Google reports soaring attrition among Black women • Hacker News Board

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#261

Post by ramblerman » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

Traster wrote: post #241

ramblerman wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The ideology of individualism is dependent on a denial of the past as relevant to the present… Individualism denies the significance of race." -- Robin DeAngelo Robin DeAngelo, is a frontrunner of 'white guilt', CRT, and other strange sides of the woke movement. This quote pretty much sums it up, they want to put group identity first, above individualism.

I see this criticism of CRT/wokeism etc very often and I really want to address a point about people talking past each other. Proponents of CRT don't say they want to divide people based on group characteristics, they say people are divided based on group characteristics and they recognise that whilst individualists deny what is evidently true. Essentially it's the position that people are negatively impacted due to…

The remedy to injustice is to treat people on their merit. Not come up with different ways to divide them in the name of social justice.

> I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#262

Post by Zababa » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

ttt0 wrote: post #210

ectopod wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK there is an often-repeated statistic: the 20% of girls who take A-level physics outperform the 40% of boys who take it. And of course they do! It's like saying a team comprised of footballers from the top division will beat a team comprised of footballers from the top two divisions. The few women who go into tech or board rooms or whatever will typically be the women who are good at it, and they will typica…

You say you don't need discrimination to explain it, but your explanation assumes discrimination ie. you have to be really damn good in order to even have a chance as a woman. There is another explanation, the distribution of IQ between men and women: > Another factor affecting perception may be distribution of IQ ... Although [men and women] are on average the same, the people at the very top and the very bottom of…

You also see a similar situation with "places in society". The majority of billionaires are men, but the majority of people in prison are men too. Women in general seem to have a more "stable" place in society compared to men. It seems harder for them to climb higher but also harder for them to fall completly at the bottom. If I wanted to sum it up, it would be something like "the glass ceiling comes with a glass floor". This is just my speculation though, and not in any way a judgment of value.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#263

Post by gfo » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #10

bko wrote: post #3

What is Black+ and Latinx+? This is the first time I'm hearing this term and can't find anything about it in the report or online.

I think it's for being Black + Gay or whatever other minority. Latino is for males, Latina is for females so Latinx is for both and other genders and I guess the + indicates belonging to another minority group. As a non-American this all seems silly but I see the point of it.

I see the point as well, but it seems like a lot of theatrics at this point.

For example: the rainbow flag has always been for the LGBTQIA+ community. Now the flag has the added triangles with white, brown, aqua, and magenta for... black and trans folks? If that visibility makes folks feel included then by all means, but the rainbow colors on that flag weren't meant to specifically represent each aspect of that community to begin with. Maybe I've missed issues of representation in that community but I also don't think of LGBTQIA+ as an organization, just a sort of flag to represent non-cis folks.

And then there's Latinx, which is interesting because >98% of folks actually from Latino countries loathe that and don't recognize it. It's purely an American appropriation of another culture's terminology by the same folks who generally raise issues of appropriation.

I'm trying my best to be an ally but I have trouble keeping up with a lot of these things, even those which are a bit paradoxical. The best course of action I've found is to just treat everyone with kindness, respect, empathy, and an open mind.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#264

Post by finnthehuman » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #192

finnthehuman wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't discriminatory programs insulting to the intelligence the youth? And communicates to them that cultural stereotypes aren't just stereotypes, they're truths that need intervention programs to fix? Isn't it a put-down to tell the targeted group that they need the extra help the program is meant to deliver? Isn't it a disrespect to someone who wants the thing a program aims to deliver, but isn't part of the targe…

I think it depends. If there's some cultural or expectations bias that is self-reinforcing to reduce the number of women who consider tech (to include their peers thinking that tech isn't cool/is nerdy/whatever), I think these programs are a fantastic way to interrupt that cycle. I don't see it as insulting to their intelligence in any way, but maybe I'm not understanding your concern properly.

>I don't see it as insulting to their intelligence in any way

Were you not exposed to hamfisted intervention programs growing up?

They say that you never notice the propaganda that works, and I think there are lots of programs that are just outright good that even a cynic can't cut down, but I remember lots of insulting messaging baked into "lets fix X" initiatives too.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

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Post by 3pt14159 » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

tasubotadas wrote: post #201

noutella wrote: post #47

How incredibly weird is it to witness American schizophrenia* when it comes to races (and gender) from a non-american perspective. "Black+", "Latinx+", "LGBTTQQIAAP". Putting people in smaller and smaller box in the name of equality and diversity. I am the only one to feel this is coming to an absurd point ? I'm not an alt-right fan, nor would I vote Republican if I could, I'm a leftist in what's considered a traditi…

>LGBTTQQIAAP I had to look up if this acronym was some kind of joke.

