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."
What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:4, Insightful)
You want a cease fire? Fine. start playing fair with us and we might play fair with you.
Culture is as culture does (Score:5, Insightful)
I find fault with this statement (Score:4, Insightful)
Being male or female neither enables nor disables the ability to create harmonious systems.
Personality, not gender. (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, he does kind of skip over the other professions that also discriminate against women. How about the military?
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:5, Insightful)
i'm confused (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't get it. is the task of writing papers inherently biased against women?
Score! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, if you don't complement her on something that she is wearing when you first see her, she correctly concludes that you will have no future interest in a number of other silly things that are important to her. ( This, BTW, save you both a lot of heartache. Trust me on this. Go for the women that like using their brains. )
Geek culture is the same way. The stupid jokes weed out people who won't make good engineers.
I read TFA. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is news? A fairly closed off and socially inept social subgroup can turn off normal people from wanting to be a part of it?
Where are the tears for average guys looking to educate themselves receiving derision from holier-than-thou geeks? This isn't so much a gender issue as it is a problem endemic to geek culture: Perceived superiority due to an established knowledge base. You see the same behavior from informed body-builders, laughing at skinny people who express an interest in exercise but don't know where to start.
Men and women (Score:5, Insightful)
There is meaningful bias against females in parts of tech culture. There is also meaningful bias against geeks in parts of female culture, as gurps_npc notes. Doesn't excuse either bias. Gets into philosophical hierarchy/expectation/etc issues I suppose.
Some of the worst cases of anti-female bias I've seen have been driven by other females. I'm not sure what that means.
Men and women are socialized significantly differently.
Men and women are biologically different. There is meaningful evidence that men are simply drawn more strongly to technology (I'll phrase it in terms of interest, rather than aptitude, but that's another variable we should consider). Since men and women *are* different, we shouldn't necessarily expect males and females to be present in equal numbers in technology fields. But we shouldn't use sex differences as an excuse for anti-female biases.
We'd all benefit if participation in tech fields (as well as the rest of society) was wholly meritocratic. It's definitely not right now. I believe females do tend to get unfairly marginalized by some parts of tech culture.
I thought this [fsu.edu] was an interesting take on sex differences, which could perhaps be applied to explore differences of participation in technology fields.
You can't separate the two completely. (Score:4, Insightful)
Males are more likely to take risks and indulge in competition (testosterone does that). It's just a fact of life.
I don't know if that behaviour is linked to liklihood to be good at software/IT, but it's a perfectly valid example of a personality difference between the genders.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Culture is as culture does (Score:4, Insightful)
See the book Unlocking the Clubhouse [barnesandnoble.com] for real-life experiences of hundreds of students at the highly competitive CMU. There are many obstacles, none a deal breaker in itself, but it adds up to the death of a thousand cuts.
CMU's CS program lost many hard-working enthusiasts, for a variety of reasons, mostly cultural.
Yeah, so stop saying biased things yourself (Score:2, Insightful)
Berners-Lee said that a culture that avoided alienating women would attract more female programmers, which could lead to greater harmony of systems design. "If there were more women involved we could move towards interoperability. We have to change at every level," he said.
That seems like an awfully stereotypical and biased view of female programmers on the part of Tim Berners-Lee.
Re:You can't separate the two completely. (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't understand statistics, apparently. Just because your step-daugher is the exception to the rule, does not make her the rule. In general, males are more likely to take risks and indulge competition. For ever fragging step-daugher out there, there exists 100 step-daughers playing with their barbie dolls and EzBake ovens. (I know. I have a lot of cousins).
Re:I think women are better than that (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Culture is as culture does (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Lots of time taken up by emergencies, on-call, etc.
