3 ms·

It's fun coming up with fake names. On a more serious note, this is tired. If a man is as good as a woman, why does it matter what is or isn't hanging between

by debacle 14y ago

It's fun coming up with fake names. On a more serious note, this is tired. If a man is as good as a woman, why does it matter what is or isn't hanging between the legs of a speaker at a conference?

danso 14y ago
You're raising a strawman argument. Advocates like the OP aren't arguing that a person's gender affects their merit as a conference speaker. They are arguing that organizers, like any other social group of people, tend to groupthink...not out of malice necessarily, but in such a way that women (or whatever excluded group) are not reached out to enough. In a conference with two, three, five speakers...sure, no big deal if it's all one gender. Ten, 15, 20? Something would seem amiss.
- debacle 14y ago
  If you are saying that this statistic proves bias, then you don't know enough about statistics. If you are saying we should introduce bias towards women, then you don't know enough about programmers (man or woman). Would you really want to be the lone woman on a panel, who was picked not because she is the best speaker, but because she needed to be the token presence? Do you think you're going to get the best female programmers to do that? How do you think people are going to respond to that? If you think that the panel already is biased, then that may be the case but in order to prove that you'll have to point out people who were not asked to talk that should have been, that are more prominent in the community than those already speaking. You actually have to have statistics and data to back up your argument, and not just emotion. I'd love to see a 50/50 panel at a convention, but it's not likely to happen - I'm impressed when I see one woman presenting at a convention. Like it or not, programming is still a sausage fest.
  - danso 14y ago
    > If you are saying we should introduce bias towards women, then you don't know enough about programmers (man or woman). Would you really want to be the lone woman on a panel, who was picked not because she is the best speaker, but because she needed to be the token presence? Do you think you're going to get the best female programmers to do that? How do you think people are going to respond to that? Who said anything about advocating for tokenism? I'm saying that that is the strawman argument here because the OP is (ostensibly) not arguing for the selection of a woman just to balance the panel, but arguing that a panel of N number of human beings is unlikely to be all-male unless the panel-organizers had overlooked female prospects. To further my point: what is "the best speaker"? I mean, how do you rank that? Are the best qualified speakers the ones who are the best programmers? The ones who are the most accomplished? The ones who are the most engaging speakers (regardless of actual topic)? The ones who make the most money? The ones who work for the most interesting startups who have used web tech in the most interesting ways? The ones who have the best perspectives (and how would you rank that)? Unless you have a very limited view of who would make a good panelist, it's hard to imagine a web tech field in which no woman excelled in any of those above metrics.
    - debacle 14y ago
      > arguing that a panel of N number of human beings is unlikely to be all-male unless the panel-organizers had overlooked female prospects. Then lets get together a panel of N former professional football players, or navy SEALs, or physicists. The fact of the matter is that I can't think of a single individual on any of the mailing lists I frequent that is unambiguously female.

by debacle 14y ago

It's fun coming up with fake names. On a more serious note, this is tired. If a man is as good as a woman, why does it matter what is or isn't hanging between the legs of a speaker at a conference?

danso 14y ago

You're raising a strawman argument. Advocates like the OP aren't arguing that a person's gender affects their merit as a conference speaker. They are arguing that organizers, like any other social group of people, tend to groupthink...not out of malice necessarily, but in such a way that women (or whatever excluded group) are not reached out to enough. In a conference with two, three, five speakers...sure, no big deal if it's all one gender. Ten, 15, 20? Something would seem amiss.

debacle 14y ago
If you are saying that this statistic proves bias, then you don't know enough about statistics. If you are saying we should introduce bias towards women, then you don't know enough about programmers (man or woman). Would you really want to be the lone woman on a panel, who was picked not because she is the best speaker, but because she needed to be the token presence? Do you think you're going to get the best female programmers to do that? How do you think people are going to respond to that? If you think that the panel already is biased, then that may be the case but in order to prove that you'll have to point out people who were not asked to talk that should have been, that are more prominent in the community than those already speaking. You actually have to have statistics and data to back up your argument, and not just emotion. I'd love to see a 50/50 panel at a convention, but it's not likely to happen - I'm impressed when I see one woman presenting at a convention. Like it or not, programming is still a sausage fest.
- danso 14y ago
  > If you are saying we should introduce bias towards women, then you don't know enough about programmers (man or woman). Would you really want to be the lone woman on a panel, who was picked not because she is the best speaker, but because she needed to be the token presence? Do you think you're going to get the best female programmers to do that? How do you think people are going to respond to that? Who said anything about advocating for tokenism? I'm saying that that is the strawman argument here because the OP is (ostensibly) not arguing for the selection of a woman just to balance the panel, but arguing that a panel of N number of human beings is unlikely to be all-male unless the panel-organizers had overlooked female prospects. To further my point: what is "the best speaker"? I mean, how do you rank that? Are the best qualified speakers the ones who are the best programmers? The ones who are the most accomplished? The ones who are the most engaging speakers (regardless of actual topic)? The ones who make the most money? The ones who work for the most interesting startups who have used web tech in the most interesting ways? The ones who have the best perspectives (and how would you rank that)? Unless you have a very limited view of who would make a good panelist, it's hard to imagine a web tech field in which no woman excelled in any of those above metrics.
  - debacle 14y ago
    > arguing that a panel of N number of human beings is unlikely to be all-male unless the panel-organizers had overlooked female prospects. Then lets get together a panel of N former professional football players, or navy SEALs, or physicists. The fact of the matter is that I can't think of a single individual on any of the mailing lists I frequent that is unambiguously female.