Outreachy Deadlines Are Due Next Week For Winter Open-Source Internships

[starshipeleven]

Their objective is irrelevant, the point is that it IS reducing opportunities for everyone else as it isn't increasing the amount of jobs available, just making sure that more women get these places.

women or whatever other minority groups they sponsor, anyway.

[schmidtbag]

Their objective is irrelevant, the point is that it IS reducing opportunities for everyone else as it isn't increasing the amount of jobs available, just making sure that more women get these places.

Not necessarily. If outreachy didn't exist, there would be no new opportunities at all for anyone. But since it does exist, that means more opportunities are created. If women decide to take up one of these opportunites, that leaves 1 less person who would take a job elsewhere. So this still indirectly gives men more job opportunities.

Another thing to consider is the "illegal immigrants are taking our jobs!" argument. Illegal immigrants are taking jobs that the average educated/certified citizen would never take. But suppose you were willing to take one of those jobs, it doesn't mean you'd be hired because there could be someone better than you or willing to work for less. You can't really be losing job opportunities when they were never really available to you to begin with. Whether Outreachy exists or not, the amount of job opportunities for a white male never decreased.

[timofonic]

"For women and other select groups" i.e no straight white males. The bigotry of outreachy is amazing.

Aren't you gay? I did think it's the only way to not die virgin in STEM :P

[starshipeleven]

If women decide to take up one of these opportunites, that leaves 1 less person who would take a job elsewhere. So this still indirectly gives men more job opportunities.

No. If demand for these jobs is higher than offer (as it is in most places), if you give a workplace to A it's one less workplace for B, C and D.

If A is genuinely more worthy of it (i.e. is actually more capable than B, C and D) then it is OK, and fair.

If you give it to A because A is in your friend list (or other random bullshit reason like "it is a woman!"), then you are discriminating everyone else.

Another thing to consider is the "illegal immigrants are taking our jobs!" argument. Illegal immigrants are taking jobs that the average educated/certified citizen would never take.

This is irrelevant as we are talking of IT jobs, not just "all jobs".

You are like "no problem, more women in IT only means more white men flipping burgers somewhere so everyone has a job right?". (exaggeration for the sake of fun factor).

No that's not right. People should get employed on skills alone, not because they are in some "minority" or because they have boobs, or whatever.

[schmidtbag]

No. If demand for these jobs is higher than offer (as it is in most places), if you give a workplace to A it's one less workplace for B, C and D.

If A is genuinely more worthy of it (i.e. is actually more capable than B, C and D) then it is OK, and fair.

If you give it to A because A is in your friend list (or other random bullshit reason like "it is a woman!"), then you are discriminating everyone else.

But again - the job was never available to B, C, and D in the first place. They didn't lose or gain anything. And as stated before, they still indirectly gain something because that leaves 1 other job opportunity open that A doesn't have to pursue.

But for argument's sake, let's say GNOME had 5 job openings, to anyone. If any one of those job openings were converted into "woman/trans/genderqueer/other only" job positions, then it would unquestionably be unfair and discriminatory. But for all we know, if this program didn't exist, there may not have been any openings at all.

This is irrelevant as we are talking of IT jobs, not just "all jobs".

You are like "no problem, more women in IT only means more white men flipping burgers somewhere so everyone has a job right?". (exaggeration for the sake of fun factor).

I'm aware this is about IT jobs, but I'm trying to highlight the fact that not all opportunities are inherently available to everyone, so complaining about something not available to you may not always be relevant.

No that's not right. People should get employed on skills alone, not because they are in some "minority" or because they have boobs, or whatever.

I agree people should only get employed on skills alone. But in the IT world, there is a stark imbalance; encouraging women to join IT fields helps correct this. For many businesses, it's the lowest bidder who gets the job, hence things like illegal immigrants getting jobs.

[starshipeleven]

But again - the job was never available to B, C, and D in the first place.

Because someone is discriminating against them. Outreachy is paying internships only to A-type people (continuing the same example).

This means that to get this thing that is surely a boost on a CV, or to get eventually employed afterwards in the place they were doing the internship in, there is a discrimination.

But in the IT world, there is a stark imbalance; encouraging women to join IT fields helps correct this.

One thing is encouraging, one thing is giving unfair advantages or discriminating the others.

