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As a woman in tech, I feel that it isn't actually a meritocracy. I think people have a habit of assuming men did the real work in a project, so they get a disp

As a woman in tech, I feel that it isn't actually a meritocracy. I think people have a habit of assuming men did the real work in a project, so they get a disproportionate share of the credit. People also have a habit of pushing women towards front end work, making the assumption that men are more 'technical' than women. It can be difficult to watch men get all of the credit for your blood, sweat and tears. It's especially bitter when they then say it's a meritocracy and you feel like saying 'what exactly did you contribute to this?'. The concept of a meritocracy sounds nice on paper, but I think it ignores how humans work. The first issue is that I don't think we are especially good at identifying the best unless it's very easy to measure (sport for example). The second point is that it takes work to overcome your own biases and I think this feeds into how we evaluate 'the best' more than we like to admit.

username90 6y ago
Meritocracy is a good thing and we should never stop striving for it. The problem isn't that some strive for meritocracy, the problem is when people argue that they are meritocratic when they aren't. It is pretty easy to argue that there is plenty of merit in hiring women, like adding diversity to teams has benefits and so on, I don't see why you need to argue against the concept itself. > The concept of a meritocracy sounds nice on paper, but I think it ignores how humans work. Not really, the concept is nice both on paper and in reality. The most successful companies in the world today are much more meritocratic than most organizations that preceded them, they produce great results using it, the concept works great. And I don't see why you think it wouldn't, we humans have two signals, merit and bias. Without merit we just go by our biases. The problems you describe doesn't come from focusing too much on merit but too little on it.
- spacekitcat 6y ago
  I think proponents of meritocracy are naive.
  - username90 6y ago
    People who think that white men will hire more minorities and women if they focused less on merit are naive.
    - spacekitcat 6y ago
      Striving to build an environment where effort is made to attribute credit where it's due and to strive for equality of outcome for all is what we need to do. You're still picking the 'best person for the job' according to your own biases for what constitutes the 'best' (because how else could it work?), but you're also making an effort to ensure that your team/department/company isn't just all white (straight etc) men.
      - username90 6y ago
        > Striving to build an environment where effort is made to attribute credit where it's due That is what meritocracy is all about though. > strive for equality of outcome for all is what we need to do This is your bias speaking. I got my job at Google by doing well on online coding competitions. I didn't do it with anyone else, I just sat at home and practiced on my own. Anyone could have done that. Show me a single woman who did well enough to get a t-shirt from the main google code jam competition but failed to get a good tech job and I could see your point, but I don't think there are any. More importantly you'd expect that women would flock to those more objective ways to get into the industry, however it is the other way around, competitive programming is almost only asian and white men. Asians love it since it is a way for them to circumvent the bias against them and get jobs at Google or equivalent, why can't women do the same? And if women refuse to do the same work I and many of my peers did to get in yet still say I got in via privilege why should I take them seriously instead of just assuming they are biased against me? It isn't like women have less time as students than men have, they just choose to spend it differently.
        spacekitcat 6y ago
        Listen, I know what I’ve experienced. Edit: No actually, I can't understand what this is? You are trying to convince me my experiences are wrong. You don't seem to actually want to understand my point of view, so what is this? Why are you wasting both of our time like this?

username90 6y ago

Meritocracy is a good thing and we should never stop striving for it. The problem isn't that some strive for meritocracy, the problem is when people argue that they are meritocratic when they aren't. It is pretty easy to argue that there is plenty of merit in hiring women, like adding diversity to teams has benefits and so on, I don't see why you need to argue against the concept itself. > The concept of a meritocracy sounds nice on paper, but I think it ignores how humans work. Not really, the concept is nice both on paper and in reality. The most successful companies in the world today are much more meritocratic than most organizations that preceded them, they produce great results using it, the concept works great. And I don't see why you think it wouldn't, we humans have two signals, merit and bias. Without merit we just go by our biases. The problems you describe doesn't come from focusing too much on merit but too little on it.

spacekitcat 6y ago
I think proponents of meritocracy are naive.
- username90 6y ago
  People who think that white men will hire more minorities and women if they focused less on merit are naive.
  - spacekitcat 6y ago
    Striving to build an environment where effort is made to attribute credit where it's due and to strive for equality of outcome for all is what we need to do. You're still picking the 'best person for the job' according to your own biases for what constitutes the 'best' (because how else could it work?), but you're also making an effort to ensure that your team/department/company isn't just all white (straight etc) men.
    - username90 6y ago
      > Striving to build an environment where effort is made to attribute credit where it's due That is what meritocracy is all about though. > strive for equality of outcome for all is what we need to do This is your bias speaking. I got my job at Google by doing well on online coding competitions. I didn't do it with anyone else, I just sat at home and practiced on my own. Anyone could have done that. Show me a single woman who did well enough to get a t-shirt from the main google code jam competition but failed to get a good tech job and I could see your point, but I don't think there are any. More importantly you'd expect that women would flock to those more objective ways to get into the industry, however it is the other way around, competitive programming is almost only asian and white men. Asians love it since it is a way for them to circumvent the bias against them and get jobs at Google or equivalent, why can't women do the same? And if women refuse to do the same work I and many of my peers did to get in yet still say I got in via privilege why should I take them seriously instead of just assuming they are biased against me? It isn't like women have less time as students than men have, they just choose to spend it differently.
      - spacekitcat 6y ago
        Listen, I know what I’ve experienced. Edit: No actually, I can't understand what this is? You are trying to convince me my experiences are wrong. You don't seem to actually want to understand my point of view, so what is this? Why are you wasting both of our time like this?