When I was younger I was gay (back when someone coming out was an earth-shattering deal), and the biggest reason I didn’t come out was because that label seemed to come with a script. A handful of people in my K-12 experience came out, and without fail each time they’d start dressing differently, adopt a lispy accent, and generally change their mannerisms & friends to fit a stereotypical gay label. This scared young, confused me. I liked who I was, but I feared that people would see “gay” instead of me, and that adopting the label would somehow unconsciously transform me too. I didn’t come out.
I’ve always thought about that experience, and watching the women in tech stuff exploding over the last decade I’ve similarly interpreted through that lens. All of the women I know who code have unique experiences when it comes to being involved in this hobby. All of the men I know have had their own unique experiences as well. It’s all felt more like a rainbow than a binary population split. I never understood, and still don’t understand, the obsession with projecting arbitrary labels on people and treating them differently based on those labels. It just seems to produce people warped to fit in rather than stand together. We should lose the labels, and instead just focus on finding a set of sustainable, normative behaviors that get us to equitable future I think all of us wanted all along.
Labels, especially involuntary ones, just seem to build walls & resentment between otherwise kind people. Fuck them.
What has always confused me is that just about everyone wants a label, to join a team and wear a uniform. Most people seem to crave some sort of conformity or assimilation -- is that all "belonging" is? At any rate, you're not allowed to be just yourself! If you don't take on an Identity, people just assume the defaults based on your physical appearance (then they react poorly if you don't act like they expect).
The concept of Identity is a mindfuck, if your social wiring is the least bit atypical.
Putting people into labeled silos, especially if you can get people to accept those labels and thus the confines of their silo, makes them easy to control. 'Security Moms', 'NASCAR Dads', 'Woman in Tech', 'Gay Teens', etc. are all ways of pigeonholing people into easily manipulated groups.
I think people just feel soothed when they belong deeply to a group, especially when there’s some external evil enemy you can trace all your problems to. I used to fantasize about going to an island somewhere with a bunch of people just like me and just quietly live with people who got me. I used to hate republicans, the people who murdered “gay teens” like me, and generally everyone who represented the status quo. I feel like my perspective was totally warped by this, and that I missed out on a lot life because of it.
I really appreciate this take. I find that focusing on the labels tends to actually reinforce their negative effects. "Women in tech" implies there is something special about women being in tech, as the author points out, which reinforces the idea that there is something different or odd about it. I get that it's meant to be empowering, but I think it's often the exact opposite.
It's perfectly fine I think for there to be women-focused technology groups, or women-focused initiatives. E.g. if a company realizes it has a very low percentage of women in leadership roles, it's useful to say, "Ok, how do we address that?" But it's very easy to go from that to the kind of thing you're talking about, where people are inadvertently imposing labels and roles, even when that's exactly what they're working against.
It seems like the phrase's origin is in signaling "we are doing something". Something they are locked in with general population representative impossible at scale by sheer numbers. So we get into the typical loathesome reactionary "must do something" and "ass covering" dynamic where there is no sincere cooperation or attempt to help improve, just adversarial layers of bullshit from trophy hunters and ass coverers, the truth goes to die, and any improvement is outright in spite the "work" of all involved.
"Like all matters of diversity with a given foo, just treat them like individual people." is the best wisdom I can come up with on the subject which even if true isn't very likely to satisfy.
There is something different or odd about it though.
I don't think anyone is arguing that the low number of Women in tech is not a problem, understanding the root cause is presumably important or we will continue to miss out on a significant talent pool.
When I was younger I was gay (back when someone coming out was an earth-shattering deal), and the biggest reason I didn’t come out was because that label seemed to come with a script. A handful of people in my K-12 experience came out, and without fail each time they’d start dressing differently, adopt a lispy accent, and generally change their mannerisms & friends to fit a stereotypical gay label. This scared young, confused me. I liked who I was, but I feared that people would see “gay” instead of me, and that adopting the label would somehow unconsciously transform me too. I didn’t come out.
I’ve always thought about that experience, and watching the women in tech stuff exploding over the last decade I’ve similarly interpreted through that lens. All of the women I know who code have unique experiences when it comes to being involved in this hobby. All of the men I know have had their own unique experiences as well. It’s all felt more like a rainbow than a binary population split. I never understood, and still don’t understand, the obsession with projecting arbitrary labels on people and treating them differently based on those labels. It just seems to produce people warped to fit in rather than stand together. We should lose the labels, and instead just focus on finding a set of sustainable, normative behaviors that get us to equitable future I think all of us wanted all along.
Labels, especially involuntary ones, just seem to build walls & resentment between otherwise kind people. Fuck them.