> Some people want these differences to be highlighted Those people are political activists.
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I'm not a Woman in Tech
61–70 of 621 posts
Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech
#62There's sexism in tech, and to address it you have to call it for what it is. I'm glad her experiences are such that she hasn't encountered these barriers, but other people have, and they need these words and spaces. Take my previous job. Women were objectified on Slack. A woman was groped, though she didn't report it out of concern for the repercussions. In meetings execs, male execs would only address/look at the m…
I think you're missing the point of the article. It's not that these things don't exist, or didn't exist for her -- of course they do. The point seems, to me at least, to be that in order to attempt to actually solve these problems you can't actively (or passively) try to exclude yourself from the people causing them. It's like politics -- if you separate yourself into "us" versus "them", how are you ever supposed to…
The women who report these issues has no obligation to solve the problems, they're simply pointing out that they exist (since for a long time, people wouldn't believe them).
Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech
#63Earlier 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…
That's my favorite quote from one my favorite characters of Red Mars : “It was a mistake to speak one's mind at any time, unless it perfectly matched your political purpose; and it never did.”
Which character was that? John? Frank? Man I loved that series.
Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech
#64There's sexism in tech, and to address it you have to call it for what it is. I'm glad her experiences are such that she hasn't encountered these barriers, but other people have, and they need these words and spaces. Take my previous job. Women were objectified on Slack. A woman was groped, though she didn't report it out of concern for the repercussions. In meetings execs, male execs would only address/look at the m…
I think you're missing the point of the article. It's not that these things don't exist, or didn't exist for her -- of course they do. The point seems, to me at least, to be that in order to attempt to actually solve these problems you can't actively (or passively) try to exclude yourself from the people causing them. It's like politics -- if you separate yourself into "us" versus "them", how are you ever supposed to…
But you also can't solve a problem if everyone pretends it doesn't exist.
Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech
#65Okay, so here is the thing: nobody wants to make the labels explicit, or to think about the minority or female labels. The reason that has come into style is because people have implicit associations and biases. And the theory is the best way to deal with them is to explicitly think about it. Example. You're hiring for a position. It is very technical. You see a bunch of candidates and then you just think some would…
Just a thought. What would happen if some big company implemented this practice and it led to number of hired women to be even less? Will they be praised because they did it, or attacked because they now have even less women? It's not a sarcasm/anything, just interested in your opinion.
Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech
#66I really agree with this. It has always disturbed me when a push for female developers is mentioned; a company should be focused on acquiring the best developers they can, not finding ones of a specific gender. This behaviour is literally an example of the problem it is trying to resolve. To the company I work for, I am a software engineer, not a man or woman.
> a company should be focused on acquiring the best developers they can, not finding ones of a specific gender
I respectfully disagree. This position doesn't take into account how existing gender biases affect those who are choosing which field to enter. If a field is primarily composed of men, then young women may not feel welcome in the field and may go elsewhere, meaning there are fewer good developers in the pool to begin with. This leads to lower quality overall in the field than if there were no bias.
It becomes a tragedy of the commons situation: if everyone hires the best regardless of gender, then we continue to repel half of the population. But if one company biases towards hiring women even if they're somewhat less skilled, then they are at a disadvantage to companies that don't do this. This is why things like hiring quotas and other forms of affirmative action exist.
Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech
#67Well said! I wish more people would think the same way.
I'm a long-time (10 years+), digital nomad. My younger daughter (currently 6) grew up mostly in Southeast Asia, but also in Europe and to a certain extent, all over the place (we have been traveling a lot (duh)).
It's interesting to observe that she has absolutely no concept of minority labels - for her, a Thai Muslim, a Balinese Hindu, an African-American classmate in Europe or an Arab (presumably Muslim) neighbor from Mauritania living in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, etc. are all just... people. Regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, religion, etc.
You could say 'she is a child, she will be spoiled over time' - I'm doing everything in my power to prevent the latter from happening, and don't agree with the former: she has the concept of sexes, skin colors, and differences in general (it's obvious from her questions that she does realize there ARE differences) - she just does not view them as differences in the sense we do (minority/majority, typical/weird, out-of-place, extreme, etc.).
To her, it just does not make sense to put people into boxes, tell them apart based on whatever criteria, etc.
!! HOWEVER !!
If she is met with the constant emphasis on how certain groups are different from the mainstream, she might develop the notion that there is a need for those boxes after all...
The irony of the situation is that the people that have the biggest power to steer her into this direction the most are coming from those minority groups!!!
It's way easier to shield her from the majority attacks (say, a Nazi remark from a white guy directed toward a black dude, or a guy saying shit like 'all Muslims are terrorists' etc.) by asserting 'never mind; they are assholes.'
However, if a member of a minority group is pouncing on the fact that he/she IS a member of a minority group and how everyone should realize this and do x/y/z then... how I am going to explain that to her in order to forego the creation of a minority label/box?
Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech
#68There's sexism in tech, and to address it you have to call it for what it is. I'm glad her experiences are such that she hasn't encountered these barriers, but other people have, and they need these words and spaces. Take my previous job. Women were objectified on Slack. A woman was groped, though she didn't report it out of concern for the repercussions. In meetings execs, male execs would only address/look at the m…
>I'm glad her experiences are such that she hasn't encountered these barriers, but other people have, and they need these words and spaces.
This is what I intended to post; thanks for sharing your experience. I'm a gay Indian male living in Canada. I have never experienced marginalization for being Indian, but at my previous engagement, I experienced quite a bit of harassment and discrimination for being queer. Until that point, I didn't think much of what female colleagues were going through but began to notice a slew of inappropriate remarks (most famously: "Are we sure he's not post-op? I thought only women get migraines." from the CEO) and discriminatory behaviours (boss 'rating' female colleagues with the general response of nervous laughter).
I think that you hit the nail on the head - many people have to either directly experience or observe these issues before they become legitimate. The author has been extremely fortunate.
Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech
#69Okay, so here is the thing: nobody wants to make the labels explicit, or to think about the minority or female labels. The reason that has come into style is because people have implicit associations and biases. And the theory is the best way to deal with them is to explicitly think about it. Example. You're hiring for a position. It is very technical. You see a bunch of candidates and then you just think some would…
>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...
Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech
#70I don’t want your ‘exclusively for women’ support groups I want inclusivity, not exclusivity. 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. You’re also indicating that “this is a women’s problem, best solved by women” but that deepens the divide, creating an “us” and a “them”. Just based on gender… This is the core point for me.…
It's as though the safe space that protects one person is the hostile environment which harasses another person. One's heaven is another's hell, to put it colloquially.