[Mirioron]

I was with the author until the diversity and equity part. Why does everything have to boil down to skin color and gender? I don't see why you need to offer this for a tech conference. It should be about ability and topics.

Edit: I already regret making this post.

[dang]

This comment broke the site guidelines, which ask you not to take threads on classic flamewar tangents. If you'd please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules more carefully in the future—about as carefully as you'd treat lit matches in a flammable place—we'd be grateful. This sort of tire fire is also generic and thus leads to predictable discussion.

[ajkjk]

A responder to this wrote "Sometimes fairness requires stepping in and lending a helping hand to right an imbalance.", which is definitely the answer that lots of people would give. Obviously this is an ideological stance, and it sounds like you probably disagree with it. But I think it's also pretty obvious, even before asking, that the only answer is going to be an ideological stance. It's one person or group's perspective of what is decent and right to do, and it happens not to be yours. So the answer to why they included that part is, of course, "because they wanted to".

My point is: on the one hand, if you disagree with the ideology, then... that's just that. You disagree about what is most decent to do. But I don't believe that you are confused about what other people's ideologies are -- you know perfectly well why they are doing the things they do, what value system informs their actions. So what's the point of protesting it here like you're bewildered about it? The only result is people shouting their stances at each other -- not a debate, or even an argument, at all.

I mention this, and risk making things worse, because I think it is important to recognize this thread as one of those pointlessly destructive ones, which changes nothing except to make people more annoyed at each other. It just amounts to people saying what they think and trying to make it sound abundantly reasonable so the other side sounds wrong. It's a fake argument; what's the point of starting it?

[Mirioron]

I guess the reason I initially made the post was to challenge the ideology. It feels unfair, but I realized only a few minutes later that the discussion wasn't going to be useful. By that time I couldn't delete the post anymore though.

[bovermyer]

Regardless of whether you agree with the author's position on diversity, perhaps it would be better to focus on the crimes being committed against the author (the point of the article) instead?

I mean, I could write a comment critiquing the grammar of the article, but that's decidedly asocial behavior, and unhelpful besides.

[Mirioron]

I meant to do that, but then a significant chunk of the article was dedicated to exactly the topic I commented on. I completely agree that what was done against the author was terrible.

[weberc2]

> you know perfectly well why they are doing the things they do, what value system informs their actions. So what's the point of protesting it here like you're bewildered about it?

For me, it's fascinating how people can adhere to an ideology that is so overtly inconsistent. I like to hear the ways people try to reconcile such obvious inconsistencies. And one person's "bewilderment" is another person's "giving the benefit of the doubt that the ideologue is not so stupid as to espouse obviously self-defeating beliefs" which is necessary if the conversation is to have any hope of being productive.

[leereeves]

The author's ideology perplexes me.

He focuses a lot on the allegation that the disinvitee makes women (specifically) feel unsafe, but it's clear from his story that the alleged behavior isn't gender specific.

Is what they allegedly did to him more acceptable because he's a man? Should future organizers ignore his story, even if conclusively proven true, because it's not about a woman feeling unsafe?

[ajkjk]

But you're doing it too! You're trying to make it sound abundantly reasonable that the OP's ideology is inconsistent, when lots of people would completely disagree with that, and then you're pretending like it's obvious and not up for debate. More fanning the flames. Why?

[weberc2]

> You're trying to make it sound abundantly reasonable that the OP's ideology is inconsistent

No, I'm asserting that it's inconsistent (based on studying these sorts of purportedly "egalitarian" racial/gender ideologies). Anyone is welcome to make a counterargument.

> lots of people would completely disagree with that

I know. And I find their justifications fascinating, as previously mentioned.

> then you're pretending like it's obvious and not up for debate.

In many ways it is obvious. "Racism isn't racism if it targets $RACE people" is one variation of a popular slogan. In any case, as mentioned several times now, my position is "yes, more debate", yours is "debate is pointless".

> More fanning the flames. Why?

I'm not "fanning flames", I'm inviting debate. And as previously mentioned, I find the debate interesting. Incidentally it also tends to publicize the inconsistencies in the ideology, which is a nice side effect.

[wccrawford]

Because there's a well-known imbalance, and not everything balances itself. Sometimes fairness requires stepping in and lending a helping hand to right an imbalance.

