- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
The Grace Hopper Celebration is meant to unite women in tech. This year droves of men came looking for jobs.
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This really sounds like a failure of the organizers more than anything- first off, lumping in non-binary is a catch all that anyone will take advantage of, and second and most importantly, everyone was complaining about long lines. Long lines means lots of people. Lots of people means the event over-sold their $600-$1000 tickets.
Sounds like the event organizers were more interested in making money than helping women in tech- women would have had the same problems had it been 100% women.
Edit: I’m not bashing non binary people, I’m just saying that people will take advantage of it, that’s all.
Including non-binary people was not the problem. Relevant quote:
“AnitaB.org, the nonprofit that runs the conference, said there was “an increase in participation of self-identifying males” at this year’s event. The nonprofit says it believes allyship from men is important and noted it cannot ban men from attending due to federal nondiscrimination protections in the US.”
They identified as male, not non-binary, and the event allowed men to come.
So they identified as men, and the event allowed the men to come? Then I’m failing to see what the issue is?
The problem is, the event’s not allowed to discriminate officially. The article is about lamenting the ability to discriminate
I’m sure so many people right now have that shit eating grin, especially after reading
The nonprofit says it believes allyship from men is important and noted it cannot ban men from attending due to federal nondiscrimination protections in the US.
the article quotes a bunch of people frustrated at pushing, shoving, line cutting etc at the job fair portion that weren’t visiting presentations - basically people who didn’t want to listen to the speeches but wanted to throw out resumes, fuck everyone else.
IMO they could solve the problem with a stamp system for people who sat through a presentation but its kind of shitty to have to treat everyone like kids because a couple dudes can’t behave themselves.
It also mentioned how some were lying about their identity, but I’m not sure how they figured that out
I like how this comment section highlights why a job fair specifically not for cis men is needed lol
It’s so fucking cringe. I work in tech, I see how weirdly women get treated and I see their unusually high turnover rate. Early on I was told “women don’t last long here” and it was very true, that woman in particular quit to do freelance work (good for her). Why can’t women have a job fair? Men don’t fucking need one, NEARLY ALL of the other tech job fairs are dominated by men.
I’m really being sincere, but why would men magically not need a job fair? They can also be unemployed and struggle to get a job. That’s not a 2x specific issue.
I guess I’ll just copy and paste from my previous comment:
NEARLY ALL of the other tech job fairs are dominated by men.
Because men dominate the tech industry. It just doesn’t make sense to hold one for men.
Eh… I think it does, but for different reasons. The tech industry has a relatively high rate of unemployment. Job fairs would be good for everyone.
I agree that women have unique issues in tech and a women-only job fair would be a good thing. I just think General-admission job fairs are useful now too.
Eh… I think it does, but for different reasons. The tech industry has a relatively high rate of unemployment. Job fairs would be good for everyone.
I agree that women have unique issues in tech and a women-only job fair would be a good thing. I just think General-admission job fairs are useful now too.
What’s worse is when you see workplaces that want more women for only the idea it will ‘bring up the standard’ like….I think there’s something telling about the culture alone if they need a specific gender to help understand better standards of working. I would hope they are hiring inclusively for more reasons than just ‘our standards are low cuz the men here are poo and we won’t confront them on it. We will leave it to women to mommy manage it for us. Know any women looking for a job?’
Why can’t women have a job fair?
Laws.
I agree with you, it’s just not the way the laws were written.
Yeah but been could be mature enough to stay away from it. Instead they act like they’re being oppressed. All the other job fairs are already dominated by men.
If woman want a job fair they should create one that actually only allows women, but given no one seems to have a definition for women, it might be hard to do.
Federal anti-discrimination laws disallow this. It has nothing to do with the “definition of women”.
which law prevents a private female only conference from happening? As far as I know, there are no such laws.
Read The Fucking Article, that’s the exact reason they allowed men at the conference in question: federal nondiscrimination laws
I’m saying I don’t buy that reason. There are no laws (afaik) that prevent exactly what I described. Federal discrimination laws typically refer to employment or public places, not private events.
This is an employment related event. Anti discrimination laws apply to applicants.
If it was just a networking event, no problem, ban men
some of the comments here are downright scary. women can’t have a single thing, it seems.
And article makes it clear what is to blame
The nonprofit says it believes allyship from men is important and noted it cannot ban men from attending due to federal nondiscrimination protections in the US.
lol
Yeah, this sucks. It doesn’t surprise me, but it sucks. So many manchildren out there who only think about themselves.
Yeah if there’s ever a sign that a group doesn’t need representation is when they brigade someone who does.
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No it does not. The problem was with men that lied about their gender.
Cullen White, AnitaB.org’s chief impact officer, said in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter, that some registrants had lied about their gender identity when signing up, and men were now taking up space and time with recruiters that should go to women.
edit: the deleted comment stated that the article claimed they had problems with amab enbies
This comment section is a perfect example of how capitalists have won the class war. Such hatred for half of the population of the world that people seem to have forgotten that people need jobs to survive.
I would like to know which half of the population you think is receiving the hatred and which half of the population is lobbing it.
Yes that is very unclear in the last sentence. Same with the responses beneath it.
It’s a delicious free-for-all and I’m all for it
Divide and conquer is a strategy old as world
Seriously… no one should be blamed for trying to earn a living. Instead of being supportive of each other and fucking organizing in unions, we are fighting with each other.
Because the left is too busy playing identity politics rather than focusing on unions.
It’s just continual bigotry that creates more problems than it ever solves.
Identity politics always leads to ruin.
Very true. The downvotes you have earned shows just how out of touch this community can be.
Ignoring gender, are job fairs overrun by job seekers now? Is it that bad?
Tech is overcrowded as a field and it gets worse each year. So yes.
Sadly, the perception will always be that there aren’t enough workers in tech, or that there aren’t enough “good” techies, when that hasn’t been the case for many many years now.
While a lot of people do leave tech for management or other careers, bootcamps still sell the dream to make money, and people always talk about how “learning to code is so important to society”. There has been an effort in the last decade or so to flood the market with entry-level workers, that we’re now in a situation where people are spending thousands on qualifications, only to find it near impossible to get the job - or finding that no one gives a fuck where you went to college and that you need to “LC or GTFO”.
