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Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

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Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#91

Post by dragonwriter »

ForHackernews wrote: post #59
wpietri wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women can do whatever they want to do, if they aren't in tech, they probably don't want to be there. This is so far from the lived reality of women in tech or any of the data on hiring that you should be embarrassed to open your mouth. On HN most people get that before opining on the merits of functional programming, they should have tried it. Or at the very least spent a fair bit of time reading about what people…

This raises an interesting question: Do we think that discrimination in technology is worse (or more entrenched?) than discrimination in law, medicine, or finance? These other fields were almost entirely male within living memory (my mother was one of two women in her law school class) and are now approaching gender parity (at least at most levels, I'm sure that senior partners are still mostly men). Why has there be…

> Why has there been such a dramatic turnaround in medicine, but not engineering or technology?

AFAIK, there's been a fairly dramatic turnaround in some areas of engineering and technology (biotechnology particularly), modest turnaround in others, and substantially less turnaround (even compared to other engineering and technology domains in general) in computing, both hardware and software, domains.

Biotechnology, like medicine, may benefit from the fact that the early preparation overlaps substantially with the early preparation for traditionally female-dominated fields (e.g., nursing) such that early interest isn't socially discouraged even in contexts where gender stereotypes about appropriate careers remain significant social influences.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#92

Post by ManFromUranus »

throwawayaway wrote: post #16
ManFromUranus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the lack of gender diversity in tech an obvious problem? Women can do whatever they want to do, if they aren't in tech, they probably don't want to be there. You might say something about discrimination or sexism or some such thing, however I am highly skeptical of that. I have been a programmer for 10+ years and never saw any kind of negative discrimination against women. I have seen many examples of positive…

Why don't they want to be there though? There's gender imbalances in lots of places now between executives, teachers, prison, the military, some of those are positive places to have a gender balance in. I've seen lots of discrimination against females in the places I have worked, behind their back for the most part. I have also seen examples of positive discrimination in their favour, but not as much. Personally, I t…

Why don't men want to be elementary school teachers? Well nobody really cares that much why, but they definitely don't. I think they don't because it's a low-pay, low-respect job and there's a risk of being called a pedophile.

Why don't women want to be in tech? Full of nerds, full of people they don't really want to be around. Hard work, the pay is getting lower every day, have to compete with low wage offshore workers. There are lots of men with no social skills in tech. Women can probably earn more money outside of tech, and have more networking and social outlets in non-tech jobs.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#93

Post by terrywilcox »

ManFromUranus wrote: post #88
terrywilcox wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a programmer for 20+ years. For the longest time I didn't see any discrimination in tech, probably because everybody I worked with was also a young white guy. Except those over the hill freaks with their comb overs and sandals with socks. Fortunately their skill sets were rapidly obsolete, so we got rid of them. On the other hand, my wife (a senior Oracle DBA with close to 20 years of experience) sees it on…

I think that's the easy answer. "but it was pretty obvious I was too old to work there" Who said that? Did they say that to you? If they did that was definitely wrong. However it sounds more like you imposed that criteria on yourself, and then attribute the blame to them. If gender diversity in tech is a good thing, why not age diversity? Sounds like they needed you there.

I certainly didn't impose that criteria. I wanted the job. I certainly had the experience they were looking for.

And no, nobody came out and said I was too old. They just reacted like I used to react when old people told me they understood computers. Pleasant, but patronizing. How could an old guy possibly handle any modern technology when he's got COBOL and FORTRAN on his resume?

Discrimination is rarely blatant. I'd guess that most people are never aware they're doing it. That doesn't mean it's not happening.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#94

Post by caseysoftware »

tie_ wrote: post #66
api wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And it may be that it intimidates more women than men." I've been looking around for a developer recently, and in looking at the profiles of women vs. men at places like AngelList I noticed a few key differences in how they described themselves. We're talking about people with very similar academic backgrounds here with similar levels of experience. Women would say things like "I worked on a team that did X," while…

> Women would say things like "I worked on a team that did X," while men -- who obviously did the same kind of work -- would simply say "I did X. I find this a very interesting fact, but I see a number of other possible explanations for "I do X": - It is simply shorter. Men being used to more compact communication? - It is also more boastful - perhaps men being used to market themselves more aggressively than women?…

Personally, I hate phrases like "I worked on a team that did X" because I can't tell what you did. Where you the lead, a junior, or did you get called in when everything exploded and saved the day?

I'd rather see "I did the Y on the team that did X" as it's more descriptive and leaves less to my imagination.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#95

Post by thaumasiotes »

api wrote: post #38
skywhopper wrote: post #6

I'm glad the "rigorous testing process" was mentioned. The facade of "we only hire superninja-kickass-hyperexperts and we will verify that you are such a programmer before we hire you" attracts a certain type of person, and intimidates another. And it may be that it intimidates more women than men. But the article seems to glide past that and presents the idea that five years of experience might change someone's will…

"And it may be that it intimidates more women than men." I've been looking around for a developer recently, and in looking at the profiles of women vs. men at places like AngelList I noticed a few key differences in how they described themselves. We're talking about people with very similar academic backgrounds here with similar levels of experience. Women would say things like "I worked on a team that did X," while…

I read a book about the development of writing in mesopotamia (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674049683 , but I can't really recommend it as a general-interest book); it mentioned that a particular king had seen his city flourish under his rule and boasted accordingly, in the records we have, of how irrigation canals were dug and roads were built and generally a lot of great stuff happened on his watch.

In a parenthetical, it also noted that, as is typical for the records of the time, they actually attributed all these works to the king personally ("I dug canals in XX regions").

