People tend to associate with people who either look like them or have the same interests. If you don't know any women programmer you're not going to hire women programmer. If you don't know any black programmers you're not going to hire black programmers. And so on. So if you don't hire women and minorities everytime a kid opens the door and looks inside the room sees that nobody that looks like them has been invited to the table, hence they surmise that they are not either capable of being like the ones inside the door (hence they don't try) or they are not welcome (hence they don't try). The same happens with the people inside the room already, if they've never seen anyone that's not like them they could start thinking the ones outside have some inherent fault or limitation, hence they go on about their business.
This doesn't even begin to describe the whole issue, but I hope it can give some perspective. We should add sexism, racism, ableism and ageism and some other types of discrimination to the pot at least. Let's also add the fact that there's some research out there talking about the fact that minorities are more subject to imposter syndrome, which if you think about it, makes perfect sense. A lot of people suffer to "imposter syndrome" thinking they are not good enough to do this and that, if you pile a society that has forever told you or your parents you're "less than", then it might worsen the effect.
Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone and everything in the same way at the same time. We're people, we're all different.
I think that if we can understand why having no people that look like you in the halls of goverment is a problem, we can understand why having an industry made by 20 somethings white cisgender males that only design apps to deliver you pizza as fast as possible might be an issue as well.
I'm not implying that nobody is capable of empathy insomuch as being able to relate to a potential customer that has a totally different experience than the provider but still... bias can be unconscious. Even recent AIs are starting to show the same bias their makers might have had. IBM is even launching a tool to help detect bias in AI (!!): bbc.com/news/technology-45561955
So yes, in my opinion it is relevant.
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People tend to associate with people who either look like them or have the same interests. If you don't know any women programmer you're not going to hire women programmer. If you don't know any black programmers you're not going to hire black programmers. And so on. So if you don't hire women and minorities everytime a kid opens the door and looks inside the room sees that nobody that looks like them has been invited to the table, hence they surmise that they are not either capable of being like the ones inside the door (hence they don't try) or they are not welcome (hence they don't try). The same happens with the people inside the room already, if they've never seen anyone that's not like them they could start thinking the ones outside have some inherent fault or limitation, hence they go on about their business.
This doesn't even begin to describe the whole issue, but I hope it can give some perspective. We should add sexism, racism, ableism and ageism and some other types of discrimination to the pot at least. Let's also add the fact that there's some research out there talking about the fact that minorities are more subject to imposter syndrome, which if you think about it, makes perfect sense. A lot of people suffer to "imposter syndrome" thinking they are not good enough to do this and that, if you pile a society that has forever told you or your parents you're "less than", then it might worsen the effect.
Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone and everything in the same way at the same time. We're people, we're all different.
I think that if we can understand why having no people that look like you in the halls of goverment is a problem, we can understand why having an industry made by 20 somethings white cisgender males that only design apps to deliver you pizza as fast as possible might be an issue as well.
I'm not implying that nobody is capable of empathy insomuch as being able to relate to a potential customer that has a totally different experience than the provider but still... bias can be unconscious. Even recent AIs are starting to show the same bias their makers might have had. IBM is even launching a tool to help detect bias in AI (!!): bbc.com/news/technology-45561955
So yes, in my opinion it is relevant.