Quote:
Originally Posted by Perry Winkle
Either we are doing something to make ourselves unappealing to women and non-whites or there just aren't enough candidates demographically that we end up seeing them.
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You would only be one cog in a big system that creates the problem. The overt and completely unnoticed bias is not limited to coding or even jobs.
How do I find more honest automobile dealers? I watch how they treat the women. The dealers that are most biased, in general, also treat women as ignorant. Sometimes literally lie to women because "women are not smart enough". Their bias; not my conclusion.
The bias is obvious and extreme in some dealerships. And they probably have no idea they are doing it.
Does racism (emotion) exist elsewhere? We literally called them racist. Even when facts before us demonstrated the race accusation was incorrect, we still had that very strong need to defeat the racists. Winning six out of seven matches. I, at that time, did not realize the bias I had invented inside myself and others. Biases created by emotions are deep, unacknowledged, and prevalent. It is also why advertising works.
Why, for example, do so many plug computers into surge protectors that do not even do protection? Or why so many smoke cigarettes when every fact says it is bad, foolish, ignorant, and a sign of lower intelligence? Biases (decisions based in emotions) are why Presidential debate saw who looked and sounded better (an emotion) rather than who really had a better grasp of facts and solutions (Nixon vs Kennedy; Obama vs Romney).
Anyone who denies these emotional (the other word for racism) biases exist must be in denial. Affirmative action is about a problem so many of us still have and do not realize it.
Science demonstrated the problem. For example, interview for stock brokers were conducted with the interviewee observed and hidden. The superior candidate (by abilities and experience) would be most often selected when hidden during the interview. The same candidates were significantly less often selected when the interview was 'face to face'. And the interviewer routinely denied he has such biases.
Affirmative action can be view two ways. First, no longer necessary because I 'feel' racism no longer exists. Second, still necessary because science demonstrates those biases still exist among so many who deny their racist (emotional) biases.
In that dealership, a vehicle owner was asked, accusingly, why she brought a car with a leaking oil filter back to this dealership. Because her mechanic saw the leaking and the dealership had done the oil change. Who was making the many accusations? A woman service rep. A bias (emotion) against woman (the customer) even exists among some women (the service rep).
Does not matter what you feel. Only quantative facts are relevant. Racist biases still widely exist.