5 ms·

I'm not a woman but I'm a minority in other dimensions. I've always felt labels such as "female-led", "female-owned", "<insert minority-led>" do the opposite o

by gerash 6y ago

I'm not a woman but I'm a minority in other dimensions. I've always felt labels such as "female-led", "female-owned", "<insert minority-led>" do the opposite of what they intend to do. That is, they paint a picture that this minority group is not capable enough and need a lot of hand holding so everyone please bias your decisions towards their success to the detriment of other groups. If that's not enough, currently there are few repercussions for false sexism/racism accusations. I've seen some men lose their career even though the accusations turned out to be a coordinated revenge and were false. All these together makes dealing with a minority group a lot risky and potentially a headache. I believe the solution is to keep existing anti discriminatory laws but also ensure false accusations are sufficiently punished/disincentivesed

vmception 6y ago
> I'm not a woman but I'm a minority in other dimensions. I've always felt labels such as "female-led", "female-owned", "<insert minority-led>" We didn't do those things for one venture and a lot of people that would have liked to support or be inspired by us had no idea we existed, never being included on lists When we did do those things, we got the highest engagement on the articles because half the people would be supportive and mostly members of the same group, and the other half which typically were not of a minority group would argue about why it was mentioned at all and I have no opinion on that, the outcome reminds me of gullibility? something about how easy it is to play the population like a fiddle, its kind of like setting a glass bottle on the edge of a table and watching what happens my actual opinion is always remember who is shaking the bottle
pm90 6y ago
You're conflating 2 different things which don't really make much sense. You can both recognize and encourage minority groups while persecuting racist crimes.
insert_coin 6y ago
This is the problem. America was supposed to be the land of the free, where anyone from anywhere could have an opportunity didn't matter who they where. Instead we created African-Americans, Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Gay-Americans, Straight-Americans, Native-Americans, etc, and everyone is out for themselves. And everyone is against one another. Female-led, Black-led, Latino-majority, who gives a fuck. Do your job better than yesterday if you even want a chance of someone giving a fuck. Racism is not something you fight with laws, racism and sexism is something you fight with actions. Promoting a "black-business" is not integration, just imagine being proud of having a "white-business". Promoting a "female-business" is not fighting sexism, imagine having a male only policy on anything and thinking you are helping. If we could forgo with the labels we would relieve so much pressure from society it's not even funny any more.
- curiousmindz 6y ago
  Sadly, it is not as simple as that: Imagine a society of squirrels and hamsters where squirrels have been oppressing hamsters for centuries. Then, one day, they decide to stop doing that and treat everyone the same. On average, a young squirrel will come from a family that is vastly richer and better educated than a young hamster. So, if they have to compete "fairly", the hamsters will remain much poorer for centuries more. This leads to a need to rebalance those two groups, and that rebalance means artificially propping up hamsters. Ideally, we would want to get to a world where the young squirrel and hamster can, on average, compete "fairly"... I have no idea how to achieve that while minimizing the negative side effects.
  - insert_coin 6y ago
    If you begin by dividing society into squirrels and hamsters then of course you already lost.
  - visarga 6y ago
    That would be like believing in original sin for squirrels, instituting the bad end of 'affirmative action' on them, all in the name of fairness of course.
    - cutemonster 6y ago
      > would be like believing in original sin for squirrel What, no! :-) It's instead taxes, and free university education, and free health care for everyone. And reaching out to historically unfairly treated groups, and inspiring (some of) them to start their own companies or become politicians. And things like the first exchanges in job applications being without photos and real names But not blaming "everyone" living today, for what some people in the past generations did
      - timeslip1523 6y ago
        Those things would be ok (there are unrelated reasons to be against free university for everyone, maybe, but whatever) but what you're talking about isn't what 'social justice advocates' want. In fact, many of them are against blind auditions, as they don't end up sometimes don't end up hiring people in the 'right' proportions, instead saying people should discriminate based on race (in the 'right' direction, of course.)
rorykoehler 6y ago
I completely agree. I don't care about any of those labels. They're meaningless unless you are starting a very specific business like woman's healthcare or whatever.

by gerash 6y ago

vmception 6y ago

> I'm not a woman but I'm a minority in other dimensions. I've always felt labels such as "female-led", "female-owned", "<insert minority-led>" We didn't do those things for one venture and a lot of people that would have liked to support or be inspired by us had no idea we existed, never being included on lists When we did do those things, we got the highest engagement on the articles because half the people would be supportive and mostly members of the same group, and the other half which typically were not of a minority group would argue about why it was mentioned at all and I have no opinion on that, the outcome reminds me of gullibility? something about how easy it is to play the population like a fiddle, its kind of like setting a glass bottle on the edge of a table and watching what happens my actual opinion is always remember who is shaking the bottle

pm90 6y ago

You're conflating 2 different things which don't really make much sense. You can both recognize and encourage minority groups while persecuting racist crimes.

insert_coin 6y ago

This is the problem. America was supposed to be the land of the free, where anyone from anywhere could have an opportunity didn't matter who they where. Instead we created African-Americans, Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Gay-Americans, Straight-Americans, Native-Americans, etc, and everyone is out for themselves. And everyone is against one another. Female-led, Black-led, Latino-majority, who gives a fuck. Do your job better than yesterday if you even want a chance of someone giving a fuck. Racism is not something you fight with laws, racism and sexism is something you fight with actions. Promoting a "black-business" is not integration, just imagine being proud of having a "white-business". Promoting a "female-business" is not fighting sexism, imagine having a male only policy on anything and thinking you are helping. If we could forgo with the labels we would relieve so much pressure from society it's not even funny any more.

curiousmindz 6y ago
Sadly, it is not as simple as that: Imagine a society of squirrels and hamsters where squirrels have been oppressing hamsters for centuries. Then, one day, they decide to stop doing that and treat everyone the same. On average, a young squirrel will come from a family that is vastly richer and better educated than a young hamster. So, if they have to compete "fairly", the hamsters will remain much poorer for centuries more. This leads to a need to rebalance those two groups, and that rebalance means artificially propping up hamsters. Ideally, we would want to get to a world where the young squirrel and hamster can, on average, compete "fairly"... I have no idea how to achieve that while minimizing the negative side effects.
- insert_coin 6y ago
  If you begin by dividing society into squirrels and hamsters then of course you already lost.
- visarga 6y ago
  That would be like believing in original sin for squirrels, instituting the bad end of 'affirmative action' on them, all in the name of fairness of course.
  - cutemonster 6y ago
    > would be like believing in original sin for squirrel What, no! :-) It's instead taxes, and free university education, and free health care for everyone. And reaching out to historically unfairly treated groups, and inspiring (some of) them to start their own companies or become politicians. And things like the first exchanges in job applications being without photos and real names But not blaming "everyone" living today, for what some people in the past generations did
    - timeslip1523 6y ago
      Those things would be ok (there are unrelated reasons to be against free university for everyone, maybe, but whatever) but what you're talking about isn't what 'social justice advocates' want. In fact, many of them are against blind auditions, as they don't end up sometimes don't end up hiring people in the 'right' proportions, instead saying people should discriminate based on race (in the 'right' direction, of course.)

rorykoehler 6y ago

I completely agree. I don't care about any of those labels. They're meaningless unless you are starting a very specific business like woman's healthcare or whatever.