I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by Anechoic » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:47 PM UTC

nawitus wrote: post #38

king_jester wrote: post #28

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 practice…

>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. All genders face gender discrimination. For example, the country I live in is a Nordic country often hailed for equality, but the state forces all men to do slave-labour for the government. Men and women face…

Interesting fact: majority of rape victims in USA are male.

This has been addressed a couple of times. Note that 1) the 216,000 number is for victims of "sexual abuse" which doesn't necessarily mean "rape" and 2) not all inmates of penitentiaries are male.

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

#72

Post by Peroni » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:48 PM UTC

bitops wrote: post #57

speeder wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Most HR departments are staffed by women for example Do you see the irony in this statement?

He's stating fact. The HR industry is absolutely dominated by females. That's not a matter of opinion.

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

#73

Post by tekalon » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:49 PM UTC

nawitus wrote: post #30

hack_edu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I've heard more personal experiments (be it by gender or ethnicity) leaning more towards white/male names getting more interviews and jobs than ethnic/female names.

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

#74

Post by Peroni » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:50 PM UTC

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.

As far as the Tech industry in the UK is concerned, the polar opposite couldn't be more true.

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

#75

Post by pseut » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:51 PM UTC

Amadou wrote: post #40

pseut wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The bias goes like this: If a man is married with kids - then he's got more commitment to work because he's got the responsibility of a family depending on his income. If a woman is married with kids - the she's got less commitment to work because she's got the responsibility for the well-being of a family depending on her attention.

It's not just that, but more about why the applicant thinks that "married with kids" is important information on his or her resume. Why does he or she want to broadcast that fact (especially given that, in the US at least, it's illegal to ask a job applicant if he or she is married and has kids because of the possibility of exactly this discrimination)?

But, of course, if the applicant is qualified I should try to figure out why in the job interview, not by projecting some made up story on the resume.

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

#76

Post by sliverstorm » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:51 PM UTC

bitops wrote: post #45

Amadou wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men can get away with making sexist jokes (or even not-jokes) around other men. You don't have to think so hard about how what you say might be perceived. Taking the overhead of that mental filter out of the loop lets men feel more at ease around each other. I'm not making a moral judgment, just describing what I've seen over the years as to one explanation of how men can have a subconscious bias that prefers hiring…

> Men can get away with making sexist jokes (or even not-jokes) around other men. That's an important observation and plays a huge role in perpetuating sexism and gender discrimination. It continues to exist because guys let other guys get away with it. If you speak up and indicate that you're not okay with it, behaviors and attitudes may change. It's not easy and it requires courage. But it's necessary to really mak…

Maybe it isn't a problem that needs fixing? Maybe making work another place of constant judgement and time under the PC microscope would not be a net positive?

Remember there's a difference between bare-faced misogyny and garden variety politically incorrectness.

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

#77

Post by cupcake-unicorn » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:53 PM UTC

nawitus wrote: post #34

cupcake-unicorn wrote: post #23

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…

>Isn't necessarily a bad thing. I would personally find it offending that someone would hire me on the basis of my gender to become a "token" person.

Well, that's why I said "isn't necessarily" - some people may not mind and be happy to reap the benefits, and others (like you) would (justifiably) feel offended.

In my experience it hasn't really been 100% about "just being the token woman" but I feel like I have gotten interviews and jobs that I wouldn't have otherwise.

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

#78

Post by bitops » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:54 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #76

bitops wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Men can get away with making sexist jokes (or even not-jokes) around other men. That's an important observation and plays a huge role in perpetuating sexism and gender discrimination. It continues to exist because guys let other guys get away with it. If you speak up and indicate that you're not okay with it, behaviors and attitudes may change. It's not easy and it requires courage. But it's necessary to really mak…

Maybe it isn't a problem that needs fixing? Maybe making work another place of constant judgement and time under the PC microscope would not be a net positive? Remember there's a difference between bare-faced misogyny and garden variety politically incorrectness.

I'm certainly not advocating that work should be a place of constant judgment. And I'm not fan of being under a constant behavioral microscope.

I do find it important that work be a place where I feel respected and safe. Eliminating sexism and gender discrimination in the workplace is part of that effort.

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

#79

Post by kragen » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:54 PM UTC

noloqy wrote: post #29

cliveowen wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That would be excellent wherever it's feasible. The way Gladwell tells it (so take it with a grain of salt), when symphony orchestras started conducting their auditions with a screen in place so they couldn't see the person playing the instrument, the fraction of female musicians in top orchestras shot way up.

However, in cases where the quality of in-person interaction is a major part of what you're trying to assess — like for a team programming environment — it's going to be pretty hard to do anything comparable.

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

#80

Post by jessriedel » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:55 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #6

jessriedel wrote: post #5

There is much better data out there concerning the effect of gender (and race) on CVs. That would be much more useful than this guy's anecdotal experience.

It's not supposed to be data. It's supposed to change your perspective on the data you have.

The first third of the story leads with all this talk about how he had all the qualifications and shouldn't have any trouble finding a job. Then a couple paragraphs about how hard it was to find, and how this was so surprising. Then a couple of paragraphs on how "Kim" could be assumed female. And then a complete turn around when he added "Mr".

This was supposed to be data, in the sense that it was supposed to provide you with the sense that, empirically, gender has a huge effect.

If you subtract this from the story, what do you have left? A personal account of how having difficulty finding a job shakes your confidence, forming maybe 3 or 4 sentences? Were you unaware that getting rejections is hard?