Software Engineer Liz Bennett Talks About Being a Woman in a Nearly All Male Workplace (Video)

This conversation was generated by a post Eric S. Raymond published on his "Armed and Dangerous" blog that said, "...if you are any kind of open-source leader or senior figure who is male, do not be alone with any female, ever, at a technical conference. Try to avoid even being alone, ever, because there is a chance that a 'women in tech' advocacy group is going to try to collect your scalp." Eric later wrote a post about how Social Justice Warriors may be more of a problem than the problems they complain about.

Whoa! Predatory women in tech trying to entrap people like (and including) Linus Torvalds the way an old-time private eye got the goods on an errant husband as part of a divorce case? Scary! And worrying about thoughtcrime, too? Oh my! But Liz Bennett is an actual software engineer who works at Loggly in San Francisco. She writes for her company's blog when she's not writing Java code, has a (not very active) GitHub account, and plays bassoon. And her attitude is similar to the one espoused by ESR in the second post (above): write great code -- and if you do, they (for any value of they) have no right to be negative about you, period. And, she says, before you take a job you should be sure the company is a good "fit" for you and doesn't harbor people who will work to bring you down -- which is great advice for anyone, in any field of endeavor.

Comments

Sigh. She is NOT an engineer.

[metrix007]

That term is reserved for those who have accountability for what they create and in most of the civilized world have gone through a certification process.

What she is, is a software developer. Part of that process is design and testing, but that alone does not make her an engineer.

Fuck all these people who think otherwise and dilute the word because they want to have a way to place themselves from their peers, because they can't do it with their work.

Re: Sigh. She is NOT an engineer.

[Anonymous Coward]

The term engineer predates your little bureaucracy by millennia. Get over it.

Re:Sigh. She is NOT an engineer.

[Anonymous Coward]

So in your mind the only people qualified to be Engineers are mechanical and structural engineers. Those railroad guys, well we have all been hood winked and they were never given that title. Social Engineers, those don't exist either.

In slightly different terms, you are a flippin idiot.

Re:Sigh. She is NOT an engineer.

[tompaulco]

That term is reserved for those who have accountability for what they create and in most of the civilized world have gone through a certification process.

What she is, is a software developer. Part of that process is design and testing, but that alone does not make her an engineer.

Fuck all these people who think otherwise and dilute the word because they want to have a way to place themselves from their peers, because they can't do it with their work.

Maybe she is a Software Engineer. There is such a job title, and you don't even have to go to Engineering school to get it. Your company gives it to you. Get over it. Engineer is not a term reserved only for certified people. Professional Engineer is. Use that instead if you want to feel good about yourself and feel the need to lord it over others who may have many more certifications from many other governing bodies that just don't happen to be the one you worship before.

Re:Sigh. She is NOT an engineer.

[Troy Roberts]

So, My father who has a degree in mechanical engineering, worked for TRW on steering systems, and had the title Senior Engineer was not an engineer, because he did not have a license? He was not required to have a license by his employer or the state. Before he worked on steering systems, he worked on presses for aluminum extrusion (read as involving extremely high pressures).

Both of these positions required him to design systems that if they failed would be vary dangerous and likely seriously injure or kill people. Yet you claim he was not an engineer.

I wonder if you would consider Gustave Eiffel, Henry Ford, Leonardo da Vinci, or James Watt engineers.

Some engineers are licensed in some jurisdictions because it is required by the law or by the employer. However, a license does not make the engineer.

Stop Hazing Us

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop hazing us dice. We're just nerds. We're not bad people. We and our industries aren't hostile to women, or minorities, or transgenders, or disabled people.

Stop hazing us. We're not like those sour hipsters who work for/with your offices. We're just nerds. Stop injecting sex and politics and religion into our jobs and pastimes and pursuits. Many of us chose these fields in part to get away from that. Stop labeling programmers as "men", "women", "[RACE HERE]", etc, etc and telling us how we opressed everybody simply by existing. We have usernames and handles to escape our meatspace identities.

This has to stop. These stories have to stop. The politics and the propaganda has to stop.
Tech doesn't have a problem. The media has a problem with tech. This hazing has to stop.

Re:Stop Hazing Us

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it doesn't indicate a problem. If you think it does, name it, but make sure that it also explains why most car salesmen being male is a problem, and most realtors being female. Be sure that the suggested cure is also applied to remove the gender imbalance in teaching and nursing (mostly female), and in auto repair and roofing (mostly male).

Re:Stop Hazing Us

[khallow]

US trash collectors are actually 90% male. You don't hear a lot of complaining about that gender imbalance. By the same link, US high tech workers and managers are both roughly a quarter female which is much better than you claim.

Just covering your ears and going "la la la it's perfect" isn't really a solution.

Actually, it is. A key step you are missing here is a demonstration that there is a solution that we can take here which is better than doing nothing about the problem.

Re:Stop Hazing Us

[Elledan]

I couldn't agree more. I'm a software developer by trade. That I am a woman is a completely irrelevant quantifier in this context, as neither one's biological sex nor one's chosen gender role seems to have any effect on the quality of one's code in my experience.

