Am I the only one who thinks this type of "diversity hire" is absolutely wrong?

This is from a mailing list for computer science news, btw.

Absolutely not.
These are insulting and creepy.

@Root EXACTLY! Like why are discrediting their eventual hire?!?!!!

@NoMad And why female only? Makes me feel like they just want eye candy or a coffee fetcher. 😡

@Root well, that'd be one highly paid coffee fetcher!

Uni of Twente is actually a very reputable uni. I don't know why they're shooting themselves in the foot, but I deduce they have a diversity issue and they're """trying""" to fix it.

Wouldn't be surprised if that's purely a PR move, some sensible may think it's creepy or sexist, but the majority will praise them for it. Remember, there's a lot more stupid people than sensible people.

The Profs gotta have some women to extend and strengthen their performance. Isn't that how sportsmen do it too?

@SoldierOfCode sure but this impacts professional opinions negatively, of either gender or sex.
No self-respecting female scientist would want to get the job without kicking enough male butts, and knowing they were the best candidate. But then, who doesn't? Women are a minority and it feels good to overcome the odds. It's like male pediatricians or nurses.

Totally fine. The females are only meant to assist the actual professors somehow - like handling the administrative stuff, doing the correspondence, preparing experiments and cleaning up their results...
Maybe they are even just selected for their catalytic properties and aren't expected to actually do anything at all.

They are certainly not searching for actual female professors there.

You can’t achieve equality with gender bias. You can by removing gender bias. Stupid bastards.

@Oktokolo you're mistaken. They're not looking for an assistant to a professor. An assistant professor is actually a low-rank professor. (Tenure)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

@NoMad
Damn. So they let females enter the highest career paths now?

@NoMad I fully agree with you, but I'd like to generalize your sentence, no self-respecting human [profession] would want to get a job without knowung they got it fair by being better.
Also sorry for being that guy, but women are not a minority, I think you meant something else, but I still get what you meant.

Their robots looks ugly and they need someone with beauty sense to complement their inventions 😅

I can' t help but feel a bit insulted by 'diversity hire'. I want to be hired because I am the best candidate for the job and my professional knowledge. not because I happen to be born female...

@SoldierOfCode roughly about 15% of CS are women and majority of them are in game development. Yeah, women are a minority. Except ofc in some eastern countries where it's a means for survival. (Migration, marrying into a better family, having stable second income for fam, etc)

Same thing happened a couple of years ago at the University of Eindhoven. They started a program that was available to women only for the first 6 months. Men could only apply after 6 months, if those places were not filled. They eventually lost the case. This where good will turns to bad policy.

https://dutchnews.nl/news/2020/...

@datablitz7 I find that fascinating. Now, if the dutch actually want smarter women, they can fix their migration laws, and add a mutlinationality to their citizenship. Even I would consider moving there then. (tho, it might be for the best given that NL doesn't have enough space, and part of the country will go under water soon. 😬)

@NoMad Oh, minority in TECH, you didn't specify. gotchu

I am surprised this rant was posted by a female tbh, good thing we all agree about this BS I guess :)

@thirdworld it's not all BS. This instant is. Ask just about any woman in tech and you'll hear at least one story of them facing sexism... Unless you're actually one of those sexist ones trying to get confirmation, in which case, sorry I don't have extra confirmation lying around.
If not, then consider me a superhero defending good men. 😏

@ostream wrong way to fix it tho.
I agree with you otherwise.

@NoMad I'm not, I work in a cloud engineering company and we have a lot of good females, I am against enforcing gender in a job no matter the case :)

@ostream hmm. Might be the case, but as the example of women commenting above shows, it's safe to assume it's insulting to women too.

Reverse the argument about pediatricians and tell me it's not sexist.

On a side note, I enjoy that you're defending diversity in favor of women. Cookie points for you! 😏 🍪

@ostream from what I've seen on different discussions around here, I think I align with you in a lot of topics. I sometimes feel bad leaving you be the only hero of some discussions, but I often don't have the nerves to get involved. I hope arguing with asshats online doesn't take a toll on you tho. 🙂

@ostream I get what you say but I have to disagree, the problem with these "fixing policies" is that they have been shown to be harmful. Because this invites incompetent people, and a lot of them, which creates the illusion of gender/race/sexuality incompetence, which in turn fuels racist/sexist thinking. Because competent people rarely go for the "handouts"

@SoldierOfCode sorry to say, but your argument makes no sense. Either you're claiming general female population is dumber than male pop, or you're saying the current state of affairs, which might I remind you is 3 female devs to 17 male devs, has no issues at all.

Plus, considering the number of incompetent male devs, it's safe to assume we have a long way to go before then. In fact, excluding me, every female dev I've seen throughout years was amazingly competent. There's also that balance that needs to be fixed: women being allowed to be mediocre in the damn field.

@ostream Well, I don't keep bookmarks of all the stuff that I happen to read, so apologies, no source. But I mean, you can see this happen if you get to work in a place that hires based on gender/race/sexuality instead of based on skill.

@SoldierOfCode technically, they're hiring based on skills. They are hiring a doctoral graduate. They're just limiting it to women.

@SoldierOfCode although your intentions of "no discrimination" is good, you're missing the point. The point is not making the female population any better. It is to stop the male population from discriminating. But their method is insulting the person they're going to hire.

@NoMad Well, as long as it happens, it doesn't matter if it makes sense or not, although personally I don't see what doesn't make sense here.

