Google reports soaring attrition among Black women • Hacker News Board

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#401

Post by jjk166 » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 1:33 AM UTC

bluefirebrand wrote: post #388

jjk166 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone wants to express a complex and nuanced opinion, they should actually explicitly state the nuanced bit. Being generous and giving people the benefit of the doubt at best perpetuates a bad habit which people who are not acting in good faith take advantage of. If you wouldn't feel comfortable expressing an opinion clearly and unambiguously, you probably shouldn't express the opinion at all.

> Being generous and giving people the benefit of the doubt at best perpetuates a bad habit It's actually a great habit that helps facilitate polite discussions. It's called the principle of charity and unless I'm mistaken it's actually one of the rules of this site.

I was referring to not communicating clearly as the bad habit. By simply assuming a meaning instead of calling it out, the person who initially spoke ambiguously gets no feedback that their statement was unclear.

And the principle of charity or charitable interpretation requires interpreting a speaker's statements in the most rational way possible and, in the case of any argument, considering its best, strongest possible interpretation. It means that if a statement could be read in an irrational way or in a rational way, you choose the latter. So if for example I said "sheep are white" you could interpret that to be the obviously false claim that 100% of sheep are white with no exceptions, or as the much more reasonable statement that sheep are typically white, where the principle of charity would be assuming the second interpretation. It has nothing to do with bending over backwards to make a statement palatable.

The hacker news guideline you are thinking of is "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#402

Post by 7sidedmarble » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 1:51 AM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #71

hallway_monitor wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand it. I've never been in the minority where I live but this is how I imagine it feels being in a group that is being singled out for some reason or another. Every person is a completely unique individual and focusing on things like skin color just seem insane to me. Why not focus on the fact that we are 99.9% the same but have different experiences which make us valuable and interesting.

Old tactic: divide and conquer. If people stopped bickering about race, they’d quickly realize their economic class similarities, leading to things like unionization. BigCo can’t allow this, for obvious reasons.

It worries me that more of HN doesn't understand this.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#403

Post by mastazi » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 1:55 AM UTC

alisonatwork wrote: post #400

mastazi wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it was coined by people of Latin American heritage Were they predominantly people of Latin American heritage who lived in Latin America and spoke Spanish or Portuguese, or people of Latin American heritage whose primary language might have been English because they lived in a predominantly English speaking country? Let's say a person of Latin American heritage, but whose everyday language is English, modifies their…

I really don't see this as something worth making a fuss about. Languages change all the time based on how people use them in the real world. Concepts and ideas that did not exist 100 years ago do exist today, and the language evolves to express those. Given Spanish is spoken as a first language by hundreds of millions of people in tens of countries around the world, I don't think it should be seen as a problem that…

> I really don't see this as something worth making a fuss about.

I see it as a problem when it's used to identify a minority that overwhelmingly rejects this term as it's been noted elsewhere in this thread. That's something that is usually true of racial slurs. Of course, I'm not saying that Latinx is a racial slur, but that it shares this characteristic with racial slurs.

> Languages change all the time based on how people use them in the real world.

Of course, but that doesn't justify forcing terms onto minorities.

> Note that your suggestion of "Latinos y Latinas" does not explicitly include non-binary identities.

I think it does, because in Spanish, Italian and similar languages the masculine grammatical gender is also used for plurals where the grammatical gender is indeterminate (it's used as a substitute of the neutral gender, due to the fact that we don't have the neutral gender in our grammar)[1]. That is why I fail to see how someone who is a native speaker of those languages, and is familiar with the grammar, would find that definition non-inclusive. Unless they were projecting a way of thinking that is typical of the English language (where grammatical gender = gender identity) onto that other language.

> As far as appropriation goes: just like Spanish, the English language is evolving too. Sometimes we adopt foreign terms into English, and often we bastardize them, and that's not considered especially remarkable. We took "diva" from Italian and use it for both female and male "divi". I don't think that's cultural appropriation.

