I don’t want to be the pink elephant in the room
imallika.com
imallika.com
Phrasing such as "a minority" might be seen as unfavourable.
"A minimum is sometimes required" -- if this is about positive discrimination / affirmative action, this is a potentially controversial and complex topic, as other posts in this thread reveal.
However, I do agree with your point that discrimination in employment can indeed be very hard to prove for individual cases, even though broader statistics may illustrate that it occurs.
High expectations or low expectations, people often rise to the level expected of them.
Not to mention, whether you got in on the regular track or the alternate track affects people's attitudes about your abilities. People need information about others, and the circumstances of how they joined the organization (whether they are in the group that got assistance or not) is a source of information. Sure, some people have been trained to ignore that for the sake of fairness, but not 100% of everyone.
I generally agree with this article. But you can't be a white male and speak this way in silicon valley without being shamed and being labeled a Trump supporter. Especially if your company has militant diversity advocates.
Not many people, then or now, can afford at an early age to stop focusing on creating food on the table and roof over their head, and on top of that fund what is generally a rather expensive passion.
And chances are you were still being racist/sexist but you didn't even realize it because you've got the wall shadows that deeply ingrained in you.
The gender gap is purely cultural, and we should be learning from what those cultures are doing that's different than us. This article really hits the nail on the head in terms of what we do in the west (ie: "math is for boys!") vs other places where your sex isn't really factored into what subjects are appropriate. It's very good.
The countries with low gender gap in science/tech are also the countries that measure low on general measures of gender equality. It turns out there isn't anything to learn from these cases. In regions with low gender equality and weak social safety nets, technology is seen as the means to economic security and thus empowerment. Conversely, regions with high gender equality and strong social safety nets have the largest gender gaps. There is something to be learned from this, but we probably won't like what we find.
Given that we observe a larger gender gap in countries that are more gender equality we can conclude that when men and women feel more equal their choice of profession diverge.
It may be smaller in other cultures, but it's my impression that it's still there. At least among non-Western immigrants to the U.S., there are still at least 2-3 males for every female engineer.
Dunno about the quality or authoritativeness of the numbers, but this link indicates that India still has plenty of room for growth, assuming that 50/50 is the ideal gender ratio.
http://blog.belong.co/gender-diversity-indian-tech-companies
If people are being oppressed/suppressed, then surely we have some things to learn.
But cultures are often 'just different' and one may not be better than the other because more women or men do this or that.
We also have gendered roles in teaching, construction etc., nobody is screaming injustice.
1. One of the very few jobs that is well paid. So you are either a software engineer or poor.
2. There is not social stigma associated with being an engineer. infact its the opposite, see point 1.
3. Even in India "math is for boys" meme is strong but point 1 overpowers everything else.
> The gender gap is purely cultural
Unless you can point me to a non-poor country where this is true, I would say 'The gender gap is purely economical '
The resistance to this gender essentialist conclusion is easy to understand, but it shouldn't change anything to true egalitarians. If someone's suitable for a job, hire them. Gender or race quotas are sexist and racist, by definition, and it's those policies that are endangered, not egalitarianism.
Math is important.
Money and getting a high paying job is important.
Having rich social life and a large family.
What will the gender differences be, and which will have a bigger extreme? Which will see an reinforced difference as the children grows older and into puberty, the time where career directions are usually made? Last, how does the economy of the country in which the children live influence the answers.
Here is a bet: Its all about the second question, for which math correlates to. Culture will influence children to strive for money if there is a risk to not have food on the table, roof over their head, and parents that will go without both at elderly days. This result in gender roles to merge on the subject of being the provider. "math is for boys" is identical to the idea that "beauty parlors are for girls"; inter-gender competition thats are effective strategies when other basic needs are fulfilled. Focusing on inter-gender competition while starving is a poor strategy. A collaborating evidence to that bet would be if women in countries with lower gender segregation in tech has a better chance in escaping poverty through math than marriage. It would then be maladaptive in those places to have stereotypical gender roles where men are the sole providers.
For me, this works reasonably well, and meets about equal (quite moderate) resistance from tradition-minded people in countries as different as US and Russia. (This also illustrates that a culture predominant among engineers likely differs less between countries that between different social strata or education backgrounds in the same country. Compared to this, inter-gender differences can be very safely assumed to be zero.)
fwiw, as an Indian male engineer in US, I initially was very enthusiastically thinking "lets go out of our way to support the pink elephants" and later was surprised when some of my peers (female engineers from India in US or of Indian origin) showed utter disinterest in being part of many of these women centric meetups/conferences.
