The Other Side of Diversity In Tech 441
An anonymous reader writes: We frequently discuss diversity in the tech industry, and all the initiatives getting underway to encourage women and minorities to enter (and stay in) the field. The prevailing theme is that this will be good for companies, good for innovation, and good for the future of technology. While that's true, greater representation will also be good for the individuals themselves. Erica Joy has been in IT for a long time, and she's worked in many of the industry hotspots. She's written an insightful article on how the lack of diversity has affected her throughout her career. An excerpt: "Unfortunately, my workplace is homogenous and so are my surroundings. I feel different everywhere. I go to work and I stick out like a sore thumb. ... I feel like I've lost my entire cultural identity in effort to be part of the culture I've spent the majority of the last decade in."
Assumptions? (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary says that increasing diversity will be good for innovation and technology, with no stated reason as to why. So I'll ask: why will increasing diversity be good for technology and innovation?
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The answer is right in the summary. In a homogeneous environment anyone who is different stands out like a sore thumb. If here is moire diversity then differences become less noticeable.
There are other benefits. Have you been living under a rock for the last 30 years or did you not hear that it is generally accepted that monoculture is bad for business and that having a variety of skills, experience, backgrounds and ideas is better?
Re:Assumptions? (Score:4, Insightful)
Diversity of that kind has nothing to do with sex or race however. It has more to do with different ways of thinking about things.
Five white guys that are all between the ages of 35 and 45 are not necessarily similar.
They could for one thing be from very different cultures. They could also have completely different work backgrounds. They might have completely different beliefs about everything. They might has distinct psychologies.
This obessession with sex and race quotas are counter productive if your goal is better work. If you want greater diversity then look for a diversity of talent, mentality, and psychology.
I am for example a white man. However, I have a very unusual psychological profile. I am literally 1 in 100,000. Am I unique or superior? No. But I am unusual. I experience the world in a different way. I interact with people in a different way. My value systems are different.
And on any project I am on, my distinctiveness arrives at options and conclusions that no one else considers. Are my ideas always good? No. Sometimes they're terrible. But they're different.
Now... how does dumping me for someone that is more normal then I am... but checks some bullshit diversity box helping anything?
It doesn't. Stop wasting society's time with this horseshit.
Discrimination is bad. Prejudice is bad. Bigotry is bad. And that includes judging people that you don't know by the color of their skin or their gender.
You don't know me. You don't get to say my work environment lacks diversity because there are too many white guys in it. You don't know what that even means.
I would literally change my race tomorrow to anything you like... so that everyone only saw that race when they looked at me. It would only help me. That's a fact. I am clever, educated, and have proven job skills. You give me some race or gender check box next to my resume and I'm a golden fucking god.
Discriminated White dude (Score:3, Insightful)
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How would that go?
"Oh dear, these jobs are on sale, just like shoes!" or "Yo dog, wanna put that application in da mailbox"?
Really, it sounds ridiculous and reeks of positive discrimination to even attempt to tailor job ads to a certain race or gender.
The problem isn't job ads. The problem lies within the preconceptions of people who have the power to decide between candidates.
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I had the impression that job websites are gender and race neutral, I also had the impression that if a job ad isn't gender and race neutral, that would be illegal.
As for "publications for professional women" - that's less than "publications for professionals", isn't it?
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It's about making sure that you advertise in a way that attracts more women or non-white candidates to apply, and create a work environment that doesn't make life hard for them.
It would be illegal to encourage more whites and males to apply and therefore it should be illegal to encourage more females and non-whites. Discrimination is discrimination. What ought to be done is to advertise so that the best people apply and evaluate everybody equally regardless of race, gender, religion, etc.
In reality, though, woman are always going to be slightly less preferred because employers have to consider that health insurance is going to cost more and that they may decide to have children
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National origin was just an example.
You can have 5 guys of the same age and the same race from the same town that all grew up together and are life time friends and yet have diversity.
I am not my race.
I am not my gender.
I am not my age.
I am not my place of birth.
If you think you can sum up a person's soul simply by listing what the US census bureau collects then you know nothing of people.
Lets say a woman likes a man. Can I replace that man with another man of the same race, age, nationality, and body mass
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That establishes why it's good for the people who are different. It does nothing to show why it's good for technology and innovation.
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Moreover, our team was predominantly black. I could relate to my teammates without having to conform.
Why do you find black people easier to relate to than white / asian / whatever people? Why do you not feel that you have to conform when surrounded by them?
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To me it's obvious it would ( -- this is the right verb ) be good for technology and innovation because you can't expect one demographic to have all the ideas worth pursuing.
Re:Assumptions? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, of course, that would be it, because an all white society is incapable of existing without millions of non-whites to 'improve' it, correct?
Genocide is an international war crime.
Re:Assumptions? (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. I think though there is something of a business case in that, once you've got a good core team (if the team is large enough) there's something to be gained by broadening the experiences of new team members.
But that's not really my point. It's more about 'why is diversity a good thing?' And it's a good thing becuase you don't want to exclude good people for arbitrary reasons.
Now if you start from today, there's only so much you can do, because a great many potentially very good people have already been excluded. They were excluded by parents, teachers, the media and every other influence that helps to convince girls (and perhaps ethnic minorities, I'm not sure) that tech is not for them. I don't think it's done deliberately, it's just where we are.
