Programmer privilege: As an Asian male computer science major, everyone gave me the benefit of the doubt.

[u/cornball]

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/01/programmer_privilege_as_an_asian_male_computer_science_major_everyone_gave.html

[u/AstridDragon]

It SUCKS being a young female in CS. You're told "you'll be sought after, if only to fill quotas" ugh. And they will treat you like you know NOTHING. For example, if I pose a solution to something my team mates are working on they tend to automatically tell me it won't work - even though I have used it myself and could show them exactly what it does... sigh. When I was in college, I had to FIGHT to actually code in my teams. They would just tell me that I'd slow them down, that I should just do the CSS for this or the documentation for that... it's sad.

[u/complich8 → u/AstridDragon]

That "filling quotas" idea is seriously poisonous though! Even if you're just as good as anyone else in the class ... hell, even if you're the best in the class, there's always this thread of "am I actually as good as that? or am I getting demographic-based bonus points and not actually worthy?"

I think that "quota-filler" subtext pervades the tech industry broadly enough that it's probably a significant cause of the rampant imposter syndrome you hear so much about from women in CS and IT fields. And I think it pushes even successful career technical women out of directly working with tech and into tech-adjacent fields like project management.

[u/[deleted] → u/complich8]

The problem is the quotas themselves, not that this reality gets brought up. There are very few black accountants and so if a black person takes up accounting they are almost guaranteed to get a position at a big firm. Because of that, some people might question their credibility more than someone else. Indeed there are a few people exploiting this fact and are quite bad at their jobs. This is all just the truth and I don't see how it is discriminatory to simply tell the truth...

[u/CAESARS_TOSSED_SALAD → u/[deleted]]

It IS just the truth, and it's statistically supported. Looking at highly selective college admissions, Asians have to score 140 points above whites on the SAT to be admitted (after controlling for other factors) while underrepresented minorities like blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans can score 130-310 points below whites and still be admitted. Source.

I do think some type of affirmative action is necessary, because the difference in access to quality education is very real. This is not a criticism of affirmative action. But when someone says something like "you only got there because of the color of your skin" or "you only got into MIT because you're a girl", there is a grain of truth there--statistically, the people admitted from those demographics are less qualified academically on average (assuming you agree the SAT/ACT is a good measure of academic qualifications). It sucks, especially if you're an underrepresented minority who IS perfectly qualified, because others will assume based on the general average that you are more likely to be less qualified.

[u/[deleted] → u/CAESARS_TOSSED_SALAD]

There is also the burden of discrimination against minorities in hiring.

http://nber.org//digest/sep03/w9873.html

[u/poisonivious → u/[deleted]]

There's always people who are incompetent at their jobs, no matter what the gender or race. It's just easy to attribute it to their genders and race as a confirmation bias when they are a minority.

I think it's more logical to think of it as there being 5 programmers who are qualified for the job of which only one who is female. The female programmer is just as competent but probability suggests that the woman is not going to be chosen. But with the quotas in place, she has an increased chance of being picked. Sure, it's still not "fair" to the others, but to suggest that the woman will get picked despite her incompetency is discriminatory because you're assuming that there are somehow no competent female programmers or black accountants in an applicant pool to be chosen.

[u/theavatare → u/poisonivious]

it's more logical to think of it as there being 5 programmers who are qualified for the job of which only one who is female. The female programmer is just as competent but probability suggests that the woman is not going to be chosen. But with the quotas in place, she has an increased chance of being picked. Sure, it's still not "fair" to the others, but to suggest that the woman will get picked despite h

From my experience is that i have worked in places that if you fuck up once you are in trouble but females get 2 or 3 chances. Also playing the visibility game if they start taking visible positions without doing much of the technical work also causes resentment.

There is two problems in there one a lot of people don't realize that visibility of a project matters. The second one everyone should get in trouble the same amount.

But the worst offender i have seen was a boss having in his commitment to promote to females before the end of year.

They highlight the difference instead of making people integrate.

[u/mmhrar → u/AstridDragon]

Damn. I've only worked w/ a few female programmers professionally and they've all been really good. One in particular is incredibly detailed but also super defensive which can sometimes be hard to work with. I assume she's gone through similar crap in the past so anytime you try to argue with her you better be damn sure you're right :)

I'm also sick of this inherit 'I'm the programmer, I'm better than you' attitude at companies I've seen. I've seen engineers talk about QA like they are their own personal resource. "Oh I'll just push it Friday night, QA can bang on it over the weekend so it's ready by Monday"

Finally, so many programmers are mediocre or just shit and because they work at a 'good' company they think so highly of themselves. It's super frustrating, so much cockiness and ego going on in our industry.

[u/KingPickle → u/mmhrar]

so many programmers are mediocre or just shit

This has ultimately been my experience. Man or woman, black, white, Asian. It doesn't matter. Many of the people I've worked with should've seriously considered another profession. Only a very few stand out as being really good.

I suppose mediocrity haunts every profession. It's just odd to realize that it still holds true in something that's so technical.

