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Yup. I don't dispute that. Quotas would work against that too. Quotas really are quite a multifaceted fix. - Directly and immediately drive up numbers. - Cre

Yup. I don't dispute that. Quotas would work against that too. Quotas really are quite a multifaceted fix. - Directly and immediately drive up numbers. - Create a demand for women that pulls the supply. - Create a supply of women leaders with experience and skills. - And create somewhere for them to go, so they don't get discouraged and quit. - Change people's mental image of working with/for women from abstract and theoretical to specific and personal. Overwrite their stereotypes with actual experience. This goes for both men and women.

jack-r-abbit 13y ago
You forgot one: - Cause some coworkers to resent a person for being hired just to fill a quota rather than on merit.
- prodigal_erik 13y ago
  This. Nothing would cement widespread sexism more than forcing everyone to work around a highly visible influx of unqualified women. We've already seen outsourcing reinforce racism, as bottom-feeding scammers exploit clients' inability to screen out unqualified contract development shops, and the rank and file here assume there are no smart people from that country simply because they only got to work with the bench warmers hired at random by the lowest bidders. If you want 50% of qualified candidates to be women, you have to find the nerdy girls in middle school with the aptitude and give them the latitude to develop the obsession the way boys can. Nobody who starts in college because they're chasing dollar signs is going to be very good.
- JulianMorrison 13y ago
  You know what? I resent the current nearly all male quota.
  - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
    You might want to look up the definition of quota then. It might not mean what you think it means. The solution to discrimination is not more/different discrimination.
    - JulianMorrison 13y ago
      De jure, de facto, potayto, potahto. Discrimination is prejudice plus power. Men are the ones with the power right now and "sexism against men" can not exist. Not in this society. Come up with a list of MRA talking points and I'll laugh at you.
      - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
        dis·crim·i·na·tion /disˌkriməˈnāSHən/ Noun: 1) The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex. 2) Recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another. Hmmmm.... nothing in there about power. sex·ism /ˈsekˌsizəm/ Noun: 1) Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex. Sure... it says typically against women. But if sexism against men can not exist then that definition would have to say always... not typically. So you might not want to accept it... but your statements are wrong... plain and simple... wrong. You can't just make your own definitions for words and then project them onto everyone. Quotas discriminate. Period. If the rule says you must have 50% women and 50% men, when it comes time to hire a new person, you absolutely will have to take the gender of that person into account in order to make sure you stay within the quota. I have absolutely no idea how reasonable people can think quotas are anything but discrimination. I'm not part of the MRA. But go ahead and lump me into the MRA group if that is what you need to do so you can laugh at me. I really don't care. Because that would just be one more thing you are doing to water down the real issues. You do your cause no good to be like that. Overuse of words that used to mean something is becoming the butt of jokes! You are making them a joke. Go laugh at that. Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! Eventually no one will listen anymore.
        JulianMorrison 13y ago
        Dictionaries are not politically neutral. They record the popular, not the best, understanding of a thing, and they privilege the "mainstream" from the perspective of very white, very male, middle class academia. In practical terms, dictionaries are good at telling you what a subset of the population thinks. It's more or less argumentum ad populum, indirectly.
nagrom 13y ago
- immediately reduces your competitiveness with people outside your legal jurisdiction. (And software engineering can be done anywhere.) - reinforces prejudice at an everyday level as the group whoa re being quota-ed down resent losing their jobs to people who can't do them. - sends a signal that excellence doesn't matter and that what you are is more important than who you are. In a list of really silly suggestions to reduce prejudice, quotas are the stand-out silliest. We surely want to increase the number of any discriminated-against group because there is a level of untapped excellence in that group; if we get rid of prejudice then we can access that excellence. Quotas go against that idea; you reduce the level of excellence in the field overall, retard development and competitiveness and reinforce the prejudice that you're trying to combat!
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago
  Quotas: Because the best way to fight discrimination is with more discrimination.

jack-r-abbit 13y ago

You forgot one: - Cause some coworkers to resent a person for being hired just to fill a quota rather than on merit.

prodigal_erik 13y ago
This. Nothing would cement widespread sexism more than forcing everyone to work around a highly visible influx of unqualified women. We've already seen outsourcing reinforce racism, as bottom-feeding scammers exploit clients' inability to screen out unqualified contract development shops, and the rank and file here assume there are no smart people from that country simply because they only got to work with the bench warmers hired at random by the lowest bidders. If you want 50% of qualified candidates to be women, you have to find the nerdy girls in middle school with the aptitude and give them the latitude to develop the obsession the way boys can. Nobody who starts in college because they're chasing dollar signs is going to be very good.
JulianMorrison 13y ago
You know what? I resent the current nearly all male quota.
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago
  You might want to look up the definition of quota then. It might not mean what you think it means. The solution to discrimination is not more/different discrimination.
  - JulianMorrison 13y ago
    De jure, de facto, potayto, potahto. Discrimination is prejudice plus power. Men are the ones with the power right now and "sexism against men" can not exist. Not in this society. Come up with a list of MRA talking points and I'll laugh at you.
    - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
      dis·crim·i·na·tion /disˌkriməˈnāSHən/ Noun: 1) The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex. 2) Recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another. Hmmmm.... nothing in there about power. sex·ism /ˈsekˌsizəm/ Noun: 1) Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex. Sure... it says typically against women. But if sexism against men can not exist then that definition would have to say always... not typically. So you might not want to accept it... but your statements are wrong... plain and simple... wrong. You can't just make your own definitions for words and then project them onto everyone. Quotas discriminate. Period. If the rule says you must have 50% women and 50% men, when it comes time to hire a new person, you absolutely will have to take the gender of that person into account in order to make sure you stay within the quota. I have absolutely no idea how reasonable people can think quotas are anything but discrimination. I'm not part of the MRA. But go ahead and lump me into the MRA group if that is what you need to do so you can laugh at me. I really don't care. Because that would just be one more thing you are doing to water down the real issues. You do your cause no good to be like that. Overuse of words that used to mean something is becoming the butt of jokes! You are making them a joke. Go laugh at that. Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! Eventually no one will listen anymore.
      - JulianMorrison 13y ago
        Dictionaries are not politically neutral. They record the popular, not the best, understanding of a thing, and they privilege the "mainstream" from the perspective of very white, very male, middle class academia. In practical terms, dictionaries are good at telling you what a subset of the population thinks. It's more or less argumentum ad populum, indirectly.

nagrom 13y ago

- immediately reduces your competitiveness with people outside your legal jurisdiction. (And software engineering can be done anywhere.) - reinforces prejudice at an everyday level as the group whoa re being quota-ed down resent losing their jobs to people who can't do them. - sends a signal that excellence doesn't matter and that what you are is more important than who you are. In a list of really silly suggestions to reduce prejudice, quotas are the stand-out silliest. We surely want to increase the number of any discriminated-against group because there is a level of untapped excellence in that group; if we get rid of prejudice then we can access that excellence. Quotas go against that idea; you reduce the level of excellence in the field overall, retard development and competitiveness and reinforce the prejudice that you're trying to combat!

jack-r-abbit 13y ago
Quotas: Because the best way to fight discrimination is with more discrimination.