Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

betterprogramming.pub

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 464 posts

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

#251

Post by malandrew »

pmiller2 wrote: post #34

Tech certainly does have a diversity problem, by which I mean lack of diversity actually works to the detriment of tech companies. Yes, from the POV of companies who are hiring, this is largely a pipeline problem. No, tech companies aren't going to solve this problem directly themselves. But, what tech companies can do is change their candidate sourcing practices. I'm in favor of some version of the Rooney Rule [0] i…

> The beauty of this approach is that you don't lower your hiring bar.

You don't lower the bar but you do put a locking mechanism on your recruiting pipeline that reduces your hiring throughout in an already supply constrained environment and you impose greater hiring costs to make sure you always have a candidate.

Now that may still be a profitable thing to do, but you can pretend there are no costs and downsides. What you need to do it look at all the pros and cons and balance those considerations to find out what is most profitable. Anything that isn't profit maximizing over the time scale we are optimizing for is also to the detriment of the company.

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

#252

Post by lostcolony »

vlod wrote: post #195
kevinmgranger wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to advocate for either approach, but surely MLK was describing an end goal, not a means for getting there, no?

It's probably next to impossible to imagine an end goal. There will always be 'crazies'. I assume that most people would like to be treated by their characters. If everyone just started doing that, wouldn't the world be a better place? That's my take on MLK. Maybe it's naive.

"If everyone just started doing that" - that's the naive part. Everyone isn't.

What if you do it, but others don't? Then you're not directly responsible for the issues, sure, but you also aren't helping address any issues others are facing, and may in fact be benefiting from the biased actions those others are performing. You may not be part of the problem, but you're benefiting from the problem, and are not part of the solution.

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

#253

Post by frashelaw »

jimbob45 wrote: post #203
ibudiallo wrote: post #132

I wrote about my experience as a black developer not too long ago [1]. At first, you are shocked when you hear some insensitive comments made around you. Then you realize no one else even notices, so it must be something wrong with you. Eventually you ignore it. When someone says something stupid, you rationalize it and move on. After all, you are only just here to do a job. But then you get angry. You are angry at e…

Both whites and blacks get bullied the same amount but when it happens to a black person, it’s racism and is actually taken seriously. I get called dipshit and you get called the N-word. Why race-based bullying has suddenly become considered worse is beyond me.

seethe, crakkker

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

#254

Post by soulofmischief »

I'm sorry, but...

> I have never considered that “having chemistry with the team” could be a reason for being let go.

When you're working in a startup with 5 people and you're not in sync with their personalities, it can be a major drag on everyone.

Having had to see people let go in startups for simply not fitting in, this has nothing to do with you being a woman and to frame it that way reduces the effectiveness of your overall narrative.

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

#255

Post by setr »

asdff wrote: post #233
thu2111 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sure would be easier to build software firms if every job got thousands of qualified applicants. Obviously, that isn't the case.

That has more to do with the lack of marketing of the job opening than a lack of qualified talent out there

I think more generally the issue is being swamped with unqualified talent, such that it's difficult to identify actual talent amongst the mess. A lot of people are not trying to be good at what they do, they're just trying to be paid for what they do.

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

#256

Post by missosoup »

Planktonne wrote: post #240
ip26 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aptitude for a thing is your raw capability to do a thing well. Predisposition to do a thing is your inclination or desire to do a thing at all. Basically the linked article finds that women are perfectly capable of doing the job, but the more choice they have, the less they want to do it.

'Predisposition' is not solely focused on your inclinations. It's absolutely absurd to say, for example, that a genetic predisposition towards cancer is desired by anyone. What we *know* is that there is no aptitude problem preventing women from doing the job. We also know that many capable women choose not to, particularly in more equal societies. Jumping from the above information to 'men are naturally more predisp…

Predisposition is unambiguous and well-defined. It means that a particular outcome is more likely. It says nothing about the cause or desire for it. You substituted the real meaning for your own agenda.

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

#257

Post by Planktonne »

missosoup wrote: post #183
Planktonne wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linked article says the exact opposite of what you are claiming: > The issue doesn’t appear to be girls’ aptitude for STEM professions. In looking at test scores across 67 countries and regions, Stoet and Geary found that girls performed about as well or better than boys did on science in most countries, and in almost all countries, girls would have been capable of college-level science and math classes if they h…

'Predisposed to do job' doesn't mean 'better at doing job'. It means 'more likely to do job'. Which is what the linked article studies - the fact that as women get more choices, they choose STEM less and less. Boys are unquestionably more likely to take an interest in tech than girls, and no amount of 'equality' or active enticement aimed at girls has been able to shift that balance. The only thing left is to set div…

You're galloping away from your own point here.

You said that the research shows that men are 'more naturally predisposed' towards the sciences. It doesn't show that.

The only thing in that article that addresses any kind of natural predisposition is the information on aptitude, and that doesn't show that men are more likely to do the job.

Everything else is firstly highly speculative, and secondly affected by a range of factors that the research doesn't explore. In fact, it actively suggests other factors - such as economic security - are likely to be involved. It would be difficult to find an article that was further from claiming a natural predisposition.

The research doesn't show any kind of predisposition, let alone a natural one. It notes a pattern - that may be reversing itself - that requires an awful lot more further research before using it to justify lazy stereotypes.

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

#258

Post by Planktonne »

missosoup wrote: post #256
Planktonne wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Predisposition' is not solely focused on your inclinations. It's absolutely absurd to say, for example, that a genetic predisposition towards cancer is desired by anyone. What we *know* is that there is no aptitude problem preventing women from doing the job. We also know that many capable women choose not to, particularly in more equal societies. Jumping from the above information to 'men are naturally more predisp…

Predisposition is unambiguous and well-defined. It means that a particular outcome is more likely. It says nothing about the cause or desire for it. You substituted the real meaning for your own agenda.

> Predisposition is unambiguous and well-defined

I agree; it isn't just about what you want.

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

#259

Post by LouisSayers »

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 type of thing is exactly what puts me off companies.

When I ask what the most challenging problems company’s are facing and they mention PC stuff, then I know it’s not a place for me.

I’m also mixed race, part Maori and I had a guy in an interview tell me that “white guys like us don’t add diversity to the company”.

These social justice warriors can go fuck themselves.

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

#260

Post by 908B64B197 »

thu2111 wrote: post #204
lrem wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always do affirmative action like Google. Invite the minorities to boot camps, coaching and mentoring programmes and so on... But subject them to the regular interview process and hiring bar.

Even when I was there years ago, it was common knowledge amongst those of us who did hiring that women had an easier time in the interview process. For example, females could not fail the first phone screens. They would always be forwarded to on-site interviews regardless of earlier performance. The justification was that weak performance at the initial screens would be taken into account later by the hiring committe…

> however men were given no such second chances.

That is, of course, if your resume doesn't get tossed out for not being diverse enough [0][1]

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wi...

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/new-lawsuit-exposes-googles-desp...

Post reply on HN