(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
April 14, 2015 10:02 AM   Subscribe

Tableflip Dot Club: 2015's coolest club is for all those women in tech who had feelings about Ellen Pao & more.
posted by dame (43 comments total) 28 users marked this as a favorite
 
My first thought was, "Only in Silicon Valley would you protest inequality by going Galt."
posted by ethansr at 10:06 AM on April 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


Ohhh man, this looks great.

ethansr: "My first thought was, "Only in Silicon Valley would you protest inequality by going Galt.""

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻ ɹsuɐɥʇǝ┻
posted by boo_radley at 10:12 AM on April 14, 2015 [8 favorites]


I'm not sure saying you are investing in other women is going Galt, but you know, everyone sees their own unique perspective.
posted by dame at 10:21 AM on April 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


"Fuck that, we’re done. It’s not us, it’s you."

tableflip.club reminds me of Chris Rock's Vulture interview last year, where he said: "Here’s the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy...To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before."

By the same logic, men are crazy, and while they're getting less crazy in certain circles, places like Silicon Valley and STEM-land are still full of crazy dudes. So cheers to tableflip! I wish I had money so I could support them.

May the road rise up to meet you, and the wind be at your back. May your code compile seamlessly and without inexplicable bugs. May you avoid gross VC dudes, and the whining of entitled manbabies.
posted by DGStieber at 10:26 AM on April 14, 2015 [39 favorites]


I'm not sure saying you are investing in other women is going Galt, but you know, everyone sees their own unique perspective.

I think it was a lighthearted joke about Galt and friends leaving society to form a commune.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:28 AM on April 14, 2015


I think it was a lighthearted joke about Galt and friends leaving society to form a commune.

I did not even know that happened in any Ayn Rand book ever. (I think I read We in high school and part of Atlas Shrugged maybe?) But I stand corrected.
posted by dame at 10:32 AM on April 14, 2015


Mod note: A few comments deleted. Let's start this over, and maybe if someone feels like saying 'woe is me, for I'm a white guy in tech', they can re-think whether they want to do that, before it entirely derails the fledgling thread.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:33 AM on April 14, 2015 [26 favorites]


...where I'm not hated for being the status quo.

Personally, I don't hate you. (It's not about you specifically.)

I hate the system. I hate the fact that the dice are loaded against me at every turn. I hate being interviewed by men who stare at my breasts as they say, "but you don't look like a developer." I hate being passed over, overlooked and assumed to be incompetent. And I hate that when any woman brings up the glaring, blatant, constant barrage of sexism as a *possible* problem, they're marginalized, harassed and even threatened.

Hate you? No. I don't hate you, player #1, I hate the entire broken game.

(Having said that, be careful that you're not one of the people writing the rules.)
posted by erinfern at 10:33 AM on April 14, 2015 [12 favorites]


Some more information over at Vice.
posted by zabuni at 10:36 AM on April 14, 2015


One critique I do have of the approach, which I've discussed with some friends, is resentment at the fact that right now the only way to do work you love and get actual respect at work seems to be to take on the extra burden of being an entrepreneur. I'm just a Peggy waiting here for my Joan.
posted by dame at 10:42 AM on April 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


(I think I read We in high school and part of Atlas Shrugged maybe?)

It was later in Atlas Shrugged. But if you didnt make it through, you are only better for your failure.
posted by Billiken at 10:45 AM on April 14, 2015 [10 favorites]


the only way to do work you love and get actual respect at work seems to be to take on the extra burden of being an entrepreneur.

This seems pretty logical. In any other scenario you are just an input that eats into margins.
posted by Nevin at 11:05 AM on April 14, 2015




This seems pretty logical. In any other scenario you are just an input that eats into margins.

My point is that men who don't want to be entrepreneurs can go work at a company and be treated fairly. The idea that that is only open for women interested in the extra work of entrepreneurialism is kinda crap.
posted by dame at 11:31 AM on April 14, 2015 [10 favorites]


Nevin: "This seems pretty logical. In any other scenario you are just an input that eats into margins."

