Why does everything have to be evaluated in terms of encouraging one gender to do X or encouraging one race to do Y? Why not just generally encourage humans to be open to learn things they may find interesting or useful?
Because people with technical knowledge are considered in many humanities circles to be a priveleged group that is oppressing others. (Especially in the Bay)
Unfortunately privilege is not black and white, as postmodern feminists seem to believe. Things aren't as simple as "white people prosper, black people suffer" or "men dash through the red carpet, women are forcefully held back".
There are a lot of factors and variables that determine privilege. Being a white man alone does not assure you success and consequently being a black woman alone does not assure you failure. How does white male privilege help the social outcasts who live on the fringes, have been effectively ostracized by their peers and live solely for the virtual world?
Life on Earth is a constant struggle. It is a struggle in the wilderness, and it is also a struggle in Information Age society. Invoking privilege is meaningless without context, simply because it is so wildly variable and can range from moderately useful to completely negligible.
The way postmodern feminists use "privilege" is as a copout either to declare a group as weak and in need of being pampered (which is prejudiced, but for some reason is not considered to be) or to trivialize achievements as if they were solely based on privilege, and not on, you know... giving your 10,000 hours of hard work. Privilege may have given a boost, it may have not.
Feminists are always campaigning that we end gender binaries. Along with that, we also need to end silly racial and social binaries. How does male privilege help the countless of disposable pawns who die brutally in wars and conflicts? How did white privilege help the Slavs or the Irish? The Samis? I'm sure genocide victims were happy about their inherent biological characteristics giving them privilege and shielding them from extermination.
In the contemporary Western world, the barriers are remarkably lower than ever before. Especially for software development, which despite all the talk about misogynistic environments, has a very low entry barrier at the end of the day. Ribald conference presentations haven't stopped anyone from downloading a Ruby interpreter and coding. I hope so, at least.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be advocacy groups for underrepresented people, but ultimately we shouldn't be operating on preconceived biases and emotions to fix the demographics issue. We shouldn't even be seeing demographics as a #1 critical priority, but rather we should give everyone resources to participate equally. If they don't want to, they don't. Don't pester them or think you're helping anyone by posting provocative blog articles filled with postmodern lingo.
Comments
Why does everything have to be evaluated in terms of encouraging one gender to do X or encouraging one race to do Y? Why not just generally encourage humans to be open to learn things they may find interesting or useful?
It seems like that's not happening, and until we figure out why and fix it, we're at least trying to compensate.
The women I know learn and learned a lot of things, just not computer science. Why is computer science better than other things?
Because people with technical knowledge are considered in many humanities circles to be a priveleged group that is oppressing others. (Especially in the Bay)
The Bay protest scene is hilarious. White people with trust funds yelling at Indian immigrants on the behalf of black people.
Because certain groups face unique discrimination that other groups don't face, and general encouragement does nothing to solve those issues for them.
Please understand privilege.
Unfortunately privilege is not black and white, as postmodern feminists seem to believe. Things aren't as simple as "white people prosper, black people suffer" or "men dash through the red carpet, women are forcefully held back".
There are a lot of factors and variables that determine privilege. Being a white man alone does not assure you success and consequently being a black woman alone does not assure you failure. How does white male privilege help the social outcasts who live on the fringes, have been effectively ostracized by their peers and live solely for the virtual world?
Life on Earth is a constant struggle. It is a struggle in the wilderness, and it is also a struggle in Information Age society. Invoking privilege is meaningless without context, simply because it is so wildly variable and can range from moderately useful to completely negligible.
The way postmodern feminists use "privilege" is as a copout either to declare a group as weak and in need of being pampered (which is prejudiced, but for some reason is not considered to be) or to trivialize achievements as if they were solely based on privilege, and not on, you know... giving your 10,000 hours of hard work. Privilege may have given a boost, it may have not.
Feminists are always campaigning that we end gender binaries. Along with that, we also need to end silly racial and social binaries. How does male privilege help the countless of disposable pawns who die brutally in wars and conflicts? How did white privilege help the Slavs or the Irish? The Samis? I'm sure genocide victims were happy about their inherent biological characteristics giving them privilege and shielding them from extermination.
In the contemporary Western world, the barriers are remarkably lower than ever before. Especially for software development, which despite all the talk about misogynistic environments, has a very low entry barrier at the end of the day. Ribald conference presentations haven't stopped anyone from downloading a Ruby interpreter and coding. I hope so, at least.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be advocacy groups for underrepresented people, but ultimately we shouldn't be operating on preconceived biases and emotions to fix the demographics issue. We shouldn't even be seeing demographics as a #1 critical priority, but rather we should give everyone resources to participate equally. If they don't want to, they don't. Don't pester them or think you're helping anyone by posting provocative blog articles filled with postmodern lingo.
Related to this, it seems like there should be a FAQ for "women in tech". Does such a thing exist?
Because social justice
To try to convince ourselves diversity will work.
We're not the first empire to go out this way, nor will we be the last.