Women Engineers on the Rampant Sexism of Silicon Valley

I hear a lot of talks about people just being hired for diversity, that's not helping. (the talk and the action)

I have to ask this, but isn't it possible that the media's obsession with sexism in the tech is backfiring? I think the best thing we could do to alleviate sexism would be to bring more women into the industry. How do we expect to do that if the impression they're getting is that it's filled with mysogynistic pigs and creeps? I'm not saying this stuff should be swept under the rug, but many tech companies have gone to great lengths to accommodate women (as they should), much more than in other industries dominated by men. If women continue to get the impression that the tech industry is hostile to them, then they're going to continue to prefer (possibly less lucrative) careers in other industries already dominated by women, which is just going to make the problem worse.

I know it sucks that women sometimes have to deal with people telling them how great it is that they're an engineer, or with people asking them about their family's background (I'm joking, I know it can be worse than that), but the tech industry can still be a really great place for women to work.

I disagree with Hitlers perspective on Jews, even if I don't understand it.

Of course one could come with arguments that weaken/counter my disagreement, but I will still disagree.

If you see the world as good and I see it as evil, we have opposing perspectives and I would say I disagree with you.

Hitler's perspective on Jews is irrelevant and not really a topic of debate. His actions in being the figurehead for those who orchestrated the holocaust are objectively terrible, arguable and measurable.

I don't see the world as good, I see it as a collection of billions of people who all see things slightly differently which is why I don't attempt to seek truth in a viewpoint. There is truth in facts, truth in science, truth in that which is measurable and objectively quantifiable. The rest is entirely open for interpretation by everyone, and the best way to entire you have the most complete interpretation is to get as many viewpoints from as large a variety of people as possible, which is the fundamental idea behind diversifying, for example, a marketing team. That way you don't do something stupid like use an important, high ranking member of a Native American tribe as a football mascot.

So, I am a white dude who was pretty skeptical about the whole microaggression thing. But I changed my mind.

My girlfriend is biracial and just watching how strangers interact with her taught me a lot about the state of race relations in this country.

Microaggressions (I am going to abbreviate this as MA) are more like micro-transgressions. In the vast majority of cases, the people who commit MA are not seeking to hurt the recipient of the MA, they are likely trying to be pleasant and friendly. But there is something about the interaction where the person expresses a subconscious bias that the target is not normal.

A great example, is the question "What are you?" How often are you asked this question? Me, I've never been asked this outside of Halloween. My GF gets this question a lot, at the grocery store, at the dog park, etc. Why? What does it mean? Why is it hurtful?

The questioner never means anything bad by the question. It's honest curiosity.

Based on the conversation that follows (a nice chat about our respective ancestries) and the fact that I never get asked this question, they are really asking, "are you black, Pacific islander, asian, or what?" but have learned that that is a rude question.

Why is this an unpleasant experience? It is "othering". Yeah, what does that mean? Well, it means that it is inherently exclusionary. It means that the asker of the question sees you as fundamentally different. And not in a good "let's celebrate our differences"-way, but in a hidden-deep-in-our-limited-monkey-brain "is this person safe" kind of way. It means "are you going to mug me" and "do I have to worry about saying something racist that my white friends would give me a pass on". It means "Are you one of us?" with the presumed answer of "no". For most of us, all of this is subconscious.

People who get asked "what are you?" regularly know what the implicit questions are, even if the person asking them doesn't. They questions feel aggressive, but they aren't outright, in-your-face, aggression.

Ask yourself, honestly, when you meet a white person who speaks with a local accent, how soon do you ask about their heritage?