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Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

propublica.org

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Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#341

Post by moksly »

stakhanov wrote: post #290

There are job boards that SPECIFICALLY make it their business to target women and deliver female candidates looking for tech roles (in organizations that are in need of diversity hires): https://powertofly.com/ ...and companies pay a premium for those job advertising channels. Why is it a great business and an initiative to be applauded if it is about excluding men and a scandal if it is about excluding women?

It has to do with the philosophical point of what you’re trying to do, doesn’t it? When you target your job-advertising at groups who are minorities in your field of expertise, then you’re being inclusive from an equality point of view. On the other hand, if your job-advertising targets members of the majority, then you’re being exclusive.

The degree of “unfairness” is the same, but the goal isn’t “fairness” as such but rather equality. Whether we personally agree with forced equality or not is really beyond the point in a society that views inclusiveness as good and exclusion as bad.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#342

Post by repolfx »

Traster wrote: post #335
concordDance wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted your comment because I think the reasoning reflects people's actual reasoning. That said, I don't think techy women can be described as metaphorically "poor" these days. Big tech firms are desperate for more women. For women as a whole it's another issue, but very few are going to learn an entirely new skillset just because they saw an ad.

>Big tech firms are desperate for more women. I can't talk about everyone's experience, but this is true in a "We desperately want to have more women", but not true in the sense of "We're willing to address the systematic reasons women don't join our company". It doesn't matter how much you advertise on a website for women if you're advertising a job with no maternity benefits, or one of your engineers remarks "Oh! I…

How many firms don't offer maternity leave? Outside of tiny 5 person startups that don't have any HR policies at all that seems like a strawman.

As for men making condescending comments towards women, that's not a systematic problem with a systematic solution. And women (or really, feminists) pretty routinely make condescending comments towards men in my experience, at a much, much greater rate. The idea that women face a hostile work environment and men don't is the inversion of my own experience. Men face a much more hostile environment. The last thing the software industry needs is ramping up the hostility towards men even more because that's the only way feminists can think of to increase the number of female hires.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#343

Post by xxxpupugo »

adrianN wrote: post #293
stakhanov wrote: post #290

There are job boards that SPECIFICALLY make it their business to target women and deliver female candidates looking for tech roles (in organizations that are in need of diversity hires): https://powertofly.com/ ...and companies pay a premium for those job advertising channels. Why is it a great business and an initiative to be applauded if it is about excluding men and a scandal if it is about excluding women?

I think for similar reasons like it generally being seen as a good thing to give free food and housing to the poor, but frowned upon to do the same for the rich.

Not all women are poor, not all men are rich.

If discrimination is THE issue, then woman specific job ads also needs to be banned.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#344

Post by merb »

hutzlibu wrote: post #330
stakhanov wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I object to the use of "dominated". In a herd, a "dominant" animal will actively work to keep others away from food sources and mating opportunities when those are scarce. This is not what this is. Strictly my opinion: There are few women in software engineering because few women WANT to be in software engineering, period. ...and it's not a given that this is by definition a bad thing for them either.

Maybe one of the reasons women do not want to work in IT is, that the atmosphere is still sometimes sexist? Or at least arkward. When I started to study IT, I was surprised to see, that the stereotypes were the majority. Meaning, long, oily hair, etc. So I guess that is still changing, and I really do not believe 50% women should be the goal, but maybe the IT world still needs reflection sometimes, why so little wome…

Welk i think not all women Want a job in it. propably because when they were Kids they were stereotyped. A lot of them thus didn‘t liked math.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#345

Post by ga-vu »

aVx1uyD5pYWW wrote: post #134
ga-vu wrote: post #48

I see ProPublica is rehashing everyone's articles as their own these days. Didn't Gizmodo prove this and various other abuses a few years back?

ProPublica, and in particular this reporter, has been doing a lot of original research on facebook's abuses in the past few years. For instance, they started this project to collect facebook ads: https://projects.propublica.org/facebook-ads/ See also this joint investigation by the New York Times and ProPublica: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/business/facebook-job-ads...

Hi there, reporter!

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#346

Post by bryanrasmussen »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #294
stakhanov wrote: post #290

There are job boards that SPECIFICALLY make it their business to target women and deliver female candidates looking for tech roles (in organizations that are in need of diversity hires): https://powertofly.com/ ...and companies pay a premium for those job advertising channels. Why is it a great business and an initiative to be applauded if it is about excluding men and a scandal if it is about excluding women?

Because “punching up” is allowed, apparently.

When someone is sitting on you and you're punching up it can be seen as a fight for liberation, when you're sitting on someone and punching down it can be seen as violent oppression.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#347

Post by repolfx »

unionpivo wrote: post #334
cryptozeus wrote: post #313

All this will do is force companies which are not open to hiring older people and women will have to spend money interviewing them. They will still reject them and waste everyone’s time.

So the solution is to what, just look away and shrug ? It's a process, you move goal posts one tiny step at a time and eventually it will become less and less acceptable.

Don't even look away. Just accept that people do differ by birth characteristics and that there are often legitimate reasons to discriminate based on those factors. There's no shame in that.

Look at firefighters. To get a female firefighter in New York they had to lower the strength tests. Those tests were calibrated to be able to carry people out of a burning building. Do you really want a 'process' that one tiny step at a time leads to people eventually burning to death because their rescuer was a tiny 5ft girl who couldn't lift them?

https://nypost.com/2015/05/03/woman-to-become-ny-firefighter...

Or more prosaically, do you think men should be lingerie models? Or people too old to run should be hired to take care of very young children?

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#348

Post by andybak »

stakhanov wrote: post #290

There are job boards that SPECIFICALLY make it their business to target women and deliver female candidates looking for tech roles (in organizations that are in need of diversity hires): https://powertofly.com/ ...and companies pay a premium for those job advertising channels. Why is it a great business and an initiative to be applauded if it is about excluding men and a scandal if it is about excluding women?

> Why is it a great business and an initiative to be applauded if it is about excluding men and a scandal if it is about excluding women?

I suspect you probably know the reason (even if you disagree with it) and you're making a polemic point rather than genuinely asking this question.

If I'm mistaken then forgive me. In short - certain sectors have a very skewed gender bias and it's regarded as a good thing to try and correct for that.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#349

Post by tomtompl »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #346
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because “punching up” is allowed, apparently.

When someone is sitting on you and you're punching up it can be seen as a fight for liberation, when you're sitting on someone and punching down it can be seen as violent oppression.

The thing is, a person "punching up" will inevitably found herself being "punched up" by someone else in future '_'

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#350

Post by furyg3 »

stakhanov wrote: post #290

There are job boards that SPECIFICALLY make it their business to target women and deliver female candidates looking for tech roles (in organizations that are in need of diversity hires): https://powertofly.com/ ...and companies pay a premium for those job advertising channels. Why is it a great business and an initiative to be applauded if it is about excluding men and a scandal if it is about excluding women?

Because the goal may not be 'fair' for all individuals but instead 'equal' for groups of individuals, especially those who have been traditionally discriminated against.
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