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Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

reuters.com

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Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#371

Post by mjsir911 »

rajin444 wrote: post #276
sokoloff wrote: post #32

> some people from underrepresented backgrounds have said they continue to feel unwelcome in the tech industry, and they also remain high in demand elsewhere as companies compete to increase diversity. This is dangerous territory to comment on perhaps, but it seems like many policies which seek to boost individual company population ratios to be significantly higher than the comparable tech-industry ratios are prone…

> We do have a diversity problem in tech, no doubt What is the correct racial / gender / sex breakdown for a tech industry with no diversity problems? I’m not sure how we can say we have a problem if we don’t know what the correct breakdowns are. We’re implementing all these solutions with no metric to measure success. That seems like a perfect system to create more discrimination.

I think this is a complicated question to answer, but I'll give it a shot:

Within the tech industry, the correct proportion of minorities should be representative of your hiring pool (which is why I think they ask you to self report), or maybe even proportionally to "all qualified potential candidates", not sure how you'd measure that out.

The problem is even within qualified potential candidates, many minorities are still under-represented. This is a societal problem outside of the tech industry, but one that leaks into it.

More opportunities for these minorities to get a leg up to enter the field would bring the proportions closer to normal, stuff like affirmative action for schools.

It's a tough answer and nobody wants anyone in the chain to take responsibility for lifting up those that have been put down, it's definitely a flawed approach but I'm glad to see businesses attempt it.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#372

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #65
mastazi wrote: post #17

I'm Italian and I speak Spanish and Portuguese relatively fluently. Using the term "Latinx" in my opinion is a form of cultural appropriation, because it imposes a way of using grammatical gender that is typical of the English language (think e.g. about the "singular they") upon neo-latin languages where the perception of grammatical gender is very different. In neo-latin languages such as Italian or Spanish, grammat…

Imperialism has continued, but it’s just been rebranded as a pseudo-religious movement. There is only one Truth and any cultures that disagree are “behind” or “anti-progressive.”

"BY THIS SIGN YOU WILL CONQUER."

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#373

Post by AnimalMuppet »

slumdev wrote: post #353
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that we're all red. Peel back the skin layer of any living human being, and red is what you'll see.

If you say that to a person who insists on taking offense, he would tell you that a white person using red icons might be offensive to Native Americans or people with albinism.

I don't mean "red" as in Native American, and I wouldn't use Native American icons. I mean, when you peel back the skin, we all bleed the same color. Even albinos do.

The point is, once you move past the skin, all our blood looks alike. We all share that.

(I agree, though, that some are likely to insist on taking offense. Also, I note that albinos might have a case to complain about non-albinos who are called "white"...)

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#374

Post by thiagocsf »

postsantum wrote: post #367
zozbot234 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're not serious about tackling the problem. We are, however, quite good at grifting off the problem with proposals we know don't work. Could it be that women tend to care about stuff like a healthy work-life balance, and things like the 996.ICU working week can discourage them from applying? Whoops no, we've been told that's sexist wrongthink.

Could it be that computers are boring af and most of these people who genuinely care about computing are somewhere on the autism spectrum (which is mostly populated by males)

We’re all in the spectrum. That’s why it’s called a spectrum. :-)

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#375

Post by gccs »

sdljfjafsd wrote: post #188
danielrpa wrote: post #55

I happen to be very familiar with Google's diversity efforts and have many Black and Latinx friends and acquaintances in the company. Google is one of the most racially inclusive tech companies in the world. It really tries hard to fix historical disparities between races in ways that you don't see in most companies, ranging from very active promotion of minorities to programs dedicated to hiring them. The interview…

Google's outcomes are pretty weak. I work at a large tech firm that has significantly higher percentages of employees who are black and/or hispanic compared to Google. We are at 2-3x the rates Google publicly reports. At my current company, I regularly work with Black employees, but when I worked at Google, I could go weeks, if not months, without working with a Black person. You can tout all the sophisticated progra…

They aren't trying to force outcomes. "The interview process, while not perfect, also tries to erase bias by forcing gender and racially-neutral terms in interview writeups."

Its easy to boost your outcomes if that's what you want. You just specifically hire people of some race.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#376

Post by Manuel_D »

nradov wrote: post #308
rocqua wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A problem I have heard female friends speculate about is with promoting women in higher positions. If the female population is too low, and you try to get them into higher positions, two effects occur according to this theory. First of all, with a low female population there probably aren't enough proven and qualified women to fill the desired number of slots. This leads to imposter syndrome / worry about people thin…

Women were well represented in the early days of computing. The gender imbalance only started in about 1984. Some researchers think that was because home computers started to become affordable at about that time and were mainly marketed to men. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when...

Women's representation peaked at around 1/3rd in the mid 1980s. While higher than present days, it was never close to parity. The narrative that personal computers were marked to boys is criticized: a significant market segment was secretarial work, which was predominantly made up of women.

The drop in women's representation in computing corresponds to the elimination of overtly sexist policies in other fields. E.g. medical schools removed gender quotas (maximum not minimum quotas, sometimes as low as 10%). Mary Ann Wilkes initially wanted to be a lawyer, but changed to computing when she encountered explicit sexism in law firms. After the expansion of women's right, women in her position were able to pursue their original passions.

