jd0

I posted that after this convo occurred but I guess they were right, I hate fedoras!

Naw I'd call it accurate.

You're taking what I said a little too literally. Take a look at my response to another commenter where I clarify my hula-hoop statement:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7408735

It's possible to recognize the attractive features of someone while still being conscious of their humanity. Obviously there are degrees of attention you can give someone based on their looks that goes from socially acceptable to socially unacceptable.

I'm a man so I can't speak for women directly, but what I've gathered from the experiences of others is that women are interacted with on an attraction basis exponentially more than men are, this also constantly ranging from socially acceptable to unacceptable, wanted and unwanted. It manifests in little ways, cat-calling, aggressive or unwanted flirtation, maybe a creepy controlling coworker suddenly confessing his love? My own mom told me about a time when a total stranger grabbed her butt in a store and walked off. It makes sense to me that many women would be extra-sensitive to scenarios like this. Men literally don't have to deal with interactions like this at that level so it's totally different when the gender roles are reversed, and it's rare that they are.

The importance of that scenario was that it was relative to her entire work experience at Github. Even if we assume the intentions of the male workers were totally golden and the hula-hoopers were totally fine with their gawking, to me it makes sense why this scene would be triggering for her.

And I, as a male, try not to stare at anybody because I'm not a fucking asshole.

To clarify for many of you, you don't need someone shouting "I HATE WOMEN" for sexism to be occurring. The sexism in this scenario is subtle and persistent, something that likely tainted all of the workplace interactions at github, allowing a female employee's problems at work to be continually ignored. This eventually built up to the issue most people are focusing on, a founders spouse being allowed to harass an employee, which is not so much the main issue but a major symptom of a larger issue at github and in the tech industry as a whole, that issue being the downplaying of women's concerns, opinions and needs.

The hula hooping moment was important because it visibly demonstrated her male coworkers lack of respect for women as people. They were unabashedly staring at their female coworkers as "eyecandy" in that moment and even defended their doing so.

This is the sort of fucked up attitude that's turning the public increasingly against the tech industry. The attitude seems to be "we can do anything that we want, because we're smart and we know the loopholes"

To use a metaphor you might understand I think you're programming around the bug instead of debugging.

Maybe, shocking as it is, women are reacting to real injustices in these cases that you read about in "any article or blog post about sexism in tech". If your immediate reaction to someone being called out for sexism is to distance yourself from women, have you ever considered that perhaps your attitude is sexist? You're assuming in all scenarios that the man is right and being attacked unfairly, disregarding evidence.

Well put!

Today a child died after a long and painful battle with cancer.

lol wtf

Perhaps you are only sick of the burden of your own unexamined piety and belief the universe must obey your whims.

we're getting existential now

This can look like "victim-blaming", but it's really more-than-anything a yearning for people to keep their standards of evidence high

I don't buy it. The "hacker type" despite self-professing as a logical bunch falls prey to all of the logical fallacies and cognitive biases that any other opinionated group does. The evidence is already out there, this is one of many incidents following a trend of sexism in this industry that has been going on for decades.

Github does not exist in a vacuum and real life social interaction doesn't use variables beyond a distant abstract analysis.

Did you read the whole article? It starts out explaining her struggles as a woman with the company. It also addresses her creepy suitor.

You put those words in my mouth, buddy. To clarify, social ineptitude combined with a degree of self-assured narcissism, resulting in a total disregard for the opinions of other people which don't jive with the most "logical" worldview. It's possible to be socially introverted and still considerate to other people.

Because human beings have a desire to express opinion and emotion?

Your attitude is the same as a lot of the socially inept that roam the valley and this message board. If This Isn't The Most Efficient Logical Course Of Action (according my perspective) Then It Bemuses Me.

Fuck hacker news. I only come here to be mad at people.

I'm glad to see a lot of people sticking up for her here in the comments but an equal number of these comments disgust me.

