Berners-Lee Challenges 'Stupid' Male Geek Culture

ZDOne wrote with a link to a ZDNet article discussing some comments made by Tim Berners-Lee on the discrimination women face within 'stupid male geek culture'. The respected developer expressed frustration at a culture that would 'disregard the work of capable female engineers, and put others off entering the profession.' From the article: "'It's a complex problem -- we find bias against women by women. There are bits of male geek culture and engineer culture that are stupid. They should realize that they could be alienating people who are smarter and better engineers,' said Berners-Lee. Engineering research facilities that interview candidates based only on how many papers they have had published also risk adding to the problem, according to Berners-Lee, because of an apparent in-built bias against women."

Comments

I feel it all the time

[Anonymous Female]

I work for a fortune 100 company as a software engineer and I face this discrimination all the time. I frequently get this vibe from my male co-workers that they don't take what I say seriously. And then when I do great work, they all try to get their hand in the pot and take credit for things I did, which frustrates me to no end. A male co-worker actually got a promotion which seemed to me (from the little congratulations email went out describing all his wonderful accomplishments), mostly based on MY work. And did I get a promotion? Nope. And when I do, I'll still be at a lower level than most because my raise will be based on a percentage of what I currently make which apparently was pretty low compared to my male counterparts.

And then there's this whole thing all women have to deal with at work that being aggressive = bitch. And I feel like whenever I try to get other people's names detached from my work, my bosses don't take it seriously and have even gone as far to joke about it infront of other people!

And whenever I come to work dressed somewhat fashionably I get weird comments, not compliments, they are actually making fun of me I think. What the heck is that about. Sorry I'm not wearing wrinkled khakis and a wrinkled blue dress shirt like the rest of you slobs (we're corporate so don't do the jeans/t-shirts thing).

Yeah so the other day I was talking to a female in marketing at my company asking her what it's like there cause it's really not cool in IT.

Perhaps it's a deeper cultural issue...

[Gybrwe666]

Seems to me, having been an IT director in the past, that the "bias" we see in IT has more to do with deeper cultural issues than anything specific to the IT industry, and could be applied to many hands-on fields, and even to your average corporation and management selection.

Our built-in selection criteria for "better" IT employees, which is cultural and psychological, is related to several factors. Dedication being one of the major ones that I used to look for. Because IT employees generally are exposed to so many concepts, ideas, and a breadth of knowledge that can be staggering, men, who are more likely (from a cultural and possibly genetic standpoint) to be willing to dedicate higher percentages of their lives to immersion in the culture end up being better employees. This isn't specific to the IT industry.

It also strikes me that being "adventurous" is definitely a plus in IT. The willingness to figure things out, to go way beyond the required knowledge, is something that lends itself to the male-stereotype of being adventurous and exploring. My old *nix admin used to "explore", by which I mean he build image after image, broke things, changed things, generally just messed with crap to see how it worked. This is a trait more in line with male psychology than female.

As someone who's responsibilities included help desk support, I was always looking for good female employees. Abusive users were far less likely to get beligerent with a woman than a man, and the problem I always faced was finding women with the skills, attitude and abilities to be a part of our group. We were a meritocracy. I had 11 people running an ISP, and there was no room for people who couldn't produce, who couldn't keep up, or needed to be directed. I never hired for experience (one of my best finds was a manager at a gas station who didn't own a computer the day he started; a month later he had build his own linux system (hardware and OS) from the ground up. I also had a woman who eventually became my help desk manager, as she was willing to learn, taught herself HTML, etc. She was good with customers and didn't have to be hand-held or babied.

While I understand what TBL was saying about publication issues, I think that the underlying factors in IT gender-bias are as much cultural and applicable to many industries, rather than just IT.

Bill

There is a big difference between XX and XY

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I am not your typical Male Chauvinistic Pig and I consider myself quite broad minded. (cut out the snickers, boys, it is not that kind of broad). It is reasonable to expect equal treatment, and equal opportunities in all fields. But it is unreasonable to expect equal outcome.

Men and women are completely different in behavior. First realize that 80% of our ancestors collectively are women. Yes, 40% of males who ever lived died without producing an offspring. The Y chromosomes that survive today did so by using completely different strategy than the X chromosomes. No matter how successful, attractive, dominant, creative a woman is, she can't produce more than 5 or 10 offspring in her lifetime. Very dominant men typically marry more than one wife and produce easily more children. What it means, statistically is, the subdominant Y chromosome does not get to breed.

Upshot of it is, that Y chormosome takes more risk, it produces more variation. On both ends of the spectrum. It produces brilliant mathematicians and horrible criminals. TBL should ponder on the fact that 85% of our prison population and 85% of the combat troops are also men. XYs form shallow relationships over a very wide network. XXs form very intense relationships in a much smaller network. Men went out in expeditions and ships and joined the armies and 40% of them died without ever producing an offspring. Men form groups and their hostility is directed outside the group. Females form small cliques and their hostility is directed to other members of the clique. The X chromosome does not have to take that much risk to realize much of the potential maximum of 5 or 10 offspring.

So TBL might rave against unfairly denying opportunities to women or discrimination. But to expect 50% of the nerds to be women, it ain't gonna happen. Much as I would like my daughter to be a scientist or a programmer, she is likely to end up as an academic in a soft science.

Re:What about stupid fashinista culture?

[Thyamine]

I think I understand what you are getting at, and most people have remarked on the fact that you are perpetuating the problem with that type of attitude. However being a geek doesn't mean you can't be fashionable. I know plenty of geeks that fall into the Just Don't Care (tm) group of geeks, and don't seem to notice that a hair cut and some styling go a long way, or that freebie tshirts or polos from a tech convention are not 'nice' apparel. If someone chooses to not care then that's up to them. It may be unfair, but society does judge people on how they look.

Geeks do the same thing, just in reverse. The larger a woman's breasts or the nicer she looks seems to imply that her intelligence has plunged proportionally. Both sides are welcome to be as extreme as they like, but there are plenty of us in the middle that try to not be so rigid in our expectations, although we all fall prey to stereotypes on occasion.