I think I'm beginning to see that the reason what I wrote was seen as trolling might be because it was assumed I was being politically correct?
In fact it's a business case issue for me. You want the best people for your industry, you want the largest pool of talent from which to recruit. To get the largest pool of talant you want schools pushing those with an aptitude for engineering towards the topics at which they excel (assuming that's what the individual wants).
If you're (inadvertantly) steering a future mathematics prodigy into humanities because 'girls don't do that sort of thing' you're harming everyone.
That's what diversity is about - not excluding people based on race, gender or sex. And that surely is not controversial?
Re:Assumptions? (Score:5, Funny)
As an Englishman, I have to say: What kind of savage doesn't drink tea?
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*raises hand*
Sorry. Don't drink coffee either. I was raised a bit as a Mormon (family converted about the time I expect you'd start drinking tea, coffee, alcohol; around 14) and never got the taste as a "growing up" experience. The few times I've tried alcohol over the past 10 years, I find it still tastes like medicine and don't get the appeal. "Can you taste the woodiness?" No, really it just burns and tastes like I'm trying to cure a cold.
[John]
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Native Americans saw an increase in diversity in their country from the 1500s on. A lot of good it did them.
You still didn't answer the question.
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Workplace diversity for the sake of diversity is a stupid idea
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You got it exactly right. Different backgrounds yield different perspectives on any challenge that faces the team. This leads to more broadly considered solutions that have a better chance of working well.
From reading her essay, I gather that Erica's problem is that she doesn't seek diversity. Earlier in her career she sought to homogenize herself with her co-workers. Now she seeks homogeneity with "her type." Both approaches are ultimately unsuccessful.
You have to take an interest in the lives of the folks
Re:The answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Because people who know different stuff know different stuff.
"Hello Team! This is our new team member, Ug. Ug is actually an unfrozen stone-age caveman who we brought in to add some diversity and new ideas to the development of our game. Now, keep in mind that Ug doesn't know anything about programming, or games, or how to use a toilet, or anything like that. But we're hoping that his fresh new perspective can really help us rethink some of our cultural assumptions about game development. So we need you to treat him as an equal and really listen to what he has to say. Are there any questions?"
"Yeah, what does Ug think of the game so far?"
"Well, when we showed it to him, he screamed, attacked the monitor, and yelled something about a vision from the thunder gods."
"So we should strive to make the game more sensitive to those who may not understand how electricity works?"
"EXACTLY! And we should probably also avoid any sudden movements in the game. Sudden movements REALLY seem to make him uncomfortable. Do you have anything to add, Ug?"
"Ug happy to be part of team tribe, Ug honor team chief, no kill his son or take his woman."
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In the US the population is mobile and diverse plus typically jobs are awarded based on merit.
In North Korea most of that does not apply.
Personally I'm backing the diverse US option instead of the North Korean "everyone must fit in" approach.
How do you like it presented that way? Does it bypass enough baggage to avoid silly blackface comedy?
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People pick up useful stuff if you don't have a monoculture. Silicon Valley would not have succeeded if they had nothing other than University of California graduates.
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Seriously..it is a fucking JOB, you go in, you get it done, you leave. No one gives a fuck about your self esteem, or how you stick out in a crowd or your feelings.
We've been teaching this shit to kids so much in past years, and catering to their ever needs, and helicoptering around them so much to protect them from people that might NOT make friends with them or even *gasp* outright hurt the
Now that's weird (Score:2)
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There are only a very small minority of people in the world with my ethnic background. In fact, probably only one. Therefore I should
The new progressive (Score:5, Insightful)
We frequently discuss diversity in the tech industry, and all the initiatives getting underway to encourage women and minorities to enter (and stay in) the field. The prevailing theme is that this will be good for companies, good for innovation, and good for the future of technology.
There was a time when we said that race and sex don't matter. That you should be inclusive, at least in the sense of not being prejudiced, because its right and moral to not judge based on these attributes, which are uncontrolled and doled out at birth. Now we say otherwise, that they do matter? Which is it? Is it irrelevant that you were born with a certain set of physiological characteristics, or are people truly intrinsically different? Because here I thought I was being progressive by thinking the latter notion, in whatever form you wish to give it, was what we were fighting against. I miss the old progressives. The new ones have stared into the abyss so long they're becoming part of the problem.
Re:The new progressive (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a time when we said that race and sex don't matter. That you should be inclusive, at least in the sense of not being prejudiced, because its right and moral to not judge based on these attributes, which are uncontrolled and doled out at birth. Now we say otherwise, that they do matter? Which is it?
It's neither, your assumptions are wrong. It was never that race and gender didn't matter, it has always been that all races and all genders are equally valuable as human beings and equally worth having in organizations.
Maybe you were confused by that Michael Jackson song where he said "it don't matter if you're black or white". What he meant was that neither is a disadvantage, not that your heritage and culture are meaningless.Clearly at the time most black people had very difference experiences and opportunities in life to white people, generally speaking. He was talking about outright racism and discrimination.
Fortunately we are mostly past the racism and sexism now, but there are still cultural problems. The organizations mentioned in TFA are probably not sexist, they don't actively discriminate on gender, it's just that the work environment is disadvantageous for women.
