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

Nevertheless, She Coded

dev.to

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 398 posts

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#321

Post by prepend »

throwaway91111 wrote: post #271
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only contention I have is one you agreed to elsewhere: that the actual aggregate wage-gap once you've controlled for common variables (such as life choices) is 3-6% (with women earning more in some fields), which likely isn't significant or correctable. A difference on that magnitude can easily be something about aggregate behavior correlated to sex, an uncontrolled for variable, or just random chance. So let me…

To be clear, I am not accepting that margin; I'm simply regrettably far from my spreadsheet for 2015 to which I can refer. My objections are a) the assumption "life choice" is NOT a sexist dog whistle, that b) you're talking about aggregate wage gap, which reduces the situation into a single statistic, and c) that a sex linked difference isn't worth addressing even if it does have a dominating effect in today's econo…

You should put your spreadsheet into google docs or office365 so you can access it from anywhere.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#322

Post by prepend »

fatbird wrote: post #231
brighteyes wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could be wrong, but I think the point that the poster was making was this: Sure, maybe women are undervalued on average, but that's just on average. Assuming women are both paid less, and undervalued, then together that creates a double opportunity for an employer that can see through the undervaluing, and rationally hires mostly women because they are just as good but cost less. And the point is that we don't seem…

I think your characterization of the op's point is correct. My point remains: The same sexism leading to underpaying women or directing them into less compensated roles, should also tend to obscure, for decision makers, the "rational" idea that there's a double opportunity there. Evidence? First, "pricing is information". Second, Uber et al, and the continuing follies of the tech industry demonstrating systemic sexis…

But is the sexism so pervasive it would prevent women from starting companies and making an app? The meritocracy of technology means that people downloading your app have no idea who the coders are, or what their genders are.

Perhaps this is an opportunity for VCs because people certainly love money more than sexism.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#323

Post by smt88 »

lgas wrote: post #148
smt88 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your experience that of a woman? If not, you really have no idea whether it's overblown or not.

Can only women be victims of sexism then?

Definitely not. Men are also the victims of sexism. But the world is (and has been) controlled by men in most societies. Women suffer the most from sexism, so knowing the scope of sexism requires being a woman.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#324

Post by smt88 »

ruleabidinguser wrote: post #128
smt88 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your experience that of a woman? If not, you really have no idea whether it's overblown or not.

So I'm barred from having an opinion because I'm not a woman? Perhaps rather than my "experience" I should have said "real life observations." Regardless, so be it, but don't expect my support if you ever end up wanting it.

You're not barred from having an opinion at all. I'm just saying that you don't have good information behind your opinion.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#325

Post by smt88 »

xor1 wrote: post #180
lgas wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can only women be victims of sexism then?

Plenty of people actually have this position, "you can only be racist or sexist if you have power", i.e you belong to the dominant sex or race. The truth is that power is based on wealth and class, not your gender, race, or ethnicity.

There's a difference between racism and bias. We're all biased, but racism is an ideology that subordinate races are inferior, and that's why they're subordinate.

Also, there are many ways that wealth and class are derived from gender and race.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#326

Post by microcolonel »

sanswork wrote: post #301
sebastos wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're treating it like well-established fact that people's career choices are based on gender identities which are fabricated by the environment they're raised in. Where is the evidence for this? Where are the oddball societies with female construction workers and all-male nurse workforces? If this is just an "accident" of the memetic evolution of societal gender tropes, then why is it so unilaterally consistent acr…

Actually to prove otherwise you just need to find traditionally "male" roles that are no longer male dominated roles. Like teachers, lawyers, or doctors. All had centuries of being male jobs. Or find 'male' roles in some cultures that aren't in others like programming.

You assume that careers are immutable in terms of the work involved, and the returns for the employee, through the ages. I don't think that's true.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#327

Post by msimpson »

I've handled the hiring of almost all Web developers within my company for the last half decade, and in that time I have hired absolutely zero women. Yet, this has nothing to do with discrimination and much more to do with the applicants themselves and the numbers by which they apply.

