...About Diversity Hiring Practices?

Transcript available here

Our conversation is inspired by this twitter thread by @GergelyOrosz. We talk about the catch-22 that comes with doing DEI work - even when it's rooted in good intentions, and how misogyny runs so deeply in workplace culture.

Meg Stalter video (Butter ad)

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Do The Kids Know? is a biweekly series of discussions between community workers and educators, Prakash and Kristen, that unpack race, media, popular culture, and politics in KKKanada (That’s Canada spelled with three K’s) from an anti-colonial perspective.

Our goal is to bring nuance to sensationalist media as well as to uncover the ways in which white supremacy, capitalism, and colonialism is shaping our movements and behaviours. 

Keep tuning in to be a part of the conversation… don’t be a kid who doesn’t know!

Find us: @dothekidsknow (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok)
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Artwork by Daniela Silva (instagram.com/danielasilvatrujillo)
Music by Steve Travale (https://stevetravale.com)

DTKK is recorded on the traditional and unceded Indigenous lands of the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation. We are committed to working with Indigenous communities and leaders locally and across Turtle Island to fight for Indigenous rights, resurgence, and sovereignty. 

Until next time. Stay in the know~!

Transcript

Prakash  0:15  
Hey y'all, and welcome back to Do the Kids Know? That is this show where we talk about race, media, politics and pop culture, in triple K Canada. My name is Prakash and on my screen is Kristen. 

Kristen  0:32  
Hello. 

Prakash  0:33  
And we're back again as kind of a continuation of our last episode on why DEI is a scam. We're switching perspectives from the POV of being hired to doing the hiring. And yeah, once again, we'll talk about some some things we saw on the internet, discuss maybe throw in our own personal anecdotes and yeah, again, free balling it with no script. So we'll see how it goes. But before we do that, let's start off with our horoscope nonsense. Kristen. What did co-star tell you to do this week?

Kristen  1:14  
Okay, so this was impeccably timed, because I literally just got my co-star notification for today, right now. And co-star has told me to use my voice.

Prakash  1:30  
Okay, so...

Kristen  1:31  
Yeah. 

Prakash  1:32  
Check.

Kristen  1:33  
Yeah, right? Go us. Go me, I don't know. What did co-star tell you this week? 

Prakash  1:41  
The other day, it told me something very rude, which was basically it told me to do more. I told me to like plan a project with someone and I was like, I refuse. 

Kristen  1:47  
Oh, I remember that. I remember us being like, but why? Aren't we trying to get Prakash to do less things?

Prakash  1:54  
Yeah, but I am on like two boards now. So there's that. Anyway, but the one the one that I wanted to share for today. The one that I thought was actually was also rude. Especially to me an Aries. It says, try to send loving kindness to someone you find intolerable today. 

Kristen  2:18  
No. Why? 

Prakash  2:18  
And if you know me, you know that I have several nemeses. I hold grudges. I neither forgive nor forgot.

Kristen  2:26  
No, we're also very petty, sometimes. 

Prakash  2:27  
Extremely. 

Kristen  2:28  
Its lovely. Its fun.

Prakash  2:29  
And so... 

Kristen  2:30  
It can be fun. 

Prakash  2:30  
I shan't and I won't. And I ought not to.

Kristen  2:33  
Why? They're untolerable. Why would you? Why would you instigate connection with someone you don't enjoy being around?

Prakash  2:40  
No. 

Kristen  2:42  
Doesn't make sense. 

Prakash  2:43  
I don't really have time to like, send love and kindness to people who I do like. 

Kristen  2:46  
Right? Like now you're gonna waste time and send loving kindness to somebody you don't love or want to be kind to? No, co-star. No. 

Prakash  2:52  
So today's Friday, tomorrow, Saturday, and it's Friday, Friday, we're gonna get that...

Kristen  2:57  
I... Okay, this is the second song you're trying to get stuck in my head in a loop. I need you to not.

Prakash  3:05  
So it's Friday tomorrow's Saturday and tomorrow is like the first Saturday I have off in like I think four or five weeks and... 

Kristen  3:12  
Jesus. And you're coming- No. Prakash.

Prakash  3:16  
What? 

Kristen  3:16  
Prakash! 

Prakash  3:20  
I didn't say what I was gonna do yet.

