If you assume a constant rate of harassment (say 5% of men harass women per year) then a woman who works alongside 20 men and 5 women (a common ratio in tech) will get harassed more than a woman who works with 12 women and 13 men (a more typical non tech ratio).
And in truth I wouldn’t be surprised if as women get more outnumbered the frequency of harassment tends to go up.
I'm not sure that's a statement I'd make. I don't think I know enough to say that.
It's tempting to let myself get nerd-sniped into a longer, less productive discussion comparing different fields and pontificating on different possible causes, but then I'd be making the same mistake as so many other people here.
What we really need in these conversations is fewer people like James DaMore writing dissertations on the subject and more people saying, "hey guys, stop being dumb ass holes."
This is a problem that is better resolved by calling out socially repugnant behavior rather than dissecting it.
I am so glad someone on HN is here to tell us exactly why we aren't allowed to have a rigorous discussion when it comes to this topic, in particular.
It is interesting how you immediately reframe women getting harassed as misogyny. Nevermind women likely get more attention online as well.
Let's have a look at the study [0] you mention. Which measures private messages received from an IRC channel by a bot. Do you honestly not think a female username will receive more attention given the typical gender composition of an online IRC channel? (Who still uses IRC apart from unwashed CS nerds?) 25 times messages likely means there were 25 times more males than females in that particular room.
[0] Meyer, R., & Cukier, M. 2006 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.89....
This point is, without properly establishing a base rate of attention VS harassment, all you can do appeal to emotion. Yes women are being harassed in tech, are they being harassed in at a higher rate than other industries? Is it a specifically a tech problem? Is your solution to the problem to accuse men in the tech industry as misogynists/sexists further alienate both sides from each other when you don't even have proper evidence?
Namely because that unstated premise is almost exactly the conclusion of the argument you're trying to argue against.
Your final paragraph is particularly telling. Re-read it and think about the equivalences you're trying to draw.
Edit: >The point is that the distribution of genders are likely overwhelmingly male.
Do you just intentionally ignore the fact that without there being a differential rate of harassment between people on the basis of sex that this doesn't matter in the slightest? Your argument assumes the point you're trying to argue against.
Work on your reading comprehension before spitting out snark.
It's somewhat disingenuous to say "messages" when the study is specifically counting only "malicious messages" (and makes no mention of how many non-malicious messages were received.)
Because there have been multiple accounts of bad behavior, both subtle and not-subtle, at tech conferences (https://shift.newco.co/what-its-like-to-be-a-woman-at-a-tech..., https://blog.juliaferraioli.com/2014/08/do-you-even.html), but those aren't studies, they're just isolated experiences, so we can ignore those.
And there have been multiple accounts from women who won't use a feminine identity online due to harassment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3411627), and really talented women who have to endure sexist work environments (http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/12/04/meeting/), and, occasionally, even much more lively discussions from women on what it's like to work in tech (https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4ioxw9/as_i_sit_i...). But, again, these aren't studies, so we can ignore them.
Of course, there have been studies, including one that found feminine names in chats got 25 times more malicious messages (http://www.ece.umd.edu/News/news_story.php?id=1788), which would seem to support this woman's experience too ... but, surely, we can find some way to dismiss that, too, right?
The important part is that, every time a submission like this comes along, we rush to the comments section to try to shout it down.
There are surely some medium.com posts about experiences that other developers have had that we could upvote instead. Preferably, ones from developers who don't happen to be too feminine.