This is the most important paragraph:

"I think the path forward is finding a way to tolerate this gray zone and accommodate it without simply shutting women out professionally. So I really do not think these shit shows help women break into business. I think they just reinforce the current paradigm where the people in power -- mostly men -- have reason to err on the side of shutting women out in order to protect themselves from potential scandal or accusations or similar."

This is a very complicated issue, but I don't think we are well-served by slandering one another on social media rather than having a reasoned discussion. Unfortunately the claims made in the current debacle are not permitting a reasoned discussion, either by mistake or design, which is incredibly frustrating.

Maybe another question could be why these issues are endemic to the computer/programming world? Is it because all the other industries are pretty conservative? We have families and kids when we go home and we are not supposed to kill our social life by working insane hours to "ship". I have no answers, but I am happy to be in a field where I can work with men and women without these sexism issues.

There are sites that try to list all such incidents. If you compare them to the number of people and companies in the field, you realize not that much is actually happening...

I think feminists have also set a special sight on programming. I suspect it is because it is one of the few engineering jobs that seem compatible with women. Sorry for the stereotypes - I don't speak for all women, but consider that with programming you don't get oil on your clothes, you don't have to walk through mud all day, etc. That's why feminists think women should have more part in programming (at least it's a theory...).

The only successful way I've found to deal with it is rude honesty. "Sorry, I wasn't interested in writing a paper with you, I wanted to touch your boobies." "We can totally work together, but lets be realistic - under other circumstances we'd totally be doing it."

Now it's all out in the open, and can continue in the relationship under whatever circumstances are desired. Or perhaps not continue, in the case that I want to make out and she wants me to prove theorems. Everyone's feelings might be a little hurt ("she doesn't think I'm hot?", "he doesn't think I'm smart?") but that can be solved by growing a pair.

Unfortunately, in the hypersensitive PC world that feminists are pushing on the bigger players in the tech world, you simply can't do that. Too much of a power imbalance - the woman can ruin your reputation with a few tweets. Since there are so few women, the marginal cost to avoiding close relationships with women is also fairly low.

No amount of moral posturing will change the incentives.

>Or perhaps not continue, in the case that I want to make out and she wants me to prove theorems. Everyone's feelings might be a little hurt ("she doesn't think I'm hot?", "he doesn't think I'm smart?") but that can be solved by growing a pair.

I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say here, assuming it's not tongue-in-cheek. Your way of dealing with with the opposite sex in a professional setting is to:

1. Affirm an absence of a professional relationship 2. Presume sexual attraction, because that's just "realistic" 3. Implicitly suggest that working together is some sort of unbalanced arrangement, rather than just cooperation 4. Justify this all by the need to "grow a pair" (a great cross-gender term, btw)

Honestly, if I was one of a few men in an office and had to work with a bunch of women who operated under these assumptions, I might go tweeting about it.

Just in case you honestly misunderstood, let me spell things out.

1. This is what you do when you don't want to work with them and they don't want you grabbing their ass. Be honest about this and end the relationship if necessary.

2. This is what you do when you both want to work together but also you both want to sex it up. Or you can pretend you don't and then let things get weird after a late night makeout session at the office.

3. Huh?

4. Not being a whiny bitch is what you do when someone doesn't want to go out with you, work with you, or whatever. For example the "other employee" who confessed "love" for Horvath needed to grow a pair (assuming the Techcrunch article is accurate). In situation (1), you probably both need to.

The fact is that sometimes in a professional setting, people move on to having nonprofessional relations. Sometimes desires are not aligned. When humans are involved, life gets complicated.

Honestly, I cannot tell.

Now I do believe that if society made it acceptable to just outright ask, with no hard feelings either way "hey, want to go out?" that everything would be better.

I guess my point is that I see the quotes you put forth as being ridiculously extreme examples of what would exist in the minds of only the most lowly of savage males.

This, exactly this. The problem is that the asker has to be able to take no as an answer, and deal with it. Which means not asking multiple times in rapid succession, or even asking often. And everyone involved (including friends) needs to make sure they don't shame the people involved in the exchange.

