4 ms·

Faking speakers is pretty shitty but at the same time, it is disheartening to acknowledge that in 2023, there are still people who care about the gender or race

Faking speakers is pretty shitty but at the same time, it is disheartening to acknowledge that in 2023, there are still people who care about the gender or race of speakers.

dash2 3y ago
I ran a workshop a few years back, and some female speakers wrote to me (collectively) to ask that I include more women, along with suggested names. Given that in academia there is already probably pro-female bias in hiring, I think this was bad, and in retrospect I should not have accepted it.
- raziel2p 3y ago
  I have to read a lot between the lines here so correct me if I misunderstand what happened. You ran a workshop, in the academic field, which tends to hire more women than men these days (your words). Your workshop still managed to be male dominated, despite being in a female-dominated field, and women complained about that?
  - olalonde 3y ago
    > which tends to hire more women than men these days (your words) They said there was a "pro-female bias in hiring", which does not necessarily mean it's a female-dominated field. In fact, it's often the male-dominated fields that have pro-female bias because there is often a desire to increase the female ratio.
  - peteradio 3y ago
    Academia is still male dominated in many fields by a wide margin but the latest hiring may be heavily biased towards female and yet it has not made a significant dent (my interpretation).
  - dash2 3y ago
    You are indeed mistaken. The field isn't female-dominated. The claim was not that academic hiring hires more women, but that it is biased in favour of hiring women, which isn't the same. And even if it hired more women, that wouldn't make it female-dominated - a stock is not the same as a flow.
    - raziel2p 3y ago
      Then how does it relate to the original argument? Why does it matter that academia "already" has a pro-female bias in hiring? OP was talking about a workshop and speakers. Workshops and hiring are two different things, no?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - dash2 3y ago
        I think it's bad to discriminate. The people who wrote to me wanted me to have speakers not because they were good, but because they were women.
pelagicAustral 3y ago
> it is disheartening to acknowledge that in 2023, there are still people who care about [the] gender or race In 2023 people care about gender and race EVERYWHERE. No matter where I walk in there is virtue signaling operating at the highest possible level. Live ads, TV ads, everywhere online, the bar, church, my friends house, my enemies house, microcontroller manuals, etc... I wish they tone it down, perhaps more conferences will stop faking female speakers.
- vidarh 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - colpabar 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - vidarh 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - colpabar 3y ago
        [flagged]
        vidarh 3y ago
        There was no reason to say any more. The reply in question argued against something I never got even close to claiming, and as such it was plainly in bad faith. When you made a show out of expressing disgust for views you falsely attributed to me, you lost any expectation of me taking you seriously.
rpgbr 3y ago
[flagged]
KronisLV 3y ago
> It is disheartening to acknowledge that in 2023, there are still people who care about the gender or race of speakers. On one hand, the content of any conference talk is in most cases good or bad regardless of who the person behind it is. Same as how my API performance or DB schema quality won't be impacted much by that either. A bit like how the Silicon Valley show illustrated the fact that trying to hire a "woman engineer" is a bit disrespectful to the person's own achievements. On the other hand, tech seems to be a generally male dominated field and that could still be an issue in some ways, not just in regards to UI/UX design, but social factors. It's one of those careers that aren't back breaking work and are reasonably rewarding, however sometime between the 80s and 90s, it seems that the amount of women in the industry decreased, along the lines of: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when... Some representation there would probably be nice. Maybe personal computer marketing was pointlessly gendered, maybe men and women have slightly different approaches to learning and learning in university courses with way more men in them doesn't feel as comfortable for women, maybe the culture in companies isn't exactly welcoming, I don't quite know. That said, I think there are some groups to encourage women to explore ITC work here in Latvia and I've seen some panel discussions/quick talks along those lines, though I don't remember whether that was in DevTernity or FrontCon, Riga DevDays or something else. This situation with fake speakers is quite unfortunate and not a good look, though.
AndrewDucker 3y ago
If there are panels which contain only white men, then I will be asking questions about whether people are being excluded, yes. And less interested in giving money to the people organising the conference.
- olalonde 3y ago
  Why make that assumption? Given that the tech field is predominantly composed of white men, it's not surprising to see panels reflecting this demographic, even without any discriminatory intent. If anything, you'd be more justified in raising that question when encountering a panel containing only black women, considering their underrepresentation in the industry. The probability of that happening randomly, absent of discrimination, is much, much lower.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    > Given that the tech field is predominantly composed of white men Is it? Why do you assume this? Of the top ten largest tech companies by employee count, 5 are asian multinationals (Foxconn, Jingdong Mall, Alibaba, Panasonic, Canon). Between that, and the presence of women in "white" tech companies (and yes, I realise plenty of employees in the Asian headquartered companies will also be white, but conversely plenty of employees in the US/Europe based tech companies will be of other ethnicities), which Deloitte put at 25% (based on "analysis and 2021 and 2022 predictions based on published diversity reports from 20 large technology companies (with an average workforce of more than 100,000 employees)") it seems unlikely that white men dominates the tech field all that much. Once you start slicing and dicing it more by geography, then sure, some niches in some locations will lack diversity and so in some cases it may be reasonable to come across a purely white, male panel. But consider that maybe blanket assumptions like this might be part of the problem leading people to just dismiss it as just the way thinks are, instead of trying to search out more diverse viewpoints. (to the "more diverse viewpoints" thing, I'll just point out that even as a white male, I very early in my career came across situations where my cultural experience was a big bonus for an employer because their distinctly non-diverse team led them to make a whole bunch of (incorrect) assumptions about language and internationalisation I didn't, but I still represented language and cultural groups that were very similar to their own; as such if you run a conference and don't ask yourself whether a more diverse lineup might provide added value for your attendees by representing additional viewpoints, you're doing both your attendees and yourself a disservice, and that is another reason why people should consider if your conference is a good one if it seems like you've made no effort)
locopati 3y ago
Or, that in 2023, there are still people who have convinced themselves they're not influenced by race and gender.
rollcat 3y ago
I don't like explaining this, because it should be obvious, but pretending this to be obvious would be hypocrisy. Yes, in an ideal world, you wouldn't care. But we are incredibly far away from that ideal, and we must put special care into our actions to keep us moving towards that state. Acting as if there was no problem is ignorance, it enables the privileged to perpetuate the status quo.
- olalonde 3y ago
  My ideal world state is one where there is no race or gender based discrimination. The way to get closer to that ideal is to condemn race or gender based discrimination. What's problematic about that?
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - vidarh 3y ago
    What is problematic about that is that you don't fix existing discrimination by just condemning something while pretending that just as long as you don't make it worse you're not perpetuating the effects of what is there. In other words, if you run a conference and everyone who applies to speak is a white man, and you don't ask yourself why and what you can do to make that more reflective of society, you're helping to entrench the effects of discrimination in a way that makes your claim that your ideal world state doesn't have that discrimination ring entirely hollow.
    - colpabar 3y ago
      I think the overwhelming majority of people (and not just us white devils) would disagree with you. We want to end discrimination by not discriminating, not discriminating in a way you think is good.
      - vidarh 3y ago
        As a "white devil": way to totally fail to understand what I wrote. Nothing I wrote argued for discrimination, and it's flat out dishonest of you to claim so.