Kristen  3:28  
Because it's your first Saturday off in many, many weeks. And instead of just relaxing. You said you would come over to help me move.

Prakash  3:35  
Yeah, I have a whole other whole day planned. So... 

Kristen  3:38  
Oh my god. 

Prakash  3:39  
I'm gonna come over and help you move in the morning. And then I have a friend's birthday BBQ then I have like drink plans with some other friends. That's like around the corner. So then I'm gonna go back to my friend's barbecue later because I know that people mutuals will only come late so I will go then go back again to see these mutual friends. Some of them are like visiting from out of town and then I think I'm gonna go at night, you know, have some adult entertainment with someone who also lives in that area.

Kristen  4:15  
Okay, so you just said on your first Saturday off, you have jam packed your schedule so that you will not actually rest at any point.

Prakash  4:25  
I mean define rest.

Kristen  4:31  
We're not doing that. You gone need to cut that part.

Prakash  4:37  
Yeah, I don't know what's wrong with me but... 

Kristen  4:40  
Prakash!

Prakash  4:41  
Send loving kindness co-star.

Kristen  4:46  
Send loving kindness to yourself so that you actually know what rest means. Because what you have planned for tomorrow is not rest. Like I'm fully sitting here like let's veto you coming over so that at least you rest in the morning.

Prakash  4:57  
Well, I have some I have Sunday off that's my that's off my rest day where its my my potato day, where I order food 

Kristen  5:04  
But you always have Sunday off? 

Prakash  5:05  
Yeah. So because usually I'm like too tired on Sunday to actually do anything fun so now I'm doing all my fun things on the day where I'd usually be working. Because it's the day where I have energy. And then Sunday I can be a potato. We are two very different people.

Kristen  5:24  
Like I actually can't even fathom this. You said I would prefer to jam pack a day where I don't have to work with so many things so that my schedule can go back to normal on Sunday, because Sunday, I never have energy anyway. So I don't do anything on Sunday. When I'm like, why wouldn't you take advantage of a day when you have energy to do less? Like I don't, I don't understand. You really don't know what it means to rest because like, wait the way that you've described Sunday to me, that's not rest, that is forced rest because your body is like I literally can't.

Prakash  6:05  
Yeah, the you know, the line between harassed and comatose is very, very faint.

Kristen  6:11  
No, no, it is not. In the way that you have described your life it is but it should not be. They are two different things. Distinctly different things. Your Sundays are comatose. That is not rest. No. No. 

Prakash  6:31  
Anyway. 

Kristen  6:35  
So what you're saying is thank you Kristen for these words, but I will not change any of my actions. See you tomorrow for my jam packed day.

Prakash  6:41  
I mean, I'm 30, I'm 30 now so I you can't teach an old dog new tricks, as they say.

Kristen  6:52  
I was about to say something very mean. I'll hold it in. I'll hold it in.

Prakash  6:57  
Oh, dear. Okay. So today we're talking about, our conversation today is again, it's about it's about hiring and DEI. And it was inspired by this Twitter thread by at I'm going to do my best to say this name, Gergely Orosz, I'll link it in the show notes. So the first tweet reads, When at Uber, I remember this change to make sure a female interviewer is present on every hiring loop, the strangest thing happened, we've started rejecting candidates just because they were unwilling to make eye contact with the female interviewer or acknowledge her presence. And then so this, this goes on for like, it's quite a long thread, and links to this blog post called, Hiring and retaining a diverse engineering team. So as probably many of you can assume, or attest to the field of STEM, which is science, technology, engineering, and mathematics is quite a male dominated field. I'm sure we talked about this before in our other episodes about like tack and DEI and whatever. What was proposed in this Twitter thread that was quite controversial is sort of this, like, catch 22 around like diversity, like diverse hiring committees and diversity hiring practices. 

Prakash  8:22  
So last week, we kind of discussed when they put the impetus on the applicants to like disclose their diversity status, you know, in their requests for things like diversity statements as part of their application, and we see this a lot in like, academic and teaching kinds of jobs. But here we see it from the other side in which companies are asking their minoritized employees to do the work of like, of being on these hiring committees. And also kind of like subjugate themselves as like a test dummy to see whether or not these potential like candidates are going to like not like, I'm not sure what the word is like not like assault them, but essentially just like see how they're gonna like react kind of like this weird... 

