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#FFFFFF Diversity

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Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#21

Post by ivanca »

azima wrote: post #12
ivanca wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Intersectionality" in this case means excluding black males right? That seems a bit wrong.

That applies too, but she's bringing attention to black women and directly speaking about how the tech industry is trying to fix the problem of women in tech and at the same time ignoring women of color. "solving" the problem of not a lot of women in tech by hiring white women, and completely ignoring black women doesn't solve the problem. Same thing applies to men - hiring asian men (the "model minority"), and ignor…

The "diversity problem" is never going to be fixed, because the goalpost is always something more.

The population of non-hispanic black people in California is of 6.4%, if half of them are women (3.2%) it means that if a tech company has 100 employees the perfect amount of diversity would be 3 black women and 97 non-black-women, they may not even get to know about each other in a company of that size.

But I'm pretty sure in her mind the number should be a lot higher than that, otherwise white supremacy culture is to be to blame.

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#22

Post by Kiro »

jackweirdy wrote: post #18
Kiro wrote: post #15

Am I the only one who think it's perfectly logical that the speaker ratio is the same as the ratio of the tech population? Of course we should try hard to find minority speakers just to be proactive since we do have a diversty problem. However, when you go to a conference you want to see the best speakers and then it's only logical that a minority is less represented since, you know, there are less good speakers to c…

> I wouldn't go to such a conference since the probability of bad talks would be too high. Why?

Because only a small % of all people in tech are good speakers. Having a smaller population to choose from would mean a higher risk of putting a bad speaker on the lineup.

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#23

Post by confiscate »

tldr; Diversity and Equality are not the main starting points nor goal of Women-in-Tech. Increasing women's role in tech helps improve diversity/equality, but is not the real mission of Women-in-Tech. Diversity/Equality is a (side) effect, and not the cause, of the Women-in-Tech movement.

I think there's a tendency for Women-in-Tech PR to equate Diversity/Equality with Women-in-Tech, when in fact, Women-in-Tech is supposed to advance, well, Women in the tech sector, and not Equality/Diversity in general. The 2 are Not the same thing, although they are often claimed to be basically the same for PR reasons.

It's getting so severe that even the author is "shocked" that Women-in-Tech events are less than diverse. She shouldn't be surprised--the fact that she was surprised, indicates she's bought into the whole "Women-in-Tech's mission is for workplace Equality" idea, which is false.

To be clear, I think Women-in-Tech is a noble cause, and I am all for supporting it. But please stop claiming that Women-in-Tech "is for diversity"--it is for advancing women's role in tech. To be clear, I think in and of itself this is great because I'd love to see more women in the tech industry. But we should stop claiming that the mission of the movement is for "diversity", because "diversity" is not what drives the women-in-tech movement, and is not it's main goal. The main goal is to increase women's role, and not "diversity/equality" in general. If the movement's main goal was purely "diversity/equality", then it wouldn't be called "Women-in-Tech"--there are other misrepresented groups that are much more in urgent need of equal representation, that the movement would have focused on first if Diversity and Equality were the main motivators.

I also agree with the author's photo of an all-white panel as being pretty funny :) It reminds me of the cast of Friends. Saying that the cast of Friends is "Diverse" or "Equal" would be kind of ridiculous.

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#24

Post by onewaystreet »

Kiro wrote: post #15

Am I the only one who think it's perfectly logical that the speaker ratio is the same as the ratio of the tech population? Of course we should try hard to find minority speakers just to be proactive since we do have a diversty problem. However, when you go to a conference you want to see the best speakers and then it's only logical that a minority is less represented since, you know, there are less good speakers to c…

The fear of not having the best people speaking at a conference might have some merit if the people speaking at most conferences today were actually the best people. They are usually not. The best people speak at very few conferences because they are busy working.

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#25

Post by icebraining »

ivanca wrote: post #21
azima wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That applies too, but she's bringing attention to black women and directly speaking about how the tech industry is trying to fix the problem of women in tech and at the same time ignoring women of color. "solving" the problem of not a lot of women in tech by hiring white women, and completely ignoring black women doesn't solve the problem. Same thing applies to men - hiring asian men (the "model minority"), and ignor…

The "diversity problem" is never going to be fixed, because the goalpost is always something more. The population of non-hispanic black people in California is of 6.4%, if half of them are women (3.2%) it means that if a tech company has 100 employees the perfect amount of diversity would be 3 black women and 97 non-black-women, they may not even get to know about each other in a company of that size. But I'm pretty…

Since when are SV tech companies restricted to hiring from California?

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#26

Post by stefantalpalaru »

Wait a minute! Where's the Romanian History Month? Where are the menu changes for Romanians? Where's the Romanian Googlers Network? Is it because those of you privileged enough to be born outside Romania are actively oppressing us?

/s

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#27

Post by dang »

ivanca wrote: post #13

There is even less female black dwarfs in tech, I haven't seen even a single one in all my life, so clearly those are the real oppressed.

Please don't do this here.

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#28

Post by onion2k »

paulojreis wrote: post #20
Kiro wrote: post #15

Am I the only one who think it's perfectly logical that the speaker ratio is the same as the ratio of the tech population? Of course we should try hard to find minority speakers just to be proactive since we do have a diversty problem. However, when you go to a conference you want to see the best speakers and then it's only logical that a minority is less represented since, you know, there are less good speakers to c…

> but if we forcibly try to overrepresent every minority where do we end up? "50% black trans women speakers"? I wouldn't go to such a conference since the probability of bad talks would be too hig\ You end up with hiring quotas in companies, where a less-than-competent candidate can be hired instead of a competent one because he/she belongs to a minority. Will the bet on minority over competence will yield greater g…

That point you've apparently missed is that current hiring practises among some companies can be discriminatory. There are hiring managers out there who won't hire a female developer because they're just outright sexist. Quotas get introduced because there are brilliant minority developers who get passed over because they're in the minority.

All that said though, I don't believe there's any actual evidence that people end up hiring less-than-competent people because of quotas. It's only a theoretic possibility that could be true if the available candidates only included one incompetent person from the minority group, but I don't think that's ever going to be the case in practise. The choice always comes down to two or three competent people, and the quota system then pushes the decision on one direction. White male programmers don't like it because it's not in their favour, but the reality is that they could be passed over even if there wasn't a quota system. While people continue to discriminate quotas will be necessary.

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#29

Post by tone »

"I can’t support a conference that doesn’t seem to understand the value and importance of intersectionality and representation."

Doesn't this just promote the idea that people of different ethnicities really are that different? Why on earth is skin colour "representation" an important factor anywhere? I mean don't discriminate but how is this an argument?

This just promotes the wrong idea that people of different ethnicities bring drastically different things to the table in one breath, and argues that race or gender do not affect technical ability with the next.

How this insane person has people listening to them or why a completely backwards article on the right site gets linked here is beyond me.

Re: #FFFFFF Diversity

#30

Post by CamatHN »

There are more Indians in tech from me observing on face value than black people.

Any Indian heritage people here think there needs to be greater representation of indians in conferences? Thoughts?

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