They were more enthusiastic to go to conferences that successfully enforced a 'No Asshole Rule' on attendees, followed by attending conferences without 'all male' speakers, than conferences of any other type. (I thought the feedback I received was an outlier, but it is good to know I'm not alone).
Hope such articles bring positive changes to improve diversity organically and address the pink elephant syndrome.
This article reminded me of this video "Modern Educayshun" (by an Aussie Comedian of Indian origin) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKcWu0tsiZM . Feels like the video makes a similar point.
Not sure where I mentioned that?
I don't see any inconsistencies in his comment. He supports the author's thesis with an anecdote.
But maybe he edited after your comment.
Either way, I’m not a fan of the bro-mentality places(jobs/conferences) and I absolutely love conferences which make it nice for people (of any gender, orientation, race, culture, language) to attend.
I think we need more women in tech talking about tech and less women in tech talking about the problems with being women in tech and only getting attention of the wrong kind -- for being women in tech.
I mean, it's kind of recursive.
That means, between now and then, we're going to hear from plenty of die-hards with opposing views.
En route it will be necessary to remind ourselves of the course we should be plotting, and to continue to respond to opposition.
Articles such as this are part of that journey.
That is exactly what I am trying to do.
In case it came across as such, I didn't intend my comment to be negative or contradictory, but to add to yours.
To have women in tech talking about tech topics instead of what it feels like to be a woman in tech. Although the show is labeled "women in tech", it's simply to raise awareness of this. This is a good way to help our industry.
I feel some of us men behave that way. :(
link to clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dek5HtNdIHY
The idea of sexless-ness, which can also be describe as women/men as equal and undifferentiated from that of men/women, seems to me as the way to reach optimal freedom and agency in life. Gender roles and associated expectations affect incentives and disincentives, neither which is optimal if we want to reach the point where every individual can seek their own passions. I only hope that the ideas behind equality feminism can once again raise to be dominant within the progressive culture.
One famous example was a study that involved submitting resumes to various jobs with names removed and then randomly reassigned (to avoid any actual correlation between the name's perceived gender and the quality of the resume). Resumes with female names received half the callbacks than if they had male names. You can't practice sexless-ness when you're not aware that you're discriminating.
Lets bring in other similar studies. Physiologist that work for the juridical system and makes decisions about the mental status of accused criminals. Identical submitted profiles with female names received twice the number of judgments on being criminal insane than men, resulting in more lenient punishment and more time in medical care. Physiologist outside of the juridical system has also got similar studies where identical profiles of clinical depressed people, and women are twice as likely to be correctly diagnosed. A female name is more likely to get social support while being homeless, and similarly if you test judges who decide over family disputes you see a clear bias.
Neither of those involve a society which practice sexless-ness. All dictate that professionals (including those in government) treat both women and men equally. Culturally we do not practice sexless-ness and we are nowhere near in abolishing gender roles. What the studies do prove is that gender roles has still a major impact on people in professional positions and rules of equality do not trump peoples expectations when the only clue to a gender is a name.
Race has a similar problem, through here it seems to be a proxy for social economical status (class), which then leads to the cultural expectations and values.
In both cases it seems very conscious behavior, and when it comes to diversity work its explicitly so. Few are still preaching that you should not see gender or race, and those that do are generally attacked for doing so. Gender roles are emphasized and highlighted in practically all form of news and cultural media, occasionally reversed for the shock or comedy effect. Its very explicit and conscious.
I'm a man named Lyndsy. I've experienced the opposite bias - companies that were initially very enthusiastic about my interviewing with them, right up to the moment where they realized I was male.
Obviously, I have no way of knowing whether I received fewer callbacks as a result of my name - but I do know with a very high degree of confidence that I have landed at least one interview based on my name.
It seems to me that actively "working against" this unconscious bias merely replaces it with another.
Several years ago, GoGaRuCo brought in blind judging of their talk applicants pool after ensuring the pool was seeded with half women. Suddenly their roster was half women too, on judging the talks purely on the merits of the proposal.
We constantly see that when we successfully block stimuli to unconscious bias, the bias is disarmed.
[1] Interestingly, they didn't significantly increase until they made auditions walk on stage in their socks, because the sound of their formal-wear shoes were obviously different.
> I come from a country and a back ground where intelligence and the ability to work extremely hard is valued highly, with beauty, money and popularity ranked far, far below.
In contrast, modern American culture (which is globally pervasive) is just so incredibly sexualized. And incredibly polarized. Many women are angry, and many men are addicted to angry porn. It seems rather a divide-and-conquer strategy by the kleptocrats. But maybe it's just chaos.
