Misogyny in the Tech Industry

Today, I am ashamed to work in an industry in which unconscious misogyny is still the norm.

By Ryan McGreal. 307 words. Approximately a 1 to 2 minute read.
Posted March 21, 2013 in Blog. (Last Updated March 25, 2013)

The tech industry has spoken loud and clear:

If a woman sees, hears or experiences inappropriate and/or sexist behaviour from her colleagues and/or peers, she should keep her mouth shut and not make such a big deal out of it.

But if a man is called out for inappropriate and/or sexist behaviour, everyone will rise up in a vast eruption of righteous indignation - against the woman who had the nerve to speak up.

She will be insulted, abused and threatened with assault and rape. Her motives will be subjected to the ugliest, most damning judgments. Her history will be dragged over for anything that makes her look hypocritical or hysterical.

Her employer will readily sacrifice her to assuage the angry mob that launched a denial of service attack on its servers.

And far too many people who may not actually be deliberately misogynist will nevertheless pile on, blaming her for 'getting one of the developers fired' and providing cover for the vicious personal attacks against her.

Today I am ashamed to work in this industry.

https://www.facebook.com/SendGrid/posts/10151502570463967

http://blog.sendgrid.com/a-difficult-situation/

Background:

http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-at-tech-conferences/

Update 2013-03-21 9:07 PM:

In case you're wondering what I'm talking about, here is just a recent sample of tweets that come up in a realtime search. I didn't have to dig far - at all, really - to find them. These are literally from the past 20 minutes.

Warning: these are extremely ugly, mean-spirited, dismissive and offensive. Some of them use the most degrading words the English language can hurl at a woman.

Update 2013-03-25 6:34 AM:

Some excellent write-ups around the web: