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ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

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Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#231

Post by rayiner »

pdimitar wrote: post #216
rayiner wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. faces challenges the Netherlands does not. Take race for example. One out of every eight Americans are here because their ancestors were slaves. That's not the distant past. Heck, many people today are fighting for the right to commemorate the pro-slavery side of that story. More recently, if Bill Gates had been born in the south, he likely would have gone to a racially-segregated school. And the effects of…

With the risk of being downvoted, let me cite George Carlin regarding the "sensitivity training": "Hey, if you need a special training to realize you can't shove large cumbersome objects up somebody's ass, then maybe you're too fucked up to be in the police force in the first place. ... Let's try something else -- intelligence and decency. You never can tell, it might just work, it certainly has never been tried befo…

Okay, so what do you do when people don't have intelligence and decency?

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#232

Post by mnm1 »

rayiner wrote: post #140
DeusExMachina wrote: post #45

As a European, I keep getting baffled about how out of hand these things seem to be in the USA. I live in the Netherlands, a very open-minded country with same-sex marriage, equal rights and were women seem to me to be even slightly more dominant over men (but this is just my perception). All this without safe spaces, forced quotas at conferences, codes of conduct and people that police every word you say. There are…

The U.S. faces challenges the Netherlands does not. Take race for example. One out of every eight Americans are here because their ancestors were slaves. That's not the distant past. Heck, many people today are fighting for the right to commemorate the pro-slavery side of that story. More recently, if Bill Gates had been born in the south, he likely would have gone to a racially-segregated school. And the effects of…

The median net worth for whites is over 10 times that of blacks. I think that's a much more telling statistic than income.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealt...

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#233

Post by mst »

rayiner wrote: post #230
leereeves wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a reaction that only makes the problem worse. Imagine the reaction if a group of male organizers had decided too many women were speaking, and you'll understand how other people feel about this decision. When sexism like this is tolerated it only discredits any claim that equality and fairness are the goals.

There is a difference between superficial equality and structural equality. Consider a society where 50% of tech CEOs and programmers were women, but it was socially acceptable to deny any given woman or man a job based on his or her gender. Such a society would have structural equality but not superficial equality. What you're talking about is superficial equality. Your point is correct within that narrow context, b…

That's equality of outcome though, which is often terrible.

I want a society where everybody gets an even shot, at which point I find it highly unlikely we'd end up at 50/50 - given programming has been both male-majority and female-majority over time I'm damned if I know in which direction it'd fall, but 50/50 usually means "you have forced people to be here who would've been better/happier somewhere else" and my feminism involves the radical notion that women have agency too.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#234

Post by macspoofing »

rayiner wrote: post #230
leereeves wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a reaction that only makes the problem worse. Imagine the reaction if a group of male organizers had decided too many women were speaking, and you'll understand how other people feel about this decision. When sexism like this is tolerated it only discredits any claim that equality and fairness are the goals.

There is a difference between superficial equality and structural equality. Consider a society where 50% of tech CEOs and programmers were women, but it was socially acceptable to deny any given woman or man a job based on his or her gender. Such a society would have structural equality but not superficial equality. What you're talking about is superficial equality. Your point is correct within that narrow context, b…

What is the "structural inequality" in this case? That there are more men than women in tech? If so, what is the 'structure' that causes this inequality?

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#235

Post by nojvek »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #70
macspoofing wrote: post #32

Isn't it a slap in the face of speakers that took time to send in their proposals for presentations? "Your talk is great but your ethnicity or gender just isn't quite right"

Totally. Were I accepted and later dumped like this, I'd feel I was subject to actual gender/race discrimination. The whole thing is ridiculous. To fight perceived discrimination, those people are doing even more direct and overt discrimination.

I see this from another point of view.

Suppose a female new grad goes to Electronconf and sees all male speakers. Suppose she goes to other conferences and it's the same story.

She feels there's no way she'll be able to break ground and be recognized as successful. She slowly drops out and leaves the industry and goes somewhere where she can make friends like her.

Now suppose she sees plenty of female speakers and she thinks to herself "wow this is awesome, I wanna be like her, she was like me 5 years ago". She stays in industry, and possibly becomes a speaker on future.

