[leephillips]

This article is part of the problem. By pointing out that she does not contribute to "diversity" because of her economic and cultural background, the author reinforces the idea that those are the interesting ingredients of this elusive "diversity." She says nothing about her ideas, interests, or opinions. Does she perhaps add to diversity by having original thoughts? Or are her political opinions and taste in music predictable? I'd say this article is evidence that she may in fact possess some intellectual diversity, but that it is something that she herself does not recognize as such.

[fatnoah]

You said (in a much better way) part of what I was trying to say in another post. She reduces herself to bullet points and ignores all of the things that I would consider critical parts of what makes people different. Upon a reread, I think that was her point. Measuring diversity based on a few predefined attributes makes no sense. Creating diversity by hiring someone because they're female isn't the answer, we need to go beyond that to truly have diversity.

[zhangela]

Thank you for your thoughtful response!

>>> Measuring diversity based on a few predefined attributes makes no sense. Creating diversity by hiring someone because they're female isn't the answer, we need to go beyond that to truly have diversity.

I think I might have been a tad overdramatic by just saying "I'm not diversity" in the title, but what you wrote above there is exactly what I'm trying to communicate: diversity is more than just bullet points, we need to see it more holistically.

[leephillips]

Thanks, but I thought your other post was really good.

[wittgenstein]

Exactly. The greatest problem with this article is its underlying assumption that "diversity" is good by itself and that companies should pursue it. The author makes the point that she is not "diverse enough", while ignoring the fundamental issue that measuring "diversity" and showing that it is a goal worth pursuing by itself is non-trivial and problematic. The fact that she is counted as "diversity" while claiming that she isn't is exactly the reason why current societies' and organizations' extreme focus on and overvaluing of diversity is misguided.

[zhangela]

Here are a few articles on why diversity is good for business:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/18/diverse-teams-are-still-re...

https://www.inc.com/ian-altman/5-reasons-why-workplace-diver...

[wittgenstein]

I know that statistics can be found that in some way correlate "diversity" with some financial metric or other being better. But that still is not definitive nor does it address the fundamental issue which is "what really is diversity, on what basis and features should it be measured, and WHY should we optimize for diversity as opposed to OTHER traits that potentially will correlate even more highly with other desirable metrics?"