To be absolutely clear, hiring should still be done on merit. It's just that companies should try to advertise jobs in ways that attract more female applicants, and create a work environment that facilitates them. Think of it like not putting in a ramp for wheelchair access. It's not actively discriminating like putting up a sign saying "no cripples" would be, but it puts disabled people off working there because they either have to struggle or keep asking for special equipment to be installed just for them.
Understand now?
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Gah, I could have been clearer and said: "What he meant was that neither is inferior or inherently less able".
It's hard work when your audience is hostile and will deliberately mis-interpret everything that isn't crystal clear and unequivocal.
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Well said AC, thanks.
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It was never that race and gender didn't matter, it has always been that all races and all genders are equally valuable as human beings and equally worth having in organizations.
If we're all equally worth having in organizations, then a 70%, 80%, or 100% white male organization is equally valuable to a more diverse organization.
they don't actively discriminate on gender, it's just that the work environment is disadvantageous for women.
Or perhaps it's just advantageous for men. So since men and women are equally worth having in your organization, why does this matter?
If the work environment becomes less advantageous for men and more advantageous for women, then fewer men will apply and more women will apply, and your mix will be different, but you haven't actually improved the situation be
Re:The new progressive (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't hear many people joking about this shit. They're putting serious pressure on the tech companies to be more "diverse". Or rather, the tech companies are tending to do it themselves rather than let someone preempt the discussion, because they're terrified of being labeled as racist or sexist. The fact remains that there are very few qualified black or female applications for many of core tech jobs, like those that actually program software.
Instead, as a reaction, these companies will likely favor less represented demographics in non technical roles to get their overall numbers to balance out, so that they can claim to be more "diverse". The result? If you're a white male, good luck getting an HR or designer job at a tech company. Oh, except for the ones at the top of the power structure, because... well, we can't sacrifice all *those* jobs to balance the numbers, of course.
Look, I'm not trying to complain about the "poor white male". It's not like there won't be opportunities elsewhere. It's just the absurdity of failing to see what's pretty obvious to everyone except those who are trying to stay within politically correct lines. For whatever reason, many more women than men are simply not interested in or pursuing careers such as software development. Newsflash: there are also very fewer female composers, sound engineers, mathematicians, physicists, and imbalance remains in many other highly technical fields.
Why? I don't know - I happen to be a white male, so I have no perspective on what a black woman goes through in life. I became a programmer because I was fascinated by computers and how they worked at an early age, simple as that. Why not ask women why they didn't become programmers rather than focusing on the end of the process, where the damage has long been already done?
The uncomfortable answer may be this: maybe they just aren't interested. People don't want to hear that, because it really doesn't leave much room for a solution to the problem, except to try to force feed tech to girls early in life in the hopes they find it interesting and later fix the imbalance.
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People have done that and the answer is often "because society repeatedly told me it wasn't a job for women."
Well, it should work itself out in about 10 or 15 years then, because good grief, are we ever pounding it into people these days that we really, really want more women in technology.
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No, you're not crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
The author of this blog article (and that's what Medium is, it's livejournal 2.0) is flat out complaining that it's wrong for people to like things she doesn't like. It's not good enough that people accept her doing her own thing, they have to NOT do theirs. It's unacceptable that everyone else enjoyed playing rock band and a sign of horrible discrimination and exclusion that she should ever become part of another culture or group instead of everyone else changing to suit her exact tastes and preferences.
And she wonders why she feels like people walk on eggshells around her and why she feels like she makes people uncomfortable. As usual these days Susan Sons' article on girls and software [linuxjournal.com] should be mandatory reading.
Re:No, you're not crazy (Score:5, Interesting)
And she wonders why she feels like people walk on eggshells around her and why she feels like she makes people uncomfortable.
Our group brought a white woman (race only matters based on what comes later), let's call her Joan. Joan had a closed door office downstairs from the group. Once she joined the group, we had her move into cube-land with the rest of us.
Enter Joan's friend, let's call her Kelly. Kelly happens to be black. One day Joan, Kelly, and I were having lunch in the break room. Kelly asked Joan why she moved out of her nice, closed-door office into cube-land. Here's where I step in it. I replied "We wanted to integrate Joan into the group." Kelly goes absolutely berserk on me. "What do you mean integrate?!? I'm integrated!!"
I'm still trying to figure out what my comment about Joan -- white Joan -- had anything to do with Kelly. Yes, I walked on egg shells around Kelly from then on.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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So is this how it works? I come up with an anecdote, unverifiable of course, about what a racist douchebag someone as a counter-argument?
Just because some (possibly ficticious) people are morons does not invalidate the argument. Address TFA's points directly please, instead of relying on logical fallacies.
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Well, yes. That's 'progressives' for you; they want to 'progress' toward everyone doing what they tell them to do.
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AFAIK the article does not say that.
All it says is that it sucks to be the one who is different from everyone else, and that the author is going to do what she can in order to bring more people like her into the industry, so that it will suck less for her kind of person.
Tech Up Bringing? (Score:2, Insightful)
I feel like I've lost my entire cultural identity in effort to be part of the culture I've spent the majority of the last decade in.
Translation: I want to impose my culture on my team mates.
