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I'm not a Woman in Tech

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Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#221

Post by maxxxxx »

emsy wrote: post #58
aphextron wrote: post #2

>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.

I recently watched an answer on this by Steven Pinker as to why this "re-segregation" is happening. He basically says that legitimate movements don't stop as soon as they've reached their goal and at that point, they start to become regressive. Interestingly he provides an example that hasn't to do with any ism: child protection. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFnP5UUXuTk

excellent video. I wish I could get a point across as eloquently as Pinker...

It seems these movements don't have a defined point where they can say the goal has been achieved and everybody can go home. Instead I think it's the opposite and the movement wins in strength. The more traction the movement gets the more power and influence it gets and the bigger its goals will get.

His example about child protection is great. There is no cutoff point.

I would also argue that shareholder capitalism has reached the same state. In a lot of circles it's not even OK to question the current trend of inequality and it's not OK to think about ways to raise standards for everyone.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#222

Post by dri_ft »

michaelscott wrote: post #142
emsy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently watched an answer on this by Steven Pinker as to why this "re-segregation" is happening. He basically says that legitimate movements don't stop as soon as they've reached their goal and at that point, they start to become regressive. Interestingly he provides an example that hasn't to do with any ism: child protection. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFnP5UUXuTk

My personal thought on this is that those who devote themselves to these movements internalise them in such a way that the movements define their identity. Once the goal of the movement is achieved, that part of their identity necessarily needs to disappear and because this is such a difficult thing to do they simply shift the movement's goalposts to keep their internal purpose alive (usually toward a regressive poin…

Yep. Examples of organisations who achieved their original goals and then said "well, time to pack it up!" are vanishingly rare.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#224

Post by djsumdog »

richmarr wrote: post #153
djsumdog wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like how you broke down the sources, statistics and try to put things in perspective. I really tend to agree here. There is no mention of pay in this article, but there are plenty of other sources that dispel the myth that women get paid less than men (it's more like people of lower confidence simply do not ask for as much money -- both men and women; see The Confidence Gap). I also think part of the reason…

> the myth that women get paid less than men This is not true. On the experimental side, studies show candidates with female names are rated lower and recieve lower starting salaries to male candidates with identical CVs (see Moss-Racusin et al. 2012) On the statistical side, check out the data from; - the UK's ONS ( http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/media/blog/the-gender-pa... ), - the OECD ( https://data.oecd.org…

A study with Resumes/CVs is a fun thought experiment, but it's not reality. You need to compare actual wages in actual jobs.

> You may have your pet theories as to what explains the statistic

Please avoid this race to the bottom. I could be wrong. You could be wrong. No need to say I have "pet theories." The EPA once told DDT was perfectly safe to spray around humans. We are all wrong about something.

"..under this metric for people with a college degree, there is virtually no pay gap at all."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-w...

"When controlled for education and career choices, women make 93% "of what men earned"

http://www.aauw.org/files/2013/02/graduating-to-a-pay-gap-th... (p20, 34)

The Confidence Gap is a great article which talks about how people are more likely to get high wages if they have confidence and ask for it, and how women have trouble with portraying confidence without being perceived as bitchy:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/the-con...

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#225

Post by root_axis »

throwanem wrote: post #202
root_axis wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the past, you could just vocalise your opinion, and it would not survive many hops in the real-world social network. In the past, "vocalizing your opinion" meant debating friends over drinks, the difference today is that every person with an opinion deliberately leverages modern technology to broadcast that opinion to as many people as possible, and the more that receive it, the better. Naturally, people who dis…

> Naturally, people who disagree will respond... the system is working as intended. Interesting elision. Will you expand upon it?

That's free-speech. Person A freely makes a statement and anyone else can freely respond to it. That's the ideal that everyone envisions and it's also the reality on the ground.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#226

Post by stickfigure »

serg_chernata wrote: post #4
aphextron wrote: post #2

>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.

What's wrong with having no opinion?

We're talking about the behavior of others; who cares if Sally wants to order chicken or Fred wants a blue car or Mark and Sarah want to form a club for Pittsburgh-expats? If someone wants to create an award for women/minorities/lefties/gingers/etc, it seems perfectly reasonable to feel neither positively or negatively about it. This isn't a test, you don't get marked down for "no answer".

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#228

Post by zzalpha »

buf wrote: 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…

It's not the minority that holds you back. It's a class system.

Well, I'd counter that and claim it's actually both, and the former frequently contributes to the latter.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#229

Post by Latty »

adventured wrote: post #218
Latty wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> You can claim that's not what feminism today is working towards, but that's simply untrue. You can claim that's the definition of feminism, I believe what you're saying is untrue. I don't believe what you quoted is the definition of feminism - there are more likely almost as many definitions of feminism as there are feminists. I think it's absurd to claim that there is one definition given the rather elaborate dive…

I take it you mean "I think what most feminist advocate isn't equality, but sexism against men" - that is not what the predominant message of feminism is today. As I see it, you are taking a vanishingly small minority of comments from extremists/trolls and extrapolating that all feminists believe it.

(Edited for more civility).

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#230

Post by nsxwolf »

vxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: post #193
serg_chernata wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a fresh US immigrant from the middle of Europe yet visually passing as an average white man, I haven't even shared the style of upbringing that people assume I did, and yet I lean closer to the opinion expressed above because I fear that a determined person with an agenda can find a way to use my story or opinions to illustrate their point and paint me and broad classes of people as problematic in the process. I e…

I have kids to take care of. There are certain opinions I might have that I dare not discuss. I don't even dare say I have such opinions even without naming them, that's how deep the impulse to self-censor goes. Let's just say I do, hypothetically.

I would very much fear for the economic consequences of voicing various opinions. Even if they didn't lead to my termination at work, I'm certain they would prevent any kind of career advancement.

I'm reasonably sure I can survive in the world without my opinions being known, or the changes I presumably would like to see not being made. In short, they win, I'll survive somehow, and my kids will eat. They'll also maybe learn that some things I might believe are not acceptable, and will have to think about that when choosing to believe them themselves.

Certain ideas and people have definitively won the day, and it's now just survival mode for many.

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