A lot of gendered problems enter this equation (at least for heterosexuals, I'm sure many other complicated societal problems (some of them related) exist for homosexuals). For example a problem for men is they have a lot of pressure to not be wrong and hence only ask women out when it's a sure, or very likely, thing. For example a problem for women is rape (i.e. rape culture, slut shaming, etc.), so they tend to hang out with their friends for protection, which makes it hard for (generally female) people to have (or talk about) a relationship without a lot of people knowing about it (you know, to back up that they aren't a slut, in case they get raped (I realize people here are pretty liberal, and that sounds horrid, but it's why some women often stick together and 'gossip')). Oh, by the way, one of those things is not like the other, one is a massive societal problem, one is merely a societal pressure, but both, among many others, need to be dealt with.

It's also why people flag submissions like this - the comments are full of vile hateful idiocy.

What you seem to think is candid, useful communication is anything but.

If you are attracted to someone you're going to be working closely with, there is a time-honored approach for dealing with it. You flirt. If you're good at flirting, then it is non-serious and does not create a threatening atmosphere. It shows off your positive personality qualities and hides your negative ones.

Most importantly, it gives the lady in question an out if she doesn't want to go there with you, she simply doesn't respond. If she doesn't respond to your flirting, then she's not interested and the stand-up, manly thing to do is to stop flirting, and carry on your working relationship in a completely professional manner.

Oh come on, with the romance and everything. Don't you see that our friend yummyfajitas here has bodies to fuck?

He is really just trying to help society to a more sophisticated and unfiltered understanding of his urgent needs and minimal concern to the accidental personality that may be contained in those bodies he desires.

Back before he was ushering in his new era of "rude honesty", it might have taken weeks to figure out whether a body is available to be penetrated by his penis. Now we can all rest assured that he will save himself and the bodies he surely deserves to boob-touch to his hearts content (if the feeling is mutual, of course, he's not a monster!) a good chunk of time.

It's really a win-win.

Example approach (in our scenario, this is toward the end of a workday, which is when you would want to do anything like this): "Hey, I've been having a lot of fun working with you, would you want to get dinner together sometime?" "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm [not looking for a relationship right now|seeing someone else|not interested in you that way|...]." "Oh, shoot. Well, I'll see you tomorrow then." (Go home.)

It may be a little awkward, but if you do things respectfully, then it will probably not ruin the working relationship. And more importantly, you'll have flattered the person you're working with, not creeped them out or made their workplace environment hostile, not cemented yourself in their mind as a total asshole, and not put yourself at risk for getting fired for harassment.

Of course, you will never do this to one of your reports or their transitive reports unless you would like to lose your job. Only peers or members of another org.

Revealing that you have sexual feelings for a person with whom you're nominally supposed to be forming a sexless, professional relationship will either lead down a path to sexual or romantic connection, or else make things tremendously awkward. That's not a sexist act, necessarily, but it could lead to a conversation with HR.

This is entirely hearsay, but the way that people around Waterloo talk about pg, I feel like he does operate this way. But he does so with everyone, not just women.

> Unfortunately, in the hypersensitive PC world that feminists are pushing on the bigger players in the tech world, you simply can't do that.

IIRC there was a study that said people would let you cut in line if you had a reason, even if that reason was nonsense (say, "Please let me cut in line because I need to make copies").

I usually explain my rude honesty as a side-effect of having Asperger Syndrome, although it's actually deliberate coping strategy as opposed to my default behaviour.

On the other hand, if everyone dealt with this through rude honesty, it would still result in inequity, because women would have to deal with all the guys saying they were hot, whereas few guys would have to deal with this. (If you look at the behaviour on dating websites -- the OKCupid blog was good for this before they got bought out by Match.com -- or in an undergraduate Engineering classroom, you'll readily see this.)

Being a millionaire helps a bit in getting through with this behavior. If a simple wage slave tries anything in the direction of "rude honesty", he'll be out of the door within 2 minutes.

And that does seem to be much of the problem in Julie's case: she rejected a guy who proceeded to react very poorly. In this case the guy appears to be at fault because he put Julie in a situation where she had to choose one way or another.

I think the OP's point about a grey zone is very apt. We need to tolerate the existence of a grey zone, and not try and make it black or white.

I've never had to work more than peripherally with a woman I've been interested in, but on occasion in the past I have had no choice but to work with men I've disliked. Brutal honesty would have poisoned the situation, but "growing a pair" and behaving professionally ended in success.

Really? There are like 5 other phrases you could use that don't exclude (more than) half the people on the planet.

> in the hypersensitive PC world that feminists are pushing on the bigger players in the tech world, you simply can't do that.

Ah, I fell for your trap didn't I (well I didn't, I added the above afterwards, but let's say I did).

