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Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

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Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#51

Post by yAnonymous »

dang wrote: post #21
sakaloda wrote: post #13

Diversity in tech will never work. You are going against reality if you think everyone has the same aptitude to be good at math/engineering. Look at the data below. SAT Math by race [1] : - Asian/Pacific Islander = 598 - White = 534 - Mexican American = 461 - Black = 429 SAT Math by gender [2] : - Men = 537 - Women = 503 [1] https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=171 [2] http://www.fairtest.org/sat-race-gender-…

This is sleight of hand. Even supposing all that "data" to be accurate, you assume your conclusion by acting as if you know what the reason for it is. But, as we all know, nothing is more highly disputed. This is not the way to an open-minded and open-hearted discussion about the truth; it's a tangent to yet another generic ideological flamewar. That violates the HN guidelines. Since you've done this repeatedly befor…

Ycombinator themselves are acting reverse racist by preferring to hire minority groups, so these rules are very hypocritical. Just saying.

And banning for a post that provides evidence is ridiculous. You should apply for a government job in Turkey.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#53

Post by not_anit_woman »

iamdave wrote: post #47
not_anit_woman wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may be missing the point of affirmative action to encourage more women/minorities in tech... Just ask Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Are you using 'affirmative action' prescriptively here, because that term has a very specific and understood definition?

I am not sure what you mean, I was just commenting on the ease at which a women/minority will be chosen for a job over a "WM" every time, all else being equal, or even close to equal.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#54

Post by drcoopster »

jonnybgood wrote: post #41
someone7x wrote: post #15

I went to ngconf this year and two of the talks that stood out to me were given by women. One was the angular materials talk / demo and it was amazing. The presenter was exuding tech prowess, I was blown away by how easy she made it look to make a dog adoption website. One of the best talks. The other was by the CEO of girl scouts giving a patronizing 5 minute talk about how we need all help women in tech succeed and…

Well, I don't think it's the goal of a CEO of a social organization to give a talk on tech issues. Their focus is on social issues, so I don't see this as a good example.

Perhaps then she shouldn't have been giving a talk at a tech conference.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#56

Post by drdeca »

Tcepsa wrote: post #33
sakaloda wrote: post #13

Diversity in tech will never work. You are going against reality if you think everyone has the same aptitude to be good at math/engineering. Look at the data below. SAT Math by race [1] : - Asian/Pacific Islander = 598 - White = 534 - Mexican American = 461 - Black = 429 SAT Math by gender [2] : - Men = 537 - Women = 503 [1] https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=171 [2] http://www.fairtest.org/sat-race-gender-…

Going by your extremely tenuous suggestion that genetics is an accurate predictor of math/engineering aptitude because of how people of certain ethnicities or sex perform on the SAT, we should have a distribution in tech that looks like this: - Asian/Pacific Islander = 29.6% - White = 26.4% - Mexican American = 22.8% - Black = 22.1% - Men = 51.6% - Women = 48.4% In other words, roughly equal numbers of all of the dem…

Not that it likely impacts your point much, but does this adjust for population sizes?

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#57

Post by striking »

Frondo wrote: post #28

Personal story time...I was at a recent conference, listening to men, women given talks. One of the women, in her talk, uses an interaction with her daughter as the framing narrative for the talk (imagine Socrates and Glaucon, only this woman and her daughter). Almost immediately, three guys to my right start making fun of the speaker, sotto voce, making all manner of little jokes to themselves, that are becoming inc…

I'm not entirely sure you can tell if this group was biased or not with this one interaction with them. As you mentioned:

> I also don't think they'd have sat there, chattering away, if a man had used the same framing story (father and son, father and daughter).

If you didn't observe them sit quietly for a talk before this given by a man, who's to say they didn't just do this to every presenter (man or woman) for the whole day until you told them to knock it off? I've met plenty of people who got their kicks from being loud when someone else was supposed to have the stage, and who it was didn't matter.

It's not that I don't believe in anecdotes as helpful reminders to be better people, but I'm not sure this is a great anecdote for your point.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#58

Post by fdsaaf »

Frondo wrote: post #28

Personal story time...I was at a recent conference, listening to men, women given talks. One of the women, in her talk, uses an interaction with her daughter as the framing narrative for the talk (imagine Socrates and Glaucon, only this woman and her daughter). Almost immediately, three guys to my right start making fun of the speaker, sotto voce, making all manner of little jokes to themselves, that are becoming inc…

Policing speech like that just breeds resentment. You not only guaranteed that these people later made the same comments to each other in private, but also inched a bit closer to resenting people like you and your entire cause.

Mind your own business. You have no right to interfere in a conversation among friends, even one that triggers you. If you want to encourage change in the world, be the change and set an example. You're not going to change how people feel by suppressing expressions of those feelings.

Not once in human history has this censorious approach actually worked. But it's created powder kegs plenty of times.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#59

Post by JoeAltmaier »

refurb wrote: post #44
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digression: That's an old tired dead horse. When the minority organizes, somebody always calls 'double standard'. "They're racist/sexist too!" Forgetting these folks don't have the institutional power to harm others. Forgetting that the rest of the world is a de-facto mens/white/whatever club already. Lets just retreat to the ivory tower.

Forgetting these folks don't have the institutional power to harm others. Really? I'd say an accusation from those groups can ruin a career.

Yeah, maybe. But consider their very limited career options, maybe they have little to lose by trying to call attention to the biases they constantly live with. A man's career is ruined! Cry for him - because now he's living like a woman? There's some hypocrisy there.

Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

#60

Post by iamdave »

not_anit_woman wrote: post #53
iamdave wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you using 'affirmative action' prescriptively here, because that term has a very specific and understood definition?

I am not sure what you mean, I was just commenting on the ease at which a women/minority will be chosen for a job over a "WM" every time, all else being equal, or even close to equal.

In the absence of codified policies, rules or regulations, I'm hesitant to associate "the [mere] ease" of hiring a woman over a man with de facto `affirmative action'. Though I (think) I understand your point.
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