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I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

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Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#281

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

Lon7 wrote: post #259
okreallywtf wrote: post #236

I see some good points on both sides of the discussion here but one thing occurs to me about the current diversity-pushback that I'm seeing(I'm not going to call it anti-diversity because I think a fair amount of it is well-meaning or at least not explicitly hateful). We've surprisingly quickly moved from periods where it was common to simply refuse to even consider minorities or women in many fields to a time when m…

> Before quotas and social justice warriors, were you thinking about fairness and equality when the status quo potentially benefited you and excluded others not on their merit but race and gender? I was not thinking about that. And when I started being exposed to it, my immediate reaction was like you described: seeing political correctness and reverse-racism/sexism as a greater problem than sexism and racism themsel…

Just wanna thank you for posting this. Change like the above isn't easy or comfortable.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#282

Post by goldbeck »

tptacek wrote: post #77
cargo8 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that her "infinite loop" theory was her perception of the anecdote around hiring at her own startup. It does seem conceivable, but yeah obviously data is light here. Good point on how the whole interview process is a crapshoot anyway. Hadn't really thought about that aspect, but obviously is a huge opportunity for subliminal bias since it is how it is.

Another weird attribute of her theory about setting the bar and paying premiums for talent is that her engineering team, according to LinkedIn, is in India --- which is a radically different market for software talent than SFBA. In particular, the gender distribution of CS grads and programmers in India is very different from what it is here. One possible interpretation --- and there are probably equally credible oth…

Oh interesting. Where did you find this? (My cursory check didn't show turn up any info on that)

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#283

Post by unclebucknasty »

nodamage wrote: post #158
cargo8 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that her "infinite loop" theory was her perception of the anecdote around hiring at her own startup. It does seem conceivable, but yeah obviously data is light here. Good point on how the whole interview process is a crapshoot anyway. Hadn't really thought about that aspect, but obviously is a huge opportunity for subliminal bias since it is how it is.

Even in her anecdote she doesn't actually come out and say they lowered their standards until they ended up hiring women who "couldn't do the work", at least in terms of technical ability. Her only description of these women is: "But, they lacked the energy to put us into overdrive. Worse, they were starting to drain the energy from the rest of the team." What exactly does it mean to "lack energy"? Were these women u…

Yeah, these are the kinds of vague, subjective terms that are sometimes used to target people whose actual performance is unassailable.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#284

Post by JimboOmega »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #56
JimboOmega wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So quotas are terrible, yes. But what if there are still biases in hiring? That someone sees a woman and assumes this or that about her based on gender alone? My own experience as a transgender person is that there are people who, as my gender presentation has shifted, really seem to view me as less competent. Not in a "girl's can't code" way, but like steadily viewing me as more junior, needing more hand holding, gi…

So how would you counteract that stereotype/bias? Author would suggest lowering the bar [for women] would only reinforce such stereotypes, do you agree or disagree?

So hiring unqualified people is not useful. Giving someone the same benefit of the doubt you'd give another person with a different background would be great but is really, really hard in practice.

Other than doing thought experiments to try to correct for biases... It's hard.

One thing, and it's a small thing, is noticing if people in a group seem to have something to say, but seem unable to say it because they won't interrupt/talk over people (or that keeps happening)... Once you notice it, clearing a space for them to actually talk can help.

It requires being tuned in not just to the conversation, but the people in it, which is itself difficult. But I have seen it happen and it can be powerful.

There are a lot of little things like that which can be worked out, and I have no list of them or any magic wand solution.

Basically? Pay some attention to your biases and how you - and those around you - are treating others, especially those who might have internalized negative stereotypes and be struggling with imposter syndrome and all of that. Emotional awareness really helps.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#285

Post by [deleted] »

peterwwillis wrote: post #267
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no evidence linking, for example, testosterone levels to bone and muscle mass? Or progesterone levels to compassion and nurturing desires? I think you need to look a little harder. Of course more complex skills/desires/abilities are going to have more complex biological causation; though if you can prove otherwise, go ahead.

The only biological causation here is that people with penises oppress those without. You can't explain human behavior purely in biological terms because they aren't biological systems, they're social.

