Mozilla not accepted for Google Summer of Code 2015

My apologies, I didn't express myself correctly. I know what the term means. It's the self-deprecating nature of it that got me curious. Have you ever felt unsuitable as a chess player because of your sex or skin tone? I didn't really expect you to say so, but I thought the possibility might exist; that you have somehow been excluded from chess by those factors, which could have made you internalise the term "patzer".

Of course, my armchair internet psychonanalysis was completely wrong, which makes me glad, and I feel humbled by you. :-)

Either you completely misunderstand the issue and/or this is a straw man. It has nothing to do with comfort. It is the case that, because of institutional discrimination, women have a much higher mountain to climb as it were, to achieve success in the tech field. (If you dispute this, then you'll have to revise your reply to my other comment in which you acknowledge the existence of institutional discrimination.) Outreach to women, in this case, simply works towards helping them up that mountain a bit. The justification for that help is that for women the mountain is in fact higher than for men.

So, yeah, a man-only event doesn't make any sense. If you can demonstrate that men are at a net disadvantage in some way and could use help compared to other groups, then you could justify a man-only event.

And y'know? You can disagree with that all you want. I think you're wrong, and I think spinning up a new account to say something you fear is unpopular (but, let's not front, is so openly accepted here that I've exchanged some disappointed emails with dang) is real shitty, but you can disagree and I never said I spoke for you. You can hang yourself by your own words without my help.

I am 100% hearing you, and I understand how you get to that position. Here's where my head's at: if, as a culture, we think that diversity of self, thought, and action matter, then we have two options. One, which I think is relying on the better angels of natures that haven't proven to have them, is a sea change of culture where the usual bullshit is not tolerated, the casual sexism that I've heard (and objected to, and become the No Fun Guy for) amongst just-us-guys is stamped out. The other is to facilitate a demographic shift, to offer early, supportive services (I mean, even internship programs are fairly introductory). I tend to see these programs as doing the latter towards a goal I find to be a net positive and, additionally, beneficial to me, in the long run. I understand the potentially problematic nature of such programs and I think it's important for folks to keep those potential issues in mind, but I disagree with you in calling these programs, the ones that I am personally aware of, problematic in that way.

> If you've read my posts as "but what about the menz?!" (as I hear often) then I'm afraid that it looks like you're being reductionist.

That wasn't my read, and "worrying" was flip, I apologize. Let me try again: I come at solving social issues from an economic point of view; while it's not zero-sum, something's got to give to get things moving and to make the multipliers work. In the aggregate, I find it very unlikely that white dudes are going to have problems finding opportunities. And so, I, personally, am okay with making that trade and theoretically (but, I continue to think, probably not really) causing low-level harm to a few folks in a privileged position in the pursuit of a better end state for everyone.

And I respect that you haven't felt discrimination in the tech community. I'm glad you've had better experiences than the folks I know, and whose experiences have soured me on a lot of what I see as the insular nature of tech. In particular I am thinking of two of my dearest friends, two of the most level-headed people I know, who exited stage right because the trouble of being a visible member of outgroups wasn't worth the benefits of working in tech. That irks the shit out of me, and I want it to stop. (It's with this in mind that I try to put into practice what I say, and a major red flag for me is a homogeneous development group. I want to work with people unlike me, because in the long run it's better for me, too.)

> several of my equally qualified colleagues be denied opportunity through no fault of their own because somebody thought I deserved a better shot so their percentages looked better

Can I flip this around for a second? Because I don't think these feelings are restricted to a single "side" of anything. I've seen candidates lose out because they're not enough like the pack of white dudes doing the hiring decisions, too, and I'm certain I've benefitted from those same things too. You don't want to benefit unduly, and I respect that. But neither do I, you know?

While you might feel that way about it when you see it, it's neither the reason for nor the intent of the groups running the programs. There are a lot of real and ugly issues that exist that keep women (and minorities) out of the tech industry and push them out that have nothing to do with the qualifications or abilities of anyone.

