She commanded, and continues to command, respect from her peers for both her technical contributions on a very challenging tech stack, and product savvy in an extremely complex business domain. I was on her interview and there was no question of moving bars. It didn't even come up, because she was so very well-prepared. We just evaluated the performance and hired the best dev for the position, end of conversation.
On the job she spoke with authority and confidence in standups and earned every single bit of responsibility she ever got. Mention her to anyone who's worked with Bryana and you'll get the "eye roll of respect." She's so talented there was a minor running joke with a couple of us that we should keep a countdown clock of "minutes till I work for Bryana."
I only wish that early in my career I could have been half as well-rounded and with a fraction of the aptitude, product savvy and technical depth Bryana has.
Putting your only female dev in the position of representing your company at conferences suggests that she's taken on the role of "token female". If this is coincidental, and she just happens to be the best spoken developer with the least stagefright, then clearly there is no problem. However, if you deliberately chose her because she is female, then you are doing her no long-term favors, and are engaged in sexist business practices yourself.
new_corp_dev put it better than I could: "If the industry sees a glut of women speakers who are there only because they are women, then the industry will have no choice but to acknowledge their token status."
Nope. Fortunately for me, while I was in a position to make those decisions about Bryana (I've since changed gigs), her own excellent performance was the only thing I had to think about.
Look, I'll let Bryana's own career speak for itself, which I have no doubt it will, but for myself I'd have confidence putting her in front of any audience on any topic she feels comfortable talking about.
One other thing, if you know anything about how conferences work, CFPs/speaking roles are something managed by the conferences, not companies. Questions of 'token' or otherwise are best posed to the individual organizers of the conference in question.
If you want to put the conversation to rest, simply clarify that point.
Her post only implied her own personal, subjective and utterly understandable anxieties on that point. My response was at pains to put both her questions and anyone else's to rest. She earned everything she got, and the comprehensive respect she received from her peers was without qualification. Never mind gender, she coded way beyond her years of experience. The main thing with managing Bryana was to get out of her way and let her do outstanding work, which she did.
> If you want to put the conversation to rest, simply clarify that point.
Was there something ambiguous to you in my statements here?
* Bryana's performance _across the board_ was top-notch, _without qualification_.
* ...she..._earned_ every single bit of responsibility she ever got.
* We just evaluated the [interview] performance and hired the best dev for the position, _end of conversation_.
This blog post is about a specific person and her experience. She tells you up front that she was nervous about this. Her management encouraged her to go to conferences, _and that was exactly the right response to her personal nervousness_.
There's a lot of cases where the broader social context becomes part of a person's emotional landscape. A good manager will recognize this (just like any other barrier to working effectively) and balance out doubts with encouragement. The trick is look for possible problems, and management that knows how to look for these problems and help with them is doing their job well.
Positive discrimination is not positive, because discrimination is never positive, no matter which group it favours. And here we see the consequences - a cohort of women who will suffer the paranoia of not knowing whether they were selected on merit. And a cohort of men who will have their misogynistic prejudices reinforced because the bar was visibly lowered for women.
Nothing will dispel uncertainty better than getting the facts. The bar was not visibly lowered in Bryana's case. Her manager said the fact she is a woman never crossed his mind in giving her lead on a project. The good work she was putting in over her first year demonstrated to management she was ready to take lead on a project. If we're just honest with each other, we'll all be better off.
I think her point is that since there is so much negative discrimination, the positive discrimination is cancelled out.
I also think that if there -is- sexism in the industry, -more sexism- is not the right solution. Call out the sexism. The industry will rally around you, as we've often seen. Don't generalise the industry, and generalise men. That's just bigotry.
Two more candidates, one again is more technically qualified but the second grew up in a market Im targeting for expansion. Again, I take the second because the circumstances of his birth are worth more to me than difference in developed ability.
Every choice made is a combination of hundreds of culminating value judgements and to pretend that we can create some objective score based on merit is intellectually dishonest; to pretend that we want to ignore the other factors is unhealthy.
In order for young girls (whether we're talking about children or just engineers early in their career path) to feel confident, to relate and feel like a natural part of the industry, there has to be a change. There has to be more females at conferences. There has to be more female leadership. If you continue to look only at a point of time (a result of history) and say "right now there are more men qualified then women" for every decision, you prevent a future where women had the same comfort and opportunity to truly level the playing field.
Unless you're hiring at random, a whole host of other value judgements are made per candidate on top of any kind of objective technical merit. If these judgements slant toward inclusionary I think the positive feedback in increasing diversity is worth a lot more than the negatives you mention (imposter syndrome is felt across the entire industry and ignoring the added value of diversity to placate the egos of misogynists has it's own delicious irony).
This is coming from a white male who is acutely aware he only has his job because he looks the part; imposter syndrome never stops being a bitch.
What an absurd characterization. I get that you don't agree with this person, but what -- if anything -- did this person say that was juvenile?
One just expresses a ratio of genders, whereas the other implies a distinct control and power dynamic.
Male dominated also means "predominantly male", though, in common usage.
