this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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Privilege doesn't mean that things are easy or automatic, just that (in general) people with privilege don't have the same systemic negatives that those without it have. And it's very indicative of privilege for the men who went to this thing, which was built up over a number of years by a community specifically to benefit the members of that community, to just assume they had the rights of a community member without ever having contributed to that community. Something exists, and therefore they are automatically entitled to it.
I can have sympathy for people desperate for jobs, and I can understand class warfare, and yet ... once again something that women and enbys spent years and decades building up, is ruined because cishet men decided it was more 'convenient' for them to invite themselves into spaces not designed for them.
And yes, I do get frustrated with men not understanding issues of consent, in all of it's different aspects.
Couldn't this same logic be used by men to justify not allowing women into the tech industry in the first place? If someone of the wrong gender being around counts as "ruining" then men could say "once again something that men spent years and decades building up, is ruined because women and enbys decided it was more ‘convenient’ for them to invite themselves into spaces not designed for them." In fact I'd say something like that attitude really is what underlies a lot of tech industry sexism.
Gender-exclusive spaces often seem appealing to the favored gender, but they're really not good for anybody.
No, it couldn't. Because men excluding women from tech in the first place is wholly excluding them - there isn't another tech industry they can participate in. Men are being excluded from a single event when there are many other events doing the SAME THING that they are encouraged to attend.
Not saying I agree one way or the other, but the argument you make about the logic is not sound.
This argument is nonsense, but to humor it, there are other "industries", and tech is just a collection of companies ultimately. " go do your fair" can sound also as "go make your own company (and hire who you want)". Again, this is overall ridiculous, but at a purely rethorical level I think it works?
My point is that while privilege can be applied to a category, it doesn't make sense for a small number of individuals.
As I mentioned in another comment, look at the video, and notice how most men are clearly foreigners. Foreigners who maybe need a job to keep their visa or that anyway might not have the same network of support behind because they are just 2nd generation.
In my opinion, alienating fellow victims of a discriminatory system is at best shortsighted.
I also disagree with you deliberately labeling convenience what can very likely be necessity. I understand this aids your argument, but I find it purely based on prejudice.
I'm going to copy my reply to someone else elsewhere in this conversation:
First off, that job fair didn't just spontaneously happen. It was thought up by, organized by, and run by women and enbys in tech, specifically to help women and enbys in tech. Those sponsors didn't just miraculously happen; they were researched, approached, courted, their concerns addressed and their needs accommodated. And yes, that effort too was put in by women and enbys in tech, for other women and enbys in tech.
These are people with limited time and resources, who spent thirty years working on this, who carefully nurtured and shepherded the few resources they could gather, in order to create one single thing to help with their specific needs and challenges. That doesn't mean there aren't other groups with their own needs and challenges - foreigners who need accommodations for their visas and maybe cultural or language help, disabled people who need sign language interpreters or low-vision accommodations, people with issues like ADHD or major anxiety who need supportive environments and some guidance or handholding. There are lots of groups who can benefit from a job fair organized around their specific needs. The fact is, if you aren't part of the group the fair is intended to help, you shouldn't just show up, insert yourself into a place you were never invited, and take resources away from those who those resources were intended for.
And honestly, one of my frustrations is this: if you make a resource for ... people living on Native American reservations, or blind or deaf people, or the mentally ill, or the homeless, or whomever, the resources generated get reserved for that community and no one blinks an eye. But as soon as a resource is designed to help women, there is an immediate and constant demand to expand that resource to other groups. The women and enbys who spent years and decades creating and nuturing this thing have the right to expend their limited time and energy creating resources that matter to them.
I'm not saying that foreigners don't need help. I'm saying that out of the literally tens of thousands job fairs across the country every year, there's this one job fair that supposed to be for women and enbys. And if foreign women and enbys want to come and participate, great! But cishet men just deciding to help themselves to something that wasn't created or intended for them is just such an incredibly self-centered cishet-man thing to do that it's incredibly frustrating to those of us who have given so much of ourselves to creating and nuturing safe spaces.