First, not all feminists want the same things. It would be like saying: "libertarian utopia that conservatives", or "socialized business environment that liberals". Yes many of the people who espouse those views claim that political identity. But not everyone (or likely even a majority) of the people who claim those political identities espouse the given view. That's like 2 fallacies (false cause fallacy, genetic fallacy) and a misleading rhetorical device (poisoning the well) all in one.

Second, feminism isn't political correctness. It's about equality. And yes equality means you have to stop insulting people's identities, especially when you are part of the privileged group (i.e. you are part of the identity that the in question oppression generally favors). Especially when you are one of the leading companies in the world and you want every customer you can get (Hey lookie! market forces!).

I'm all for your total honesty, even if it's rude, as long as it isn't ridiculing someone's identity (if you can't state your perception of the truth without doing that, then your perception of the truth is flawed because it involves people's identity). Also, your job may require you to work with certain people, so being polite may be a requirement for your job and whatever. (As an example, the (initial) problem discussed here (the github employee) has to do with GitHub (apparently) not making a conducive work environment).

I didn't think of any that express the same sentiment - even now, the only alternative I can think of is "stop whining like a bitch". I'm not going to communicate less accurately to avoid "excluding" people - I really don't mind if people who are overly emotional fail to understand me.

First, not all feminists want the same things.

I've certainly never heard feminists advocate greater freedom for men to clearly say "sorry, you aren't smart enough for me to work with. But damn girl what an ass - wanna go out?" Can you link to some who feel differently?

Somehow, I strongly suspect the vast majority would rant on twitter and attempt to publicly shame the person involved. I'm well aware that a few feel differently - my cofounder is one of them, but she's about 3 sigma out of the mainstream.

Your talk of "equality" requires a lot of clarification. If you are advocating different standards for people depending on membership in arbitrary groups, then you (or the feminists you are speaking of) are explicitly advocating against equality of individual humans. So what sort of equality are you advocating for?

Assuming you mean that not insulting people's identity and equality conflict:

Is it really so hard to not insult people's identities when you talk that the words you would use when you talk to other people would merely insult other identity groups? Perhaps you can talk to and about people without insulting anyone's identities?

> I've certainly never heard feminists advocate greater freedom for men to clearly say "sorry, you aren't smart enough for me to work with. But damn girl what an ass - wanna go out?"

Probably because you are sexually objectifying someone? And someone's appearance has nothing to do with work? To clarify, I meant that brutal honesty thing in reference to work. But if you want to say those things to people in public, feel free to do that (although I doubt many women enjoy being treated like sexual objects and called stupid in the same sentence, but there is nothing wrong with saying that).

But if at work you wanted to say, perhaps, "This code is wrong, your understanding of how this works is wrong, go read up on it", then that's the work environment you have, and there is still nothing wrong with that.

But commenting on someone's sexual attractiveness or identity at work isn't honesty related to work it's you being a nympho or a bigot. So saying: "sorry, you aren't smart enough for me to work with." is fine at work. And saying: "But damn girl what an ass - wanna go out?" is fine in public (if women who respond to that are your type). So while saying both in public would be strange, saying both in a workplace is unacceptable.

...saying both in a workplace is unacceptable.

Let me see if I understand. It's ok to not want to work with someone (beyond whatever is imposed by your supervisor). It's also ok to ask someone out at work (or are you completely opposed to all workplace relationships, e.g. Horvath's?).

But once you decide you don't want to work with someone, it's no longer ok to ask them out? I'm not following the reasoning here.

I meant that if you are going to ask someone out, from work, don't do it at work. And definitely don't combine work related stuff (like "you're fired") and personal stuff (like "you wanna date").

Don't contaminate the work place with personal romantic problems. The gray zone is a result of personal romantic problems: you can't talk to and work with a person because they are attractive? Grow a pair. (and the only reason I'm using that is because you used it ;p.)

I feel like you[1] are missing the point to an extent (or at least taking away something different from the comment than I did). I don't think that yf was asking for permission to say this him[almost certainly]-self. But was demonstrating that as long as men in power think these thoughts, but can't express them, the grey-zone and its associated problems will exist.

The blog post introduces the issue, and yf demonstrates it (all the more by causing so many HNers to bristle at his comment).

I'm not necessarily saying that men in power should start blurting these thoughts out, and they would run great personal risk at doing so. But the situation of the unexpressed existence of these thoughts, perversely hurts women of potential power much, much more than it hurts the men with the thoughts.