Maybe it's just advertizing?
Someone want's to make you buy a product that makes you more "more". More manly, more womanly, more better looking, more money. News and TV wants to make you more engaged, if that is by telling you more lies, or making you more angry they will do it, so you watch more ads.
It'd be hilarious if it were just greed-driven advertising that's destroying American society.
For instance, India, where the author comes for, is often celebrated for having had a 1) female prime minister all the way back in the 60s 2) a female president 10 years ago, and lots of women in the three pillars of democracy. Compared to the US, that makes India look like a bastion of women's rights.
But anyone who's lived there will obviously tell you that women there have their own set of problems. And in fact, when it comes to the president and the prime minister too, some would argue that they were instated as 'puppets' (Google for "Indira Gandhi dumb doll"). It's a different matter that she towered above all that and developed an identity of her own.
Yes, but it's the personal experience of someone who has never "had to defend their choice of or fight an uphill battle while selecting engineering as a career choice". Which makes it seem like more of an "argument by outlier" than the expression of some deep universal insight-- yes, maybe Mallika doesn't appreciate someone listening to her talk as "being supportive", but maybe women who have had to fight an uphill battle would appreciate the show of solidarity and the chance afterwards to swap war stories.
(I do agree that it was unfair to flag the article.)
Obviously I did not grow up in India so I can't say with certainty that the author is an outlier. But I have heard face-to-face from many, many, many Indian women who tell a very different story from the one we're reading here.
So you can find a Germany+Austria+Italy equivalent number of poor people in desolate conditions, but there also a UK+France+Spain+Nordic-countries equivalent number of people who are doing much better and have access to many resources.
So one's view of India totally depends on which European country equivalent you interfaced with, unless they have travelled to every region/state in India and lived there for a few months/years, without having a political/religious/NGO entity planning their itinerary.
In support of the author, I agree with what she says. Those women who do make it to engineering / tech / high-skilled professions tend to do so without having experienced the pink-elephant phenomena. In fact, I can totally empathize with what the author is saying in her post.
PS: I just made up the list of countries and equivalents, but I hope my analogy helps in understanding how vast India is, in terms of population, the demography, including the languages spoken, scripts written, religions / cultures followed by people.
As a woman I can also empathize with the author and would of course prefer to have my work valued on its merits. I just don't think that's contradictory to having a robust diversity effort.
You don't agree with the thinking therefore the author is wrong and her experience and opinion isn't worth considering. This is the very antithesis of acceptance, inclusiveness, and diversity.
I think her message is very simple and powerful. Just be interested in what she is working on based on the merits or her work. I think that's an excellent model to strive for, and really, it's sad anyone has to even say it.
No, I just don't agree that the author's experience generalizes to other women.
>Just be interested in what she is working on based on the merits or her work.
And what of people like the event manager in the article who are interested in other aspects of her career? Shouldn't we practice "acceptance, inclusiveness, and diversity" toward them also?
She describes having grown up in a culture where that experience is normal, but that is not necessarily the same culture that she is working in now.
The general way that I have understood folks who advocate the programs that are being presented as problematic here is: whether or not there should be room for "maybe", and whether or not one should care about anything else, people inject maybes and do care about gender. That is, the diversity programs and the sense of “I should support this person because she is a woman” is rooted in an observation or impression that being a woman puts you at a disadvantage in one way or another. The bias is already there, and the attempt is at a counterbias.
I think it's very good that this isn't a problem in the author's experience, but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem at all. That said, I'm wondering if there can be a better balance between supporting women who are good but aren't judged to be, or feel like they aren't even though they are, and women who are perfectly confident in their abilities and just want to operate like a sexless engineer at work. Certainly I'm hopeful that women don't experience that bias in every organization, and a (hypothetical) organization that's already structured in an unbiased way would perhaps not want to focus on gender.
From a purely practical standpoint, though, it feels like the right question here is, does the approach the author doesn't like reduce the number of women who don't enter or who leave the industry due to bias more than it increases the number of women who leave in frustration from being treated as ‘different’. If the problem these programs are meant to address is ‘many women leave the industry or don't join it because of perceived bias’, then that's the real metric. In a perfect world, nobody cares… But in a world where people are biased against women, perhaps you have to try to adjust explicitly for that in the short term, so that you can get to the goal of a world where nobody cares in the longer run.
The "other" sees this for what it is - 2 people pandering instead of including them into a group of 3 equals. When confronted, each side will claim this is how they include people, and accuse of sowing dissent.
