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So I have been a fly on the "wall" for last couple of months and never signed up, but now here I am!

Rant is about a serious topic - gender gap in tech industry!!
Couple of months ago Stackoverflow announced developer survey results! I was shocked by demographics results! It was disappointing to see biggest gender gap in general tech industry!
I believe tech industry can be the first one to have equal pay for women!

However.... (bad part)
I was going through my twitter feeds and saw this! Many of you have seen this tweet too.

(ohh!fuck I cant attach multiple images here, I should have created Medium post, fuck it!)

"They" continue, quoting from the tweet.
1)"....bias in society is reflected in AI"
2) "However, I do think it is our responsibility as designers/developers/users to be aware of this bias and do our best to correct it."

I want to rant about 2nd one. Some of you may not like it including grammar naziz!
As a developer/programmer I take 2nd one personally! I am currently at denial phase though!
And I have an OCD so gonna make points here!

1) Seriously tell me please, how the fuck you can write gender bias algorithm which can pass a big crazy amount of test suite?

2) Google has done many things for last decade to overcome gender gap related issues. I have met some of the nicest people from Google, and this is really hard for me to believe that google AI or that team has anything to do with the results!

3) Someone suggests use "they" in google translated result, can you fucking imagine how wrong that would be??? If I am developer working on that algo or even in that team and I see this ticket in jira with highest priority where it says, "make all translated results gender neutral using only they" - I would fucking like to die and may be in my next life ask me to do that, when I am a toddler!

4) I am an advocate for equal pay, equal rights and equal opportunities for everyone to "minify" this gender gap in tech, but showing google translate results of a gender natural language to make a point is wrong, it is simply undermining the efforts of something really helpful thing.

5) Moving on to the core point - What can be done to lower down the gender gap? I have seen amazing women who can code/manage far far far better than what I ever could imagine, and they are at really good place and deserve to be there. Are they doing enough to inspire other women to join tech industry?
Collective efforts are very much required. And need to keep in consideration that tech industry is highly competitive roles are also changing rapidly.

6) Many big companies have women at higher positions(CEO, CFO,....) what are their efforts to bring more women in tech industry?
(Some of you may not like this, as this is implying that it isn't only men's job. )

7) Going slightly political here, everyday we see really disappointing news related to women and their rights and health, I strongly believe women don't have to ask for or even have to mention about "equal rights" about anything. Everyone is equal!!!
This is 2017 and still fucked up!

Thats all for today! Heading for breakfast!

Comments
  • 2
    Ohh.. Dammit devRant!
    Tweet screen shot is at the bottom! Way to go devRant!!!
  • 4
    Here's a simple solution: use they. It's gender neutral, and in both cases, all you have to say is "they are a ...". English can be gender neutral, we're just stuck in our ways. It's not like Spanish where everything, even the inanimate objects, are gendered.
  • 2
    Also, as far as how this connects to the fender gap, it doesn't. This is more, maybe we should see if we can get it not to assume make if it sees doctor, cause that's kinda sexist. If we can't, so be it, but it's worth a look to see where it gets the gender from. I still think they is better, though.
  • 1
    @iam13islucky Tienes toda la razón.
  • 3
    @iam13islucky in Sweden we have "hen" which is a combination of "hon" (her) and "han" (him) for gender neutral statements.
  • 2
    @iam13islucky well that specific part is defying logic! English has thousands of years of written literature and can't expect everything would make sense after addressing everything with "They"
  • 2
    @Dacexi I tried to learn Swedish. Forget it, far too complicated. Even harder than the German language, which is not easy either.
  • 2
    @tracktraps Have you tried to learn French? Been going for 3 years now and still can only hold a very basic conversation.
  • 1
    @Dacexi French is a beautiful language. I have been in France for several years and can actually have a good conversation. Of course you notice that French is not my mother tongue, but everyone has understood me so far.

