Google shows off Android 3.0, the 'Entirely for Tablet' Honeycomb (video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/05/google-shows-off-android-3-0-the-entirely-for-tablet-honeycom/ <comment><USER2> I am so excited for the future. It's so clear to me that tablets are a stepping stone, and a very very exciting one. They're going to be the first time a consumer computer has lived up to their dreams and expectations of the future of computing: it works, it's fast, it's easy, it's safe and it's _fun_. Using Windows on a desktop is none of those things. It turns out that iPad was a glorious thing; not in that it was physically incredible, but that it opened up a world that Google understands and is preparing for. We're going to have Android and iOS running HTML5 applications (and native apps of course) on nearly every device in just a few years.

Guys, that promised future is coming!

<comment><USER3> Mark my words. Google and Apple merge in the next two years.

Apple has the flash (no pun intended) and user interface.

Google has the platform and infrastructure.

<comment><USER4> Wanna bet? I'll give you 3 to 1 odds.

<comment><USER5> Might I suggest <http://www.longbets.org/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> More and more I'm forced to face the reality that ChromeOS is doomed.

Conceptually I still like the IDEA of ChromeOS more but I just can't see a consumer choosing what is essentially a browser over something like this.

My only hope is that Google will try and move Android to a place where Web Apps are just as powerful as native apps on the platform.

<comment><USER7> I think ChromeOS could succeed in "kiosk" situations -- libraries, coffee shops, hotel lobbies, etc. Verified boot and automatic updates would be a boon for maintenance concerns, while customers would be much more likely to trust Google than a random Windows kiosk with a shoddy browser and questionable shell.

Of course, kiosks / public access terminals may be as unnecessary as phone booths once we're all carrying personal tablets...

<comment><USER8> There are a _lot_ of people outside of the 1st world's lavish lifestyle and deep pockets (filled also with $500 gadgets). If you live in the USA you don't even have to leave your own country to see the other side.

Strike the last sentence and I agree with your comment wholeheartedly.

<comment><USER9> Interestingly, outside the "1st world" mobile phones are quite common. The speed at which this technology trickled down is amazing, about ten years from yuppies in major cities to subsistence farmers in failed states. Even more amazing is penetration. Most things just don't go that far down the economic ladder at all. Basic, fundamental things like vaccination, artificial fertilizers, electricity or regular phone lines which our grandparents took for granted have been outpaced by mobile phones in many places.

Tablets may be similar enough to mobile phone to hope that the same economics apply and we might see the <$3-a-day majority benefiting by 2020. Hopefully.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One can't really tell from a promotional video, but the main thing that stands out to me is the improved home screen over iPad. It's too "technical" to be mass market in this version; viz. "Books \n 3x3" type stuff - my parents won't know what 3x3 means, even after explanation. Even I'm only guessing is the size the widget takes on the home screen. However, assuming they fix that, it's rather an improvement on Apple's iOS SpringBoard, which is looking rather dated (alongside their notification system). Here's to competition accelerating an upgrade in iOS 5!

The rest of the applications, one can't really tell in short clip. A lot of them - mail, video chat etc - seem very similar to what one would find elsewhere, except with the Honeycomb chrome (take it or leave it, as personal preference dictates). In others, I worry they've gone for eye candy over usability. For example, in "Books", the circular scroll is all very well, but I can't see any way of telling how far through your collection you are, nor where the book you want might be. Of course, the is prerelease promo, so it might be obvious in the real thing. What most people don't seem to get is that Apple tend to use eye candy _only when it's useful_ \- not just to look like something in Minority Report. Even they don't get it right all the time (I'm looking at you, Time Machine animation!). Eye candy is really cool for promotional videos, but when you're trying to use the application for the 4562nd time you really hope that it's added just to enhance usability, rather than impress CES visitors.

<comment><USER11> Not enough eye candy, too much eye candy. And the usual Android is too hard. Too bad this logic has been wrong for the last two years of Android and I'm willing to bet it will continue to be wrong.

<comment><USER12> It so frustrating to discuss about Android (or iOS). Some people will take the slightest criticism and interpret it as platform bashing. The grandparent never claimed that Android is doomed because it has too much eye candy.

Eye candy is damn hard to get right. It's easy to have too little or too much or to be kitschy. Apple seems to be really into kitsch and Google seems to be really fond of doing too much lately. (You can't really tell from the video, though. I would love to see some extended demo or a guided tour.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Man, functionality aside since I haven't used it, it is not very impressive. I would describe it as ugly as sin. It looks like the graphics were all thrown together in an afternoon. I hope it is placeholder.

\- They replaced the nice soft gray/blue Chrome UI with a harsh gray one.

-The keyboard buttons are flat and lifeless.

-Arrows for selecting text has no depth and high contrast border.

-The page turning looks like something from the 90s

-The Youtube videos pop in from the left

This has really set my expectations low for what was suppose to be a significant UI upgrade. As a designer this makes me cringe.

<comment><USER14> Really? I'm no Android fan, and I expected it to be impressive (Honeycomb that is) -- this meets expectations.

Everyone around me is buzzing about this. iPad2 had better come strong (Apple usually does, but Android is moving so fast!).

<comment><USER15> You can't argue with the page turning, though. I have no idea how the Google engineers turn a page, since it's nothing like anyone else does it (or iBooks, for that matter).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This looks fantastic, but I'm concerned about what isn't being discussed: namely, what happens to small form factor devices in the Android 3.0 timeline, like my Nexus S?

Is Google going to pull an Apple: temporarily bifurcating Android between tablets and phones, and then later reunite them? Or is Honeycomb going to ship for phones, too, but with less of the large-screen optimized UI goodness?

<comment><USER17> It certainly appears that way. With the high requirements for Honeycomb and no phones on the market that currently meet that requirement I think it will be a while before the releases are synchronous.

Anyway my contract is just about up and this CES is not making me look forward to renewal. CES has a way of blasting out announcements for really great sounding products and then what actually ships may be selective or may be cancelled entirely. No one ever remembers the products from the last CES that never arrived.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> As a long time Android user I'm definitely looking forward to a tablet. I've been holding off on buying anything until a good tablet comes out. I really wish I could watch this video without an ad preventing me from reading all the text in the video so I knew more about what to look for and not just stare at the omg eye candy.

As far as ChromeOS being dead, I dunno. I have been playing with my cr48 a few weeks now and love it. Its a great system for most things. The things it prevents me from doing well right now (ssh to hosts and doing dev/support) are minor.

In general I have a browser, IM App, and terminal open on my computer. If a good and secure way to remotely manage hosts via ssh is added into ChromeOS it will quickly become my goto system that I drag everywhere with me. I doubt I would ever say that for a tablet, unless its _really_ good and has fantastic keyboard support. I just hate having to deal with wireless keyboards and their aaa batteries that never seem to last long enough.

*edit: i can spell

</comment><comment><USER19> They seem to have checked all the right boxes on this one - Eye Candy, Tablet UI optimizations, Video Chat (Great stuff if it works well - all GTalk users even on desktop can use this), No physical buttons, Dual Core minimum (easier on devs - they don't have to worry about crappy hardware), HTML5.

</comment><comment><USER20> The demo is nice, but I'd like to see it running on real hardware.

</comment><comment><USER21> I can only hope that Android 3.0 will be available on the swath of 2.1 and 2.2 tablets that have been released thus far. Neither of those operating systems were well optimized for tablet use.

<comment><USER22> It appears google is requiring a dual core cpu for Honeycomb. So it's unlikely you'll see official updates for them. Even tablets that skipped market access and such probably won't upgrade if there is a serious performance penalty, and it's hard to believe google would make that restriction if it was unnecessary.

<comment><USER23> There has been plenty of claims that Google is going to limiting hardware with the next OS update, and those are always been squashed. I mean, when has Google ever shown a even an inkling of trying to lock down Android? I'd be surprised if they could do it even if they wanted to.

<comment><USER24> In order for a manufacturer to be able to include the Market on their device Google imposes a bunch of hardware restrictions. For Gingerbread the restrictions include

      - the size and density of the screen
      - it has to have a touchscreen
      - it has to have more than 128MB RAM and 150MB flash
      - it has to ship with a 1GB or greater sdcard installed
      - home, menu and back buttons required
      - all kinds of restrictions on the accelerometer,magnenometer, gps, gyro, etc
      - it has to have fast network capability
      - the camera has to be 2 megapixels or greater
      - it has to have USB

I don't see why they wouldn't be able to add a dual-core cpu as a requirement

<comment><USER23> It is quite a jump from needing a pittance of RAM, touchscreen, connectivity, and a SD card to requiring a dual core. Android's model requires large market penetration, and requiring a dual core doesn't really make sense.

<comment><USER19> There's no hard minimum processor requirement for Honeycomb. Via <http://twitter.com/#!/morrildl/status/22845294886518785>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Torn. I like that it isn't just a grid of icons and some apps with split views, but I doubt Google can really pull off a great tablet OS by forking Android. I still think there needs to be an OS built from the ground up to be a tablet and a tablet only. I want an revolution like the iPhone was went it was originally announced, not a half hearted evolution.

