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Comment by xdennis | Hacker News Reader

>> (2011: 1%), (2012: 7%), (2013: 15%), (2014/15: 33%), (2016: 40%). #pycon2016

> Increased diversity in communities usually comes from active outreach work. PyCon's talk selection process starts blinded.

There is no world in which 40% of programmers are women. 1% in 2011 is also probably evidence of discrimination. But too few people are willing to admit that if 40% of the speakers are women that represents a drop in the quality of the talks. There just aren't that many women programmers.

If DEI is all about promoting women in the hopes that they'll succeed later, I could get behind that. But often DEI goes to absurd lengths like lowering standards for female firemen or combat soldiers.

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You know what encourages women to be programmers? Seeing women be programmers.

I didn't become a programmer because I saw other men being programmers. It was something I really saw anyone else doing.

Are you a woman?

> But often DEI goes to absurd lengths like lowering standards for female firemen or combat soldiers.

I've certainly heard that claim manu times, but never seen it backed up with actual data or even reputable anecdotes. Can you share the sources that led you to this conclusion?

Look at the FAA ATC hiring controversy.

https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-...

If you want to make an argument, make it here and cite some primary sources.

Everything I've read (that isn't from a blubbering MAGA source) suggests that the "controversy" is entirely manufactured.

Every single time. You look into the source and realize that there's nothing behind the claims.

It's like some people really want to feel angry and accept the most vague or fabricated statements as real facts.

But anytime you sit down and try to go the root of the issue in good faith you realize they really was nothing. Best you can find is someone on Twitter that said something stupid and then they use it as if that means there's a whole apparatus enforcing national wide policy based on that person's tweet.

A fascinating claim.

You do know there were exams leaked to a group right?

You can see this very visibly in things like the Marines combat fitness tests. [1] In any case where strength is directly involved the requirement for a minimum score for men tends to be near the standards for a max score for women. In that particular test the ammo can lift range is 62-106 for men versus 30-66 for women.

Obviously men are stronger than women and so different standards are reasonable, yet this is also the exact same reason (well, one amongst many) that militaries traditionally did not permit women to participate in direct combat operation. A unit is only as strong as its weakest link.

The US military is now moving towards gender-neutral standards, but that will take one of two forms. If standards are maintained then it will be an implicit ban on women from the most physically intensive roles, or it will be lowered standards for everybody.

[1] - https://www.military.com/military-fitness/marine-corps-fitne...

I'm pretty sure that the effectiveness of a soldier in combat depends on a lot more than just a strength score.

> But too few people are willing to admit that if 40% of the speakers are women that represents a drop in the quality of the talks.

Not necessarily. It's certainly possible that, if you go and rank the top 100 python speaker candidates, 40 of them will be women. The total number of female programmers will certainly influence the number in the top 100, but it won't define it.

GP said that the PyCon speaker review process starts blinded, meaning that reviewers don't know the gender of the speaker candidates. So if they got 1000 submissions, and had to pick 100 of them, and 40 of those chosen were women, they were likely among the top 100 speaker candidates, or at least approximately so.

> But often DEI goes to absurd lengths like lowering standards for female firemen or combat soldiers.

Big fat [citation needed] there. (Not just for the idea that it happens -- I'm sure it has happened at least once -- but to support your assertion of "often".)

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