Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 391 posts

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

#191

Post by lukevdp »

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.

Wouldn't that just make the discrimination (conscious or unconscious) happen later? Sooner or later they will find out the gender of the applicant.

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

#192

Post by pessimizer »

anaptdemise wrote: post #178
pessimizer wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 o…

> allow women (and men) to get through it without having to constantly bite their tongues or else be seen as the problem Right. Bite my tongue and put on the kid gloves. Wouldn't want to discuss last nights episode of Game of Thrones in the break room, less be seen as a sexist jerk. People do have friends at work, and normal human interactions do take place there.

People also have sex with people they know from work. Should they have it at work? If you can't find something to talk about at work other than how hot some naked woman on tv was last night, they're not giving you enough to do.

If your friends at work refuse to meet you away from work for your crucial sex talk, they may be uncomfortable with it too. If your self-righteousness is because you feel put upon by not being able to say what you want when you want, I entirely lack sympathy.

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

#193

Post by MartinCron »

ritchiea wrote: post #188
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…

Agreed. I worked at a company where my CTO said "Well we couldn't seriously consider hiring a woman for this team" after interviewing a female developer. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and it was a pleasure to leave the company shortly thereafter. It saddens me to know there are people who think the presence of women infringes on their right to make sexist remarks. And that making sexist remarks is such a vita…

I couldn't believe what I was hearing and it was a pleasure to leave the company shortly thereafter

I'm sad that you were forced to make that choice, I'm proud of the choice that you made.

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

#194

Post by jack-r-abbit »

alxndr wrote: post #122
simonbarker87 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, poorly phrased sentence. What I meant was, where some of my friends see engineering as a male only field (ie. women can't do the job type opinion) I don't, this could be in part because my female fiancé is an excellent engineer who is head and shoulder above some of her male and female counter parts in knowledge and skills.

FWIW, even in English, a woman who you're engaged to is normally referred to as a "fiancée", whereas a man you're engaged to would be a "fiancé". Similarly with né and née, for people who have changed their names.

I've never heard that before. And the searches I just did for it seem to reference "fiancée" as just a side note. It seems to me that "fiancé" is most commonly used to mean either. I for one was not confused one bit by the original statement.

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

#195

Post by nostrademons »

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.

The way to fix it is to start a software company and then hire all the overlooked overqualified women on the job market. When people are being stupid like this, it's a market inefficiency; it means that the market price for a woman will be lower than for an equivalently-qualified man. As an entrepreneur, your job is to exploit that market inefficiency and in the process drive wages up to parity.

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

#196

Post by jack-r-abbit »

papsosouid wrote: post #123
Anechoic wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is because official statistics use penetration as the definition of rape. "Forced envelopment" (women raping men) is not counted as rape.

How is that even possible to have the exact same act be counted differently solely based on who is the aggressor?

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

#197

Post by wizzard »

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 believe Monster.com allows you to do this; there is an option to hide your contact info and only allow recruiters to contact you through the site. This is ostensibly to allow you to apply for new jobs without being discovered by your current job. I would imagine many job sites provide this feature.

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

#198

Post by ebfe »

ukapu wrote: post #174
larrys wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like saying "I just bought a car and I"m happy with it but I still like to look at other cars at the car show or in the showroom because it makes me feel good".

This may come as a shock to you, but women are not cars.

Of course not. Acknowledging that two things are the same in some ways does not imply that the two things are the same in all ways. Don't be intentionally obtuse.

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

#199

Post by ritchiea »

MartinCron wrote: post #193
ritchiea wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I worked at a company where my CTO said "Well we couldn't seriously consider hiring a woman for this team" after interviewing a female developer. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and it was a pleasure to leave the company shortly thereafter. It saddens me to know there are people who think the presence of women infringes on their right to make sexist remarks. And that making sexist remarks is such a vita…

I couldn't believe what I was hearing and it was a pleasure to leave the company shortly thereafter I'm sad that you were forced to make that choice, I'm proud of the choice that you made.

Thanks. Though ultimately it's not a moral choice or about doing the right thing, it's not the kind of environment I want to work in. And that comment absolutely was not where things began or ended with that guy.

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

#200

Post by niccl »

This is scary. I go out of my way to remove gender hints from my CV. In particular I use a shortened version of my first name which is slightly more commonly associated with women. And I have had problems finding work recently. Now, do I change things because I need work? I could even pretend it was a bit of research to give a second data point to this story.
Post reply on HN