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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

#291

Post by belorn »

turc1656 wrote: post #146

" In the name of diversity, when we fill quotas to check boxes, we fuck it up for the genuinely amazing women in tech. " Precisely. This goes directly to the core of the issue and what I had brought up on the thread recently about the Google employee who got fired. Specifically, if companies were truly interested in fairness, the only mandate for the interview process would be to hire the best person, no exceptions.…

> fighting the battle far earlier and getting girls interested young

I can think of two major obstacles towards that. First, boys from average age of 15 enter a society where their attractiveness and social status is directly correlated to how much wealth they have. As such there is a strong incentive towards getting a job as early as possible or focusing studying towards specific high paying professions like tech. In order to girls to get the same incentive society would need to put similar pressure on them or stop putting the pressure on men to get wealth.

The second obstacles is a gender neutral phenomenon that I have seen several studies reflect on. When a student fail a exam at a university level, the risk that they will switch program is several time higher if their gender is a minority in their class. This factor also don't seem to go away as they advances in the course, but rather seems to grow stronger. One study also included data from when the graduates enter the work force (which share similar gender segregation), and based on the data they speculated that the first few years has the exact same effect, and the phenomenon only seems to go away after people been in the profession for many years.

I don't know a good solution to either of those, and for what I know, there isn't that much research into it.

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

#292

Post by taysic »

Icedcool wrote: post #23

"In the name of diversity, when we fill quotas to check boxes, we fuck it up for the genuinely amazing women in tech." Awesome. A plea towards hiring based on quality, rather than quotas. Towards a group that is judged by the content and quality of their character rather than some of the variation of an attempt to combat discrimination through discrimination.

My understanding of quota is the higher ups saying "We can't micromanage every aspect of your hiring process, but we see there are about 20% qualified women for these tech jobs. So as long as you generally hit this amount, pick the best people and that's a generally good way to tell no discrimination was in the mix."

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

#293

Post by m1el »

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…

Nothing you said here is a counter argument to either the comment you replied to or the linked post.

> All these women that are being talked about as statistics are real people.

Nobody denies that. However, once you say that there's not enough "equality" of engineers, you invoke statistics.

> I think the human aspect of all this is sorely missing on HN.

Think of those poor talented engineers denied a place of work because of "gender quotas"! These engineers have dreams and passions. They aren't just statistics!

See how this works?

> I've learned that it's not us vs them.

Except that's exactly the tactics used by SJWs.

> I've learned that political correctness and reverse-racism/sexism are definitely not a greater problem than sexism and racism themselves.

Reverse sexism is exactly the same problem as sexism.

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

#294

Post by gaius »

Infinitesimus wrote: post #125
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Plus, it's still relevant to remind people that equal opportunity and equal outcome are not the same I see this trope trotted out again and again. Where exactly are we drawing the line between opportunity and outcome? When a 22 year old (woman or otherwise) gets hired at google that's no more an outcome than an opportunity. It's not like they're going to be sitting on their deathbed thinking of the way their life tu…

The phrase typically refers to what happens before the hiring stage. Think kids that don't have role models of their gender/ethnicity. Think kids that are placed in gendered roles without respect for their own interests ("oh you're a buy, let me get you the trucks and computer programing skills. I'll get your sister the art books instead"). It extends to school programs, funding, etc. and is certainly a complex issue…

Think kids that don't have role models of their gender/ethnicity

It's funny, because I am an ethnic minority. I mean that almost literally; outside of my family I have met exactly one person of my same ethnicity. If I had been waiting for a role model I would still be waiting. So my lived experience means I am pretty skeptical of the need for one's role model to match one's skin colour (or anything else).

Incase it matters my role models were Avon and Scotty.

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

#295

Post by okreallywtf »

brightball wrote: post #288
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.

I've tried to have that discussion here and ended up at the point where it seems like its the word itself that causes the problem, but after asking "well what if we just changed the word to be something that evokes the lack of barriers" and the usual response is essentially "fuck you I deserve what I have.", which may be 100% true but straight white men (like me) who think that everyone is on a totally level playing field and we have all the same barriers in life as everyone else I think is nuts. No two people are the same and nobody knows what challenges people have faced (that don't depend on race or gender) but on average it seems pretty clear that being of the majority race and religion and being male avoids a lot of potential problems.

I feel like in any particular situation, what I get out of something is a product of what I put into it. I've never felt at any point in my life like I've not been given the benefit of the doubt and I wish that was the case for everyone.

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

#296

Post by mooseburger »

okreallywtf wrote: post #290
mooseburger wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 do…

Well, it wouldn't be a goal of your post, since you take it as a given that the tech industry employs arbitrary exclusionary practices against women and minorities. Surely, in the 53 years since the Civil Rights Act, someone has already compiled comprehensive evidence of these practices. It shouldn't be too hard to find.

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

#297

Post by mcguire »

tptacek wrote: post #22
jasode wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, and its kernel is an anecdote about how her son is interested in programming and her daughter in photoshop. Fascinating how different readers take away different salient points. For me, her main buildup was hiring women to meet a "diversity goal" resulted in pressures to hire some women who couldn't do the work . This creates a perverse feedback loop that unfairly taints future women candidates who could do the wo…

Because the piece isn't very well written†, it's unclear whether the "infinite loop" of mediocrity she's referring to is something she actually observed, or something she surmises is possible. She is clear and specific, presenting numbers, when talking about things she was personally involved in. Since the cycle of increasing mediocrity has a prominent float in the parade of horribles conjured by the "anti-diversity"…

Let me just leave this here:

"We [UrbanAMA] try hard, but again find ourselves with a 98% male candidate pool. You should know that we are an early stage startup that cannot afford market salaries. Despite that, we paid premium salaries to bring a few women who did well in our interviews. But, they lacked the energy to put us into overdrive. Worse, they were starting to drain the energy from the rest of the team. Eventually, we had to do the right thing for the company and let them go. I’m now back to being the only woman on the (tech) team."

I'm not sure what it says about the situation that 98% of the candidate pool is male or that she had to fire specifically the women for draining energy.

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

#298

Post by xenihn »

morgtheborg wrote: post #188
xenihn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What exactly does it mean to "lack energy" and to "drain energy" from other people? Yeah, it's annoying that she's forcing readers to interpret that. I would guess that she means that they weren't able to perform their job responsibilities adequately, and others had to pick up the slack.

I assume it means they didn't want to work the hours and/or play games at work with their co-workers.

>they didn't want to work the hours

Sadly, that could still fall under what I said.

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

#299

Post by mooseburger »

taysic wrote: post #289
mooseburger wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It isn't. I just don't think lack of biological diversity is a problem for a corporation.

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

#300

Post by Caveman_Coder »

mLuby wrote: post #211
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very sad that "free from sexist, racist, ageist biases" is considered "worse", surely? Do you agree?

The method (free from sexist…) is better but the outcome (employee similarity to general population) is worse.

I guess it really comes down to the ethical framework you accept as valid, deontological or utilitarian...
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