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Nevertheless, She Coded

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Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#311

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

Harimwakairi wrote: post #236
bsder wrote: post #208

I really wish they would quit promulgating this because it's actually counterproductive: "women face continued pay disparity" Seeing this statement tells me immediately that the author is grinding an ax. In some fields of engineering (EE, for example), women actually get paid more (104% last I checked). And, when you control for experience, time off for family, etc., pay disparities in most tech fields almost disappe…

Do you have citations for the stats you claim? That's not a dig, btw; I'd honestly like to see them.

I believe this is the paper by Prof. Claudia Golden that is getting the publicity

http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/goldin/files/goldin_aeapres...

I think she's said that once all factors are accounted for there is still a 6-7% pay gap that they can't yet account for.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#312

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

evgen wrote: post #286
sheepmullet wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which I don't see the value of, honestly, given that tech workers are near-uniformly salaried in this country You can't see how working extra hours can increase productivity enough to warrant a small increase in pay?

So, would you like me to link in the HUNDREDS of articles posted to HN over the past two years going over how working more does not equate to working better and how hours worked is a bad proxy for productivity. Should I? Or are you going to just concede the point right here and now and retract your statement?

This may not even be relevant, so long as businesses are applying the same metrics to all their employees - in this case hours spent at work - and compensating them fairly according to those metrics.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#313

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #81
dijit wrote: post #25

I'm desperate to push the "women aren't victims" narrative. If we tell them they're victims enough then they'll believe it. There is evidence of this in other things for instance refugees who are told that they're victims are less likely to integrate. I'm more focused on pointing out that we're all equal. If you're a woman on my team, I'm incredibly sorry but I'm not going to celebrate your feminity any more than I'd…

Your comments in this thread have broken the site guidelines which ask you not to do classic flamewars "unless you have something genuinely new to say". This isn't new—it's a tedious trope we've all heard a zillion times and nothing is to be gained by repeating it. Please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13821991 and marked it…

[deleted]

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#314

Post by badwulf »

zephyrthenoble wrote: post #21

I'm frankly quite surprised by the initial wave of comments disparaging this message. The facts are that women are poorly represented in the tech community[1], and do make less than men[2]. Any attempt to let women feel more accepted and bring about much needed change should be championed, not picked apart and belittled because you feel like you are personally being attacked when people are just asking for help. 1. h…

There are also less women in the military, construction works etc. Women tend to also live longer, should we cook up some conspiracy theories related to these facts as well?

Seeing sexism everywhere is not helping the fight against remaining actual sexism.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#315

Post by badwulf »

chrisbrandow wrote: post #70

I just had a conversation with a friend of mine today about the issues she is facing as a "woman in tech". It was some stuff that really surprised me. On today of all days. Treatment of women as full-fledged peers is definitely something that needs better attention in our industry.

Are you saying that every tech circle treats women badly? Are men just inherently evil?

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#316

Post by weirdshape »

There are disparities in pay and representation between men and women in the tech industry, favouring men. Are we then to work to create parity in pay and representation between men and women in the fastest possible way? Some people say yes. Some people say companies need to immediately go out of their way to hire more women, hire a more racially diverse staff and carefully calibrate their pay so that, ideally, your company diversity is a reflection of the diversity of the country you're in. But to me this seems really really wrong. Is it because I'm bigoted? Maybe. I don't think it's just that though, I honestly think its a really unfair approach, my own regrettable biases aside. To do that to tech would be unfair to many people, and also, would only be because tech is lucrative.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#317

Post by gspetr »

firebones wrote: post #246
gspetr wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are software companies composed of all men (or 95% men if we want to be a bit more relaxed). Successful ones - as in making profit. Where are all-women (or 95% women) companies? If you can get away with paying them less, where are all the capitalists exploiting the market inefficiency and getting rich in the process? Hell, nowadays companies like Starbucks[0] routinely put social causes first, profits second. S…

Regarding "exploitation", I suspect that it is because employment markets are inefficient and non-fungible (based on location and many, many other factors, including culture and reputation) and that if a company's metric is hiring talent at the 90th percentile, then they may more quickly hit a limit where their ability to fill 90th percentile job salaries strips their ability to access talent in non-majority groups.…

> Efforts to reduce imbalance (regardless of demographic) is necessary to overcome location bias, and the bigger the pool, the higher the tide for all boats.

Thing is, you can do it right and do it wrong. Effort for the sake of effort means little, it's not the thought that counts but results.

https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/download/fedora_content...

When President Bush piloted his No Child Left Behind act, one of the underlying goals was to close racial and class gaps in educational standards, therefore, improving opportunity for disadvantaged groups but not guaranteeing ideal results.

Justice Clarence Thomas, the only current black Supreme Court judge, took a strong stance against race‐based affirmative action as it establishes “a cult of victimization” that permeates leniency on and faulty judgment of black students and workers in admissions and employment processes.