2. Getting down and dirty: pulling wire, moving equipment, etc
3. Never having a typical office job.
4. Limited opportunities for growth.
What women would want this? Women in general are more social than men and more concerned about status and looks. IT is the worst place for them. I know women who are just chomping at the bit to leave the field because no one told them this. The PC types just wave their hands and say "EVERYONE IS 100% THE SAME!!" That advice has lead to so many people unhappy with their jobs. TBL tellng people the problem is sexism isnt helping either. Explaining the realities of the job should be the #1 priority for people on the fence about getting into geeky careers.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? I'd contend that pasty female geeks with no fashion sense fit right in. The pastier and geekier the less resistance they experience.
Its the pretty people that face the obstacles. But those are the same obstacles us pasty geeks (male and female) with no fashion sense run into when we try to get jobs that favour the beautiful people. How often do you see a pasty geek hosting a restaurant? Anchoring a news team? Modeling swimwear?
I'm not saying its right, and I agree it should be changed, but its a bigger problem than just the 'geeks reject women'. Its that discrimination still occurs at all levels and between all segments of society.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:5, Insightful)
To wit: the difference between a stupid sexist joke and a stupid geek joke is that the stupid geek joke is funny even with the genders reversed.
An engineer, who has spent the evening out, is caught by his wife trying to sneak into his house early the next morning. Saying that he has something to confess, he tells of meeting a woman in a bar, drinking too much and winding up going home with her.
"You shit," his wife screams, "you've been working late in the lab again!"
Anyone who thinks that's a "sexist" joke isn't a good engineer, because they've never experienced a problem so engrossing that they'll spend all night trying to solve it. An engineer (well, one lucky enough to get the opportunity!) might feel guilty about cheating on his/her spouse... but never about spending a night at the lab!
Re:Biology or Bias? (Score:2, Insightful)
Bullshit.
Research has shown that when a women shows the same behavior that is supposedly prized in men, than she's labeled a "bitch" and the like, and continues to be on the receiving end of discrimination, just of a different sort. The actions are the same, they're just perceived differently because of who they're coming from. Apparently, So as a result, it's damned it you do, damned if you don't.
Re:Culture is as culture does (Score:5, Insightful)
Does it really require a certain type of personality? I'm a very capable female computer engineer, however, due to my emotionality, and my passive nature, I get stomped on at work, and treated extremely poorly.
The one other female in our group (of 20-30 people) doesn't really see any discrimination against us, but she's quite a bit of a tomboy, and she's willing to tell people to just shut up, and take a back seat. When I do that, I'm told by my boss that I'm demanding. When I explain failures and root causes, I'm told that I'm blaming.
While it's true that the IT culture is primarily based around the idea of Asperger's Syndrome being the ideal engineer, it should not discriminate against people who do not hold to that ideal, while still being very capable, and intelligent people. Just because someone doesn't work the way you're expecting them to work, doesn't mean that you should tell them that they don't deserve to be there.
Re:I feel it all the time (Score:5, Insightful)
Join the club. I get the same feeling. But is it just paranoia? Do you know why or do you just assume its because you're a woman? We have many women at my work place, and they are treated the same as male coworkers. In my case, its because of who I was associate with, my initial work at the company, and my relative lack of experience. Plus I talked too much and listened too little. If you think you're hot shit and show it, then likely people aren't going to take you seriously, male or female.
Welcome to the reality of office politics. This happens to men just as much. Opportunists will take advantage of your work to promote themselves. They're in every office, and you have to deal with it. Happens in my office, and in pretty much every large group I've been in. Its not a male or female thing. Why should you be any different than the males that don't get credit for their work?
Doing something like that is very hard to do without comming across like a snob, whether you're male or female. I've done the same thing, and its come across very poorly. You have to be political. What you've told me here is not indicative of a sex thing.
Furthermore, could it be that they actually did help on it, and you're trying to remove credit from them?
If I came to work wearing a suit and tie I'd get wierd comments to. People would either think I was looking for a job on the side, or they'd joke around with me about it. Why do you assume they're making fun of you? And if they are "making fun of you," why do you assume its malicious instead of gentle ribbing?
I haven't seen any women at my office have problems. They're all very cool and part of the team. But they also know how to be political, and recognize the political games for what they are instead of sexism. They don't get defensive when people rib them, and they give ribbings back. They don't automatically assume sexism.