Kristen  9:23  
Well discriminate against them. 

Prakash  9:24  
Yeah, basically, that's a word discriminate, which is a quite a strange position to be in. And then there are lots of conversations within this thread about like, oh, to not hire someone based on the level of eye contact is ableist. As many autistic people have difficulty maintaining eye contact. Other people were like this is religious and xenophobic discrimination because in certain culture is it's like impolite to look directly at a woman. Even within those tweets a lot of Islamophobia that was like sprouting.

Kristen  10:05  
But I'm also like, there's also some heavy misogyny in that argument as well.

Prakash  10:14  
Yeah, because you can 100% be Muslim and not misogynistic. 

Kristen  10:21  
Yeah.

Prakash  10:21  
But also, it's like, the. So the person who like wrote this tweet is based in Amsterdam. And clarified that often, when they, like the people who they, like, notice, this is happening to are the people who they noticed were not maintaining eye contact, or even like talking to the female interviewer, like, acknowledging that she was there were not like immigrants, or, you know, people who might assume are from these, like, non-western non-white cultures, but they're like, white people from the US or Europe. So then people were like, oh, maybe they're just like, shy or uncomfortable, like STEM is so male, whatever that like, people don't know how to act on women. And I'm just like, what?

Kristen  11:09  
Okay, but like, what is so that so okay...

Prakash  11:13  
There's a lot to unpack here.

Kristen  11:15  
There is, but that in particular, I'm like, so we want to hire the shy person who won't be able to interact around his co-workers? That's, that's what we want to throw a shy person into an environment where like, they couldn't even come in, communicate adequately during the interview, but we think that they will communicate adequately with their team members once they're hired? Because like, boiling it all down, that's communication, right? Like, if you cannot communicate effectively with everyone on the hiring committee during the interview, how do they know that you will be able to communicate as part of the team to complete the projects? Like capitalism aside, all of its other things aside, like, if you can't do that?

Prakash  11:59  
My mind is like, so like, kinda like racing, there's so much to, like, work through. 

Kristen  12:04  
There are many statements unpack here. Because I also am like so this one company, which like Uber, anyway, they've thrown a woman onto the hiring committee, so that they can weed out, what? Like, are they actively trying to be less misogynistic by doing this? Or, like, what was the what was the plan?

Prakash  12:32  
I think I think that I think that's that's sort of like the idea, I think it works in a twofold way in it. Like this is not a phenomenon that's unique to Uber.

Kristen  12:40  
No.

Prakash  12:40  
Like, I think, like, it's a very like, I think this is just one example of kind of practices becoming more and more proliferating around these, like various orgs, especially like these large tech companies that hire at such a massive scale. Especially these kinds of industries that do have really obvious diversity problems, like STEM, like academia, etc. So, yeah, I think having the woman works in two ways. So I think as a barometer, like one to sort of like weed out these people who are displaying, like, obvious misogynistic behaviors and yeah, by like, fully ignoring the presence of someone. Like if I was beside like a white colleague, and we were hiring someone, like the candidate we're interviewing, would not talk to me, even if I was asking them questions or whatever, or would not like, like, look at both me and my colleague while answering or something, I would find that deeply suspicious and problematic, because, like, why? 

Prakash  13:49  
Second, I think having like the, the, quote, unquote, diverse person, whether it's like a woman or person of colour, or whatever, someone who occupies a minoritised identity within the organization, to have this person at the face of the hiring committee. I think it's also meant to either like, maybe not attract diverse employees, because you won't know who's gonna be in the committee until you get there. But what it does do, I believe is that when, let's say if its like a panel of, you know, if you're a woman, and it's an all male panel, like we already have a deep understanding of how gender bias plays a role. Sexism is pervasive. It's not anyone's fault, or it's not like an it's not necessarily that, you know, these two individuals who are hiring you like, are necessarily sexist, but that is just the culture in which we live, however, having a woman be present, well I think the intent is to give you like a kind of an ally, who's like there in the room with you. And if not that, at least, having one person who in theory can identify with you. That person could also be your champion when it comes to making the hiring decisions. And so, as we have talked about before, like, you know, very kind of lean in feminism or whatever, like, there are lots of reasons why men and women don't apply for the same kinds of jobs because men feel entitled to apply for things that they are not qualified for. Women generally, like, feel the need to meet all the qualifications before applying. This is all extreme generalization. So like, don't come from me, I'm just saying that like this is, again, within a patriarchal and misogynistic culture, like the one in which we live in Canada, this is how people learn to behave. And so when you have been conditioned, to make yourself small, to not take ownership of your accomplishments, having someone who shares the experience being there with you, like that person can advocate for you. And then that could, in theory, like slowly transform, like the base of, you know, the pool of candidates or who are hired or whoever. So I think that is sort of the goal of having like a, quote, unquote, diverse hiring panel. Whether or not it's really effective, hard to say, we can talk about it, and also whether or not this does a disservice to the person who's being asked to do this work is also... 