I left tech to go work in nuclear power. Best career change I could have made.
Yup qualifications are only one of the things we look at, and it’s way down the list. which college… who cares?
Show us an active github page, boast about how you installed lemmy whilst fighting off a herd of wildebeast… top of the list.
Fuck. I graduate next year in tech
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All of those are limited resources to which you have no right,” White said.
But then earlier:
The nonprofit says it believes allyship from men is important and noted it cannot ban men from attending due to federal nondiscrimination protections in the US.
So… We’d like to discriminate against men and would conversely see no problem if someone else hosted male only hiring events…?
Removed by mod
After thinking about it that’s exactly what they’re doing.
They sold tickets at $700 each to loads of men. So loads of men turned up.
What did they expect to happen. They knew in advance how many tickets they’d sold and to who… and nobody raised any flags. A few % lying about gender (if they did, gender is complex) wouldn’t tip the scales that much.
That’s the motto of the WNBA… SOMEONE, needs to pay for this, but it’s not the responsibility of women to support women’s sports ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
#BringBackDiscrimination
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Did you mean this to seem sincere? Because it reads like a snide anti-LGBTQ statement.
How is saying they just assumed they weren’t trans an anti-LGBTQ statement?
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Because you obviously didn’t even bother to read the article.
AnitaB.org, the nonprofit that runs the conference, said there was “an increase in participation of self-identifying males” at this year’s event.
Not a TERF, just downvoting because you made a ridiculous statement and then followed it up with “anyone who disagrees with me is a bigot”.
How dare workers in (potentially desperate?) need of a job to look for jobs. They are men and belonging to that category automatically makes them rich and privileged. The working class should be united against common enemies, not divided because of gender. While it’s obvious that women in tech are discriminated, alienating fellow victims, even if males, is not the answer to the problem.
Capital really won the class war…
I know you didn’t mean it like this, but the result from this line of thinking is that we only try to put women on equal footing with men in tech when it’s convenient for men because times are good. Which in turn means we never put women on equal footing because the needs of men always come first.
Put differently women have to deal with being women in tech on top of times being desperate, men only have to deal with times being desperate. Things like this are why spaces like these are necessary in the first place, and if you break them down at the first discomfort you’re not a working class hero fighting the capital, you’re tearing down women and setting everyone back.
Gender is absolutely not the only nor the most important discriminating factor in tech. Being a foreigner and, probably most commonly, being old is an extreme disadvantage in tech. Similarly, a woman coming from a wealthy family might be a privileged compared to a man coming from a poor background (which translates into lower access to education, resources, etc.).
Look at the video in the article, and tell me you don’t notice some commonalities among the men in the queues.
I see mostly foreigners, who most likely have no network of support, and need a job to maintain a VISA before getting kicked out of the country. Are they in a better or worse position compared to a local woman? Does it even make sense to start asking these questions?
I want to challenge this vision where discriminations are only looked at through the lens of gender division. This is shortsighted because discrimination on the workplace is extremely diverse and it exists for the benefit of those same sponsors of this event.
As a teenage girl into coding, I was treated like absolute shit. If I made a mistake in my botball code, it was because I wasn’t good at coding. If a boy made a mistake in their botball code, then it was something that the other boys would help them debug. I remember it being assumed I just wouldn’t be able to figure out what structs were, so the boys running the botball code didn’t teach me. In college, any group project was an opportunity for boys to try to fuck me.
As a trans man, someone who has experienced life as both a man and woman in STEM, there are massive barriers to women. It’s invisible to you because you haven’t lived through it.
I am fully aware that those barriers exist. I am arguing (in other comments I am more explicit) about fighting against barriers, not a particular barrier.
I am also a foreigner in another country, and despite being a privileged person from many point of views (I could attend public university despite my family being poor), I have experienced some form of discrimination myself, so please don’t make assumption about other people’s. I am not blind to those kind of barriers, I simply have different opinions on the actions to take to improve the overall situation, with the goal of removing the concept of barrier, not any particular one (if that makes sense).
You’re arguing while shifting scope which is a problem. Are you arguing about averages or individual experience?
No one is saying gender is the only point of discrimination, but this specific event is focused on gender issues.
My point is that there is nothing else for issue related to other discriminations. And yet, before thinking whether those men (who showed up) maybe are also oppressed and discriminated, they have been simply labeled as “men” and therefore intruders, by definition. I would think that an oppressed community would realize the commonalities with other oppressed categories and use this to expand the struggle to them as well. Instead the rethoric behind this article makes me think that this is one of those events which is ultimately functional to the conservation of the status quo: big tech companies which sponsor the event and gain some visibility and good karma points to boost diversity while nothing really changes or is done to address the fundamental issue with discrimination (in general, not a specific one), because this is ultimately functional to the companies, which can leverage them to fight a fragmented worker’s front.
Bang fucking on point. Dont trust the people who profit off inequality and a desperate workforce to make things less desperate and more equal
I’ve had a lot more foreign male colleagues than I have female colleagues. Where are you getting you information about who’s disadvantaged?
Quantitative measuring tells you nothing. You have no visibility of the “starting condition”, how many foreigners are not even accepted a job interview, how many apply, etc. Discrimination is not something that can be measure with a scale.
Not to talk about age, ageism is huge in tech. Old people are sometimes fired to be replaced (hello IBM). In my company we are at around 25% women, 20% on engineering. I still need to meet a person over 50 (in engineering), I think there are maybe 3-4 over 40 (on a total of 300).
Also, discrimination doesn’t mean just not getting hired, it means contractual penalties, less salary etc., which happen in some cases with women too, of course.
That said, I am not arguing that women in tech are not discriminated, of course they are. I am saying that there are multiple vector of discrimination and that we should be able to fight against the general phenomenon, without having to choose which discrimination to keep and which to fight.
You need to do a lot of reading about intersectionality and intersectional feminism. You’re right about there being multiple possible systemic disadvantages because of someone’s identity (gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality, disability, etc) but the answer to that is not to sit around going NUH UH THIS GROUP HAS IT WORSE. Everyone needs uplifting, and it just so happens that this event was for women. If you think there needs to be a foreigners in tech job fair, go do one.
