
What we've learned from making Recurse Center 50% women, trans, and non-binary - dankohn1
https://www.recurse.com/blog/148-what-we-have-learned-from-seven-years-working-to-make-rc-50-percent-women-trans-and-non-binary
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spyckie2
After reading the full report, I actually have a lot of respect for the
author, even though I personally support leaving gender and race out of it. I
also have minor gripes as well about "women, trans, or non-binary" \- I
believe a more fair representation of the underserved in programming would be
women, minorities, or older people - but hey, I'm not running the program, and
I have no stakeholder value in it, so who am I to comment on what they want to
promote?

My gripes aside, I believe there is value in creating a program for people who
want to learn programming but struggle to do so in other environments.
Programming is not some sacred art reserved for nobility or certain
personality types, it's a skill that anyone can and should pick up. Even if
most don't become a rigorous full time engineer at google, it's still an
empowering skill that should be accessible to anyone.

Accessibility of training should be universal; earning money as a programmer
should be skill based. These values do not conflict - I think there are
underserved classifications of individuals that, if given the training, would
become great programmers. But I also think that diversity in programming will
never happen to the degree the article wants it to. I'm happy to be proven
wrong, I just don't think it will happen.

Saying that "accessibility of training should be universal" is me playing
armchair policy maker, because I have done nothing to make that happen, nor do
I intend to, and the amount of effort to make that happen is quite large.
That's why I have respect for the author, who, despite my disagreeances with
his political leanings, does something about it, especially in a rational and
strategic way.

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jrs95
Am I honestly supposed to believe they achieved this without employing
discriminatory hiring practices? The demographics of people applying for jobs
in this industry is so far from 50% that I’m extremely skeptical of this.
Although with a certain amount of effort I’m sure they simply reduce the
number of male applicants. Personally I’d be reluctant to apply somewhere that
had this stance on diversity because it seems more likely I’d get crucified
for some micro aggression I didn’t commit if I ever pissed anyone off.

I mean I get there’s this whole meme of “reverse discrimination” not existing
or being possible because of systemic whatever the fuck, but considering I’ve
only been in this industry for six years and I’ve already seen blatant and
concrete examples of this behavior that went entirely unpunished, I think it’s
ridiculous that people treat you like some kind of fascist for even
disagreeing with it. I’m not okay with sacrificing basic principles of
equality or human decency in the pursuit of more ideal outcomes.

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xvedejas
Well, it's a learning center, not hiring, so I imagine they probably _can_ get
away with things that employers could not get away with.

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tclancy
These are fantastic ideas. I feel like the pseudonym idea alone would make
such a difference.

On the downside, now I have to accept no one ever thinks of me as Temperature
Jeans.

~~~
_Nat_
The pseudonym thing seems like a good idea even when not concerned about
leaking demographic information, as people often have different associations
with names.

Sometimes there's an article on the issue (example [1]), but just in general,
"Bob Hart" might have a slightly different feeling from "Alexander
Montgomery".

[1]: [https://www.success.com/10-ways-your-name-affects-your-
life/](https://www.success.com/10-ways-your-name-affects-your-life/)

