Technology’s Man Problem

Ashe Dryden, along with other members of the Ada Initiative, launched a smear campaign against a man who was cleared of all charges in a domestic dispute.<p>One AI member, Leigh Honeywell, tweeted that she &quot;want[s] anyone who googles [name] in the future to know he was arrested for DV&quot; (she now tweets under &quot;ennui as a service&quot;). Several members of Ada, including Ashe, have signed a statement against him.<p>The Ada Initiative continues to host a page devoted to the charges which have been fully dropped against the man in question.<p>While I&#x27;m all for, and have encouraged, women in tech, and have worked with some very talented women (and men), a line is crossed when people move from advocacy to specific smear campaigns against specific individuals. There are courts and a justice system for a purpose, and while they may be imperfect, taking the law and justice into your own hands, publicly, in what is almost always a very, very messy situation, is crossing a line I cannot countenance.<p>I really can&#x27;t stand by Ada, Ashe, or others associated with it.

The article is great and pretty accurate.<p>&gt;Women often take on the role of product manager, or P.M., which entails the so-called soft skills of managing people and bridging the business and engineering divide. Yet even though this is an essential job, it’s the purely technical people — not the businesspeople — who get the respect in the tech industry.<p>Well, I think PMs are universally reviled, male or female :)

Oh, hey, Ashe Dryden! Last I ran into her, she was busily advocating an overt hiring blacklist because some people on 4chan made fun of a blog post. I&#x27;m surprised to find her quoted in such a relatively even-handed article on the subject.

<i>Computer science wasn’t always dominated by men. “In the beginning, the word ‘computers’ meant ‘women,’ ” says Ruth Oldenziel, a professor at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands who studies history, gender and technology. Six women programmed one of the most famous computers in history — the 30-ton Eniac — for the United States Army during World War II.</i><p>This is misleading.<p>First of all, it confuses &quot;computer science&quot; with &quot;programming&quot;. Yes, programming certainly had high female presence back then. However, it was also largely considered a menial job - number crunching. Computer scientists were still majority male.

The articles I haven&#x27;t seen yet:<p>1. Welding&#x27;s Man Problem<p><a href="http://www.aikenstandard.com/article/20130125/AIK0101/130129691" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aikenstandard.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;20130125&#x2F;AIK0101&#x2F;130129...</a><p>2. Nursing&#x27;s Women Problem<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_nursing" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Men_in_nursing</a><p>3. Hooters (and others) Women Problem<p><a href="http://blogs.findlaw.com/free_enterprise/2009/04/can-men-be-hooters-girls-when-can-businesses-hire-only-women.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.findlaw.com&#x2F;free_enterprise&#x2F;2009&#x2F;04&#x2F;can-men-be-...</a><p>I get that I live in a bubble surrounded by only tech news. But when I was in school I knew plenty of women in nursing and it seemed as though the lack of diversity wasn&#x27;t keeping them up at night. The median nursing salary in the bay area is definitely competitive with and possibly better than programming.<p><a href="http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/registered-nurse/salary" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;money.usnews.com&#x2F;careers&#x2F;best-jobs&#x2F;registered-nurse&#x2F;s...</a><p><a href="http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/computer-programmer/salary" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;money.usnews.com&#x2F;careers&#x2F;best-jobs&#x2F;computer-programme...</a><p>I also get that there are plenty of dudes in tech being giant assholes or chauvinistic or sexist or misogynist or whatever other words you&#x27;d like to call them. But why is that so much more of a problem than the obvious sexism in other areas? What I mean is why is there a NYT article on male computer programmers behaving badly and not one on male welders behaving badly? I&#x27;m not suggesting that either one should get away with it, bad behavior is bad behavior. But why is it newsworthy in tech and not in welding?

