The thing is, I care about tech. And not about the NBA. Since I work in tech and am not even clear on the rules of basketball beyond that it’s usually two points when you throw the ball into the hoop unless it was a really cool shot and then it’s three.
If you are expecting everyone who cares about a certain kind of disparity to care exactly as much and have exactly as much to say about all other kinds of disparities then I think you might want to reexamine your expectations.
Even if your complaint is on a societal level, there are like thousands of times more people in tech than in the NBA and the respective concern about racial disparities seems reasonable.
I have a lot of concerns about the way ‘diversity in tech’ conversations happen. I think they’re often essentializing and simplistic and ignore or misrepresent data and create perverse incentives. I think the extent to which the difference is a legitimate preferences difference sometimes gets downplayed by people with ideological commitments to not saying ‘sometimes there are differences in how commonly boys like something and how commonly girls like something even when we raise them in a very egalitarian environment’. But the problem there is irresponsible and misleading coverage, it’s not that the topic gets discussed at all.
I presume that the argument you’re trying to gesture at here is not ‘disparities in the NBA matter as much, and therefore should be discussed as much, as disparities in tech’ but ‘just like disparities in the NBA are probably explained by there being more tall black men, disparities in tech are probably explained by there being more programmer-y white men’. But ‘programmer-y’ is affected by more things than ‘tall’. (In particular, countries vary wildly in their tech gender ratios; if other countries also had basketball teams and there different skillsets dominated, that’d sure look like reason to wonder what is going on with our talent pipeline.) Consider me less than convinced that people who can’t take seriously articles about what goes into ‘programmer-y’ have it all figured out.
Another reason why caring about diversity in tech is more important than caring about diversity in NBA even if the disparity could be explained with biological factors is that tech giants have the power to shape the world in the way that NBA decidedly doesn’t. Facebook, Twitter, and Google combined hold more soft power than some governments, as entire revolutions and election campaigns have been sparked by and coordinated with posts on social media – and the outcome is determined by whether algorithms decide to show this information to many people, or bury it at the bottom of the feed, or ban entirely.
Have too few white guys in the NBA, and the world works jut fine, but have too few transgender people in Facebook management, and deadnaming becomes the official policy of a website with a billion users.
It’s not really a problem when one small pizza shop refuses to cater to a gay wedding, but when Amazon (unintentionally! They were just maximizing profit!) doesn’t offer Prime in poor (and largely non-white) areas, being as big of a retailer as they are, they’re directly contributing to inequality by making poor people spend even more time and money on shopping, and to segregation by making richer people less likely to move into the areas without services they like.
Generally, the more power to unilaterally shape the world you have, the more responsibility you have to try to make it a better place rather than to maximize profit. Much like when a Roomba is trying to minimize dust without any regard to anything else, it mostly works fine, and at worst knocks over your lamp, but when a superintelligence does so, it clears the galaxy of elements heavier than helium.
to be honest this feels more like a reason to break up Google and Facebook than to worry overmuch about their board representation.
Month: June 2017
Friend goals
Highly Detailed Laser Cut Wood Sculptures With Ornate Patterns and MotifsOakland-based artist Gabriel Schama produces highly detailed laser-cut wood sculptures made of mahogany plywood. The complex relief sculptures are composed of several layers of wood that forms a cohesive portrait of patterns. The shapes commonly resemble mandalas, and the labyrinth of patterns form the silhouettes of people’s faces, motifs, and blocks inspired by geometric, floral and Persian inspired designs.
recently i got more into the issue about gender and society and such, but i have a question that didn’t get answered anywhere so i thought i could ask you ( a book/post rec would be fine). so about the western gender binary: where does it even come from?? is it christianity, the antique or even older? i’ve read that in the last couple hundered years this binary system got (incorrectly) backed up by “science” but the believe must have existed before that. So what are the roots??
i now have an incredible mental image of like a white leather gender binary with gold tooling, sitting in an antique store somewhere.
