What we've learned from making Recurse Center 50% women, trans, and non-binary

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.

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.

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.