Falsehoods Programmers Believe About "Women In Tech"

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Falsehoods Programmers Believe About "Women In Tech"

• We have absolutely no idea what we're doing in tech. Please explain the utmost basic things to us.

• We only do web design. Our whole reason of being in tech is to make things pretty. Consider us the doilies of the industry.

• We're not laughing about your joke, so we clearly need you explain it to us. In great detail.

• We're only in tech to find a husband, boyfriend or generally to get laid.

• We hate manly jokes, locker room humor, soccer talk and beer fun so we have no sense of humor and must be educated into it.

• We totally want to meet your wife/girlfriend, because we like being shown off like an exotic red-assed monkey in the zoo "because she never met a woman who is doing tech!"

• We absolutely care about your unsolicited opinion about women, feminism, women in tech and everything else.

• We think you should totally advise us on the realities of motherhood and please, comment on our upcoming age and menopause and tell us how awesome fatherhood is - when you don't have to stay at home.

• We enjoy having to fight, get into dick sizing contest and in general having to prove ourselves every day.

• Never assume we simply like technology and programming. We always have a hidden agenda.

• We have a thicker skin than elephants, the patience of a saint and generally don't take anything personally, so you can continue being an ass. In fact, mostly you were just being funny, weren't you?!

• We love to get hired to take care of the generally shitty atmosphere in your company and we really like to be responsible for everything "social".

• We are always nice, never angry, never loose temper and absolutely NEVER argue. If we do, it's clearly a hormonal issue.

• We really love to be asked as a speaker to a conference just because we're a woman. We make GREAT quota fill-ins.

• We absolutely enjoy the quadrupling of pressure to not just be an awesome technician, no, now we also will "share our experiences", "teach" and in general explain to every guy and his dog the history of feminism, because Silicon Valley hasn't invented libraries and books yet.

• We european women in tech share the exact same experiences as US-american women in tech as compared to russian and former eastern european women in tech who ALL deal with the same as the female experts in robotics in Iran.. so please, drop us all into the same feminism bucket.

• We like to make things cute and generally like to look more harmless so you don't get offended or scared.

• We would NEVER think of you as a complete idiot or clueless moron and always take everything you say completely serious.

• Sarcasm, snark, irony and criticism are completely alien to us. We would never do that.

• We really like all the manly memes and boyish folklore established in tech - ranging from military jargon to the whole wizard blah to that programming is basically war so you need ninjas and martial art experts.

• The culture of competition, credit, karma, and ranks can't be applied too relentlessly onto human beings. It improves love, peace and code beyond measure.

• We consider being paid less a great compliment and an awesome budgeting challenge.

• Every woman in tech is 20 years old and just starting out. PLEASE HELP!1!

• The woman you just pissed off massively will never be your boss.

I think this list is very accurate and funny, but I feel like it is anger-filled.

It doesn't matter if would be a list about women made by a woman or a list by a man about men, I wish it was less sarcastic and more factual if it really tries to change something. But if it supposed to be just "funny list", it is funny! I already added my star! :D.

@JakubMosakowski this list is literally and factually representative of the experience of many women in technical roles, and I think you should examine the reaction you're having. Here are some questions to think about:

• How do you think being treated in the ways this list describes would make you feel?
• Why is it wrong for this list to express anger?
• When men express anger, do you feel the same way?
• Why does this come across as sarcastic?
• Why do you think that women (or any people) need to express ideas with a lack of emotion ("less sarcastic and more factual") to be valid?

I didn't want to say that the author cannot feel like she feels. I've never been in such a situation but I can assume it would make me angry also. And feeling that way and accepting it is important. But that doesn't mean that helps to solve the problem.

It may work as a way to express yourself, but I'm afraid it may have the opposite effect than expected. Those men who agree that treating others like that is unacceptable (myself included), they won't be affected, because we already agree with the author. But you don't want to convince to change people who think the way you think, you want to convince others, who are against. And no one ever convinced anybody by attacking them. And this list looks like an attack, on males, at least some part. This attack is fully deserved, but still, I cannot agree that's the correct way of communicating.

And yes, I believe it would upset me even if a man would do a list like that. I've seen many misogynic posts written by a man and I didn't agree with them.

I've never said that you need to express ideas with a lack of emotion. I believe the message could be more powerful if it contained fewer aggressive sentences.

I'm not a native speaker, but sentences like "We love to get hired to take care of the generally shitty atmosphere in your company and we really like to be responsible for everything "social"." sounds very sarcastic to me.

@JakubMosakowski It is a list of falsehoods so I don't agree that it reads as sarcasm. It is meant to read as the opposite of what should be happening, as a way of raising awareness.

Jakub, I know this comes as a shock to many people who grew up while the web was escaping out from behind university doors and slowly permeating the world, but ... not everything online is for you . It may not even be online for the purpose you believe it is .

Oh. You can code? You'd be a perfect program manager. And you can write all the documentation! "So glad you're here! The boys just can't do stuff like that very well." I refused. Loudly. Proud of the "boys", they also took offense and said we would create a roster and round robin duties.

I was hoping for something like the Google manifesto guy's myth about women being biologically inferior to men at coding, with the rebuttal of the first person to create an algorithm was Ada Lovelace, and the first software developers WERE women because it was socially less cool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing

Or the myth I've heard forever about "women don't do as well in math and science" coupled with the chart and the fact that it's not a statistically significant difference (and actually may not even be true anymore, from what I've heard recently). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence

@JakubMosakowski

I'm not a native speaker, but sentences like "We love to get hired to take care of the generally shitty atmosphere in your company and we really like to be responsible for everything "social"." sounds very sarcastic to me.

That would be sarcastic if presented as a fact, but it's presented as a myth.

I cannot agree that's the correct way of communicating.

Perhaps you should communicate the way you want to, and leave others to communicate the way they want to. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansplaining, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(slang)#Concern_troll

And yes, I believe it would upset me even if a man would do a list like that. I've seen many misogynic posts written by a man and I didn't agree with them.

And for that see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence ... you previously said that "this list is very accurate" and "This attack is fully deserved", which are not true of "misogynic posts written by a man".

The fact is that this is a list of ways in which women are often viewed and treated in the workplace. To turn it around and make men the victims here is morally wrong.

@jibal
Thank you for sharing those articles with me. I found the one on tone policing particularly eye-opening. I have to admit, that it's taken me three years to realize that my initial perspective was incorrect, and for that, I apologize. I initially felt misunderstood, but I see now that my statement was not only clear but also fundamentally wrong. I had been advocating for a polite, emotion-free discussion, but I understand now that my perspective isn't the only valid one, and it's important to allow space for other viewpoints.

@JakubMosakowski

What a wonderful response. I'm glad to hear that you have grown. Peace.

Agreed, that was downright refreshing. Good on you.