Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer • Hacker News Board

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#111

Post by ViViDboarder » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

hypocrisy wrote: post #28

> This is an example of how methods to empower women, when wrongly applied, can have the opposite effect, making them feel even more insecure and powerless. The soft bigotry of low expectations and affirmative action rears its ugly head yet again. Hire people of all races, genders and creeds based on _merit_, not diversity quotas. No one should have to show up to work feeling like a second class citizen and that they…

Just a note that it’s useful to think about what merit criteria you have and what really matters for your job. There’s a lot of room for biases to sneak in under the guise of an objective measure.

For example, looking for only people who graduated from a certain tier of school limits you by adopting whatever discriminatory practices that those schools have adopted. Or looking for people with a particular experience that is rarely afforded to a particular class of people.

Instead, by working identify the merits that actually result in high performance and then working to evaluate those in an interview can get you better and more diverse employees.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#112

Post by launderthis » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

bedhead wrote: post #95

rsweeney21 wrote: post #37

I'm a light skinned male. I'm also a Choctaw Native American. In my senior year of college in 2004 I applied to dozens of companies. I never got a single response. I decided to try an experiment - I applied to IBM and, for the first time, I selected "Native American" as my ethnicity. Within 24 hours I got an email inviting me to a special, all expenses paid IBM recruiting event held for Native Americans in Albuquerqu…

While I'm your everyday white guy, I've never understood why people among minority groups would accept this completely over-the-top pandering. It's a form of shaming and it's dehumanizing. Who wants this?

im gonna be racists here but very vague for you to make sense of it and make it rational but not racists... here it goes

white men in power want this to control all others below them. Its a divide and conquer strategy.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#113

Post by creato » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

bedhead wrote: post #95

rsweeney21 wrote: post #37

I'm a light skinned male. I'm also a Choctaw Native American. In my senior year of college in 2004 I applied to dozens of companies. I never got a single response. I decided to try an experiment - I applied to IBM and, for the first time, I selected "Native American" as my ethnicity. Within 24 hours I got an email inviting me to a special, all expenses paid IBM recruiting event held for Native Americans in Albuquerqu…

While I'm your everyday white guy, I've never understood why people among minority groups would accept this completely over-the-top pandering. It's a form of shaming and it's dehumanizing. Who wants this?

I don't think anyone does, but companies are absolutely desperate to meet the demands of (a subset of) society regarding diversity. That desperation manifests in funny ways.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#114

Post by njharman » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #47

pmarreck wrote: post #42

I read the whole thing and I feel for her, especially around all the gendered language she has had to deal with, but had some thoughts. I want to make constructive criticisms (which is extremely difficult in the context of someone perceiving harm), but I'd prefer not to get downvoted, so I will try to be as empathetic as possible when stating the following. > I have a strong opinion about diversity hires: Although I…

i disagree with the validity of cultural fit. if there is a problem with someone fitting into the culture, then it is the culture that needs to change. letting someone go because they don't participate in after-work activities or because they don't drink alcohol is unacceptable. as is letting someone go because of gender differences. yes, some people have a problem working together. carl in the story is a good exampl…

> problem with someone fitting into the culture, then it is the culture that needs to change.

So the team should change to accept a racist, a rude asshole, an elitist narcissist, all the other toxic personality types.

In my experience "doesn't fit culture" is code for they're an asshat.

Culture in this context doesn't mean ethnic culture. It's referring to work culture, work ethics and personality at work.

Also thinking the world needs to change to fit you is the epitome of entitled snowflake attitude. A cultural misfit anyplace I have or would work.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#115

Post by SavantIdiot » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

launderthis wrote: post #103

SavantIdiot wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an example of a non-diverse company that doesn't understand diversity trying to implement some kind of diversity. I recall these kinds of ham-fisted attempts everywhere in the late 90's. Ironically, this was most likely cringe because there were no minorities on the staff, a consequence of: no diversity. I observed a similar event in the early 90's when a bunch of white folk in HR tried to show off diversity…

thats what you get when you government mandate things. You cant expect things like diversity and culture to be processed by law. You pretty much have to make it non profitable for companies to not be diverse. Then they company has a personal responsiblity to change rather than a checkbox to check off , much like the "what race are you" checkbox given to pander to their diversity quota. I blame society, people cry abo…

You: "thats what you get when you government mandate things."

Also you: "You pretty much have to make it non profitable for companies to not be diverse."

/facepalm/

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#116

Post by steve_g » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

kemiller2002 wrote: post #23

maxehmookau wrote: post #6

Firing someone for a "lack of chemistry" and refusing to give details is a Grade A dick move.

Honestly, not really. It sucks, but from a risk management perspective, less information given out is always better. Was she fired for legit reasons? Who knows. There is no advantage to the employer to give reasons. You can't really blame anyone for trying not to be sued.

I'd say the dick move is firing someone without any kind of coaching or explanation about what you'd like to see done differently. The coaching should have happened well in advance of the firing.

A firing that comes as a complete surprise to the employee is generally a sign of a bad manager (not always, but true enough to be a useful heuristic).