I think political correctness is the Nash equilibrium in most remotely similar situations, but that leaves the problems presented in the post, and so... Ultimately, I think that dismissing the hypothetical thoughts-cum-pronouncements as "unacceptable" is counterproductive with regards to lowering the barriers to power for women insofar as we are willing to accept the thesis of the original blog post[2].

OK, now to backtrack a little... I'm not saying that they are acceptable, but I read the hypothetical comments as intentionally built to be considered unacceptable. Under that reading, it's not particularly productive to give them that label and then call it a day. They were, in a way, the unspoken background to the blog post made explicit in a feather-ruffling HN comment, and uncomfortable as it is to consider, putting their existence out there makes it possible to push the conversation forward. But not if we just shame such untoward behavior out of hand. Doing that promotes the status quo. We all get to feel good about ourselves, that we're publicly fighting for the cause, but ultimately nothing gets resolved.

Sorry, I know that that reads as a personal attack. That is not the spirit in which I mean the comment. I think that the urge to suppress or ignore uncomfortable truths is one of the feedback loops that makes discussions on this topic so virulent. It's not meant to be directed at the person that conducts the SolarNet account, but at us all, the community that struggles with the difficult subject of inequity among us. It often feels better to jump to the defense of honor or decorum than to really dig into the ugly truths behind the issues that cause us harm. But when we follow that instinct, we often leave the infection there under the surface to fester. I think that this particular issue is tricky and damaging enough to the community to warrant some leeway on decorum when discussing it.

In the interest of commiseration, I'll admit that I found that I bristled at the comment as well. I'm not endorsing it, but I think that if looked at in the right light, it is a very useful comment. Really, it does nobody any good to try to shame yf (and honestly, judging by this comment alone, I'm not sure that yf is easily shamed). But it is useful to acknowledge the existence of thoughts of this kind (as well as their tamer brethren) since if we fail to do so, we'll be incapable of identifying their role in the problem.

[1] Along with many others commenting on this indelicate comment [2] I for one find the thesis rather compelling

Besides you were right!

I realize (perhaps in hindsight) that the comments were likely chose to be unacceptable. And you are right, I shouldn't have accepted the premise.

Is saying: "I find you attractive, would you like to go out on a date?" in the work place acceptable? Maybe. It depends on the company culture most likely. At Github it appears such a question can't be uttered, because a 'no' response will cause a person's code to be reverted by a scorned suitor (and management do nothing).

I also think that people in power (men in this case) could maybe learn some self control to not act differently around half the people in the world. And I realize it's a societal thing.

A more honest work environment may help the problem, but so would solving the root cause of the problem.

Don't generalize based on a single incident, especially since she was already apparently-openly dating someone else when that person asked.

Do you believe men and women should have equal rights? If so then you are a feminist. Did you say in your first post that men should have the right to be rude and honest about the people they interact with? If so then I use you as my example of a feminist advocate for greater freedom for men.

Feminism is an incredibly misused and misunderstood word. By dismissing all feminists are overly sensitive PC females dismiss those of us who genuinely believe in equal rights.

I hope they wouldn't advocate for that. I wouldn't even consider that flattering or honest if a woman were to say that to me. It would just be condescending.

I should also note that I'm not exactly a fan of your willingness to screw someone you don't respect. But your lack of desire for a real relationship isn't my problem.

Had I thought of them, I would not have used any of the phrasing you suggest because they are insufficiently derogatory.

Consider this guy: The rejection of the other employee [by Julie Ann Horvath] led to...an internal battle at GitHub...hurt from my rejection, started passive-aggressively ripping out my code from projects we had worked on together...

"Act like an adult" doesn't have the same ring as "grow a pair" (although in this case, "stop being a whiny bitch" would be my preferred phrasing).

I think that this idea gets dangerously close to an idea that men and women cannot be friends without romantic feelings spontaneously forming. I think that's crap. It might be true when you're a teenager, but when you grow up I don't think it's an excuse any more. I think that people use "women and men can't be friends" as a lead-in to "and that's why women should stay at home", and that's why it's super confusing to read about it from this perspective.

I'm not a woman, but intuitively I would bet that the awkward gray zone stuff is a much larger part of what makes women uncomfortable in an office setting. In fact, I have seen the gray zone affect my girlfriends and close friends who are women. It's a much bigger problem than the few true misogynists out there.

