That's great. If there were more people like you in positions of power we probably wouldn't be having this conversation.
I'm not implying that anyone of these particular commenters are sexist or bigots, or aren't making decisions solely based on merit. I'm saying that we as a group, be that either widely defined as humans in general or narrowly defined as a certain group of nerds, tend to not notice our biases when we make decisions. We may believe that we are making a choice based on the absolute best merit based criteria, but often we don't realize our choice was highly tinted by learned bias.
I myself try to disregard my learned biases, but often don't realize I failed until after the fact. We need more people who don't care about gender, race, social status, etc when making hiring decisions. Studies have shown that when identifying markers are removed from resumes and job applications, the considered pool of applicants become more diverse. A good start is people who are at least aware of their own biases.
Too often we use statistics to enforce our bias. "Well, moms statistically don't code, so we won't take seriously this mother who does".
I'm not implying that anyone of these particular commenters are sexist or bigots, or aren't making decisions solely based on merit. I'm saying that we as a group, be that either widely defined as humans in general or narrowly defined as a certain group of nerds, tend to not notice our biases when we make decisions. We may believe that we are making a choice based on the absolute best merit based criteria, but often we don't realize our choice was highly tinted by learned bias.
I myself try to disregard my learned biases, but often don't realize I failed until after the fact. We need more people who don't care about gender, race, social status, etc when making hiring decisions. Studies have shown that when identifying markers are removed from resumes and job applications, the considered pool of applicants become more diverse. A good start is people who are at least aware of their own biases.
Too often we use statistics to enforce our bias. "Well, moms statistically don't code, so we won't take seriously this mother who does".