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Not a rant - just wondering if anyone else witnessed a really awkward closing talk at a conference.

Attended a mandatory JS conference yesterday where all the speakers gave the typical conference talks on new ideas, frameworks, packages with code demonstrations. Most of talks were great and the some of the speakers were extremly humorous making the whole audience laugh which is hard to do. The talk right before the keynote speaker was like this.

Then the keynote started...

The end presenter was an asian-american woman (normally would not metion race/ gender but it’s important to the story) whose talk was basically how the white males of the world are controlling tech an their bias and privilege are marginalizing the rest of us who are not white american ‘cis-males’

She had no data and weak examples, such as sensors on automatic soap despeners not working on darker skins tones (that’s not racist it’s physics). Another example was a plugin where true=male and false=female. That is not gender biased it’s just lazy programming.

At one point she said:

“Have you even been to a party at a rich white guy’s house? There boring! I’m sorry”

This was just a talk about her feelings, if I was not surrounded by my coworkers I would have left.

I feel like this was not appropiate talk for one track conference since it traps everyone into listening. Especially where attendance is obligatory by your employer.

The conference should have warned people it would be an uncomfortable talk and invite people to start happy hour early if they chose.

To add to the weirdness in the closing remarks of one of the organizers patted himself on the back for supplying the women’s bathroom with tampons. He even created a slide for it with a tampon illustration.

Example slide from her deck.

Comments
  • 15
    Your rant started and ended like a typical Horror movie. E.g. Paranormal activity comes to mind
  • 29
    I find it hilarious that this woman is Asian-american and in support of this. Since, as you may know, Asian engineers are being discriminated against for being too overrepresented in the field.

    Weird how she would disregard that and focus on the white males in tech.
  • 33
    Amazing how such openly racist talks are possible in 2019.
  • 19
    Keynotes these days are sold instead of given for an actually important topic/speakers
  • 8
    @devTea that's very sad to know. It is as if someone reviews something solely for money purposes
  • 8
    @asgs that kind of stuff even happened on free open source conference, especially since FOSS/Linux is gaining more attention in the world
  • 4
    @devTea I'm glad I don't attend such conferences. RTFM FTW!
  • 10
    Welcome to 2019 where marxists have taken over with their inherently oppressive idealogy. And everybody is fucking hand-wavy about it
  • 6
    @12bitfloat I would call them racist, sexist people that criticise you on the basis of inate characteristics instead of merit, skill and character. If they had the power to, they would put straight white "cis" males in concentration camps. Good thing they are just a loud minority that have no real power. They can bully tech companies and left-wing politicians, but other than that they have no influence. Except for Canada and the UK.
  • 6
    @odite This cunt figures that she will get more SJW bonus points for her vagina than SJW malus points for her race.

    @Npstr Anti-white racism is popular on the left end, just as anti-male sexism. Hell, even Gillette thinks they will boost the dwindling sales of their overpriced razors by running men-hating ad campaigns.
  • 7
    @p100sch Never underestimate them. They are in every major institution in the west. In universities, in companies, in the government
  • 5
    @12bitfloat We could overthrow them as soon as the normies get what is going on. Sadly normies think the loudest and corporate media backed are the majority and they should adhere to theire sensibilities and opinions.
    If they continue to get more extreme they have to oppose them. But we should help a bit to minimize harm.
  • 2
    Company name? Also, how did you get a picture (not from a phone) of one of the slides in the keynote?
  • 5
    @NonImportant- a more.important question is what the name of that JS Conference is and who that lady is
  • 4
    @asgs Yeah, I'm just a little suspicious about it. I don't think any keynote presenter could say that stuff and not be reprimanded or something. Then again though most companies probably don't care.
  • 5
    @NonImportant- There are entire panels at some conferences discussing exactly that. It is more common for gamedevelopers though.
  • 8
    @NonImportant-

    This deck is available on her website. Here’s another slide taken out of context but still cringy. I wanted to take photos nut did not want to because I thought it would like like I was in agreement. She is booked up most of August. I think most people disagreed with her but were afraid to voice that. About 10 people gave her a standing ovation but they were all white males...ironically. The conference was a good mix of gender and background.
  • 5
    This kind of shit has no place in the work place.

    I feel blessed to be working for a small company that hires a diverse range of people that are representative of the local community. I am pretty damn sure my boss would be pissed if he heard a talk like that.
  • 3
    I admit I'm very liberal but I
    I'm also a realist so most people will probably agree with this.

