Lawlight on 14 October 2015
| binary solo said: He should have said "more women in IT is a desirable thing." Because that is true and has the benefit of being something the review panel would want to hear. Then he should have gone on to say "promoting IT to girls should start at school, where girls can start getting interested in IT at a young age where it can become second nature to them, like it became second nature to me when I was X age after spending hours [doing computery stuff]." Because this is a good strategy for making sure women can get IT jobs based on merit rather than a quota system. Then he should have said, "Making the IT work environment female friendly is also important, and I take pride in being a person who does not discriminate or pre-judge a person's worth based on race, gender, sexual orientation or nationality. When women know that they will enter a workplace and be treated well then they will be more likely to want to make IT their chosen career. I think I am a good example of what is required to make an IT workplace a welcoming and supportive environment for women." Because I'm sure your friend would indeed make sure a woman felt as welcome to his workplace as he would a man. Or is he the sort of person who would look at a woman and automatically think she was hired because she was a woman and therefore be less welcoming and supportive of his new work colleague? With what he said, which was to skirt around the question, the review panel probably interpreted his views as the way you describe your and his attitude in your third line of the OP "He and I both do not give into this third-wave feminism 'made up stats' and 'oppression' bullshit." So having probably interpreted his response correctly they were probably right to not extend his internship if they don't want to keep someone on who "...does not give into this third-wave feminism 'made up stats' and 'oppression' bullshit." As a person with that attitude is not a good fit for that company. How hard would it be to say "Everyone benefits when a formerly male dominated profession becomes more gender balanced"? Because this is true. And if you don't believe it then perhaps your gender attitude is rather less civilised than you think. And indeed your friend should probably feel relieved that he is not going to be working at a place that does "give into this third-wave feminism 'made up stats' and 'oppression' bullshit." I mean if I was working at a place and found out all the management and most f the workers were racist arseholes I would be looking to leave and if it came time to an employment review and I did not respond with the appropriate racist answers I would be more than happy for them to suggest I don't look to extend my time there. Surely if he is as good as you say he is, he will find a job easily, so it's no big loss to terminate his connection with this business. And in terms of hiring people based only on technical merit, there are actually social and workplace benefits to hiring someone who is in a minority in a profession who is competent ahead of hiring someone who represents the majority who is more competent. Also most employers don't just take technical competence into account when making hiring decisions, they look at lots of factors and weight each factor differently. No one is advocating hiring people who are incompetent merely because they represent a demographic minority in the industry. What people should consider is the longer term benefit to the industry of hiring people who were straight B students but are of a demographic that is under-represented in the industry over someone who is a straight A student but is of a demographic that is over-represented in the industry. |
Look at this poster. He's part of the problem. Why should gender matter instead of skills? Why should we do away with meritocracy? It's a sad world we live in.