I'd be interested in seeing if the gray zone exists in an office that's absent toxic attitudes towards women but in ten years of working I haven't seen such an office. The women are uncomfortable because John leers at them when they walk past his office, or everyone keeps asking Mary to take notes at the meeting and fetch coffee, or Joe keeps talking about porn on his lunch break. You should read Nancy Hauge's "Consulting Adult" series about life working at Sun - it was depressing how little had changed in a corporate setting with regards to the treatment of women! In my experience at least...

I'm not making any joke back to them tho. It's risky, and I don't want problems with anyone, anyway, I frankly think it's not worth my time.

I however see posts, tweets, blogs etc from coworkers who blame other men. Example: "we're going bro-coding tonight, anyone wanna join?"

To them that means "women not allowed". It says brothers. Some even threaten others of legal action and talk about it in public too, trying to shame people.

The disconnect is HUGE. To be blunt, I think they're fucking crazy.

I'm of the opinion that some boys need to be taught how to treat women right, because it doesn't come naturally to them. I'm not sure how we're going to fix this, though, because integrating it into the church doesn't work, and it's too much of a political hot potato to integrate into the traditional school system.

I imagine that some people have to "grow up" too fast if their start-up becomes successful, and it wouldn't surprise me if some of the skills that they should acquire (like learning how to treat women in a professional but friendly manner) end up left by the wayside in the rush to grow the company. (I recall when Mark Zuckerburg had to do lots of public speaking training three or four years ago; he had just made a fool of himself on a late-night talk show and The Social Network was just coming out. Not a perfect analogy, but I can see the parallels of having training in this department, too.)

This is remarkably mature, and astute, and human. It touches at the reality of the situation when you assume most of the players have good intentions. It avoids sinking to the platitudes and trivialities that cloud this discussion.

It's enormously complex, beyond this. But this is a truth I haven't heard yet, and it's part of the kernel of the problem.

When I am tasked to work one-on-one with an attractive female co-worker, shit gets cloudy really quickly. I'm a happily married man. I telecommute. There is no reason for these situations to be awkward. But yet, here we are. The gray zone certainly exists and it will be a very tough nut to crack.

Basically, kudos to Michele for calling out the uselessness of public shame sessions, and advocating a new tack. Because the old one sure as hell wasn't going to get us across the finish line.

I don't have an answer and I'm not even going to try to offer one because I honestly feel like I'm still far too entrenched in my own biases to really offer something viable. My only wish is that more people would realize the same and be less prone to slandering someone because they tried to help.

But I wonder if this gray zone is not simply the symptom of massive loneliness.

I often say to friends that I'm surprised how much, when I'm in a relationship, I see all (other) women as men. Even when other women try to engage me into seduction play, it just makes me laugh or mocking them, just like I would with men (providing they know I'm with someone, of course, or else I try to be less rude).

This gray zone seems to me like people are incredibly lonely and craving for sexual activity, and I think we can spot that in our societies way beyond those "sexism at work" problems (the "dating" thing where you meet people you hardly know, "social" activities like facebook, etc).

It could be also a thing for people that are prone to cheat, but I can't think it's a majority of people.

In all honesty, what is the dating scene like in the SV? Are loads of guys still single, desperate, and oh-so-awkward in those sorts of situations? (in caricature , I am imagining me and my classmates in HS and Uni) I feel like that would help explain so much of what I read (obviously doesn't make it much better)

Is that helpful? Lots of people are not in a relationship. Most of them would like that not to be the case.

Also, you can't tell just when meeting people whether or not they're in a relationship, so it's a problem regardless.

Well, you can if they're wearing a wedding ring.

1) That most power is in the hands of a few people, who at this moment are primarily men, does not generalize to mean that most men have any power over most women. Most men, most women, at work are powerless. Bosses, leads, vps from other departments -- they have power and they are frequently women.

2) She frames the problem as one of active male behavior and passive female behavior. Women are acted upon. Men at work want sex or romance -- I guess women at work do not want sex or romance. It may very well be that at work she does not want sex or romance. And my guess is that at work most men do not want sex or romance. But there are some men, and there are some women that do.

That's not to say that her path out may not have some virtues.

I do think it would be good for everyone to turn the knob back down to 10, or 9, or perhaps even 3, and talk about the issues of sex and romance and sexism at work, while recognizing this isn't a problem of "Men" and isn't a problem of "Women" but is perhaps a problem of "homo sapiens in the 21st century".