Kristen  16:14  
That's what I'm stuck on. 

Prakash  16:16  
...big. A big flag. So... 

Kristen  16:18  
Yeah, because like, even in the like two sides that you gave, like, there's a lot of assumptions made about where this woman who has been asked to sit on this hiring committee stands within the company. Like, is it just any woman? Is it a woman in an executive position? Is it a woman who's been at the company for a long time? Is that a woman who is like, not a closet misogynist herself? Like there's so many things that we need to know about this person before we can assume that they will be welcoming, that they could champion the other person, that they could be a mentor, that they would understand where the interviewee is coming from. And then like, is it a rotating pool of women who sit on the hiring committee? Or is it just the one woman in the company who always sits on that? Like, there's so many I have so many other questions. And I think that like, it all boils down to like, this is another. I'm going to make an assumption. But this feels to me like another performative thing, like yes, it is an immediate signpost, if you like, its a panel of four men, one woman and the interviewee, who is a white male will not look at the woman, will not interact with them like yes, great signpost, they're probably misogynist, you shouldn't hire them. But like, a lot of people don't even realize that they're sexist or misogynist. And so I don't know that you'll always have clear indicators like that. And if we're bringing in a candidate who, yes, they were able to speak to the woman, like they were like, they should like their regular human being. But she's the only woman on the team. She's the only woman executive. She's the only woman they enter, like, there's, there's just there needs to be more. And like, this is me making the assumption that this is the only thing that they've done, you know? Like, potentially there is there is more that they have done, but I just like, I don't know, I'm seeing all of the ways where this is just another performative thing. Like let's band aid this issue. Oh, well, he didn't look her in the eye. So we can't hire him. But he did. So he's not a misogynist. We'll hire him. And it's like, but actually, he could still be a sexist asshole. Just because he can talk to women doesn't mean that he's not going to turn around and sexually harass her in two weeks. I don't know. I don't know. 

Prakash  18:27  
Yeah, absolutely. It's... 

Kristen  18:29  
And I'm like, maybe he's looking her in the eye because she thinks he thinks she's pretty like I don't, you know, like. 

Prakash  18:34  
Yeah. 

Kristen  18:34  
There's so many other things. There's so many other things. 

Prakash  18:37  
Yeah. 

Kristen  18:38  
It is not enough, I guess is what I'm the conclusion that I have come to. Like, yes, this is a great signpost, but it's a great signpost in the way that like I'm walking down the street. And I know, like, you're black, you're religious because you're wearing a cross like it's not enough. It just leads to more assumptions, which could put either the woman in a lower position in an actual like workplace setting, or put the new candidate in a higher position, morally, quote, unquote, than they should be in. And then what is the guarantee that like, the company itself actually has non-ableist non-misogynistic, non-sexist practices in place? So like they're throwing a woman on the hiring committee, great. Does she get a say in the hiring decisions? Was she a part of the candidate selection? Was she a part of the interview question creation? Is she a part of the training? Are you going to like if you hire a woman candidate because the woman was on the hiring committee is the woman now in charge of all of her training? Or are you sharing the training? Like I think I need to know more about it. Yeah.

Prakash  19:47  
Yeah. I think these are all really pertinent questions and like to which you know, for this Uber scenario...

Kristen  19:53  
We don't know the answer.

Prakash  19:53  
I do not I do not know. But I think these are also really good questions for people who are listening who may be in the are in these positions. It's or have been asked to be on like hiring committees or things like that, or, you know, like maybe in the future, that like, if you are in the field of, you know, doing DEI work, either professionally or within your organization that these are... 

