I back that. My best teachers were those who spent their earlier part of career in real-world labs. Apparently it does wonders for recognizing what’s important and what’s textbook-writers’ (or, more accurately, teaching methodology guidelines’) BS.
I’m confused about what myth you mean here? If I’m misundestanding, please let me know, but it seems like you’re saying that that there isn’t misogyny that keeps women out of various industries? It’s not a myth when lots of people have experienced it and talked about it in a very frank and honest way.
But, at the end of the day, it’s up to her, of course. Maybe she doesn’t care what the industry needs, but more about what SHE needs or her family needs or society needs or any number of other things that she is prioritizing in her life?
I dunno. I do think it might be helpful to open up a dialog with her and find out just precisely why she made this decision, if you want her to work for you. Even if you can’t persuade her, perhaps you can figure out ways to attract more women to the field overall. That might include working to understand the structural issues that keep women out of the field, and it might include asking some tough and probing questions, and looking at your own organization in an honest way with regards to women.
You definitely have my replies mixed up here. Let me quote what I’m referring to:
There’s absolutely misogyny that keeps women out of various industries. Just the stuff I know about among the women in my life is pretty horrifying.
Couple things here.
I feel uncomfortable opening up that dialog with her, for reasons I can’t completely identify. Perhaps that says something about my compartmentalization between work and life, but I’ve usually found that going against that gut feeling for rational reasons doesn’t produce good results. As I mentioned in a previous post, we’re more colleagues with a mutual respect than friends. I like her as a person, and I definitely respect her skills, but I wouldn’t invite her to a soiree.
Although, to be fair, I really miss that brief window of time when everyone at the office was young and uninvolved enough to play Left 4 Dead every night together. 
Also, she would not be working for me, or even with me necessarily, and almost definitely not in the same location. I’m not a manager, just a higher ranking dev, so my advocacy carries weight within the org. I have offered to go to bat for a number of my former coworkers, if they were interested in the parameters of my current company. No takers so far, which is unfortunate.
I have way too much to say here, based on my experiences. I think it’s better than where I’ve worked before, but can’t be sure, in short. I did consulting work for 3 years and change, almost a new place every few weeks, so I’ve worked in a LOT of offices. Those few years were very chaotic, and I would be very interested in hearing from women who did that work on why they got out of it, because I have some unconfirmed theories.
Basically the workforce at my current gig is older and more serious than companies that are closer to tech-startups, so my impression is that it’s more female-friendly. My employment situation is sort of strange, too, in that the very few women I deal with regularly are in India, and we rarely do more than an occasional phone call or instant messages.
Well obviously. Like I say, I’m more feeling out takers than pressuring. The why of it is her business until she wants to chat me up about it. I am not going to drag it out of her. I mentioned that a door was open, for people with her skills, and I did this partly because if she did great things at my company, it would make me look good. It’s utilitarian, but respectful and not sexist.
On second thought, why would you even mention this? Of course everyone has their own personal reasons why they may or may not want to take a job. Why would I pressure her to take a job, just because it’s good for how women are viewed in tech? That’s insane.
Her reasoning is her business, and I respect that, which I’ve already said. I really feel like you’re just skimming my posts for stuff to get outraged about at this point. Either that, or you’re not really reading what I am writing all that closely.
I’m not outraged, at least not with you. You mentioned you’re interested in diversifying your industry, and that’s great.
I mentioned this primarily because you said this:
Well, okay, maybe it’s bad for the industry to lose talent but if she wasn’t feeling comfortable with whatever dynamics she was having to deal with, wouldn’t it have been better for her to get out? Human welfare should always come before profits, yay?
I think that’s fair enough.
I dunno? Do you think that’s true? I think more established companies might pay better lip service to such things and do better on the HR front, but that doesn’t always translate to an office environment that is less sexist. I think it can actually do the opposite at times, where some men feel threatened or annoyed at the constant reminders about sexism, and turn that into a low-level misogyny that is harder to address.
I hope you don’t think I’m calling you sexist, I’m just trying to point out that sexism can exist and you not see it. I’d hope that you’d do all you could to help curb it in your work place. It seems like you care about this stuff, and that’s good, because there are lots of folks who just don’t.
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Agreed, that it doesn’t necessarily. Lots of things can be said and done behind closed doors. From the outside looking in, would you say that a Healthcare company probably is a better bet than a silicon valley tech startup? That is the comparison here. I’m not female so I can’t say for certain, but the men I work with (for the most part) don’t behave like there’s a boy’s club when women aren’t around, unlike other places I’ve worked. Female programmers seem like they are respected, and there’s higher-than-average numbers of women in executive positions (but, yes, still I think less than a 50/50 split).
This is true enough, and I’ve pointed out that my viewpoint is lacking due to the fact that I cannot experience the workplace directly as a woman.
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I agree.
The problem with “those who can, do, those who can’t, teach” is that it inevitably results in a society of people who can’t. One of the best teachers I had was an engineer who retired early. He believed the best thing he could do was spread his knowledge to the students. I happen to believe that too.
Two major drawbacks to working in academia: less money and less actual analysis of real data. The major awesome things about academia: teaching people is the BOMB. It’s fun when I have students who take the materials further than I have and they turn around and teach ME stuff. And the other cool thing about academia is having off terms. You don’t get off terms in industry. You get your vacation time and that’s IT. So, there are goods and bads with everything. One is not superior to the other. It all depends on where you are in life and whatcha wanna do. I’ll probably go back to industry at some point, and then academia again, or a mix. I’m fine in any environs. I bet, back to the OP, that Nina is cool that way, too.
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