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> Hence , I will never get why tech industry believes so much it must be so « inclusive ». Because being exclusive on the grounds of race, gender or age is aga

> Hence , I will never get why tech industry believes so much it must be so « inclusive ». Because being exclusive on the grounds of race, gender or age is against the law? All of those are illegal in the UK where the speakers are based. More diversity in the workplace also makes them more enjoyable places to work. They may also bring different experiences and points of view in how a site or piece of software may be most useful, leading to more success in the market. A market where women occasionally buy things too. Same for conference speakers. I want to hear perspectives that I cannot have had. There'd be no point going if everyone had my white middle aged male point of view. I want to understand and see the opportunities I'd otherwise miss, the UX, marketing or expectation differences between generations, gender or regions. I'm surprised we still have this conversation, sadly.

theredbox 8y ago
My experience is different. Women in my experience usually destroyed the informal relaxed atmosphere. Women introduced purely female related issues to the work place as opposed to males just acting like dicks. So instead of the usual bs at work where my male colleagues were arrogant, incompetent or unreliable the females brought gossiping, flirting, sleeping with other colleagues or the boss or thinking someone is hitting on them. This is purely my experience as someone that is just a mere observer and I absolutely have no horse in this race.
0db532a0 8y ago
Got any proof on that market success? I still haven’t seen any. There are plenty of fields that do just fine without explicitly encouraging a balance of women while still being inclusive to women who show merit.
- meghan-maternie 8y ago
  Yeah you know what is not a great body of objective evidence? 40 years of women being told we have an equal chance of success at anything we want to do, and yet, in October 2017 discovering that actually the vast majority of us have encountered some gross shit from men we work with. Please, for a moment, imagine the time and energy it might take to fend that off. How it might make you timid about taking meetings, asking for more, it might just wear you out. TLDR I’d like to see the study that controls for sexual harassment, that many male partners expect women who work to also be the primary caregiver for children when home, the fact that being incompetent but confident is not viewed kindly in women as it is in men, etc.
  - 0db532a0 8y ago
    Sexual harassment and having babies are separate issues, so please don’t try to discredit what I said with something completely unrelated. In any case, women aren’t alone in having to deal with arseholes on a daily basis. It’s a fact of life. No one seems to be making anywhere near the same amount of fuss over the number of boys and men who have their penises mutilated against their will or are bullied or raped in schools, prisons and work on a daily basis. What I said is that I have still to see any proof that the encouragement of gender balance in any field, and in particular in programming, contributes to market success in that field. It is contradictory for a woman to say that she wants to be treated equally to men, and then say that she expects to be given an advantage in hiring based on her gender. It is a very feminine point of view to believe that one has intrinsic, objective value. By definition, the current state of the market at least in programming implies that gender balance does not provide any benefit. Given that the merit is a game of language and is completely subjective, if a woman believes that most randomly chosen companies would benefit either from increasing gender balance or hiring solely based on her own definition of merit, then it is up to her to show this through her actions, such as starting, or participating in the management of a company following that spirit, rather than lobbying the government to enforce her own or others’ subjective beliefs around hiring or merit.
    - tomkarlo 8y ago
      " It is a very feminine point of view to believe that one has intrinsic, objective value." I think you need to take a while and consider why you believe that statement is true, and how it might be impacting the rest of your view on this topic. Have you contemplated that you might be in the wrong here, and that your approach on this topic is very, very heavily based on your first person view? It's extremely hard to control for the success of corporations vs. any single factor, much less "gender balance". For example, more male-founded startups get funded - but it's been shown that's in large part because they're male (not to mention their investors usually are), not because of any inherent merit of their business. Similarly, consumer startups often have an easier time getting funded because they're easier for partners to explain the rest of their firm, but it doesn't actually mean they're better investments than an niche enterprise play that's harder to explain to a layman. More starts = more exits, more role models => more male founders and more all-male startups. Nothing in that cycle actually proves that that men are better at founding or running tech startups, and say "show me the data" is a poor response, given that we don't have an alternate universe where there's no gender bias feeding into those patterns.
- planetburgess 8y ago
  Even the simplest Google search would answer this for you. But here's a recent example https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/business-ethnic-gender-diversity-performance-levels-better-study-workplace-office-mckinsey-a8166601.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/business-et...
  - 0db532a0 8y ago
    “McKinsey’s research found that diversity has the most obvious impact on financial performance when it is found in executive teams and roles that are directly in charge of generating revenue.” Here are the ratios of men to women in the boards of directors in the top three companies by market cap in the world: Apple: 3/15 Amazon: 2/9 Alphabet: 2/11
    - planetburgess 8y ago
      Just imagine how much better those companies could be if they had more diversity.
belorn 8y ago
If you want to hear a perspectives that you do not have, find a person that is furthest from your social economic class. Stop and talk to a homeless person on the street.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  Whilst I would occasionally do that when my commute often walked past some, it's rather ridiculous to suggest in a technical conference or work context, unless they also happen to understand the project we're working, or were booked to speak at the conference.
  - belorn 8y ago
    If a conference want to invite speakers that has different social economical backgrounds then they can just as easily do so as with different genders. The article is about people conferences could invite. There are people here on HN that has been homeless. Its far from "ridiculous", and suspect some of them would feel a bit offended with that suggestion.
  - meghan-maternie 8y ago
    Okay how about this needmoretea: Close your eyes. Now imagine every male coworker you have is actually female. They are used to only working with mostly women, so you are an oddity. Kind of entertaining. They just hope you can be cool and be “one of the girls”, you know? Does that help expand your universe?
    - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
      I think you misunderstood me here. I was advocating for more diversity and equality in the workplace if you read my grandparent post, which got the absurd response of "if you want diversity go and talk to a homeless person", I responded to as ridiculous. I'm in favour of any increasing in workplace diversity and am thankful the UK workplace is very different to the HN zeitgeist that's more akin to UK attitudes of late 70s or 80s when these discussions crop up. I'm also in favour of the root post's idea of getting more women speaking at conferences. So as ever those views were downvoted here.

