Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech

Re:Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech by andkon on Wednesday July 20, 2016 @01:49PM (#12130969)

Nah man, of course it diminishes their challenges. You literally start your post by diminishing their challenges; you do this in response to a post that makes the highly uncontroversial point that minorities are perceived differently in the workplace.

The interesting thing is that your line of advice really just needs a single, model minority person to prove it right. "Look! She didn't accede to the haters! Please ignore all the other people like her who gave up along the way! She obviously focused on what was under her personal control, and that's all that mattered."

But it isn't all that matters. If that were true, diversity in tech would not be an issue. Instead, only the most resilient people, those most willing to overlook the ongoing and systemic discrimination, make it.

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Re:Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech by btilly on Wednesday July 20, 2016 @09:49PM (#12134027)

You appear to be arguing against your impression of what I said, instead of what I actually said. What I gave was practical advice for how to have the best life possible given the circumstances. I said nothing about how easy it is to do it, or the circumstances.

Furthermore the REASON why I pointed out that it is a spectrum is that it isn't all or nothing. If you're truly stuck feeling like a victim a lot of the time and can't change it, you're still better off than you would be otherwise. Better off does not mean well off - discrimination is real. It just means better.

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