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Oh, you’re with them? (2016)

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Re: Oh, you’re with them? (2016)

#31

Post by tedunangst »

Archio wrote: post #30
tedunangst wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, read any HN thread on the topic. "There's no problem in the tech industry. Women just don't like computers."

Are you being sarcastic? I repeated multiple times in my analysis that I think there most definitely is a problem with the tech industry, and I don't believe the answer is "women just don't like computers". I think the question I'm positing here is very reasonable, given how other fields have been able to improve their situations dramatically. I don't know the answer to my question, that's why I asked it.

The answer is the legal field at some point acknowledged a problem and made an effort to recruit more women. The tech field is still mostly wrestling with no problem here status.

Re: Oh, you’re with them? (2016)

#32

Post by n00b101 »

I don't think this kind of thing is isolated to the tech industry. Edith Cooper at Goldman Sachs shared this recently:

"I am a black woman, a mother, a wife and a professional. I am the daughter of a dentist and a sister to four siblings. I’m a runner, a golfer and a knitter. I graduated from an Ivy League school and earned an MBA. I’ve spent the past 30 years working on Wall Street, half of those as a partner at Goldman Sachs.

I am frequently asked “what country are you from” (I grew up in Brooklyn). I’ve been questioned about whether I really went to Harvard (I did) or how I got in (I applied). I’ve been asked to serve the coffee at a client meeting (despite being there to “run” the meeting) and have been mistaken as the coat check receptionist at my son’s school event. And, on the flip side, it’s also been suggested to me that I’m not “black black”because of the success I have had, or even where I live ... People frequently assumed I was the most junior person in the room, when in fact, I was the most senior. I constantly needed to share my credentials when nobody else had to share theirs ..." [1]

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/edith-cooper-goldman-sachs-on...

Re: Oh, you’re with them? (2016)

#33

Post by csours »

charles-salvia wrote: post #10

If you trained a neural network to recognize "high powered tech executives", it will likely start picking up on features associated with 30 to 40 year old (mostly white) males wearing sweaters or "business casual" attire. It probably would report a low value if you showed it a minority female. (Google "tech executive" on Google images to test this out.) Human beings are really advanced neural networks, trained on yea…

Tall white males with strong jaws and a full head of hair, preferably. Supermen, if you will (or Batmen, if you prefer).

Re: Oh, you’re with them? (2016)

#34

Post by csours »

Archio wrote: post #24

This incident looks horrible, and it's sad how terrifically disrespectful the administrative assistant was towards the department head. Events like this often serve (understandably) as explanations for why the tech industry's gender ratio is so heavily skewed. The data, while empirical, seems to be there as well: >Kieran Snyder interviewed over 700 women who left the tech industry. Almost all of them said that they e…

I am guilty of nudging a woman towards the exit of CS.

In college one of my classmates was not understanding the material, and I asked her if she thought she really wanted to do CS...

The thing is, a bunch of other guys were also not understanding the material, and I didn't say anything to them.

I still think about it from time to time, and wherever you are, I'm sorry M. I don't think I can fix that, but I can speak up now.

Re: Oh, you’re with them? (2016)

#35

Post by [deleted] »

Archio wrote: post #24

This incident looks horrible, and it's sad how terrifically disrespectful the administrative assistant was towards the department head. Events like this often serve (understandably) as explanations for why the tech industry's gender ratio is so heavily skewed. The data, while empirical, seems to be there as well: >Kieran Snyder interviewed over 700 women who left the tech industry. Almost all of them said that they e…

[deleted]

Re: Oh, you’re with them? (2016)

#36

Post by synicalx »

Sorry, but why are we immediately assuming this wasn't an accident/unintentional? Did I miss the part where the admin assistant took off their KKK costume and stick-on Adolf Hitler moustache before shaking everyone's hand?

Have we really reached the point as a society where we immediately assume every social faux-pas has some sort of vague racist/sexist motive?

I'd be totally on board if this was something that genuinely damaged or demeaned this woman, but it clearly isn't - someone didn't shake her hand, apologised, then presumably shook her hand. If that's going to cause her to fall to pieces and give up on life as the author and most people commenting here would have us believe, then this blog post isn't really going to help her much.

Re: Oh, you’re with them? (2016)

#37

Post by foobazzy »

nl wrote: post #11

I think about this a lot. I'm hiring heavily atm, and one obvious thing I look at is what degree the person has. I've noticed that I've started to go "oh, they did that course. We had person Y from that course and they were bad". It's such a subconscious thing on such a non-obvious attribution that it made me even more aware of how people make racist assumptions because they group on the color characteristic and proj…

I believe there's nothing wrong with coming up with biases based on evaluating a person's technical abilities for a job role. (Isn't that the whole point?) You know the part where the requirements mention a skill set you should possess. If a person with a particular skill set/course wasn't able to perform as expected, then maybe that is not what you want.

However, IMHO, it becomes discriminatory when you base all of your arguments off of one data point. A class can be made up of a lot of different type of people with differing views on how to solve problems etc. When I start to drift away in such situations, I tend to look for more data points. A deeper analysis into what culmination of factors might have caused this, can really solve this. Or so I believe.

And to be fair, you did hire the other person with the same course. So, maybe it is a fit. Just that the other person may have lacked other abilities/skill set to perform the job properly.

Re: Oh, you’re with them? (2016)

#38

Post by koonsolo »

charles-salvia wrote: post #10

If you trained a neural network to recognize "high powered tech executives", it will likely start picking up on features associated with 30 to 40 year old (mostly white) males wearing sweaters or "business casual" attire. It probably would report a low value if you showed it a minority female. (Google "tech executive" on Google images to test this out.) Human beings are really advanced neural networks, trained on yea…

Standing out of the crowd has benefits and drawbacks.

You might not expect the black female to be a "high powered tech executive", but on the other hand, when you see the whole list of "high powered tech executives", you will probably remember the black female better than any random 40 year old white male.

Re: Oh, you’re with them? (2016)

#39

Post by wolf550e »

csours wrote: post #34
Archio wrote: post #24

This incident looks horrible, and it's sad how terrifically disrespectful the administrative assistant was towards the department head. Events like this often serve (understandably) as explanations for why the tech industry's gender ratio is so heavily skewed. The data, while empirical, seems to be there as well: >Kieran Snyder interviewed over 700 women who left the tech industry. Almost all of them said that they e…

I am guilty of nudging a woman towards the exit of CS. In college one of my classmates was not understanding the material, and I asked her if she thought she really wanted to do CS... The thing is, a bunch of other guys were also not understanding the material, and I didn't say anything to them. I still think about it from time to time, and wherever you are, I'm sorry M. I don't think I can fix that, but I can speak…

Objectively, if it's true that women need to perform much better than men to get promoted, then being a woman who struggles with the material in a male dominated field would suck, and maybe you did her a favor.

I think the cycle can be broken if current practitioners can find young women who are willing to work extra hard (harder than their male peers) and give those women as much tutoring as they can handle (I certainly can't study for a full day, and I guess this plan requires studying overtime) so they can ace tests/projects, advance in the industry, change norms and people's expectations from women and make it easier for the next generation of women. There will be accusations of favoritism but as long as it's clear that they succeed because they worked hard and did the work themselves and not because they were helped, the accusations shouldn't get anywhere. Basically, I'm against favoring women over more qualified (or even as-qualified) men, but helping women become the most qualified candidate is definitely fair game.

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