Once the cycle of people being motivated and seeing others like you starts, you see a diverse set of candidates joining the industry.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#236

Post by selllikesybok »

mst wrote: post #233
rayiner wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between superficial equality and structural equality. Consider a society where 50% of tech CEOs and programmers were women, but it was socially acceptable to deny any given woman or man a job based on his or her gender. Such a society would have structural equality but not superficial equality. What you're talking about is superficial equality. Your point is correct within that narrow context, b…

That's equality of outcome though, which is often terrible. I want a society where everybody gets an even shot, at which point I find it highly unlikely we'd end up at 50/50 - given programming has been both male-majority and female-majority over time I'm damned if I know in which direction it'd fall, but 50/50 usually means "you have forced people to be here who would've been better/happier somewhere else" and my fe…

Why is equality of outcome terrible, per se?

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#237

Post by [deleted] »

mst wrote: post #233
rayiner wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between superficial equality and structural equality. Consider a society where 50% of tech CEOs and programmers were women, but it was socially acceptable to deny any given woman or man a job based on his or her gender. Such a society would have structural equality but not superficial equality. What you're talking about is superficial equality. Your point is correct within that narrow context, b…

That's equality of outcome though, which is often terrible. I want a society where everybody gets an even shot, at which point I find it highly unlikely we'd end up at 50/50 - given programming has been both male-majority and female-majority over time I'm damned if I know in which direction it'd fall, but 50/50 usually means "you have forced people to be here who would've been better/happier somewhere else" and my fe…

[deleted]

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#238

Post by PrimHelios »

naasking wrote: post #184
ubernostrum wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Meritocracy" isn't. It's a sham, a veneer layered on over an ugly and disgusting history of bigotry and oppression, to cover up the underlying biases which still exist and are perpetuated every day. Assuming that any attempt to change the system necessarily involves hiring/promoting "unqualified" people shows one of those biases: the bias to believe that anyone who does not resemble the existing majority must be "un…

> Assuming that any attempt to change the system necessarily involves hiring/promoting "unqualified" people shows one of those biases: the bias to believe that anyone who does not resemble the existing majority must be "unqualified" or else they'd already have succeeded You're not describing meritocracy, which has literally nothing to do with majority conformity, but literally reduces to ability. It's the most unbias…

Thank you, you said it much better than I could've.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#239

Post by mnm1 »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #45

As a European, I keep getting baffled about how out of hand these things seem to be in the USA. I live in the Netherlands, a very open-minded country with same-sex marriage, equal rights and were women seem to me to be even slightly more dominant over men (but this is just my perception). All this without safe spaces, forced quotas at conferences, codes of conduct and people that police every word you say. There are…

The US is currently deep in a dark age. With a country this big, it may not be obvious as everything is mostly operating as it was in the past, only slowly failing over time. If you look closely, however, you can see that we have pretty much given up on education, science, and the pursuit of truth. Actually, you don't have to look very close anymore at all; it's beyond obvious. We make a big deal out of people graduating high school, a feat that I have no doubt certain non-human primates are qualified for at this point given how much we've dumbed down our education. We have no problem churning out uneducated fools, so why would we expect these fools to be knowledgable when softer topics like "diversity" are so much easier to tweet about? I'm not saying diversity is not a worthy pursuit, far from it, but the way these people are pursing it is indeed foolish and dumb. It's a step above anti-vaxers and climate change deniers, but now we're just splitting hairs on what constitutes stupid.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#240

Post by selllikesybok »

macspoofing wrote: post #234
rayiner wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between superficial equality and structural equality. Consider a society where 50% of tech CEOs and programmers were women, but it was socially acceptable to deny any given woman or man a job based on his or her gender. Such a society would have structural equality but not superficial equality. What you're talking about is superficial equality. Your point is correct within that narrow context, b…

What is the "structural inequality" in this case? That there are more men than women in tech? If so, what is the 'structure' that causes this inequality?

Turtles, all the way down.

----

Or to be less glib, that's a great question, and like many, not simple to answer well.

Mostly, it seems like a lack of positive reinforcement and role models (leading to self selection out at early ages), mixed with sexism in a a variety of forms (leading to lack of opportunities, or hostile environment and self selection out at later ages).

But that's an oversimplification.

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