Red Team, Blue Team: the Only Woman On the Team

ancientribe writes "Cyber security pro Kerstyn Clover in this Dark Reading post shares some rare insight into what it's like to be a woman in the field. She ultimately found her way to her current post as a member of the incident response and forensics team at SecureState, despite the common societal hurdles women face today in the STEM field: 'I taught myself some coding and computer repair in probably the most painstaking ways possible, but my experiences growing up put me at a disadvantage that I am still working to overcome,' she writes."

Comments

Blah Blah Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares. Women can do anything men can do, so why is this a big deal.

Article Summary;

"I am a woman, therefore I deserve special treatment. All men have it easy because they are men. I have statistics to prove that I deserve special consideration because there are less women then men in certain fields."

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I kinda cringed at reading the article. From her being a "goth" in high school to discovering her calling though female characters on CSI and NCIS. It smacks of every other angry loser who entered a security-related career to validate their teenage angst by busting people. Another strong likelihood is that she grew up in a strict family, probably Catholic, and in her childhood rebelled only as much as her parents would let her. Like most of the type, she has likely transferred her notion of overbearing father figure onto the institution of security.

That being said, females in the field have the potential to be more successful at social engineering/pen-testing due to their sexual charm (see: Russian KGB "Cardinals"), but me saying that would be sexist, so I won't.

-- Ethanol-fueled

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[lagomorpha2]

"'I taught myself some coding and computer repair"

Ah yes, that tough hurdle that few women, or indeed men, manage to accomplish.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

She never asked for special treatment.

She told about her experiences and about her being discouraged by people who thought she shouldn't be doing what she's doing because she was a girl.

The result of the article was that they were having an even to create awareness about the field, and to offer support to any girls who would like to help but might feel uncomfortable because they're girls too, and they might feel that girls aren't supposed to do these things.

In my mind, this is some of the best kind of action to try and help women fairly get into the field. She's reaching out to girls who are already interested in the field, but nervous about how they might be perceived, and she's offering to support them. She's not pushing for special treatment, she's not pushing for special hiring practices. She's not even claiming things aren't fair.

She's saying: "I'm a woman in this field, it was culturally hard for me to get into here because I'm a woman, but I'm enjoying it and I got to be pretty good at it. If you are interested in the field but are afraid to pursue it because you're a woman, we're hosting an event for men and women where you can learn about it, and drop me a line so I can give you some support."

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[operagost]

It takes a special kind of cognitive dissonance to claim women can do anything men can do, then ask for special treatment so that you can prove it.

I wouldn't laud her her success as a female security professional-- because that's BS-- but because she has done so at the age of 21. That's the more impressive part.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[operagost]

I can't remember many female role models of my own, except that I was a goth/punk in high school, so Abby from NCIS was a frequent comparison when I told people what I wanted to do with my life.

I was a daft/punk in high school. I didn't do well because the electronica blasting inside my helmet made it hard for me to hear the teacher.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[girlintraining]

"I am a woman, therefore I deserve special treatment. All men have it easy because they are men. I have statistics to prove that I deserve special consideration because there are less women then men in certain fields."

The statistics are that women make up nearly 52% of the general population. They make up 53% of all college graduates. Yet they make up an average of just 15% in STEM fields. On average, they make just $58,000 a year compared to $85,000 for men. And while on average, women have been improving their numbers in STEM fields, it's gone the other way in IT; Women received 29.6 percent of computer science B.A.â(TM)s in 1991, compared with 18.2 percent in 2010. Up here in Minnesota where I live, women make up less than 5% of senior IT positions.

You say "Who cares" and that gets you a big +5, and that should be a big +500 indicator of why the problem is so huge. It's precisely because of attitudes like this. You should care. Right now, some black person out there might have the cure for cancer, but society will never get it because he didn't have the money to finish college. Right now, some woman out there has a solution in her head that'll take CPU performance to the next level because of a radical new way of thinking about the problem, but she went into nursing instead.

Every time you create an inequality in society, we all lose out. You should care because putting the most qualified person in a position where they can do the most good, benefits all of us more than the unequal way things are done today.

Do women deserve special consideration? No. Do women deserve equal consideration? Yes! Your post makes it plain exactly what's wrong with our industry: You've confused one for the other, and you don't even see it in your own comments. It's easy for a woman to see, but for a man, if this little microcosm on an internet forum is any indication, it's quite difficult. Nobody until now even pointed out the incongruency.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[operagost]

If women make up the minority in one field, then they make the majority in another.

I'm not sure where we got this idea that even distribution among all possible occupations was optimal. 15% is a bit low, but not a red flag like, say, 1.5% would be. Is anyone super-concerned that most nurses and schoolteachers are still women? Or that most construction workers and truck drivers are still men?

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[SirGarlon]

I am a woman, therefore I deserve special treatment. All men have it easy because they are men.

Have you stopped to consider how your workplace and career would be different if all your instructors, colleagues, and entire management chain were women? And, every time you pointed out that you should not be expected to think and behave exactly like them, they mocked and derided you for "demanding special treatment?"

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[ravenlord_hun]

Care to spell out the laws that prohibit them from entering the field?

And your hypothetical example of "OMG A PERSON IN THE RIGHT POSITION COULD BE DOING SOMETHING" is flat-out horrible. For one, if the girl with the most radical CPU idea went to nursing.... how do you even know she'd have come up with the idea in the first place? You make it sound like she invented it but was turned down - when in reality, the most qualified person could well be filling the role; because, well, she's a nurse and actually has no idea about CPUs.

Seriously, where does that point of yours even go? Have everyone master every single profession, just so we can be sure we're not missing on any talent?

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[girlintraining]

Care to spell out the laws that prohibit them from entering the field?

I wasn't aware that the law was the only way someone could be discriminated against. Thanks for reminding me of that. I retract all previous statements. We licked that whole racist problem the day we made it illegal. Nothing to see here, move along.

And your hypothetical example of "OMG A PERSON IN THE RIGHT POSITION COULD BE DOING SOMETHING" is flat-out horrible.

Yes, I can understand how judging people on the basis of the abilities, instead of their sex organs, could be a confusing concept to some.

Seriously, where does that point of yours even go? Have everyone master every single profession, just so we can be sure we're not missing on any talent?

When we judge people only by the strength of their contributions, and give them equal opportunity to pursue the fields of their choice, then we have met our social obligation. But until our expectations of others are truly equal, any answer to this question will simply reflect our own prejudices.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[tlambert]

The statistics are that women make up nearly 52% of the general population. ... Yet they make up an average of just 15% in STEM fields. On average, they make just $58,000 a year compared to $85,000 for men.

52% is close enough to half in the noise. Effectively, what you are saying with these two sentences is:

$85,000 - $58,000 = $27,000
100% - 15% = 85%
85% - 15% = 70%
$27,000 x 70% = $18,900

So STEM jobs are worth, on average, and additional $18,900 per year. Looks like the people not going into STEM careers are picking the wrong major.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[girlintraining]

If women make up the minority in one field, then they make the majority in another.

Yes, well... I suppose if Job A makes $100,000 a year and Job B makes $20,000 a year, if 50 people from Group A are in Job A, and 50 people from Group B are in Job B, then we have no reason to suggest that something could be amiss here.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[DoofusOfDeath]

If women make up the minority in one field, then they make the majority in another.

That logic only holds if you consider every occupation a person has to be "a field". (And if you assume there's about the same # of women and men, which I'd say is close enough for the sake of discussion.)

For example, consider a population where there are three groups of people: carpenters, plumbers, and stay-at-home parents. If you consider stay-at-home parenting to not be a "field", and the vast vast majority of women are stay at home parents, then each of the two "fields" (carpentry and plumbing) could be majority male.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[SirGarlon]

The names you call me don't make me wrong. And you didn't respond to the question -- how would your career be affected if your work environment were more like your home environment?

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[girlintraining]

So STEM jobs are worth, on average, and additional $18,900 per year. Looks like the people not going into STEM careers are picking the wrong major.

No, I think you misunderstand: Men in STEM fields make $18.900 more per year than wome in STEM fields.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

No u misunderstand the pay difference is at most 4-5% when you account for equal experience. In some fields women actually on average make more than men.

Re: Blah Blah Blah

[TWiTfan]

I guess the closest analogy would be being a straight male and announcing to your friends that you're going to become a fashion designer or hairdresser. It might get you some pretty strange looks from your bros.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[jimbolauski]

I am a woman, therefore I deserve special treatment. All men have it easy because they are men.

Have you stopped to consider how your workplace and career would be different if all your instructors, colleagues, and entire management chain were women? And, every time you pointed out that you should not be expected to think and behave exactly like them, they mocked and derided you for "demanding special treatment?"

How exactly do men think? What is this pressure that forces women to think like men in the STEM fields?

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

You say "Who cares" and that gets you a big +5, and that should be a big +500 indicator of why the problem is so huge. It's precisely because of attitudes like this. You should care.

Should we also care that there are so few straight males in the fashion industry? That there are so few white students at Howard University? So few gentile Hollywood producers?

There is a BIG difference between saying "I oppose discrimination" and saying "I think every institution and profession MUST be racially/ethnically/gender/religiously balanced." As long as this young woman wasn't discriminated against in pursuing her career, I'm good. I don't think it should be an obligation of the STEM fields to actively recruit women if most of them choose not to pursue these fields, any more than I think Howard University should be obligated to launch a "Hey white people, come here!" campaign.

Re: Blah Blah Blah

[grunthos]

Scared to be interested in computers? Seriously?

Yes, seriously.

By and large, it is quite generally true that most women experience the world differently than most men. This includes specifically the emotional factors. Of course we all have emotions, but there are significant differences in how men and women generally experience and are shaped by them.

Frankly thinking like that seems 100% alien to me

Well, yes, of course it would.

Normal male response, whether Slashdot or elsewhere: "she didn't react to situations like I would, so obviously she needlessly did it the hard/stupid way. If she did it the way I would have, she wouldn't have had any problems."

Perhaps our "obvious" normal male response isn't actually helpful for people who aren't the same, don't experience the world the same way, and perceive situations differently.

Time to learn from that flash of insight.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[SirGarlon]

My point is not about whether women are "degraded," but how easily they fit in. Difficulty fitting in is bad for someone's job satisfaction, career growth, and professional network. Do you agree that women have a hard time fitting in to the IT workplace, or at least that if they did, that would be a problem?

Idk what you bring to the table with your argument other than the victim card.

That's because we're not communicating very successfully, yet. I chose to respond to your comment not because I want to argue with you in particular, but because I hear similar remarks quite often. I think your tone was nastier than it had to be, but ultimately the argument that women don't deserve special treatment is solid, at some level. It proceeds from a sense of fairness, and fairness is what this discussion of women in STEM is all about. So the discussion is, "what does fairness to women in STEM look like?" If we can figure that out, then we can maybe make adjustments in how we prepare women for STEM careers, or something.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

If they want the job they should go for it. It is not my job to either encourage them or to try and stop them.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[SirGarlon]

How exactly do men think?

The research I've read indicates men are more overtly competitive, more direct in their speech and especially in how they give instructions and feedback, and are less sensitive to nonverbal cues than women. Men are inclined to see women as indecisive because they exhibit male dominance behaviors more weakly. But I'm not a psychologist, so unqualified to give a full answer. I believe the differences are cultural, not physiological, but that doesn't make them less real.

What is this pressure that forces women to think like men in the STEM fields?

Basically, the pressure to compete against male peers for job openings, promotion, and funding.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[ravenlord_hun]

I wasn't aware that the law was the only way someone could be discriminated against. Thanks for reminding me of that. I retract all previous statements. We licked that whole racist problem the day we made it illegal. Nothing to see here, move along.