In many situations there is too much work for one hardy mantrepneur to do, and that person must hire others. Often times these additional work-persons add value to an organization.
posted by boo_radley at 11:57 AM on April 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


I get a little bothered when people complain about code reviews. Code reviews are good. They are necessary. Criticism of code is not criticism of you. It should be a discussion and, in many cases, should be a way for both participants to learn. It sucks to give reviews using the same tone and approach to two people and have one of them go to the team lead or manager and say "but sonic meat machine was mean to me" because I said you need to put your API keys in a config file instead of hard-coding them.
posted by sonic meat machine at 12:03 PM on April 14, 2015 [8 favorites]


Criticism of code is not criticism of you. It should be a discussion

And yet you and I know perfectly well that there are plenty of developers who use them as dick-sizing contests. I've had people say straight-up offensive shit to me during code reviews (shout out to the guy who told me my code was "disgusting"), and I know that if I've gotten it that badly as a guy the stuff that's directed at women is 10x worse.
posted by asterix at 12:11 PM on April 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


I've actually never had any code review comments that I found personally insulting.
posted by sonic meat machine at 12:14 PM on April 14, 2015


Criticism of code is not criticism of you.

While true in theory, it is rarely thus in practice, especially for marginalized groups.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:26 PM on April 14, 2015 [6 favorites]


I've actually never had any code review comments that I found personally insulting.

Then consider yourself a lucky outlier.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:27 PM on April 14, 2015


I think code reviews would be a very productive area of tech discourse to analyse. A team of programmers develops a shared set of values. Artifacts of these values are realised through their documentation and code, but elaborated on in code reviews.

In open source projects, substantial differences in values are apparent before even looking at code. I'm pretty sure looking at more familiar people in more private settings would be even more edifying.
posted by ethansr at 12:29 PM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


So, out of curiosity, how is one supposed to generate good code, or improve professionally, if it is socially problematic to do code review? Code reviews are one of the few empirically proven methods of improving code quality (Capers Jones is the best source on this), better even than unit testing and pair programming. If someone writes an N+1 problem into code, or a security risk, or simply doesn't adhere to the project's formatting standards—what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to give the person a pass because of their gender or race? This seems really negative, and can end up costing a lot of money. I have seen an N+1 problem pushed to production after I flagged it in code review that cost the company thousands of dollars, for example.
posted by sonic meat machine at 12:34 PM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


At my workplace, the first code review is generally acknowledged to be a hazing ritual. Nobody seems to see this as a serious problem.
posted by town of cats at 12:37 PM on April 14, 2015


I disbelieve the former, because I have met many people (of all genders) who believe that their code reviews are being unfairly or disproportionately criticized. In general, after a couple of months, they get better, and the volume of comments on their code reviews diminishes. I have never seen sexist or personally insulting language in a code review (except having one person personally insult me in response to comments I left on their code). I don't doubt that it happens in some places, but I have worked in some dysfunctional organizations, and have still never seen it.
posted by sonic meat machine at 12:43 PM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


I think that they are, overall, doing harm to their own careers and to the careers of other women in technology (and thus, to the field as a whole).
posted by sonic meat machine at 12:50 PM on April 14, 2015


To the various comments asking how can we make good code without doing code reviews, it doesn't sound like we need to get rid of code reviews so much as show people who make code reviews miserable that it doesn't have to be that way (and get rid of them if they can't learn new tricks). If the desired goal is producing good code and sharing knowledge across a team, shame and insults aren't the best approach by any measure.

Code reviews where I work are primarily comments in Github pull requests and only occasionally formal meetings, but if either ever escalated into unprofessional behavior (where professional is based on expectations of decency rather than how our profession seems to operate generally in some places), that would not be tolerated for a moment.
posted by kokaku at 12:57 PM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also this is a place where devs can really learn from designers. When you go to school, you learn how to take — but also give — criticism. It is utterly possible to do so without being defensive / stoking defensiveness, but a huge part of it is how the criticism is given.

