My open letter to the tech industry on sexism, HR, and Linus Tech Tips
My open letter to the tech industry on sexism, HR, and Linus Tech Tips
The Linus Tech Tips abuse allegations are yet another reminder that something absolutely needs to be done about the rampant sexism in the tech industry. If you haven't heard them yet you can read about them here, but be warned, there is some potentially very triggering abuse and self harm detailed: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1691693740254228741.html
Madison's story is not unique - we have heard stories like hers time and time again. As a tech professional it makes me sick to share an industry with these horrible people, and to know that little is being done to reign them in.
So, what can be done about this? I don't have all of the answers, but one thing that comes to mind is that HR departments desperately need actual unbiased oversight, perhaps even from a governing body outside of the company. It has become common knowledge that HR’s primary purpose is to protect the company, and this prevents employees from speaking out and driving internal change even in terrible situations like Madison Reeve and countless others have faced. The way things are run clearly needs to fundamentally change
Let me know in the comments if you have any ideas on how we as a tech community might be able to address these issues, I am truly at a loss. All I want is for tech to be a safe space for everybody to find their passion and success, and it saddens me that we clearly aren't there yet.
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Woman in tech, some stories to share
Back at my first job I was interested in switching teams. I interviewed with one of the existing employees and everything went well. I then had an "interview" with the manager who spent the entire time telling me why I wouldn't want the job, all things that I was well aware of when I applied go transfer, and all surrounding me being a weak little emotional woman. I reported him to my manager, but nothing ended up happening. He was one of the original employees when the company first started so he was untouchable.
Same thing with clients at my first job. I was a consultant and got sexually harassed by clients A LOT. Staring, comments, overstepping boundaries in various degrees. Not once would the company remove me from an assignment for fear of upsetting the customer. I was expected to just get over it and "remain professional" which means I wasn't allowed to say anything to them.
Fast forward to today and several jobs later (skipping some less egregious sexism and sexual harassment) I currently work for a company that is consistently voted one of the best places for women to work. Now sexual harassment wise, it's great, no problems with that thankfully. But I have dealt with sexism such as men telling me my ideas suck and then immediately turning around and presenting them as their own. This was corroborated by the other woman on our team. I documented this pattern of behavior and reported it and surprise! nothing happened. The people doing those things were supposed to have some bullshit "how not to be sexist" classes and that didn't even happen.
I was recently promoted and I found out I am paid 20% less than male employees in my same role at the company. And it's not for lack of negotiating or trying, it was on ongoing battle for multiple months. I left my previous job when I found out a guy on my team at the same level was making like 20k more than me. History repeats itself. And men are just blessed with raises and promotions they didn't even ask for while I am out here documenting and presenting all the reasons I deserve it for scraps.
And it's not just as simple as "quit and go somewhere else". It's a surprise at every job you take, it could be better or worse. But there has always been varying levels of sexism at every job I've have had. Even if I'm on a great team where everyone respects me, there could be someone on another team I have to work with that completely disregards me. It's a risk every time you switch jobs.
Rant over. Ways you can help
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If you work remotely or over video calls a lot a HUGE benefit is using the hand raising feature. Women get talked over A LOT and if you respect the hand raises everyone gets an uninterrupted turn to speak
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If you notice someone being interrupted, step in and say "X was going to make a point, and I would like to hear what they have to say" or similar
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Call out sexism if you see it. There are ways to do this that are not aggressive/rude sounding. If someone brings up an idea as their own, you can say something like "Oh yeah I remember X brought up Y in the previous meeting and I thought it was a good idea" or "X created documentation for Y proposal that I think is really useful in this decision"
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Sometimes, I just want someone to step in so I can move on with my life. Let's say we are troubleshooting something and I say X is the solution but it is shot down or ignored by the person I have to work with. Be that dude I can ask to tell them X is the solution so they finally implement it and finally be done. Yes this happens a lot, and this tactic works every time.
It gets very tiring and beats you down to have to fight the same fight all the time, when all you just want to do is do your job. So it really helps to have a culture on the team where people are also speaking up when they see something.
I'm not exactly in tech, tech-adjacent, but I'm a minority as a man in the office where I work and it is so refreshing. No bullshit macho culture I never felt a part of in the first place and everyone just does their job without trying to out-do each other. Really robust sexual harassment policies too.
I so don't miss endless bro talk about football and grilling and stupid shit like that.
Yeah it really is the worst when you have to fight for something that men get without barely trying. And those same men will give advise on how to do it too, completely disregarding how responses are different for women, IE they're not listening.
Plus one on using the hand raise feature.
Source: I'm working on this for myself, and it's helping.
I agree with what you said for the most part, except the fact that I wouldn't define sexism in the majority of cases having people "stealing" your ideas, nor shooting down ideas.
