Is the push for diversity in tech just an American thing?

Question

I'm an american working at a company in the EU and not sure the extent to which diversity is something they think about.No judgement on whether diversity is in of itself good or bad, just wondering whether its something that people think about culturally

raxxorrax · Accepted Answer

No, it is pretty prevalent in my country (GER) too, although it is a bit more underhanded still. But quotas are already prevalent. Seems to be some form of kink for racial discrimination. Gender equality is popular in pop-culture or mainstream, even if there are very few real barriers. It is mostly about making people feel welcome which I think is so subjective that these measures alone scare away more people than if you did nothing.
There are also cringe worthy attempts to make language "inclusive" and gender neutral. I think it is restricted to certain academic faculties but it includes journalism sadly. It creeps into a lot of stuff though.
What is strange is that proponents do not care about efficiency and effect of these measures at all, so it is probably more of a vehicle to stick it to some group they feel would deserve it. I do believe that people don't speak freely about it, but there is certainly also some effort to exclude those that demand inclusion from others by now because they are often plain bullies. At this point I would call that self-defense instead of discrimination. That word was already brought up to be redefined, so why not. So if you are some kind of uterus ultra, you won't come far either and voices cooled a bit down lately.
In the workplace it isn't really a topic at all aside from advertising and PR, because it is mostly a media phenomenon.

Jensson · Answer

I haven't met many engineers who votes pro "diversity", they tend to vote pro meritocracy. Meritocracy is pro diversity, but the pro "diversity" tend to argue otherwise. The clearest example is college admission, in Europe these are usually mandated to be based on test scores and grades, if you have the best grades or test scores they have to accept you, while in USA you have a panel who hand pick the candidates to ensure "diversity".

jbjbjbjb · Answer

Depends on the country because there is massive variation on this in Europe. For example, not every country sees diversity as a positive, some are not that diverse at all or may be diverse in different ways to USA.It&rsquo;s probably a bigger thing in the UK but that has much more cultural influence from the USA than the EU would.

teatree · Answer

Nope, in India we recently had a unicorn which launched a women only EV division.

throwarayes · Answer

Keep in mind the cultural context. In the last 10 years, the US has had:
- Donald Trump and related shenanigans
- Black Lives Matters protests w/ more direct exposure to police violence
- A thoughtful black president that was treated with irrational disdain by the opposing party
Probably pre-Obama, the US 'diversity' initiatives would look more like what you see in the EU now. But it's become such a core fabric of US partisan politics, its far more salient here.
This on top of America's already long history of (ostensibly) promoting multicultural democracy.