#GAReads | Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?
Tracy Chou (center) by TechCrunch [CC BY 2.0], via Flickr
"Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?":
But at some point, something inside [Bethanye Blount] broke. Maybe it was being at tech conferences and hearing herself, the “elder stateswoman,” warning younger women to cover their drinks, because such conferences—known for alcohol, after-parties, and hot women at product booths—have been breeding grounds for unwanted sexual advances and assaults, and you never knew whether some jerk might put something in your cocktail. She couldn’t believe that women still had to worry about such things; that they still got asked to fetch coffee; that she still heard talk about how hiring women or people of color entailed “lowering the bar”; that women still, often, felt silenced or attacked when expressing opinions online.