Who Really Was the Man Behind the Curtain in the Women in Tech Debacle?

I feel your pain Michelle, you should see how people tore me up in the first article I ever wrote. 300K views and 286 comments about a brutally honest experience I had– about 80% of the commenters told me I was a moronic bimbo.

http://www.businessinsider.com/my-nightmare-interviews-with-google-2009-11

Really hurtful, but you just have to keep in mind that their just trolls, probably sitting in tighty whities in their moms’ basements. They’re definitely not justified– people will say anything when there are no repercussions. Hopefully someday it will change, but for now it certainly forces you to have a thick skin.

The first time people really bash you is always the worst. Sad, but it really does get easier over time, although that certainly doesn’t make it right.

Hi Michelle,

You wrote an incredible post here and it take so much gumption to say the things that you have. I truly respect you and admire your courage. As a young woman who has been caught between the worlds of loving math (tutoring in math and accounting was my bread and butter during college) and being a more creative spirit in marketing, I face this dilemma daily.

I come from the beauty industry where you just run with everything and while the majority of the execs are male, you don’t pay too much attention. Transitioning to the online/tech/startup industry, I have found that the path is clearly divided. That is one of the reasons that I started a group in Austin centered around helping young women connect with the female executives. That’s also why I signed up to be on the board for Girls in Tech.

I figure that the way to change the landscape is by joining it. That is what I am committed to doing every day. My sincerest apologies for the rude comment that was made to you. I feel your pain. While I have never been called that, I can say that I have experienced similar comments.

I am on the path to trying to accept where I am surrounded by the people that think this way. My solution is to develop a good relationship with the women around me.

Thanks Michelle for inspiring me!

Olga

There is a wide variety of personalities and persona’s on the web, anonymity often causes people to lose their discretion. Keep that in mind, then keep your chin up.

You never know who’s lurking and learning….

Without going to the “controversy”, Michael Arrington has done nothing to suggest he is dishonest, and certainly does not have anything to apologize in not deleting insulting comments fast enough.

Michelle:
First, I completely empathize with you: Having read some of the comments (enough to know I did not need to keep reading more of them), I saw that they would have been enough to make almost anyone want to cry. You have responded well within your own blog. There is nothing to be gained by even acknowledging such attack comments which is, however, what we all tend to do reflexively if we ever attempt to defend against such drivel. Defending merely tells the attacker that he has your attention and invites a continuation of his abuse.

It is appallingly sad to see the flood of inane and vitriolic comments that appeared in the thread of Michael Arrington’s blog yet it was not Arrington’s own comments that directly led to the flood; his blog merely provided the platform for the weak to spew their bile in response to your attempts to bring some perspective to the thread about the issues from a woman’s point of view.

Only those who feel insecure in themselves feel threatened by the expression of the opinions of others: Only the threatened attack. Just think of how a Blowfish responds to danger by puffing itself up. I would not normally say anything like this but perhaps it would make you laugh to see the results if we could evaluate the abusers and discover how high is the proportionate percentage of them amongst all other commenters that rely upon the big “V” for themselves to be “blown up”!

The now ex-husband of a client of ours became the ex shortly after he left a book entitled “The Subservient Wife” on the bedside table of the wife as her business began to prosper while his was languishing: She became so much more self assured as her business grew yet, conversely, he felt more and more threatened instead of relishing the prospect of enjoying the results of her efforts being brought into the family coffers. She took the hint and divorced him: He became even more fragile and abusive.

However, there is some good news after all: Change of this nature takes enormous time and consistent, concerted effort: The suffragette movement went through considerable struggle for considerable time before obtaining results hat have benefited us all today. Bringing these issue to public light for intelligent discourse is really the only practical way to stimulate progress.

For all of us who support the efforts of women who are in business and the efforts to support and encourage women to be in business and, particularly, to enter technology business in entrepreneurial form as distinct from taking the corporate path – which has its own challenges – we must continue the effort to bring light to the subject and not become waylaid and distracted by those who feel threatened by such development: Rome was not built in a day but America absolutely is the best place to be for innovation, creativity and in leading the way for environmental and economic change for the better.