The dumb thing is we actually have a word for this.

The word is queer. I'm still unsure as to why this word isn't used for most contexts where the LGBT[...] are currently used. We use the word "gay" and that used to be an insult like "queer" was too.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

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Post by MyHypatia » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

eric4smith wrote: post #97

Unpopular opinion… Could it be that women (in general) want something more in life than working in a big company for a nice wage? Study after study after study show that women want families and other things other than the standard mega corporation employment that society has trained us to expect. I’d bet if one looked at the numbers one would see that women as a whole are leaving google and other companies just as mu…

Yes, women would hate working at a big company with a great salary, great family leave benefits, flexibility to work from home, and flexibility on when to start their day. They'd much rather work in female dominated professions like teaching, retail, and hospitality where there is no flexibility to work from home, no flexibility on when to start their day, lower salaries, and fewer family leave benefits. sarcasm

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#267

Post by rocqua » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #62

rocqua wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often hear people I dismiss directly mention cultural marxism. But I have never seen an explanation of what cultural marxism is. Could you enlighten me?

Critical theory is actually what people mean when they say cultural Marxism. Critical theory itself came out of various Marxist and Marxist-influenced academics in the mid-20th century.

It seems that most people in this thread who use the term cultural marxism don't quite mean critical theory. Instead it seems to be about seeing (and advocating for) a dialectic between the oppressors and the oppressed. The idea is that this division maps somewhat to 'cultural' groups. The main 'cultural' division they mention is race. I would assume they also include LGBT+ and occasionally jews as part of the opressed group.

A main part of the concept behind this is that this dialectic is wrong. And hence people supporting it are doing so for other goals. Apparently this goal is "communism". That is, the goal is overthrowing the oppressed. It seems like the idea is that some of the people supporting this dialectic do so without questioning whether it is true. Hence, the argument goes, the supporters of this idea are either maliciously pushing a false agenda, or they are convinced by the false agenda and are well-meaning fools.

I also get the feeling there is an undertone of trying to understand why white / straight / gentile people are actually supporting the progressive side of identity politics.

Personally, I think most of this is plainly wrong. Though it seems like an interesting lens through which to look at the most extreme people at the progressive spectrum of identity politics.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

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Post by sterlind » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

evilpotatoes wrote: post #257

sterlind wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a good example of this is the disabled. any of those same brilliant tech workers could acquire a disability at any time - they come from the same group of people , but we seem quite under-represented. and the developer tools themselves tend not to be accessible (I can find literally nothing online, or even internally, about using Visual Studio with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.) it's curious, right?

It is, but honestly I don't think I could comprehend code that was read out to me. It's very much something I do with the visual parts of my brain in terms of following the logic, etc. I'm not saying that it's impossible, and I don't know what kind of difference something like braille would make. Idk, are there any blind programmers that you know of ? Surely there must be some programmers who have gone blind, I wonde…

I know of blind programmers but don't know any personally. But I was actually talking about the reverse: dictation. I'm losing use of my arms, and even ergonomic keyboards aren't cutting it. Rehab set me up with a copy of Dragon so I can dictate, but even Microsoft Teams isn't really accessible with it, much less Visual Studio or any kind of terminal. I can see the code just fine, I just can't dictate it.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#269

Post by walkedaway » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

cudgy wrote: post #124

brap wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works for Big Tech outside of the US, it's kind of comical to us foreign workers. From out point of view it seems like Americans are truly obsessed with diversity, or rather being perceived as diverse (PR), to the point where we can't help but laugh at the weekly corporate emails we get from the US leadership and the regular diversity training we have to do.

It’s equally comical to many non-foreign tech workers. Problem is that if you criticize it openly, there will be repercussions to your career. Corporations will take action against you due to the fear of activist employees and the news media which has been largely infiltrated/influenced by woke/post-modern critical theory activists.

Exactly this.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#270

Post by dekhn » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #236

dekhn wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was an employee at Google and did interviews, I was told that for diversity reasons, I couldn't ask where an interviewee "was from" because that would bias my decision. I'm sorry, but other companies and fields don't prevent this question, and have far less bias (well, employee distributions that more closely map to underlying population distributions) in hiring. Most of what Google is doing is to reduce its l…

Just because other fields or companies do something doesn’t mean they’re not problematic. You might be living off of selection bias. I know for a fact that people in my area discriminate based upon where people are from. If they know you’re from a certain area, they have a particular disdain for you from the get go. So, don’t rule it out as being a real thing.

If you have a problem with people discriminating on place of origin, telling them not to ask where somebody is from is not the answer.