Frankly, I'm tired of hearing people bitch about diversity in the tech field and then blaming employers. Out of the 200 people in my freshman CS class, two were black. By my senior year, one of them was left in the program -- and his major semester project failed all tests (the test being automated were completely color blind).
Let's ignore race for a moment. What's the percentage of people in tech who came from a single parent home? Ditto f
Re:Tech Up Bringing? (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA: "I feel like I've lost my entire cultural identity in effort to be part of the culture I've spent the majority of the last decade in"
White male here. I was with a company for many years that had a _very_ different culture than I was used to. Let's just say some of the stuff that went on would be firing offenses and many other companies or at least be highly offensive to some. I learned to fit in and emulate the culture. When I left, I realized how much I had changed, just like the woman in the story said she has lost her identity. This is not just a racial problem.
Re:Tech Up Bringing? (Score:4, Insightful)
I feel like I've lost my entire cultural identity in effort to be part of the culture I've spent the majority of the last decade in.
Translation: I want to impose my culture on my team mates.
No, more like I am always acutely aware of my differences and it can be uncomfortable. Until you have been their it is hard to understand but one day you may find yourself there even if your just "the old guy."
Let's ignore race for a moment. What's the percentage of people in tech who came from a single parent home? Ditto for the population at large? How many people in tech had welfare crack whores for mothers? The population at large? What's the percentage of people in tech where education was a priority for the family? The population at large?
the real question is "how do we identify and support talent that may not be able to reach their potential without help?" It is easy to dismiss people but the reality is if someone cares and helps people can overcome the odds.
Re:Tech Up Bringing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude. Your dog whistle is broken. Everyone can hear it.
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Translation: I want to impose my culture on my team mates.
Funny, because the entire article is about not imposing your culture on people. You are just assuming she said what your pre-conceived ideas tell you she probably said.
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Funny, because the entire article is about not imposing your culture on people.
No, no it is not. That's how the language is couched, but the article is actually about wanting people to have your culture.
Tolerance is fine, and it is good, and it's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about here is conformance. And sure, it's worse when a group tries to make a person conform, but it's still bad when a person tries to make a group to conform, unless what we're talking about are generally-accepted standards of behavior.
Only in creepy cults are you expected to eat lunch wi
Well Written Article (Score:3)
I reluctantly gave the article a read. It's written from the first person and describes her own experiences.
I don't see a huge amount of speculation on the problem in the article. She's just saying what happened and how she felt. She even said that she felt comfortable at one company, but left becuase of pay.
I think her reaction to this is overwhelmingly positive.
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[..] it's quite reasonable for anyone to want to have folks at work that they can relate to [...] It's pretty uncomfortable being the only dad at a kid's birthday party.
No! It's about people being more including, and you can't ever be including if you are always in your own non-diverse bubble. I have no problems being the only dad at birthday parties, vice versa for my girlfriend. I have heard some stories told about fathers the eighties when it wasnt normal to split parental leave, but now days it's normal and you get no funny looks. But we do get 480 days of parental leave to spend for 7 years, so there is more to play with.
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As a single dad to two boys, I have been the only dad at multiple birthday parties. I've planned and hosted them. I've dealt with my kids' teachers and coaches and friends without batting an eye.
Maybe I'm lucky that I'm not all that sensitive to what other people are thinking about me. It certainly helped when I was almost the only foreigner in a village in the mountains of Southern Africa for three years. It also helped when I was one of a handful of foreigners in the places I lived in Japan for seven year
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Work is not social club?!?
Do you realize that before pension you spend more of your active life [barring sleep] with your colleagues than with your family and friends? How many people understand this simple fact?
So, yes you might say - let's keep work free of any social interactions but hey, we are human beings. The more cordial the atmosphere in a team the more productive it is....how are we gonna get such pleasant environment - by being social, by having social interactions. There is no other way...
So you
Commonality (Score:4, Insightful)
So different teams, different bosses, different roles, different companies, different locations, different time periods and they all sucked, she was always the outsider... the only commonality was the author. Her attitude is the problem, not the rest of the world.
The thesis has been debunked already (Score:5, Insightful)
The assumption is that there is no diversity because of discrimination. An analysis of the women in college demonstrates that fewer are hired in tech because fewer train for that field.
Therefore the burden is on the college not the tech company.
The College will respond that the burden is not on them because the student chooses what they want to study.
Which either means women have to take responsibility for this or we regress back into their history blaming their high school, their grade school, their parents, or society...
And I wish you all a hilarious time with that little journey. I'll be over here in the real world just getting on with it.
*rolls up window and drives on*
Re:The thesis has been debunked already (Score:4, Funny)
Which means you agree it isn't the tech company's fault that the whole industry is a giant sausage fest.
Just keep stocked up on mustard and throw bread rolls at anyone that complains.
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This isn't about assigning blame, it's about fixing the problem. Companies can help fix it by creating a work environment that is easier for women to integrate into. No discrimination or hiring women for the sake of it, just make the job more attractive to women so they apply in greater numbers and stay around if they get the job.
Stop trying to make this a blame game and an "us vs. them" situation.
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Now I'm curious. How do you make a job more attractive to women? I can think of a few things of course like sexist comments (I haven't heard a blonde joke in 10 years but there are a few opposite of sausage fest type comments; old girl's network for instance). But what job conditions make a job attractive to a woman?
