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How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

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Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#81
post #2

I wonder how long it will be before other companies start doing this. At his confirmation hearing, when Alan Greenspan was asked why Townsend-Greenspan employed so many women (> 50%, compared to about 5% in finance at the time), he replied that since he valued women as much as men, but other firms didn't, he could get more work for the same amount money by hiring women. Now, of course, the difference has mostly been…

[deleted]

Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#82
post #45

Recently I watched a documentary in which a researcher told of how he was ridiculed for studying happiness, even though nobody saw anything wrong with studying depression. Then I saw a documentary where a handful of really skinny people were put on a ridiculous diet and their physiological changes were tracked. Instead of trying to figure out why there aren't MORE women in science, math and engineering disciplines, p…

Whast extra hurdles did you have to jump over? Are you sure your wages are lower? Those differences are not very obvious for office jobs, in fact the other day I linked to astudy showing women in tech earn more than men ( till age 30 anyway, have no data on otherrs).

My degree is in audio tech, not computer tech. I have always found the latter to be far less challenging in the gender bias department, and had a much easier time, in general making a career "in computers." I do have experiences where I was passed over for positions where men with less experience were hired (I trained them). Also where male peers received training I was denied. Also where I was harassed until I resigned while I was pregnant. I've been asked if I was okay with working 40 hours a week because I have kids or what my kids would do during the day while I was working. Even writing one sentence per experience would make this response tedious.

I have no personal examples of being paid less, because I've more or less felt I was being paid enough to make it not worth asking anyone else what they were being paid. From what I understand, that is a big no-no. The examples I have of women being paid less are from other women in tech, a couple of these for which there is direct proof.

Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#83
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whast extra hurdles did you have to jump over? Are you sure your wages are lower? Those differences are not very obvious for office jobs, in fact the other day I linked to astudy showing women in tech earn more than men ( till age 30 anyway, have no data on otherrs).

My degree is in audio tech, not computer tech. I have always found the latter to be far less challenging in the gender bias department, and had a much easier time, in general making a career "in computers." I do have experiences where I was passed over for positions where men with less experience were hired (I trained them). Also where male peers received training I was denied. Also where I was harassed until I resig…

Curious about the "willing to work 40h" question, seems fair to ask?

Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#84
post #23

I'd like to see some numbers on how having 500% more female engineers made Etsy ship a better product - which is what I imagine customers ultimately care about. The idea that diversity is good for its own sake in every possible situation is taken as an axiom - which I'd like to see proven. It seems like the idea of meritocracy - that the best professional for a given job is based on competence is substituted with one…

Meritocracy is a fiction.

Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, is the author implying that men and women approach engineering problems differently (i.e. they think differently)? Is there any evidence of this? I don't think it's controversial to believe that one's best chance at achieving "cognitive diversity" comes from having a variety of genders/backgrounds/ages/etc/whatever on your team. That's not incompatible with rejecting the belief that one gender/race/whateve…

I would think it's controversial when applied to engineering. This implies that the basic tools of software development are somehow viewed/used differently by people of various genders/ethnicities/etc... solely because of this "diversity" which I think most people would disagree with. And if one were to argue that being asian/female/poor somehow effects how you develop software I would love to know how those differen…

  I would think it's controversial when applied to
  engineering. This implies that the basic tools of 
  software development are somehow viewed/used 
  differently by people of various genders/ethnicities/etc
We're probably operating with different definitions of "software engineering."

I understand software engineering to encompass much more than just using "the basic tools of software development." Within that scope, you're definitely right: I don't think one gender can use Eclipse (or vim, or whatever) better.

I'm thinking of a broader definition of software engineering that involves understanding problems and choosing from many viable solutions, each with their own trade-offs in terms of implementation difficulty and end-user experience. There are a lot of people who feel that process, and our industry as a whole, would benefit from having a greater variety of perspectives.

  the author seems to think "cognitive diversity" can be achieved
  simply by adding women to your dev team.
It can be a step towards it.

Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#86

Recently I watched a documentary in which a researcher told of how he was ridiculed for studying happiness, even though nobody saw anything wrong with studying depression. Then I saw a documentary where a handful of really skinny people were put on a ridiculous diet and their physiological changes were tracked. Instead of trying to figure out why there aren't MORE women in science, math and engineering disciplines, p…

What's different for you about being compared to other women instead of being compared to men, when they were considering who to offer the job?

I cannot rightly say I've ever been up against another female candidate. But I have a lot of opinions about how I am different, at least from a personality standpoint, from most of the women I work with. None of which are objective. :-)

Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#87
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My degree is in audio tech, not computer tech. I have always found the latter to be far less challenging in the gender bias department, and had a much easier time, in general making a career "in computers." I do have experiences where I was passed over for positions where men with less experience were hired (I trained them). Also where male peers received training I was denied. Also where I was harassed until I resig…

Curious about the "willing to work 40h" question, seems fair to ask?

"Are you willing to work a 40 hour week" (ie, the industry standard full-time week) is code for "are you sure your motherly obligations aren't going to get in the way of your job?"

Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#88
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My degree is in audio tech, not computer tech. I have always found the latter to be far less challenging in the gender bias department, and had a much easier time, in general making a career "in computers." I do have experiences where I was passed over for positions where men with less experience were hired (I trained them). Also where male peers received training I was denied. Also where I was harassed until I resig…

Curious about the "willing to work 40h" question, seems fair to ask?

Weird. Something ate that post.

The question was, "I can hear your kids in the background. Are you sure you're okay with working 40 hours a week?" From a female recruiter for a previous employer when I specifically inquired about FTE. Her boss (also female) certainly didn't think it was fair to ask.

Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#90
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Did you really just argue that we shouldn't hire women because, when the men on the team harass them, they might sue? How about this for a crazy idea: Let's build a culture where men don't think it's ok to sexually harass women, at work or anywhere else!

Since human nature is so malleable, while we're at it, let's build a culture where men don't care about women's looks, women don't care about men's social status, parents love other people's children more than their own kids, and wearing stripes with plaid is the height of fashion. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.

Now you're arguing that culture is hard to change, so we shouldn't do it, even if the existing culture is morally horrible?

(Oh, and you're using a straw man argument to do it.)

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