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How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

fastcolabs.com

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Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#111

Post by randomdata »

mlent wrote: post #106
randomdata wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You definitely right that being the overall best is more complicated than being the best at one specific thing. However, doesn't the idea of "female perspective" reintroduce the exact same gender bias issues? If you can justify hiring for "female perspective", what about the companies who only want "male perspective"?

I don't think Etsy is acting as though they want only the female perspective, just more of it than what they have. I'm sure there are other areas where they are trying to get more male perspective (e.g. at small liberal arts colleges, to a degree). Etsy is obviously not starting to hire only women or even mostly women.

Teaching is an industry that openly seeks male perspective, but I'm not sure that is right either. Why can't men just reach the level of being the obvious choice for the job, without even needing to consider gender?

Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#112

Post by raganwald »

Kudzu_Bob wrote: post #75
raganwald wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably incorrect. And I could just as easily posit the reverse. Say we have one woman and nine men. If we add a woman, does it really double the likelihood of a harassment suit? Why would it? Either one of the nine men harasses women, or he doesn't, why would adding a second women change his behaviour? On the other hand, if we halve the proportion of women by hiring ten more men, I'd say you may have doubled the ch…

Meanwhile, on Planet Earth, as the number of women in the workforce increases, so does the number of sexual harassment lawsuits.

Correlation is not causation, my friend. I can't believe I have to say this on Hacker News. My God, what happened to us?

Reported cases of harassment are up, because of:

1. it is no longer socially acceptable to harass? 2. we have removed barriers to reporting harassment?

Maybe there are more women in the workforce because we made it safer for them to work and we removed their dependence on a husband for sustenance.

Let's do a little thinking about this. I feel like I'm listening to a conservative call-in show.

Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#113

Post by mlent »

randomdata wrote: post #111
mlent wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Etsy is acting as though they want only the female perspective, just more of it than what they have. I'm sure there are other areas where they are trying to get more male perspective (e.g. at small liberal arts colleges, to a degree). Etsy is obviously not starting to hire only women or even mostly women.

Teaching is an industry that openly seeks male perspective, but I'm not sure that is right either. Why can't men just reach the level of being the obvious choice for the job, without even needing to consider gender?

I think, as the article alludes to, men and women are less likely to consider certain careers/colleges/whatever. So if you ignored gender at a liberal arts school and blindly selected candidates, and the ratio was as skewed towards women as the tech industry is towards men, do you think men would be as comfortable there? Having a gender balance (as well as a balance on other axes that include more minorities) is good for everyone. Maybe that overall environment is better than an environment full of mega left-wing lady commies, or, in the case of tech, "hotshot" male engineers with poor social graces. These are all generalizations, obviously, but I think it's true to the overarching trend.

Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#114

Post by subsystem »

Tichy wrote: post #110
subsystem wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, you didn't actually say story, you said experiment. I wouldn't base my theories on a single story. Instead I've been following this experiment for a year, during which many of the people involved seem to think that sexism actually is one of the factors. Hacker school amended their policy with "no subtle sexism", the CTO of Etsy said that it was harder to hire great women because they tend to have a history of ba…

The number of people believing something is not a good indicator for it being true oe not. Example: billions of people have contradictory religious beliefs.

The number of independent people believing something combined with their authenticity, trustworthiness, or competency is basic information valuation[0]. Religious beliefs fall not on how many people believe them, but because they all originate from either untrustworthy or distant sources. Otherwise the laws of physics would be false, since many people also believe them.

In any case that doesn't matter since what you actually said that sexism wasn't one of the factors and I've shown that is was. We haven't even begun talking about how large a factor it was since you haven't been providing any real perspective on the matter. At this point I seriously doubt your ability to provide any value in this conversation and are therefor going to stop participating in it.

[0] https://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm2-22-3.pdf

Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#115

Post by Tichy »

subsystem wrote: post #114
Tichy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of people believing something is not a good indicator for it being true oe not. Example: billions of people have contradictory religious beliefs.

The number of independent people believing something combined with their authenticity, trustworthiness, or competency is basic information valuation[0]. Religious beliefs fall not on how many people believe them, but because they all originate from either untrustworthy or distant sources. Otherwise the laws of physics would be false, since many people also believe them. In any case that doesn't matter since what you…

You've shown that the organizers thought that sexism was a factor, which isn't the same thing. But you are right, since we fundamentally disagree about the rules of logic, further discussion is pointless. (example: I said truth doesn't follow from many people believing in something, you interpret it as 'everything many people believe is false'. Very basic logic mistake)

Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#116

Post by [deleted] »

Tichy wrote: post #115
subsystem wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of independent people believing something combined with their authenticity, trustworthiness, or competency is basic information valuation[0]. Religious beliefs fall not on how many people believe them, but because they all originate from either untrustworthy or distant sources. Otherwise the laws of physics would be false, since many people also believe them. In any case that doesn't matter since what you…

You've shown that the organizers thought that sexism was a factor, which isn't the same thing. But you are right, since we fundamentally disagree about the rules of logic, further discussion is pointless. (example: I said truth doesn't follow from many people believing in something, you interpret it as 'everything many people believe is false'. Very basic logic mistake)

[deleted]

Re: How Etsy Attracted 500% More Female Engineers

#117

Post by statictype »

tptacek wrote: post #87
Tichy wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

Is it wrong to ask that? Serious question. Seems to me like a perfectly fair thing for a prospective employer to ask.
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