[ThrustVectoring]

An imbalance existing does not imply that it is fair to right it. Taking a very rough approximation of the efficient market hypothesis, most career choices are approximately equally bad. You can only really choose what tradeoffs you want to make. Want to be a highly paid doctor? Prepare to spend at least 7 years doing long hours of difficult training. Don't want to do the training? Your choices are either low pay or physically taxing and/or dangerous work. Want to try to be a corporate executive? Most people who try spend many long, hard hours vying for corporate promotions and fail.

Software development is no exception here. Yes, it is a safe desk job. Yes, it pays well. It also has a pretty brutal and risky filtering process on hiring, significant cyclicality, high amounts of skill and learning requirements, and the role very often demands high performance. Oh, and you spend your time on work that tends to be less intrinsically rewarding and meaningful than something like nursing. These are pretty natural tradeoffs that make a lot of people decide that the field isn't for them, and the same sort of self-selection processes wind up with things like "roughly 90% of workplace deaths are male" too. I don't think it's fair to put your hand on the scales here for only one gender.

NB: I actually kind of regret getting into programming - I suspect I'd have been much happier if I went with my second choice and became an electrician.

[LudwigNagasena]

The biggest imbalance in tech is caused by economic status. I wouldn't call a policy that prioritizes gender and sex over poverty as fair. Seems far from that.

[Waterluvian]

I think there is a manifestly apparent imbalance in tech. But I struggle to understand how we can competently fight that imbalance without really knowing what we are aiming for.

0% of midwives in Ontario are men. What's the right number? How should we endeavour to fix that? When do we know when to stop and be satisfied with the ratio?

[weberc2]

There is an imbalance, but no unfairness (or at least no established unfairness--and to the extent that there is an unfairness, it probably runs in the opposite direction due to the aggregate actions taken on behalf of a popular political ideology that conflates "imbalance" and "unfairness").

[jjmorrison]

We should totally create a bias toward minorities for things like speaking engagements. And also - that imbalance will always be there.

It's so well documented at researched at this point that the imbalance is at least partially driven by differences in fundamental interests between genders ("things" vs "people"). You see this with nurses just as much as you see it with engineers.

But, these are all averages and distribution, so plenty of work to do to make sure those that aren't in the average can still pursue their interests without facing such an uphill battle. Conference speaking seems like a good way to help. But the goal of "balance" as 50/50 is not a good goal.

[fraudsyndrome]

> partially driven by differences in fundamental interests between genders

I haven't actively looked for studies in this but I'm curious if these "fundamental" interests are somewhat partially driven by how society or people view them based on their sex. That is, get in them interested in certain things based on what the individual/society believes that their sex "should" be doing.

These kind of things could certainly push people towards a certain interest.

Then again, this is a nature/nurture talk. I personally find it hard to believe that women "naturally" prefer going into nursing compared to men - without sarcasm, I think the lack of male nurses is part due to how society views "men" in the nursing field which is steeped in sexism (i.e it's a "girly" job only for women).

I believe it was often the opinion at the time that nursing roles were delegated to women, societal opinion was veered towards that and you have kind of a "generational opinion/bias" forming. Nowadays, you (not you; in general) see the ratio is still quite different but you think this is now due to fundamental interests instead of any form a social (something; missing a word here). Anyhow this is all just speculating off of my opinion

[nocitrek]

Why do you think its right to fix the imbalance - what do you accomplish by it? Are you going to fix the imbalance everywhere you see it?

[mcguire]

Yes. Aren't you?

[JudgeWapner]

what are we doing to fix the imbalance in preschool and elementary school teachers and bridal salons ?

[nocitrek]

Of course not. So, tell me, when are you going to be happy? When ratio in conferences are 33% men, 33% woman, 33% minorities? What did you accomplish by that?

[mcguire]

I think there is something wrong with your math there.

[nocitrek]

3 white male and 3 black woman?

[gameswithgo]

should we be aggressively encouraging men to take up nursing?

[acdha]

If you searched for this, you would find multiple programs trying to do just that. The difference is that it doesn't make the news because there isn't a reactionary movement which sees that as an existential threat.

[ilikehurdles]

If anything, this would help my wife who is a doctor but often finds older patients assuming she is a nurse simply because she is woman. There are male nurses, and hopefully more men will join the field, as the same gender stereotype that assumes that women cannot be doctors is the one that assumes all nurses are women.

