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The issue isn't that there are men who aren't good at public speaking too, but rather that speaker slots are still dominated by men and men are more visible in

The issue isn't that there are men who aren't good at public speaking too, but rather that speaker slots are still dominated by men and men are more visible in the tech community in general. Github is making an effort to provide a public speaking workshop specifically for women because of this. > Note: the values driving this post are a respect for individual rights regardless of gender. I don't see how individual rights has anything to do with this. Github is not obligated to provide a workshop for every person and Github employees have a right to create a workshop that targets women. Nobody is being prevented from running their own workshop or being forced to attend a workshop.

yummyfajitas 13y ago
If you believe individuals have the right not to be discriminated against based on gender (I'm ambivalent), then this event violates individuals rights. What do you believe? Your first sentence suggests some value system based on group rights, individuals are irrelevant. Could you state your values more carefully? (Im especially curious how you determine which groups to give rights to.) As I said, I suspect you will recognize the points of disagreement when you do.
- king_jester 13y ago
  > If you believe individuals have the right not to be discriminated against based on gender (I'm ambivalent), then this event violates individuals rights. What do you believe? This workshop in no way harms men as the dominant group in tech and tech public speaking events. Offering a workshop that targets for a type of person who is underrepresented and faces unique challenges for not being in the majority group doesn't constitute sexual discrimination. The workshop is discriminating in the sense that it selects for a particular kind of person, but this is different from what we mean by sexism and sexual discrimination. > Your first sentence suggests some value system based on group rights, individuals are irrelevant. Could you state your values more carefully? (Im especially curious how you determine which groups to give rights to.) As I said, I suspect you will recognize the points of disagreement when you do. The question would be are your individual rights being violated when Github hosts a workshop targeted for women? The answer is clearly no. Private individuals and groups have a right to form voluntary workshops that have criteria for entry. It would be silly to say that individuals who face unique problems from not being a part of the dominant culture can't form groups or hold events that address their specific problems.
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    Offering a workshop that targets for a type of person who is underrepresented and faces unique challenges for not being in the majority group doesn't constitute sexual discrimination Of course it's sex discrimination. Sex discrimination is when a function satisfies the equation: allowEntry(x.copy(gender=Female)) != allowEntry(x.copy(gender=Male)) for some x. This workshop certainly seems to qualify. If you want to argue that sexual discrimination is acceptable under some circumstances, go ahead - but as I said before, please be explicit about what your underlying values are. It'll help us all understand why we disagree. Private individuals and groups have a right to form voluntary workshops that have criteria for entry. So if a group of brogrammers form a voluntary corporation that has being male as a criteria for entry, that's acceptable? If not, why not?
richforrester 13y ago
I'm going to be ridiculously blunt: Assuming the following: - the amount of women in tech is a fraction of the amount of men - the intelligence/experience/skills of all of these men and women is about even - percentage-wise there are just about as many men as women that are crap at public speaking - the intent is to put more women in front of crowds Assuming these, teaching none but women how to speak (or, none but men, for that matter) only serves to make the level of these events lower. You want the best, not the /best of this or that minority/. This goes both ways, and that's what the OP pointed out, with an unhealthy dose of sarcasm. That said, I think having some women up there might actually help. It gives the youth a better impression, perhaps even inspiring some women to have a go at IT.
- michaelmior 13y ago
  I don't understand why you suggest that teaching public speaking will make the quality of events lower.
- jessedhillon 13y ago
  To illustrate the problem with your point, go one step further. If women are 1%, say, of the developer community, why not only give them 1% of stage time -- maybe 24 minutes on a 3 day conference? Your argument is predicated on the idea that the only fair allocation is a pro-rata distribution of time, resembling almost perfectly the demographics of the audience. Consider instead that the echo chamber effect is real, and it is to the benefit of the community that people with fundamentally different backgrounds will introduce perspectives which, when mixed with those of the majority, will make the entire community more robust. Second, your concept of applying quality standards, while ostensibly a desirable thing, is problematic in application. In a community where majority/minority dynamics apply, invariably the assessment of quality will tend towards what the majority feels is most aligned with its own sensibilities. Those of course are informed by their own experiences, and to the extent that there are strongly overlapping elements, the consensus view will contain blind spots. I don't know what the answer is to that, but it's something to think about if you want to take the issue seriously. So yeah, if you think that the best thing for a conference, or a community in general is to only hear from perspectives in equal proportion to how they occur in the population at large -- which is the effect of so-called meritorious approaches such as yours -- then by all means you should count the allotment of every second. Black programmers should be invited to give 30-second lightning talks whereas smart, young white males from middle class backgrounds should pontificate for hours. I personally think that the quality of your conference will be much worse. I would rather see someone decide to give a woman a chance, yes because she's a woman but also because she's smart, so as to give a voice to people who don't normally get a chance to be heard much.