While parts of society tend to pick up changes slower than the law (which, ideally, reflects the majority's view on topics), they eventually have to. That's how countries work; the majority will force the popular behaviors onto the minority. Nowadays, for example, it's fairly straightforward to record evidence of discrimination and then turn to a lawyer.

Yes, I can understand how judging people on the basis of the abilities, instead of their sex organs, could be a confusing concept to some.

Yes, I can understand how pointing out the flaws in your argument makes me a horrible, horrible person... instead of your argument being, well, over-dramatized to the point of losing any shred of credibility. You don't argue with the rule of bigger numbers, like drawing from a larger pool offering better chances at getting a workers with better abilities (which is the real deal instead of suddenly geniuses popping up). All you did was a cheap appeal at emotions... because making a rational argument would've taken effort, I guess.

When we judge people only by the strength of their contributions, and give them equal opportunity to pursue the fields of their choice, then we have met our social obligation. But until our expectations of others are truly equal, any answer to this question will simply reflect our own prejudices.

Coming with the ridiculous blanket statements again. Not that we shouldn't try, but noone will be ever truly equal. The poor schmuck in the middle of nowhere may have aspirations but will have no money for getting any education that gets him into any fancy campus - compare that to the better-than-average citizen who has access to private tutors and the like. Or are these flaws of the system okay by you, just because you aren't affected?

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Tom]

Right now, some black person out there might have the cure for cancer, but society will never get it because he didn't have the money to finish college. Right now, some woman out there has a solution in her head that'll take CPU performance to the next level because of a radical new way of thinking about the problem, but she went into nursing instead.

You had a point until that part of total bullshit.

People don't get born with the cure to cancer embedded in their mind, waiting to be unleashed. If she went into nursing, she won't have that solution in her head, because coming up with that solution requires studying computer science and not health. And the guy who didn't finish college won't have the cure for cancer, because it requires tons of medical knowledge to figure it out.

Your argument basically says "if I had bought a lottery ticket, I would be a millionaire" - and we all know that is total crap, because you didn't and you aren't and that's that, period.

Do women deserve special consideration? No. Do women deserve equal consideration? Yes!

Then stop throwing meaningless statistics around, because correlation != causation. Any actual example of actual discrimination - you have my support to fight that. But fewer women is not evidence of discrimination. There's also jobs with fewer men. Heck, I'm pretty sure there are very few jobs with a precise 50/50 distribution. Sure, blame culture, but there are no actual barriers of entry anymore. Nobody is turning women away at the university gates. I'll agree that there are soft factors, most of them in society and not companies. Stuff like telling girls that math is for boys, etc.

I don't doubt these factors exist. But the whining about discrimination where none exists is causing what you wrongfully label as incongruency. It isn't. It's a backlash against false accusations. I personally am really tired of being labeled an oppressive pig because of my gender - that's discrimination, too. Just when feminists do it, it's apparently ok.

I don't think there's anything wrong with our industry, though I'm quite sure there are things wrong with individual managers or even whole companies, sure. But the way you and others put it, it sounds like we are all guilty until proven innocent, and that is what gets you the backlash. Because humans hate being falsely accused of wrongdoing.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Darinbob]

She never asked for special treatment.

Yes but this is Slashdot, a mixture of misogyny and failure to read the actual articles.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[nickittynickname]

You're obviously unaware of how much nurses make. Teacher's are well paid if you look at hourly and benefits. So, not quite the comparison your trying to make. I don't see how this is "Amis".

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[mythosaz]

As an aside, Pauley Perrette had, a couple of years back, the highest Q Score (or probably TVQ score) of anyone on TV - or so magazines reported, with vague details, because Q Scores are the sort of thing you pay a bunch of money to subscribe to.

I'm glad she's inspiring people.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[mcl630]

"I am a woman, therefore I deserve special treatment. All men have it easy because they are men. I have statistics to prove that I deserve special consideration because there are less women then men in certain fields."

I read and re-read TFA. I can't find where she asked for anything, "special treatment" or otherwise.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[phantomfive]

She told about her experiences and about her being discouraged by people who thought she shouldn't be doing what she's doing because she was a girl.

If you read the article, it seems more like she discouraged herself because she thought girls shouldn't be doing those kinds of things.

Honestly though, is there anyone in this field who hasn't had some societal discouragement along the way? Either been called a geek or a nerd, or told they have no life? I've heard programmers tell themselves they have no life, because they are doing what they enjoy instead of going to parties or something.

When I was a kid, my dad told me, "son, you can't let it affect you when people make fun of you. Be your own person." That is a lesson girls need to learn too.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[girlintraining]

Right now, some black person out there might have the cure for cancer, but society will never get it because he didn't have the money to finish college. Right now, some woman out there has a solution in her head that'll take CPU performance to the next level because of a radical new way of thinking about the problem, but she went into nursing instead.

You had a point until that part of total bullshit.

Sir, my point was that when we deny someone an opportunity, a door is closed. We'll never know for sure what the damage is, it's incalculable. But we can be assured that by doing something they don't love, they'll be less motivated and contribute less. They produce less, and thus society derives less benefit. When you multiply this by millions of people who are discriminated against, you can see that there's a significant loss of productivity. The example of a cure for cancer or a better CPU architecture was just that, an example. We'll never know, for example, how much more technology and scientific advancement we would have gotten out of Niccoli Tesla if he hadn't been hunted by the government and pursued by the giant douchebag known as Thomas Edison, but we can be sure we missed out on things.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[phantomfive]

is there anyone in this field who hasn't had some societal discouragement along the way? Either been called a geek or a nerd, or told they have no life?

In fact, just right now my own coworker called me a 'true nerd.' Why? Because I am wearing 31 decibels of noise cancelling goodness. Does that make me a nerd? No, it means I like silence. He took a picture of me to post on facebook and show all his friends a 'true nerd.' Do I have to put up with unreasonable societal expectations and laughter just because of my headgear?

That is a true story of discrimination against men in the workplace. Someday I will find another headgear wearing comrade, and know that I am accepted somewhere.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[matria]

Yes. Girls were not allowed to take certain classes. Girls in other male-dominated classes were harassed to the point of having to drop out of the class, thus reinforcing the position that obviously girls just can't do the work. The entire community would make it socially awkward for the parents of a girl taking an interest in "male" occupations. Frequently remarks were made about the only reason a girl would want to go into something like that was to chase the boys. Parents would forbid girls to study or even engage in such activities as a hobby. I was personally told that working with computers was "not something for girls to do", unless I wanted to take typing or data entry classes. My father slapped me when I pointed out that Ada Lovelace was a woman. Not everybody grows up in a liberal, open-minded environment - and I grew up in California. Look at the media. How often is it portrayed that women who are serious about any non-traditional feminine interests are either "butches" or "bitches".

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Jakeula]

I don't think anyone is saying that the poor schmuck that cannot afford the education is a good thing, but that isn't the topic of discussion, that it its own issue. The problem we see at play here is cultural. IT is just not very woman friendly. This doesn't start with the IT industry itself, it start well before that. When you are growing up, trying to decide what you want to be when you get older, you look for what others like you are doing and evaluate it. Many years ago STEM was no place for a woman, so when young girls though about what they wanted to be, generally they looked to see what other women were doing and saw teachers, nurses, etc; not Physicists, or Computer Programmers (once that became a career path). On top of that its been largely seen that men are simply "better" at these types of subjects, so while being educated women were not expected (and in some cases not even allowed to try) to do as well as their male counter parts.

Luckily a lot of things in education have changed! but the outlook from society has not fully caught up. So women are now realizing they can, in fact, go into STEM fields without looking like a freak, and excel in these fields. Thats when the culture of the industry hits. Men have simply been dominate for so long in these industries, and the culture reflects that. Look at the first few posts on this summary, they are all asking for tit pics. How is that in any way welcoming to a woman in IT? this is prevalent across the industry. We make crude jokes at the expense of the minority working in that field. I cannot tell you how many jokes about Indian programmers I heard at my last job. Albeit there are some seriously bad contractors overseas, but if we had an actual Indian on our team, you bet your ass he wouldn't feel welcome. That drives people way from wanting to do something they are passionate about. So when a women joins a male dev team, do you honestly expect her to feel welcome? Hell, I don't think a woman would feel welcome posting on this thread, let alone subject herself to daily ridicule at a job. This is the type of stuff keeping woman out of the workplace.

I am not suggesting we pass initiatives to force more women into this space, but we should evaluate our culture and understand why women don't feel welcome. And the amount of backlash toward even considering a cultural change shows how bad it really is. Just bringing up the concept that its US that might be flawed in the way we do business gets you attacked, and I am a man. If any woman tries to simply TALK about the issues shes face she is met with even worse backlash. The woman in the article above never once asked for special treatment, or some law to get more women in IT. She just wants to make people aware of issues SHE faced (which sounds similar to many hurdles I have heard from female developers) and encouraging more women to overcome their fears and do what they love. How people on here are able to so blatantly attack this is baffling, and honestly quite disturbing.

*Not saying you are attacking anyone as you have made valid points in a fairly reasonable tone, however many people throughout this discussion have not.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[icebike]

Its so sad your role model is a fictional TV character to which you attribute all these marvelous characteristics.
Meanwhile my neighbor down the street's daughter flies F16s, she was bored with her Cessna 172 by the age of 15.

You sit around and admire fictional characters all day.
Maybe that's the reason people don't think there are jobs in STEM for women, because the ones
interested in those jobs are already quietly doing them, and not seeking inspiration from a TV show.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[icebike]

Do I have to put up with unreasonable societal expectations and laughter just because of my headgear?

Well maybe you should have told him you wouldn't need to wear them if he had a single clue about proper office decorum and
professional behavior in the work place. Wiping out your phone and snapping someones picture and posting it on facebook is rude at best
horribly un professional, and could land you flat on your backside in some places I've worked.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[miroku000]

When we judge people only by the strength of their contributions, and give them equal opportunity to pursue the fields of their choice, then we have met our social obligation.

But until our expectations of others are truly equal, any answer to this question will simply reflect our own prejudices.

In societies where there is the most gender equality where feminism is crammed down everyone's throats their whole life and where women have the most opportunity to pick whatever career they want, where the government provides universal free daycare, even a smaller percent of women choose STEM fields. Sweden spent like the last 50 years working really hard to educate their youth that men and women are exactly equal (except for a few physical differences.) And yet, men and women have increasingly gone into more segregated career fields. It seems like gender expectations are not responsible for less women picking STEM fields. http://www.theglobeandmail.com...

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Bacon Bits]

Teacher's are well paid if you look at hourly and benefits.

Bullshit. Teachers start at $35,000 from a 5 year program (there's a year of student teaching that you have to pay for). That's not particularly amazing. Yes, you might work 10 months out of the year, and maybe only 7 hours of classtime a day, but you have to work well over 40 hours a week. You have to show up early and stay late every day. You have homework every night either correcting papers from today or planning lessons for tomorrow. Worst of all, you have to put up with children and their parents.

Seriously. The pay is shit:
http://www.mde.k12.ms.us/docs/...

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[phantomfive]

Yeap, you are right. He asked permission though, and I don't care.

Frankly I'm long past the point I care about other people's opinions.

Re: Blah Blah Blah

[Your.Master]

That's not what he said at all. It was more like women's emotions are too different from men's (not more emotional than men, but differently emotional to men) to succeed in an environment that caters to men's emotions.