I'm a straight, happily married man, and count myself lucky to work with many gay and straight men and gay and straight women who I enjoy being around. Of those four groups, I have noticed that I'm the least at ease around straight women, and I think this article does a good job of explaining the reason for that.

With the other three groups there is far less risk of friendliness being mistaken as flirtatiousness.

I'm a young male. Maybe too young to matter, but I do not, and I can't stress enough, I literally give no merit to the gender of my coworkers.

I was I raised to treat everybody equal. In my family as well as in general society today, women are MORE highly educated on average than men. And that's a great thing!

Men can act weird toward women at times, and men will never understand what that feels like. But I AM a man. Trust me when I say that women will never understand what it feels like when a man talks to a man in the absence of women.

I know people can be dicks, they can be terrible, and that's across both genders, but there IS a 'straight man to straight man' dynamic that women will always be protected from that isn't terribly pleasant.

TL;DR: The old boys club isn't fun for all boys, it's still only fun for the ones on top and that doesn't represent most of us.

I realize there are serious societal pressures to conform and be part of that 'old boys club'. But that is exactly the problem, your support of it (even if mostly implicit by merely being present, is made explicit when you laugh along with the sexist jokes or nod in agreement) is what perpetuates your male privilege. I have a lot of privilege too, so I'm not talking from some theoretical moral high ground of being less privileged than you. But I try not to participate.

It's one of the hardest things to stand up to society and your peers. But next time, try walking away. It isn't as good as telling the others why they are being bigoted, but it's better than contributing.

And I realize that isn't always possible. But the next time you get a job, or promotion, and you get that 'old boys club' vibe. Realize that someone else might have gotten that if they had been male (or white, or straight, or Christian, or American, or ...).

The choice, for me and him and maybe other people (men included) is very simple: we can either accept reality, conform to the "old boy's club" (you call that "supporting it"), and progress in our careers, or fight moral battles we cannot win and stagnate professionally or even be fired. It's easy to take the moral high ground from a position of power, but from a position of a young male, it's not very wise.

Personally, I find that all great employees I've worked with have also been great people, so I haven't had this problem myself. But I think that your position is not the most reasonable.

So it may hurt your career. Many people don't have careers to advance because of the assholes you are "conforming" with. And so you perpetuate it. Well done! So brave! And people wonder how people who aren’t white or male (or straight, or christian) make less money.

Have you?

> And people wonder how people who aren’t white or male (or straight, or christian) make less money.

And you're suggesting that therefore I, too, should make less money, even though my choice not to do so will make no difference in the world.

Sorry, but I don't think your demands are reasonable. I'd rather make the most money I can (without abusing others), and help others when I'm already in power.

Speaking of morality and supporting the evil status quo, how many loafs of bread did you throw away this year (while people in India are starving), how many Chinese T-shirts have you bought (while the child workers making them are worked to death), how many times did you not donate your hard-earned money (while the children in Africa are dying of malaria), how many times did you not protest while your government's agents were abroad, killing "terrorists" and their children without any judicial (or any other) oversight? Morality is a bitch.

It's great that you may one day be powerful enough to help with equality. But in the meantime you are going to be fine with gaining that power by abusing your privilege? How's that equality coming along then?

Doing the right thing isn't a fucking cost/benefit analysis. What you (apparently) participate in is the fucking problem [0]. The next time you think, 'why aren't there more women in tech', go look in a fucking mirror.

> Morality is a bitch.

Yes but I at least protest those things. And I do volunteer, and donate. Apparently because the world is horrible we can all just be passive about the injustices we can fix. Go fuck yourself.

[0] http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/319212/Why_Women_Quit...

> But in the meantime you are going to be fine with gaining that power by abusing your privilege?

What I had in mind (and I tried to communicate to you in the above post) is more that I will be using my privilege, not abusing it. If you find that objectionable, what else do you suggest? That I give my flat to the homeless guy, so that he will be forced to move out in a month because he won't afford the rent, just because I was lucky enough to learn programming while young and can make a good living now? That I move to India and use all my money to buy food for the poor and when it's gone starve along with them, just because I was lucky enough to be born in a first-world country?

Maybe I misunderstood you, and you're only suggesting that I don't perpetuate inequal, discriminatory treatment towards others. If so, I totally agree with that and always try to do my best. If, however, you're suggesting that I should put myself, my family and my future at a disadvantage just so that I can fight some class war against unspecified enemies for an unspecified gain, I'm not going to do that. And even if I would, I would dedicate my resources to more serious problems than sex inequality in tech.

