31–40 of 136 posts
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This reminds me of a joke. HR person comes to the boss and says "I've got two candidates for the job. Joe and Jane." The boss interrupts the HR person. "You know, I've had it with all this affirmative action and diversity crap. It's a waste of time. Let's just stop all this. I just want to interview the best qualified person." The HR person says "Ok, boss." The next day Jane shows up for the interview.
So... where's the joke?
She nailed it: it's a waste of my time to be invisible to half the people I need to talk to. The danger with women-only events is that they become perceived as a ghetto. By opening the doors to all, the entire community has a voice, which is as it needs to be if women are to be full, mainstream members of tech communities. There's a place for "safe spaces" if people are sharing extremely personal stories (e.g. sexual…
Her goal is to change society by introducing new ideas about how society works. In order to be most effective in doing this, she wants to talk to as many people as possible. In particular, if she does not go to all-inclusive events, she'll eliminate the very people who are in the best position to do something about it.
Women-only tech events have the goal of encouraging individual women to engage in technology. Their hypothesis is that there is something about society (either at-large, or localized to technology) itself that discourages women from engaging. So, instead of changing society as a whole, they create a new space which operates in a way that they think is more conducive to engaging women in technology.
I think that both approaches are valid and commendable. I think it's a mistake to confuse the two, or to say that having one means the other is not useful.
The reason I don't listen to women in tech presentations: 1. I'm basically not allowed to voice an opinion that isn't completely aligned with the feminist status quo (I believe in equality, fuck me right). 2. I'd rather learn how to build a better emberjs app. Or learn more about thorium. 3. Unlike the vast majority of problems, there are few concrete steps to be taken to correct the imbalances that do exist. Edit: I…
Good Lord you do sound like you have a lot of issues with women btw. Edit: My fault for not explaining further: Pasted just below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6045814
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Good Lord you do sound like you have a lot of issues with women btw. Edit: My fault for not explaining further: Pasted just below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6045814
When someone says they believe in equality, why do you then say they have an issue with women?
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The few female focused technology events that I have seen promoted locally give off the vibe of a private members club. They don't say it explicitly, but hint with words like attendees are welcome to take their partners etc. It just seems strange to me because other events have nothing like that style of language.
I think that says more about you than them.
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Good Lord you do sound like you have a lot of issues with women btw. Edit: My fault for not explaining further: Pasted just below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6045814
When someone says they believe in equality, why do you then say they have an issue with women?
The reason I don't listen to women in tech presentations: 1. I'm basically not allowed to voice an opinion that isn't completely aligned with the feminist status quo (I believe in equality, fuck me right). 2. I'd rather learn how to build a better emberjs app. Or learn more about thorium. 3. Unlike the vast majority of problems, there are few concrete steps to be taken to correct the imbalances that do exist. Edit: I…
The reason I don't listen to women in tech presentations I assume you mean "I don't listen to 'women in tech' presentations", rather than, "I don't listen to women, in tech presentations". The former is a political stance, the latter is excluding an entire sex for unknown reason, even if they are talking of emberjs or thorium.
A piece of advice from my father: If you have two ways to take something, take it the nice way.
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When someone says they believe in equality, why do you then say they have an issue with women?
I'm just guessing, but I would say maybe completely bonkers bullshit like "feminist status quo"?!
I spoke at SpainJS. It was a small conference, and unsurprisingly, most of the audience were from Spain. I obviously was not reaching "everyone," but so what? I reached 300 people, and the politics of why a conference was put together to appeal to Spaniards (is that a word?) is of no consequence to me. If I were a politician I'd attend Church pancake breakfasts and lunch with the Greek Business Chamber. Humans clump…
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When someone says they believe in equality, why do you then say they have an issue with women?
Sentence 1) I'm a victim. I'm oppressed by women who won't allow me to express my opinion because it differs from theirs. I believe in equality so I guess I'm implying they don't. Sentence 2) I'm uncomfortable talking about this so I'll try and say let's not talk about it at all and just focus on some abstract technology discussion. 3) We're doomed. You can't solve the problem. It's just the way it is so leave it the…
That's simply exercising a choice in what sort of conversation is worth your time.