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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

#161

Post by yaddayadda »

bbanyc wrote: post #146
yaddayadda wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first 3 digits of a SSN indicate where the child was born. While not as prejudicial an aspect, there are definitely some geographical biases among some groups.

Only for younger people - SSNs have only been assigned at birth since the 1980s. My mother was born in West Virginia but her SSN has a Minnesota prefix, because that's where she lived when she got her first job. Someone who wasn't born a US citizen would only get assigned an SSN with their green card or work visa, and I'd imagine the prefix would indicate their first place of residence in the US. So the most you can…

I was born in the early 70's and mine was assigned at birth. In fact, when I was a teenager I ran into someone else born at the same hospital on the same day (at the time we met we were thousands of miles away living in a different city on the other side of the state, so not a high probability event). The first 6 digits of our SSNs were the same.

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

#162

Post by redwood »

Interestingly, it's not just a case of gender: Rather the uncertainty and its associated cognitive dissonance, leaves a negative feeling in the mind of a reader.

There are many other kinds of uncertainty present in a resume; and its always a risky factor because folks like to understand context.

Have an ethnic name? Assume people might think you're an immigrant. If you don't want them to assume that: emphasize where you're from, etc. This is good personal branding. Is it unfortunate that you might feel a liability here? yes

For example, in my office when someone doesn't show their picture in our email system: I feel negative about them. When they don't show a picture and have a name that makes it difficult to know how to refer to them, I'm doubly-frustrated.

Much of this frustration is subconscious but people need to be congnicent of how they come across to others in many contexts.

here I choose to be 100% identity neutral, because I can be. But in work this is a big mistake, because formal expectations are applied in correspondence and you need to feel you're meeting those expectations with a job applicant.

If you're in this position, you've done yourself a disservice: "Dear Sir or Madam, We are sorry to inform you that we cannot offer you a position"

Is this a problem with our society? yes.

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

#163

Post by papsosouid »

pqqqqq wrote: post #148
papsosouid wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is true, but it should be noted that gender discrimination is fundamentally related to patriarchy and misogyny. Making faith based statements like that and acting as though they are evidence based is not productive. There is no evidence to support feminist mythology surrounding their redefinition of patriarchy. >In the US lack of "father's rights" is a red herring. No it is not. A system that was equal would be…

> Making faith based statements like that and acting as though they are evidence based is not productive. Cool; how about some evidence for your custody assertions? > There is no evidence to support feminist mythology surrounding their redefinition of patriarchy. Systemic sexism is widely documented. This ranges from pay gaps [1] to harsher views on overweight women vs men [2] to sexual assault [3]. I'm not sure what…

>Systemic sexism is widely documented.

Oh?

>This ranges from pay gaps

Which are a deliberately misleading "problem" feminists like to complain about, but which don't actually exist.

>harsher views on overweight women vs men

Where? You mean personal preferences? Like how short men are viewed harsher than short women? That is not systemic.

>to sexual assault

Where the actual systemic problem is that the government deliberately misrepresents male rape victims by not counting "forced envelopment" as rape?

>Read the next sentence. Male rape is predominantly a the parent isn't saying that male rape victims "don't count".

You didn't make their point any clearer.

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

#164

Post by pessimizer »

anaptdemise wrote: post #143
belorn wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not call it bigotry, but rather stupidity. They are not the first people ever thinking the idea of separating female and men, or suggested that some benefits can be achieved that way. Schools like to separate girls from boys, and points towards improved and safer environment. Conferences like to create women only sections, in the idea (with some irony) that it would improve gender equality, and like schools,…

> Schools have almost gone through this stage and fully gone over to mixed classrooms. To their detriment. As a product of both coed and all boys private schools, there is a stark difference in teaching and disceplin in single sex schools that research shows improves outcomes. Hit http://scholar.google.com/ with "single sex education." There is a huge discrepancy in male performance especially that most teachers admi…

>if you start giving men maternity leave in the same way as women

I agree.

>Normal banter between men about women kept on the "acceptable in a sitcom" when not directed at any specific women, in my view is not sexual harassment, but clearly some people disagree with that.

