Thread: Diversity makes things worse - True or False?

This is something that has been beaten into people's heads over the last 10 or so years. That diversity is a great thing and a needed thing and people who don't agree with it are racists. I feel like whether you are okay with diversity or not doesn't make you racist. If this were true, then most minorities in the US would be considered racist. Minority groups tend to stick together because it is easier to be around people you share similarities within culture, religion and even physical features.

Some believe that diversity is an asset of strength and should be encouraged. While in theory, this would be ideal, it just isn't how things work out. The more different people you having living in one area, the more issues there tends to be. This may not be the case outside the US though so keep in mind, I have only observed it here. In my observations, the more diverse a city, the more crime, racism, and forced inclusion there is. You can only go so far with pushing diversity before it becomes racist.

I feel when it comes down to it, it is more about living around people with similar incomes than similar races. When you mix incomes is when things become a mess. It is easy to blame skin color, too easy. Money is what challenges our upbringing the most and where we grow up. Coming from a low-income household makes it way harder to advance in life no matter what your skin color just like advancing in life being easier the better off you are with money. While culture and religion do play a factor, I feel most people can get along sharing different cultures and religious ideas but soon as money comes into the picture, all bets are off.

What are your thoughts on it?

In terms of diversity hiring quotas, I am absolutely against the idea.
You should be forced to hire people based on their sex/race/whatever. You should hire based on ability to do the job. Now, if you have a lazy white guy who is underqualified and a Latina who is qualified and you hire the white guy because you dont like latino people, that's fucked up and you should be reprimanded.
But if you have a few people of different races/sexes and all are equally qualified, I dont think it's right that the Gov't has any say in who gets hired.
As for the other issue here, I'm kind of on the fence. I can understand what you're saying. And agree somewhat with your stance economically. I don't like the idea of mixed income neighborhoods.
But at the same time, I feel that also perpetuates poor communities and makes people a bit less incentivized to work harder.
That's a really tricky issue, honestly, and I'm not quite sure exactly how I feel about it.

My opinion is more or less the same as pseudo's.

I don't understand the point of it all. In the workplace, one of the following should matter when hiring new employees:

• The colour of the person's skin ✗
• The kinds of people he/she does or doesn't have sex with ✗
• The person's skill level ✓
• The bits the person was born with ✗
• The person's religious beliefs or lack thereof ✗

People shouldn't be able to use everything else as ammunition if they don't have #3 covered. Workplaces should allow employees with handicaps (at least as soon as they have one) to work comfortably, because that actually relates to work efficiency unlike most of the above. If people feel they are being discriminated against they can see about taking action. That is fine. However, discrimination being potentially possible in just about any workplace doesn't mean that businesses should go out of their way to hire minorities. All that this baloney does is give people who aren't white/heterosexual/male excuses.

Hell, you could be a magenta-skinned vampire homosexual hermaphrodite and still be more suitable for a job than the average straight white male if you're more skilled. But if you're not, those peculiarities shouldn't replace it.

As for entertainment, diversity for the sake of diversity is fucking stupid. I bloody love a lot of female protagonists—not for the tiddies. There are a lot of strong independent women from past and present in films, TV, anime and video games. I'd create a list but I get the feeling I may have done that in the past. Anyway, my point is, they're great characters because of everything except them being female. That usually only needs to be one characteristic. Sometimes women rebut this by saying that men only like sexy women in fiction. Let's be honest, most male heroes are pretty handsome! Can you think of many renowned and ugly male protagonists? A lot of this is subjective, but certainly most of them are aesthetically pleasing. Have women been watching film and TV for the sake of hot male bodies all this time? I doubt it, but they're free to enjoy that, just like how men should be free to enjoy a woman's nice appearance.

There are also loads of great black or Asian characters. I don't really care whether a character is gay either. It only pisses me off when sexuality has absolutely nothing to do with a story and they've just shoehorned it. That's an example of why diversity in entertainment is bloody stupid. These people need representation in the workplace and on TV? Then let them represent themselves.

