How To Fight Sexism in Silicon Valley

http://chrisyeh.blogspot.com/2012/04/speak-up-silicon-valley.html

by chrisyeh • 14 years ago

27 33 14 years ago

chrisyeh.blogspot.com

nullflux5• 14 years ago

Why are we are focusing consistently on a short-term solution to what seems like a larger issue? I personally don't see a quick fix to all of this, and it seems to me that the real solution is more holistic than we seem to be pushing for.

In every one of these that gets to a couple hundred comments, we end up with two big groups that appear: "bros" that are "just having fun" and y'all need to "lighten up", or some stereotype of a misogynistic engineer that hates women because women consistently slighted the character throughout his life. In the first case, you have to fight a subculture that commoditizes women; in the second, you have to fight years of maladaptive behavior, and negative feedback from a cycle of sexual and social ostracization, where their defense became vilification.

Both of those cases are going to be really tough to change in the short-term. In the best case scenario we'll get a few to see the light, but when there are emotional ties to this type of behavior there is a lot of cognitive dissonance that has to be cut through before any change is truly realized. In the tougher cases all we will actually do for the present generation is bury sexist sentiment into a back channel somewhere, which doesn't help the end cause.

Yes, let's lead by example, but let's also try to start at the origin and get things sorted out before such discriminatory practices can get deeply rooted. Go talk to some college engineering teams. Let's get more women involved in the things that these guys are doing, and give them equal opportunity to show their abilities; the culture is often more meritocratic than not. Take it one step further if you have kids, and teach them that gender roles are just as bad as racism. The bros will realize that their actions are slowly being obsolesced, and the shunned will be proportionally less so. It takes work from both ends and we are really only ever pushing one angle hard.

EDIT: Drastically rewritten in hopes of being clearer.

EDIT 2: Minor bits and pieces, again.

shalmanese• 14 years ago

I'm fine with some problems being generational but there's no indication that the next generation is necessarily more enlightened than the previous. I really don't want to have to wait two generations.

nullflux5• 14 years ago

Younger generations are often more malleable than older ones. There is a reason why many cultures have a proverb similar to the "old dog, new tricks".

I'm not saying that there's nothing we can do now, but the kind of change you're looking for isn't likely to just happen overnight because you don't feel like waiting for it. These things have lots of momentum and emotion behind them.

nl2• 14 years ago

It's because there's a lot of talk about something that in the end I highly doubt will be fixed anytime soon.

Well that (it not being fixed anytime soon) is a big problem.

a lot of this discrimination appears generational and likely won't be solved shortly by this method of self-correction.

Actually, the evidence is otherwise. For example, in the linked post:

Traditionally, high tech has been dominated by young Caucasian and Asian males (go back another 20 years, and it was just Caucasian males). Like many other parts of society, entrepreneurship has become more inclusive.

Additionally, the "typical" YCombinator startup is full of young people (who often are male). The "it's the old generation" argument doesn't stack up, and the "wait for them to die" solution is unacceptable.

It's hard to see how either of these groups are easily changed by blog posts, "awareness" of the issue, or even pure coercion.

Actually, it does seem to work. Find me an example of a startup that acted in a sexist way and continued that behaviour after it was highlighted.

The truth is that awareness is one of the things that has been shown to work, and even if there are additional things that can help additional awareness is not a bad thing.

nullflux5• 14 years ago

People are misunderstanding; it's time for an edit.

What I'm trying to get at is that awareness alone is not going to solve this issue, and we are very narrowly focused on this "Be aware!" thing. You're not going to self-correct big things like this; in a lot of cases you might truly correct it but you will just as much bury the sentiment in others who truly believe these types of things.

EDIT: Also, I don't understand how the quote you referenced is evidence otherwise, but perhaps we're miscommunicating. Rewrote my post in hopes of being a little clearer.

geoffschmidt2• 14 years ago

This seems to boil down to "Oh, it's so hard for the men to change. They've had a hard life too! Cut them some slack."

I couldn't disagree more. Sexism will end when we (1) educate people about what constitutes sexism, (2) stop tolerating it.

Everyone can help with (1) to some degree. Not every one is in a position to do (2), but those that can, such as the many startup founders that read HN, should.

It seems to me that in your post you are doing the opposite of both. You are arguing that we should stop talking about it, and that we should tolerate it.

nullflux5• 14 years ago

That's not what I'm getting at at all. This might be the most misunderstood thing I've written. If this keeps up I'll likely rewrite again.

Read my last paragraph in my post again, please. What I'm trying to get at is that if you want to really squash an issue let's do more than the easy thing of "awareness". Why don't we actually get involved somewhere else? Help out in the places where this type of crap actually originated and keep it from happening in the end. Try to prevent the problem, don't just suppress it when it arises in certain cases. It seems the better long-term solution; IMO it's easier to correct less-formed opinions and put people on the right track then. "How to correct sexism in Silicon Valley" isn't just "hey, get mad at people when they say something out of line", it's also "hey, let's try to get people to understand why this hurts us in the first place".

gaius• 14 years ago

I'm imagining a hypothetical News.YC frequented by primary school teachers, getting worked up every few days about that field's lack of men. Or nurses. Or librarians. Or maybe gender imbalances in certain professions are actually a complete non-issue?

antihero• 14 years ago

Perhaps the more women go into IT, the more jobs there will be for guys in nursing or teaching or whatever? :)

But on a more serious note, you cannot equate anti-male sexism with anti-female sexism, not yet, because one has a history of being both the oppressed gender and the exploited class, and the other just the exploited class.

nl2• 14 years ago

Gender imbalance isn't a problem on its own.

