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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

#161

Post by [deleted] »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #154
anthony_romeo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your overall stance seems to require the assumption that “diversity on paper” is the more common/significant outcome relative to “diversity of opinion”. Do you happen to have any info which might support such an assumption?

The thing you're asking for is the source of the problem. It's the Seeing Like A State thing. If you had some kind of actually robust diversity metric and not something which is going to get crushed into a black hole by Goodhart's Law then you would have a solution to the problem, but if you don't then you can't even measure it. If you wanted actual diversity then what you would presumably do is gather all the data y…

[deleted]

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

#163

Post by bpicolo »

serjester wrote: post #81

With all due respect, I think part of her issue is she looks at everything from a "sexism" lens. Her first discriminatory comment seems like a sensible thing to tell any new grad. She complains that the company didn't tell her she was a diversity hire? Doing this seems like a recipe for any diversity hire to always have imposter syndrome. There's definitely sexism in the tech industry but I'd argue the best way forwa…

> didn't tell her she was a diversity hire

It's illegal to do and definitely illegal to put on paper (in the US) - it's discrimination. That said, depends on what "HR had intentions to prioritize candidates" means in context.

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

#164

Post by cole-k »

kroolik wrote: post #143

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, th…

I think you just misread what her objection was to the first point. Quoting from 1.,

> I didn’t know what to think. I have a strong opinion about diversity hires: Although I don’t think they are a perfect solution, I consider them an effective measure to break the ceiling glass that excludes minorities from certain roles. 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.

It was at least implied upfront that she was a diversity hire for 2.

And maybe I just don't have as strong a moral compass as you, but I have found it difficult to always uphold the ideas I stand for. E.g. I like the idea of solely merit-based hiring. But if I got a dream job because I knew the CEO's friend and they put in a good word for me, I would have a hard time rejecting that offer.

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

#165

Post by vmception »

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…

I have multiple San Francisco and Bay Area friends that told me similar stories during a time period that coincides with AfroTech in recent years.

Completely contrived, but personalized, introductory events.

The difference is that they eventually took the job and have no issue performing on the job or have any stranger than usual corporate experiences.

(They experienced the same super long interviewing and matchmaking process plaguing the rest of the industry, and the contrived intros were just the silly responses to how to deal with the recruiting pipeline).

These were not right out of college though, and they would have likely gotten responses within 24 hours from the same companies anyway.

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

#166

Post by kvetching »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #68
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…

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…

It's sickening that a white man doesn't have a chance at any of the big companies, unless he's a programming god. This makes white supremacy even more of a problem because the white people that are there, are some of the best ever.

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

#167

Post by moonshinefe »

pmarreck wrote: post #43
maxehmookau wrote: post #6

Firing someone for a "lack of chemistry" and refusing to give details is a Grade A dick move.

Assuming that a firing for "lack of chemistry" (which is a very real and valid concern, btw: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-relationships-wor... ) is, without evidence, veiled discrimination, is also a Grade A dick move, by being a "default victimization mindset". Anecdotal firings of minority hires are insubstantial proof of discrimination; in fact it may be the opposite, if there's a diversity retention…

In my experience the sort of people who would play the racism/sexism card if it wasn't the case also tend to be the people who loudly virtue signal and shame others on social media about those topics all the time, and even announce it in their profile/blurb next to their avatars. I think as long as you do a quick google search on someone and test their character in the interview, it shouldn't be as risky as you're worried about.

I don't think the hiring all white guys scenario as a workaround as you described is very realistic. If people are actually doing that, they're missing out on the full talent pool certainly.

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

#168

Post by wombatmobile »

coldtea wrote: post #133
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…

> One manager asked me "What was it like growing up Native American? Was it hard? Tell me about how hard it was for you." It felt gross. While "diversity via token hires", and "faux-diversity celebrations with folklore food, music, etc" are fake-ass and crinzy, I don't see the manager's question as gross. It's a legitimate question a human being can make to another. We're not just individual snowflakes, we're also pe…

> But really, it's a question one might legitimately ask another they met at a bar or an airplane, or some such...

Really? Consider it this way, by substituting x for something that fits for you personally:

What was it like growing up x? Was it hard? Tell me about how hard it was for you."

How might you feel by the end of the flight?

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

#169

Post by [deleted] »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #154
anthony_romeo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your overall stance seems to require the assumption that “diversity on paper” is the more common/significant outcome relative to “diversity of opinion”. Do you happen to have any info which might support such an assumption?

The thing you're asking for is the source of the problem. It's the Seeing Like A State thing. If you had some kind of actually robust diversity metric and not something which is going to get crushed into a black hole by Goodhart's Law then you would have a solution to the problem, but if you don't then you can't even measure it. If you wanted actual diversity then what you would presumably do is gather all the data y…

[deleted]

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

#170

Post by cambalache »

bedhead wrote: post #95
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…

While I'm your everyday white guy, I've never understood why people among minority groups would accept this completely over-the-top pandering. It's a form of shaming and it's dehumanizing. Who wants this?

The common minority person hates it usually. The more vocal ones are the people who directly benefit from this system, they effectively have a rent-seeking behavior hidden behind the "diversity" umbrella.
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