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

A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 140 posts

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#101

Post by gaylemcd »

crazypyro wrote: post #11
SloopJon wrote: post #3

Title should probably be changed from "We Don't Just Need More Women in Tech, We Need Fewer Assholes" to "A hilariously sad tale of gender bias." (Not sure if I should put a spoiler alert or something.) The author of a popular series of books on preparing for technical interviews was upset that, after talking about code for an hour, people assume that she's a recruiter, rather than a programmer. I'll try not to make…

>Is it at all possible that the perspective of someone who writes books like that comes off as recruiterish? This was my first thought as well. As soon as she identified herself, I immediately understood how someone could write her off as a recruiter, based entirely on her body of public works. There are many people in the world that will judge someone by the books they wrote and immediately have an image in their mi…

Oh, I'm sure I get mistake for a recruiter more than the average female engineer. That's not really the point.

The point is that gender adds difficulty in establishing technical credibility.

A different female programmer might have trouble with a different aspect of this. For example, Chloe Alpert said how investor have trouble believing that she's the dev (https://twitter.com/chloealpert/status/509071535098052609) and how some other people were confused that she was the dev (https://twitter.com/chloealpert/status/509069378575695872).

She might have more trouble than other female devs because she's cofounded a business with a man. Does that mean that the whole gender doesn't matter? No.

In other words, my experience might be that people lump me in as a recruiter specifically. Someone else might be assumed to be the non-technical cofounder. Someone else might get assumed to be a marketer. Or a designer. Or whatever.

Point is - gender bias is real.

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#102

Post by gaylemcd »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #99
gaylemcd wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... but that wasn't the situation described. This isn't about someone going to my webpage - or to a particular subpage - and concluding "recruiter". This is about someone talking to me AFTER A TALK ABOUT CODING and starting a sentence with, "So when you were a recruiter at Google, ..."

On your site, you advertise that you give talks on HR and recruiting and every talk listed is on that topic. To be clear, "Cracking the coding interview" is a recruiting/HR talk even if coding is involved. I wasn't there. I can't rule out the possibility that you a) didn't list this talk on your site, b) discussed a completely different topic than all your other listed talks and c) convey a completely different impre…

Your analogy is strange. You realize I have never worked as a recruiter, right? This is the second time you've referred to me as a recruiter. I do things in the intersection of interviewing and technology space, yes, but I've never worked as a recruiter. I know you know that I'm not a recruiter, so... whatcha up to over there? Whatcha trying to prove?

This talk discussed coding at far more depth than the vast majority of recruiters could do. How many recruiters could tell you about big O time? Binary trees? Breadth first search? Not many.

Also, are you actually trying to argue that gender isn't a factor in how people perceive someone?

Tell me how you would like to brush off these examples:

1. Someone asking me at a conference exclusively for programmers where you MUST be a programmer to attend [there are no company booths or anything like that] if I've ever considered learning to code.

2. Someone asking me in my first week at Google if I'm new to marketing. This was in an office that was exclusively engineering. There was no marketing team there. I was just walking down the hall and said someone came up to say this.

3. At a small event where at least 50% of the people worked for Microsoft or Amazon, someone starting off the conversation with "So I assume you don't work for Microsoft or Amazon."

4. At an event which was very, very programmer heavy, someone walking up and saying "hey it must be great for you to meet all these programmers. At least you've got someone to fix your computer."

5. Someone referring to me at CES, where I was staffing the Google booth, as a "booth babe." (Keep in mind that CES doesn't really have booth babes, nor was I dressed at all like a booth babe.

6. Someone actually specifically admitting that he was surprised that I was teaching technical interview topics. He specifically said that he assumed otherwise because I was female.

7. On a technical interview video on YouTube, 2/3rds of the comments are either overtly sexual or overtly sexist (e.g., "I would've hit on the interviewer. I wouldn't be able to focus on the problems!", "Good tits").