[John]
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It's not about assigning blame. It's about telling these companies that they're doing something wrong. We're not "blaming" them just telling them their lack of (sufficient) diversity is indicative of them being part of the problem.
Good doublespeak.
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Okay, so I hear you're mad at the Sun because... physics?
How is any of this my problem?
You're mad that your parents didn't encourage you to do things you ultimately didn't do because you showed no interest in them later in life?
Okay... so you're saying feminism is just a giant political movement built around toxic daddy issues?
Explain again why I'm not supposed to laugh at you? Because it is really really hard.
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Oh you didn't know?
Hillary Clinton apparently.
There is this collection of what are known as "Third Wave, Sex Negative, Feminists" that are making the rounds. They went through the Atheist community, they went through Occupy, they went through the comic book world for some reason, and they've been pissing off gamers lately with that whole gamer gate thing.
Anyway... they're all over the place apparently agitated about the great vagina revolution.
They even went so far as to repeal due process in California uni
Re:The thesis has been debunked already (Score:5, Insightful)
A women feeling uncomfortable because there aren't a lot of women around is not a sign that I am discriminating against her or showing her disrespect.
That is merely her personal response to a situation.
You want to say people feel uncomfortable in given situations?
Okay, lets say I tell you that I am made uncomfortable by a woman that wears sexy clothing and yet doesn't want me to stare at her. She's sexy. I want to stare at her. But I can't because that would be rude and creepy. So she's walking around wearing this stuff and it makes me feel uncomfortable.
Now if I point this out, I am apparently slut shaming or victim blaming or some other stupid buzz word that means she isn't responsible for my impressions of things she's doing.
Okay.
Then I'm not responsible for her feeling uncomfortable by the mostly male work environment.
Either sort out the hypocrisy in this idiocy or concede that it doesn't make any god damn sense.
I am too logical and too rational to be distracted by this psychobabble. If you want to push this stuff... Go for it. I eagerly await the attempt.
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Okay, lets say I tell you that I am made uncomfortable by a woman that wears sexy clothing and yet doesn't want me to stare at her. She's sexy. I want to stare at her. But I can't because that would be rude and creepy. So she's walking around wearing this stuff and it makes me feel uncomfortable.
Now if I point this out, I am apparently slut shaming or victim blaming or some other stupid buzz word that means she isn't responsible for my impressions of things she's doing.
Society has standards for dress. It varies of course, in some places women have to cover up everything and in others tight jeans are fine. Beyond that, companies have dress standards. If you wanted to go topless at work to show off your abs that would probably be unacceptable to most of your society, and probably against your company's dress code.
Equally, if dressing provocatively is allowed then no-one can blame you for looking. That's what it is supposed to make you do. Obviously that doesn't extend to to
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Equally, if dressing provocatively is allowed then no-one can blame you for looking.
I'm pretty sure the "male gaze" is a cited reason for lack of women in male environments. So lots of people would blame and I am sure you would be one of them the moment a woman complained about feeling uncomfortable.
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Then by this logic women can't complain if there are a lot of men in the work place because that is not a violation of the dress code or social norms.
I set out two situations.
1. Either this is a non issue.
2. Or women need to start changing the way they do things to make men not feel insecure or uncomfortable around them in some situations.
You chose option 1 which is actually my preferred answer to this article and issue. This is an article about a women being uncomfortable around cock. Everywhere she looks
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Much of her argument comes down to the fact that she wants to work with people who look and act like her, not like me.
No she says it's hard to fit in if there is no respect for diversity. It's your choice to make the interpretation that belittles her opinions about diversity. Group-think is comforting when you are in the group, but doesn't really work when you widen your horizon.
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I've lived and worked in the South my entire life and worked on teams that were overwhelmingly white. I've never heard coworkers make "terribly racist and sexist jokes" at work.
I lived in Texas for only a year and a half, and some coworkers (at Tivoli) made extremely sexist jokes, and occasionally some moderately racist jokes. But they didn't make them in front of the people who were their butts, so perhaps they had the minimum required sensitivity. Meanwhile, I really have never experienced that sort of stuff in California.
Having read the article; I can relate (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not a member of a minority, or at least not one that would be recognized as such. Indeed I am a middle-aged white male, however: a good number of the issues that Erica Joy brings up in the article are ones to which I can relate.
I recently have been in a job where I was the outsider. Mine was a more techie role in an environment populated by those who'se main focus lay elsewhere. Considering that these colleagues were almost uniformly ahead of me in their field, and I would have to be doing domain specific work, this threw up some serious impostor syndrome [wikipedia.org] issues for me. Sure I was good at tech, but this stuff they were doing... well I could grasp it, but always felt a little left behind. Objectively, it's not surprising. We each had our own specialty after all, but at work this divide left me some what isolated. Now, add to that an exclusion from social events as well (I am not one for the drinking, by preference and necessity), and being quite a distance from my non-work social group. So yeah, isolated and stressful, in the long term sense.
In hind sight from a personal perspective, I would have had a much easier time surviving if I had been stricter with myself on work/life balance and made sure to find more things outside of work from which to draw a sense of value and self-worth. Always have a backup plan and all that.
