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Does anyone else find the trend to push diversity into everything disturbing? The incentives around programs like these seem misaligned. No company discusses

by nscalf 10y ago

Does anyone else find the trend to push diversity into everything disturbing? The incentives around programs like these seem misaligned. No company discusses why there are clear gender divides in jobs, i.e. more women in nursing, more men in tech. Or the reason minority groups fall into the career breakdowns they do. Why are we trying to do anything other than giving all people the opportunity to do whatever they want? Growing up, I had a small group (3 white males) of extremely close friends, they all grew up to be good people. Going into college, that group grew into 6 people, the 3 new additions were a mix of gender and ethnicity. You know what noticeably changed? Some of the people I spent most of my time with were now female or a different ethnicity. Everyone had a different background, everyone had different experiences. Everyone contributed differently. But everything wasn't suddenly remarkably better because there was diversity. Diversity doesn't inherently make you better. Hire good people. You want credit for diversity? Work on making sure people who come from poor homes have access to learn difficult topics (STEM fields) without having to deal with the stress of paying for school, housing, food, having a part time job to makes ends meet, getting into massive debt, etc. and work on figuring out why these groups aren't likely to go into tech---why aren't they getting their degrees in tech fields? Until then, I'm going to argue the quotas for diversity that seem to be prevalent in tech are disturbing. I didn't write this initially, but I know it say's they're donating $3 million a year towards select groups. While that's good, I still find forcing inorganic diversity (meaning the amount of people of an ethnicity in the field being way lower than the ratio you're trying to hire) to be a counter intuitive, random PR shot in the dark approach to trying to be better.

sintaxi 10y ago
I tend to agree. This reads like "Measuring what matters: Skin color". Are we absolutely sure this is progress? I can't help but think that this is why we are often called the "regressive left".
test001only 10y ago
Pushing for diversity and making sure people from poor homes have access to learn difficult topics are mutually exclusive. Your quote on figuring out "why these groups aren't likely to go into tech" needs to be applied to people who are underrepresented in the tech field. Example : Why are women underrepresented in tech? Is it because they are feeling unwelcome here? Are we as a society unconsciously typecasting women and men into different job profile? What if a man wants to be nurse? I think pushing for diversity in this respect is required.
- nscalf 10y ago
  I feel like that's chasing symptoms though. If you push a bunch of women into tech and women aren't treated well in tech, you haven't solved the problem of women being treated poorly in tech, instead you've made more people be treated poorly.
rdiddly 10y ago
Normally a push for diversity doesn't bother me particularly, but in this case it seems weird... because is this about "diversity" really? The recent furor was never about "Uber doesn't hire enough women" for example. It was about "Uber hires women and then harasses them to the point of tears." 36% of their workforce is female, K great. How many of those were harassed to the point of tears? Well, that measurement doesn't "matter" apparently, and was either not measured, or just doesn't advantage the company's PR enough to release publicly right now. I guess I'm impatient with the baby steps. If you're going to make a big show of owning up to needing a culture change, be disruptive and aggressive like you claim to be. In short, show some balls. And yes I see the irony of putting it like that, but I don't really mean it ironically. It takes more balls to be a man who protects (edit: but not in a paternalistic/controlling way) and respects women and owns up to his mistakes than one who's still afraid of mommy or just wants to chase skirts. In short I guess I'm saying Uber doesn't hire enough MEN. And it hires too many boys.
evangelista 10y ago
Engineering is, in many ways, a bad job. I was a software engineer for years and can assure you that it isn't an attractive profession. Many of the tech companies I worked for where ruthless body shops with very long hours, bad management and high turn over. Nursing is also a phenomenally in-demand job which requires high amounts of education and has high standards but also has very intense working conditions. Nursing is also quite technical - you can't walk off the street and begin injecting chemicals into people without spending a significant amount of time in class. Yet we see very little push to create more white male nurses, the topic is always intensely focused on STEM.

by nscalf 10y ago

sintaxi 10y ago

I tend to agree. This reads like "Measuring what matters: Skin color". Are we absolutely sure this is progress? I can't help but think that this is why we are often called the "regressive left".

test001only 10y ago

Pushing for diversity and making sure people from poor homes have access to learn difficult topics are mutually exclusive. Your quote on figuring out "why these groups aren't likely to go into tech" needs to be applied to people who are underrepresented in the tech field. Example : Why are women underrepresented in tech? Is it because they are feeling unwelcome here? Are we as a society unconsciously typecasting women and men into different job profile? What if a man wants to be nurse? I think pushing for diversity in this respect is required.

nscalf 10y ago
I feel like that's chasing symptoms though. If you push a bunch of women into tech and women aren't treated well in tech, you haven't solved the problem of women being treated poorly in tech, instead you've made more people be treated poorly.

rdiddly 10y ago

Normally a push for diversity doesn't bother me particularly, but in this case it seems weird... because is this about "diversity" really? The recent furor was never about "Uber doesn't hire enough women" for example. It was about "Uber hires women and then harasses them to the point of tears." 36% of their workforce is female, K great. How many of those were harassed to the point of tears? Well, that measurement doesn't "matter" apparently, and was either not measured, or just doesn't advantage the company's PR enough to release publicly right now. I guess I'm impatient with the baby steps. If you're going to make a big show of owning up to needing a culture change, be disruptive and aggressive like you claim to be. In short, show some balls. And yes I see the irony of putting it like that, but I don't really mean it ironically. It takes more balls to be a man who protects (edit: but not in a paternalistic/controlling way) and respects women and owns up to his mistakes than one who's still afraid of mommy or just wants to chase skirts. In short I guess I'm saying Uber doesn't hire enough MEN. And it hires too many boys.

evangelista 10y ago

Engineering is, in many ways, a bad job. I was a software engineer for years and can assure you that it isn't an attractive profession. Many of the tech companies I worked for where ruthless body shops with very long hours, bad management and high turn over. Nursing is also a phenomenally in-demand job which requires high amounts of education and has high standards but also has very intense working conditions. Nursing is also quite technical - you can't walk off the street and begin injecting chemicals into people without spending a significant amount of time in class. Yet we see very little push to create more white male nurses, the topic is always intensely focused on STEM.