Kristen  20:15  
I'm gonna pause you there. Because everyone, as long as we live under capitalism, as long as we live in these societies, everyone should be doing DEI work to the extent that they can, in all of the situations they are in. You should be aware of the diversity of all the people in the room, and the areas where that is lacking. You should be aware of the procedures, the policies that are not equal for all of the people in the room, regardless of their or like, so that you can take into account everyone's needs everyone's boundaries, everyone's wants... Wants less so. Needs and boundaries, yes. And you should working to be as inclusive as possible in all the things you are doing. Everybody until we are actually equal, until we've actually gotten rid of the systems that are oppressing so many of us whether like intentionally or not intentionally, we should all be working to do more DEI. Pointblank.

Prakash  21:06  
Yeah, absolutely. It's like, even though last week, the whole episode was called, you know, why it's a scam. This is not to say that the doing the doing the work, you know, capital "w" the work or like trying to be inclusive and like you doing your individual actions, like, don't have meaning or is pointless. Like, that's definitely not what we were getting at.

Kristen  21:25  
No, we were saying that the way that DEI has been taken up feels very like, the way that corporations now celebrate like gay pride. Like that's not real. I don't understand.

Prakash  21:35  
I think I think I talked about last last time, but like that, Megan Salter skit where she was like, she plays its like she is advertising for like a butter brand.

Megan Salter  21:49  
Hi, gay, happy, proud moments. We are sashing away with deals. This month at the butter shop. We're running a special deal. If you can prove that you're queer, you get three pints off your, your your choice of creamed, checked or drowned, drowned butter. And if you do mouth stuff, you get four. We love gay!

Kristen  22:09  
Yes, you have sent it to me before.

Prakash  22:15  
Yes, that's my favorite thing. But yeah, you know, we talked about like pink washing and these kinds of things like... 

Kristen  22:21  
Yeah. 

Prakash  22:21  
These sort of like corporatized, sterilized versions of DEI. This is what we mean. But there's nothing stopping you as individual from being like, you know, if you have a meeting coming up, Hey, does anyone have any access needs, you know, like, do you have like chairs that can like seat everybody? If you have meetings on Zoom, like, make sure you have the options for the auto captions to be on. There are lots of like, small things that you can do to make your workplaces, your your classrooms, your social spaces, your organizing spaces, activist spaces more inclusive, that is not like capital DEI, but that just works to be inclusive and anti-oppressive. And there's like, nothing stopped you from doing that. That's work that we should all be doing. Of course, also, institutions, like structures need to also do work. But often when they do it, and they call it DEI like we have like a good understanding of how terribly bureaucracy, waters everything down. sterilizes everything whitewashes it and so we can't rely on institutions to do the work for us or really like we as individuals, as workers, laborers, organizers, need to figure it out amongst ourselves like how to best take care of one another and, you know, hopefully, over time, like shift culture that way. Anyway, but there are a lot of things that you said Kristen that I want to like return on. First, I want to return back to like way at the beginning when people in the Twitter comments were being like, Oh, this is like ableist, racist, whatever. I'm just like the way that people really will come out of the woodwork to defend men. I do not understand that.

Kristen  24:04  
I don't either. I think that's also why I was like, wait, I need to stop you about this comment of them being like, what if they're just shy? Like, wait, I don't? What do you mean?

Prakash  24:13  
I'm like this... 

Kristen  24:13  
What do you mean? Then this isn't the job for them.

Prakash  24:16  
Soft skills are really important. Even if you work in tech in any field, like you need to be able to communicate. 

Kristen  24:21  
But that's, I think that a lot more leeway is given to men who lack soft skills than women. Because as a society, we force women to have soft skills like if you don't, you are not women enough. There's a reason why I can walk into a room full of white people and they will all think I'm their best friend, even though I will not remember any of their names, because I have the soft skills that have been forced onto me in order to be able to interact with these people. Whereas like men are given much more leeway at not having to do that or not having to know how to do that. There's a reason that I asked a lot of people or you know, the people who have gone through customer service because we have our customer service voice because that is soft skills, you have to know how to talk to people, you have to know how to communicate, you have to know how to be gentle to make sure that everyone is heard, like I don't? I don't know.

