Comment on Men Overran a Job Fair for Women in Tech
andros_rex@lemmy.world 1 year agoAs a teenage girl into coding, I was treated like absolute shit. If I made a mistake in my botball code, it was because I wasn’t good at coding. If a boy made a mistake in their botball code, then it was something that the other boys would help them debug. I remember it being assumed I just wouldn’t be able to figure out what structs were, so the boys running the botball code didn’t teach me. In college, any group project was an opportunity for boys to try to fuck me.
As a trans man, someone who has experienced life as both a man and woman in STEM, there are massive barriers.
sudneo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I am fully aware that those barriers exist. I am arguing (in other comments I am more explicit) about fighting against barriers, not a particular barrier.
I am also a foreigner in another country, and despite being a privileged person from many point of views (I could attend public university despite my family being poor), I have experienced some form of discrimination myself, so please don’t make assumption about other people’s. I am not blind to those kind of barriers, I simply have different opinions on the actions to take to improve the overall situation, with the goal of removing the concept of barrier, not any particular one (if that makes sense).
Touching_Grass@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You’re arguing while shifting scope which is a problem. Are you arguing about averages or individual experience?
sudneo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Neither and both, depending on the context. There is no point to tell a person (who is maybe in need of a job and behind with the mortgage) “sorry, your group is privileged, fuck off”. At the same time it still makes sense talking generally about solving sexism, ageism and other form of discrimination still too common in tech. Both perspectives exist, but you can slice the population in many groups, with different “average” experiences, therefore is overall shortsighted to categorize people only based on “one slice”. Hence, the class analysis which is I find both more effective and more functional.
Touching_Grass@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The context is important and central to the argument. I would say its critical to discuss it in any kind of valid way.
That’s the because mixing the scope means you’re arguing about two different things.
Talking about how females or minorities or other groups are impacted by something is measured using averages across the whole population.
How would that make sense to the argue about the individual who breaks that trend? Because it doesn’t change the original point that a group experiences an event. Outliers are expected. I didn’t smoke cigarettes, I’m still able to get cancer. That shouldn’t mean that people who smoke shouldn’t quit if they want to be healthier.