In the first case it seems a common practice in competitive environments, where workers have no incentive at all to cooperate and all the incentive to screw each other to look better and chase promotions. I think people who do that regularly do that with everyone. Appropriating ideas and work of others is how middle managers in many cases got there and how they climb the ladder, even though everyone knows what they are worth.
The second is an extremely common occurrence in tech, ideas are shot down all the time. I have seen it occurring countless of times, I don't think is a sexist practice inherently, although still something extremely annoying within tech. It is sexism when ideas are shot down "because a woman is saying it", though.
My final remark is about the part about "males getting raises without even asking" (paraphrasing). Now, this may have been true in your context, I have no way to dispute it. However, I just want to reinforce that the narrative of "males being somewhat on the same side" disregarding the conflict within workers and owners (I.e. those who get the raises and those who give them) seems to be completely fabricated (based on my experience) and also extremely damaging to workers solidarity. The narrative that somehow gender prevails over class as a factor of unification is very dangerous and plays right in the hand of those who benefit from gender conflict as an obstacle for class unity.
I think some of the points you have to look at demographically and use privilege to correct it. I’m not a woman, but I’ve seen women I work with have their ideas “shot down” simply because it was from them even if it was paraphrased a minute later by a man then magically it’s perfect!
I often make a point of correcting that in my org by saying “This was a good idea the first time from (woman), why did we move on from it last time?” So then people who shot this down have to awkwardly explain why they “didn’t understand” or make up some excuse. It works to highlight that maybe you just weren’t listening. Because it was a woman speaking. It’s unfortunate but it’s common in FAANG. I’m just tired of seeing it as someone who’s worked with some really incredible women who left the industry because of the toxicity.
But isn't that what he just said? It's not sexism if someone is just shooting an idea down. Stealing the idea is morally apprehensible. Shooting an idea down because "it's you" is discriminatory. Shooting an idea down because "a woman had it", now that's sexism.
I see a lot of ppl claim sexism, and it might as well be present, even if subtly for a lot of different companies. That said, context matters, and you can be an absolute prick to ppl with out even invoking any sexism.
E.g. I hear students doing an internship often get overlooked. Not cool, some of them are geniuses. Same goes for ppl lower in the corporate ladder vs. higher in the corporate ladder.
What I'm trying to say is: let's be absolutely clear with what we define as sexism, because it shouldn't lose it's meaning by being inserted into discrimination. You don't need sexism there everytime to involve OSHA.
Also let's make this clear: if Madison's allegations are true (and she doesn't have a horse in this race so there's a good chance they are), we can straight up skip the sexism and go straight to harassment, abuse, sexual assault, and more. I hope she is able to grasp the sheer horror that this really was, because she should know that no one deserves that and ppl will support the fight in her name.
I figure those issues could be more statistically likely to happen to women, but as you highlighted this is something that tend to happen in tech regardless. I hate shouting match and talking over people, and I am definitely at a disadvantage when meetings reach a certain critical number of participants.
The thing is, when I get talked over, or when my ideas are ignored only to be slightly reworded and repeated by some guy who hasn't shut up the entire time, well first thing is I give no fucks. There is definitely privilege in the sense that as a man I don't feel like I have to prove my worth, it is already assumed, so I don't have to care about looking good in every meeting. Also, as a man, when I am mostly ignored because people are too eager to speak rather than listen, my first assumption is that those people simply suck at meetings. I have the privilege of knowing that it is not discrimination.
Simply doubting that discrimination can exist is mentally exhausting. 20 years ago I was LGBTQ in a rather unaccepting environment, but it rarely came up, nor did most people know. Every time my presence or my ideas weren't fully acknowledged with approbation I doubted if this was about my identity. I became very insecure about it over time, I simply assumed that I would never be respected as an equal, ever. Well, 20 years later and I am pretty sure this insecurity dripped like crazy in my personality and apparent confidence. This hurt me way more than actual LGBTQ prejudice I am sure.
Anyway, I am just trying to throw in some food for thoughts. There is a lot of competition of ideas going on in tech, very little positive feedback, and a lot of talking over people, because this is just how a lot of men are unfortunately. I fully understand why people who are more likely to be prejudiced against would perceive all sort of false signals in there.
Disclaimer: I know sexism is a real thing, and some women are absolutely being victimized in the workplace. I am merely expanding on the idea that it is because real sexism exists that it is extra important to learn how to be respectful and have good vibes in the workplace.
Also, as a man, when I am mostly ignored because people are too eager to speak rather than listen, my first assumption is that those people simply suck at meetings. I have the privilege of knowing that it is not discrimination.
But it might as well be. I was discriminated/bullied for quite some time after I joined a company. People assumed I knew nothing and disregarded almost anything I said, and generally didn't even ask me. I was one of the two people in a department. Those people did not suck at meetings/conversations, it was an active discrimination based on their preconceptions. I don't think gender is by far the only discrimination that can happen within the workplace. But yeah, I definitely agree that I will most likely not being discriminated as a man, in the sense that sexist discrimination in tech happens almost exclusively to women.
There is a lot of competition of ideas going on in tech, very little positive feedback, and a lot of talking over people, because this is just how a lot of men are unfortunately. I fully understand why people who are more likely to be prejudiced against would perceive all sort of false signals in there.
I agree. I - like many others - do my best to change the culture overall, to ensure that people who get promotions have fill leading positions are not those kind of people who will reinforce all of this. Also, I did not work in the US startup environment (and I consider myself lucky), which means I might also be missing real experiences on places much worse than the ones I have been in (the loner-tech-bro-genius hacking culture of the Silicon valley is something I greatly despise).
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Sexism isn’t sexism because it only happens to women.
I mean, if a behavior is not related to being discriminated based on gender, it's not sexism. It can be mobbing, it can be simply a toxic competitive environment, but that doesn't make it sexism, that is my point. "IF" being the keyword.
Implicit bias is a thing
I totally agree, and this is why I do think that for someone shutting down a woman, because implicitly there is the though "this is a woman and therefore doesn't know what she is talking about", can be sexist, but that behavior is not inherently sexist. There are multiple (bad) reasons why people might do that. People might assume I am not competent, too young/too old to know better, too recent in the company, I went to the wrong university, and many other reason. This is not inherently linked to gender discrimination, that is my point. It can be ageism, hazing (hopefully the translation is accurate), classism or even racism, if not just the behavior of people who just want to gain advantages at expense of others (which is not a form of discrimination per se). All these exist in the workplace, and that's why I was challenging your conclusion that this is sexism by definition. Now if in your experience you think sexism was the root cause, sure, whatever. But if we want to move the conversation to a more generic "tech" environment, I think it's worth to expand the analysis.
Thanks for writing an entire essay trying to disprove my experiences though.
Well, with this I guess I understand you are in bad faith. I did not try to disprove your experiences (in fact, I explicitly wrote that for one specific instance), I challenged some of the arguments you made. Trying to imply that I tried to disprove your experiences is extremely dishonest.
Why is it so hard to just listen to women?
Are we not allowed to have different opinion? Do I exist in the workplace as well? Also, expressions such as "And men are just blessed with raises and promotions they didn’t even ask for" are hard to relate for me and for any other working class man who struggle in the workplace I know. I understand you were trying to get your point across, but if that's your perspective, then we simply live in two different worlds (which is totally possible, given that we probably live in very different places and companies).
I listened (well...read), and I questioned some of your conclusions. If this for you means "not listening to women", then I suppose we have different perspectives.
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on someone else’s experience in life based on a single forum comment
You keep insisting on this point. I am not doing any of that. I am challenging the generalization of the analysis of those episodes to the whole sector. I am not interested in discussing or disputing your personal experience.
You don’t work for my company so I’m not sure why you are acting like the culture at your company where you can’t get promoted contradicts anything.
From how you wrote it, I did not understand it was specifically a statement regarding your company. In general I think that's not the experience of most people especially in the last 2 years (given the layoffs), but obviously, if that's what happens in your particular company, I have no way to dispute it. It is not representative of the general environment though, I hope we can agree that people are not thrown promotions generally out of nothing, and that employers try to squeeze employees as much as possible, even if men.
You are free to discuss your grievances, but for some reason these things only come up when women start talking about their experience…
I speak about these topics almost everyday, with colleagues and people in general. Not sure what are you trying to imply.
It’s just another “what about the men” comment that always comes up when women try to have a discussion. It’s a pattern of behavior that actually backs up my experience rather than refutes it.
My comment has nothing to do with this argument. This is just a strawman that you are using to win internet points, falling back on cliches. My argument is "the workplace is a warzone, full of conflict and discrimination. Certain behaviors that you describe can be sexist bu can also not be, and instead be classist, ageist, racist and also the result of distorted incentives for workers that end up fighting each other". In fact, I would argue that ageism in tech is a problem as big as sexism, but apparently you are not interested in having this kind of conversation.
It contradicts a ton of research
Research shows a lot of ageism in tech. So actually refusing to acknowledge that certain behavior can be the result of other form of discrimination as well or even not a result of discrimination at all, but the result of the way power structure is, seems to be contradicting research. My statement is far from being absolute. I am not saying that sexism does not exist in tech, I am not blind, I am saying that those two very specific common patterns that you described (and that I challenged) are not inherently sexist (but can be). My overall intention is to expand the critique to the toxic working culture in tech looking at it from multiple angles, but again, it seems you are not interested and you really want to only look at this through the lens of gender discrimination.
To me, this seems shortsighted, partial and, if I may, also oppressive towards the many who are discriminated in the very same way but from different reasons. It is detrimental to the overall effort that us -workers- should do to shape the culture in tech in another way, that should push for structural change that would drastically modify the incentives people have and so on.
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