[DIRT]

Got a source on that? Seems pretty BS to me (both sides of it). Keep in mind, anything that happened in the mid 1900s and earlier don't count as reliable sources, considering women were explicitly oppressed to the point that they simply weren't allowed to do certain things; it's difficult to show a shred of intelligence or value when you're not allowed to.

As with many things, the problem is people only consider their personal observations and do not account for all. In some places, women have way too high of an advantage and can abuse regulations made out for them. In some places, women score better than men on tests for STEM fields. In most places, women are paid equally and have enough workplace protection to not be harassed. But denying the fact that overall there is still an issue encouraging minorities in STEM fields is no different than denying climate change or world hunger.

Sure

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beautiful-minds/201207/men-women-and-iq-setting-the-record-straight

http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/sexdifferences.aspx

http://www.iqtestexperts.com/iq-better.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence

But its not just how smart someone is either. Different interests effect what someone is good at. There is nothing stopping women from looking for jobs in tech, but they don't want to sign up for those jobs. I work in that field. Most girls I see are basically just like a guy, and imo look like one too.

[L_A_G]

I understand that, but again, it doesn't matter how often women get accepted if there aren't that many who apply to begin with. I'm not denying the facts of the article, but I'm saying the article doesn't supply enough facts. It's just one piece of the picture.

Getting women to get into tech and what outreachy tries to do are literally two separate issues. Giving women who have already made the choice an advantage over their male counterparts really doesn't help women who haven't made the choice to try their luck in the tech sector. It's the functional equivalent of giving social welfare to rich people, i.e completely pointless.

Right, and why do you think women aren't interested? This is what I'm talking about - everything is connected. You can't just look at one piece of it, you have to analyze the entire scenario. Yes, women are readily accepted into jobs. Yes, women perform fine in jobs and don't really need additional assistance in doing their jobs. But many are still mistreated or demeaned in workplaces, from either coworkers or clients (or both).

Once again, you completely fail to see the point. This is not going to attract women who aren't already in the tech sector as it's exclusive to those who are already in it. As for women being mistreated and demeaned, every group suffers from occasional mistreatment and demeaning treatment and the study I posted shows pretty conclusively that women are treated better than men.

Y'know what's a real good motivator? Money - that's what outreachy offers. Maybe women don't need help getting jobs in STEM fields, but it seems to me the main goal of outreachy is to encourage more women to get into software development. And seeing as this program has gone on for multiple years, it clearly seems to be encouraging some people

Once again, giving money and exclusive opportunities to a privileged group really doesn't help people outside of that privileged group. If it was about trying to convince women to get into tech in the first place I wouldn't have any real issues with it, but that's not what it's about. If you want to get more women into tech, get behind some other program than this because this really does nothing for that particular cause.

If there's one thing that annoys me about the tech diversity talk is constant assertion that more women would get into the field if it didn't have such a problem with misogyny when in Islamic countries where misogyny is arguably a MUCH bigger issue (where women lack things like equal legal rights, the vote, etc.) the portion of women in STEM fields is actually higher than in the western world. Were misogyny such a huge issue, then Islamic countries would obviously be behind the west, not ahead of it, showing that it's definitely not misogyny that's behind gender split in tech.

[starshipeleven]

I love "trendy" racism and bigotry and the apologists who defend them by arguing feelings and opinions instead of facts. All the usual players will be filling up this thread soon calling everyone X-phobic and X-ists and demanding this thread be closed. Oh and of course stating over and over how "disgusted" their little snowflake sensibilities are being offended.

There are also generic trolls that post completely 0-content 360-degree-offensive trollposts like you, let's not forget that.

[Luke_Wolf]

Another thing to consider is the "illegal immigrants are taking our jobs!" argument. Illegal immigrants are taking jobs that the average educated/certified citizen would never take.

Bullshit. There's no such things as "Jobs that average educated certified citizens would never take", and the economy operates at the minimum wage level at a very substantial labour surplus not a labour deficit resulting in lines half a mile long in situations where a major store declares that they're hiring for seasonal work just to apply. The reason that illegal immigrants can take jobs away from normal educated citizens is that their illegal status means that businesses who choose to employ illegal labour can pay them less than minimum wage and so as long as they can keep things hush hush they can cut their labour costs as a result of that. Of course Illegal immigrants have to pay the cartels protection money after they're brought over or bad things will happen to them or their family. The obvious socioeconomic result is of course that the areas they get moved into become ghettoized because that's what greater poverty leads to (in this case caused by a combination of lower pay and having the cartel tax).