> From an early age, Asimov was drawn to the communal aspects of fan culture, but he made it more difficult for women to experience that sense of community. Women have long occupied an ambiguous place in science fiction, where they have been alternately welcomed, dismissed, and harassed...
There's a common refrain heard recently regarding basically any historically male dominated domain, that women are not welcomed or encouraged. This is unfortunately all-too-common in software engineering. As a male software engineer, I feel as though no-one is welcomed or encouraged. I feel as though women are reacting to industries that have always been harsh and unwelcoming and feeling uniquely victimised.
> As a male software engineer, I feel as though no-one is welcomed or encouraged. I feel as though women are reacting to industries that have always been harsh and unwelcoming and feeling uniquely victimised.
Have you ever had someone grab your ass or try to kiss you without consent in a professional context? Ever had a corporate officer seem interested in hiring you, call you in for an interview, ask you on a date, and then decide not to hire you when you rejected them? Ever been told on the first day by a new boss about their open relationship with their spouse, and their search for new sexual partners? Ever had a coworker make an overtly sexist joke about your gender to your face? Ever been propositioned for sex by a stranger at a conference? Ever heard a friend explain that “I would never work for a woman boss. No offense, you’re not like most women.” Ever been denied a new job or a promotion because the decision-maker thought you might have a child within the next few years? Ever been the clear expert or authority in a meeting with multiple people and been repeatedly interrupted by someone asking the clueless novice next to you to explain what you were just trying to say? Ever had a novice badly try to explain the content of your own book to you, even after you mentioned you were the author? Ever gone to speak at an event and had someone ask you which speaker was your spouse? Etc. etc. ad nauseam.
If none of the above, then you probably are misunderstanding what people say when they claim to feel frequently unwelcome.
> Someone has grabbed my cock without my consent as well.
In a professional context? Yeesh. Sorry to hear that (whatever the context). Sexual harassment/assault of anyone anywhere should be unacceptable.
I’m not asking whether this has ever happened to any man ever though. I’m asking if the specific guy claiming that nobody of any description feels welcome in the tech industry (and that women who claim that there is specific gender discrimination are just imagining things) has had any of those kinds of experiences.
As a man, I have had conversations about this topic with various male and female friends in the tech industry over the years, and anecdotally few if any of the men ever experience gender discrimination or sexual harassment in professional contexts while essentially all of the women do at least occasionally (some regularly).
Yes, men are also the victims of sexual harassment, assault and rape. It's surprising that acknowledging this is frequently presented as evidence that women don't have it that bad in this respect.
I guess we should not even talk of the ruthless female on female psychological (and even physical!) harassment and violence that happens every day at many working environments.
Nah, let us focus on a caricature of the dominant evil male and let us live in a world of perpetual victimization while spewing lots of ideological Indoctrination.
(1) My impression (as a man myself) is that the vast majority of men in the tech industry are well meaning and respectful. It only takes a few – especially a few in positions of power – to make the whole culture feel unwelcoming.
(2) I have not called anyone “evil” here. Something can be inconsiderate, unprofessional, make someone feel unwelcome, be directly harmful, or have pernicious systemic effects when perpetuated at scale, while still not being profoundly depraved or irredeemably malevolent.
(3) Nobody is defending “ruthless female on female psychological (and even physical!) harassment and violence”.
This comment shouldn't be downvoted: It gets at a low level asymetry in the problem. Only some men are actively problematic, but the combination of some problematic men and most non-problematic men tolerating or excusing their behaviour, puts all the women in the group in a position of dealing with the bad behaviour of "the problematic some".
In the past, this meant what's identified in the article: they would avoid the harasser when possible, and the presence of harrassers like Asimov was a deterrent to participation. Also, as with Harvey Weinstein, Jian Ghomeshi and others, there was a whisper network around him to ensure that women were warned of his behaviour. Male scifi writers would happily spend an evening drinking with him at a convention, unaware of any risk; females kept their distance as much as professionally possible.
Asimov knew, and was proud of, his status as "lech" (his word); I wonder if he was aware of the extent to which women tried to keep their distance from him.
This is a common theme that recurs amongst various forms of oppression: the oppressor's group doesn't have to think about the problem (this is a big part of privilege, btw), while the oppressed are forced to be aware of it and at least prepared to deal with it constantly.
