So if I support binary gendering on toilets, I'm not welcome at Google? Why has it become necessary to subscribe to a particular set of political beliefs in order to work for Silicon Valley firms?
I have been in Silicon Valley for almost a year now after moving from the Midwest. I have been able to talk freely with my coworkers about some of my conservative views. Yet when I have shared what would count as "traditional values" on internal forums I have been on the receiving end of redicual and name calling.
I very much would like to hear a thoughtful response on why Silicon Valley is so unaccepting of political dissent.
I attribute it to the history of feminism. First-wave feminism genuinely dealt with human rights issues where dissent was based on a twisted view of humanity (e.g. women are property of men, not autonomous subjects). The late third and fourth waves have kept the same assumption about the nature of their views. But the views themselves are very much more extreme and unintuitive.
Again, I'd love to hear someone explain it better from their own feminist point of view.
But now we have a problem. What if there are conservative employees who do not support gay marriage rights? Should their opinions and feelings not count? If Yahoo is an open and accepting place, then it should be just as acceptable for a manager to send emails to employees inviting them to Straight Parade, or to "Anti Gay Marriage" Parade. But if that were to happen, the manager would be fired immediately.
Being against Gay Marriage rights is a political opinion, just like being FOR Gay Marriage rights. Isn't it discriminatory that a company like Yahoo is only allowing one opinion to be heard? In fact, isn't it problematic that Yahoo is promoting ANY political opinion in the first place? For Yahoo to remain an accepting and open work place, it should either have no political agenda at all, or it should promote all political opinions equally.
I mean, you could theoretically accept any viewpoint, but you don't really want nazis in your company to be an accepted thing.
nice..
The primary difference, in practice, between something like Gay Pride and something like "Straight Pride", would be the power dynamic between the two.
Historically, and even to some extent currently, the people with more power have been those who would be in the latter parade.
"Punching up" is what it's called when you are challenging a group more powerful than you - "punching down" is more commonly referred to as "bullying".
> Historically, and even to some extent currently
Surely only the current situation matters? Why should the people now care about the power dynamic of the past?
The reason to care about the dynamic of the past is that people are influenced by the past - in particular, people's actions in the present are often based on things that they did or that were done to them in the past.
Specifically, here, the reason to care about the past is that, even if/when we reached a point of equilibrium, where a subset of people were no longer in a minority of power, there would still likely be X Pride events for a while after, because the feeling of needing/wanting such things would not go away overnight.
Or even multidimensional. a "sum across all dimensions" doesn't make sense to me.
We are talking about something (power) that differs across contexts, locations, times etc. Power is as complex as our (human) social organisation, an is not amenable to linear algebra.
> people are influenced by the past
Unless that is is a result of holding this belief; People are never influenced about the past, only by their subjective, current beliefs about the past. It would make more sense to consider what people believe now.
Marxist historical analysis has fallen out of favor for a good reason.
> would not go away overnight
Desire for power will never go away.
The "subset of people" is biased towards how you do your grouping; For example, that I, a white man, am naturally grouped with white slavers of the past, such that modern black Americans have something to resent me for.
Your narrative here relies on these kind of groupings in order to talk about "a point of equilibrium" and "no longer in a minority of power" - you need to identify a group as the same over a period of time in order to make these distinctions.
> it looks bad because
where we have these insidious "interpretations" then end up in requiring you to do or say one thing or another to prove your allegiance to some principle other people consider sacred.
There is a difference. If you are for gay marriage, you support gays having the same rights as everyone else. If you are against it, you want them to have less rights, just because they are gay, even though it doesn't affect your own rights in any way.
Now, it's still a political opinion, but it's reasonable for other people to not like it. Being in favor of segregation is also a political opinion but would provoke similar backlash.
Such an attitude, although less harmful than many more common workplace problems, is so high on the jerk scale that I cannot imagine how it could be considered a political issue. It's as absurd as asserting one's right to drive while drunk.
But you just made it up? Don't you mean "such an interpretation" - you can fashion a narrative around any belief.
For example, I don't believe there is a fixed age where a person magically develops the facilities to make sexual choices. However, I do support a fixed, explicit age of consent - A legal parameter only needs to be practical.
With my opening comment in mind, what if I reject your premise and believe that ones gender should match their sex? Is it not a political issue when a portion of the population believe transgenderism is alright and another portion believe differently?
I feel like the standard for what counts as "diversity and inclusion" is skewed. There is no problem with an atheist opening being critical of religion. Yet I cannot openly critique the merits of anything in the LGBTQQIP2SAA community.
Is the end goal that everyone has the "right" answer to specific questions and no one has hurt feelings or is the end goal that an open honest dialog between radically different viewpoints can happen where all parties are respected regardless of the topic being discussed or who is involved in the discussion? Someone please chime in if they disagree but I see a lot of former happening and only lip service being paid to the later.
I don't see not being evil as a controversial issue, with "radically different viewpoints" deserving "open honest dialog".
Unisex toilets are just a simple and inexpensive way to be not evil; unfortunately touching the subject of gender is a strong temptation for many people to divert the discussion towards the most toxic and horrible politically correct or intolerant ideas.
If your premise is considering "protected classes" rather than people and discussing "transgenderism" as if it were abstract you are clearly not thinking about the comfort and well-being of your coworkers.
If a population of conservative engineers existed who refused to work at a place with non-binary toilets, would you make the same statement? Or would they not be good at their jobs?
I could speculate the same about the trans engineers, I'm sure it wouldn't be welcome.
> Having a conservative politic is a choice
Please expand on this; what specifically is not a choice in contrast, and how does this relate to this situation?
There are situations in which I feel "uncomfortable", and not by choice; but this is unrelated to whether I am receiving unfair treatment.
Why do you think that allowing employees to protest male and female only toilets means that you are not welcome? Should all dissenting voices be silenced? I'm for unisex toilets, it is just more convenient. But that doesn't means that I HATE people that has a different view. It is my preference, and I think that at least I should be able to express it.