A Culture of (Potential) Assholes: Sexual Harassment in IT
On a recent trip I had my eyes opened to the phenomenon of sexual harassment in the IT industry. I don’t know why I was so surprised, but I was. It broke my heart to discover that friends of mine had to put up with treatment that I thought only occurred in bad HR training videos.
Before I unpack my thoughts on this issue I feel I must issue a disclaimer. I’m a man. I’ve been guilty of sexual harassment to some degree in my life. I do not want to give the impression that I am above this issue. I enjoy making comments laced with double entendre that are probably more than a little offensive at times. Only now, I am more aware of and sensitive to these situations than before.
Here is what I observed. I was sitting next to a female developer in a hotel lobby in the evening during a multi-day conference. We had just met that evening, and I was enjoying our conversation. We were both sober, while many of those around us were not.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a loud and drunken man, whom I had met briefly the night before, appeared. He made a few comments to the assembled group, then reached in his back pocket to pull out the envelope that the hotel gives you with your room key cards. Apropos of nothing, he hands the envelope, containing a key, to the lady next to me and says “my room number is written on there. I expect to see you in my room later.”
He then walked away while she tried unsuccessfully to give the room key back. After she sat back down, another male developer on her other side, in apparent sarcasm, said “you took somebody’s room key. You’re such a whore!” This pushed me past my tolerance and I yelled at him “Dude, over the line!”
While this brief scenario doesn’t indicate a trend, it did spark a series of conversations with several women in my circle of contacts. I discovered through these conversations that it is a nearly universal experience that similar inappropriate scenarios happen on a regular basis. What was especially disturbing to me was that the women couldn’t believe that I was surprised by this.
I consider the people I interact with professionally to be my community. I believe fundamentally that we have to take care of one another so that we can all succeed. To discover that members of my community were regularly tolerating treatment that I would not put up with for an instant was mind blowing to me.
I learned that rather than viewing men as neutral peers on first meeting, the women often view us with suspicion and caution. It is as though we are all potential assholes in their eyes, guilty until proven innocent. This led me to second guess many interactions I have had with women developers, wondering if they suspected my motives.
It seems to me that the women in our industry are swallowing emotional poison every time an harassing interaction takes place. They appear to have too high a threshold of tolerance for bad behavior. The lady involved in the situation that prompted this post told me that she couldn’t speak up because she would then be seen as a bitch and would lose business because people wouldn’t want to work with her. Here are some quotes:
I just shrug off certain comments/advancements, because being in IT I feel like I need to be “one of the guys”, so I take it and move on.
That’s what i hate – having to keep my guard up in order to respond professionally, because there’s this expectation that i have to respond in some way, either by being offended or going along with the joke and showing that i’m cool, etc.
I’ve been plenty naive, falling for “yeah sure we’re just friends” or “no I didn’t mean anything by that” lines. After enough lost trust in people, I’ve probably become more aware and/or suspicious.
Protesting too much gets you nowhere except labled in one of various negative ways. In which case, you HAVE to pick your battles, and figure out what is truly offensive and worth speaking up about, and ignore the rest. Otherwise you’re just the “boy who cried wolf.”
This condition frankly saddens me. In discussing these discoveries with my friend Dustin Campbell, he reminded me that as men, we have a tendency to fix and rescue. The issue at hand defies my attempts at immediate refactoring. I asked the women what I could do when I witness an incident of harassment. They suggested that I take the offender aside and talk to him rather than publicly reacting and potentially escalating an uncomfortable situation. One friend made it clear that I should say that I find the behavior offensive rather than come across like I’m sticking up for a “little lady.”
Henceforth, if I see anyone pulling any of this shit, I will take the person aside and have a discrete but direct conversation. If it continues, I will call the person out publicly. If it continues beyond that, I’ll take whatever steps necessary to inform vendors and clients of the individual’s character.
The day after my “awakening”, I went to a Women In Technology meeting to learn more. There I heard that retention of women in the industry is at least as big a problem as recruiting them in the first place. The three biggest causes of women leaving IT are sexual harassment, lack of role models and lack of mentors.
When it comes to role models and mentors, there may be fewer women than men, but they definitely exist. I know quite a few amazing women developers. Now, I am even more impressed with these women because of what they have had to put up with as they progress in their careers. I invite all of my peers to join me in making the profession of software development more welcoming to everyone by looking out for your neighbor.
Peace,
++Alan
The Paradox of Simplicity
In agile development, it is common to hear people say “do the simplest thing that could possible work.” This is a corollary to YAGNI or “you ain’t gonna’ need it.” I don’t hear many of my fellow developers outside of the agile movement arguing with those sentiments. It seems we can all agree that we should not exert effort beyond solving the specific problem at hand.
