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A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

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Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#131

Post by gaylemcd »

troupe wrote: post #111
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…

There is a difference between saying that her audience didn't think she was currently a programmer and saying they didn't think she had ever worked as a programmer. If you look at her blog, you will not assume she writes much code now days. If you look at the topics she speaks on, you will probably assume she doesn't write much code. If you look at what consulting services she provides, you'll assume that you can't h…

But, as I've said repeatedly, the comment wasn't about what I'm currently doing.

Oh, and by the way -- still write a ton of code.

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#132

Post by gaylemcd »

danielrpa wrote: post #119
gaylemcd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's fair. If you define "programmer" strictly as someone who currently holds a job title of "software developer", then sure, I'm not a programmer. Nor is, by that definition, a technical founder who's built their entire website. If that's the way you define the term "programmer", then sure, I'm not a programmer. Of course, if you define it in the sense of what someone can do, has been employed specifically to…

I didn't refer at all to the event, despite this thread being about the event. I was just making a point about the possibility of you not being seen as a "programmer". Possibly I wouldn't characterize you as a recruiter or a programmer based on what you described. I've been a development manager for many years and programming is an integral part of my role. But I'm a manager, not a "programmer", since I believe it's…

So you're imagining a totally different situation and then saying that, in that situation, it might be reasonable to call me "not a programmer." I really fail to see your point. It sounds like you're trying to do this to argue against gender bias being real. This is what's called "straw man fallacy."

If I were arguing that every single time that I'm called something other than programmer that there is gender bias, then your point would be valid. But I'm not arguing that.

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#133

Post by gaylemcd »

mcv wrote: post #129
gaylemcd wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

I've got to say I'm impressed how persistent you are in explaining the same thing over and over again to someone who clearly doesn't want to get it. I'm glad you challenge people's stupid assumptions.

http://xkcd.com/386/

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#134

Post by [deleted] »

danielrpa wrote: post #119
gaylemcd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's fair. If you define "programmer" strictly as someone who currently holds a job title of "software developer", then sure, I'm not a programmer. Nor is, by that definition, a technical founder who's built their entire website. If that's the way you define the term "programmer", then sure, I'm not a programmer. Of course, if you define it in the sense of what someone can do, has been employed specifically to…

I didn't refer at all to the event, despite this thread being about the event. I was just making a point about the possibility of you not being seen as a "programmer". Possibly I wouldn't characterize you as a recruiter or a programmer based on what you described. I've been a development manager for many years and programming is an integral part of my role. But I'm a manager, not a "programmer", since I believe it's…

[deleted]

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#135

Post by danielweber »

Shish2k wrote: post #128
danielweber wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What outreach have you tried to get more women to apply? I'm going through the job hunt now, and so many places seem determined to be as difficult as possible to deal with. One (I may have found it on HN) had a picture of the office bullpen, and every single person in the picture was a twenty-something male, mostly all white with one or two Asians, more than half wearing hipster goatees. I wondered "why in the world…

> What outreach have you tried to get more women to apply? We haven't done outreach to any specific group (I'd guess because we aren't "looking for women" per se, we "looking for good developers and gender doesn't factor into it"); looking at the currently active developer ad, it makes no explicit assumptions about gender of applicant and makes no reference to the gender of the current team... (Though there was that…

Outreach doesn't have to mean "we posted the job description at SWE," but it can mean "we are going to post the job description in more places than just the forums where current employees hang out."

It's silly to say "but our ad doesn't say anything about gender" -- of course it doesn't.

And if no women are applying, there are probably other groups of developers whom you are totally missing out on as well.

Try the following thought experiment: imagine there is a qualified candidate that you want on your team, and they see your job posting for the first time. What are you putting in your posting make sure that this person applies, and what is in your interview process to make sure this person gets accepted and encouraged to come on board?

