The GitHub Diversity Report • Hacker News Board

Re: The GitHub Diversity Report

#11

Post by Sprocklem » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 2:17 AM UTC

sintaxi wrote: post #10

duncan_bayne wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, let me further qualify this by saying I'm allergic to identity politics, and am waaaaay over on the Objectivist/Libertarian end of the political spectrum. But I think you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. Let's take a concrete example: at several large tech. companies, female engineering grads were being paid less than males with equivalent qualifications and skills. Yes, the numbers were aggregat…

Thanks for the clarification though I'm still a bit fuzzy on how this works, perhaps you can unpack it for me. Using your example, lets say there are 100 positions and 1000 applicants but only 35% of the applicants are female. Is your company inclusive if you hire 50 females or is your company inclusive if you hire 35 females? If the answer is 50 females would it not stand to reason that those 50 females would earn l…

> Or would the goal be to hire the best 100 and that should end up being roughly 35 females that are equally qualified and therefore earn the same?

In my opinion, this would make the most sense. You shouldn't be hiring specific portions of people. If, however, you have hired a bunch of people and you find that the number of women is disproportionately low or that their pay is unexpectedly lower, you should look into why that might be.

There are very few (if any) jobs where someone's gender (or race, etc.) affects their qualifications, except insofar as different proportions of each group enter the field.

Re: The GitHub Diversity Report

#12

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 5:37 AM UTC

sintaxi wrote: post #8

dragonwriter wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Indifference is the purest form of inclusiveness. No, it's not. Inclusiveness is active, indifference is passive. They may be compatible when the status quo is already ideal, but not otherwise. > IMHO employers should not be asking people their gender, age, race, sexual preference even if the information is voluntary because ultimately they should not care what the answers are. Employers should only care that every…

"Active inclusiveness" sounds like discrimination to me. People should be passive about race, gender, and sexuality. Especially in the workplace.

> "Active inclusiveness" sounds like discrimination to me.

No, active inclusiveness is taking action to identify and eliminate barriers to inclusion, such as policies that have an unintended effect of biasing recruiting, hiring, retention, etc., including such things as adopting a convenient funnel or filter that happens to incorporate bias.

> People should be passive about race, gender, and sexuality.

Passivity preserves pre-existing structural biases, so, yes, people should be passive, if—but only if—they wish to do that.

Re: The GitHub Diversity Report

#13

Post by duncan_bayne » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 6:45 AM UTC

sintaxi wrote: post #10

duncan_bayne wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, let me further qualify this by saying I'm allergic to identity politics, and am waaaaay over on the Objectivist/Libertarian end of the political spectrum. But I think you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. Let's take a concrete example: at several large tech. companies, female engineering grads were being paid less than males with equivalent qualifications and skills. Yes, the numbers were aggregat…

Thanks for the clarification though I'm still a bit fuzzy on how this works, perhaps you can unpack it for me. Using your example, lets say there are 100 positions and 1000 applicants but only 35% of the applicants are female. Is your company inclusive if you hire 50 females or is your company inclusive if you hire 35 females? If the answer is 50 females would it not stand to reason that those 50 females would earn l…

> Or would the goal be to hire the best 100 and that should end up being roughly 35 females that are equally qualified and therefore earn the same?

Yes, that - hiring the best 100, and using the same criteria, and paying the same, regardless of gender.

If you _didn't_ wind up with 35 females in your scenario, then investigate. It might be that by chance few of the female candidates were good, but it might also be that they were penalised by inadvertent (or overt, in pathological cases!) irrational discrimintation.

Edited: oh, and often the systemic problems start earlier in the pipeline. Even the number of female applicants can be inadvertently driven down by creating job postings that appeal - in the aggregate, on average - more to men than women.