Now, I don't know anything about you, or your work environment, so I may be talking out of my ass. But the fact of the matter is that your post seems to indicate that you expect a certain behavior and if you don't get that, you assume sexism. Maybe its really just the culture not matching your expectations? You can't expect the office to revolve around you.
Re:Dumb article (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice that your experience is not the norm.
However, the [non-existent] article does indicate some fairly widespread truths. I personally haven't experienced that at any company I've worked for...but I think that is because most programming and IT work is actually done as part of the bigger picture, part of a company that has lots of departments and areas where there is not such typical gender isolation.
Saying that though...ever been through your typical game company? I've spent a fair bit of time at a couple...and Oh My God. Sorry, but the stereotype is completely accurate, if not greatly understated. You do NOT want to be a woman there unless your skin is VERY thick. It's disgusting really.
But wait! Don't freak on me yet as I know some want to...
It's not limited to IT at all. It's been around a lot longer than that. Construction? Factory work? Armed forces? On and on and on. When men spend most of their time isolated with other men, they develop environments that are not very friendly towards women all too often. There is nothing special about 'male geeks acting stupid', men in general do just fine on that front across the board.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:5, Insightful)
The resistance that they experience is not actually in the IT field, I would agree that the IT field is much more open-armed for pastier and geekier women.
However, the resistance comes from the external world. At this point in our culture, it's simply unacceptable for a female to be pasty and geeky. They face enormous discrimination and social resistance in general than they gain as a benefit by being more accepted in the IT industry.
Example in point: The guys at my college would tease this one girl beind her back because she smelled poorly. Now, there are A LOT of guys that smelled worse than her, but to them, she was "stinky girl". They didn't call anyone else "stinky boy" or anything like that. They targetted her, for failing to sustain the essential fundamental stereotype of women in our culture... that they need to be fashion oriented, pretty, and smell wonderfully.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather, the "intelligent" and well-educated male contingent should be taking steps that the "rest" of male culture does not; lead by example... don't follow whenever you feel the tide shifting.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:4, Insightful)
Please try to respond to what I wrote, not what your twisted, brain would prefer to think that I wrote.
There are LOTS of women out there that are tired of being forced to wear high heels, and other crap that FASHIONISTA WOMEN (not geek men) pretty much force them to wear. Lets be honest here, geek men will hire and even date a women that has no make up, wearing ugly, comfortable shoes, just because she is smart. But moronic pretty women pretty much make it impossible for a women to get anywhere in life unless she conforms to the FASHIONISTA ideal, wearing the right clothing etc. etc.
Re:Dumb article (Score:3, Insightful)
You just supplied evidence that his solution would work.
I work as a software developer, and being female, I'm *VASTLY* in the minority. We have 2 women, and 20-30 min on my team, and well, I don't know if they act stupid or not, but they certainly aren't accomodating of femininity in general.
I would say most teams here have at most 10% women...
I haven't seen women discriminated against (Score:4, Insightful)
There were a million programs at my school to attract women to CS - They have their own special program as part of the college, study groups, sorority, scholarships, special counselors, whatever. There were still only ever one or two in a given class.
I don't think any women applied for my current job when it opened.
At my last job, I worked with two women programmers - one was competent and taken completely seriously by the team. The other my supervisor (also a woman) admitted to me was a worse programmer after years of experience than I was after a semester of interning. But even she was taken as seriously as she presented herself.
I'm sure the bias exists in some people.. but for the most part I don't this massive group of women wanting to go into IT and being pushed out of it by chauvinist guys. The schools are practically begging women to sign up.
I see a lot more women who just plain aren't interested in computers and never were. I know one who started in CS but was't really into it, and wanted to hang out with more girls and less nerdy guys (although the same girl married a CS grad - go figure).
And this at a school where the engineering department in general at least has a decent-sized minority of women in it.
