We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13969315 and marked it off-topic.
A bit of advice to any of you youngsters blowing it off as "maybe women just don't want to be in tech": I worked with plenty of women in this field in the 80s. Not so many now. And of those women in the field currently, they're a different breed than those I worked with 30 years ago. (To put it gently, they strike me as women more suited to put up with mens' bullshit.)
So, no, I don't buy the "maybe women don't want to do tech" excuse, unless you're willing to argue that all the women got together at their annual conference and announced that they're not doing tech anymore. I propose a simplistic explanation: women don't want to be in tech for the same reason I'm tiring of it, and this is having to put up with a constant stream of alpha male man-children. We, as an industry, used to be professionals. Now it's just a big frat party. (The issues are much deeper, IMO, and I admit to vastly oversimplifying.)
You don't buy it, but you don't apparently have reason to reject it either. Seems you only have an observation without explanation?
Regardless of the parent poster, if it's a natural tendency of women to not want to be in tech, why did the percentage graduating CS drop from 37% in 1985 to 18%? I don't think women's intrinsic nature changed in the last 30 years, do you?
No one said anything about removing code reviews. They said remove the culture of aggressive and mean code reviews.
No one said to remove the opportunity to express one's love of geeky things or organic conversation during happy hour. They said to tone that down, and be more inclusive, so other members of the team can express their love of things they like.
Meritocracy is a red herring. We do not have objective measurements for what is good work and what is not good work, or what work is better than others. At the end of the day, a person, with all their biases, is going to be choosing who is better. And quite often, that doesn't have much to do with the work at all.
"Maybe women in tech are less common than men in tech not because of some fundamental unfairness, but because fewer women want to be in tech."
And likely, fewer women want to be in tech because of the sexist attitudes, and this attitude of dismissal and "it's not a problem; if you were really 'passionate', you'd get over it".
In practice, that means making code review comments unclear and extremely passive aggressive. I'd rather have plain, clear statements than statements that on the surface are pleasant and helpful but that are actually meant to be emotional and professional shivs. I've been both.
> No one said to remove the opportunity to express one's love of geeky things or organic conversation during happy hour. They said to tone that down, and be more inclusive, so other members of the team can express their love of things they like.
The proposal is to prevent conversations flowing naturally according to the normal implicit rules of conversation and instead steer the conversation to "inclusive" topics. You know what I'd do in that situation? Grab a bunch of my coworkers and head off to the nearest pub to have the conversation we want to have. Congratulations, you've tried to help and made things worse.
> Meritocracy is a red herring.
This idea is both trendy and dangerous. Some ideas are better than others. I don't want to be around people who think that asbestos and plastic are both perfectly good materials for medical devices and that we should reach a compromise position to ensure that everyone is heard. If person A consistently proposes ideas that work and person B is genial, but constantly proposes ideas that don't work, A has more merit.
> And likely, fewer women want to be in tech because of the sexist attitudes
This argument is circular. You're defining literally anything that might make women choose to not come to "tech" as being sexist. Never mind that women get all sorts of preferences; never mind that women are paid more these days. It's all about how there are more men than women, therefore we have a "problem" that we need to "fix".
No, it doesn't. It only means that if the only way you can express yourself is by being mean.
"I'd rather have plain, clear statements than statements that on the surface are pleasant and helpful but that are actually meant to be emotional and professional shivs. I've been both."
Again, you can have plain, clear statements without being mean. Just because you aren't capable of writing them doesn't mean the rest of us aren't.
"he proposal is to prevent conversations flowing naturally according to the normal implicit rules of conversation and instead steer the conversation to "inclusive" topics. You know what I'd do in that situation? Grab a bunch of my coworkers and head off to the nearest pub to have the conversation we want to have. Congratulations, you've tried to help and made things worse."
No, you've just proven that you aren't willing to include other coworkers in your discussion. You've also proven that you aren't able to have a discussion about anything that isn't a few topics that you care about, and aren't willing to listen to others talk about what they care about. You're the one that comes out looking bad here.
"This idea is both trendy and dangerous. Some ideas are better than others. I don't want to be around people who think that asbestos and plastic are both perfectly good materials for medical devices and that we should reach a compromise position to ensure that everyone is heard. If person A consistently proposes ideas that work and person B is genial, but constantly proposes ideas that don't work, A has more merit."
Again, you're making false choices here. The idea that you have to choose between someone being nice but not good, and someone who is good but mean. There is absolutely no reason for that.
"This argument is circular."
No, it really isn't. And you haven't provided anything to claim that it is.