Can you ethically suggest a woman pursue a career in tech? Over the last few years we’ve watched parents, educators and mentors everywhere working hard to get women into science, technology engineering and maths careers. Those efforts are succeeding: the number of women going studying engineering at the tertiary level has begun to arc upward. This is a good thing. But we also know …
ack, fixing alleged discrimination by discriminating makes as much sense as a "soup sandwich" [but it keeps gummint weenies 'in power' and emotions stirred up enough at election time]
/me puts the 'Harumph' scene from Blazing Saddles on a loop, to illustrate.
There should be no discrimination between male and female works, either positive or negative.
They are all part of the team and all deserve the same opportunities. It should be down to individual performance and nothing else.
A more sexist and discriminatory comment I haven't read anywhere in a long time. Discrimination goes both ways and suggesting that women be promoted disproportionately or paid better because they are women is discrimination. Everyone should be promoted or paid higher because of ability and skills not because of their gender (or sexual orientation but that is another can of worms).
>Everyone should be promoted or paid higher because of ability and skills not because of their gender (or sexual orientation but that is another can of worms).
Exactly, and given the current state of affairs, that evaluates to paying women more and promoting them disproportionately, because it has always been the other way around ... you know, sort of ... catch up ...
Those are the stories you hear about because those are the stories that sell column inches, most people in most companies just go through the malign rigmarole of work. Also because most people that write on the internet seem fascinated by the tech sector I wonder if the "buzz" around "tech companies"* is simply because that's where everyone is staring at the moment?
*which as we know means all companies - as all companies are IT companies that just happen to do something else, well most companies - except in this case we mean the actual IT software and service providers.
When it comes to getting insulted over something then there are 2 forces at work: intent and impression. Sometimes people can make a remark which may seem rude or insulting but most definitely isn't meant this way. At one time I was part of a tech support team and we had the silly habit of calling each other out whenever something bad had occurred. There was no meaning to it.... For example: You'd fix a problem with someone's PC, then they'd call again to complain about something else not working. That would sometimes result in internal teasing: "Some idiot forgot to close Mr. Doe's browser, but fortunately I'm here!". Harmless, and most often plain out fun.
So here's my problem: let's say a woman was added to the team. Would she pick up the "insults" just the way we did (obviously she would be treated just like one of the guys) or would this result in "They're calling me names because I'm a woman". That is sometimes the other side of the medal. There are also women around who expect to be treated differently within these areas only because they're a woman.
And sometimes things which are quite harmless can be picked up in the wrong way.
Of course I'm not saying that there's no truth to any of the abusive stories. I mean, just look at that article about the marine where people snap pictures of their female co-workers in secret and then spread those around without consent nor approval. That's just plain out disgusting and an obvious display of harassment.
How about you treat all newbies to your team with a certain amount of respect and professionalism and let them join your name game as and when they feel like it, regardless of gender? Perhaps women are more likely to express their emotions more outwardly, but that does not mean a new chap on your team doesn't feel confused and hurt until catching on.
I worked at a place a few years back where production/assembly was mostly staffed by women. The sole guy nearly quit in tears after months of what would be considered abuse if it was from a man.
You get a bunch of women together and they can be just as sexist as men in the workplace.
It's funny we have a society that creates the "bro" mentality, and believes it is bad in some sectors, like "tech", but perfectly fine in others, like sports - where it is utterly glorified.
While in some other sectors, i.e. the showbiz - women exploitation has been quietly accepted as "part of the business" for decades, if not centuries...
How it is OK to use women (especially the percentage of their skin exhibited) to increase clicks and revenues, and who cares if that helps a lot to create a society where women are seen as a product, especially a sexual product?
Or let's legitimize porn, it won't create more and more people who believe women deserve more respect than in the video their brain is full of - after all, every woman is a w***e, correct? Do we really believe raising people in this society will lead to man respectful of women? What are their role models?
Despite what we believe, and the finger behind which we hide, our whole society, especially men - but also women who take advantage of that, are obsessed with women as a sexual object only. Since childhood, no respect is taught. From that all the other ugly behaviours come from.
