sudneo

I would say that if you have the concrete power of organizing an event with tens of thousands of people and huge sponsors, you might have some power and are less marginalized. Possibly (and I mean possibly) this is not the case for the average men who attended that event? If this is true, then I don't see why it couldn't be possible to help each other, using the power obtained (with years of struggle and effort).

Ultimately, you do need exactly that kind of solidarity and reciprocal recognition to be able to join the fight against the top.

Also, in this case "helping" is also very generous. Those people paid 600$ for basically nothing. The chances that recruiters who joined the event will care for anything else than recruiting women (to boost diversity in their company) are extremely little.

Either way, I still don't understand what the alternative is. For example, if you are a foreigner who needs a job for your visa, the chances that you will have a) a network of people, b) the resources and c) the overall possibility to organize something similar are nonexisting. What is our proposal for this people? How do we ensure that we can fight the top, if workers are splitting among themselves? I am asking genuinely, because for example, in my opinion, if today you go to some of those guys and you say "sorry, fuck off this is not for you go do your fair", tomorrow, in the workplace it's not going to be as easy to build a union with your woman colleague. It's going to be easier to see yourselves as part of two different groups than the same class.

So what can we do instead that leaves the necessary space for women while not alienating this people?

Women are in the exact same position you are in, with the added disadvantage of being women

This is your assumption. You are assuming that the men going to the event are average men, which on average are more likely to be employed in tech. I don't think that's true in this case, I think it's mostly desperate people, possibly also from marginalized groups. Looking at the video I see mostly foreigners, possibly in need of a visa to not be kicked out of the country. Keep in mind they paid 600 bucks for a super tiny chance (imagine what are the chances that recruiters at that event will not ignore them because they went there to recruit women).

Also, reading a bit online it seems that there is always been a percentage of men attending that event.

I will not address the last paragraph, your suggestion of what "this proves" is completely arbitrary and prejudicial, I won't say what that proves, instead.

We are fairly evolved and plenty of people don't have kids, it's not a material necessity, as in, you don't risk to die if you don't. You do if you don't eat and don't have a shelter, and to get those, you need a job or to commit crimes. This is all besides the point, the point is that nobody in the society acts like that because it is simply impossible living like that. It doesn't matter if it's buying a house, renting or occupying one. The moment you, from a "privileged" category get a roof on your head, you contributed to raise the overall estate prices, reduce the available apartments for rent etc. The only choice you have is to stay homeless, if you really don't want to affect anybody (obviously, I am bringing it to the extreme to make a point). Generally people don't act like this, you don't keep your house in shitty condition to keep the value of the building low so that others can move in, and expecting this kind of "ethical consumerism" from victims of a system is - in my opinion - in itself oppressive.

Now, coming to the rest, you say that you are just talking about the fair. But your logic is broader than that, it is about not cutting the line, not taking someone else's job. Then what I am saying is that whatever job I take, as a white male, I am going to reinforce the unbalance already present between man and women. As such, I am contributing to the problem, whereas if I don't take a job, that can potentially go to a woman, therefore contributing to solve the problem. Obviously this is extreme but the logic is the same. If your logic only applies to this particular fair, then fine, this means that tomorrow, in any other place, I shouldn't give a damn about who else I am contending the job with? This to me feels simply strange and inconsequential, either I act based on the moral principle, which is not confined to the fair, or I don't. But maybe you see it differently.

Either way, I am going off for the day, so I will wrap it here. I think we simply have different sensibilities in finding that balance that you mentioned, which might derive from different cultural backgrounds and personal histories. I do not see a point of convergence.

But people do that everyday.

Come on, this is a huge stretch. I want to meet one person who decided not to buy a house to facilitate housing for others. This has nothing to do with choosing to have kids or not, that is a choice that is not determined by your material necessities.

Use a job board or fair that is for you.

You deliberately ignored the premises of that reasoning. Following your logic, any job I take, by default, is a job potentially taken away from someone who needs it the most. ANY. I don't belong to that vulnerable category, therefore me taking any job will reinforce the current inbalance. So what should I do?

This is taking it to absurd lengths. Its a balancing act.

