Berners-Lee Challenges 'Stupid' Male Geek Culture 693
ZDOne wrote with a link to a ZDNet article discussing some comments made by Tim Berners-Lee on the discrimination women face within 'stupid male geek culture'. The respected developer expressed frustration at a culture that would 'disregard the work of capable female engineers, and put others off entering the profession.' From the article: "'It's a complex problem -- we find bias against women by women. There are bits of male geek culture and engineer culture that are stupid. They should realize that they could be alienating people who are smarter and better engineers,' said Berners-Lee. Engineering research facilities that interview candidates based only on how many papers they have had published also risk adding to the problem, according to Berners-Lee, because of an apparent in-built bias against women."
Article thin on details (Score:5, Informative)
Dumb article (Score:4, Informative)
I work as a software developer, and being male I am the minority. We have 3 men and 7 women on my team, and none of us act stupid. I would say most teams here have at least 50% women.
This sounds like ranting that has no factual basis what-so-ever. Don't bother reading the article, it contains no more info than what is contained in the summary.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:2, Informative)
Women interested in IT face a hostile environment that discourages them from participating. While I'm of the mind that they should grow thicker skin, let's be honest, they're facing a lot more obstacles than you deal with as a pasty male geek with no fashion sense.
Total Anecdote but.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Dumb article (Score:3, Informative)
I think that depends on where you work to a great extent. At my employer, I'm one of only two female programmers in the company. It's been like that pretty much everywhere I've seen.
Re:I think women are better than that (Score:4, Informative)
I have a good friend at work who sometimes repeats to me the horrible conversations that occur between the males at work. They talk at the urinals, they fart and laugh about it infront of each other, they tell each other stories about whatever girls they brought home from the bar, and ugh the worst thing I heard yesterday was my boss likes to go to the strip club and wear thin sweatpants so he can feel everything! (/vomit) He's married w/ a wife and kid. This is the kind of stuff I won't ever be a part of that precludes me from being in the club.
Re:You can't separate the two completely. (Score:1, Informative)
Which explains why a female scientist who had a sex change operation found that after the procedure, when he was interacting with his peers, he would hear people talking about how much more insightful, meaningful, impressive his research was than his "sister's".
Or you know, how men somehow always got those jobs performing in orchestras, because they "played better", until someone came up with the blind audition, at which point the proportion of women getting positions jumped dramatically.
There are boatloads of studies demonstrating that holding all else equal, men are chosen preferentially over women even today. Hence the common belief that a woman has to be twice as good at something before she'll get as much credit as the half as competent man.
It isn't whining to point out that maleness is a huge automatic plus when it comes to people assessing other people's work. It is whining to complain when that fact gets pointed out.
Was anybody at JavaOne? (Score:2, Informative)
OK here it is: (Score:3, Informative)
Even more ominously, [Sandler 1986, page 6] reports:
So if you are submitting a paper for publication to a journal, your peers are likely to think less highly of it if the name on it is female rather than male. That's the bias against women in scientific papers, provided that the department chairs and college students in the study act like peer-reviewers for scientific journals.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:3, Informative)
What you have proposed is a false dichotomy (and a philosophical error) that most people ("Nice Guys") apply to women: they can choose between attractive assholes (corollary: "...and deserve what they get") or unattractive guys who are "nice" (which really only means "inoffensive"). The problem is, this is usually a pretty bitter attitude, and it doesn't imply any additional respect on the part of the Nice Guys (typically, quite the opposite).
The thing to do is not be nice...just be a good guy.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:3, Informative)
What makes you think that the rest of culture hasn't already taken that step? "women of all educational levels from 21 to 30 living in New York City and working full time made 117 percent of men's wages, and even more in Dallas, 120 percent." http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/nyregion/03women.html?hp=&pagewanted=print [nytimes.com] Add to this that most women are promoted faster than men. (They are paid less for the same position but they get the position 5 years earlier, thus earning more than men their same age.) If anything the post gen-X generation (gen-Y?) favors women over men. Men are often portrayed alternatingly as predatory or frivolous in women's literature and television, and are considered extraneous to the family unit by the courts. (except of course for financial support) So when I hear someone bemoaning a patriarchal culture in the US, I think that perhaps want they really want is for women to be superior in the business/tech venues as the overwhelming female superiority in the legal/cultural/family venues is not enough anymore.