Kristen  24:22  
I do think that like the question about ableism is a good one. Like if someone is autistic and or blind, you know, can't or won't make eye contact, like,

Kristen  25:26  
Oh my god, or sorry, or deaf. I saw on the internet, I think it was like a text post. But I saw it on Instagram. And the tweet was like, I am deaf. I am trying to like I've applied to be an advocate for like a non-profit deaf organization. And they just emailed me asking me if we can do a phone interview. Like, like, like, what?

Prakash  25:51  
Do you mean...

Kristen  25:51  
Ableist. 

Prakash  25:52  
...like a Facetime interview in which we sign at each other? I don't...

Kristen  25:56  
No. No, you, no, a phone... They wanted to call.

Prakash  26:02  
Mm hmm. Interesting.

Kristen  26:06  
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. All of that, like, throw that anecdote in there. Because ableism is real.

Prakash  26:13  
And in the thread too like this person, because it's not, it's not just the eye contact situation. It's like the fully ignoring this person. And I'm not sure if you can, like, explain that away through the lens of like, disability when you're still able to communicate with the man who's there, not the woman because they did them in pairs. Very odd. And yeah, something that like women would not be allowed to get away with it it was a, the situation was flipped.

Kristen  26:42  
Yeah, you're gonna tell me that a woman sitting in an interview with a man and a woman and she only speaks to the woman. And the man's not gonna say nothing? They're just gonna sit there, let that happen? They're gonna... what?

Prakash  26:52  
I can already picture him like huffing and humming and typing his foot, looking real irate getting red in the face. I see it.

Kristen  26:59  
Cutting them both off so that he can make sure his voice is heard. Come on. Come on, guys.

Prakash  27:03  
Please. Yeah, the other thing I wanted to come back to is, yeah, you know, these questions about like, how involved like, is the women? Are they rotating? What is the deal with their partner, because there's something that came up a lot within the discourse of the thread. It's like, you know, in tech, we typically it's like, less than 20% women of the workforce. When I worked in tech, my first job, it was a pretty small organization. And there was only one woman I believe, who like wasn't on the tech side. And, yeah, there were like seven men. When they got acquired and move to like a larger office, there were, I think, maybe like, six, literally less than 10 women out of a company of like 50, or 60. So...

Kristen  27:57  
I'm also seeing like, scenarios where there is a woman executive, but she's the only one, she has been the only one for a long time. And so she has bossed up and leaned in. And so those are not the best women to coach and mentor other women in like a two woman situation if the new candidate or the new hire is also a woman, you know?

Prakash  28:24  
No, because we already know that like based on studies, women also discriminate against other women in the workplace.

Kristen  28:30  
Yep, it has happened to me where I'm like, I thought we were in this together, but I'm making moves you don't like so now you're gonna treat me worse than the men do. Cool. All right. All right.

Prakash  28:41  
Because there is yeah, I don't know why this says by both men and women tend to negatively rate their female bosses. We could talk about like, yeah, just sort of the very general generalized petty rivalries between people within like, a minoritised community because, you know, there's the scarcity mentality that there's only room for one. So if like, there can be 100, 100 people in the room, and 99 of them don't believe in you. This is Lady Gaga. But it could be literally 100 people in the room. It's just you and another person of X identity. And even though they're those other 98 people who are out there like you know, doing the same thing like your only competition quote unquote, is the person who like shares your identity. Y'all should be working together, supporting one another, and taking out these other holes one by one. And least that's how I'd approach it because, you know, solidarity and whatever. But yeah, again, the way that misogyny cis white heteronormative patriarchy is so pervasive that like, we cannot even really trust one another to be in solidarity.

Kristen  29:55  
But see then I'm also like to what extent does the woman on the hiring committee consider her position there a part of DEI? Like, a question that I know that can't be answered. But...

Prakash  30:13  
It's also true that law people, people who are minorities do not care about any of this. 

Kristen  30:17  
Yeah. 

Prakash  30:18  
They're like I got here, I made it. 

Kristen  30:20  
You can make it too. I don't understand.