<comment><USER7> I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the iPad.

<comment><USER25> (You didn't ask me personally, but here are mine)

I bought the original iPhone on day one (my upgrade from the original Motorola Razr). I vociferously read about technology and gadgets, but am rarely compelled to act on my consumer desires unless I feel like I'm 'gaming' the system by buying at the optimum time and also by defeating the endless upgrade cycle prompts.

I succumbed last year and purchased an iPad while on holiday in The States (ostensibly because of the cheaper price compared to the UK and because my wife wanted to watch Mad Men on vacation).

In truth it was because even though the iPad just seemed to be an enlarged iPod Touch, Apple had certainly hit a home run with the (dare I say it) 'revolutionary' first iPhone, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

It immediately made my first generation iPhone obsolete for kicking back at home and mucking about on a touch-screen device, but it certainly wasn't a revolutionary device. It really was just a scaled-up less-portable (read: less useful) version of the original iPhone.

I got an iPhone 4 for christmas and it's a beautiful upgrade from iPhone 1. And it immediately relegated the iPad to 'sitting on the shelf' status in our flat.

This promo video, however teaser/vaporware-like it is, has me rethinking my current reliance on the Apple ecosystem.

It's feels a bit revolutionary... like the first iPhone. A re-imagining of on OS _specifically_ designed for the new form factor. The iPad OS isn't that beast... Apple were first to market with a credible tablet because the initial iPhone OS, albeit upscaled, did a passable job.

For the first time in years, I'm interested in my next device being outside the Apple Walled City.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> My impression of the video was that Android 3.0 applications will be entirely a Google stack... where does that leave developers?

I applaud Google for finally taking on the role of owning the whole OS experience, like Apple, but if they are going to do this then they'll also be judged on those merits. I give Android OS a lot of leeway for what it lacks by saying "a developer can fill that niche"... It looks like their tablet will be much closer to an iPad experience in having a singular vision.

<comment><USER27> I imagine they're just showing off their programs for the platform. Google have been touting Android as an 'open' platform, I doubt they're going to turn back at this stage.

<comment><USER28> I'm not particularly in the know, but I think it's important to keep in mind that this isn't a "normal" platform release. Honeycomb is still a bit immature, we're not expecting to see shipping devices for another 3-6 months (Motorola is simply saying "Q2" at this point from what I can tell).

It's a bit too early for 3rd party developers to be invited to the party I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm really impressed by the video, it looks like there are a lot of cool ideas and the tablet form factor really brings the homescreen widgets that android has to life.

That being said, I find the prospect of this not ending up on Android phones disappointing. Android 2.2 is fantastic to use but definitely needs some love in terms of UI.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's hard to tell from a 60 second video, but that looks pretty darn awesome. Like a MovieOS(tm) that actually works.

</comment><comment><USER31> First, I had to watch an annoying commercial. Then, there was an ad overlay to the video that obscured part of the video. Goddamn that's annoying, so I didn't watch.

<comment><USER32> Someone has to pay the bill for the video bandwidth.

<comment><USER33> Except this video is essentially an advertisement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The look and feel remind me very much of Bumptop. Looks like a more complicated, although more effective way to organize the tablet versus the iPad.

</comment><comment><USER35> It looks great, but... Come on... Bring back single tasking...</comment>


Show HN: Pick Your Startups. Prove Your VC Skills. VCFlair: A Fantasy VC League - <AUTHOR> http://vcflair.com/

<comment><USER2> This is really good fun! Thanks a mil.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Shane. Love your picks by the way!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> created my portfolio : when will I know that I won ? ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Results every month!</comment></comment>


Darwin's analysis of the pros and cons of getting married - <AUTHOR> http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=CUL-DAR210.8.2&pageseq=1

<comment><USER2> It ended up being a happy, loving marriage. And he still managed to do a lot of work, including "On the Origin of Species" after getting married. So much for not having time!

</comment><comment><USER3> The best: _better than a dog anyhow_.</comment>


Building a Stratospheric Balloon Launch Company with Zero 2 Infinity - <AUTHOR> https://www.spacebandits.io/interviews/zero-2-infinity <comment><USER2> That space vehicle they show in their mockups, the conical capsule with 6 engines, can't possibly have enough delta-v for an orbital injection. For one, not enough fuel to run all those engines for a long enough time.

Any orbital launch must end up with the payload going 4.5 km/s at LEO (about 200 km altitude). For a classic rocket launcher, this happens after about 450 seconds. See for example the Falcon 9 velocity and altitude traces from [1]

This baloon launcher skips the altitude gain of the first 120s of a Falcon 9 launch. Not bad, but it can't skip the velocity gain - it still needs to inject 4.5 kmps delta-v.

The Paul Allen financed Stratolauncher project starts from a similar high altitude-low velocity point, but was planned to use quite a beefy rocket launched from a carrier plane to inject delta-v to the payload.

Maybe that capsule is just a suborbital vehicle. They're quite popular as a stepping stone.

[1] [https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40983.0](https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40983.0)

<comment><USER3> I agree with your analysis, from the initial rocket concepts the delta-v does look lacking. One note however, I think you may be confusing your kilometers with miles - one needs around 7.8km/s for a stable LEO.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not the OP you're replying to but you're right! I'll try to get more information on this and update once I do. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very reminiscent of [http://www.jpaerospace.com/](http://www.jpaerospace.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Really cool that they were essentially a bunch of volunteers working together to try something innovative like this - and that was before SpaceX was founded! It's a shame their rockoon prototype didn't succeed, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> pixar's up of space companies. launches would be a lot more quiet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha maybe a new tagline for them ;)</comment></comment>


A History of London's Pirate Radio - <AUTHOR> http://www.amfm.org.uk/pirate-pioneers/

<comment><USER2> I used to be a lecturer, I was told one of my students was one of the biggest pirate operators in London.</comment>


Let's Rethink Space: Does space exist without objects, or is it made by them? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/32/space/lets-rethink-space <comment><USER2> I wonder if dropping locality as a fundamental property and considering it as an emerging property instead, might make it possible to describe what happens inside an black hole?

Because with the conventional views on locality, black holes are singularities in space and since our laws of physics depend on location, they are not defined in black holes where location itself is not defined. When locality is a property which might or might not emerge based on a physical context and some deeper physical laws, it should still be possible to describe the laws of physics inside a black hole because they don't depend on location anymore.

<comment> norea-armozel That's not exactly right in terms of the description of a blackhole. A blackhole can have a singularity (there's formulations of blackholes without them), but it is not the singularity itself.

As for the question of what it would with regard to the singularity inside a blackhole, my guess is nothing unless you make some fundamental assumptions that the geometry of space/time cannot collapse into an infinitely small and dense point. Because the notion of locality doesn't mean much to the idea of a gravitational singularity. They'll still exist just as happily in a non-local universe as they do in a local one if distances are arbitrary. Or rather I should say if geometry/shape is arbitrary for all objects.

What makes them a royal pain in the butt is the fact the solutions meant to remove them often leave lots of other assumptions in the air that don't quite square with observations like loop quantum gravity (LIGO I believe knocked out one formulation of it recently). So, until we can find some observable phenomena beyond entanglement that makes it apparent locality and spacetime as we understand it doesn't exist we're going to have to trust the current models we do have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Paywall.

<comment><USER4> You can still read the article. They're just using it as an opportunity to sell a subscription.</comment></comment>


Magenta Is Google's New Project to Make Art with Artificial Intelligence - <AUTHOR> http://www.popsci.com/magenta-is-googles-project-to-make-art-with-artificial-intelligence <comment><USER2> Coming soon [0] [1]!

[0]: [http://magenta.tensorflow.org/](http://magenta.tensorflow.org/)

[1]: [https://github.com/tensorflow/magenta](https://github.com/tensorflow/magenta)</comment>


A female engineer's opinion on why there are fewer women in tech - <AUTHOR> https://www.kapwing.com/blog/a-female-engineers-opinion-on-fewer-women-in-tech/ <comment><USER2> Speaking not only as a Woman but as a Mother (Happy Mothers Day everyone) nothing would of persuade me away from STEM career. My parents were both in STEM and the love for science was as early as I can remember. HOWEVER on my most difficult days I feel like it is so hard because of the awfully short maternity leave, not enough vacation days to spend with family, no sick days to care for sick kids, 40 hour weeks when I can be done my work in 30 or less.

I dont feel negativity about interactions with other males in the industry. The bad interactions are usually from socially awkward individuals in general

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the author may really be onto something here. I have teenage and twenty-something daughters. My youngest is very excited about her stats minor but when I suggested computer science to her the horror that crossed her face...like it was a personal insult. Another one is into math and science and also wouldn't consider CS if her life depended on it -- physics or chemical engineering, sure, but never CS. Both do have very active social lives -- maybe that's it, or maybe it's because their parent wants them to do it -- kids never want to do what their parent suggests. Whatever it is, as a mom who fell into tech who would love her daughters to get a CS degree, I have yet to find way to make the degree appealing to them, even though they like what I do and actually find the act of coding enjoyable.

<comment><USER4> > physics or chemical engineering, sure, but never CS.