WHOA I just learned something wild. I started googling around, because my impression is that the gender binary has had a lot of roots in Western imperialism but I don’t actually have a lot of details on that before, say, Columbus. And look at Wikipedia:
The term gender role was first coined by John Money in 1955, during the course of his study of intersex individuals, to describe the manners in which these individuals expressed their status as a male or female in a situation where no clear biological assignment existed.
I was just thinking about him the other day! Because I returned a book to my old college library that I’ve had for about ten years, and it reminded me that I accidentally-on-purpose stole an old copy of John Money’s “Sex Errors Of the Body” from there. Like, I checked it out, around when I was learning about intersex stuff for the first time, and then was like, “okay, I can never give this book back, it is too heinous.”
(Also holy shit? I thought, from the looks of it and what I knew at the time, that the book must be really old, from like the 50s when he was first creating intersex genital mutilation as a thing. But it’s from 1994. That is some nonsense right there.)
AAAAAAAA I clicked through to the article on John Money to see exactly how terrible he was (and what the book I stole was called) aaaaand it’s actually so bad that I’m going to reblog this to add it, so that I can put it behind a cut. Like, wow. Wow. Jesus fucking christ. wow
(less egregious but still gross: he apparently also wrote a book called “Gay, Straight, and In-Between,” like… no.)
ummm anyway so
I actually don’t know if there are any good sources on this stuff, because part of the problem of binarism in colonialism and post-colonialism has been that it colors the way people have studied the past.
So for example, it’s hard to pick an aspect of the gender binary and look at when it started, because people have tried so hard to project our gender binary onto whatever writings and artifacts they’ve found.
Looking specifically at the roots of the patriarchy will probably be a good starting place, both because people have done a lot of work in that area… although it’s going to include a lot of cissexism, I can tell you that right now, and quite probably a bunch of TERFs…. and also because the difference between the gender binary, and just having gender roles, imo, is the power structure, where one way of expressing gender is considered good, and all other variations and genders are seen as less-than and gross.
But maybe someone else will have some good suggestions!
ok so, let’s talk about how John Money is one of the worst human beings to ever exist! On the plus side: the following story is a great example of how intersex people are an oppressed class, and how the roots of intersex oppression is rooted in the same policing of gender and sexuality that “homophobia and transphobia” are.
(i put that in quotes because I am deeply tired of seeing people say that biphobia is just homophobia against bi people. also because the “phobia” thing is an ableist construction, but that’s another post.)
Don’t forget to include the “i” in your acronym, especially during Pride!
And this story is also maybe the best possible example of why I try so hard to be an ally to the intersex community.
And why it’s infuriating to me when people who are not intersex either ignore intersex people and intersex issues, or try to focus on “but I heard on Tumblr that intersex people didn’t want to be LGBT” instead of being like, “our issues are interconnected, so we fight for you and welcome you.”
Like, if people do want to “play oppression olympics,” and argue that you’re not REALLY LGBT or REALLY OPPRESSED if you don’t get killed for what you are: people actively try to keep intersex people from ever being born. And as a group, they’re subjected to really awful abuse as soon as people do realize an intersex person has been born.
On the minus side: this story is just a series of really horrible things about child abuse, so. There’s that.
so there is currently a bipartisan bill that congress is working on to improve access to hearing aids by making a class of hearing aids available over the counter. apparently only about 30% of people with hearing loss have hearing aids, and one of the main reasons why is that getting them can be very cost prohibitive. so having low-level aids available over the counter will hopefully make them more affordable at least to some people. these hearing aids will be fda regulated and required to meet minimum standards. hearing loss advocacy groups and the AARP support the bill
and conservative interest groups are opposing the bill basically just because elizabeth warren is involved with the bill 🙄
for clarification: a lot of the conservative groups were like “this is a sneak attack against personal sound amplification devices!!!1!” these PSADs are currently sold over the counter and not regulated by the FDA. some people who cannot afford hearing aids will use these instead; they are also used recreationally, particularly by hunters. some conservatives argued that under this legislation, PSADs would be subject to the same FDA regulations as hearing aids, potentially driving up the cost of the devices. however, the FDA regulations will NOT apply to PSADs: they pretty clearly only apply to devices that companies choose to market as hearing aids and/or medical devices.