Perhaps it's a definition problem. When I say 'old boys club' I'm thinking of those groups of powerful people who scratch each others backs for jobs. People who promote based off of networking rather than qualifications, and who often discriminate against many other groups, often not promoting them in favour of under-qualified people who are part of the network.

I'm not saying tell them they are stupid or anything. But perhaps stop participating in their group?

You sound like a good person, aware of some things many your age are not. That's awesome and you should be proud. However, please be very careful with the idea that you "literally give no merit to the gender of [your] coworkers". Many of these behaviors are so subtle that they go completely unnoticed by everyone involved. Most of the truly overt forms of sexism became passé years ago. What's left is covert, and very pernicious. I have been working on trying to increase my awareness of sexism for about a decade now, and I still find myself doing and thinking sexist things every week.

Your privilege is not something you can just lay down. It's a silent companion, (a "dark passenger" for the Dexter fans out there), that you will live with for the rest of your life. Being a good person means staying alert, keeping a little fear in your gut, listening charitably to the people around you, doing your homework, and trusting yourself and your community, day after day.

OK, sorry if that verged a little into lecture territory. It really sounds like you're on the right path already.

Restricting this to heterosexual dynamics, a bonding platonic interaction with the opposite gender very well might feel different than a bonding interaction with the same gender. But that doesn't by definition mean that it has to be distracting, with the participants wondering whether they're about to shag.

That's what having boundaries is all about. It's what professionalism is about. It's erring towards the professional interpretation rather than the suggestive interpretation.

If some other coworker sees you laughing together and gets all gossipy about if something is going on, then that is simply an immature reaction, and it is not professional. I just can't quite fathom simply "tolerating" a gray zone when it really sounds like people need to do a better job of shutting it down and being professional.

I see snippets of this conversation and it's hard to wrap my hands around it because it just seems like the entire conversation is stuck in a paradigm from a few decades ago. It sounds like people in this industry just need some more experiences with having positive, bonding professional experiences with compatibly-gendered coworkers, without it getting all weird and dramatic, before they'll start to accept that it is actually normal and expected, and that there's no reason to get all distracted by whether or not there's any subtext there. Maybe that's all it is, just something where the community needs more experience and socialization...

That's extraordinarily common in the industry, especially in startups.

Yeah, women will be women and men will be men. There is always some kind of sexual attraction between the two, and there are always physical and even mental differences between the 2 genders. It's how we're made.

There will always be a divide - its about how we behave about it:

This seems to be much more of an issue in the US than anywhere else tho. The US default expectation seems to be to always over-exaggerate stuff, and always takes the over-defensive position.

It's seen as "good person". It's seen as OK for the minority to attack the majority and is considered legitimate regardless of the attack or argument being made (in this case, women using their gender as a weapon, so it's really just a minority within the minority).

Sometimes the same happens with black vs white, and so on, too.

In fact "think of the children" attacks are based on the exact same concept. (remove internet neutrality, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!)

If anything, it deserves the ones who really get harassed IMO, because eventually those might not be defended when they really should be.

As a male, I approve. I'd like to talk more about my needs regarding this topic, but it's hard to do in a perfectly politically correct way.

The problem in the tech industry is that there are a lot of misogynist assholes who are put into positions of power and encourage that behavior in their businesses.

The average techie is a male who has spent a lot more time interacting with his computer than he has interacting with women. He does not understand women, he fears women, and what he fears, he hates.

I think this is unhelpful pop-psychology babble. The average techie is no different than the average human. Average humans with spouses/partners, siblings, friends and bills to pay, just like you. They have hangups, insecurities and personalities no different than your own. These myths about how they interact with computers, fear or hate women is nothing more than often repeated nonsense from people that haven't spent much time in the real world meeting and interacting with real people.

It's really, really weird that I keep reading this. Are you sure you want to single out tech industry as having a lot of assholes? Because, I'm a person who's come to the tech industry after being in various different industries over the years -- particularly, I've worked alongside a lot of mechanical engineering folk, sales folk, and construction folk. And let me tell you, far and away the tech industry folk have been the least misogynistic I have ever had to deal with. I can't even tell you the kind of things my fellow engineers used to tell me, how they depicted their relationships with women (invariably viewing them as just sex objects, etc.).