I think CS still has a very large "hacker" or "hobbyist" culture associated with it - my wife admits to being intimidated by how much the other freshman knew when she first started - she wasn't sure she belonged not because anyone treated her poorly, but just because they knew so much more than she did at first. Most guys going into CS started building systems when they were in high school. Most girls... never did that.
Re:I find fault with this statement (Score:2, Insightful)
I can support that statement
Desert Storm was the American military's first large-scale experience with battlefield sex integration; and the current Iraq deployments extend this integration another order of magnitude.
The females that were there to be Marines were marines. Some of the cave-men in uniform gave them a lot of grief, but they performed as marines, and were respected and recognized for their contributions to the mission.
In contrast, the females that were there to be women marines, were less than marines. And upon these 'women marines' returned stateside, they were typically encouraged to seek employment elsewhere (i.e., less than RE1A re-enlistment code).
And I have observed similar qualities in civilian technical fields. I have worked in both hardware and software development, and have worked on the manufacturing floor, and have worked in IT farms, and have worked in the education system (ugh).
If the people that are there with a job title of engineer/programmer/technician are there because they want to be a technologist, then 'the system' seems to have minimal concern if that person is green or purple or whatever. If the person is there as a hyphenated-American, or as a representative of their sex or religion or culture, AND if they see technology is secondary, then 'the system' will not treat them kindly.
Re:Culture is as culture does (Score:5, Insightful)
The discussion that needs to be had is not "Why aren't women as good at science, math, and technology as men are?", which is based on the faulty assumption that men and women are vastly different in capability, but rather "Why aren't women as interested in science, math, and technology as men are?".
A lot of arrogant male geeks will knee-jerk respond "because they're not as good at it!", but that really cuts to the heart of the bad argument here. There are plenty of people who pile into fields that they're not good at, because they want to be in that industry. People have to suffer all sorts of idiots every day in the industries in which they work. People don't have to be good at something to be attracted to it.
Why is it that women aren't interested in being in IT? (Male hostility is clearly a factor as every slashdot thread on sexism proves).
Tech is competitive. Come to play hard or go home! (Score:1, Insightful)
The other thing to remember is that, for the most part, a lot of tech is open to anyone. If you have a good idea you can base a company around it. We have numerous examples of this. If your product or service is good people will pay you for it no matter what your sex is. No one is stopping women from creating their own culture, their own companies, their own way of doing things, etc.
This is the problem with the Myth of Exclusion. For some reason one group of people carry the onus of creating and maintaining the so called exclusionary group. Yet when supposedly faced with exclusion others will choose to complain or sit on their hands. This is the totally wrong way to look at things. If you perceive exclusion then go around it and create your opportunity.
Re:I feel it all the time (Score:3, Insightful)
And there you have it in a nut shell. But it may not be exactly what you think.
I recall that at Purdue, they went through one of the periodic sensitivity manias, and found that male profs were getting more money on average than female, and female profs were, on average, remaining at the associate (pre-tenure) level longer than males (this caused the first finding, of course).
The reason for this was not discrimination, but the fact that men who were denied tenure typically left no later than the end of the academic year, while females who were denied tenure typically remained for the remainder of their contracts, often several years. This meant that a higher percentage of the female profs were lower-paid associates than were the males, even though the males and females were denied tenure at roughly the same rate.[1] A very different behavior pattern produced very different average results to the same stimulus.
How does this relate to you? Your co-workers and bosses may have learned that they can steal your credit, deny your raises, and you'll stick around anyway, unlike your male co-workers. If that's true, they're treating you differently than the men, but only because you are different than the men: you'll put up with it, and they won't.
Ask yourself this: do your cow-orkers and bosses have reason to believe that you value security and hate change more than most of your co-workers?
Or maybe you're just lousy at tooting your own horn.
[1] If the study had found any evidence of discrimination, such as higher tenure denial rates for females or lower interview rates for female candidates, they would have trumpeted it to the skies. They didn't, because the departments had all learned to ensure that they were statistically clean, in anticipation of these Maoist self-criticism sessions.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:3, Insightful)
And there's an example of my complaint. I discriminate against anyone with poor personal hygiene; I get labeled sexist when the stinky person happens to be a female. Makes it really hard to take sexism accusations seriously.
