybe most people everywhere, that breaking down concepts into more easily understandable elements and working on outreach is something necessary for progress. They also seem to expect the oppressed group to do all the heavy lifting- figuring how to complain in the right tone as well as mustering the energy to complain in the first place.

I'm not sure history suggests that this is the way to go. There's no easy, smooth social change, and self-described "moderates" should give more room for people to be angry. Your post, instead of giving some "advice" on how to help tell the message, should just be doing that instead. Skip this condescending explanation! Stop making it about shy males!

More importantly though, many people think they want to be convinced by cause-effect arguments A, B, and C, and they advocate for that kind of context-less discussion forum, but really what they need is to be allowed to discover A, B, and C on their own terms after being presented with a persuasive experience D. But to make it really connect, you need to get the person involved. Calls of sexism help with that. As an intellectually confident person, people calling me out bluntly and confidently about my sexism got way further with me than people trying to sell me some sanitized variant designed for socially stunted males.

I don't mean to blow up on you or anything, but seriously it's every day on HN that someone who gives the impression that "he sees both sides" and has got it all figured out seems to be taking some awkward position as mediating sage instead of following their own advice and helping craft the message. The overall impression is, of course, one of endless condescension.

[drawkbox]

I stated outright it was sexism and asked more women to relay those situations so people do understand it. I was just stating from the side of that not all that might be deemed sexism was always meant as such. i.e. usually it is stupidity over arrogance which some assume the latter and more often it is the former. Almost all misunderstandings stem from some aspect of this. Where people are stupid, they need to learn somehow, examples help.

But living in a world with 99% of people not being technical (unless you are at work) you have to assume most people are not and talk to them in that way, nothing to do with gender really. In that aspect talking in a way that a person understands is polite (completely ignoring is another thing entirely -- a good speaker involves all). Once that person lets it be known that they are technical then a new door opens up and you can drop some acronyms. Any person will tune their message to their assumed crowd otherwise they waste alot of air. If you go up to 100 people (or women) and just start talking in programmer/technical jargon most of them will look at you funny. I talk to dudes I work with differently that are in business and programming as well. I don't talk down to them in any way, I communicate. If they get it, all engines ahead, if not, they ask for a simplified version, same deal with aspects of the business on the flipside.

What I see is also a problem in the sexism journey is that sometimes people that are understanding and do see the problem get pulled into it in ways that make them look bad. I almost didn't post the message above because I knew I'd get some of this even though I 100% agree. So they stay away from it, just because there may be gender issues doesn't mean there isn't some give and pull on both sides to help it along.

[ap22213]

I think it's a good point, even if it's an unfortunate situation. I empathize with ericabiz - I'd love to see more balance between genders in software development. (and, sadly, I think it's only gotten worse since I started in the 90s). But, having gotten the 'eyes glazed over' look by every professional woman with whom I've tried to talk software within the last year, one just gets sort of trained after awhile. (maybe similar to how women get trained to assume that guys will hit on them.)

But, ericabiz, I recommend going to events solo - you'll meet more people that way. If you get hit on, bring the topic back to software. They'll get the point. Or, alternatively bring one or two female software friends with you. Couples going to events don't work so well, in my experience - regardless of who's the technical one.

Alternatively, wear something that only a coder would wear. Put some technical stickers on your laptop. Give some kind of sign to differentiate yourself.

[rada]

Alternatively, wear something that only a coder would wear.

You mean a dress? I am a coder and that's what I wear.

Yeah, you should definitely wear that next time.

[lmm]

Did you read the part you quoted? Wear something that only a coder would wear. I've met non-coders who wore dresses.

Clothing is signalling; that's almost its entire purpose at this stage. If 95% of people who wear outfit A are marketers, and you wear outfit A, you're going to (initially) be treated like a marketer. Surprise!

[ap22213]

Exactly. A lot of us wear multiple hats, but many of us are only effectively at wearing one at a time.

I sometimes have to act the role of 'business guy', and in those cases, to be most effective, I wear 'business clothes'. However, sometimes I have to act the role of coder. And, in those cases, I wear 'coder clothes'. I don't know what coder clothes are for women, but for guys it's something quite relaxed and laid back. Most coders that I know try to make a statement that 'they're not the business guy'.

[rada]

I understood "only" to mean "most representative" as it made the most sense to me in this context (example: "she loved him as only a mother would").

But let's play by your set of rules. What would be something nobody but a coder would wear?

Bonus question. If "clothing is signalling", what does a typical coder's outfit say about their ability to come up with non copy-paste solutions?

Double bonus question. What do you think of black coders, who are even less common than female coders? Do you presume they are at a tech event to play basketball? Would you advise them to come in white face so they could provide the right "signalling"?

Also, let's get the numbers straight. Women comprise about 30% of computing workforce, a far cry from 5% that you made up to justify sexist stereotyping: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing#Statistics_i...).

[lmm]

> What would be something nobody but a coder would wear?

T-shirt with a programming joke is the easy answer.

> Bonus question. If "clothing is signalling", what does a typical coder's outfit say about their ability to come up with non copy-paste solutions?

What are you trying to say here? An outfit tells you what someone's into, not how good they are at it.

> Double bonus question. What do you think of black coders, who are even less common than female coders? Do you presume they are at a tech event to play basketball? Would you advise them to come in white face so they could provide the right "signalling"?

If someone's dressed in basketball gear then I'm going to assume they're into basketball yeah. But most black programmers I've met dressed like programmers. And while there aren't that many black programmers, it's the ratio that matters. At a typical tech event, most of the black people you meet are programmers. Most of the women you meet aren't. Most people wearing a suit or dress aren't.

If you want people to think you're a business person, dress like a business person. If you want people to think you're a coder, dress like a coder. If you enjoy dressing as a punk but you're actually politically authoritarian, fine, more power to you, but don't complain when people make reasonable inferences from what you've chosen to wear.

[jv22222]

My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it.

My friends wife is an F16 fighter pilot. I was surprised to find that out. Truth is I should not have been surprised, but it went against the patterns I'm used to seeing.

I wonder if that's at play here?

[parfe]

>My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it.

Awful lot of words you used to avoid typing "sexism". Hide behind whatever phrasing you prefer, but automatically assigning a person gender roles out of intellectual laziness embodies sexism.

[roflc0ptic]

At risk of sounding flippant, I feel like you're bringing a certain amount of unwarranted pattern matching to this. The person you're responding to is 1. bringing up a cognitive bias, 2. positing that it might be the mechanism that's causing this treatment, and 3. saying he shouldn't exhibit that bias.

It's thoughtful, and while he's using different language, describing his approach here as "hiding" is pretty ungenerous. I'd guess that you're used to people being kinda shitty about this stuff, and so you saw someone say something that could be part of some ugly apologetics and just went with your heuristics.

