What is the engineering hiring bar?

So tech companies should strive to be 50% women even though the tech industry is only 20% female (or slightly less)? This would mean that women in tech have to be hired at 4x the rate as men in tech. Ultimately how you choose to frame equality is up to you, but I'm confident in saying that most would not consider a company that hires 50/50 men and women when the industry is made up 80/20 of men and women to be offering equal opportunity to men and women. It creates an outcome representative of the general population, but at the expense of creating massive inequality of opportunity within the tech industry itself.

> You've repeatedly insisted racial slurs aren't so bad, and diverse hiring practices are far worse.

Identify where I've said this? Because I've been very consistent in emphasizing that which is worse is a matter of perspective. In fact, I've specifically pointed out that it is not reasonable to say one is worse than the other because these are subjective judgements.

And lastly, trying to equate harboring different opinions on affirmative action in employment to being a leader in the KKK is really not called for. This is getting to the point where I'm convinced that this conversation is going nowhere.

So the answer is yes? Companies should strive to be 50/50 men and women tech roles even though the ratio in the workforce is 80/20? Representation is inherently relative, and that what I'm getting at here. Is your idea of an equal workplace one that is representative of the population (50/50 even though workforce is 80/20?) or one that is representative of the workforce (80/20 if the workforce is 80/20)? I know full well what representative means, but I'm asking you: representative with respect to what?

> You mean the last five posts of yours, where you've said it repeatedly, that you're now hilariously trying to backpeddle? You're welcome to re-read your posts. And the quotes I have of your posts, claiming racial slurs aren't so bad, and diverse hiring is worse.

Let's see:

> Who is getting the short or long end of the stick is not something I aim to answer, or even purport to be able to answer. This is a matter of perspective. I'm a Hispanic person that attended an elite university and have household names on my resume. I'd have a good chance of getting interviews regardless of my gender or ethnicity - and when you do take ethnicity into account it probably helps me even more. I'm largely indifferent towards this kind of discrimination in hiring. But is the perspective of a white or asian man pursuing a coding boot-camp to try and break into tech going to have the same opinion on policies that greatly reduce or eliminate his chances of getting an interview as compared to if he was a woman or URM? Many see getting called slurs as a small price to pay to get a chance to break into tech.

Here I explicitly say that I don't aim to answer whether one outweighs the other, and that people can find valid answers for either.

> There's no right answer to this question, this is a subjective question for which people can and do give different answers. Someone whose diverse in tech might feel like a reduction in harassment or bullying would be worth a significant reduction in career opportunities. Someone who is struggling to get into tech, and doesn't have diversity status to stand out from the rest of the pack could also arrive at the answer that they'd be better off as diverse even if it did mean that they might be subject to additional harassment or bullying.

Again, I point out that all I'm trying to convey is that there are people who think differently than you on this topic and that it's not valid to dismiss these perspectives as racist.

> Between getting a tech job but being subject to racial slurs vs. not having a tech job at all, yes many people conclude that the former is the better outcome. I think the former is more disadvantageous. But I'm speaking from the privileged position of already having a tech job. People who don't have the security of already having a tech job often think differently. And it's not right for me to dismiss their views as racist for being different from mine.

Here is the only instance where I actually state my personal opinion, which is actually agreeing with you.

> Someone who is diverse and subject to bullying or harassment might think, if I weren't diverse I might have diminished career opportunities but it'd be worth it to avoid this harassment. By comparison, a non-diverse aspiring tech working might think, If I were diverse I might be subject to more harassment or bullying but the career opportunities would be worth it. Which one is right? They both are, because these are their opinions. Trying to say one is right is like trying to identify the correct flavor of ice cream.

I think I've been very consistent in emphasizing that people with different lived experiences can arrive at different answers to these questions.

Weighting diversity against equal opportunity is something that this industry struggles to do effectively. We can't have a good faith discussion on this topic while simultaneously claiming that the notion that these policies create an environment that is more disadvantaging to non-diverse people as compared to diverse people is racist and likening people who think so to clansmen.

And evidence of that is...? Graduates in the fields of study that feed into the tech workforce are 80/20 - why do we conclude that the industry is biased when it is representative of the population that chooses to go into tech? A valid response is to say that men and women's choices of study are the product of a biased society that pushes men into tech and women into other fields. But at this point, what we're saying is that tech is representative of the workforce, and the workforce is representative of the people that choose to try and go into tech. This is not one, but two layers of indirection and many are not of the opinion that broader societal trends that produce unequal rates of men and women choosing to work in technology should be counteracted with discrimination in the workplace to push this representation towards parity.

You can say that "saying racist things is racist" all you want - my point is that putting opposition to affirmative action in the workplace under the category of racist informs me that your usage of the term "racist" largely equates to "people who have an opinion contrary to my own:, that discrimination in hiring is more disadvantageous than bullying or harassment in the workplace". This is a reductive strategy, and it's not unique to people who support diversity hiring. There are plenty of people who say, "discrimination on the basis of protected class like race and gender is illegal and racist - discrimination, regardless of the guise of 'diversity hiring' is reprehensible, full stop" and it's just as reductive. How would you respond to someone who said that quote to you? I'd probably write them off as being too entrenched in their view to have a meaningful exchange, and that is unfortunately the conclusion I'm left with here.