“Our geek cred is constantly challenged or
belittled,” Liz Henry, founder of feminist
hackerspace DoubleUnion writes. “You might be
there coding, and you want to stop for a while and
draw in your notebook and think, but if you’re not
staring at a black and green screen or, like,
melding your brain with an Arduino every second,
some dude is going to come up to you and act like
you need his expert lessons in how to hack.”
On the other hand, there is a tendency among many newbies at hobbies to be shy and self-conscious when they first go to places where the hobby is practiced in public and in groups, and they end up just observing for a while and then leaving without ever jumping in and participating, so everyone ignoring people who aren't obviously participating would also be a problem.
Probably it would be best to have some formal procedure to identify and deal with newbies, such as having designated people who look for them and offer help, and asking others to let those designated people handle the new people.
It may be a distraction from the larger, quite-real problem of sexism in tech, but I do wonder if there are sometimes perceptual misfires of bias that are byproducts of generalized arrogance. I have a bad habit of overexplaining or talking down to people in general, because it can be so hard to guess what people do and don't know, at least until you've spent significant time interacting. If I do this to a woman, she may perceive bias when I would likely have talked down to her even if she were male (which is still not okay).
There are obviously still gender-centric issues at play: men who are subconsciously trying to impress women with their knowledge, and/or "bro cultures" that are intellectually hostile and competitive by default. (And of course, no shortage of just plain ignorant sexism.) As with Smokey's forest fire advice, we all bear responsibility to improve our own behavior, make work/learning environments welcoming, and to assume that everyone has knowledge and skills to offer, regardless of their genetic details or background.
> I have a bad habit of overexplaining or talking down to people in general, because it can be so hard to guess what people do and don't know, at least until you've spent significant time interacting. If I do this to a woman, she may perceive bias when I would likely have talked down to her even if she were male (which is still not okay).
As a male front-end web developer (who uses 5 operating systems daily, runs his own web server, scripts his own shell functions for linux, and outputs hundreds of lines of code and markup each week) I get talked down to by most infosec and IT people at my shared office. Even when you explain that you're more comfortable on a Linux CLI than the desktop, they still feel the need to patronize you and use metaphors for everything to avoid using any technical terms in conversation at all.
I realize some people are just like that; it's a self-importance issue on their end, not a self-esteem issue on mine. I just let it roll off, but if I had the nagging suspicion it was because of my gender/age/race/height/etc I could be sitting here feeling victimized over nothing.
That's one of the creepy, energy-intensive things about being in a group that has historically experienced stereotyping. You wonder, Did I get that because I am a .... or because he's just that way? It's hard to discard the thought, and it takes up processing power while running in the background of your brain. You might argue it's best to just get good at meditation and non-attachment and not even think about it, and that's true to a large extent, but sometimes those signals indicate a real problem person who you'd be better off steering around.
I suppose you can flip this around, too: a few guys commenting seem rather angry that their helpful well-meaning attention to women staring into the distance at hackerspaces is not appreciated, and they might consider that the women in question have their own issues and it's not necessarily the guy's problem. So, you see a woman who you assume needs help and it turns out you're wrong -- she's just thinking, or she's happy being stuck because that is part of the fun -- then you say, "Ok, see you around!", stop talking, and leave her to it. It's not your problem that she doesn't want your help. Don't take it personally.
That's why I can't imagine the labyrinth of doubt that you would walk being a minority hired in an organization that practiced Affirmative Action. No matter the reason you got hired, you and your peers would always wonder…
If you think someone is stuck and you offer to help, you're being condescending or mansplaining but if you think that someone is just in their process and working something out so you leave them alone, you're being cliquish and not welcoming to the newcomer.
Is the subculture supposed to change to fit the needs of the newbie or should the newbies be expected to learn to fit in to the subculture?
The prevailing answer right now is that the subculture needs to be infinitely accommodating to newbies.
This... is perhaps not the wisest answer, as it is the kind of thing that tends to provoke a backlash. Certainly, telling people that their culture has no value whatsoever does not generally incline them to welcome you.
The only viable solution I can see to the basic failure to communicate that you can describe is for either mind-reading machines to be deployed or for highly formalized channels to be adopted. The former are still being worked on and the latter just makes life harder for newbies, assuming they work at all.
"Hello, would you be comfortable if I help with your project? Also, I do not want my help to be construed as condescending or demeaning or belittling you, but I have been doing this for 20 years and you seem to be stuck on an introductory problem."
Then you have both parties sign an official collaboration and non-harrassment document, get it notarized, then 6 to 12 days later you may begin working together.
Wonder how far this space is from having to deal with micro-aggressions, triggers and safe zones. Look, empathy and compassion are incredibly important, and we should require those in spaces that are possibly unfriendly to beginners, but there needs to be a line somewhere.
It's amusing how our mental model of people has become: anything potentially internally upsetting to a person will psychologically destroy them forever. Therefore, you must never say anything anybody (globally) could possibly have a negative reaction towards.
