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

#81

Post by simonbarker87 » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:55 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #68

simonbarker87 wrote: post #64

We've been interviewing for our first 2 roles recently and I have to say that male or female doesn't bother me either way - we've interviewed in equal quantities and, while we're yet to fill the positions, I genuinely am not bothered if the successful person is male or female. Reasons for this could be: 1. I'm 25 so I wonder if I haven't experienced enough to bias me one way or another (what that experience would be…

You might be surprised. Many times biases like these are subconscious.

Agreed, but thinking over the CVs we've rejected and the people we've interviewed it's been pretty balanced in the number of male vs female. Obviously its not a perfect 50:50, and nor should it be as that would indicate some sort of bias.

Maybe the solution to this problem is to have recruiters and HR departments redact the name of someone and replace with a number.

In the UK it's not a requirement to ask for someones age on their CV so maybe internal processes could be implemented to further reduce the likelihood of subconscious, or conscious, bias.

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

#82

Post by drpgq » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:56 PM UTC

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.

I moved to Germany to work from Canada after finishing grad school and was amazed to find applicants put pictures on resumes there.

Ironically later we made an attractiveness estimator and I suggested we use it to screen somebody applying for a secretary position (I was only joking and actually more pointing out the ridiculousness of having photos on resumes).

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

#83

Post by eikenberry » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:57 PM UTC

Not to argue that gender bias doesn't exist. But this is not a good study case as he tainted his resume pretty badly from the start. Not being currently employed is a red flag to a lot of employers and gets you immediately discarded. And putting personal information, even if seemingly innocent, triggers the lawsuit avoidance mechanism at a lot of places and immediately gets you discarded.

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

#84

Post by Peroni » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:59 PM UTC

hack_edu wrote: post #20

Dirlewanger wrote: post #11

This was the late 90s. A lot has changed since then. Yeah, there's still problems with male-dominated industries but it's gotten a lot better. Nowadays it's more about getting women even interested in the fields.

You would hope, but sadly not much as changed. There have been numerous experiments lately where someone created identical mid-career LinkedIn profiles one posing as a man and another as a woman. The male profile always gets far more views and recruiter messages.

>You would hope, but sadly not much as changed.

The finance industry has a terrible reputation for blatant sexism for example however it's been proven categorically by the world largest finance recruitment firm that over the last 70 years the number of females in executive positions in finance is steadily and blatantly improving.

Their studies also prove that there is still a gender issue in finance but claiming that not much has changed is categorically wrong.

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

#85

Post by prutschman » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 6:59 PM UTC

Amadou wrote: post #35

dominotw wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. I would assume women would have a better chance since most men are tired of being surrounded by other men all the time at work, like you said. What is the motivation for someone to be biased against women, seems counterintuitive.

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…

Cultural norms among men create pressure not to call out other men for misogynist and homophobic "humor." A man might be able to "get away with" making such remarks around other men, but it is very incorrect to infer that a lack of complaints means everyone around you is actually at ease.

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

#86

Post by danilocampos » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 7:03 PM UTC

Peroni wrote: post #72

bitops wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

woosh

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

#87

Post by dominotw » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 7:05 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.

Nice observation. One of my colleague got a stern warning for using the word dick ( 'dont be a dick' kind of way) around female colleagues, because two women sitting behind him complained to management about it. I am sure he is not discriminatory, biased or misogynistic.

I guess it wise to think about what you are saying and not say stuff like 'fuck off', 'stop bitching' which may be construed as inappropriate.

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

#88

Post by streptomycin » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 7:06 PM UTC

simonbarker87 wrote: post #64

We've been interviewing for our first 2 roles recently and I have to say that male or female doesn't bother me either way - we've interviewed in equal quantities and, while we're yet to fill the positions, I genuinely am not bothered if the successful person is male or female. Reasons for this could be: 1. I'm 25 so I wonder if I haven't experienced enough to bias me one way or another (what that experience would be…

Other possible reasons:

3. You didn't factor in an increased risk of sexual harassment problems

4. You didn't factor in an increased risk of getting pregnant

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

#89

Post by petitbeurre » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 7:07 PM UTC

simonbarker87 wrote: post #64

We've been interviewing for our first 2 roles recently and I have to say that male or female doesn't bother me either way - we've interviewed in equal quantities and, while we're yet to fill the positions, I genuinely am not bothered if the successful person is male or female. Reasons for this could be: 1. I'm 25 so I wonder if I haven't experienced enough to bias me one way or another (what that experience would be…

> My fiancé is an excellent engineer so I might have had the male dominated field bias squashed by that.

I don't understand. Are you a gay male? How does that change your perception of the male dominated field bias?

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

#90

Post by king_jester » Fri, Jul 12, 2013, 7:07 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…

> All genders face gender discrimination.

This is true, but it should be noted that gender discrimination is fundamentally related to patriarchy and misogyny.

> 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.

I don't know anything about this so I can't really comment.

> Men and women face about the same amount of gender discrimination in Western nations.

I'm from the US, so I can't speak for every place, but that is most certainly not true here. Women and trans* folks are far more likely to experience sexual assault and violence compared to men and generally women face systemic issues revolving around family and work that men do not.

> Men's problems include more severe jail sentences, forced labour, lack of father's rights and so on.

In the US, its not just men that are more likely to receive jail time, but esp. black and hispanic men. There are systemic issues with racism that perpetuate this problem and this is intersectional with systemic issues with gender. All prisoners suffer from work programs that are essentially indentured servitude and forced work (not sure if that is what you were getting at).

In the US lack of "father's rights" is a red herring. Men have a high success rate in getting custody in family court when they pursue custody, however men do not pursue custody nearly as often. Also, any kind of bias or discrimination in favor of women in family court is rooted in misogyny in the first place.

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

This because the rates of rape for men overwhelmingly come from prisons and being incarcerated. Further more, this isn't really that useful of a thing to say anyway outside of the context of prisoners rights and prison abolition, as women do face high rates of sexual assault and rape and most perpetrators of rape are never convicted.