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

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

#271

Post by RepressedEmu »

bandrami wrote: post #249
solotronics wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why isn't everyone paid exactly the same? because that would suck for all of us here and be great for everyone that doesn't work as hard. I was messing with strange *nix distros for years and teaching myself programming before I got a tech job. I would be seriously pissed if someone that didn't know as much got my same job and pay just because they were a _____

I could understand getting mad if your pay was lowered, but how are you harmed if the other person's pay is increased? We make all sorts of incredibly bizarre (from an outside perspective) decisions about who gets paid what; the fact that we've fooled ourselves into thinking that it's because of supply and demand curves may be comforting but is completely unfounded in any data.

Where does all this "equalizing" money come from? Does it just pop into existence because you want it to?

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

#272

Post by romanovcode »

stale2002 wrote: post #254
romanovcode wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Actually, if a company is illegally discriminating against people based on gender, then it is THEIR problem. If they do that then they can enjoy their millions of dollars in fines for doing something clearly illegal.

Person A asks for 90 dollars per year; Person B asks for 100 dollars per year.

Person A does not ask for a rise after one year; Person B asks for 10 dollar rise after one year.

TBH I don't see how it is a company fault.

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

#273

Post by bitlax »

bandrami wrote: post #264
bitlax wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the gap itself is a problem as an outcome?

Because in every economy we've looked at, gender income parity is strongly correlated with overall economic growth. In addition, research on microlending suggests that this link is statistically co-causal (improving either one improves the other). If you prefer a more intuitive take, most of the attempts to dismiss the gender wage gap say things like "women take more time off for families" and "women choose lower-pay…

Could you please cite the studies you're referencing?

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

#274

Post by bandrami »

RepressedEmu wrote: post #271
bandrami wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could understand getting mad if your pay was lowered, but how are you harmed if the other person's pay is increased? We make all sorts of incredibly bizarre (from an outside perspective) decisions about who gets paid what; the fact that we've fooled ourselves into thinking that it's because of supply and demand curves may be comforting but is completely unfounded in any data.

Where does all this "equalizing" money come from? Does it just pop into existence because you want it to?

Yes, in fact, for some value of "you"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money

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

#275

Post by stale2002 »

romanovcode wrote: post #272
stale2002 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, if a company is illegally discriminating against people based on gender, then it is THEIR problem. If they do that then they can enjoy their millions of dollars in fines for doing something clearly illegal.

Person A asks for 90 dollars per year; Person B asks for 100 dollars per year. Person A does not ask for a rise after one year; Person B asks for 10 dollar rise after one year. TBH I don't see how it is a company fault.

They are at fault because they are systematically underpaying women of equal qualifications.

It does not matter what the "reason" is. It does not matter if the bias is because equally skilled women merely ask for raises less often.

If for any reason at all, you are systematically underpaying certain groups that are equally qualified and equally productive, you are legally liable and the onus is on you to fix it.

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

#276

Post by snovv_crash »

geofft wrote: post #244
snovv_crash wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently trying to hire multiple C++ engineers. We have a quick, simple automated test that we use as a pre-screen, and so far no women have managed to pass this test. Not that I'm actually surprised; the ratio of applicants is also biased about 50:1, and we haven't had 50 people pass the automated test yet.

Let's be clear, I agree that this is hard . (And as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I ended up joining an all-male team at another company.) But I also want to know that the company is taking the problem seriously. If your ratio of applicants is biased at 50:1, either you're doing something that I'm not super happy with, or more likely, you're trying your best and your recruiting funnel is doing something that I'm…

The 50:1 is before any filtering of résumés or anything. We don't have any unreasonable expectations around working hours or overtime, we aren't a company that has limited runway, and we aren't a bro-grammer company, so I don't think we are being "unattractive" or anything like that. What we ''do'' have are specific technical requirements - experience with computer vision or computational geometry or GIS data or some related field, modern C++, git, bonus for experience with TDD/CI. We get a lot more female applicants for the C++ generalist positions, although still like 10:1. Oh, and this is in Europe. Not sure if that changes anything.

And I'm not a hiring manager, I'm a senior engineer who at the moment is wearing a different hat half the time. I'm not sure I'd trust any point of the funnel to non-technical people when it comes to hiring technical people. There are too many potentially interesting things that could be mentioned that someone who doesn't have a deep understanding of the field would discard good candidates out of ignorance.

