I'm not happy that such stories take place. But I am happy that a growing number of women are telling their stories, shocking those of us who were able to be blissfully ignorant of what was going on, and forcing us to realize just how poorly our female colleagues are sometimes being treated.

Let's even assume that 90% of the time, things are great for women in high tech. How many women are willing to put up with even 10% (or even 1%) of their time dealing with such behavior? I'm not sure if I would. And then we wonder why so many women aren't interested in technology careers, or leave after a short period of time.

I hope that these stories eventually end. But in order for them to end, we need to hear more of them, to realize just how bad things are, and to make it completely unacceptable, in every way, for things to continue as they currently are.

I tried to imagine what it was like to tough out that culture back when she was a grad student or junior faculty, long before this was a even a major topic of discussion. I wussed out of the grind I would have faced as a junior faculty, even sporting all the right aesthetics. To those who have stuck it out against major challenges: you are tough as nails, you are improving the system, and it is noticed by and impacts more people than you think.

"For the authors of this article, each negative story is overshadowed by dozens of positive experiences, where someone went out of their way to offer support, provide opportunities, and encourage us."

I think this matters to encouraging both women and men. Yes, jerks exist. Sometimes its good people having bad days, some people are monsters hiding under a veneer (ex Hollywood's Weinstein).

We need to stop dehumanizing each other, and understand all humans have the full expanse of positive and negative emotions.

Most people in technology are not bros, sjws, ceos, and whatever.

They are just people trying to get by.

As someone living in Europe (who lived and worked in one of more country), some of these "cultural" aspects against a certain gender feel so much out of place. In particular, expecting someone who is pregnant to quit the job is just unthinkable. Most engineering work places in Europe expect the person to take paternity/maternity leave and take care of the children but the job will be secured.

I'm not saying that gender descrimination doesn't happen in Europe but I feel that the US have a lot of more of these extreme and ridiculous scenarios.

For instance:

> Noting how if two women are talking to each other at a conference, it becomes highly unlikely any guys will walk up and join us. If three women are talking, forget about it.

Yes, indeed, and there are a number of reasons for this. From my point of view, I would avoid approaching a group of women talking by themselves since I'd be the odd one out.

> My “mentor” told me he had never worked with a woman before and wasn’t sure how to talk to me. I suggested he try talking to me like a person.

Depending on the tone, it may mean something completely different than what you are trying to say.

In fact, to me, it looks to me like he was talking about an insecurity he has, and it's not directly related to you... and you are tagging this as sexism.

Long story short, there is a clear line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, and that is respect. It's clear that this line was crossed in a number of times in these stories, but just because you are in a position where you didn't like something doesn't mean the line was automatically crossed.

However, if I were to observe such an event happening, I'd be frozen. One half of me thinks, the woman is an individual and can stand up for herself. If she's uncomfortable, she'll say or do something. She's of equal standing.

The other half of me, I feel like I should say something. But by doing so, that asserts my male patriarchy views, protecting women from the danger. Women wouldn't be considered an equal in this scenario.

I really don't understand how this could ever be resolved. Talking about it seems like a start, but it really makes me feel like I am part of the problem as a man, and I don't feel this is positive tone to this conversation.

Help?

The lack of understanding that those biases can be reversed is what needs to be corrected. This is the other camp, the camp that understands this and proactively fixes things, that needs to be made bigger.

I think, such things start very young. They starts in pre-schools where girls are given a doll and boys are given the lego blocks or children are not sensitized to color of the skin issues.

I just wanted to make a simple mathematical point, which the article kind of alludes to: the more X-dominated a field is, the more you would have run-ins with X, and thus more stories of inappropriate behavior by X.

I wonder what stories guys have of joining female-dominated fields. Are they called the token guy? Do women make sexual remarks about them? The degree to which the answer is "yes" will be greatly affected by the imbalance in the first place. The bigger it is, the more likely they are to bump up against something bad in everyday life.

Not saying we just have to accept this. Just saying we have to understand that no matter how much we all personally make an effort to act better, these stories will continue. So don't beat yourself up over it and continue to treat everyone as a fellow human being. And don't take it as a criticism of all men.

The same phenomenon happens if you turn on the news and see crimes and murders all the time. That doesn't mean the city is overrun by crime but rather that the stories merited special attention. It doesn't mean YOU necessarily have to constantly keep in mind not to rob or murder someone.

Who tf are these people?

We’re still a ways from an article like this being met with something more constructive than the usual deflections, excuses, and ideological fights. We’re still stuck with arguments that wouldn’t have been out of place during various civil rights and suffragette movements.

It’s coming though, and I for one can’t wait. It’s just sad that we’re missing out on the talents of many women who make a rational choice to avoid STEM and it’s frequn toxic culture of asocial/antisocial asses. It’s sad that a site full of bright, educated poeple can still so frequtmly come off as a pack of deflecting, equivocating, terrified boys. Everyone involved deserves better than this.