theredbox 8y ago

My experience is different. Women in my experience usually destroyed the informal relaxed atmosphere. Women introduced purely female related issues to the work place as opposed to males just acting like dicks. So instead of the usual bs at work where my male colleagues were arrogant, incompetent or unreliable the females brought gossiping, flirting, sleeping with other colleagues or the boss or thinking someone is hitting on them. This is purely my experience as someone that is just a mere observer and I absolutely have no horse in this race.

0db532a0 8y ago

Got any proof on that market success? I still haven’t seen any. There are plenty of fields that do just fine without explicitly encouraging a balance of women while still being inclusive to women who show merit.

meghan-maternie 8y ago
Yeah you know what is not a great body of objective evidence? 40 years of women being told we have an equal chance of success at anything we want to do, and yet, in October 2017 discovering that actually the vast majority of us have encountered some gross shit from men we work with. Please, for a moment, imagine the time and energy it might take to fend that off. How it might make you timid about taking meetings, asking for more, it might just wear you out. TLDR I’d like to see the study that controls for sexual harassment, that many male partners expect women who work to also be the primary caregiver for children when home, the fact that being incompetent but confident is not viewed kindly in women as it is in men, etc.
- 0db532a0 8y ago
  Sexual harassment and having babies are separate issues, so please don’t try to discredit what I said with something completely unrelated. In any case, women aren’t alone in having to deal with arseholes on a daily basis. It’s a fact of life. No one seems to be making anywhere near the same amount of fuss over the number of boys and men who have their penises mutilated against their will or are bullied or raped in schools, prisons and work on a daily basis. What I said is that I have still to see any proof that the encouragement of gender balance in any field, and in particular in programming, contributes to market success in that field. It is contradictory for a woman to say that she wants to be treated equally to men, and then say that she expects to be given an advantage in hiring based on her gender. It is a very feminine point of view to believe that one has intrinsic, objective value. By definition, the current state of the market at least in programming implies that gender balance does not provide any benefit. Given that the merit is a game of language and is completely subjective, if a woman believes that most randomly chosen companies would benefit either from increasing gender balance or hiring solely based on her own definition of merit, then it is up to her to show this through her actions, such as starting, or participating in the management of a company following that spirit, rather than lobbying the government to enforce her own or others’ subjective beliefs around hiring or merit.
  - tomkarlo 8y ago
    " It is a very feminine point of view to believe that one has intrinsic, objective value." I think you need to take a while and consider why you believe that statement is true, and how it might be impacting the rest of your view on this topic. Have you contemplated that you might be in the wrong here, and that your approach on this topic is very, very heavily based on your first person view? It's extremely hard to control for the success of corporations vs. any single factor, much less "gender balance". For example, more male-founded startups get funded - but it's been shown that's in large part because they're male (not to mention their investors usually are), not because of any inherent merit of their business. Similarly, consumer startups often have an easier time getting funded because they're easier for partners to explain the rest of their firm, but it doesn't actually mean they're better investments than an niche enterprise play that's harder to explain to a layman. More starts = more exits, more role models => more male founders and more all-male startups. Nothing in that cycle actually proves that that men are better at founding or running tech startups, and say "show me the data" is a poor response, given that we don't have an alternate universe where there's no gender bias feeding into those patterns.
planetburgess 8y ago
Even the simplest Google search would answer this for you. But here's a recent example https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/business-ethnic-gender-diversity-performance-levels-better-study-workplace-office-mckinsey-a8166601.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/business-et...
- 0db532a0 8y ago
  “McKinsey’s research found that diversity has the most obvious impact on financial performance when it is found in executive teams and roles that are directly in charge of generating revenue.” Here are the ratios of men to women in the boards of directors in the top three companies by market cap in the world: Apple: 3/15 Amazon: 2/9 Alphabet: 2/11
  - planetburgess 8y ago
    Just imagine how much better those companies could be if they had more diversity.

belorn 8y ago

If you want to hear a perspectives that you do not have, find a person that is furthest from your social economic class. Stop and talk to a homeless person on the street.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Whilst I would occasionally do that when my commute often walked past some, it's rather ridiculous to suggest in a technical conference or work context, unless they also happen to understand the project we're working, or were booked to speak at the conference.
- belorn 8y ago
  If a conference want to invite speakers that has different social economical backgrounds then they can just as easily do so as with different genders. The article is about people conferences could invite. There are people here on HN that has been homeless. Its far from "ridiculous", and suspect some of them would feel a bit offended with that suggestion.
- meghan-maternie 8y ago
  Okay how about this needmoretea: Close your eyes. Now imagine every male coworker you have is actually female. They are used to only working with mostly women, so you are an oddity. Kind of entertaining. They just hope you can be cool and be “one of the girls”, you know? Does that help expand your universe?
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    I think you misunderstood me here. I was advocating for more diversity and equality in the workplace if you read my grandparent post, which got the absurd response of "if you want diversity go and talk to a homeless person", I responded to as ridiculous. I'm in favour of any increasing in workplace diversity and am thankful the UK workplace is very different to the HN zeitgeist that's more akin to UK attitudes of late 70s or 80s when these discussions crop up. I'm also in favour of the root post's idea of getting more women speaking at conferences. So as ever those views were downvoted here.