Oh look!  Another white guy defensively blaming women for being under-represented in his field.  Seriously, someone should keep a tally.

In this case, it's Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, blaming women for not being in tech enough.  Same old, same old, in other words.  

Arrington asserts (because as a white male, surely he KNOWS) that life is actually easier for women in the high tech world!  For one thing, the tech world is a meritocracy.  Of course the funny thing about that assertion is that it's always being made by white men.  Ever notice that?  

The truth is that if a system is really a meritocracy, it quickly develops an equilibrium.  For example, you see women represented at 49 to 51%, same as in real life.  Because women have merit, is how that works.  

Systems which are not meritocracies do not display that statistically accurate gender split.  End of story.

The really interesting thing about Arrington's otherwise-tired set of arguments is that he is in a very unusual and rare situation.  As he points out, he works for a company with a female CEO, and two of the four TechCrunch senior editors are women.

I'm here to tell you, this is like FREAKISHLY STATISTICALLY VALID.  Particularly for the high tech world.

Instead of blowing up about all his usual misogynist privileged claims about women in tech, Arrington should take some time to cogitate on that difference.  How did TechCrunch get to be evenly split between ladies and dudes?  How does such a rare situation continue to exist?  What corporate values are put in place to support it?  And how does that even split affect its policies?

For example, Arrington gets all up on his high horse and blames women for only accepting his speaking offers at a rate of 10%.  Talk about burying the lede!  The news here is that Arrington aggressively stumps for female guests to present at his conferences.  Trust me; that is news.

Arrington feels like he personally is being blamed for the Women In Tech Situation.  I suggest that first of all, Arrington separate his concept of "self" from his concept of "all men."  It's understandable to feel defensive when your broader group is blamed for something.  But in this case, Arrington is obviously taking a lot of care to promote the cause, to encourage women, and to treat them like equals.

But then he burns all his cred by blaming, e.g., "you women."  

I wonder what his boss thinks about the fact that Arrington refers to a vaguely defined group of hypothetical women as "you women"?

Maybe he could start by asking the women around him what they think.  Genuinely asking what it's like for them in this industry.  I gather from Arrington's article that he's content to take the intellectually lazy route.  Unsurprising, perhaps, but it certainly gets us nowhere.

What he might find is that the high tech world is actively hostile to women.  Examples of this, long drawn out articles about this, personal experiences that speak to this, and women (like myself) who finally get sick of it and drop out because it's just TOO HARD SOMETIMES, are super easy to find.  But you have to be open, willing to consider alternate viewpoints, and willing to pay the slightest bit of attention to the situation in your very own comments section.  

In other words, from what I can tell, you have to be someone other than Michael Arrington.

Photo credit: Flickr/netzkobold