[mdxn]

The hackathon that they mention in the post (Mhacks) put up an application process and enforced a 50/50 gender ratio. In the weeks leading up to the event, I overheard many defeated conversations from fellow CS students over anxiety of getting rejected from this hackathon because they were male. The females didn't share the same anxiety, but it definitely made them feel down that they wouldn't be able to participate with their male friends who were rejected/waitlisted. Overall, the fact that things ended up this way made everyone feel very awkward, guilty, and discouraged. Hopefully its success makes up for the hidden fractures that will be felt by our student body for quite a while after.

Mhacks lists the 50/50 gender divide on their site followed by the reasoning: "because it’s about time for a little change in the tech world"

Disclosure: I am a CS-Eng student at this university. I did not plan to attend or care about this hackathon.

[turkishrevenge]

Just exploit the identity-political zeitgeist that's overtaken universities lately: claim yourself genderqueer, non-binary presenting as male. With the right incantation, the organizers will fold like a house of cards, lest they suffer the blowback to excluding a "righteous" participant.

[dogecoinbase]

It actually turns out that cargo culting the language of social justice works about as well as the sovereign citizen idiots that cargo cult legal jargon -- both of these phenomena exist in a broad, clear social context and it's laughably obvious when someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, like you, attempts an "incantation" with the idea that it's magic words because they don't or can't understand what's actually happening.

[Chris2048]

> it's laughably obvious when someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, like you

You can tell from a single comment?

[turkishrevenge]

I know what's up. That why I made the comment. It's more about what is said than the actual content of the statement itself.

If I did the above, and someone made a stink, I'd hit 'em with "Are you denying my lived experience?" and then reaffirm the validity of my self identity (which is what matters) over what I actually am to observers (which is immaterial and doesn't matter).

[blisterpeanuts]

I think you overestimate the intelligence and free-thinking ability of bureaucrats and other political-correctness devotees. When a group decrees an arbitrary gender-balancing rule like 50-50, in a field that's 90-10 male, cynical types can absolutely manipulate them to their advantage. In my opinion it's just more proof that the only fair system is a blind meritocracy (or random lottery).

[DanBC]

> In my opinion it's just more proof that the only fair system is a blind meritocracy

Blind meritocracies are rarely blind enough, and end up being an old boys club.

[stared]

I love collecting geek t-shirts. Once I asked for one but they said:

- "Well, but they are for girls only."

- "Do you have something against cross-dressing?"

- "Nope. Sure, take one!"

[turkishrevenge]

Hacking the hackers

[rdtsc]

I hear this is done already with the race thing, I've heard of the "check Hispanic" trick a while back to make it easier to get into collge.

[pluma]

To be fair the American racial categories seem pretty inane to my non-American eyes to begin with.

I understand that there is a lot of cultural baggage to the various categories but I can't count how many times I've been genuinely surprised by Americans identifying as black or Latina/o. The most striking ones I think were Halle Berry and Obama -- it took me a while to process that their recognition was genuinely noteworthy in the US because of their ethnicity. You could have told me Obama were Moroccan or Halle Berry were Indian and I wouldn't have been any more surprised.

For context: I'm German, grew up in the 90s in a city with ~1M residents and am literally colorblind (partially green blind). I'm not sure what part of that makes me unable to properly racially categorize people but I'm not convinced that's a bad thing.

[rdtsc]

I grew up in Europe and then moved to US. In US, at least in some context (college admissions for example), there is a thing called affirmative action. It seems in order to right a a wrong from the past, or to promote diversity they would sometimes have quotas on how many students from each background to pick. So depending just on race, one could have an easier or much harder way getting accepted. Therefore people would play that card in order to game the system.

[pluma]

I understand that the legislation/culture around race is in part used to correct historical racism (and the present day consequences of it) but I do wonder whether this obsession with racially categorizing oneself is a necessary evil or just evil.

[werber]

This is insanely problematic. Exploiting marginalized identities is not only rude, but the blow back of pulling a Soul Man is not good for the person pulling the cons future prospects

[tyenl]

This is insanely absurd. There is no blow back because the ability to change your mind about gender at the drop of a hat (if inclined) is embraced.

[benten10]

Pro tip: It is often a good heuristic to identify a sexist by their use of 'male' and 'female' for humans instead of 'men' and 'women', because it sounds dehumanizing. Call them 'women', never females, etc, etc.

[scient]

What on earth are you talking about? I hope this is a joke and no a serious "tip".

[wdmeldon]

I've heard this said in serious context before, so I don't think it's a joke. Only really get brought up when someone says "female" though.

[gaius]

Thanks for mansplaining that.

[robowork]

It's about time we synthetically attempted to skew the gender ratios in an entire industry! Fucktards.

[hueving]

That's the dumbest barrier I've heard in a long time to enter a hackathon. Your gender shouldn't prevent you from getting into an event to get work done, it should be based on the merit of what you want to do. Did anyone ask if their rejection would be reconsidered if they chopped their penis off?

[collyw]

We are sexist in this industry apparently, so the way to solve it is to choose people based on their sex....