Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by odessacubbage » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 9:37 AM UTC

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…

how much of that atmosphere is simply the result of the socially underdeveloped individuals (asd and otherwise)gravitating towards technical fields that play to their few strengths? does making those fields more welcoming for a desired group, in this case women, also result in creating an environment that's less welcoming for people who really have nothing else going for them?

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

#362

Post by ptah » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 9:37 AM UTC

GrayTextIsTruth wrote: post #338

ptah wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think you are trying to stretch the metaphor too far

its more accurate. targeting the underrepresented cohort.

no, you are applying the thing "metaphorised" inside the metaphor. it is quite wrongheaded tbh

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

#363

Post by TeMPOraL » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 9:37 AM UTC

trickstra wrote: post #359

merb wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IT is not about math

To be fair, IT was (and I'm guessing still is) perceived as something associated strongly with maths, even though actual jobs are year by year becoming increasingly less so.

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

#364

Post by llampx » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 9:43 AM UTC

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…

> When I started to study IT, I was surprised to see, that the stereotypes were the majority. Meaning, long, oily hair, etc.

Do you realize how this comment would come off if you were talking about women and judging them for their appearance when they went to school to study something utterly unrelated to appearance?

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

#365

Post by llampx » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 9:46 AM UTC

trickstra wrote: post #359

merb wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IT is not about math

Programming is pretty strongly about math, especially in university when you learn the theory and not just how to link an API to a database.

In order to study CS at my school you had to take some fairly advanced Math classes including Calculus and Linear Algebra, which are not easy unless you are comfortable with Math.

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

#366

Post by hutzlibu » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 9:48 AM UTC

odessacubbage wrote: post #361

hutzlibu wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

how much of that atmosphere is simply the result of the socially underdeveloped individuals (asd and otherwise)gravitating towards technical fields that play to their few strengths? does making those fields more welcoming for a desired group, in this case women, also result in creating an environment that's less welcoming for people who really have nothing else going for them?

I really do not want to have conventional social norms established. I like nerds and freaks of all sorts.

I was more speaking of things like body hygiene ...

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

#367

Post by TeMPOraL » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 9:50 AM UTC

repolfx wrote: post #342

Traster wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 f…

I think what the warring feminist faction doesn't understand (or does and ignores) is that their actions are breeding fear and resentment towards women. There's a spectrum here, On the consequence-less wrong end you have assholes getting away with sexist comments toward their women colleagues[0]. In the desirable middle, you have everyone treating everyone else with proper professional respect. But on the other bad end, you have every male in the office becoming tense and extremely self-conscious in presence of their women co-workers, because of the perceived risk that they may be dealing with someone that gets easily offended about random things and is ready to create a stink with HR for it[1].

Now, I see the feminist movement in our industry definitely overshooting towards that other bad end, and it doesn't really matter that most women are reasonable - the mere possibility of chancing into someone unreasonable drives overly cautious behavior. There is such a thing as pushing too hard. Stirring a conflict of sexes may have been the fastest way to enact change, but the antagonistic atmosphere isn't going to just dissipate itself.

--

[0] - I mean the cases that make women uncomfortable; I've worked with women whose sexual innuendos during regular office chats made me uncomfortable.

[1] - Or, worst case, someone who does that on purpose, to advance their career at the expense of others. There's always a fraction of people of both genders ready to play dirty, but in current environment one of them is now armed with a superweapon.

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

#368

Post by llampx » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 9:52 AM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #232

m0zg wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must have spent the last 20 years in a parallel universe where every single hiring manager would like nothing more than to hire a minority or a woman because of corporate edicts. At Microsoft today, for instance, they have _quotas_ for hiring women (I don't know about minorities, but they probably have quotas for that, too), and if you don't meet the quota, you're kinda fucked as a manager. At Google, when the hiri…

You can't get more women into the profession if they choose not to apply. And they can't apply if they never see your ad because of practices like the ones described in the article under discussion.

What kind of person would be qualified for a job but not be actively looking at job boards and LinkedIn? This article is only talking about passive job-seekers being targeted on Facebook, not about active job-seekers being discriminated against.

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

#369

Post by hutzlibu » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:00 AM UTC

llampx wrote: post #364

hutzlibu wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> When I started to study IT, I was surprised to see, that the stereotypes were the majority. Meaning, long, oily hair, etc. Do you realize how this comment would come off if you were talking about women and judging them for their appearance when they went to school to study something utterly unrelated to appearance?

Tell me.

I believe body hygiene is wanted in all professions. (btw. my hair is long, too)

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

#370

Post by lovetocode » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 10:01 AM UTC

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…

Awkward for you maybe. If women don’t want careers in IT because it is filled with socially awkward men then whose fault is it really?