I grew up in an era when kids interested in STEM were "nerds" and were harassed, denigrated, and had lower social status. This changed when Bill Gates made his first billion. Suddenly, people realized that STEM was a ticket to the good life.
The title of the documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" was no accident.
A Seattle local comedy show "Almost Live" regularly ran skits about Microsoft engineers being socially inept and unable to get dates. (Of course, the joke turned out to be on Almost Live, as the super wealthy Microsoft engineers transformed the city.)
I suppose my point is that men who liked STEM had persevered in spite of the negative image of it.
I recall a well-meaning teacher once publicly recognizing me as a “computer expert”, and the ensuing giggles and ridicule from my friends and peers for being a computer nerd.
While I would not say I was bullied, the “computer nerd”/“spending all your time in front of a computer” was somewhat of an expedient wildcard insult to be used whenever somebody needed to take me down a peg. In terms of group identities, I think the only labels that were lower on the social status ladder were being gay or being obese (exception if you could pull off “the funny fat guy”).
Maybe the millenials had it easier, but I think most people who are well established in their career by now came out of that environment.
Along those lines, it’s no wonder that many men in the field who emerged from that did not develop adequate social skills, and frequently demonstrate their lack of experience in interacting with women. Unfortunately, the social protocol errors are often either lumped in with sexism, or the dreaded “being a creep”, and it’s now fashionable for other (likely traumatized) people to publicly shame them, get them fired, and ensure that their infraction is part of the permanent record of the internet.
EDIT: Found a Raymond Chen blog entry confirming that the skit was indeed from Almost Live -- and it featured Bill Nye.
First aired in 1992. I miss that show.
Cops in Redmond is another classic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9jlo4Ht2YA
Done in the same style as the WSU drinking ban...another later classic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kozfrph9LU
Or Bill Nye as a street walking lawyer on Aurora avenue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgAgPnrJAuQ
They put everything on YouTube. No need for a dvd :)
I don't think it is sexist at all to claim that some people would not want to be in a field because of its hostile work environment. I sure wouldn't. Factually debatable? Sure. But sexist?
> It might sound harsh, but I don't feel terribly concerned about keeping these displaced women in STEM; if their interest isn't strong enough to overcome a bad environment, then maybe they just weren't that interested to begin with
I'm not a woman, but I am a person of color. And if anyone expressed those exact sentiments about people of color, I would never want to be around that person again. "I don't feel terribly concerned about keeping displaced minorities in my field. If they aren't interested enough to put up with racism, they shouldn't be here to begin with. It is their own responsibility to do something about it and fix the racist environment that they are in". Can you even imagine someone saying that? And yet, I hear the same sentiments being directed towards women constantly.
Ironically enough, you and I probably agree on most things. I don't think the STEM field is "toxic" or any worse than any other profession. At most companies I've worked, both management and other engineers made great efforts to be welcoming and friendly to women. That said, misogyny and hostile work environments do exist, and when it happens, we need to make sure we blame the culprits and not the victims.
I've been on many all-male programming teams. Played football in high school.
From my experiences, those men tend to make fun of, poke, prod, and occasionally fight their way to agreement.
Comments were very direct. Abrasive at times. But usually got straight to the point.
I don't think I ever thought of any of it as needing "fixing". Quite the contrary, I think those men loved those other men.
But I could see someone of a different disposition being shocked at the crudeness, the brashness of it all and possibly thinking "it's toxic". It could be conflicting if someone wanted to participate in the team activity, but their approach didn't align with the existing members.
I see no relativism here.
As a description of your past experiences it was ostensibly a productive, functioning environment where every single member of every single group was comfortable communicating in that style.
As a general prescription for the most productive behavior for groups it's a poor model. As you point out, adding a single member with a different disposition can quickly turn the thing into a toxic environment.
Also, that model suffers from the same issue FLOSS projects do-- namely, it's hard to get any numbers at all on how many people never join up because the communication style isn't welcoming to outsiders.
Anyhow, if you posted this on Twitter I'm sure your description would quickly become transformed into an ostensible prescription by its algorithm as it got distributed for maximum outrage. But that's a problem with anti-human digital platforms, not a sign of ambiguity in what constitutes a productive work environment.
Edit: clarification
If you literally mean 'fight', then that's just a bad work environment.
There is something liberating about finally embracing the anger, rage and resentment that you feel and just letting it all out. Unfiltered.
And strangely, as I get older, I take it less personally if I’m on the receiving end. Sometimes people are overwhelmed and tired of doing mental gymnastics to keep things “nice”. I sorta get that now.
But if two consenting adults want to physically fight in a controlled, fair environment, zero problems with that. And I could see how it could be therapeutic to release the resentment towards the other.
Maybe an office boxing league?
I did not say "put up with", I said "deal with", which includes many options other than accepting what you're given. If your workplace discriminates on the basis of race, you could report them for violation of anti-discrimination laws, lobby for stronger laws, leave the workplace for a better one, etc.
> It is their own responsibility to do something about it and fix the racist environment that they are in
Exactly what I just discussed, maybe in an ideal world such things shouldn't be your responsibility, but the only way to guarantee action is to take it. If someone pushes you into a puddle, you might be right to say that it shouldn't be your responsibility to remove yourself from that situation, as you did not put yourself into it, but I think most would agree that the right course of action is to deal with it yourself anyways.
I am not suggesting that the responsibility falls solely on women or minorities to deal with their own problems at all, but I am suggesting that they should take some agency of their own.
My niece expressed an interest in taking CS, and two of the women present immediately launched into third-hand accounts of how toxic and sexist they have heard that the industry is. It pisses me off a bit that they are convincing an otherwise neutral and open mind that they are both unwelcome and that they’re already a victim in the making. If the goal is truly to get more women in the field, I think the twitter mobs and one-sided viral medium.com posts are doing way more to scare them away than anything else.
Great idea! Perhaps following your comment, women and minority groups will start to organize to protest against unfair and illegal treatment.
Yes, it is true that if someone is really passionate about something, then they will put up with a lot of bad things and problems.
But I am confused as to why you think this is a valid argument as for why society shouldn't try to solve these problems.
There is still a lot of value in fixing problems, so that people who would be otherwise interested, will want to join.
Every woman I know with a genuine and deep interest in STEM subjects has had to deal with some level of toxic/sexist/whatever stuff in their life, and they persevered and dealt with it because they weren't going to let it get in the way of their passion.
It might sound harsh, but I don't feel terribly concerned about keeping these displaced women in STEM; if their interest isn't strong enough to overcome a bad environment, then maybe they just weren't that interested to begin with. That's not a bad thing, it just means that they misjudged the interest:difficulty ratio.
Of the cases I know of personally, most of these women ended up in a job working fairly close with STEM stuff, writing manuals, doing graphic design, etc, and are perfectly fine with those jobs.
To be clear, I'm not accounting for cases where an entire university or business or whatever is made up of toxic sexism, but that's been pretty uncommon in my experience in the US.
Women of STEM: if you've got a bad environment, do something about it! Tell your higher-ups, talk to people directly, seek a different position, endure what you can, and for God's sake stand up for yourself.
tl;dr the implication that most women in STEM can't handle a toxic work environment without giving up entirely doesn't seem that progressive at all
NB disclaimer, most people I know are computer scientists, plus a few mathematicians, so maybe engineering is different