<story><title>Gitlab: don&apos;t discuss politics at work</title><url>https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/16/gitlab_employees_gagged/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>snowwrestler</author><text>When people go and talk to women who started out in the tech pipeline but left, many say that the reasons they left are that they felt unwelcome in some way: they were harassed, under-valued, talked over, stalked, underpaid, etc.&lt;p&gt;Too many women choose to leave not because they didn&amp;#x27;t like the work, but because they didn&amp;#x27;t like all the bullshit they were implicitly asked to put up with, in order to do the work.&lt;p&gt;If very few women expressed these sentiments; if the tech workforce pipeline was a safe and fulfilling place for everyone, then at that point, I think it&amp;#x27;s fair to question whether 50&amp;#x2F;50 should be the goal. But we&amp;#x27;re not nearly at that point, and IMO it is counterproductive to talk like we are. For now, the numbers imbalance is a simple and obvious way to measure and talk about the cultural factors that exclude women (or certain ethnicities, or backgrounds) from equal participation in this industry.&lt;p&gt;One reason 50&amp;#x2F;50 makes a fine straw goal is that there is no obvious reason that men should be more successful than women in the tech industry. It&amp;#x27;s not like the NFL, where well-understood human sexual dimorphism is relevant. Women were heavily involved in the early days of computing and built some of the early foundations of the field, like the first compiler.</text></item><item><author>legostormtroopr</author><text>&amp;gt; We can’t improve without discussion, and it’s unfortunate that these type of issues are so divisive.&lt;p&gt;Except Cancel Culture is making it that these can&amp;#x27;t be discussed without complete agreement.&lt;p&gt;Take for example, &amp;quot;Women in Tech&amp;quot;, personally I don&amp;#x27;t see underrepresentation of women in tech as a problem that can be or should be &amp;#x27;solved&amp;#x27;. For the better part of 15 years, there has been a massive movement to encourage women in STEM. There are hundreds of Women in Tech meetups, scholarships, Womens only courses... yet the numbers have barely budged in more than 10 years. Personally, it looks like in aggregate it will be difficult to get 50&amp;#x2F;50 representation of women and men in tech. To make it clear, we should definitely support everyone who is in tech, and make it an inclusive environment, but the continued push for 50&amp;#x2F;50 isn&amp;#x27;t going to happen so perhaps its not worth the huge money sink it is.&lt;p&gt;At the last place I worked that opinion was flat out branded &amp;quot;sexist&amp;quot;, and if you didn&amp;#x27;t vocally agree with every women in tech initiative people asked why.&lt;p&gt;So I would say the ability to speak openly about politics was shut down long ago, and not by the people you think.</text></item><item><author>ProfessorLayton</author><text>Without trying to be inflammatory in any manner, I will say that it takes a certain level of privilege to say one shouldn’t discuss politics at work.&lt;p&gt;If you disagree I’m happy to discuss this viewpoint rather than being downvoted to oblivion.&lt;p&gt;Lots of issues are deemed “political”, but imagine you fall into one of the marginalized groups:&lt;p&gt;— lgbt: Don’t discuss the possibility about being fired for your sexuality because it’s too political.&lt;p&gt;— Women in tech: Nope, let’s not go there, too political.&lt;p&gt;— Underrepresented minorities in tech: Sorry it’s a pipeline problem, don’t bring politics into this.&lt;p&gt;— Education: Too political to discuss the fact that schools are trying to balance their admissions in the face of very uneven opportunities amongst their applicants. Never mind the fact that school admissions were never fair to begin with.&lt;p&gt;We can’t improve without discussion, and it’s unfortunate that these type of issues are so divisive.&lt;p&gt;Again, If you disagree I’d love to understand your viewpoint as to why.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>overgard</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve heard this hypothesis a lot, but there&amp;#x27;s something that bothers me about it.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;ve ever been passionate about something, something that&amp;#x27;s hard and takes a lot of effort and practice to become good at, would you really let microaggressions stop you from doing that thing? I mean, being a programmer is not exactly a high status thing for white males either. If I tell people I&amp;#x27;m a programmer, I generally am competing with the perception that I am socially awkward. People assume I&amp;#x27;m like some Big Bang Theory character until I prove otherwise. I don&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; that stereotype, but it never stopped me from learning to code, or even was a thought that crossed my mind.&lt;p&gt;Also, how many other industries are or have been actively hostile towards women and still have plenty of females in it? Show business is an obvious example.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not saying that things can&amp;#x27;t or shouldn&amp;#x27;t be improved, but I feel like the argument that goes &amp;quot;well the nerds are making women uncomfortable&amp;quot; is just a cartoon with very little evidence other than anecdotes.</text></comment>