    Race and gender within the IT fields is legitamently a problem. If you look at the ratios of women and other minorities in the tech fields, there's a sharp drop in the early 80s. The ratios used to be representative of the regions. Today, they're not. Women aren't being exposed to tech as something for them too. Of course that's not universal, but in the US, it's a real thing. It's caused so many people who would have loved our field to stray away. *That's* the problem we need to fix. The second is that there are a lot people, especially in the US, that believe white men are better programmers. It's sickening. People need to learn that what's in your pants and/or your ethnicity does not dictate what you're able to do or how well. Know what happens when people think they're better? El paso and Dayton. Where there's some acceptance of awful behavior, there are people that radicalize it.
    Sorry
  • 8
    @Techno-Wizard There are less women in tech because they are less interested in it. There's nothing to "fix"
  • 7
    @Techno-Wizard

    Women have had significantly more choice in career since the 80s and the fact there's a lack of women in tech is completely reflective of that freedom.

    It's been proven time and time again that men are interested in things and women are interested in people. There are outliers to this and those people should have the same opportunities in the fields they are the minorities in, which I'm sure they do. Especially with the corporate fueled progressivism that has engulfed companies of today.
  • 2
    @Techno-Wizard The Dayton shooter was a leftist, not a right-wing extremist.

    @Frederick In the US by the end of the 19th century, the Asian immigrants had arrived late to the party when property had already been distributed while the black had been liberated after that. Both started out poor and faced tremendous racism.

    However, the Asians have made it to the point where leftist US universities discriminate against them based on leftist racism while the black population largely has failed to achieve similar success.
  • 3
    @Techno-Wizard no, most people will disagree with what you said

    Less women is not a racial/gender problem. Women obviously have other things they like to do. I haven't seen a situation where a woman felt the IT industry is unwelcoming and that's why they decided to leave or not enter it
  • 1
    @12bitfloat there are less women in tech because they are being driven away by sexism and the inherent self-righteousness often met within their male peers. A common example is that in the country I live in, in computer science universities, you don't see more than 10% of women among the students, and they're *constantly* receiving remarks like "good thing you girls are here to *calm the boys*!" (It's a genuine thing I've heard a fucking TEACHER say.)

    So of course you could say it's because they have more choice, but it's more that *they have the choice of getting the fuck out of somewhere they're being alienated, mansplained and seen as sex objects*. Which, tbh, I'd do as well if I didn't love computer nerd stuff so much.
  • 6
    @sayaws they are also "driven away" from construction places, steel working, sewer cleaning and garbage collection. Also from homelessness and from prison.

    Oh wait. In those cases, it's different choices they make, not sexism. Yeah sure.
  • 1
    @Fast-Nop it's exactly what I'm saying: they have the choice to get the fuck away from somewhere they don't feel welcome in.

    I also don't get your point on homelessness and prison, you think women cannot be homeless? What kind of world are you living in?
  • 5
    @sayaws

    Problem is, any genuine fault in the behaviour towards women in tech is overshadowed by the screeching fringe like the above.

    Oh and please don't perpetuate the use of the word mansplain. Let it die.
  • 1
    @odite the issues need to be addressed. I agree that this talk might not have been the most efficient way (though I haven't seen it myself), but all I can see in the comments, minus a few exceptions, are people completely negating the issues by complaining about how said issues are addressed to them.
  • 4
    @sayaws What issues exactly? You've given an anecdote of a school story.
  • 1
    @odite interrupting women when they're talking, reformulating everything they suggest, straight up not listening to them, making inappropriate comments in the workplace (not to mention harassment, cause it happens), blocking their access to higher positions with a glass ceiling, etc.

    Though to be fair, I don't know how it's like in the US as I don't live there, so...
  • 6
    @sayaws Excluding harassment, I fail to see how these are gender specific issues.

    Men interrupting men? Whatever.
    Men interrupting women? Workplace issue.
    Equality just isnt a thing is it?

    Reformulation of ideas. Men snake each other in business all the time. Doesn't make it right but again it just isn't a gendered issue.
  • 1
    @odite you'd be surprised at how much more often it happens to women than men, and the number of men who don't even realize it until they are pointed out specifically for this is huge. I can't find the studies right now but I'll make sure to link them to you if I have time!
  • 2
    @sayaws How could you prove that? Unless an observer is present in companies, analysing the social interactions between workers.

