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Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far

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Re: Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far

#101

Post by DanBC »

meowface wrote: post #94
sgustard wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument for diversity is that by not actively working for diversity, we will reflexively hire people like ourselves, which for the most part are white males. In addition, we are talking about groups which have been historically discriminated against. Affirmative action is about fairness (of opportunity), more so than goodness (for the company).

I think that's a solid argument, but shouldn't the goal be to hire based on merit, not "hire people like ourselves" or "try to avoid hiring people like ourselves by erring towards hiring people not like ourselves"? I think blinding as much as possible in the interview process is fairer and, in the long run, simpler for everyone involved.

Yes, the goal is to hire on merit. By only hiring people who look like us we're both hiring people who lack merit purely because they're white men, and failing to hire people who have merit purely because they're not white men.

The "but we want to hire on merit" argument is clearly fucking bullshit if you've ever had any involvement in recruitment and seen how flawed it is.

Re: Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far

#102

Post by candiodari »

PrimalDual wrote: post #21

So there are somethings I don’t quite understand about the pro-diversity argument. My understanding of the claim is that companies should want to have a diverse workforce because people of different backgrounds are fundamentally different. Different to the point that without inclusion of all their viewpoints you will fail to optimally solve some problems. It makes sense that if you don’t have enough women in tech you…

What disturbs me about that argument is the implied "consensus builds better products" axiom. And yet, over 15 years in software I've seen time and time and time again:

1) every last big company fires people until everyone "believes" this to be true, because not doing so would incite rebellion internally. Are you not a team player ?

It is also what every product manager always goes for, mostly because it allows them to deflect responsibility for the inevitably mediocre (at best) product that comes out of it. Usually, they also succeed in angering "small" subgroups of users while doing this at an absolutely enormous cost in bad PR.

2) it is most definitely not true at all. A vision by a single mind that really works at it (and is thus by necessity someone who is both technical, knows the code AND uses the software AND talks to the users) will blast any consensus product out of the water.

The thing is, small failures by a single person's vision will have an outsize impact on their career. Total failure in a consensus product is not just not punished, it is actually rewarded : Aside from the obvious "you don't need maintenance for a failure" there is the fact that there aren't any users to actually criticize the failure. Therefore the internal feedback for participants is going to be about how they "successfully" organized a large effort by a large group and fought heroically to keep it going. Promote this failure NOW !

Re: Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far

#103

Post by edanm »

PrimalDual wrote: post #21

So there are somethings I don’t quite understand about the pro-diversity argument. My understanding of the claim is that companies should want to have a diverse workforce because people of different backgrounds are fundamentally different. Different to the point that without inclusion of all their viewpoints you will fail to optimally solve some problems. It makes sense that if you don’t have enough women in tech you…

I disagree with your post, and a lot of other commenters on here, as to the primary reason for the pro-diversity argument.

The reason promoting diversity (e.g. in tech) is good is because there is a shortage of qualified people. If we have certain populations that could work in the field, but don't, for whatever reason, then we want to find those causes and stop them. And if those causes are historical (e.g. past discrimination), we might even go so far as to take that into account.

E.g. take affirmative action for African Americans (in America). Yes, it's partially there to have equal opportunity. But (perhaps more) importantly, we know that because of past diversity, most African Americans have a harder time in education growing up. This probably shows up as people have e.g. lower scores on tests. But what we should be thinking is: "If they got slightly lower scores, but we know that it was harder for them, then imagine what they could do if we help them out with better education!".

One could argue (and other commenters do so) that we should care more about the moral "everyone should have equal opportunities" argument. I agree, but I much prefer to show why diversity tends to be a win-win, not a "you lose so we can win" situation.

