Live data from Hacker News

Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

journals.plos.org

251–260 of 666 posts

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women's representation in tech matches the graduation rates of relevant fields. Which matches the rates at which women indicate tech as their preferred field in high school and middle school. I think it's in incorrect to say that they're "weeded out". That implies that women are being removed from the field, rather than exercising their own agency and choosing different fields.

Do you have a source for your claims?

Women's representation in tech fields varies from the low 20 percent to high teens. It can vary since "tech" is a nebulous designator.

Computer science: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-the-declinin...

Electrical engineering: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_325.45.a...

Mechanical engineering: https://www.bu.edu/eng/about/dean-lutchen/engineerings-gende....

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#252

Anecdotally I have seen this in person at a large tech startup. The recruiting team was all women, mainly white, and they were incredibly cliquey. Every hire was a woman. Men were turned down with vague excuses like “not a culture fit.” All while aggressively pushing DEI initiatives and interventions on the tech side. I don’t think the irony of this ever crossed their minds.

Read the summary. The finding was driven by female-dominated professions. Presumably things like teaching or nursing. Definitely not tech. Research was also done only in Sweden. I've never seen a US tech company that wasn't overwhelmingly white and male.

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#253
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think it's equal? That seems so statistically unlikely I could only describe it as a miracle.

Exactly equal down to the single individual, yes that would be unlikely. Broadly the same, seems perfectly logical to me.

"Broadly the same" and averages don't work well when you're talking about a very specific sub population that would, necessarily, be picked from the few at the top end of the intelligence distribution.

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women's representation in tech matches the graduation rates of relevant fields. Which matches the rates at which women indicate tech as their preferred field in high school and middle school. I think it's in incorrect to say that they're "weeded out". That implies that women are being removed from the field, rather than exercising their own agency and choosing different fields.

> exercising their own agency and choosing different fields. If we accept this as true, fields dominated by women should receive the same grace.

And they are, right? How many times have you seen people push for quotas among pediatrician, veterinarians, or crime scene investigators? I certainly haven't seen any. And even if such agendas exist, they rarely manifest in overt discrimination like I've not only witnessed, but actively instructed to carry out.

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#255
post #231
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I'm not quite approaching 50 yet, but I am getting there. What I can tell you is that the reason for some older folk's views on new trends is not that they're generally behind times, it's that with more life experience you have seen trends come and go, and you're actually in a slightly better position to judge the baloney factor of novel things. That is not to say that this is _always_ the way things are, of course,…

As an example of this, compare the hype of “the cloud” with the introduction of XTerminals from people like sun and oracle.

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#256
post #67

During my career, I've seen enough discrimination in the name of DEI as well. But what bothers me more is the ageism. The number of times an old person has been rejected from a job is too damn high. The reasons have always been "he may not work well with young people", "seniority complex", "he is over qualified" etc. Most of the times, they were more than qualified. I fear when I am into 40s or 50s, I will face the s…

I'm almost 50. I've been working in tech since 1996, and at this point, despite being a strong and seasoned engineer, I'm getting comments like, "it's different now", or "back in your day", etc, and the very young engineers fresh from school are the ones throwing this around. Those with a few years of experience under their belt don't. It's really disheartening, but it's also my job to train these bozos and turn them…

I'd still consider myself a bozo (3 years out of school), but may I offer a humble thanks for your shoulders that many of the rest of us stand on!

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#257
post #79
post #67

During my career, I've seen enough discrimination in the name of DEI as well. But what bothers me more is the ageism. The number of times an old person has been rejected from a job is too damn high. The reasons have always been "he may not work well with young people", "seniority complex", "he is over qualified" etc. Most of the times, they were more than qualified. I fear when I am into 40s or 50s, I will face the s…

After age 40 I did a coding bootcamp to change careers. Another guy in the camp was doing the same. We compared notes on interviews. One day he gets a call back from a recruiter and he put the recruiter on speaker phone. She told them they liked him but chose someone else because (drum roll) culture fit. He asked what she meant by that and she outright said: "The other person is younger. You're old." We were shocked…

I think due to the massive influx of people into this profession, the median age is still pretty low, but I think this will stabilize, and the age pyramid will look more even. As good, productive people will get older, recruiters will realize that people don't go senile at 40.

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#258

Throwaway. I'm happy to have more women in tech and hope it occurs or continues. However, virtually everyone recruiting in tech has observed some toxic diversity initiatives, I would venture. Some examples I have seen personally or one degree removed from me. - pressure on HMs to hire more women despite 95% of applicants being male - people in interview panels openly saying "but he's a white man" / "do we want to hir…

>- people in interview panels openly saying "but he's a white man" / "do we want to hire more white men" etc. Not surprised to hear people saying this, but am surprised that nobody brings that up as a plainly racist/sexist thing when it is said. Bystander effect?

I sat next to a guy who once complained that our new Pakistani CTO fired our black coworker for no reason (he was a top performer but was called “lazy”) and then proceeded to fire 3 Indians and only bring Pakistani candidates to the final round of interviews. He was called racist for pointing this out by HR (all white women) and he was the next person to be fired and replaced by a Pakistani developer.

Moral of the story being that unless you already have another job lined up you shouldn’t even question things like this publicly as it can cost you your job.

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#259
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

If you can't work with people who don't share your progressive politics, you may be the one who is hard to work with, not them.

Yeah, I don’t look good in brown, so I have to be careful where I work.
Post reply on HN