    Or you'd be going off opinion and that might just boil down to women notice being interrupted more.
  • 1
    @odite it was actually an outside observer who made a sociological study on this, a few years ago. I'll see if I can find it again, because I feel it could be useful to a lot of people.
  • 8
    @sayaws Women are underrepresented with homeless people and prison inmates, that's simply a fact.

    The reason they're underrepresented in tech even in outright feminist societies like Scandinavia is because they don't care as much about tech as men.

    And the reason for that is that men and women are different on average. Inclusion doesn't mean to make the genders identical. It means to get those women into tech who want AND are competent to be there, and at least in the West, this has already been reached decades ago.

    The current wave is about women who can't do shit and still want well paid jobs, so feminists try to leech into the money flow without being tech competent. That's why you don't see actual tech projects by feminists, and instead trashtalk, trashtalk, trashtalk.

    Oh and weak males (not: men) who think they can find a way into women's pants by subserviency - doesn't work of course.
  • 6
    @sayaws

    Despite what my avatar represents I am a women. Sorry you had those expierences with some men. Assholes exist in all genders (or non-binaries).

    This thread has gotten a bit off topic since the point was mandated to listen to a very awkward lecture that had nothing to do with Javascript, programming or even tech.

    For example this slide she made showing the wage gap of the average Lyft Driver to Lyft’s CEO.

    The only source she cited was Google (not a source). First couple query results show 17.50 to 23.59. No where near her number of 3.30.

    She even commented while speaking about Lyft’s CEO she ‘would swipe left on that on tinder’ and ‘eww gross’. If a man did that speaking about a female CEO he would be escorted off the stage.

    How is this okay?

    The fact this woman is giving keynote speeches and I’m a Junior Dev really chaps my fucking hyde.
  • 5
    @katbreitin Agree on getting off track so I'll say this in closing. Fuck that woman.

    I hope a genuine female engineer takes her place.
  • 2
    @Fast-Nop I stand corrected. While I couldn't find anything on his politics, he fetishized death and blood, so there's that...
  • 5
    What I hate about all this is it that it moves the conversation away from the tech and more about people’s personal issues.
    If I wanted to hear about that I’d become a hairdresser, all I care about is talking about computer hardware and software and programming with people that have the same passion as I do.
  • 2
    @Techno-Wizard Well he was anti-Trump, anti-ICE, and retweeted antifa tweets, according to Wikipedia (and the news articles on which the WP article is based).

    However, the same article also alleges that he had hallucinations, psychosis, and was afraid of developing schizophrenia.

    Given that his crime doesn't really fit into a standard violent left-wing narrative, it looks like he just went crazy, rather unrelated to his political stance.

    That would also explain why he liked a post about gun control hours before his crime, which totally doesn't make sense.
  • 3
    @Fast-Nop https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Seems that he had leftist views, but anyone supporting antifa usually isn't leftist, but radicalized. Antifa, while almost always reactionary to white supremacists, isn't a good group of people. Plus, the guy was investigated for stuff in school, had a hitlist, was suspended multiple times... he never should have been able to access a weapon, never mind a 100 round drum magazine. I know trump wants to make it a mental health problem, but this is very much a gun problem too. Just look at the garbage he got his hands on.
  • 6
    Hey, remember when the hacker manifesto said how we exist without skin colour and instead judge each other on what we say and do? Damn, I wish we could have kept that ideology going longer...
  • 1
    That slide is not so bad. Assuming everyone else already has those keys too. However it's always difficult to address similar topics in a work environment. I guess she didn't get the result she wanted.
  • 1
    @Techno-Wizard exactly. I mean you have to register your car and have a car license to use it but registering a gun and train how to use it safely is unreasonable? Every time I think about it I just scratch my head.
  • 1
    @Fast-Nop if you'd be a bit more careful you will notice that right-wing shooters are usually presented as psychos too.
    The issues start when a journalist reports some extreme beliefs of the shooter (like how illegal immigrants should all be shot) and a prominent politician takes offense because he used that position in his campaign (it happened in the early 2000s if I remember correctly). The issue is that what can you say at that point without taking a political stance and so going beyond the simple job of a reporter? The right-wing has more politicians with a somewhat extreme position and so this happens more often but usually why it can happen is that the shooter has mental and social issues (and he is given the occasion to do that).
  • 1
    @Pickman bingo. You hit the problem right on the head. Radicalized people will almost always see opposition to their beliefs as politically driven. That's just not the case. Before trump, I couldn't care less about politics besides getting rid of corruption and holding massive conglomerates that hurt people accountable for their BS. Now that's considered leftist because the right has moved so much more towards authoritarianism. We're *literally* watching the conditions for WW3 forming around us. What happens when people take a hard stance that's against other people's beliefs? Those other people move further away. How do the originals react? "They're attacking us!"

