[AusNOG] Sexual harassment in our industry.

Paul Jones paul at pauljones.id.au
Wed Oct 3 14:33:06 EST 2018


I come from an Electrical Engineering background and back in 2000 when I started my undergrad degree there were 2 out of 300 women in my class. When I did my last degree in 2012 the number was more like 20 out of 300. It’s slowly increasing but these things take lots of time. (and would have taken lots longer if not for women like Kari Byron from Mythbusters)
I also noticed that Electrical  Engineering seems to be far more female friendly than IT does. Not sure why, could be the higher requirements means only uber nerd unicorns have what it takes to be successful. You know the types: the ones that don’t care for glossy brochures (or promo girls) but go straight to the tech spec pages in the back of the user manual. Could just be my experience. I’ve also never heard my male engineering colleges talk inappropriately about our female counterparts. Can’t say the same about civil engineers though – If you thought IT was bad….
But to you and all the other women on the list I wish you all the best. You have quite some determination to have made a career in this industry.

Paul.

From: AusNOG <ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net> On Behalf Of Karen Hargreave
Sent: Wednesday, 3 October 2018 1:58 PM
To: dusty.au at gmail.com
Cc: ausnog at ausnog.net (ausnog at lists.ausnog.net) <ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Sexual harassment in our industry.

So, someone made reference to the lack of females on the board...

Can we take a moment and have a look at something? Apart from myself (who identifies as 'one of the guys' most of the time) how many female members are there? If you were to consider the topic being discussed, I would have thought that passionate females on this list would probably want to speak up. It is obviously clear that there are some very supportive males out there which is awesome to see. So what is the ratio of males to females in this situation?

I remember a teacher one saying to my class, the worst thing you can be in Australia if you are looking for work is a white Australian male because you have the quota numbers stacked against you. I too am a believer that what we get should be based on merit and not on some quota system. Yes, maybe look at the percentages, if the industry is heavily biased one way over another, then maybe think about ways to market to appeal to other groups, but keep it merit based. Anything else cheapens the achievements of everyone else concerned.

Sent from my iPad

On 3 Oct 2018, at 1:08 pm, dusty <dusty.au at gmail.com<mailto:dusty.au at gmail.com>> wrote:
“Merit-based selection”
False equivalences
#metoo denialism (ohnoes won’t someone think of the poor menfolk??)
“Virtue signalling”

Anyone else hit redpill bingo from this email alone?


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