I think ultimately a career in real engineering field would be easier and more satisfying to your daughters than CS. Because CS is thick with toxic lord of the flies man child's at this point.

<comment><USER3> See, that's the thing: I haven't experienced that myself but I may just be lucky -- I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Most of the theories I've seen about the women-in-tech gap don't resonate with my experience because there was a very obvious 'women-in-tech' gap in about... 5th grade? in my (typical, I think) American elementary school.

It was nerdy boys, almost entirely (I remember one exception), who wanted to stay after school playing games on the iMacs in our classroom, and I am pretty sure that it would only be the boys in my class who might have, for instance, received and gotten excited about a copy of "C++ for dummies" in ~2000 (granted, the book was terrible and I didn't really start coding for 6 more years, but the spark was already there).

Sure, video-game-interest is not the same as going into tech, but it correlated a lot as I grew up -- these kids ended up being the ones who were, like, coding on graphics calculators or in HTML/CSS a couple years later. There were a few more girls involved by then, but the ratio was still very skewed.

<comment><USER6> An interesting data point here ia that girls at all-girls schools tend to take much more interest in STEM subjects, which suggests that he issue might be more to do with social percpetions of what is for girls and boys rather than inherent interest differing between genders.

<comment><USER7> Maybe, but there is selection bias when looking at just girls who go to all- girls schools. Assuming they are mostly private, this would likely select for wealthier families, which may have a correlation with STEM careers. Furthermore, girls from all-girls schools have parents that are willing to enroll them in all-girls schools, which likely correlates with a certain personality type, whatever that may be.

<comment><USER8> Not sure why this is getting downvotes. The point that all girls schools are not even close to a random sample seems pretty uncontroversial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _Go befriend a girl in your class or company. It's not creepy._

"Honey, there is this random blogger who thinks I should befriend a girl in my company. It's supposedly not creepy or anything. What do you think?"

If I didn't care what my wife thinks, I'd still have to think twice and consider the gender-political climate of the modern age.

The mere _perception_ of having some intention of wrongdoing can harm you.

In all corporate ethics training courses, you're always hammered with the message of avoiding even the _perception_ of a conflict of interests and such.

Usually, those "avoid perception" messages are with regard to corruption. The rhetoric isn't used in sexual misconduct training, but the concept naturally carries over. If I'm to avoid creating so much as the perception that some official is being bribed into signing a deal, of course it must also be good to avoid so much as the perception that I have some sort of designs of a female coworker. I want simpler rules that are more general.

<comment><USER10> Here's your simple rule: [https://medium.com/@annevictoriaclark/the-rock-test- a-hack-f...](https://medium.com/@annevictoriaclark/the-rock-test-a-hack-for- men-who-dont-want-to-be-accused-of-sexual-harassment-73c45e0b49af)

Quoting: "It's as clear cut as this: Treat all women like you would treat Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson." and "But definitely don't hit on her. It looks like she could kill you with the chair you're sitting on."

It's really that simple.

<comment><USER9> If someone happens to idolize "The Rock", the rule doesn't go down very well.

It possibly devolves to "behave like a bumbling star-struck fool around all women".

Or possibly to "treat women like goddesses". Example: if I run a cafe, and idolize "The Rock", should I give every woman a free coffee and muffin, because that's what I would do if "The Rock" walked in?

People who are famous get all sorts of unwanted attention that would easily amount to sexism or sexual misconduct if it were lavished upon a person because she's a woman. Fans want to get near you, touch you, take a picture with you and whatever.

<comment><USER11> Ctrl F: "People's" \-- 0 results found. Ctrl F: "Bottom" \-- 0 results found. Ctrl F: "it doesn't matter" \-- 0 results found. Ctrl F: "smell" \-- 0 results found.

Yeah I'm going to ignore this advice, I think any sane person ought to do the same. Or at least if your mental model of the Rock consists of more than generic tough guy in some recent films who may have hit people with chairs in the past or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The first part of this had great citations to cite that women are more social. Where the data was lacking is that 1) software is perceived as anti-social and 2) that other anti-social careers face similar problems to software engineering.

For example if socialization was such a critical decider, why are some many women maids or professional housekeepers? Most people in this career don't get much on-the-job socialization. Or what about accounting and book keeping; which is a professional, white collar career that also happens to employ more women than men?

While socialization may be a part of the equation, there's a lot more going on here and simply blaming women for being "too social" just panders to common stereotypes.

<comment><USER13> _Or what about accounting and book keeping; which is a professional, white collar career that also happens to employ more women than men?_

Women were programmers very early on. I think we should look for some common thread between computer programming in the late 1950's/early 60's and accounting and book keeping today.

 _While socialization may be a part of the equation, there 's a lot more going on here and simply blaming women for being "too social" just panders to common stereotypes._

I don't think you should be characterizing it as "blaming." Things are as they are. I remember reading a paper in grad school finding that software engineers actually had more need of interaction than other fields, despite stereotypes. I think there is some important factor we don't quite understand.

<comment><USER14> Programming started as a field very similar to Accounting. You manually assembled a list of operations to get the necessary numerical result. There was creativity, but in the same vein of creativity in accounting it was confined to the realm of statistics and business intelligence. Computers were used to calculate numbers from other numbers, and rarely did much else. The set of computer instructions were limited, and nothing was automated so there was a lot of tedium in physically writing programming out on paper.

With the advent of personal computers and monitors the fields diverged rapidly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >Between the ages of 16 and 24, girls have more sophisticated social lives than boys of the same age. Young women talk to their friends more often [1], care more about their reputation [2], spend more time talking about their friends [3], and assign more emotional value to close relationships [4]

I admire that she provided links for these, but I really don't believe any of those statements. That list of 4 things is difficult to measure because they probably occur in different forms for boys vs girls and the studies consequently "found" what they were looking for.

Sexism is dripping in irony. Damore can't say there are biological differences between males and females, but it's ok to say that as a male I care less about my friendships.

Try to be nice, try to be fair, try to be honest. Ignore everything and everyone else...

<comment><USER16> It seems to me that the author would generally be sympathetic to Damore's memo (but who knows for sure) based on the views espoused in this post, so I don't quite understand your point.

<comment><USER17> The point seems fairly clear to me. arkis22 is pointing out that this author is making unfavorable generalizations about men, and stating that these generalizations are probably partly due to biology. Here, it is that women assign greater value to close friendships. Later, she states that:

"My experience confirms that teenage and college-age girls care more than boys do about solving real human problem (as opposed to competitive, self-oriented gain), forming close bonds with peers, and earning colleagues' respect. I will not comment on whether this is caused by society or by biology; likely, it's both and many factors in between."

This isn't wildly slanderous, but I think we can agree that caring more about real human problems is more admirable that pursuing "self-oriented" gain (or maybe not, randians might say self-oriented gain is the highest moral pursuit there is. I'd disagree, and I suspect the author here would as well).

So, we have that men pursue self-oriented gain, and women pursue solution to real world human problems, and this is partly due to biological differences between men and women.

Personally, I'm really not offended or bothered by this. She has every right to make this claim, and overall, I though it was a good essay.

I also think that arkis22 is interpreting these comments somewhat uncharitably. I don't need someone to go through a million footnotes and provisos and stating repeatedly that these are just averages. I am nearly certain that this writer would agree that some men care deeply about real human problems and relationships, and some women care more about self-oriented gain. I certainly don't think it improves the conversation when people get bogged down because they have to protect themselves against every possible uncharitable interpretation of an argument (she didn't say that arkis22 cares less about his friendships).

But we do live in a world where people who make comparable (perhaps _less_ dramatic) claims about women face pretty serious censure.

<comment><USER16> I see, their point is that this particular woman can talk about biological differences but Damore can't. (I misinterpreted the poster as saying that the author was contradicting herself by rebuking Damore, which she wasn't, but that's not what they meant.)

That is a valid point. But the issue should be taken with Google's leadership and the individuals who unjustly raked Damore over the coals (his post- termination behavior notwithstanding). A reductive "women can get away with saying this but men can't" complaint doesn't really help anyone. It has truth to it, but it also feels unnecessarily confrontational and simplistic to me.

The poster also dismissed her claims with a mere "I really don't believe any of those statements" and then backed it with what seems to be a random assumption that the studies are biased and must have been seeking this particular outcome from the start, without any supporting evidence. I think the more sensible position is that Damore's gender difference claims and the author's gender difference claims are both correct (at least with the scientific evidence currently known). The us vs. them attitude is irritating.

<comment><USER15> The nuance of male friendship and popularity is probably just as complicated as female friendship and popularity. Complicated in a sense that I doubt any questionnaire captures the real truth.

<comment><USER16> Of course, but friendships between males and females is a whole other dynamic entirely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Are the rest of the STEM career paths seen as _more_ social than CS? Is mathematics more social than CS? Because CS is almost (not quite: physics is almost as bad) unique among STEM specializations for its gender disparity.

I talk regularly to academic math people (because cryptography) and the sense I have is that if anything, CS is _far more social_ than the work they do --- to get anything significant done in technology, you have to coordinate and cooperate amongst teams of people. And yet if you go to a cryptography conference and then a technology convention, the difference will be starkly apparent: there are far more women in the former than the latter.