I disagree with him though, but my disagreement is that men and women experience the world differently mainly because the world reacts differently to them. The first couple posts here were sexual comments. Even if you think women should just get over that, blah blah blah, you can't tell me that isn't a different reaction from the one men get. Especially when it was extremely predictable. This might have advantages for men sometimes and advantages for women sometimes but we're being foolish if we pretend that this doesn't happen and doesn't have effects that go beyond pure biological "men and women are wired differently" assertions (they are wired differently, but that's not the automatic sole answer to every societal observation about gender differences).

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Your.Master]

This is, first of all, just not true in reverse.

And second of all, why the fuck would you wait? You can't try to solve two problems at once? You have to wait for somebody else to solve an issue that doesn't affect you either (since you presumably aren't the one giving those women their sinecures) before you are willing to consider solving another one?

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[djdanlib]

Can I recommend some of these?

http://www.amazon.com/Etymotic...

Huge noise reduction and a lot lighter weight.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[axlash]

Who cares. Women can do anything men can do, so why is this a big deal.

Article Summary;

"I am a woman, therefore I deserve special treatment. All men have it easy because they are men. I have statistics to prove that I deserve special consideration because there are less women then men in certain fields."

That is not the sense I came away with from reading the article.

What I read was that she said that:

- there were far more men than women in engineering and science.

- many women are discouraged from entering a field where they are in a clear minority. (By the way, I think this isn't just a woman thing; most people are self-conscious about being the odd person out)

- she had been scared off from doing some potentially interesting engineering work, sometimes by someone saying the work was not for her (she wasn't specific, so I don't know whether she was acting on her own perceptions/interpretations of other people)

- women who are interested in going into science should tell their stories so that other women don't feel that it's not for them - something I agree with.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Teachers start at $35,000 from a 5 year program (there's a year of student teaching that you have to pay for). That's not particularly amazing.

And insurance. And become part of a pension program. Not lavish or anything, but in most rural areas it's not bad at all.

Yes, you might work 10 months out of the year, and maybe only 7 hours of classtime a day, but you have to work well over 40 hours a week. You have to show up early and stay late every day. You have homework every night either correcting papers from today or planning lessons for tomorrow.

Welcome to having a career. Plenty of people are roped into salary positions where they work well over 40 hours a week. The big complaint, of course, is that usually there's a tit-for-tat that after a few years of "proving" oneself that one's salary grows substantially, and I don't think that holds for teachers. But, again, even the entry level pay isn't that horrible.

Worst of all, you have to put up with children and their parents.

And if you're in IT, worst of all you have to put up with computers, managers, and possibly customers. oh, right, at least one of those things you probably like and is a major part of the reason you went into the field.

Seriously. The pay is shit:

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[phantomfive]

thanks

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a nurse. All my teachers in my major were women, my direct management chain is solely women(technically doctors aren't in the chain, even though we step when they say go).

Every time I complain that I'm treated as a particularly dumb mule, I get mocked and HR says always getting picked for heavy lifting jobs over everyone else isn't discrimination. Once my startup gets going, I'm so dumping this before my back is shot.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Cederic]

IT is just not very woman friendly.

IT is not very man friendly either. Low social engagement, excessive hours, poor advancement opportunities, and underappreciated.

Who can blame women for choosing alternative careers?

She just wants to make people aware of issues SHE faced (which sounds similar to many hurdles I have heard from female developers)

It's the lack of appreciation that men also face a lot of issues, particularly when trying to gain a job in IT. The work in itself may be rewarding but the work environment and broader social attitudes towards it are not - and that's the point of most women that complain about the field, except that they always seem to think it's gender related.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Cederic]

every time you pointed out that you should not be expected to think and behave exactly like them, they mocked and derided you for "demanding special treatment?"

Oh, I know exactly how that feels. I have Aspergers.

What the fuck makes women special? Why shouldn't they act in a corporately acceptable manner when men have to too?

You seem to think that all men are the same, that being a sociopath comes naturally to them, that working long hours and getting stressed is fun for them, that they don't want time with their families?

You're wrong.

Don't even fucking ask how many times I've had a female manager or colleague that's given me shit because I don't think like her. Don't panic, many of the men have too.

Corporate cultures are not 'male', they're corporate. Fucking deal with it, or work elsewhere.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Tom]

Sir, my point was that when we deny someone an opportunity, a door is closed. We'll never know for sure what the damage is, it's incalculable.

And exactly because of that, it's bullshit. The logic test for that is very simple: If you can arrive at the same conclusion via the opposite of your initial assumption, then your initial assumption is meaningless.

So let's try that test: Because she went into nursing, or because he didn't finish college, someone else got the internship, the job, the good professor-relationship that otherwise would've been occupied by them, and that other person came up with the cure to cancer or CPU or whatever.

Yeah, works.

Maybe by going into nursing she'll one day save the life of someone who then goes on to find the cure to cancer.

Yes, works just as well.

The point is that "lost opportunity" arguments like this are just as much nonsense as whining over the winnings on lottery tickets that you never bought.

Comparing that to Tesla is dishonest. He actually did produce stuff in his field, in real life, and not just some fantasy alternate reality.

Speaking of which, if you believe in the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, then there's nothing to worry about at all. Because in some other reality, she did find the cure to cancer. You just don't happen to live in it. ;-)

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[ravenlord_hun]

I get what you mean. Reading this topic makes me seriously wonder just how much sarcasm/irony is flying over my head, or if people are really that bad in general. That being said, I usually don't read too much into it; the internet in general is a very poor indicator of human behavior. I'm sure you are also familiar with Penny Arcade's GIFT - sure, there are some really hair-rising things sometimes... but I'm not all that sure if those folks act the same way IRL.

Re: really bad jokes: certainly a good point there... but the thing is - in my experience! - folks in IT tend to be cynical/snarky in general. I guess it's related to the fact we tend to be more technical-minded than the average (for the better and worse). Sure, this means minorities get a load of passive/aggressive jokes thrown at them... but so does everyone and everything else just as well. I mean, have you ever been to a place where IT managed to be consistently positive about something and not just complain all day long about whoever/whatever they have to work with? 'cause I sure haven't... most jobs in IT need a thick skin. But beyond that, I hardly saw "special" treatment for women or foreigners. If anything, being too easily offended is something that can make you stand out from a team, which tends to not end well.

Maybe it's because I'm working in the EU; here, the economical crisis never ended (officially anyway), and with the continuous headcount restrictions and wage-freeze... we're not really picky, really. Just don't be more of a liability than an asset, and we're really happy that we're being worked less to death.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[SirGarlon]

You seem to think that all men are the same, that being a sociopath comes naturally to them, that working long hours and getting stressed is fun for them, that they don't want time with their families?

I can't imagine where you got that idea. It's kind of the opposite of what I think, actually. I guess you don't actually care what I meant, and would rather argue against some imaginary position you assign to me because it's easier to attack. Go play that game by yourself.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[jimbolauski]

The research I've read indicates men are more overtly competitive, more direct in their speech and especially in how they give instructions and feedback, and are less sensitive to nonverbal cues than women. Men are inclined to see women as indecisive because they exhibit male dominance behaviors more weakly. But I'm not a psychologist, so unqualified to give a full answer. I believe the differences are cultural, not physiological, but that doesn't make them less real.

So letting people know you want something keeps women out of STEM fields? Being blunt keeps women out of stem fields? Ignoring nonverbal clues keeps women out of STEM fields? For a person that seems to want gender equality you seem to be using a lot of gender stereotypes. It's people like you that are holding women back pushing your women are weak stereotype so you can come in and rescue these helpless women form the tyranny of brutish men.

Basically, the pressure to compete against male peers for job openings, promotion, and funding.

So how do you have a limited resource, jobs, promotions, funding, ..., and distribute them amongst a larger group of qualified candidates and not have competition for those resources? That pressure is called life, in other fields women don't have problems competing and STEM fields are no different. The difference between you and I is that I think women are more then capable of succeeding with out everyone else stopping what they are doing to help a person that is more then capable of succeeding on their own.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[SirGarlon]

For a person that seems to want gender equality you seem to be using a lot of gender stereotypes.

That's the risk one takes when answering a question like "what is the difference between women and men." I said I'm not an expert and only telling you what I remember experts saying. There is a subtle point, though, on which I want to insist: to say there is no difference between population A and population B is the same as saying population B must conform 100% to the expectations of population A. Leaving gender aside for a moment, I think we can agree that someone from a rural upbringing can be expected to be a little different from someone with an urbringing, or someone from the West Coast is probably a little different from someone from the East Coast. Americans who go to work in the UK often struggle to fit in due to cultural differences. I don't think it's insulting or denigrating or sterotyping to try to enumerate what those differences are.

The issue of women in STEM is just a sub-category of the broader issue of diversity in the workplace. It would be great if everyone could be themselves and not have their career suffer for it. I think you and I are coming from the same place on that point. All I'm trying to say is that everyone has to conform a little bit in order to succeed, and the greater the differences between an individual the norm of the group, the harder it is to conform.

That pressure is called life, in other fields women don't have problems competing and STEM fields are no different.

STEM is a little different in that the gender imbalance is stronger -- and that's only true in certain areas of STEM. Biology and neuroscience have more women than engineering.

The difference between you and I is that I think women are more then capable of succeeding with out everyone else stopping what they are doing to help a person that is more then capable of succeeding on their own.

I'm not saying that women need help, actually. I'm saying everyone needs to be judged objectively on performance, and there are unconscious biases that get in the way of that. The more homogeneous the workforce, the more persistent those biases are.

I once had the pleasure of working with a male intern from a certain country in sub-Saharan Africa. Great guy, smart, hard-working, fast learner, funny, and *extremely* polite. For one reason or another, he was very different in his mannerisms from the other males on the team. He was very passive, very deferential. If you gave him any criticism, including constructive criticism, he would avert his eyes and apologize. In order to advance in my workplace, he was sooner or later going to have to learn how to argue with his boss. When I knew him, he seemed a long way off from that point. But the expectation in my workplace was you have to stand up for yourself, and it was clear that in his background and upbringing, he'd not been taught how to do that.

If the attitude of my team had been, "fuck it, he has to act like everybody else because that's how we do it," I think he would have had a lousy internship. But instead what people did was recognize his differences and meet him halfway. Instead of expecting him to butt into a conversation, people would pause and ask him directly, "what do you think?" When he gave a presentation, people didn't interrupt, they held questions till the end. Over the few months he appeared to become more confident, at least more used to our styles of communication, and he fit in better.

That's an extreme example, but it's what I'm talking about. Let people be themselves and be willing to change our behavior a little to help them fit in.

Re: Blah Blah Blah

[Kielistic]

Oh please- using Slashdot trolls as evidence of anything other than people being morons is just stupid. They're god damn trolls! The reason that type of troll is so common is because you all feed them.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[misexistentialist]

You should care. Right now, some black person out there might have the cure for cancer, but society will never get it because he didn't have the money to finish college. Right now, some woman out there has a solution in her head that'll take CPU performance to the next level because of a radical new way of thinking about the problem, but she went into nursing instead. Every time you create an inequality in society, we all lose out.

That's just wild conjecture, since 99.99% of people are nothing special, and even amongst the .01% there is redundancy. The extra resources spent achieving "diversity" across the vast pool of mediocrity will always produce a net decline of real achievement, unless the target group is already high-achieving, like Jews, Asians, or...white men. Blacks and women are not such a special group, and focusing on females is particularly disastrous when many highly trained women refuse to work very much at all in their field.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[jimbolauski]

I once had the pleasure of working with a male intern from a certain country in sub-Saharan Africa. Great guy, smart, hard-working, fast learner, funny, and *extremely* polite. For one reason or another, he was very different in his mannerisms from the other males on the team. He was very passive, very deferential. If you gave him any criticism, including constructive criticism, he would avert his eyes and apologize. In order to advance in my workplace, he was sooner or later going to have to learn how to argue with his boss. When I knew him, he seemed a long way off from that point. But the expectation in my workplace was you have to stand up for yourself, and it was clear that in his background and upbringing, he'd not been taught how to do that.

