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I'm getting really tired of this ignorant "tech is sexist" garbage. women represent a minority of the already small pool of CS graduates. This is not due to discrimination but to individual choice of what a student wants to do with their life. Fewer women CS grads means a smaller ratio of women to men in the tech industry.

The author blindly says that VC's want "a couple of guys that can build an app in a weekend". VC's and tech companies in general want a couple of PEOPLE that can build an app in a weekend. I find it impossible to believe that a tech company would turn down a brilliant "woman programmer" just because she was a woman. It is already hard enough to find good developers, no reason to reduce the pool further with discrimination.




And... you're satisfied with that explanation? "There are fewer women in technical careers, because fewer women choose to go into technical careers, QED"? You're not even a little bit curious about why that might be the case?


Aren't you curious why the majority of programmers have dark hair or brown eyes? Sometimes it doesn't matter.

I do not necessarily agree with my grandparent comment, but are you advocating going out of your ways to find a problem out of statistics?

I'm also fed up with the whole "sexism in tech" bla bla. I don't want more women in tech. I want more talented, more dynamic, more interested or more passionate people in tech. More humble people. More beer lovers (there's no such thing as too many beer buddies). More video game players. More runners I can go jogging with. More team players. Less people only in it for the money. Less pointy haired bosses. Less consultants and less auditors.

These are my own personal preferences and guess what? In each single case I don't care about the sex of people in the industry.

By now, the "sexism in tech" has caused much more gender segregation than it did any good. Now we're afraid to talk at a conference or at the office. We never make any joke that might be remotely sexual around female coworkers (note that my female friends usually take it really well).

So to answer your question, we should be satisfied with that explanation. More women want to come, they're welcome to join. It's not going to be easy for them, but guess what, it's not easy for guys as well.

And to make one last thing really clear: I believe that there are a few problems women deal with in the industry, and we should be doing something about them. I'm thinking about uneven salaries or about the way they get treated if their nickname is ever slightly girlish.

So to make it clear, I care about women already in the industry. We should help them with these minor inconveniences. But I'm not going out of my ways to figure out why aren't women joining and what should I do to help them.


>Now we're afraid to talk at a conference or at the office. We never make any joke that might be remotely sexual around female coworkers (note that my female friends usually take it really well).

Welcome to how it feels to be a woman, or a person of color, or gay, or any other person who his regularly discriminated against by society and a culture that elevates the white male simply for being white and male.

By ignoring the problem and not talking about it, you're perpetuating it. There is no societal problem that has been solved by not talking about it, and somehow, that is all I ever see people in the tech world suggest we do.

It's sad and narrow minded.

You say that you don't care about the sex about the person in the industry, but sexism isn't a superficial problem person to person - very little people are going to admit to being sexist or even think that they are - it's an institutional problem.

Every time that you don't say something, or you make an argument like this one, you are sending the message to people who are being discriminated against that the people who say something sexist are okay to do so.

So stop saying it's okay to not talk about. Please.


"Welcome to how it feels to be a woman, or a person of color, or gay, or any other person who his regularly discriminated against by society and a culture that elevates the white male simply for being white and male." I'm not white. At all. I understand discrimination for having been at both ends on several occasions.

"By ignoring the problem and not talking about it, you're perpetuating it." Either I agree with you or I'm part of the problem? And you call me narrow minded!

"Every time that you don't say something, or you make an argument like this one, you are sending the message to people who are being discriminated against that the people who say something sexist are okay to do so." Did you even read my comment? I said I'm not spending time pondering why there aren't women in tech, because I don't necessarily want more women in tech. That's, by definition, the opposite of sexist.

Do I think women in tech face some challenges that men don't? yes. (Incidentally, I also think that men in tech face challenges that women don't. It goes both ways). What I'm fed up with is people instrumentalizing the sexism issue to create more drama, problems, and good ol' American hypocrisy (we prefer the term "political correctness").


"Either I agree with you or I'm part of the problem? And you call me narrow minded!"

Yep. I'm pretty narrow minded when it comes to thinking everyone deserves the same chances as I got.

"Did you even read my comment? I said I'm not spending time pondering why there aren't women in tech, because I don't necessarily want more women in tech. That's, by definition, the opposite of sexist."

Is it? You're letting the status quo be because you don't think it's having an effect on the tech we produce? On the problems we're trying to solve? You think that people not mentioning repression, how they are being made to feel uncomfortable and not at ease, is a great way to produce the best products?


> Aren't you curious why the majority of programmers have dark hair or brown eyes? Sometimes it doesn't matter.

Is that actually true? If there's a statistically significant difference compared to the population as a whole, then I am definitely interested in why.

I don't understand where you're coming from at all. You care about women in the tech industry, you want more good people in the industry, but you don't care at all about social forces that might be driving people away? Not even enough to wonder about what they are?

When there's obviously something driving people away from tech, then I'm sorry, but you can't say "I don't care let's stop talking about this" and pretend that that's a neutral position.


It's cultural. Tech isn't necessarily sexist. It's just always portrayed as dominated by one gender. When a group, let alone a nation, holds the zeitgeist that "boys where blue, girls wear pink," it becomes a truism that is followed/acknowledged even if it makes little sense.

For example, is pink a masculine or feminine color? Depends on the culture. Same with tech. As long as our culture raises women with a, "leave the technical to guys," it's going to stay skewed.

In order for this unbalanced ratio to change, the culture needs to change - and it needs to start with kids. After all, who were you're heroes growing up? How do they differ from your sister/girlfriend/wife/mothers? How do our role-models/heroes impact our life orientations?


I am very curious as to why fewer women elect to go into engineering fields. But the article does not address this, it blindly labels tech and men as simply being sexist.


Where does the article says that men are simply being sexist?


If the overall tone and examples given in the article were not screaming "men run tech and treat women as second class citizens" then I must be more hungover than I thought when I read it.


I find it impossible to believe that a tech company would turn down a brilliant "woman programmer" just because she was a woman.

This is a failure of your imagination and experience. "Tech companies" don't turn down people. People turn down people. People sometimes turn down people because they're women.




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