This stuff happens all the time. Note that #1 through #5 had nothing to do with my working in the interview space. #6 and #7 is pretty clearly gender related.

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#103

Post by gaylemcd »

vonmoltke wrote: post #66
mcv wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was a man who claimed to be a programmer and who wrote the book on passing technical interviews for programmers, would you doubt he was a programmer? But because she's a woman who knows both programming and job interviews, you latch onto her recruiting aspect, and not her programming side. And note that people assumed she was a recruiter and not a programmer after she'd been talking code for an hour , not after…

Speaking for myself, if Gayle was a man, I would doubt he as a programmer as well. It's overall image, not gender. In fact, one of the posters highlighted in the blog post said just that, even though the author chose to take it as sexist anyway.

Um, actually, this is what the highlighted post said:

"when you 'talk about' code for an hour and still ppl think you're a recruiter, that's not about gender - that's about your tech skill: people don't think you are a good coder. You looked like a saleman in that case if you are a guy or a recruiter if you are a girl. The key thing here is not your gender. You were looked down upon not because you are a female engineer, it's solely because you are an incapable coder thus don't deserve the certain level of respect you expected."

So, first of all, the person is denying that it was about gender while basically saying that it is. If man -> sales If woman -> recruiter

That... sounds like gender to me.

Moreover, this person was suggesting that "incapable coder" -> not a coder. Which is sort of weird.

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#104

Post by gaylemcd »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #100
gaylemcd wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The talk covered binary trees, breadth first search, dynamic programming, etc. It wasn't focused on fluffy topics. It'd be pretty unlikely to hear a recruiter talk at such a technical level.

You are not the only recruiter with a CS degree.

I'm not even a recruiter.

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#105

Post by [deleted] »

gaylemcd wrote: post #93
troupe wrote: post #33

There are many stereotypes that go along with being a programmer that are negative. There are stereotypes that go along with being a recruiter that are positive. While gender may have something to do with people thinking she is a recruiter it may not be the main factor. If you meet someone who is well spoken, well dressed, writes books on how to interview, knows how to talk about code, etc. might there be a greater c…

Sure. And then if someone's talking about binary trees, dynamic programming, depth first search, object oriented programming, don't you think you'd conclude "was or used to be a programmer"? Again THIS was the example. Stop constructing straw mans.

[deleted]

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#106

Post by yummyfajitas »

gaylemcd wrote: post #102
yummyfajitas wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On your site, you advertise that you give talks on HR and recruiting and every talk listed is on that topic. To be clear, "Cracking the coding interview" is a recruiting/HR talk even if coding is involved. I wasn't there. I can't rule out the possibility that you a) didn't list this talk on your site, b) discussed a completely different topic than all your other listed talks and c) convey a completely different impre…

Your analogy is strange. You realize I have never worked as a recruiter, right? This is the second time you've referred to me as a recruiter. I do things in the intersection of interviewing and technology space, yes, but I've never worked as a recruiter. I know you know that I'm not a recruiter, so... whatcha up to over there? Whatcha trying to prove? This talk discussed coding at far more depth than the vast majorit…

Sorry, I should have been precise about "recruitment consultant" rather than "recruiter". Gives you a tangential and irrelevant point to hit me with.

As a person outside HR, I mentally lump the entire field into the one corner I interact with. I know it's technically wrong - once when I worked at a big company I met a non-recruiter HR person. But it's fairly normal.

Similarly, to non-tech people, I'm a programmer rather than a data scientist, and I used to be a professor rather than postdoc ("wtf is a postdoc?" "it's like professor but I get paid less").

Also, are you actually trying to argue that gender isn't a factor in how people perceive someone

I'm arguing that when a person who advertises themselves online as being in HR and gives talks about HR, it's plausible that people might perceive them as being in HR for non-sexist reasons.

Making the leap from "HR as a whole" to "the only part of HR I ever interact with" is just human nature.

