The Moral Implications of Being a Moderately Successful Computer Scientist and a Woman
The Moral Implications of Being a Moderately Successful Computer Scientist and a Woman
I recently reached a few high points in my career that coincided, not coincidentally, with some of the worst harassment of my life. It made me reflect on how my career has been defined as much in terms of misogyny as technical excellence (I’ve garnered quite a CV in both), and how I have struggled t
Used to work in digital design. By pure happenstance the foundational initial team on a major project was all women and we recognised that wasn't a good balance in terms of external perception but also in terms of getting different perspectives on design approaches.
We managed to recruit some great blokes, but they were hard to find. So many of the new dudes didn't work out because it was so obvious how inferior they perceived us women to be. Very few of them had the skills to warrant any level of arrogance, let alone full blown superiority complex.
It was disappointing.
44it was so obvious how inferior they perceived us women to be
How do you know that they perceived you as inferior? Did they actually say "Women are inferior to men."?
Very few of them had the skills to warrant any level of arrogance, let alone full blown superiority complex.
It sounds like they felt intimidated in a new environment, and they were trying to find their position in the team. That's disappointing for all parties.
9You’re absolutely right. The most likely scenario is that the person with first-hand knowledge misinterpreted the situation. These poor men and their sensitive feelings…
Irony aside, I’m sure it’s a complex situation with different relevant points to any perspective, but the events as told line up with my own experiences.
21Having worked with designers in an ad agency (although not a designer myself), the male designers didn't ever have a good thing to say about the work of any of the female designers. Consequently, none of them stuck around for long (one of them is a creative director in a big agency now, so presumably she wasn't that bad).
Then again, they were assholes in many other respects as well, and the guys in the next companies I worked for were a lot better.
15Uh yeah... Some did say things to that effect.
And there are other behaviours that can demonstrate that mindset.
But thank you for mansplaining my lived experience, champ. Couldn't have navigated that one with my pea sized, woman's brain.
I go through life making snap judgements of people I hire and don't at all try to find common ground or empathise with their position, because I love pissing money up the wall and endless recruitment processes. Just floats my boat, you know
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When I was hiring a developer to come on to my all white male team I was really hoping for a woman to apply. Sadly, that never happened. I was able to cut down on the whiteness though, and no I didn’t pick a lesser candidate because they weren’t white. It was just coincidence.
41I found a technique that worked well for me. I want to share with you and others, but I don't want to come across as judging you in anyway. It's hard to find great candidates of any sort. And I wouldn't necessarily recommend my technique to every company, because it's just not reasonable in all cases.
I've found that the best way to get a good mix of people hired onto the team is to do more than hope that it happens.
I had to get out to workshops, conferences, and meetups. Local universities had groups that I got in touch with. I had to make connections with the communities that I was looking to hire from. It was a lot of hard work.
But once you've developed those connections, candidates roll in with surprising regularity for a long time. After two years I had a team of 10 great devs with a 50/50 split between genders and a huge range of background and cultures. It was the most fun team to work with and we made awesome stuff.
32That’s awesome. I don’t have that patience. 😇
9My conflict would be between giving up my free time after work to recruiting to have more fun at work, or deal with people that aren't as good. Am I reading that right?
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Shortly after publishing this article in her blog, she also published a gh repo collecting incidents of misogynism https://github.com/iyzhang/misogyny/ It would be great if people can give it a read or contribute incidents.
Glad to see this article is eventually published by the ACM.
40Open source misogyny
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I’ve witnessed many of the kinds of situations described here and I think the proposed mechanics adequately explain them.
17Man I wish there were more women in programming, I've met like 3 and one of them was the sole female classmate in cs
I'd finally have something I could talk passionately about without boring them out of their minds
12I feel it really depends on the country you work with. Back in Sweden it was such a sausage fest. But since I started working with people from Russia, Ukraine and especially China it changed significantly. OK top management is still full of dudes, but middle management and the people who do the implementation is a good mix. About 40℅ women even in positions of power. Korea seems to be somewhere in the middle.
11This was a great read. These dynamics are so prevalent.
8This poor woman needs therapy. It seems like everything around her triggers her and she has thus come to identify all men as culprits. Even going as far as calling her husband an asshole (might be true, I'm not married to the dude).
Edit: of course there are misogynists out there, but it's not everybody. Maybe in the US the percentage in tech is higher, who knows.
A comment like "you don't look like a computer scientist" leads her to make a core point about how she believes others view women.
People tell me I don't look like a programmer and they are right. My attire is that of what happened to be on the top of the pile that day. Very little thought goes into it. One day I could look like a bum, another a builder, another a knowledge worker, and another a street thug. I don't take it as an insult unless there is clarification that it's because of some other feature.Her proof to the next core point of expertise has nothing to do with expertise either: criticising a high pitched voice has very little to do with perceived expertise.
I sat in a class there the most common critique of the male professor was: he talks too quickly. It didn't reflect on his expertise, just his mode of talking. And they were right BTW, he had heavy accent, didn't enunciate, and spoke rapidly. Unlearning that would be very difficult.
I appreciate that it's different from a physical attribute, but behaviours are quite difficult to change. We had a female professor who got similar feedback, tried to speak slowly and it worked for 5 minutes of every lecture before she sped away again. No-one thought she was not an expert. She just had major difficulty talking slowly (like the other male prof).As for dating in the workplace: adults spend a large part of their time awake at work. Are you really surprised feelings develop there? I wouldn't shit where I eat, hut that's a personal thing. Many others would (men and women alike). We also live in a society where men are expected to make the first move which, in addition to roles at work, makes things even more complicated. Some people will switch jobs just so that they can get that degree of separation.
I understand that for somebody who doesn't see work as a place to get emotions it might be annoying, but not everybody's the same, nor does it always have to do with "the patriarchy" or whatever.Oof...
8Even going as far as calling her husband an asshole (might be true, I'm not married to the dude).
You misunderstood the text, the sentence is :
If only I got a penny for every time someone said: you don’t look like a computer scientist, I could be Mackenzie Scott without having to marry an asshole.
She's calling Jeff Bezos an asshole, not her own husband.
26Ah, yep. Indeed. Thanks for pointing that out.
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You have a lot of issues and you might want to look at why this triggered you so much. Are you behaving this way because it made you re-examine your own past behavior?
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Wow you're insane. “I know, I'll discredit the woman who just pointed out that it's hard to get credit in her field as a woman ”
14Real computer scientists look like Ken Thompson. Do your best and grow a cute fuzzy beard.
I agree with your post. Life sucks for everyone, stay calm and carry on. It's too easy to blame men/foreigners/socialism/NWO.
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