If the attitude of my team had been, "fuck it, he has to act like everybody else because that's how we do it," I think he would have had a lousy internship. But instead what people did was recognize his differences and meet him halfway. Instead of expecting him to butt into a conversation, people would pause and ask him directly, "what do you think?" When he gave a presentation, people didn't interrupt, they held questions till the end. Over the few months he appeared to become more confident, at least more used to our styles of communication, and he fit in better.

That's an extreme example, but it's what I'm talking about. Let people be themselves and be willing to change our behavior a little to help them fit in.

So what you are saying is let the minority of people be them selves while requiring the majority of people to change who they are to accommodate the minority.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[SirGarlon]

So what you are saying is let the minority of people be them selves while requiring the majority of people to change who they are to accommodate the minority.

Not exactly. Everyone is different from the group in some way. Everyone needs to adapt to fit in. Yet everyone is entitled to be himself. There are limits to how much we can ask people to change their behavior, but either 0% or 100% are unacceptable.

What I really think is that white males have to adapt to the workplace, too. Race and gender are far from the only factors that influence people's communication styles, work habits, mannerisms, and expectations. For some, the experience of having to conform is uncomfortable, and they resent it, and get aggressive and demand instead the world conform to them. Like you're doing. Where did you get so self-entitled?

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Jakeula]

I agree with you, men face these same exact issues every day in IT. And I won't lie, I am not some morally superior person; I laugh at the jokes, I use the language, and I absolutely perpetuate the issues I discussed. The difference I see is that its us men who created this culture. No maliciously, or intentionally because we don't want women in our work places, but because when we were creating these cultures it was just us. So the shit we deal with is stuff we have determined is worth it. Part of it is social upbringing, we as men are told we will encounter certain things, and we just need to suck it up, while women are taught the opposite. So can you really expect women to enter into a culture easily, when they had no say in how the culture was formed? There are many underlining reasons that the things that bother us men don't bother women, and the same goes in the other direction.

So yeah, we don't get the appreciation that women want, but we have learned over our lifetime we as men don't require it. We have learned to laugh at shit instead of taking it to heart, and we are all around childish sometimes. Woman are simply different beings, so we cannot expect that to work for them equally. Also, women who do exhibit more aggressive attitudes aren't seen as fitting in. We see them as bitchy or bossy, not just a strong woman. Maybe its because they are bitchy or bossy, but we still need to realize that real gender equality isn't ever going to be real because we simply aren't the same, so we need to find the common middle ground that allows both parties to be successful in the same industry. That is my only point.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Jakeula]

I agree with a lot of what you are saying. The internet isnt a very good representation of who people are IRL, so on a place like /. you can't expect real ideas and emotion to shine through.

You make a very valid point about the cynicism in IT. we are just cynical, we like to bitch and moan about stuff (although usually with some validity) about pretty much everything. So I agree entirely that some jobs just require a bit of thick skin. This is the area that makes the entire issue gray; should other just suck it up, or should we make changes in the culture so that it isn't full of grumpy people, and if so how do we even do it? The entire debate on this subject has so many moving parts that its no wonder its still an issue while no one can really figure out why its even an issue to begin with. I don't think any of us here are intentionally discriminate towards women in the workplace (or I sincerely hope), and I also don't think that a lot of what happens is inherently an issue, nor do I believe that we desire to cultivate a culture that is so split, but for many reasons that is the case. So we just need to spend a bit more time figuring out what we can reasonably change to help everyone involved and what comes with the territory.

I remember watching Wolfram on a TED talk, talking about how to teach math. He pointed out that we used to be forced to calculate math by hand because we didn't have computers to do it for us, thus calculating and math became one and the same. In reality though, calculating is just one part of math that isn't required to do math, and computers are far better at that portion of math than we are, so we should leave it to computers to handle. I think its similar here. Some parts of the industry are legitimately part of how IT or other STEM fields work, but there are aspects are not required to be in IT to be effective. So I think we need to evaluate what we can work on because it doesn't require a place in the field, and what parts are just inherent.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[GuB-42]

Yes, we can consider "stay-at-home parent" as a field. But because it is a job that doesn't have a price tag, it is somehow considered inferior. It's not. Don't underestimate the value of a stay-at-home parent.
Cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, shopping, etc... Without a stay-at-home parent, you have to pay good money for someone to do this (here goes your hard earned money). You can also live in filth and neglect your kids (wow, that's progress !). Or you can attempt to do it in addition to your day job (and live an exhausting and stressful life).

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[jimbolauski]

So I'm self entitled because I think it's nonsense to force a majority of people to act a certain way to accommodate a a minority. The expectation that a majority of people should change their behavior to accommodate a few is just as absurd as forcing the few to change their behavior. That's my point which apparently you couldn't see due to your white helm obstructing your vision.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[SirGarlon]

The expectation that a majority of people should change their behavior to accommodate a few is just as absurd as forcing the few to change their behavior. That's my point which apparently you couldn't see due to your white helm obstructing your vision.

Actually, what you seem to be saying is that those two propositions are not equally absurd -- that forcing the few to change their behavior is perfectly fine, and asking the majority to budge an inch is preposterous. Which is very convenient for you, since you happen to belong to that majority group. If I'm misunderstanding your position, please clarify.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[jimbolauski]

You absolutely are misunderstanding my point, again your white helm is probably obstructing your vision. I'm not in favor of forcing either group to accommodate the other while you are more then happy to have a minority group dictate the behavior of the whole group. Why is it that people that rail the hardest against gender inequality are always in favor of more inequality to fix it, do you enjoy doubling down on stupidity.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[SirGarlon]

The point of disagreement between us seems to be some unspoken assumption about the scenario, about what adaptation and accommodation mean, or some such. It's worth trying to get that in the open IMO. Though if you could quit the the name-calling and projecting motives onto me, that would be cool.

So what, according to you, would be the proper way to handle the African intern (let's call him Adam)?

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[girlintraining]

You really have no idea what logic is, do you. You've confused micro for macro and can't even see it in yourself. Yet for anyone who has studied economics, it's clear that the opportunity cost of everything is all the other opportunities that the same could have purchased. In other words, the price of building a new bridge is all the other options, like resurfacing the roads, building a school, or adding an extra lane to a well-travelled highway.

When we say there was a lost opportunity in economics, it doesn't mean anything like what you seem to believe.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Tom]

Oh please. When the ad hominem attacks are coming out, it's clear someone has run out of real arguments.

Opportunity costs are so entirely besides the topic here, it's almost funny. According to your argument, anyone choosing any profession at all is creating infinite opportunity costs via the "loss of opportunity" he would've had in all those other professions he didn't choose.

That doesn't even pass the giggle test.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[Bacon Bits]

Meanwhile my neighbor down the street's daughter flies F16s, she was bored with her Cessna 172 by the age of 15.

And who inspired her? Who made her say, "I wish to fly, too"? I admit she is dedicated to be an F16 pilot, but dedication and inspiration are different things.

Mae Jemison has stated that Nichelle Nichols inspired her. Inspiration is not false merely because the source is fiction. Fiction is a mirror of us. Of our ideals and dreams. That's the power of fiction. It allows us to strip away all the human failings to see the ideal. To see beyond what is to what is possible. How narrow your vision if it cannot see beyond what already exists.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[tlambert]

So STEM jobs are worth, on average, and additional $18,900 per year. Looks like the people not going into STEM careers are picking the wrong major.

No, I think you misunderstand: Men in STEM fields make $18.900 more per year than wome in STEM fields.

This is not how you presented your statistic; the statistic presented was the average pay discrepancy, not the average pay specifically in STEM fields. The $18,900 number was calculated based on a 15% weighting for women in the field being subtracted from the remaining 85% weighting in the field for men, leaving a 70% weighting relative to the 100%, which gave a weighting for the absolute difference number, which was intially $27,000 (stated previously in the calculation). This assumes an equal distribution of salary discrepancy across technical and non-technical fields -- and assumption which was *generously* biased to support your argument, since in technical fields, things work, or they don't, and there's really no room for "works sometimes". I suspect that if the people from whom you obtained the statistics were not trying to bolster an argument, they would have divided them by job category. The bottom line is that people in STEM fields make more than people not in STEM fields, because not everyone is capable of STEM field work.

The 1991 vs. 2010 CS BA rates are largely irrelevant to your argument; they are not indicative of a systemic bias, unless you can show that there was no corresponding drop in enrollment rates, only in graduation rates. To me, it says that most student visas and H1-B's are granted to men from largely male-dominated societies which would engage in origin suppression of women (e.g. India, the far East). Of course, that statistic is left out, and we do not have numbers excluding non-resident students to remove any external social bias.

Finally, someone who graduated in 2010 or even 1991 should not expect to be making the same as someone who graduated in 1983, and has been working in the field for 30 years; time in grade matters, both to experience and the perception of your ability to do the job. It also matters in terms of the available career path, which in 1983 specifically meant you worked yourself "ip" into a management position, and if you did OK in that, you worked yourself up into a more general management position, rather than remaining technically focussed.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[tlambert]

In case it's not clear from the above, I think we neither bear blame nor responsibility for inequalities in external societies. It's sad they exist, but short of sending in the U.S. military to bomb them into submission, thereby changing the minds of the people in charge by putting different people in charge, there's not a lot of convincing that can be done by rational reasoned argument.

Re:Blah Blah Blah

[jimbolauski]

That is an individual case and really not relevant to how a group of people should be accommodated for your perceived stereo types. To answer your question I'll be as accommodating as I can without hurting my productivity or slowing the project down. To say that stem fields should bend over backwards by limiting competition because women don't like to compete, sugar coat criticisms because women are delicate and can't handle criticisms, and be more mindful of body language because women are sensitive to that is flat out wrong and sexists. Either women are equal to men and don't need special accommodations or they are inferior and need special accommodations. You can't say you are as good as someone else and then say well I actually need special accommodations. It would be like saying I'm as fast as you but you weigh less so you need to put on a weighted suit to make it fair then we are the same speed.

I thought there were two...

[Zephyn]

Are we not counting Tex, or Griff's sister?

Re:I thought there were two...

[CanHasDIY]

Are we not counting Tex, or Griff's sister?

Don't forget Carolina! That bitch is intense.

The hurdles are imaginary

[Anonymous Coward]

Every geek who is interested in programming taught themselves.

Re:The hurdles are imaginary

[i kan reed]

A universal claim backed by absolutely zero evidence? Why, I never.

Re:The hurdles are imaginary

[DexterIsADog]

A universal claim backed by absolutely zero evidence? Why, I never.

Can you really call it anecdotal if I say that I taught myself? It's still a data point of one.

However, I was a terrible programmer until I learned some of the core techniques and disciplines in college (we barely had computers at my high school in the 70's). I include logical and critical thinking, some of which I got from non-science courses. Liberal arts education is extraordinarily valuable.

Re:The hurdles are imaginary

[lgw]

Every geek who is interested in programming taught themselves.

True, but this has become rare among coders now that software development is the best paying and most prestigious "salary job" in many parts of the world.

I recently did a batch of interviews for intern hiring (for coding), and something remarkable has changed in the US. For the first time in the past 20 years or so, there was a significant presence of self-taught geeks who didn't come through the traditional degree path - and all of them were women.

