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People talk about other people all the time - regardless of gender. I would guarantee they talked about male employees as well but your friend likely didn't men

People talk about other people all the time - regardless of gender. I would guarantee they talked about male employees as well but your friend likely didn't mentally catalogue those discussions because they weren't relevant to her. Confirmation bias is very real. Maybe this one specific anecdote you're providing really was an example of rampant discrimination - I don't know - either way it certainly isn't indicative of the entirety of the industry. I could share many anecdotes of my own that I could interpret as people discriminating against me specifically - but I doubt that's the case. Instead it's people just being people. This is another issue, I think that these movement often make women and minorities attribute "normal" negative behavior to be explicitly driven by discrimination or x-ism rather than it just being par for the course.

verall 5y ago
No, discrimination and x-ism is not neccesary to make an environment that women don't want to work at, only sufficient. People being regular-shitty, combined with context, like making comments about the appearance and intelligence of the only other woman in the office, can create an inhospitable environment that forces women out. Companies that wish to hire and retain women should proactively create a hospitable environment or situations like above will occur. The bigger thing is that it seems like you don't see return on investment into creating these better environments. Do you feel that diversity initiatives are wholly unnecessary or just poorly designed/targeted?
- MathCodeLove 5y ago
  As I've said multiple times in this comment section - I'm all for creating an accepting and inclusive environment. Diversity initiatives aren't that. I think that explicit diversity initiatives are indicative of a bad work center that can't attract or keep their desired talent without explicitly targeting specific groups. I don't think that these diversity initiatives do anything to really affect change in an organizations culture and are PR stunts to make people feel good. At worst, they're harmful to everyone - including minorities. At best, they're a waste of time and resources. If your organization has actively promoted a toxic culture from it's inception and just now wishes to change things then it has a lot more work to do than a "diversity initiative". Regardless, my original stance was more aimed at the societal push of "get x demographic into tech". I'm not going to retype my thoughts on that - go read the other comments of mine in this comments section to get a clearer picture.

verall 5y ago

No, discrimination and x-ism is not neccesary to make an environment that women don't want to work at, only sufficient. People being regular-shitty, combined with context, like making comments about the appearance and intelligence of the only other woman in the office, can create an inhospitable environment that forces women out. Companies that wish to hire and retain women should proactively create a hospitable environment or situations like above will occur. The bigger thing is that it seems like you don't see return on investment into creating these better environments. Do you feel that diversity initiatives are wholly unnecessary or just poorly designed/targeted?

MathCodeLove 5y ago
As I've said multiple times in this comment section - I'm all for creating an accepting and inclusive environment. Diversity initiatives aren't that. I think that explicit diversity initiatives are indicative of a bad work center that can't attract or keep their desired talent without explicitly targeting specific groups. I don't think that these diversity initiatives do anything to really affect change in an organizations culture and are PR stunts to make people feel good. At worst, they're harmful to everyone - including minorities. At best, they're a waste of time and resources. If your organization has actively promoted a toxic culture from it's inception and just now wishes to change things then it has a lot more work to do than a "diversity initiative". Regardless, my original stance was more aimed at the societal push of "get x demographic into tech". I'm not going to retype my thoughts on that - go read the other comments of mine in this comments section to get a clearer picture.