[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".