Comment on Men Overran a Job Fair for Women in Tech

• psychothumbs@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I can have sympathy for people desperate for jobs, and I can understand class warfare, and yet … once again something that women and enbys spent years and decades building up, is ruined because cishet men decided it was more ‘convenient’ for them to invite themselves into spaces not designed for them.

  Couldn’t this same logic be used by men to justify not allowing women into the tech industry in the first place? If someone of the gender wrong gender being around counts as “ruining” then men could say "once again something that men spent years and decades building up, is ruined because women and enbys decided it was more ‘convenient’ for them to invite themselves into spaces not designed for them. In fact I’d say something like that attitude really is what underlies a lot of tech industry sexism.

  Gender-exclusive spaces often seem appealing to the favored gender, but they’re really not good for anybody.

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  • whatwhatwutyut@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    No, it couldn’t. Because men excluding women from tech in the first place is wholly excluding them - there isn’t another tech industry they can participate in. Men are being excluded from a single event when there are many other events doing the SAME THING that they are encouraged to attend.

    Not saying I agree one way or the other, but the argument you make about the logic is not sound.

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    • sudneo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      This argument is nonsense, but to humor it, there are other “industries”, and tech is just a collection of companies ultimately. " go do your fair" can sound also as “go make your own company (and hire who you want)”. Again, this is overall ridiculous, but at a purely rethorical level I think it works?

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    • jimbo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Women are excluded from tech?

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• sudneo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  My point is that while privilege can be applied to a category, it doesn’t make sense for a small number of individuals.

  As I mentioned in another comment, look at the video, and notice how most men are clearly foreigners. Foreigners who maybe need a job to keep their visa or that anyway might not have the same network of support behind because they are just 2nd generation.

  In my opinion, alienating fellow victims of a discriminatory system is at best shortsighted.

  I also disagree with you deliberately labeling convenience what can very likely be necessity. I understand this aids your argument, but I find it purely based on prejudice.

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  • athos77@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I'm going to copy my reply to someone else elsewhere in this conversation:

    First off, that job fair didn't just spontaneously happen. It was thought up by, organized by, and run by women and enbys in tech, specifically to help women and enbys in tech. Those sponsors didn't just miraculously happen; they were researched, approached, courted, their concerns addressed and their needs accommodated. And yes, that effort too was put in by women and enbys in tech, for other women and enbys in tech.

    These are people with limited time and resources, who spent thirty years working on this, who carefully nurtured and shepherded the few resources they could gather, in order to create one single thing to help with their specific needs and challenges. That doesn't mean there aren't other groups with their own needs and challenges - foreigners who need accommodations for their visas and maybe cultural or language help, disabled people who need sign language interpreters or low-vision accommodations, people with issues like ADHD or major anxiety who need supportive environments and some guidance or handholding. There are lots of groups who can benefit from a job fair organized around their specific needs. The fact is, if you aren't part of the group the fair is intended to help, you shouldn't just show up, insert yourself into a place you were never invited, and take resources away from those who those resources were intended for.

    And honestly, one of my frustrations is this: if you make a resource for ... people living on Native American reservations, or blind or deaf people, or the mentally ill, or the homeless, or whomever, the resources generated get reserved for that community and no one blinks an eye. But as soon as a resource is designed to help women, there is an immediate and constant demand to expand that resource to other groups. The women and enbys who spent years and decades creating and nuturing this thing have the right to expend their limited time and energy creating resources that matter to them.

    I'm not saying that foreigners don't need help. I'm saying that out of the literally tens of thousands job fairs across the country every year, there's this one job fair that supposed to be for women and enbys. And if foreign women and enbys want to come and participate, great! But cishet men just deciding to help themselves to something that wasn't created or intended for them is just such an incredibly self-centered cishet-man thing to do that it's incredibly frustrating to those of us who have given so much of ourselves to creating and nuturing safe spaces.

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    • sudneo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I am also copying another response:

      My point is that there is nothing else for issue related to other discriminations. And yet, before thinking whether those men (who showed up) maybe are also oppressed and discriminated, they have been simply labeled as “men” and therefore intruders, by definition. I would think that an oppressed community would realize the commonalities with other oppressed categories and use this to expand the struggle to them as well. Instead the rethoric behind this article makes me think that this is one of those events which is ultimately functional to the conservation of the status quo: big tech companies which sponsor the event and gain some visibility and good karma points to boost diversity while nothing really changes or is done to address the fundamental issue with discrimination (in general, not a specific one), because this is ultimately functional to the companies, which can leverage them to fight a fragmented worker’s front.

