I wonder though, has he actually turned a statistically significant number of people off?
Suppose field X had a crazy person so dedicated that he shot a US president in order to send a message to a woman working there (far more than Weev has done). Suppose that pervert letters to women in field X were completely expected and commonplace, and had been for many years. Would women flee from X?
That's survivor bias [0]. The point isn't whether there's still at least one woman in the field, or whether there's "plenty of women" (what does that even mean, anyway?). The point is whether anyone was stopped from entering the field at all.
The ones who are still in the field are the ones most resilient to the abuse. But you miss out on the contributions of all the people who left and did something else. How much farther along might we be in software engineering, or sculpture, or architecture, or <insert your favorite field here> -- had the toxic environment not been present in the first place?
"plenty of women" (what does that even mean, anyway?).
Not really sure - I don't personally view a lack of $GROUP as a problem. If you feel similarly then disregard my entire post - it's premised on the idea that the reader does view a lack of women as a problem.
There are two claims here. One is that bad behavior exists. The other is that this bad behavior plays a significant causal role in keeping women out of tech.
The latter is what I'm questioning. Since large number of women seem to want to enter acting in spite of it having a far worse reputation (never heard of a "casting couch" in tech), it seems that bad behavior alone is a poor explanation for the lack of women.
Basically, you want a formal proof that "bad behavior plays a significant causal role in keeping women out of tech" is a valid hypothesis?
While scientifically interesting, I don't see the utillity for that, honestly. Do we really not agree that this has to stop? Does it really matter how many people harassment would keep out of the business? While skepticism has its place, harassment is not a technical, but a social problem, and I, for one, can bring up enough empathy to not need the scientific method to want to stop harassment.
As to the casting couch, I don't know how it's where you live, but here in Europe, while everyone in the acting and music community is familiar with the term, the "casting couch" exists merely as a myth, not an actual thing preventing women to begin working in acting. Besides, the acting/music community is far beyond the 1/10 (or whatever) gender split in the tech community, so even if someone would try to establish the casting couch as a de-facto gate-keeping procedure, female members of the in-group would call it out, ending this phenomenon much sooner than would be possible if the gender gap in those communities were to be as it is now in tech.
Even then, you wouldn't bring up statiscics how many women were entering the acting field by "passing" the "casting couch". So I'm confused and would like to know what your point really is.
No, I'd like to see evidence of some sort that the effect is significant before concluding it plays a significant role in keeping women out of tech.
If you want to tackle the problem of crazy people trolling public figures, be my guest. I don't see any reasonable steps that we could take that wouldn't be oppressive, but maybe you have more imagination than me. Just don't be surprised if you solve this problem but tech remains 25% women.
We're not discussing "crazy people trolling public figures" here. No one wants to do anything about your favourite sunday newspaper cartoonist and his daily Obama caricatures. We're not talking about your neighbour kid playing phone pranks on you.
What we're talking about here are death threats, sexual harassment, and calling your boss to get you fired. Deliberate, organized hate. Effective and planned activities to harm an individual who doesn't represent the in-group you're happening to be in.
I couldn't care less how the gender distribution remains after we've solved THAT issue. This is a showstopper bug that has to be solved BEFORE we even begin to debug the gender gap.
Anything else would be ridiculous:
"Yeah, we're trying to find ways to get more women in tech, but since we don't have any scientific evidence to back up that the harassment, hate and verbal abuse against women in tech is a root cause of too few women in tech, we're still investigating and solving other possible causes"
If you were a woman (I suppose you aren't), would you want to work in an environment that is obviously this toxic?
If you were a woman (I suppose you aren't), would you want to work in an environment that is obviously this toxic?
I don't think tech is "toxic".
I've put as much of my money where my mouth is as my plumbing allows. I recently (read: past few months) did everything I could to help a girl I care about get into tech. I think she'll be happier in the field than in her various alternatives.
Well, that's because I assume you're a decent human being, and that's great - and I try to do the same (while not having experiences specifically with girls, I try to support women in tech where I can)
We both are fortunate to not see a problem in our specific peer groups, but strangely seem to disagree that the problem still exists for some other peer groups, and that we should do anything possible to stop that toxicity.
I'll add another reply to this, because this deserves its own discussion:
> I don't personally view a lack of $GROUP as a problem
Do you really not see how a group's problem-solving could be much richer if more $GROUPs are added to the mix?