Of course there are a number of issues Erica discusses, which I have not experienced; I have not been mistaken for admin or security, nor have I been passed over without reason (at least not to my knowledge).
tl;dr version: While these issues are particularly apparent with minority groups, not all of them are exclusive. This is something which a number of our geeky cohort can find common experience with at least in part, and as such we ought all be interested in making things better. Not just in terms of encouraging/enforcing diversity, but in terms of allowing for outsiders - be it due to race, gender, culture, or field - (so long as they get the job done).
Re:Having read the article; I can relate (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is really the boundary of the culture. It's got very little to do with the externalities as much as natural human grouping and cliques.
I work in schools. In my most recent workplaces, I feel incredibly out of place. The reason being that they have been private schools.
I was educated in a state school, in a very working-class area. I have a "common" accent. I drop my H's and sound very working-class. Even some of the maintenance guys are former "boys" of the school and correct my English. They mean no harm, it's just the way they were brought up and there's a friendliness there anyway. We get on very well.
As such, there's a divide, however. You can spot other "working-class" people in the school. They become your friends more easily, you have more in common, you have a common "enemy" in your "you'll never guess what happened today" chats, even.
But you can feel it. The divide is there. It's definitely present. And the same is in all schools anyway (I guarantee you that teaching staff do not mingle with "admin" or "facilities" staff naturally - you can see the divide in office, staffrooms, social events, etc.).
And, yes, I have been mistaken for everything from a parent to a cleaner to an outside engineer. It happens, purely because of people's assumptions and the mental categorisations they make. And it happens with both children and adults. The polite ones, you might not notice because, well, they're just polite to everyone anyway. That's an issue of basic manners, not to talk down to someone that you might perceive as "lower" than yourself. It's really a function of such manners - it doesn't matter who you are if you're not accepting of others and try to find commonalities.
And there is no workplace where there's not a divide - none that I've ever seen anyway. The tech guys go over there, the admin people sit over there, the management huddle together and then force themselves to "do the rounds" to the other cliques but never linger, etc. It's how people work. It's a human trait. We do it for good reason - to surround ourselves with people we feel comfortable with, can talk to, can sympathise with, can help out. I can't help out the headmaster of a private boarding school socially - we're in different worlds. So long as we're both accepting, we get on fine, however. I'm never going to come to a wine-tasting, and he's never going to come dig through the dusty network cabinets and hold cables for me. But it doesn't mean that we ignore each other, or talk down to each other, or wouldn't hold the door or give the other a hand with something heavy.
I absolutely do not condone racism or any other discrimination in any way. I could never do so in my workplace and I constantly feel that my generation are stupid if they continue the mistakes of the previous generations.
But there will always be groups, cliques and social circles. It's human - and animal - nature. When I go to a social event, unless there are other IT guys there, it's the maintenance guys that I end up leaning towards. They talk on the same level as myself, have the same expectations, have similar experiences and histories, and I identify more with them.
As such, when someone without those properties is trying to ingratiate themselves into my social circle, it's more difficult for them.to do so, no matter how welcoming we are. It's literally time for them to smile awkwardly and pretend they sympathise or know what we're talking about (especially in IT!).
Nobody asking those people to change. Nobody should make me change to make them more comfortable. We should be accepting of others but also understand that, you know, sometimes the guy in the same department doesn't want to go for a drink with the rest of you after work. It's not offensive, he just doesn't fit in, or want to fit in, or has his own plans etc.
The problem only comes when people FORCE acceptance. Then you end up with a secret social group that excludes others anyway, and a faux fron
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with you on most of your points - the author's unreasonable expectations are clearly the root of her dissatisfaction, even though there are some real problems sometimes. However there is one thing which in my observation works out differently, and that is how our "work" selves are separated form our "life" selves.
"I do not have to like you. I do not have to be your friend. I do not have to embrace your values, or way of life, or anything about you in a non professional manner. I am in my full rights
Re:The last statement sums it up (Score:4, Insightful)
Their failure to integrate is a perfectly fine reason to be passed over. I've managed women and people of color in the IT workplace and some fit in just fine it's no different than a white male who is a school snob or otherwise fails to gel with the rest of the team, they have to be outstanding to make up for the failures in their soft skills. In general if you have a prissy attitude or otherwise a chip on your shoulder you wont fit in because you choose not to that is a failure solely on them. People are free to make that choice but do not complain when it adversely affects you.
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Being a snob is a choice; being a black female, not so much. Having to be outstanding to make up for failing to "gel with the rest of the team" by virtue of being black or female does not fit many people's understanding of "equal opportunity". That some manage to hit that threshold (and I do know some of these personally) kind of exacerbates the unfairness.
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however, you do not need to be included in social aspects of work.
And that has nothing at all to do with places where people are incapable of socialising like reasonable humans, and instead prefer a single minded approach where you do just the one activity.
Yeah no problems with a group like that. Guess what, not ever all or even most white males socialising revolves around nothing but drinking beer in a cheap bar and playing guitar hero.
Excuse fucking you?
If that is how you carry on then yes, you ought to
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lack of self-awareness (Score:5, Insightful)
She doesn't like that she conformed to the group she was in and feels that is a bad thing. But yet recognises that she feels much comfortable amongst people who "share her cultural upbringing" and doesn't think that's a bad thing. There's inconsistency there.
