MIT (Men In Technology)

I get really annoyed when I hear the phrase 'positive discrimination' - because the person using it is generally under the impression that it's a good thing, despite the fact that they've just clearly stated that it is still discrimination. Probably the worst example of this was a manager I once had being told he had to hire 'someone black' - I'm sure you've heard similar stories before.

Something I'm not so sure how to feel about however, is when a set of women take something which is generally unisex, and form a 'girls in' or 'women for' club. Examples of this in my world would be the Girl Geeks or Women In Technology. There are other examples in other areas here, but it's the gender thing that generally gets me - and that's mostly female > male rather than male > female.

I may be being naive here, but in my experience there's no general air of sexism in the techie industry - or any discrimination really, which is one of the reasons I love it. Geeks are logical people, and if one person is better than another at a certain job, then they'll get the gig - regardless of anything else. The internet's brought a lot of dubious contributions to society, but one can't argue that it's helped us to judge people a lot more on personality rather than physical attributes.

As such, when I hear a group who recommend companies with, and lobby companies for an "open and explicit commitment to inclusive recruitment policies" I get quite annoyed. What's an 'inclusive recruitment policy' anyway? In my mind, that means that they'll actively try and recruit from both genders/all races/a range of ages/etc. An 'exclusive recuirtment policy' would likewise indicate some degree of discrimination too - only a recruitment policy which doesn't mention this issue can be truly open to all.

For a bit of lighthearted humour, and to make this point in a friendly (if not so subtle) way, I've recently redecorated some of the Women In Technology stickers that were lying about the office, and even put one up near my desk :)