I respectfully disagree. If you think that organizing such events, with sponsors of that caliber is just a matter of “go do one”, then we simply have different point of views. I also did not make qualitative comparisons between who gets oppressed, I am simply observing that there are so many components to discrimination in tech that focusing on only one (intentionally, even after the opportunity to expand opened up presented itself) is not synergic with the long term strategy.
It’s fine to disagree, this is ultimately a subjective ideological call. I simply disliked the tone of the article overall. I would have liked some more in depth analysis of the impact (and reasons) of layoffs and maybe some interview to those people who “crashed” the event. Maybe with some sprinkle of discussion of unionization and collective fight, but I guess it was not fitting in an article about an event sponsored by the very same who laid off tens of thousands of people.
This is such a stupid and horrible take. Do you even work in tech?
Yes.
If you can also argument your position, I would be grateful.
A lot of times people arguing like that ignore the imbalance that exists and they go on to argue as if everything is equal to start with.
Yeah they are called stupid morons.
So, I’m a moron.
I did it my whole life until I took a stats course and it was like the first this the prof went over and I saw it was pretty obvious once it was pointed out to me but took someone having to point it out to me for me to see that mental blind spot
The paywall dropped on me before I could get to the end of the article, but a couple of observations:
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“Overrun” is dehumanizing language. I’m otherwise highly sympathetic, but casting desperate people, many likely staring down deportation unless they can find a new position, as an effective horde is gross. I would like to trust that Wired provided that characterization, not the organizers.
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The organizers ruined their own event, by not establishing and enforcing guardrails for attendance. This is a problem mostly of their own making. Rather than pointing, again, at desperate people, they should be accepting responsibility and planning to avoid the issue in the future.
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I think part of the problem is that everyone- regardless of race, sex, gender or orientation has MASSIVE debt, in part due to the greed of the housing and rentals market, student loans, and unpayable medical bills- on top of caring for families and children. While people in a 1:1 conversation would definitely acknowledge cons for minority groups, this situation is more like a sinking ship with everyone fighting over the same few rickety lifeboats. Everyone else is just a faceless competitor as debt sharks get closer and closer.
I still don’t understand why we don’t write laws preventing CEOs from making disgusting amounts of money and why we don’t have laws against multibillionares hoarding vast amounts of cash that should be getting invested into the very job fairs and infrastructure people are squabbling over.
It’s an unfortunate situation any way you look at it. And it’s a bummer that people are missing the forest for the trees in this thread :/
What do you mean by equal footing? Equality in Outcomes, or Equality in Opportunities?
Having a job conference open to all genders sounds more equal then a conference excluding a gender identity.
I personally would love to get to the point where names, photos, genders, and social networks - are removed from all employment material and people are just judged on their ability to do a job.
Something like putting someone into the interview queue based on their resume and projects, then having the interview feedback re-written by a third party to remove all discriminatory indicators, then a double blind hiring committee making decisions based on the interview feedback, and neutral resumes. It’s a pipe dream, but it would get us closer to a true meritocracy
Women face a huge amount of bias in the tech industry. There’s nothing wrong with giving the disadvantages an advantage.
Us men are basically crying because women are getting what we’ve had the whole time.
Obviously what you describe would be ideal but even that doesn’t even the playing field. Once hired women still face that same bias. They are less likely to be taken seriously as professionals (particularly by the higher ups who tend towards old white men) and more likely to be passed over for promotions.
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I’ve seen it happen multiple times, especially in more corporate jobs.
I try to very specifically mention who came up with ideas even if it’s my work for this reason.
Another common one is not wanting to ask simple questions in meetings as it makes them look less intelegent. While I ask every stupid question I can think of to be sure and look like I’m invested.
My advice is talk to your manager about things like that instead of helping. I know it feels like a dick move but it’s not your job to help someone else with basic stuff.
Something along the lines of “I think John may require more training as I’m having to help him a lot with simple things. I’m happy to do it but my deadlines will need adjusting”
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So your advocating for Equality in Outcomes?
Disadvantages groups need help to gain equal footing first. Before we can even talk about equality.
What does equal footing look like / mean to you?
The easiest is incentives to hire minorities (gender, sexual, race, disabled, etc.) to level the playing field first.
This takes away a large part of the privilege that is at play in the tech industry.
As more of these minorities get higher in the industry the implicit biases will begin to disappear.
Many of the people who currently experience the privilege will be pissed off and view it as unfair. But in reality they’re getting a taste of what other minorities already experience.
And in my experience (roughly 20 years) the more diverse a team the better the solutions and diversity in thinking you get.
Females have a hard time in tech, not women. anyone can be a women. but historically only females were the ones disadvantaged. Transgender women are actually over represented in tech as a proportion of population.
No I don’t mean that because I’m not an incel.
Transgender women are actually over represented in tech as a proportion of population.
That’s great.
So one form of discrimination was wrong, but this version is ok? No. We should learn from past mistakes, not essentially replicate them with the only difference being we flipped the men/women position.
Also, article states women make up a third of tech jobs. A third. That’s a really good chunk. I think the battle for women in tech jobs is over.
You’re only looking at things at a surface level. If you don’t correct the wrong, the “level playing field” is only an illusion. companies can’t easily correct why less women choose careers in tech, but they can make moves to correct the problem at their level. Extend and push for parental leave policies where the non-child barring spouse also takes time off for example. Women often see career growth plateau vs non-child barring co-workers due to this missed time. Traditionally this has meant women fall behind men.
Otherwise if you tomorrow just remove gender from Resumes, Men will still have an advantage, because they had the advantage in the past. It would take an entire generation to sort itself out assuming every inherent bias disappears and they absolutely won’t.
Maybe if you live in a world with no depth and only have a shallow understanding of anything.
The kind of discrimination that is problematic is the kind that is unjust or unfairly prejudicial. The kind where we respect people’s differences and historical lack of representation is not problematic.
Inequality of outcome is proof of inequality of opportunities 99.9% of the time. IME people playing up the distinction are simply looking for any excuse to pretend inequality isn’t a problem.
I’m trying to understand the requirements of the parent comment.
I’m not trying to be disingenuous.
Equality means a lot of things to a lot of people. Equality of outcome, and equality of opportunities are very distinct, and nuanced, and well-defined things.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_of_outcome
Vs
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_opportunity
Trying to understand what equal footing means, is helpful for me to understand the parent posters position. I don’t want to be stuck in ambiguity, when I’m genuinely trying to understand people.