[lawnchair_larry]

Nobody thinks that women entering tech is an existential threat. If you think that’s the issue, it’s no wonder you can’t figure out why this is so counterproductive. In fact, you probably haven’t even realized the damage you are doing to your own cause.

[thehogrammer]

> Nobody thinks that women entering tech is an existential threat.

let me tell you dude, some people see it as one (and have told me as much). Tech is their thing and me coming in as a woman who sees this as a good career choice and not something where I can essentially get paid for my hobby aggravates them. I'm ruining their "safe, nerdy space", essentially.

[weberc2]

There isn't a reactionary movement that sees "women in tech" as an existential threat. The "reactionaries" you're alluding to are properly known as "liberals" or "egalitarians".

[weberc2]

Gah, I realize that I think I was unclear. I didn’t mean “liberals and egalitarians are reactionaries”, but rather the people who are critical of tech diversity quotas are often motivated by liberal and egalitarian beliefs. Hopefully that’s clearer if not more agreeable.

[protomyth]

If you want the real examples, you look at daycare workers and elementary teachers. Insurance is an issue with daycares that hire male workers. Plus, you have quite a few parents that are fine with their boys being changed by women, but not their daughters being changed by men. Thus the problems, plus the pervasive stories of child molestation and societal stigma against males in this area.

The shame of it is that witnessing positive interaction between the sexes at that age would do quite a bit for the children later in life. Particularly in communities where the percentage of in-household fathers is low.

[CydeWeys]

It's definitely a problem, and it's not good that male role models are often lacking in earlier childhood education (especially when male role models may be lacking at home at well), but one key difference is that these aren't generally well-compensated positions.

[charliepark]

Definitely, compensation is a big factor. In fact, compensation for women in other roles is also a factor. The more that women can be paid in technical / other roles, the more flexibility their partners would have to take on jobs that don't pay as much but that might be more personally satisfying (like this). People who object to women getting paid more often seem to treat it as a zero-sum game, rather than as a rising tide lifting all boats.

[protomyth]

I don't see why a position being "well-compensated" is relevant, particularly when society is worse off for the imbalance.

[CydeWeys]

It's relevant in the sense that I don't particularly care that it'd be harder for me to get these jobs, as the pay cut vs my current job of software engineer would be so significant that I would never seriously consider it. Conversely, I would care a lot if there's some job that would earn me more money that my gender hinders me in attaining (as is sometimes the case for women in tech).

To the extent that society is worse off for the imbalance, part of the solution is better compensating these jobs in the first place. We're currently taking advantage of people who have a passion for doing the work by underpaying them, which disproportionately affects women.

[mcguire]

Sure. It's a very good line of work.

https://www.nursingtimes.net/why-are-there-so-few-men-in-nur...

https://nurse.org/articles/Male-Nurses-And-The-Profession/

[MattGrommes]

Sure, go for it. But I know a male nurse and he's never experienced anything remotely like what a lot of women I know in tech experience so it's not the equal thought you might think it is.

[Tomte]

I think that's true for male nurses, but at least in my country male Kindergarten teachers often have a hard time.

Parents not wanting their daughter to be touched (or even helped to the toilet) by the male teacher, female colleagues making "jokes" about pedophile leanings, and so on.

The divide in typically female and typically male professions is not a one-way street.

[GordonS]

I know a male nurse, and he's constantly getting jibes from patients about being gay. He's not, but that's kind of beside the point; the point is that there do exist stereotypes about male nurses that need to be addressed.

[asark]

What did doctors and lawyers do starting back in the 80s? We should do whatever they did, since it seems to have worked.

[denimnerd42]

A heavy dose of affirmative action. At least in the law field. From what I've been told anecdotally is that women and minorities are not held to the same standard as white men. They are accepted even if they are less productive and women are allowed to work fewer hours to deal with child rearing.

[kansface]

Why are you assuming we didn't?

[bluGill]

Best is to do what symphony orchestras have done. All auditions are done behind a screen so you can be judged purely on your talent. You are not allowed to wear shoes to the audition because we don't want to judge your foot steps into the room. Just your instrument (which might be borrowed!) - and possibly your choice in music (or possibly not).

