It's been an ambition of mine to work in some certain tech companies that are notoriously difficult to get into. The type of job I am going for I am easily capable of doing. While i'm working hard to better myself the thought hasnt escaped me that if I was a woman who had the same experience and qualifications that I have I would have a far better chance of getting the position. This is the definition of sexism.
It is sexism, and it's unfortunate. I'm a woman, and I pretend to be a man online so my comments and understandings of computer science, code, programming, and mathematics are treated with the same respect, and given the same kind of responses and feedback.
I've tried numerous times to out myself as female and it's clear that there is consistently a difference in the way I'm spoken to as a woman and as a man.
I will probably move onto another alias as I typically do, but I think it is necessary to point out that both genders suffer due to any kind of discrimination. I feel like people hold me back by judging my abilities by my gender. I get angry thinking about how much more I might have been able to learn if I was a man, and I resolve that with studying independently, and fighting in whatever way I can to make sure I can gain the same knowledge base as anyone else should be able to.
One of the few things I am proud of is that I have managed to cultivate an online personality image that is often mistaken for an older man. I don't know when I will stop believing that I am inferior at the things I've spent my entire life studying, but I hope I will soon, because it is extremely depressing. I don't know what my experiences are the definition of, because I know they are biased by an extremely limited set of data.
The point is, I guess - keep your eyes on what really matters to you, and always keep that goal in sight. It's very easy to turn a superficial cultural assumption that actually doesn't happen that often, into a self defeatist attitude, and all that attitude does is get in your way of achieving.
Forgive me, but I don't think you'd have gained much more understanding of systems.
this industry, if you're not born in the right geographical location is a complete impossibility unless you are an autodidact.
Personally growing up where I was there was 0 incentive to work in computers- no courses, even anything bearing on technical was cut due to lack of interest. So I taught myself. I find that this is probably the best way to learn.
You might have been held back due to gender- I can't possibly know. But I wouldn't consider it a bad thing, probably the extra fight taught you to appreciate what you were learning in the first place.
on the flip side, I resonate with the top commenter- had I been born a woman I do feel I'd have more chances of getting a job in some hard to access companies (whether that's true or not is completely debatable of course). Even though I'm sure there are people who condescend [you] outside of [your] career.. at least online you can mask [your] gender (sad that you'd have to but bigots be bigots), but I cannot become a woman for a job interview.
You don't have to become a woman unless you want to become a woman. I don't have to work for idiots, and neither do you.
I think any form of prejudice hinders your ability to think regardless. They can't see existence the same because they've already molded a language, a way of reasoning, and a way of thinking around an axiom of absolute certainty (that they pretend doesn't exist, because it's a bias they do not consciously act on, but it exists as an invariant in the mind regardless). It is ridiculous, counter intuitive, cognitively dissonant logic.
> in this industry, if you're not born in the right geographical location is a complete impossibility unless you are an autodidact.
Most of what is fundamentally mentally shaping and necessarily important for your ability to think as a human being is not dependent on education, but on everything, and I don't know whether I have control over it or not, but I don't begin with the premise assuming that I already know everything I am going to know.
You wouldn't consider gender discrimination against women a bad thing?
Why don't you apply the same logic to the parent's comment, and consider it a good thing that he has to work harder to get the job he wants? Probably the extra fight will teach him to appreciate the job even more. Or something.
excuse me.. from what did I say that made it sound like I said gender discrimination is "not a bad thing".
that's quite inflammatory and it's quite upsetting.
What I actually said was; "it's good that you educated yourself because self education is much better than formal education in this industry"
I received the same amount of encouragement as the Parent. Zero, none, my mother thought it was stupid- no father, and no education system for 25 miles that would educate me on this.
And from what I've learned in nearly 10 years in industry; Self education beats formal education when formal education doesn't work hard to learn.
k? now, please, in future read the comment properly, parse what is actually being said instead of throwing accusations and insults at people.
You might not have intended or meant to say that, but I parse
"You might have been held back due to gender- I can't possibly know. But I wouldn't consider it a bad thing, probably the extra fight taught you to appreciate what you were learning in the first place."
the same way as your parent comment. Just a heads-up.
The web is a poor reflection of how you well you will be treated by people in general, the relative anonymity has a profoundly negative effect on peoples behaviour.
I can understand how negativity or strong criticism whether warranted or not can have a measurable effect on ones well being away from the internet; I have felt it too with a very limited online presence.
I actually find myself more often than not shying away from interaction on the internet in at least partly because of that possible negativity, while some may disagree I believe it is better for me personally and professionally; I would hazard a guess that online discussions bring limited return in terms of career development.