(edit) Also, let me add, sometimes it's easier to talk about the mechanisms of sexism rather than the phenomenon. Ideologically I'm super anti-racist/homophobic/sexist/patriarchy/capitalist blah blah blah but talking about those things straight out often feels like the worst place to have a productive conversation from. Compare "The prison industrial complex is a function of white supremacy", vs, "dang, it's messed up that people of color on average get way harsher sentences for the same crime." Context is very important, of course, but sometimes using a lot of words is better communication.

[thibauts]

Calling people sexist when they try to bring a valid point pretty much amounts to intellectual laziness too, don't you think ?

Like it or not, our brains are wired to be able to ignore unusual cases and save complete analysis of each and every situation. This course of evolution may be why you and I are able to post on this website, after all. Sexism, racism an any other form of discrimination are made of this. That's very sad, yes.

I want to make another point. Sexism is refusing to aknowledge the possibility for a woman to be technical, for exemple. Assuming she probably isn't is not sexism, it is an often-correct assumption. This doesn't make the man (or the woman) who makes this assumption a monster.

So I understand women's frustrations very well as I can be the one discriminated in various other situations, but don't blame it too quickly on people. Blame it first on evolution, the same evolution that allows you to not think to much about it when you have to breathe.

[jacalata]

Assuming she probably isn't is not sexism, it is an often-correct assumption.

It's both.

related - one of the things I hate about hn is people whining "that's an appeal to authority, that's a logical fallacy, how dare you say you would believe a 50 year old hr manager about workplace customs over my 13 year old sister!" Technically they're correct, if I were invested in the argument I should follow up both proposals equally and not just dismiss one. But in real life, ain't nobody got time for that, and we use heuristics instead. The trick is identifying the biases I'm using as a heuristic, and also identofying which of these heuristics are hurting other people and when it is worth doing the long route of checking each argument - for the cocktail party example, would it kill people to just ask a woman what she does, even if they probably aren't in tech?

[nicolethenerd]

But it is just pattern matching - 'sexism' seems to connote intent, or at least some kind of discrimination / negativity. Assuming that a woman you meet is more likely to be non-technical than technical is just probability - it's not a great thing, but I do it too, and I am a woman. It doesn't mean that I think women shouldn't be in tech, or that I'm surprised when they are - just more likely than not, in my experience, women in tech companies are found in non-technical roles.

[OverlordXenu]

It has very little to do with intent. Subconsciously thinking someone with a name usually thought to indicate blackness—like Tyrone—is different is racist. Subconsciously disbelieving that a woman can answer technical questions or is a fighter pilot is sexist. It may not necessarily be your fault, because society and your peers have taught you this, but that doesn't really matter. Especially because you have a responsibility to actively work against stereotypes and treat people as people.

Having intent behind it just makes it worse, really. And "intent" is difficult to define.

[jv22222]

"Disbelieving"? Or "unaware"? Disbelieving has intent. Unaware is simply not thinking about it. Would you say it is ok to not think about something due to unawareness? Or would you say that was being sexist?

[jacalata]

Its usually called privilege or internalized bias.

[melindajb]

Here is why pattern matching is bullshit:

https://medium.com/best-thing-i-found-online-today/8178b2794...

Here, I'll even save you the trouble of clicking:

To be direct: Pattern recognition is bullshit voodoo pseudo-science masquerading as objectivity and meritocracy. It’s sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and xenophobia dressed up as science. It sickens me.

[jv22222]

From the post you linked to...

"So pattern recognition is a useless heuristic made up by a group of rich white men as a way to quantify something"

If that statement isn't racist, biased, and, well, just quite mean really, then I'm not sure what is.

[zorpner]

I always hesitate to post this on HN, because it almost never goes well, but here it is:

Racism (sexism/classism/etc) is not about race (sex/class/etc). It's about power. For this reason alone (let alone all the other good ones), there is no symmetry in these biases (e.g. the false equivalence of misogyny and misandry).

[melindajb]

cry me a river. you don't get to whine about this stuff, when you're the party in power. Work to better it, stop whining, that's what those people tell everyone else.

[thibauts]

Not everybody it out to hurt you, discriminate, or hate you. That being said, immediate reaction / assumptions cannot be treated the same way as thoughtful examination. At all.

[melindajb]

Your assumption that I said that says far more about you than it does me. People who shrug and claim pattern matching instead of being rational and overriding their immediate response are discriminating in a way I find offensive. I believe that is what you are saying in your second paragraph. Our humanity is the supposed to be the part of our brains that allows us to override animal instincts to fight, fuck, steal, and kill without hesitation.

So it's not so much to ask that if you're a white man and you think something crappy about a woman or minority, that you might stop and ask yourself to validate that, or find a better way to explain or phrase it.

[Pherdnut]

But oh-so-handy for validating e-mail addresses.

[melindajb]

you get an upvote for funny. well done!

[roflc0ptic]

The word sexism is rather unfortunately overloaded. It can connote intent, but a lot of the social justice-y types use it in a way that specifically does not require any intent. It's specific language about the maintenance of power structures. Something sexist is something that maintains male power. This could be seen as sexist because it's a set of interactions that systematically disempowers women from participating.

[jrs99]

it's not rude at all. I'm a hardcore male knitter and it will always surprise some people when I show up to a meetup for the first time with my yarn and needles. I'm sure it's not mind-blowing, but it's definitely a "Hey, oh, a guy showed up."

The same was true for Bill Gates. If you read his biography, when he was really young, people didn't even shake his hand when they met to talk. They didn't find out he was the CEO until like an hour into the meeting. And when they did, they were surprised.

[wpietri]

> My thought is that it's not because they mean to be rude. It's because they pattern match. I've noticed when folks see the same pattern over and over it's difficult to see outside it.

Most rude people don't mean to be rude. They're just thoughtless. That doesn't make their behavior less rude.

For example, the zillion people who, upon learning I'm a computer guy, bust out their computer questions and put me on the spot to diagnose and possibly fix their issues. Are they just pattern matching? Sure. But are they also being thoughtless and self-centered? Definitely.

The problem isn't the pattern matching. Anything with neurons does that. It's the lack of consideration about how other people will feel.

[melindajb]

The pattern matching itself isn't the problem, indeed. It's the apparent lack of some men, usually white men to override it and take a more charitable view of their fellow human beings.

For some reason those same men cry out for "rational discussion" unless it's about their own behavior, of course. They can somehow override most of their animal instincts to steal, fight, or fuck indiscriminately, but can't somehow find a way to overcome thinking a woman at a trade show booth can't possibly be an engineer.

So we're saying, either the person can overcome that thinking or they can't.

If they can, but choose not to, they're deliberately discriminatory.

If they can't overcome that thinking, we might want to have them institutionalized for anti social behavior, because what other animal instincts are they not able to overcome?

