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We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#331

Post by Tyr42 »

hueving wrote: post #292
phasmantistes wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you're absolutely right. But that's also a terrible excuse: "Oh, the problem is before the candidates reach me, so there's no need for me to do anything to fix the problem myself." Everyone at all stages -- from folks who bully nerds in primary school, to toymakers who promote scientific fields as 'for boys', to college admissions offices, to CS professors, to CS classmates, to hiring processes -- can work toget…

There is nothing you can do that isn't blatant sexism if you want your ratio of female employees to be higher than the candidate pool ratio.

I agree, mostly. I do not condone lowering the bar for just one gender. But maybe it's possible to target some advertising for your opening to get a larger number of female applicants? If you're applicant pool is skewed towards male, perhaps there's something about how you advertise that biases it?

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#332

Post by belorn »

leeny wrote: post #39
benkuhn wrote: post #15

I would really have liked to see them check whether the gender-blinding actually worked. Even if someone's voice is modulated, they may have gendered behavior patterns that could influence someone's performance ratings. I wouldn't be surprised if I could guess the gender of a voice-modulated person pretty accurately from other cues. To combat this, they could have asked the interviewer during the performance assessme…

Aline from interviewing.io here. Great idea!

Please make sure that the question is after they have already answered the other fields, and only one per interviewer. Priming is a major problem in this kind of testing, and if you are asking people to find fault in the perceived gender of a person, they then have a high chance the reverse a previous decision.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#333

Post by belorn »

pmarreck wrote: post #309
etjossem wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20% is (coincidentally) the percentage of CS degrees awarded to women. They get only 10% of entry-level software jobs. We don't get to blame supply until those numbers match.

If you actually read the article, it seems to indicate that the problem is that women do not handle "attrition events" (such as a job rejection) very well. In fact, they handle it many times worse than men do, apparently. This alone might account for the difference in percentages there, assuming there's some hidden "adversity event" that caused the attrition. Perhaps (speculating here), men handle rejection from jobs…

What if, and this is just based on a study on the teacher profession, men do not handle "attrition events" well either if they are going for a job that is female dominated.

When a person decide to take up a job that is not typical for their gender and goes against ones gender identity, that decision might not bring the same confidence that someone taking a job where 80% of the people around are of the same gender as the person. That lower confidence get then translated into higher drop rates.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#334

Post by junofan »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #276
Jemmeh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found most studies to be paywalled in general aside from the free abstract. Not really sure what to do about that.

You could quote the relevant part of the study, or, not link to paywalls. [It's not your fault, just the current reality.]

Unfortunately, quoting the relevant parts of a study (namely, methods and results) for the purpose of disseminating evidence is a weak fair use case at best.

That's why generally in a work you'll see "reproduced with permission" underneath figures and tables taken from other works.

The case for fair use is stronger if the work is criticism of the source material. It's a huge gray area, and some journals pursue claims relentlessly.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#335

Post by tomp »

etjossem wrote: post #251
alansmitheebk wrote: post #219

This is ridiculous. At some point we need to face up to the reality that most women in the US are just not interested in working in technology. There is no evil conspiracy to keep women out of tech. Maybe high school guidance counselors and parents don't encourage women to go into tech. Maybe there is someone to blame, but it's not the tech industry's fault.

I'd like you to read this. https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-women-i... The gender gap in the workforce is wider than the gender gap in computer science as a major. Particularly at senior and management levels, we see a severe underrepresentation of women. To me, that suggests either a hiring bias or an attrition problem, not a pipeline problem.

Mentioning senior/management levels is stupid. Obviously they will lag both the increase in the number of women studying CS in college and the decrease in sexism by employers. Wait 10-20 years, if the gap is still as wide as it is today, then it becomes a valid complaint.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#336

Post by collyw »

mplewis wrote: post #270
mpweiher wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you find that 'argument' hard to buy? I find it trivially true from observation and all empirical data I can find (if you remove the absolute)

Because without data, it's a circular argument. "Women aren't interested in programming, so none of them go into programming professionally. Why don't women go into programming professionally? Because they aren't interested." Separate out whether women are interested from whether women are being forced out for other reasons (harassment, gender imbalance in the field, etc).

They can't be forced out if they didn't start in the first place (because of lack of interest). When I was at University, there were way more guys studying engineering and CS. Were they forced out before they started?

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#337

Post by collyw »

stcredzero wrote: post #203
malandrew wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the outsized unpaid work? Any studies and do the studies account for different cohorts by age range?

We already know there is a disparity in the amount of housekeeping between men and women, even in couples where both men and women are working.

I would be willing to bet that men do more of the DIY and fixing things type stuff in most couples.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#338

Post by hasenj »

sdml wrote: post #264
hasenj wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or D. A female who is not in the top 30% in terms of facial attractiveness (or is socially impaired for other reasons).

How critically are you judging the facial attractiveness and "social impairement" of male developers? This is a completely useless comment, and exactly the sexist kind of attitude that drives women out of tech.

It's a mere observation. Not a comment of what should be the case.

And yea, the average male in the field tends to be the same.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#339

Post by collyw »

mpweiher wrote: post #169
Jemmeh wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women in general have less confidence than men. (Study: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-pspp0000078.pd... ) That is a gender-specific gap in confidence. That doesn't mean that there are no men with less-than-average confidence out there. Nor does it mean that there are no men who have a hard time because of said lack of confidence.

> Women in general have less confidence than men. Women are also generally slower than men (I was once faster than the fastest woman on earth, and I am not a particularly fast man). Not winning 100m races against men is not a sign of gender discrimination, it is a sign that men are faster. So if men are better at being confident, and being confident is important, then that's just that. Women can try to learn to be mo…

Do you think there is a possibility that men are in general better than women at writing software?

It seems politically incorrect to even ask such a question.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#340

Post by Bartweiss »

grb423 wrote: post #184
Bartweiss wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a particularly interesting one, because it's not susceptible to the usual charges of "no one cares because it's low pay/status". If you look to radiology rather than surgery, the gender imbalance is enormous. Suddenly we're looking at gender skew in two highly technical, prestigious, lucrative fields, and seeing that they prompt totally different types and amounts of discussion.

I worry about this mentioning occupations' "prestige." That seems to be incompatible with our goals of universal equality. We shouldn't discount gender bias because of privilege.

I didn't mean to address whether prestige is necessary to consider an occupation.

Rather, I was drawing parallels between software and radiology careers, and observing that one is considered a major, public issue while the other is basically an internal discussion within medicine.

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