The way I see it, fear/paranoia of incompetence is common among a great many entry-level developers/engineers, the so-called "imposter syndrome". What I think Bryana did, talk to her manager to find the real reason behind a decision, is what I think anyone, male or female, who has any doubt about their job should do.

Nothing will dispel uncertainty better than getting the facts. The bar was not visibly lowered in Bryana's case. Her manager said the fact she is a woman never crossed his mind in giving her lead on a project. The good work she was putting in over her first year demonstrated to management she was ready to take lead on a project. If we're just honest with each other, we'll all be better off.

Those are several possible negative outcomes of positive discrimination. It's also possible that more women speakers at conferences encourages other women to speak, to work on side projects and generally to do things that get them promoted.

I think her point is that since there is so much negative discrimination, the positive discrimination is cancelled out.

I'm yet to see any compelling evidence of discrimination against women in technology. I've been in the industry 12 years. I know plenty of women in tech. They have the same minor grievances that men do. But none due to sexism.

I also think that if there -is- sexism in the industry, -more sexism- is not the right solution. Call out the sexism. The industry will rally around you, as we've often seen. Don't generalise the industry, and generalise men. That's just bigotry.

Exactly. When an entity (i.e. a company, tech conference, etc.) chooses someone for any reason outside of merit, it's discrimination, and marginalizes the hard work of others.

This logic falls appart almost immediately. A couple immediate counter examples: Two candidates for job, one objectively brilliant but an arrogant SoB the other more modestly skilled but jells with our culture. I hire the second, and the first can take is "hard work" and beat it.

Two more candidates, one again is more technically qualified but the second grew up in a market Im targeting for expansion. Again, I take the second because the circumstances of his birth are worth more to me than difference in developed ability.

Every choice made is a combination of hundreds of culminating value judgements and to pretend that we can create some objective score based on merit is intellectually dishonest; to pretend that we want to ignore the other factors is unhealthy.

Thank you for that reply. I always favoured meritocracy, but im currently running into this "outside" world, the challenges the outside world poses are fascinating. People are so complicated, it should be a science.

This isn't a split second in time in a vacuum. There is a history and a future. The history is that males dominate the industry, and if we look further back, there is much more to the divide between the genders. The future hasn't been written, but if we want it to differ from the past, we have to make decisions that affect that.

In order for young girls (whether we're talking about children or just engineers early in their career path) to feel confident, to relate and feel like a natural part of the industry, there has to be a change. There has to be more females at conferences. There has to be more female leadership. If you continue to look only at a point of time (a result of history) and say "right now there are more men qualified then women" for every decision, you prevent a future where women had the same comfort and opportunity to truly level the playing field.

I feel you are taking a very juvenile view here. One of the foundational axioms in the push for greater diversity in tech (and one I firmly support) is the idea that there is great value in a community of differing experiences and thoughts. If you accept that it's only logical to take female candidates over male candidates until the difference in their ability is judged to be greater than the advantages of adding that new viewpoint to the team.

Unless you're hiring at random, a whole host of other value judgements are made per candidate on top of any kind of objective technical merit. If these judgements slant toward inclusionary I think the positive feedback in increasing diversity is worth a lot more than the negatives you mention (imposter syndrome is felt across the entire industry and ignoring the added value of diversity to placate the egos of misogynists has it's own delicious irony).

This is coming from a white male who is acutely aware he only has his job because he looks the part; imposter syndrome never stops being a bitch.

> very juvenile view here

What an absurd characterization. I get that you don't agree with this person, but what -- if anything -- did this person say that was juvenile?

>Positive discrimination is not positive, because discrimination is never positive, no matter which group it favours.

This is the particular statement I take offense to (and should have just quoted in the parent, such is life). Black and white generalities with no argument or data to back it in my experience are the exclusive domain of adolescents and television pundents. Neither of which I would expect to be upvoted here.

You claim we need women to encourage different "experiences" and "thoughts." And by saying that you imply that different men don't have different experiences and thoughts. When it comes to coding, there's a huge diversity of thought. And that has no relationship to gender as far as I can see.