I don't understand how people can seriously claim that these are "current dominant themes". I studied at UC Berkeley, one of the liberal capitals of California. Most of my friends are Berkeley students. Most of my friends are feminists.
There's practically no hostility (as you put it) towards white, heterosexual males in these circles. I have never been personally attacked or felt uncomfortable. Most of the discussion is aimed at systemic issues, not individuals. It's been pretty eye-opening, actually.
Based on my experience, I'm fairly certain that stories involving militant feminist/diversity people have been vastly overblown by places like Reddit.
Your Berkeley friends may simply be more educated. In any case, before you pass judgment, try expressing a differing opinion.
Most of the feminists that are my friends aren't 'militant'. I can disagree with them and point out where their little bits of dogma differ with reality. We can usually have a discussion and learn from each other.
But trying to do that with any self-proclaimed feminist who doesn't already know me and it's I don't get it because of male privilege, or I'm ignorant on the subject (even if I cite sources and they don't), or I'm a rapist or rape sympathizer. They give me appeals to (their own) authority, fabricated statistics* , specious arguments about female fear, and I get shouted down if I want to discuss where males have similar struggles to females.
I once pointed out that the term feminism does not espouse the equality the feminist movement is trying to achieve. I said that is a disservice to the movement because it excludes some would-be allies while at the same time encouraging the "bad" type of feminist. I also pointed out that if someone self-identifies as a feminist, I don't really know what that person means. For some, like your friends apparently, it means what I think it means. But for others it means "white males are the devil."
I was immediately attacked. My attacker stated that she had read all the literature and (a million non sequiturs). My feminist friends just bowed out of the conversation, which irked me. The only person who stood up and was like "Uh, this is crazy. You're not even talking about what he said," was another male.
*Did you know murder by males is the number one cause of death among females?
> *Did you know murder by males is the number one cause of death among females?
I've been hearing that myth a lot recently too. I checked the CDC to see the real numbers. Cancer (disturbingly all ages groups), and (traffic) accidents, and heart disease make up the lion's share. Even suicide is larger than murders.
I feel like their general counsel should not have allowed any of this to happen.
Under the Civil Rights Act / Equal Opportunity law, race and gender are protected classes. So having your executives on record saying that "white women" are "some of the biggest barriers to progress" seems dangerous.
I'm not a lawyer, but when your employee tells Business Week that "it is very hard to even interview people who are 'white'", that seems like a legal disaster.
Replace "white" with any other color and notice how flagrantly racist and illegal that sounds. The law does not distinguish.
They need to fix this quickly.
They should assure people both internally and externally that hiring and promotion will be meritocratic, without regard to gender or race, and then ensure it actually happens that way.
As someone else here pointed out, that tweet is out of context. It was part of a 10+ tweet rant about politics and social medicine. (It still is a bit offensive, but less so than the article makes it out to be)
I think it's still offensive and racist. It's also scary to see that he basically has a university freshmen's outlook on the world but for some reason has a position to execute these ideas from within Github.
The larger context goes beyond a 10+ tweet rant. The larger context is @_danilo's general attitude in many other tweets and even HN comments. This isn't a first or even isolated example of racism and bigotry from him.
Well I know this may be off topic but Mr Danilo's rant against US military seems narrow minded. It's BECAUSE we have US military that US citizens are not exposed to exposure, hunger, fear, rape.
If "white privilege" or "white supremacy" were actually a thing, then a person who said something like that would be summarily fired. The fact that he's not means that their hated white boogeyman is an illusion. The SJW agenda is the agenda in power at the company.
Just a couple of weeks ago I was reading about "PIV is Rape". I had never heard of it before but wow it blew my mind of how different and extremist can some people's view be.
Had that as required reading in a religious studies class. Got yelled at for complaining that if taken serious it was advocating for the extinction of the species.
So, what measures are they taking to match Berkeley undergraduate sex ratio (52.1% female 47.9% male [1]) with the sex ratio of the entire US in the same age range (51% male 49% female [2]). A woman is roughly 1.13 (13%) times more likely to be an undergraduate at Berkeley than a man. Or is this a topic best avoided?
...and they showed photos of Powerpoint slides that were pretty damning as well. Sure, those slides could also be faked, but I think that's well past the believable threshold for giving the benefit of a doubt.
There is no proof that white candidates are hard to interview there.
That quote sounds like the kind of thing that could easily be an immature employee who doesn't like the idea of a "VP of diversity", or doesn't like the tone of the VP's slides, taking something small and blowing it out of proportion.
Like, they tried to recommend a friend of theirs for an open position and the friend didn't get an interview and suddenly that n=1 case becomes "OMG! They won't let us interview white candidates!!"
I am an academic who is a straight white man and who researches things related to race and gender and I don't think I have ever met a militant feminist. If the internet is to believe they are everywhere but somehow I haven't ran into them.
When white men with great credentials, skills and experience have their résumé thrown in the waste bin because a company has to meet "diversity quotas", then yes there is a problem. Discrimination is being battled with discrimination, with the exclusion of qualified people based on their race and gender - which is the original problem to begin with, just turned on its face.
There's practically no hostility (as you put it) towards white, heterosexual males in these circles. I have never been personally attacked or felt uncomfortable. Most of the discussion is aimed at systemic issues, not individuals. It's been pretty eye-opening, actually.
Based on my experience, I'm fairly certain that stories involving militant feminist/diversity people have been vastly overblown by places like Reddit.