Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 297 posts

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#211

Post by watwut »

kamaal wrote: post #202
watwut wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, majority of software developers don't do side projects, especially not those in high paid difficult positions. Those people put all strength they have into work itself. Employers don't even care all that much about side projects. So, it is safe bet. This whole thread is stupid red herring. It has nothing to do with reality of working in corporation. It has zero to do with skills required in those high positions…

>>Well, majority of software developers don't do side projects Most do. The fact that bulk of the software infrastructure from tools to top notch production software is open source says something. >>especially not those in high paid difficult positions. If its really about money, then there are better ways to get paid in a software company. >>Those people put all strength they have into work itself. Which is often a…

Most open source is paid work, according to statistics. That not a bad thing, why would you want that work unrewarded. Then there is a bulk done by people on universities who have time - not employed as software developers.

Moreover, even if open source would be written as side projects mostly, it is still just a tiny part of all software out there.

You assume they are lazy, for no reason. No, not just nerds work hard. No, not all nerds work hard - many spend majority of time playing with something easy they like. In particular, many nerds are unwilling to learn what they don't like.

As for your bad news starting early matters, it don't. I am old enough to have seen where people ends. Many men stared later or changed career and it was no disadvantage after initial year or so.

I personally have all the things you talk about as necessary advantage. They are not and that is not even bad thing. The only difference is that I am not as bitter as rest of thread who want reward for being associated with them (I bet they were not young geniuses they want themselves to be) while real world does not work like that. The other annoying thing is that you would assume I don't have them, cause I am women whole dudes who changed careers yesterday are assumed to be interested since childhood no matter what facts are.

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#212

Post by romanovcode »

stale2002 wrote: post #65
to_bpr wrote: post #43

What is the end goal here? Companies being forced to publish and formalize pay tiers? Can Google publish a report on non-pay differences by sex at Google? Sick (or personal) leave taken, overtime worked, vacation time availed of, etc. by sex? Obviously with everyone being equal and doing equal jobs, the above shouldn't really be an issue?

The end goal is a meritocracy where women arent discriminated against, and are paid what they are worth. The current situation is not a meritocracy and it needs to be fixed.

In capitalism you are already payed what you are worth. If you agree for a shit salary that is your problem.

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#213

Post by romanovcode »

j7ake wrote: post #207

A purely capitalist solution would be to fire all the men and keep only the women because they are doing comparable work for less pay. In a capitalist market why hasn't this happened already ? This is exactly what happened when much of manufacturing moved away from USA to china, but for some reason this has not happened in the male female salary disparity. A company can earn diversiy points and save money by not hiri…

Someone tried this already, didn't go as well as planned.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1168182/Catfights-...

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#214

Post by intoverflow2 »

slyfocks wrote: post #40
stretchwithme wrote: post #25

Companies pay some employees more for pretty good reasons. I don't think they're thinking "Jim's a dude so we should pay him $50K more than Sally." No, they're paying somebody more because they don't want them to leave. And if they are paying you less than somebody else, it's probably partially because they don't think you are as much of a flight risk. And if Google is wrong about these decisions, I'd guess we'd see…

This assumes venture capitalists don’t exhibit a bias towards male founders. Depending on the extent of bias (if any), female engineers would lose a bit of bargaining power with Google. Also, empirically, women tend to be more risk-averse than men on average, so Google (and other companies) could be paying less knowing the chance they’d leave is lower than a man of similar skill.

Is venture capital a requirement to start a company?

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#215

Post by bandrami »

fordwert wrote: post #198
bandrami wrote: post #114

The fun part of these articles is reading all the comments that literally post proximate causes for the gender wage gap and somehow conclude from that that the gap (which they just validated) does not exist. This whole process infuriates me. The gender wage gap is an empirical question. It exists. If we believe it's a problem (I do; you may not), it has the easiest solution in the world: give women more money. Seriou…

There are plenty of data-driven studies that demonstrate empirically that there is no gender gap in pay. For example, in Google's case, they take many precautions to ensure that compensation decisions are made without knowledge of an individual's gender: https://www.blog.google/topics/diversity/our-focus-pay-equit... They even remove names from resumes for hiring decisions to avoid unconscious bias from the decision…

Seriously, the fact that otherwise intelligent people claim this with a straight face is kind of crazy. The "data" here are looking at numbers and seeing which one is smaller and which one is larger, and the wages of women are smaller.

