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First of all, who is demanding it? This article is telling people who do want to help people who are underrepresented and face discrimination in technology a wa

First of all, who is demanding it? This article is telling people who do want to help people who are underrepresented and face discrimination in technology a way in which they can do better. I, for one, like knowing how to do better. Even if I'm doing an adequate job, I appreciate when my employees tell me that I could be more productive if I changed how I worked. I enjoy acting on that change and becoming better, and seeing how changing my actions makes things run more smoothly. This situation is not very different. I think the brunt of what you're saying comes down to saying 'I don't want to be a better ally' -- why not? When you're working on a team or towards a shared agenda, you should try and communicate and best understand how to interact with the people that you're working with -- this is just basic teamwork... When you're a member of the group that's part of the problem, you should probably grant more weight to what the group that is suffering discrimination/bias is saying. Let me decode what 'you're not a good enough ally for my standards' means -- it means you're still being a dick, and not listening to what people are saying. It means you're still part of the problem. The things that were talked about in this article are things that my fiancee faces in her job as an SDE at Amazon with an unbelievable, near daily frequency, and it really irks me when people decide to put their head in the sand about it.

sarciszewski 11y ago
> I think the brunt of what you're saying comes down to saying 'I don't want to be a better ally' -- why not? No, I'm arguing against the use of the word "ally". I'll do whatever I can to help people who are discriminated against, but as soon as the measuring stick of "quality of alliance" comes out, I check right the fuck out and hop on the express train to Nopesville. I refuse to have any part in this stupid torture of the English language.
- nostrebored 11y ago
  What would you prefer to call it? If you'd prefer to use feminism as an abstraction you can break it down as follows: Feminism is a women's movement for women by women. I am not a woman, so I cannot be a feminist, but I can be a feminist ally. The same thread of logic follows for the other movements. As we're talking about the movement of feminism, the "quality of alliance" can be clearly shown by the alignment of your attitudes with the movement's and your support for women you see facing issues related to patriarchal systems/biases. I fail to see how this is a torture of the English language. The same is done with international politics -- clearly we have ways that countries can be better allies to the U.S., if we're making the U.S. the center of focus. Whether or not we should do that is a different discussion.
  - sarciszewski 11y ago
    > Feminism is a women's movement for women by women. I am not a woman, so I cannot be a feminist, but I can be a feminist ally. > What would you prefer to call it? I'd prefer the use of the compound noun "feminist ally" over the generic and ambiguous noun "ally". > I fail to see how this is a torture of the English language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc Slight exaggeration for the sake of humor.
    - nostrebored 11y ago
      That's a fair point. Ambiguous use of ally does presume a lot, and does make things a bit more murky.

sarciszewski 11y ago

> I think the brunt of what you're saying comes down to saying 'I don't want to be a better ally' -- why not? No, I'm arguing against the use of the word "ally". I'll do whatever I can to help people who are discriminated against, but as soon as the measuring stick of "quality of alliance" comes out, I check right the fuck out and hop on the express train to Nopesville. I refuse to have any part in this stupid torture of the English language.

nostrebored 11y ago
What would you prefer to call it? If you'd prefer to use feminism as an abstraction you can break it down as follows: Feminism is a women's movement for women by women. I am not a woman, so I cannot be a feminist, but I can be a feminist ally. The same thread of logic follows for the other movements. As we're talking about the movement of feminism, the "quality of alliance" can be clearly shown by the alignment of your attitudes with the movement's and your support for women you see facing issues related to patriarchal systems/biases. I fail to see how this is a torture of the English language. The same is done with international politics -- clearly we have ways that countries can be better allies to the U.S., if we're making the U.S. the center of focus. Whether or not we should do that is a different discussion.
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  > Feminism is a women's movement for women by women. I am not a woman, so I cannot be a feminist, but I can be a feminist ally. > What would you prefer to call it? I'd prefer the use of the compound noun "feminist ally" over the generic and ambiguous noun "ally". > I fail to see how this is a torture of the English language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc Slight exaggeration for the sake of humor.
  - nostrebored 11y ago
    That's a fair point. Ambiguous use of ally does presume a lot, and does make things a bit more murky.