Oh, perfect. According to my sensibility, people in need (emphasis on need) of a job would make the right call if they would attempt to candidate for any job they can possibly get. The scarcity of jobs available is not their fault, nor is the discrimination of women in the workplace. They also by definition do not hold any position of power and as such I can't in good faith categorize them as oppressors.

job fairs for veterans. Should you also be invited to those?

No, but I don't care for men to be invited to this particular fair either. I am discussing the analysis the followed the fact that some men decided to show up (i.e., the article and the way it describes the fact) anyway.

Entering a space we weren’t invited to take away their opportunity would not be solidarity.

Also excluding and blaming fellow proletarians because they are the wrong gender doesn't.

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.

Sorry, we are going in circle, and I feel there is no point for me to rehash my thoughts for the N-th time. Either I am no expressing myself well enough, the language barrier is impeding mutual understanding or something else.

I fundamentally disagree with some of the premises of your arguments ("taking" - like one could choose - jobs aimed at women, etc.). I will close it here.

everything in this field is already, by default, directed at men

This is a very broad statement. Perhaps the population of males that showed up here is not an average male population in tech but the outliers of the statistics (looking at the videos, it seems mostly foreigners)? So I think it's fairly alienating to go tell them "sorry, fuck off, everything is meant for you already", when maybe you are out of a job for months and decided to pay 600$ (!!) in the hope of getting one.

saying we have have equality

Who said this?

Why would it be impossible to acknowledge both at the same time?

It's not impossible, but this happens. A lot of focus on the relatively minor differences between oppressed people creates fragmentation that impedes those people to realize they actually share problems and interests. To make an example, you coming and saying that "everything is meant for men anyway" is alienating to a 45yr old male who has just been fired to be replaced by a 23yr old (maybe, woman). It simply conflicts with the experiences of individuals who - despite potentially being men - face other kind of discrimination and generally struggle. That man has more in common with a woman who is not promoted, compared to the boss of that woman who is sexist, instead, and should not be alienated by gaslighting him with a reality that for him does not exist (I took this example, but the same applies to a black person, a foreigner, someone who didn't study in a fancy university, someone with a disability, and so on). So I am not saying that they are mutually exclusive, I am saying that concretely some arguments, including the overall tone of the article, seem to me to damage class unity to purely focus on gender discrimination.

It’s to the point where no one else can have anything without men going “what about me and my problems?”

Sorry, but I would not like to be mixed up with arguments made by others, nor with those who are arguing a-la Jordan Peterson in this thread. I don't care of men as a category, I am a supporter of feminism, I just have an idea of feminism as an inherently anti-capitalist and progressive ideology, which is an enabler for class unity. I just don't see the kind of arguments made by this article (and by some of the commenters) going in this direction. Instead, they seem to me as part of a feminism which is reactionary and part of the system in that it doesn't challenge it. Getting angry at fellow victims just because they are men seem to me an expression of this.

Nota bene: if the kind of tech-bro with a cushy job would be attending this fair with the intention to waste the time of the recruiters or even to look for a better job, my opinion would be different.

This is very lofty talk for someone fully willing to take away opportunities intentionally aimed at someone else who needs it.

Taking that opportunity (which specifically, I think is also very little) is someone who also needs it. You can create this hierarchy even among the women at that very fair, in fact.

Don’t you think snatching that opportunity is going to cause fragmentation?

I think not, if framed under the right perspective.

Do you think women or minorities stop having material struggles as long as you don’t think of them as a distinct group? That’s not how it works. If it was, then before feminism, working class women would have equal material conditions to working class men, and that is absolutely not how it went.

Absolutely I don't. And I am not claiming that the problem is solved by "meritocracy" or by just stopping thinking about this. I am suggesting that it is not responsibility of the victims to self-police and sort themselves in order of priority.

I guess your logic is that if you are working class and you help yourself you are helping the working class? Funny, but that’s not it.

That's not what I am suggesting. I am personally just thinking in very pragmatic terms. Realistically the struggle of the working class requires strong unions and harsh battles. How are you going to build a union when I - a male - see you -a woman (but you can pick any other category) - as something else as myself, as belonging to another group? To me building strong unions requires a mutual recognition of class belonging, and this is what I think helps in a systemic way. Nothing systemic is also going to change if X% more women would be hired by Microsoft/Apple etc., with the difference that if you reach that situation having alienated and fragmented workers, that's also where you stop.

