On Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 3:44 AM Niall Douglas via Boost
As anyone who has attended a C++ conference or standards meeting knows, there is a wide fluidity of folk, some of the more fluid of which are amongst the highest esteemed engineers in C++. Nobody sees anything once people start discussing C++. I don't think there is any LGBT diversity problem, if anything in terms of percentages I think we're ahead of general society, possibly precisely because we don't see anything but expertise in C++.
I really feel like I have to say this is completely at odds with my experience at C++Now this year. It was one of the most intensely white, straight, male experiences of my life, in other words one of the least "fluid". There were several instances where conversations were unnecessarily injected with biases and jokes based on gender and nationality, and the conference culture seemed to be that this is perfectly fine. In addition, the final panel of five speakers were all men, a fact which nobody seemed to notice or even care about at all. The topic was "What Belongs in the C++ Standard Library", which made it especially ironic. You may think "nobody sees anything" here, but I guarantee you this attitude of ignoring the problem makes it even more uncomfortable for people like me who do not fit into the prevailing in-group and who do perceive the microaggressions you refuse to see. In fact, there is established research that shows people who believe they are being objective and "color-blind" in their decision making show increased bias. In addition, a statement like "we don't see anything but expertise in C++" makes it sound like anyone who does experience discrimination is either wrong or having bad luck. It's also reframing the problem -- I don't think people get turned off to this community just because the conversations around C++ itself are problematic, but rather because the opinions people express outside of that topic are not super welcoming. It's also a matter of people being habitually hypermasculine in the way they express themselves about C++, which is not discrimination per se but still has the effect of disinviting non-men. And I think the community needs to take ownership of that and not sweep it aside by pretending it isn't part of True C++ Community. Having attended several non-C++ conferences where I very much fit in as a gay man, I feel confident saying that C++Now is nowhere close in either numbers or inclusivity. I don't know what an LGBT diversity problem looks like to you, but that conference definitely has it. The point about percentages is completely vacuous unless you have numbers to back it up. Brian