Some guys are there to make money, get stuff done, and get it shipped.
If they think that having a woman means having to slow down and be nice and set out tea cozies, their answer will be to not hire women.
Create problems on a team, you will get bounced from the team ... I have seen it time and time again.
(the link got dead'ed, so I can't respond directly ... however my point is more "results matter" and if you are a purple spotted owl that can code, you will get respect ... nerdy guys with technical competence are what built the Internet, and technical competence is what gets respected)
I think what you're not-so-eloquently trying to get at is that while some people consider a particular cause noble and worth effort, others might consider it out of scope.
However, in the context of this particular cause, it's often the case that those who set the scope are the least directly impacted by the problems which the cause is fighting against. Given lack of experience, and especially a lack of empathy, it often looks like a non-issue. People who just want to focus on their problem domain at the expense of their duties to their personnel can easily can fall into this category.
Put bluntly, people like that should not be responsible for other people.
Edit:
> Create problems on a team, you will get bounced from the team
As it should be. However if this is implemented correctly, standing up for yourself should never be viewed as creating a problem.
Ok, I haven't followed this whole thing closely, so if I'm missing some crucial fact please tell me.
What exactly is the problem with Pax Dickinson? He has expressed some political and social opinions that many disagree with. He used coarse language in doing so. And he got fired because his political opinions were incorrect.
Business Insider of course has the right to fire people for having the wrong politics. But I'm a bit surprised by all the people celebrating and supporting this and criticizing Dickinson, and I rather doubt we'd see the same reaction if the opinions he rudely expressed were more in line with the mainstream.
He got fired because, as an executive manager, he was in a position to make hiring and firing decisions based on those opinions, which is illegal (and thus a liability to his employer) in addition to being immoral.
Based on your interpretation, nobody can be in a position to hire or fire, because everybody has opinions. Where do you think he indicated that he would discriminate in hiring people based on their race, sex, religion, etc.?
"if the opinions he rudely expressed were more in line with the mainstream"
This makes it sound like his opinions were harmless exotic ideas like The Secret or Wycca, or saying that Citizen Kane was a terrible film.
The man posted an incoherent pile of racist and sexist ranting. Racism and sexism are not acceptable professional positions. This man was in a hiring position. There are laws against being racist and sexist when hiring. Laws that exist for good reason.
What opinions are "not acceptable professional positions"? Supporting regulations that might harm one's industry? Supporting deviant sexual practices? Supporting communism?
You also seem to be implying (without explicitly stating) that Dickinson was racist or sexist while hiring. Is this an actual claim you are making, or was the implication unintended?
> But I'm a bit surprised by all the people celebrating and supporting this and criticizing Dickinson, and I rather doubt we'd see the same reaction if the opinions he rudely expressed were more in line with the mainstream.
Being outside the mainstream causes people in the mainstream to ostracize you: news at 11.
And another article about misogyny in the industry falls off the front page just as soon as it appeared. I actually hadn't heard about the Business Insider thing, and that one actually seems worse than the TitStare debacle.
This article doesn't belong on hacker news. It literally starts out by calling somebody a dick in the first sentence. If there was an article starting out by calling some woman a cunt it wouldn't belong here, and this doesn't belong here either.
“It's not an accident that, in those same communities, the thriving of women and minorities is fewer and further between.”
I don't know about women, but since I'm a minority, let me put this directly:
I'd rather have someone crack a mildly racist joke at my expense and laugh with them about it (or possibly quarrel, if they are being really crude) rather than have everyone be the uptight sort of humourless corporatese-speaking drones that these people seem to be trying the fill the tech industry with.
Also, I might be missing something, but “Tech managers spend as much time worrying about how to hire talented female developers as they do worrying about how to hire a unicorn.” is a reflection on the current state of the industry. What is it being spun as Pax's own opinion here?
Tech managers spend as much time worrying about how to hire talented female developers as they do worrying about how to hire a unicorn.
I would think more time would be put into worrying about how to hire talented developers regardless of gender. I don't see why any break down between genders is required there.
Okay, y'know what? There's a lot of other industries with problems with racism and sexism. Nobody pretends that, say, oil riggers are a classy bunch.
The difference is professionalism. The software industry is founded by young upstarts who broke all the rules of big business, and don't see a need to bring any back. There are no steel mills with foosball and yoga classes. There are no banks where tellers wear flip-flops and cargo shorts to work. No foremen who decorate their office with anime statues and posters. We created our own culture, rejecting the stuffiness of big business.
But we might've thrown the baby out with the bath-water when it comes to a certain amount of professional conduct. Because a key difference here is that, while a lot of other businesses might have characters like Pax and the TitStare guys, they would know better than to parade this crap out front of the public gallery. And in this case, image is important beyond the embarrassment to IT. The image is also what's keeping the problem from solving itself.
If women and poor minorities never become a normal part of IT, then they'll never be accepted by the vast swath of people who just can't accept things until they're everywhere. And if crap like this keeps happening, they'll all know to steer the heck away from the industry.
So have a little class. Put on your big-boy pants when you come to work.
Oh look, it's the weekly 'misogyny' post on HN. Please people, act like adults and professionals and don't whine about every single thing that offends you. It's your right to be offended, it's your right to also be booted off a team that you create problems in.
> But it will take a complete tear-down and rebuild to make the tech world the kind of place we’d [i.e. women] want to be.
Imagine if men said this, and put it forth as a social goal as this author does -- they would justly be accused of sexism.
So hey, knock yourselves out, but don't expect to be treated any differently than men would be, saying and doing the same things. Why? Gender equality, that's why. Or is that no longer the objective?