Prakash  30:22  
Y'all can eat some eggs, because I don't a shit. And often that overlaps with a lot of other kinds of like privileges like wealth, education, language skills, class, caste, etc, that positions the way that they are a minority. So that's a being a woman, being queer, being a POC, that maybe does not put you in a great situation, or a great position to be able to, like, really think critically about DEI. And this is a problem that we discussed before in the episode on the Asian glass ceiling, where it's like, sure in tech, there is like a quote, unquote, over-representation of Asians, but when we actually think about how diverse Asia is, we see that actually, there's not a lot of diversity. Or when we like look at it so broadly, we're like, okay, who are we losing a lot of people, people who are older, people from Southeast Asia, people from like, minoritized backgrounds with an Asian context, people of lower caste. 

Kristen  31:20  
Yeah. 

Prakash  31:22  
And sort of like the last point I want to discuss, and maybe this is like, sort of, like, tie into our own experiences, is, say, you are, you know, let's say at my old company, right, in which there was like, you know, very few women amongst the whole staff. And I say, you know, well, like, keep it in the field of tech. So you're a programmer, you're like a mid level programmer in this organization, one of five women, you're asked to be on this committee, and you're like, sure, you know, let me try to help get some other women in here, or like, people who are not shitty. So you're doing this work, the company is growing, you're doing a lot these interviews. And now, a year passes, you got your performance review. And they're like, hey, Kristen, you know, we really appreciate all the work you've done this year, we love having you around, however, we notice you haven't been pushing as much code as your colleagues. And so, Jeremy, Bob, and Doug, are going to be promoted to senior programmers, but you're gonna keep your same. Unfortunately, we're gonna pass you up for this promotion this time. Hopefully next year, we'll do a review. And we'll see, we'll see where you're at.

Kristen  32:31  
The sad part is, this is definitely a scenario that has happened. 

Prakash  32:35  
100%. 

Kristen  32:35  
And then I think that speaks to why we say DEI is a scam in that like, the environment that is trying to do, the DEI has to be fully aware of it and make those changes and acknowledge all of the work that is happening. Like they have to consider it to be work. Because, yes, this person's code hasn't been as much as it has been, because they've been doing all of this other work. But if the environment if the workplace doesn't consider to be work, then they don't care. Like, I feel like it speaks back to like the oppressors trying to force the oppressed to also like make the changes, the oppressor should be changing, but they're not. And so like, they don't consider it to be work cause it's not something they have to do, they can just get the oppressed person to think about it and care about it and do the things in relation to it. And then they can say that it's better now without acknowledging all of the work that was put into changing the situation, because they personally haven't changed. Their work hasn't changed, the things that they do haven't changed the way that they see people hasn't changed. But they can say, because of the efforts of these other people, we now have x number of more people of color, we have X number of women working for us. But at the same time, because nothing has changed for them, they're not going to acknowledge what went into bringing about that change. And therefore nothing changes long term. Because now that person is like, well, I put in all this effort, and they're not acknowledging it, and I'm fucked. So a... Like there's a couple scenarios here. One is, why am I staying here, when they're not going to acknowledge all this work that I've done, or two, I'm going to stop doing all this work, so that I can do the things that they care about. 

Prakash  34:21  
Yeah.

Kristen  34:21  
Neither of those lead to long term DEI changes. Neither of those lead to sustainability of any of the like, the very real work that is not acknowledged as work. Because if I'm going to sit in a performance review after a year of sitting on hiring committees, and they're going to tell you that my code is not good enough? That means that all of the actual work I was doing at work, they don't care. So why should I care?

Prakash  34:45  
I've said this probably four times now but like, again, white supremacy patriarchy is so pervasive that like, you know, again, generalizing but this could be any kind of like majority group, but like men in an organization who like do not carry the burden of having to do like this extra work. And it could be like, all kinds of work. So, you know, like, didn't this example of the hiring work, right? Because, oh, you know, I'm one of many men, and we can rotate between us like I do, like once every so often like jury duty or something, whatever. But when you're only one of like five women, you tend to have to do it more often. But also, this could be like care work, right? So oh, I have all this ample time to do my work. Because my wife or girlfriend or partner is like taking on the more like domestic duties, or like a partner makes less money, she stopped working, so I can work more. And then, you know, whatever, like, the way we tend to continue to return to these very, like, we consciously think of them as being like outdated gender roles. But even millennials like the studies show that... 