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      people living on Native American reservations, or blind or deaf people, or the mentally ill, or the homeless, or whomever,

      The difference between women in tech and the examples you made in my opinion is exactly that the examples address the whole universe of people affected by a particular discrimination or disadvantage. In the case of woman in tech, a single aspect of a more general problem is cherry picked. Again, I don’t want to use moral terms, I just think in terms of objectives to pursue. I have the feeling that the objective for some of the people who are talking about “intruders” is not to improve the culture in tech to eliminate discrimination and privileges, but a simple issue of “we want to be a bigger % of the privileged”. As such, I feel that the struggle is inherently reactionary, entrenching the overall dynamic of discrimination and fragmentation of the working class, simply tweaking a bit the appearance.

      While it’s for sure true that organizing all of this did not happen in a vacuum, I would also argue that ultimately this is also the result of a “more privileged” status quo, bigger amount of power and influence, compared to other minorities that simply can’t achieve the same. Rather than using this power for the benefit of other oppressed, it seems that the idea is to just fight your own battle. I don’t want to say it’s wrong, I just think that this does not fit in my idea of struggle to improve the society. If I were a man who needed a job and I was labeled as intruder, non invited or something, I would have a problem tomorrow to join a union with those who labeled me, because the feeling I would get is that there is no mutual recognition of common problems and class. In turn, this means that when tomorrow there will be the need to protest against the various Apple, Microsoft, etc. Workers are going to have less power, not to mention that some of the people will think that since X% more women are hired in tech there is maybe nothing to protest in the first place.

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  • phillaholic@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Do you go to a fundraiser for Heart Disease and ask for money to be diverted to Diabetes?

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    • JustZ@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Hey that sounds like discrimination durrr dur durrr.

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  • eatthecake@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Foreigners from misogynist coutries by chance?

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    • sudneo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      How is this relevant? What does that tell you about particular individuals also?

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• sadreality@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Switch men with women.

  Let's see how that reads 🤡

  Class is a lot bigger factor in these things than sex...

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  • athos77@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Thus speaks a person of privilege, who doesn't really understand what "privilege" means. Class warfare does exist; that still doesn't mean you're entitled to help yourself to every community-generated resource without actually being a member of that community.

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    • sudneo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I personally agree with this, but:

      • this is hardly a community event. Being a woman (or a man) doesn’t make you a member of a community by default (being a member in my opinion requires deliberate participation) plus this is a job fair sponsored by some of the biggest companies in US.
      • what if you don’t have a community? For example, a foreigner? Is it OK to alienate these people (an even weaker minority)?

      In other words, I would agree if we were talking about the tech-bros with families worth 6 digits behind and huge networks they can leverage. However way more attributes are a determining factors than just gender.

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      • athos77@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        First off, that job fair didn't just spontaneously happen. It was thought up by, organized by, and run by women and enbys in tech, specifically to help women and enbys in tech. Those sponsors didn't just miraculously happen; they were researched, approached, courted, their concerns addressed and their needs accommodated. And yes, that effort too was put in by women and enbys in tech, for other women and enbys in tech.

        These are people with limited time and resources, who spent thirty years working on this, who carefully nurtured and shepherded the few resources they could gather, in order to create one single thing to help with their specific needs and challenges. That doesn't mean there aren't other groups with their own needs and challenges - foreigners who need accommodations for their visas and maybe cultural or language help, disabled people who need sign language interpreters or low-vision accommodations, people with issues like ADHD or major anxiety who need supportive environments and some guidance or handholding. There are lots of groups who can benefit from a job fair organized around their specific needs. The fact is, if you aren't part of the group the fair is intended to help, you shouldn't just show up, insert yourself into a place you were never invited, and take resources away from those who those resources were intended for.

        And honestly, one of my frustrations is this: if you make a resource for ... people living on Native American reservations, or blind or deaf people, or the mentally ill, or the homeless, or whomever, the resources generated get reserved for that community and no one blinks an eye. But as soon as a resource is designed to help women, there is an immediate and constant demand to expand that resource to other groups. The women and enbys who spent years and decades creating and nuturing this thing have the right to expend their limited time and energy creating resources that matter to them.

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    • TheEntity@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Ah yes, my favorite community, a gender.

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      • athos77@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I can't tell if your misunderstanding is unintentional or trolling. In the context of this conversation, the community I was referring to was the group of women and enbys who worked together for years to try to overcome some of the systemic issues facing women and enbys in tech.

        Also, since you seem determined to give only brief one-liners in response, I have no interest in continuing this conversation with you.

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