[jacalata]

One of the words you are looking for is 'stereotyping'.

[booruguru]

The thing is...we've been talking about geeks and discrimination for years now. "Ignorance" is no longer a valid excuse.

[malyk]

The pattern matching IS SEXIST! That's the whole issue. Your using gender as a "pattern" to match against.

The point is to try to overcome making that match.

[lmm]

So I'm supposed to what, talk to everyone? Close my eyes while I'm doing it? In the real world I have limited time and I know I'm going to be happier and learn more if I'm talking to people with similar interests. So I make the best judgement I can with the information I have available. And sure, sometimes I'll get it wrong. But I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to just have no filter.

[melindajb]

No, no, no, no and no. Stop it. Pattern matching isn't science. Stop pretending it is.

https://medium.com/best-thing-i-found-online-today/8178b2794...

To be direct: Pattern recognition is bullshit voodoo pseudo-science masquerading as objectivity and meritocracy. It’s sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and xenophobia dressed up as science. It sickens me.

[balls187]

> No, no, no, no and no. Stop it.

Nice job in raising the level of discourse here.

[melindajb]

oh because claiming a bullshit voodoo science as argument was so earth shattering? seriously. especially coming from someone with "balls" in the name. read the link. Love it, i'm now not being allowed to reply. I love how it's ok for guys on hacker news to denigrate and insult women and minorities but if we say, look stop it, you're all suddenly begging for rationality. NOTHING about pattern matching is rational. So you have no right to expect rationality as a response.

all the links to reply to any comment are now gone. would you like a screen shot?

[balls187]

> all the links to reply to any comment are now gone. would you like a screen shot?

Hrm...sure it's not that you're trying to reply to a new comment (there is a delay before you can reply)

I understand your point. Unfortunately the way you made it makes you come across as an irrational individual.

https://www.google.com/search?q=fbi+profiling&ie=utf-8&oe=ut...

> especially coming from someone with "balls" in the name

Considering that's my name...

> i'm now not being allowed to reply.

Did someone prevent you from replying? Did your comment get deleted?

No one is preventing you from replying. You disagree with the above commented, I disagreed with how you came across.

> NOTHING about pattern matching is rational. So you have no right to expect rationality as a response.

How so?

Think that it's okay for TSA agents to search a 82 year old women, instead of say me (a dark ass dude who looks like a terrorist)? Should their sampling of passengers should be completely random?

People shouldn't denigrate anyone: women, men, minorities, or majorities.

[melindajb]

Now that I have the access to reply again.

Suggesting that it's ok to accept that automatically thinking a woman at a trade show is not an engineer is simply irrational. We are humans and with that comes the ability to override animal thinking. Dare I say, I expect the person to have that thought to override it, think rationally, and say something other than what most of them do? And is asking for that somehow in and of itself irrational? Look, having heard these bullshit arguments hundreds of times, I am right tired of having them. We've been discussing this issue long enough that the people who keep doing this, need to not be tolerated. We need to stop expecting those without power to always be the ones to take the high road.

Anger is a valid and rational response to continued discrimination. To say otherwise comes dangerously close to tone policing.

[haukilup]

I'm having a hard time determining if you comments are meant to be trolling or not. You see to be adamantly against an opinion the people you're replying to don't exactly hold. You're doing the equivalent of yelling out a boilerplate rant anytime a keyword you've been waiting for pops up.

[melindajb]

Why do you feel the need to determine whether I'm a troll or not?

I'm tired of hearing the same old excuses for discrimination, namely "pattern matching." It's bullshit. It's everywhere on this thread as it so often is when posts about discrimination and harassment reach any level of awareness on Hacker News. And while most of the time I generally ignore it, rolling my eyes and occasionally just become depressed as hell, sometimes I just get fed up and decide to call it out. Then I vent it out and get back to work. I don't care what you label it as, in fact the whole concept of labeling is precisely the issue.

Treat people with respect. That's all any of us want. But when we say that nicely we get ignored. When we say it strongly, we get labeled everything from bitch, to sociopath, to irrational, to whatever. There's no win. So I just say what I think and let the chips fall where they may. Upvote me, downvote me, I honestly do not give a shit.

[Dewie]

> Love it, i'm now not being allowed to reply.

If someone just posted something, there is a cool down period before you can reply. Maybe that was the case.

[jtfrench]

I've seen this happen as well. As a black male CEO of a VC-funded startup, I've also seen it happen to me in a slightly different way. I gotta hype up the nerdiness, the glasses, and casually name-drop my college degree just to help those around me not embarrass themselves by assuming "I'm not the guy writing the code". Unfortunately, I'm quite used to this though and rarely think to share this experience with anyone because this has been My Whole Life.

[Jugurtha]

You have a kid, you look for a nanny to look after him. You put it on news-paper, there's a 45 year old dude who comes offering his services to look after your kid.

Now tell me that you're so awesome that you'll not think what you are thinking right now.

Exactly.

People use stereotypes to save time. Many stereotypes are wrong, because you'll get them from CNN or Fox. People don't get on the news for being normal.

When you're in a hurry, you don't want to change. You don't have that luxury because you want the result now. You're not in "experimenting, expanding comfort zone, increasing awareness" mode. You're in "Getting it done" mode with as few new parameters.

Usual is better than confusing.

Besides, some stereotypes are true so one can understand people behaviour.

Black people go to jail more, geeks don't do well with girls, etc.

And I know that some people will be butt-hurt and cry foul and it's 2014 and how it's a stone age thinking, but the stats are there.

http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet

(I don't have stats on the sex life of geeks, though).

Someone might be offended at first, but there's a reason for these stereotypes to have had such a long, established life: If they don't represent the truth, they at least reflect it in some distorted way.

The person coming to a booth has probably had a long life where, comparatively, he's met really fewer females in tech and come on, it's not like us humans are so pure that we'll go: Hmm, this is the first time I meet a female in tech. I'll speak to her in spite of being in a hurry, in spite of my question being complex, in spite of being used to talk with dudes all my life and this one comes out now.

When you're in a hurry, you don't want to change, you don't want surprises: Usual is better than confusing.

A lot of time, people won't deal with you simply because they don't like you. A lot of times, people won't deal with you simply because they don't know you.

People who'll talk to you and give you the benefit of the doubt are giving you the benefit of the doubt. Meaning it's a privilege they're granting you, so having an entiteled attitude about it goes against the meaning of the words.

[GFischer]

Reminds me of the "paradigms" video by consultant Joel Barker (based on Kuhn's work)

The TL;DR version is that everyone creates some "filters" as shortcuts for efficiently analyzing situations (paradigms).

transcript of the video here:

http://ocw.metu.edu.tr/pluginfile.php/3298/course/section/11...

