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[EDIT]: Also, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. This is the NYTimes Board of Directors http://www.nytco.com/company/board_of_directors/ http://www.n

[EDIT]: Also, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. This is the NYTimes Board of Directors http://www.nytco.com/company/board_of_directors/ http://www.nytco.com/company/board_of_directors/ Quite the diverse bunch, aren't they? (I'm focusing on the NYTimes, where the original article appeared instead of PandoDaily because PandoDaily is our standard tech industry rag that tacks on three pages of superfluous rubbish onto what someone else wrote first.) --- This is a 100% non-issue. As a person of colour, if I started raising a hue and cry every time there was a tech company (or, for that matter, any company) board full of white men/women, people would go bonkers. No one says "there should be X Asian, Y Hispanic, and Z African-American members on the board" because it simply isn't practical to implement without cast-iron Government controls (which are themselves susceptible to favoritism, corruption, etc.) If this Claire Cain Miller person on the NYTimes doesn't like it so much, maybe she should be in tech instead of spouting vitriol about Silicon Valley during the day and then going to a journalists' cocktail party in the evening where you would get laughed out and never asked again if you talked about apache v/s nginx. Her ilk of pseudo-intellectuals and outrage artists are making reporting into more of a theatre play. For an example of a (young) woman who is actually making a difference -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a35XINnYFtA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a35XINnYFtA

felipe 13y ago
I don't think it's right that Twitter is being singled-out as the evil chauvinistic company out there, but it is undeniable that positions of power in Silicon Valley are indeed reserved for the privileged white-male, and that's the focus of the NYT article [1], although it does use Twitter as a high-profile example. Would you deny that Silicon Valley's VC community is not a "old boys’ club" as the article describes? Would you deny that things are not tougher for women, persons of colour such as yourself, or latinos such as myself? You are right: It is not practical to force companies to distribute opportunities equally among genders / sexual preferences / ethnicities / races and whatnot. However, we cannot also simply ignore the problem in our industry because a solution is not available at first sight. Also, your own answer shows a bias against the author, dismissing her kind as "pseudo-intellectuals". That's exactly the kind of comment that makes technology such an unfriendly field for diversity in general. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/technology/as-tech-start-ups-surge-ahead-women-seem-to-be-left-behind.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/technology/as-tech-start-u...
- parennoob 13y ago
  Of course, things are probably going to be tougher for people who are not white males, and we should pragmatically try and do something to fix that. My point is that articles such as this do little or nothing to help, and often end up breeding resentment amongst groups of every race and gender. The journalism industry which writes these articles is often much less diverse and much less welcoming to outsiders than the tech industry that they are constantly criticizing and accusing of chauvinism and sexism. I do have a bias against these authors, because they tend to not have much to showcase in the way of their own forays into making any sort of technology stuff, and restrict themselves to writing about an industry whose fundamentals they probably don't understand.
  - cupcake-unicorn 13y ago
    It sort of sounds from some of your posts that you think that there isn't as much of a problem with sexism in the tech industry as people make it out to be - is that correct? If you haven't been a woman in the tech industry it may be hard to understand. African American friends have told me things that I was shocked to hear about, and I could barely believe what I was hearing, given that I live in a very big, liberal city, in this day and age. It's very hard to put yourself in another's shoes like that if you haven't had the experience of living it - and moreso if you're a decent person who isn't sexist, racist, etc. and have a very hard time even imagining someone seriously showing that kind of bias.
    - felipe 13y ago
      > "given that I live in a very big, liberal city" I don't know what city you are referring to, but your post alludes to a good point which is the fact that people normally associate Silicon Valley and San Francisco as liberal, and this is very much a myth. San Francisco in specific is actually a very conservative city: Gays are accepted only in a limited area of the city, the homeless are taken as a tourist attraction, the educational system is biased towards privileged kids (for example: latino kids are excluded and bused around to other areas of the city), there is no modern urban planning such as a decent public transportation plan (BART sucks, MUNI sucks, Caltrain is not connected to BART for example) while areas such as Pacific Heights and Palo Alto love to talk about environmental issues but actively lobby for not allowing BART in their neighborhoods. Don't take me wrong: SF Bay Area is not a horrible place to live. All I am saying is that this notion that SF is liberal is wrong.
cupcake-unicorn 13y ago
I do generally agree that they're making rather a big deal out of it, but I don't think your comparison to racial minorities is a fair one. Women are going to be roughly half of the population, whereas the amount of racial minorities in a given community might be much, much lower. I guess another way to look at it is a coin toss...arbitrarily assign male to heads, female to tails...at what point does it start getting alarming for a given run that you're not getting any tail flips? When a person has roughly a 50% chance of being either gender, and your board gets big enough, there's definitely something going on. The same even goes with the racial minorities, if the board is huge.
- parennoob 13y ago
  "I guess another way to look at it is a coin toss...arbitrarily assign male to heads, female to tails" You lost me there. Males and females typically tend to have broadly different interests, life choices, and career goals. So it is nothing like a coin toss. There is a disproportionately low female participation in the tech industry, and we should personally recognize our biases when recruiting and try and avoid them, because we would like a more diverse workforce. At the same time, I don't see the nursing industry (90% women) or the teaching sector (80% women) complaining about low male participation.
  - cupcake-unicorn 13y ago
    They're not as different as you may think, the different life choices and career goals may very well be due to stigmatizing women in the fields they were once interested in. So when things like this happen (or more serious cases on larger boards), it's crucial to take into account if this is happening due to a real lack of qualified applicants, or a cultural issue within the organization. I've noticed myself, as being introduced as the only woman to a formerly completely male team, that it's really important to have a mixed gender workplace. I didn't experience sexism, but there were little things here and there that were no longer acceptable in a mixed gender environment, and they adapted, which was in the end positive for everyone. While having a racially mixed office could also provide these benefits, I think the potential is much less, since societally latent sexism is considered much more acceptable than latent racism, and I'd argue may have more chances to come to light. I have to point out that your nursing/teaching example is a terrible one, as nurses and teachers aren't considered the "professionals" in their field - that would go to the traditionally male dominated fields of doctors and professors. I can't think of any female dominated industry that doesn't have a higher level male dominated one associated with it.