Frankly, if someone refers to me as a 'female software developer' I'm more likely to feel offended, as if I'm somehow different from my (mostly male) colleagues, despite doing the exact same job and delivering (roughly) the same results.

Re:Stop Hazing Us

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to have a conversation while totally confusing equality of opportunity with equality of outcome.

When everyone has the same chance to pursue a certain interest but the distribution in that kind of field ends up being 90% vs. 10%, then that's the way it is. The opportunities were equal, but the minority chose otherwise. That's where any interest in the matter should end.

You people who want to force a 50%/50% outcome are the pest of this generation, because you want to force unequal opportunities in favor of one gender until the outcome is reached. You are the enemies of equality.

Go fuck yourself, SJW pest.

Good Advice

[Anonymous Coward]

This conversation was generated by a post Eric S. Raymond published on his "Armed and Dangerous" blog that said, "...if you are any kind of open-source leader or senior figure who is male, do not be alone with any female, ever, at a technical conference. Try to avoid even being alone, ever, because there is a chance that a 'women in tech' advocacy group is going to try to collect your scalp."

Yeah, I think it's a fair fear.

Women are a subset of people, and a subset of people are malicious. There's a sexist idea out there that "women are never malicious," or "women are malicious far less than men," but if what my daughter tells me about the social antics of girls are true, then I suspect that the real situation is equality: There are just as many malicious women out there as there are malicious men out there.

It's not women, or "people" if you like, like the one interviewed that are a concern. No: They are treasures. Rather, it's the kind of woman who is actively looking to take offense and play drama queen -- who are at issue.

I think not being alone with women at a technical conference is a VERY good idea for any many. It's nothing against women; It IS recognizing that we are in a super-charged politicized climate right now. I think women should be very happy with this kind of rule as well: If something happens, there will be witnesses. Win-win for everybody.

Re:Good Advice

[Austerity Empowers]

Yeah, I think it's a fair fear.

And a good practice. Male doctors, in modern times, are never with a female patient without a female assistant of some kind. Male police officers and security guards avoid detaining or frisking female suspects if a female officer is available and can do so. Male teachers avoid being in "closed office" situations with female students. On a different subject: most (married) people avoid work lunches or dinners with the opposite sex all by themselves (1:1), even if highly visible it creates the appearance of impropriety that might be difficult to explain.

You can't bypass gender by ignoring it, even if your intentions are honest and your actions clean. There are dishonest people out there, and there are more than enough gossips. In male dominated professions we may be accustomed to working exclusively with other men and not have these concerns so frequently in our lives, but, they exist and we should learn to play it smart. In reality these situations can and probably will arise more frequently in M:M and F:F situations as more homosexual people choose to "come out" (i.e. announce a weakness for predators to leap upon). In the words of Lester Burnham: "Can you prove that you didn't offer to save my job if I let you blow me?"

I think part of the issue is that a lot of conventions and social professional forums have a bit more of a party atmosphere than a professional one, and the guards we remember to use at work sometimes get forgotten.

Wow, who would have thought?

[Opportunist]

Who wold have thought. Women in IT want to be treated like people. Not with some special care or preferential treatment, want to be judged on their professional merits rather than having privileges for being the "oppressed sex". They don't want to feel offended, and they don't want to be defended, but it seems they want to, ya know, do their effin' WORK.

Dear SJWs. It's really awesome what you want to do, but maybe, just maybe, try to find out first whether what you fight for actually WANTS you to fight for them? You remind me a lot of those "foreign aid" workers who "helped" those "poor, poor Africans" by sending food there until the local farmers had to shut down production because they couldn't compete with your free food anymore. they were not poor. You made them poor. And I fear the same development here.

There are good and hard working women in IT. No, they are not numerous, but they exist. And they are far from being marginalized. They are part of great teams and they are good at what they're doing. I had the fortune that I managed to work with some of them. They are not here because of their looks, they can easily pull their weight as anyone else. And you will notice that they are usually at the very least a little bit embarrassed by all the shit going down about this "women in IT" thing. Because it does harm their reputation.

A friend of mine recently complained about the problem. She has been in IT for about 15 years now, we worked together before and she is a very good programmer. With more and more women being signed up on no other merit than being a women, stereotypes are starting to grow. Because these women cannot code well. They would not have gotten that job were they men, simply because their skills are lacking. The main reason they were hired is (in HER words, please note that!) to be the "quota bitch".

And that casts a shadow on HER reputation. Because stereotypes are a powerful thing. Just ponder the following scenario and tell me honestly and truthfully what you would think:

The former situation was that the women:men ratio was maybe 1:10, maybe even only 1:20 in IT. Of course, all of these 20, 19 men one woman, would know their trade. That's because they were hired. Now, that "affirmative action" bull takes place and women are hired based more on the fact that they're women than their actual skill levels. You'll probably end up with a 1:1 ratio, even, but that would probably also mean that you really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel because there simply are not as many women as there are men in IT.

So that means you have one "good" women and about 10 mediocre to bad programmers of the female gender.

Question for 100 points: What would you think of "the female coworkers"?

And do you really think that this would aid those women in IT that are really good in their job?

Re:Wow, who would have thought?

