Starting Up

Maureen Dowd on the Todd Akin-is-a-horrible-person scandal: link

I’m not generally a follower of the election year news cycle, because it’s almost entirely 8 months of [expensive] hot air. However, being a strong believer in equal rights for all and an advocate against violence against women, this article struck a chord with me.

What concerns me is the desperation evident in Dowd’s writing. She tries to communicate that the awful ideas these hateful people have voiced aren’t just untrue, but are so ludicrous that a rebuttal shouldn’t have been required at all. It begs the question: why are we backsliding so horrendously as a nation that this rhetoric can be voiced and people actually listen and believe it to be true?

TechCrunch article here: Women In Tech, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

TL;DR: The remedy to the exclusionary sexism rampant in the tech world is for women to spend more money!

Tl;DR;WTF? Sexism isn’t the problem, you lazy women! If we were only more classist, things would be better!

My favorite reaction so far: from The Awl

Link to Article: “Gangbang Interviews” And “Bikini Shots”: Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem 

“‘Brogrammer’ isn’t an exclusionary term,” wrote a commenter identifying himself as “Toronto Brogrammer” on a recent Businessweek story. “The female equivalent is called a ‘hogrammer’ and I have big respect for women that wear that badge proudly.” “Proglamming” and “brogramette” have also been tossed out…

Mother Jones has published a nice exposé on specific instances of the rampant sexism in the tech industry. I’ve addressed it once on this blog here. I think what’s especially illuminating is that these male programmers frequently use the “You’d realize he’s not sexist at all if you just got to know him” defense. This is the best evidence that they don’t understand what sexism means.

[Author's note]: I wrote this post just as this story broke. I feel very strongly that it is still a relevant topic, and I will make good on my promise to build this into a multi-part series.  

This is part one of a longer series on the technology industry’s (and specifically start ups) attitude towards women.

To dedicated readers of any periodical publication, nothing is more frustrating than feeling like the writers have abandoned you by writing about things that don’t seem to matter.  And when a publication with as much popularity as TechCrunch frustrates its audience, you had better expect some backlash.

Such was the case a month ago when one Penelope Trunk had her article “Stop Telling Women To Do Startups” selected for publication as a contributor.  She was swiftly rebuffed by Alexia Tsotsis’ (staff writer at TechCrunch) article titled “Stop Telling Women Not To Do Startups.”   The former, which details the annoyance Trunk feels at the emphasis put on forcing women into the male-dominated field of tech startups (her main reason:  women choose to stay home with their children), was utter drivel.  But that’s not the point.  There was some measured debate in the comments regarding the validity of her points, as well as the usual irrelevant YouTube-style personal attacks. On the other hand, Tsotsis’ article, a somewhat rant-y call-to-action for women to disprove Trunk’s thesis, featured  a multitude of confusing and damning comments regarding the relevance of the article to the audience of TechCrunch.  These ran the gamut from “Can TechCrunch please go back to reporting tech news?” to the much more pointed “Way to miss the point of the original article!” Neither article was particularly outstanding as a piece of tech coverage, but together they highlight an important point:  despite their presence and the categorical inequity extended to them, most people don’t think that the underrepresentation of women in the tech industry is worth talking about. Read the rest of this post »