And what happens once people are hired? How to you deal with unequal promotion rates or raises?
They are men and belonging to that category automatically makes them rich and privileged.
Privilege doesn’t mean that things are easy or automatic, just that (in general) people with privilege don’t have the same systemic negatives that those without it have. And it’s very indicative of privilege for the men who went to this thing, which was built up over a number of years by a community specifically to benefit the members of that community, to just assume they had the rights of a community member without ever having contributed to that community. Something exists, and therefore they are automatically entitled to it.
I can have sympathy for people desperate for jobs, and I can understand class warfare, and yet … once again something that women and enbys spent years and decades building up, is ruined because cishet men decided it was more ‘convenient’ for them to invite themselves into spaces not designed for them.
And yes, I do get frustrated with men not understanding issues of consent, in all of it’s different aspects.
I can have sympathy for people desperate for jobs, and I can understand class warfare, and yet … once again something that women and enbys spent years and decades building up, is ruined because cishet men decided it was more ‘convenient’ for them to invite themselves into spaces not designed for them.
Couldn’t this same logic be used by men to justify not allowing women into the tech industry in the first place? If someone of the wrong gender being around counts as “ruining” then men could say “once again something that men spent years and decades building up, is ruined because women and enbys decided it was more ‘convenient’ for them to invite themselves into spaces not designed for them.” In fact I’d say something like that attitude really is what underlies a lot of tech industry sexism.
Gender-exclusive spaces often seem appealing to the favored gender, but they’re really not good for anybody.
No, it couldn’t. Because men excluding women from tech in the first place is wholly excluding them - there isn’t another tech industry they can participate in. Men are being excluded from a single event when there are many other events doing the SAME THING that they are encouraged to attend.
Not saying I agree one way or the other, but the argument you make about the logic is not sound.
This argument is nonsense, but to humor it, there are other “industries”, and tech is just a collection of companies ultimately. " go do your fair" can sound also as “go make your own company (and hire who you want)”. Again, this is overall ridiculous, but at a purely rethorical level I think it works?
Women are excluded from tech?
My point is that while privilege can be applied to a category, it doesn’t make sense for a small number of individuals.
As I mentioned in another comment, look at the video, and notice how most men are clearly foreigners. Foreigners who maybe need a job to keep their visa or that anyway might not have the same network of support behind because they are just 2nd generation.
In my opinion, alienating fellow victims of a discriminatory system is at best shortsighted.
I also disagree with you deliberately labeling convenience what can very likely be necessity. I understand this aids your argument, but I find it purely based on prejudice.
I’m going to copy my reply to someone else elsewhere in this conversation:
First off, that job fair didn’t just spontaneously happen. It was thought up by, organized by, and run by women and enbys in tech, specifically to help women and enbys in tech. Those sponsors didn’t just miraculously happen; they were researched, approached, courted, their concerns addressed and their needs accommodated. And yes, that effort too was put in by women and enbys in tech, for other women and enbys in tech.
These are people with limited time and resources, who spent thirty years working on this, who carefully nurtured and shepherded the few resources they could gather, in order to create one single thing to help with their specific needs and challenges. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other groups with their own needs and challenges - foreigners who need accommodations for their visas and maybe cultural or language help, disabled people who need sign language interpreters or low-vision accommodations, people with issues like ADHD or major anxiety who need supportive environments and some guidance or handholding. There are lots of groups who can benefit from a job fair organized around their specific needs. The fact is, if you aren’t part of the group the fair is intended to help, you shouldn’t just show up, insert yourself into a place you were never invited, and take resources away from those who those resources were intended for.
And honestly, one of my frustrations is this: if you make a resource for … people living on Native American reservations, or blind or deaf people, or the mentally ill, or the homeless, or whomever, the resources generated get reserved for that community and no one blinks an eye. But as soon as a resource is designed to help women, there is an immediate and constant demand to expand that resource to other groups. The women and enbys who spent years and decades creating and nuturing this thing have the right to expend their limited time and energy creating resources that matter to them.
I’m not saying that foreigners don’t need help. I’m saying that out of the literally tens of thousands job fairs across the country every year, there’s this one job fair that supposed to be for women and enbys. And if foreign women and enbys want to come and participate, great! But cishet men just deciding to help themselves to something that wasn’t created or intended for them is just such an incredibly self-centered cishet-man thing to do that it’s incredibly frustrating to those of us who have given so much of ourselves to creating and nuturing safe spaces.
I am also copying another response:
My point is that there is nothing else for issue related to other discriminations. And yet, before thinking whether those men (who showed up) maybe are also oppressed and discriminated, they have been simply labeled as “men” and therefore intruders, by definition. I would think that an oppressed community would realize the commonalities with other oppressed categories and use this to expand the struggle to them as well. Instead the rethoric behind this article makes me think that this is one of those events which is ultimately functional to the conservation of the status quo: big tech companies which sponsor the event and gain some visibility and good karma points to boost diversity while nothing really changes or is done to address the fundamental issue with discrimination (in general, not a specific one), because this is ultimately functional to the companies, which can leverage them to fight a fragmented worker’s front.
people living on Native American reservations, or blind or deaf people, or the mentally ill, or the homeless, or whomever,
The difference between women in tech and the examples you made in my opinion is exactly that the examples address the whole universe of people affected by a particular discrimination or disadvantage. In the case of woman in tech, a single aspect of a more general problem is cherry picked. Again, I don’t want to use moral terms, I just think in terms of objectives to pursue. I have the feeling that the objective for some of the people who are talking about “intruders” is not to improve the culture in tech to eliminate discrimination and privileges, but a simple issue of “we want to be a bigger % of the privileged”. As such, I feel that the struggle is inherently reactionary, entrenching the overall dynamic of discrimination and fragmentation of the working class, simply tweaking a bit the appearance.