During this time, I've seen Web design positions attract females applicants by about a two-thirds majority, whereas Web development positions attract only one in twenty (if that). And yet, those who have applied seem to fit into two distinct categories of undesirables:

First, the designer, with a design degree, who learned to code from some two-week academy that now feels the need to apply for a position well beyond their skill level. Or second, the mathematics major (or similar) who feels their knowledge of topics only related to programming in general is satisfactory enough to hit the ground running as a Web developer of all things...

So I'll be happy to discuss the potential of a wage gap if I ever seem to hire a true female Web developer.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#328

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #89
Pigo wrote: post #40

I think Ellen Pao is a prime example of why it's a liability to pretend you're working at Sterling Cooper. There are shrews out there with lawyers on their speed-dial, and they will pull the trigger even if they have no ammunition.

This is the sort of uncivil slur we ban people for, as well as a personal attack, which we also ban people for. Please don't comment like this here again. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13821899 and marked it off-topic.

[deleted]

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#329

Post by jakelazaroff »

ewjordan wrote: post #307
jakelazaroff wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been plenty written about how "the pipeline problem" is a myth: - http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/07/26/426... - https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/10/the-lack-of-women-in-tech-...

Is your claim that the pipeline is not completely fugged? Because there are very clear numbers indicating that it is, starting very early, at the K-12 level. Or is it merely that the pipeline being fugged doesn't mean that everything else is fine and dandy? I'd agree with that, hell yeah, and that claim matches the actual content of those links quite well. But I don't think it in any way suggests that the problem is…

Sorry, in retrospect that was very unclear. I agree with your second statement. There are definitely fewer women and people of color even applying for STEM jobs, although there are so many other factors such as quality of education, harassment, visibility of role models, etc that I think calling it "the pipeline problem" is an oversimplification.

What I think the original comment I replied to was saying though (and what most people in the industry with hiring power that I've talked to about this have said) is that "the pipeline problem" is the main thing preventing them from hiring a diverse team. That's bullshit though; there have been a million and one studies showing implicit biases in the hiring process, for one. We definitely need to improve the pipeline — the "pipeline problem myth" I'm referring to is that that's the extent of the problem.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#330

Post by geofft »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #303
KirinDave wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Can you cite a study that controls for time off, degree type, experience that still shows a large disparity in pay? It's your belief that someone who works a reasonable sum of hours but then goes to have a child should be paid less. The question isn't whether someone who takes time off to raise a child should be paid less, it is whether someone with more overall work experience should be paid more. My wife took 10 ye…

There's this study https://web.archive.org/web/20131008051216/http://www.consad... , which Wikipedia summarizes as:

> when controllable variables are accounted for, such as job position, total hours worked, number of children, and the frequency at which unpaid leave is taken, in addition to other factors, a United States Department of Labor study, conducted by the CONSAD Research Group, found in 2008 that the gap can be brought down from 23% to between 4.8% and 7.1%.

It's not 77 cents on the dollar, but it's still significant.

Also, if you want to control for time off and experience, you should also control for the second-order factors of involuntarily taking time off or involuntarily having lower-quality experience. If you leave a company because of harassment and don't immediately find a new job, you'll have a gap on your resume that probably translates to lower long-term salary. If you don't get the job out of college you're qualified for because of bias in the hiring process, you'll be a little bit behind in your whole career.

If women are making 77 cents on the dollar because they're more likely to be rejected from higher-paying jobs but making the same as men in lower-paying jobs, or because the glass ceiling is keeping them out of the C-suite but wages are the same if you exclude the C-suite, or whatever, that's still a problem worth fixing! The ways in which you'd fix it are different, so it's important to get this data, but there's still something to fix.

This blog post from the Department of Labor has a bunch of links to other research: https://blog.dol.gov/2012/06/07/myth-busting-the-pay-gap

Post reply on HN