I don't think it's racist to be against diversity. I hate all races equally. I think a lot of white people are fucking stupid for having absolutely no self-respect and always trying to kick up a fuss on behalf of minorities who never asked for it.

Oh yeah, I find PC culture often goes way too far. If you're not extreme left-wing, you're going to get called names for not agreeing that every show needs a diverse cast. Personally, I can't agree with that. I'm a political moderate, so I sometimes find that my views upset extremists who are both right and left lol.

I've watched movies that were made up of an almost entirely black cast, or in fact, an entirely Asian cast and I enjoyed them and didn't even think about it while watching. What the hell is wrong with just having a natural selection of characters? What's wrong with choosing people based on their skill and on-screen chemistry? Take Rose from Star Wars as an example. The actress wasn't bad but she had absolutely no chemistry with Finn, her love interest. They were trying to fill a diversity quota or something IMHO. In their own right, both of them are great actors, but their casting was bad. Did they not see this in screen testing? Isn't the purpose of a screen test to test the chemistry between actors as well as acting ability? I blame the producers. People hated the actress over that, but it wasn't her fault. Those people who abused her on Twitter were absolute scum. There's no excuse for that.

In a real-life setting, no one has groups of friends who are THAT diverse. It just doesn't happen. If you live in a predominately white area, the majority of your friends will be white too. You might have a gay friend as part of that group (I do), and you might have some foreign friends that you keep in touch with from work or university. But rarely have I ever mixed my home friends and my university friends. It's not because I don't want to, it's just that life doesn't work that way. Everyone has their own lives and places to be.

In the workplace, I have worked with people of all nationalities, etc. I don't give a toss what your culture, nationality, religion, or even your sexual orientation is, that's your business. So long as you do your work and you're a nice person who doesn't make the environment difficult, who the heck cares? Geez, I only found out that one of my colleagues was gay when he introduced us to his husband at a Christmas party. I may have suspected it a little, but not something I would go and ask someone.

I'm a graphic designer and I've seen discrimination in that industry. A professor on my master's told me that he wouldn't hire women because they have babies and quit their job, and some of them never come back. I was a little taken back by his bigotry, to be honest. On my Master's, there were 15 women and 5 men.
I think most people who have spent that length of time and money in a university are not just going to quit and never come back. >.>

When it comes to the IT industry, I kinda do agree with their 10% female policy. There are so so many awesome female programmers out there and they were often getting passed over for whatever reason. And there are so many more women who are studying computer science. Finding 1 great female programmer for every 10 males shouldn't be difficult at all. After all, sometimes there are many candidates who are equally suitable for a position, but it comes down to luck on who gets picked in the end.

The thing with men not wanting to hire women who are skilled and even more so qualified over men comes down to money. I think that this is an issue with the country more so than the business itself. Pregnancy leave is something that has never been properly handled in the US. I often compare the US and the UK and just scratch my head. They can't expect working women to not have children but they also don't have the right to punish them over it. A working mother should have enough allowed pay time off to spend the first year with her child, which is the most important year for both the baby and the mother not only for bonding but health. There should be some kind of benefit for businesses to allow more paid time of for working mothers while not taking a huge loss. For women in higher positions, it can be hard to have someone step in and temporarily replace them. Most people would not take a temp job at high pay to only later be pushed aside when the mother comes back from leave. There is a lot to it and I don't think it is addressed or handled the right way. I don't know how to fix this issue either but I think it is about time someone did. There has to be a way to allow women to be hired, work, have children, be allowed good time off for their newborn, and still be able to come back if they choose. Some choose not to but most do choose to go back to work.

As for the IT industry, it is male-dominated because most women have no interest in that field. This is the same for many other industries. I think it being forced onto women to get into these fields is ridiculous. Most women have a general idea of what working field they want to enter by the age of 20. To insist more women get into fields like IT is like a slap in the face to women, insinuating they can't think for themselves. For those who do have an interest in said fields, ensuring they do get work is important if they are qualified. I agree with that. More women graduate college than men these days so I think it is time businesses realize that. It is a tricky topic really. You push too far one way it becomes unfair to someone.