While it’s for sure true that organizing all of this did not happen in a vacuum, I would also argue that ultimately this is also the result of a “more privileged” status quo, bigger amount of power and influence, compared to other minorities that simply can’t achieve the same. Rather than using this power for the benefit of other oppressed, it seems that the idea is to just fight your own battle. I don’t want to say it’s wrong, I just think that this does not fit in my idea of struggle to improve the society. If I were a man who needed a job and I was labeled as intruder, non invited or something, I would have a problem tomorrow to join a union with those who labeled me, because the feeling I would get is that there is no mutual recognition of common problems and class. In turn, this means that when tomorrow there will be the need to protest against the various Apple, Microsoft, etc. Workers are going to have less power, not to mention that some of the people will think that since X% more women are hired in tech there is maybe nothing to protest in the first place.
Do you go to a fundraiser for Heart Disease and ask for money to be diverted to Diabetes?
Hey that sounds like discrimination durrr dur durrr.
Foreigners from misogynist coutries by chance?
How is this relevant? What does that tell you about particular individuals also?
Switch men with women.
Let’s see how that reads 🤡
Class is a lot bigger factor in these things than sex…
Thus speaks a person of privilege, who doesn’t really understand what “privilege” means. Class warfare does exist; that still doesn’t mean you’re entitled to help yourself to every community-generated resource without actually being a member of that community.
I personally agree with this, but:
- this is hardly a community event. Being a woman (or a man) doesn’t make you a member of a community by default (being a member in my opinion requires deliberate participation) plus this is a job fair sponsored by some of the biggest companies in US.
- what if you don’t have a community? For example, a foreigner? Is it OK to alienate these people (an even weaker minority)?
In other words, I would agree if we were talking about the tech-bros with families worth 6 digits behind and huge networks they can leverage. However way more attributes are a determining factors than just gender.
First off, that job fair didn’t just spontaneously happen. It was thought up by, organized by, and run by women and enbys in tech, specifically to help women and enbys in tech. Those sponsors didn’t just miraculously happen; they were researched, approached, courted, their concerns addressed and their needs accommodated. And yes, that effort too was put in by women and enbys in tech, for other women and enbys in tech.
These are people with limited time and resources, who spent thirty years working on this, who carefully nurtured and shepherded the few resources they could gather, in order to create one single thing to help with their specific needs and challenges. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other groups with their own needs and challenges - foreigners who need accommodations for their visas and maybe cultural or language help, disabled people who need sign language interpreters or low-vision accommodations, people with issues like ADHD or major anxiety who need supportive environments and some guidance or handholding. There are lots of groups who can benefit from a job fair organized around their specific needs. The fact is, if you aren’t part of the group the fair is intended to help, you shouldn’t just show up, insert yourself into a place you were never invited, and take resources away from those who those resources were intended for.
And honestly, one of my frustrations is this: if you make a resource for … people living on Native American reservations, or blind or deaf people, or the mentally ill, or the homeless, or whomever, the resources generated get reserved for that community and no one blinks an eye. But as soon as a resource is designed to help women, there is an immediate and constant demand to expand that resource to other groups. The women and enbys who spent years and decades creating and nuturing this thing have the right to expend their limited time and energy creating resources that matter to them.
I’m highly sympathetic, but this thing didn’t go wrong in an instant. The organizers watched it go off the rails, and, AFAICT, didn’t intervene to fix it, as the problem revealed itself at scale.
Hard situations require hard thinking and decisive action.
I think this is the response that summarizes why someone would have an issue with this:
A class of men used their time and resources to build an old-boys-club to help each other. This is widely regarded as a bad thing. There are actual solutions that would address the underlying issue of special interests giving certain demographics an advantage, like anonymizing applications to circumvent discrimination and ensure the most qualified applicant gets the job regardless of demographic. Instead, the approach here is to make a new old-not-boys-club to give an advantage to different demographics.
That’s the issue here. The response to gender discrimination isn’t to take turns, it’s to eliminate unfair discrimination entirely.
That can’t be done without first leveling the playing field.
Ah yes, my favorite community, a gender.
I can’t tell if your misunderstanding is unintentional or trolling. In the context of this conversation, the community I was referring to was the group of women and enbys who worked together for years to try to overcome some of the systemic issues facing women and enbys in tech.
Also, since you seem determined to give only brief one-liners in response, I have no interest in continuing this conversation with you.
Transgender women are overrepresented in tech. The event should be for females in order to properly address the real discrepancy at play.
My point was that I don’t feel being in a community with every man in existence, and likewise I see no point to limit a community to a specific gender, especially in this day and age. “We don’t know you, it’s the first time I see you” is a valid reason for not considering someone a part of a community (yet) on a fair presumably meant for already established members. “You’re a man, go away” just isn’t.
Also, since you seem determined to give only brief one-liners in response, I have no interest in continuing this conversation with you.
Quite a bold statement after a single reply from me. Did we have some similar interaction beforehand elsewhere? I usually don’t pay much attention to nicknames, so apologies if by chance it was a repeated occurrence.
Of course you don’t feel like you’re in community with every man, you’re not a fucking marginalized gender! Some of us have to have solidarity to survive.
This is the whole point of the fucking event in the first place! Y’all have to insert yourselves into literally everything don’t you? Unbelievably childish.
Yeah that was my first thought. For men to be trying to get a job here means there is real serious desperation. Don’t hate the desperate people, hate the people that created this desperation
Modern feminists are the biggest bootlickers out there.
They sold out in 1970s, no solidarity.
Cullen White, AnitaB.org’s chief impact officer, said in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter, that some registrants had lied about their gender identity when signing up, and men were now taking up space and time with recruiters that should go to women. “All of those are limited resources to which you have no right,” White said. AnitaB.org did not respond to a request for comment.
Who picks their gender identity? The individuals or Cullen White? If anything this underscores the insanity of identity politics. If gender is whatever an individual feels like, then this event was just thousands of women and non-binary folks, and White needs to stop being such a bigot. However I think most of us understand that this is nonsense.
Gender is indeed based on what an individual feels like. That’s a perfectly reasonable way to categorize people - it’s also for example what religion is based on. It’s just hard to implement systems where you give different rights to different genders when there’s no way to check what gender someone is besides asking them. Probably the best solution is to just treat people the same regardless of gender so nobody has an incentive to lie.
Probably the best solution is to just treat people the same regardless of gender so nobody has an incentive to lie.
I couldn’t agree more.
This is an excellent take! Especially considering everyone has historically been treated fairly and there’s no reason to consider the compounding effects that would’ve likely occurred due to generations of white men getting preferential treatment
Clearly the solution is to allow discrimination!
