General > General Technical Chat
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
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pcprogrammer:

--- Quote from: paulca on August 22, 2022, 02:58:17 pm ---Agreed and appologies for my previous highlighting of the real front lines.  Which are extremely remotely relevant if at all.

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Here too, but @paulca, thanks for supplying dinner conversation. :-+ The wife recently watch a documentary by Louis Theroux about it.

It has been discussed on the forum before: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/life-advice-dont-dismiss-or-lose-respect-for-people/msg4279981/#top

Dave posted that video in this thread too.
sokoloff:

--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on August 22, 2022, 02:42:08 pm ---Any suggestions on how to successfully avoid being targeted/canceled, say because one chooses not to support current D-E-I efforts because they will not lead to the results and effects their proponents claim?

I have no good suggestions myself.

Dave already mentioned some cancellation attempts; hearing about known working strategies to defend oneself would be encouraging.
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“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
DEI efforts mix items from both groups, IMO.

For my own account, I try to direct the conversation about principle topics to be anchored in some fundamental principles, which I do fully support.

"I totally agree that discrimination* is bad. For that reason, I agree with you that we must evaluate each candidate or employee based on their relevant skills/abilities and contributions." If the DEI proponent suggests that's not good enough, and that we must actively discriminate against certain groups, we have an identified point of disagreement and they're welcome to take that up with HR, Legal, or my boss. I'm not at all worried about the outcome there because I support the important principles and, even if I were worried about the outcome, I'd way, way rather get fired than to discriminate against a qualified candidate or employee.

For non-important topics, I try not to take a hardline approach.

* As above in thread, I'm 100% fine with stopping calling things "master" and "slave". I never owned a slave; no one I know was ever a slave, but it doesn't offend my engineering sensibilities to call them "leader" and "follower" or "primary" and "replica" or whatever.
* Likewise, it doesn't bother me to put pronouns on my Zoom name. Yes, it's blindingly obvious to anyone who has seen me or heard me speak.Worry about the things that matter (not allowing "reverse discrimination" or "tokenization" to creep into the organization's hiring and promotion practices), but don't fight every last battle or get agitated over every little thing. If someone who reads my (traditionally male) name, sees my masculine features, and hears my fairly deep voice also wants to read a "(he/his)" next to my name, so be it. If that gives comfort or solace to some others who are struggling with some aspect of their identity, those few characters of blinding obviousness in my case cause me no harm or discomfort.

Overall, focusing on what matters to the workforce ("can you and will you write good software here?") and ignoring irrelevant aspects (what your chromosomal makeup, identity, or romantic relationship preferences are) seems to be the most reasonable path forward. I have friends and colleagues who are non-conforming in a variety of ways. For the co-workers, I measure their contributions as engineers based on their output as engineers. For the friends, I measure their friendship based on the same criteria I would any other friend. If I'm not going to have a romantic relationship with them, why on Earth would I care about their romantic relationship preferences? I don't care what clothes they wear, whether they wear makeup, who they sleep with, which bathroom they use, or anything else that, honestly, just doesn't affect me.

* - Here, I use discrimination to mean "inappropriate discrimination". If you are interviewing to separate candidates into people who can do engineering and those who can't, that's discrimination by definition, but is proper discrimination ("recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another"). "We didn't hire/promote them as a coder because they can't code" is good discrimination. "We didn't hire/promote them as a coder because they're black [or white or Asian] [or male or female]" is bad discrimination.

fourfathom:
The problem with this place (EEVblog) is that it's one of the few places where we can discuss difficult topics with smart, rational, and logical people.  And of course discuss electronics.

Regarding DEI and technology, I find it interesting that when I was growing up (during the space race -- I still have an elementary school report I did on John Glenn and his first orbital flight), young boys at least were interested in technology.  I was far from the only nerd in school.  And yes, girls were vastly underrepresented -- almost zero percent.

Now, in spite of STEM programs and DEI, the kids seem to be much less enthusiastic about the tech fields.  I sometimes help out at the local High School STEM center and the student participation is quite low.  Why is this?  So much has changed in the last 50 years that it's hard to identify the main factors.  I do find it a bit troubling that in my experience, STEM focuses more on project management than on the underlying tech.  If it were up to me, I would say to hell with the project, just learn enough to build stuff and see what happens.

Another rant:  STEM has become STEAM (the 'A' stands for "Arts").  While I do think that Engineering is as much an artform as a science, that's apparently not what STEAM means. I think it's a way for school Art programs (and staff) to get on the STEM gravy train, and probably helps meet the DEI goals.
fourfathom:

--- Quote from: ebastler on August 22, 2022, 03:37:09 pm ---I would be curious to hear about personal experiences of engineers being "canceled" in the workplace.

I am working for a US company myself, which is encouraging diversity, non-discrimination, awareness of biases etc., on what I consider a reasonable level. But I have not witnessed any "canceling", and struggle to imagine what that would look like in the workplace. Thank you if you can illustrate that!
--- End quote ---

Look up "James Damore" at Google.
pcprogrammer:

--- Quote from: ebastler on August 22, 2022, 03:37:09 pm ---
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on August 22, 2022, 02:42:08 pm ---Any suggestions on how to successfully avoid being targeted/canceled [..]?

--- End quote ---

I would be curious to hear about personal experiences of engineers being "canceled" in the workplace.

I am working for a US company myself, which is encouraging diversity, non-discrimination, awareness of biases etc., on what I consider a reasonable level. But I have not witnessed any "canceling", and struggle to imagine what that would look like in the workplace. Thank you if you can illustrate that!

--- End quote ---

Another question to this respect, who got passed by over this. Meaning who applied for a job and lost out to a lesser candidate just because they belong to a minority. Or the other way round, who did not get hired even though being the better candidate but belonging to a minority.

Just before I started my own company I went in for a job interview, wearing a military jacket and a bit scruffy clothes. Not sure if that costed me the job or the fact that I might still have been of a bit due to the earlier break down. I'm talking 1995 here.
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