yummyfajitas 13y ago

If you believe individuals have the right not to be discriminated against based on gender (I'm ambivalent), then this event violates individuals rights. What do you believe? Your first sentence suggests some value system based on group rights, individuals are irrelevant. Could you state your values more carefully? (Im especially curious how you determine which groups to give rights to.) As I said, I suspect you will recognize the points of disagreement when you do.

king_jester 13y ago
> If you believe individuals have the right not to be discriminated against based on gender (I'm ambivalent), then this event violates individuals rights. What do you believe? This workshop in no way harms men as the dominant group in tech and tech public speaking events. Offering a workshop that targets for a type of person who is underrepresented and faces unique challenges for not being in the majority group doesn't constitute sexual discrimination. The workshop is discriminating in the sense that it selects for a particular kind of person, but this is different from what we mean by sexism and sexual discrimination. > Your first sentence suggests some value system based on group rights, individuals are irrelevant. Could you state your values more carefully? (Im especially curious how you determine which groups to give rights to.) As I said, I suspect you will recognize the points of disagreement when you do. The question would be are your individual rights being violated when Github hosts a workshop targeted for women? The answer is clearly no. Private individuals and groups have a right to form voluntary workshops that have criteria for entry. It would be silly to say that individuals who face unique problems from not being a part of the dominant culture can't form groups or hold events that address their specific problems.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  Offering a workshop that targets for a type of person who is underrepresented and faces unique challenges for not being in the majority group doesn't constitute sexual discrimination Of course it's sex discrimination. Sex discrimination is when a function satisfies the equation: allowEntry(x.copy(gender=Female)) != allowEntry(x.copy(gender=Male)) for some x. This workshop certainly seems to qualify. If you want to argue that sexual discrimination is acceptable under some circumstances, go ahead - but as I said before, please be explicit about what your underlying values are. It'll help us all understand why we disagree. Private individuals and groups have a right to form voluntary workshops that have criteria for entry. So if a group of brogrammers form a voluntary corporation that has being male as a criteria for entry, that's acceptable? If not, why not?

richforrester 13y ago

I'm going to be ridiculously blunt: Assuming the following: - the amount of women in tech is a fraction of the amount of men - the intelligence/experience/skills of all of these men and women is about even - percentage-wise there are just about as many men as women that are crap at public speaking - the intent is to put more women in front of crowds Assuming these, teaching none but women how to speak (or, none but men, for that matter) only serves to make the level of these events lower. You want the best, not the /best of this or that minority/. This goes both ways, and that's what the OP pointed out, with an unhealthy dose of sarcasm. That said, I think having some women up there might actually help. It gives the youth a better impression, perhaps even inspiring some women to have a go at IT.

michaelmior 13y ago
I don't understand why you suggest that teaching public speaking will make the quality of events lower.
jessedhillon 13y ago
To illustrate the problem with your point, go one step further. If women are 1%, say, of the developer community, why not only give them 1% of stage time -- maybe 24 minutes on a 3 day conference? Your argument is predicated on the idea that the only fair allocation is a pro-rata distribution of time, resembling almost perfectly the demographics of the audience. Consider instead that the echo chamber effect is real, and it is to the benefit of the community that people with fundamentally different backgrounds will introduce perspectives which, when mixed with those of the majority, will make the entire community more robust. Second, your concept of applying quality standards, while ostensibly a desirable thing, is problematic in application. In a community where majority/minority dynamics apply, invariably the assessment of quality will tend towards what the majority feels is most aligned with its own sensibilities. Those of course are informed by their own experiences, and to the extent that there are strongly overlapping elements, the consensus view will contain blind spots. I don't know what the answer is to that, but it's something to think about if you want to take the issue seriously. So yeah, if you think that the best thing for a conference, or a community in general is to only hear from perspectives in equal proportion to how they occur in the population at large -- which is the effect of so-called meritorious approaches such as yours -- then by all means you should count the allotment of every second. Black programmers should be invited to give 30-second lightning talks whereas smart, young white males from middle class backgrounds should pontificate for hours. I personally think that the quality of your conference will be much worse. I would rather see someone decide to give a woman a chance, yes because she's a woman but also because she's smart, so as to give a voice to people who don't normally get a chance to be heard much.