Good the tech sector is now under the lens - mostly because it's where well paid jobs now are - but let's not just look at the speck, and not the beam of wood in an entire society which looks more and more like a huge selfish teenager obsessed with sex.
And it's women paying the price of that, everywhere.
>How it is OK to use women (especially the percentage of their skin exhibited) to increase clicks and revenues, and who cares if that helps a lot to create a society where women are seen as a product, especially a sexual product?
Right then, mandatory burkas for all. How free and liberating and progressive of us!
I always wonder if the complaints of sexism come from women who are just not that good at their job...
If there are more men than women in a job, it makes statistical sense that a man would be selected for promotion....
A man has no such complaint...
And a white male has no complaint he can make
I always wonder if the complaints of sexism come from women who are just not that good at their job...
Let me help you out. The reason that you have this entirely fallacious and delusional idea about the world you live in is that you are what we call "a sexist dickhead". You are part of the problem. Oh look, and you're a racist as well; quelle surprise.
The statistical point aside, that "passed over for promotion" bit in the article needs revisiting. The important bit is the reason the hypothetical women were passed over for promotion:
In private you'll hear stories of women passed over for promotion by men half their age, because he went to university with the founders;
This is not an example of sexism, and nor is it misogyny. It's something like nepotism (but not quite because that's specific to relatives, I believe - there's probably a suitable word, but I don't know it.)
Two of the most sleaziest and most hated companies in the entire industry, by men and women alike, and they just happen to be your only two examples. There certainly are more out there, but the fact that the tabloid-headline-grabbing excesses of a mere _two_ companies out of the hundreds of thousands of companies that employ IT and software devs points more to shallow thinking and reaction to headlines than a reasoned position.
Rather than post a study looking at the tech industry in question you had to choose to post one from academia. There is a reason for that and if you ask why you did I suspect you'll find it isn't flattering for someone claiming to be respectful of people regardless of their gender.
More fucking conscience-washing tokenism from Yanks. Maybe <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtlxIcN_tAM>this</a> would help.
Equal opportunities and equal pay for equal work are important. Hand-wringing bullshit like this article will do nothing to bring it about and can even be counter-productive because they're so obviously tokenist.
I have a 14 year-old daughter, who's currently keen to pursue a tech. industry career.
If that's what she ultimately wants to do, I'm not going to attempt to persuade her otherwise.
I've worked in the industrial control industry, which tbh - wasn't a great place for women to work (20 years ago at least). It may have improved significantly since.
A/V platforms and networking, where I am now, has been a lot better - at an engineering level at least. Stories of what goes on at higher levels of management, in terms of "entertainment" would pretty-much exclude the vast majority of women.
I'm not sure we can tar all aspects of the tech industry with the same brush.
I used to work in an office where there were 22 women, and there was only me and another lad working there. I headed the IT bit, he was my assistant.
I saw two people go and get replaced by more women. I know that both of those roles had male applicants and they didn't get the job. Not because they were bad for the job, but because they were men. They wanted to keep it "woman heavy" for some reason. I asked why, and I wasn't really given an answer.
Also, funnily enough, before I left I needed another assistant so I interviewed a few people. All guys, but that's not my fault that's what the recruiters gave to me. One was a middle aged chap from Zimbabwe who I quite liked. I ran my two choices past the CEO (which I had to do), and she took one look at the Zimbabweian's(?) surname and dismissed him. She came out with some bullshit excuse, but it was obvious she didn't want the guy working there because he was black.
I handed in my notice about 15 minutes later.
In hiring decisions there is often an unconscious bias towards "people like us" ("us" being the managers responsible for choosing a candidate).
In areas already dominated by men that's likely to result in new hires being men, which is the focus of this article regarding certain kinds of IT job. However, where women call the shots, it's similarly possible for them to exhibit a bias in favour of female employees. It's likely that hiring bias perpetuates a lack of diversity in a number of industries.