There are other job fairs and recruitment opportunities where these guys could go to.

I have no idea why they chose to attend. What I know is that you don't spend 600-1200$ for the hell of it if you need a job.

whoever does is taking away an opportunity that a woman needed

And how is this different from any other job? I mean, ultimately you can apply this logic to any job you are going to take. Realistically, any company that will hire you is going to have a small % of women, so any job you are taking, you are taking it from a woman (or a black person, etc.). I really fail to understand how your logic works outside the specific context of the job fair. Are you saying that besides this job fair, then no concerns anymore should exist about under represented categories?

these women need jobs regardless. You know, material conditions, the thing you were saying was much more important.

Of course, but it's a matter of deciding the strategy to reach that objective. From my point of view, for the reasons above, I disagree with this particular one.

Any specific part? Or you just wanted to do the snarky comment without committing to an actual discussion?

Of course I am aware of that. Of course there are women who are in the same situation, or worse. Of course there are black women who are even in a worse place. Of course there are old black women who are in even a worse place. The fact is, there are people who need a job, and once this is the case, I don't put any responsibility on any of them if they take the spot that could be taken by someone more deserving. This is simply a decision that doesn't make sense. The responsibility is on those who decide how many jobs exist, to layoff people even with record profits (which coincidentally, are all the sponsors of this fair) and so on.

But how does pulling the rug under a poor woman have anything to do with that? That’s not even the same discussion, that’s just changing topics from the ruthlessness being displayed.

How is it trying to get a job (paying 600$+!) "pulling the rug" from anybody? This is what I don't get. Literally, anything you do, you are affecting society in a way that damages someone who has less means than you. You are buying something -> you are marginally increasing the demand and therefore the price.

It's not like I don't understand your idea, I simply don't think it makes any sense to expect such behavior to other people who are also victims of the same system. I have no interest whatsoever in fragmenting the working class creating a hierarchy of who is more victimized, this is a pointless exercises which is reactionary in nature.

if I were in a situation of need as well I wouldn’t look favorably over people who are so intent on tripping whoever is around them to cut in line

So if you apply for a job and someone else has already applied, you leave it? What does 'cutting the line' means in this context? We are talking about paying to go to a job fair meant for women, which also probably means that your chance to get recruited are much lower than a woman because companies are nowadays very interested in boosting their diversity metrics. And I think this is the case because for some people the struggle ends there: you get 40% of women in tech, there you go, now you are a good company, thanks Microsoft/Apple/etc.. This is why I think that this particular version of feminism is inherently bourgeois and reactionary.

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.

people have no sense of integrity.

I genuinely think this has nothing to do with integrity.

First issue is assuming your material difficulties is some how superior to others.

This is not an issue, it's absolutely normal, because I am aware of my material difficulties, while I am not aware of other people's one to the same extent. I can't decide not to buy a house because by doing so I increase the demand, which increases prices and makes it harder for poor people to afford housing. You are putting the burden to address a systemic issue on another victim.

Second assuming the only thing that matters when facing material difficulties is how to advantage only yourself.

I am not saying this is the only thing that matters, but I am saying it matters, and I think it's completely unfair to think that people shouldn't take care of themselves. I turn my eye to the mechanisms that create the scarcity that put me and a woman to fight for resources, not on either one of them.

Lots of people in life are capable of enduring difficult times while also sacrificing or placing themselves behind others. I don’t see how you don’t understand that.

Again, I think we have simply too different of a perception of what means a difficult time. Sorry, but this argument to me sounds as complete madness.

One of the most important lessons is that overcoming those times by hurting others is not a position I enjoy.

So not only I am forced to sell my labor to survive, which is the only chance I have, but when I do I am anyway hurting others. So what are my options? Suicide? Any job I am going to take, whether it comes though this fair or not, I am taking it potentially from an under represented category, be it a woman, an old person, black folks, LGBTQ+ community, etc. So I should just stop working?

I will say more, if you carry on your line of reasoning further, any of the people working in tech is US are participating in a system that in a bigger scale hurts people from third world countries (thinking for example of labor exploitation) and pollutes the planet. So what should people do?

The working class should build solidarity, should develop a consciousness that allow them to fight united against the system that creates arbitrary scarcity of resources, not self-police and create a hierarchy to split the crumbles among themselves.