Take a look at the gender disparity in the top 10 tech companies. Most of them are about 80% male. It's not that women don't want to work in tech, it's that society as a whole including the entire tech community is entrenched in a neo-good ol boys only mindset centered around a false meritocracy. Fuck the techies and fuck silicon valley. I grew up romanticizing the industry and in my adult life I've found it to be the ultimate disappointment.

The ultimate sign of a piece of shit with no social comprehension is a programmer who uses the not equal relational operator in conversation. Human lives are not as simple as the PHP you write at your day job, dude.

Then you turn it into some sort of fucked up meritocracy thing. She wrote No Code therefore her opinions are invalid! I've got more bitcoins than her too!!

If you don't want to fork over the $400 to pass the paywall and view this article, check out vallywag's summation:

http://valleywag.gawker.com/paul-graham-says-women-havent-be...

Yes you're correct, I honestly don't know what the achievement gap is for other science fields - so I don't know if it's worse in CS for people of color.

Whoops! I now realize that it was flagged by users not removed by mods. I honestly haven't used HN in years until yesterday so I forgot how it all works. Also I was drunk when I made this post. c:

I'm addressing CS because it's relevant to me. It's a community that I participate in so I'm addressing this issue in my community. Honestly though, the gap between women and men in CS is far greater than other fields.

Maybe you're right, (maybe) all the women statistically disappearing from the computing field are moving to other engineering and science jobs. We could throw any number of untested theories at that simple statistic.

Honestly though, that's irrelevant because WHERE they're going is not what I'm addressing. It's WHY, and HOW can we reverse the trend of anti-diversification in the computer industry? If they're leaving for other industries, even scientific ones, there's nothing wrong with the individuals choice but there's something less-desirable about the computer industry, and I doubt it has anything to do with the raw content of a computer related job.

Not to discredit your success, but your example is an anecdote, and it is not the usual one. Only about 10% of people in the computing industry are women. See my recent comment here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6879195

"They are excellent articles, and I feel bad about doing so."

Then you're part of the problem! The attitude is, if it doesn't fit the "Hacker News" relevancy stereotype then flag away. Have you not wondered or even humbled yourself to consider that perhaps your own view is more short-sighted than the posters? I guess flagging in general takes an error ratio into account but it's my experience that it's far too swift here on HN, meaning more weight is given to the flaggers than the posters.

Honestly though, thank-you for asking and posting your actions here for discussion! That, in my opinion, is a lot better than the countless silent flaggers everywhere flags exist.

All of your proofs are personal anecdotes. If you need some empirical evidence check this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6879195

Or do some research on computer science demographics.

If you have a harder time accessing these supposedly raceless-genderless systems, then you can't participate. Research has shown that the utopian vision of the internet being the ultimate equalizer was never realized.. groups still divide by socio-economic classes online as they do in the physical world.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/10/13/social.networking... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_segregation

Thanks for the anecdotes - I'm looking at statistics. The hostility may not be apparent (to you) but it's structural and it's real.

see this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6879195

Thanks for your response. In reference to your addressing the word "hostile" check this recent comment I made to try and clarify the use of that word:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6879195

That comment only addresses women though - but hostile was more-so a trigger word than what I actually meant. I'm trying to address societal disadvantages faced by certain groups - these are not consciously hostile but they are structurally hostile.

Your mother was obviously not only intelligent but also had a lot of grit and determination that many do not have, a trait which is essential for success in any scenario - and it's clear that you did benefit from that. Most people do not have this level of skill or innate drive to succeed. many don't have the parental guidance which you had to follow that path. I'm simply asking, how can the hacker scene adjust to not only help non-white non-male groups, but to stop driving them away in increasing numbers?

"but such is life."

Yes, but it can change!

This post was very briefly on the top of /ask but now it's gone from that page altogether... honestly that's fucked up!

It seems like it was a moderator decision, older posts with less comments and upvotes remain, why was this post removed?

please ask info@ycombinator.com

I know discussion here is reasonable, and that's partially why I brought it up here on HN vs anywhere else, but check my recent comment for clarification:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6879195