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I'm not a Woman in Tech

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Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#261

Post by bbulkow »

aphextron wrote: post #2

>I want inclusivity, not exclusivity. Thank you. I find myself feeling the exact same way as a black man in this industry, and cringe at "minority only" events and clubs. We don't need token inclusion and separate praise for being "brave" and "fighting against the odds". We need a world where those things are irrelevant.

Sure, @aphextron. I think right-minded people will agree that there shouldn't be separate praise & calling-out @ labeling. As a white male, I cringe too.

Yet - how to we get to inclusion and equality? The path of simply being fair and color/gender blind - which is how I was taught to manage & behave in a work environment - doesn't seem to be working.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#262

Post by dang »

rootlocus wrote: post #106
dang wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what buf said. On HN, please be charitable when interpreting others, in the sense of responding to the strongest plausible interpretation of their meaning. It makes discussions more interesting and flamewars less likely.

Perhaps you can find a more charitable interpretation for my comment? If it's not what he said, then it doesn't apply to him. But if it does, it is my personal opinion that people can free themselves of the mindset that how others see them affects what they can or can not do.

If I were going to discuss the issue with you, I would! (or at least I hope I would). But my comments in threads like this are limited to the very different issue of what builds vs. destroys substantive conversation on HN.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#263

Post by jwr »

I'm so glad this article made it to HN front page. This is so important!

All kinds of "affirmative action" have two unintended side effects: 1) they emphasize the artificial divides, 2) they make people who are subject to affirmative action the subject of suspicion (did he/she get there on his/her own merit, or because he/she is a woman, black, or otherwise a minority?).

We should strive to stop emphasizing superficial differences between us. What your sexual identity is or what your skin color is should have no more bearing on things than what the color of your t-shirt is. That's what we should be aiming for.

Note that all that I wrote above would likely be received in different ways depending on whether I said I was black or white (or a man or a woman, pick your divide). It's another sign of how we're approaching the problem badly.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#264

Post by root_axis »

adventured wrote: post #182
richmarr wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm missing part of the thread, but who is attacking you? This is a discussion forum and people are discussing the opinions you shared... because that's what happens on discussion forums. Do you expect to only receive praise and agreement?

> Maybe I'm missing part of the thread, but who is attacking you? I'm not being attacked on HN / in this thread. HN tends to be about 10x more civil than public social media. I can't post any of what I said on here - none of which was very inflammatory - without practically enraging dozens of my Democrat/liberal/left-oriented (is there a PC term for that?) friends on eg Facebook. These are good people I'm talking abo…

> I can't post any of what I said on here - none of which was very inflammatory - without practically enraging dozens of my Democrat/liberal/left-oriented (is there a PC term for that?) friends on eg Facebook.

Do you not see the irony in this complaint? You're bemoaning the end of free-speech because people who disagree with you engage with the commentary that you broadcast on a platform for sharing speech. If you don't want to invite public commentary on your political opinions, don't broadcast them to the public. It doesn't matter what the opinion is, who is responding to it, or (short of threats) what they are saying in response, even if they are demonstrably and objectively incorrect; free-speech means other people are free to speak in response to your speech; period. And as an aside, if you want to limit the visibility of particular posts to a subset of individuals who respond within what you consider to be the acceptable range of discourse, Facebook does allow you to do this.

> These are good people I'm talking about, and they now lose their minds at the drop of a hat on discussing these topics (post Trump, it has all gone into another gear)

So what? Do you wish they would just stop expressing their opinions? Do you wish they'd just stop expressing their opinions on your posts? Do you wish they'd just be "more reasonable" in their opinions? Or is it more that you'd prefer they expressed their opinions in a way that makes you feel comfortable? What about their speech do you wish would change so that they would meet your standard for acceptable expression of their opinions?

> And if this conversation were being held on Twitter, I'd be getting death threats

This is a universal truth of the twitter cesspool regardless of the topic and has nothing to do with "PC" or "the left". I've seen plenty of rape and death threats directed towards feminists on twitter and I've seen my own kid addressed with death threats because of his opinion on PlayStation vs Xbox.

> I can't voice opinions about these subjects on public social media, as myself, without people being enraged about the discussion

Free-speech means you get to express your opinion, it doesn't mean you get to control how other people feel about the opinion you express.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#265

Post by dsfyu404ed »

emsy wrote: post #58
aphextron wrote: post #2

>I want inclusivity, not exclusivity. Thank you. I find myself feeling the exact same way as a black man in this industry, and cringe at "minority only" events and clubs. We don't need token inclusion and separate praise for being "brave" and "fighting against the odds". We need a world where those things are irrelevant.