I am also copying another response:
My point is that there is nothing else for issue related to other discriminations. And yet, before thinking whether those men (who showed up) maybe are also oppressed and discriminated, they have been simply labeled as "men" and therefore intruders, by definition. I would think that an oppressed community would realize the commonalities with other oppressed categories and use this to expand the struggle to them as well. Instead the rethoric behind this article makes me think that this is one of those events which is ultimately functional to the conservation of the status quo: big tech companies which sponsor the event and gain some visibility and good karma points to boost diversity while nothing really changes or is done to address the fundamental issue with discrimination (in general, not a specific one), because this is ultimately functional to the companies, which can leverage them to fight a fragmented worker's front.
The difference between women in tech and the examples you made in my opinion is exactly that the examples address the whole universe of people affected by a particular discrimination or disadvantage. In the case of woman in tech, a single aspect of a more general problem is cherry picked. Again, I don't want to use moral terms, I just think in terms of objectives to pursue. I have the feeling that the objective for some of the people who are talking about "intruders" is not to improve the culture in tech to eliminate discrimination and privileges, but a simple issue of "we want to be a bigger % of the privileged". As such, I feel that the struggle is inherently reactionary, entrenching the overall dynamic of discrimination and fragmentation of the working class, simply tweaking a bit the appearance.
While it's for sure true that organizing all of this did not happen in a vacuum, I would also argue that ultimately this is also the result of a "more privileged" status quo, bigger amount of power and influence, compared to other minorities that simply can't achieve the same. Rather than using this power for the benefit of other oppressed, it seems that the idea is to just fight your own battle. I don't want to say it's wrong, I just think that this does not fit in my idea of struggle to improve the society. If I were a man who needed a job and I was labeled as intruder, non invited or something, I would have a problem tomorrow to join a union with those who labeled me, because the feeling I would get is that there is no mutual recognition of common problems and class. In turn, this means that when tomorrow there will be the need to protest against the various Apple, Microsoft, etc. Workers are going to have less power, not to mention that some of the people will think that since X% more women are hired in tech there is maybe nothing to protest in the first place.
Do you go to a fundraiser for Heart Disease and ask for money to be diverted to Diabetes?
Hey that sounds like discrimination durrr dur durrr.
Foreigners from misogynist coutries by chance?
How is this relevant? What does that tell you about particular individuals also?
Thus speaks a person of privilege, who doesn't really understand what "privilege" means. Class warfare does exist; that still doesn't mean you're entitled to help yourself to every community-generated resource without actually being a member of that community.
I personally agree with this, but:
In other words, I would agree if we were talking about the tech-bros with families worth 6 digits behind and huge networks they can leverage. However way more attributes are a determining factors than just gender.
First off, that job fair didn't just spontaneously happen. It was thought up by, organized by, and run by women and enbys in tech, specifically to help women and enbys in tech. Those sponsors didn't just miraculously happen; they were researched, approached, courted, their concerns addressed and their needs accommodated. And yes, that effort too was put in by women and enbys in tech, for other women and enbys in tech.
These are people with limited time and resources, who spent thirty years working on this, who carefully nurtured and shepherded the few resources they could gather, in order to create one single thing to help with their specific needs and challenges. That doesn't mean there aren't other groups with their own needs and challenges - foreigners who need accommodations for their visas and maybe cultural or language help, disabled people who need sign language interpreters or low-vision accommodations, people with issues like ADHD or major anxiety who need supportive environments and some guidance or handholding. There are lots of groups who can benefit from a job fair organized around their specific needs. The fact is, if you aren't part of the group the fair is intended to help, you shouldn't just show up, insert yourself into a place you were never invited, and take resources away from those who those resources were intended for.
And honestly, one of my frustrations is this: if you make a resource for ... people living on Native American reservations, or blind or deaf people, or the mentally ill, or the homeless, or whomever, the resources generated get reserved for that community and no one blinks an eye. But as soon as a resource is designed to help women, there is an immediate and constant demand to expand that resource to other groups. The women and enbys who spent years and decades creating and nuturing this thing have the right to expend their limited time and energy creating resources that matter to them.
I’m highly sympathetic, but this thing didn’t go wrong in an instant. The organizers watched it go off the rails, and, AFAICT, didn’t intervene to fix it, as the problem revealed itself at scale.
Hard situations require hard thinking and decisive action.
I think this is the response that summarizes why someone would have an issue with this:
A class of men used their time and resources to build an old-boys-club to help each other. This is widely regarded as a bad thing. There are actual solutions that would address the underlying issue of special interests giving certain demographics an advantage, like anonymizing applications to circumvent discrimination and ensure the most qualified applicant gets the job regardless of demographic. Instead, the approach here is to make a new old-not-boys-club to give an advantage to different demographics.