You won't see me complaining about males or females being stinky though, because I have enough say over my life to avoid both.
Re:Dumb article (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this a stupid male idea? It is quite common for my wife to come to me the day after her period and apologize for being insane for the past few days. Sometimes she even comes to her senses sooner and apologizes in the middle of an argument for acting insane because its that time of the month.
Any man who doesnt give a woman on her period a little space sometimes is just asking for a problem. I would say a better stupid male idea would be:
9) Why should I have to give a woman a break just because its that time of the month?
10- If a male manager/supervisor is mad at me I must have screwed up. If a female manager is mad at me it's PMS.
Now that is a valid stupid male idea.
Well... given the fact I happen to be transgender (Score:3, Insightful)
- You are male
- You are aggressive and proactive
- You speak loudly, clearly, and fluently
- You speak and offer your suggestions without prompting
- You bring a previously unmentioned idea or approach to the conversation
- You only need to be told something once
- Your last project was successful
- You are unwavering in your opinion or suggestion
- You can recover from mistakes gracefully and tactfully
- You are not a whipping boy
- You have previous work credentials
- You have academic credentials
The more of those attributes you have and the more that are lower numbers, the higher your perceived value is going to be.Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? Maybe this is why I don't get fashion, but when I go by all those fancy clothing stores I just see what appears to be kitsch, only instead of being free kitsch it's $50 kitsch. It seems to me like the new fashion trend is to pay a lot of money to look disheveled, jeans with dirt and holes already in them, tons of clothes that seem to be just slapped together called an outfit etc. What I don't get is why someone who pays $300 to look disheveled is so much better looking than someone who pays $3......but I guess I'm just a clueless geek trying apply analytical thinking to fashion instead of just blindly consuming because someone with a lot more money is telling me to.
Do real programmers like "geek" culture? (Score:3, Insightful)
I am not sure about the premise here. Do real programmers, the hackers in the old sense, like the "geek culture" of today? I can't say that I like it, or even pay attention to it. Geeks seem to be more into buying gadgets as soon as they come out and playing games than actually using and understanding software design and computer science the way the real hackers of old did. Do modern geeks produce anything like Emacs, LISP, UNIX, etc? Or do they just buy products? (I'm not sure exactly what the definition of "stupid" is, anyway.) If this is true, then even getting rid of male geek culture probably wouldn't increase the total number of programmers, since they are not contributing towards it in the first place. Maybe I don't know what a geek is. Do the creators of Linux, Python, Ruby, etc (where the real innovation is) call themselves geeks?
And wouldn't it be a survival mechanism to alienate people smarter than you so they don't compete in your arena? Sounds like survival of the fittest at work.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're wrong in thinking jokes like this are completely innocuous. Sending the message that "good" engineers are the ones who'll stay all night is exactly what keeps people who value life balance out of fields like engineering. Such a culture doesn't just tend to exclude women, but also people from non-anglo cultures that value family.
If you're a really a good engineer, perhaps you don't need to stay all night. Perhaps you can manage your time, estimate things well, or perhaps you can just solve solve the problems that take other people sixteen hours in only four. Perhaps you recognize that going out and being in the world, doing other things will give your subconscious a chance to chip away at the problem. Perhaps you realize that taking a shower and being fresh for tomorrow's big presentation is much more important than doing one more tweak to the already working prototype.
A culture that projects a limited idea of kinds of people that might make good engineers needlessly turns away good engineers who don't fit the mold. You also risk creating a monoculture that will never even think of the best designs.
Re:Culture is as culture does (Score:4, Insightful)
The best results are not found by being overly shy or overly forward. There's a middle ground that has to be found and stayed in. You really think people don't call your friend a bitch behind her back? Your really think a guy doing the same doesn't get called an asshole? Maybe the asshole gets it said to his face, but that's because guys are trained not to hit girls, and calling someone names to their face is a great start for a fistfight. You'd best be prepared to swing if you do it.