I recently watched an answer on this by Steven Pinker as to why this "re-segregation" is happening. He basically says that legitimate movements don't stop as soon as they've reached their goal and at that point, they start to become regressive. Interestingly he provides an example that hasn't to do with any ism: child protection. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFnP5UUXuTk

Yup, if I recall corectly MADD had a problem with this recently where someone who was on board very early basically said "y'all are crazy, I'm out of here"

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#266

Post by EGreg »

EGreg wrote: post #34
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…

Here is the thing. You can have private opinions but when you express them publicly, the larger the audience the larger the chance that someone can totally misinterpret / take out of context / take IN context but write a diatribe against / etc. what you say. It could be someone who is outraged or someone who actually uses your words to further their ideological agenda against those who are outraged. In short, the mor…

I wanted to comment on a different factor on HN:

When I posted this, the upvotes went up to +3 points, and then steadily have been declining to -2 points.

No one has commented as to why they are downvoting or whatever. Fine. But I have noticed this on many of my other posts. And I wonder sometimes whether people actually have downvoting rings / clones on HN for topics/people/opinions! It seems to be free to downvote or upvote, so economically it would make sense that there are no repercussions.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#267

Post by meej »

"You’re victimising me when you do that. You’re indicating that it’s most likely I need special, extra support. Just because I’m female."

This is exactly how I felt during my Microsoft internship in 1998 when the internal women's organization, HOPPERS, decided to change their successful "intern buddy" program from opt-in to opt-out. (Well, not really opt-out, because until I got upset with them about it they clearly never considered that anyone might want to opt out.) Despite being only one of two women, both interns, on a team of 40 people, I never felt anything other than welcomed by my team and never felt singled out or harassed because of my gender. As such, I felt quite insulted by the assumption that I needed an "intern buddy" just because I'm a woman in a male-dominated field. A long email thread with the head of the organization ensued, and in the end I did not have the intern buddy that I never asked for in the first place.

I wholeheartedly support the self-organization of underrepresented groups to create safe spaces. However, when participation in such efforts is compelled by things like special awards for members of underrepresented groups in tech or being assigned an "intern buddy" without your knowledge or consent just because you are a member of an underrepresented group, that's not a safe space. That's a ghetto.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#268

Post by wumpus »

tarsinge wrote: post #211
Latty wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a short-sighted way to look at it. Yes, of course in an ideal world these things would be non-issues, but they aren't. People are discriminated against, and there are barriers from culture that won't change without intentional scruity. Of course, everyone should be able to just do their job and no more. If you aren't interested in being a role model or trying to push for that equality, that's absolutely fi…

> Things don't magically get fixed culturally and socially - that takes an integration. Not necessarily, I see 2 opinions on how to fix this : - An "active integration" like you explain, where the differences are highlighted (what we mostly see in the US). The idea is that by forcing the change we'll get used to it. - A post-racial/genre approach, where the differences are made as irrelevant as any physical trait, so…

Note that France is much, much worse at integrating immigrants than the US.

Also, you editorialized a lot in your description of "active integration".

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#269

Post by swampangel »

djsumdog wrote: post #224
richmarr wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the myth that women get paid less than men This is not true. On the experimental side, studies show candidates with female names are rated lower and recieve lower starting salaries to male candidates with identical CVs (see Moss-Racusin et al. 2012) On the statistical side, check out the data from; - the UK's ONS ( http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/media/blog/the-gender-pa... ), - the OECD ( https://data.oecd.org…

A study with Resumes/CVs is a fun thought experiment, but it's not reality. You need to compare actual wages in actual jobs. > You may have your pet theories as to what explains the statistic Please avoid this race to the bottom. I could be wrong. You could be wrong. No need to say I have "pet theories." The EPA once told DDT was perfectly safe to spray around humans. We are all wrong about something. "..under this m…

Each of your sources says there is still a gender wage gap in the range of 5-9% after controlling for education, etc.

You could say "the myth that women earn 77% of what men earn", but it is not correct to call the gender wage gap a myth.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#270

Post by openasocket »

djsumdog wrote: post #224
richmarr wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the myth that women get paid less than men This is not true. On the experimental side, studies show candidates with female names are rated lower and recieve lower starting salaries to male candidates with identical CVs (see Moss-Racusin et al. 2012) On the statistical side, check out the data from; - the UK's ONS ( http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/media/blog/the-gender-pa... ), - the OECD ( https://data.oecd.org…

A study with Resumes/CVs is a fun thought experiment, but it's not reality. You need to compare actual wages in actual jobs. > You may have your pet theories as to what explains the statistic Please avoid this race to the bottom. I could be wrong. You could be wrong. No need to say I have "pet theories." The EPA once told DDT was perfectly safe to spray around humans. We are all wrong about something. "..under this m…

> The Confidence Gap is a great article which talks about how people are more likely to get high wages if they have confidence and ask for it, and how women have trouble with portraying confidence without being perceived as bitchy

... So women are being paid less than men?

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