As yes, the Ibram Kendi school of, “I NEED to be racist to correct historical racism. My racism is good though, promise.” All racists think their racism is justified. It’s not. You’re just racist :)
"an increase in participation of self-identifying males”
These aren’t guys who claim transgenderism or non-binary identity, these are men.
Gender is what an individual feels like: and it’s a consistent feeling regardless of their circumstances.
Nobody in good faith argued that your gender changes at the drop of a hat or whenever convenient. The transgender people I know have experienced significant suffering for decades due to a mismatch in feeling vs societal impositions.
White isn’t being a bigot: you are with your terf talking points. Fuck off.
These aren’t guys who claim transgenderism or non-binary identity, these are men.
They didn’t poll anyone already at the conference. There were no genital checks at the door. This is Cullen White making a prima facie observation of people who present as men and claiming they “lied about their gender identity when signing up.”
It sounds like both you and White feel entitled to dictate to others their gender.
But how did they know the people lying about their identity were actually lying? That’s what I was left wondering. Hopefully it’s not just based on what the organizers assumed because that’d be (while admittedly funny) quite contrary to what I assume they want to advocate for.
I read the article but didn’t see it clarified. Dunno if they clarified in the video
Just because gender is a complicated matter, it doesn’t mean people can’t be dishonest about it. Trying to invalidate transgender people for the lies of male registrants intruding on women’s spaces is doubly shameful. Really, transphobic people love to put up a flimsy mocking pretense that they are a different gender to discredit trans people.
Even entertaining this argument seems like a mistake, but trans and non-binary people are a small minority. It’s extremely unlikely that they would outnumber cisgender women.
It’s sad to see this sort of two-faced transphobic talk taking starting to take root in Kbin and Lemmy. It’s bad enough how much of this happens in other places.
I think it points out the fact that saying you are something does not mean you are that something. Anyone willing to lie (lots of people) can abuse this freedom to the detriment of the protected group. self id cannot be a thing if you want to exclude a certain group, because you have no basis to call them out, no matter what your hunch may be.
When I talk of “transphobes trying to discredit trans people”, it’s about your kind of talk that I’m talking. Now you want to make it about trans people and their right of self-id, because cis men are being shitty. Entirely the wrong group of people.
you don’t know they are cis
It’s not clear from your comment. Are you also accusing the trans women at this conference of lying about their gender?
I am accusing the cisgender men at the conference of lying about their gender and I am accusing people in this thread of playing coy about the fact that is trivial for someone who 100% sees themselves as a man to tick F rather than M on a form if that will get them an advantage. Especially if they think being transgender happens on a whim.
If they are transphobic, they even get to discredit actual trans people while they take advantage of an opportunity that wasn’t intended for them. It wouldn’t be the first time transphobic people pretend to be trans just to cause problems.
You did read my comment, I hope. Do you truly believe there are more transgender women and non-binary people than cisgender women in tech, to the point they would outnumber them?
How do you distinguish between the people who genuinely identify as nonbinary and those who are dishonestly doing it?
identify
See the “problem” with the entire ordeal is this right there, self-identification will always be abusable by people who are willing to lie. There is no solution to that problem I can think of that doesn’t piss someone off hard.
What if they’re not transphobic but rather just taking advantage of the less competitive playing field cough cough
Drop the cough and dogwhistles. This is not about trans people and whatever wildly overblown fearmongering you are itching to bring up.
This is about men being smartasses.
If they’re amab and self identifying as nonbinary, they’d be transgender by definition.
It’s actually about how there is no ability for biological women to police their own spaces anymore.
I am accusing the cisgender men at the conference of lying about their gender
Wait, this is confusing. Cisgender man would mean they identify as men. But if they were lying about their gender… are you accusing them of secretly being women?
I don’t see how you could misunderstand what I said. If that wasn’t clear enough, the part right after that clarifies your question plenty. At this point I think are trying to deliberately create confusion and start an argument.
Oh yeah, and that Right-wing pfp is pretty telling too…
If gender is whatever an individual feels like, then this event was just thousands of women and non-binary folks,
The event could be “thousands of women and non-binary folks”. Did all these male-presenting people identify as women or non-binary just to be able to attend this event?
What do you think identity politics is, exactly? Just a way to make changes you don’t like to make you unhappy? It couldn’t possibly be about people trying to make social changes so they’re not constantly treated like shit. Oh no. The horror.
To the casual observer, identity politics seems to be a bunch of people competing to see who can put the most minority group names and acronyms in their social media profiles.
The event could be “thousands of women and non-binary folks”. Did all these male-presenting people identify as women or non-binary just to be able to attend this event?
According to their Chief Impact Officer, yes. Apparently they “lied about their gender identity when signing up.”
What do you think identity politics is, exactly?
Performative politics centred around identity. White is perfectly happy to pretend that men can be women - until it impacts him.
If we had proper public supports for people between jobs, students and immigrants looking to find a way to live and/or not get kicked out of the country, this wouldn’t be a problem.
The whole job hunt feels like a rat race, it’s practically common recruiter advice to apply for stuff that you don’t qualify for on paper, send out as many applications as possible and take every chance you can get. So I can see how people can apply these ideas to participate in spaces where they aren’t encouraged to apply.
This is compounded by the pressure put on people to even live without income for short periods of time.
I’d say I’m privileged, yet it took me a year of looking to land something in my field. I had money saved up and enough supports to keep costs at a minimum, I’m aware I’m lucky I was even able to be in this circumstance.
We need smart and capable women, trans and nb people in the workforce, and we need resources to overcome the barriers they face. I’m just saying that it’s not easy, even without such barriers and also with comforts that are not afforded to many.
You’re saying this like the rat race isn’t a feature for employers. They give you that advice because they want you to settle for whatever shit job they can get you to do for as little pay as possible. Employers don’t want happy, productive employees. They want desperate, starving employees just happy for the “opportunity” to make just enough to technically be able to survive.
it’s a feature for employers
You’re absolutely right about that.
I’m a trans woman and don’t bother applying because I know that my resume isn’t even looked at, and the interview hurdles are just so high that they’ll just say no anyway. What’s the point if companies refuse to hire me?