I'm not really sure why there isn't much public and vocal outrage about problems in those industries. I totally don't understand it.

The second explanation is that the tech industry is actually less mysogenistic than others, as you have noticed, but ironically due to the lack of widespread mysogeny like you see in areas like finance, when an "incident" occurs, a lively discussion happens because there is a critical mass of non-sexist males, not due to a lack of them. Off course, this feeds into the meme which cements it more as accepted truth, despite any real data or study showing that tech has a above average rate of male mysogeny.

And anyway, is the gray zone itself really such a problem? Being close to someone and sometimes wondering whether there's something "else" there seems pretty normal. Maybe we should just be OK with a bit of ambiguity in some of our friendships. It won't kill you ...

I think a few principles, once applied, make navigating the gray zone almost trivial:

-First, if you think you might be interested, engage in light harmless flirting and gauge the response. If there is no/negative response, then move on. The flirting should truly be harmless. If you friend feels uncomfortable, unsafe, or demeaned, then you have flirted wrongly. Apologize and move on.

-If you've determined you're interested, decide whether it is worth acting on. Sometimes it isn't - for instance, if you're married, or you're just too busy or whatever. Just move on.

-If you're interested and it's worth acting on, promptly express interest in a way that is clear and firm, but not embarrassing or intimidating to your friend. Do not express interest if you are not ready to take "no" for an answer. If you can't take "no" for an answer, just move on and try to figure out why. Where a lot of people go wrong here is instead of actually asking, they half-ask and half-demand. That is going to frighten your friend, and you probably won't be friends any longer.

-If you're rejected, accept it and don't lash out. If you goofed and made things super-awkward and uncomfortable, then lighten the air with a silly joke or something (ie make it clear that you're not going to flip, and that you're cool). Lashing out is going to create a toxic environment for everyone, and it's going to suck. Instead, deal with your feelings on your own, and continue to treat your friend with respect. And, of course, move on.

It's maybe a little awkward to continue working next to stop who rejected you--or who you rejected--but in my experience, it really isn't that bad at all, and it goes away quickly. What's much worse is to ignore one of these steps, and then have things end in a massive immature blow-out. Just take responsibility and be clear, and don't have undue expectations.

And it's often not too late to save yourself. In one case I was a massive douche, but I owned up to my behavior, apologized, and said I hoped we could eventually put this behind us. We did eventually, and it was fun.

Basically, you just have to be considerate and know when to move the hell on.

Aside: the above also explains why being a non-drinker (like me, for health reasons) impedes your career. When you get sloshed, you see a much wider range of human behavior (some people hitting their worst) and you learn things that are otherwise impossible to learn about guarded, intelligent, 25+ year-old people with a lot to lose. You can read about that stuff (how to negotiate enormous deals with irrational humans) in books; or you can get hammered with 10 other people and interact with it, on a smaller scale where the points (unless you get severely fucked up in a bar fight) mostly don't matter.

The problem is that most of the work isn't hard, and doesn't require talented people. If the work is legitimately hard (i.e. someone might fail) that's viewed as a management failure. This means that anyone can be "groomed" to appear as a leader and as a success, which means that the whole process is already (justifiably) under suspicion. Ergo, the promotion of a woman (even if she's the most talented, because it's impossible to tell in most cases) raises doubts. People assume she was mentored because she was female and pretty, and not because she had the most potential. It's wrong, but you can expect those kinds of attacks in a system where everyone already knows that corruption is the norm. People will use whatever they have to discredit someone who rose faster than they did: female and pretty, boss's son, "had something" (i.e. extorted his way into the sun). It doesn't have to be true.

The sexism battle here is a minor one, really, in the much grander theater of corporate dysfunction. What's more obvious is that the corporate world is not a meritocracy. Most people are forced to work 3 levels below their ability and become deeply resentful, and anyone who gets promoted on potential is immediately thrown into suspicion.

The sad thing is that the companies that were coming closest to fixing this are the ones prominently using open allocation: Valve and Github, the latter now under attack. (To make it clear, I'm not taking sides because it's pretty clear that almost none of us have any real information at this point.) With managerial power being a major source of corruption in the past, it seems wise to get rid of it. But it's also clear that getting rid of all management functions is a non-starter. Even if you do everything right in a no-management company, people will distrust you (was HR asleep on this? you mean there was no HR?) as soon anything goes wrong.