[age_bronze]

I find it extremely ironic that those opposing discrimination and racism are now the ones to view people as just statistics. The whole reason why racism and sexism is bad is because it doesn't look at people as individuals.

Behind every person who goes to an interview there's whole life, and every interviewer has so much more information about that person than just her being a female or black. Pretending that by knowing only 1 piece of information, you know they made a mistake, when they clearly have so much more information than you, calling it bias or whatever, is insult to their intelligence. Who the hell are you to know they made a mistake, when you literally know nothing except one little piece of a giant puzzle?!

It also goes for women / black people who didn't choose a career in tech. There are people behind these decisions. They have freedom and free will. You can't just pretend that they are all stupid and don't know what's good for them.

Role model nonsense is even more absurd, because it already assumes things like women can't have men role models. You need to have the sexist mindset in the first place for this to even be a problem.

The whole diversity conversation reeks of so many self-contradictions and fighting windmills, but the defining feature is envy. envy for people who succeeded. and a deep need to excuse their failure with someone else.

[JimboOmega]

This whole thing is ignorant to the point of being offensive.

> Role model nonsense is even more absurd, because it already assumes things like women can't have men role models. You need to have the sexist mindset in the first place for this to even be a problem.

I have felt this very acutely and it's offensive to assume I'm sexist just because I don't see people like me at the higher levels of the org, and struggle to figure out how to balance my identity with what the org wants as a result.

Women can have male role models, but it's not the same - there are behavioral expectations of men and women that are just different. A woman can't simply "act like a man" and get the same response, and saying that's a perfectly fine solution is quite ignorant. In any case you shouldn't have to give up your identity when that has nothing to do with what actually gets the work done.

When you enter a new workplace and realize that there is nobody like you there - especially in the higher ranks - you are fighting a very difficult battle. You aren't sure what behaviors get rewarded and which get you attacked. You get left out of the little friend groups and other opportunities for connection, and you feel like an outsider.

It's not about envy at all. It's about feeling seen, about feeling accepted and like you belong in the workplace. It's about getting the group that can do the best job, and that often means a diverse team, not a homogenous one.

[age_bronze]

So that's the only defining bit of personality? That you're a woman? What about your personality? Up-front / discrete? Introvert / extrovert? Mannered / rude? So many other traits? I'm pretty sure there are man with much more similar personality to you than just a random woman. You've just been brainwashed to have a single bit when judging people, by the same 'diversity' advocates. There is no one like you, and that is not a bad thing. There is no one like every other single person. You don't need someone like you to know you can succeed.

[belorn]

Carl Sagan wrote in his book The Demon-Haunted World about a kind of intellectual laziness.

"instead of judging people on their individual merits and deficits, we concentrate on one or two bits of information about them, and then place them in a small number of previously constructed pigeonholes. This saves the trouble of thinking, at the price in many cases of committing a profound injustice. It also shields the stereotyper from contact with the enormous variety of people, the multiplicity of ways of being human"

He talked about the issue of stereotyping in science and the harm this caused his field, but it can really be seen as an insight in why people so easy start to do it once the culture makes it acceptable. It is easier. It does save the trouble of thinking. Looking at people as individuals is hard, takes energy and is prone to come back and bite you. Much easier to just reduce people to single bits of information and follow what ever the cultural accepted stereotyping (ie discrimination) that the environment allow.

[mehrdadn]

> The whole reason why racism and sexism is bad is because it doesn't look at people as individuals.

No, that's not the reason. Senior/youth discount rates also doesn't look at individuals, and yet they're not generally seen as bad. The inherent moral nature of the discrimination itself is extremely important.

[TimTheTinker]

> the defining feature is envy. envy for people who succeeded.

Unfortunately, that describes human nature in general.

[age_bronze]

I've gotten used to the reeking smell of envy all my life. I was always encouraged by everyone to 'still be nice to them', to try to appease them, etc. It never, ever, and will never, work.

I've had enough of that and decided and realized that the best way to deal with envy, is to stick it to them. Hit them as hard as you can with the reality. Even when it hurts them. Hurt them with the facts of how much you're better and they suck.

You can't ever be accepted by those that envy you, the most you can get is that they stop using you to cope with their insecurities.

EDIT:

It's not about me thinking I'm successful, because I don't. It's about not giving envious people the positive feedback they desire so much from their corrupt behavior. It's about getting them so hurt they will never again consider coping with their insecurities by transference.

If you've never felt like you need to justify your 'success' (even tho you never felt like it is a big deal) to envious people in disguise you'll never understand. It is the most frustratingly impossible task. They can't and will never separate you as an individual from the negative emotion of envy they feel.

Unlike what it might sound, this isn't about me at all. I usually try to stay humble around normal non-envious people. But the best way to deal with envious people is to break their positive feedback loop. They need a strong negative feedback for their behavior so they don't repeat it.

I realize I will be hated by them. I also realize from so many different experiences being loved by them was never a possibility, and I am content with the small success of them dealing with their issues elsewhere.

[wwweston]

Just going out on a limb here, I may well be wrong, but you might want to consider asking around for better tools in this area. None of this sounds healthy. Or enviable, for that matter.

[jodrellblank]

Or how about they hit you with the reality that most of success is luck? https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-rol...

> In general [in the simulation], mediocre-but-lucky people were much more successful than more-talented-but-unlucky individuals. The most successful agents tended to be those who were only slightly above average in talent but with a lot of luck in their lives.

But hey, even if you are literally Superman, we all love Superman because he goes around boasting how great he is and how much everyone else sucks, right?

[age_bronze]

It's not about me thinking I'm successful, because I don't. It's about not giving envious people the positive feedback they desire so much from their corrupt behavior. It's about getting them so hurt they will never again consider coping with their insecurities by transference.

If you've never felt like you need to justify your 'success' (even tho you never felt like it isn't a big deal) to envious people in disguise you'll never understand. It is the most frustratingly impossible task. They can't and will never separate you as an individual from the negative emotion of envy they feel.

[EliRivers]

I saw this going differently, in my mind. In my mind, when I started reading this comment, you were the envious one.

When I finished reading the comment, you still are, but with layers and ironies. Much less healthy layers.

[Swizec]

> Role model nonsense is even more absurd

As someone who moved from a post-socialist country to USA, I would like you to know there's a lot more to role model nonsense than meets the eye. And to environment in general.

My perspective on life, career, and success is completely than my girlfriend's. I grew up surrounded assuming that the only way to make more than $50k/year is to be a crook. She grew up in Palo Alto, making $X00k/year to her sounds like just a default. Successful people start the next ebay.

It took me years to overcome that. Without anyone discriminating against me at all. It was just me discriminating against myself by [subconsciously] thinking certain things just aren't possible.

Yes even though I had Bill Gates, James Watt, Edison, Tesla, and Oprah Winfrey as role models growing up. That was nice to dream but surely not achievable.

[oh_sigh]

There's also the weirdness of these equality crusaders defining what white males are doing as the norm, and as the world should be, and trying to make other groups more like white males in certain respects.

What if the rate at which women enter, say, CS, relative to other fields is actaully the "correct" rate, and the male population's numbers are inflated for some bad reason?

[shkkmo]

The article points that specific entry points into the field are more biased than others. If you stop gatekeeping on these biased entry points, you will end up with a much more diverse workforce that correctly represents this "correct rate" rather than the biases of the industry.

[oh_sigh]

I'm not speaking specifically - clearly, sexism exists, and it has the effect of keeping some people away from a field who would otherwise join, or driving some people away from a field they would otherwise stay in. My point is that using white males as a baseline of the way the world should be is flawed.