It sounds like you’re choosing for them by not applying.
Well, companies can’t hire you if you don’t apply. Do your best and make them all tell you no, rather than expecting it and not trying.
Just know that it’s often not your fault your application didn’t make it through. It’s half an exhausting lottery. I’ve had pristinely written CV and letter with family and career counselors editing it not get anything, and applications where I found spelling mistakes after were interested in interviewing. Companies tend to have hiring seasons where if you apply at a consistent pace, you’ll get no answers some months and many answers at other times.
Even recruiting itself is a hellscape, you see corps getting recruiters, laying them off because “they don’t need em anymore”, then all of sudden they need more staff but way more than the recruiters they have can handle.
Most of the problems mentioned in the article seemed to be problems with the convention organization and not the attendees.
Layoffs are what caused the long queues to begin with. Event organization and operation makes it seem closer to an average American Black Friday event than a job conference.
ITT: men who can’t ever admit they might be the problem. So many excuses here it’s pathetic.
edit: I love the “not all men” and “not me”. As always, it’s not all men. But it’s enough. And the men here getting so defensive really prove the point. And before anyone gets into it, it’s not really the sex or gender. It’s the societal expectations and allowances that encourage men to engage in abusive shit like we see in the article here. I.e. the patriarchy and those who support it.
Can you expound on that statement?
It sounds as if the organizers were too quick to take the $650 from attendees and those willing to pay were very eager to pony up the cash in the hope of networking.
The attendees should be able to tell that they would be intruding even if the organization didn’t bother to check that. Both were in the wrong.
How would they separate those intruding and those who the event was made for? Seems like a hard issue to solve
When a woman shows up to a men’s event she is brave and courageous. When a man shows up to a women’s event, he is intruding.
Hmm…
It’s almost like women are disfavored in the tech industry and this is an attempt to make up for that.
Can you stop staring at your own navel for even a second, Bob?
Great Parks and Rec episode
It’s abusive to checks notes apply for a job?
It’s abusive to invade women’s spaces as a man looking to take advantage. Stay out.
Oh look, you’re all up in this thread a day late posting his horrid takes.
The organization says it welcomes men’s allyship and participation though
Well, it seems to be considered abusive to have a men’s space at all, and if there is one, women are downright encouraged to invade it.
The horrid tale is hating men for trying to get a job.
There’s nothing more pathetic the a Mens Rights Activist. Shame to see so many of them here.
I don’t support the actions of men in this article, but all gender roles are toxic, and there are societal expectations of men that are genuinely toxic.
Again, women have gotten the shit end of the stick for muuuuch longer. I don’t want to minimize that. But saying mens rights activists are pathetic?
60% of male suicides report no off behavior from the man before commiting suicide. This suggests it isn’t a mental illness causing the problem, but circumstances in their life cause them to kill themself because they truly see no other solution or way out for the predicament they’re in.
How come men are twice as likely to be homeless than women?
Why isn’t it socially acceptable for men to take on the “care taker roll” like a stay at home dad or a nurse?
I could go on, but I don’t want to make this a rallying cry for men in a thread about a tech conference for women. I get meninsts is like a men’s rights group that was created to troll feminists, but men’s rights and woman’s rights should both just try and be egalitarian
Yeah, that’s feminism, not “men’s rights”. There are non-toxic sections of the Men’s Movement which explicitly recognise that thjeir aims are feminist but they’re almost invisible because they got overrun by toxic men who only wanted to blame all their problems on women and reclaim their right to rape and exploit them.
This article is not perfect but it does make the point well:
Part Four: A List of “Men’s Rights” Issues That Feminism Is Already Working On
Feminists do not want you to lose custody of your children. The assumption that women are naturally better caregivers is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not like commercials in which bumbling dads mess up the laundry and competent wives have to bustle in and fix it. The assumption that women are naturally better housekeepers is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want you to have to make alimony payments. Alimony is set up to combat the fact that women have been historically expected to prioritize domestic duties over professional goals, thus minimizing their earning potential if their “traditional” marriages end. The assumption that wives should make babies instead of money is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want anyone to get raped in prison. Permissiveness and jokes about prison rape are part of rape culture, which is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want anyone to be falsely accused of rape. False rape accusations discredit rape victims, which reinforces rape culture, which is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want you to be lonely and we do not hate “nice guys.” The idea that certain people are inherently more valuable than other people because of superficial physical attributes is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want you to have to pay for dinner. We want the opportunity to achieve financial success on par with men in any field we choose (and are qualified for), and the fact that we currently don’t is part of patriarchy. The idea that men should coddle and provide for women, and/or purchase their affections in romantic contexts, is condescending and damaging and part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want you to be maimed or killed in industrial accidents, or toil in coal mines while we do cushy secretarial work and various yarn-themed activities. The fact that women have long been shut out of dangerous industrial jobs (by men, by the way) is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want you to commit suicide. Any pressures and expectations that lower the quality of life of any gender are part of patriarchy. The fact that depression is characterized as an effeminate weakness, making men less likely to seek treatment, is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want you to be viewed with suspicion when you take your child to the park (men frequently insist that this is a serious issue, so I will take them at their word). The assumption that men are insatiable sexual animals, combined with the idea that it’s unnatural for men to care for children, is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want you to be drafted and then die in a war while we stay home and iron stuff. The idea that women are too weak to fight or too delicate to function in a military setting is part of patriarchy.
Feminists do not want women to escape prosecution on legitimate domestic violence charges, nor do we want men to be ridiculed for being raped or abused. The idea that women are naturally gentle and compliant and that victimhood is inherently feminine is part of patriarchy.
Feminists hate patriarchy. We do not hate you.
If you really care about those issues as passionately as you say you do, you should be thanking feminists, because feminism is a social movement actively dedicated to dismantling every single one of them. The fact that you blame feminists—your allies—for problems against which they have been struggling for decades suggests that supporting men isn’t nearly as important to you as resenting women. We care about your problems a lot. Could you try caring about ours?
This list comes across as very self-serving though. It’s basically saying men’s issues are only a problem for Feminism when it can be framed as also impacting women. I read the parent poster as calling for rising above a narrow single gender view of equal rights.
Sexism is inevitably a mirror. Treating girls and women differently inevitably has an impact on boys and men.
