Correct

Again, you are basing your world view on anecdotes. I am myself a woman in tech, so I can tell you that it's quite easy trying to get ahead in life by playing a victim. It results in you getting special treatment instead of equal treatment.

Of course not. But I think it's safe to say that we're all sick of people who have become professional victims, where all they do is complain and reinforce each others' entitlement complexes in their "safe space" echo chambers. Nobody likes to be rabidly accused of and blamed for "atrocities" that they didn't commit or have their accomplishments belittled by "privileges" that they never actually had. But, alas, to these oh-so-progressive and definitely not sexist or racist groups, if you're a straight white male, you absolutely have committed atrocities and you absolutely have benefited from "white privilege".

I can't think of a single mainstream movement that is more blatantly hypocritical and willfully unaware than that.

There are two sides to this, but only one gets coverage in the media. Only one is socially acceptable to understand or endorse publicly. Try to have a real, meaningful dialogue on this, or dare introduce the super duper controversial idea that perhaps trying to fix one kind of discrimination by just introducing another kind of discrimination is a bad idea, and you'll be labeled a racist misogynist whom, according to the twittersphere, apparently doesn't have the right to a living anymore. And the cowardly corporations in their perpetual fear of being labeled as an organization that isn't "inclusive", "diverse", and "progressive" (and thus losing market share from one specific vocal minority), will fire you. They don't care about these issues, but they'll play to them to save face. And that conveniently is very self-satisfying to the people putting pressure on corporations and our society, reinforcing their behavior and telling them that it is acceptable, when it absolutely isn't.

If we ever want to make any meaningful progress in race and sex discrimination, we have to stop being so radically positioned to one side or the other. What I just said here would have never come out of my mouth two years ago, but things have heated up so much lately that I almost feel a need to go radically to the other side to help balance things out. But this doesn't help either.

We need to have real, open, rational dialogue about this without the threat of being labeled as a bigot that doesn't deserve a job just because you introduced a perspective that one group of people doesn't feel fully comfortable with or can't understand.

We are not invoking real change in our world right now. We're just silencing people that we don't want to hear from. People we can't understand. But these people exist and their viewpoints are legitimate. This is why you see two radically opposed (and equally unqualified) presidential candidates winning in the US right now. Fear and censorship are not the ways of progress. The far right and the far left are equally absurd, selfish, bigoted, and ignorantly positioned in their views.

This article, for once, was balanced. And that resonates with rational people. Sadly, in today's world, this kind of rational behavior is characterized as refreshing.

Maybe you see these types of articles a lot, but I don't. Could it be that you intentionally seek out these types of articles because you are convinced they are the truth? Your preconceived notions are making you see problems where there perhaps are none? Or are you proposing that you sit on the only truth, and because I don't share your opinion I must be naive and uneducated on the matter?

I'm guessing by your name that you are not female...so you are really just listening to second-hand anecdotes and deciding that it is fact, when actually you don't really know what it's like to be a woman in tech.

Well I do know what it's like, so perhaps you could learn something from someone who has actively decided not to take the shortcut through playing a victim and instead plays the game on the same terms as everyone else.

Finally, the conspiracy I'm talking about is not referring to women making stories up. I'm sure there are plenty of people (not just women) who has had bad work experience, for a number of reasons. For example: my best friend is a short male, and he feels that gives him an unfair disadvantage to taller people. Who's to say he isn't correct? It's his truth after all.

This might come as a shock to you, but just because a person doesn't buy into the left-wing progressive PC social justice warrior agenda doesn't automatically mean they are a Trump supporter. So to answer your question: no I wouldn't vote for Trump if I was living in the US. But I support your decision to do so, if you wish. You live in a democracy after all.

Oh, Malcolm Gladwell? The author from the definitely not politically motivated New York Times? The expert in selective data sampling? Well I guess that's the end of this discussion. I'll just pack up my things now...

Can't say I disagree. I am gay and do know very well, what it means to get treated differently sometimes violently. I am very fortunate to not have been discriminated in my professional environment, at least not that I know of. But, at some point you have to come out of the victim role, because it gives those people might over you, that put you there. So I decide not to let those facts determine my life but instead live mine as best as I can and teach the people around be as good as I can. If there is one thing that people should do in this discussion, it is to educate the newer generation and show that what differentiates you matters because it makes you yourself, but it is not crippling you to be different.

I have said this very often and I will continue to do so: We as an industry and the people behind it have to be inclusive, not exclusive. You should not get a job because you are a man, you should also not get a job because you are a woman. You should get a job because you are the right person to do so. The job will not define what matters to you as a person and what not, and your gender, sexuality, spiritual beliefs, race or weight should not be a stepping stone.