Men Overran a Job Fair for Women in Tech

stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to Technology@lemmy.world – 365 points –
wired.com

The Grace Hopper Celebration is meant to unite women in tech. This year droves of men came looking for jobs.

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You didn't mention in which context you are suggesting I am changing scope, so I am not sure what am I supposed to discuss.

Talking about how females or minorities or other groups are impacted by something is measured using averages across the whole population.

Yes?

I didn't negate any general trend using any particular experience. The only particular experience I mentioned is my own, with the sole purpose of responding to:

It’s invisible to you because you haven’t lived through it.

Which suggested that I don't acknowledge the existence of certain barriers because I did not live through it (assuming a lot about my personal life). This is completely irrelevant to the overall argument I am trying to develop anyway, as I am not arguing that women don't have barriers in tech, I am fully aware they do (even if at the individual level some might not). I am simply stating that since there are multiple levels of discrimination in tech, and people might be victim of many of those (classism, ageism, sexism, racism, homo-transphobia, etc.), workers - and in particular victims of discrimination (but also the "privileged" ones) - should acknowledge each other situations (in other words, develop a class consciousness) and join the struggle against the overall system that generates discrimination, not create fragmentation between them because of the specific discrimination(s) they suffer. To me, this rhetoric since to push for a kind of "feminism of the regime", in which the status quo stays effectively the same, but the oppressor substantially are untouched, with a new coat of paint for supporting diversity.

That said, the population who attended this job fair is not a random sample of the "tech worker" population, therefore even in this case it might not make sense to use broad categories (like male and female) alone. For once, if you spend 600-1200$ for a job fair, chances are you are in dire need of a job. This probably means that at least a good chunk of those men are indeed outliers, so judging by broad categories (such as male=privileged in tech) might be especially wrong. This is my personal guess, and also why I would have liked for the article to interview some of them and understand why they were there.

I am simply stating that since there are multiple levels of discrimination in tech, and people might be victim of many of those (classism, ageism, sexism, racism, homo-transphobia, etc.), workers - and in particular victims of discrimination (but also the “privileged” ones) - should acknowledge each other situations

That sounds like you're saying the job fair should have just been a job fair for everybody. Which would defeat the problem solving that these groups have worked towards solving simply because what? Guys are left out? Is society just suppose to ignore all solutions now if it doesn't apply to the entire population? How is that reasonable

Actually I am more referring to the analysis that is being done on the outcome of the fair than to the fair itself. I have no problem with the fact that the event was targeting women. Rather than asking why would some men join this event? Which men joined the event? etc., we stopped at "men steal places meant for women". No depth in the analysis, no expansion of perspective, just alienation of some workers.