The Green Elephant

I've been reading a lot lately about the lack of diversity in STEM-based jobs and entrepreneurial ventures, and what to do about this. Being someone who's working in this industry, and has been for twenty years now, I find this terminology facile. 

I've worked with people of European, Korean, Chinese, South Asian, Persian, and Vietnamese descent. So when I hear lamenting over the lack of "people of color" in the technology workforce, I have to wonder what they're talking about, and I think I have the answer. It's not about the color of your skin or hair or eyes. It's about money. 

The people who are conspicuously absent from my list? People of African and Latin-American descent. Those are the "people of color" who aren't well represented in this industry.

The focus on color (or appearance) is a red herring. Follow the money: engineers and tech-entrepreneurs often come from middle or upper economic classes. They had access to good education, healthcare, and extracurriculars as kids. They were people who got into good colleges, which then opened doors into STEM jobs.

Of course there are exceptions. That's how you prove the rule, right? But the truth is, if you have money, your children are more likely to succeed financially. If you have money and you encourage your child to enter a STEM field, same result. 

This is the reason most executives (in the USA) are European-American ("white") men. It's the reason why most venture capitalists are, too. It's the reason why women are underrepresented in all walks of life. It's why the Asian population is so heavily represented in the tech-sector.

Money, power, and success are closely related. I realize this isn't news, but why are we failing to talk about it in the context of "diversity in tech?"

In all these essays that bemoan unconscious bias and overemphasis on company culture (both of which are real problems), why aren't they talking about economic advantages? I realize that nobody likes to talk about money - we are in the land of opportunity, after all - but we have to bring that into the conversation if we're going to effect change. 

Money doesn't make you smarter or dumber or more or less capable of coding, but it sure does change your likelihood of spending hours in front of a computer in your formative years. Math may be the great equalizer, but you still have to learn to do the math.

Identity, or How I Learned to Balance on One Foot on a Small Piece of Earth

I was born female. I'm starting out on pretty firm ground. 
But girls aren't supposed to have short hair. 
Dig a circular hole around me.

I liked watching "The Smurfs" and "Scooby-Doo" and "The Dukes of Hazard" and "CHiPS" when I was a kid. 
But Indians have no claim to American 80s culture. 
Dig another hole.

I love Star Wars with the passion of a thousand fiery suns.
But Star Wars is for boys. 
Dig another hole.

I love books by Asimov, Herbert, Clarke, Bradbury. I liked Timothy Zahn's first Star Wars sequel books. I subscribed to Analog, Asimov's, and SF&F for years.
But hard science-fiction is not for liberals. 
Dig another hole.

I studied physics and astronomy. I love math. I have degrees in electrical engineering. I work in the tech sector where I'm often the only woman in the room.
But women don't like STEM fields. 
Dig the holes a little deeper.

I like to paint and draw and dance.
But engineers aren't creative. 
Dig the holes a little wider.

I like parties and books by Jane Austen and wine.
But that's not geeky. 
Dig them deeper still.

I've played Master of Orion and World of Warcraft, Halo and Portal, Pac-Man and Tetris.
But girls aren't gamers.
Dig them wider still.

I speak Tamil. I know how to wear a sari and cook sambar.
But that's not American. 
Turn the holes into pits.

I dated before marriage. I married a white man.
But that's not Indian. 
Turn the pits into craters.

I took his last name. I had his child.
But that's not feminist. 
Turn the craters into canyons.

I was happy to leave the child and go to work every day.
But that's not motherly. 
The canyons grow deeper.

I hate shopping. I like romantic comedies. I hate high heels. I love dressing up.
But that's not ... anything! 
The canyons look bottomless.

Now I'm standing on a tiny bit of land, enough to balance on one foot, and staring into the abyss. Everything that's part of who I am is falling away.

typedef void  ME;

So to all the lonely, sad [your identities here*] who are feeling marginalized right now, who feel like everything they believe in is being taken away, I have this to say: Guess what? 

I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL.

But I am stronger than the abyss.
I can dance on foot and be who I am.
So can you.

And if we stand together, side by side, we'll find ourselves together on level ground, and we can stop shouting at each other across chasms.


*Possible examples:

  • white male nerd
  • gay conservative
  • geeky black woman
  • female atheist
  • LEGO-loving princess

All Things Natural

This unholy obsession with all things natural must end. Natural does not automatically mean beneficial, not physically and not psychologically. While it's true that human industry - pollutants and chemical byproducts, especially - are proving to be detrimental to our health, the answer isn't to go backward and hope that "natural living" will solve our problems.

Many people have adopted the word "natural" to mean the opposite of "made by human hands," so let's go with that for a moment. All the chemical compounds we invent, all of the additives in our food, water and air, are built using natural elements. By the physical laws of our universe, they have to be. Many chemicals are neutral in their effect when administered at small doses. Some, like certain metals are necessary for bodily functions but are toxic at the wrong dose. The same is true for organic compounds and even for the most necessary ingredient of life: water.

When it comes to behavior and society, the word natural takes on a more sinister overtone. We spend most of our childhoods overcoming our instincts, and as parents, we do our best to socialize our children by teaching them to suppress all kinds of natural behavior. Violence, jealousy, dishonesty, fearfulness, anger - these are all negative traits that we strive to overcome in our quest to improve our society. Maybe I should just quote Yoda and be done: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

A more insidious usage of the word happens when people try to shoehorn natural into justifying their biases. Once upon a time, it was considered natural for black people to do menial labor because everyone knew they weren't as clever as white people. We hear today that it's more natural for a woman to take care of a baby than a man, or that it's unnatural for two men to be sexually attracted to each other. These are all examples where the word is intended to have an automatic positive connotation while creating subjugation.

Some of our most dire problems are natural: bacteria, viruses, organ failures, cancer. Not one of these was created by human beings. We fight these, just like we fight our bad behavior, in order to improve our quality of life and longevity. We're starting to adopt a similar attitude toward the things we have created, like bad air and pesticides. If anything, we should be embracing the artificial. The same technology that creates problems will also solve them. Artificial improvements to our bodies could make us stronger, more adaptable, and less prone to disease and aging. There are risks, of course, like overuse of antibiotic, as there always will be when we engineer ourselves and our world. That shouldn't stop us from trying.

If you could trade in your bad knees for some self-repairing new ones, would you? What if you could end world hunger by planting genetically modified crops that use less water and no pesticides? If we're all a bunch of brains encased in indestructible metal and running on solar power, can we call ourselves human beings, or would that be unnatural? I'll posit that people, being the amazingly inventive, creative, thinking creatures that we are, can continue to build a better world and a better self. But to do so, we must embrace the artificial.