Re: Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far

#105

Post by sctb »

rektide wrote: post #74
grondilu wrote: post #24

Today on HN I've learnt about KaTeX, a math typesetting system for the web[1]. As I looked into it, I was intrigued by the names of the two authors, which suggested they are females. That looked odd to me, as I thought typically this kind of project is made by men. The last time I had this kind of surprise was with Audrey Tang, the developer of Pugs, an early Perl 6 implementation. Turned out she was not born female.…

You are a grade A asshole. You ignore all the potential for discrimination in selection, & promote this vicious nasty bitter competitive view reinforcing stereotypes you want to believe in. This is disgusting and disgraceful, and you are the scourge that keeps the score so uneven. Shame shame shame on disgusting you.

Personal attacks like this are never OK on Hacker News no matter what you're replying to. Please don't do this again.

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

Re: Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far

#106

Post by meowface »

DanBC wrote: post #101
meowface wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a solid argument, but shouldn't the goal be to hire based on merit, not "hire people like ourselves" or "try to avoid hiring people like ourselves by erring towards hiring people not like ourselves"? I think blinding as much as possible in the interview process is fairer and, in the long run, simpler for everyone involved.

Yes, the goal is to hire on merit. By only hiring people who look like us we're both hiring people who lack merit purely because they're white men, and failing to hire people who have merit purely because they're not white men. The "but we want to hire on merit" argument is clearly fucking bullshit if you've ever had any involvement in recruitment and seen how flawed it is.

I never said people who want to hire on merit necessarily achieve their goals, just that we should actually remember the original goal and try to achieve it.

It's much harder for white men to preferentially hire white men if as much of the interview process as possible is blinded.

Re: Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far

#107

Post by meowface »

threatofrain wrote: post #99
meowface wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a solid argument, but shouldn't the goal be to hire based on merit, not "hire people like ourselves" or "try to avoid hiring people like ourselves by erring towards hiring people not like ourselves"? I think blinding as much as possible in the interview process is fairer and, in the long run, simpler for everyone involved.

Blinding your hiring process may actually make things more lopsided sometimes; i.e., technical screenings without seeing identity. You may find even less minorities hired.

Isn't technical screenings without seeing identity helping to remove bias and discrimination, which is our goal in the first place? I don't think I understand your comment.

Re: Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far

#108

Post by thevardanian »

reuleaux wrote: post #93
thevardanian wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"To me it would be wildly inconceivable for predisposition to certain jobs to be an inherent biological trait rather than something shaped by society." Doesn't really matter what would inconceivable to you. What matters if that's the reality of the situation. Watch the documentary it addresses it.

It really doesn't. I'm not arguing there aren't inherent differences in the sexes, I'm asking you why you think the current representation of gender in the workforce is correct. As far as I'm aware there's no evidence to suggest the current state of representation is the most natural. I skimmed through the video you linked and saw no convincing evidence, but if there's something I missed please link me to it.

"I'm not arguing there aren't inherent differences in the sexes, I'm asking you why you think the current representation of gender in the workforce is correct."

No. I'm saying we don't know whether the current representation is the "most natural", but what if it is?

Furthermore if you had looked through the video you would have realized that the entire basis of the documentary is an attempt to answer why labor force participation often becomes gender segregated. You say that it's because of lack of "encouragement", but maybe there's something else at play.

Re: Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far

#109

Post by OnlyTruth2 »

We live in a democracy, women have the vote, they are politically powerful. When they decree that they shall be paid the same as men even though they work less and produce less, well, they shall be paid the same. Votes equal power, ability does not equal power, at least not as much power as votes do.

Re: Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far

#110

Post by [deleted] »

edanm wrote: post #103
PrimalDual wrote: post #21

So there are somethings I don’t quite understand about the pro-diversity argument. My understanding of the claim is that companies should want to have a diverse workforce because people of different backgrounds are fundamentally different. Different to the point that without inclusion of all their viewpoints you will fail to optimally solve some problems. It makes sense that if you don’t have enough women in tech you…

I disagree with your post, and a lot of other commenters on here, as to the primary reason for the pro-diversity argument. The reason promoting diversity (e.g. in tech) is good is because there is a shortage of qualified people. If we have certain populations that could work in the field, but don't , for whatever reason, then we want to find those causes and stop them. And if those causes are historical (e.g. past di…

[deleted]
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