Kuhn's work expanded:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/#3

[Dylan16807]

>You have a kid, you look for a nanny to look after him. You put it on news-paper, there's a 45 year old dude who comes offering his services to look after your kid.

>Now tell me that you're so awesome that you'll not think what you are thinking right now.

Before that second line my mental image was close to Mr. Rogers, after that line it's a huge guy in a prison jumpsuit covered in tattoos. I don't think either one is what you were going for. Maybe a pedophile? I don't have a stereotype for those.

[InclinedPlane]

> Black people go to jail more, geeks don't do well with girls, etc.

Neither is accurate. Both are exaggerations. Comparing crime between blacks and non-blacks may seem like it's useful data, the rates are pretty significantly different. But it's not, because the majority of people, white, black, whatever, aren't criminals. So if you use that "data" to treat people differently you'll be making an error far more often than being right. That's the danger of stereotypes, because they are so seductive from a confirmation bias perspective. There are no stereotypes that aren't backed by some kernel of "truth". But stereotypes lead to more bad behavior, more ill-treatment of others than they avoid.

[mattlutze]

It doesn't matter for the parent's argument that most people, on the whole, don't live in jail in the US. Chance of incarceration and longer sentencing is higher for racial minorities in the US. That is true, and it is not an exaggeration. [0-5]

The point of the knowledge isn't to just "treat people differently", its to recognize something is broken, identify root causes and change them.

I'd be very curious to better understand the motivation for your perspective.

[0]: http://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/raceinc.html

[1]: http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2012/us-incarcerati...

[2] : http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2012/03/13/...

[3]: http://www.hrw.org/news/2002/02/26/us-incarceration-rates-re...

[4]: http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet

[5]: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/20133267193...

[Jugurtha]

I'm not using this data to treat people differently: If I'm alone at 3AM and you come out of nowhere, I wouldn't care if you were blue, green, black or white. I wouldn't trust anyone equally.

My point was, that one can understand how people think and stereotype given the data, as long as the data isn't corrupted.

But coming back to the data: Sure, the majority of people aren't criminals, but the few who are, belong to a certain category. I'm not talking absolute, I'm talking relative. I'm not talking "divine truth", I'm talking correlation.

And you can be a sunflower all you want, you can't deny it.

You can deny it if you want, but that doesn't make it any less true, and that doesn't solve the problems in urban areas, poverty, lack of education, etc.

So: One can either say it's not true and be liked by people as an open mind and non racist (that doesn't fix the root problems), or one acknowledges the problem and think about solutions (at the risk of being called names).

I do feature extraction and classification of data, can't go against such stats.

That's why I asked the commenter to put herself in their shoes: She's got a kid, between a 45 year old dude and a more usual nanny, she'll choose the nanny every single time (from the 60%).

To be closer to her experience: She'll do an ad, a couple comes, she'll acknowledge the guy and ask the woman how much experience she's had with kids .. While it's the guy who came for the job.

[onetwofiveten]

What are you saying here? People who suffer from discrimination should just learn to understand why they get stereotyped and be more tolerant about it? That's extremely self serving and entitled. If you're in a position of privilege, it's up to you to make the effort to treat everyone as fairly as you can. It's up to you to help break down the unfair boundaries that benefit you. It's your responsibility to do that. Otherwise you're tacitly helping to perpetuate those boundaries, and are therefore complicit in their existence.

[Dylan16807]

They're saying that you shouldn't pretend problems don't exist if you want them fixed. Problems like poverty, crime rate, sentencing rate. They are real, they have real effects, they shouldn't be discounted. Arguing that most people aren't in jail is just a way of ignoring the problem.

[Jugurtha]

I am saying that most discrimination cases are bullshit.

http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/adalovelace/

She could hack it. In the 19th century. You mean to tell me that women back then had more rights than they do now ?

I am saying that if you are an exception, don't be surprised people assume you belong to the norm.

If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a dug, it's probably not a shark.

If someone has had to deal with 100 people from a certain category, and 2 of them were good at their stuff.. Do you think that the human mind will make up a rule based on those 2% who were good ?

That's statistics, that's what the odds are for. You calculate the odds, and make up your mind. You can be wrong, but you are more likely to be right.

If I present to you two games of lottery. One where you have 30% of winning. One where you have 0.1% of winning.. Don't tell me you'll choose the 0.1% game.

If you are in a class, and a kid comes and is presented to you as your teacher, don't tell me that your first reaction will be to embrace that and be totally confident in his abilities. Until the kid opens his mouth and proves himself.

Do you think Muggsy Bogues had it easy, with his 5 ft 3 in the NBA ?.

What do you think he had to overcome to even get a chance to talk with a coach.

People would laugh at him until he proved himself. And he expected to have to prove himself, he's a 5 ft 3 player after all, and it's not like we see them every day.

People who are good are an exception. Women in tech are an exception. Combine the two: Women who are in tech and who are good, and you got yourself a 3 sigma std or something.

Pull the records and make lists:

First list: Of all programmers.

Second list: Of all programmers, how many are good (list getting thin, right?).

Third list: Of all programmers, how many are men ?

Fourth list: Of all programmers, how many are women ? (that was is thinner than the above).

Fifth list: Of all programmers who are great, how many are women ?

Sixth list: Of all programmers who are great, how many are men ?

Now, some may say it's caused by discrimination .. But it's not. How many women are on technical anonymous forums about programming ?

Not that much. Nobody knows what anyone looks like, whether it's a dude or not.. But I'm willing to bet everything I have that most of the most members are men. And of those members, from those who are really good, almost none of them is a woman.

If there was a betting game with these odds, I'd play it.

If I'm going to get a new job, I won't expect people to trust me that I know my stuff(because the odds are that most people suck, it has nothing to do with me). I expect to be tested. I expect to earn their confidence. That's what "Earning your stripes" means. There's the word earning. Demanding it to be any other way is being a cry-baby.

When you go to an internet forum and your status is a Newbie, people don't expect you are an expert, and this in an anonymous world where no one can pull this bullshit discrimination whether based on gender or color.

When you talk with hackers, you have to earn their technical respect, whether you're a guy or a girl (if anybody was on a forum).

When you get to the army, you are expected to show your stamina and courage and prove yourself worthy. That's what initiation rituals are for. That's what "showing your scars" is for: Show us you belong here.

In any field, you frigging earn the respect, it's not handed to you. It has always been that way and I don't see dudes bitching about that.

Why don't we hear about that bullshit in teaching, medicine, etc ? Why don't we even think about women teaching ? Because there are a lot more women teaching than women coding and they didn't get there by some bullshit rule that says that 30% of chairs belong to women just because they basically are women. This* -allow someone to do something just because they belong to a minority- is the true face of discrimination.