I'm a shy person, too. I get the respect I deserve by fixing things nobody else is able to. I just sit there quietly and do my job. When I've got a solution, I do it or speak up so someone else can. You'll never hear me say 'X didn't set Y up properly, so it broke.' Instead, you'll get 'Y wasn't working, and I fixed it. It should be okay now.' There's a huge difference between explaining the problem and assigning blame.
-Everyone- in IT has to prove themselves. Women think they are being treated different and they aren't. They start with the same onus everyone else does. It's what you do from there that matters. If you get emotional about it, you'll make a huge scene and get yelled at. If you quietly do your job (or loudly do it, for that matter) and do a good job, you'll get the respect you deserve. It's that simple. I've been at this company for 2 years and they are still learning what I'm capable of. Simply holding out a resume doesn't mean anyone believes a single word on it. You have to prove the knowledge.
Re:There is a big difference between XX and XY (Score:3, Insightful)
So, take a trip into this though experiment -- it's 12,000 years ago. Humanity lives in tribes. Yes, bigmen ( and that is a technical term in anthropology ) can afford 2 or 3 wives, but they have trouble taking care of them and all of their offspring, and also making sure that their 15-year-old brides aren't sleeping with other 15-year-old lovers when they're in their eighties. Let's say that 10%-20% of men never produced a child. Then, cities and civilization spring up. God-Kings have harems of thousands of women, guarded by eunuchs. Terrible despots like Genghis Khan sweep over whole continents, killing male children and raping thousands of women. Tyrant Kings like Herod order the death of all male infants. Whole societies go to war against their enemies, and kill every man, woman, and child. Suddenly, in a few thousand years, the representation of male ancestors in the population goes from 80% to 60%, on account of a few dozen tyrants.
So yes, currently, only 60% of male ancestors are represented in the current population. But that doesn't mean that 40% of men never had an offspring.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:4, Insightful)
> exactly what keeps people who value life balance out of fields like engineering
The word you're looking for is "capitalism".
I'll leave it up to you to judge whether that's a good or bad thing.
Re:Culture is as culture does (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody is saying that females do not deserve to be in IT. What is being said is that males should change so that females feel more welcome. I'm not really inclined to agree to this however. I think you could learn a lot from your co-worker. It sounds like she has met the men at least half way.
If you are branded as a complainer it is probably because your approach to raising issues is not all that great. It's something I have had to spend a lot of time working on myself. It may be a gender thing but expecting your manager (or whoever you are criticizing) to change is not going to work. You need to develop your skills at office politics. Knowing how men think and exploiting that rather than feeling that they need to change to suit you would be far more productive.
As to your emotionality and passivity I think that could be a disastrous combination if you get emotional and than back down. It would leave a group of men wondering what all the fuss was about if you don't feel strongly enough to stand behind what you say. They would learn to expect this from you and start to get dismissive as an expedient. Just my thoughts on that.
Kind Regards
I'm sorry, but I've grown quite tired of you (Score:3, Insightful)
And women don't do that? They don't talk about the size of men's dicks, or who has a nice ass, or their periods, or yeast infections? Please...
I was a school teacher surrounded by women, in very much the same position that you are now. Go ahead and TRY to tell me that doesn't happen, so you can lose what little credibility you have left.
You're calling men out for behavior that is ubiquitous, that being, when with a group of like minded people, you lower your guard and discuss more intimate subjects.
You're acting like normal human behavior is discrimination, because you WANT it to be. That's on you, not the (seemingly normal) people you work with.
Re:Culture is as culture does (Score:3, Insightful)
I am a great programmer, and I've debugged and solved the craziest of issues. My boss hasn't fired me precisely because I'm such a valuable asset. Just he has an issue with how I go about solving problems, and working.
