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I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

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Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#131

Post by yaddayadda »

untog wrote: post #68
simonbarker87 wrote: post #64

We've been interviewing for our first 2 roles recently and I have to say that male or female doesn't bother me either way - we've interviewed in equal quantities and, while we're yet to fill the positions, I genuinely am not bothered if the successful person is male or female. Reasons for this could be: 1. I'm 25 so I wonder if I haven't experienced enough to bias me one way or another (what that experience would be…

You might be surprised. Many times biases like these are subconscious.

Indeed!

Anybody claiming to be unbiased (color, race, sexuality, etc.) should take several Implicit Association Tests - https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#132

Post by speeder »

nmcfarl wrote: post #27
speeder wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why you need to change MEN attitudes? Most HR departments are staffed by women for example, they would be the ones that saw a "Mr." in the resume.

Of course you need men to change their attitudes - the majority of people at the top of the food chain are male, and they’re the ones that make the hiring decisions. But you are right - it’s not an exclusively male problem, and woman are perfectly capable of discriminating against other women, and do, frequently, and often unconsciously. In the end society as a whole needs to change how it views women, and how it act…

When you got your resume thrown out because you have a female sounding name, it has NOTHING to do with higher ups, whoever threw the resume out was HR, and thus very probably a woman.

A problem might exist, but targeting the wrong target won't fix it, stop blaming the "higher ups" for decisions (conscious or not) taken by the ones that took those decisions.

I very much doubt there is a company where the CEO made a explicit rule for the HR don't hire any women.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#133

Post by papsosouid »

cupcake-unicorn wrote: post #23

I get this so much, although I've had the opposite experience, where when people notice that I'm female, certain companies get excited for the chance to have a "token woman" on their team. Isn't necessarily a bad thing. Anyway, it made me think of all the LinkedIn spam I get addressing me as sir, Mr., "we're looking for some cool dudes like yourself", etc. Sadly it's not just the gender thing that's going on here as…

>I've had the opposite experience, where when people notice that I'm female, certain companies get excited for the chance to have a "token woman" on their team

My wife noticed that too. She has basically the exact opposite experience as the author. Her name is also gender neutral, but more commonly male. As soon as she added "Ms." she started getting interviews. Comments like "it will be so nice having another woman around here", and "we have too many men in the IT department and 99% of the applicants are just more men" are apparently normal, even from men.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#134

Post by yaddayadda »

wizzard wrote: post #129
yaddayadda wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first 3 digits of a SSN indicate where the child was born. While not as prejudicial an aspect, there are definitely some geographical biases among some groups.

Just a fun fact, this stopped being true as of June 25, 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_number#Structu... But since there probably aren't many two-year-olds applying for jobs nowadays the comment is still relevant.

Not just a fun fact, but also an informative fact.

Thank you for the update and chuckle!

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#136

Post by omegaham »

sliverstorm wrote: post #91
dominotw wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice observation. One of my colleague got a stern warning for using the word dick ( 'dont be a dick' kind of way) around female colleagues, because two women sitting behind him complained to management about it. I am sure he is not discriminatory, biased or misogynistic. I guess it wise to think about what you are saying and not say stuff like 'fuck off', 'stop bitching' which may be construed as inappropriate.

I can't claim it is my own observation. I got it from a feminist talking about how maybe the reason men are resisting women's ingress into male-dominated professions is because when women find the traditionally male workplace environment unsatisfactory, they expect the environment to change to suit them.

As a man in a pretty male-dominated profession, (Military) I can say that this is the case. It's exacerbated by blatant sexism, but the biggest rational fear is that women expect the environment to change when they arrive and that this change will be detrimental. The current culture and environment has been tried and proven to work, and they're fearful of a change in that culture impacting success.

Having worked with women, I'm of the opinion that it really depends on leadership and the maturity of everyone in the shop. If you have scumbags around that are allowed to act unchecked, then a woman can destroy a shop in a matter of weeks. If you have good leadership that clearly outlines proper and improper behavior, then things usually come out ok.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#137

Post by lmm »

kragen wrote: post #79
noloqy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's next? All the interviews have to take place in a dark room so that the interviewer can't see the color of the interviewee's skin?

That would be excellent wherever it's feasible. The way Gladwell tells it (so take it with a grain of salt), when symphony orchestras started conducting their auditions with a screen in place so they couldn't see the person playing the instrument, the fraction of female musicians in top orchestras shot way up. However, in cases where the quality of in-person interaction is a major part of what you're trying to assess…

How important is personal interaction to most programming jobs, really?

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#138

Post by lmm »

nawitus wrote: post #34
cupcake-unicorn wrote: post #23

I get this so much, although I've had the opposite experience, where when people notice that I'm female, certain companies get excited for the chance to have a "token woman" on their team. Isn't necessarily a bad thing. Anyway, it made me think of all the LinkedIn spam I get addressing me as sir, Mr., "we're looking for some cool dudes like yourself", etc. Sadly it's not just the gender thing that's going on here as…

>Isn't necessarily a bad thing. I would personally find it offending that someone would hire me on the basis of my gender to become a "token" person.

I'd rather be offended and have money in the bank than the other way around.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#139

Post by lmm »

zmj wrote: post #127
larrys wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like saying "I just bought a car and I"m happy with it but I still like to look at other cars at the car show or in the showroom because it makes me feel good".

Do you understand that unsolicited comments on someone's appearance are not ok?

They're not? Why not?

Seriously; unsolicited negative comments on pretty much any aspect are not ok. Sexually charged comments are not ok in most environments. But I don't want to live in a world where complimenting someone on their appearance is a bad thing.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#140

Post by Spooky23 »

pseut wrote: post #75
Amadou wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bias goes like this: If a man is married with kids - then he's got more commitment to work because he's got the responsibility of a family depending on his income. If a woman is married with kids - the she's got less commitment to work because she's got the responsibility for the well-being of a family depending on her attention.

It's not just that, but more about why the applicant thinks that "married with kids" is important information on his or her resume. Why does he or she want to broadcast that fact (especially given that, in the US at least, it's illegal to ask a job applicant if he or she is married and has kids because of the possibility of exactly this discrimination)? But, of course, if the applicant is qualified I should try to fi…

I drop that sometimes as a invitation to discriminate when I don't know alot about the organization.

If you're going to be giving me dirty looks for working less than 50 hours, have an unspoken mandatory happy hour attendance policy, 24x7 oncall, etc, I don't want to waste the time of both parties by interviewing with you.

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