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#117

Post by handoflixue » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #88

grayhatter wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

she looks at everything from a sexism lense?... in the essay's topic of sexism she experienced? Yeah, agreed, she's too narrowly focused on her topic... She should ramble more and include more unrelated observations.

It seems like she’s experienced a lot of inappropriate and difficult things explicitly about gender. My only question was the cultural fit — we don’t know for sure that gender had anything to do with it. Often times when people are fired not only can you never tell them why, they are incapable of seeing, assessing, and recognizing their own flaws (particular when it comes to personal interaction versus quantitative m…

"Culture fit" without any other explanation is fairly solid evidence. First off, programming is one of the most "culture agnostic" jobs I've worked - if you're a high performer, you can absolutely get away with being an abrasive asshole. At least, if you're male. That's slowly changing, but I still find the social skills of the average programmer to be significantly below what I'd expect from, say, a minimum wage cashier or call center employee. (And that's fine, but it makes "culture fit" look like a much more suspicious excuse)

The other aspect here is that they just fired her, without any effort to actually work on that "culture fit". I've worked with managers who had wildly different styles, and some of them did NOT like mine. But instead of getting fired, I had conversations with them.

It's certainly possible that she's lying, or in denial, or just plain wrong. But I'd say the weight of the evidence favors her.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#118

Post by munificent » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 10:03 PM UTC

rsweeney21 wrote: post #37

I'm a light skinned male. I'm also a Choctaw Native American. In my senior year of college in 2004 I applied to dozens of companies. I never got a single response. I decided to try an experiment - I applied to IBM and, for the first time, I selected "Native American" as my ethnicity. Within 24 hours I got an email inviting me to a special, all expenses paid IBM recruiting event held for Native Americans in Albuquerqu…

All of this sounds horribly cringe-inducing and I don't fault you at all for walking away from IBM.

At the same time, I can't help but look at this from an iterated organizational perspective. Let's say you had taken the offer at IBM. Next year, IBM does the recruiting event. But this time they have a Native American employee, you, that they can talk to about how to reach out to that group. So it's a little less awkward. Maybe they hire a couple more. Over time, the organization builds enough to overcome its own internal systemic bias and does have a strong local representative culture of Native American employees.

But I don't see how an organization gets to that point without it being sort of weird and cringy at first.

Of course, you are under no personal obligation to be the one to take those first steps simply because you happen to be a member of that group. But I have to wonder, if we're going to criticize an organization for trying to correct their biases this way... what other process would we suggest?

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#119

Post by tonystubblebine » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 10:05 PM UTC

bedhead wrote: post #95

rsweeney21 wrote: post #37

I'm a light skinned male. I'm also a Choctaw Native American. In my senior year of college in 2004 I applied to dozens of companies. I never got a single response. I decided to try an experiment - I applied to IBM and, for the first time, I selected "Native American" as my ethnicity. Within 24 hours I got an email inviting me to a special, all expenses paid IBM recruiting event held for Native Americans in Albuquerqu…

While I'm your everyday white guy, I've never understood why people among minority groups would accept this completely over-the-top pandering. It's a form of shaming and it's dehumanizing. Who wants this?

Doesn't it have an obvious answer? The people who accept this are the ones for whom this is the best option. Upside: money. Downside: offensive pandering. That's often better than being unemployed.

If that's true, then it's not just an offensive strategy, it's also ineffective for the business employing it. It's a way to select the lowest performing of a target group.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#120

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 10:05 PM UTC

SavantIdiot wrote: post #68

rsweeney21 wrote: post #37

I'm a light skinned male. I'm also a Choctaw Native American. In my senior year of college in 2004 I applied to dozens of companies. I never got a single response. I decided to try an experiment - I applied to IBM and, for the first time, I selected "Native American" as my ethnicity. Within 24 hours I got an email inviting me to a special, all expenses paid IBM recruiting event held for Native Americans in Albuquerqu…

This is an example of a non-diverse company that doesn't understand diversity trying to implement some kind of diversity. I recall these kinds of ham-fisted attempts everywhere in the late 90's. Ironically, this was most likely cringe because there were no minorities on the staff, a consequence of: no diversity. I observed a similar event in the early 90's when a bunch of white folk in HR tried to show off diversity…

> When minorities are made "ambassadors" as though they suddenly speak for EVERYONE in their minority, it is awful, and wrong. People don't get this: "But X minority said it was OK..." No, it takes literal diversity of opinion.

Which is why the entire concept of demographics-based "diversity" is such a shambles. The premise is supposed to be that if you get some women and minorities in there then you'll have a diversity of opinion.

But then you select for the women willing to work 80 hour weeks, which is highly atypical and selects out e.g. prospective mothers, ensuring they're not represented in your organization. You select for the minorities with degrees from prestigious schools which selects out people who know what it's like to grow up poor.

You end up with diversity on paper but not in practice, which is not only useless but worse than nothing because it creates the impression that you now have a diversity of opinion and you don't.