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Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

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Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#11

Post by _sfsa »

s-shellfish wrote: post #7
ryanmercer wrote: post #3

At some point it boils down to who applies. Example: Women are GENERALLY more petite, they struggle carrying firefighter gear (45-75lbs depending on your load out) and aren't interested or can't pass the necessary requirements to ensure their safety, they get fewer female applicants and thus more men are firefighters type of thing. I imagine there are still fewer qualified female applicants than male. I imagine there…

What does this have to do with software development? Are you actually suggesting women have some physical attribute that makes them less applicable for programming, mathematics, or computer science jobs? This reasoning is part of the problem. It's not rigorously inspected or accepted, because it's circular logic that can be self proving given one dominant party enforcing such a reasoning structure as 'the rules'.

Don't put words in their mouth..

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#12

Post by swalsh »

Maybe because I'm a white dude, perhaps that means I'm not allowed to be a part of these conversations. I fail to understand what the goal of these efforts is. Why did we decide race, and sex are the important immutable factors that we're going to measure?

I grew up in what is today Trump Country. My high school prepared me to work in a factory. Then the factory moved to China, and now the only jobs left in the area are retail and healthcare. I managed to move out, but the vast majority of people I went to high school with are stuck.

Why is economic background not a class we care about too? Shouldn't economic mobility be a part of social justice as well?

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#14

Post by colordrops »

poster123 wrote: post #2

"In the U.S., Facebook is 3.5 percent black, compared to just 2 percent in 2014, and 4.9 percent Latinx compared to 4 percent in 2014. White people, unsurprisingly, still makes up the single largest population of employees (46.4 percent today versus 57 percent in 2014). The upside to this is that white people no longer make up the majority at Facebook." No mention is made of the fraction of Asians, because their over…

I don't see much noise about bringing men into female dominated industries either.

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#15

Post by [deleted] »

atomical wrote: post #5
ryanmercer wrote: post #3

At some point it boils down to who applies. Example: Women are GENERALLY more petite, they struggle carrying firefighter gear (45-75lbs depending on your load out) and aren't interested or can't pass the necessary requirements to ensure their safety, they get fewer female applicants and thus more men are firefighters type of thing. I imagine there are still fewer qualified female applicants than male. I imagine there…

Petite? A majority of women are overweight in the USA.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#16

Post by isthisnagee »

ryanmercer wrote: post #3

At some point it boils down to who applies. Example: Women are GENERALLY more petite, they struggle carrying firefighter gear (45-75lbs depending on your load out) and aren't interested or can't pass the necessary requirements to ensure their safety, they get fewer female applicants and thus more men are firefighters type of thing. I imagine there are still fewer qualified female applicants than male. I imagine there…

I don't think your example applies in the context of a tech company, so I'm going to comment ignoring it.

If it boils down to who applies, then we need to make sure that we're reaching out to communities that are not well represented in our field. It's not about waiting for them to come to us.

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#17

Post by blahblahblogger »

Can someone tell me why these tech companies even publish these numbers?

It seems like they always end up with egg on their face. And they have no obligation to be transparent as private (or public) entities.

But now they all have to have chief diversity officers and diversity councils and PR/recruiting teams for diversity - all of which cost money and hasn't seemed to move the needle very much.

And which as another poster pointed out, doesn't fundamentally change the underlying issue about who applies to these jobs, who goes to school for computer science, etc.

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#18

Post by s-shellfish »

colordrops wrote: post #10
s-shellfish wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this have to do with software development? Are you actually suggesting women have some physical attribute that makes them less applicable for programming, mathematics, or computer science jobs? This reasoning is part of the problem. It's not rigorously inspected or accepted, because it's circular logic that can be self proving given one dominant party enforcing such a reasoning structure as 'the rules'.

I think it's an analogy. The point is that there are deep social and cultural factors at play that bias women against software, so the applicant pool is small, and it can't be fixed by some localized corporate initiative.

The 'analogy' can be taken either way allowing people who benefit from the issue to continue avoiding confronting the problem head on, directly, clearly, logically, in a straight forward manner - where both sides of the argument can be cleanly inspected and analyzed.

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#19

Post by ceejayoz »

poster123 wrote: post #2

"In the U.S., Facebook is 3.5 percent black, compared to just 2 percent in 2014, and 4.9 percent Latinx compared to 4 percent in 2014. White people, unsurprisingly, still makes up the single largest population of employees (46.4 percent today versus 57 percent in 2014). The upside to this is that white people no longer make up the majority at Facebook." No mention is made of the fraction of Asians, because their over…

> There are industries such as education where the vast majority of workers are female.

Yes, and they've tended to be the lower-paid professions. Nurses instead of doctors, teachers instead of principals, etc.

This argument is a little like citing "black people have water fountains, too" to defend the segregated South. It misses the point.

Re: Facebook’s diversity efforts show little progress after five years

#20

Post by atomical »

isthisnagee wrote: post #16
ryanmercer wrote: post #3

At some point it boils down to who applies. Example: Women are GENERALLY more petite, they struggle carrying firefighter gear (45-75lbs depending on your load out) and aren't interested or can't pass the necessary requirements to ensure their safety, they get fewer female applicants and thus more men are firefighters type of thing. I imagine there are still fewer qualified female applicants than male. I imagine there…

I don't think your example applies in the context of a tech company, so I'm going to comment ignoring it. If it boils down to who applies, then we need to make sure that we're reaching out to communities that are not well represented in our field. It's not about waiting for them to come to us.

Why respond at all if you aren't addressing the comment?
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