Comment on [Canada] University of Waterloo bans 'straight white males’ from applying for recent job openings
Honytawk@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
So 2 positions, in a team that is most likely already full of straight white males. And probably are necessary in order to get diverse perspective on the development of the AI research.
You guys really want to play the victim at every opportunity, don’t you?
dzaffaires@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
I don’t think this is about being a victim.
While I understand the reasoning for the University to want to post with these criteria, the method used is basically fighting discrimination with discrimination. If there are under-represented social groups that aren’t applying to these jobs, where they have to block applicants of a small subset of the population, the issues aren’t solved at all, they’re just ignored.
ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
I’m trying to understand this comment. How does hiring under-represented social groups not address the issue of certain social groups being under-represented in hiring?
dzaffaires@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
I’ve thought about your comment a lot since you posted it, trying to find an answer to it. I’ve also spoken to someone I know who works in this sphere of social inclusion.
I’ve found that my knee-jerk reaction to a posting like this is that it should not be legal to limit only one group from applying to a job.
After thinking about it, I understand more completely why they do this (and learned that there are laws concerning equality in hiring in Canada, which I find hard to accept too - because it basically states everyone who is not a white man is in a protected class) and that it ultimately may be the only solution to a problem where equality in the hiring process of many of these issues.
I still don’t like that it is completely fine with everyone that one group is basically the only one that is “not protected”. It feels like someone proclaiming that “we are being inclusive, but not for you” which is just reversing the injustice instead of correcting the one we already have. Ultimately I don’t have an easy answer because it isn’t an easy question, nor an easy solution.
ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Wow! What a great comment!
I come to this community because I know I’m going to see posts and comments I don’t agree with. I want to be able to explain to myself why. Why don’t I agree with it?
I come up with my own reasons, often doing some research to see if my reasons hold up to evidence, but rarely do I post what I come up with. It’s just an exercise for myself. Often times I end up learning a lot more about a topic than before and realizing my original arguments weren’t nuanced enough. I’m glad you had a similar experience!
Originally, I thought the argument you were going to make was that getting more women into computer science research chairs doesn’t happen by only hiring women for that position, but by getting more women interested in the topic at a younger age. Why don’t more women pursue an education or career in computer science? There must be something influencing that decision in their childhood or teenage years. Is it nature or nurture? It’s likely a combination of things!
For me, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a university ensuring at least one member of their computer science research group is a woman, but I also think more could be done to encourage women to pursue a PhD in computer science in the first place. If that were the case, the university might not need this hiring practice.
Thanks for the well thought out response!