felipe 13y ago

I don't think it's right that Twitter is being singled-out as the evil chauvinistic company out there, but it is undeniable that positions of power in Silicon Valley are indeed reserved for the privileged white-male, and that's the focus of the NYT article [1], although it does use Twitter as a high-profile example. Would you deny that Silicon Valley's VC community is not a "old boys’ club" as the article describes? Would you deny that things are not tougher for women, persons of colour such as yourself, or latinos such as myself? You are right: It is not practical to force companies to distribute opportunities equally among genders / sexual preferences / ethnicities / races and whatnot. However, we cannot also simply ignore the problem in our industry because a solution is not available at first sight. Also, your own answer shows a bias against the author, dismissing her kind as "pseudo-intellectuals". That's exactly the kind of comment that makes technology such an unfriendly field for diversity in general. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/technology/as-tech-start-ups-surge-ahead-women-seem-to-be-left-behind.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/technology/as-tech-start-u...

parennoob 13y ago
Of course, things are probably going to be tougher for people who are not white males, and we should pragmatically try and do something to fix that. My point is that articles such as this do little or nothing to help, and often end up breeding resentment amongst groups of every race and gender. The journalism industry which writes these articles is often much less diverse and much less welcoming to outsiders than the tech industry that they are constantly criticizing and accusing of chauvinism and sexism. I do have a bias against these authors, because they tend to not have much to showcase in the way of their own forays into making any sort of technology stuff, and restrict themselves to writing about an industry whose fundamentals they probably don't understand.
- cupcake-unicorn 13y ago
  It sort of sounds from some of your posts that you think that there isn't as much of a problem with sexism in the tech industry as people make it out to be - is that correct? If you haven't been a woman in the tech industry it may be hard to understand. African American friends have told me things that I was shocked to hear about, and I could barely believe what I was hearing, given that I live in a very big, liberal city, in this day and age. It's very hard to put yourself in another's shoes like that if you haven't had the experience of living it - and moreso if you're a decent person who isn't sexist, racist, etc. and have a very hard time even imagining someone seriously showing that kind of bias.
  - felipe 13y ago
    > "given that I live in a very big, liberal city" I don't know what city you are referring to, but your post alludes to a good point which is the fact that people normally associate Silicon Valley and San Francisco as liberal, and this is very much a myth. San Francisco in specific is actually a very conservative city: Gays are accepted only in a limited area of the city, the homeless are taken as a tourist attraction, the educational system is biased towards privileged kids (for example: latino kids are excluded and bused around to other areas of the city), there is no modern urban planning such as a decent public transportation plan (BART sucks, MUNI sucks, Caltrain is not connected to BART for example) while areas such as Pacific Heights and Palo Alto love to talk about environmental issues but actively lobby for not allowing BART in their neighborhoods. Don't take me wrong: SF Bay Area is not a horrible place to live. All I am saying is that this notion that SF is liberal is wrong.

cupcake-unicorn 13y ago

I do generally agree that they're making rather a big deal out of it, but I don't think your comparison to racial minorities is a fair one. Women are going to be roughly half of the population, whereas the amount of racial minorities in a given community might be much, much lower. I guess another way to look at it is a coin toss...arbitrarily assign male to heads, female to tails...at what point does it start getting alarming for a given run that you're not getting any tail flips? When a person has roughly a 50% chance of being either gender, and your board gets big enough, there's definitely something going on. The same even goes with the racial minorities, if the board is huge.

parennoob 13y ago
"I guess another way to look at it is a coin toss...arbitrarily assign male to heads, female to tails" You lost me there. Males and females typically tend to have broadly different interests, life choices, and career goals. So it is nothing like a coin toss. There is a disproportionately low female participation in the tech industry, and we should personally recognize our biases when recruiting and try and avoid them, because we would like a more diverse workforce. At the same time, I don't see the nursing industry (90% women) or the teaching sector (80% women) complaining about low male participation.
- cupcake-unicorn 13y ago
  They're not as different as you may think, the different life choices and career goals may very well be due to stigmatizing women in the fields they were once interested in. So when things like this happen (or more serious cases on larger boards), it's crucial to take into account if this is happening due to a real lack of qualified applicants, or a cultural issue within the organization. I've noticed myself, as being introduced as the only woman to a formerly completely male team, that it's really important to have a mixed gender workplace. I didn't experience sexism, but there were little things here and there that were no longer acceptable in a mixed gender environment, and they adapted, which was in the end positive for everyone. While having a racially mixed office could also provide these benefits, I think the potential is much less, since societally latent sexism is considered much more acceptable than latent racism, and I'd argue may have more chances to come to light. I have to point out that your nursing/teaching example is a terrible one, as nurses and teachers aren't considered the "professionals" in their field - that would go to the traditionally male dominated fields of doctors and professors. I can't think of any female dominated industry that doesn't have a higher level male dominated one associated with it.