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

#391

Post by m0zg » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 11:38 AM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #388

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…

Out of curiosity, how where the applicants selected for the interviews? Because first you limit the funnel for a certain group of people at the very start, then you have maybe an algorithm with a selection bias against the same group before we end up with an potentially also biased interview process before we reach an equally biased work life. I less we have reliable numbers for the funnel just looking at the intervi…

No idea. Likely through the usual (for Google) means: candidate submits a resume directly to the company, resume is reviewed by sourcer, and a decision is made on whether to interview based on qualifications. I can pretty much guarantee that women not only aren't discriminated at this stage, but given preference if there's any doubt at all. Tech companies are under immense pressure nowadays to improve their diversity metrics. The fact that they are unable to do so is quite telling, IMO.

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

#392

Post by the_70x » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 11:45 AM UTC

eanthy wrote: post #374

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?

women are already so benefited in the tech industry, getting hired just for their gender, getting scholarships in universities and so on. The media makes it seem exactly the opposite because it gets them views. The reason there is lack of women in tech is because they are naturally not interested in it not because anyone is preventing them. If anything female starting salaries are higher than males

and sometimes is not just the gender, getting hired if also good looking or at least good appealing

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

#393

Post by jacques_chester » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 11:49 AM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #148

jlawson wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to think the law is the be-all end-all definition of perfect moral reasoning. The law is not God's word. It's open to criticism, and we're criticizing it. If you want to participate in the discussion, great. But, "It's illegal because the law says you're not allowed to do it," is not a meaningful contribution.

The discussion point was already made above, in that we make certain things illegal because even though it may make economic sense, it results in massive damage to things such as the environment, vulnerable populations and so forth. The poster chose to respond by saying it was a perfectly valid reason to discriminate, which goes against the law for the already stated reasons. There was no additional criticism offered…

And in fact, there are laws against pollution because it's an externality, it doesn't make economic sense to the whole of society. Markets are good at maximising the total good in the case where costs and benefits can be totally internalised. Where you have externalities you see either overprovisioning or underprovisioning and in net, everyone is worse off than the rational outcome. That's where intervention is better than a market by itself.

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

#394

Post by neilv » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 11:51 AM UTC

eanthy wrote: post #378

toxik wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying quotas and affirmative action are the way to go, but it should be pointed out that women are still heavily outnumbered in the tech industry and STEM education. My personal view is that I'm not sure it's actually an issue that needs to (or can) be fixed, I think we should let people do what they want to do. Turns out that means bigger gender differences in career choice.

I don't think there is anything wrong with gender difference in subjects. Psychology for example is 95% women. Some professions are naturally more interesting for men other for women. Don't see why policy is trying to fore women into tech

Why do you conclude that the cause is "natural interest"?

I've heard a number of other theories that also sound plausible, and they sound like problems that should be addressed.

Examples of other theories (not exhaustive): alienated by brogrammer/strutting/aggressive culture many places, discriminated against in hiring many places, harassed by some individuals, not trying due to belief that they'll be discriminated against, not trying due to belief that they'll face harassment or other hostile culture.

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

#395

Post by stakhanov » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 11:51 AM UTC

dTal wrote: post #382

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…

Sexist -> awkward -> long hair is quite a series of leaps, and I'm mighty curious as to the underlying mental model. You appear to be implying that women might not want to go into IT because the men are unattractive. But unattractive is not the same as hostile. If you enjoy something, ugly people won't keep you away. Of note is that the percentage of open source programmers who are women is half that of the broader i…

...I agree. I find it disturbing, how quick women are to bring up notions like "awkward" and "creepy" in discussions such as this. 80% of "awkward" is about social interactions unfolding in a way that are outside the norm. 80% of "creepy" is about being unattractive. Not being socialized to conform with the norms is mostly a function of your childhood upbringing. Not being attractive is a function of your genes. Both are elements of a destiny that is cast upon you from outside and not within your control, like what gender you are born into.

