If it were titled "Ask an engineer" and all the people asked were women, I wonder what the response would be? I ask that without any snark or presupposition, I'm not sure and I'm curious.
Well, it should be (and I assert would be) considered "normal" because women can be engineers too (obviously).
By putting the "woman" qualifier in the title, it immediately discriminates against half of the viewership... which is particularly infuriating because the information is good and valid, regardless of who's telling it.
[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...
Does that not make my point even better?
Sure, all men should be interested in hearing a woman's perspective on being in the engineering field, but if we're honest with ourselves, most likely skipped right over this thread after reading the title.
To be even more honest with ourselves, we must admit if the title was "Ask a Male Engineer", most women would skip the article as well. It's simply because you either belong to the mentioned group or you do not... some will be curious enough to read anyway, but the rest... it just serves to alienate.
This thread largely turned into a flame war instead of commenting on the content of the post... all because of a word in the title.
...you are talking about being disinterested in an article titled "Ask A Female Engineer"...because it has the word "female".
> Being a woman doesn't somehow qualify the article author in any way to discuss startups - having started a startup or working for one, does.
But it does qualify them to discuss "being a woman engineer at a startup". Which is, I think, the point.
I believe the sentiment the Parent post is trying to get at, is that by constructing more walled gardens which are "women only" or "for women", such as women only conferences, or women only talks, women only groups, etc... it actually has the opposite of the intended effect. It's a self-induced form of segregation and therefore discrimination - and serves only to make the inherent segregation stand out as being perceived as "normal". By putting one group "first", you inherently put another group "second".
I think it's safe to say majority of men would love to have more women in the industry.
In an ideal world, the title of this series is "Ask an Engineer", and it would just so happen that a woman wrote the post. Being a woman doesn't somehow qualify the article author in any way to discuss startups - having started a startup or working for one, does. Nobody would think anything of it so long as the information was well presented, and it certainly wouldn't attract all the negative attention this thread has started off with.