Being sensitive and aware of others needs is great, but being punished because Joe cries when he hears the word Soufflé, and you didn't know that fact, is weird. On the other hand, once you know Joe is sensitive to the S word, and you continue harassing Joe with a daily Soufflé, then you are an asshat.
Our future is on a trajectory to just be like the minions movie. The only word allowed will be banana, in deference to maintaining the internal psychological purity of all sentient humans.
The fact that they're stuck might be part of the fun. It's usually easiest, and frankly less intimidating/annoying, to follow a simple protocol:
1. Ask them if they have a second to chat (if no, leave them alone for a while).
2. Ask them what they're working on, and what they enjoy about it, and what is hard (if they don't want to talk about it, leave them alone for a while).
3. Ask them if they'd mind a suggestion about what they're trying (if they don't want a suggestion, leave them alone for a while). This may also be in the form of a leading question.
It's really not hard to do that without falling into one of those two categories. Just ask quietly and politely, and respect their space. This isn't rocket science.
EDIT:
Also, some of my sibling commenters and even my parent comment have language that suggests some grumpiness over gender or feminism or whatever.
If you're there to help with tech, none of that matters, so don't bring it up. Just ignore it and focus on the tech--doing anything else is, by definition, being distracting.
Furthermore, complaining about it just makes you look silly.
Maybe it's just me, but "Do you have a second to chat?" sounds very little like "You look like you could use some help and I may be able to offer relevant expertise in the interests of addressing your apparent problem". From where I'm sitting, the former sounds like it's so unlikely to lead to the latter that it may not be worth engaging with.
Take at your statement, and pretend a frustrated/easily embarrassed/grumpy person is hearing it:
"You look like you could use some help" --> "You look like you don't know what you're doing/you look frustrated"
"I may be able to offer relevant expertise" --> "I assume that I both have something to offer and that you are having a problem of this particular way/shape/form"
"in the interests of addressing your apparent problem" --> "whatever you're working on is clearly broken, and needs fixing"
My formulation is intentionally very gentle and indirect, precisely to avoid any of the above misinterpretations. Working with people experienced in the field or who are known to be open to communication, obviously, we want to be more direct; for a novice, or for somebody who is looking for any excuse to take offense at what you're saying (perhaps because they're frustrated at their work and want to vent at something), it is useful to take a lighter touch.
I should hope that's precisely not the point unless you just want to frustrate people more. The approach you describe is, in my considered opinion, possibly indirect to the point that could be by some considered to be influenced by Dadaism. Let's model a hypothetical person focused on a problem they're struggling with:
"Hey, do you have a second to chat?" --> "I want to waste your time with spurious bullshit when you're clearly eyeball-deep in something."
Might I suggest a different formulation that presumes less about the subject? Or perhaps giving up entirely? Personally, I've accepted that there is not and cannot be any uniformly acceptable way to approach a stranger and offer assistance that does not risk backlash or misinterpretation.
And then you and your space are attacked publicly as being a place where nobody respects focus, men are constantly approaching women, and so on. Or someone blows up after being quietly and kindly asked that for the fifth time in two hours by well-intentioned people who are unfortunately less than omniscient and an article entitled "Woman harassed in hackerspace by brogrammers!" hits Jezebel.
Communications failures combined with the human capacity for reinterpretation are a bottomless pit of potential badness.
Maybe I'm just more cynical about people than you.
This sounds a lot like black-and-white thinking or all-or-nothing thinking (psychology).
"If I ask a woman in a hackerspace ``want to chat?'' then .... Jezebel will print horrible articles about men."
"If I don't talk to the woman in a hackerspace then..... .. .. I am a horrible misogynist (?) because I am not encouraging her."
From Wikipedia, "Splitting creates instability in relationships because one person can be viewed as either personified virtue or personified vice at different times, depending on whether they gratify the subject's needs or frustrate them. This, along with similar oscillations in the experience and appraisal of the self, leads to chaotic and unstable relationship patterns, identity diffusion, and mood swings." I think sometimes folks get too invested in how to talk to women in tech. Do your best and move on. No one is going to fix this problem individually, and heightening every interaction into a chance for a Jezebel article is counterproductive. Not unless you are Iggy Azalea are you going to get Jezebel hate every time you move, so relax a little!
An environment has been created where the slightest of perceived infractions is maximally punished. You'll have to forgive me for not wanting to take that risk just because someone asked nicely. It's become quite clear to me that doing my best and moving on isn't good enough.
Have you considered the possibility that there's a real state of fear surrounding these topics? It renders everything toxic and every interaction becomes a minefield. It's not a healthy state of affairs, and it's not one in which telling people to do their best and move on offer is a sufficient response. It comes across as utterly lacking in empathy.