Originally Posted by KorinKitty

As for the IT industry, it is male-dominated because most women have no interest in that field. This is the same for many other industries. I think it being forced onto women to get into these fields is ridiculous. Most women have a general idea of what working field they want to enter by the age of 20. To insist more women get into fields like IT is like a slap in the face to women, insinuating they can't think for themselves. For those who do have an interest in said fields, ensuring they do get work is important if they are qualified. I agree with that. More women graduate college than men these days so I think it is time businesses realize that. It is a tricky topic really. You push too far one way it becomes unfair to someone.

No one forces it on women though. Workplaces have to have a 10% female workforce and that's a good thing for us. It means that they have to look at the female candidates. After all, we know that most employers only bother to read a small portion of job applications. That doesn't affect any woman's career decision. It just makes it easier for her to break into the industry if she has the talent. In fact, now that it's been a rule for a while, more than 10% are women in many of the bigger places, so it's become a naturalised thing rather than companies being forced to check out the female applicants. If I was coming out of university today, I'd have gone for a degree in software development, rather than graphic design. I have a natural inclination toward techy stuff. It's a good industry to be in since everything is digital nowadays, while graphic design is much more competitive. But, at the time, I was warned about how it was a male-dominated industry and why not be an accountant instead. I chose graphic design as my personal compromise since I enjoyed art. I did do a 1-year postgrad in software development in 2017 and loved it. But, I didn't do it to change career, only to add to my skillset.

Originally Posted by Shannon

There are so so many awesome female programmers out there and they were often getting passed over for whatever reason. And there are so many more women who are studying computer science. Finding 1 great female programmer for every 10 males shouldn't be difficult at all.

I'd like to say I can see your point but I'm having trouble. I've been a keen follower of indie games for the longest time, but I've almost never seen female programmers of them. Art designers, sure, they're very good at that but I don't know where these coders are.

Of course, I'm not speaking about software (app) development, but the same was true when I went to a tech university. Loads of artists but very few programmers. You'd think that indie games would be a golden opportunity for women since indie game developers are their own bosses, so discrimination isn't even a factor.

Originally Posted by Mantis

I'd like to say I can see your point but I'm having trouble. I've been a keen follower of indie games for the longest time, but I've almost never seen female programmers of them. Art designers, sure, they're very good at that but I don't know where these coders are.

Of course, I'm not speaking about software (app) development, but the same was true when I went to a tech university. Loads of artists but very few programmers. You'd think that indie games would be a golden opportunity for women since indie game developers are their own bosses, so discrimination isn't even a factor.

I wasn't even thinking about the games industry at all. I think that's an entirely different thing than just working in general tech, since the whole world has gone digital and there are tech departments in places you wouldn't immediately think of. Game development is not something that would interest me at all, if I'm honest. =)

When I did the SD postgrad a couple of years ago, there were an equal number of women and men. I didn't hear anyone (male or female) mention that they wanted a career in gaming. Most were taking jobs with tech companies or within tech departments of other companies. Some were doing it so they could manage the tech side of their own small businesses. Some, like me, were doing it to branch out a little. Branded app development is part of my job description nowadays. Coming from an entirely print design background, I needed to be able to keep up. Now I can just do some of it myself instead of trying to communicate what I want to the tech guys.

I brought up games because they're a large focus in entertainment diversity. I studied computer science at university. Perhaps it's because my university had a lot of game-related courses but what I noticed was entirely different to your experience. In computer science classes, men made up the vast majority whereas most women seemed to be pursuing the game industry and were usually studying for game art degrees.

According to statistics that concern the industry and open source, only 10-20% of programmers are female. Why are so few of them in indie games when it's been a major opportunity for over a decade? Of course, I'm not downplaying the software industry in general but since games are a large talking point here (diversity in both the workplace and the games created) I think it's worth exploring why misogyny is often blamed when there's an alternative that few female coders have tried.

Diversity for diversity's sake makes things worse. Diversity in and of itself doesn't. To be honest I've just skimmed the thread and I think I'm with the consensus here that I only care about merit.