I don't work huddled in my office fixing stuff. When there is a problem, I raise it up, and see if someone else is more qualified to take the issue on. This worked great in Open Source, where I was very well respected, but it's punished here in the corporate world, because of the natural biased that this culture at this company has.
Your attitude of "nothing is wrong with it, so I'm not going to fix it" is precisely the problem. You have your head far too up your ass to even recognize that anything is wrong. People work in different ways, and the Asperger-esque bullshit ideal that everyone has about the IT industry is STUPID, and exactly what Berners-Lee is talking about.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've not met a good engineer that this doesn't happen to once in a while. You get so into what your doing that you don't want to put it down. I'm a family man myself. If I'm into something I'll go home, have some dinner and play with the kids and then right when they go to bed I'm on my laptop back working. Not because I have to but because its interesting. Too bad that I haven't had a project like that for a while but someday one will come around again.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a good idea! If you had a little flag (or better yet: How I'm Feeling Flash Cards!) you waved every time we were were getting somewhere it would be really helpful.
Re:Article thin on details (Score:3, Insightful)
There are differences. Men are built to take what we want. The better of us don't do it. But every woman knows someone, if they have not themselves, been victimized physically by a man. Period.
Everyone staring at a woman is not just childish.. it's threatening, in a very real sense. Just because we haven't been trained as men not to do it doesn't make it ok.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not saying its right, and I agree it should be changed, but its a bigger problem than just the 'geeks reject women'. Its that discrimination still occurs at all levels and between all segments of society.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever you experience that you think is discrimination, most of it ISN'T. And yes, some of it is. Most of the time, just pick yourself up and realize that there are idiots in the world, and you can't fix them.
Everyone who is genuinely discriminated against has equal right to do something about it. This is true to the degree of discrimination. To suggest otherwise is both stupid, and tears at the fabric of society.
To borrow from your example: Two men are trying to get into different colleges. One is white trying to get into a black college, and the other is black trying to get into a white college. Both are denied, and both have EQUAL right to act/complain. Why equal? Because the white college is guilty of NOTHING other than denying a black student (_assuming_ it is racism). The college is NOT guilty of any other discrimination that black student has suffered. If you do not hold to this truth, then you are guilty of misplacing blame. Nor is the white student guilty of anything.
Please give us some sanity!
Unintentionally insightful tagging (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:1, Insightful)
Focus and intensity - keeping on task, not reading slashdot when you should work - these are what increase your output. Lots of extra hours at your desk per week isn't it - unless you're charging by the hour and your client will pay for 12 hour days, in which case your client is the stupid one. There are lots of studies on this stuff: if you want to be a capitalist I'd recommend you hit the books and read some.
I'm a successful capitalist: a partner in a little firm that builds systems for financial derivatives, which pays very nicely. We take 8 weeks leave a year, we don't work nights or weekends (except occasionally, if some interesting problem really needs solving or some small crisis has blown up). We are very happy, we expect to retain our staff well, and we are very, very productive because when we work, we work.
Working a lot of late nights means a failure in project management - any senior manager who finds his staff are doing that should be very concerned and starting seeking the scalp of whatever middle-manager is at fault.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait a min (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:4, Insightful)
That is like saying, Oh, the poor white man, "
Specious analogy. Despite what mass media would have you to believe, no woman is born beautiful, at least not in the mass-market sense. As feminists have been saying for decades, we're being sold only one particular body image for women that we define as beautiful, and the overwhelming majority of women that apparently meet that image did so only after a good deal of hard work, with the emotional (and, with the advent of plastic surgery, physical) scars to prove it.
If they do get "most of the perks," it is not by accident of birth but by hard work. You may personally disagree with that which they dedicate their work towards (i. e. their looks rather than their mathematical skills), but it is work nonetheless.
