Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?
&quot;Still, it was a reminder that as a woman in tech, she should be prepared to have her authority questioned at any moment, even by some guy trying to get a job at her company.&quot;<p>This anecdote wasn&#x27;t a good example of sexism.  We have no idea why the person wasn&#x27;t hired or treated this way.  The person, who just happens to be a man (which always seems to come up in these discussions..when we are trying to a avoid pre-judgement based on race and gender), might be insecure and treat everyone this way.<p>Where is the real evidence based on empirical data?  Has all science gone out the door?<p>I&#x27;m a male and have been treated this way throughout my career.  It most likely has nothing to do with sexism and more to do with corporate politics.  Women are finally getting a taste of what it&#x27;s been like for men..for decades.<p>&quot;One reason her career had gone so well, she thinks, is that she’d made a point of ignoring slights and oafish comments. Awkward silences, too. Over the years, she’s experienced—many times—the sensation of walking up to a group of male colleagues and noticing that they fell quiet, as though they’d been talking about something they didn’t want her to hear.&quot;<p>You can&#x27;t pound lawsuits at males for even making the most innocuous and innocent comments and then expect them to behave normally in all social settings.<p>Women want to be part of the group and included, but if a man says something that might offend them, they want them fired or sued.<p>The 50s are over.  Most corporations are so scared of a lawsuit, women are treated like gold.  The behavior described here is of a beaten down and abused person that is so afraid of potentially losing their livelihood, they are go completely silent.<p>&quot;She’s been asked to take notes in meetings. She’s found herself standing in elevators at tech conferences late at night when a guy would decide to get, as she puts it, handsy.&quot;<p>There are stupid people everywhere.  This is not specific to the tech industry and this is at a conference....not at your job.<p>&quot;When she and a male partner started a company, potential investors almost always directed their questions to him—even when the subject clearly fell in Blount’s area of expertise&quot;<p>Do we know why?  I have found that the person that is more assertive will be asked the questions.  Were you actually assertive?  Did these investors know you had this expertise?<p>&quot;She couldn’t believe that women still had to worry about such things&quot;<p>Unless we are all mindless robots, you will always have to worry about these things.  It&#x27;s sad, but true.<p>&quot;that she still heard talk about how hiring women or people of color entailed “lowering the bar”; that women still, often, felt silenced or attacked when expressing opinions online.&quot;<p>I&#x27;ve worked for many tech companies all over the country and never heard this.  Not even once.<p>Do you know the age of the people harassing you?<p>What percentage are actually adult males and not 12 year olds?  I find it odd that so many people take the insults of a little kid so seriously.<p>&quot;They love the problem-solving, the camaraderie, the opportunity for swift advancement and high salaries, the fun of working with the technology itself. &quot;<p>Wow, must be nice.  How about working your ass off for little  pay for decades and having people either pay you in red bull, mt dew, or Fooseball table time?<p>It took me 15 years to get to have &#x27;fun&#x27; at my job...and you are expecting this at age 22?  You are the privileged one.<p>&quot;found that nearly all of the 200-plus senior women in tech who responded had experienced sexist interactions&quot;<p>Men may not experience as much sexism, but they experience equally dehumanizing behavior in the work place.  Society just expects you to &#x27;take it&#x27;.<p>&quot;Women not only are hired in lower numbers than men are; they also leave tech at more than twice the rate men do.&quot;<p>They leave tech because the tech industry consumes your entire life and many women choose to have kids and a family and can no longer keep up with with the daily grind expected of most people in the IT industry.<p>You also can&#x27;t just look at the straight numbers and immediately determine it&#x27;s due to sexism.  Are they not getting hired for other reasons?  Education?  Experience?  Not as many applicants?<p>&quot;Studies show that women who work in tech are interrupted in meetings more often than men. &quot;<p>Since this article is just going to say &#x27;studies&#x27; and not back it up with any actual concrete proof.  I&#x27;m going to also talk about &#x27;studies&#x27; that I&#x27;ve read that also say that women are the biggest critics of other women in the workplace.<p>&quot;Stephanie Lampkin, who was a full-stack developer (meaning she had mastered both front-end and back-end systems) by age 15 and majored in engineering at Stanford, has been told when applying for a job that she’s “not technical enough” &quot;<p>I was writing back-end systems in C and assembly by the time I was 15.  I was still turned-down for jobs at 19 because I didn&#x27;t have enough experience, on paper.<p>&quot;But she has also, for instance, been told by a white woman at a conference that her name ought to be Ebony because of the color of her skin.&quot;<p>Why does this even matter to the discussion?  One person saying one hand-picked inappropriate comment isn&#x27;t an entire industry being racist or sexist.<p>&quot;In 2014, Google released data on the number of women and minorities it employed. &quot;<p>I find it odd that when the word &#x27;minority&#x27; is used, it doesn&#x27;t include anyone on an H1B Visa.  Why is that?