There is currently a lot of research into this phenomenon in order to understand it better and figure out ways to counteract it. It's fair enough to point out that the bias can cut both ways and, at the same time, it's important to remember that male-dominated jobs tend to be better paid: exclusion of women from male-dominated jobs tends to disadvantage them more than it disadvantages the men excluded from female-dominated jobs. Not saying that hiring bias against men (or indeed anyone) is OK, just that the impact is not necessarily the same.
For some pay statistics, see here:
https://visual.ons.gov.uk/find-out-the-gender-pay-gap-for-your-job/
For example, an average female "IT user support technician" is paid 15.5% less than her male counterparts (women hold 26% of those jobs), whereas a male in a "secretarial & related occupation" is paid 7.5% than his female counterparts (women hold 92% of those jobs). But no prizes for guessing which type of role has higher average hourly pay.
(I apologise, without knowing the specifics of the assistant role mentioned here, I have assumed it to be a secretarial or related role but feel free to check the link for the specific role the Zimbabwean candidate applied for and let us know the comparison)
Different types of discrimination also combine to affect people in multiple minority groups worse (where "minority" can mean "minority within the employee population for that job role"). It sounds like the Zimbabwean candidate in this example most likely lost out due to his nationality and gender. Tackling these issues goes to the heart of some very deep-rooted assumptions and unconscious behaviours.
As a white British man with a degree, I am fortunate to have so many good career choices available to me here in the UK, so I don't find it very concerning that a small number of lower-paid jobs would be willing to overlook me because I am still in a privileged position overall. I'm not trying to brag, just pointing out that I'm somewhat aware of my own privilege and that a similar awareness would benefit some of my colleagues too, especially when considering what we can do to make a positive difference to our job culture.
To be clear, I would like men and women (all humans, really) to have the same opportunities to work in whichever job they prefer and to be paid according to their skills and ability to do the role.
Regarding the specifics of the article, I'd like to help make things better for women in IT and would appreciate some advice on how best to do so from within a technical role that doesn't involve hiring people. I've worked alongside a small number of brilliant women and enjoy working with a variety of people to get different ideas and perspectives. I'm not sure how things are going to improve from where we are now but it's a good debate to have and I enjoyed reading this article.
My real world is example is having worked almost 20 years for IT vendors and half of that time in Australia.
I have no doubt that Oracle and Uber are shit places to work but tge women who have had negative experiences at these employers most likely did not work in or with technology.
There are of course great technical achievements by women, but my personal experience is that women mostly occupy positions in HR, Marketing Sales, Sales Channel, Sales admin and "Relationship" based roles. The reason is that it is often toob expensive to develop technology in Australia and most intl. tech companies have sales subsideries here. The exception are some companies that have a technology excellence center here, but often that's prestige or a method of dodging tax.
As a result, the women that DO find a role in Tech Sales often are very aggressive and over compensate in effort to meassure up to their male counterparts. They try so hard to assimilate the macho male behaviour that their female qualities become over looked. By vemale quality I mean a less aggressive and considered approach.
My experiences have mostly been negative, due to politics, bad mouthing and back stabbing by former female colleages (in IT sales). in my Case these wmen lacked even the most fundamental knowledge of the technology they sold.
I feel sorry for the women who actually do work in tech because they dont get the recognition they deserve. Not by their male counterparts, but the organisations they work for.
I have no doubt that Oracle and Uber are shit places to work but tge women who have had negative experiences at these employers most likely did not work in or with technology.
You must have missed this, then, from a couple of weeks ago, which was the spark for the current flurry of over concern and motherhood-and-apple-pie statements from various PR depts in SV:
https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber
(There were several follow-ups from other women confirming these anecdotes, not just at Uber but other tech firms.)
Here we go again..... the women tin tech debate ...
Look, most women dont want to do technical stuff, as long as they find something else useful to do thats fine.
There 2 ladies in my office right now ,they are in the chain of management above me , they have nowhere near the technical knowledge I have , but they are getting paid more than me. Why would they want to actually *do the work* , for less money?