I don't think this is a persuasive explanation for the whole phenomenon.

<comment><USER19> I agree, Math and Physics are in many ways similar to CS, and yet have more women. And I can think of a pretty good reason to explain it: Math and Physics are more classically respected and authoritarian. CS is the wild-west by comparison.

In Math and Physics in high school and college, you can just study what you're supposed to study, do the problems you're supposed to do. You can mostly do that in CS too, of course, but that's not ubiquitous. In CS you're programming, and when programming you're running into bugs and devising work- arounds. Some stuff does not work like it's supposed to. Sometimes the best implementation for a purpose is a clever but not-quite-correct shortcut that's way faster. Some of my CS classes had automated code submissions testing and grading systems, and some students managed to hack the system in novel ways, and were given full points for doing so. My experience in school is that the smartest girls studied a lot more, and the smartest guys messed around a lot more. CS is programming and programming is a lot of messing around.

My dangerous 2c ;)

<comment><USER13> _I agree, Math and Physics are in many ways similar to CS, and yet have more women._

I think it might be useful to ask: In what ways are Math and Physics are different from the programming field? I think the requirement to work together on larger projects is different. What is the gender distribution of physicists working at CERN?

 _My experience in school is that the smartest girls studied a lot more, and the smartest guys messed around a lot more._

Sounds about right.

 _CS is programming and programming is a lot of messing around._

Is it? Back in the day, there were CS professors who proudly declared they didn't like programming.

<comment><USER19> Back in the day, there were a few more women in CS :)

I still agree that CS being "less social" is a huge factor. But have to admit it seems like there's some other factors too, and I think the "less social" and "wild west" combo is pretty significant.

<comment><USER20> > _Back in the day, there were a few more women in CS :)_

I actually think this is probably wrong. Back in the day there was a _higher percentage_ of women in CS. It's possible that in absolute numbers there are as many women today in CS as there was then. That's because there's probably a lot more _people_ in CS overall.

I also think it's likely that back in the day most college-educated programmers had EE degrees, not CS degrees, so what you'd really want to look at is the percentage of women in CS and EE, not just in CS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > young men are less likely to approach women and invite them to join a study > group or happy hour, poker night, or whatever else they do with their male > peers/coworkers.

As a man I've never been approached and invited to anything like this..

<comment><USER22> Maybe you should invite some others, then. Be the change you want to see, and all that.

<comment><USER23> But I'd rather stay up all night and clear Black Temple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Interesting that popular perception is that it is hard to be a woman in STEM because you get so much unwanted attention, but in this case it was exactly the opposite. She wasn't able to find lab partners for projects in male majority classes and felt lonely.

<comment><USER25> I just don't see how that could be. When I was studying, we had 2 girls in a peer group of roughly 90 people. All they had to do to find a lab partner is have a pulse. Interestingly, both have graduated, and neither is using her degree now.

<comment><USER26> I have a hard time believing your anecdotal data point about a third person is enough to claim a person exposing their own experiences is wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am a female engineer and I studied CS in Europe. I never had issues socializing. My classmates were fortunately very inclusive, maybe because the men-women friendships have a different dynamic in Europe, or I was just lucky. Either way, my class was still 95% male. I would say we have to look at even younger girls to see the issue.

I have a brother who is really into computer games. When we were children, my parents got him games and didn't mind when he was sitting behind the computer for hours. I also liked games and I was trying to write stories, draw, install programs to get(ehm, pirate) music too. We had one computer and when my brother was using it I had to wait for him to finish playing. When I was using it, I was sent to play outside or read. Computers were always a boy thing, so I was never really seriously considering studying CS until we did a career test in high school where they encouraged me to go to a STEM field and do something like math or computer science. I gave it a try and loved it.

I think we have to start early and stop dividing professions into for men or women. Let men be nurses and women firefighters. Look at your childrens personalities and let them grow in whatever they enjoy, girly or not.

<comment><USER28> I think you just pointed the biggest issues in the article: the problem starts before any of the solutions proposed. You can do whatever you want during the job/university but if you still get 95% males it won't fix the issue.

> I think we have to start early and stop dividing professions into for men or > women. Let men be nurses and women firefighters. Look at your childrens > personalities and let them grow in whatever they enjoy, girly or not.

I would just add that we should do this even if it doesn't change anything. Just let people do whatever they like and don't judge them with stupid stereotypes. Don't force girls to be CS and boys to be nurses if they don't want to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's funny that the author disparages this Quillette article as, "discouraging theories of biological superiority," when a fair reading of it actually includes the author's point. Much of it addresses skews in preferences. Even James Damore's memo devoted a portion to consideration of preferences, and suggested changing the field to better fit preferences.

[http://quillette.com/2018/02/15/sex-stem-stubborn-facts- stub...](http://quillette.com/2018/02/15/sex-stem-stubborn-facts-stubborn- ideologies/)

Many fields have demographic skews, and many of these are a result of preferences, some in favor of women, even in highly technical areas. (And these can change over time for non-nefarious reasons.) No-one you should take seriously thinks men are somehow biologically anointed to be "superior." However, no one you should take seriously thinks men and women are biologically identical blank slates, particularly if that is really motivated by an ideological feel-good story.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKmyO3hbOz8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKmyO3hbOz8)

 _Part 2: As a profession, computer engineering is perceived to be [X]_

There is some important kernel of truth to this. I've known women who can code, but who definitely don't want to, including my wife who actually feels sorry for me whenever she tries to imagine what my day is like. Furthermore, I would say that there aspects of the culture of programming which act to degrade its meritocracy, and some of those are culturally skewed against women. I don't think that an attitude of witch-hunt and inquisition is the way to do that, however. Rather, I think the kind of discussion which James Damore thought he was going to have when he penned his memo is the solution. Note that this is entirely independent of what he said in his memo -- the kind of discussion he reportedly imagined would happen.

As jdavis notes below, accounting and book keeping employ more women than men. Computer programming was once seen as a preferred career for women in the very early days. I suspect that there's a common thread here, which is mediated by culture and social factors. One which is not nefarious, and one which would be useful to figure out.

</comment><comment><USER29> Normally, this would be pedantic, but since the author is delving into terms from psychology, they should avoid conflating the terms pro/antisocial with social/asocial.

In particular, antisocial [1] means something _very_ different than asocial (preferring a less active social life). Plenty of people are asocial but thankfully very few are antisocial.

It matters in the case of the article because it juxtaposes pro-social behaviors like community consciousness with _asocial_ behaviors. These are different dimensions. One can be simultaneously asocial and pro-social, and one can also simultaneously be social and anti-social.

1\. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disor...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder)

</comment><comment><USER30> I notice that the big decline in female enrollment in CS came around the time the Hollywood stereotype of a computer programmer changed from a well- intentioned labcoated professional whose creation might have gotten a bit out of control to a basement dwelling hacker carrying out a solo fight against the bullies, the man, etc.

<comment><USER31> Which also corresponded to home PCs and gaming consoles becoming common. So computers became more about a hobby with often limited social interaction as opposed to being solely about something that college students and adults pursuing computing as a profession did.

Which arguably also led to this idea that if you haven't been doing computing recreationally since you were a kid you obviously are not Passionate enough to join $disruptive_startup.

<comment><USER32> I have to admit if you only started programming after you went to University your going to struggle with the course and afterwards work.

You would not expect to do a Degree in English lit and have done no reading of the cannon before getting to university.

<comment><USER31> I'm honestly not so sure about that. The number of Western classics the average incoming English major has read is probably pretty small.

And it really isn't true of just about any other branch of engineering or science. How many bridges do you think someone majoring in civil engineering has designed?

The fact that a lot of CS curricula only address those who have been programming as a hobby is a bug not a feature.

<comment><USER32> Many other countries mandate that you study at school the subject (or direct precursors) you take at Uni.

You not going to study Physics at Oxbridge if you don't have GCSE and A levels in the Subject why is EE and CS considered different.

Some lists of the "English" cannon are 200+ texts and that's not counting some of the classical authors you should have read - and that's not counting any BAME texts you might want to look at for diversity.

<comment><USER33> The English cannon should be shot.

:-)

The word you're looking for is "canon".

<comment><USER32> And Dyslexia sucks :-)

<comment><USER33> And now I feel like a heel for picking on your spelling. :-<

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I personally love me some alone time, but yeah, as a lady, tech is a little too lonely even for me. Something that I think would help is if the social types in the engineering department (often men!) would post interesting tech events in Slack.

Maybe I don't enjoy sports or poker; maybe you don't enjoy sci-fi book readings or craft nights, but chances are we both want learn some new tricks (with free beer and snacks). I suppose the risk there is that it can feel like an obligation -- and I actually had a boss accuse me of networking for my next job by going to tech events.

<comment><USER35> > Something that I think would help is if the social types in the engineering > department (often men!) would post interesting tech events in Slack.

I think this is really important. But should add that if you want to do something don't be afraid to make said post. If you feel lonely, reach out.