That said, you'll notice the manifesto mentions that women are promoted on the basis of accomplishment while men are promoted on the basis of "potential". I presume you do understand that often people are far more picky in review of women's work than men's work and it is not as "objective" as you might imagine. It is then easy to infer the results of this extra pickiness on women's careers and access to the kinds of projects that will get them promoted. That's what she means when she follows up with

while our male peers back-pat each others’ shitty work onwards to the next production incident. When we try to play by the rules (which we do because we’ve seen what happens to women who don’t) we’re denied opportunities because we aren’t “ready” for them- and we are ALSO denied the things you say we need in order to BE ready.

Frankly the problem is rarely that women's work just isn't good enough — because they are ignoring reviews or anything else.
posted by dame at 1:07 PM on April 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


I like how in the longer interview she points out that pay inequality across the board is an issue for all women. I'd also add in here that while white women make less than white men (even correcting for everything), black women make even less, and Latinas and Asian women likewise make even less - so there is racism holding back women even more which needs to be addressed. I also want to note the increased difficulty for trans women, women with disabilities, lesbian and bi women, and lower class women. All women have an increased risk of threats, harassment, stalking, violence, and abuse and those risks are only magnified as they grow in prominence and if they are discriminated against along more than one axes.
posted by Deoridhe at 1:10 PM on April 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


At my workplace, the first code review is generally acknowledged to be a hazing ritual. Nobody seems to see this as a serious problem.


I would see it as somewhat of a problem with your corporate culture, not to mention potentially a waste of time and resources.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:30 PM on April 14, 2015 [10 favorites]


Code review as "hazing" is a horrible corporate culture trait. What on earth could that productively accomplish?
posted by nev at 4:52 PM on April 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


I get a little bothered when people complain about code reviews. Code reviews are good. They are necessary. Criticism of code is not criticism of you. It should be a discussion and, in many cases, should be a way for both participants to learn. It sucks to give reviews using the same tone and approach to two people and have one of them go to the team lead or manager and say "but sonic meat machine was mean to me" because I said you need to put your API keys in a config file instead of hard-coding them.

Let's talk about how you are literally being the problem that this whole post is about right now.

I'm speaking to you as a person who has been in tech for a long time, with a very thick skin, who has given and received tough code reviews. They have benefits. They also have drawbacks.

To sit there and pick this one point, "code reviews are good and necessary", as the point you're choosing to discuss, already distracts us from the main point of the complaint.

Further, you are assuming that because this person is saying that something you hold dear is imperfect, they don't understand the point or value of the code review.

If I were going to read in further, I might guess that you think that she doesn't like code reviews for perhaps irrational reasons. Hey, maybe not, but it wouldn't surprise me.

The woman who wrote this probably has at least the level of experience to match yours. I communicate with many high-level women at big-name tech companies (Google, etc), and many complain of the feeling that they are treated differently in code review. It is a common complaint from women in technology companies big and small.

She has experienced this, and observed it, and so have her fellow women. Her experience, and their experience, is real. It is not a result of her thin skin, her inability to take criticism. For the love of god, she has been in tech for YEARS. Do you think women in tech survive for any period with a thin skin? Open your eyes.

When someone criticizes something you hold dear, instead of knee-jerk assuming they don't know what they're talking about, that they're complaining about "The way things have to be", whatever, perhaps you should make an effort to show some empathy and understand what kinds of circumstances they might be experiencing. Because if you can't assume that people telling you things are telling you the truth of their experiences, if you can't see the problems that others might have with something that works for you, well. That lack of empathy probably comes out in other ways, it probably comes out in you as a coworker, it probably comes out in your code and systems design, even. You wanna be great at your job? Really actually great? Empathy, my friend.

You don't know everything, your experience is not universal. When you assume it is, you are being part of the problem.
posted by ch1x0r at 6:43 PM on April 14, 2015 [44 favorites]


Code review as "hazing" is a horrible corporate culture trait. What on earth could that productively accomplish?

Beats me. I almost quit over my first code review.
posted by town of cats at 7:10 PM on April 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


This manifesto is everything.

