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Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

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Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#121

Post by ActorNightly »

hinkley wrote: post #84
rsweeney21 wrote: post #37

I'm a light skinned male. I'm also a Choctaw Native American. In my senior year of college in 2004 I applied to dozens of companies. I never got a single response. I decided to try an experiment - I applied to IBM and, for the first time, I selected "Native American" as my ethnicity. Within 24 hours I got an email inviting me to a special, all expenses paid IBM recruiting event held for Native Americans in Albuquerqu…

Probably you dodged a bullet. It's always seemed to me that people are aggressively attempting to hire for some criteria (even position) because they're either having trouble getting people on board, or holding onto them. There's something 'wrong' with them, for some definition of wrong. Either they're looking in the wrong place, they're giving off a bad vibe that scares people off, or people who have that quality th…

I would argue that the metaphorical "getting your foot in the door" is worth it above everything else.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#122

Post by hypersoar »

theluketaylor wrote: post #61
pmiller2 wrote: post #34

Tech certainly does have a diversity problem, by which I mean lack of diversity actually works to the detriment of tech companies. Yes, from the POV of companies who are hiring, this is largely a pipeline problem. No, tech companies aren't going to solve this problem directly themselves. But, what tech companies can do is change their candidate sourcing practices. I'm in favor of some version of the Rooney Rule [0] i…

I saw an interview with one of the late night hosts (I think it was Seth Meyers). He told a story about building the staff for their show as part of the launch. They asked the various talent agencies for packets for writers (which are collections of sketches and other material tv comedy writers use to get hired. Think artist portfolio). The show wanted to hire a more diverse writing staff and asked for that in packet…

Jon Stewart had a similar story. They had to change the way they did hiring to diversify the writer's room because the existing pipeline was just going to keep sending them college-educated ironic white guys.

https://youtu.be/p1H7KxPlbQw?t=2631

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#123

Post by _marypoza_ »

tonystubblebine wrote: post #60
rsweeney21 wrote: post #37

I'm a light skinned male. I'm also a Choctaw Native American. In my senior year of college in 2004 I applied to dozens of companies. I never got a single response. I decided to try an experiment - I applied to IBM and, for the first time, I selected "Native American" as my ethnicity. Within 24 hours I got an email inviting me to a special, all expenses paid IBM recruiting event held for Native Americans in Albuquerqu…

The reaction you had resonated with me in that it's the feeling I most want to avoid giving someone else. I'm a white male hiring manager who is often incorporating explicit diversity/inclusion strategies into work. It's tricky--like tap dancing around all the ways that the work can go wrong. And this is one I overindex for. I never want someone to think they are a token. IMO, there are five main motivations for havi…

I would say the best way to make sure the diversity hires don't feel like being a token is by establishing a fair recruitment process. How? The more concrete the selection criteria better, so don't fall in the unconscious bias trap of assessing different candidates through different lens. Since it's good for business, inclusivity policies should be considered an investment and not an expense. The best way is involving the employees directly (are anonymous surveys that hard to pull of?) and ask them what they need. Giving you a concrete example: As a woman in tech, I've work in tons of places with pingue pongue tables and beer on the community fridge. That doesn't really appeal to me, since I prefer to leave work as soon as possible to work in my non-paid female duties. But I would be SO APPRECIATED that the female toilets had menstrual products available just like toilet paper. It would have a relevant impact in reducing my monthly expenses and would make me be a better professional because it's something that would stop being part of my day-to-day logistics. Every time I suggest this, I am told it's too expensive or the H.R. men don't know how to buy it. There is always a residual number of females on the teams, is that really a great expense? And I learn to code every language my company asks me too but the HR can't learn how to buy properly menstrual pads? Please just asks us!

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#124

Post by handoflixue »

pmarreck wrote: post #43
maxehmookau wrote: post #6

Firing someone for a "lack of chemistry" and refusing to give details is a Grade A dick move.

Assuming that a firing for "lack of chemistry" (which is a very real and valid concern, btw: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-relationships-wor... ) is, without evidence, veiled discrimination, is also a Grade A dick move, by being a "default victimization mindset". Anecdotal firings of minority hires are insubstantial proof of discrimination; in fact it may be the opposite, if there's a diversity retention…

There's a difference between "this is evidence of discrimination" and "this is proof of discrimination". Getting fired without explanation is definitely evidence of discrimination: most employers are smart enough not to give a reason when firing someone for illegal reasons, so the majority of those firings are going to be "without giving a reason".

Conversely, if you do have a legitimate issue, it's (a) usually something you couch the employee on before firing them and (b) means you can give a vague reason like "performance" and thus avoid paying out unemployment.

The employee herself can also reasonably observe the social environment - it's not as common these days, but there's still plenty of places that have the Asshole Rockstar who is never going to get fired. It's a bit suspicious when places like that suddenly trot out "culture fit" for the first time, as an excuse to fire a woman.

