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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

#271

Post by asdff »

worker767424 wrote: post #238
ibudiallo wrote: post #132

I wrote about my experience as a black developer not too long ago [1]. At first, you are shocked when you hear some insensitive comments made around you. Then you realize no one else even notices, so it must be something wrong with you. Eventually you ignore it. When someone says something stupid, you rationalize it and move on. After all, you are only just here to do a job. But then you get angry. You are angry at e…

> Hiring more black people It's not like there's a large, untapped pool of talented black software engineers. I'm at a large tech company. There was a team I worked with for a big with some really talented people, the sort of team where really smart domain experts go. There was a black guy on it who asked questions showing he wasn't an obviously talented domain expert. I found out he was recruited for coming from an…

On the other hand, California is 37% white. The University of California freshman class for 2019 was 22% white. So why are tech companies so strikingly white? It makes no sense unless you admit there is a racial bias in the hiring process for knowledge workers.

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

#272

Post by lostcolony »

koyote wrote: post #128
RulingWalnut wrote: post #50

Very much not challenging the experiences in this post but I will say: “I believe everyone can become a good professional as long as they’re willing to learn.” was most likely speaking to her youth than her femininity. Source: Myself as someone who has given advice to a lot of different interns/new grads along the same exact lines.

I almost stopped reading there. That sentence, no matter how I try to interpret it, seems like very common and genuine advice to a new graduate starter.

It might be! He -might- say it to every intern on their first day. But the problem with many statements or questions that land poorly, even ones not tied to race, gender, etc, is not the intention of the person saying them, but the experience of the person hearing them.

For instance, "are you supposed to be here?" may be a perfectly reasonable question asked purely because the asker doesn't recognize the person, and they would have asked it regardless of skin color, gender, etc. However, if you've heard things like that all your life, if your lived experience is that the majority don't expect someone of your gender or skin color to be in the exclusive areas they frequent, it can't help but hurt, and feel exclusive based on your gender, skin color, etc. You can't help but wonder "would they have asked that of me if I was a white man?", etc.

This doesn't mean the question asker meant anything by the question, but it does indicate a lack of sensitivity to the lived experience of the person here. You can compensate for it by learning about and recognizing that lived experience and reformulating the question; for instance "Hi! I don't think we've met; what do you do here?" for my example, or "Welcome aboard! I'm really excited to see what you accomplish here. My goal is to make sure this is a really positive experience for you, and my hope is that you'll be able to learn a lot while you're with us" for the original.

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

#273

Post by vlod »

lostcolony wrote: post #252
vlod wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably next to impossible to imagine an end goal. There will always be 'crazies'. I assume that most people would like to be treated by their characters. If everyone just started doing that, wouldn't the world be a better place? That's my take on MLK. Maybe it's naive.

"If everyone just started doing that" - that's the naive part. Everyone isn't. What if you do it, but others don't? Then you're not directly responsible for the issues, sure, but you also aren't helping address any issues others are facing, and may in fact be benefiting from the biased actions those others are performing. You may not be part of the problem, but you're benefiting from the problem, and are not part of…

> Everyone isn't.

My point is that there are IMHO a lot of people complaining about this (here on HN) but I don't see a lot of concrete solutions that are actionable.

> you also aren't helping address any issues others are facing, and may in fact be benefiting from the biased actions those others are performing.

I presented a way that would make it somewhat fairer (looks like the orchestra approach suggested that) till someone else brings something better to the table. Rinse and repeat has to be better than just talking. No?

> but you're benefiting from the problem, and are not part of the solution.

It's easy to criticize others. I would be interested in exploring your solution to this.

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

#274

Post by asdff »

kstrauser wrote: post #217
jimbob45 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both whites and blacks get bullied the same amount but when it happens to a black person, it’s racism and is actually taken seriously. I get called dipshit and you get called the N-word. Why race-based bullying has suddenly become considered worse is beyond me.

You honestly don't see the difference? Like, you can't think of any historical reasons why the n-word might carry a lot more weight than "dipshit"?

Only a dipshit would make these false equivalencies

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

#275

Post by sudosysgen »

malandrew wrote: post #245
sudosysgen wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple. Don't let them. My province has a math education program that would rank amongst #2-3 in the world, and you aren't allowed to run a private school with a different curriculum - at all, beyond a certain amount of enriched tracks that are available to anyone. This also applies to the first few years of college. Result? Everyone gets an amazing education, and you can't pay your way around it. You might say that…

First, that's maybe acceptable if you live in a place with such a great math education program available in the public system, but most of the world does not and limiting the options of people in a region to only attend the public option creates a local maxima. What if someone were in a region where the math education program was #100 in the world? Would it not be reasonable to want to create a private program provid…

If the education is not good enough, the solution is to make it better.

As a society, we made the decision that it is not fair for children of richer parents to be able to have much better education that the rest, and instead made it better for everyone.

Since you insist on stating it in terms of freedom, we traded freedom from the obligation of public schooling for the freedom to have high quality education (and thus equal opportunity). Thanks to this choice, we have better outcomes than the US, and just as much freedom - just not the reductive kind of freedom you recognize.