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#216

Post by bandrami »

apk-d wrote: post #159
bandrami wrote: post #114

The fun part of these articles is reading all the comments that literally post proximate causes for the gender wage gap and somehow conclude from that that the gap (which they just validated) does not exist. This whole process infuriates me. The gender wage gap is an empirical question. It exists. If we believe it's a problem (I do; you may not), it has the easiest solution in the world: give women more money. Seriou…

The confusion here is between "women get paid less on average" and "women get paid less on average because of sexist treatment/assumptions". If the latter, more specific statement is true, then we have a problem. However, if women are paid less because of less career-oriented personal life choices, maybe making an issue out of it is an overreaction. Left-handed people earn less on average than righties. Tall people e…

Why are the motivations of the people paying women important to you? The gap is an outcome of a complex system, and the outcome is what is problematic.

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#217

Post by Chris2048 »

watwut wrote: post #185
osmala wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of HIGH PAY ENGINEERING jobs in google have comp sci degrees, that's the true comparison. And then there is bigger issue here. It's really the obsession about percentages of women in X position. Here's another percentage what percentage of women and men didn't waste a thought on how they looked in their teenage years because they where so obsessed on how computers worked? I believe it is both very sma…

The teenage years are completely utterly irrelevant to this. They are super irrelevant to high tech positions and definitely anything related big data software. Video games are irrelevant too. Who play with dolls and who plays with action figures or cars is even moremember irrelevant. High paying computer jobs are not filled with nerds nor high funstional autistic while we ate at it too.

> High paying computer jobs are not filled with nerds

I beg to differ

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#218

Post by belorn »

stale2002 wrote: post #48
stretchwithme wrote: post #25

Companies pay some employees more for pretty good reasons. I don't think they're thinking "Jim's a dude so we should pay him $50K more than Sally." No, they're paying somebody more because they don't want them to leave. And if they are paying you less than somebody else, it's probably partially because they don't think you are as much of a flight risk. And if Google is wrong about these decisions, I'd guess we'd see…

Unfortunately for Google, paying women less because "They can get away with it" (ie, women are less of a flight risk), is still illegal.

I knew a person who when looking for work they wanted, also sent out application to other places that they was less interested in but then demanding close to unreasonable pay (around what someone who had worked 10 years would get).

And they did land one of those less interesting jobs, earning similar to those coworkers who had been there for 10 years, and there were nothing illegal in this. Have a bunch of employable credentials, send out enough applications demanding above average pay, and you are going to likely end up with above average pay.

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#219

Post by Chris2048 »

stretchwithme wrote: post #25

Companies pay some employees more for pretty good reasons. I don't think they're thinking "Jim's a dude so we should pay him $50K more than Sally." No, they're paying somebody more because they don't want them to leave. And if they are paying you less than somebody else, it's probably partially because they don't think you are as much of a flight risk. And if Google is wrong about these decisions, I'd guess we'd see…

I think to complete the picture, we need to consider "what percentage of ex-google engineers leave.. and fail". The difference might make up the pay gap.

Re: Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men

#220

Post by lloyd-christmas »

linkregister wrote: post #118
stretchwithme wrote: post #25

Companies pay some employees more for pretty good reasons. I don't think they're thinking "Jim's a dude so we should pay him $50K more than Sally." No, they're paying somebody more because they don't want them to leave. And if they are paying you less than somebody else, it's probably partially because they don't think you are as much of a flight risk. And if Google is wrong about these decisions, I'd guess we'd see…

I feel you missed something important in the article. The plaintiffs are asserting that there is a pervasive irrational cultural bias by managers that assumes people like them are superior engineers. The entire premise of the lawsuit is that the managers are working contrary to the best interest of Google. Companies are made of people, and no matter how much CEOs might want employees to behave a certain way, employee…

> But this is not what happened. The plaintiffs were awarded different pay grades for measurably comparable ability.

The article doesn't say that. It says they were awarded different pay grades given an equal time spent in the worforce, not that their abilities were comparable.

Post reply on HN