Trying to increase opportunity to help balance the actual institutional sexism, racism, unconscious biases, hostile environments, and other factors that keep valid candidates out of tech isn't sexist or racist, they are an effort to counter the effects of sexism and racism and bring more people in who are just as qualified, capable, and talented but who despite those factors have added barriers to entry and added pressures to push them out. Those core problems can't really be addressed until there's enough diversity.

First off:

"because they (Women)" can't hack it any way else" puts the blame on the wrong party.

The fault is that of society, not of Women.

It reminds me of how a family member blamed me for the problems that arose my current relationship with a black woman.

"Didn't you think of how getting in a relationship with a black girl would affect your family?"

At first I wondered if this was a valid viewpoint, but I quickly realized that the blame was pushed to the wrong party. It wasn't my fault that the family member had a network of (consciously and unconsciously) racist people they called their friends.

So all fault is that of the sexist, racist, homgeneous reality of the tech community that exists now.

Women (even moreso Women of Color) "can't hack it like a white male would".

Technically speaking, any woman can "hack it" just as much as any man could or more. Sadly I've found that getting jobs is very little to do with technical aptitude these days however. It's more about people thinking they'll communicate well with you (looking like them makes them think this), that you'll share their ideals to some extent (they think looking like them means this), you'll be technically adept (looking like them is of course a plus), and get along well with the other colleagues (looking like them is a plus).

I'm sure you've heard the term "work twice as hard to get half as far before". Well these events exist to try and redefine that to "work twice as hard to get just as far", then maybe even eventually "work 1.5x as hard to get just as far".

> My position on this issue is both a combination of my lived experience having never felt discrimination in the tech community

There is possibly colorism at play here too, at least anecdotally speaking my Biracial friends seem to corroborate your viewpoint of "never felt discrimination".

I've personally witnessed discrimination and racism in most of the places I've worked, but just as much I've seen sexism.

So something that just happened, I was looking through local meetups and the second picture was a white dude with a HUGE oversized afro and headphones on... if you came upon this wouldn't you find it a little unwelcoming?

I know I personally do.

> The poor students weren't poor students because they were female, or because they were non-white, but because they were unintelligent and/or uneducated.

And why is that? If you reject the absurd notion that there's some causative relationship between technical ability/intellect and gender/race, what's the explanation, other than the possibility that those people didn't have the same exposure to the subjects that you did? And that's not even including the confidence factor: Of course a white dude can do this stuff, they do it all the time. Your story seems to suggest we should actually be doing this long before university. I would agree with that.

This part will probably be unpopular, but I'll say it anyway: What makes you so special, that your life is the one that gets to be changed? If we were all on equal footing, who says you're even good enough for your university geek-kid program anyway? Or me, for that matter - I was part of a similar program in high school[1]. What if we could be fifty years ahead of where we are now, if only we had an environment that was actually competitive across the whole breadth of our society, rather than jokers like you and me running the ship?

[1] http://www.usfirst.org/

The difference being that even if you had missed out on this one, you would have most likely had quite a few more as a white guy.

> Now, each spot once of those poor students occupied was a spot which could have been occupied by an excellent student.

Excellent student? Someone could be an excellent student that's never done simple addition before and look horrible in an algebra class because of that fundamental education not being there.

> The poor students weren't poor students because they were female, or because they were non-white, but because they were unintelligent and/or uneducated.

I find it interesting that you put unintelligent before uneducated, you might want to self-examine and see if you hold some prejudices. I've found that it's almost always lack of education and/or lack of opportunity creating the environment you've described.

> Each of those spots represented a young life which wasn't changed like mine was. Which of those students, unaccepted because of their gender or colour, dropped out of high school, never applied to college, committed suicide or majored in some non-technical field? How dare anyone think that's right?

You're right. See the thing is, for every white male/female that this happened to it happens disproportionately more to women, people of color , and women of color increasingly in that order.