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Our approach to gender diversity

blog.whiteoctober.co.uk

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Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#31

Post by mtoddh »

JPKab wrote: post #25
rayiner wrote: post #5

I think this sort of affirmative approach is going to become more common as tech is dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. When I was an engineer, I never worked under a woman in a technical role. Since I've been a lawyer, I've had a majority of female bosses and mentors. 50 years ago, this would have been unthinkable. Doctors, accountants, and many other professionals can tell the same story. Today nob…

I am 31 years old. When I went to college in 1999, jobs which were considered to be high-status and high-pay: medical doctor, lawyer, engineer (I almost hesitate to include it because American society doesn't bludgeon you with the "engineers are all rich" meme like it does with doctors and lawyers. Computer programmer is not one of them. In fact, we were constantly being told by the media that the future for programm…

I can tell you this: anyone who thinks that artificially shrinking the pool of experts which you can pick to speak at a conference won't affect the quality of the presentations is deluding themselves.

Whether this is true or not, the parent commenter is right - quotas seem to be the direction that Westernized societies are heading for in the 21st century. I remember last year reading that the European Commission put forth a proposal requiring that publicly traded companies must have 40% of their non-executive board posts filled by women by 2020 [1]. Whether that ends up getting approved or not, it seems like a bellwether for how these issues are going to be framed.

[1] http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/european-commissi...

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#32

Post by gametheoretic »

mtoddh wrote: post #31
JPKab wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am 31 years old. When I went to college in 1999, jobs which were considered to be high-status and high-pay: medical doctor, lawyer, engineer (I almost hesitate to include it because American society doesn't bludgeon you with the "engineers are all rich" meme like it does with doctors and lawyers. Computer programmer is not one of them. In fact, we were constantly being told by the media that the future for programm…

I can tell you this: anyone who thinks that artificially shrinking the pool of experts which you can pick to speak at a conference won't affect the quality of the presentations is deluding themselves. Whether this is true or not, the parent commenter is right - quotas seem to be the direction that Westernized societies are heading for in the 21st century. I remember last year reading that the European Commission put…

>quotas seem to be the direction that Westernized societies are heading for in the 21st century.

Explicit quotas are a big no-no in the U.S. (where most things are concerned - you can find exceptions here and there). See, for example in university admissions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_the_University_of_Ca...

IMO, legal risk surrounding hiring is THE reason consulting is growing so huge, so fast (in the U.S. at least). Even if the government were to foist quotas on everyone, hiring consultants instead of employees provides a way around it.

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#33

Post by gametheoretic »

Zigurd wrote: post #20
elnate wrote: post #12

> Ours is a male-dominated industry – and weaker for it Has this ever actually been shown? I hear it a lot but have never heard any evidence either way. (the latter part)

The evidence from other industries and organizations is pretty compelling. Including women gets you better decision-making overall: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130326101616.ht... Given the record of industries that have reformed to include more women, I would not bet on there being very many "naturally male" businesses. Especially not ones that have a lot of sitting and typing involved.

If your use of the word 'compelling' is in reference to the contents of that link, well, I just could not disagree more. a) Surveys are shit - they're as far removed from double-blind as you can get, and b) the framing of cause and effect is highly opinionated, e.g.: "Having just one female director on the board cuts the risk of bankruptcy by 20%" -- superior feminine corporate guidance or well-documented feminine avoidance of risk(y companies, e.g. startups, for whom bankruptcy, statistically, is the expectation)?

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#34

Post by dgempesaw »

dep_b wrote: post #30

I can't help but wonder how this guy would go about to fix the lack of white people using public transportation. Reserve special seats in the front of the bus? It's discrimination all the same even though it's well meant. Please stop portraying the lack of female programmers as a problem caused by males while it's a problem that women just choose to not do it. From what I have seen most United States tech companies a…

Many "women choose not to do it," because of sexist environments composed primarily of men who repeatedly tell them not to be progammers . So, sure, the problem is women choosing not to be programmers, but that's not the underlying cause.

The first-hand experiences of many women in tech, widely available on public blogs, are directly opposed to your second-hand experience of them. Should we take your word for it, or theirs?

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#35

Post by yummyfajitas »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #24
spindritf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody may be thinking twice about the head of internal medicine being a woman. But they do about just regular physicians. > We find that the median female (but not male) primary-care physician would have been financially better off becoming a physician assistant. This result is partially due to a gender-wage gap in medicine. However, it is mostly driven by the fact that the median female physician simply doesn’t wor…

We might ask why it is still broadly assumed and expected that women will scale back their career hours so much more than men within a given profession. To suggest instead that women doctors should have become medical assistants is astonishingly blinkered.