> This may seem like special treatment or in some ways unfair. "Reverse sexism" some might call it. I don't see it that way. This industry treats women differently, so my managers treat me differently in the exact opposite way the industry does.
I would not call it "reverse sexism", because it is is just plain sexism. Of course the author doesn't "see it that way", despite acknowledging it, because the author directly benefits from said sexism.
If the author is being encouraged to apply for and accepted to speak at conferences primarily based on their gender, then the industry's reaction will be to expect that women speakers are token speakers, and this will set back women in the industry.
Embrace differences, embrace diversity, but in the long run special treatment does not benefit anybody.
If a manager hires a person who needs a bit more structure in order to stay focused, that person should be given a little more structure. Or in this case, if a manager hires someone who has been pushed down her whole life and has learned to fade into the background so as not to upset men around her, the manager should most definitely spend some time helping her get accustomed to speaking her mind and advocating for herself. It's just good managing.
This way, she'll be able to contribute much more to the team that she would if she was still worried about fitting in. And her knowledge can be spread to new female employees, which helps move the inequality further towards equality in the long run.
I don't see how this "special treatment" is in any way detrimental.
This isn't what is happening here though.
This comes off much more as "Bryana, you're our only female programmer, and we want to look more progressive and diverse than our competitors. We are sending you to conferences to speak for us so we can show you off as our token female."
It works out in her favor, so she'll never complain, but it is sexism nonetheless. Special treatment doesn't lead to equality. Equal treatment leads to equality.
I reiterate: if the industry sees a glut of women speakers who are there only because they are women, then the industry will have no choice but to acknowledge their token status.
In the very same article the author laments not knowing whether she is being offered more responsibility because she is a woman or if it's because she's seen as capable and competent. It's a completely valid assumption, because she's already been offered more responsibility because she is a woman.
But... either we can discriminate based on gender or we can't. If you have an all male team where most members are extremely shy around women (like bad enough they probably should see a therapist), then it would make perfect business sense to only seek another man for that team. But discrimination based on gender isn't allowed, so you can't do that. And for the same reason, even though there is business reason why special treatment is justified, you can't discriminate based on gender.
This doesn't level the playing field. It specifically encourages employers to treat their female employees differently than male employees.
As Bryana mentioned in her blog, it's pretty much impossible for a woman to not be singled out in STEM, simply because she is a woman. Men almost never have to worry about their gender being brought up, while women generally either have to deal with being looked down or being put on a pedestal.
You can thank "people deliberately righting wrongs such as by giving extra encouragement to female developers" for this additional layer of sexism in STEM...
But yes, I agree. It is sexist to push her to do things BECAUSE she is a woman. She should be pushed to do things regardless of her gender.
Any emphasis on sex is sexist. Any emphasis on race is racist. We aren't defined by the color of our skin or what we have between our legs. Unfortunately, people regularly do sexist and racist things in an attempt to be "anti-sexist" or "anti-racist", and it just doesn't do any long-term good.
I like to call it "moonwalking", because it gives the illusion that you're moving forward, but really you're just stealthily moving backward...
I see this attitude not infrequently among pseudo-liberal city crowds. I've heard the claims that we're postracial or past the need for feminism or civil rights activism.
I agree that's how it should be, but it's not. Civil rights was only a generation ago, and america has spent more time mistreating its women and minorities than not. It's delusional to believe that everything is going to be fixed.
The reality is that women do have a tougher time due to various social programming, and minorities do as well in many industries due to stereotypes that we all hold. To pretend like we all have the same advantages in America is a lie, and one that benefits the ones already at the top.
Here's a good test: if gender/religion/etc truly doesn't matter, would you rather be a <not straight>, <not white>, <not man> who practices <not christianity> in america, or a straight white anglo man? It shouldn't matter, right?
How I wish that (at least for the remaining few conferences where you can submit a proposal without having to be a "silver sponsor"), submissions were "blind". No name submitted, you get a reference number back to confirm your submission.
Focus on merit, not gender/name recognition/budget.
I agree with you that "special treatment" does not benefit anybody, but there is so much misogyny (aka "special treatment") that counter-treatment is not just desirable, but necessary.
Positive discrimination for one person is negative discrimination against another, of whom the discriminator has power over the discriminated. So it still fits as being a *ism.
That is assuming you even accept the whole 'power + mistreatment' bit.
The critical race theory definition is just a shield to hide behind while practicing racist or sexist behavior, and I will only acknowledge it as such.
Case in point: "Black History Month" wasn't supposed to be permanent. We still celebrate it though, as if black history were distinctly different from American history. It started off with good intentions, but it continues to this day as an unnecessarily divisive holiday. How much "black history" is ignored 11 months out of the year just so we can celebrate it in February (the shortest month of the year)?
Sexual discrimination is sexual discrimination, regardless of context.
When you say that men are assertive and women are not, you are in fact talking about a subset of men - the extroverts - who are assertive. In reality, and in particular in the software world, you'll find a lot of introverted men who are much like you - they don't feel comfortable speaking up. It is just that they're not very visible because they aren't heard.
In my opinion, assertiveness is more of a personality issue. And it is ridiculous that we expect everyone to be assertive - it does not improve your ability to code in any way.
