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I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

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Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#21

Post by speeder »

bitops wrote: post #13
crazygringo wrote: post #3

That's really, really sad. And the worst part is, it's surely conscious on nobody's part. There have even been studies showing this effect. What's even sadder is that there's no obvious or easy way to fix it.

> What's even sadder is that there's no obvious or easy way to fix it. There is no easy way to fix it, but there is a way to fix it. I won't go so far as to say that it's obvious to many people. The way to do it? Work to change men's attitudes and biases towards women. It can definitely be done, but it takes hard work and cultural change. I would recommend the book "The Macho Paradox" by Jackson Katz for anyone inter…

Why you need to change MEN attitudes?

Most HR departments are staffed by women for example, they would be the ones that saw a "Mr." in the resume.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#22

Post by hack_edu »

crazygringo wrote: post #3

That's really, really sad. And the worst part is, it's surely conscious on nobody's part. There have even been studies showing this effect. What's even sadder is that there's no obvious or easy way to fix it.

Want to see this in action? Create near-identical profiles on any job site frequented by recruiters, one profile male and another female. Your male account, fictional or not, will get a measurable amount more attention and see more outreach.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#23

Post by cupcake-unicorn »

I get this so much, although I've had the opposite experience, where when people notice that I'm female, certain companies get excited for the chance to have a "token woman" on their team. Isn't necessarily a bad thing. Anyway, it made me think of all the LinkedIn spam I get addressing me as sir, Mr., "we're looking for some cool dudes like yourself", etc.

Sadly it's not just the gender thing that's going on here as well, I'm thinking of some study they did where they attached photos with the resumes - the "attractive" people (both men and women) were rated as better skilled than the "normal" and "ugly" people that had the same resume. Although, I think that if I took some fancy photos of myself and primped myself up, I don't think it would do me any favors and I'd get some unwanted attention!

My name isn't even gender neutral, very feminine...I think I once was on some board online using my real name and people were still assuming I was a guy. When I asked how they could possibly think it was a male name, they replied, "I dunno, I was thinking it was like one of those fancy Italian names, like Fabio or whatever..Fabia..yeah, same thing...they always sound like girls names."

I've now started picking the most ridiculously cutsie usernames possible, like this one, to keep people guessing. Sometimes it backfires still and people just get homophobic, but I generally stick with it anyway for fun :)

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#25

Post by pseut »

crazygringo wrote: post #3

That's really, really sad. And the worst part is, it's surely conscious on nobody's part. There have even been studies showing this effect. What's even sadder is that there's no obvious or easy way to fix it.

There could be conscious discrimination against the resume once the "married with kids" line is added; I wouldn't be so quick to assume that surely nobody is doing it. Honestly (and this is embarrassing to admit), I'd probably think much differently about a female job applicant who had that line on her resume than a male applicant.

In particular, I wouldn't necessarily expect that line to imply anything about a male candidate's commitment to the work/job, but just write it off as a misguided attempt to look "well rounded." So, shit, I'm worse than I thought.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#27

Post by nmcfarl »

speeder wrote: post #21
bitops wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's even sadder is that there's no obvious or easy way to fix it. There is no easy way to fix it, but there is a way to fix it. I won't go so far as to say that it's obvious to many people. The way to do it? Work to change men's attitudes and biases towards women. It can definitely be done, but it takes hard work and cultural change. I would recommend the book "The Macho Paradox" by Jackson Katz for anyone inter…

Why you need to change MEN attitudes? Most HR departments are staffed by women for example, they would be the ones that saw a "Mr." in the resume.

Of course you need men to change their attitudes - the majority of people at the top of the food chain are male, and they’re the ones that make the hiring decisions.

But you are right - it’s not an exclusively male problem, and woman are perfectly capable of discriminating against other women, and do, frequently, and often unconsciously.

In the end society as a whole needs to change how it views women, and how it acts upon those views.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#28

Post by king_jester »

Interesting article. I wouldn't necessarily say you can understand gender discrimination just because you were affected by it as a side affect. It is true the author became aware or more aware of gender discrimination because of his name, but he still doesn't have the experience of living in a society where gender discrimination is a daily occurrence.

That said, gender bias a real thing in hiring and faculty practices in the US.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/201...

http://www.upenn.edu/provost/images/uploads/Gender.Racial_.B... (pdf warning)

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#29

Post by noloqy »

cliveowen wrote: post #4
crazygringo wrote: post #3

That's really, really sad. And the worst part is, it's surely conscious on nobody's part. There have even been studies showing this effect. What's even sadder is that there's no obvious or easy way to fix it.

There is a simple way to fix it. Namely providing a means to submit your resume that anonymizes name, gender, age and anything that could bias the reviewer's assessment. The best HR departments already do that, at least that's the hope.

What's next? All the interviews have to take place in a dark room so that the interviewer can't see the color of the interviewee's skin?

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#30

Post by nawitus »

hack_edu wrote: post #22
crazygringo wrote: post #3

That's really, really sad. And the worst part is, it's surely conscious on nobody's part. There have even been studies showing this effect. What's even sadder is that there's no obvious or easy way to fix it.

Want to see this in action? Create near-identical profiles on any job site frequented by recruiters, one profile male and another female. Your male account, fictional or not, will get a measurable amount more attention and see more outreach.

The studies I've seen actually demonstrate that women get called for interviews slightly more often than men. (The studies were not in software engineering, so different industries certainly are different).
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