<story><title>Gitlab: don&apos;t discuss politics at work</title><url>https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/16/gitlab_employees_gagged/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>snowwrestler</author><text>When people go and talk to women who started out in the tech pipeline but left, many say that the reasons they left are that they felt unwelcome in some way: they were harassed, under-valued, talked over, stalked, underpaid, etc.&lt;p&gt;Too many women choose to leave not because they didn&amp;#x27;t like the work, but because they didn&amp;#x27;t like all the bullshit they were implicitly asked to put up with, in order to do the work.&lt;p&gt;If very few women expressed these sentiments; if the tech workforce pipeline was a safe and fulfilling place for everyone, then at that point, I think it&amp;#x27;s fair to question whether 50&amp;#x2F;50 should be the goal. But we&amp;#x27;re not nearly at that point, and IMO it is counterproductive to talk like we are. For now, the numbers imbalance is a simple and obvious way to measure and talk about the cultural factors that exclude women (or certain ethnicities, or backgrounds) from equal participation in this industry.&lt;p&gt;One reason 50&amp;#x2F;50 makes a fine straw goal is that there is no obvious reason that men should be more successful than women in the tech industry. It&amp;#x27;s not like the NFL, where well-understood human sexual dimorphism is relevant. Women were heavily involved in the early days of computing and built some of the early foundations of the field, like the first compiler.</text></item><item><author>legostormtroopr</author><text>&amp;gt; We can’t improve without discussion, and it’s unfortunate that these type of issues are so divisive.&lt;p&gt;Except Cancel Culture is making it that these can&amp;#x27;t be discussed without complete agreement.&lt;p&gt;Take for example, &amp;quot;Women in Tech&amp;quot;, personally I don&amp;#x27;t see underrepresentation of women in tech as a problem that can be or should be &amp;#x27;solved&amp;#x27;. For the better part of 15 years, there has been a massive movement to encourage women in STEM. There are hundreds of Women in Tech meetups, scholarships, Womens only courses... yet the numbers have barely budged in more than 10 years. Personally, it looks like in aggregate it will be difficult to get 50&amp;#x2F;50 representation of women and men in tech. To make it clear, we should definitely support everyone who is in tech, and make it an inclusive environment, but the continued push for 50&amp;#x2F;50 isn&amp;#x27;t going to happen so perhaps its not worth the huge money sink it is.&lt;p&gt;At the last place I worked that opinion was flat out branded &amp;quot;sexist&amp;quot;, and if you didn&amp;#x27;t vocally agree with every women in tech initiative people asked why.&lt;p&gt;So I would say the ability to speak openly about politics was shut down long ago, and not by the people you think.</text></item><item><author>ProfessorLayton</author><text>Without trying to be inflammatory in any manner, I will say that it takes a certain level of privilege to say one shouldn’t discuss politics at work.&lt;p&gt;If you disagree I’m happy to discuss this viewpoint rather than being downvoted to oblivion.&lt;p&gt;Lots of issues are deemed “political”, but imagine you fall into one of the marginalized groups:&lt;p&gt;— lgbt: Don’t discuss the possibility about being fired for your sexuality because it’s too political.&lt;p&gt;— Women in tech: Nope, let’s not go there, too political.&lt;p&gt;— Underrepresented minorities in tech: Sorry it’s a pipeline problem, don’t bring politics into this.&lt;p&gt;— Education: Too political to discuss the fact that schools are trying to balance their admissions in the face of very uneven opportunities amongst their applicants. Never mind the fact that school admissions were never fair to begin with.&lt;p&gt;We can’t improve without discussion, and it’s unfortunate that these type of issues are so divisive.&lt;p&gt;Again, If you disagree I’d love to understand your viewpoint as to why.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Nimitz14</author><text>&amp;gt; When people go and talk to women who started out in the tech pipeline but left, many say that the reasons they left are that they felt unwelcome in some way: they were harassed, under-valued, talked over, stalked, underpaid, etc.&lt;p&gt;That &amp;quot;many&amp;quot; sounds anecdotal. Since we&amp;#x27;re doing that: In my experience woman don&amp;#x27;t go into tech because they enjoy other, more social, jobs more.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; One reason 50&amp;#x2F;50 makes a fine straw goal is that there is no obvious reason that men should be more successful than women in the tech industry. It&amp;#x27;s not like the NFL, where well-understood human sexual dimorphism is relevant. Women were heavily involved in the early days of computing and built some of the early foundations of the field, like the first compiler.&lt;p&gt;There is an obvious reason. Autism-like traits are more prevalent in men.</text></comment>