The real losers are those that just wanted to go to a conference to talk about Ruby.
BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity
31–40 of 79 posts
Re: BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are several definitions of racism, one is essentially "making references to someone's race and implying everyone in that group is the same (in some attribute)", or more simply "anything based on race". Lots of people like this definition because it's a nice, simple and objective defintion and it means black people in the UK can be racist to white people, or that affirmative action is racist. I think this is the…
I like the core thinking behind your definition of racism (that we should all self analyse and take affirmative action to fix problems), but I don't think it's necessarily helpful, or even logical to define racism in this way. If we all went around with highly specialised individual definitions for emotive terms then we're not communicating effectively, and probably needlessly annoying each other. I'm not sure I agre…
Actually, most modern academic work on racism goes by his latter definition.
Re: BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Medical School? Like for doctors? I thought that was roughly 1:1, rather than 15:1 in tech? If the figures are well off and men are being systemetically disadvantaged due to their gender in medical school, then yes we should have affirmative active for it. I'm skeptical though because traditionally medicine has been heavily male dominated. Yes we should probably do something to get more men into child care & nursing…
http://www.bmj.com/content/328/7455/1545 White people are under represented relative to the population in UK medical schools in this study http://www.bmj.com/content/336/7647/748 Women out number men in western medical school Will we ever see drives to increase white males into this profession? I doubt it There are female interest groups to promote women in surgery, female only exam practice etc despite them making u…
> There are female interest groups to promote women in surgery, female only exam practice etc despite them making up the majority. Could there ever be male only revision sessions? Of course not, that would be sexist
Are women definitely the majority in surgery as opposed to medicine? My impression was that men dominated the surgical specialisms. This isn't really intended to be a knock on your argument but to ask you to double check this point.
In answer to the general point I have heard discussion of ways to encourage men to become Primary School teachers although that might have been more to balance out the role models for young children than being a matter of pure justice.
Re: BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree: it could have happened in many Western countries. The problem with a 'it's political correctness gone mad!' argument is it ignores the context in which those laws were enacted. Racism and sexism were systematic and endemic in the UK during much of the 20th century. You say that "political correctness had taken hold in local government by the early 1980s", but you don't mention that the reason for this was…
> Hate speech and anti-discrimination laws have drastically improved the lives of millions of people in the UK. Cause and effect, dude. This happened in the same time frame in virtually every single developed country on earth with different ways of approaching the issue. Chances are that being more tolerant was simply just an idea whose time had come.
Certainly true, but the switch doesn't simply flip overnight. Take the US: the impact the Civil Rights Act had is immeasurable.
Laws can and do cause drastic change. I think we could safely say that if hypothetically the supreme court was to find prohibiting same-sex marriage as unconstitutional the impact would be far more immediate and greater than legislating on a state-by-state ad hoc basis.
Re: BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
"If your only concern with a conference is about the panel diversity then perhaps the conference is not for you." This sounds like a straw man argument. You've created the fictional idea of a person whose interest in a conference is solely the diversity of the panel, as if there are people who don't even care what the conference is about or have any idea of the subject matter; they just like seeing different kinds of…
well, this is exactly what I get from all those who are complaining. To me, they seem more interested in sex/gender/race of the speakers than WHAT is going to be presented.
Except that the point of the conference was to present the audience with itself as a community. If the conference was only about the talks, then they might as well just make a YouTube channel and ask people to send them videos of talks.
Re: BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Political Correctness is great if you are a minority. It means you have similar rights to the powerful group. As a gay man, I know I can mention the gender of my spouse (male!) in a workplace environment without being worried about being fired (for example). Straight people have always (more or less) been able to mention their spouse in the workplace without fear of repercussion. Now I can too! Political Correctness…
That's not political correctness, that's anti-discrimination. Political correctness is "Seasons Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas" for fear of offending non-Christians. It's idiotic because for those not celebrating Christmas, indeed those that might be offended by mentions of Christmas, there is no season to celebrate. Don't send them a card . "Seasons greetings" is not "culture neutral", it's a code for Christ…
This can become a no true scotsman argument. What's the difference between political correctness and anti-discrimination? Is saying "spouse" or "partner" (instead of "wife") to a man you know is married politically correct or anti-discrimination?
Mostly PC is not about avoiding "offence", but about ensuring under-represented minority is not felt left out purely for being in that group. Despite what right wing tabloid newspapers print, very few people are actually offended by the mention of the word Christmas. Instead saying "Happy Christmas" implies you aren't thinking about the non-christians, and/or that there is nothing wrong with not thinking about non-christians. Saying "Seasons Greetings" is a code for "We are aware there are non-christians here, and we want to let them know we think you're just as welcome here as christians".
Re: BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are several definitions of racism, one is essentially "making references to someone's race and implying everyone in that group is the same (in some attribute)", or more simply "anything based on race". Lots of people like this definition because it's a nice, simple and objective defintion and it means black people in the UK can be racist to white people, or that affirmative action is racist. I think this is the…
The problem is that having conference speakers who happen to be disproportionate in race does not immediately translate to racism. To say that the composition of a group of speakers is "designed to maintain & reinforce the institutionalised power structure among races" simply based off of the proportion of races of people in the panel is a logical leap that is not necessarily warranted.
If you're in a under-represented group seeing that "all people who do Ruby/Tech/IT/knitting/nursing/$ACTIVITY are members of $OTHER_GROUP" can be just another reminder that your group shouldn't be here, that you'll stick out, that you'll be the different one here.
We have numerous expressions in the English language saying that lots of little things can build up: The straw that broke the camel's back, death by a thousand cuts. Let's try to get rid of as many straws as we can, and get rid of as many cuts as we can.
Re: BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity
#38I guess it was bound to happen. Does anyone know if it's real or not : http://awmconf.github.com/
Re: BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://www.bmj.com/content/328/7455/1545 White people are under represented relative to the population in UK medical schools in this study http://www.bmj.com/content/336/7647/748 Women out number men in western medical school Will we ever see drives to increase white males into this profession? I doubt it There are female interest groups to promote women in surgery, female only exam practice etc despite them making u…
> There are female interest groups to promote women in surgery, female only exam practice etc despite them making up the majority. Could there ever be male only revision sessions? Of course not, that would be sexist Are women definitely the majority in surgery as opposed to medicine? My impression was that men dominated the surgical specialisms. This isn't really intended to be a knock on your argument but to ask you…
encourage men to become Primary School teachers although that might have been more to balance out the role models for young children than being a matter of pure justice.
It can be both.
Re: BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity
#40This kind of reminds me about affirmative action. This is an oxymoronic action where people attempt to reverse race/religious/sexual discrimination effects by discriminating by race/religion/sex, but in a "positive" way.
This can even apply where no discrimination was intended until the do-gooders come along and attempt to apply their own reality distortion fields to a situation.