Safe spaces aren't a substitute for a just and equitable society, they are a coping mechanism for the lack of one. They are to an unjust and inequitable society as a cast is to a broken bone -- necessary, but not sufficient.
1) Because that's a shitty situation to be in for all the women who want to contribute to STEM
2) The current system is notoriously male (especially in VC circles), so effectively if you want safe spaces women would somehow have to enter these spaces to secure capital. There's an imbalance at the top that can't be corrected easily but can be changed with time.
Every rich man leaves a widow behind and with some probability a heiress. There is enough money under female control to start a company with female values.
Maybe women don't have access to the top VC circles but likewise many men also don't get access and still continue. The situation is not made for them, but why should that be an issue? It's not necessary that they have the best circumstances. The situation just has to be good enough and I think that's given.
There will never be balance at the top, simply because of the higher variance in male iq. The most intelligent humans will always be predominately men. And those men will never create equal opportunities because people thrive for the top to have an advantage. Why give away that advantage when you are there? Some will, but the overall system will be imbalanced.
So, why wait for better times instead of making the best out of now?
Society needs to change. It's not about "men vs women". Men have to take responsibility partly because most often we are perpetrators, partly because we are most often in power. If there is a women dominated environment, I would expect the same vice versa.
Why do we create startups that cater to the needs of abusive people by tolerating or even excusing their behaviour?
Do you really think that men most often are perpetrators? Shouldn't it be: most perpetrators are men?
I am not arguing for startups to cater to the needs of abusive people. Quite the contrary, I am arguing to create startups that offer an opportunity for decent behavior.
Ten years ago, previous place of employment, we had a guy leave the team.
The idea was to replace and recruit internally.
There was this young woman, junior consultant in a different team, early 20s, that had caught my attention due to her drive and general fearlessness.
Upon strongly suggesting hiring her my then manager replied: “but she’s a girl!”.
Granted, he was almost 60 at the time (different generation and times) but my jaw dropped...
This guy who I really appreciated as a manager could have such views? I had no idea up to that point.
I’ve never personally known this happen to a “boy” in our industry.
The main claim in article is the huge amount of women groped including odd example of shaking left breast instead of hand. Which leads to women finding excuses to not be in building when Asimov comes around.
This sort of behavior makes community aspect of it all much different for both genders.
I know and knew dozens of women in computer science degrees, this did not ever happen to many of them. We’re not harsh or unwelcoming to women here, yet the women stay away.
I think people mix "unwelcoming environment" and "X out of Y of the group Z have been subjected to A" questionnaires a bit too much. Maybe the women you know/knew had one or two uncomfortable encounters, but don't project that to judge the entire workplace, and therefore wouldn't mention it even if you ask.
As an anecdotal example, A coworker made some very uncomfortable racist remarks regularly to me after I (mistakenly) told him about my ethnic background. I left that job and the guy who took my position (middle-eastern) also experienced same thing already in his first two-weeks. We would both not consider the workplace (or the group) an unwelcoming environment, but would probably answer "yes" to the questionnaire asking of workplace discrimination.
It's certainly not evenly distributed. I moved from a undergraduate school with tons of stories like this to a graduate school with very few, and, as far as I know, the undergraduate side was not problematic either.
You also may not have heard everyone's stories. I also have known probably orders of magnitude more women in CS than would necessarily be comfortable sharing unpleasant stories of harassment and discrimination with me. I think it's remarkable, of the women I've known fairly well, how many had stories like this (the civil eng one was really out there, to be clear).
Isn’t that an example of survivorship bias? The women that any of us meet (including those of us who see one in the mirror each morning) in software engineering are necessarily the set which have not found their environments so bad that they left.
Your comment is anecdotal. If that is the case, then that's great, keep up the good work, be an example to others. But if it's anecdotal, it doesn't deny the issues elsewhere.
These kind of "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" arguments in social-justice topics constitute a Kafka-esque trap from which the accused cannot argue their case any further in a reasonable manner.
Don't imply that I have a crab-in-a-bucket mentality. I don't want my industry to be unfriendly and unwelcoming. I didn't tell you how it has affected me personally either.
There's a common refrain heard recently regarding basically any historically male dominated domain, that women are not welcomed or encouraged. This is unfortunately all-too-common in software engineering. As a male software engineer, I feel as though no-one is welcomed or encouraged. I feel as though women are reacting to industries that have always been harsh and unwelcoming and feeling uniquely victimised.