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I don’t want to be the pink elephant in the room

imallika.com

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Re: I don’t want to be the pink elephant in the room

#21

Post by danaliv »

calvinbhai wrote: post #17
danaliv wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. When I visited India on a delegation to learn about these very issues, I was told that the local elementary schools didn't even have girls' bathrooms, that young women can't attend the entrance exam prep classes because they're held at night and it's too dangerous, and that when women do get into engineering schools, it's never the tier one schools. Obviously I did not grow up in India so I can't say with cer…

I hope anyone (including you and the author) talking about India is aware that it is a country of 1.3 billion people. So you can find a Germany+Austria+Italy equivalent number of poor people in desolate conditions, but there also a UK+France+Spain+Nordic-countries equivalent number of people who are doing much better and have access to many resources. So one's view of India totally depends on which European country e…

Absolutely agree. India is a huge place. I may not have been strong enough in my caveats: this was a delegation with a specific purpose and fixed meetings; we visited two regions only; the use of the word "local"; and obviously none of us on the delegation are even from there, so what do we know, really? I just wanted to point out that I've heard stories from Indian women that are different than this one.

As a woman I can also empathize with the author and would of course prefer to have my work valued on its merits. I just don't think that's contradictory to having a robust diversity effort.

Re: I don’t want to be the pink elephant in the room

#22

Post by dang »

rdtsc wrote: post #19
dang wrote: post #2

This article was flagged unfairly. It's substantive and grounded in personal experience. Those are good qualities for an HN piece whether one agrees or disagrees, so I've turned off flags and rolled back the clock on this submission to give it a second shot. If you want to comment here, please (re-)familiarize yourself with the site guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html , including this one:…

Wonder if the flagging system can be enhanced by having the flagger provide a reason. Maybe having to explain would reduce the incidence of drive-by flagging.

I doubt it; my guess is that people would just make up reasons and flag much the same as they do now. The way that upvoting and flagging work seems to be rooted in human nature somehow. What's interesting is how different the two mechanisms are.

Re: I don’t want to be the pink elephant in the room

#23

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

I think it's important to note that women's issues in different cultures are often very different, and if you start diagnosing one culture's issues with the yardstick of another, you will cause a lot of false positives and negatives.

For instance, India, where the author comes for, is often celebrated for having had a 1) female prime minister all the way back in the 60s 2) a female president 10 years ago, and lots of women in the three pillars of democracy. Compared to the US, that makes India look like a bastion of women's rights.

But anyone who's lived there will obviously tell you that women there have their own set of problems. And in fact, when it comes to the president and the prime minister too, some would argue that they were instated as 'puppets' (Google for "Indira Gandhi dumb doll"). It's a different matter that she towered above all that and developed an identity of her own.

Re: I don’t want to be the pink elephant in the room

#24

Post by scrollaway »

dang wrote: post #2

This article was flagged unfairly. It's substantive and grounded in personal experience. Those are good qualities for an HN piece whether one agrees or disagrees, so I've turned off flags and rolled back the clock on this submission to give it a second shot. If you want to comment here, please (re-)familiarize yourself with the site guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html , including this one:…

Users flagged this...? Really HN? :/ It's difficult enough to have a conversation about this stuff already. Thanks for unflagging it, dang.

Now, serious question: Are there women here who have a counter to this article? I do know a few who got into tech through specialized programs such as " Girls", but I also know many (possibly more) who have been turned off by the constant.. uhm, patronizing feel to them.

I'm not a woman, nor am I a minority (not in tech at any rate), so I can't confirm or deny whether it actually is patronizing when in that position. It sure feels to me like it is: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DQ3iqzTVoAANW7X.jpg:large

No offense to React.js Girls, I've not actually heard anything negative about it in particular. But ... am I crazy to think it's incredibly rude to put so much emphasis on gender (or really, anything)? Like, if these events were about skin color, sexual orientation or religion in place of gender, who here would find this appropriate?

I should also say, I was invited to help volunteer at a local Django Girls event a few years back. I turned it down because it sounded a little creepy to me to have an event be run only by men, that invites only women. (Note: this is obviously not the case all the time; it was in the instance I was invited to.)

So, what am I missing here? Obviously I'm missing something because, whenever I see this opinion getting expressed, it gets downvoted or, in this case, flagged.

Re: I don’t want to be the pink elephant in the room

#25

Post by andrewflnr »

beaner wrote: post #7

"All one should care about is - is this excellent or is it not? Is this right or is this wrong?" I generally agree with this article. But you can't be a white male and speak this way in silicon valley without being shamed and being labeled a Trump supporter. Especially if your company has militant diversity advocates.

The tragedy here cannot be overstated. The truth itself has been demonized by people who claim to be "just speaking the truth" when they lie, and people who can't see through it and believe it's ok to sacrifice truth on the altar of their ideology.

Re: I don’t want to be the pink elephant in the room

#26

Post by CoolGuySteve »

Something I've noticed after 10 years in tech/finance is that there are very, very few western women in engineering roles. I think I've only ever worked with 1 woman who wasn't an Eastern European or Asian immigrant (and yeah, I eventually married one of the immigrant ones).

The gender gap is purely cultural, and we should be learning from what those cultures are doing that's different than us. This article really hits the nail on the head in terms of what we do in the west (ie: "math is for boys!") vs other places where your sex isn't really factored into what subjects are appropriate. It's very good.

Re: I don’t want to be the pink elephant in the room

#27

Post by justinjlynn »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #6
21 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my team, where we have a 50-50 target goal, we were told that if we know a potential woman hire we should refer her not to the regular hiring track, but to a special "woman friendly" hiring track.

Is that evidence that there's a "softer" path to employment, or that the regular hiring track sucks?

I believe the point is that separate cannot be equal.

Re: I don’t want to be the pink elephant in the room

#28

Post by scrollaway »

dang wrote: post #2

This article was flagged unfairly. It's substantive and grounded in personal experience. Those are good qualities for an HN piece whether one agrees or disagrees, so I've turned off flags and rolled back the clock on this submission to give it a second shot. If you want to comment here, please (re-)familiarize yourself with the site guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html , including this one:…

> I feel bad about not being able to find a way to let the author know that her article is currently being discussed on HN

Her Twitter is in the site's footer, FYI.

Re: I don’t want to be the pink elephant in the room

#29

Post by ScottBurson »

__s wrote: post #9

The political correctness climate is so unpredictable. I'm considered both sexist & feminist due to being a white male who doesn't pay attention to the gender of my non romantic relationships. Laissez faire ideals makes you an enemy of everyone in an age of 'allies'

I have not experienced this. How does it play out in real life? Can you give some examples?

Re: I don’t want to be the pink elephant in the room

#30

Post by wst_ »

Quoting article:

> I come from a country and a back ground where intelligence and the ability to work extremely hard is valued highly, with beauty, money and popularity ranked far, far below. Growing up as a South Indian in Mumbai, neither me, not anyone I know or grew up with, has ever had to defend their choice of or fight an uphill battle while selecting engineering as a career choice, regardless of their sex.

I come from the different country but I've got few Indian colleagues. We're talking a lot because I've been always interested in cultural differences. From what they said I feel like above sentence is not true. Male's role in the society is to become an engineer and bring money. Female's - to get married and raise kids. Society's expect you to fit in your role and it's difficult to do something else without tons of comments from your family and friends. One example could be a male colleague who's interested in cooking and wish he could open a restaurant. Yet, he's an engineer. Another one says he didn't really have a choice - he could be an engineer or nobody so, obviously, he choose to be an engineer.

Could anyone confirm how does the reality look like? Maybe it differs by region. It's a big country after all.

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