So speak up, take a risk, and most of all act like and be someone that other people know would stand up for them. Be the kind of person who an absuive prick would never think of saying or doing what’s described in this article, around. Talk to and listen to your coworkers, and try to have some ideals beyond personal advancement.

How many tech CEOs will stand up and say: "I have an 80% (or 90% or a 100%) male tech team because there are not enough qualified women to achieve gender balance."

No CEO will be caught dead saying that explicitly but they are saying it implicitly every single day with how they are staffing their companies.

From reading HN it seems like a large percentage of people here believe that the gender gap is due to a qualifications gap and they might dump on people like James Damore for being dumb enough to say it in public but most of them believe it and the way they act shows it.

The bottom line is that if you are not achieving gender balance on your teams what you are telling women and what you are telling the world is that you believe men are superior to women and that women are not qualified for these jobs.

Actions speak louder than words and as long as the actions of companies and individuals reflect this attitude no amount of words is going to change anything.

Achieving gender balance in tech is possible and is only a matter of choice.

There are more than enough qualified women to fill tech jobs in roughly equal proportion with men.

It doesn't happen because (among other reasons):

1) The people doing the hiring are overwhelmingly men and set rules and standards for hiring that discriminate against women

2) Companies believe that young men are more profitable employees and so they do nothing to seriously discourage discrimination

Unless this changes the experience of women in tech will be a negative one.

All a woman has to do to know that she is undervalued and seen as an inferior is walk into a company that has a overwhelmingly male tech team and that is most of them.

It was literally a collection of very negative experiences that women in tech faced because of their gender by men. It’s many examples of things men would never experience. It doesn’t matter if they’ve had many positive experiences — the consistent negatives are prevalent across most women in tech (and probably non-tech), not just isolated examples of a few.

Most of these jerks probably don’t even understand what they’re doing or the impact they’re having. It’s important to raise awareness to prevent as much of this as possible, and I applaud the author for sticking her neck out and being willing to put her name on it.

"We are sharing these experiences in part because of encouragement by male colleagues who found them shocking. We are all still here because the rewards and great colleagues out weigh the bad experiences. However, we want to raise community awareness and instigate change."

And, the support of their male colleagues exercising what should be common human decency is not the lede of this article.

But apparently it happens.

These stories wouldn't get the attention they're getting if they weren't shocking to many (men?). So I'd be careful of believing too strongly that it's that different where you are just because you don't see it.

For example, almost every European woman I have talked to about this has been asked either outright or strongly implied whether they were likely to have kids while employed. They have usually followed up with stories of women who were denied employment because of that. In some of those cases it was just because they were in the right age range, and despite their protestation the interviewer thought that they would.

In the U.S. I have never heard of someone being asked things like that (it is specifically illegal, and easy grounds for very expensive lawsuits).

It should be said that maternity leave (especially paid portions of it) is much longer in large parts of Europe. My sister-in-law has been on paid maternity leave now for 4 years. That ended a few weeks ago, but her employer informed her that during that leave she had build up x-and-x vacation, so she decided to take that, so she has been on "vacation" now for about a month.

That huge cost may be part of the push there. For people outside the U.S.: there is no national requirement for any paid leave, but it does require 12-weeks of non-paid leave (at least for larger companies). California was the first state to require 6 weeks of partially paid leave, but I am not aware of any states that have followed suit. It also should be said that many companied have their own more-generous policies, but those are more often the larger companies, especially ones with a mostly high-skilled workforce.

If people don't mention their country, they're American.

I understand where you're coming from, but my guess would be that the situation is much more similar between the US, Europe and other countries than you think.

That is exactly sexism – the subtle, insidious kind that us men tend not to even notice. You aren't the odd one out; you and them are all professionals at a conference.

That many men – the majority of attendees at most tech conferences – make decisions like yours is a major reason why it is more difficult for women to advance in tech fields than men. Behavior like this is exactly what people mean when they talk about "patriarchy". That it's subtle and "innocent" – "I'd be the odd one out" – is what makes us not recognize it in ourselves.

Women in male-dominated workplaces already feel like this every day.

I would submit that, while it is important to be cognizant that there are cases in which you may be intruding[0], the overwhelming majority of situations that's really not likely to be the case. It's work. You're working. Joining co-workers to talk about work is fine and overthinking it will bite you.

[0] - and yes, this may be identity-based and that may in a vacuum feel unfair, but we've held most of the cards for the run of human history and we can deal with it.

> Yes, indeed, and there are a number of reasons for this. From my point of view, I would avoid approaching a group of women talking by themselves since I'd be the odd one out.

The outcome for the women is similar regardless of the motivations behind the behavior. The motivations matter in terms of how to solve the problem, but do not indicate there isn't a problem.