Yes of course you are right. But people don't use "diva" exclusively to refer to people of Italian descent - so it's not the same as "Latinx", which is being used to define a minority - which overwhelmingly rejects that term apparently. Speaking of Italian words assimilated into the English language - my personal pet peeve is English speaking people saying "Bravo!" at the end of an exhibition, even if the performer is not a woman ("bravo" is masculine).

> I am sympathetic to your view that American politics and culture tends to push itself into other countries. Here on HN that happens a lot.

Yes, sometimes in HN discussions it's considered as a given that they are talking about the USA and I often interject and ask "in what country?" I'm like the "internationalist police" of this forum ahah :-D

[1] An example would be: "Tutti gli italiani, uomini e donne, dovrebbero vaccinarsi" - "All Italians, men and women, should get the vaccine" - "Italiani" is grammatically masculine but it's being used as a neutral here. To an external observer this might seem masculinist, or you might see it the other way around (the masculine grammatical gender ends up being de-emphasised because it's often used for non-masculine nouns).

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#404

Post by alisonatwork » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 2:33 AM UTC

mastazi wrote: post #403

alisonatwork wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't see this as something worth making a fuss about. Languages change all the time based on how people use them in the real world. Concepts and ideas that did not exist 100 years ago do exist today, and the language evolves to express those. Given Spanish is spoken as a first language by hundreds of millions of people in tens of countries around the world, I don't think it should be seen as a problem that…

> I really don't see this as something worth making a fuss about. I see it as a problem when it's used to identify a minority that overwhelmingly rejects this term as it's been noted elsewhere in this thread. That's something that is usually true of racial slurs. Of course, I'm not saying that Latinx is a racial slur, but that it shares this characteristic with racial slurs. > Languages change all the time based on h…

I am not sure where the evidence is that people "overwhelmingly reject" the term, or that anyone classifies it as a racial slur.

The Pew study that is commonly cited[0] makes it clear that 76% of Latino or Hispanic identifying people have not even heard of the term. Only 3% use it, increasing to 7% amongst younger people (18-29) and 14% among young women. The study also notes that most people of that background prefer to be called Hispanic, which makes sense because Hispanic is an older term in the first place, and it is also the term used in US government documents like the census. Of the 23% who have heard of the term, only 12% "disagree or dislike" it, with a far greater number understanding that it is useful as a gender-neutral or LGBTQ-inclusive term. This really is not the kind of big deal that some people are making it out to be.

This has all happened before, of course. For example, in the 70s some American women started to refer to themselves as "womyn". The term grew popular amongst some groups, and it's listed in the dictionary, but it never really caught on. Around the same time some American activists decided to take an actual slur - queer - and reclaim that as a term to describe everyone under the LGBTQ+ umbrella. Plenty of Ls and Gs and Bs and Ts were not happy about that, but eventually the term stuck, and now most people in that group would probably accept the fact that "queer" is a valid umbrella term, even if amongst themselves they still use a more specific or more old-fashioned terminology.

I see "Latinx" as just another one of these linguistic trends. Maybe it will catch on, maybe it won't. For now, it's pretty well-established in HR departments of big American tech companies, so if you work in tech and you're talking about HR... Then it makes sense to use the term. In other contexts, well that's up to you.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in...

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#405

Post by lkrubner » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 3:27 AM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #357

caeril wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women are also currently well-represented in computing in Eastern Europe, Iran, China, and somewhat in Russia. None of these regions particularly care about "women in tech", and most of them are certifiably more patriarchal than any of the Western countries currently suffering from under-representation of women. One can conclude from facts on the ground that neither gender equality nor pro-diversity movements correla…

> We're not serious about tackling the problem. We are, however, quite good at grifting off the problem with proposals we know don't work. Could it be that women tend to care about stuff like a healthy work-life balance, and things like the 996.ICU working week can discourage them from applying? Whoops no, we've been told that's sexist wrongthink.

If women were afraid of long, brutal hours then they wouldn’t make up 52% of all new doctors.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#406

Post by staticman2 » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 3:34 AM UTC

slumdev wrote: post #338

staticman2 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel quite confident there are unpopular opinions from 10 years ago that would land you in trouble. "People used to say whatever they wanted" is hyperbole.