Faking speakers is pretty shitty but at the same time, it is disheartening to acknowledge that in 2023, there are still people who care about the gender or race of speakers.

dash2 3y ago

I ran a workshop a few years back, and some female speakers wrote to me (collectively) to ask that I include more women, along with suggested names. Given that in academia there is already probably pro-female bias in hiring, I think this was bad, and in retrospect I should not have accepted it.

raziel2p 3y ago
I have to read a lot between the lines here so correct me if I misunderstand what happened. You ran a workshop, in the academic field, which tends to hire more women than men these days (your words). Your workshop still managed to be male dominated, despite being in a female-dominated field, and women complained about that?
- olalonde 3y ago
  > which tends to hire more women than men these days (your words) They said there was a "pro-female bias in hiring", which does not necessarily mean it's a female-dominated field. In fact, it's often the male-dominated fields that have pro-female bias because there is often a desire to increase the female ratio.
- peteradio 3y ago
  Academia is still male dominated in many fields by a wide margin but the latest hiring may be heavily biased towards female and yet it has not made a significant dent (my interpretation).
- dash2 3y ago
  You are indeed mistaken. The field isn't female-dominated. The claim was not that academic hiring hires more women, but that it is biased in favour of hiring women, which isn't the same. And even if it hired more women, that wouldn't make it female-dominated - a stock is not the same as a flow.
  - raziel2p 3y ago
    Then how does it relate to the original argument? Why does it matter that academia "already" has a pro-female bias in hiring? OP was talking about a workshop and speakers. Workshops and hiring are two different things, no?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - dash2 3y ago
      I think it's bad to discriminate. The people who wrote to me wanted me to have speakers not because they were good, but because they were women.

pelagicAustral 3y ago

> it is disheartening to acknowledge that in 2023, there are still people who care about [the] gender or race In 2023 people care about gender and race EVERYWHERE. No matter where I walk in there is virtue signaling operating at the highest possible level. Live ads, TV ads, everywhere online, the bar, church, my friends house, my enemies house, microcontroller manuals, etc... I wish they tone it down, perhaps more conferences will stop faking female speakers.

vidarh 3y ago
[flagged]
- colpabar 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - vidarh 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - colpabar 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - vidarh 3y ago
        There was no reason to say any more. The reply in question argued against something I never got even close to claiming, and as such it was plainly in bad faith. When you made a show out of expressing disgust for views you falsely attributed to me, you lost any expectation of me taking you seriously.