You clearly didn't read the study at all.

The study doesn't assume that women will scale back their hours. They use data which shows it. Suggesting that female doctors should have been medical assistants is merely the result of the fact that they would have made more money (i.e., income - cost of education) if they did.

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#36

Post by RyanMcGreal »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #35
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We might ask why it is still broadly assumed and expected that women will scale back their career hours so much more than men within a given profession. To suggest instead that women doctors should have become medical assistants is astonishingly blinkered.

You clearly didn't read the study at all. The study doesn't assume that women will scale back their hours. They use data which shows it. Suggesting that female doctors should have been medical assistants is merely the result of the fact that they would have made more money (i.e., income - cost of education) if they did.

I did read the study. My question is: why do women still take a lot more time off their careers for childcare than men? Presumably most of the children that a woman doctor is missing work to look after also have fathers: why are fathers not taking more responsibility to raise their children?

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#37

Post by sambeau »

pstack wrote: post #19
masklinn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is notable that both these are transgendered women I don't know of any transgendered men. Might be because trans men in tech are men and thus "the norm"? Further, maybe most of them weren't in tech or high-profile before transition? Both Tang and Wilson were high-profile before transitioning. (no evidence or anything, just providing possible working hypothesis).

I am so confused, now. When we speak of a trans[$], is the noun used supposed to be the source-sex or the target-sex? I know it is common courtesy to refer to a person as their current preferred/identified gender, so does that apply to this terminology, too? That is, a transgender man would not be a man who became a woman, but a woman who is now a man?

As I understand it (an I may be wrong here) transgender is the movement of gender so you are transgender only when you are in flux. Once you have arrived in your preferred gender you are no longer transgender so would normally be described solely by your new gender but may for reasons of clarity be referred to as transgendered (like I needed to above).

Audrey & Sophie are women. A transgendered man was,usually, once, physically, a woman. A transgendered woman was, usually, once, physically, a man.

I say 'usually' because as society becomes more open about this stuff it is becoming increasingly clear that gender is a sliding scale, not a binary state. A surprisingly large percentage of the population people are born somewhere on the scale between male and female physically (and/or mentally).

Hopefully we'll just get over gender. It's essentially an unhelpful social construct that is too rigid for nature.

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#38

Post by yummyfajitas »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #36
yummyfajitas wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly didn't read the study at all. The study doesn't assume that women will scale back their hours. They use data which shows it. Suggesting that female doctors should have been medical assistants is merely the result of the fact that they would have made more money (i.e., income - cost of education) if they did.

I did read the study. My question is: why do women still take a lot more time off their careers for childcare than men? Presumably most of the children that a woman doctor is missing work to look after also have fathers: why are fathers not taking more responsibility to raise their children?

Most of the time the fathers are taking responsibility. They typically provide income while the mother takes care of the children. Or perhaps you are asking why individual couples choose this particular breakdown of responsibility?

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#39

Post by [deleted] »

JPKab wrote: post #25
rayiner wrote: post #5

I think this sort of affirmative approach is going to become more common as tech is dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. When I was an engineer, I never worked under a woman in a technical role. Since I've been a lawyer, I've had a majority of female bosses and mentors. 50 years ago, this would have been unthinkable. Doctors, accountants, and many other professionals can tell the same story. Today nob…

I am 31 years old. When I went to college in 1999, jobs which were considered to be high-status and high-pay: medical doctor, lawyer, engineer (I almost hesitate to include it because American society doesn't bludgeon you with the "engineers are all rich" meme like it does with doctors and lawyers. Computer programmer is not one of them. In fact, we were constantly being told by the media that the future for programm…

[deleted]

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#40

Post by RyanMcGreal »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #38
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did read the study. My question is: why do women still take a lot more time off their careers for childcare than men? Presumably most of the children that a woman doctor is missing work to look after also have fathers: why are fathers not taking more responsibility to raise their children?

Most of the time the fathers are taking responsibility. They typically provide income while the mother takes care of the children. Or perhaps you are asking why individual couples choose this particular breakdown of responsibility?

I'm asking why the prevailing pattern in North American couples is for the mother to give up years of career advancement to provide direct child care while the father continues to work, earning more money and a higher income.
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