But then when she talks about joining a group at work who enjoy going out to have a beer or two and then complains that they she doesn't like beer and that they should do something else. Not very appreciative of views diverse from her own there!
At one point she mentions that she was the only black women in her team of two. As opposed to what, being two black women alone in the same team? That's not very diverse now, is it?
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"When people learn to grow up and stop acting like the world revolves around them, they can learn to accomodate other people."
I agree, she should suck it up and go to the bar if she wants to socialize. Bars serve more than just beer.
Why should her co-workers waste their free time catering to those who don't have any interest in doing what they want to do?
Off the clock your time is YOURS, do want you want with it.
She needs to try fitting in rather than trying to force change.
Stop being a stick in the mud,
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Bars serve more than just beer.
Indeed most of them do. Apparently the one in question did not. That's what it sounded like from TFA.
Off the clock your time is YOURS, do want you want with it.
Never said it wasn't: they're free to be asshats in their free time. Doesn't make them not asshats. IME one should strive to not be an asshat.
Why does "diversity" insist on dictating what people do with their rare and precious free time?,
Unless you want to hang out with nothing but identikit clones, then you will have t
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Choosing that one place to the exclusion of others is a massive dick move.
It's a massive dick move to go back to the place you like?
Maybe they just don't like her. And hey, sure, maybe that's due to prejudice. Or maybe she's an annoying bitch. We can't tell from here.
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It's a massive dick move to go back to the place you like?
If someone has easy to accomodate needs/desires which can't be catered to in one place then yes going there is a bit of a dick move. It's flat out antisocial to not attempt to accomodate people where possible.
Re: (Score:2)
It's flat out antisocial to not attempt to accomodate people where possible.
Yeah, I've had coworkers I had no interest in socializing with before. If I find someone horribly fucking annoying, and I have to work with them for eight hours a day already, I'm going to want an hour off in the middle of the day. It's not my responsibility to make them includable, they have to put out some effort not to be annoying. I can't fucking raise them. I only work with them.
Again, we can't tell if this woman is annoying or her coworkers are assholes. I'm quite willing to believe that either is the
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Yeah, I've had coworkers I had no interest in socializing with before.
Yes but you're getting way away from the original article. How hard would it be to find a bar that sells other things in addition to beer?
Why is diversity so limited (Score:2)
you know... (Score:3)
But (Score:2)
" I feel like I've lost my entire cultural identity in effort to be part of the culture I've spent the majority of the last decade in."
But why do you feel the need to inject YOUR culture into the workplace? You are there to work, not to discuss culture...
Working at Ericsson (Score:2)
It's still about your personal choices ..... (Score:5, Interesting)
I read the woman's article and I guess it hit closer to home for me than some people, because while I'm a white male, I'm married to a black woman who works in I.T.
There are certainly some workplace lessons to be learned from the author's insights, but I'm not sure they're all necessarily the ones she would conclude herself?
For starters? Whether you like it or don't... want to admit it's true or don't ... Geographic location has a lot to do with the workplace environment you can expect and its racial makeup. As she admitted herself, the job she took with Home Depot's corporate offices in the South (Atlanta) was one of the places she felt most "comfortable" among her co-workers. If this was as high of a priority for her as it sounds like it was (to the point of her describing health problems due to stress), I would have advised her never to go to Silicon Valley for work - regardless of the promised pay and benefits.
It sounds like, to an extent, she's upset that she can't "have it all" -- meaning working amongst a large population of blacks (with a nice chunk of them being female as well) who share her values and interests, while still earning "top tier" salaries in her field with the biggest industry "movers and shakers".
I'd counter that we simply don't live in a perfect world, and like everyone else, she has to make some tough choices. As a white male who has always had an interest in technology and computing, I knew it was my career field of choice. At the same time? I grew up in the midwest, and found some of my own values made it difficult for me to do such things as running out to the west coast in the dot-com boom era (even when some of my friends did and a couple wound up millionaires). I chose to stick with doing I.T. for manufacturing firms who couldn't afford to pay me that well, but offered some measure of stability and a concept of "life / work balance" that the big tech places lacked. I had family in the midwest that I didn't want to leave, and good friends that I grew up with as a kid and still hung out with. Considering all of that plus the fact that cost of living and housing was reasonable where I lived, it seemed prudent to stay put.
My wife grew up in Memphis, but I think she always knew that she wanted to get out of that area, in order to find more career success. She wound up in New York for a while, Texas for a while, and now out on the east coast with me. She's definitely not anything close to your stereotypical black woman. (Yes, she listens to alternative and classic rock by choice, and doesn't care for much rap music. She also converted to Judaism, among other things people might find outside the norm.) She never had much interest in playing competitive video games though (well, outside of a bit of Guitar Hero until she got bored with it after playing through several songs). (I, on the other hand, still like playing first person shooters, even though I'm in my early 40's.)
If you're working someplace where it's clear the vast majority enjoys and values things you don't -- guess what? That can happen to ANY of us. I worked in I.T. for union steel shops where everyone's interests included hunting, wrestling, monster trucks and country music. I was the only one who listened to alt. rock instead, and cared about a computer as more than just "a pain in the ass tool management forces us to use". I guess I *could* have tried to go hunting or fishing with the guys or start listening to country to try to make new friends. But I didn't.... I just accepted that we liked different things, and went to work to get work done, period. It's a lot easier to enjoy your free time if you have a paycheck and the bills are all paid.