I doubt it boils down to any one cause, but I think it's crucial not to ignore women's agency in making career decisions.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#377

Post by loonster »

sterlind wrote: post #322
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you dictate to plaintext (notepad?) and use an oral markup - if punctuation is the problem - like saying "bang" for "!". Then parse your input, cut-paste into the IDE. It seems very niche, which is why I'm not surprised not to see mention of it in the docs? Why did you see it as particularly curious that VS and Dragon weren't setup for interoperability?

I think my best option is to write Python scripts with Dragonfly [0] to make a Visual Studio or VS Code extension that gives me accessibility, and/or a neovim plugin to let me say vim commands efficiently. Dictating plaintext and copy/pasting works for writing code, but navigating through VS menus and code files and e.g. running unit tests is still a nightmare. Maybe an accessible mouse would help. It sounds niche, b…

Maybe learn to use a large trackball with your feet?

Something like X-Keys L-Trac (Formerly CST2545-5w)

I've developed carpal tunnel, and to mitigate my problems I now use a mouse at work and trackball at home (strain different muscles). The clicking of the mouse bothered me for awhile, so for that I tried two mice. Right hand would control position and left hand would do the clicking. A foot pedal for the clicks would have been so much less awkward.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#378

Post by Manuel_D »

mjsir911 wrote: post #371
rajin444 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We do have a diversity problem in tech, no doubt What is the correct racial / gender / sex breakdown for a tech industry with no diversity problems? I’m not sure how we can say we have a problem if we don’t know what the correct breakdowns are. We’re implementing all these solutions with no metric to measure success. That seems like a perfect system to create more discrimination.

I think this is a complicated question to answer, but I'll give it a shot: Within the tech industry , the correct proportion of minorities should be representative of your hiring pool (which is why I think they ask you to self report), or maybe even proportionally to "all qualified potential candidates", not sure how you'd measure that out. The problem is even within qualified potential candidates, many minorities ar…

I don't think it's fair to assume that genders and ethnicities should match either the general population or the hiring pool. Geography plays a huge role: if you have a company in a city with a substantially higher asian population (like Seattle or the Bay Area) that geographic distribution is going to have a significant influence. Likewise, a product used primarily by women might have higher representation of women because of the userbase. Pinterest is a good example here.

I think the solution is to realize that it's wrong to pick outcomes a priori, that we shouldn't trying to find the "correct proportion". Instead, focus on eliminating discrimination and biases in the hiring pipeline. Anonymize the gender and ethnicity of applicants. Use voice altering software to prevent the ability to discern between genders when interviewing. If the goal is to eliminate discrimination on the basis of protected characteristics, create a hiring process that isn't able to distinguish between these characteristics in the first place. Then, whatever proportion that results is the "correct proportion".

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#379

Post by jjk166 »

dahfizz wrote: post #189
brayhite wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem being described is an identifiable group feels like they are unwelcome or an otherwise hindered group within the industry. They use the population ratio as a mere point of evidence to argue it’s not just anecdotal. Pointing out what groups _aren’t_ underrepresented is like saying “Yeah, we’ll, all lives matter” in response to “Black lives matter”.

Communication is hard, and having to dance around the topic to be PC makes communication much harder. Your parent was responding to this statement: > We do have a diversity problem in tech, no doubt. And their response - that tech is, in fact, diverse and meritocratic - is a fair response to that statement. I think what OP meant by their statement is that there is a diversity problem _pertaining specifically to peopl…

If someone wants to express a complex and nuanced opinion, they should actually explicitly state the nuanced bit. Being generous and giving people the benefit of the doubt at best perpetuates a bad habit which people who are not acting in good faith take advantage of. If you wouldn't feel comfortable expressing an opinion clearly and unambiguously, you probably shouldn't express the opinion at all.

Re: Google reports soaring attrition among Black women

#380

Post by pyuser583 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #376
nradov wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women were well represented in the early days of computing. The gender imbalance only started in about 1984. Some researchers think that was because home computers started to become affordable at about that time and were mainly marketed to men. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when...

Women's representation peaked at around 1/3rd in the mid 1980s. While higher than present days, it was never close to parity. The narrative that personal computers were marked to boys is criticized: a significant market segment was secretarial work, which was predominantly made up of women. The drop in women's representation in computing corresponds to the elimination of overtly sexist policies in other fields. E.g.…

I know quite a few female programmers. Almost all of them wanted to be something else, and only became programmers as a second choice.

Another thought: compared to other technical careers, programming careers are uncredentialed. No legal or even social prerequisites other than skill.

If you want to be a doctor, you must apply to college, be accepted to college, matriculate, graduate with a degree in sciences. Then you must take the MCAT, apply to medical schools, be accepted to a medical school, graduate, apply to a residency, complete the residency, and become board certified.

And then you are an entry level doctor, licensed to practice in a single state, with no job, no patients, no practice, and no insurance network contracts.

If any of those steps are sexist/racist, a woman or minority is less likely to make it past that step.

Programming doesn’t have as many gatekeepers. That’s good for people who have been kept out of things.

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