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I'm not a Woman in Tech

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Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#111

Post by problems »

nazgul17 wrote: post #94
problems wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not dead - you can speak your mind - just you pay a social price to do so. Free speech, even in the most libertarian concept I have doesn't prevent other people's right to criticize your speech - in fact, I'd say it encourages just that. Speak out against stuff you don't like rather than censoring it. Ultimately it's an effect of large, diverse communities and deep political divisions. If you want to have political d…

Social media can become mass media, and it's not up to you to decide if and when that happens. In the past, you could just vocalise your opinion, and it would not survive many hops in the real-world social network. So yeah, you can express your opinion, but your chance of being crucified for it has risen significantly.

If you express your opinion on a private forum instead of a public one, you're much less likely to be crucified for it. I can make nasty off-handed comments to my friends in private chat all day, with very little fear that it'll see the light.

Ultimately sheer quantity of people is the bigger problem than anything else.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#112

Post by DavidWoof »

As a straight white male, this type of thing has never affected me directly.

But as a programmer who's now in his 50s, I'm starting to get a very tiny taste of the same emotions. There was an article on HN just a few days ago about "why you should hire older programmers" which I felt to be deeply, deeply offensive in a way I found hard to articulate. Why are you putting labels on me? Why are you pretending there's something special about this aspect of me that's completely irrelevant to my tech skills? It really bothered me, and I couldn't figure out how to respond to it.

I couldn't imagine being inundated with this stuff on a daily basis. If there were "older programmer" meetups or if HR were reaching out to me to put me in outreach materials or if I had to read articles like this all the time, I honestly don't know well how I'd deal with it. It's easy to deal with the occasional age discrimination in the industry (which is definitely out there), but it's actual this other aspect of it that I find infuriating.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#113

Post by humanrebar »

mrexroad wrote: post #46
CM30 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, agreed. I still remember seeing a bunch of college students pushing for 'segregation' at university because it would 'help minorities' and thinking "Wasn't that exactly what we got rid of because it was horribly racist 50 years or so ago?" It feels like all these 'minority only' events and clubs and what not are going straight back to the bad old days. Just from the opposite 'side' of the political spectrum.

Opinions about -only events aside, there's a difference between a homogeneous group of people choosing to be together, and a group of individuals who were barred from using specific toilets, water fountains, seats, education opportunities, jobs, etc. Comparing segregation to voluntary -only events is a gross misunderstanding of how things were.

I think you're missing qualifiers there because men-only social clubs, for example, have been frowned upon for quite some time now.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#114

Post by rdtsc »

There is an interesting idea that I like there and that is that it's not ok to talk for people or assume they are victims or part of some victimized class unless they also identify as such, or they make it a part of their identity.

I imagine it would be rather annoying trying to tell someone about a cool algorithm you figured out or implemented and instead they come back and say "Oh but how has your status as a woman played into this algorithm, did you write it because you were oppressed..." and in reality they really just want to talk about the cool algorithm.

It would be like someone imposing their assumption about me being an immigrant and assuming that is the primary part of my identity and somehow that struggle or issues I've had because of it are front and center and color everything I do in life. There is a different issue, if I come out and say "yes, this shapes everything I do, I want to talk about it, and so on". It would feel patronizing, and even more so if they'd somehow used it to push some kind of agenda.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#115

Post by opportune »

___another wrote: post #69
BearGoesChirp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now you reread the resume only focusing on the actual skills and you find that some of the people you rejected have stronger technical skills but you unconsciously downplayed it because of the female name. Wasn't there a recent study that removing names led to the percentage of men being interviewed increasing?

a recent example: a github conference on diversity, see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/6f1a2d/cult...

The example itself is interesting (and truly very revealing) but I kind of wish you hadn't included that reddit thread with it. It was weird seeing some pretty cringey replies get so heavily upvoted. Perhaps it's just the increased anonymity of reddit that's the cause, or the particular demo browsing that subreddit.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#118

Post by koolba »

tertius wrote: post #41
treehau5 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm left believing that my only choice is to have no opinion. I learned this lesson a long time ago from the role models in my life that ended up getting burned because of having a differing viewpoint from whatever societal winds were blowing. I, and I realize probably cynically, now only elect to share, post, tweet, or whatnot whatever only can positively benefit my "brand". Sometimes I have to act like my own PR…

This is called self-censorship. On the one hand it is probably good for your "brand" on the other hand, authenticity is a key factor in having a strong brand. No-win situation...

> On the one hand it is probably good for your "brand" on the other hand, authenticity is a key factor in having a strong brand.

That's the difference between marketing and advertising. Done well, your audience won't even realize you're marketing to them.

If you do the public face just right, people will think you authentically share those same views in private.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#120

Post by adventured »

mercurysmessage wrote: post #103
adventured wrote: post #96

edit Why did my comment get dislodged from being underneath another comment that I was replying to? It's now showing as a stand-alone comment under the thread. ------------------------------------------- I'm doing a similar thing. I stopped posting anything personal on Facebook about a year ago and I never post to Twitter. I'll never go back to posting personal thoughts on social media, not under any circumstances. I…

I don't think you are approaching this right. You are painting an entire group of people under the same brush... Also, feminism is promoting equality.

I disagree that feminism is promoting equality.

I think I'm approaching it exactly right.

Your response is conceptually exactly why I no longer post opinions as myself on social media now. If this were a personal discussion on Facebook or Twitter, the left's censorship/control attack wave would be rolling in right now, calling me countless labels (instead, here you'll just get downvotes, your life won't be ruined and your business won't be threatened with boycott for not being in favor of eg illegal immigration).

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