None of these statements were even controversial twenty years ago: "Sex and gender are the same; they are immutable; and there are only two of them." "Every child has a right to a mother and a father." "An individual can't change his race." "China is the world's worst human rights transgressor and currency manipulator."

The person upthread claimed nothing was controversial/ unpopular 10 years ago, the internet was some sort of free speech utopia.

I'm not sure how bringing up anti LGBT crowds typing things like "it's Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve" 20 years ago shows there was no controversy on the internet 10 or 20 years ago.

If you are correct that typing things like that was not controversial, it sounds like identifying as gay or LGBT was indeed controversial, putting false the claim that the internet was a free speech utopia where you could type anything and nobody would care.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#407

Post by rajin444 » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 4:21 AM UTC

mjsir911 wrote: post #371

rajin444 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We do have a diversity problem in tech, no doubt What is the correct racial / gender / sex breakdown for a tech industry with no diversity problems? I’m not sure how we can say we have a problem if we don’t know what the correct breakdowns are. We’re implementing all these solutions with no metric to measure success. That seems like a perfect system to create more discrimination.

I think this is a complicated question to answer, but I'll give it a shot: Within the tech industry , the correct proportion of minorities should be representative of your hiring pool (which is why I think they ask you to self report), or maybe even proportionally to "all qualified potential candidates", not sure how you'd measure that out. The problem is even within qualified potential candidates, many minorities ar…

> Within the tech industry, the correct proportion of minorities should be representative of your hiring pool

How do you know all your hiring pools should produce evenly like that? There’s a lot of factors (cultural, genetic) that need to be understood. It would be very strange for interest in any industry to be even across racial groups.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#408

Post by mastazi » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 5:32 AM UTC

alisonatwork wrote: post #404

mastazi wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't see this as something worth making a fuss about. I see it as a problem when it's used to identify a minority that overwhelmingly rejects this term as it's been noted elsewhere in this thread. That's something that is usually true of racial slurs. Of course, I'm not saying that Latinx is a racial slur, but that it shares this characteristic with racial slurs. > Languages change all the time based on h…

I am not sure where the evidence is that people "overwhelmingly reject" the term, or that anyone classifies it as a racial slur. The Pew study that is commonly cited[0] makes it clear that 76% of Latino or Hispanic identifying people have not even heard of the term. Only 3% use it, increasing to 7% amongst younger people (18-29) and 14% among young women. The study also notes that most people of that background prefe…

Yes I agree with you I guess we will see whether it will catch on or not. It just seems to me like a term made by an elite and then forced upon everyone else, rather than a term that grew in usage organically, from the bottom up. But maybe I'm wrong.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#409

Post by blindmute » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 6:14 AM UTC

azth wrote: post #156

sz4kerto wrote: post #54

The interesting thing is that the top of the funnel is still heavily tilted towards e.g. men. I'm not claiming whether this right or wrong, but this is how it is. Now good luck for your small company to hire minorities. It's extremely hard. I have talked to a recruiting agency recently about getting some engineers on board, and their first question was "Are you only looking for female engineers or are you OK with any…

> and their first question was "Are you only looking for female engineers or are you OK with any genders?" If that isn't outright blatant sexism, I don't know what is.

As someone who has been involved in the hiring track at a couple different places, you're absolutely right that it is sexism (and racism). All this shit ends up doing is making me very hesitant to visit a minority doctor or work with a minority contractor or whatever else. How can we ever know, with these kinds of hiring practices, if they are actually qualified?

"Anti-discrimination", if you behave rationally, must lead to further discrimination. I guess behaving rationally is not at the forefront of most of these peoples' minds.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#410

Post by blindmute » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 6:17 AM UTC

tester756 wrote: post #191

vmception wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> end exams are standarized and in my opinion fair there is actually a lot of ongoing discussion about that and there is no resolved consensus on your opinion

and what arguments are that this process is not fair? current approach challenges pure intellectual output, any other way implies bias which current system strongly avoids

The arguments are rationalized after the fact. Black people do worse on the exams, thus the exams must be unfair. The rest of the exercise is trying desperately to twist the data to support this, or when that fails, just say "systemic racism" and wave your hands vaguely.