when informed of this, the response of conservative groups (including pro-gun groups) that are against this bill was basically: “but….but…..ELIZABETH WARREN”
if anyone is interested in calling their representatives to voice their support for this bill (focusing on republicans since the conservatives are the ones trying to block this) i have compiled a list of some key representatives and included a link to a bio on votesmart which includes their contact info:
the following republicans co-sponsored either SB 670 (the senate bill to make hearing aids available OTC) or HR 1652 (the corresponding house bill to make hearing aids available OTC). you can call/write/email and say something along the lines of “Hi, my name is [your name] and I live in [your town, if you’re in their district]. I want to thank Senator/Representative [so and so] for co-sponsoring SB 670 [if they’re in the senate] / HR 1652 [if they’re in the house]. I hope they will continue to support making hearing aids more accessible to seniors and low-income Americans who are hard of hearing.”
in the senate:
in the house:
- georgia d1 – rep. carter [link]
- tennessee d7 – rep. blackburn [link]
- nebraska d2 – rep. bacon [link]
now, currently, both SB 670 & HR1652 are in committee. bills must get through the committee they’ve been assigned to before they are voted on; committees can potentially kill bills (keep them from ever being voted on) by refusing to act on them.
the following republicans are on the senate committee for health, education, labor, and pensions. again, you can call/write to them and say something along the lines of “Hi, my name is [your name] and I live in [your town, if you’re a constituent]. I am calling Senator [their name] in regards to SB 670, a bill assigned to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. SB 670 has the potential to make hearing aids more accessible to seniors and low-income Americans who are hard of hearing, and I hope Senator [their name] will support this bill.”
- alaska – sen. murkowski [link]
- georgia – sen. isakson (also co-sponsoring the bill; contact info listed above)
- indiana – sen. young [link]
- kansas – sen. roberts [link]
- kentucky – sen. paul [link]
- louisianna – sen. cassidy [link]
- maine – sen. collins (also co-sponsoring the bill; contact info listed above)
- north carolina – sen. burr [link]
- south carolina – sen. scott [link]
- tenneesee – sen. alexander [link]
- utah – sen. hatch [link]
- wyoming – sen. enzi [link]
the following republicans are on the house subcommittee for health (which is actually part of the larger energy & commerce committee). again, you can call/write to them and say something along the lines of “Hi, my name is [your name] and I live in [your town, if you’re a constituent]. I am calling Representative [their name] in regards to HR 1652, a bill assigned to the House Subcommittee on Health. HR 1652 has the potential to make hearing aids more accessible to seniors and low-income Americans who are hard of hearing, and I hope Representative [their name] will support this bill.”
- florida d12 – rep. bilirakus [link]
- georgia d1 – carter (also co-sponsored the bill; contact info above)
- illinois d15 – rep. shimkus [link]
- indianna d5 – rep. brooks [link]
- indianna d8 – rep. bucshon [link]
- kentucky d2 – rep. guthrie [link]
- michigan d6 – rep upton [link]
- missouri d7 – rep. long [link]
- new jersey d7 – rep. lance [link]
- new york d27 – rep. collins [link]
- north carolina d8 – rep. hudson [link]
- oklahoma d2 – rep. mullin [link]
- oregon d2 – rep. walden [link]
- pennsylvania d18 – rep. murphy [link]
- tennessee d7 – rep. blackburn (also co-sponsored the bill; contact info above)
- texas d6 – rep. barton [link]
- texas d26 – rep. burgess [link]
- texas d29 – rep. green [link]
- virginia d9 – rep. griffith [link]
- washington d5 – rep. mcmorris rodgers [link]
hey y’all I’m bringing this back because 2 conservative groups have released ads attacking marsha blackburn, a republican and a co-sponsor of this bill, for supporting it because of elizabeth warren’s involvement. this is the sort of thing that could make republicans reconsider their support of this potentially life-changing legislation, particularly if they’re not getting positive feedback from their constituents! so if your congressperson is one of the co-sponsors and you’re able to, it would be great if you could call and say thanks!!
we need carbs and we need fats and we need proteins and honestly fuck diet culture for normalizing malnourishment
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
You must be logged in to post a comment.