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#136

Post by gaylemcd »

[deleted] wrote: post #134
danielrpa wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't refer at all to the event, despite this thread being about the event. I was just making a point about the possibility of you not being seen as a "programmer". Possibly I wouldn't characterize you as a recruiter or a programmer based on what you described. I've been a development manager for many years and programming is an integral part of my role. But I'm a manager, not a "programmer", since I believe it's…

[deleted]

Then focus on this situation. Don't create new ones.

Do you think it's reasonable to listen to a talk when someone is discusses, in technical details, big O, binary trees, graph algorithms, coding, system design, object oriented design, etc and walk away from that saying "recruiter"?

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#137

Post by danielrpa »

gaylemcd wrote: post #132
danielrpa wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't refer at all to the event, despite this thread being about the event. I was just making a point about the possibility of you not being seen as a "programmer". Possibly I wouldn't characterize you as a recruiter or a programmer based on what you described. I've been a development manager for many years and programming is an integral part of my role. But I'm a manager, not a "programmer", since I believe it's…

So you're imagining a totally different situation and then saying that, in that situation, it might be reasonable to call me "not a programmer." I really fail to see your point. It sounds like you're trying to do this to argue against gender bias being real. This is what's called "straw man fallacy." If I were arguing that every single time that I'm called something other than programmer that there is gender bias, th…

I'm not trying to argue against gender bias. Gender bias is very real and I've seen it many times. As I've seen age bias, ethnic bias etc. These are real and I have been target of bias myself.

All I'm saying is that I haven't seen evidence in what I read that would strongly indicate gender bias in this instance. You are making the claim so you have the burden of proof. I'm just stating my skepticism regarding your presented evidence.

The best way for bias to be taken seriously by others is to only claim bias when the case for it is very clear. This helps combat people who say that "anything today is considered bias".

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#138

Post by splintercell »

gaylemcd wrote: post #90
yummyfajitas wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use that page? The link is buried in the "writing" dropdown. To even find the link I had to "view source", which I only did after you pointed it out. I went to your homepage, and "programmer" is just a small piece of the subtitle. I look at your first 6 panels, 4 of which (the leftmost 4) are about recruiter/interview stuff, 1 is programming, and 1 is "other". I scroll down to your blog and books, and everyth…

... 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, ..."

This is something which doesn't make sense to me. Why are they assuming that you WERE a recruiter, why aren't they assuming you ARE a recruiter if this is due to sexism? Clearly they are assuming that you ARE a programmer, but used to be a recruiter.

Assuming a person USED to adhere to a gender/race/group stereotype is a weird thing.

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#139

Post by gaylemcd »

programminggeek wrote: post #122
icebraining wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually, all the current minorities, including women Women are not a minority; not in the US nor in the vast majority of countries.

Obviously by number not a minority, but in the way they sometimes get treated or by perception or whatever, they seem to be considered a "protected class" or whatever the legal term is that you shouldn't discriminate against. I think the point remains however that any group that faces a generation of discrimination/hazing/whatever you want to call it seems to find a way to revisit that same act on a later generation…

FYI (not really relevant for your post, but useful for people to know) -

Gender is the protected class, not women. This means that it's illegal to use gender as a factor in employment, barring very strict standards of when something is a legitimate job qualification. (For example, if you hired someone to stand in a women's locker room and hand out towels, you'd probably be able to legitimately discriminate on gender. You could not however use gender to only hire women for a teaching position at a women's college.)

Now, in practice, the court might be more lenient on gender discrimination against one gender or another (and it might change based on job). Just like the courts are likely harsher in penalties towards black people.

Re: A hilariously sad tale of gender bias

#140

Post by thenicepostr »

tedunangst wrote: post #92
gaylemcd wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And his book isn't on programming interviews.

OK, fine. The next two Amazon books I get for "programming interview", "Elements of Programming Interviews" and "Programming Interviews Exposed", both have three authors each. In both cases, only one of the authors is actually employed as a programmer. The others include an EE professor, a radiologist and two executives. The field is rife with non programming authors. "I wrote a book about programming interviews" doe…

What, she's worked a Google, Microsoft and Apple as an engineer. While she may not be currently employed as one, she certainly could be if she wanted.
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