It's a quite noticeable change from my perspective - not only is it great to see self-taught programmer geeks at the intern level again (mostly in the past 20 years the few I've seen have come over from IT 5-10 years in), but this was a nearly all-male crowd 20 years ago, and that has definitely changed.

Re:The hurdles are imaginary

[icebike]

Every geek who is interested in programming taught themselves.

Yes, I don't know why this was mentioned either.

But perhaps its instructive that she thought this was somehow different for her, than it was for any other person learning to program.

Maybe it is indicative of the root of the problem, and that problem is that young women learn very early to EXPECT to have knowledge handed to them instead of digging it out by themselves. Why is this?

Give your daughters a soldering iron or chemistry set or microscope for Christmas. She's had enough princess dolls already. Give her a tool set, Let her take stuff apart. Even if it was a perfectly good clock radio or toaster, or a seldom used printer.
Grandmas are the worst offenders in this regard. Dremel tool, Grandma, not another Dream Big doll.

Re:The hurdles are imaginary

[Anonymous Coward]

> Liberal arts education is extraordinarily valuable.

What methodology do you use to measure this value?

Pro-tip: your own experience isn't statistically significant.

Re:The hurdles are imaginary

[lgw]

I got my first coding job with the most exploitive company in town, and was happy to break into the field, but then I didn't have any degree. What you want to find is a company that hires at entry level based on some sort of testing, rather than an HR screen. For entry level jobs companies need some sort of screen to eliminate the 99% of candidates applying to companies seemingly at random, you just need to find one where the screen isn't HR keyword matching.

For internships, the biggest companies look for top students in related technical fields, but the total number of such slots each year is pretty small. Landing an internship interview that way (which opens all the doors you need) requires luck to match your talent. You might also check whatever campus hiring board (and the college paper, and craigslist) for small companies looking for anyone who can code at all for bottom dollar.

Re:The hurdles are imaginary

[CanHasDIY]

A universal claim backed by absolutely zero evidence? Why, I never.

Can you really call it anecdotal if I say that I taught myself?

Yea, that's kinda the definition of 'anecdotal:' Something you claim but have no empirical data to back up.

Re:The hurdles are imaginary

[icebike]

However, I was a terrible programmer until I learned some of the core techniques and disciplines in college

Everybody is a terrible programmer until they learn a better way. But those better ways are forced on them by bigger projects, almost universally on the job. Nobody comes out of a programming course ready to write the next inventory management system for a multi-national corporation.

Every carpenter started as a terrible hack with a hammer in one hand and scrap wood in the other. The dog house was crap, but the kid was only 9.

If a hammer and nails were never among the "toys" available, the spatula at Burger King might be all that kid ever learns to swing.

Re:The hurdles are imaginary

[Zalbik]

Can you really call it anecdotal if I say that I taught myself?

Yes, given that's exactly what an anecdote is. And evidence derived from such is precisely "anecdotal evidence".

I include logical and critical thinking, some of which I got from non-science courses. Liberal arts education is extraordinarily valuable.

Unfortunately apparently none of those courses were English courses. Learning what words mean is also extraordinarily valuable.

Re:The hurdles are imaginary

[DoofusOfDeath]

The universal claim was "EVERY geek who is interested in programming taught themselves."

That's equivalent to saying that of all the geeks interested in programming, not a single one of them (didn't teach him/herself).

Demonstrating that there exist at least one geek who taught himself programming does not prove the universal claim originally stated.

Re:The hurdles are imaginary

[Darinbob]

Taught themselves what? Fixed point theory?

Re:The hurdles are imaginary

[i kan reed]

I guess all these self-taught programmers don't actually know basic logical principles.

I mean, I taught myself a lot of what I know(only one language out of dozens through formal education), but there's no substitute for a lot of the academic knowledge I've gained through schooling(how to build thread safe constructs, big O notation, core common data structures, application of design patterns, engineering process principles, heuristic algorithms like a*, and those are just big categorical things off the top of my head).

Re:The hurdles are imaginary

[DexterIsADog]

A universal claim backed by absolutely zero evidence? Why, I never.

Can you really call it anecdotal if I say that I taught myself?

Yea, that's kinda the definition of 'anecdotal:' Something you claim but have no empirical data to back up.

That could be applied to nearly every claim posted on /. Lighten up, Francis.

Re:The hurdles are imaginary

[DexterIsADog]

Wow, awesome, that should keep you going for at least a week.

The company may be part of the problem...

[Shoten]

SecureState...ah, those guys. They don't seem to quite "get it." For example, they were hyping their services, in terms of benefits towards HIPAA compliance...on a LinkedIn group that was explicitly and specifically focused (and named) on NERC compliance. HIPAA is health care, NERC is power grid. Not only totally different compliance regimes, but totally different industries as well. And the regulations don't even share much commonality: HIPAA puts the main focus on privacy while NERC doesn't even mention the word (or any synonym of the word). But everyone's career has a few "stepping stone" jobs, and it can be a golden opportunity to be the smart one among a field of twits.

Re:The company may be part of the problem...

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

oh yeah, NERC. Man, the last place I worked violated NERC policy multiple times every day. I was contracted to do tech support for National Grid, NG never gave me the accesses I needed...my manager just gave me a list of other's logins and password. Stuff like mainframes, RSA console, AD via netIQ...I told them repeatedly that we could get in deep trouble, every time I'd mention this they would just tell me "submit this form". After the 13th time I had submitted it, I raised a bit of a fuss, and was fired within a month.

Re:The company may be part of the problem...

[icebike]

Where were you really going with this ramble?

Tech/computer specialists isn't something that is field specific. Any well rounded programmer/engineer can move from industry to industry with relative ease, in fact its pretty much a job requirement to be able to get in, get up to speed, and get productive. Its what we do.

Are Database Administrators some how different in hospitals than in power plants?

For any given sub-discipline, the job is largely the same everywhere.

Re:The company may be part of the problem...

[Shoten]

Where were you really going with this ramble?

Tech/computer specialists isn't something that is field specific. Any well rounded programmer/engineer can move from industry to industry with relative ease, in fact its pretty much a job requirement to be able to get in, get up to speed, and get productive. Its what we do.

Are Database Administrators some how different in hospitals than in power plants?

For any given sub-discipline, the job is largely the same everywhere.

When it comes to a predefined solution for compliance, portability is a major problem. You're confusing people with offerings. A chef can move between a steak house and a vegetarian restaurant with only minor training; the menu, however, cannot. This was like someone going to a Hindu place of worship and trying to serve prime rib. Would you be impressed?

Re:The company may be part of the problem...

[icebike]

This was like someone going to a Hindu place of worship and trying to serve prime rib. Would you be impressed?

I would be impressed, and even more so f they pulled if off. Hindus aren't so ignorant to demand everyone else believe their beliefs, or live their life styles. You are more likely Steakhouses in India than Bacon in Saudi Arabia.

Re:The company may be part of the problem...

[Shoten]

This was like someone going to a Hindu place of worship and trying to serve prime rib. Would you be impressed?

I would be impressed, and even more so f they pulled if off. Hindus aren't so ignorant to demand everyone else believe their beliefs, or live their life styles. You are more likely Steakhouses in India than Bacon in Saudi Arabia.

Uh...wow, are you ignorant. Go to India sometime and then tell me how likely you are to see a steakhouse in a Hindu temple. What a dumbass.

Bring on the comments...

[ndykman]

Looking forward to the posts from males dismissing her experience because it doesn't match what they believe about the industry and how it works.

Well, not really.

Re:Bring on the comments...

[belatucadros3918]

I don't know. She talks about it being sort of 'taboo', well guess what? I'm 30 now, and in highschool when I was learning this shit, it was still "stupid nerd bullshit" (much 'safer' today - and she is 21? or was when she started at this place) Guess what? I dug deep and followed my passion anyway, because fuck 'em if they can't take a joke. It's not like taking computer courses in highschool makes you some sort of fucking alpha, lol.

Re:Bring on the comments...

[misexistentialist]

No one's "experiences" matter except to themselves. Everyone can fuck off and drop dead, and that means the women, children, and dolphins too.

Re:Bring on the comments...

[tylikcat]

I hesitated a goodly while before reading the comments. Glad to see the most offensive stuff modded down, anyway.

Re:Bring on the comments...

[Vanderhoth]

I apologize that this sounds like a sexist rant, but it is my personal experience and opinion. I'm sorry if it's offensive.

Have to agree here, by all my accounts girls receive the privilege in high school more than guys do. I've seen it time and time again where a boy asked for help and was told to do the homework and a girl asked for help and was given the answers. Whether they want to acknowledge that or not.

When I was in Chem 11 I had my older sister as my lab partner. We did the same work, but she received better grades on labs. Apparently nice handwriting with hearts over your 'i's makes you smarter, and no I didn't have messy hand writing. I still ended up with a higher grade because when she wasn't copying my work on test our strengths and weaknesses were much more apparent.

I also remember in one particular English class having a hard time with lexical categories. The internet was in it's infancy and all I had at home was an Atari 130XE, otherwise I would have just looked it up myself when the provided material was proven inadequate. I almost failed that class in grade nine despite asking for help on multiple occasions. My sister on the other hand received extra after class tutoring as part of a special group from the teacher who turned me down. I wasn't allowed to join the group because it was a female only study group and there was no male equivalent because it was discriminatory for boys to have their own exclusive study group, which also included a teacher as an aid. I did get together with a couple of other guys that were having trouble, but weren't allowed to join the group and we fumbled our way through it together, but it would have been a lot easier if we had the additional help of someone who actually knew what they were doing.

There are many occasions growing up that boys are told they're on their own and are excluded from certain activities or out right ban from forming male only groups, where as it's perfectly acceptable for girls to form exclusive female only groups that receive special treatments. Maybe this is why there are more male "nerds". We were always outcast, something that seems to be much more rare for girls.

Re:Picture or GTFO

[icebike]

Too dumb to click a link, yet somehow able to post?!
You wouldn't understand it anyway son.

TFA= so much bullshit

[callmetheraven]

I'm so sick of women crying because (generally speaking) their gender hasn't bothered to learn technology. Qualified women get hired before qualified men. Cry me fucking river you Blue/Red Bitch!

Re:TFA= so much bullshit

[Gavrielkay]

When "generally speaking" everyone you speak to guides you towards other fields and scoffs at the notion that you might enjoy and prosper in STEM fields it isn't all that surprising that fewer women have traditionally done it. Things are changing a little bit, but only because of stories like these making people aware of how their attitudes towards women (and men sometimes) can have lasting effects. It happens to men too, when they try to break traditional gender roles and be nurses or elementary school teachers etc.

With the US falling behind in science and technology, it's time to encourage anyone who shows any interest at all in these fields to at least take a course or two and see if they like it.

We aren't all born with it

[sureshot007]

From the article: "I taught myself some coding and computer repair in probably the most painstaking ways possible, but my experiences growing up put me at a disadvantage that I am still working to overcome. Throughout college, I was secretly fighting tooth and nail to understand concepts, references, and information that my classmates knew from young ages. From what I can tell, this is not uncommon."

I was a TA in college for intro CS classes, and I can tell you that not many kids understand this stuff right off the bat. Very few understood it by the end of the first semester. Most were just blindly typing and eventually, the monkeys typed Shakespeare. So, this woman not special. Nor is she special because she is a woman. In fact, I see nothing about her in this article that makes her any different from the thousands of others in the field.

