so you aren't seeing evidence of institutional racism, sexism, and ageism in tech? Not in your personal experience? When was the last time you reached out to someone in a marginalized group where you work and asked them about it? You might start with that, in fact we could all start right there. And maybe open with empathy and the assumption that their experience of these is true, rather than demanding evidence. I write you now as evidence of these myself, and how do you respond? How does anyone respond in this thread? Is there overwhelming empathy affirmation and support or is there indignant denial of a person's experience?
Nope. I see a lot of support for women and minorities in tech-- both in the form of mentoring events, hiring initiatives, networking events, and general cheerleading. I've talked to a lot of women and minorities in casual friendly drinking contexts, and I haven't heard any horror stories. You're right that I should specifically ask them if they've been on the receiving end of bias, and I'm going to.
Maybe I'm just in test-writing mode, but, if there's a bug, we ought to be able to write a test for it. If there is bias in tech, we ought to be able to see it in data. Maybe we need to look at 1st-job hiring rates? Maybe we need to look at people who drop out of tech after their first year and don't return? But I haven't seen it. I'm not asking you to do this data analysis, I just figured that... there are a lot of people examining this, and it should have been uncovered by now.
How have you experienced racism, sexism or ageism in tech?
FWIW getting into tech as a stereotypical white male is also an uphill struggle. Years of ostracism as a nerd, discrimination in school and early social life. It wasn't a pleasant experience for me and not I expect for many. If anything, computers were a respite from the unpleasantness of social life.
And sadly this lack of socialization and singular focus on computers is often incorrectly attributed to "being on the spectrum" rather than being what it is, a person who withdrew into themselves and computers as the result of maltreatment by their peers in school.
That is a true insight into why there is so much bullying (of women, of other men, of people of color, etc) in tech. I can see how that could really be upsetting throughout a life, and how it could engender a kind of constant (justified) anger. But then one would hope we could all realize this and move toward empathy and support the marginalized, each of us having had these experiences ourselves.
If it was a bad experience for him, from which computers were a respite, as he said: i understood that he suffered ostracism, social isolation, bullying, and felt exculded and stressed-- unappreciated-- ridiculed-- called a nerd in the negative sense-- that sort of thing. That is painful. If we have an industry made up of men who experienced this in adolescence or in high dchool or even in college, that would be a lot of pain pushed down and covered up with the usual toughness and lack of empathy - a self-protecting measure in the face of abuse. I can see that it is formative for many people, and can be hard to switch off when one finally ascends to accomplishment, wealth, and power. I get that, and I think people should feel angry and hurt by ill treatment, but then try to reshape it somehow with effort into empathy for others who are being treated worse. I'm not saying it is easy, but as the intellectual elite, i think the industry ought to give it a real try-- set an example in a time when examples of empathy and support are more needed than ever.