I moved across the country and had no friends there (into an engineering firm, in an engineering town, with few people my age (mostly engineers)). Being mostly an introvert I was fine being alone 99% of the time, but everyone needs friends. I figured out that when I need friend time that _I_ had to be the one to organize such events. If I didn't then no one did anything, or the groups that already existed would just do their own things. (Can't blame them for excluding me. Not like it was a malicious act. Just no one knew me.) It can just be something simple as "Hey I was going to do $X on $DAY, want to come too?" (direct works better than an open invitation) After learning this I did actually develop friends and got invited to things.

So what I'm saying is that if you feel lonely _you_ have to reach out. I completely understand that this sucks as an introvert. But you do have some control over this and you can't completely rely on others to invite you to things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Anecdote: My niece was on a female floor in her dormitory. Supposed to foster a supportive environment for the women to pursue STEM. What happened? A few gave in, turned to Liberal Arts. They began to chatter to the rest about "why bother". After 1 semester, only my niece was still in a STEM field (ChemE).

</comment><comment><USER37> If someone could please explain to me how this is an issue entirely completely uncoupled with the rise of "Tech" to be trendy (read lucrative) and the insistence for some people's assertions that THEY deserve this as much as others, it would be much appreciated. It feels like everyone is just turning a blind eye to the obvious parallels in deep sea welding or some other gender dominated profession because they don't want anyone to get hurt feelings and start a witch hunt.

<comment><USER38> Because "tech" as of late has become comfortable and more publicly accepted, even garnering a certain cachet and prestige because of get-rich-coding billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg. It'd be a non-issue if tech was full of geeks with slide-rules who only make an average salary and have to wear a tie to the office.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I've never understood the anti-social stereotype of working software. In order to do the work, most of us need to interact with users of all stripes. It's rare that we're isolated in a bubble of men. There are business analysts, project managers, users, stakeholders, scrum masters, QA testers, story development meetings, and daily scrums.

It's one of the most social professions one could arguably enter. Sure we have to code in a cube for most of our week, but anti-social?

Hardly.

In fact, the most successful software engineers are the ones that _are_ social, understand complex social environments, listen well, and know how to engage.

I do agree with the OP that there's a _perception_ of anti-social stereotypes, but I'd argue the problem is that there are few women in tech, men would _love_ to find a tech-oriented partner or date, but the odds of that one woman in your group lining up in all other ways with us is narrow (we're analytical daters - we do the math), we tend to just resign ourselves to staying away from disappointment. And there is the whole sexual harassment aspect too. When we're doing the coworker math in our heads, we're worried about saying something stupid.

It's a self-fulfilling cycle. An unbalanced gender environment creates discomfort by both genders.

We need to actively reconstruct social dynamics within tech circles to break this cycle or it will just continue.

<comment><USER39> How do we break the cycle?

Colleges need to get out of the business of teaching CompSci the way the do it now. Less emphasis on science and engineering and more on team building, project management, business analysis, and more. Don't make programmers. To me that's like forcing everyone that plans to work on cars to only understand how to repair brakes. There is a whole lot of car outside of repairing just the brakes.

Colleges need to engage in team-oriented software development practices. It shouldn't be computer science specific. It should be business oriented, social, teams, projects, testing, planning, white-boarding, _and_ programming.

This is how a lot of businesses run, so we should mimic the environments these graduates will end up in.

If we made this one valuable change, we'd possibly attract a more balanced gender population, create social environments for men to evolve properly, allow women to feel comfortable and respected, and generate advocacy for diverse and respectful work environments.

<comment><USER40> Are you implying that science and engineering are problematic for women? ಠ_ಠ

<comment><USER39> Hell no. I'm saying our current working population is out of gender balance and women who would otherwise choose software engineering probably prefer to turn towards gender neutral professions, especially given all of the news of places like Uber.

We need to change the foundation of tech education to weave in other disciplines so gender balance is achieved.

Granted, if a college tried and they still struggled to meet the goal of gender balance, my theory goes out the window.

But except for brave and determined women, this imbalance will remain. Let's take the need for bravery out of the equation, if it's possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Is CS really "lauded as a haven for antisocial people?" Ouch. Some of the evidence in this article is anecdotal (female friend at a hackathon gets excluded by males, etc.).

Has no one else seen the plethora of "Women in Tech" meet ups, events and hiring fairs? Anecdotally, I have several female friends that have interviewed and been hired at companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon. I understand this isn't statistically significant but does the cause have to be the fault of men (being less social, being perceived as weird, not welcoming women to the industry)?

Maybe there are less women in tech because women (generally) are less interested in the field?

<comment><USER42> "Women in tech" events are a good example of how women exclude themselves. A typical event has the following attributes:

\- Men strongly discouraged or banned from participating.

\- Many of the attendees are "women in tech" but not "technical women", it's common to see women who describe themselves as co-founders, activists, HR staff and so on but relatively rare to find someone who actually spends all day banging out code.

\- As a consequence of the above most of the talk at these events revolves around gender politics, not tech.

Source: girlfriend has learned to code and attended one or two meetup events advertised as being for women in tech, also from reading agendas or blog posts about such events.

Meanwhile the men are creating inclusive events that focus on knowledge sharing about hard tech topics. They use what they learn to build new things, they scope out each others talent and form professional relationships that can be used to build companies. True geek girls go to these events and are in the minority. The rest self-select out and create the exclusion they then blame men for. I have no sympathy.

<comment><USER16> That's an interesting theory, but do you have any evidence that most of these events are more political in nature than actually talking about programming and technology? Your girlfriend's one or two anecdotes aren't really sufficient to make a generalization like that.

<comment><USER42> It's not a theory, it's a description of my observations.

I've presented my sources. Why not go find counter-examples? I bet you'll find it's harder than you expect. But OK, I'll make my case more strongly.

Here's a simple exercise. Pick a buzzword, say blockchain, search for "women in X" and let's look at some of the top results.

[https://www.womenontheblock.io/](https://www.womenontheblock.io/) \- check out the speakers. The first is a PhD student in cryptography, not a bad start. But then there's a co-founder, another co-founder, another founder (of "Investing in Women" i.e. an activist), a lawyer, an actual software engineer! Sort of - in 2011 she was an intern, she spent two years doing support tickets and is now a PM, but hey, that's at least something. Then we're back to a lobbyist, another founder (of a foundation), another lawyer, "Chief Discovery Officer" whatever that is, lawyer, digital content lead, shareholder (?), co- founder, business development executive, CFO, lawyer, CTO of the World Bank Group whose background is actually management consulting and "thought leadership", sales, "human capital officer" etc etc.

You get the picture. I just worked down the list and of all the people listed, only two appeared to do anything actually related to writing software: a cryptography student and someone who spent a couple of years as a support engineer but then quickly moved into product management.

Notice the pre-ponderance of women calling themselves founders and co- founders. That's very common. They are not what HN readers would recognise as a startup founder. Often they've founded entities that don't do anything, or are just organising more "women in X" meetups, or in the rare case where they're making software, have partnered with men / outsourcing shops to do so.

Here's another example: [https://www.blockchainbeach.com/live-2018-women-in- blockchai...](https://www.blockchainbeach.com/live-2018-women-in-blockchain- summit/)

Look at the agenda. It starts with a basic intro to blockchain, ok, slightly technical but nothing you can't find on YouTube. But then we're right into a discussion of "her time in the middle east and dispelling misconceptions about women in that region" i.e. about general women's issues, not tech. Then a panel whose first listed topic is "social impact" and one of the members is a musician (at least two of the women do appear to be at least somewhat technical). Then a marketing pitch for some random alt-coin whose relevance appears to be mostly that the marketing person for NEM is a woman. Then a keynote on "diversity in blockchain" \- women's issues/feminism again. Then a panel on "women empowerment and inclusion". Useful observations like "42% of all the women in the world do not have a bank account" (men's problems of course don't count). And so on.

Really, if you have never investigated these events before - don't bother. They are mostly just non-technical feminists complaining about men, engaging in outrageous sexism and generally making the whole feminist cause look bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I read this article and can't help to see how much cultural views and media representation is blending facts with fiction. Starting with the statement "Compared to almost any other industry, women are underrepresented in technology", looking at gender segregation statistics per profession paints a very different picture. Taking Swedish statistics (which get collected as part of taxation and made public), technology profession are usually very average with around 75%. It sounds huge thinking that for every 1 woman there is 3 men, but that is about average for every employed swede for both men and women. You take a random person of the street and there is around 80% chance that the person is working in a profession which has higher than 2:1 gender ratio. The official definition of a gender segregated profession is 60/40 or higher, and 88.5% of the population falls in that category with about 12% women and 13% men working in gender equal professions. Going from the other end, I am manually looking at the list and there is 40 professions with 90% or higher gender segregation none which clearly fits as a technology profession. Top 1# is midwife with 99.7% women (total 5692) and #2 is floor installation with 99.4% men (total 3581). The first recognizable technology profession (system programmer) is listed with 80% men, ranked #75th worst of a total listed 156 professions (including the few gender equal profession).

Without this context, discussing numbers like "women hold only 25% of technical roles" is impossible. 75th position means (given equal distribution) that taking a random person of the street should give a 50% chance of them working in a more gender segregated profession than technology.