[tnk1]

I think the idea is that there are two types of qualified women.

The first type is the one in your 1:20 ratio. She's competent and can tolerate the environment of a male dominated workplace. She's not the issue.

The second (theoretical) type is also skilled (or at least has the right inclinations and intelligence type), but she's uncomfortable with the male dominated workplace and so she either leaves the field early or never even gets into the field to begin with.

Some believe that the remedy for the second type of woman is seen to be a place where there are more women, period. This allows them to have friends and the ability to have a more balanced environment. The increase in women in general will make it more attractive to the skilled women as well.

Obviously, this is an assumption, but not a necessarily a terrible one. Many people only feel comfortable among people like them. Same goes for gender, skin color or ethnicity.

A lot of this comes down to what the actual value of a more equitable ratio actually is. What are the quantifiable benefits of this sort of parity or diversity? And are those benefits come at the expense of productivity or opportunity for those who are not selected purely on the basis of their gender? Does one benefit outweigh the other? If so, then the feelings and misconceptions of the other side should give way, at least to the extent that the greatest benefit can be achieved.

I think there is a lot of shooting from the hip on this. I'd like someone to tell me:

1) Does having more females in IT being a perceptible benefit to either IT, or themselves?
2) What methods are necessary to achieve those benefits?
3) In the end, do any benefits actually outweigh the costs?

Oh, Com'on Robin

[Bruce Perens]

The very best thing you could have done with that particular posting of Eric's would have been to ignore it, and run the story about that nice woman without mentioning it. She can stand on her own and nobody but Eric should be held to account for what he said.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly the above. The interviewer was trying to be inflammatory, provocative, and instigating. Smacks of mainstream media. Whoever was asking the questions in this manner is the bigger societal problem in more areas than just women in tech. Liz was 100% real. The interviewer was baiting her with almost every single question and should be called out for it.

Quite aside from the SJW issues:

[fyngyrz]

Engineering is:

1) That branch of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of engines, machines, and structures.

2) The action of working artfully to bring something about.

3) Work done by an engineer.

Those of us who do software work create structure; we (if we do hardware as well, create and) use and empower machines; we work artfully to bring the desired outcome about; we are therefore, in every sense of the word, doing engineering, and we are engineers. Many are artists as well, in the domain of the very same pursuits.

As far as a license goes, that's in no way a guarantee of competence (any more than a college degree is), nor is the presumptive ability to sue a worthy indirect guarantee. All you have to look at to understand that is take a look at the incredibly incompetent RF systems put in place at a very large number of radio stations by the system designers, and further, at the incredibly incompetent rules and regulations the engineers at the FCC have put in place both to specify the requirements, and to validate the results of said designs. Oh, and WRT RFI as well. (The idiots at the FCC decided that high speed networking over power lines (BPL) was a reasonable idea. In the realm of undertakings that clearly show government licensed engineers up as complete buffoons, that is surely in the running for number one.)

It is perfectly valid to say that professional software types aren't "licensed engineers." But that in no way is the same thing as saying that software engineers aren't engineers at all. Or that they aren't professionals. They are quite often both. And within that context, there are good ones, bad ones, terrific ones, utterly incompetent ones - but still engineers, doing engineering.

Re:Quite aside from the SJW issues:

[Crashmarik]

3) Work done by an engineer.

This is a tautology, You fail whatever they are calling discrete math for computer science these days.

1) That branch of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of engines, machines, and structures.

You have just described everyone with a drivers license as an engineer.

2) The action of working artfully to bring something about.

Really ? Love the engineering work done by Kandinsky and Pollock, also have to complement the guy who laid down the bricks for my home.

Don't bother watching the video

[dskoll]

This was actually my first Slashdot TV video. And it'll be my last. The interviewer's an absolute idiot. Kept asking the same question over and over again.

Thanks for four minutes of my life I'll never get back. And no, I had to stop at the four-minute mark.

Re:Just "write good code", eh?

[kuzb]

No they do not. This is complete bullshit. Code is code. It's either, good, or it isn't. If you stop running around like a chicken with your head cut off long enough to actually listen to women in tech, the vast majority do not actually encounter these imaginary issues you think are so rampant.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Eric Raymond is completely delusional. Have you seen this guy? He basically embodies the 'internet tough guy' type - a physically 'questionable' specimen to say the least, who sees himself as a martial arts expert, gun expert, etc., etc. Literally the nerd in the room that any other nerd could beat up - but an 'ALPHA MALE' in his own mind. Can we agree to consign him to an embarrassing irrelevance, and not try to wedge him into a report like this one please?

Re:WTF

[serviscope_minor]

No-one has ever presented any actual evidence of this problem, and Linus has not said anything about needing a constant guard at conferences.

Not only that, but ESR rants about Kafkatraps. He then claims that if Linus says nothing or denies it, it's a problem. Of course if Linus says it's a problem then it's a problem. IOW there's nothing in ERS's mind that Linus could say to convince ESR that no such thing has happened.

Kafatrap indeed.

Also, Linus is famous. IME famous people are hounded continuously at conferences by people who want to ask them stuff. It would not surprise me that he's never alone at a conference.