Re:We aren't all born with it

[jader3rd]

I agree. I'm wondering what's so different from her 'most painstaking ways possible' than what the rest of those in her field did? It's very common for the majority of the students in the field to struggle to understand concepts, references and information. That's why we go to school; we don't go to school to be told things we already know.

Re:We aren't all born with it

[MNNorske]

You nailed it spot on. There were always a few students back in college who "got it." But, the vast majority of the students I helped in the lab struggled with the concepts. I even knew a fair number of students who had tinkered with computers for years before showing up in my labs and they were still clueless once we hit anything that took abstract thinking, which was pretty much the first class. I know I was one of those annoying people who seemed to get it right away, but part of that was simply because I was a TA and the constant reiteration of concepts as I was helping students constantly pounded home the concepts for me. However even that background didn't prepare me for working in the real world, I had to learn and even re-learn a lot of concepts once I started working professionally. Which might surprise some of my lab partners from college.

There's nothing in her experience that I would call as truly being unique to her. She's just voicing self doubt and complaining about how hard it was to find her way into a specific field. Everyone feels self doubt at some point. But, she attributes that self doubt and inability to find opportunities to her gender.

Very few people I know in IT started out saying I want to be X and then found a college program to study that, and then immediately found a job doing that. Most people's careers are simply defined by the opportunities they are lucky enough to find when they are looking for a position. If you graduated with a CS degree but could only find DBA positions, you probably became a DBA. If all you could find was support, you're probably still working in support. If you found a position that involved coding, there's a good possibility that you're still doing coding. The folks that I know who work in security usually stumbled into the field because they were working on something security related for a project and made the right contacts to follow through.

Re:We aren't all born with it

[Darinbob]

Ya, I was a TA and grader too in the 80s, and almost no one understood these concepts coming into college. There were certainly many students who mistakenly thought they knew all about it and who would sometimes verbalize their feelings that the classes were a waste of time for them, but they didn't know the concepts either. I'd say 1%-5% were really the sorts of students who really had an aptitude at programming and computer science, and didn't treat it as just a path to a job.

Re:We aren't all born with it

[Darinbob]

Some people go to school so that they can learn that the things they already know are actually wrong.

Re:We aren't all born with it

[volmtech]

Gazpacho!!

Intangible != Imaginary.

[khasim]

The hurdles are real. If you are not doing what society approves of for your gender/race/age/etc then you will face more problems than if you are conforming to society's expectations.

And you will have less support.

Just because the hurdles will be intangible does not make the imaginary. Even the best of the best need a social structure in order to feed themselves and promote their work.

Re:Intangible != Imaginary.

[SuperKendall]

Society these days has no expect ions either way with women and computers, there have been lots of actors portraying quite capable females in computer / science roles (Bones for instance).

In IT there are a lot of female developers, who work just as well as male counterparts.

Re:Intangible != Imaginary.

[icebike]

I don't know personally deal with ions on computers, but I'm pretty sure there are computer jobs in chemistry that deal with ions.

There are also a lot of computer jobs in the television industry.

The sad part is those people living and learning life through TV shows.

Re:Intangible != Imaginary.

[GoCrazy]

The reason there aren't a lot of women in STEM fields is the intersection of two problems: 1. We teach kids that science and technology is boring and hard but is a good money making career. 2. Middle class women and up in almost all cultures didn't need to work, and that carries over to now where there's no pressure for women to be breadwinners. In the US, women have more advanced degrees than men, but what are they all in? The soft sciences. The only hurdle to her is a comfortable lifestyle.

Re:Intangible != Imaginary.

[Curunir_wolf]

The hurdles are real. If you are not doing what society approves of for your gender/race/age/etc then you will face more problems than if you are conforming to society's expectations.

And where do you get this notion that "society" does not "approve" of women in STEM fields? I don't see any evidence of that, just the opposite. Yes, there are disproportionally more men in those fields, but "society" seems to be wringing their hands in distress about it, not smiling and nodding.

Just as a demonstration, I Googled "women in STEM" and "men in STEM". The "women" search yielded a LOT more results (284K v. 201K for men), and 9 out of 10 of the "men" results turned out to be articles pointing out the gender gap and asking for solutions.

Frankly, what we need is a concerted effort to get more people educated in STEM and at least given interesting opportunities to learn more about science and tech in general, and stop trying to always "dumb it down" for the populace, and less focus on gender and racial differences.

Re:Intangible != Imaginary.

[Darinbob]

Unless you're female, in which case society expects you to be employed and to always do what is expected. You stridently say that you don't let others dictate to you, but women with the same attitudes are very often called bitches.

Fun with statistics

[gr4nf]

FTA:

It's worth noting that a recent study found that only 16% of female characters in movies and TV are shown to hold a job in any STEM field.

And what percentage of men in movies and TV are shown to hold a job of that kind? I'd be surprised if it was more than 20. No need to invalidate your claims by dropping useless statistics.

In fact, I think movies and TV do a remarkable job of disproportionately representing women in fields dominated by men in reality.

Re:Fun with statistics

[CastrTroy]

Yeah, looking at shows that are specifically about people working in STEM careers, women seem to be well represented. "Criminal Minds" isn't about STEM, but the main computer geek is a woman. "Bones" is about a woman who solves crimes using science. She also has many other women work in the lab. Recently started watching "Numbers" on Netflix, and even though the main STEM protagonist isn't a woman, there are quite a few STEM working women. I would say that shows come pretty close to overcompensating, and putting more women in these roles than one would expect.

Re:Fun with statistics

[tsqr]

The statistic isn't useless, just misstated. The study she's talking about (referred to here) actually found that out of all the STEM jobs shown in movies and TV shows, 16% of them were filled by females and 84% were filled by males. Not the same as saying 16% of female characters and 84% of male characters held STEM jobs. I'm suspicious, though, because the study also found that "No female protagonists or co leads are shown with STEM careers." I'm pretty sure that Emily Deschanel's character on Bones has a STEM job.

Re:Fun with statistics

[T.E.D.]

It's worth noting that a recent study found that only 16% of female characters in movies and TV are shown to hold a job in any STEM field.

And what percentage of men in movies and TV are shown to hold a job of that kind? I'd be surprised if it was more than 20.

Not only that, but even the 16% TV does show is actually a vast overrepresentation of reality. Last year less than 10% of all college degrees conferred were for STEM disciplines. Since STEM jobs pretty much require a degree, and less than half the workforce has one, that means the long term trend here is probably for less than 5% of the general population to have such jobs. So gender aside, 16% is huge.

Now its not unreasonable either. There are certain dramatic narrative imperatives at work here preventing depiction of a lot of more boring jobs. But still its weird to be complaining about a big overrepresentation of reality for not overrepresenting it further..

Re:Fun with statistics

[argStyopa]

Quick quiz, what percentage of women are shown to be ditch diggers, janitors, coal miners, or other relatively shitty jobs? (Not meaning to deprecate these folks, I worked as a janitor for 4 years. It's hard work.)

I mean, if you're going to insist on gender-equal representation on the sweet, white-collar consultancy-style jobs, let's make equally sure they have the crap jobs too.

Re:Fun with statistics

[UnderCoverPenguin]

I'm pretty sure that Emily Deschanel's character on Bones has a STEM job.

Also, Amanda Tapping's character, Helen Magnus on Sanctuary. (I would also counter her role as Samantha Carter on Stargate: SG1 as both a co-lead* and a STEM job.) If you insist on "mainstream" TV shows, I would count Pauley Perrette's role as Abby Sciuto on NCIS as both a co-lead* and a STEM job.

*These are shows with an ensemble cast, so there are multiple co-leads. Also, in both shows, there were episodes where Abby or Samantha were the central protagonsit (as was other episodes where other members of the ensemble were central).

Re:The Social Hurdles Women face in CS: men are ne

[Gavrielkay]

No wonder you posted AC.

Women are often attracted to problem solving positions and intellectual pursuits. And hopefully more and more women will quit caring about stereotypes and historically approved gender roles and just get out and do the work and prove themselves. Your ridiculous analysis about what women want or look for in a career makes it a turn off to think about working with people like you who will assume the woman who wants the job must be somehow aberrant.

I've seen the reverse stereotype more often: the nerdy introverted sexually repressed male who can't string a sentence together when face to face with a customer, but still thinks he's superior because if you lock him in a dark room for 4 days he'll turn out a bit of software that is perfect in its execution except it wasn't what anyone wanted.

CS is like any other field, there are a lot of different personality types who can carve themselves out a role in which to be a solid contributor. Precious few real world problems get solved solely by the nerd in the basement.

It's not that bad

[Anonymous Coward]

It's fine to have women in computing, but I worry about the exclusion of men from a lot of the initiatives she mentioned. If you have an analytic mind, it doesn't matter if you're female, but many of these programs seem to encourage the idea that it does matter, by inviting only women and excluding men. That isn't fixing the problem, that's just reversing it.

I'm willing to accept that women aren't treated well in tech because it's often repeated by people who are women, and who are in tech, but I think it's reasonable to expect entrants to a world as close-knit as this one to conform to the culture, rather than asking the culture to conform to them. Again, outright sexism is bad, but there's been so much hostility toward innocent people because of imaginary sexism that the situation is getting worse, not better. Why can't we all just get along?

News flash

[sl4shd0rk]

Yes, it's true. Some professions are dominated by men, some by women. Nature made it that way. People should be allowed to go into whatever profession they desire without being hindered by some asshole with a sexist complex (of either gender). If they can't cut it, they should be let go like anyone else without screaming "discrimination".

That said, I think more men should be allowed to go backstage to compete at lingerie shows,

Re:News flash

[Anonymous Coward]

This is BS. There are very few fields "made that way by Nature". There are (far?) more that are made that way by culture or convention, but that's sorta the point of articles such as this: those going against convention face a more difficult path than those going with it. Culture and convention are malleable, and the sooner equalization occurs the better.

Re:News flash

[CCarrot]

Yes, it's true. Some professions are dominated by men, some by women. Nature made it that way. People should be allowed to go into whatever profession they desire without being hindered by some asshole with a sexist complex (of either gender). If they can't cut it, they should be let go like anyone else without screaming "discrimination".

That said, I think more men should be allowed to go backstage to compete at lingerie shows,

Oh honey, you and me both! Nuthin' sexier than a man in a g-string and baby doll, strutting down the catwalk...mmmm...

On the serious side, though, I would like to point out that there are some professions that are gender-biased for no good physiological cause. Women as nurses, flight attendants or hairstylists, for example, or men as engineers, surgeons or STEM trades. These divisions have been established due to cultural biases, not physical ones, and sometimes those biases are the more subtly influential of the two.

Re:News flash

[DoofusOfDeath]

On the serious side, though, I would like to point out that there are some professions that are gender-biased for no good physiological cause. Women as nurses, flight attendants or hairstylists, for example, or men as engineers, surgeons or STEM trades. These divisions have been established due to cultural biases, not physical ones, and sometimes those biases are the more subtly influential of the two.

I don't think you're going to resolve a nature/nurture debate just by asserting "nurture!"

Re:News flash

[cryptizard]

Oh you're right, that must be why most IT guys possess great physical strength and use it on a daily basis. You are talking some complete and utter bullshit that I, frankly, can't believe I am reading even on Slashdot.

Re:News flash

[CCarrot]

On the serious side, though, I would like to point out that there are some professions that are gender-biased for no good physiological cause. Women as nurses, flight attendants or hairstylists, for example, or men as engineers, surgeons or STEM trades. These divisions have been established due to cultural biases, not physical ones, and sometimes those biases are the more subtly influential of the two.

I don't think you're going to resolve a nature/nurture debate just by asserting "nurture!"