>> My “mentor” told me he had never worked with a woman before and wasn’t sure how to talk to me. I suggested he try talking to me like a person.

> Depending on the tone, it may mean something completely different than what you are trying to say.

I can't read this as not implying that the individual believes that the way he talks with male students is inappropriate for talking with female students. This implication is worrisome no matter which direction you take it in.

> In fact, to me, it looks to me like he was talking about an insecurity he has, and it's not directly related to you... and you are tagging this as sexism.

If I say "I've never performed trigonometric substitution before so I'm not sure how to solve this math problem." m I may be talking about an insecurity I have, but it certainly is directly related to them math problem.

That section begins "But it’s important to portray the drip-drip-drip of smaller stories as well, so here goes."

> I would avoid approaching a group of women talking by themselves since I'd be the odd one out.

In what world is that not sexism? It's at least "sex-separatist", which isn't a good thing either. The fact that it is theoretically symmetrical doesn't make it OK. (And in practice it's not symmetrical, since women are an extreme minority at these events.) That is treating people differently because of gender, in a situation where gender is irrelevant.

That's really weird. Why would you assume--in a professional environment, specifically--that it's less acceptable to approach a pair of strangers based exclusively on their gender?

> In fact, to me, it looks to me like he was talking about an insecurity he has, and it's not directly related to you... and you are tagging this as sexism.

How would you feel if the mentor had said they'd never worked with black people before, and weren't sure how to talk to them?

You mentioned "alternative explanations besides sexism," but I don't see any way that these explanations aren't sexism.

I wonder if you're assuming that "sexist" only applies to harassers and open bigots. If you mean well but are unable to treat colleagues equally because of their gender, that's sexist. It doesn't mean you're a monster or a bad person, but it does mean that you have some real problems that you need to address.

When I have been in these situations, the root problem has been someone being shitty to a friend/colleague/co-worker/whatever. Saying "that's shitty, stop" doesn't mean you're speaking for any particular person or that you're defending her person specifically--what you are doing, and you can explain if asked, is that you are establishing social norms with your behavior that you are telling the group that you expect everybody to follow.

There are many axes along which one can be shitty, and it is not a reinforcement of patriarchal structures to set expectations that people be decent to one another--so long, of course, as you're doing so evenly. I have gone hard at co-workers who were shitty to women. I have also gone hard at co-workers who were jerks in code reviews.

What I quoted strikes me as perhaps a misapplication of the idea of patriarchy and what it does to society--at least, in the sort of case you're describing. Could this be taken to an extreme that would validate your concerns? Totally. But in practice? It never has been the case for me (and I am solicitous about asking if I am out of my lane). It is important to be willing to listen, in case that, yes, you are out of your lane--but I have never seen a default posture of "no, we don't allow shitty behavior up in here" cause friction with anybody it shouldn't cause friction with.

https://twitter.com/akaij/status/968968751063490562

Kelly Ellis:

"But, y'know, thanks for being the dude chiming in with unnecessary remarks intended to undermine both my point, and the plaintiff's lawsuit, while we discuss the topic of gender-based discrimination and harassment.

Super helpful and appreciated."

akay:

"not at all what I was trying to do, sorry if it came across that way. I just don't see how confirming the existence of nerf guns within that team helps the discussion in any way.

unnecessarily harsh, this tweet."

So sometimes we men just remain silent.

The single most powerful thing you can do is engage women as serious professionals.

My biggest frustration is not with the guys who want to talk to me to hit on me. It is with the countless others who will not engage me in a substantive manner for fear of it being misconstrued. They de facto leave me alone with the creeps, trolls and assholes and are, on some level, equally guilty of treating me as nothing but a vagina. It gives far too much weight to my gender and far too little to my education, skills, competence, interests and character.

Whether a man is talking to me solely in hopes of a hookup or avoiding me for fear of offending or something, he is equally guilty of treating me like the single most important thing about me, the thing that drives all social decisions, is what bits are between my legs. This is the essence of sexism.

I agree it's good to share awareness of these problems. However, I think there's nothing more for me to do. None of my female coworkers have ever reported something fishy, and if they did I'd simply report it to HR where I know the situation would be handled.

I also wonder if it'd be productive to stop singling out tech (which seems much less sexist than say, finance).

I would feel intimidated walking up to a group of women because I might be criticized for anything I did. And wouldn't a woman feel intimidated walking up to a group of men too?

As a personal example, I have the deepest respect for one of my former (male, obviously) bosses who took a chance on me and fed me high-profile projects despite being a double/triple minority. (I hate the need to disclaim that last bit, but y'know, take it as illustrating the situation). Not a single interaction was awkward - there were group meetings aplenty, professional one-on-ones, silly one-on-ones where we were both cracking up at corporate shenanigans, water-cooler chats to triage the crazy amount of work we were getting, y'know, normal stuff. Good people exist, and there can be light moments too. Not all of this has to be The Most Srs.