    Le français est une langue magnifique. Où est la pharmacie la plus proche?
  • 1
    @LetMeRant yes it can? If you are addressing a specific person that you know the gender of, you use the gendered version, otherwise default to gender neutral. If no gender is given to the translator, it should make as few assumptions as possible.
  • 1
    This rant isn't about languages and which one easier to learn, guys!!!
  • 1
    @LetMeRant Je ne sais pas de quoi tu parles. :)
  • 1
    @iam13islucky
    1) Try to do it outside of English language, conversations would be so weird in the translation, it can create lots of confusion.
    2) "I don't know gender of Kim un jong, cause they never told me and they want to go on nuclear war with us. " Koreans would like to exclude themselves from Kim very much.
  • 1
    @_DianeKim 😍😍😍
  • 1
    @LetMeRant Nuclear what? Kim Jong-un has no more than fireworks.
  • 5
    Gender wage gap is a myth.

    There are less women in tech because most of them just don't like it for evolutional and genetic reasons.

    Language related to gender is just a cultural thing that evolved over thousands of years and will continue to evolve. It's kinda wrong now but it will correct itself if it's needed. Trust the Invisible Hand.

    Nobody actually cares who you are, how do you define yourself, what chromosomes you have, what race you are or what country you came from. Just do the job right and you'll advance in the wonderful capitalistic ladder.

    Nobody sane in western countries actually gives a shit about any of this feminist crap anymore. We are not living in the suffrage era of the 19th century.
  • 1
    @sam9669 I agree to most of that and you may be right about "gender wage gap", but women are facing issues and it needs to be addressed. Gender gap in tech is real, if they don't see motivation they are less likely to approach that career choices at early stages.

    Edit - and my rant is more about addressing it correctly rather than showing meaningless Google search results and undermining developers.
  • 1
    @LetMeRant
    Prove to me that women earn less than men just because they lack a Y chromosome.

    You'll be surprised to find the real reasons.
  • 3
    The tweet is correct in every way. Not even from a gender neutrality point- it's technically incorrect. If Turkish is gender neutral, so should the translation be. As long as the logic persists, there's no reason to change the gender. They could've just added "He/she" instead of they, too.
    I don't see what you get excited about there.
  • 2
    @shivayl, meh, that's a weak statement. I understand what you get at. But truthfully speaking, had I wanted to be a ballerina dancer, I would've gotten a whole load of resistance from all sides. From society, cus I'm a chubby dude, from dudes, because I want to be a ballerina and from fellow ballerinas, cus I'm not meant to be a ballerina, cus I'm a chubby, hairy 6 foot 3 dude (again).
    It doesn't happen consciously most of the time, but as soon as you drop out of the norm society makes it more difficult to achieve what you want.
    Personally, I'm not someone who goes about discussing, arguing and demanding gender equality and all that stuff, because I don't have an issue with it - I treat women at my job like I treat anybody else, all that counts for me is performance and behaviour. But not everyone does that. Most of them don't. Most of the people higher up don't. And that's why we need these people, screamers, keyboard warriors etc. They draw attention to this topic.
  • 2
    @ThatDude yeah everyone thinks you're talking about a transgender...
  • 3
    @LetMeRant just had to fav your rant to link to this one, happy ranting there
    https://devrant.io/rants/547345/...
  • 1
    @evilmupp3t I agree to your second comment but not to the first one.

    1) Using "He/She" can't work always and I am pretty sure AI behind the Google Translator may try to find context of the translation. So may be you provide more data it can zero down to actual gender.

    2) Turkish is gender natural language, so why do I care if my gender is defined in some other language! Try to prove me wrong here!
    In some language my name can be translated to an idiot! How can I change that?

    3) Playing victim card with some Google translate is so wrong and this is clearly undermining any efforts by Google or the dev team, and I am against that.
  • 0
    @LetMeRant

    Sorry, but why is the fact that people choose different careers a bad thing? Equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are two totally separate things.

    This bollocks snowflake crusade of pushing people into tech just to balance out gender distribution in the name of equality is so pointless.

    Why aren't you also fighting for gender equality in underwater welding or oil riggers? Oh yeah, because they aren't "cool".

    Wake up. Nobody cares about anyone.
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