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Fighting Tech's Diversity Issues Without Burning Down the System
reifman writes: Fizzmint CEO Tarah Wheeler Van Vlack says she "never had a problem with Mitt Romney's use of the phrase 'binders full of women.' ... Instead of congratulating him for his realization and his attempt to (awkwardly) rectify the situation, we crucified him for not already having a network of accomplished women." The scarcity of women in tech is a central issue in Seattle, where Amazon's growth is literally reshaping the city. The company refuses to release its technology workforce diversity numbers, and it's been criticized for interviewing practices that put female candidates on a "horrifying steeplechase [by] careless and non-people-oriented technologists." Van Vlack says, "It's stupid on every level not to acknowledge the obstacles women face when they try to join a tech company." She suggests three concrete steps for technology leaders to attract more women into the fold: 1) Push your technical recruiters to hit 20% thresholds for female candidates 2) Challenge and question your personal assumptions about the leadership skills of women in technology and 3) Transparently and openly take a stand to improve your company's diversity figures.
From TFA: " the applicant was escorted to an undecorated office the size of a closet. There she sat as a procession of seven guys filed in one at a time to ask her questions, often the same questions as the guy before. Few made eye contact, none offered her so much as a drink of water or a bathroom break. The whole day she didn’t lay eyes on a woman. She was there for five hours. "
That happens to the men as well. It's not a gender thing.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Replace all the people with LEGO people. Little LEGO people seem to have no gender-specific issues, since the differences are just painted on. Even better would be to use bricks to assemble giant LEGO people, because then on the anatomical level everything would fit into everything else.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
...at the expense of every other company.
Rants like this forget that there is a SUPPLY problem. You can't magically increase female participation in your IT departments because there aren't 20% there. If Amazon and Intel are all hot and bothered about "diversity" they could very well consume all of the available "talent".
They might consume all of the available suitable talent and still come up short.
At least Intel is bright enough to try addressing the supply side of this.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Yep. The company I work for is doing the "diversity" thing (has been for years, in fact) and recently hired a woman despite not having an opening for her.
Queue a mad rush to find some project to stick her on based on her skillset in a set of technologies we don't use.
I have no issue with pushing for diversity, but when it leads to hiring someone for a position you don't actually have...