If women really want to succeed in tech in spite of stupid, counterproductive male behavior, they should consider starting their own companies and financial institutions (women control 60% of U.S money) to achieve that goal.
I know this would work. And how do I know? Because men did it -- they established male-dominated tech and financial institutions, and have systematically excluded women from all but trivial and demeaning positions.
It's women's turn to use the same strategy -- if they choose. But continuing to complain about men, continuing to blame men for women's standing in tech? That's a losing strategy compared to voting with your feet.
Stop whining, start networking. Stop trying to accommodate the enemy.
25 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 58.5 ms ] threadIf they think that having a woman means having to slow down and be nice and set out tea cozies, their answer will be to not hire women.
Create problems on a team, you will get bounced from the team ... I have seen it time and time again.
(the link got dead'ed, so I can't respond directly ... however my point is more "results matter" and if you are a purple spotted owl that can code, you will get respect ... nerdy guys with technical competence are what built the Internet, and technical competence is what gets respected)
Details people. Unless of course you'd like to tell me why this comment is misogynistic anyway. (Thinly veiled statement of his own opinion perhaps?)
However, in the context of this particular cause, it's often the case that those who set the scope are the least directly impacted by the problems which the cause is fighting against. Given lack of experience, and especially a lack of empathy, it often looks like a non-issue. People who just want to focus on their problem domain at the expense of their duties to their personnel can easily can fall into this category.
Put bluntly, people like that should not be responsible for other people.
Edit:
> Create problems on a team, you will get bounced from the team
As it should be. However if this is implemented correctly, standing up for yourself should never be viewed as creating a problem.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6381218
What exactly is the problem with Pax Dickinson? He has expressed some political and social opinions that many disagree with. He used coarse language in doing so. And he got fired because his political opinions were incorrect.
Business Insider of course has the right to fire people for having the wrong politics. But I'm a bit surprised by all the people celebrating and supporting this and criticizing Dickinson, and I rather doubt we'd see the same reaction if the opinions he rudely expressed were more in line with the mainstream.
This makes it sound like his opinions were harmless exotic ideas like The Secret or Wycca, or saying that Citizen Kane was a terrible film.
The man posted an incoherent pile of racist and sexist ranting. Racism and sexism are not acceptable professional positions. This man was in a hiring position. There are laws against being racist and sexist when hiring. Laws that exist for good reason.
You also seem to be implying (without explicitly stating) that Dickinson was racist or sexist while hiring. Is this an actual claim you are making, or was the implication unintended?
Being outside the mainstream causes people in the mainstream to ostracize you: news at 11.
edit: and it's dead. What the heck?
Glad to hear this guy got fired, not glad that he still has a job. I voted the article up, but man are geeks a drama laden bunch of apes.
I don't know about women, but since I'm a minority, let me put this directly:
I'd rather have someone crack a mildly racist joke at my expense and laugh with them about it (or possibly quarrel, if they are being really crude) rather than have everyone be the uptight sort of humourless corporatese-speaking drones that these people seem to be trying the fill the tech industry with.
Also, I might be missing something, but “Tech managers spend as much time worrying about how to hire talented female developers as they do worrying about how to hire a unicorn.” is a reflection on the current state of the industry. What is it being spun as Pax's own opinion here?
I would think more time would be put into worrying about how to hire talented developers regardless of gender. I don't see why any break down between genders is required there.
The difference is professionalism. The software industry is founded by young upstarts who broke all the rules of big business, and don't see a need to bring any back. There are no steel mills with foosball and yoga classes. There are no banks where tellers wear flip-flops and cargo shorts to work. No foremen who decorate their office with anime statues and posters. We created our own culture, rejecting the stuffiness of big business.
But we might've thrown the baby out with the bath-water when it comes to a certain amount of professional conduct. Because a key difference here is that, while a lot of other businesses might have characters like Pax and the TitStare guys, they would know better than to parade this crap out front of the public gallery. And in this case, image is important beyond the embarrassment to IT. The image is also what's keeping the problem from solving itself.
If women and poor minorities never become a normal part of IT, then they'll never be accepted by the vast swath of people who just can't accept things until they're everywhere. And if crap like this keeps happening, they'll all know to steer the heck away from the industry.
So have a little class. Put on your big-boy pants when you come to work.
1) An individual says something mildly offensive 2) People incite mob anger via Twitter 3) Person gets fired. 4) Twitter applauds itself.
How many more times are we going to see this?
Maybe it's sick for these people to hold these views.
It's also sick to try and get people _fired_ when you 1) don't even know them and 2) probably didn't even hear their offensive remark in person.
No one can ever claim they've never said something inoffensive.
I'm going to delete my Twitter account. We're living in an era of mob rule.
Imagine if men said this, and put it forth as a social goal as this author does -- they would justly be accused of sexism.
So hey, knock yourselves out, but don't expect to be treated any differently than men would be, saying and doing the same things. Why? Gender equality, that's why. Or is that no longer the objective?
If women really want to succeed in tech in spite of stupid, counterproductive male behavior, they should consider starting their own companies and financial institutions (women control 60% of U.S money) to achieve that goal.
I know this would work. And how do I know? Because men did it -- they established male-dominated tech and financial institutions, and have systematically excluded women from all but trivial and demeaning positions.
It's women's turn to use the same strategy -- if they choose. But continuing to complain about men, continuing to blame men for women's standing in tech? That's a losing strategy compared to voting with your feet.
Stop whining, start networking. Stop trying to accommodate the enemy.