He left a few years later due to natural company reorgs, but that extra limb out is something that's remembered quite dearly. Just standing by wouldn't have cut it.

As for being clueless, well, here is a suggestion. If you see some man hitting on or trying to dominate a woman, you can approach both and just intrude yourself into the conversation. It should be possible to change the course of the interaction by redirecting things (including asking about some relevant conference or workplace activities). Do it in a way that says to the man that you are ignorant of goals, frustrate the living daylights out of him.

It is irrelevant if the recipient of the unwanted attention is a women or a man, protection and respect is something that should be applied to all. Protecting women (children and other men) from danger is a characteristic of what it is to be a man, that is one of our functions. This is not a function of equality. The same goes for women - if they are in a position to provide protection for other women, children or men, then do so. It is a part of who women are.

Men are deadly and rightly so, they should be. Deadly to protect those who need protecting. Women are fierce and dangerous and rightly so, they should be. Fierce and dangerous to protect those who need protecting.

Men and women are different and that is a good thing. Without each other, this world would be a sadder, darker and more injurious place.

There will be those who have no care for anyone other than themselves, these will abuse and destroy anyone else they can to get ahead. It is up to all of us to counteract these individuals when we have the opportunity.

The base problem is that people do not know how to respect and protect one another. Respect is not about equality, it is about recognising the differences between people (including the differences between men and women) and honouring each other. Equality of the sexes is a farcical mindset. Men and women are complimentary, each providing what the other doesn't have to produce a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. Each looks at things in a different light and that is to the advantage of us all.

Edit: I am absolutely baffled by the downvotes. What am I missing?

If you witness this kind of behaviour, denounce it publicly.

This has been discussed on HN in the past, usually in threads about female CS pioneers working at NASA and so on. I believe the consensus is that there wasn't a single individual cause for the change, but rather a number of conditions changed around the same time, discouraging women from CS-related jobs.

https://youtu.be/4vCDHJ4-D80 https://youtu.be/WTLJ7saIV3o

Even if that was true, having enough qualified women is not sufficient. You need enough women who are both qualified AND want to fill tech jobs.

When you look at measurements of STEM ability and of reading comprehension in high school students in the US and Europe, an interesting pattern emerges. For boys who are good in STEM, STEM tends to be what they are best at. For girls who good in STEM, they tend to be even better at reading comprehension [1] [2].

Scoring high on reading comprehension correlates well with being good at things that are important in various non-STEM fields (or in the "soft" sciences part of STEM).

People generally have to narrow their focus as they move on to college, maybe graduate school, and into a career. They strongly tend to narrow that focus to what they are best at. That means we lose a lot of those "good at STEM" in high school girls because they are even better at non-STEM.

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180214150132.h...

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...

The conduct of interviewers when hiring cold is stunningly asinine for everybody, so I have the utmost sympathy for women who have to deal with gender bias on top of that. Talent shortage my ass. Interviewers make up their mind based on something - some kind of projection that isn't you - and then make clowns of themselves while trying to rationalize whatever the prejudice was. Take this gem, from the lead engineer: "Well we get a lot of applicants who know C#, but they don't understand low-level." And? How is that my problem? Now how many idiotic interviewers out there are secretly thinking, "Yeah actually all the hardcore low-level coders I know are men, so..."

I've been ranting for years about how there is no talent shortage. It's just that hiring is broken, asinine, and fear-driven. I think I'll pivot to: There is no shortage of talented women. Not to the extent that it is made out to be. TL;DR: parent is correct. It isn't that they aren't there; it's that whoever isn't hiring them.

I'm also not so sure about your claim that "there are more than enough qualified women to fill tech jobs in roughly equal proportion with men." I rarely have the chance to talk to women who are similarly interested in computers, and at my university there are very few women who are in any of my CS classes, despite that I feel that those who are there feel welcome (hopefully. I am not all-knowing, this is my best guess).

I think a better solution to the problem than pressuring people into hiring women simply for the virtue of being female and aiming for 50% would be to call sexism what it is. Call out when people who do the bad of hiring a less qualified man instead of a woman (this is a contrived example, hopefully you're understanding my point).

Solving sexism with more sexism probably won't work.

These are my honest thoughts, hope that's ok.

I have several points. Let's not blame organizations for the actions of individuals (given that the organization properly deals with said individual). Let's not blame the whole industry or the whole society for the actions of individuals. If something happened to me at a conference, I won't blame my manager who is not connected to the individual that did it in any way for that - and I won't make them suffer because of that.

Of course there might be a reason to not communicate that and that's completely alright, it's business after all, but let's not make it a default choice, please - let's stay human and be nice to each other.