"It's because people that manage something will always get paid more than people that do something."
Only in workplaces with good objective measurement systems for determining employee productivity can pay be related to work being done.
The vast majority of workplaces ensure that those doing the actual work get paid less. It is far better to spent time making sure the management knows who you are, meeting them outside of work, and promoting yourself, than spending time in the trenches and doing actual work.
Actually managing or doing a good job is a very poor tactic and pointless if not combined with an effective social game . Of course those that spent their time doing that like to think they are getting paid more because they are better managers, better workers, are the ones actually getting equipment repaired and back online sooner than others. Having implemented objective measurement systems into such workplaces the one common surprise was those who were the most productive were almost never the ones getting paid the most.
There 2 ladies in my office right now ,they are in the chain of management above me , they have nowhere near the technical knowledge I have , but they are getting paid more than me. Why would they want to actually *do the work* , for less money?
*rolls eyes*
Are you being deliberately obtuse, or are you genuinely that thick?
... therefore I ask that men retire a few years sooner than women, so that they can enjoy an equal amount of retirement.
Friends of mine have been working in health care and due to a high rate of women they have been getting laid a lot over the years. I haven't heard many discussions about gender ratios in the health industry.
Now compare that to Tech and IT ....
Are there fewer woman in Tech because it has been a sexist industry from day one ? Or are men just more interested in technology?
Maybe the problem can be solved by dressing female babies in blue and males in pink?
Do female rubbish truck drivers earn the same as their male counterparts? Why are there so many woman in HR and why are there so few male pole dancers ?
dressing female babies in blue and males in pink?
It used to be this way into the mid-50's and large corporations changed it all around. When we had our first daughter and brought her home all wrapped in blue, the elderly ladies in our apartment knew she was a girl with only the face exposed...nothing else visible...
It's an industry, with thousands of people who's livelihoods depend on keeping their chosen "-ism" alive and well. Discrimination is discrimination whether it's positive or negative, why the hell should anyone [the company and/or the best candidate] lose out to a box ticking exercise?
And where is the drive to attract more men to secretarial & nursing jobs, and women to mining or bricklaying jobs?
None of these "industries" want equality they want preferential treatment, humans are all different, and the most marked difference is between XX and XY, with innate different properties. I see no-one calling for the abolition of sexism in the Olympics only in bathrooms and more comfortable workplaces.
And I'd also like to call #FakeNews [or more correctly bullshit] on the "rape culture" inference.
I went to visit a potential secondary school for my son, whilst we walked past the gym a bunch of teenage girls were all dancing about, When I Queried this the kid showing us around explained most girls did dance for their GCSE (WTF moment for me). I cannot see this really being a benefit on their CV for any STEM based job or any job actually whatsoever, well apart from drama or as mentioned above pole dancing.
I still can't believe its an actual GCSE option .........
Any teenager should be encouraged to do at least one of Drama, Music, or Dance at GCSE if their school has any serious capability in those areas (i.e. talented teachers and, less importantly, facilities). From my experience with 3 strongly academic kids (lots of A* etc) these subjects benefit them greatly in developing self-confidence, concentration, planning tasks, etc. And of course they all have an academic component.
And if you're lucky enough to have especially skilled teachers at your local school when your kids are there then you also get to see the results of all their hard work in performances of stunning quality.
Has anybody considered how nerds are portrayed in popular media? This starts at an early age and can have long lasting damage on mostly male youths. They're uncool, don't get laid, are boring and have pimples and thick glasses. They're stuck behind books while the females are more interested in the adventerous, lawyer, medical doctor stereotypes which dominate the TV.
It's only when reality kicks in that you realise that "something with media" and a backpacking holiday won't pay the same as a tech degree or equivalent experience.
"Has anybody considered how nerds are portrayed in popular media?"
Yes, I have. It's bullshit. No way would Howard get with Bernadette AND THERE AIN'T NO WAY Penny would get with Leonard.
