Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[John Wong]

On Sat, May 7, 2016 at 12:04 AM, Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> In the case of PyCon questions, I fully agree with it; there were
> enough women present that it wasn't a ridiculous suggestion, and it
> encourages people to speak up who might otherwise have kept quiet. But
> just because that worked well, it doesn't mean we should automatically
> enact quotas everywhere, as some sort of "gender/race/culture
> imbalance panacea", because it isn't.
>

I think it is a good call to ask if non-male attendees would be interested
in asking question. I didn't attend those PyCons so I don't know how many
male and female attendees lined up awaiting to ask Guido questions. If
there were 25 male and 1 female standing in the line, while I do admire
Guido (or just about anybody) encouraging more non-male to speak, is it
worth asking whether we place pressure on the females attendees if were to
say "hey look, we got a lot of male attendees asking, please more female
attendees." I totally understand there is a long history of females being
treated as inferior (even in America here!), but too much encouragement or
too eager to seek more females speaking is almost like saying females are
shy and can't speak up without the presence of a heroic voice.

I am a male and I am Asian so I am usually regarded as majority in the tech
world so I don't always feel underrepresented and can be biased here.
Recently I went to some company's website and on the career page I found a
banner photo full of white males and maybe 3-4 females in the pictures,
holding beers having a great smile posing for a group picture. It could be
really genuine, but I felt so uncomfortable immediately because (1) the
ratio of male:female is so out balanced, (2) I felt the company was selling
the "equal opportunity" sloan too hard. What I am saying is don't try so
hard, people will apply job if they want the job, regardless of gender and
ethnicity. Similarly, if females attendees want to ask questions, they
will. We shouldn't broadcast every single time "we gotta have more females
speaking, or more underrepresented people speaking."

When I am hanging out with my friends, whether they are male or female, I
don't really think of he/she. I think of them as friends, as human being,
no need to differentiate whether they are Mexican or Black or Asian. Just
human being. Sexual assault laws in some countries are pretty stupid in the
sense that female sexual assault offender would receive light punishment
compared to female offender. While social and history would justify such
law (because again, males historically dominated women), we still treat
people inferior by gender and ethnicity.

I don't know, this is a sensitive issue. People are either coerced to
believe in one kind of response, or perceive as anti-X if given a different
kind of response.

Thanks.
John