And I guess you're wrong, because I nether think females are dumber than males, nor do I think there isn't a problem. But if a "solution" only makes the problem worse. Well it's not a viable solution. Maybe we should call out on companies that that make it worse just to look good, and praise the companies that actually want to make a change instead of trying to LOOK good. Because right now I see that mostly it's the opposite. Twitter and SJWs praise the imbeciles that propagate hate and division, and cancel anybody who actually want's to make the world a better fairer place.

@NoMad (about the insulting part) Which is exactly why most actual professionals won't go there, which creates a situation where they get the bottom of the barrel, which is exactly the situation I described earlier, you're saying the same thing I'm saying, only you state the cause, and I the effect.

@SoldierOfCode ...but you're wrong about the effect. At the end of the story, some poor female doctor will forget her pride and apply, because she can't land another tenure track job because "men". She won't be less than any other possible candidate. She has all the qualifications. She's just insulted and won't be as productive. She's just not taken as seriously because she was a diversity hire. The damage is to the woman filling the role, not anybody else.

@SoldierOfCode also what the fuck is the bottom of the barrel??? She is still ten times better than bottom of the barrel for male hires, because she had to fight to overcome adversity and own her place. But you're calling someone who literally is an expert in a field and has done cutting edge research work, the "bottom of the barrel" and you see nothing wrong with that. 😐

@NoMad Okay, but that would be one, if all people who applied were like this, policies like these would be a great success. But sadly, MOST people who get hired with those policies are not like this. There are a lot of policies and ways that work MUCH better, and aren't counter - productive.

@SoldierOfCode I'm glad you can see the light 😛 /s

@NoMad No, I'm calling the bottom as a bottom of the barrel. Do you know what bottom of the barrel means? If you have a barrel of potential female aplicants and you got the bottom of that. That's called bottom of the barrel. Now it just feels like you're trying to turn this into a sided argument(as in, trying to make this into an argument about opposite sides).

@SoldierOfCode you're still not getting the issue. My brain gave in. I leave you to gods and karma, and hopefully one day you'll learn how wrong you were today.

@NoMad Well that just sounds condecending as fuck xD
Well I was going to be passive aggressive about it, but then I just decided to rewrite this. So Imma ask, what is it that I'm so wrong about that karma and gods are involved, and mostly what was something that I said that wasn't another version or look on something that you yourself stated, since, well, that would also mean your wrong, which I'm assuming is not something you meant.

@SoldierOfCode You can think whatever. I'm going to sleep tho. And you haven't exactly tried to understand my points so far, and it's not my job to make you understand either. Either you listen, and think about the said stuff, of a perspective that you actually have never lived or tried, or you will just be limited in perspective forever. (which is where karma comes to play as teacher)
I like you as a friend, I think you're of above average intelligence, so I keep my fingers crossed hoping you understand and grow. Otherwise... Well, you will forever be limited to the small shoes you live in. But if that's your choice, then so be it.
And I don't think I was condescending, unless you believe you have just as much experience as me in being a woman-looking person in tech. If you admit you're a woman, then we have a whole different argument to have.

Well, some dudes acting like women should apply. They can get a double diversity hire.

If they took stock of their team and realized they’re only getting the perspective of males because of previous bias in their hiring process, not that weird. A variety of perspectives does make a team stronger and better prepared.

@Demolishun no need for acting. Ask transgenders or non-binary folks, if you can find any.

@ostream lol. I can't remember angular. I'm so far from the time I used to know such stuff.

@ostream Let's hope that's the case.

I actually can't remember the argument, but I can only hope I wasn't a complete idiot. 😉

It's a weird one. Don't even think this is legal under Dutch law.

Yep it isn't! TU Eindhoven did something similar.
https://personeelsnet.nl/bericht/...
Sorry for the Dutch only article

@hjk101 Yeah was going to say, regardless of what you think of the imbalance, it's illegal according to the Dutch Constitution.

You must open a position to anyone regardless of gender/background/etc.

Only if multiple candidates meet all desired qualifications and merits, are you allowed to discriminate to fulfill a quotum.

You can actively approach women, advertise that you are trying to diversify the team, pick a woman over a man if they both check all boxes — but you must allow men to apply, and must hire the qualified applicant if there is no competing application.

I also think it's a measure with the right intentions, but leading to the wrong results.

I think in an ideal scenario, gender representation in jobs should reflect society.

I also think it's good to have frontrunners, pioneers who break patterns and serve as examples.

But: You have to carefully balance it with the funnel which leads into these functions.

There are still parents and teachers who steer children in elementary school into a gender-based direction, consoling girls who fail STEM topics, while telling boys that they must do better.

As long as the source isn't fixed, the outflow into society will stay unbalanced.

Patching that through artificial hiring quota can actually be damaging.

If 9 out of 10 women you hire don't really fully qualify — then those who REALLY do qualify, those who have fought themselves into new territory by merit, will have an infinitely harder time.

As a similar example: My wife is (was) a pro gamer, started in the mid 90's with Sega and Nintendo tournaments, later games like StarCraft, Halo, Counterstrike, Overwatch, etc.

Over the last decade "gaming girls" became cool, mainstream...

But not for the same reasons as men. Many are just lifted to fame by a bunch of simps.

"Supporting" a female gamer just for being female, or because she has a cute voice, or is "entertaining" in a weird parasocial way, that may all seem innocent...

But has it led to women being "equal" to men in gaming? Has it made it easier for women to be taken seriously as gamers?