&quot;Today, even as so many barriers have fallen — whether at elite universities, where women outnumber men, or in running for the presidency, where polls show that fewer people think gender makes a difference — computer engineering, the most innovative sector of the economy, remains behind. &quot;<p>With younger demographics showing far less bias towards gender in polls and elsewhere, and with the tech scene bringing in so much young talent, why is it that non-males are still not accepted as peers by the general male tech crowd? If anything, shouldn&#x27;t the tech community have accepted non-males long before other industries given these circumstances?

I sincerely hope the average HNer reading this more or less agrees, but does not comment. I&#x27;d have a hard time stomaching the idea that these comments are actually representative of the community.

Both men and women would benefit from learning more about nerd culture and women:<p><a href="http://calculatedbravery.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/on-nerds/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;calculatedbravery.wordpress.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;01&#x2F;21&#x2F;on-nerds&#x2F;</a>

&gt; &quot;A culprit, many people in the field say, is a sexist, alpha-male culture that can make women and other people who don’t fit the mold feel unwelcome, demeaned or even endangered.&quot;<p>Wait, did someone just call programmer culture an &quot;alpha-male&quot; culture? That&#x27;s hilarious.<p>When are people going to stop bitching about there not being enough women in &lt;insert industry of choice&gt;? Who cares? Like another comment said - nobody complains about there not being enough men in nursing.<p>I&#x27;m really sick of this whole victimization mindset that a lot of women embrace. In any male-dominated industry, there are bound to be cases of sexual harassment and misconduct. Nobody condones that. And frankly, there&#x27;s really not much more anybody can do to fix it.<p>Technology and programming are among the most meritocratic industries in existence. All it takes is a computer and an internet connection. If you can code well and build great things, nobody cares whether you&#x27;re a woman or some 13 year old nerd with Asperger&#x27;s who gets bullied at school.<p>Oh and if you&#x27;re outraged by some dumb boob app that a couple guys coded for fun at a Hackathon, you have your head way too far up your ass and need to stop taking yourself so seriously.

from the title of the article, i thought this was going to be about the fact that there are a lot of tech jobs to distribute among a small number of people (male and female) compared to some other industries...<p>... immediately realizing that the article is about a very real difficulty (gender imbalance) for many lines of work, i immediately stopped reading, because based on the title alone, i suspect it&#x27;s more of the (unfortunately) usual points.<p>for my two cents, i certainly would like to see more female programmers &amp;&#x2F;or mathematicians out there and am completely baffled about why, especially in academia, where it can be significantly easier to get into some math programs as a grad student, there aren&#x27;t more women trying it out. perhaps because of articles talking about how problematic math and programming can be for women rather than about successful female mathematicians and programmers? i mean, there are definitely negative experiences that need to get out there, but i hope they don&#x27;t obscure the fact that there are women in math&#x2F;cs areas that have positive experiences as well.

The article is out for vengeance. &quot;Titstare&quot; isn&#x27;t even a real app, but satire. The article uses this joke as an example of technology&#x27;s &quot;man problem.&quot;<p>Men: you cannot make sex jokes in public, especially at tech conferences. Any sexual innuendo will be labeled misogynistic. Don&#x27;t forget about the two guys who got fired after joking about &quot;forking&quot; and &quot;dongles.&quot;<p>Male co-workers can make crude jokes between one another and laugh about it. But say anything sexual and if a woman hears it, you will be labeled sexist, misogynistic, and reported to HR or shamed on Twitter.<p>And women wonder why they feel excluded from their male peers...

I remember a co-worker inviting to his place, with others also invited. He asked me if I had had sex with a female coworker since, I suppose, that upon first meeting her, we got along very amiably at work.<p>It seemed like a confession of character moment, though it was expressed in a joking manner. It was a kind of contextual humor.

Is $5 typical for beer served at a dive bar in NYC?

This article is hilarious. It neglects to mention that computer science programs(engineering in general) is 90 percent guys.<p>Engineering is probably the hardest major from a math and hard work perspective.<p>Almost seems like women want a voice without having to do any of that pesky work.