What is causing half the population of Sweden to choose gender segregated professions where the majority outnumber the minority with 80% to 20% and do the theories of the article explain it? Personally I don't think so. If social behavior would be a major source then we should be able to predict which professions would be dominated by men and which by women if we ranked the social engagement in the work place, but such prediction model seems poor when I manually go through the top worst segregated professions where both male and women professions are mostly team based.

[http://www.duochjobbet.se/nyhet/nio-av-tio-har-jobb-med- ojam...](http://www.duochjobbet.se/nyhet/nio-av-tio-har-jobb-med-ojamn- konsfordelning/) (for a 2012 list that was easiest to grab, but one can always go to the Statistics Sweden (SCB)).

</comment><comment><USER44> > In addition to these perceptions about people in tech, tech actually is less > social for women than for men. It's harder for women to make friends and fit > in, both in university classes and at tech companies. Because it's unnatural > or might be taken the wrong way, young men are less likely to approach women > and invite them to join a study group or happy hour, poker night, or > whatever else they do with their male peers/coworkers. They don't just sit > next to women without a desk neighbor, ask them unsolicited questions, or > offer to help. They're less likely to joke with them, complement them, or > even chat with them casually. The exclusion is unintentional, not malicious, > but made worse by the fact that women are more socially aware than men at > this age.

I wonder how much of that has to do with how young, male engineers are hammered with the social mores of creepy, harassing nerds pushed as one of the reasons for less women in tech. Maybe they're trying to take the safe route and just not interact.

</comment><comment><USER45> I like to compare STEM to Harry Potter when it first came out. I remember being one of those dorks in middle school who couldn't get enough of it, and I thought not many people enjoyed it as much as I did. Only a handful of people mentioned it, and I was pretty social back then. Then the movies came out followed by the "cool kids" going crazy over them. Suddenly you have to like Harry Potter in order to fit in!

The only difference is that STEM isn't labeled as cool by "cool people" yet.

</comment><comment><USER46> I am just confused.

I think we might agree that how social women vs men are in the certain age group are relatively constant through time. IE in 60s men is about as social as they are now, but the number of women in STEM decreased through the same time period.

I think it is just market forces in play plus gender roles in childhood. Women get discriminated in tech(study and jobs), resulting in subpar outcomes for women. This information propagates through the market so women choose not to participate in that kind of work because opportunity costs are too high and they choose to do something else.

Very similar situation growing up where gender roles and parents push girls away from STEM.

If companies and educational institution in STEM treated men and women the same, we would get much better distribution.

Not rocket science here. Education plus equal treatment.

</comment><comment><USER47> I see this as a problem companies need to solve, not individuals.

A man intentionally going out of their way to befriend a woman has much more to lose (potentially being considered a "creep" leading to a poor reputation that may spread) than they stand to gain compared to if they tried to befriend another man. But the main reason that can occur is the intentionality of making an "approach" like that. And yes, it will be construed as creepy a significant portion of the time, especially if you are unattractive or have poor social skills - that's a fact of life.

If instead your boss/professor mandated a few small social events to get new hires to meet each other and existing employees one-on-one, there's no way you can misconstrue getting to know someone as trying to flirt with them. Everybody wins.

</comment><comment><USER48> That Google photo[0], which the author thinks is a good example of diversity, properly reflects the current SV definition of "diversity": (a) all white and Asian (b) 25% female (c) all in their 20s and early 30s. No older females. No older males. No black females. No black males. No apparent Latinos ( _perhaps_ far right in the second row).

[0] [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/IKDqAFRmbc_c4-rbLJ5WjCq58H...](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/IKDqAFRmbc_c4-rbLJ5WjCq58HPUTBfXDmSXP2LZn_AcBSM5iWj7vWfSYZYJk4SxGc5WBgF1jgaAVaGllJ8HqcHE8VP_r3emAaNHdpDIQlbG9qPiDtampzoqKKZ7bPoG9zjOQzPU)

</comment><comment><USER49> The cited statistic "Women make up 57% of the workforce" is very misleading. Chasing down the chain of citations, this number appears to be the percentage of "Professional and related occupations" jobs occupied by women according to the BLS ([https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat09.htm](https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat09.htm)). But by far the largest sub-category of this is "Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations" which is heavily female--outside of this sub-group the gender ratio is roughly 50/50.

<comment><USER40> You can't just cut out parts of the workforce that you don't want to include in your data.

<comment><USER49> I'm not advocating that. I'm just saying that this is, contrary to how it is cited, a specific subset of "the workforce", and pointing out that this subset furthermore is not necessarily representative of what one might think of as the "professional" workforce.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Tech in general and software in particular is hard to learn. So hard that you can't progress beyond mediocre level unless you have strong passion for it. Only that passion pushes you to spend hours and days fighting a problem. Only that passion makes you stay awake late night reading about beautiful programming concept. Only that passion gives you a bliss when you finally figured out something and made it work. Better social interactions won't replace that passion. So no, I don't support her theory. Innate interest in technology is necessary and sufficient.

</comment><comment><USER38> What I read from this is that women are less interested than men in a job by itself and more in what the job fits their desired lifestyle.

I and many other programmers I've talked to got into the career they have because the craft is naturally compelling to them, with the lifestyle of programming being secondary or even tertiary. I don't think most male programmers do what they do because they particularly like each other, nor are they necessarily interested in an anti-social atmosphere. Sure, some are going to have contrary preferences, but if it wasn't generally true that male programmers are primarily interested in their craft, then I wouldn't expect the most horrendously competitive tech companies wouldn't still get plenty of male applicants and even fewer female applicants.

Put simply, I think tech companies could all be run like sweat shops, and you'd see nearly as many men working for them and probably fewer women.

Yet again, we have a woman who enters an arena that women don't want to enter(by her own account) and requests that it be changed to fit her and other women. These are the suggestions she makes for making tech more hospitable to women:

* Create communities (set people up with "buddies", mentors, lunch groups)

* Emphasize tech's potential to impact humans and community wellbeing

* Invest in social events

* Offer opportunities for engineers to do user- and team-facing work

* Confront unconscious bias

* Go befriend a girl in your class or company

As a man, these are all distractions from getting my work done. I am intellectually excited about software development but, when it comes down to it, I want to show up to the office, accomplish things, and go home. Being overly concerned with the wellbeing of others is not that interesting, and I don't have a job to make friends; if I make friends, that's through happenstance. I want to be the best at what I do, but I don't need communities/buddies, social events, unconscious bias training, or the opposite sex to do this.

> Go befriend a girl in your class or company

I wish someone would tell women the same thing of men.

Coming from someone who has more female friends than male, there's a lot that can go wrong in a man trying to befriend women, especially at work. On many occasions, simply being friendly has clearly lead to a woman perceiving that I was interested in her. If you're lucky, you're met with distance and radio silence, but most men are going to be treated as "creepy". As engineering is going to be made up of a lot of nerds who already have experience in being "creepy", there's little incentive for those nerds to willingly subject themselves to rejection when they weren't even looking to court these women in the first place.

Again, I have lots of female friends, including some from work, but that's because it took an incredible amount of effort to get to know them without setting off the "creepy" flag. For most guys, this effort isn't worth it.

<comment><USER7> Right, given the option for a man to try to befriend two people: a man and a woman, it's far lower risk to try and befriend the man, assuming both friendships have an equal probability of being fulfilling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> > Part 1: Young women are more pro-social then young men.

That's just another gender stereotype.

<comment><USER16> Backed by science.

<comment><USER51> Science doesn't back stereotypes.

<comment><USER16> But stereotypes can be backed by science.

<comment><USER51> Stereotypes aren't backed by anything. They're just things people beleive for no good reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Likely an unpopular view, by why is this a problem? There are unequal gender splits in many fields, but I don't hear a big outcry that men are underrepresented in Nursing as an example, or that there aren't enough women lumberjacks.

Not everything needs to be in a 50/50 balance.

</comment><comment><USER53> > [If you're a dude and you're reading this article] Go befriend a girl in > your class or company. It's not creepy. Include her, ask her for advice, > introduce her, learn about her work and her life in the same way you would > with any male friend or coworker. If you're an investor, professor, > journalist, or manager, take it on yourself to sponsor a young woman's > career.

While I totally agree with this advice, I think this is very difficult to get men to do in the tech industry. There _is_ a real concern, and to be honest I don't totally think invalid, that many men don't want to be perceived in any way as doing something that could be construed (or misconstrued) as harassment. I think there may be an subconscious/unconscious evaluation going on where men think "Well, I might be socially awkward talking to this girl anyway, so I'll just avoid the complication."

I think one of the unfortunate unintended consequences of the #MeToo movement is that men don't want to even get close to the line of doing something that could be perceived as inappropriate, which unfortunately results in _more_ isolation of women, not less.

<comment><USER54> JFC. If you're afraid of accidentally harassing or molesting someone I think you have the wrong idea of how to interact with people.

<comment><USER55> What you think is harassing might quite well disagree with target female view of what harassing is, complicated by the fact that HR department might disagree with you both. And should that whole thing become public, you'll be judged by the entire office, with the entire spectrum of views on what harassment is.

