As a female engineer, I am not diversity • Hacker News Board

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#21

Post by julianh95 » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

gorpomon wrote: post #17

In reference to the point she makes about people not assuming women are developers, I now make it a point to assume two things about most everyone (male and female identifying) that I meet in tech: 1) That they are competent and smart until they definitely prove otherwise to me. 2) That they are technical and interested in technology. It's worked really well for me so far. In practice it means when I meet someone I s…

This has been my strategy as well and I can confirm that only good things have come of it.

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#22

Post by leephillips » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:09 PM UTC

fatnoah wrote: post #7

leephillips wrote: post #5

This article is part of the problem. By pointing out that she does not contribute to "diversity" because of her economic and cultural background, the author reinforces the idea that those are the interesting ingredients of this elusive "diversity." She says nothing about her ideas, interests, or opinions. Does she perhaps add to diversity by having original thoughts? Or are her political opinions and taste in music p…

You said (in a much better way) part of what I was trying to say in another post. She reduces herself to bullet points and ignores all of the things that I would consider critical parts of what makes people different. Upon a reread, I think that was her point. Measuring diversity based on a few predefined attributes makes no sense. Creating diversity by hiring someone because they're female isn't the answer, we need…

Thanks, but I thought your other post was really good.

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#23

Post by ngngngng » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

I liked the article, but even her expanded definition of diversity doesn't resonate completely with me. My brother and I had exactly the same background and upbringing. And we are both remarkably different people. None of the metrics of diversity mentioned here would reflect that, but it's reality.

The priority should be diverse people, not diverse backgrounds.

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#24

Post by zwieback » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

I think the finer point is that pinning diversity to something specific like gender works against people that don't want to be viewed as a diversity candidate. It's hard to get this right and the end goal is that we don't even talk about diversity anymore but just recognize its benefits.

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#25

Post by trevor-e » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

Does anyone else find it weird/disturbing that someone is compiling a list of women engineers and where they work? I understand having a list of influential speakers and such to look up to, but this does not seem to be the case. The author mentioned she has no idea how she made it on there.

Link: https://cristinacordova.github.io/women-eng/

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#26

Post by iagovar » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

I just hope this diversity drama never comes to my country.

I already work in a very diverse workplace. Both genders and multiple nationalities are represented, and I really don't see what that brigs to the table. I mean, why is diversity good per se?

I don't see any correlation between any demographic variable and being a good coworker.

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#27

Post by zaccus » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

hkai wrote: post #13

Interesting that this person does not mention diversity of political opinion, which seems to be lacking.

That's not something you should ask someone in a job interview though. And most people (mercifully) don't talk about politics at work. So what would promoting political diversity look like?

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#28

Post by thanatropism » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:19 PM UTC

bootsz wrote: post #18

zwieback wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just finished "The personality brokers", fantastic book, which explores how E I entered popular culture via the Myers-Briggs test. When the E I spectrum was subjected to more rigorous analysis it turned out it may just be a metric of "talkativeness" and not really related to the Jungian concept.

Hmm.. Talkativeness seems way too narrow to me. The theory of deriving energy externally vs. internally makes the most sense to me personally. Though it would certainly correlate with talkativeness. But I'm not an expert on the matter :)

Yeah but then you have to define energy.

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#29

Post by albertgoeswoof » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:21 PM UTC

abnry wrote: post #4

If men and women are completely interchangeable, physically and psychologically, then this article makes a lot of sense. But if women really do have something different (at least on average) to bring to the table, then this women really does add diversity. The purpose of diversity is not quotas, but differences that work together and add something to the whole.

I think the point is that the diversity she brings isn’t enough diversity to justify her as someone who is adding to diversity in a tech company. You could add 1000s of women like her and the company wouldn’t be particularly different.

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#30

Post by thanatropism » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 6:24 PM UTC

abnry wrote: post #4

If men and women are completely interchangeable, physically and psychologically, then this article makes a lot of sense. But if women really do have something different (at least on average) to bring to the table, then this women really does add diversity. The purpose of diversity is not quotas, but differences that work together and add something to the whole.

I'm not saying men and women shouldn't work together, but isn't office drama related to sexual tension something to subtract from that complementarity as well?

In my working life I've seen (and also experienced) a lot of productivity-eating unresolved sexual tension, including between people who were married/had partners and didn't reeeally want to mate, at least not rationally.

I mean, I know men behave like pigs at Hackatons and I'm all for codes of conduct but even in better conditions (no one's an incel, yadda yadda) this happens.