4 ms·

Gender and race are hot-button topics because those who claim to be victims of discrimination always fall back to an impossible-to-falsify assumption of impure

• natrius 11y ago
  There are plenty of things worth discussing that aren't falsifiable. There's also plenty of actual data related to those unfalsifiable anecdotes. Individual instances of biased decision-making are impossible to prove, but that doesn't mean we should stop bringing up the possibility. I'm sure you check yourself against common biases when you think they might be relevant. Prejudice is a common bias, and we should keep talking about it.
  • belorn 11y ago
    We should keep talking about it, but there isn't much of an point when the discussion is limited to fit existing biases. A while back I read a study that found that work culture inside a company is primarily made from gender culture if a single gender become dominant. The minority gender, be that male or female, then has to choose between assimilate or leave. Both men and women tend to chose the later option, which result in profession becoming more homogenic in regards to gender. Only work in professional environments where there is a fairly equal amount of both genders do unique work cultures become dominant. But that model does not fit common biases. It models both women and men as pushing each other out and discriminate against each other. As such, we don't see such models being discussed, and we don't talk about it. The only model that fits in our existing biases is men as the eternal aggressor and women as the eternal victim, and there isn't much worth to discuss within that limited space that hasn't been discussed to death already.
    • natrius 11y ago
      This seems to be a case of the "all lives matter" fallacy. It's true that the men-bad-women-good bias is harmful. It just doesn't strike me as worth spending much effort on compared to the biases that are making our industry significantly harder for people to succeed in. I'll start paying attention to other issues when I can't remember the last time I worked on a ten person, single gender team of engineers.
      • belorn 11y ago
        Which results in the predictable model where the underlaying causes are ignored, the problem remains, and thus: There is common biases, but we should not keep talking about it if we aren't willing to fix our biases. If you don't want 10 person teams with the same gender, ask yourself this: why has those men being pushed to work there and excluded elsewhere? Why are women being excluded to work there and pushed elsewhere? The Swedish institution of education made a report that noted that as gender roles are being made more equal, work titles has gotten more gendered in the process. The correlation seem to imply that men and women project gender roles onto work as an reaction to having their gender roles being made less distinct in home and society at large. The same report also noted than in 15 years of efforts to get women to take up more male typical classes like engineering, only very minor progress has been made. No efforts (their exact wording) has been made to make men go to areas dominated by women, and the report predict that no major change in gender equality in education is going to occur until both genders starts to compete to get into classes dominated by the other gender. You need to pressure both side at the same time in order for gender lines to break. But again, people aren't really interested to talk about this since it doesn't match current biases. It easier to just assume that men are evil, women victims, and try to fix problems under those assumptions. Next time you say that "There are plenty of things worth discussing", here was a explanation why there won't be a worthwhile discussion.
        • nickonline 11y ago
          Do you know what that report is called?
• tomlock 11y ago
  I wonder then if you're suggesting that all discussions about the observation of impure intentions should be stopped? Did anti-universal-sufferage feel they were being accused of having impure intentions when they put forth their reasoned arguments? I think in some cases people are biased even when they come up with arguments they think make sense. I certainly don't think we should stop discussing those intentions.
  • cookiecaper 11y ago
    >Did anti-universal-sufferage feel they were being accused of having impure intentions when they put forth their reasoned arguments? Probably, and they probably didn't have impure intentions. Who are you to say no rational argument can be brought against the idea of universal suffrage? Surely our forefathers thought the argument was sufficient for nearly 150 years. One may agree or disagree, but their ability to express their arguments shouldn't be stigmatized.
• pink_dinner 11y ago
  "Uh, yeah. I was almost arrested for installing VNC on the school computers..." Exactly. During my time, white kids were being kicked out of school for wearing trench coats (and getting their lockers searched). But race was never brought into it..and people don't really care because it didn't get you attention. The issue isn't really sexism or racism. The issue is that many people don't really realize how abusive some groups of people really are....to everyone. Back when computer science was an esoteric subject only studied by your stereotypical neck beard, most developers I met in college were not really interested in helping beginners, regardless of your race or gender. If you did ask a stupid question, it was often met with a condescending response and arrogant attitude. The Internet made it better, because you could learn so much information, without having to deal with the crap. Only now, that computer science is cool and anyone and everyone is trying to get into it for a high paying job, does the mainstream see the same issues that have been going on for decades. It should piss anyone off that went through them years ago and nobody would listen..because they weren't one of the magical genders or races that instantly gets you sympathy. On a side note, why aren't we going after the fashion industry? It's equally as abusive and if you are a heterosexual man? You will be pushed out pretty quickly. Nobody truly wants true equality, they just want retribution for perceived injustices and the power to abuse others without any consequences. It's pretty evident from all these discussions.
• SolaceQuantum 11y ago
  > Gender and race are hot-button topics because those who claim to be victims of discrimination always fall back to an impossible-to-falsify assumption of impure intentions, if not in the individual specifically, in the amorphous "institution" behind "institutional bigotry". Every time someone brings it up, the discussion is one person saying "I bet that wouldn't have happened if the victim were [white/male]!" At the same time I'm hesitant to dismiss all gendered/racial discussion. For example, I once had to deal with a female classmate being referred to as "woman" over her real name in a condescending manner several times by upperclassmen when trying to pursue a computer science degree. I'm pretty sure this wouldn't have happened if she was a white male. There's a space for such discussion when people run into them because otherwise, what, we're telling them to shut up and not talk about their experiences as you seem to suggest?