That's the issue here. The response to gender discrimination isn't to take turns, it's to eliminate unfair discrimination entirely.
That can't be done without first leveling the playing field.
Yes, a level playing field is one where no one has an unfair advantage, not one where all the various unfair advantages balance out.
That's what leveling the playing field is, removing the unfair advantages. Like anonymizing applications.
As stated elsewhere, there are other hurdles besides gender Identity which obstruct applicants. Equality of opportunity by selectively advantaging demographics immediately devolves into absurdity. You have to accurately quantify the exact degree of historical disadvantage and precise proportionate counter-advantage for every demographic, normalized by demographic, and accurately combined to address intersectionality. Every attempt at which obviously creating ripples of advantage and disadvantage to infinitesimally complicate the calculus, not to mention how you even quantify any of these values accurately in the first place.
And you must do all of this, because otherwise you're just making a new tier of privilege to join in on oppressing the minorities who slip through the cracks and don't have advocacy groups to devote time and money to give them a helping hand.
Or, like I said, you could focus on stripping away existing advantages instead of starting new ones, so your efforts benefit everyone disadvantaged.
It's more like acknowledging that under such a system of selective advantages, many underprivileged demographics slip through the cracks because they're not one of the vogue disadvantaged demographics. You're left with towering historic advantages, surrounded by a hierarchy of new trendy advantages, rising in proportion to the power of their advocacy groups. That's not a level playing field, it's a city skyline.
A step in the right direction for those with well-funded advocacy groups. For those without, it's a further step in the wrong direction. Either demographic-based discrimination by private entities is a problem or it isn't. You don't get to morally vindicate selective bias because it was biased in your favor this time. Eliminate the bias.
Ah yes, my favorite community, a gender.
I can't tell if your misunderstanding is unintentional or trolling. In the context of this conversation, the community I was referring to was the group of women and enbys who worked together for years to try to overcome some of the systemic issues facing women and enbys in tech.
Also, since you seem determined to give only brief one-liners in response, I have no interest in continuing this conversation with you.
Transgender women are overrepresented in tech. The event should be for females in order to properly address the real discrepancy at play.
My point was that I don't feel being in a community with every man in existence, and likewise I see no point to limit a community to a specific gender, especially in this day and age. "We don't know you, it's the first time I see you" is a valid reason for not considering someone a part of a community (yet) on a fair presumably meant for already established members. "You're a man, go away" just isn't.
Quite a bold statement after a single reply from me. Did we have some similar interaction beforehand elsewhere? I usually don't pay much attention to nicknames, so apologies if by chance it was a repeated occurrence.
Of course you don't feel like you're in community with every man, you're not a fucking marginalized gender! Some of us have to have solidarity to survive.
This is the whole point of the fucking event in the first place! Y'all have to insert yourselves into literally everything don't you? Unbelievably childish.
Lynching people based on their race is bad. I think we can all agree on that.
Once we make lynching illegal. Should there be a grace period, where people of the marginalized race are allowed to lynch people of the dominant race?
If lynching is bad, it should be bad for everybody, all the time.
I don't see why discrimination based on gender has a different criteria.
This is the dumbest shit I've ever read and if you can't see the miles of difference between a women-only job fair and lynching black people I don't know what to tell you.
An actual example would be segregation of schools by race. White students had the better schools and education. So when segregation became illegal, it would be like a period where black students organized their own resources for catching up, their own space and time, etc. Now imagine they had just enough books/teachers for engaging those students. And then white students showed up and began using the books, asking for their own tutoring from the teachers, etc - leaving less for the students who were at a disadvantage to begin with. Then the white kids start crying when they are told they aren't welcome in this space dedicated to leveling the field of knowledge.
In summary: Jesus fucking christ a job fair is not like lynching, you fucking wacko.
In your segregation example, would reverse segregation be acceptable?
Asking white students to not take the resources that black students worked hard to provide for themselves after white students had the privilege of them all along? Yes. Yes it would be shitty of the white kids to show up and take those resources. Similar to how it's shitty of men to take the resources that women worked to provide to other women in an attempt at making the industry more equal.