If you can think of a legitimate demand to improve life for boys and men which is not also a feminist issue, name it.
If you’re complaining that feminists aren’t backing up Men’s Rights Activists when they call for the right to rape and enserf women, then I can’t help you.
It’s basically saying men’s issues are only a problem for Feminism when it can be framed as also impacting women.
Well yes. Feminism is focused on the specific forms of inequality that women and folk perceived as women face.
However, the root cause of that inequality often creates issues for everyone, not just women. So feminism isn’t “at odds” with mens rights, but rather, addressing the issues that women face will improve issues for men too, because of those shared root causes.
I agree with everything you posted, by why are the egalitarian ideals of feminism strictly a feminism thing and not a men’s rights / men’s movement. Or why not just label it “egalitarian”. Why does the label matter in the first place? If someone’s behavior is a demonstration they’re a hypocrite to feminist/men’s movement/egalitarian ideals, then critique the individual when it happens. Why generalize their behavior to the group as a whole?
Because the assholes got to “men’s rights” “men’s movement” en masse, and you’ll spend your whole life critiquing individuals and find communities full of those individuals when you see those words.
Because it is structural.
Amazing the way everything can be twisted to be all men’s fault.
Get a fucking grip.
Yeah, that’s feminism, not “men’s rights”.
No, that’s men’s rights. Feminism has done great things for women, and that’s awesome. But feminism is by women, for women. It doesn’t make any space for men’s issues. That’s why the men’s rights movement exists.
Did you read any of the quoted article?
You quoted a Jezebel article. Would you read an article I quoted from Andrew Tate? Don’t insult our intelligence please.
Ok, well I’ll make the point they’re making. Since you apparently will read what I say.
What’s good for women is good for everyone. Fighting toxic masculinity and the patriarchy is ultimately beneficial to all genders.
I have to sayings I give to my students.
In times of high unemployment: “Be overqualified for the job you are applying to. If you are not, you competition will be.”
In times of low unemployment: “If the recruiter picks a name out of a hat among those who applied, your chances are 1 divided by the number of applicants. Find the average number of applicants that apply to jobs you want - that is the average number of applications you have to send out before you find a job. (E.g.: Online WFH jobs with good pay sometimes get thousands of applications).”
I only got my first job in tech for not lying. That was the only way I stood out. The guy hiring me was relieved when I came by and said my stuff was mediocre so I could not be lying like the sea of shitheads (his words) plaigerizing even his own work. Yes,even his own work started showing up in other people’s resumes…
So sometimes being truthful is worthwhile to be the only way to stand out. It’s a way to stay believable especially if they are inundated with liars
I answered the ‘why do you want this job’ question with ‘I’m unemployed and need money’, rather than lying about some lifelong ambition to work for a small software company in bumfuck nowhere. Got me the job.
Of course it depends on the interviewer, but TBH I’d rather work for one that values honesty anyway.
and it should be warned that lying on a resume does come with a risk as a person’s career takes effect. Lying on a throw away job is one thing. But as a person progresses in a career and depending on how small and incestuous an industry is, word of a liar travels fast. A person can get blacklisted fast.
Purely commenting on the TikTok and not the article:
“… career fair aimed at women and non-binary tech workers…” and then there’s a TikTok that says “A conference for (wo)men by women” and “the allies are totally allying”
So do only female presenting nonbinary people count?
(I know if you read the article that it says there was an increase in the number of self identifying males but how would the TikToker know that? The TikToker is just looking at the crowd and assuming that the place is overrun with men without actually checking if they’re NB.)
You actually think there’s the slightest possibility that a meaningful fraction of the men there are actually ftm trans people?
I can’t wait for this to be posted on Hacker News, get 5 of the worst techbro libertarian nonsense comments, get 3 angry SJW replies to those techbros, then dang shouts at the SJWs about tone, rate limits them, then flags the article off the site.
/it me, I’m the SJW.
Accurate lmao
No one wants to work anymore!
The mating call of terrible managers everywhere…
We call em “effective managers” nowadays, of course with note of sarcasm in voice)
People in the comments: Discrimination is bad! (Except when it’s against a group of people I don’t like)
It’s a shame these people can’t understand the flaw in their logic. More discrimination is not the answer.
Imagine if this was a whites only or over 6ft tall job fair, this stuff just fails to make sense when you divide groups based on criteria you can’t control.
I want a job fair for short people. Fuck those lankies, too long have they towered over us short kings! #SetTheBarLow
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Discrimination, without context, is necessary in nearly every situation. I must discriminate between bleach and water if I am to live, I must discriminate between walking into fast traffic and when it is safe to cross the road etc…
On a softer level, I discriminate between who I call my wife, and who I don’t, which of my friends is named David and which is named Alex…
And then if I’m employing people I can’t give everyone a job, I have to discriminate to a single person per job.
So, with the taken that to do anything some level of common sense discrimination is needed. However, humans cannot be relied upon to not take discrimination to an unfair place, and people must be forced to discriminate fairly.
People also lie, and will straight up tell you to your face they do not discriminate against women from the moment they enter the workforce to their dying day, and yet will, in private, discriminate against women so hard even if it were to destroy everything they hold dear. The only way to prevent that is to force people to discriminate.
Discrimination != Choice
There are moments in life where you gotta choose something. There is no discrimination if you choose objectively. You choose water over bleach because there are objective reasons why one over the other will be better for you. You choose waiting for a green light over running onto a driving car because that is less likely to get you killed. If you cant give everyone a job you have to choose someone. If you choose purely based on qualities describing who will fit the position best like experience and knowledge that wont be a discrimination. There is no such thing as a fair discrimination
I know that, of course, I was using my initial points to set a frame of reference that the word “discrimination!” is a thought-terminating cliche.
People can’t be trusted to hire correctly but they can be trusted to do a their job correctly? Say I was interviewing another engineer, you would argue that I can’t be trusted to do this task, but you presumably accept I can be trusted to do all other tasks associated with my job. Strange how I lose all ability to reason correctly the moment I walk into the conference room and regain it the moment I leave.
Hey if I stand in the door way will I be in a superposition state between bigoted and rational or will I be half of both at once or is it more like the Trinity? You know a mystery of the church…watch as the engineer is fully rational and fully irrational the two are separate but of same substrate.
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