I’m a tall man with big hands, and the designed world fits me. It doesn’t fit my wife, who is short and has particularly small hands. I knew that, but I hadn’t fully thought through how widespread the problem is.

https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/23/truth-world-built-for-men-car-crashes?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&__twitter_impression=true

Now there’s a cunning scheme. Preferentially hire people you can pay less, not because they’re less capable, but because they’re historically underpaid.

Originally shared by Judah Richardson

In the OFCCP’s second amended complaint today, the office alleges Oracle “impermissibly denies equal employment opportunity to non-Asian applicants for employment, strongly preferring a workforce that it can later underpay. Once employed, women, Blacks and Asians are systematically underpaid relative to their peers,” the complaint alleges.

There are things that are hard to talk about because there is no language for them.

Originally shared by Winchell Chung

Ohio in 2018. Outright, blatant, pervasive racism. Not even a little bit subtle.

Originally shared by Judah Richardson

All those allegations are detailed in a lawsuit filed against GM in which eight workers say managers at the Toledo Powertrain plant did little or nothing to stop racism.

Black faces are rated as angrier than white faces by emotion-reading AIs.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Understanding the Hidden Bias in Emotion-Reading AIs

Via The Maaurovingian.

Originally shared by Kee Hinckley

Amy Harmon on Twitter:

❝ 1. In NYT’s Race/Related newsletter this week, I quote neuroscientist @NathanASmith1. He wondered how many scientists privately share Nobelist Jim Watson’s view that blacks are less intelligent than whites. I didn’t have space for the full story behind his quote. But here it is:

2. Shared with @NathanASmith1’s permission: “I will never forget something that happened to me during my first postdoc… [MORE]

3. “I remember emailing a really big guy in the field of neuroscience to discuss an issue I noticed in his transgenic mice. He didn’t know what I looked like but over the phone he thought I was white. So we finally met up at a Gordon Conference MORE

4. “and he was shocked that I was black. He said ‘I thought you were white.’ He kept repeating it and the other PIs in the vicinity of the conversation walked off. MORE

5. “I pulled him to the side and informed him everything he was saying was offensive but he was just so flabbergasted that I was not white that I doubt what I was saying was registering. MORE

6. “He said ‘this is impossible. Were you adopted, what do your parents do for work? The African American who worked for me does not talk like you.’ MORE

7. “This is why I strongly believe we need to address this issue. For Watson to say that it was ok for him to say this in private just makes me think back to my experience and how internal biases will hinder the diversification of science. MORE

8. “Once that guy saw that I was black he then assumed I was completely wrong about his mice.’’ MORE

9. Dr. Smith’s personal story, which I’m grateful to him for allowing me to share, relates to a lot of the convos I’m seeing/ hearing about my Watson reporting.

James Watson Had a Chance to Salvage His Reputation on Race. He Made Things Worse.

The Nobel-winning biologist has drawn global criticism with unfounded pronouncements on genetics, race and intelligence. He still thinks he’s right, a new documentary finds.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/01/science/watson-dna-genetics-race.html

10. When my story ran, a number of scientists said I shouldn’t have reported on Watson resurfacing the views for which he’d once apologized. Hard to wrap my head around that but, paraphrasing: “scientists already know this & the public doesn’t need to.’’

https://twitter.com/leonidkruglyak/status/1080187440780865536

11. Many also dismissed the idea raised in my story that, had biomedical research managed to train and hire more black scientists over the last half-century, Watson’s views on intelligence would have been tempered by what was in front of his own eyes.

12. But here’s a stat from my story deserving more attention: only 1.5% of @nih grant applicants are black. These grants are the main source of biomedical research funding -it’s only because so few occupy positions where they CAN apply that the # is so low diversity.nih.gov/building-evide…

13. And here’s a stat from the General Social Survey that continues to shock me: 23% of whites in America think whites are more intelligent than blacks.

Survey says 23% of Whites think Whites are more intelligent than Blacks

The assessment that Whites are more intelligent than Blacks is more common among male, older, less formally educated, and conservative Whites.

https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2018/10/22/survey-says-23-of-whites-think-whites-are-more-intelligent-than-blacks/

14. I interviewed four black scientists for this story. It’s a small sample size. But all of them said they felt Watson’s comments were a) all too relevant to their lives in science today and b) representation is not the solution to racist attitudes, but makes a difference.

15. I’ve interviewed a lot of biologists over the last year, every one of whom was deeply concerned about racism in America, and the extent to which science was being misused to help fuel it. Many were trying to combat it. I’m not casting aspersions on the field.

16. But I am saying, a) it’s too easy to dismiss Watson as an anomalous crank, because the view he holds is embarrassingly common b) it fuels discrimination everywhere including science c) if reporting on Watson brings out stories like @NathanASmith1’s, that’s good enough for me.

17. I’m thinking a lot about those neuroscientists who overheard a senior member of their field making a junior black scientist uncomfortable at a fancy conference and walked away.

18. Here’s a link to the Race/Related newsletter signup page. It collects NYT reporting on race in one place once a week with a short, often personal commentary from the great @laurettaland. Highly recommend. ❞

Via a private share. The excellent book Broad Band touches on this era of computer gaming in its examination of the contribution of women to the computer industry in general.

Every time I’m tempted to complain about working with undocumented software I remember the ENIAC Six, six women who had to invent computer programming. Some scientists and engineers had built the first electronic computer, and hired these women (who were human “computers” along the lines of Hidden Figures) to run it. They had to basically teach themselves electrical engineering, take things apart that they weren’t supposed to touch, and talk to people they’d been told not to talk to in order to figure out how it worked.

Then they could start on the job they were hired for. (See the book Broad Band for more.)

This is another woman in the same mould.

Originally shared by Self-Rescuing Princess Society

“In an age when computers were in their infancy and few women were involved in their development, Berezin (pronounced BEAR-a-zen) not only designed the first true word processor; in 1969, she was also a founder and the president of the Redactron Corp., a tech startup on Long Island that was the first company exclusively engaged in manufacturing and selling the revolutionary machines.”

“Berezin joined the Electronic Computer Corp. in 1951 as the only woman in a shop of engineers in Brooklyn. ‘They said to me, “Design a computer,”‘ she was quoted as saying in the 1972 Times profile. ‘I had never seen one before. Hardly anyone else had. So I just had to figure out how to do it. It was a lot of fun — when I wasn’t terrified.'”

Self-Rescuing Princess Society will enjoy this one.

Turns out that the exclusion of female and non-Western philosophers from the canon is a relatively recent project.

Originally shared by Irina T.

”Another crucial female Muslim philosopher is Nana Asma’u (1793-1864) from the Sokoto Caliphate in today’s northern Nigeria. Like other girls and boys before British colonisation, Asma’u started school when she was five. Her father was a scholar who argued for women’s rights, and he chatted with her daily about reading and writing, as Jean Boyd and Beverly Mack outline in their ground-breaking collections of her texts and life. In adult life, Asma’u became a political leader and a founder of the educational network Yan Taru (‘The Associates’), which is still active today. She wrote in the Fulfulde, Hausa and Arabic languages, and her first text had the fitting title: ‘Warning for the Negligent and Reminder for the Intelligent Regarding the Ways of the Pious’. She argued for humility between people, and for

good relations with one’s relatives, servants, and comrades. This is shown by being cheerful with them; doing good things for them; serving them; never acting as if superior to them; consulting them in many matters; helping them financially and physically; not coveting their possessions; not covering up any of their blameworthy affairs that one may discover, and not excusing them for such things; not boasting to them of wealth, position, or nobility; visiting their sick ones; and offering them advice without any pretence or excessive conceit.”