Same here (Polish names unite!). I usually get embarrassed by the amount of attention mine will get. Using this tool feels like it would just add even more attention to it.
My last name is actually simple to pronounce but I usually ask to "just call me Greg", as Grzegorz is probably the epitome of unpronounceable Polish names.
Still, I'm not sure if I'd ever use this tool. Seems somewhat pretentious, even if useful.
If you're Polish and you see a Polish name, you instantly know how to pronounce it. In the US It's more more hit-or-miss due to ethnical diversity and the English language itself.
Come to think of it, I'd like other people to use this site, but still wouldn't use it myself. Maybe it's because so far I can't see a way to mispronounce my last name and I've essentially given up on my first name.
That's the thing, though. By promoting a more feminist, egalitarian, diverse culture for tech, we by definition eliminate the jerks. Why do we have to take as a given that we have to take the jerks along with the money?
Your implication here is that people who identify under your listed banners cannot be jerks. This is simply an outright falsehood. An ideology that insists it cannot have jerks among its ranks is one that probably needs to look in the mirror.
If you do not believe in the inherent equality and humanity of men and women (along with all other marginalized groups), then yes, it's safe to say that you are indeed a jerk.
That wasn't the responder's point. The point was that even people who do (at least by their own report) believe in the inherent equality and humanity of men and women (along with all other marginalized groups) can still be jerks. That's why we should focus on jerkitude, period.
The trouble is, most of the people who're "promoting a more feminist, egalitarian, diverse culture" are not in fact capable of grasping "the inherent equality and humanity of men and women (along with all other marginalized groups)". In fact, I've never met anyone who can full stop.
Turns out that everyone's very good at understanding the inherent equality and dignity of people who're exactly like them and hates it when people claim to respect them without putting the work in. They also want to be seen to respect others but only so long as they don't have to put the work in. The history of feminism, for example, is rather enlightening...
I absolutely agree. I was only relaying that maybe if we focus more on the jerk part, and less on the specifics of the brand of jerk we might help solve the problem of all the people who have to deal with jerks in this industry, not just one specific group.
Sure! But I guess my point is that by embracing the voices of marginalized groups, we can solve a huge chunk of that at once. If you think about it, jerks usually act the way they do because of a perceived power differential. The guy with enough insecurity to harass a woman (or POC, or LBGTQ person) is likely to try to power trip other men, too.
I think I understand your logic here. It does make some sense to use the harassment of a marginalized group as a sort of "tell" that this person is a jerk. I do worry though that it is a bit divisive. A lot of terms like "white male" and "feminist" are very loaded at this point and it feels to me like focusing on specific groups might be a distraction.
For example if I were to say that one of the most arrogant and aggressive people I've known was a self described feminist, it starts to distract from the fact the in reality this person is just a jerk and the feminist part really doesn't have anything to do with that. And any of the hateful gender specific things that person said to other people didn't really have to do with gender issues as much as this person was a total jerk to almost everyone around them.
Yeah, it's sad how those terms ("white male", "feminist") have become loaded. But again, I think it's because of perceived power differences. For some reason, the term "feminist" has come to mean, in some circles, "person who wants to take away my power". When in reality, promoting an egalitarian world benefits both women and men, since it reduces jerk behavior. Promoting equal rights for women does not take away rights from men, you know?
I feel you on the second paragraph, but I think what's really distracting is the unnecessary stigma of the labels. What if more women and men, especially those with influence, openly identified as feminist? It's like the xkcd comic about girls being bad at math (https://xkcd.com/385/). If one self-described feminist behaves poorly, you'd probably blame that on her personally, instead of writing off all feminists (and feminism, at the same time).
Personally speaking, I think feminism is a benefit to the world. I think it has helped, and will continue to help make the world more inclusive place and increase the understanding of the unique issues women face in society. I hope I am not coming off as saying that I think feminism should go away or that I'm speaking generally about the world at large. I was only using the self described feminist as an example to show that it might distract. I've met plenty of jerks, only a couple of them considered themselves feminists. ;)
I was more specifically talking about tech, especially the more app/web side of things as that is my personal zone of experience. There just seems to be a lot of jerks in general. That said, there are also a lot of inspiring, compassionate and incredibly intelligent people that I feel so lucky to have worked with and learned from. I only brought that aspect up as I wonder if maybe some of the issues with tech is that some women and other people who might typically face discrimination and harassment in other aspects of their life, do not realize that in a lot of ways its just a jerky place. That they might not realize that plenty of tech workers are made fun of, talked down to and even sometimes outright yelled at. For example all of these things I've just mentioned have happened to me personally on multiple occasions. The yelled at was only once a long time ago fortunately.
So maybe we might focus on making tech less jerky in general? Because there are plenty of people, not just a few specific groups that are treated pretty poorly in this industry.
Thanks for your honesty. It's hard to be courageous, whether you're the victim or the bystander (since it means you put yourself at risk of being the next victim, yes?). But it's not impossible, so let's all try to remember that.
Thank you for your honesty. As a woman, I tend to respond to these situations in the exact same way - out of shock and mortification. But that's exactly why this behavior can continue. So together, let's speak up for ourselves, for others, and for what is right.
I agree completely. However, when designing a new surgical technique or a better mouse-trap you have to be able to do it in nearly ANY environment. Your job, profession, or avocation is not going to coddle you at all, most likely. If you can't learn calculus in a lecture, then you should recognize this and learn how you are going to learn it, then learn it and pass the test. If you cannot, then (under this more brutal theory) you are unlikely to do so when it really counts.
Also, many many kids are unfit for STEM fields, Law or Medical school, yet go into school as if they are[0]. The cutting has to occur for the good of society and the students themselves.