So to be clear, are you asserting that men are just naturally worse than women at being nurses, flight attendants and hairstylists? What, are their hands too big?

It's been demonstrated that both men and women are fully able to perform at high levels in a broad variety of fields, given equal access to and interest in those fields. It's the 'interest in' part that tends to be curtailed by societal pressures, even as the 'access to' barriers are being challenged and overcome. Just as it takes a strong man to go into nursing or esthetics, it takes an equally strong woman to go into computer science or engineering.

Re:evolution

[CCarrot]

So STEM means "I taught myself some coding and computer repair" now?

Duh no need no education...

FTFA:

After four years of school, a couple of internships, and at my present position, I can still count on my hands the number of women that have worked with me in cybersecurity and digital investigation combined.

And your credentials are...? Sounds pretty reasonable for a 21yo to me...

Also, why is it that usually intelligent, erudite men often* turn into troglodytes as soon as they find out the person they've been discussing technical topics with is female? Are we that threatening to your sense of self-worth? I can (kind of) understand being concerned about women in some more physical occupation, since without rigorous strength training the average woman generally can't bring the same sheer physical strength to the table as the average man (and I'm talking averages here, not ectomorphic men or mesomorphic women), but in STEM trades there are no such concerns. Women can do just as much mental heavy lifting as men...all it takes is a love for the field, and to kick out the 'show us yer titz' bullies.

* Often, but certainly not always. There just seems to be a higher proportion of perpetual juveniles in the STEM fields...although I suppose that perception could be due to sampling bias

I can't help but wonder why

[geekoid]

her name isn't Alice. ;)

Well, It Sure Ain't Misogyny

[CanHasDIY]

An anecdote: My wife works in an accounting department that was, until recently, all women.

When they hired their first male accountant (a new college grad with absolutely no experience), he was given an office all to himself, despite the fact that my wife (a controller, no less) has been sharing an office with a temp worker for the past several years.

Why did he get his own office, when she has more education, experience, and seniority? Because, as she put it, "all the other women here are scared of his dick."

So yea, women being treated differently is an issue in the workplace, but don't try and bullshit me by saying men are the only ones engaging in discrimination.

So what's her argument?

[GT66]

This woman's argument is poorly made at best and (I think) intentionally disingenuous at worst. She makes allusions to gender bias without ever really making the statement directly (which is, I believe, because she can't). She makes claims about difficulties that essentially are not faced by a particular gender but rather EVERYONE - man, woman, child, parakeet etc. And then finishes with a lot of talk that vaguely centers around equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. Equality of outcome is a pernicious piece of feminist logic because it tacitly supports and endorses INEQUALITY as a means to an end as long as women control it and are the main beneficiaries which is EXACTLY the behavior they decry as being so unjust in the first place. It is hypocrisy and as usual, women are just fine with it as long as they benefit.

Re:So what's her argument?

[DoofusOfDeath]

I partially disagree with you.

First, equality of outcome tends to be a liberal vs. conservative, not a feminist vs. non-feminist, division in my experience.

Secondly, I think just about every group afflicted with envy faces a temptation to use tactics and logic that, on their better days, they would eschew.

Re:So what's her argument?

[cryptizard]

You can't spend thousands of years oppressing a group of people and then one day say "oh, we are all equal now by the way," expecting it to be true. There are lingering inequalities that can ONLY be rectified by temporarily overbalancing in the other direction. If you don't realize that then you are blinded by your own privilege.

Re:So what's her argument?

[Vaphell]

that's BS. You don't fix the past by counter-oppressing people who had nothing to do with anything but belong to the same abstract category as perceived oppressors of the past.
Also last time i checked vast majority of men had equally shitty lives. Not everybody was a feudal lord, common men had to bust their asses in less than impressive conditions to survive and nobody ever asked them if they feel like going to war to die. In fact they got their voting rights only recently, as a compensation for their duty to fight. Women got the same just few years later for free.

Another problem is that the affirmative action undermines the legitimacy of pioneers' achievements and breeds resentment: "you suck, you can't cut it without someone helping you!"

Re:So what's her argument?

[miroku000]

You can't spend thousands of years oppressing a group of people and then one day say "oh, we are all equal now by the way," expecting it to be true. There are lingering inequalities that can ONLY be rectified by temporarily overbalancing in the other direction. If you don't realize that then you are blinded by your own privilege.

How do you know that is the only way? Is that true of every lingering inequality? Some lingering inequalities do not even need to be fixed. For example, for a long time, people who didn't own land weren't able to vote. Then, we gave them the right to vote. But, it is still kind of unfair because they are making less money on average than people who own land. Likewise, if women have equal opportunity, but choose careers with good fringe benefits and lower pay, why is that a problem?

Re:evolution

[GT66]

"Women can do just as much mental heavy lifting as men."

Bullshit because if they could, they would. I think it's pretty naïve to think that while nature made fairly substantially different hardware for substantially different purposes that it loaded exactly the same control software because it got lazy all of a sudden. Now maybe women can perform mental heavy lifting of a different sort but honestly, when they talk about patriarchy, when they talk about barriers to entry that they (for lack of understanding) call "bias," what they really mean is "our brain processes don't fit into these fields created and run by male thought processes." The proof to the fallacy of your statement is your statement needing to be made in the first place. Women can't do as much (male type) mental heavy lifting as men because if they could they would and if they were, they wouldn't be complaining about the difficulty of competing in male intellectual endeavors. The "bias" they perceive is the bias of the square peg not fitting in the round hole.

Re:evolution

[CCarrot]

"Women can do just as much mental heavy lifting as men."

Bullshit because if they could, they would. I think it's pretty naïve to think that while nature made fairly substantially different hardware for substantially different purposes that it loaded exactly the same control software because it got lazy all of a sudden. Now maybe women can perform mental heavy lifting of a different sort but honestly, when they talk about patriarchy, when they talk about barriers to entry that they (for lack of understanding) call "bias," what they really mean is "our brain processes don't fit into these fields created and run by male thought processes." The proof to the fallacy of your statement is your statement needing to be made in the first place. Women can't do as much (male type) mental heavy lifting as men because if they could they would and if they were, they wouldn't be complaining about the difficulty of competing in male intellectual endeavors. The "bias" they perceive is the bias of the square peg not fitting in the round hole.

Classic example of confirmation bias. It is *precisely* attitudes like these that present the 'bias' that you openly scorn. "If they could they would, but you simply can't darling, so try to find some nice steno work and leave us men to do all the thinking, mm'kay? Or better yet, go have some babies, because you know your biological clock is ticking away...here, let me help you with that, I have a couple of minutes before my next meeting..."

You can't tell me that a manager who carries your type of attitude is not going to be more critical of female employees than male ones, and more resistant to promoting them or acknowledging their achievements on par with their male counterparts. If acknowledgement does come, it's more in line with "oh wow, that's very good work for a girl! Good job!" Yeah, screw that. Perhaps your mental hole needs a dremel.

Re:The Social Hurdles Women face in CS: men are ne

[Jiro]

1) Women generally are less willing than men to do things that result in them becoming social outcasts as a youth. This will lead to a lot fewer girls doing things that lead them to STEM jobs later in life.
2) Women are a lot less willing to take jobs with low satisfaction and high working hours in order to get high pay. CS-related jobs, of course, tend to be like this. This effect is made even bigger by the fact that it's still, even in these liberated days, a lot more acceptable for the man to be the primary breadwinner, allowing the woman more freedom to choose a lower-paying but more satisfying job.

Not NCIS!!!

[ThatsDrDangerToYou]

Sorry, I just can't tolerate any of the stupid ass crime shows. Everybody please stop watching them right now. Is it off? OK, good.

.. but anyway, good luck Kerstyn in your career. You are building the new "old girlz network" and networking with women and men who are supportive is key to your long term success. My sense is that most companies really do want more women in their tech ranks, so assuming you are reasonably competent you should always have plenty of opportunities.

Re:Wow, where to start taking this apart?

[cryptizard]

Fighting assholes in the workplace is part of life, as well. Various people will like you or resent you for a myriad of reasons - who you are friends with, where you park, what you like to eat, who you vote for, etc.

Yes, but no one will ever discriminate against you because you are a man. That is not something you will not have to deal with. That is the whole point of recognizing your privilege, women have to deal with all the regular horrible things that people have to deal with plus some additional ones that you won't.

omg

[Tom]

I taught myself some coding and computer repair in probably the most painstaking ways possible

And you found yourself in the IRT. Frankly, that you got there is a miracle and has nothing to do with gender, but with the fact that if someone with half a clue put it together, he was looking for experts who know their stuff even when you wake them with an emergency at 4 am.

I've been working in IT for almost 20 years. Yes, women are few. But I'll punch the next one who whines about widespread discrimination straight in the face, because it's a lie. Most nerds are too afraid to give them any shit, most managers are happy to find a woman in the field, and most of the rest frankly don't give a fuck if you're man, woman, transvestite or an alien from Betelgeuse, as long as you know what you're doing.

If you want to complain about discrimination, there's dozens of jobs out there where even an outsider can see it still exists. IT isn't one of them.

Re:omg

[antdude]

Same with people with disabilities. It took a whole year for me to find a new job after the dotcom job. People really don't like disabled people when they find out. :(

Re:evolution

[stdarg]

You should search for "feminist mathematics" and you'll get some interesting reading.

I don't know how mainstream it is, but there is a feminist movement that accepts that male and female brains work differently, and that therefore different approaches are needed to include women in science and mathematics. For example, check out this preview of a paper which discusses a need for a new philosophy, pedagogy, and epistemology for mathematics. I don't have access to the full text, but for me it's previewing page 1 (just an intro) and page 276 which is dealing with pedagogy. This is one of the critiques for why current mathematical teaching is unsuitable for women:

Mathematics tends to be taught with a heavy reliance upon written texts which removes its conjectural nature, presenting it as inert information which should not be questioned. Predominant patterns of teaching focus on the individual learner and induce competition between learners. Language is pre-digested in the text, assuming that meaning is communicated and is non-negotiable. [...]

Like science, therefore, mathematics is perceived by many students and some teachers as "a body of established knowledge accessible only to a few extraordinary individuals" (Rosser, op.cit. p. 89). Indeed, the supposed 'objectivity' of the discipline, a cause for questioning and concern by some of those within it, is often perceived by non-mathematician curriculum theorists as inevitable....

I mean what do you think of that? Boys do pretty well, apparently, with this type of teaching and the view that mathematical theory is objective and that by writing things down we can communicate knowledge. But there are "feminist mathematician curriculum theorists" who think that's BS and that it's a social construct resulting from the influence of male thinking in mathematics. There's a better way to teach it to girls.

True? Or do you think these feminists are as crazy as the guy you responded to in thinking that just maybe men and women think differently? They are taking two different approaches (one criticizes the female brain for not understanding it as presented when the male brain has no problem doing so, the other criticizes the material and its presentation as unsuitable for the female brain) but the underlying message is the same. I'm curious what you think about this.

Interested men & women: A&M free college c

[raymorris]

For any women, or me, interested in cyber-security, the Texas A&M system has some free, online, college credit courses at http://teex.com/

Re:You're telling geeks about social acceptance?

[Darinbob]

Whoah, chip on shoulder. I'm a geek, I've been bullied, but sheesh take a look around. Computers are mainstream, the IT group (99.99% male) is even more mainstream than development or engineering, there's no need to be shunned by society because you like an incredibly popular field.

So you were a geek and picked on, left out of all the stuff the cool kids did. But you found a group of fellow geeks who sympathized with you perhaps. Now imagine being a geek but the fellow geeks also picked on you because you were a girl and were ruining their fun geek computer clique.