I find this astounding. A lack of $GROUP in a design team designing products for $GROUP leads to obvious overhead where the members have to account for every $GROUP's needs, while not having a representant of this very group, leading to blindness and bias - one popular example being crash test dummies which no one even thought to test for female body types, leading to greater injuries in car accidents for women (it's not difficult to find scientific articles on this, if that's new to you)
Another obvious problem is that by having $GROUP out of the mix, a member of $GROUP trying to enter the field faces doubt and skepticism ("scene whore"), just because of the fact that $GROUP is under-represented, perpetuating the situation.
Let's play devil's advocate here and say that a lack of $GROUP isn't a problem in itself - how would you solve the two aforementioned problems without increasing $GROUP's representation in a field?
In at least two jobs, not to mention my current consulting project, I've been the only member of my racial group. I can't think of a time my group membership ever helped or affected the work at all.
At most it was a source of fun within the office - e.g. convincing an officemate that I had two illegitimate children might have been more difficult if I were a member of the majority group.
I agree that diversity among crash test dummies, nurses and security theatre pat down people is important since specific job functions depend on it.
Another obvious problem is that by having $GROUP out of the mix, a member of $GROUP trying to enter the field faces doubt and scepticism ("scene whore"), just because of the fact that $GROUP is under-represented, perpetuating the situation.
Your entire process is broken if irrational concerns like this are playing a significant role. This is a bigger problem, and merely throwing in some more bias to compensate is papering over the problem. The solution is to vigorously make your process systematic and objective, removing human judgement as much as possible.
While anecdotal trivia of your work history didn't make you feel a lack in your work environment, you're actively downplaying and trying to make a non-issue of the lack that is viewed by your peers in the group. Why? What would you lose if more $GROUPs happened to work in your field?
> make your process systematic and objective
You mean the crash test dummy example?
You can't automate the design of a new process, because the design of the automation in itself is the designing of a process which underlies human bias and blindness.
How exactly are you going to make the process of a female being called a "scene whore" on IRC as soon as the mob find out she's female make more "systematic and objective"?
I think you mixed up the different examples here.
What would you lose if more $GROUPs happened to work in your field?
Nothing. I don't care about the background of the people I work with. And if other people do, I'd suggest they should focus on work instead of tribalism.
By "make your process systematic and objective", I'm referring to entry processes into tech (or whatever). E.g., judge a job candidate by their github + systematic tech interview instead of a resume + culture fit. Or hear out what a person on IRC has to say rather than spewing ad hominems.
> Or hear out what a person on IRC has to say rather than spewing ad hominems
Let me quote from the original article.
"When I was 14, I found IRC, and with it, a whole subculture of people that loved the same things that I loved. [...] But the negative attention that came from being a female on IRC far outweighed anything I got from the positive. This was really my only substantial interaction with humans though, so I didn’t know it was weird. I thought that this is just how it was. I didn’t know it was wrong to treat people that way. I saw it happening to other women on IRC, too. Even though I never consciously acknowledged it, women felt like second class citizens to me. Even though my only goal was to learn, it was always a battle being taken seriously. I was constantly being called things like “scene whore” and “clueless” [...]"
By the way, please read the article, and the second part.
You're missing the point. We're not so much worried about "the industry losing brain power" but that collectively, as a society, we treat other human beings that way.
No one should have to go through any of the things the OP writes about, and if it's happening in our community we have an obligation to find a way to stop it!
I'm a guy and I'll admit, before I read that post, I thought that this whole gamergate thing was two sides over reacting and generally just being stupid. I'll also say that I'm not in the whole subculture, I have RL friends and spend most of my social life there, I occasionally drop into hackernews to catch cool articles... I'm often baffled by this whole subculture people talk about.
...it's amazing how many women they've tried to turn off tech...
This post is dedicated to all of the people that think...the gender disparity in tech is due simply to biology.
I can disagree with this factual claim without taking a position on online mobbing.
Since you seem to want me to take a position on mobbing: I don't like it much but I'm not sure how to prevent it without allowing the powerful to suppress speech they dislike.
In acting and journalism, the pervy letters come from people outside the community which, ironically, can strengthen the sense of community becase women have a common external threat which unites them. In tech, the letters come from within, often from "well-respected" members of the tech world. It's no wonder this has the opposite effect.
True - within the acting community there is primarily virtuous behavior. There is certainly no reputation for male gatekeepers within acting or music to perv on women trying to break into the field.
