We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

Women (or any other group) can't speak for themselves about properties of the group. Everybody is just an individual. Statements about groups can only be made by using statistics or at least observance of several members of the group.

If that sentence offends people, I don't know. It is obviously a joke (not implying the opposite, but of course smart people go into programming).

Also, I am sorry, but I am entitled to have an opinion on that matter. You are welcome to challenge my opinion, debate me, present alternate facts, whatever. But you (or anybody else) don't get to tell me that I am not allowed to have an opinion. That's a ground rule I am not willing to budge on. Nobody gets to tell me what to think, or to like.

The second reason (apart from being smart) is that women have more choices/options than men. This is actually well documented, but the article chooses to ignore it because it would spoil their pitch.

All these discussions, by the way, imply that women are stupid for not choosing engineering, and need to be convinced to choose it against their own judgement. Is that really better than my quip about them being too smart to choose it?

Edit: I seem to have overlooked the second part of your statement , or you added it later.

As I said, there are studies showing women have more options - they tend to have talent in multiple fields, and many men only in one. (That's for the studies). Women are also shown in studies to be perceived as more agreeable than men. Another reason they have options is that they have less need to make a good income. And the ultimate option is to have kids and drop out of work that is not entirely pleasant. I personally like Math, but even I find it difficult to voluntarily do Math. So I am not surprised if many people don't keep doing it, when they don't have to.

Also I think drawing cartoons is very different from being an engineer in a Software Company. You can work in cafes. You can stroll the city and draw sketches. You can do such things as a programmer, but it is not the norm - actually you can only make cartoons if you can afford that lifestyle, anyway.

And the bias is different. Employers have tried to put me into ugly rooms several times in my career (basements, windowless rooms, open plan offices). I think for creative work like drawing cartoons, people would be more ready to acknowledge that the artists need a nice environment to get inspiration.

Also, there is the prestige. Being an artist vs being a programmer. Or being a doctor vs being a programmer (70% of medicine graduates are women, but conveniently it doesn't count as STEM for some reason). There are glamor TV shows about being a doctor or a lawyer. How many shows are there glamorizing programming? It has only gained some prestige because some people famously got rich doing it.

This is a strawman argument.

The goal is not to have 50% women, sharp. The goal is to fix the problem that in the US, where there are 5 men for every woman working in top major software corporations, and those are the ones that supposedly try to improve things.

It's 2019, and yet a company with all-male board was the norm until this year (arguably still is). We are so, so far from any form of reasonable balance that I am not sure which universe your comment applies to.

And yes, what you said matters, as does race, country of origin, and economic background. Intersectionality is a fancy word, but it's useful, and the article mentions it.

So that said, 50% is a useful number. It's useful to say that if the actual hiring rate is at 15%, we still have a problem.

Even if you do have a "fast" track and a "slow" track, the only ways I can think of to get travelers on either of these paths to the same place at the same time is to either slow down those on the "fast" track, or speed up those on the "slow" track. What I seem to be witnessing is a willingness of people to slow down those on the "fast" track instead of expecting people on the "slow" track to work harder to catch up.

I don't understand what you mean.

Are you saying that the people who are receiving a biased mix should introduce an opposite bias to counteract it before sending on to the next step, or not?

Possibly I am misunderstanding what a "pipeline problem" refers to.

Wow, I'm experiencing some deja vu. I feel like I already (like, a year or more ago) sent this comment and got a reply, but I don't remember what the reply was.

... Ok, I think this is the thing that doesn't make sense to me: >> wherever you try to improve the pipeline, you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment.

> But that's basically just complaining that there's no quick and easy fix to your hiring problem.

I don't understand this response. Saying "It is impossible to do x without doing y or z", saying "That's just complaining that it is hard to do x without doing y or z. Tough, that's what you have to do." doesn't make sense.

Responses that could make sense include "It actually is possible to do x without doing y or z, and that is what you have to do." or "You have to do x, even if it means doing y or z, even though doing y or z is hard".

Were one of these forms what you were saying? (Note : it is very possible that I simply misunderstood what you meant. This is the thing that I think I will probably conclude if you respond.)

The options that I can see for hiring people are: Introduce an opposite bias when hiring in order to counter-act a bias in the input Don't do that, simply work to not introduce any additional bias, and accept a biased result in the output Somehow(?) act in a way that works to make it so that the input received is not biased (or options worse than any of these)

If you are counting "the input" as meaning "the set of people who apply" then I suppose you might be able to influence "the input" by changing where you advertise the position, or things like that, but that seems to me like "potential applicant -> applicant" is just another step in the pipeline, and if the inputs there are also biased, then the same trilemma applies.

If one removes all the bias potentially introduced from each step which one can directly control, then one can no longer directly remove introducers of bias.

And I don't think smalltime company TUV's role is to work to change educational outcomes and the like, and therefore if this and its predecessors are the only remaining sources of bias, I don't see how it is their problem.

That's not to say that those are usually the only remaining sources of bias. I wouldn't be surprised if many such companies do introduce bias which they can and should address, but if the claim is that they should produce an unbiased output despite having a biased input which they cannot influence, then the only thing that can follow is that they should introduce a bias in the opposite direction.

> "Abilities" is the operative word there, as in women, on average, aren't as able

Except that quote doesn't imply that women are less able. You could read it that way if you wanted to be uncharitable of course, but strictly speaking, that sentence simply says that women have different abilities, not lesser abilities. One way that sexism presents itself is an underappreciation of valuable skills, where traits that are typical of the dominant group are recognized as valuable and marked for advancement instead.

This is a standard feminist claim about work place sexism, and so a charitable reading of your quote is basically agreement with the prevailing wisdom.

> Pointing that averages don't imply individual ability doesn't make it better.

Sure it does. If you've made it, then you clearly have the skills required to be where you are.

"6 foot tall basketball players are at a serious disadvantage in the NBA". This is a clear fact. However, height doesn't determine individual ability. This too is a clear fact. Therefore, 6 foot tall players that make it into the NBA should feel reassured that they earned their place.

> he was fired because he made women felt excluded and othered

There was nothing exclusionary about the memo, and "othered" is a meaningless term. He was fired because his memo caused a PR nightmare, and through no fault of his own.

> See also Sundar's quote: "to suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK

Also not something that Damore claimed. This whole debacle has been a grand exercise in strawmanning.