I do believe in the power of networking, the door opened to my two most recent opportunities via associations, but none of those were cultivated online.
how much more I might have been able to learn if I was a
man, and I resolve that with studying independently
I find this such a strange statement because your solution ("studying independently") is exactly what every engineer (male or female) including myself does. I don't know a single accomplished engineer that is excellent at computer science, software engineering and programming for any reason than independent study.
Yes, there is occasional mentorship and asking questions, but those merely help with orientation corrections that help improve the efficacy of independent study. The journey to success in our field is essentially a solitary one. Hours of independent study relative greatly dwarves learning from others by several orders of magnitude.
I've had two mentors and mentored many others. The way I attracted mentorship had nothing to do with my gender and everything to do with my actions and how I asked questions. The first mentor I had came by way of noticing the book I was reading "The Little Schemer". The second mentor (and a current co-worker of mine) came from reading lots of his source code and submitting pull requests. Those I've mentored has been the result of their gumption. They just asked for help and advice and I gave it to them. My continued mentorship was dependent on two criteria: (1) the person needs to demonstrate that they will help themselves (including asking questions the smart way); and (2) be committed to independent self-study and practice.
fighting in whatever way I can to make sure I can gain the
same knowledge base as anyone else should be able to.
What knowledge base exists out there that is in anyway exclusive to one demographic? I started learning to program in the mid-90s. Back then an argument could be made that knowledge was locked away and privvy to only a few. Mostly it was a problem of discoverability. You didn't know what resources were good ones to learn from so if you were lucky you'd know one enlightened engineer who could recommend the resources they considered to be effective instead of whatever "Learn X in 24 hours" crap on the shelf at the local Barnes and Noble.
There days there is no shortage of suggested self study lists and reviews from Amazon, blogs and sites like HN. There's IRC. There's oodles and oodles of code on Github to read. There's koans. There's Project Euler. There are interactive language tutorials like the official one for Golang of 4clojure. There are interactive books like Marijn Haverbeke's Eloquent JavaScript. There's the whole series of "Learn X the Hard Way" started by Zed Shaw. There has never in history been such an abundance of accessible content to learn programming and there are no filters out there on any of this knowledge that prevents a self-directed learner from acquiring any knowledge they might desire. I'm actually jealous of the 10-12 year olds growing up today. Insofar as knowledge is concerned, any kid today with a computer and internet has a level of privilege relative to my 10-12 year self in the mid-90s that dwarves many times over any kind of privilege people complain about today.
Seriously, in 2015 and beyond the only thing that can keep anyone away from all this knowledge is not having internet access and a computer. That's a poverty issue that I would love to see solved because I think Internet access and access to computers should be a basic human right since it's essential for participation in much of the economy today.
Other than Stanford, the Venn diagram of tech companies and US educational institutions has little overlap. The applicability of the study's conclusion to normal commercial concerns is dubious.
A bunch of uncited op-ed pieces (at least one from the same HuffPost/AEI author) is not the same as proof. You've demonstrated only that it's widely disputed by a bunch of op-eds (which you can also say about climate change, evolution, and the round-Earth theory). Going through the list:
Opinion. Mises.org lol. Opinion (and UK). Opinion. "Statistics are wrong". AEI opinion. Opinion. Not sure why you included the billmoyers.com piece, it argues the gap exists. Opinion. Opinion.
You're digging your hole deeper here. C'mon, we're not talking about income disparity in India. That study has a 200 person sample size in two Indian states.
Every year on Equal Pay Day, while some Americans lament the fact that in 2014 women still earn around 20 percent less than men, others perform intellectual gymnastics to deny that a gender pay gap exists, or to blame women themselves — and the “choices” they make — for its persistence.
...
As Pamela Coukos, a senior program advisor at the Department of Labor, wrote in 2012, “studies consistently conclude that discrimination is the best explanation of the remaining difference in pay.”
Pamela Coukos, June 7, 2012 has also said "Economists generally attribute about 40% of the pay gap to discrimination – making about 60% explained by differences between workers or their jobs"
Personally, It sounds like she's being a bit disingenuous.
So if a woman is hired instead of you it means the company is being sexist towards you, not that perhaps she was better than you? How isn't the irony smacking you in the face?
Good idea, but it doesn't really work in academia. When I applied for academic jobs, every offer I got was from someone who knew either me or my adviser. As far as I know this is the typical situation.
Given the underrepresentation of women in tech I think I'm ok with them being chosen over satisfying your ambitions.
Also working hard to better yourself is a continuous process and it doesn't stop when you get hired at BigCorp, continue doing so and you'll get results no matter your gender.
Also, I wouldn't want my coworkers thinking I only got the job because I'm a black male. Even I myself don't like the idea that I might have gotten something only because someone else saw me as a charity case or I'm just the "token black guy" so the company can prove "See? We got a black guy! We're cool & hip now!" Replace "black male" with "woman" and I still believe my statement is true for most people.