I don't see at all how an environment full of unattractive and not well-socialized people create an environment that is in any way hostile to women.

But superficial people who, when female, will play the feminism card against people who happen to be unattractive and not well-socialized do create a hostile work environment for the latter group.

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

#396

Post by emj » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 11:52 AM UTC

eanthy wrote: post #374

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?

women are already so benefited in the tech industry, getting hired just for their gender, getting scholarships in universities and so on. The media makes it seem exactly the opposite because it gets them views. The reason there is lack of women in tech is because they are naturally not interested in it not because anyone is preventing them. If anything female starting salaries are higher than males

Everytime you think "it is naturally so" you need to take a step back and wonder why you think that is. My experience is that most of my male coworkers do not have a natural interest in computer science or engineering. They are here for the money.

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

#397

Post by dTal » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 11:59 AM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #389

dTal wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sexist -> awkward -> long hair is quite a series of leaps, and I'm mighty curious as to the underlying mental model. You appear to be implying that women might not want to go into IT because the men are unattractive. But unattractive is not the same as hostile. If you enjoy something, ugly people won't keep you away. Of note is that the percentage of open source programmers who are women is half that of the broader i…

I have long hair myself. But I wash it. At university .. I got the impression that quite some people forgot that. Regulary. Also to wash clothes. There is a difference between unattractive and disgusting. And I love open source and fresh air. But I did not enjoy some linux convention for example, because I seemed to be the only one, who minded the bad, worn out air in the rooms. So all of this I find offputting, I su…

Why would it disproportionately put off women?

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

#398

Post by emj » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 12:00 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #373

kjs3 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "modern world" sucks at figuring out how to help people find the right kind of job for one of two reasons: 1) they keep thinking about gender and age as qualifiers for jobs for which those factors have absolutely zero relevance (girls are bad at math! Old people can't learn new things!), or 2) They invent the delusion that gender and age disqualifies you for a job (girls will just get pregnant and leave! oldster…

> They invent the delusion that gender and age disqualifies you for a job (girls will just get pregnant and leave! This is not a delusion, and it's a thing commonly talked about in my country (Poland). It's not just about that girls will get pregnant and leave - it'll be that girls will get pregnant and out of the sudden[0] go on paid maternity leave, which they can extend to a year, during which you have to keep the…

It is a good thing that parents can do that, for some reason these issues do not come up when men take paternity leave here. It is very common for fathers to be gone for a 6-12 months after their babies are born.

You just need to change the laws, and how you deal with parenting socially, then it will all make sense ("just").

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

#399

Post by repolfx » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 12:08 PM UTC

unionpivo wrote: post #356

repolfx wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 st…

I Disagree with you on the word "often". There are far many jobs where physical body doesn't matter (and even there, you wont accept fat young guy either, so you might as well just list what do you expect candidate to be able to preform), than those that do. Now lets look at a story in question: > In the latest rulings, the EEOC cited four companies for age discrimination: > Capital One, Edwards Jones, Enterprise Hol…

You may expect that about firefighters, but people with the same definition of progress as you see that as a problem to be solved by lowering the bar.

I think you're also drawing a rather arbitrary line here, based on assuming the differences between young/old/male/female are purely physical. But that's clearly not the case. If you're looking for a salesperson for your motorbike store, you'll probably have more luck fishing amongst men than women and that's not discrimination unless your job ad literally says "no women allowed".

That said, I do agree programming is not a job where there's any obvious way or reason to do such targeting. But presumably these companies had reasons for making those choices. Why don't we hear their side of the story?

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

#400

Post by nicoburns » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 12:10 PM UTC

aianus wrote: post #153

kuzimoto wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is just a good way to make women pay as much as men, instead of lowering prices for men to pay as much as women.

If the market were efficient the new price would be somewhere in the middle. Is this what happened in the UK? I don’t know.

> Is this what happened in the UK?

Not completely sure, but I think it is.