Of course music is easy to do blind this way. It isn't clear how you judge technical people in a fair way in a 5 minute audition. (see plenty of previous discussions here on white board coding)

Music also has high numbers of minorities going into it in the first place. The number of females who start a technical degree program is very low, and this is reflected in the graduations numbers (I understand females are more likely to drop out of the program as well, which needs to be addressed)

Failing that, what lawyers have done is a possible answer.

[kibwen]

For what it's worth, men are certainly underrepresented in nursing in the US. From https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/04/upshot/male-n... :

"Only 13 percent of nurses in the United States are men, but that share has grown steadily since 1960, when the number was 2 percent, according to a working paper published in October by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth."

[lostdog]

We are aggressively encouraging men to take up nursing.

[CydeWeys]

And for good reason. Nursing is physically demanding, especially seeing as how the majority of American adults are now obese. It's common for nurses to physically injure themselves trying to move a patient that they're simply not strong enough to handle.

So yes, nursing needs more men, as the job shares a lot of the same physical requirements of other strength-requiring occupations such as construction.

[enriquto]

> should we be aggressively encouraging men to take up nursing?

yes, of course!

But should we reject good nurse candidates because they are female, and give their jobs to sub-par male candidates? Not so clear.

[Fellshard]

That's mealy-mouthed prevarication, and does not match the actual actions taken under the claim of that philosophy. There is a difference between proactive nurturing and proactive suppression and condemnation.

[duxup]

>That's mealy-mouthed prevarication, and does not match the actual actions taken under the claim of that philosophy. There is a difference between proactive nurturing and proactive suppression and condemnation.

I'm not following what that text means. Can you elaborate?

[Fellshard]

In the name of improving equality, many conferences are turning to censorious tactics, removing anyone who receives the slightest complaint on ground of even minor disagreement with those claiming to be fighting for equality.

To clarify, I don't think that's what's happening in this story. This is more a response to the GGP post.

[sooheon]

Not the writer of that post, but maybe they're pointing out the difference between "lending a helping hand" and "deplatforming".

[striking]

> I was with the author until the diversity and equity part

I understand that perhaps to some people this may sound like a statement made in an effort to counteract identity politics, but isn't it really its own brand of identity politics?

[ivanbakel]

What is your response to the author's point that "ability and topics" are abstract concepts that don't take into account how people engage with a conference?

[Mirioron]

I think the author makes sense with that. People should be comfortable and feel safe, but then the author goes on to explicitly talk about gender and what I assume are racial minorities. I don't think that race and gender are the only disadvantaged groups in the world. Things like disability, mental illness, and country of origin can have a much bigger impact on whether somebody could become a speaker. Depending on how you slice it, you can end up with an enormous amount of these groups and I think the best way to promote fairness is to sometimes give them an advantage, but it should only be a portion of the whole. Eg a disabled speaker could have some very interesting insights on tech, especially when it comes to UI, but that doesn't mean we should try to make the conference have an equal amount of disabled people as speakers. It makes more sense to pick topics and technical ability in the vast majority of cases, because that's what people are there for.

[Faark]

> Eg a disabled speaker could have some very interesting insights on tech, especially when it comes to UI

I do understand their lived experience often differs from that of most of us and thus they can provide value sharing it, but that is not really the kind of normalization we should aim to achieve. In a similar vein, I'm disappointed whenever women speakers are still predominantly presenting gender issues. This might be necessary for now to break all those self reinforcing feedback loops that lead us to the current status quo, but just shows how long the road ahead of us still is.

> but that doesn't mean we should try to make the conference have an equal amount of disabled people as speakers

Pretending like anyone would generally want 50:50 representation of disabled is a bit of a straw man, isn't it? Its just that half of all humans tend to be female, thus this particular split when talking about sexes.

> It makes more sense to pick topics and technical ability in the vast majority of cases, because that's what people are there for.

I'd expect them to have done pretty much that, considering only 2 of 9 speakers are female.

[DanBC]

I'm more interested in why you decided to question it, and why people like you always, without fail, feel the need to complain about this.

You're calling on the OP to ignore a thing, while you cannot ignore this other thing. It's weird.

[jancsika]

> It should be about ability and topics.

I was with the author until the UX part. Why does everything have to boil down to color themes and padding? I don't see why you need to focus on this for a software program. It should be about correctness and performance.

[john_moscow]

Given the current political landscape, unless you put a paragraph like this into a public statement, you will immediately get labeled as *ist. So it was probably their legal counsel who insisted on including this part.