I definitely disagree with that at work. If you want to discuss your sexuality, comment on people's body parts, or articulate your unified theory on the differences in the natures of men and women, get some friends. People have to work in order to eat - allow women (and men) to get through it without having to constantly bite their tongues or else be seen as the problem. We've made a decision as a society that racial, sexual and religious discrimination are problems at work. Find another subject.

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

#165

Post by saalweachter »

Anechoic wrote: post #71
nawitus wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Also, isn't 216,000 a pretty small number (ignoring the, uh, horror of it)? I usually hear numbers like "1 in 6 women" or "1 in 4 Native American women".

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

#166

Post by jlgreco »

tehwalrus wrote: post #17
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.

There was a proposal going around the Lib Dems in the UK at one point[1] to make it illegal to have names on CVs; because they describe gender, and sometimes race, too. The proposal went on to say that that people should apply for jobs using their National Insurance number (like a social security number, but basically just used as a UID with the tax office - I don't know what else a SSN does, but it seems to be more…

I guess that would put an end to linking your github account from your resume.

Considering that doing that is an invaluable tool to people lacking "real" work experience, either recently or in general, I think that could end up hurting a lot of people.

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

#167

Post by Tycho »

notahacker wrote: post #149
swengw wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't address the real gender discrimination issues, but having gender-balanced HR departments could have helped Kim O'Grady. Currently, if you include your photo in your resume, being a beautiful (rather than average-looking) woman seems to lower your chance of getting an interview [1]. [1] http://www.economist.com/node/21551535

Having a culture in which it was normal to post resumes with photographs would also have benefited Kim O Grady... Either way, HR didn't hate him because he was beautiful, and there are conceivable reasons why even a gender balanced HR department might screen out candidates posting their "beautiful" photos along with an applicatiom that don't involve petty jealously. If photos are relatively rare in a culture receivin…

photos aren't terribly relevant now, since you can just google the person's name and find a pic of them in most cases

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

#168

Post by pessimizer »

belorn wrote: post #121
pessimizer wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's conscious on a lot of people's parts. I've also heard "no women, no sexual harassment suits" enough from people in tech to assume that there are a lot of bigots not dumb enough to admit it out loud. I could be going too far, though. Maybe the kind of dumb lockerroom overshare bluster amongst the employees and managers of sexually harassing companies and departments lends itself to admitting incriminating things…

I would not call it bigotry, but rather stupidity. They are not the first people ever thinking the idea of separating female and men, or suggested that some benefits can be achieved that way. Schools like to separate girls from boys, and points towards improved and safer environment. Conferences like to create women only sections, in the idea (with some irony) that it would improve gender equality, and like schools,…

I wasn't talking about 'people', I was talking about men. That's important because the benefits to be achieved are not for society, but rather for the men making the decisions, and the outcome isn't just single-sex workplaces, it's single-sex professions.

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

#169

Post by anologwintermut »

pessimizer wrote: post #63
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.

It's conscious on a lot of people's parts. I've also heard "no women, no sexual harassment suits" enough from people in tech to assume that there are a lot of bigots not dumb enough to admit it out loud. I could be going too far, though. Maybe the kind of dumb lockerroom overshare bluster amongst the employees and managers of sexually harassing companies and departments lends itself to admitting incriminating things…

I think we missed the key point that he implied he was a women with kids.

Some set of hiring managers assumed a mother with kids would likely focus more on family then career. That assumption may or may not be dumb. It's certainly correctable if there is serious statistical evidence it is wrong (unlike someone just being a bigot).

That wouldn't help this case though, because the inclusion of kids in the resume was an intentional signal that mangers were meant to interpret as such. Since the applicants gender was misread, the signal was read as they wanted flexible hours, not that they were stable. Sure, dad's could ask for flexible hours, but that is on the whole a less frequent occurrence.

This is an even stronger single because asking if I have kids in an interview is in fact not legal in most places in the US, so including it your self is making a huge point.

Oh, there's also the fact that if you did interview them and not hire, the fact that it was in their resume might give the grounds for sueing you for gender discrimination.

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

#170

Post by anon808 »

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?

You do realize that HR doesn't actually hire people (except for HR roles of course), department managers make the hiring decisions. HR is there to support the process.
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