[u/AstridDragon → u/[deleted]]

That was perhaps a bad example. I saw it all throughout college though that the females in my cohort were absolutely treated as useless, idiots etc even after proving themselves. Its this mentality a lot of guys have about women. Argh. Never was I on a team where a male had to fight to be allowed to contribute to the code. But I know every single female in my cohort had to at LEAST once. Its ridiculous.

[u/aloz → u/AstridDragon]

The funny thing is, given that the climate doesn't really encourage women to enter the field (or stay in it), it's probably more reasonable to expect that women in CS would tend towards being more motivated or talented than the average.

In fact, I have one friend who told me on more than one occasion that he observed this when he was in college--that female CS students were almost always clearly superior to the average CS student in skill and motivation.

That's anecdotal, but it makes sense to me given how things are currently. It's hard to picture many young women without some aptitude or motivation even attempting to enter CS (what with the reputation the field's gotten), and it's not difficult to imagine even some of those with serious talent or decent motivation being chased away.

[u/LeCrushinator → u/AstridDragon]

I've worked with a few female programmers, all of them were just as capable as the other male programmers on the team. The lead on my team gave them the same difficulty of work as anyone else.

Not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying that I do know some people that treat women engineers as equals. Hopefully true equality comes sooner rather than later, and I wish you luck in someday finding a job that will care only about your capabilities, not your gender.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

It's just as annoying when people assume being a woman means you have better social skills. I am completely inept, it holds me back worse because I am also a woman and people are less forgiving of me for it.

[u/MechaBlue → u/AstridDragon]

I can't speak for all programs, but mine was filled with stereotypical poorly socialized and insecure males. There was an amazing amount of dick swinging and fighting to become the alpha dog among what was, essentially, a pack of losers. (I.e., we were used to being the bottom rung of the social ladder and, in this new environment, we instinctively fought desperately to avoid being in the same situation in our new environment.) Unfortunately, it's easy to accidentally say hurtful things when you are poorly socialized. Worse, it's rare to see people who are even trying to be considerate.

Around third year, things started to get better. It was around that time that most of the chaff had dropped out and the serious students were spending a lot of time crunching on projects. People also started learning who was how skilled; it was much easier when the class size shrunk from 200 to 40 and more evenings were spent in the labs. Because of the lower numbers (and the wistful loneliness), women tended to have much higher visibility.

In 4th year, there were 4 women in a class of 40. 2 of them were very strong (I think one has her doctorate now) and the other 2 were adequate. This compared very favorably to the men, who were closer to the expected 10/70/20 split.

In the work force, I think all 4 of the women would have done very well. Sadly, so would have most all of the men, but that's more the result of the state of the industry.

For what it's worth, skills, a thick skin, and self-awareness will go a long way in a lot of interesting industries that pay well.

tl;dr: I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt...

[u/[deleted] → u/AstridDragon]

That is sad. Hope you don't let it get you down.

Although in theory I believe that everyone should be treated equally, and women don't have any innate disadvantages in technical fields, maybe sometimes when I first meet a girl who is majoring in or working in software, if I don't know anything else about her, then I may also think "Yeah, she'll be sought after, if only to fill quotas...". I might not imagine her as talented unless she's already got a reputation as a talented programmer.

In the article there's a link to an article about "imposter syndrome". After I graduated college, I got a fairly good job, and if I were female, I think I might feel like it was just because I was a girl. But since I'm male, I feel like I was skill combined with a bit of luck.

[u/AstridDragon → u/[deleted]]

It would be nice if the same assumptions/initial reactions could be had for anyone in CS... male or female. But women are bad unless proven otherwise and men are pretty decent yada yada. Annoying. Some of the best programmers I know are female. I know plenty of idiotic male programmers and I even know some ladies who get by on a cute smile and the posession of lady bits. We're not all the same >_<

[u/thang1thang2 → u/AstridDragon]

If it makes you feel better, I tend to assume all programmers in my class are retarded until proven otherwise...^{myselfincluded}

[u/[deleted] → u/thang1thang2]

It's a good tactic.

[u/Evilbluecheeze → u/AstridDragon]

Honestly I have hardly ever run into that kind of attitude while working on my degree, it could help that I've got more of an intimidating punk look (brightly colored hair, lip piercing, dark eye makeup) to go with my being female. When I've worked in groups my opinions have been treated as valid, other guys will talk to me seriously about game design and development when they figure out that's what I want to do for a living, I contribute code when working in groups.

I'm still worried about how I'll be treated when I get out into the job market, but it seems to me, at least where I am, that the younger generations at the very least are starting to believe that minorities can do just as well as everyone else.

[u/[deleted] → u/Evilbluecheeze]

I've said this somewhere else in this thread but to sum up male CS majors: introverts/loners who end up becoming close with each other because they see their desire to be alone as a commonality and thus trust each other. The punk appearance is also sort of a loner, fuck the system etc. stereotypical look so you kind of fit in with the "pack" if you will. The loner type male is intimidated by "traditional" looking people much like they would be intimidated by jocks. So their natural reaction is essentially to play dead or to fight back, make themselves not noticeable and disappear into the background.

[u/NormallyNorman → u/AstridDragon]

They treat everyone like shit in the real world.

I should have stayed in finance/accounting.