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I'm not a Woman in Tech

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Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feminism is not simple as that. > People ask me sometimes, when — when do you think it will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine. This is from Justice Ginsburg, and a widely shared quote by a lot of feminist articles. This claim feels pretty vindictive to me and definitely not about equality. In the other words, it is not about REDUCE the inequality, it is a…

So it's fine if there are nine men in court but not nine women? I don't get your point. Shouldn't it not matter? You are also arguing that one persons opinion represents an entire group.

First of all, they are currently 3 women at the supreme court.

But ideally, if equal, shouldn't the court, if we assume both gender are equal, split 50:50?

If you are advocating for opportunity equality, that is fine with me. But in reality, a lot of companies, as inspected by the media, seems like to hail a 50:50 gender split goal. Those are not compatible with each other.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#172
post #148
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only works if you want to bully others for the resources. (That's how unions work). That, however, will re-enfonce negative stereotypes for the group and will not improve anything. If you want to overcome the stereotype, work with other people. Get to know them. Learn the rules of the game and play by the same rules as everyone in society does. If you want to identify as that subgroup based on (gender/race/etc)…

While there are obviously cases of unions bullying companies, there are many, many more cases of companies bullying employees - unions were originally intended (and still are, in most cases) as a defense against bullying by creating an equivalently powerful entity, not a way to bully. The rest... it strikes me as incredibly hypocritical - you blame these people for creating groups for support and social which you thi…

My point is that if you create the alternative computer club. You're never going to solve the root issue. You're just going to create 2 groups, with their own mentality, fights over the same audience, fights over resources, and conflict between both groups.

When they're self-isolating groups, they stop integration.

> "only boys like computers"

That's a self-limiting belief that can only be fixed by the person who believes it. Telling the person who believes it is not going to work. They'll always have doubt.

If it's done by members of that group then the leadership should be made aware of that and fix it.

Not sure how you jumped to this extreme:

> It's like expecting slavery to end by saying black people can be slave owners or own themselves. If you don't recongnise the barrier to entry and integration, then sure, you can paint these groups as negative, but that's just missing the point.

My point was, the individual has to address their own beliefs and figure out how to achieve the goal they want. Do it in a dishonest way, society won't stand for that (In the long term, it's effective in the short term) Do it in an honest way, people will reward you for that. (Eventually)

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#174
post #7

Unpopular opinion: I think when you're in a minority and you are not rising to the top as fast as you expect, you use your minority as leverage to propel yourself. I am also in a minority. I've often felt cheated that my career isn't Musk-esque. And sometimes I even ask the question, "Am I being held back because I'm [in my minority]?" Then I snap back to reality. It's not the minority that holds you back. It's a cla…

Cheated by whom?

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#175
post #26

>I want inclusivity, not exclusivity. Thank you. I find myself feeling the exact same way as a black man in this industry, and cringe at "minority only" events and clubs. We don't need token inclusion and separate praise for being "brave" and "fighting against the odds". We need a world where those things are irrelevant.

Eh, this is just the standard argument against "identity politics". The obvious counterpoint is that, by working together as an identified sub-group, you have greater power than you would otherwise. Dedicated venues for those sub-groups offer a place to organize, provide communal support, etc. Frankly, I think it's sadly naive to believe that we can simply "Lose all the labels" and that'll magically fix things. "Iden…

I remember quite some time ago, before Social networks. Before blogs. Before all of what we think of the WWW.

We were still in Web 1.0 , with email, usenet, IRC, and other then-essential services. Dial-up was the way online. And when people talked with each other, we were told to not release who we are. Be guarded in your real-identity.

And that lead to user1 talks with user2. I didn't know if user2 was white, black, asian, hispanic, native, male, female, transgender, gay, asexual, or what. I only knew from the content of the text we traded in communication. There was enough bandwidth for pictures, but didnt. Webcams were bad and expensive. Scanners were hard to come by. And there was no impetus to link a pic to a person's text.

Now, it's "Real Name Policy". Facebook will encourage friends to rat your lying profile to catch you. Google will do similar, or datamine your real content. Everyone wants a picture for your profile.

What used to be "person talks to person", is now "Person with forced specific identity talks to person with forced specific identity". And it certainly doesn't feel better than before. It feels strictly worse, bringing identity politics in with it.

I want the old days back.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#176

There's an interesting dichotomy on the "women in tech" question between "SV tech" and non-SV tech. I briefly worked at a tech company making oil industry software in .NET in a Houston suburb. Not trendy, cubicles, but they paid fine (and unlike my current job the office was quiet). I quickly noticed that half of my coworkers were not only women, but a lot were people of color and older (I actually think I was the on…

Yep. I know a lot of women in oil and gas and in engineering roles they tend to do just fine--though the closer you get to the fields the more of a boy's club it becomes (because redneck wildcatters).

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#177
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm left believing that my only choice is to have no opinion. I learned this lesson a long time ago from the role models in my life that ended up getting burned because of having a differing viewpoint from whatever societal winds were blowing. I, and I realize probably cynically, now only elect to share, post, tweet, or whatnot whatever only can positively benefit my "brand". Sometimes I have to act like my own PR…

'If something you say doesn't offend or piss someone off, you just haven't ran into the right person yet' Can I quote you on that?

agree

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#178

>I want inclusivity, not exclusivity. Thank you. I find myself feeling the exact same way as a black man in this industry, and cringe at "minority only" events and clubs. We don't need token inclusion and separate praise for being "brave" and "fighting against the odds". We need a world where those things are irrelevant.

Watching from the sidelines as a white male, I have to say that I find these kinds of situations so confusing. Some people want these differences to be highlighted, while others like yourself want the complete opposite. I'm left believing that my only choice is to have no opinion. Though I lean towards your stance across the board.

Make up your own mind. Be a human. With a spine. And your own opinion. People might not like it, but at least you'll be you.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#179
Completely agree with what Maria said. I also cringe at the "WomanInTech" tag. I would like to be noticed for my engineering skills rather than because I happen to be female.

I definitely want to see more women in technology. There are social pressures because of which girls move away from STEM. We need to encourage more 11-12-year-old girls to try out science. Both men and women in tech can help make that happen.

However, being noticed because of your color of skin or gender and not because of your ability is demeaning.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feminism is not simple as that. > People ask me sometimes, when — when do you think it will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine. This is from Justice Ginsburg, and a widely shared quote by a lot of feminist articles. This claim feels pretty vindictive to me and definitely not about equality. In the other words, it is not about REDUCE the inequality, it is a…

> Feminism is not simple as that. I never said it was simple and I fully recognize there are countless gradients of all sorts in feminism. I believe it's unnecessary as a concept. Pursuing and agreeing with the concept of equality nullifies feminism - that is my opinion . It's a very unpopular opinion with the left today. I've been having discussions about feminism for two decades online, there is hardly any conversa…

The definition of feminism is "the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes" - that is fundamentally compatible with equality. You can claim that's not what feminism today is working towards, but that's simply untrue. Feminism hasn't changed to some kind of anti-male conspiracy, despite the ability for people on the internet to find stupid troll posts or the odd extremist saying "all men should be slaves"!
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