Kristen  35:46  
They do it too. 

Prakash  35:47  
Yeah, people rate themselves as being very egalitarian, generally, but then post marriage, they tend to return to those roles, especially when kids are involved. The birthing parent still tends to be the one who does the majority of that labor. And now we live in an economy in which a single salary cannot maintain a whole household. And now, not only are you dealing with the care labour of your child, but now also, you know, juggling work. And then meanwhile, like your partner is out there, like, you know, like, in his corner, reading his code. And we see this a lot and like academia, as well, in which like, both as a faculty, but also as a student, you're kind of like judged on your research, first and foremost, followed by your like teaching, followed by your, like service to the institution. And so universities are becoming more and more interested at getting, like interesting, diverse faculty to come in, because the faculty is who, like students will come to the university, to seek out certain faculty members, to learn from them, for them to be the mentors, their supervisors for their dissertations, or theses, or whatever. And a lot of queer racialized women faculty, like want to do this work to be the supportive mentors for the students that often they did not have, while they were in school. You know, like, I've seen this, I have had a pretty good time in academia, like my issues were really, really in the bureaucratic realm. And not, but not not, it wasn't for me a pedagogical problem. And people have been so generous with me with their time and their mentorship and their guidance, feedback, etc. But I know that like all this time, they spend, like helping me and all these other students with whatever issues, it's time that takes away from like, the work that they need to do to keep their jobs or to get promoted or to get tenure. And these other like, in my department, at least like other like, white men, professors, who I'm sure are like great people, I just have not interacted with them, because why would I? Have far less students that they supervise, and therefore are far much, far much more time to like write articles, publish books, and whatever they like, amassed a more like in terms of like, hiring committee, or like a tenure committee, like have a much more like, I don't know, like full CV of publications. And so because research is still the, the area that is prioritized in terms of determining someone's like, academic worth in an institution, like those people, then get the better jobs, get tenure, get promoted, get distinguished titles, etc. And the people who are like, you know, doing the diversity work, even if it's not like capital D diversity, but like, the small work of like, helping their students who are from these communities, are doing all this like this work this labour, and then don't get the compensation that they deserve for it. So. And this is like, you know, that's an example of academia. But this exists everywhere. 

Kristen  37:01  
Everywhere. Yeah. 

Prakash  37:23  
So what about what do you do about it? Do you join the committee? Do you say, fuck it?

Kristen  39:00  
Well, I think it truly depends, right? Like, I think that if you are in a work situation, see, I don't know that you should be asking me this. Because I'm like, for me, there are work situations that are very separate from me as a person. And so I wouldn't do this extra work even like, I would be the one who they would say, Hey, Kristen, come sit on this hiring committee, and I'd say, are you going to pay me more to do that? And they'd say, No, and I say, okay, so thank you for the opportunity, but I will pass because I'm there to work. I am there because I'm going to do labour you can't do yourself so that you can give me money so that I can go home and spend that money on things that I want. And at no point does that equal me wanting to change your organization's atmosphere, environment, institution. Nothing. I don't care about that. I'm here to be paid so that I can leave. So I'm probably not the best person to speak to about that. Yeah, I would be the person to pass. I wouldn't sit on the hiring committee unless you're going to incentivize my doing more labour for you, I'm not going to do it. That's how capitalism works, isn't it? 

Prakash  40:06  
Yeah. Surprising no one. I'm the person who's saying yes to everything. Yeah, just because I tend to care very deeply... 

Kristen  40:17  
You do. 

Prakash  40:18  
...about things about the institutions in which I work. Like, even when I was in school, I was doing a lot. And I had this desire to like, leave things like better than how they were. And...

Kristen  40:32  
Yeah, see, I won't do that with work. I do that with other things. Not with work.

Prakash  40:37  
Eventually, we'll talk about like, unions or whatever because I think that there a lot of this work should take place with it and like union organizing, and like... 

Kristen  40:45  
It should. 

Prakash  40:46  
...but unions have declined in popularity in Canada. And surprise, surprise, so has wages so but yeah, we'll save that because we've been talking for a bit. I hope it was coherent. And we will see you in two weeks for another one of whatever this was. So stay in the know. Bye. 

Kristen  41:09  
Bye.

Kristen  41:18  
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