There is, however, contention about what the implementation of such pragmatic simplicity looks like. As a .NET practitioner of agile development, it is common for me to write tests before implementation code. I often write interfaces which have only one implementation. I may use an inversion of control container, an object-relational mapper and other infrastructure utilities which appear to add unnecessary complexity to developers with a different outlook.
One of the most glaring anti-patterns for simplicity in my view is the SQL data source. It seems very simple and pragmatic to some because it allows the developer to quickly create a forms over data application which will deliver value to the client. While I agree that there is tremendous immediate benefit in using the SQL data source for the initial delivery of value, there is also a tremendous cost down stream.
In my view, the SQL data source represents all that is flawed in RAD (rapid application development) tooling. It allows the developer to quickly get data into and out of a database into and from the user interface. It also tightly couples the data access implementation to the user interface making future changes very difficult to implement. Fundamentally, tools such as the SQL data source represent the software equivalent of a Rube Goldberg machine where each bit of functionality relies intimately on the implementation details of it’s neighboring components.
The core problem in software from my experience is not the delivery of the initial version of any functionality. The core problem is that that I and the customer never know when or where the code will need to change, but we know for certain that it will change. Enabling change therefore becomes a top priority along with delivering value.
If I deliver value up front while discouraging later changes to the code, then I have not actually delivered value. I have in essence paid with a credit card. The cost of changing the code must be paid later with interest. This phenomena is commonly referred to as “technical debt.”
In my agilist mindset, I view the avoidance of technical debt as an essential element of simplicity. High coupling and low cohesion are too high a price to pay for immediate gratification. Furthermore, I have found that once I become experienced with the tools and practices of agile development, there is little cost, if any, to building changeability into my implementation from the start.
Kind regards,
++Alan
How I Found My Tribe on Twitter
I’ve been using Twitter since 11:04 PM October 25, 2007. I quickly found it to be useful and entertaining, like a group IM client or IRC. But Twitter is different than previous “group chat” tools. I’ve been struggling with what exactly is different, and I think I’ve finally put my finger on it.
The people I interact with on Twitter are my tribe. I like the word “tribe” because it connotes a shared identity. My Twitter Tribe are a “we” and an “us”. I suppose this is how sports fans feel about their fellow fans, but I’ve never had this experience before, or at least not to this degree.
It was Rands who introduced the idea of tribes in Twitter to me. He does an excellent job of explaining some of the game-changing social networking hacks that Twitter provides, but he misses something that I’ve been trying to come to grips with. Twitter has provided a new sense of belonging in my life.
Because Twitter is an “opt-in” social network, it self selects for like interests. I don’t follow people because they are “famous”, but because I’m interested in what they have to say. What was unexpected at the start was that I became engaged with the people themselves, and not just their insights and wit. For instance, when I got into Joe O’Brien‘s minivan this weekend, I immediately realized it was the same vehicle that had been stolen and recovered. I only knew this piece of Joe’s personal history because he had twittered it. I remember the feeling of relief I felt when he announced, on Twitter, that the police had recovered his family’s primary vehicle.
Beyond all the productivity, entertainment and publicity benefits of Twitter lies this fact: I love the people in my Twitter Tribe. If you’re uncomfortable with the “L Word”, then please accept that I feel emotionally connected to them, even if I’ve never met them. When I do meet people after following them on Twitter, I have an urge to hug them like a reunited friend.
Twice now I’ve had the opportunity to meet up with members of my tribe that I hadn’t met previously, and the experience was seamless. I didn’t “think” I knew these people. We knew each other. We were already an “us”; a tribe. At the Indianapolis Code Camp last month I met around ten people I knew through Twitter and it reinforced my feeling about the power of Twitter.
This past weekend at the Cleveland Day of .NET I met easily twenty people that I knew through Twitter and followed that many more new people I was introduced to. This was a very emotional experience for me. You see, I am part of a small demographic of social or extroverted computer nerds. There aren’t that many people like me who are geographically close. Not enough to call a tribe, anyway.
Through Twitter I can connect with this demographic of people all over the world, and maintain constant contact. Twitter bridges the gaps between conferences etc. where people in my niche gather socially. Because of Twitter, I am in touch with “my people” all the time. The sense of belonging and acceptance is unprecedented in my experience.
There are many ways to use Twitter. There is no “right” way to use this simple service. I have stumbled into one particular habit of use. I am not resorting to hyperbole when I say that the effect has been life changing. Your mileage may vary, but from conversations I’ve had, I know I’m not the only one experiencing these effects.
I always demo Twitter at the start of my presentations these days as a way to encourage audience members to continue the conversation and learning outside the session. Perhaps I should include a warning “This service could lead to serious emotional attachment and meaningful relationships resulting in a fulfilling sense of belonging. Proceed with caution.”
Peace,
++Alan
