Diversity and Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Diversity and Startups

#31

Post by tomasien » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 7:24 PM UTC

Castlereagh wrote: post #29

People who are not white males... I know it's hard to believe, but relative to their proportion in the workforce white males are slightly under represented in tech. Additionally, people of color are dramatically over represented. It's easy to march under the banner of "men in tech shouldn't act like sexist jerks"—what kind of sexist jerk could object to that?—but the more accurate slogan "we need many fewer Asian mal…

Are they under-represented in terms of being founders/CEOs/Execs? I don't think I've ever seen that argued.

Re: Diversity and Startups

#32

Post by dang » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 7:25 PM UTC

zorpner wrote: post #13

dang wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The other half is that most submissions about gender/diversity get flagged to death very consistently, which make it difficult to have any meaningful discussion about these topics. It isn't user flagging that makes meaningful discussion difficult. It's the discussers, unfortunately, who are doing that. I wonder if you may have cause and effect reversed here. Also, it isn't true that most of these submissions get fl…

Do people who routinely flag stories about diversity in tech have their flagging privileges revoked?

We don't really revoke flagging privileges much anymore; mostly just for obvious abuse.

Are you wondering whether revoking selected users' flagging privileges would change the balance on these stories? I doubt it would. We're talking about a larger-scale response than measures like that can really address. The community is divided in at least two ways: on the issues themselves, and also on the HN discussions about them.

Re: Diversity and Startups

#33

Post by tomjen3 » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 7:25 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #20

tomjen3 wrote: post #14

>Debating how to fix it is important, but debating whether or not sexism actually exists trivializes the problem in a toxic way You are walking into an extremely dangerous territory here. If reasonable people can disagree with you on the points you are not willing to debate (such as the widespread existence of sexism in tech[1]) or (worse) that you find morally wrong to debate then those reasonable people will not co…

One of the ways that people slow down progress, in startups or in society, is by resisting unreasonably at every step in a series of steps in an argument. If you want to debate that, that's fine, just do it somewhere else. It appears that Y Combinator has accepted the ample evidence of the presence of sexism in tech, and is focusing discussion away from existence, and towards the next necessary steps. Rehashing the e…

>One of the ways that people slow down progress, in startups or in society, is by resisting unreasonably at every step in a series of steps in an argument.

They key here is _unreasonable_. I do not believe it unreasonable to demand evidence to the extend and nature of sexism in tech (as I have seen no formal study on it at all).

Frankly all I am seeing here are the very methods described in What you can't say being used to silence a debate, because some groups use it to run their own agenda.

Re: Diversity and Startups

#34

Post by jiggy2011 » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 7:26 PM UTC

Castlereagh wrote: post #29

People who are not white males... I know it's hard to believe, but relative to their proportion in the workforce white males are slightly under represented in tech. Additionally, people of color are dramatically over represented. It's easy to march under the banner of "men in tech shouldn't act like sexist jerks"—what kind of sexist jerk could object to that?—but the more accurate slogan "we need many fewer Asian mal…

Do you have any figures on tech as a whole? The thing that I'm never sure about in these discussions (on any on HN really) is whether people are talking about "tech" to include people working 9-5 in IT at a bank somewhere or whether it really means "venture capital backed startups operating out of California".

Re: Diversity and Startups

#35

Post by clairity » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 7:29 PM UTC

as a half-asian female founder with a diverse team (mexican, german), this is a intimate issue for me. i'm really glad to see the topic being discussed, but it really is the first small step.

sexism & racism isn't something that people do consciously. that's why there's such a backlash against it because most of us can honestly say that we're not consciously sexist or racist.

these prejudices are systemic biases that flow through all of us. it takes hard introspection and compensatory mechanisms from each person to address the structural underpinnings that create the biases. it's really hard. as sama notes, the discussion needs to move towards these underlying mechanisms, rather than getting mired in the stale discussion of whether prejudices exist or not (they do).

Re: Diversity and Startups

#36

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 7:31 PM UTC

Castlereagh wrote: post #29

People who are not white males... I know it's hard to believe, but relative to their proportion in the workforce white males are slightly under represented in tech. Additionally, people of color are dramatically over represented. It's easy to march under the banner of "men in tech shouldn't act like sexist jerks"—what kind of sexist jerk could object to that?—but the more accurate slogan "we need many fewer Asian mal…

[deleted]

Re: Diversity and Startups

#37

Post by moe_14 » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 7:31 PM UTC

_pius wrote: post #4

Glad the issue's being addressed, but sad that it dodges race almost completely. Making diversity all about gender is effectively playing the topic on "easy mode." Kinda lame, honestly.

Came here to say this. I applaud the stance on sexism, but what a mis-titled post.

Re: Diversity and Startups

#38

Post by dominotw » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 7:32 PM UTC

Castlereagh wrote: post #29

People who are not white males... I know it's hard to believe, but relative to their proportion in the workforce white males are slightly under represented in tech. Additionally, people of color are dramatically over represented. It's easy to march under the banner of "men in tech shouldn't act like sexist jerks"—what kind of sexist jerk could object to that?—but the more accurate slogan "we need many fewer Asian mal…

I know Indians are overrepresented to their relative proportion in general population ( ~1%)

Re: Diversity and Startups

#39

Post by kika » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 7:33 PM UTC

Let's say I have a magic wand which will make all -isms go away in one waving. I waved, -isms went away and now what? Where do I hire skilled black female CoffeeScript developers? How many of them do actually exist? I'm insider/outsider - I live in the US now, in Bay Area, but I went to school in the country which doesn't even exist anymore, while my daughter goes to the one of the best middle schools around here. And I see her genuine interest in math, she's among a group of 'popular' girls in the school, where the popularity is judged not (only) by the looks or clothes, but to what "Math Honor", "Advanced Geometry", etc class the student was admitted to. So it's not just her, there's a solid group of (mostly white though) girls interested in math and other similar topics. Where these girls disappear later? I understand that I'll learn this in a hard way later, but if there're valid theories out there, may be I'd be able to prevent her from losing interest in math, special video effects, photography, optics, etc.

Something tells me it's not just our (white tech male population) sexism, it's a problem rooted deeper.

Re: Diversity and Startups

#40

Post by tzs » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 7:33 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #18

_pius wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's really hard to address everything in one post, and i think the issues around gender and race in tech are pretty different. Sure, but you clearly didn't call the piece "Gender and Startups" or "Sexism and Startups." Presumably the broader title was chosen deliberately. For instance, I'd push back on an essay called "YC and Startups" if it only mentioned one company in one batch, but with a quick token sentence ab…

What's the evidence that sexism is a more tractable problem than racism? Just curious...

If someone doesn't want to consider women for a job, it probably means that they think women have some inherent unsuitableness for that particular job. They aren't aggressive enough for sales, or don't have the upper body strength for landscaping, or some such. They don't mind hiring women for jobs that they think women can do (secretary). They probably have women friends, date or marry women, and so on.

If someone doesn't want to consider blacks for a job, it probably means they don't like black people, and they don't care if a particular black person can do the particular job. They don't want black people around for any job.

The former is more tractable because it involves changing someone's attitude about specific objections about people that they have no general objection to. The latter requires changing a general objection.