Live data from Hacker News

As a female engineer, I am not diversity

hackernoon.com

81–90 of 141 posts

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#81
post #2

Great article. Thanks for sharing this. I think perspectives like yours are what we need to move beyond what are often one-dimensional conversations about diversity. Aside: Please forgive the nitpick, but despite its widespread use I really don't think "extroverted introvert" is a thing. The problem is that these two things are opposite ends of a spectrum. I think what people really mean when they say "extroverted in…

> Introverted, but not shy

Thanks, just realized that is me. I prefer to be alone most of the time, but am able to enjoy the occasional party, and even give a speech/talk when needed without issue.

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#82

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.

Word. I'm a female undergrad in mathematics, and the department is constantly trying to get me involved with female-oriented STEM events, offering to sponsor me for "women in STEM"-type conferences, etc etc. I refuse on principle.

It's well-meaning, probably, but really gets on my nerves sometimes. I want to be a mathematician, not a "female mathematician". It feels like I have this bright red sign covering my face that says "FOSTER DIVERSITY HERE". It's okay guys! I'm already fostered!

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#83
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A group of white males can be diverse, we just don't accept it. Do you think a group of white males who went to Stanford, MIT etc... right after high school, are the same as those who joined the military, yet now work in the same company?

They will have a common thread: they all will be recipients of privileged treatment by society. That is indeed a crucially important fact that will share their attitudes and perspectives.

White males who enlisted in the military were not recipients of privileged treatment by society.

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#84
Does it matter who's diversity? If the argument is that a company with a non-diverse workforce can't deal with users from different walks of life, they don't have a diversity problem, they have an empathy problem. (Arguably most programmers have an empathy problem.)

While I'm sure hiring 2 women and 0.2 black people for every scrum team may help fix the empathy issue, so would hiring white guys who don't think they're the center of the universe. Of course to do that we'd need to stop (as an industry) rewarding and recognizing people who think they're the elite for doing a perfectly normal white-collar job that occasionally involves high school math.

(And I definitely don't think we need diversity of political opinions. I don't want to know my coworkers' political opinions, whatever they may be. What would be great would be if I could get coworkers who just don't think their particular ideology is super important in terms of their work life. Any companies that are more on the chill side like this?)

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#85

I do think that pointing at someone's physical body and saying, "They bring diversity because they're X!" is wrong. However, I do think that gender and race have an influence on your thought processes because of who you tend to associate with. In addition, she spent 15 years in China, which is definitely not very common here in the US. That alone means she's going to think somewhat differently than the average engine…

Absolutely agreed. However, I don't think spending 15 years in China is a particularly rare trait in tech work -- a very good chunk of the people I work with in tech on a day-to-day basis were born and raised in a foreign country (typically China, India, or Russia, though there's a very long tail there). In fact, my own background (that of a very, very, small rural US town) who went to a liberal arts college is extremely rare in my own experience in tech. Of course, I'm a white heterosexual so I'm considered a member of "the majority"...

Diversity metrics based on the color of your skin or the country where you were born are an awful way to assess actual diversity of thought. It's much more about your own personal experiences regardless of your environment. It's a shame that's hard to quantify so everyone ignores it.

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#86

I'm going to say it. The most excluded group in SV are conservative republicans. Its a death sentence to your career to come out as one. If you truly value diversity, their point of view is the most absent from tech.

They shouldn't be when there are so many libertarians in tech that'd prefer small government. Should have something in common.

The problem is the majority of republicans are backwards on social issues and trapped by low-brow "conservative" media. William Buckley must have turned over in his grave.

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#87

I'm going to say it. The most excluded group in SV are conservative republicans. Its a death sentence to your career to come out as one. If you truly value diversity, their point of view is the most absent from tech.

Even being far left on most measures, being openly critical of intersectionality has become equally problematic (for lack of a better term).

This isn't true. Can you cite examples?

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#88

I'm going to say it. The most excluded group in SV are conservative republicans. Its a death sentence to your career to come out as one. If you truly value diversity, their point of view is the most absent from tech.

It's also the most incompatible point of view. They do not want to be around diversity.

Unless you've spoken with them all to clarify, you're just leaning on a negative stereotype.

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#89
All this article says to me is that no matter how hard I work or what decisions I make or what my life experiences are, I'll never be good enough for progressives. I'll fall "lower" than others on some arbitrary and ever-changing grading scale which puts value to my experiences.

Re: As a female engineer, I am not diversity

#90

I do think that pointing at someone's physical body and saying, "They bring diversity because they're X!" is wrong. However, I do think that gender and race have an influence on your thought processes because of who you tend to associate with. In addition, she spent 15 years in China, which is definitely not very common here in the US. That alone means she's going to think somewhat differently than the average engine…

Yep I completely agree that gender and race have an influence on our thought process, and perhaps the title of "I'm not diversity" is a tad overdramatic, because I _do_ bring in a unique perspective. My goal with this post is to convince people to not just limit their views of diversity to race and gender, but also look beyond those 2 to care about the other ways each of us bring in diverse perspectives as well.

Certainly: the objective is to ensure that perspectives are not systematically ignored.

However, please don't ignore history. Reality is not neat and tidy: there's never a blank slate from which to build anew. Everything real exists in context and has a past, which constrains its possible futures.

Correlation is an important concept because it is evidence of association. And while it's true that associations can be non causal, many associations are causal.

For example, let's run with this description: a white, heterosexual man with XY chromosomes living and growing up in America. There are few absolutely correct inferences made from such a description (e.g. that the individual was and is still benefiting from a soceity built by and for people like him). On the other hand, there are a number of inferences we can make about such an individual that are likely to be true. Or that street true to a varying degree. E.g. we might say that such an individual is likely to view people of color with disdain. Or view women as sexual obejects that exist soley for his pleasure.

Certainly those last two inferences are only correlative. While many men are taught to view women as sexual objects and many white people are taught to believe that people of color are inferior, one can never make such an inference with 0 error.

Working our way back to the conversation thread: correlations are useful for decision making. If I'm hiring people for software jobs, I cannot exclude anyone for their personal, core characteristics of their skin complexion, sex, gender, nationality, ancestry, or age. I can, however, realize that due to the soceity we live in and how it treats people, it's likely that the men applying to my (fictional) company are likely to have some similar viewpoints. And that my woman applicants are also likely to have some similar viewpoints, which are going to be different from the men. Similar reasoning to all of those other characteristics I mentioned above. Knowing history and observing society, I would certainly use such society-level correlations to inform my recruiting strategy.

E.g. Do men take proactive steps to ensure they aren't victims of sexual assualt? On the whole, they do not. Conversely, women often think about this reality and plan around it -- "go out with a friend" or "call me when you get home" or "walk with your keys through the fingers of your hand when you go to your car at night" or "carry pepper spray on your bag". If I'm making a ride sharing service, I better take into consideration that a room full of white men probably won't think about drivers sexually assaulting passengers.

I sincerely hope that my writing here is insightful and informative as to why gender and racial diversity are important in cultivating intellectual and emotional diversity.

Post reply on HN