"Pretty women have the UNFAIR ADVANTAGE in most of the general envirionment"
It's only unfair if most people are wholly incapable of taking advantage of it. You yourself would have access to similar perks if you, for example, looked like an underwear model. But you don't try to look like one. Heck, too many male geeks seem to have trouble trying to simply bathe regularly. But simply because you choose to focus on other aspects of your life more than your physical appearance doesn't mean that everybody is making the same value judgment as you; pretty girls don't "just happen" to be skinnier than you, rather they focus on dieting where you would focus on coding, to the same (if not greater) degree.
Have you even so much as glanced at the beauty aid aisles in your local drug store and marveled at the bewildering array of options that a person seriously concerned with their physical appearance has to be knowledgeable about and sort through? Show me someone that has better-than-average looks and I'll show you someone with a veritable chemical weapons laboratory in their home.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because some women work to keep other women down doesn't mean it's cool, in the same way that black-on-black crime doesn't justify the Klan.
Put differently, right and wrong as concepts don't depend on your gender.
Re:What about stupid fashinista culture? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dumb article (Score:4, Insightful)
This is perfectly natural behaviour for a man. I will assume that I am superior and will take charge right away. Any evidence that corroborates this assumption will quickly solidify my position. If you disagree then it is up to you to challenge me.
I use vim; see item 2.
6- Failure to do 80h works weeks is a sign of insufficient work ethic. No matter how much more you actually do during your piddly 40h week.
I secretly wish I had that life and will therefore attack you for bringing attention to this.
Fortunately women only menstruate approximately once per month. Us poor men are saddled with more constant insanity inducing biological quirks. For example, simply catching a glimpse of a well-formed pair of breasts can instantly wipe our short-term memory and cause a temporary double-digit drop in our IQ plus all sorts of almost random insanity.
This has nothing at all to do with the 'real world'. I am going to defend my position in the pecking order whether or not I have any valid arguments.
Now; it is 8pm on a friday night so I am going to play some LAN games then reboot into linux and then get back to work. (seriously)
I now declare myself winnar of this thread!!
Bow down before your geeky overlord!
Stupid male geek culture at Slashdot too (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Culture is as culture does (Score:5, Insightful)
Your problem is not that you're female, you even said it yourself: It's how you go about fixing things. Maybe if you did what you boss wants, instead of what you want, you'd be more appreciated. People do work in different ways, and if you can't work the way your boss wants you too, you aren't doing the job he wants. It doesn't matter how 'efficient' you are, or how much you do. If your boss isn't happy, he isn't happy! If you want raises and recognition, keep the boss happy.
If you can't work like they want, you can't do the job they want. You've made the mistake of thinking your job is something other than the company does. It's not. Forget all that crap that was on the paper you signed. Forget whatever they told you on the first day, forget whatever they told you in school. Your job is to make your boss, and the company, happy. Until you understand that you will continue to be underpaid and 'underappreciated'.
If you can find an office that only cares about getting the job done, and not how... Go there. You'll be a hell of a lot happier. But those places are few and far between, and if you DO find one, pray that there's no management changes.
This is the real world. People pay for what they want, not what you want to give them. It doesn't matter that it's better for them, or that you can save them a ton of money. If you don't give them what they want, they won't be happy. Feel free to give them more, but do it in the way they want.
Re:Culture is as culture does (Score:3, Insightful)
What's your rapport with the other people you work with? I'm wondering if the other female you referred to makes an effort to be "one of the guys" and is thus accepted into the group more than you perhaps are.
Part of being a male is abusing your male companions. We punch each other in the shoulder, use obscene names and belittle for the silliest reasons. We think it's funny when someone gets (mildly) hurt. Men tolerate this from their friends because it's part of belonging to the group; they do not tolerate the same actions from other men that are not in the group.
You can either accept this fact, or fight against it. Imagine a man trying to hang out with a group of girls, if he doesn't make some accomodations for them he probably won't be welcomed. I'm just wondering if the other female's aggressiveness is accepted by the men because she's seen as a member of their group, while the same behavior from you is seen as some girl (outsider) being bitchy. I can understand someone not liking to have to do this, but if you're trying to fit in with a certain group of people that are different from yourself, then you're going to need to make some changes to your own behavior for them.