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Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

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Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#141

Post by edoceo »

launderthis wrote: post #103
SavantIdiot wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an example of a non-diverse company that doesn't understand diversity trying to implement some kind of diversity. I recall these kinds of ham-fisted attempts everywhere in the late 90's. Ironically, this was most likely cringe because there were no minorities on the staff, a consequence of: no diversity. I observed a similar event in the early 90's when a bunch of white folk in HR tried to show off diversity…

thats what you get when you government mandate things. You cant expect things like diversity and culture to be processed by law. You pretty much have to make it non profitable for companies to not be diverse. Then they company has a personal responsiblity to change rather than a checkbox to check off , much like the "what race are you" checkbox given to pander to their diversity quota. I blame society, people cry abo…

Who defines the rules in the society that you blame? How would they be enforced?

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#142

Post by EvilEy3 »

ojnabieoot wrote: post #67
tester756 wrote: post #11

>I have never considered that “having chemistry with the team” could be a reason for being let go. That's what worries me too. I like to throw a racist jokes, especially about my own nation from time to time and I guess I'd have hard time in corpos and companies like faang because polacks tend to lack of thick skin /s

Racist “jokes” make people uncomfortable because it’s directly adjacent to racist insults, racist hiring/firing practices, and even racist violence. Employers have a duty to workers from employees that are potential threats, and to remove employees that are walking legal liabilities. And that very much includes employees who claim to be “equal-opportunity offenders.” I understand that it’s more complicated when you a…

>There is also a difference between ethnic jokes about Poles and racist jokes about black people or Jews, but that’s a different discussion.

Oh wow, here we go with racism gatekeeping.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#143

Post by kroolik »

I've always been afraid of having to lower the hiring bar due to diversity quotas. Thankfully, I have always had the chance to focus on the particular skill set, instead. The ideas about ensuring big enough sampling from diverse sources during sourcing sounds like a good solution, without having to lower your hiring bar.

What sparks my curiosity, though, is out of 3 companies the original poster has written about, the second time she knew she is a diversity hire. Yet, this time it doesn't matter at all, because she was excited about the opportunity.

It strikes me, because it suddenly wasn't a problem once it aligned with the original poster. If we stand up to some idea, shouldn't we live up to it every time? If you hate being a diversity hire, why would you accept it once it suits you?

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#144

Post by causality0 »

But I always thought that if it ever happened to me, it would be a transparent process and I would have the opportunity to accept the conditions deliberately.

Why would anyone think that? The point of diversity hiring is to do deliberately what we should be doing naturally until we don't have to do it deliberately anymore. I would be flatly amazed if being told you are a diversity hire is common in any industry. Can you even imagine if a college recruiter said to a prospective student "You're only being accepted because you're Native American, do you still want to attend here?"

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#145

Post by hinkley »

ActorNightly wrote: post #121
hinkley wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably you dodged a bullet. It's always seemed to me that people are aggressively attempting to hire for some criteria (even position) because they're either having trouble getting people on board, or holding onto them. There's something 'wrong' with them, for some definition of wrong. Either they're looking in the wrong place, they're giving off a bad vibe that scares people off, or people who have that quality th…

I would argue that the metaphorical "getting your foot in the door" is worth it above everything else.

But that could be true of the people in front of you too.

This place is worth working at to get some hours on your resume, but it's not worth staying at beyond that.

Within the wider world of employment, this is not an uncommon sentiment, but within software you don't hear so many people talking like this.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#147

Post by EvilEy3 »

bollocks187 wrote: post #140

People react to many different things that are said or done to them. Many people use 'discrimination' as the cause. I will give you one example many hi-tech company's in the USA hire a people of the same heritage or culture - is that discrimination. If you say yes then many white people should put a class action lawsuit against all the non-white companies operating in silicon valley.

> If you say yes then many white people should put a class action lawsuit against all the non-white companies operating in silicon valley.

It only works if you're PoC, sweaty.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#149

Post by ipaddr »

munificent wrote: post #118
rsweeney21 wrote: post #37

I'm a light skinned male. I'm also a Choctaw Native American. In my senior year of college in 2004 I applied to dozens of companies. I never got a single response. I decided to try an experiment - I applied to IBM and, for the first time, I selected "Native American" as my ethnicity. Within 24 hours I got an email inviting me to a special, all expenses paid IBM recruiting event held for Native Americans in Albuquerqu…

All of this sounds horribly cringe-inducing and I don't fault you at all for walking away from IBM. At the same time, I can't help but look at this from an iterated organizational perspective. Let's say you had taken the offer at IBM. Next year, IBM does the recruiting event. But this time they have a Native American employee, you, that they can talk to about how to reach out to that group. So it's a little less awkw…

Just hire based on skill / experience and don't not hire someone because they are a minority. Basic fair hiring goes a long way.

If you want more diverse candidates advertise in more diverse places.

To go through some cringe-inducing ordeal is not helpful. People want to be judged based on their skills not skin / gender.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#150

Post by km3r »

munificent wrote: post #118
rsweeney21 wrote: post #37

I'm a light skinned male. I'm also a Choctaw Native American. In my senior year of college in 2004 I applied to dozens of companies. I never got a single response. I decided to try an experiment - I applied to IBM and, for the first time, I selected "Native American" as my ethnicity. Within 24 hours I got an email inviting me to a special, all expenses paid IBM recruiting event held for Native Americans in Albuquerqu…

All of this sounds horribly cringe-inducing and I don't fault you at all for walking away from IBM. At the same time, I can't help but look at this from an iterated organizational perspective. Let's say you had taken the offer at IBM. Next year, IBM does the recruiting event. But this time they have a Native American employee, you, that they can talk to about how to reach out to that group. So it's a little less awkw…

I always thought the best way was to treat those recruiting events as a way to get a more diverse set of candidates on the resume pile. Once they are on the same pile as everyone else, the higher ratios of minorities on the piles will naturally lead to more minority hires (assuming your hiring process is non discriminatory).
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