I've tried all of the crap in my youth when it came to getting a girlfriend, being an overweight geek. Joined the school choir, nothing. Wrote music, nothing. Walked a girl I fancied home, nothing.
TV LIES!
No way would Howard get with Bernadette AND THERE AIN'T NO WAY Penny would get with Leonard
Well you might think so, but it's funny how personal relationships work out.
For myself (hence posting as AC), I'd warn potential dates (yes, I ended up on a dating website) to expect Sheldon's level of interpersonal skills but without the eidetic memory - my memory is really bad. I figure there's no point trying to hide such things, it's either a problem or it isn't and the sooner we find out if it's a problem, the less of each others' time we waste.
I met someone who seemed able to put up with me, and I have to thank one of her daughters (from her first marriage, she's a widow). She suggested to her mum that she thought I might be autistic, knowing the signs as she works as a carer in that field, and to give it a bit of time. After a slow start, we're now married, and I've been officially diagnosed on the Autistic Spectrum (to the surprise of no-one who knows me).
If you took a step back, you might think we're as unlikely a couple as Bernadette and Howard, or Penny and Leonard - but it worked out for us.
""" Has anybody considered how nerds are portrayed in popular media? This starts at an early age and can have long lasting damage on mostly male youths. They're uncool, don't get laid, are boring and have pimples and thick glasses. They're stuck behind books while the females are more interested in the adventerous, lawyer, medical doctor stereotypes which dominate the TV. """
Maybe because the stereotype has a grain of truth? I like TBBT because while they embellished nerdy traits for the sake of comedy, I can see myself in the characters (and sympathise with some of the things they go through), all the while laughing.
I have only had 2 partners in my entire life. As I am now 30, that averages one every 15 years. Some people can pull that many girls on a good weekend break.
And I wasn't exactly overweight, but wasn't exactly an uber fit gym bunny.
My problem was that the kind of stuff girls like to do I am not that interested in. They want a guy to take them out, spend money on them, and do "interesting stuff", where "interesting stuff" is whatever their peers convinced their partners to do, or they read in some magazine.
I can pretend to be like that, put on a show, but it rapidly gets old, and I don't want to pretend to be someone I am not, especially someone I dislike myself.
The sheer herd mentality annoyed me, and I admit I like being different, while most women seem to want a conformist (despite saying how they are "individual", "unique" and "different", I might add). I say most, because I did manage to find two who were not and where we clicked. One was a techie geek, and the other a lawyer.
The biggest problem I saw, is that "IT" is just not seen as a desirable career for a man to have. On the dates I went out, quite often women told me that when you say you work in "IT" they think the miserable support guy that comes round to fix their office PC because it has a virus. Indeed many times I have been told it is better to make something up rather than tell people I work with computers. The women really are looking for traders, lawyers, doctors, "Managers", the higher up in the career world, the better. Careers which society has deemed as being "Alpha". IT is seen as a dead end job for those who have failed in life.
The women explain to me that they want someone who can "provide" as much as possible, especially as they have to take time out of their careers for child rearing. In their mind a guy who earns twice what they do is perfect.
I admit I could have probably "pulled" far more if I had the interest, and the inclination to lie and generally be devious and try to trick them into bed, but I can't do that. Just not who I am. Another thing about nerds, is that we generally find a lot more interesting in the world than just sex. Some people really see nothing higher than base desires.
"The women explain to me that they want someone who can "provide" as much as possible"
Yes. And there's my biggest peeve with the whole "mortally offended by me allegedly expecting a woman to be 'tied to the kitchen'" feminist bullshit. In short, I don't. No, really. Raising children, looking after the home, whatever - I absolutely don't expect any of that to be "her job" in any sense. But then time and again real life steps in, slaps you in the face and confirms again and again that quite a few who expect man and woman to share workload equally also kinda expect the man to "provide" - perhaps not exclusively, but definitely in an overwhelming proportion (experience NOT based on internet "wisdom" but plain old Mark I. eyeball and years of life). So quaint...
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