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#96

Post by gecko »

NotOscarWilde wrote: post #80
xigency wrote: post #52

I applied for a job at Fog Creek Software in 2012 where I was accepted for an internship, and I would have to say the application process was difficult, but fair. I was told that there were hundreds of applicants, so being one of five interns selected seemed rather prestigious at the time, but it was still just an opportunity to work on my skills as a developer. I don't think there is anything that would preclude wom…

> I applied for a job at Fog Creek Software in 2012 where I was accepted for an internship Does this mean you applied for a position but you were offered an internship instead?

No; they don't do that. He means he applied for an internship and got an internship.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#97

Post by ManFromUranus »

trose wrote: post #45
throwawayaway wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't they want to be there though? There's gender imbalances in lots of places now between executives, teachers, prison, the military, some of those are positive places to have a gender balance in. I've seen lots of discrimination against females in the places I have worked, behind their back for the most part. I have also seen examples of positive discrimination in their favour, but not as much. Personally, I t…

Anyone that doesn't think there is a problem should try asking a female dev about her experiences in her career. Besides typical societal problems like calling 35 year old women "girls" and forcing them to choose between having a family or a successful career, they face all sorts of discrimination and sexism that men don't even realize they're doing. My SO on multiple occasions has been told things like "You're the b…

>and forcing them to choose between having a family or a successful career

This is not true. There are always trade-offs in life, even for men. Almost everything has an opportunity cost. You focus on your family the career suffers, focus on your career family suffers. The same is true of men except they don't have a biological clock.

>Add on top of this any sort of general sexist behavior that is rampant in offices like unwanted advances, inappropriate touching, etc.

I hear this, but have honestly only ever been present for a single awkward comment in my 10+ year career. I think "unwanted advances" is going to be a continual problem because most of the guys in tech are socially awkward, unnattractive nerds, so any advance they make is going to be by definition, unwanted. However these guys have no way of knowing that before-hand, unless they make "nobody wants me" their default assumption.

>they face all sorts of discrimination and sexism that men don't even realize they're doing

this is what bothers me the most, there is no concept of "mens rea" in issues of discrimination, you are guilty even if you try not to be. People choose to be offended or not, that's a voluntary choice. So if your SO is offended by people who have no intention to commit offence or cause harm, then what can I say? What can they do? Everybody will have to walk on eggshells around your SO so they don't offend her I guess. Doesn't sound like the problem is with "tech" to be honest.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#98

Post by throwawayaway »

ManFromUranus wrote: post #92
throwawayaway wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't they want to be there though? There's gender imbalances in lots of places now between executives, teachers, prison, the military, some of those are positive places to have a gender balance in. I've seen lots of discrimination against females in the places I have worked, behind their back for the most part. I have also seen examples of positive discrimination in their favour, but not as much. Personally, I t…

Why don't men want to be elementary school teachers? Well nobody really cares that much why, but they definitely don't. I think they don't because it's a low-pay, low-respect job and there's a risk of being called a pedophile. Why don't women want to be in tech? Full of nerds, full of people they don't really want to be around. Hard work, the pay is getting lower every day, have to compete with low wage offshore work…

Elementary teachers -> a lot of people care because they think that without men, it runs the risk of becoming a marginalized, low paid female only job. Some of which is already true in your view.

I'm with you on why women don't want to be in tech, except disagree about the hard work or lower pay ever day and offshore workers. Not all women are social butterflies either, so it's just the negative stigma around it.

So that's why I asked, they don't want to be in tech cause of a bunch of needless, highly negative stuff. Stuff that could easily be rectified and thereafter everyone would be much better off.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#99

Post by Kalium »

petar23GJ wrote: post #60
Kalium wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any numbers you can share? Do your results look significantly different from the background population?

Hi Kalium, for numbers, please have a look here at what our data is showing to date: www.gapjumpers.me/#genderResults

Uhm. I was hoping for something much more comprehensible and comprehensive than a series of blurbs and unlabeled pie charts. A statistical comparison of your cohort compared to the background population and relative performance is what interests me.

I want to know how your program does compared to a hypothetical ideal gender-bias-free hiring system. If what you present there is truly all that your data shows, I have some grave concerns about your company.

Re: Why Software Maker Fog Creek Is Helping Its Competitors Hire Women

#100

Post by throwawayaway »

ManFromUranus wrote: post #97
trose wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone that doesn't think there is a problem should try asking a female dev about her experiences in her career. Besides typical societal problems like calling 35 year old women "girls" and forcing them to choose between having a family or a successful career, they face all sorts of discrimination and sexism that men don't even realize they're doing. My SO on multiple occasions has been told things like "You're the b…

>and forcing them to choose between having a family or a successful career This is not true. There are always trade-offs in life, even for men. Almost everything has an opportunity cost. You focus on your family the career suffers, focus on your career family suffers. The same is true of men except they don't have a biological clock. >Add on top of this any sort of general sexist behavior that is rampant in offices l…

The price of the privilege and prestige of being a member of the oppressive majority is eternal vigilance against overstepping the mark. Sure it's inconvenient, but politeness doesn't cost much effort. Eggshells is a good way of putting it.

If you or anyone you see steps over the line, get an apology out there and discuss it and move on. Over time what constitutes a transgression seems to get more minor and trivial in my eyes, but until we're at a star trek utopian standard of living, progressing towards it is worthwhile in my view.

Of course if somebody is taking the piss and claiming oppression when there isn't any, they deserve to be called out on that too. In the poster's comment to which you are replying I do think his SO's grievances are valid.

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