[LRUG] Suggestion

[Sleepyfox]

Thanks Alice.

At some point we have to acknowledge that extensive naval gazing reaches a
point of diminishing returns, especially as even Nobel-prize winning
psychologists cannot compensate for cognitive bias.

@sleepyfox
--


On 12 February 2014 23:17, Alice Bartlett <alice.bartlett at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> ack, sorry I feel really weird about this. I'd quite like for this all to
> go away, and I'm a bit worried it's not going to, so here are some things:
>
> 1) This is minor. Like, I'm not mad, I don't even feel sad about this. I
> stood up and gave a talk that wasn't about ruby at LRUG because I thought
> it was interesting and I had a great time doing it. I was maybe a bit
> disappointed that the first question was "are you a ruby developer?". It
> could have been interpreted as "why are you here?" but I don't think it was
> meant that way. I was there, I looked at that guy and I thought "here is a
> genuinely curious person who is a bit confused about why I stood up and
> gave a talk about something completely un-programming related".
>
> 2) That question was sexist if you think that swapping me out with a man
> would not have resulted in the question being asked. I personally think
> this is the case, but there is no way to prove it. I've been going to
> various tech meetups for about six years, and I've been asked whose
> girlfriend I am or if I'm a designer, or a recruiter enough times to know
> that, yeah, a lot of people don't think I look like a developer, in fact
> they don't really think at all. And that's OK, we're all humans, swimming
> around in our cognitive biases, it's cool. I make these kinds of mistakes
> all the time and I'm actually *trying* to not be exclusionary through
> behaviours and language.
>
>
> On 12 Feb 2014, at 22:28, Aanand Prasad <aanand.prasad at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> To be clear, I was drawing an analogy to the "are you a Ruby developer?"
> question, not the proposed "everyone here is a developer" assumption.
>
> I'm not advocating blanket assumptions - I'm advocating being careful
> around asking questions which might have othering effects.
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 1:34 PM, Warren Guy <warren at guy.net.au> wrote:
>
>> Aanand Prasad wrote:
>> >> I will admit that I did ask this question at least a couple of times,
>> and I am truly sorry if that bothered or offended anyone.
>> ...
>> > The effect, in aggregate, of having this conversation again and again
>> is harmful far beyond the innocent intentions of any one person asking it:
>> the othering of those who don't fit the norm. The question behind the
>> question, as Hari Kondabolu puts it: "Hey. Why aren't you white?"[1]
>> ...
>> > This is a microaggression[2], undoubtedly, and it should be treated as
>> one: largely unintentional, perhaps even well-intentioned, but nonetheless
>> harmful and something we should be taking direct action to avoid. Because
>> we *want* more people in our social spaces who don't fit the norm.
>> >
>> > It takes a bit of extra effort to watch that we're not alienating
>> people, but it's worth it.
>>
>> I'm aware of this phenomenon and its harm, but to be honest I can't
>> quite get my head around how the analogy fits here.
>>
>> To me, making an assumption that everyone at an LRUG event is a Ruby
>> developer just like you seems far from inclusive. If Monday's meeting
>> was typical in this regard, there are all kinds of developer,
>> pseudo-developer, and non-developer folk at the meetings. The community
>> comprises all kinds: developers; hobbyists; beginners; entrepreneurs;
>> managers; and others who won't identify themselves as "developers".[1]I
>> can't imagine anyone being offended by someone inquiring what their
>> interest in Ruby is, at a Ruby meeting.
>>
>> While personally I would not be offended by someone assuming I was or
>> was not a Ruby developer, to suggest that we all assume that everyone
>> *is* a developer seems to seek only to exclude. Stephen's original post,
>> regardless of any intent or lack thereof,really gave me the impression
>> that non-developers do not belong, or are less welcome than "Ruby
>> developers", at LRUG events. I do not assume that Stephen's comment had
>> any malicious intent. I just thought it was worth making the point that
>> we're not all developers and that it is exclusionary to assume so.
>>
>> Warren
>>
>> [1] For clarity, I don't intend to exclude beginners, hobbyists, etc,
>> from also considering themselves Ruby developers. Some will, some won't.
>> I think it's a personal thing.
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Chat mailing list
> Chat at lists.lrug.org
> http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Chat mailing list
> Chat at lists.lrug.org
> http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lrug.org/pipermail/chat-lrug.org/attachments/20140212/f2994a28/attachment-0003.html>