(I'd also say that as long as you don't do anything stupid like TELL people you're discriminating, it's remarkably hard to prove discrimination - legally you're pretty safe there. The other reply does a good job breaking out the math)

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#125

Post by bsder »

908B64B197 wrote: post #2

> I was even madder when I found the data science interns hired in a parallel recruitment process had been submitted to technical challenges. That's the miracle of "affirmative action" or whatever you want to call it. When looking at candidates internally, if a company decides to do affirmative action there are those that you know are there because of their skills (non-diverse individuals) and there are the other one…

So why isn't some company or founder dipping into this underutilized labor pool and blowing everybody's doors off?

That's a real question, and I don't have a good answer.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#126

Post by munificent »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #23
maxehmookau wrote: post #6

Firing someone for a "lack of chemistry" and refusing to give details is a Grade A dick move.

Honestly, not really. It sucks, but from a risk management perspective, less information given out is always better. Was she fired for legit reasons? Who knows. There is no advantage to the employer to give reasons. You can't really blame anyone for trying not to be sued.

Knowingly hurting someone else in order to avoid the risk of getting sued is a dick move.

It's a selfish, rational dick move, but most are. People rarely do dick moves that don't benefit themselves.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#127

Post by throwaway0a5e »

bedhead wrote: post #95
rsweeney21 wrote: post #37

I'm a light skinned male. I'm also a Choctaw Native American. In my senior year of college in 2004 I applied to dozens of companies. I never got a single response. I decided to try an experiment - I applied to IBM and, for the first time, I selected "Native American" as my ethnicity. Within 24 hours I got an email inviting me to a special, all expenses paid IBM recruiting event held for Native Americans in Albuquerqu…

While I'm your everyday white guy, I've never understood why people among minority groups would accept this completely over-the-top pandering. It's a form of shaming and it's dehumanizing. Who wants this?

They're just putting up with stupid crap for pay. Plenty of people do that. After you've got a couple jobs on your resume nobody knows or cares you were the diversity hire at your first one. Yeah the mere presence of diversity hires makes your accomplishments worth slightly less but it's still better for you to take advantage of it. See also: prisoner's dilemma.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#128

Post by koyote »

RulingWalnut wrote: post #50

Very much not challenging the experiences in this post but I will say: “I believe everyone can become a good professional as long as they’re willing to learn.” was most likely speaking to her youth than her femininity. Source: Myself as someone who has given advice to a lot of different interns/new grads along the same exact lines.

I almost stopped reading there. That sentence, no matter how I try to interpret it, seems like very common and genuine advice to a new graduate starter.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#129

Post by jariel »

handoflixue wrote: post #108
jariel wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"lack of diversity actually works to the detriment of tech companies. " Tech companies are diverse, more so than most companies. You mean to say 'not the right kind of diverse'. The ridiculous, Monty Python conversation that nobody wants to have, is that since White Americans are slightly underrepresented, but Asian Americans are about 600% over-represented ... which means getting the 'right' kind of diversity litera…

Can you cite sources for "more diverse"? I'm curious if you mean "higher percentage of POC" or "numerous different minorities are all represented"? A company composed entirely of 30-something black men is 100% POC, but it's still not actually that diverse. I definitely agree that it's weird how much we focus on holding tech companies "accountable" for diversity when they're fundamentally working with whatever pipelin…

By 'diverse' I meant 'PoC' mostly.

Tech, particularly in the Valley has technically an under representation of non-PoC.

(I myself have worked at companies that were 95% Asian, being almost the only 'White Guy').

The reason 'tech' is highlighted is ironically that's were the 'woke folk' are. You can go the Midwest Cracker Co. and find 90% White and people are not too worried about it, except for in a kind of 'corporate optics' way.

It's the general employees of tech, tech press etc. that are fairly assertive in promoting issues of diversity because it's what they care about. A company has to have a certain profile in order for it to be newsworthy. CNN, even if they wanted to, can't really run an article on the Midwest Cracker Co. but they can for Twitter because it has public resonance.

Re: Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer

#130

Post by coldtea »

Two things some people have difficulty differentiating between:

- Being discriminated or insulted for being X

vs:

- Made fun or insulted with reference to X

Not getting a job, a promotion, or even simply heard by your colleagues because you're X is discrimination. Being treated worse because of X is discrimination. Being called anti-X slurs by people considering X being inferior is racism.

But being insulted or made fun of with reference to your X status might not be discrimination at all. Might just be an angry colleague or a colleague making a joke, and it might happen from each to every other member of the team.

E.g. if someone makes fun of an fellow British or German's or Texan's dev's accent, the team can just laught it off. Such jokes happen (or used to happen before fast-track-cancelling became a thing) all the time between young devs in teams.

But if the same is done with the same intent, but the person is e.g. Indian or Asian or Latino, many (especially outside the team or people new to one) make it all about racism and discrimination.

There's this idea that people must be 100% "professional", non joking, always zen-calm, all the time. That is, dry and passive aggresive.

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