[quasque]

This guy appears to misunderstand the purpose of affirmative action / positive discrimination. It's not to make tokens out of people, but to try to remove systemic bias against groups underrepresented in a society or subculture - case in point, females being often underrepresented in tech conferences due to rampant sexism.

[cantastoria]

females being often underrepresented in tech conferences due to rampant sexism

But females aren't underrepresented due to rampant sexism, there are fewer women at tech conferences because there are fewer women in tech period. Creating a preference/quota system (i.e. affirmative action) that tries to correct a imbalance due to lack of participation will only serve to further stigmatize and reinforce whatever negative attitudes exist about the group supposedly being helped. It may not intend to create tokens out of them but it does none the less. Although it does seem to make proponents of said system feel better about themselves which many will claim is its actual purpose.

[DanBC]

> But females aren't underrepresented due to rampant sexism, there are fewer women at tech conferences because there are fewer women in tech period.

Do you not think that there are fewer women in tech because of rampant sexism?

[Peroni]

I've heard this argument many times before yet I've never once seen a shred of evidence to back it up. I'm not sure of the situation in the US but despite dealing with hundreds of UK tech companies and conferences in my career, I can categorically state I've never once witnessed anything that could be construed as sexism.

[DanBC]

That's good.

Do you get to see unconscious[1] biases that cause women not to be hired; to be paid less than men for the same work; to be not promoted?

[1] At best.

[Peroni]

The direct opposite. In the UK tech market there is almost a desperation to hire female staff. The handful of female devs I've come across are generally paid more than what a male with the same level of experience would purely because companies are desperate to cling on to the precious few females that exist in the market.

In my time I've advertised over a hundred dev vacancies. I can honestly count on one hand the number of female applicants that applied.

[mseebach]

No, he's questioning the effectiveness of it. Does putting someone on a panel because[1] they're female/GBLT/black etc. really empower the minority? Or is it merely a token gesture?

1: And by "because" I mean actual causation: the minority status of the speaker held significant weight in the decision.