This is Not ok

It is the weekly females in tech industry time again?<p>At the risk of derailing the thread, why do so many people want to get more women into programming? Isn't that just as misguided as trying to get more men into nursing? Just because we strive for gender equality doesn't mean every job has to have exactly the same gender ratios.

I'm kind of disappointed by the comments here. Not just by the fact that people couldn't read the entire article before making judgments but more that I would have thought the people of this website would understand why it's important to bring women into tech.<p>Women aren't biologically inclined to not like STEM fields (which I sadly see is a popular sentiment). The reason women don't go into these fields is because of the misogynistic culture. The stereotype of a computer whiz is a man. Ask yourself why you never considered becoming a nurse (if you are a man) and you will understand why women reject the idea of working in the tech industry.

She isn't upset by the fact that the ladies room was relabeled as a mens room, she was frustrated by the fact that she didn't find as many female peers at the conference. She felt encouraged around other women to discuss technology and wants to encourage other women to become excited about the field.<p>I have some insight into this. I'm engaged to a mechanical engineer who works in a largely male dominated industry. To this point, I've never heard her discuss another female engineer at her company. We've discussed the issues of women in engineering and how interesting the dynamics are for a woman and I can agree that it would be an enjoyable ideal if there were more women in her field. At the same time, she wants nothing to do with women in her field that are simply there to prove that women can do the same jobs as men. I have to agree with her on this point. Every time I see ads for computer schools encouraging people with no experience to get a degree and flood the market, I shake my head. Why should I want someone with no passion, who simply wants a job, to enter my market and drive down the price of labor?<p>So, I understand where the author is coming from here. She enjoys the company of her sex and would like to have a larger network of her peers be female. I have no problem with that. I would say, though, to be careful about what you wish for. You want women who are passionate to join the workforce, not just any old gal.

This doesn't really make sense.<p>She's complaining that at an event with 97% of attendance by men (by her own statement), they got, say, 92% of the bathroom facilities, and then throws a fit.<p>Not buying it.<p>If this is the biggest outrage in your life you should consider yourself fortunate.

I had a similar experience when I (a gent) took my grown daughter to a NKOTB reunion concert as a nostalgia trip. The audience was at least 95% female, and the arena restrooms were re-purposed accordingly. I asked an usher and he told me it was common practice to adapt to the gender mix of the audience. I observed many groups of women noting this reallocation with loud triumphant braying laughter. I doubt the Strange Loop men had a triumphal reaction to the bathroom allotment.

"That day in the Family Restroom I threw a fit. Hurled my water bottle at the wall and screamed, "This is not OK!""<p>How exactly after this do you expect anyone to take you seriously?<p>Gender equality isn't about having just as many women programmers, and it certainly isn't well servered by having tantrums over the bathroom arrangements.

It is actually pretty interesting that so many commenters here short circuited into thinking she was complaining about the bathroom situation.

I think she isn't complaining about the toilets, she is saying that she didn't realize how few women were in attendance until that point.

&#62;That day in the Family Restroom I threw a fit. Hurled my water bottle at the wall and screamed, "This is not OK!"<p>Oh please, calm down. Closed the tab.

Meta-question for both men and women. If you were a woman considering a career in IT and you were to read the comments on a thread like this, would you be more likely to join, less likely, or unaffected by reading the thread?

At first I thought she got angry about an relabeling of the women's room, which would be ridiculous, but I think what she means is that it is not OK that there are only so few women. Could be worded clearer...

It is sort of a followup to the previous post: <a href="http://blog.jessitron.com/2012/09/confessions-of-woman-in-tech.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.jessitron.com/2012/09/confessions-of-woman-in-te...</a>

At first I thought she was complaining about the fact they took away the girl's bathroom... But I think the article evolved into a critic of the lack of women in the field in general - saying it's Not OK that so few women are in the industry...<p>She probably could have been more clear of what she was not okay with. But a decline in women in the tech field is a deep and complicated topic, and the solutions weren't probed in this article. This article was more of how things are today - and we all already know that there's an extremely small percentage of women in the field. What would have been more provoking of an article would have been discussions of the root causes and reasons of why there are so few women in the industry, and why their career paths tend to differ than their male counterparts. Contributions to this topic by someone like her would be enlightening for sure.

I definitely agree with your view that there aren't enough women in the field, but starting an article, where most of your readers are going to be men, by saying you threw a temper tantrum because a venue swapped the bathrooms to benefit men is inviting readers to disagree with you before you even started making your point.<p>I read the first part and immediately thought how immature you were, then I read more, and being more open-minded I read over your point, swallowed my previous thought and agree. Not everyone will do that.<p>I agree we need more women representation, I disagree with the manner the article was written.

I definitely agree with your view that there aren't enough women in the field, but starting an article, where most of your readers are going to be men, by saying you threw a temper tantrum because a venue swapped the bathrooms to benefit men is inviting readers to disagree with you before you even started making your point.<p>I read the first part and immediately thought how immature you were, then I read more, and being more open-minded I read over your point, swallowed my previous thought and agreed. Not everyone will do that.<p>I agree we need more women representation, I disagree with the manner the article was written.

