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Nevertheless, She Coded

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Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#331

Post by KirinDave »

sheepmullet wrote: post #308
KirinDave wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From a brief scan of the study they didn't control for hours worked and they are already down to 5.9% Why is it a foregone conclusion that the majority of women in this population worked fewer hours? A forbes study which averages across a large canvas of american workers is not a very good thing to compare to glassdoor's targetted subsection.

The women surveyed could have worked more hours than the men. But by not controlling for it you reduce the studies explanative powers. You don't get to just ignore it because it is convenient. It doesn't even pass the "more likely than not" standard of evidence.

Right, but uh... The vast majority of positions Glassdoor cares about are salaried positions which don't track hours. They're exempt from overtime, as well.

It also seems to me that that signal would show up weakly in the data because it wouldn't vary the immediate effect on apples-to-apples salary, only on promotions and possibly referrals.

So I think your complaint is specious and the inclusion of a totally unrelated data point from a radically different dataset is either very misguided or profoundly disingenuous.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#332

Post by KirinDave »

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…

I think the question is, "Can the person do the work and contribute to the environment they're being paid to be a part of." It is not some sort of game where dollars = experience.

From that perspective, the answer should be, "Yes they do deserve equal pay for equal work, why is that so challenging?"

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#333

Post by and0 »

stagbeetle wrote: post #91
and0 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, if only these women had also found the Wikipedia portal for logical fallacies, and also had concrete stats on workplace harassment, which is a personal, embarrassing, and highly political subject.

I'm not certain at what you're trying to get at here. Can you elaborate? ETA: I genuinely don't understand the parent comment.

The parent comment "debunked" my reasoning by citing logical fallacies.

There's a page on Wikipedia that lists all logical fallacies and links to their pages, it's often cited as one of the best / coolest pagest on Wikipedia (seriously, check it out.)

But recently a lot of people think they can win (or shut down) arguments (or pleas for equality) by leaning on these logical fallacies a little to hard. It's a lame and desperate move, as there's literally always something you can throw out when you can't defend your point anymore. It's become such a "thing" that you can counter "oh cool that you found that wikipedia portal". It's particularly frustrating since combating inequality (or any social issue) often requires more of an emotional / social intelligence and personal experiences / understanding, which are apparently not fair game to these Greybeard Grand Wizard Gatekeepers of Logic(tm)

And asking for concrete data/stats on an incredibly personal, often legal, and highly politicized systematic trend is obviously absurd, but a good way to dismiss an argument you find inconvenient and don't want to address.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#334

Post by stagbeetle »

and0 wrote: post #333
stagbeetle wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not certain at what you're trying to get at here. Can you elaborate? ETA: I genuinely don't understand the parent comment.

The parent comment "debunked" my reasoning by citing logical fallacies. There's a page on Wikipedia that lists all logical fallacies and links to their pages, it's often cited as one of the best / coolest pagest on Wikipedia (seriously, check it out.) But recently a lot of people think they can win (or shut down) arguments (or pleas for equality) by leaning on these logical fallacies a little to hard. It's a lame and…

Thank you.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#335

Post by panglott »

strictfp wrote: post #296
dobbin wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common pattern throughout history and one that really annoys me. People argue that the pay gap isn't real because men choose more highly-valued positions, but the reality is that positions favoured by women are inherently considered low-value. If some type of "women's work" somehow starts to become respectable or starts to pay better, it stops being "women's work" and the women are pushed out. If women start e…

So how does this explain low-valued male work like construction and garbage disposal?

Construction and garbage workers may have lower status, but these are generally good-paying bluecollar jobs. Construction in particular has a wide range of skill levels.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#336

Post by batty »

xor1 wrote: post #173
phlakaton wrote: post #104

If ever I had a notion that an expression of solidarity for women in tech was unnecessary or quixotic, the response to this article on this very forum would be sufficient to dispel it.

From what I've seen, there are less African-American and non-white hispanic men in tech than there are white and Asian women, yet I never see this discussed. Is this not an important issue as well? Will skewed racial ratios only be handled after gender parity has been achieved? Or do they not matter at all?

This is just concern trolling. Obviously all these issues are important to address; simply pointing to another issue does not contribute to solving either of them.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#337

Post by RandomOpinion »

cbhl wrote: post #163
CryoLogic wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I studied economics in college, and worked with a professor who was researching the "pay gap". We found that adjusting for a number of factors (profession, experience, education, etc.) the pay gap actually closes significantly. That isn't to say some companies don't have pay gap, but it is largely overblown and often dissimilar pay is a result of other factors. tl;dr 70 cents on the dollar is not a real thing when yo…

If men become doctors and women become nurses, or if men become Software Engineers and women become Test Engineers, then there's still something wrong with the world. "Adjusting for profession" ignores the cultural context of terms like "pay gap" -- we come from a world where women couldn't work certain jobs at all.

Since we're talking about various X-ism's today, your prejudice against nurses and test engineers is showing.

(Seriously, I'm starting to wonder if I should give up the QA profession for good, even though I prefer it to being a developer.)

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#338

Post by fatbird »

prepend wrote: post #322
fatbird wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Prevent? No. Continually add friction at all stages, from conceptualizing, staffing, funding, and interacting with the larger techsphere while competing for earned media, virality, etc.? Yes, absolutely, with predictable effects.

One way to understand the effects of systemic "isms" is that the targets have to continually deal with a headwind that others don't, and the cumulative effect of this is like compound interest. The supposed meritocracy of technology that's blindly present in the download screen hides all the non-meritocratic context leading up to it.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#339

Post by xor1 »

smt88 wrote: post #325
xor1 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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.

Yes, that's what I consider the true definition of racism, but that is not the definition of racism that's currently being used in contemporary American political discourse.

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

Sure, but they are overwhelmingly hereditary.

Re: Nevertheless, She Coded

#340

Post by xor1 »

batty wrote: post #336
xor1 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've seen, there are less African-American and non-white hispanic men in tech than there are white and Asian women, yet I never see this discussed. Is this not an important issue as well? Will skewed racial ratios only be handled after gender parity has been achieved? Or do they not matter at all?

This is just concern trolling. Obviously all these issues are important to address; simply pointing to another issue does not contribute to solving either of them.

>concern trolling

Thanks, I was looking for a way to call people disingenuous without actually using the term, since it's apparently become a no-no word on HN.

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