…Ally, not Alley? Also…whither the NY urban gropepunkovore? You mean State Senate Democrats and City DAs made a thing and there’s n more HR posters to find space for, but it’s good stuff?
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I agree with you.
The problem is that there are tons of problems trying to get young women involved in STEM fields. Girls read these articles when they are forming their opinions of what they want to be when they grow up, and decide against CS or STEM because they don’t feel welcomed.
And I want to let any 12 year old girls out there reading this know that there are places now where they are welcome, that STEM careers are awesome, and that if that’s what they love they should totally go for it!
And I pray that by the time they are a 21 year old college graduate, these jerkwads are just a sad history that we gloss over.
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No doubt, no jobs no harassment or discrimination, works for me.
Did you suffer a head injury?
Heck, I never made it past college on the comp sci path, but even as a white dude from a middle-class background I met some resistance. I was just some dumb ol’ kid from the sticks. Nevermind that none of the frat boy dudebros could write portable C or C++, I was the idiot.
Well, last laugh was on me because I sucked at math, and circumstances stood in the way of tutor sessions. So that’s why I still live in the sticks.
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Objection: assumes poster in question has a head to injure.
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Well I thought I did for a couple of minutes; but Silicon Ally sounds like a good organization to have that doesn’t much look up, so with apologies for not adding MathJax to the n midsentence above, please explain how Santa Clara or Irving, TX could better chew its breakfast VCs and make equitable use of what’s otherwise civil forfeiture. Maybe a 3 word cue? That’s good pride but NYMag.com got distracted by pepper-frying Roger Ailles late.
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Sounds good, but we’re all a bit tetchy this year, so that often gets missed by the library committee. It’s really a fool’s errand for you try to present a convincing counter in the UK. And anyway, I think it’s a lifelong thing from when Mum used to carry them out for the confusion factor, you know? Better to be great and hear about concrete steps towards less acceptable levels of repressive abuse.
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There’s something about beta-male there, sorry about the toxic work place btw, at least we are getting past that now, since math/science heavy workplaces are starting to take women into account now in such a short period of time
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As someone with a lifelong existence in Network, Systems, or Security Administration (from the age of seventeen no less, I can say, unequivocally, that the bias against “different” (gender, race, etc.) is real and extremely disheartening.
IMHO, it comes from an “us vs them” philosophy that grew from “nerd culture” being “computers” then expanding outwards as the Internet exploded and it was suddenly acceptable to be a “geek”. Once the butt of jokes, now not - so that culture - which to that point had been mostly male, mostly western (here, anyway) became something to protect.
In the 90’s, I distinctly remember the “gang” of us making fun of the lone female tech support agent. I’d love to say I found something wrong with it back then, but I really didn’t - she “didn’t belong” and looking back I shake my head at my naivete on the matter. Even ten years later, I listened to subordinates discuss how “bad” female coders were - the difference was, I had come to recognize the toxicity of that culture (and the utter inaccuracy of it), grown up, and quickly put an end to that type of discrimination where I was directly able to.
That didn’t stop open disdain for our female CEO or, clearly, a different standard being set for her than our prior male one.
Twenty years on from joking about that female rep, I’ve worked for organizations that prioritize equality and tolerance, but more importantly discovered, learnt from, and mentored exceptional female admins, listened to their stories, and made it my own personal mission to remove the vestiges of that male-only culture wherever I can. I know I am not alone, but I also know that orgs with less enlightened managers perpetuate the stereotypes of two decades ago, and on behalf of those individuals who have yet to wake up - I’m sorry that this career path is so full of misogynistic nonsense - still. But yes, it is getting better as more enlightened management moves up the ranks, and I have no doubt female engineers and admins have a much greater chance of both finding employment in orgs that strive for equality, and in finding management much more sympathetic to discrimination and assault now than at any time in the past in our vocation. There’s so much more to do, but there is change about.
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After a year on the job at a start-up, I looked up who our board of directors (all male) work for and with. The Riverwood Capital team doesn’t stand out. 19 males. WTF. I’ll talk to our CEO about this, but the answer will be that they raise capital (and hire talent) where they can find it.
Part of that is a chicken/egg problem - because women were being passed over for promotions or recognition, this meant weaker resumes and references, which meant less opportunity, especially at the higher end of the job ladder.
Because management tends to be risk-adverse, hiring anyone into management hoping they will “grow into” the position is less likely, let alone individuals who might suffer from conscious/unconscious hiring bias.
I worked with our last HR team to implement blind hiring (essentially taking names off of resumes and having HR do initial screenings to help with unconscious bias, but that doesn’t solve the past issue of less higher-end opportunities for those who were subject to advancement bias, unfortunately.
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I wonder would it help for women to submit CVs without gender identifying details, e.g. use initials instead of full names, obviously like with blind CV screenings, this would only help get past the first level of unconscious bias, everyone needs to be interviewed at some point (and won’t do anything to get past conscious bias), but that by itself might be enough to make some difference. I’d be in favour of regulations forcing companies above a certain size implementing such blind screenings as well, wonder has anyone implemented that, or is attempting to?
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Looks like some have:
BBC and HSBC being two big names.
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Along with most (all?) major orchestras.
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Wow! Awesome! I had no idea, that’s very cool!
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Yes, cool indeed.
Though it says a lot of course that the basic premise hasn’t caught on more generally.
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It’s something so deeply ingrained in our society that you can only do your best to listen and try to understand. I’ve felt like a Jack Ass quite a bit too.
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