My '5A: Intro To Physics' course was notorious for the cutting. The attrition rate was 90%. This was intentional. If you could not contend with the bad grades, the stress, the material, and the work in that class then you were out. Better now than in 3 years. My graduating class year was about 7000 people, of which 20 were in physics, a rate of 0.3%.
But education systems are a product of political and, consequently, economic belief. We believe in a nominally equal distribution of power, but we also believe that most people are destined to be industrial cogs, with disproportionate power going to an elect few. That's what our school systems reflect: niceties declaring equality while applying a rigorous filter in order to determine the worthy.
Well, it is one (flawed) was of sorting people out. There are better ones, I'll admit, but none will ever be perfect. We are dealing with people after all.
I wouldn't say "niceties declaring equality while applying a rigorous filter in order to determine the worthy". This is just too dour. Filters have to be set. I mean, people without arms just can't be fluent in sign-language. Like wise, people that just can't do calculus just can't be rocket scientists. That is not to say these people are not valuable elsewhere. Hell, I can play guitar a tinge, but I would say a guitarist adds more to life than I ever will. Similarly with a dance instructor. Their talents are what we do all this engineering for.
Worth is not economic, it's internal. What some guy in a tower thinks matters is not what you should think. College, as much as it is a cliche these days, is about teaching you to learn. Whatever that is that you do learn. At then end of it all, you can't take a coin, transistor, or chord with you into the grave.
This is excellent! I recently moved to Switzerland without knowing any French, and while using Google Translate to figure out how to ask basic questions works fine in a pinch, I'm usually at a loss if the person responds by speaking too fast or using complex vocabulary. Though I can get by in French now, I'll definitely bring this with me when I'm Taipei and Tokyo later this year. Keep it up!
- Parlez-vous anglais?
- No
- Je ne parle pas bien le français, mais ... [followed by
English with French-style word mangling and descriptive
gestures and sounds]
Once they know you suck at French, they will spe-ak slo-o-o-w-e-r and cut you a break in general.
As a Brit who lived in St Gallen for a couple of years, I never found any problem, the Swiss all speak perfect Swiss, English, French and German. My schoolboy French was useless because the moment I would open my mouth they would instantly switch to English, even in rural areas.
> the Swiss all speak perfect Swiss, English, French and German
What do you mean by perfect Swiss? (To be honest, as a German I am inclined to classify Swiss German as its own language. Especially since we already grant Dutch to be a different language from German.)
Yes. It's always fun to bring that up, because people generally see Switzerland as trilingual only. Haven't met a speaker of that language, yet, though.
Yeah, I've found it really depends. Shortly after I came here, I had one Swiss person say in a huff (and in perfect English!), "You've been here for three months, and you still don't speak French?" How long ago did you live in St. Gallen? These days it seems like there's a bit of anti-foreigner mentality, so I've noticed I get a warmer reception if I at least try to speak the language.
It exposes only women's data -- and the app's logo is a naked woman in a stripper pose with crosshairs on top. To me, that makes me think of assault and/or rape.
Mmm, missed that, thanks. Doesn't change the aggression against women in the marketing, though. Though maybe thanks to our culture (violent video games, for example) we've been de-sensitized to this?
If the logo is the same as the splash screen, there are no crosshairs on the woman. That's the radar, which seems to imply targeting or finding, rather than attacking. So I would agree with duxup that it's a bit of a stretch to say it's designed for stalkers, or that it implies assault/rape.
In fact, I think it's a good thing that such an app exists. The bad thing is people not knowing what they share, and that needs to be fixed by Facebook/Google, or through laws. The situation is not that much different from exposing a security hole in order to get it fixed. Besides, some people may actually want their data to be available like this, so once it's strictly opt-in, there's nothing wrong with the app.
Though you could think of it that way, I think it's more likely that sex sells, and the creator of this app thought that putting sexy silhouettes on his app would rake in the users.
You see a lot of diversity at some of these blue chip companies (Coca-Cola, Pepsi, JNJ, AmEx) but maybe that is because they are so large and well known that they have an imperative to be diverse.
Conversely you might have some unknown/private company that isn't really in the public eye and as a result does not have a mandate to have a ton of female senior executives (maybe Aramco?).
It can be causation without female workers adding anything by their "femaleness." Any effort to break old routines can result in replacing old, unexamined habits with better ones.
Case in point: I read an article in the Financial Times several years back about how Norwegian companies adapted to the quota law requiring 40% of board members to be female. Norwegian companies were kind of at a loss because they normally recruited directors out of a pool of candidates known to their current directors and executives. They knew those traditional candidates very well, often personally, and knew their skills, qualifications, and trustworthiness. Unfortunately, that pool didn't include very many women.
The companies were leery of hiring complete strangers into their boardrooms. Still, they were stuck with it, so they did their best. They identified skills and knowledge that would complement their existing boards and launched international searches for qualified candidates. Just by taking those steps, which most of companies had never bothered with before, they discovered a huge number of stellar candidates with skills that were completely lacking in Norwegian boardrooms. The candidates they found were significantly younger, more accomplished, and more internationally savvy than the usual old boys' club candidates. Result: big win for Norwegian corporations. Instead of looking at a few dozen old Scandinavian men, they started recruiting out of a huge pool of international talent. Being limited to female candidates was a minor factor at that point. At least, that's how the FT presented it.
Aramco is an... odd example. A company based in a country where women are treated as second-class citizens and aren't even permitted driver's licenses[1] isn't going to have any sort of mandate to employ them, public eye or not.
They are more likely to be in the public eye. More visibility = more chances of being attacked for being sexist/discriminating = more programs and "support" to hire females, underrepresented minorities etc.
A startup is working hard just to survive. This is a survivorship bias often ignored by media and report likely because its not politically correct.