Re:The Social Hurdles Women face in CS: men are ne

[Darinbob]

STEM has nothing to do with being social outcasts, at least not today.

Re:evolution

[CCarrot]

I may not be the most objective viewpoint, since the maths and sciences were easily my top courses, and the ones I enjoyed the most. I, personally, had no problem understanding curriculum materials as written (except social studies, I don't know how anyone ever gets that...), so I never experienced this 'problem'.

Perhaps the bigger issue is: why do we figure that all men are the same, and all women are the same? I don't agree with the "feminist mathematician curriculum theorists", since I have not experienced such difficulties, but then one has to look at the statistics. What I question is: are the statistics the way they are because of inherent physical differences in learning, or learned behaviours towards learning?

I was lucky in that I was encouraged all my life to learn and told that I could do anything I wanted, but not everyone had such a supportive framework. For example, I took Industrial Arts because it was much more interesting to me than Home Economics, and while I got teased for my choice at school, I had learned enough self-confidence by then to not let that affect my choice or performance. Every child is different, and what you learn in the earliest years doesn't usually come out of a book.

Gender Bias is Real

[bledri]

Read this blog post which references actual studies and then tell me gender bias is not real. Can't read? I'll summarize it: send out a resume to a bunch of people. Sometimes use a male name, other times use a female name. Have the recipient rate the candidate and guess what? The resume with the male name scores higher in their estimation. When asked how much they would pay the candidate, the male is always valued higher. Even if the person evaluating the resume is a women.

Many orchestras now perform blind auditions, because they discovered that gender and physical appearance of the candidate skewed their perception of the candidate's performance. There are studies that test people's cognitive abilities after the most subtle forms of "priming." Stereotype susceptibility is a real thing, proven in study after study. Remind a group of asian girls they are asian before they take a math test, their scores increase. Remind them they are girls, their scores go down.

We are social animals, even those of us that lack social skills, and constant social pressure has real world ramifications. It amazes me that a site of self-professed nerds is populated with so many people that don't question their own biases.

Re:Gender Bias is Real

[PPH]

Women pull each other down to their own level. Men either help (mentoring) each other or just stay out of the way. Books have been written about how women have to 'stick together' and not compete. But that basically comes down to shunning anyone who dares to climb above the least common denominator of the group.

One result is that many women who do make it up the ladder have an attitude toward other women that basically says, "Fuck them. They stabbed me in the back for getting ahead. They are on their own."

Its because ...

[PPH]

... women just refuse to grow the obligatory neck-beard.

Re:evolution

[miroku000]

I think men and women are both trying to maximize their happiness, but because of the structure of society, different strategies are optimal. I assume that people are motivated by having the best possible mate and having the largest amount of money to spend. For men, in order to find the best mate, making money is a good strategy. For women, a higher salary has a negligible effect on attracting the best mate. Also, for women, getting a better mate is a more effective strategy for having lots of money to spend than having a high paying career. As a result, if you want to have an optimal happiness, it is not rational for women to waste their time optimizing their career when they could be spending more time finding an ideal mate. Now, I do not think this whole thing is the best for society. It would be better if women did not consider money when they picked their mates. It would be better if men could pick lower paying but more fulfilling careers without sacrificing their ability to get the best mate possible. But, I am not sure how society could get from where we are now to such a place.

Women are predestined to beat males eventually

[ezdiy]

Especially when it comes to hacking. Just a conjencture.

Obligatory western gender-equality cliches aside, the scene imploded the second things got commercialized by mid 2000s. From that point onwards, male hackers seem to suck horribly at team work. Trust issues. This leads to a lot of inefficiency and wheel-reinvention (to the point where independent 0day re-discovery is fairly common occurrence, if you wish, academic/famwhoring publishing seems to be lagging behind severely).

Women may be generally not as good equipped with spatial/critical thinking you need to posses in this field, but are much better in the social/information management/opsec aspect. One can expect that ultimately, sheer power of team work and more humble approach might vanquish male arrogance/ego (which is a good driving force, but isolates you a great deal).

Re:The Social Hurdles Women face in CS: men are ne

[Cederic]

Female-friendly: emphasis on feeeeelings, consensus, political correctness, male nerdiness extinguishing, etc. is incompatible with CS

I'm not sure what the fuck 'male nerdiness extinguishing' is, but good IT teams do build consensus and do have respect for feelings.

Quite how political correctness comes into this I really don't know, either from a gender perspective or a CS one. Most people in IT that I've encountered are no more or less politically correct than people outside the field when you factor in education, background and intelligence.

Re:The Social Hurdles Women face in CS: men are ne

[Cederic]

That'll be why many women still resist dating people that work in IT.

Re:evolution

[Cederic]

Bullshit because if they could, they would.

erm. They do, because they can.

Gender may (and it's far from certain) be a factor in intelligence and problem solving but it's a triviality relative to environmental factors - nutrition, education, etc. Across a broad population there are no material differences by gender.

Re:Wow, where to start taking this apart?

[Cederic]

Yes, but no one will ever discriminate against you because you are a man

Now that is just so much total fucking bullshit.

Re:Wow, where to start taking this apart?

[cryptizard]

Oh yes, how could I forget, being a little bit shamed for crying is exactly as bad as making 20% less money or being frequently sexually harassed. Who are the people that are doing the shaming in that case though? Women or other men? The more equal a workplace is, the less pressure there is on men to be "ultra masculine", so it ends up fixing both problems.

Re:Wow, where to start taking this apart?

[cryptizard]

Give me an example where someone was discriminated against in an IT field because they were a man. It doesn't happen because the vast majority of people in IT are men.

Re:Wow, where to start taking this apart?

[Cederic]

Where to even start answering. Your statement was not constrained to "in an IT field" and trust me, men are discriminated against in a massive number of ways, including within the family courts, health funding, genital mutilation, housing, the justice system, retirement age and education.

Within IT? I've suffered gender related discrimination myself but it's low level stuff. I see remarkably little discrimination of any form, because I work in companies with good cultures where discrimination is not acceptable to anybody.

But if you want some specifics: Where's the Anita Borg Institute for Men in IT?

What? No special funding for men? No special conferences for men? No training and guidance for men? No pressure on companies to employ more men? No demands for easier career routes for men?

Hell, I haven't even gone into shit like the law stating that if I apply for a job it's legal to give it to a woman instead because she's female. IT field or otherwise.

Re:Wow, where to start taking this apart?

[cryptizard]

Of course we are talking about IT, that is what the damn article is about. That you have to start grasping at straws to come up with something is telling. Having particular programs for women is not discrimination because by default everything else is for men. They dominate the field so all the "normal" resources are theirs. You cannot systematically exclude a group of people for years and then one day say, "okay everything is equal now." You have to go a little bit in the opposite direction, temporarily, to rectify the imbalance.

Re:Wow, where to start taking this apart?

[Cederic]

I must work in a different fucking industry to you. Everything else is definitely not for men. It's for everybody. If anything, women are pointed at training resources, job opportunities, promotion possibilities ahead of men because of the perceived need to have more women in IT.

I don't see any fucking evidence of systemic exclusion of women. I see a lot of women rejecting the lifestyle and stigma of a career in IT and I have no issue with them making that choice.

You have to go a little bit in the opposite direction, temporarily, to rectify the imbalance.

No, you don't. Do women want equality, or superiority? I'm happy and keen to support equality but I reject outright being treated as inferior because I was born with a penis.

Re:Wow, where to start taking this apart?

[cryptizard]

Whether you like it or not, as a man you benefit from many societal advantages that have built up over generations. No one is saying that men are inferior, but there are structural inequalities that make it harder to get into IT just because you were born a woman. Does every woman end up being harassed or bullied out of the field? Of course not. But some of them do. A lot of them do. Do you think that is fair? It may seem unfair that women have access to additional resources, but from their point of view it is unfair because they have more challenges to surpass than men. It is all about balancing.

You mention the stigma of a career in IT: is that not an unfair obstacle for women? You are probably going to say that men have to deal with a stigma too of being a "nerd", but lets be completely honest now, that stigma does not really exist today. If it does, it applies equally to women on top of additional stigmas they have to deal with about how math/science is not for women, women can't think analytically, they are too emotional to be engineers, etc. I realize it can be tough to confront your own privilege, but again, no one is saying that women are in any way superior to men. Just that they temporarily have more societal hurdles to jump to get into STEM fields. They did not choose to be born women, it is not their fault they have to deal with those additional obstacles. All anyone is suggesting is that we attempt to counter those hurdles if we can.

Re:Wow, where to start taking this apart?

[argStyopa]

Nursing.
Teaching.
Being a homemaker.

Deeply fulfilling career choices in which men are marginalized, ridiculed, trivialized, and outright mocked.

As far as your "go a little bit in the opposite direction until it's balanced"...sincerely: when do you say "it's fixed"?

When does the sexism preference in the other direction end? What's your quantifiable measure? You must have one, because otherwise you're just campaigning for some sort of eternal punitive bullshit.

Re:Wow, where to start taking this apart?

[Cederic]

I fear we have a fundamental disagreement on gender imbalances.

The structural challenges for women are there for men too. The stigma of working in IT comes mainly from women but applies to men too.

Counter the hurdles for women, but counter them in a way that benefits men too. Don't force men to suffer just to benefit women. That's wrong. Men didn't choose not to be born women, so don't penalise them as a result.

As for fucking societal advantages, right now women are heavily advantaged - in the UK. Educational, societal and economic metrics for the under-30s heavily indicate that men are being fucked, and yet everyone's still going, "oh, we have to do more for women". Fuck that.

Re:Wow, where to start taking this apart?

[cryptizard]

Yeah and I'm all for fixing the problems in those industries too, it's not right that there aren't more male teachers, nurses, ESPECIALLY more stay at home dads. Nice try derailing, but feminists are all for fixing inequality the other direction too. However, that's not what this article is about.

Re:Wow, where to start taking this apart?

[argStyopa]

The whole "less pay for equal jobs" has been disproven so many times that the only reason one could continue to whine about it is because it's an article of quasi-religious faith, not fact or justification.

Men have an ability no woman has!

[Medievalist]

Women can do anything men can do...

WRONG.

A woman cannot pee around a corner without using special equipment. Men for the win!

Look, I know it's not much, but we have to work with what God gave us, you know? Men, be proud of your uniquely male corner-around-peeing ability, and the ease with which you can write your name in the snow. To the drum circle, boys!

It may not be about discrimination

[shadowmn52]

(although that is probably at least part of it)

It could just be about the differing level of privilege men and women enjoy in society.
I read an interesting article about this that crystallized the thought for me:
http://pgbovine.net/tech-privi...

The interesting part of this discussion is how quickly people have dismissed the content of the article when it doesn't match their experience.
Many of the posts follow a theme similar to:
"What makes her so extraordinary? I went through the same thing and I'm a guy. It was no big deal."

I wonder if reading it that way makes the privilege implicit in the question more obvious?

To answer the question:
Taking as a given that men and women have equivalent mental capacity and that women are underrepresented in technical fields, she is extraordinary because she surmounted the barriers preventing other women from pursuing similar roles.

I suppose I should not be surprised at the lack of empathy on Slashdot after reading it for decades, but the circle-jerkiness of a lot these posts finally convinced me to say something.

Re:Wow, where to start taking this apart?

[argStyopa]

No, you're right: this article is a whinging "boo hoo, look how hard it's been to be a coder with a vagina" which - as you can tell from the rest of the comments, pretty much nobody buys.

PARTICULARLY from a very young person with pretty much zero actual life experience.