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

Post by calvinbhai » Mon, Dec 18, 2017, 4:31 AM UTC

greglindahl wrote: post #88

calvinbhai wrote: post #60

Dear Mallika, Many thanks for writing this article! Totally echoes my thoughts. fwiw, as an Indian male engineer in US, I initially was very enthusiastically thinking "lets go out of our way to support the pink elephants" and later was surprised when some of my peers (female engineers from India in US or of Indian origin) showed utter disinterest in being part of many of these women centric meetups/conferences. They…

I'm surprised that you were not very enthusiastic about conferences with a "No Asshole Rule". Maybe it's possible to try multiple approaches at the same time? And that trying several different things is good?

Post by mirimir » Mon, Dec 18, 2017, 7:42 AM UTC

hyperdunc wrote: post #67

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.

Was it explained to you why there's a 50-50 target goal, or is the value of such a goal automatically assumed to be known and shared?

Post by mirimir » Mon, Dec 18, 2017, 7:51 AM UTC

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #85

dominotw wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>those cultures are doing that's different than us. 1. One of the very few jobs that is well paid. So you are either a software engineer or poor. 2. There is not social stigma associated with being an engineer. infact its the opposite, see point 1. 3. Even in India "math is for boys" meme is strong but point 1 overpowers everything else. > The gender gap is purely cultural Unless you can point me to a non-poor countr…

Rather, it seems it has to be biological , but it's left to flourish most in wealthy countries. The resistance to this gender essentialist conclusion is easy to understand, but it shouldn't change anything to true egalitarians. If someone's suitable for a job, hire them. Gender or race quotas are sexist and racist, by definition, and it's those policies that are endangered, not egalitarianism.

Post by mirimir » Mon, Dec 18, 2017, 8:10 AM UTC

danaliv wrote: post #58

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #23

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…

A certain Indian MP tried to play the female president card with me. I pointed out that the election of Barack Obama had hardly heralded the end of racism in my own country.

Post by aptwebapps » Mon, Dec 18, 2017, 9:25 AM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #33

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #26

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 hi…

>The gender gap is purely cultural, and we should be learning from what those cultures are doing that's different than us. The countries with low gender gap in science/tech are also the countries that measure low on general measures of gender equality. It turns out there isn't anything to learn from these cases. In regions with low gender equality and weak social safety nets, technology is seen as the means to econom…