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token minority problems
Mar. 12th, 2022 09:32 ambig week... a woman in engineering was on the cover of am i the asshole this week for calling out her company at an event. she had told them she was tired of being pulled out of her technical work for recruiting and photo ops, but she continued to be voluntold for it. Finally when a student asked her about diversity at the company she was honest. As one of only two women she was tired of being the representative woman at events like this, on top of her technical responsibilities.
her company's unfortunate response to the public callout was basically to yell at her for not being their ideal token woman... exactly what she'd complained about.
it was interesting for me to read because I DO tend to enjoy representing women in stem. I wouldn't want to go to stuff every MONTH, but a nice trip here or there is nice, they can use my photo. I don't think diversity numbers can improve if we don't step out front and look like role models, so when I first read it I thought... what's the issue?
But then I saw the issues. Representing isn't for everybody, and she was taking on way more than any one person should have to take on. Seeing it that way the post is a great illustration of how to screw up diversity. This woman is already scouting out her next job. When she brought up concerns, management got defensive and yelled at her instead of listening to her and trying to learn how they can do better.
If you scare all your women away, you're in a bad situation for a few reasons...
1) Your company will now ONLY be able to draw talent from the population that doesn't care about diversity, limiting the pool of who you can hire. Hiring is harder.
2) You've built up a culture where outsider ideas just aren't listened to. This will prevent good ideas from *anybody* from gaining ground, not just women and minorities.
3) Your customers, suppliers, and consultants who are part of the world now have to navigate your nitch weirdness. Spoiler alert: they can walk away just like your employees.
The only way to bounce back from it is to lose money. Sorry to say it. Bring in good outside training to get your leadership on board with listening 101, and then increase your hiring budgets so your salaries make up for your lack of diversity and those few token minorities you're able to hire feel compensated for their dual role of doing good technical work and representing your initiatives.
Or you could just choose to ignore the problem and go downhill. The poster in this week's subreddit is walking away to let them do that. That's her only choice, really.
her company's unfortunate response to the public callout was basically to yell at her for not being their ideal token woman... exactly what she'd complained about.
it was interesting for me to read because I DO tend to enjoy representing women in stem. I wouldn't want to go to stuff every MONTH, but a nice trip here or there is nice, they can use my photo. I don't think diversity numbers can improve if we don't step out front and look like role models, so when I first read it I thought... what's the issue?
But then I saw the issues. Representing isn't for everybody, and she was taking on way more than any one person should have to take on. Seeing it that way the post is a great illustration of how to screw up diversity. This woman is already scouting out her next job. When she brought up concerns, management got defensive and yelled at her instead of listening to her and trying to learn how they can do better.
If you scare all your women away, you're in a bad situation for a few reasons...
1) Your company will now ONLY be able to draw talent from the population that doesn't care about diversity, limiting the pool of who you can hire. Hiring is harder.
2) You've built up a culture where outsider ideas just aren't listened to. This will prevent good ideas from *anybody* from gaining ground, not just women and minorities.
3) Your customers, suppliers, and consultants who are part of the world now have to navigate your nitch weirdness. Spoiler alert: they can walk away just like your employees.
The only way to bounce back from it is to lose money. Sorry to say it. Bring in good outside training to get your leadership on board with listening 101, and then increase your hiring budgets so your salaries make up for your lack of diversity and those few token minorities you're able to hire feel compensated for their dual role of doing good technical work and representing your initiatives.
Or you could just choose to ignore the problem and go downhill. The poster in this week's subreddit is walking away to let them do that. That's her only choice, really.