If you're not willing to do that? That's ok... but you have to do your job search based on what's important, then .... which would be finding like-minded co-workers. I know it exists, but she's right that at least for what she was looking for -- it probably won't be found in the "tech giants" of plac
Re:It's still about your personal choices ..... (Score:4, Interesting)
College money (Score:3)
(Yeah, I know this was focusing on gender diversity, but I see a larger issue)
Back when I was in college, oh too long ago, we had actually a decent amount of diversity in classes, at least relative to what I see today.
I got my job from a reference from a Mexican engineer. My group of close friends were a white guy like me, a few Indians, Mexicans, a Greek girl, some Greek guys, a Korean girl, etc. It seemed pretty mixed at the time. Also, not coincidentally I think, I got a free ride to college. My tuition was low (state school) and I got a lot of grants and scholarships.
Now, college is getting more expensive. They're spending money not on faculty or programs, but on buildings, and incurring debt. Tuition is rising. Scholarships are gone, too much belt tightening. So, if you're close to the cutoff of "can I make it in, can I not", you're more likely to be on the bad side of that cutoff now. Oh, and who's more likely to be on the bad side of the cutoff? Minorities.
This isn't racism in the classic "Im going to stop you from reading a book" sense. But it is a consequence of previous racism. You get cycles. Parents who were banned from colleges in the 60's, who were forced to live in neighborhoods with bad schools in the 80's and 90's are having kids saddled with a few headwinds today. It took years to create this situation, and it will take years to unwind it.
This isn't just a "well, poor them", "yeah the bleeding heart liberals will cry them a river" problem. Aside from the emotional cost, for the spreadsheet lovers, this is a huge subset of our nation not being as economically useful as they can be. This specifically in a time where our economy is depressed because people don't have good paying jobs and can't buy anything. To have cycles and generations of people who are nowhere near their economic potential should be a problem for both Dems and Republicans.
Sadly, there doesn't seem to be anybody who wants to do a long term improvement project in today's politics. Neither politicians, nor the electorate have enough patience to try to unwind this.
Why is tech singled out? (Score:3)
The question that always come to my mind when reading articles like this .. is why is tech singled out as "needing" to change?
Granted it's a tech-centric site, so it will be biased -- but where are the SJ crusaders trying to get more men involved in teaching primary education, or nursing? I'd wager that the gender gap is even greater than in technology.
This is somewhat tongue in cheek, but having traveled to several large cities, white men were somewhat underrepresented as cabbies. Is there implicit racism in cab companies hiring practices? Is this something we need a hash tag for?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The continual assumption on the part of the "progressive" crowd that, as a white male, I am obviously a racist hate-filled bastard, is actually starting to turn me into a racist, hate-filled bastard.
Re:It's all your fault whitey (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's all your fault whitey (Score:5, Insightful)
Straw Man indeed.
Re:It's all your fault whitey (Score:5, Insightful)
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They aren't straw men.
Yes they are.
I totally destroyed your reply didn't I.
If by destroy, you mean yiu set up a straw man and then TOTALLY hacked it to death then sure. Basically all this is you making shit up about mythical "social justice" warriors, and the attacking it with vigour.
But, don't let me stop you from making a whole pile of straw corpese. It's very entertaining to watch you thrash around and get covered in straw.
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SJW being a pejorative meaning does not make the phenomenon any less real. As an example, "racist" is a pejorative term, but racists are real.
You're twisting the definition of SJW to make it apply to me, though. You chose too high a level of abstraction ("unfairly biased"). I'm against things that are unfairly biased for women as well. Where people think SJWs err is in HOW they determine things are unfairly biased. Disparate impact is one example, unequal outcome is another. SJWs are happy to stop at that l
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You keep saying that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
Re:Would you look at that (Score:5, Insightful)
I found it a very interesting and quite moving post.
I'm a white male from a relatively privilaged background, yet I have felt like an outsider many times over the last thirty years of my career. Yet if I choose to I can put on a cheap suit and smile and most people's first impression of me will be 'he's one of us'.
When people start to get to know you they pick up, of course, on the things you do and say that are not quite what they expect, and some will dislike that, and some of those people will turn to harrassment and bullying.
Now, I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to begin at the point where one or two people have taken to bullying, and the rest are reticent about chatting and socialising. It certainly can't be easy (well it could be, I suppose, if you're a sociopath and simply don't care what others think of you).
If you spend long enough somewhere, and you are basically a good person, then of course you will end up with friends who like you for who you are. But getting to that point takes time, causes stress for many, even when you feel welcome and people are supportive. Getting to that point when you already feel you don't belong must take tremendous strenght of character, and I know there's no way I could have gotten through what she has.
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This is one of those things where you can choose how to react. You can either be a victim or not. It's not middle school. You don't have to mindlessly strive to "fit in". Consider it an aspect of work life balance. If you find your job taking over your life to that degree I would tend to attribute this to the prevailing attitudes regarding work in whatever location you happen to have landed in.
Once again, this is probably problems with Silicon Valley being applied to the industry at large.