You are one of the first people who has put together the fact that the sheer viciousness of Internet trolls combined with the real-time nature of new technologies (such as Disqus) are a recipe for disaster in instances like this one.

The good news. We have smart people, such as yourself, on the case.

As echoed by others on the comments here. I never met Arrington. Wouldn’t know the guy if I was standing next to him, but he did right by responding to your comments on the last blog so he’s got a point in the “good” category in my book. Let us all remember that the first thing people do when you get famous is they try to knock you down (see comments about trolls). It’s sadly true.

Hey Michelle,

So I read the initial post, and saw you had commented. In fact, my first thought was hey, I know her! And here she is commenting on tech crunch. I thought about adding my $.02, but declined because I’m not a coder and I suck at math and science. I DO think I had teachers who absolutely left a bad taste in my mouth for science, but math is a natural sucky inclination for me personally. I’m a writer and a communicator – ie a typical woman. But I get that natural skill set from my DAD. So I felt like I had lost my voice and where I would normally stand up for women I didn’t know what to say.

After seeing all that transpired, I deeply regret not speaking up in there. I am AMAZED by women and men who think sexism is dead. The problem is it so often seems that it is, its latent. People forget that women still make less than men. Men have never felt the need to bring up that they are done or don’t plan on bearing children in an interview for fear they wouldn’t get the job b/c someone was worried about maternity leave but legally can’t ask. Some of those comments were shocking and appalling. And while *I* may not have quantitative skills, my 3 closest girlfriends are a hs biology teacher, a public health scientist, and a professor of biophysics. My sister is majoring in biochem. The fact that these jerks can argue it’s about brain function… well it is quite similar to the stance racists have taken to explain their stereotypes of minorities as being inferior with less developed brains.

I like Michael Arrington and Tech Crunch. But the post itself did invite this as some of your commenters here have pointed out. Granted, he’s not an asshole like the trolls that were there claiming feminism is an evil plot for female supremacy (like we want to wipe men off the planet or something!). But this “it’s not *my* fault attitude does minimize the real barriers to women in tech. I wonder if he’s surprised at all by the attitudes that came up in the comments or if he knew the post would stir up controversy at best and misogyny at worst.

Thank you for speaking up when I didn’t.

Actually, you are making yourself look like an idiot on my blog. Props.

My commenters are intelligent and add to the conversation, precisely because I try to surround myself by intelligent people.

If you do not see this as the purpose of a blog, then go back to 4chan. You are not welcome here.

Michelle, like most self-absorbed, self-entitled cunts, you whine about the behavior of men while ignoring your own insulting, childish behavior. As many men have already pointed out, you’re simply too STUPID to grasp the point of the article. And your retard chick logic has been exposed as nonsensical professional victim speech whining.

Women don’t get ahead because, like you, they’re simply too fucking stupid to connect the dots.

You are NEVER downtown anymore

All I can say is, keep on keeping on and remember that haters are going to hate no matter what.

you sound like such a retarded faggot, it’s comical. go put your tampon back in you fucking faggot.

Like most incoherent fags, you don’t realize that people avoid exposing themselves on the net so they don’t have to worry about fags like you coming over to their house. I would have no problem slapping you in public and calling you a fag. And there’s nothing you could do about it besides cry like a bitch.

I think it’s useful to keep comments like this visible, it’s very instructional for those that don’t believe reports of the sheer hatred that comes from (some) men, towards women that encroach on “their” territory. As you can see, men aren’t safe either, if they defend women, they’ll be attacked just as vigorously. The sexism is stomach churning but handily proves the point.

He certainly doesn’t *have* to, but the less they moderate, and the less they apologize for not moderating, the more the polite people will leave and the idiots and trolls will be the only ones left participating.