I'd rather have a racist insult me because of where I'm from, than getting hired just because I'm from a certain country and they're too afraid to hurt my little ego (and the law protects my little, poor me, ego).

I've had interesting discussions with racists. I don't have a problem with them, at all. They're free to have their opinion of me, and they're free to hate my frigging guts. I'd have more respect for someone tell it to my face, than someone wanting to be cool by hanging out with a different nationality.

So you make a rule that forces businesses to hire a certain category is the real discrimination. The fact you're even talking gender means there's something shady in it.

So for these women (link article, and comment I replied to) being surprised people assume they're not into technical things, I think it's a little bit being thin skinned: Most women don't code. Someone might argue that most men don't, either, so I'll rephrase it (because people love getting into arguments): Of those who code, women are a minority. Any arguing on this point is wanting to please a minority by distorting the facts. I tell it straight, if anyone is hurt, sue me.

And it's getting trendy now. That girl who quit her job at GitHub. GitHub replacing their rug that says United Meritocracy of GitHub (which is weak and wimpy).

If there is anyone who loves women, it's me. I have 5 sisters whom I love and cherish. But I'm intolerant to bullshit. I'm intolerant to political correctness.

Now there are quotas to be respected in politics: 30% women. So if it's a 100 person membership, you'll have to make sure there are 30 women. So if there are some people you really like, you have to sacrifice them because you wouldn't be legal or something.

And if the number of men grows, you have to increase the number of women even though it adds no value, just to comply. This is wrong and I find it disrespecting to women.

Imagine you're a woman being used as a hole plug. We don't really need you, but we'll have you because we have to. I'd die of shame if I accepted.

[onetwofiveten]

Right, so negative discrimination is not important at all, because it's possible to overcome it if you are sufficiently talented? Bullshit! Everyone has to prove themselves in life, but if you make it harder for one group of people to earn respect than another, then that isn't fair at all. If you've had to put up with an unfair life, that doesn't mean it's bad for other people to complain about unfairness.

Anti-discrimination laws only demand fair treatment. Nothing more. Positive discrimination only happens if organisations choose to follow such a policy. Most organisations actually don't want horribly unqualified people, so it's not as big a deal as you make out.

In political arenas having a percentage quota of women actually makes more sense, because political bodies are supposed to represent the people and 50% of people are women. This is predicated on the notion that everyone is more inclined and better able to represent their own gender's perspective. It doesn't seem too controversial to me, it just seems like an extension of the ideas of proportional representation. Where I've seen it, these quotas are on the list of candidates that political parties nominate, not on the list of elected politicians. It's not that people can't vote in who they like, it's about who the party puts up for election, which is something regular people never have a say in anyway.

Cultural expectations are self-fulfilling prophecies. A hundred years ago, a lot of people had very low expectations about what women (or black people) were capable of. They were wrong, but it took a lot of time and effort to make that change. That is what political correctness is about. Political correctness demands superficial changes to how cultural expectation are expressed. It's a case of "fake it 'til you make it". Even if people deep down feel differently, they are asked to suppress it and treat individuals fairly. That way, the next generation of children grow up with a different view of the world than their parents. With each generation we take a step closer to fairness and equality. People like you know just enough to see that political correctness is superficial, but not quite enough to understand why. So you call it out as hypocritical bullshit, even though it has real, practical, achievable aims. Children pick up on the superficial values of the world around them, and that has a deep effect on them. Check out the Clark experiment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqvJp2gXJI0

[huherto]

Just a guess. May be they are trying not to appear to be hitting on you. Paraphrasing you ..."Being a man around women is like walking through a maze with minefields at every turn and never knowing which one you'll hit."

[me2i81]

I'm not sure where you got that. Treat people professionally and there's no "minefield."

[geoka9]

> I'm not sure where you got that.

Simple. The grand parent herself says that it's unusual for a male to make eye contact with her at a conference, except when somebody is trying to hit on her.

[ericabiz]

Not what I said.

[geoka9]

Not literally, no. But that's the impression I got from your post. Sorry if I misconstrued it.

[AgathaTheWitch]

My skin color and gender both connote a number of invalid assumptions. This probably applies to most people at some point in their lives. It just doesn't bother me. I'm sorry if it bothers you and I sympathize with others who are annoyed. I just don't relate.

[adrianm]

I'm inclined to agree with much of what you said, but I don't think sexism is always at fault here. If I were that person who struck up a conversation with your fiance, I know I would personally find it difficult to make the "first move" in initiating a conversation with you.

Is it because I'm sexist? No! I'm not a very extroverted or social person and I find it personally very difficult to make initial contact with anyone I don't already know. Given that I'm already talking to your fiance, we can infer that something or someone has broken the ice and hence we are engaged in a conversation.

If you were the person with whom the ice was broken with first, it would be your fiance who would be seemingly "snubbed" by me, unless introduced explicitly by yourself. Maybe non-extroverts, shy, or just socially awkward individuals need to wear a public service announcement or something to make this clear to everyone.

"Disclaimer: I'm not sexist; I'm just socially awkward. Please break the ice and say hello to me!"

I'd also like to add, for your consideration, that some people are better at one-on-ones than navigating the social jungle that is multi-person conversations. I have no idea how to engage multiple persons at once outside of the context of a formal or informal presentation of some sort. This could be that the topics of conversation that I usually engage in with others are not usually of the anecdotal variety, which I imagine are amenable to group conversation, where others can more easily "participate" passively.

Finally, I'd like to point out that I think your social party experiment as you framed it will always generate results that are biased toward your assumption. Just because a phenomena has been observed to exist (in this case the phenomena, according to your testimony, is "men in a technical environment are more inclined to strike up technical conversations with men to the exclusion of the women also present") does not actually tell us anything about -why- this is so.

You can come up with any number of anecdotally reasonable hypotheses, but until you actually test these hypotheses in a well defined and scientific manner with an experiment designed to eliminate all of the potential biases, your experiment is no better (rhetorically speaking) at proving anything than a sexist diatribe along the lines of "why my ex-{girlfriend or wife}'s {anecdotally negative conduct} proves women are {some universal claim about all women}".

[frandroid]

You're not sexist, but you have less problems breaking the ice with men than women...

[teacup50]

That's not particularly unusual; it's easier to break the ice when there's no question of ulterior motive or interest.

I feel off-kilter speaking with strangers that I find attractive in a professional setting; I have to keep telling my brain to ignore itself and act normally. This isn't unique to any gender -- the other day I was ordering lunch in the neighborhood, and the person behind the counter was mooning at me to a degree that actually made the interaction uncomfortable.

I don't take it personally; that's how people are, myself included. I know it can be slightly uncomfortable, but as long as we're trying to be professional with and understanding of each other, things generally work out.

[adrianm]

I don't understand what you're implying here, I'm afraid.