You specifically referred to "letters", which is what I was responding to. Obviously the "casting couch" phenomenon is not a good thing, but it's an entirely different phenomenon from one's own community doxxing them and continually sending them abusive hate mail and death threats until they don't feel safe in that community anymore.
Your sarcasm and tone are really unwarranted, and I'm surprised to see it from someone whose comments are usually informative, interesting and respectful.
You are right - my comment was a bit unkind. My general thesis is that bad behavior (of this sort) will not turn women away from a high status field and good behavior will not push women towards a low status field (e.g., mathematics, physics, computing to a lesser extent).
If you want to construct a theory making fine distinctions between different types of bad behavior, I'd love to hear that theory carefully laid out.
Well to be fair, there the harassment comes from industry outsiders. Here a lot of people in the mob and part of the abuse are people who could be considered in 'tech'. That hurts a lot more than if it's just weird schizophrenics sending letters to the people they see on the telly.
Further, we're not even really talking about pervy letters so much as dedicated campaigns to get people fired, etc.
It turns out he has actually turned someone off. Kathy Sierra is a fine example of that.
Also, you are smart enough to know that "acting has no shortage of women" is a dumb argument. The question of whether the distribution of women in field X is affected by historical events cannot be determined only by looking at the current distribution of women in field X.
The whole argument doesn't really make a lot of sense because weev isn't even in the tech industry. As far as I know he's never even had a real job/startup, let alone one in tech.
Actually that's a fair point. Similarly, the teenage gamers sending penis pics to Sarkeesian are also not in the gaming industry - that's probably most closely analogous to a crazed fanboy threatening Roger Ebert for saying he doesn't like Vin Diesel.
So the comparison to acting was more apt than I thought.
Idle speculation: tech attracts more than its fair share of introverts relative to those career choices, and for someone who needs just a little positive social interaction from time to time, the risk of extremely negative social interaction being the norm is too great.
This is definitely an issue. One of the people I mentor is a shy young woman. She will make an awesome developer.
A few weeks back I had to sit her down and have The Talk explaining that if she rose to prominence, she could well be the target of hideous attacks where guys would have no problem at all. Her eventual conclusion was to stay in the field, but it was definitely something she had to weigh.
I've talked with a number of women with established tech careers who have been questioning whether their work to get women into the field is even a good idea. Women drop out of the field at twice the rate men do.
This could be a third-rail question, but I wonder how that "dropout" rate compares to any arbitrary field when measured by the same yardsticks. Women are still the primary caregivers for 95% of infants born, and hence will always show up as more frequent "dropouts," so that statistic really needs to control for this factor somehow to be compelling.
Without that control, the anecdotes are more convincing than the statistic, so why bother with the statistic?
I don't see the advantage of trying to make a point with faulty or irrelevant evidence.
But I did "research it all by my big-boy self" and discovered that medicine, investment banking, architecture, the Marine Corps, law, executive-level management, and higher education faculty of all stripes have similar imbalance of attrition. Allied healthcare professions, however, have an imbalance the other way -- male nurses leave the profession at a much higher rate. Maybe they're being hounded out? /s
So thanks for taking the time to educate me; the imbalance is more likely one of "gendered work" and the issues with it, rather than trolls and misogyny specific to technology. I think the actual instances of abuse (of which there are many) are more compelling and require more attention and action than fluff statistics which, while concerning to feminism as a whole, likely have little to do with anything specific to technology.
I apologize for the tone. I had dealt with too many idiots making spurious, derailing objections to nitpicky points, and should have just shut my mouth for a while rather than assuming you were also derailing and taking irritation with them out on you. I'm sorry.
The point of using that statistic for me is that I don't want women dropping out at a higher rate then men. (That investment bankers have an equal level of sexist shitheel behavior is not comforting to me. I have worked in finance, and I don't think that's an acceptable model for tech.) Your offered explanation, that women are the primary caregiver of infants, is still part of structural sexism. Past a period that civilized countries cover with parental leave, both parents are equally capable of caring for children. (My brother was primary caregiver for my nephew, so I've seen it up close.)
I think your follow-up conclusion, that there's a single issue (gendered work vs misogyny), is a false framing. First, I don't think those are necessarily distinct. I see misogyny and abuse as part of the system of control that maintains gendered work. (As is male willingness to tolerate it. Note the all the male pearl-clutching that has taken place around codes of conduct.) It's similar to the way that police (and much of society) are more accepting of the rape of women who "dressed wrong" or were otherwise not following a very gendered code of sexuality.