Empathy, noun: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.<p>I think this is our[1] problem. Or a generalization of it: the ability to share another's viewpoint. To step into their perspective and say “oh. I see.” And to accept that maybe, just maybe, their viewpoint is valid. This isn't always true, by the way. But it is sometimes true, even often true. And even if it is valid, you may not agree with it.<p>But here's the thing. There's this idea that maybe women aren't in tech because they aren't interested. That's cool. I'm not interested in nursing, right?<p>Well it turns out, I've never done nursing. I haven't even looked into it. I haven't talked to anyone about it. Because I just assumed hey, I'm a guy, nurses aren't guys. Not even worth thinking about. That's the mindset. It's not that you know you're not interested, it's that you don't even give it a second thought! [2]<p>The funny thing is, people here have generally found their passion—be it startups or tech. And when you have your passion and it fell into your lap, it's easy to say “well these people who aren't interested shouldn't be doing this anyway, because they're not passionate”. Even if they had no chance to develop that passion? Even if there was no exposure? Maybe we're being a tad too dismissive here, no? Perhaps we should give people a chance to explore a subject before assuming they'll never be passionate about it. Just a though.<p>What about those who did reach that passion? Those who entered the tech world, found a minefield of sexism (of which that's-what-she-said jokes are just the very very tip of the iceberg, but more on that in a second), and said “screw it, I'm out of here”.[3] Usually those stories lead to another set of excuses, because the first set of excuses just weren't effective enough to deal with the full scope of the people being shut out of technology, willingly or not.<p>Let's talk about that's-what-she-said jokes. There are men who say “psh, seriously? Come on, it's just a joke! Why would you have a problem with that?” And there are women who say “well, I can take them. Not only that, I dish them out! Why would you have a problem with that?” Why would you have a problem with that? The trouble with that question is it's so often rhetorical. Not only do you not <i>reaaally</i> want to hear the answer to it, but you don't stop to think about the answer before asking. That kind of question <i>should</i> lead to more understanding.<p>So I propose, without further ado, that instead of trying to understand why something (anything!) is a problem from <i>your</i> point of view, you consider trying to understand why it's a problem from the <i>other person's</i> point of view, and if, with a little effort, you still can't figure it out, then you ask and look for a real answer. And read the answer. And try to understand then. Because I see far more effort devoted in most of these threads to defending one's own point of view than to understanding the other person's. And these questions, the question of women in tech, the question of social awkwardness, the question of sexism in tech, they are not math problems. There is not necessarily a single correct answer. One person being right doesn't mean the other person is wrong. And right vs wrong is not always immediately obvious.<p>[1] - when I say our, I mean the tech industry.<p>[2] - I can't speak to whether or not this is considered a problem in the nursing industry. It's irrelevant to the point at hand.<p>[3] - <a href="http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/21/lighten-up/" rel="nofollow">http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/21/lighten-up/</a>

First, I didn't read it as she was mad about the bathrooms other than what that implied about the ratio of attendance between men and women[1].<p>I'm not real fond of the ratio, mainly because lack of female programmers means we get a lack of female managers with programming experience. Women who came up through the ranks and get the gig. I have encountered too many men and women who have no clue how to manage technical projects.<p>I should point out that at least female programmers are not subjected to the crap that happens to male ECE (early childhood education) instructors. Many places will say to an applicant's face that, because of potential lawsuits, they will not hire males.<p>[1] There are actually a lot of facilities that have sliding partitions that allow the number of stalls to be changed between events. I cannot find it right now, but there is a video explaining research done into average time using the stalls - male vs female and percentage of people doing #1 vs #2.

Everyone who rushed in here to say "calm down, dear" in a patronisingly male tone of voice, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.<p>Stop being sexist.

I think she forgot Ada Byron when she said there were no important women in computers this millenium.<p>EDIT: No "keynoters, the language designers, the authors of seminal texts" in this millenium. And there was Grace Hopper too.<p>Double edit: Admittedly, anything in 1xxx is technically the "last millenium". My mistake.

In short, it comes down to that she wants more women in the industry. Maybe she seemed a bit lonely among so many men, or maybe something else—I don't know and she didn't tell.<p>All right. Now what?

People always complain that there aren't enough women in tech fields, yet no one ever complains about there not being enough men in, say, fashion. I've always found this odd.

It's not ok that only 3% of people present liked peanut butter! I'm going to make it my mission to get more people that like peanut butter into conferences.

If she would have just used the "new" men's room nobody would have cared and she wouldn't have had to write this blog post.<p>People do this all the time if one room is full.

&#62; That day in the Family Restroom I threw a fit. Hurled my water bottle at the wall and screamed, "This is not OK!"<p>What? I can understand being frustrated but that reaction doesn't seem constructive at all.