Personally, as a male, you have absolutely nothing to gain, and everything to lose. The most rational thing is to not engage at all.

<comment><USER54> > as a male, you have absolutely nothing to gain, and everything to lose.

Having friendly, healthy relationships with your colleagues isn't valuable? Or just with the ones who are women?

Some of my best friendships/allies/contacts have been women who I worked with. I'm very thankful for the opportunities they have provided me and the value they add to my life.

The fact that you see /zero/ value in having genuine connections with women has me even more worried than the fact that the OP was afraid of harassing someone accidentally.

<comment><USER56> I think you are seeing a more extreme position than they were taking.

It's not that there isn't value in having friendly relationships with your colleagues no matter their gender. The issue comes up in comparing the value of a specific relationship with the potential costs of it (or attempting to create it).

Right or wrong, befriending a male colleague has virtually zero risk. The chances of anything happening to severely damage your career or social standing are essentially nil. Even in a severe situation, there isn't much you can do to cause a problem without acting in a pretty horrible way that's also documented. There just isn't much you can do there to really provoke a highly emotional reaction or scare HR.

The same cannot be said of attempting a relationship with a woman. People are very sensitive about sexual harassment and HR wants absolutely nothing to do with it. The exact lines for sexual harassment are necessarily a bit blurry. Even if they existed, continually just barely not crossing them would seem like harassment to me.

Is the friendly relationship with a woman coworker so much more valuable than a man that it is worth taking on additional risk? I don't think so.

I don't intend to have a particularly strong relationship with all my coworkers and I imagine most people are the same. This means I get to be choosy about which ones I engage in this way. The risk-reward ratio just doesn't seem favorable to engaging women in this way.

Now, personally speaking I have slightly more female friends than male friends, unless we're counting people I might talk to once every few years. My oldest friend, by far, is female. I would never suggest men should not be friends with women. That's insane. I'm just not sure what the incentives are for me to try to specifically befriend female coworkers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Having many social interactions can be a competitive disadvantage:

"Army scientists recently found that the best, high-performing cybersecurity teams have relatively few interactions with their team-members and team captain."

[https://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?article=3209](https://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?article=3209)

</comment><comment><USER58> Thanks for posting this, a refreshing perspective, on which I couldn't agree more. I founded and operate a software startup, and have > 20 years of semiconductor manufacturing and software development experience. As a very extroverted male, when I meet new people they almost always show genuine surprise when discovering what I do for a living. It's a fact: there's a social bias in tech. Personally, I can't stand the term nerd, or anything like it - it's derogatory to me, making it appear there is something lacking socially. Thanks for the positive advice here, I am already practicing a lot of it in my daily work life. And you've given me a couple more things to add to that practice.

</comment><comment><USER59> Total aside, but where did her "baggy-eyed programmer in a dark cave with Red Bull or a unintelligible savant who can't get a date" picture come from? Know Your Meme just says "unknown".

[https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/9L-mUL4tDVCe322V-fYpUHbQxP...](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/9L-mUL4tDVCe322V-fYpUHbQxP- JXijDKg47nj_Nuv-87M3XJjHVV1b8aLepZ_1BXX3DiApCMz61Ruwk_NsaLLJUk6eQ5kpV- dML615Xpb57AtkTJy4TTLTlwdtrld4KJkehvPj0)

Was it a staged stock photo, or was it just some guy? If the latter, I wonder how he'd feel about his role in her article?

</comment><comment><USER60> Here is the politically incorrect view, most people at the high end of the IQ are men. Like it or not, nature is not egalitarian. Why is this so f __*ing complicated? Programming as a profession roughly falls under the high IQ spectrum. Ok, now some of you egalitarian nuts reading this _will_ interpret what I wrote as discriminatory, _waits for the backlash_

<comment><USER61> source?

<comment><USER60> poke111, I looked at your other posts and I belive you really needn't be convinced with a source as such.( if by source you meant a research paper) I noticed that you have already figured out that there differences in IQ among races. Anyway - my 'source' is my observation over the years, the smartest people that I'm aware of, both among developers or otherwise are disproportionately male. As a corollary some dumbest people are also disproportionately male. Never in my circle of acquaintances have I seen women being discriminated solely based on their gender. Infact I have on occasions seen a clear discrimination against men. I did do a quick search to see if there were research papers on the subject, I could not find it. The few that I could find did not show significant differences. Now ofcourse the broader question to ask is, do we take main stream science at it's word always, ? No, is my answer. A large proportion of mainstream science is biased and rigged. I have heard/read that any research paper that shows difference in IQ among genders or race is unlikely to be published by journals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I'm not fond of talking about how much "experience" I have so I've made this throwaway. I've been programming for most of my adult life. I've worked on every level of the tech stack from writing byte code for CPUs by hand to front end web development. In my college classes I helped many people survive by offering advice on tooling, implementation, and even sometimes direct one on one tutoring. I would never say I know everything about software development but I've had a lot of practice and I know how to find out how to do anything and I can teach and or exercise that same skill to anyone.

Unfortunately though I am what this author would call "a baggy-eyed programmer in a dark cave with Red Bull or a unintelligible savant who can't get a date."

I'm extremely nervous in social situations to the point where I don't enjoy ordering something different from restaurants I've already been to for fear that the person behind the counter will ask me to clarify something and I won't know what to do. I've been getting much better at talking to people and I'm usually extroverted when I'm around people I've already met.

As for what the article asks as a solution, as many point out, this is very difficult.

> [If you're a dude and you're reading this article] Go befriend a girl in > your class or company. It's not creepy.

I'd consider the engineers I work with to all be my friends and that's only because I work with them on a day to day basis and I had time to acclimate to them.

The women who I've met university however did not pan out this way. I have many male friends. Many of whom have either noticed me, or who I have noticed, have terminals open and have been vigorously typing during a lecture. Whenever I see this I make a point to lean over and ask "what editor do you use?", "what class is this for?", "that's cool! Do you have any side project that you do outside of school".

I've made some very good friends by doing this but women for the most part are creeped out. It's understandable. I'm a weird looking dude with a 12 year old thinkpad that sports stickers from OSH Park and I'm likely going to be talking to people who I already know about anime or something else equally as strange.

One thing that has never happened to me, and that I've never seen happen anywhere, was see a women lean over and do what I have just described.

Unfortunately just due to the nature of the possible sample size (<20% of my degree track's population) this may just be a coincidence.

I love teaching and I want to get better at making friends. It's just very difficult for me, and the many others like me, to be the one to reach out. I think it would generally be positive if encouraged women to try and ask "what editor are you using?"

I'd definitely go to meetups, talk shop, work on projects, etc with someone else in the NYC area. I've got a lot I can teach and much more that we could learn together. I just don't know how to make that happen. Facilitating an environment where that could happen is probably the best bet if this author is correct imo.

<comment><USER63> An aside, but I would absolutely want to approach someone with a 12 year old thinkpad and ask what the internals are like, how the keyboard is holding up, which model you chose and why, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Up till the middle of the article the arguments could be made either way (if we were somehow in a parallel universe and 75% of the CS workforce were females).

The part that got me thinking was whether CS is less social compared to other industries and careers.

I think that is the perception and reality. If by social we mean interaction with other human beings than a lot of the interaction we do is between a human and a computer. Not human to human. Of course there are lots of exceptions but expectations are there as well. The expectation that you are solving a problem as a group or by yourself.

Even in a number of CS programs you can't work together on problems. We have programs that scan your homework to see if you "cheated". Other business classes I took though regularly focused on group projects early on. CS early on is about learning to code and interacting with computers.

</comment><comment><USER65> Thoughts about picture "The APMs at a social event in Napa"?

The lady is kind of left out. Not sure if it's american hover-hand culture, but to me it looks one of the problems.

</comment><comment><USER40> Pretend you're a woman and then read the comments on this post. That makes it pretty obvious that one of the reasons women have a hard time feeling welcome in tech is because men don't listen to or empathize with them when they speak about their opinions or perspectives.

<comment><USER66> I've been browsing this thread for about 45 minutes. Not a single comment is rude, most of the comments are trying to debate about the issue.

If you post a submission on a forum and expect everyone to blindly agree with you or you else you consider it as "hate", then the problem is perhaps with you.

<comment><USER67> They didn't say rude, they mentioned empathy.

Julia Enthoven shared her experience as a Woman in tech, and this thread is filled with nitpicking, asking for sources, disagreement, alternate theories, debates, etc.

There is no empathy here. So I'll start:

Good for her for sharing her thoughts and experiences. It's a tough topic to talk about, and as we see here and elsewhere, people will immediately pick apart everything you say. Individual experiences like these are useful to read about for people like me who recognize that there is a problem but don't really know what to do about it. So thank you, Julia. I'm sorry it is such a difficult topic, but I hope you keep talking about this and that others are encouraged to do so as well.

<comment><USER42> That attitude doesn't help the cause of women in tech. It makes things worse.

Machines don't have empathy. They do not care about feelings. Code is harsh. So are professional code reviewers. Therefore if you're a programmer, you will in fact spend a lot of time dealing with nitpicking issues, finding sources for claims you make, debating alternative theories and so on.