Behaviour that discriminates on the basis on gender is.

chrisyeh5• 14 years ago

It may be that at teaching/nursing/library science conferences, there are presentations that feature images of Chippendales dancers and fireman calendars and are met with hoots of approval. If I were a man sitting in the audience at these hypothetical conferences, I'd feel pretty uncomfortable.

The fact that a field lacks gender balance isn't the point. The point is that whatever the field, people shouldn't be made to feel uncomfortable.

LinXitoW2• 14 years ago

Maybe a fitting summation of your argument would be:

Don't just fight the symptoms, fight the reason/root/cause as well.

(?)

rimantas2• 14 years ago

  > misogynistic engineer that hates women

Maybe he loves women, and that's the reason for having picture of one?

  > such discriminatory practices can get deeply rooted.

Just to clarify—by "discriminatory practices" you mean that it is bad there was only picture of woman, not the man, and hence males are discriminated against?

Really, guys did you even stop to think about what is sexsim, what is discriminatory?

What is the vision of your ideal society: genderless, bland, wrapped in burkas?

japhyr2• 14 years ago

He is right. If enough people speak up, and interrupt sexism when and where it happens, people will change. Their values might not change right away, but behaviors will change.

If flashing pictures of bikini-clad women starts to consistently bring negative attention, people will stop doing it. I am happy to see this meme (talking about sexism, and what people can do about it) continue.

carguy1983• 14 years ago

Sexism doesn't even have to be the issue here, it's just breathtaking how unprofessional some tech presenters are.

The real solution is to be ruthless and fire or eject anyone immediately for doing as something as incredibly fucking stupid as putting sexually provocative pictures in a presentation. The level of professionalism that conveys is indescribably embarrassing.

The author of the post was way too nice. I would have stopped the presenters in the middle of their deck and humiliated them publicly in front of everyone.

Can you imagine if a presenter did this at a sales meeting at a high end client? Say a financial institution, or Google? It would be the end of their career.

LinXitoW2• 14 years ago

I'd imagine that in the presenters' mind, this picture wasn't worse than people inserting lolcats or funny pictures into their presentation. I'm not saying it's the same, just that those creating the presentation see it so.

Whether inserting reddit into presentations is an appropriate means of lightening the mood or plain immature is another discussion.

adaml_6232• 14 years ago

I agree that the presenters probably just didn't think. And somebody said something at the end to try and make them think.

nosse2• 14 years ago

I really can't judge this as none of the original "offensive" material is accessible.

mark_integerdsv• 14 years ago

We need to focus back on the inherent meritocracy that is tech and entrepreneurship.

Every time I see this tired old trope trotted out again it has two distinct effects on me personally:

1.) I start worrying about my own interactions with the females in my team 2.) I stop thinking about technology and innovation

...and I'm tired of it.

Take the feminist struggle such as it is in 2012 to the world of politics from whence it comes.

You have something of value to contribute to the world of technology? Do it.

It is not in the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship to complain about and dissect the words and actions of those who clearly know no better, it is in the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship to Do.

This squabbling is for children and politicians. Leave it to them.

Go and Do.

adaml_6232• 14 years ago

Equal rights/Discrimination/Peoples biases exists in the actual world. All of it. Your 'world of politics' is not seperate from your world.

I'm sorry you find this tiring.

And although it's good that you think about your own interactions with the people in your team, it worries me that you use the word squabbling. That word to me implies that you don't think the subject being discussed is actually important. It is.

chrisyeh5• 14 years ago

The startup world is all about going and doing. But it is possible to go and do without hurting others' feelings.

You shouldn't devote all your energies to avoiding every possible way you could give offense. It's enough to listen when people bring up their concerns and try your best to respect them.

Tsagadai• 14 years ago

You want the meritocratic and entrepreneurial spin? Here it is. Unless your business is selling sex or trying to gain lots of adolescent boys you are doing your brand, your product and your career damage. There is no merit in displaying pictures that will marginalize part of your audience in a presentation unless you are aiming for a narrow market and you have no aspirations of long term growth into other markets.

  You have something of value to contribute to the world of technology? Do it.

Yes, do it but with some maturity and professionalism.

If you want to be respected start by acting respectfully towards others.

rimantas2• 14 years ago

Please, someone, tell me how to fight this stupid tendency to see sexism everywhere? What if the picture was of a guy in shorts? Would that be sexism too? What if the said guy was black? And gay? Would that be rasexomophobia?

How long before we start to censor any depiction of a human everywhere? Destroying "sexist" art?

Picture has nothing to do with the app? Who the fuck cares? Let's just all cut out all wiring in our brains that makes us to pay attention to one of the "four Fs" and die out.

chrisyeh5• 14 years ago

It's not always easy to tell what is and isn't offensive. But when a roomful of women suddenly applauds, I suspect that they felt it was.

I'm not saying people should run around flashing a thought police badge. But if you see something you think is wrong, speak up.

nosse2• 14 years ago

I feel that the problem isn't necessarily discriminating against women. I think the problem is the fact that these guys think their audience to bee so stupid that they fall for sexual appeal.

How To Fight Sexism in Silicon Valley

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