[sliverstorm]

He's implying that it is sexist to be bad at talking to women.

[adrianm]

Really? Re-reading it with that in mind, I think you're right... I guess my brain presumed that was such an irrational conclusion to draw about me after reading what I wrote that it didn't register at all, I honestly thought I was just not understanding what the poster was trying to say.

It really feels terrible to be insulted when I was trying to contribute a thoughtful comment.

[sliverstorm]

IMO it's a ridiculous allegation, anyway. Guys aren't bad at talking to women because they want to be, so telling them "Hey that thing you're ashamed about, well you should feel even worse about it now" isn't useful.

[icelancer]

This is true about every type of person who shares more in common with each other. Race, religion, etc. Why would sex/gender be different?

[hippich]

I believe no matter if you are technical or not, you still can find certain correlation between person's sex and if he or she is technical or not. I understand that there are a lot of gals in tech, but it is less likely to happen to see couple where female party is technical and male - is not. It is just statistics. Just like it is more likely for gals to have longish hair and for guys - shorter one. It is just how current overall earth as large system evolved.

Just like everybody assumed I am boring when I was young and nerdish, same would happen to gals in tech. I bet that if instead of waiting for 13 minutes you would join conversation whoever approached you and your fiance would happily continue conversation with you two. Yes, his initial assumptions were incorrect, but they are based on current expectations. As soon as there will be close to 50/50 female/male ration in tech I bet these assumptions will disappear.

Don't try hard to find samples of sexism. Just join a conversation.

[ipince]

Erica, I don't know the particulars of your situation, but may I suggest that maybe you're reading too much into (some of) this?

I've seen the lack of eye contact problem happen many times, with a mix of genders/races/etc. Sometimes I'm the one being ignored (I'm male); sometimes I feel weird because the person talking is only looking at me and ignoring everyone else in the group. It feels random to me.

IMHO, it points more to a general lack of social skills than a sexist/racist thing. I try not to take it personally. And I try, in my own conversations, to always be very inclusive (e.g. eye contact with everyone, even if I'm answering one particular person's question) and encourage others to be inclusive as well (e.g. deliberately introducing people, asking questions, or simply giving others in the group eye contact even when I'm on the listening end). I think steps like these can go a long way.

[NicheDiver]

I am a self-employed technical female as well but in my case I'm also a semi-recluse so my exposure to such things is greatly limited. Outside of being a developer I'm also known to occasionally fix my own cars and large appliances in lieu of taking them to be repaired.

In that context I have experienced similar issues but I chalk it up to people simply not being exposed enough to oddities like me. I am guilty of it too towards people I come across who break my mental image of how something "is."

For example, I live near Austin, Texas. I recently saw a really tall, very handsome black man wearing a cowboy hat and full-length duster. Certainly that's not the norm for me to see but not too incredibly odd either. That is until I heard him speak with the most refined British accent I'd ever heard in my life. I completely lost my composure and started viewing him if he were a novelty act. I have no doubt I was at least as much of an ass as the men you describe.

As other commenters have pondered, I wonder if these situations will actually start to decrease as the commonality of females in tech starts to increase.

[driverdan]

In case you weren't aware Erica (OP of the parent comment) lives in Austin. The two of you should meet.

[Fuxy]

I feel I have to apologize on behalf of all clueless men out there unfortunately we were brainwashed by the media that all women are non technical.

On the other hand i see nothing wrong with you being aggressive and it would be extremely hilarious if you were to go with your boyfriend to an event and just whisper in his ear what he needs to say every time he gets asked something technical he might not know.

I always enjoy playing on peoples assumptions and making them feel awkward for making them.

P.S. There's no gender neutral interactions so make the most of your gender's image and strengths.

If you want to be treated for who you are and not just a member of your gender you will have to show a strong personality and don't be afraid of being assertive or slightly aggressive sometimes. It gets you respect.

[odonnellryan]

I'm not trying to be insulting here in any way, and I hope I come across correctly.

It's not your fault, and it's a horrible situation that many people would love to see changed. I love talking about technology, and it's unfortunate the culture is the way it is where it alienates part of the community for discussion.

However, with all such things -- while it is worthwhile to push for change -- they must be taken in stride and seen as obstacles to overcome.

Take what you think is a weakness in your situation: that you're underestimated, or maybe ignored, as your strength.

[JoeAltmaier]

Lots of projection about why men are ignoring women. Maybe sometimes its nothing to do with assumptions about competence. Could be awkward unfamiliarity with what to do with a women in an admittedly male-filled industry.

I don't mean that you ought to shoulder the burden of conditioning all the males; or that its fair. Mostly the world isn't fair. But its the current state of affairs.

[mathattack]

Given that this is a hot topic... Wouldn't a tech company have an enormous competitive advantage if they treated women better?

[merrua]

The ones that do, usually do. Mixed boards have better performance. Company's producing products that don't actively drive away some of the market make more sales. Unfortunately people don't always act based on economic best choice, but based on learned behavior.

[lmm]

If it is, great, it'll sort itself out. I was kind of hoping Etsy would resolve this one way or another (they seemed to be heavily feminist as a core corporate value), but I haven't heard much from them lately - which suggests maybe they aren't doing so well?

[mathattack]

It may not sort itself out. There could be non-performance reasons why companies behave poorly. Managers could have incentives for bad behavior (they like going to strip clubs with customers, for example) that present principal-agent problems.

I once observed a Japanese subsidiary of an American firm. They gave women the same career opportunities as men. As a result, they could get highly competent women from top schools (who wouldn't want to be office ladies at traditional Japanese firms) even though they couldn't get as competent men. As a result, the women at the subsidiary substantially outperformed the men at every level.

[rodly]

Find a field that has been woman-dominated for the last 50 years. Now put a man in that field, who is rather successful (like yourself in technology), and you will get the exact same result in the contexts you describe. I'm sick of this paradox where men and women are equal and yet men (and only men) are capable of making this mistake. It's simple pattern matching, and when the pattern tells you one thing and it's actually the other you're now a giant sexist pig. Now if a guy ignores you for more than a few seconds at one of these events then I agree, the guy needs to wake up, it's 2014.

Also complaining about getting hit on? Really? A person finds you attractive and wants to talk to you. What a monster.

"But I hate that my physical appearance and gender connotes so many (invalid and ridiculous) assumptions."

What is ridiculous about an assumption that is 95% correct in today's world? Perhaps it will be a ridiculous assumption in 5 years, and definitely 10, but it's not far-fetched to run into guys at these events who don't interact with women ever in their day-to-day work lives.

[tomca32]

From personal experience, I really have to agree.

I'm a male. I'm now an engineer but before I switched careers I was a ballet dancer.