[deleted]

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#286

Post by alexandercrohde »

arkitaip wrote: post #119
alexandercrohde wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was having a conversation about this yesterday with my girlfriend. What minorities need protection and rebalancing? We rarely talking about supporting the Jewish, for example, or Mexicans, or gays representation in engineering. What is the philosohpy at play here? And what if someday women became the majority, would you then fight to bring men back up to parity? She didn't have answers, which to me just made me won…

Diversity is intersectional and people who actually fight for diversity absolutely talk about and work so that Mexicans, Asians, latinos, the disabled, gay people, trans people, etc, etc are given equal opportunities and treatment in the workplace. There are literally thousands of organizations in just the US advocating for workplace diversity for pretty much any and every minority you can imagine. I suspect the prob…

I disapprove of this response on a number of levels. One of the biggest reasons I avoid these discussions is ironically, the "safe-space" crowd has managed to offend, insult, and ignore me more effectively than almost any other group, and ironically, they do so because of my race and gender [white, male].

Working in tech I work with probably 80% minorities (Indians, Asians, women, gays, Iranians, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Russians, one Venezualen, one Egyptian). There was at least one time I was the only white guy on a team of 9.

Most of those I asked did not feel discriminated against.

So you tell your sob stories all you want, but the reality is most americans couldn't afford $500 in an emergency, and however bad you think skin color X or gender Y has it, that gulf pales in comparison to the problem of class-ism in America (and I don't here any SJWs speaking to that, and so I really have to question the motives at play).

And you're just dishonest to us and yourself if you are insinuating you, or Google, or SJW-crowd cares 1/10th as much about hiring an proportionate number of hispanics/jews/ugly-people/tatooed-people as it does a proportionate number of women.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#287

Post by sctb »

halloij wrote: post #279
halloij wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And WHY would this be a problem inherent to women? Because men and women have entirely different brains. They have entirely different strengths and weaknesses. Hate to break that to you. The rise of "lets pretend everyone is equal even though they're obviously not" is one of the worst things going on right now.

I love that this is getting down-voted. Because the liberal agenda is more important than scientific biological facts to some people :)

You're violating the guidelines by complaining about being downvoted for violating the guidelines. Please stop doing this and (re-)read them.

> Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#288

Post by brightball »

okreallywtf wrote: post #236

I see some good points on both sides of the discussion here but one thing occurs to me about the current diversity-pushback that I'm seeing(I'm not going to call it anti-diversity because I think a fair amount of it is well-meaning or at least not explicitly hateful). We've surprisingly quickly moved from periods where it was common to simply refuse to even consider minorities or women in many fields to a time when m…

> especially when the term "privilege" is used, it turns downright hostile

Part of the reason that word is such a hot button is that anybody even has to explain why. It simultaneously dismisses a lifetime of effort of people on both sides of the word based solely on racial and gender stereotypes that nobody can personally validate for any single individual.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#289

Post by taysic »

mooseburger wrote: post #257
okreallywtf wrote: post #236

I see some good points on both sides of the discussion here but one thing occurs to me about the current diversity-pushback that I'm seeing(I'm not going to call it anti-diversity because I think a fair amount of it is well-meaning or at least not explicitly hateful). We've surprisingly quickly moved from periods where it was common to simply refuse to even consider minorities or women in many fields to a time when m…

When was the tech industry deliberately excluding people based on race and gender? The 50s? 60s? I don't believe any specific action needs to be taken to promote diversity. As far as I can tell, people can work wherever they will, as long as they can pass the interview. >arbitrarily exclusionary practices Please name these.

The women who get hired at Google only do so if they pass a stringent interview. So how is this different from what you're saying?

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#290

Post by okreallywtf »

mooseburger wrote: post #257
okreallywtf wrote: post #236

I see some good points on both sides of the discussion here but one thing occurs to me about the current diversity-pushback that I'm seeing(I'm not going to call it anti-diversity because I think a fair amount of it is well-meaning or at least not explicitly hateful). We've surprisingly quickly moved from periods where it was common to simply refuse to even consider minorities or women in many fields to a time when m…

When was the tech industry deliberately excluding people based on race and gender? The 50s? 60s? I don't believe any specific action needs to be taken to promote diversity. As far as I can tell, people can work wherever they will, as long as they can pass the interview. >arbitrarily exclusionary practices Please name these.

In terms of arbitrary exclusionary practices, I mean simply refusing to hire people based on race, gender, religion etc. This could be based on name or gender on an application or failing that, post-interview and it would be amazingly stupid if the company communicated the reason honestly to the applicant since the 50's.

Do you think discrimination just ended immediately after the civil rights act[1]? Personally I don't think peoples mentality changed at all just because certain practices became illegal, it just got less overt. Saying "women aren't cut out for our line of work" became "not a culture fit" or something else.

Its not my goal to try to prove discrimination exists and existed, I could search and try to put together a comprehensive list of first-hand stories about discrimination in tech but my guess is that would not be an effective use of my time and that isn't the goal of my post anyways.

[1] https://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/herman/reports/fu...

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