I'm somebody who was part of this affirmative action population. I come from the poorest country in Europe called Moldova, the unemployment is high, education low, your typical eastern-european anti-intelectual culture, you get the idea.. Anyway.. when I was 15 I got a scholarship in Romania because there were quotas for us 'moldavians'. At the time Romania was not much better off than Moldova, but certainly when it comes to math and CS to me at least it looked years ahead of the programs we had in Moldova! So I packed my bags and left for a much better education and what I would say now without reservation: a better life. Looking back I think I was very lucky to have gotten the education and exposure to an environment with great teachers/programmers. Maybe I could have succeeded in Moldova, who knows.. It's possible I suppose, but unlikely.
People who don't think you deserve a job will find a reason, any reason for their belief, even if you are the smartest person in the room, you will always be the "token black guy" for a significant percentage of people with or without an affirmative action programme.
And counter to your point, if you read the article, you'll find that affirmative action programmes have been very successful in improving participation rates and shrinking the wage gaps. Not to the point of equity, but an improvement. (Sidenote: if you search for Positive, you'll find twice as many as Negative)
Thomas Sowell--who is proposes several of the arguments against affirmative action in the wikipedia article-- is extremely intelligent, but if you follow his work you'll see that he's incapable of supporting anything that goes against the idea of ideologically pure free market systems.
Ok. I see your point. Positive discrimination is harmful, but I think it only applies when it's abused. From my vantage point I don't think we are there.
Do you think that any amount of positive discrimination is harmful for a given population?
Ask someone anywhere in the lower-middle range who's sent a kid (moreso boy than girl) to college recently how they feel about whether we're there or not.
I'm pretty sure a homogenous group of males with the same ethnicity will almost exclusively hire more males that "fit with their culture" and can "quickly get up to speed with the rest of their team".
I'm interested in hearing alternatives to an "affirmative action like" approach that would be effective.
Agreed. A company that hires no women will likely be at a disadvantage to the competition. Hiring diversely is an asset. While I'd like to fast-forward to a time where gender is in fact equal in most things, I think a much better way to start is to remove gender, race, etc. from college and work applications altogether.
What would happen if we let merit and drive determine outcomes above all other things? Maybe there are caveats I'm not considering.
More likely than not people start yelling loudly about who's advertising their skills better.
In the end not enough businesses and institutions are equipped to accurately assess skill. So rather than being hired based on skill, what you'd really be hired based on is perceived skill.
The people who can sell themselves and spin their skills will continue to thrive, the people who can't but have skills will find niches to do their work, and the people who don't have either will complain that the first two groups are being "pushy" or have an unfair advantage because they're selling themselves better.
Something like that.
Edit: even if we could measure skill... how? I don't suspect it's always an objectively measurable thing. e.g. most people who seek out psychiatric help want to find someone who is good fit for them and they can trust and talk to, not the "state's top ranked psychiatrist" (who is inherently intimidating).
Essentially, they found that switching to blind auditing for orchestra musician positions raised the ratio of women hired severalfold. Thus, people' skill is (was?) rated lower if it is known they are female.
There are folks of certain political persuasions that would suggest that you are ignorant of the struggle and your white privilege is manifesting itself. This is exactly why I don't understand the "we need a woman president" malarkey. No, we need competent people regardless of their color or genatalia. This idea that we 'need' more this or more that is actually sexist and/or racist by definition.
In my opinion, it's not as easy as it sounds. We all have biases and prejudices, some that we are aware of and some that we don't even notice.
Personally, I think you need a pretty mixed group of people in charge of hiring in order to get anywhere near to a fair and balanced process. It's too easy to discount racist or sexist hiring practices (either subconcious or overt) under the guise of wanting people who "fit with the team's culture".
When has this ever happened in reality? Every other week I see a HN link about how hard it is to actually identify talent and how companies continue to screw it up (hence: hire slow, fire fast). Many hires (especially of A peoople) tend happen on the basis of personal networks as well.
While merit plays a role, pretending that before affirmative action hiring was merit-based is naive at best.
Given this, I'd like you to please consider that the perception that a specific gender or race is worse at tech may be a bigger influence in an interview than the objective merit or lack thereof that candidate has (something that's impossible to measure in knowledge-work anyways).
Perhaps the poster was pointing out that the under-representation of women in technology is an actual, real world problem that needs to be solved. This one male's ambitions is not really comparable.
What do you mean, women are under-represented in tech? As in: it needs to be 50/50 men and women? Or as in: the ratio of men/women working in tech should reflect the ratio of men/women who'd like to have a tech job?
before you downvote this preciding comment (or mine, for that matter), allow me a challenge: If you pick 10 woman who self-identified as feminists at random, how many do you predict will find this 2:1 ratio a good thing ?