I've heard the phrase "Are you waiting for your girlfriend?" or "Is your girlfriend a dancer?" or some variation of that, countless times when I was at theater/ballet company events/auditions. I hated that, but I couldn't really blame anyone. 90% of other males there were usually just waiting for their girlfriends.

[piokoch]

True. My coworker's kid goes to kindergarten where on of the teachers is male. This guy really had a hard time at the beginning. Parents were very suspicious and worried (why "man" is working in kindergarden???) or took him for a repairman.

The article's author is simply a victim of statistics. If at the conference there is 150 "booth babies" and 300 male engineers, but in one booth there is a female engineer, people make educated guess, based on statistical inference, that this must be 151 booth baby.

I think nobody is to blame here. And, in fact, articles author might turn that whole confusion to her advantage (out of 150 other booths, that one surely will be remembered by potential customers). As a matter of fact it has happened already, I guess it is not that easy to hit top rank on Hacker News.

[primitivesuave]

You make a great point, just wanted to point out that traditionally the name is "booth babe" (as opposed to baby, which largely fell out of favor after the Austin Powers movies). I learned about this term from a female employee who also happened to be an excellent coder and a victim of statistics.

Not that I wouldn't like to see a booth baby - a toddler with a mini Python shirt would be adorable and would certainly drive more traffic to your booth.

[route66]

> I think nobody is to blame here

An industry who employs women as booth babes, apparently because staring at a booth babe sells tech better? Stinks.

[xerophtye]

While yes,I am completely against the usage of booth babes (they don't work anyways[1]) But... I kinda feel weird about just blaming the industry as if it was a human-trafficking mafia. Booth babes aren't slaves you know... they CHOSE to work in that role. So they have a share of the blame, no?

PS: Not saying all women are to blame! But you smart intellectual ladies gotta agree that they contribute to the problem (just as the people who employ them)

[1] techcrunch.com/2014/01/13/booth-babes-dont-convert/

[route66]

I am probably not smart, maybe not intellectual but most definitely not a lady.

As for the industry: seemingly the industry thinks that showing ass and tits on a booth is worth it. That alone says enough. It is not about the ones who are earning their money there but the ones who think that their industry needs that. No discussion of "choice" needed.

[skeg]

So, all industries then.

[FLUX-YOU]

Fracking would be so much more popular if they gave Stark Expo-like presentations with booth babes.

[benihana]

Oh okay. We'll blame the entire obviously monolithic industry then.

[onetwofiveten]

How about we blame the individuals within the industry that participate in and perpetuate the culture that thinks it's okay to use female sexuality to sell software products. It's patronising to men within the industry, it's off-putting to women within the industry and it makes the industry as a whole look extremely unprofessional from the outside.

[offbrand]

The problem is not men hitting on us and it being awkward. I can handle that, whatever. The issue is being seen as ONLY sexual objects. Normally things start out great. Oh, you're a girl in tech? That's so awesome. Now I can talk tech, a topic I'm comfortable with. However, I can't tell you how many times I've mentioned my fiance and the conversation comes to a screeching halt, see ya. Or I let it go on without mentioning anything, and the boundary isn't set and there is awkwardness later on. It is a different dynamic and tricky to navigate. If I was a guy, they'd be happy to talk business and learn about my startup. We never got to that. I find it hard to have as positive of an experience networking as my male coworkers seem to have. I'm not saying this is sexism or any other loaded words, its just a challenge.

So while being a technical female has a lot of positives (we are more rare and stand out and people might find us pretty and want to talk to us), there are legitimate issues regarding professionalism in work and conferences. No one is saying men are monsters...well, I'm certainly not.

[hedges]

> If I was a guy, they'd be happy to talk business and learn about my startup.

That's unlikely. If you were a guy they wouldn't be talking to you at all. Even less likely they'd do so with genuine interest. That is the experience most males have in such conferences. Few men get any kind of attention from anyone without putting in a lot of effort.

Having men lose interest in you after your fiancée is mentioned doesn't tell you anything about the likelihood of them seeing you only as a sexual object. Could just as well be a human object they want to love.

[kaybe]

Take object out of your last sentence and I maybe can accept your point better..

[stephp]

Sorry, I hate to be this person, but do you know who the high-paid, "celebrity" hair stylists are? Men. If you look at all the communications careers-- teachers, psychologists, marketers. Men make the most money and have the most prestige in female-dominated professions. "Flipping" a scenario is rarely the best way of formulating an argument.

[vbuterin]

Meanwhile:

* 93% of prisoners are male: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1...

* 92% of all occupational deaths are male: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_fatality

* 84% of homeless people are male: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/07/men-gen...

The general statistical consensus is actually that men have higher variance in general. You're more likely as a man to be rich and famous, but you're also more likely to end up in a ditch.

[Jugurtha]

Most car accidents are male, too. It doesn't mean they're bad drivers, it means that men drive longer distances, longer time than women.

It's a matter of probability. The more you drive, the more you are likely to have an accident at some point.

Match total men mileage and get the ratio accident/man.mile .. Then do the same for women.

More accident for less driving. Numbers say another thing.

If someone's a truck driver and spends basically his whole day driving and has driven hundred of thousands of miles and he's been in 5 accidents.. And I've been in 1 accident.. What do the numbers say ?

I love it when people want to bend numbers to make them say what they want, yet completely take them out of context.

Oh:

84% of homeless people are male ?

Okay, find each one of them. Ask if he was married before. If yes, ask him where is his wife..

I'm willing to bet she's not inside that card-board box:)

[vbuterin]

> It's a matter of probability. The more you drive, the more you are likely to have an accident at some point.

That was actually part of my point. I am not saying men are inferior, I am saying men are more likely to be in jobs where they have higher workplace hazards.

[sliverstorm]

Also complaining about getting hit on? Really? A person finds you attractive and wants to talk to you. What a monster.

Amusingly enough, I was just reading an article by a woman, complaining that not enough men hit on her in SF.

[melindajb]

I'm confused. Are you are unable, or unwilling to discriminate between a woman wanting to be hit on in a social situation; and not willing to be harassed or discriminated against in a professional context?

[sliverstorm]

I don't live anywhere close to SF; it's nothing to do with me personally. It's just funny to read the two threads of thought, both written by women:

SF is full of sexist men making unwelcome advances on women

SF dating scene is dead, men won't make a move

Do you not see the slightest humor in that?

Actually, having written it out like that, I wonder if one thread begot the other.

[melindajb]

again, you're incapable of recognizing these are two entirely different situations? Ok, here's what you sound like.

People complained my shit stinks when I shit in the bathroom. People complained when I took a shit on my grandmother's dining room rug. I get so confused about where to take a shit!

[teacup50]

> again, you're incapable of recognizing these are two entirely different situations?

Are they, really? I dated multiple women from work before I met my wife. It's not earth shattering -- we spend 8 hours a day with these people, and there's bound to be some level of attraction between some of them.

