Do we have a sexism issue?

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Browsing reddit the other day, and found this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/cableporn/comments/355zco/apparently_we_cant_handle_a_picture_with_a_girl/

And sure, the girl in it was pretty attractive and every thing, but the opening statement said in it says

"I don't want to just delete the post because it doesn't break any rules, and it sends a bad message that we don't support women (a problem IT already has)."

Perhaps it's due to well...not being a woman, but I didn't see the sexism in IT? Like when I talked to the facility manager, she was pretty damn good at her job, and some of the other staff were women, who were also pretty damn good at their job as well, who I worked quite close-ly with

I thought that IT would be this progressive, and modern industry, no? Or a least in networking? Like surely we dont have the same image as say...gamers?

But then at the same time, apparently racism exists in IT, but I've personally not witnessed that at all, and this one I can say due to well....not being white

 

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Personally I don't see that many excellent female programmers, maybe 2 in a 20 year career. I'm sure they could do it if they wanted, just seems they don't want to, maybe because of sexism, maybe because of something else...

 

I wouldn't say it is a sexist industry.

I would just say that in general there are more men that want to be in the field. I have never witnessed any sort of a block for women who are interested.

I have worked with a number of female IT persons in varying fields and all seem to have done well and are progressing and never heard any of them say they felt like there was sexism etc.

I have not seen any women in day to day Networking though, but I have seen a lot in the Security side, so a lot of Policy and security research type roles etc.

 

Maybe its Maybelline

 

on our helpdesk we've got 4 female staff - which is the most i've seen in any company i've worked in IT for. Our vice president of IT Security is female too.

I was at Ignite in Chicago last week and it was refreshing to see that there are more women taking on technical roles in IT - tons of the stands i went to i had in depth technical conversations with female employee's about their products and Microsoft technologies.

You could say the same for men working in hairdressing and beauty - minimal compared to Women, i guess IT may just be one of those industries in which men take more interest than women do, i've also seen it in engineering too at my last place, where they were campaigning for more women to get into engineering.

 

There's a general trend/drive to get more women into IT on the whole, whether it's a 'problem' or not I couldn't say. Depends if the perceived lack of women is due to some form of discrimination or unfair treatment or just that they don't want to do it ;)

Where I work we get £x if we recommend someone outside of the company for a role, and we get £x + 40% if that person is female.

 

I don't think this is the right way to go about things. I am all for seeing more women in IT and equal rights/pay/opportunity etc but this to me is going too far past that, and actually incentivising people more to get women in the door is going to create discrimination in the other direction.

Not having a go at you, I know it's not your policy but I think there is a little bit of a trend with this sort of thing but it's going past the equal point and sitting the other side, which to me seems to be hypocritical of what it is suggesting.

Equal should be equal.

 

Its called 'positive discrimination', the idea is the redress the balance where there has been significant discrimination in the other direction like subjugation of slaves.

I also think its pretty questionable, I've never witnessed any real level of sexism in IT to warrant it.

Arguably you'd have to go back 100 years to when women's education and job opportunities were restricted. At this point the electronic computer did not even exist yet.

I'm for a meritocracy, how can you have that if you discriminate on factors other than ability? 'Positive' sex discrimination is choosing by sex other than ability, not a good thing.

 

Oh I'd agree, not saying it's the right way to go about it, but just what they do.

Which is almost strange given it's a company with long long history of actually being at the forefront of equality, so go figure!

 

Let me guess, You work for UKIP right? hehehe

 

hah not quite ;)

 

The only IT related sexism I've seen in my career so far was actually directed at my wife who was told by the engineer from her schools MSP that 'women don't know how to use computers' now I'd like to think that was a really unfortunate joke but there are lines you shouldn't cross. Particularly when dealing with a stressed out Primary School Teacher...

 

You see my issue here is that I am a flirt, whether you're a lesbian, married, single or gay I will do my best to make YOU feel better, I am not after a quick shag (no matter what I say and yes that also refers to gay colleagues) but my intention is always to make you smile, perhaps laugh and generally feel better with life in general.

A case in point, I have a gay colleague who had surgery on his knees, once I heard that my comment to him was... friction burns mate? He laughed his head off and said I was pretty much the only straight guy to have the guts to make that comment because they are all too scared to say boo to a goose.

Work is hard enough as it is without humour and I find that making people laugh (male or female) makes things go a lot more smoothly, I also find that people are more willing to help you out if you aren't a dick to them.

I make it a point to everyone to talk about my wife and kids, show pictures etc, I am not hiding the fact I am married and as I said it's not about conquests as far as I am concerned (I will add that I obviously don't flirt with EVERYONE because there are some people who can't take a laugh but by and large most people are ok with it).