If you really want even better math education, the solution is that instead of shelling out money, you can do research on how to ameliorate teacher education or pedagogical techniques, or run as a politician to get those resources allocated. That is also your freedom.

Ultimately, if you care about creating something resembling equality of opportunity and if you want to reduce inequality, you will have to abandon your reductive concept of freedom, where a homeless man starving enjoys more freedom than if he was in public housing, somehow.

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

#276

Post by II2II »

sidlls wrote: post #243
II2II wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "willing to learn" case was construed as sexist since she was a diversity hire who did not undergo the same hiring process as her colleagues. While the double standard may have given her an advantage in being hired, it was a disadvantage with respect to her future prospects. The company did not know how to utilize her strengths nor what weaknesses had to be addressed. In effect, they abdicated responsibility for…

Plenty of other things she notes were sexist; pointing out that one is just absurd. It's more or less the advice senior staff are encouraged to give junior staff regardless of context in almost every manager/senior training program I've ever been in. I understand the argument you're making (that in this context it's sexist, even if it's not sexist in other contexts), I just completely disagree with it.

Just to be clear, I am supporting her interpretation of the statement. I am not claiming that the statement itself is sexist, intentionally or unintentionally, even in this context. We don't know what was going through her mentor's head when they said it. Even if we did, they were probably given incomplete information about her background and may have been given inaccurate information.

The problem lies with the company creating the framework for her interpretation. It set the tone for her tenure, a tone that implied that she was facing an uphill battle since she was hired in spite of her qualifications. That tone would understandably (in my opinion) alter the meaning of what was being said. In this case, the intent may have been to encourage her but the interpretation was that they saw her as unqualified.

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

#277

Post by entee »

worker767424 wrote: post #238
ibudiallo wrote: post #132

I wrote about my experience as a black developer not too long ago [1]. At first, you are shocked when you hear some insensitive comments made around you. Then you realize no one else even notices, so it must be something wrong with you. Eventually you ignore it. When someone says something stupid, you rationalize it and move on. After all, you are only just here to do a job. But then you get angry. You are angry at e…

> Hiring more black people It's not like there's a large, untapped pool of talented black software engineers. I'm at a large tech company. There was a team I worked with for a big with some really talented people, the sort of team where really smart domain experts go. There was a black guy on it who asked questions showing he wasn't an obviously talented domain expert. I found out he was recruited for coming from an…

Respectfully, this is the wrong way to look at the problem. It’s true, objectively, that there are fewer minority/female CS graduates. But there’s no way that gets better if a person who is “not a subject matter expert” gets dismissed. That person needs to be trained. If they want to be expert at that subject, we as an industry need to be able to help them get there.

Increasingly I believe the problem with diversity in tech is a retention and training problem, not a pipeline problem. If you’re a woman and you want to be a coder but all you hear about is hell stories, why would you sign up for that major? Our job is to make those who are generous enough in spirit to decide they want to do this thing, in spite of all the pain they might face, the best coders they can possibly be. Only then will they be able to provide the positive reinforcement necessary to improve input pipelines.

Same applies to any underrepresented group.

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

#278

Post by jimmygrapes »

asdff wrote: post #271
worker767424 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hiring more black people It's not like there's a large, untapped pool of talented black software engineers. I'm at a large tech company. There was a team I worked with for a big with some really talented people, the sort of team where really smart domain experts go. There was a black guy on it who asked questions showing he wasn't an obviously talented domain expert. I found out he was recruited for coming from an…

On the other hand, California is 37% white. The University of California freshman class for 2019 was 22% white. So why are tech companies so strikingly white? It makes no sense unless you admit there is a racial bias in the hiring process for knowledge workers.

Does culture play no role in this? Why assume race is the primary driver?

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

#279

Post by entee »

jimmygrapes wrote: post #278
asdff wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, California is 37% white. The University of California freshman class for 2019 was 22% white. So why are tech companies so strikingly white? It makes no sense unless you admit there is a racial bias in the hiring process for knowledge workers.

Does culture play no role in this? Why assume race is the primary driver?

Surely it does, a culture that makes people feel unwelcome and doesn’t invest in helping them thrive in an environment where they are in the minority definitely plays a role.

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

#280

Post by asdff »

setr wrote: post #255
asdff wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has more to do with the lack of marketing of the job opening than a lack of qualified talent out there

I think more generally the issue is being swamped with unqualified talent, such that it's difficult to identify actual talent amongst the mess. A lot of people are not trying to be good at what they do, they're just trying to be paid for what they do.

What's the issue? Look through resumes, see who has worked in this area before, interview and see if they talk the talk, hire and get them up to speed to walk your walk.

If the job is so complex that you have difficulty finding someone who can fit in every required peg, then that job should be broken into smaller, more manageable tasks that can be done by several more common people from the labor pool. It's just good business sense, too. If you require some specialist that takes forever to find and they leave, then you are screwed while hunting for a replacement. If you've instead broken that complicated job into digestible pieces, and someone leaves, you can hire a decent candidate before your employee even leaves, and have your employee get their replacement up to speed in their last few weeks along with the rest of the team.

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