rpgbr 3y ago

[flagged]

KronisLV 3y ago

> It is disheartening to acknowledge that in 2023, there are still people who care about the gender or race of speakers. On one hand, the content of any conference talk is in most cases good or bad regardless of who the person behind it is. Same as how my API performance or DB schema quality won't be impacted much by that either. A bit like how the Silicon Valley show illustrated the fact that trying to hire a "woman engineer" is a bit disrespectful to the person's own achievements. On the other hand, tech seems to be a generally male dominated field and that could still be an issue in some ways, not just in regards to UI/UX design, but social factors. It's one of those careers that aren't back breaking work and are reasonably rewarding, however sometime between the 80s and 90s, it seems that the amount of women in the industry decreased, along the lines of: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when... Some representation there would probably be nice. Maybe personal computer marketing was pointlessly gendered, maybe men and women have slightly different approaches to learning and learning in university courses with way more men in them doesn't feel as comfortable for women, maybe the culture in companies isn't exactly welcoming, I don't quite know. That said, I think there are some groups to encourage women to explore ITC work here in Latvia and I've seen some panel discussions/quick talks along those lines, though I don't remember whether that was in DevTernity or FrontCon, Riga DevDays or something else. This situation with fake speakers is quite unfortunate and not a good look, though.

AndrewDucker 3y ago

If there are panels which contain only white men, then I will be asking questions about whether people are being excluded, yes. And less interested in giving money to the people organising the conference.

olalonde 3y ago
Why make that assumption? Given that the tech field is predominantly composed of white men, it's not surprising to see panels reflecting this demographic, even without any discriminatory intent. If anything, you'd be more justified in raising that question when encountering a panel containing only black women, considering their underrepresentation in the industry. The probability of that happening randomly, absent of discrimination, is much, much lower.
- vidarh 3y ago
  > Given that the tech field is predominantly composed of white men Is it? Why do you assume this? Of the top ten largest tech companies by employee count, 5 are asian multinationals (Foxconn, Jingdong Mall, Alibaba, Panasonic, Canon). Between that, and the presence of women in "white" tech companies (and yes, I realise plenty of employees in the Asian headquartered companies will also be white, but conversely plenty of employees in the US/Europe based tech companies will be of other ethnicities), which Deloitte put at 25% (based on "analysis and 2021 and 2022 predictions based on published diversity reports from 20 large technology companies (with an average workforce of more than 100,000 employees)") it seems unlikely that white men dominates the tech field all that much. Once you start slicing and dicing it more by geography, then sure, some niches in some locations will lack diversity and so in some cases it may be reasonable to come across a purely white, male panel. But consider that maybe blanket assumptions like this might be part of the problem leading people to just dismiss it as just the way thinks are, instead of trying to search out more diverse viewpoints. (to the "more diverse viewpoints" thing, I'll just point out that even as a white male, I very early in my career came across situations where my cultural experience was a big bonus for an employer because their distinctly non-diverse team led them to make a whole bunch of (incorrect) assumptions about language and internationalisation I didn't, but I still represented language and cultural groups that were very similar to their own; as such if you run a conference and don't ask yourself whether a more diverse lineup might provide added value for your attendees by representing additional viewpoints, you're doing both your attendees and yourself a disservice, and that is another reason why people should consider if your conference is a good one if it seems like you've made no effort)

locopati 3y ago

Or, that in 2023, there are still people who have convinced themselves they're not influenced by race and gender.

rollcat 3y ago

I don't like explaining this, because it should be obvious, but pretending this to be obvious would be hypocrisy. Yes, in an ideal world, you wouldn't care. But we are incredibly far away from that ideal, and we must put special care into our actions to keep us moving towards that state. Acting as if there was no problem is ignorance, it enables the privileged to perpetuate the status quo.

olalonde 3y ago
My ideal world state is one where there is no race or gender based discrimination. The way to get closer to that ideal is to condemn race or gender based discrimination. What's problematic about that?
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  [flagged]
- vidarh 3y ago
  What is problematic about that is that you don't fix existing discrimination by just condemning something while pretending that just as long as you don't make it worse you're not perpetuating the effects of what is there. In other words, if you run a conference and everyone who applies to speak is a white man, and you don't ask yourself why and what you can do to make that more reflective of society, you're helping to entrench the effects of discrimination in a way that makes your claim that your ideal world state doesn't have that discrimination ring entirely hollow.
  - colpabar 3y ago
    I think the overwhelming majority of people (and not just us white devils) would disagree with you. We want to end discrimination by not discriminating, not discriminating in a way you think is good.
    - vidarh 3y ago
      As a "white devil": way to totally fail to understand what I wrote. Nothing I wrote argued for discrimination, and it's flat out dishonest of you to claim so.