The more people I meet, the more I realize there is no "them" - there is us, just us, and more of us.
> I come from a country and a back ground where intelligence and the ability to work extremely hard is valued highly, with beauty, money and popularity ranked far, far below. Growing up as a South Indian in Mumbai, neither me, not anyone I know or grew up with, has ever had to defend their choice of or fight an uphill battle while selecting engineering as a career choice, regardless of their sex.
I come from the different country but I've got few Indian colleagues. We're talking a lot because I've been always interested in cultural differences. From what they said I feel like above sentence is not true. Male's role in the society is to become an engineer and bring money. Female's - to get married and raise kids. Society's expect you to fit in your role and it's difficult to do something else without tons of comments from your family and friends. One example could be a male colleague who's interested in cooking and wish he could open a restaurant. Yet, he's an engineer. Another one says he didn't really have a choice - he could be an engineer or nobody so, obviously, he choose to be an engineer.
Could anyone confirm how does the reality look like? Maybe it differs by region. It's a big country after all.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/education/story/living-examples...
And now I'm vaguely remembering a section of Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle, where Jack Shaftoe gets help from a so-called "pirate queen". In Kerala, I think.
Wait! Where is this fabled land? I would bow humbly before the philosopher-kings who rule it, grovel at their feet to learn how they so wisely manage mere human weaknesses! Surely there the streets are paved with gold and happiness and good fortune follow all those who fail to foolishly abandon such a blessed land.
Then again it might be just because they think they owe their success to being right about everything, which they are not.
What's the evidence for that claim?
It's better in my opinion to be upfront about anecdotal data.
> Intelligence was, and still holds the top spot amongst almost all South Indian families.
She can say that intelligence is highly valued, and she can say that not a single person she knows or grew up with fought the kinds of battles against sexism we're familiar with in the U.S. Likewise, I can say, "I'm familiar with battles against sexism in the U.S.," without needing to cite or defend a single thing.
But the moment either one of us makes a statement to characterize some grouping of people outside of our direct experience, there almost always needs to be more than anecdotal evidence to back it up.
Likewise, me saying, "blank is the single greatest problem facing U.S. corporations today," would need citations-- plus probably an elucidated theory. Otherwise I'm just stating my own personal intuition in language that is unreasonably broad.
clarification: I changed "all" to "some grouping of people outside of our direct experience." I think that's a much more meaningful way to put it, as it doesn't matter whether someone is talking about "all", "almost all", "most", etc.
Not sure of the author's family background, but either way, its not trivial for women in India to escape the social pressure (of getting married earlier than men) even if parents are supportive.
From my Indian POV, it feels a little frustrating to see that there's so much focus on getting women into tech after they are out of college or mid career, than focusing on it when they are in middle/high school.
As you said, "helping hand and encouragement provided by those groups" is needed, but it needs to focus disproportionately more on kids about to start middle school / high school than girls at any other age. It is too late to think of helping for a transition once a girl / woman is out of college.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/09/11...
If you want to comment here, please (re-)familiarize yourself with the site guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, including this one: Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Edit: I feel bad about not being able to find a way to let the author know that her article is currently being discussed on HN, so if any of you know her, could you give a heads-up? When people submit an article, it doesn't get attention, and then we re-boost it, we always email them if we can.
Now, serious question: Are there women here who have a counter to this article? I do know a few who got into tech through specialized programs such as "<Project> Girls", but I also know many (possibly more) who have been turned off by the constant.. uhm, patronizing feel to them.
I'm not a woman, nor am I a minority (not in tech at any rate), so I can't confirm or deny whether it actually is patronizing when in that position. It sure feels to me like it is: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DQ3iqzTVoAANW7X.jpg:large
No offense to React.js Girls, I've not actually heard anything negative about it in particular. But ... am I crazy to think it's incredibly rude to put so much emphasis on gender (or really, anything)? Like, if these events were about skin color, sexual orientation or religion in place of gender, who here would find this appropriate?
I should also say, I was invited to help volunteer at a local Django Girls event a few years back. I turned it down because it sounded a little creepy to me to have an event be run only by men, that invites only women. (Note: this is obviously not the case all the time; it was in the instance I was invited to.)
So, what am I missing here? Obviously I'm missing something because, whenever I see this opinion getting expressed, it gets downvoted or, in this case, flagged.
Her Twitter is in the site's footer, FYI.
Her twitter account is linked at the bottom of her page - https://twitter.com/iyermallika
Also "pink elephant" is a kind of symbol for delirium tremens, though I don't know how common that is anymore.