Second, even if they were entirely distinct, there's no reason to think there's just one explanation here. We're talking about the entire professional lives of millions of people with cultural factors going back thousands of years: it's inevitably complicated. There are likely many causes, many of the overlapping and reinforcing. The male-female ratio is very different in tech, and historically has gotten worse compared to other white-collar professions. The explanation can be gendered work and trolls and misogyny and a bunch of other things.
Third, whatever the causes, the responses may be distinct. Having the rib platter every night for dinner may eventually cause a heart attack, but paramedics don't treat heart attacks with food. That actual mentors of women are seeing the instances of abuse and saying, "Whoa, maybe I shouldn't be encouraging women to get into the field," tells you that there's a relationship.
> I think the actual instances of abuse (of which there are many) are more compelling
If you think something is more compelling, that's great. You should run with it. As I said, other people right here in this thread find anecdotes worthless and demand stats. Not every sentence in every post has to be for you and you alone.
> while concerning to feminism as a whole
So this concerns me; it sounds like you're treating feminism as an other. Feminism is the movement that, for the last 150 years or so, has been trying to change the world from one where women are property to one where men and women are equal. Do you really not think people should be treated as equals based on things like gender, race, and sexual orientation? Because if you don't, a) well duh you don't like statistics demonstrating that women are not being treated equally, and b) I'm not sure why I should worry about your take on a particular statistic, because then we're back in the land of anonymous HN commenters nitpicking things that they were never going to accept anyhow as a means to derailing the discussion.
> I see misogyny and abuse as part of the system of control that maintains gendered work. (As is male willingness to tolerate it. Note the all the male pearl-clutching that has taken place around codes of conduct.) It's similar to the way that police (and much of society) are more accepting of the rape of women who "dressed wrong" or were otherwise not following a very gendered code of sexuality.
This is absolutely true, but it also indicates that tech merits no special treatment or concern in this regard. The attrition problem is actually systemic. (The harassment problem probably is tech-specific, at least the online-troll harassment rather than the paternalism and more "artful" in-person unwelcome advances more common in medicine or law.)
> So this concerns me; it sounds like you're treating feminism as an other.
That says much more about you than it says about me.
No, that there is a broad systemic problem doesn't mean that tech doesn't also have specific problems. And even if the problems were only endemic, it doesn't mean that we can't make a difference in tech by acting in tech.
Chapter 8, "Unnecessary Losses", in particular documents that there is a specific problem in high tech.
> That says much more about you than it says about me.
Sure, it says I've been participating in Hacker News discussions on sexism for the last few years, where there has been an overabundance of anonymous dudes who just happen to be vehemently opposed to anything that might reduce the advantages they have now.
Thanks for the link. There was one sidebar about "tech in finance" that was especially illuminating to me -- half my career was at a large financial institution, and it did reflect the more positive attributes with respect to women technologists and managers described in the paper.
Another factor that may warp my perception (or alternatively, maybe yours is warped if you're in Seattle or the Bay Area) is that my career has been entirely in the Midwest. There's not very much skew at all among tech workers from the culture at large, with respect to gender equality. If anything, a male tech worker's efforts and opinions skew toward equality, relative to the average worker's efforts and opinions.
So I just see sexism problems as society problems; maybe tech companies in some tech hubs are way behind the curve of the regions where they are located? Or perhaps we shipped the most toxic programmers among us to the coasts? :)
So maybe it's more a function of Google hiring young than being male-biased.
As to the culture, I think there is definitely a lot more humility in the midwest, which could help. I notice that people who think their evaluations are objective are more likely to display gender bias:
And yes, I think there's definitely some shipping of toxic people going on. I was here for Bubble 1.0; a lot of opportunistic people turned up during the boom and then left when the bust came. I would not mind another bubble popping to cool things off and send the greedy back to Wall Street.
Suppose field X had a crazy person so dedicated that he shot a US president in order to send a message to a woman working there (far more than Weev has done). Suppose that pervert letters to women in field X were completely expected and commonplace, and had been for many years. Would women flee from X?
Surprisingly, acting has no shortage of women. Pervs sending creepy letters is a topic of humor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmeh7EHpIE0
Journalism has similar issues. Still plenty of women. Seems like there must be something else at play.
[edit: replaced the word "anyone" with "a statistically significant number". This better expresses what I meant to say.]