[eightbitman]

You got the job because you're a girl. You kept it because you're competent. It's annoying how women refuse to acknowledge their gender opens certain doors for them. I want to work as a bartender, which means more than half of the places I apply will never even look at my resume because I'm not a girl.

I'm all for giving disadvantaged people a chance over advantaged ones, but it's offensive when you pretend "Oh no, the odds are totally even!" No. They're not. You're lying to protect your ego.

[scarmig]

So, there are some claims here that should be made explicit...

1) Some people get benefits undeservedly.

2) People will often rationalize after the fact to say that they deserved to get those benefits.

3) Women are people, so sometimes women will get benefits undeservedly but lie to themselves after the fact by thinking that they deserved it.

All certainly true. But I'd like to offer another claim:

4) Men are people, so sometimes men will get benefits undeservedly but lie to themselves after the fact by thinking they deserved it.

Is 4) unlikely, particularly relative to 3)?

How likely do you think it is that you might be deceiving yourself in the same way, about the relative benefits of being a man versus being a woman in tech?

[dradtke]

If I've ever gotten undeserved benefits for being a white male, then nobody's ever told me about it. I won't deny that they exist, but from my experience it's more a case of cultural acceptance than outright discrimination. I love programming, and damn it, I'm good at it. Is my benefit simply the lack of feeling bad about my choice of career path, that I don't belong?

The problem is that (as far as I know) nobody's explicitly told "congratulations, you have gained additional benefits due to your gender and/or race!" It's easy to pinpoint moments of discrimination when you're the victim, but it's not so clear-cut when it ends up in your favor.

[glaak]

Um. Read the studies. No, the odds aren't even. In technology, they're stacked against women. (And against black people in general.)

(I would very much believe, however, that in bartending, it's stacked against men.)

[snogglethorpe]

> (I would very much believe, however, that in bartending, it's stacked against men.)

OTOH, bartending is a customer-facing business, and partially entails "entertainment" (e.g. the bar-tender talking with the customers), so in many cases there's an actual business reason to prefer female bartenders (when most customers are men who prefer talking to a woman bartender).

No such excuse exists in software development...

[jules]

Since you're familiar with the studies, please cite them. As it stands your comment is just "RTFM!!" without even saying which manual.

[glaak]

The studies cited on the original article which this comment thread it attached to. Read the graphs there. Equally qualified women were rated as less competent.

http://www.technologywoman.com/2012/09/27/i-only-got-that-jo...