He believes this strengthens stereotypes and requires special, preferential treatment of the black community in order to make up for past oppression.

...

This sentiment is spreading, and a continual decline in academic achievement of black students will most certainly propel these sentiments throughout the country. The American Civil Rights Institute founder, Ward Connerly [who's african american], said he is “not against policies that address ongoing disparities in income, educational opportunities or other factors, but they should not be race based.” Policy reform is now addressing the achievement gap between black and white students in hopes that solving the underlying issue between black underachievement will lead to natural, unregulated increase in black enrollment in universities and, ultimately, employment.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#318

Post by throwaway91111 »

sheepmullet wrote: post #310
throwaway91111 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you can hand-wave the aggregate results away if you're comfortable with that 3-6% gap. But your argument basically amounts to "what matters to you doesn't matter to me, so I consider it insignificant". I do consider 3-6% damning. If you only compare women to other women, of course you won't see a wage gap; you can blame it all on the individual. It's this willingness to value personal views of the world to…

> I do consider 3-6% damning. You do realise the gap is just the "unexplained by standard corrections" and not "% due to sexism" right? > Why bother commenting if you don't care about the wage gap? I care that you are using misleading statistics to push an agenda.

The shitty part is the gap, not the explanation. Are you seriously defending a wage gap because you're skeptical about why it exists? That's why it exists.

At no point did I state I thought the wage gap is entirely due to sexism. although, I do argue it is evident sexism; I believe that still requires argument on your part that it's clearly not.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#319

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

chongli wrote: post #205
fmihaila wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for sheer numbers, ask yourself: are there any industries where there are considerably fewer men than women? The answer is, of course, yes. Look at nursing. Do the men employed as nurses make less money on average than their women colleagues?

Do the men employed as nurses make less money on average than their women colleagues? No. Male nurses make way more than female nurses, on average. A big contributor to this is that male nurses are far more likely to be CRNAs than female nurses and CRNAs are the highest-paid nurse specialty (and requires a graduate degree).

I had to look it up - Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist.

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

So male registered nurses in the US appear to be a solid single digit in terms of percentage. Wikipedia says 6.6%. The internet says CRNAs are 41-43% male.

So a very small number of male nurses, and a majority of them becoming CRNAs, and so the average pay for male nurses is higher than the female average. But really, I bet the 59% female CRNAs are being paid the same.

This is the problem with looking at averages only. If men are being prefered over women in the CRNA program, there is a problem. If female CRNAs are paid less on average than male CRNAs there is a problem. But the average alone tells you nothing. It definitely doesn't give you enough information to show you which part needs fixing.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#320

Post by gshulegaard »

KirinDave wrote: post #278
bsder wrote: post #208

I really wish they would quit promulgating this because it's actually counterproductive: "women face continued pay disparity" Seeing this statement tells me immediately that the author is grinding an ax. In some fields of engineering (EE, for example), women actually get paid more (104% last I checked). And, when you control for experience, time off for family, etc., pay disparities in most tech fields almost disappe…

> And, when you control for experience, time off for family, etc., pay disparities in most tech fields almost disappear. Okay, so spoiler alert, I'm grinding an axe right now. It's completely ridiculous to imply that analysts are not normalizing for hours worked. That's one of the most basic things they do, and you really should provide proof in the form of a study that both published its methodology and has been don…

You can find a more thoughtful post of mine further down the conversation, but I think there are less controls than you would suspect:

https://youtu.be/QcDrE5YvqTs

In fact, according to a different video also by Christina Hoff Sommers the 77 cents on the dollar pay gap oft cited is no more than a blanket calculation using Census data.[1] This is seemingly confirmed by the Washington Post.[2] In fact, the Washington Post seems to indicate that the 77 cent figure doesn't correct even for weekly/hourly wage metrics much less hours worked.

As a whole I think you might find the Christina Hoff Sommers videos interesting to watch. Although they are "classical liberal"/libertarian leaning right (considering the American Enterprise Institute is a conservative think-tank I am not too surprised by this).

But I also wanted to ask some things about your points:

> the fact that many environments treat interviews like hazing

> someone who works a reasonable sum of hours but then goes to have a child should be paid less

> someone who takes time off for a reasonable work-life balance or a family emergency should be paid less

These aren't really gender specific so I am struggling to see how they would contribute to a gender pay gap. Perhaps you could elaborate?

> The fact that women are often passed over for promotion because industries frown on maternity leave

> the fact that harassment leaves women with fewer mentorship opportunities

I would be interested to read any sources you have that could give me some insight into these dynamics. These are points I haven't read about before and I wasn't even aware they have been examined to any degree.

Personally I tend to be more Libertarian and am very pro-"choice".

I don't think being skeptical of the dubious statistics surrounding the gender pay gap makes someone misogynistic or anti-feminist...so I would encourage you to try and keep an open mind before labeling someone so just because they express reservations about the wage gap and the statistics behind it.

[1] https://youtu.be/1oqyrflOQFc

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/04/...

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