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#108

Post by gaylemcd »

gaylemcd wrote: post #102
yummyfajitas wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On your site, you advertise that you give talks on HR and recruiting and every talk listed is on that topic. To be clear, "Cracking the coding interview" is a recruiting/HR talk even if coding is involved. I wasn't there. I can't rule out the possibility that you a) didn't list this talk on your site, b) discussed a completely different topic than all your other listed talks and c) convey a completely different impre…

Your analogy is strange. You realize I have never worked as a recruiter, right? This is the second time you've referred to me as a recruiter. I do things in the intersection of interviewing and technology space, yes, but I've never worked as a recruiter. I know you know that I'm not a recruiter, so... whatcha up to over there? Whatcha trying to prove? This talk discussed coding at far more depth than the vast majorit…

> I'm arguing that when a person who advertises themselves online as being in HR and gives talks about HR, it's plausible that people might perceive them as being in HR for non-sexist reasons.

But again, the situation isn't "someone looked at my website and thought I was a recruiter" or "someone saw that I was doing hiring consulting and thought I was a recruiter".

It's giving a talk which is talking in depth about technical topics, far more so than the vast majority of recruiters could do, and then having someone say, "So when you were a recruiter at Google..."

This is just one little example. Not a big deal. Except that things like this happen all the time. You can't just continue to brush them off as "oh, well, it was just because you do this other stuff that the person didn't even know about."

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#109

Post by danielrpa »

gaylemcd wrote: post #98
cowls wrote: post #37

So her talk was on tech interviews and someone thought she was a recruiter? Doesn't seem that big a stretch...

The talk covered binary trees, breadth first search, dynamic programming, etc. It wasn't focused on fluffy topics. It'd be pretty unlikely to hear a recruiter talk at such a technical level.

Gayle, there is also the question of whether you are a programmer in the sense that you "can program" or if you are a programmer in the sense that you "program for a living".

Different people will interpret the term differently. Based on your website and your book, you portray yourself as a Recruiting Consultant. So my assumption after seeing all the material you presented is that you are a programmer in the sense that you CAN program (and possibly well given the success of your book) but you are not necessarily a programmer in the sense that you don't do that for a living.

For me, I wouldn't call you a "programmer" unless you did "computer programming" for a living, but that's just how I use the term. I would call you a recruiting consultant, and for me that's no better or worse than "programmer".

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#110

Post by troupe »

gaylemcd wrote: post #93
troupe wrote: post #33

There are many stereotypes that go along with being a programmer that are negative. There are stereotypes that go along with being a recruiter that are positive. While gender may have something to do with people thinking she is a recruiter it may not be the main factor. If you meet someone who is well spoken, well dressed, writes books on how to interview, knows how to talk about code, etc. might there be a greater c…

Sure. And then if someone's talking about binary trees, dynamic programming, depth first search, object oriented programming, don't you think you'd conclude "was or used to be a programmer"? Again THIS was the example. Stop constructing straw mans.

The quote in the article simply said that you can talk about code for an hour and people still think you are a recruiter. Most people take that to mean that people don't think you currently work as a programmer or more specifically, don't think you currently write code as your primary job function. Yes I agree, if someone talks for an hour about those technical topics, I'd assume they have experience as a programmer. However, I may still assume you are not currently working as a programmer and things I would use to make that assumption have nothing to do with gender.

You appear to be upset when people point out that there may be some non-gender reasons for assuming you are working in a role other than writing code. Please keep in mind that from the article there is very little information about the particulars of the talk in question. However, anyone who tries to fill in the gaps by looking at your lists of topics for recent talks, your website, etc., is going to assume you don't current write much code and that most of your work is done in the technical aspects of the interview process.

If I talk to someone who used to be a programmer but not is obviously working in an HR recruiting role, I will probably consider them to be a recruiter. This isn't an insult...it is just the way we categorize people by what they do currently.

Post reply on HN