Not everyone thinks exactly the way you do. Things go more smoothly when you aim to be understanding of those differences.

[enry_straker]

Wow. What an inappropriate analogy. Way to go.

[primitivesuave]

Any other analogy you could have made is better than the analogy you made.

[sliverstorm]

Your anger is really not a very effective discussion tactic. You might think me the idiot, but you're doing an excellent job making a fool of yourself.

Anyway, I'll find humor wherever I please, and you'll just have to live with that.

[bayesianhorse]

On the one hand, most men aren't exactly "smooth operators" when it comes to this, on the other hand rejecting someone is usually not pleasant to the one doing the rejecting.

[srpablo]

Piling on to other commenters: Modern Dance & Ballet. Most of the coveted, paid choreographer positions go to men, despite being a tiny fraction of the dancers.

[melindajb]

not to mention film directors, theatre directors, and speaking roles in television and film.

[onetwofiveten]

Do you really find it hard to understand why it would be frustrating for people to not take you seriously and constantly hit on you in a professional context?

And what exactly are you defending here? If you're in a professional situation (which includes work related social events) then you shouldn't make unwelcome sexual advances. That's how you avoid sexual harassment lawsuits. If you don't have the social awareness required to know whether or not someone else is attracted to you, then that's very sad, but it's your problem. You have to work on it in your own time. Don't flail around at work making everyone else uncomfortable, hoping to get lucky.

Also, I can't believe you're defending the right to make patronising snap judgements about people based on statistical correlations. You don't need to prejudge the people you meet in a professional context. Just be polite and pay attention.

[JoeAltmaier]

Its all very good to admonish 'treat everyone well'. But when you meet a lot of people, a LOT of people, you need some filter.

Cultural filters are unfair to a minority who break the mold. But the trouble is, they work very, very well most of the time. Call it by any bad name you like; but its here to stay, because it works.

That a utilitarian argument I know; but in my experience the free market respects no other kind.

[Cd00d]

A story as a counter point: In my field of study there were several people with reputations for having had wacky ideas or following rabbit holes too far and publishing obtuse conclusions. When these people gave talks you could see most of the audience pre-judging their current presentation based on a filter put in place from previous or concurrent unpopular work.

What I always noticed was that my advisor, who is rather famous in our niche of science, never dismissed a person for their history or pet interpretations. He would listen to everyone equally and dismiss ideas or concepts as they were presented. Because of this he was able to glean amazing insight from people that were outright dismissed by almost everyone else in the field.

Everyone can be put in one conceptual box, but all of us also pour over into others. You are not so busy that you can't evaluate people based on their current and real merit, instead of racial profiling or dismissing people that made a mistake in the past.

tldr; your false filters are holding you back.

[JoeAltmaier]

Academics have lots of 'ivory tower' opportunities. But how about an HR rep? A recruiter? Profiling can actually help those folks get their work done, clear their backlog, get them home to supper on time.

[onetwofiveten]

Most people don't meet so many people that they can't spare a few minutes politeness. Mostly prejudicial judgements are made out of laziness and incompetence, not because they are useful. Obviously I don't know your circumstances. I guess if you did meet a lot of people and were seeking certain types (e.g. direct sales looking for customers) it would make sense to improve your odds by profiling. However, even then, I can't see why you wouldn't want to be polite and tactful during actual interactions. Especially if you were about to make a snap judgement that the other person might find offensive.

[JoeAltmaier]

Well said. I like to think I give folks a chance. My comment was exploring why profiling is so pervasive.

[Jugurtha]

Because it works. People profiling can be wrong, but they're more likely to be right given the odds.

They'd much rather be wrong on one case and save a hole lot of time, than make sure they get all the cases and finally find nothing. They could find a gem, but what are the odds, it's a gem after all.

[kaitai]

Srsly? Someone's gotta write a program to autopost the stats about men in nursing and men in elementary school teaching, and particularly the way they get promoted faster with less experience. (One source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2012/05/21/a-new-o...)

And srsly? The continuing trope that it's "men who are sexist pigs" who are the problem rather than "people who persist in employing infantile pattern-matching in the face of conflicting evidence"? Who said anything about only men making this mistake, anyway? Sensitive much?

And complaining about getting hit on in work situations -- been covered enough on the internet, but I just want to say I need to be paid a f(*&load more to add that to my job description. It is not in my job description.

[alphaoverlord]

Really? That article has no data. It only says: “When you look at senior management, you tend to see men disproportionately represented. So while there may be less than 5% of all nurses who are male, you see a much larger percentage than 5% in senior-level positions like hospital administrators.”

Which is understandable because administrator != higher level nurse. Most hospital administrators are MBAs, occasional MDs and RNs.

[hueving]

>And srsly?

English, do you speak it?

>And complaining about getting hit on in work situations

The grandparent was talking about at social events. Not work situations.

[bayesianhorse]

Tech events aren't strictly non-work situations...

As a single man I have to say it's a tough balance between women being offended by getting hit on (it's a numbers game, if there is one woman for every ten men in a work place, guess who gets hit on the most) and not doing any dating. I know that on occasion woman have felt offended by my "approach/hitting on" or whatever and I wasn't even aware I was hitting on them. Good/honest intentions just don't cut it in these situations.

I do believe we as men should be more sensitive about this, but it's probably not going to happen. Regulating social behavior and skills is difficult.

[ersii]

Please drop the snarky tone, it does not add anything to your comments.

To kaitai: I do suggest that you write out the full word instead of abbreviating it to "srsly" - since that makes the comment a lot less interesting and distracts the otherwise insightful comment.

[hueving]

Snark begets snark. When someone just types 'srsly?', it's just an appeal to ridicule.

[tdavis]

Cool straw man, bro. Would have been even cooler had she actually made any claim that men were only capable of this "mistake". Or that your carefully constructed counter-argument weren't trivially proven false. But, whatever, you tried.

Simple pattern matching tells me you must have used car parts where your brain should be, so I guess we're all susceptible to this sort of mistake. And I'll be damned if I don't feel at least as confident in my assessment as you are in yours. I don't even know anything about cars! Now I feel like a hypocrite.

[melindajb]

We are humans and with that comes the ability to override animal thinking. Dare I say, I expect the person to have that thought to override it, think rationally, and say something other than what most of them do?

We've been discussing this issue long enough that the people who keep doing this, need to not be tolerated. We need to stop expecting those without power to always be the ones to take the high road.

[kjs3]

Privileged white male erects straw man. 50 years ago tells blacks "society is racist, so you should just get used to it and STFU".

[Pherdnut]

Booth-babe stuff aside, I thought the article was primarily about being non-technical at a startup.

[citadelgrad]

I've seen this "non-technical" assumption many times and I always cringe.

[hmason]

+1