    Sound familiar?

    I attached a screen shot of Trump's latest campaign email (I added my junk mail to see what he's saying in them).

    He calls democrats socialists because they want to stop being the only 1st world country without universal Healthcare. Like, WTF.
  • 2
    @Techno-Wizard well it IS a socialist policy in the sense that it puts money into society instead of letting the individual spend it. This does not mean that it is bad (or less efficient, in fact the prices seem to indicate that it is more efficient).
  • 4
    @Techno-Wizard Why the fuck would WW3 start because of an internal conflict of the US? And getting corruption out of politics is *exactly* what Trump is trying to do. Hell the fact that he's even in politics proves that people without connections to the deep state can win. Which candidate did you root for? Hillary Clinton? Jeez
  • 3
    @Techno-Wizard Also right-wingers have become less authoritative in the last two decades instead of more in my estimation. Mostly out of reaction to their dwindling influence though (when's the last time you've seen someone like Thatcher)?. The only ones becoming massive totalitarians are the far lefties. Not surprising as they're marxists (the philosophical foundation for socialism and communism btw) which is collectivist in it's fundamental approach and thus inherently oppressive and dangerous to the people itself
  • 2
    @12bitfloat well... It is more Draper than Marx but yes, it is possible to give an authoritarian interpretation to Marx's works. It is however important to remember that Colletivization is not necessarily authoritarian. Several forma of collectivist anarchy developed where there was no authority but property was shared (which is rather extreme). Admittedly authoritarian regimes often use collectivization to centralize and thus increase their power.
  • 3
    @Fast-Nop Gillette already lost billions because of that ad campaign, the CEO still think it was worth...
  • 1
    @Techno-Wizard comparing the 80s to nowadays seems inappropriate too 🤔
  • 2
    @Jamcris11 don't take your expectations too narrow, more often than not discussions do diverge, especially if the topic is about sociality, even slightly. u.u
  • 2
    @h4xx3r If wanting to focus on the things I love doing and not wanting to be distracted by trivial shit is low expectations. Then I’m perfectly fine with that.
  • 3
    @Techno-Wizard Also stop with this fucking "Antifa is just a reaction against white supremacists"... WHICH WHITE SUPREMACISTS? They're just a bunch of far left idiots who have achieved nothing in life, most are still living with their parents, and are jealous that other people have more then them so they smash up peoples property beacuse they are fucking retarded and believe in totalitarianism
  • 4
    @h4xx3r Gillette wants to demonstrate "get woke, go broke" in action. Even the feminists are angry with Gillette because their pink products for women are often more expensive than the same ones for men. ^^
  • 1
    @Jamcris11 each it's own, can't argue
    \( ̄▽ ̄)/
  • 1
    @12bitfloat if you're going to get angry and say things without proof, please don't say them at all. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    I don't claim to be perfect in my information but I try my best to be accurate. Antifa is a terrible group of people but they're primarily a reactionary group. That and the black fax page pranks, those were golden though, lol.
  • 2
    @Techno-Wizard They are reactionary to a made up enemy; to their own dilusion. They consume fake news that tells them that half of the US are Nazis so they violently try to change society. For these sorts of highly political issues I wouldn't count on wikipedia because it's way too normy and mainstream. Antifa is also part of the incestious "intersectionality" circle-jerk and most of them are strictly against capitalism. In that regard they are not reactionary at all. They want to destroy capitalism, which they openly pride themselves on. That's not reactionary that's revolutionary
  • 1
    @12bitfloat you're right. Now I see it they're not just a movement that inludes people who react with violence to political ideas. They're actually slaves to the reptilians. We should not rely on normy sources. We have to be edgy.
  • 0
    Just can't stand such events unless you can see some speakers like the ones listed on https://keynotespeakers.info/innova... there. Otherwise it is just a waste of time in most cases, spending some times reading articles on stackoverflow/reddit/medium can be more useful that that.
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