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

#277

Post by spaceseaman »

Chris2048 wrote: post #252
spaceseaman wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? It's not that the companies are sexist Or the managers are sexist Or the engineers are exist Or you're sexist. That's not what anyone has been saying this whole time - ever. You have completely misunderstood the point. The system is sexist. Not the people in the system, but the system itself (similar arguments exist for police departments being racist - it's not the cops that are, but the system). In this case,…

> and I have noticed it on HackerNews, Reddit, and pretty much every video game I've ever played what do you mean? > My coworker had this anime poster And that's "culture"? > because they can never truly "fit in" with the guys. Your examples don't really back up this point.

A) Women are overly criticized when they're doing anything that's a male-dominant activity. Videogames, Reddit, and HackerNews all have examples of this. Announce you're a woman, and you'll suddenly face more scrutiny for unknown reasons.

B) Yes. As it turns out, the behaviors we normalize in the workplace (like putting up scantily clad women) are part of a workplace culture.

They feel unwelcome, different, and unfairly questioned on the basis of being a woman and a woman alone. How do my examples not back up this point?

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

#278

Post by praulv »

snovv_crash wrote: post #179
geofft wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The person I replied to was implying that the team he was interviewing for was sexist, to an extent where they simply would not hire women. I am making no such implication. I am simply saying that I don't find it "highly dubious" that Google has extreme levels of gender bias in teams correlated with area, based on some amount of data (looking at basically all the open reqs in backend in Google NYC over a couple mon…

I'm currently trying to hire multiple C++ engineers. We have a quick, simple automated test that we use as a pre-screen, and so far no women have managed to pass this test. Not that I'm actually surprised; the ratio of applicants is also biased about 50:1, and we haven't had 50 people pass the automated test yet.

Let me guess, codility/hackerrank nonsense. No wonder you can't hire.

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

#279

Post by spaceseaman »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #239
spaceseaman wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? It's not that the companies are sexist Or the managers are sexist Or the engineers are exist Or you're sexist. That's not what anyone has been saying this whole time - ever. You have completely misunderstood the point. The system is sexist. Not the people in the system, but the system itself (similar arguments exist for police departments being racist - it's not the cops that are, but the system). In this case,…

First of all, the two things you listed are clearly sexist behaviors, even in isolation. Treating women differently than men, whether it's more harshly or with "kid gloves" is sexist behavior. Putting a pinup on the wall of your office is pretty inappropriate for a professional work environment and the reason it was allowed to stand is most likely sexism. But again, it only takes one workplace, one manager that doesn…

You seem to have missed my argument so I'll try and rephrase it.

> that one employer would get all of these great women who are just as productive for a lower price and would take over their market. It only takes two such employers in a market who are competing for those women to get women up to income parity with men.

Yet companies will always want to hire someone for the least possible amount they can - regardless of the manager's personal views.

Two potential employees walk in the door at your hypothetical perfect company. They are perfectly equivalent. One was originally paid $40,000 while the other was paid $55,000 at their previous position. They each want a 10% raise to come to your company. One is a woman, the other is male.

Now you end up paying the woman less than the male, purely because her previous position paid her less. And the cycle continues until eventually you get to some sexist manager back at her first company that thought she wasn't as skilled for some reason or another (apparently).

That's the point I'm trying to make. Your hypothetical situation would not be the panacea to these problems because companies don't offer salaries like that. You're also making the astronomically huge assumption that every person wants to change positions in the first place. Some people like the job they have and stay there for much longer than would be competitively optimal for them.

Systemic sexism is the sexism that manifests in these cycles.

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

#280

Post by romanovcode »

stale2002 wrote: post #275
romanovcode wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Person A asks for 90 dollars per year; Person B asks for 100 dollars per year. Person A does not ask for a rise after one year; Person B asks for 10 dollar rise after one year. TBH I don't see how it is a company fault.

They are at fault because they are systematically underpaying women of equal qualifications. It does not matter what the "reason" is. It does not matter if the bias is because equally skilled women merely ask for raises less often. If for any reason at all, you are systematically underpaying certain groups that are equally qualified and equally productive, you are legally liable and the onus is on you to fix it.

I think that if the person is not asking for more money company has a right to not give him more. Isn't that how capitalism works?
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