Comment on Men Overran a Job Fair for Women in Tech

• 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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    • ChrisLicht@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I’m highly sympathetic, but this thing didn’t go wrong in an instant. The organizers watched it go off the rails, and, AFAICT, didn’t intervene to fix it, as the problem revealed itself at scale.

      Hard situations require hard thinking and decisive action.

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    • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I think this is the response that summarizes why someone would have an issue with this:

      A class of men used their time and resources to build an old-boys-club to help each other. This is widely regarded as a bad thing. There are actual solutions that would address the underlying issue of special interests giving certain demographics an advantage, like anonymizing applications to circumvent discrimination and ensure the most qualified applicant gets the job regardless of demographic. Instead, the approach here is to make a new old-not-boys-club to give an advantage to different demographics.

      That’s the issue here. The response to gender discrimination isn’t to take turns, it’s to eliminate unfair discrimination entirely.

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      • AnalogyAddict@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        That can’t be done without first leveling the playing field.

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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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    • TheEntity@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      My point was that I don't feel being in a community with every man in existence, and likewise I see no point to limit a community to a specific gender, especially in this day and age. "We don't know you, it's the first time I see you" is a valid reason for not considering someone a part of a community (yet) on a fair presumably meant for already established members. "You're a man, go away" just isn't.

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

      Quite a bold statement after a single reply from me. Did we have some similar interaction beforehand elsewhere? I usually don't pay much attention to nicknames, so apologies if by chance it was a repeated occurrence.

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      • sky@codesink.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Of course you don’t feel like you’re in community with every man, you’re not a fucking marginalized gender! Some of us have to have solidarity to survive.

        This is the whole point of the fucking event in the first place! Y’all have to insert yourselves into literally everything don’t you? Unbelievably childish.

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    • cricket97@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Transgender women are overrepresented in tech. The event should be for females in order to properly address the real discrepancy at play.

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