If women can't even do that in debates _they start_ then they should give up in being programmers. They won't make it and they won't get along with their colleagues.

I don't think they _are_ incapable of such things, as I always get the impression posts like this one ("why can't you just respect her opinion") are actually written by men. But her compiler won't give her opinions automatic respect. Why should anyone else?

<comment><USER40> Wow, please get that toxic attitude out of tech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> > Go befriend a girl in your class or company. It's not creepy.

As an unattractive computer nerd, I've been regularly reminded my entire life that I _am_ creepy. Skipping.

<comment><USER69> I have a talented, and wonderful, female dev on my team.

One thing though:. She has described to me some of the male coders as being "creepers".

When I asked for specifics, she couldn't provide them. She simply stated it was a "feeling".

The one commonality I found with the creepers is that they are pretty clearly below average in looks. The question is whether this is a correlation or a casual factor.

But definitely challenged her to try to focus on actions rather than "vibes".

<comment><USER70> There is definitely something else going on in the background:

[https://twitter.com/ekp/status/991817194987114496](https://twitter.com/ekp/status/991817194987114496)

I frankly found this shocking and absolutely disgusting.

<comment><USER71> Be attractive. Don't be unattractive. Your job now depends on it. Unless you work 100% remote and don't use video chat.

<comment><USER72> "Incels" are a self-identified group that don't represent all sexually frustrated men, and "What are you going to do about it?" can have answers besides "root them out and fire them".

<comment><USER71> Not in this case. To some women, all 'creepy' men are potential rapists and now, thanks to the media, potential terrorists too. Do you really think women are going to 'feel safe' in their working environment if there is even one man there who is 'creepy'?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> It's sad to see so many people here saying that social situations, especially with women, induce so much fear. Here are some tips from a geek who was in that position, learned a few things, and now has slightly less crappy social skills:

* _Stop objectifying people_ : 'Objectifying' is a kinda intimidating word, but the meaning is _essential_. Stop making people objects in your mental model of the world; stop making them characters who play a role in your private theatrical narrative of rejection (and whatever else you've lived through). That big scary monster who might reject you - that's the object. The real person has their own entire private universe, like you, of fears, desires, perspectives, priorities, needs, worries, and theatrical narratives. They haven't read your script, don't know their assigned part, and most importantly, don't want to play it - they want to be themselves! You and your interaction play a tiny role in their lives; the reason they respond in X way likely has little to do with you; they may be as scared as you are. Instead, be curious about them - who is this person completely distinct from you? There's a vast universe of emotion and experience you know nothing about - so much to learn! Give them plenty of space and assume nothing because you don't know shit; the variety is unfathomable; if they don't surprise you, you're doing it wrong. More importantly, step outside yourself and _care_. Grasp that they have a hard time too - this mortal coil sucks for everyone - and be compassionate about it. Genuine compassion is your greatest tool; it also turns your attention away from your fears and outward to others, and you also do a good deed. Humans crave it. (I'm not blaming you for objectifying; I know why; it's hard.)

* Be genuine about your emotions. That is, be honest. You're not hiding them nearly as well as you think; people have evolved and learned throughout their lives to pick up very subtle emotional cues, consciously and unconsciously. (It's a matter of survival for the organism - 'Will the one next to me kill me? Feed me? Parent my children?') And here's the trick: If you aren't honest with yourself about your emotions, then obviously you can't be honest with others. Too many males are raised to treat emotions like a crippled, angry dog they're forced to feed - great, you just kicked out the strongest leg of your little table of stability and capability. Your intellect is not nearly enough to compensate, but you probably noticed that by now; your emotions are actually your best friend and tool - amazingly powerful and they also provide stability if you take care of them. Be emotionally genuine and honest or you're _lying_ to the other person (and maybe yourself); people don't like liars. That doesn't mean you have to act out on them (yell when angry) or announce them at every moment or that you shouldn't have some composure (be able to manage them), but be honest with yourself and don't pretend. Try this: 'I'm such a nerd! Talking to people terrifies me.' That's genuine, shows you can be trusted, and allows them to genuine.

* Pay close attention to their emotions. Ask yourself, 'what is their emotional affect[0] right now?' and also, 'what is their unsaid concern, what is their agenda?' Yes, it takes effort and concentration to do those things while also paying _close_ attention to their words. That's called _listening_. And it also makes you shut up, stop interrupting, and again focus outward on them and not on your fears or the game/work you're obsessed with. When people see and feel you do it, they really appreciate it; it's like magic. And you'll be amazed what you learn from other people when you let them talk.

* Back way the f-k up and give people (emotional) space, lots of it, enough that they can go anywhere in their conversation and not meet any resistance from you (an uncomfortable look, an interjection, etc.). Enough so that they can develop an incomplete idea or pause without at all worrying that they'll lose the floor to you. Give them freedom; give them control. If you're like me, that's hard; bite your tongue, literally if you must. And that means that if you get the emotional cue that they don't want to talk right now, then swallow your fear and respect their completely legitimate wishes. Your fear, your insistence that they respond as you want, is about that object in your mind (see the first point above). That's on you, not them; they aren't there to serve your emotional needs. If you give them space when they want it, you'll find that they trust you when they are ready to talk. If you don't, then why would they want to come back?

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect_%28psychology%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect_%28psychology%29)

EDIT: Some minor edits

<comment><USER55> Or alternatively: Skip the females at workplace and focus on the job at hand.

</comment></comment><comment> cde-v > Compared to almost any other industry, women are underrepresented in > technology.

Except for the many industries where women dominate like:

Preschool and kindergarten education

Nursing

Accounting

Social Work

Psychology

<comment><USER74> Note the pay on those careers.

"Women's Careers" pay significantly less. And they're all 'emotional' and 'soft skill' jobs.

That's a problem.

Edit: So, at -3 currently. Is the -1's a "disagree" or "stfu"? Please state where I am wrong.

<comment><USER75> Don't they pay about as much as the male dominated jobs?

brickmason, drywall installation, crane operator, roofer, etc

All of these jobs have 95%+ males. I can't imagine they pay very well.

That's genuinely a question, not trying to be smart. It seems to me like jobs on both ends of the spectrum might not pay the best.

<comment><USER74> Stonemason - $42,370 - [https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472022.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472022.htm)

Drywall/Ceiling tile installer - $49,250 - [https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472081.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472081.htm)

Crane and Tower Operators - $55,690 - [https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537021.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537021.htm)

LPN - $45,030 - [https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/licensed-practical-and- li...](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/licensed-practical-and-licensed- vocational-nurses.htm) !Requires licensure

Social Worker - $47,980 - [https://www.bls.gov/ooh/community-and-social- service/social-...](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/community-and-social- service/social-workers.htm) !Likely requires graduate degree

Preschool Teachers - $28,990 - [https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training- and-library/presc...](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and- library/preschool-teachers.htm)

Home Health Aides - $23,130 - [https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/home-health- aides-and-per...](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/home-health-aides-and- personal-care-aides.htm)

\</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

Long story short, the trades (AKA: jobs that primarily men do) requires a time of apprenticeship, then you can work. Whereas the "women majority" jobs all pay around 45-50k and they require advanced degrees or state licensure. The nonlicensed primarily-women based jobs pay around 20-30k.

<comment><USER13> So for women-dominated jobs, it's get a degree, get 20k more a year. No wonder women are getting more degrees!

(What's more, this would seem to indicate that class disparities might be increasing more for females than for males. Maybe this explains the vehemence of radicalized females.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> >Invest in social events: It can take a lot of time to set up opportunities for your team to hang out , but casual socializing is awesome for the extroverts on your team and crucial for retention... and go out of your way to include everyone.

Going through this at work. The extroverts took over my department and now our (mandatory) team meetings have (mandatory) fun events that give extroverts time to brag about what they have going outside of work and give the extroverts an audience who can't refuse (the introverts who do the work). And it's awful for people who dislike forced socialization at work. And these are like 11 am meetings on Tuesday so it's dry and interrupts concentration workers.

But this article didn't seem very interesting - these points have been discussed before and it struck me as the bleats of an attractive-enough women who's upset that she has to put in effort and other people aren't giving her the attention she feels entitled to.

Say what you will about traditional corporate cultures, but things seem to work better for everyone when the decorum is universal, clear/well-documented, and free from empathetic demands.

<comment><USER77> > _bleats of an attractive-enough women who 's upset that she has to put in > effort and other people aren't giving her the attention she feels entitled > to_

Between this personal attack and the rest of your gender-war comments, we've banned this account for violating the site guidelines. Please don't create accounts to post like this.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Great article. Appreciate the point of view and I think all the advice is sound.

<comment><USER79> Agreed. not a perfect article but much better than most on the subject. Factually presented and yet it rings on an emotional level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Nice theory. Sexism is still the most compelling reason though. What her mother told her was sexist. Most of her negative experiences can be categorized as sexist. The excuses about social stuff seems like bs coverings for general sexism that people try very hard to be in denial about. This is plainly obvious if you talk to women from other cultures who don't experience this stuff.</comment>