And anyone who reads that, stops at code reviews and then feels the need to spout off needs to go back to elementary school and finish learning how to read.
posted by bleep at 7:13 PM on April 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


Sorry, looking at the thread I guess I was not good at explaining my own feelings on the matter and ended up being part of the problem. I thought the term "hazing" had enough of a negative connotation that my use of it would make it clear that I was outside of the class of people who maintained that first-code-review-as-hazing was all in harmless good fun. My first code review took weeks, and afterwards I basically spent a few months getting very little done because I was so afraid to mail out another one. It singlehandedly took me from a person with mild impostor syndrome to a person with crippling, debilitating impostor syndrome.

I absolutely think women and other visible minorities are put through the wringer with code reviews way beyond what happens with their male colleagues. I feel that, at least in the teams I've been on in my near-decade as a software engineer, the first code review sucks for everyone, but for people in the in-group there's an exponential backoff of nitpick level after that, whereas for people outside that group there's more of a linear backoff. This means that it ends up being a whole lot harder for people who for other reasons are already doubting themselves to actually get productive and feel like they're accomplishing things at the same rate as their peers, and also means their peers and manager think, "Huh, this person just seems to work really slowly!" which means it's harder to get more responsibility and advance. I've seen this on team after team. Women tend to be less internally mobile which I suspect is because the sensible ones (myself not included) realize that every time they move teams they basically waste a year trying to get their coworkers to take them seriously and stop questioning their grammar in their comments.

I don't think there's anything conscious about this and I'm sure if any of my teammates were confronted about it, they'd deny it. Sometimes the entire experience of being a woman in software engineering just feels like being gaslighted 24/7.
posted by town of cats at 8:51 PM on April 14, 2015 [13 favorites]


I think that they are, overall, doing harm to their own careers and to the careers of other women in technology

This kind of comment is why women are flipping the table, gentlefolk. I promise not to hold this comment against all men in technical fields, because that would be kind of sexist.
posted by immlass at 9:49 PM on April 14, 2015 [6 favorites]




Code review as "hazing" is a horrible corporate culture trait. What on earth could that productively accomplish?

I think it accomplishes quite a lot, including effectively demonstrating to the newb the way people are going to treat each other and that this kind of shit is so okay with the org that it can be folded into official tasks. The fact that it lets them enforce their social structure and biases in a sub-visible way is a bonus.
posted by phearlez at 2:25 PM on April 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


And thanks to boo_radley whose comment inspired me to go figure out how to make a text expander snippet that merges a table flip with clipboard text.

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━ʎǝlpɐɹ_ooq━┻
posted by phearlez at 2:40 PM on April 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


Sorry to have misunderstood you, town of cats. I'm glad you weren't part of that!
posted by nev at 4:25 PM on April 15, 2015


phearlez: I think it accomplishes quite a lot...

Thank you for saving me the trouble of trying to say this, especially since I would have probably done so less-clearly.

The abusive feedback regime has a purpose and it usually fills that purpose. But the purpose is seldom what it's said to be.

Put another way: the Purpose Of a System Is What It Does (POSIWID). The purpose of abusive feedback regimes is to reinforce a certain style of participation, which happens to be hostile and aggressive.
posted by lodurr at 11:54 AM on April 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


So... Act like an asshole for the sake of boosting productivity? The greater good, as it were? Seems reductive.
posted by ostranenie at 3:15 AM on April 17, 2015


Do not mistake my description of what it accomplishes as endorsement. I am merely trying to point out - with greater brevity than I usually manage - that this conduct is not an aberration within the organization. It is not a tumor within an otherwise healthy place. It is just the more visible manifestation of a shitty joint being shitty.

It may be that the shitty place is in denial about what it's really doing and endorsing, but in my experience when you see that behavior it's just reflecting other things about the organization.
posted by phearlez at 8:37 AM on April 17, 2015


Things like that if assholes could fly, it'd be an airport?
posted by ostranenie at 3:12 PM on April 17, 2015


« Older "It's pretty black and white. They didn't do their...   |   When Is Cheryl’s Birthday? Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments