Would guess only 5.3% of YC readers are female. And would say, it's posh, not "real world," and it's not comfortable even though I'm a very strong woman - and a welder.
I think the average demographic here is the standard software engineering team in the US, unfortunately. I hope I'm wrong. There are some high profile HN'ers that are women (e.g. DoreenMichele comes to mind).
Fun fact: in eastern Europe (and Russia too?) the gender dynamics of software engineering are much more gender equal compared to the US/EU. Probably other STEM disciplines as well. I'm not sure about welding though.
I'm getting a bit side tracked with my thoughts, it's just that I think it ties into bigger issues.
I remember once being in a feminism class, as the only male, making a case for getting women into stem and it fell on deaf ears. I think that's also in part because women (and men for that matter) that take feminism classes tend to skew liberal artsy. I just happen to have a liberal artsy side and a STEM side (and a cool feminism teacher that was patient enough for all my naive questions so I felt emotionally safe to take her class).
I wish there were more women in the conversation but unfortunately there aren't. The last company I worked for happened to have an equal 50/50 gender split. That was cool. It confirmed what I thought about men and women: ignore gender and focus on personality and their thoughts. I've often been in situations where any form of stereotypes have been thrown out of the window and my last employer was one of them. It's beautiful.
Unfortunately, HN seems to be too big for that. The culture needs to shift and I don't have much of a clue how. I think in part it's with how women versus men are socialized here. Boys that are socially excluded tend to go towards computers. Girls don't really seem to be socially excluded that often compared to boys? Just brainstorming, I might be totally off.
> Are there actually any women in this conversation? I find many of the comments at YC to be obnoxiously male dominant and condescending, this comment section included. It's been frustrating me for quite a while now.
I'm curious how you find them frustrating. When I was reading them, I wasn't quite sure what to think about it.
By the way, I've used a throwaway because of my submission to HN, not because of this comment. I thought I was on my pseudonym account. I have autism (diagnosed in my mid thirties) and I think many people here are on the spectrum, which is what my submission is about.
Indeed. Women are socialized to seek men of higher status as a partner. Thus men feel the need to seek higher status to become an attractive mate. And so men "infiltrate" any position that offers a chance at higher status (at least where high pay stands in as a proxy). Likewise, men are socialized to seek women with beauty rather than status, so there is little imperative for women to seek professions of status, but do benefit from careers that will preserve their beauty – so something like welding in a harsh environment that is hard on one's health is not a top choice.
That said, the social norms do seem to be changing. It appears the younger generations aren't coupling up so much anymore, and if that trend continues attracting a mate may no longer be a consideration.