VOGUE has actually discovered this problem some time ago. They interviewed a feminist and asked her whether she feels sorry for guys not knowing what to do: Opening the door for a girl is condescending and not opening it is rude. Similarly, a lot of people will advise you to be welcoming and offer your help to women hanging out in hacker spaces, but obviously that can be annoying (talking about annoyances, I'm somewhat tired of being called a white dude) if it happens every other day and they just don't need the help. Given that you can't guess somebody's skill level I really don't see any solution to this problem (to be perfectly honest: It doesn't sound like that big of a problem to me).
I can't find it. It showed up in my Twitter feed because people were discussing her answer (she said she never feels sorry for any man, or something like that). The woman is german so it was probably published on their german site, but I don't know her name, so I really don't know what to google for.
Either way, is really the best solution that women create their own hacker spaces where they can avoid the guys? Surely interacting with your fellow human beings and letting them know how you feel is a better solution?
Now, I come from a European country, where things like wolf-whistling at a pretty woman on the street is an unthinkable act for a sane, sober man. And I sincerely believe that increasing, not reducing, the interactions between girls and boys, men and women, is the key to reducing gender inequality.
i see no problem with their wanting to start their own hackerspace. in fact, it seems to fit will into the hacker mentality of "don't waste time working with a broken system; go build your own good one from scratch". if it gets applauded when elon musk does it, why not when liz henry does it too?
I agree with this, it was a good experience to help start a new space with a new approach, AND still love and support the other (any-gender) hackerspace I've been involved with! It doesn't really have to be a dichotomy - in fact the SF Bay Area has quite a lot of maker/hacker spaces!
For sure I agree that the "ignore the noise and do your own thing" is valid if all you want is to hack on stuff. But I understand feminists (in general) as working towards changing society for the better, and I fail to see how isolationism accomplishes that.
Historical analogy: do you want to go the Booker T. Washington route, and hope that there will be a Martin Luther King later on? Or do you go the MLK route straight away?
it's not isolationism, it's providing a welcoming space for people who have historically lacked one, and ensuring that they are in the majority there. that is absolutely one way to change society for the better.
can you think of a way to have a free-for-all hackerspace where women are in the majority? because the dynamics are very different if you are not.
Read the comments here: lots of guys are very frustrated about women interacting with their fellow human beings and letting them know how they feel. Sometimes it's just less tiring to work on the hacking without having to do the interacting and talking about feelings.
"where things like wolf-whistling at a pretty woman on the street is an unthinkable act for a sane, sober man." This does not mirror my experience of Europe even a little.
A european country can either mean "a specific, unnamed country in europe" or "any one country in europe". From the context, I infer the poster meant the former. But yeah - now we're just picking nit, really.
You could imagine something like some churrascarias use: you have a little badge near you that shows green when you're good, or you turn it over to the red side when you need help.
I used to attend a friend's women's coding club. There were usually a few men in attendance, and generally three behaviors tended to occur:
1. The dude in question would quietly work on his own project, and occasionally ask if anybody needed help, and otherwise be unobtrusive. This was generally the most helpful behavior.
2. The dude would (as an older techie, and an abrasive one at that!) hold court and fast-talk and denounce other languages and help-but-butt-in and be loud and act like he was some ancient wizened wizard handing down carefully guarded pearls of wisdom. This behavior was disruptive and annoyed everyone regardless of the practitioner.
3. The dude would kibbutz and babble with the women trying to work, and many of them would socialize instead of writing code. The dude was passionate and friendly and outspoken and not very knowledgeable about code or software engineering. But, they went to a lot of meetups, continually proclaimed their novice status, and thus they were able to perpetually distract attendees.
Of the three types, 2 & 3 were actually tied for obnoxiousness and toxicity.
~
If people want to learn a new thing, especially a somewhat introverted activity like development, I find it most helpful not to be super excited and energetic and scare them off. Shy new people will be turned off, unshy new people will feedback off of them and continue the group disruption. Calm, friendly, and helpful is the way to approach this, and without badgering to give assistance.
Further, talking about things not related to coding and development serves to undermine the learning and practice process for everyone. Things that fall into this category are: talking about your ex-spouse, talking about how hard it is to find a job, talking about how cool it is to be a minority in tech, talking about how hard it is to be a woman in tech, talking about how tech isn't something you grew up with, talking about how tech was something you grew up with, talking about the weather, trying to pick up men, trying to pick up women, talking about your children, talking about how great the last meetup was, talking about how great the next meetup will be, etc.
None of those are bad per se, but they distract and prevent people from getting maximum utility from the gathering. If they want to talk about non-tech things, they should do so elsewhere--if they want to reaffirm the industry biases against, say, women and technical ability, they should certainly be elsewhere.
I stopped attending these meetings after it was clear that there wasn't really anything of technical substance occurring there.
Probably it would be best to have some formal procedure to identify and deal with newbies, such as having designated people who look for them and offer help, and asking others to let those designated people handle the new people.