Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory • Hacker News Board

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#41

Post by Ugh_seriously » Mon, Apr 22, 2013, 3:17 PM UTC

f18 wrote: post #14

antonID wrote: post #7

The problem is that this is discriminatory. If you are not hiring based solely on qualifications, and instead on gender, it is discriminating. If you were to switch the genders and say that you are only hiring men, it would be clearly sexist. However, if you do not accept well qualified men who would fit the job, it is seen as "breaking gender barriers". You should be hiring based on the applicant's experience, educa…

That's a fair point. It's hard to pin down why fewer women apply. Is it cultural, social, our industry? Are these things that a single company can sort out or change? How would you encourage or solve the problem of too few women applying, without crossing the ethical, gray, broad boundary of discrimination?

Fewer women apply because there are fewer women in the field. It's that simple. If you consider that a problem, the author of the article is trying to solve it at the end of the road, when the solution lies at the beginning. The beginning is in school, and the problem is most certain sociological.

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#42

Post by xemoka » Mon, Apr 22, 2013, 3:18 PM UTC

columbo wrote: post #31

Wanting to increase diversity is a good thing, so kudos for that. However you should -never- -ever- -ever- indicate a preference towards a race, gender, sexual orientation or religious affiliation. Did I say ever? Ever. Ever. Ever. It's discriminatory, it's demeaning and it's illegal. If you want to increase diversity then, well, don't just say 'I need women!', rather go to where the diversity is. There are a ton of…

But how is that not discrimination masked in sheep's clothing? At least be forward with what your looking for, why should a male apply for a position that he wants, fits PERFECTLY but only get rejected because the company was veiling it's intentions to hire a woman?

In my opinion, being female is equivalent to a skill—sure a hard coded skill, but a skill none-the-less. When you need to connect with a particular audience, how else are you supposed to hire someone with that skill? We've painted ourselves into a PC corner where discrimination is okay if we hide it.

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#43

Post by jasonlotito » Mon, Apr 22, 2013, 3:19 PM UTC

voidlogic wrote: post #19

How about you just keep hiring the best person for the job, but take care to be reflective and ensure you are fairly considering the female candidates... maybe make sure your female engineer is on the hiring committee? Put another way, rather than trying to explicitly seek awesome female employees, just make sure the awesome female candidates don't slip through. I think execs often mistakenly think they can fix cultu…

> maybe make sure your female engineer is on the hiring committee?

Doing that for the reasons you are suggesting is hypocritical. On one hand, you want the best person for the job, but then you are suggesting that the female engineer is apart of the decision making process, as if her gender is what qualifies her to hire engineers, or, more precisely, female engineers.

That's not what you intended to say, I know, but that's how easy it is to slip up in this regard.

> what is really needed is dedication and time.

Dedication to what, specifically? If the best people every time you hire is a white man, then you are losing the value that a diverse work force provides.

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#44

Post by antonID » Mon, Apr 22, 2013, 3:20 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #30

antonID wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing diversity doesn't work. They should instead find out how to get more minorities etc to apply in the first place to be considered equally with other candidates, without their applications being weighted over the others. Hiring based on experience no matter what gender or race you are, and becoming more diverse due to that, is better than discriminating against others for the sake of diversity.

> Forcing diversity doesn't work. They should instead find out how to get more minorities etc to apply in the first place to be considered equally with other candidates, without their applications being weighted over the others. Yes, that's what they are trying to do. Find out how. How do they signal to that group of people they want effectively, without weighting that group over others (such as by advertising only t…

Is that what they are trying to do? My understanding is that they are ONLY considering women for the position.

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#45

Post by jasonlotito » Mon, Apr 22, 2013, 3:21 PM UTC

Anechoic wrote: post #13

The original process the OP describes is exactly what many affirmative action opponents think AA does, that is only consider one demographic and ignore all the others. If you want to open opportunities for women, you post the job notice in places where women will see it. That will get you qualified candidates, and if you find a women who is the best person for the job, you hire her. edit: spelling

> you post the job notice in places where women fill see it. That will get you qualified candidates,

You can't just post there, however. You have to include that as part of the places you'll post. Just posting to those places would mean you are getting a qualified candidate, but not necessarily the best one.

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#46

Post by pdeuchler » Mon, Apr 22, 2013, 3:24 PM UTC

Nobody screamed discrimination when Michael Bay cast Megan Fox in Transformers. After all, what man could provide her sex appeal?

I see your problem, and agree with your viewpoint that this PC culture we've developed might have gone a little overboard, however I don't think this is a case of that. You need to focus less on the gender, and what the gender provides.

"WANTED: Graphical Designer, has work consistent with a feminine point of view and can provide alternative perspective to a predominantly male industry"

IANAL, but I feel like that gives you enough legal ass-covering to say any male didn't qualify. Could probably be worded better though.

e: formatting

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#47

Post by brudgers » Mon, Apr 22, 2013, 3:24 PM UTC

I am reluctant to use a reference to sports, but the NFL has a good model in regard to coaching and race. Using their protocol teams identify and interview African-American candidates. The protocol does not require hiring them. The Football League in the UK is talking about something similar.

The problem the NFL model solves is the networking problem. The process of interviewing is recognized as valuable because it expands the industry's knowledge of the talent pool and provides a basic opportunity for less well connected candidates to present their credentials.

This means that even if a candidate doesn't get this job, they are on the radar screen for other jobs. Hiring decisions are still based on merit while the known talent pool diversifies over the long run.

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#48

Post by steveklabnik » Mon, Apr 22, 2013, 3:24 PM UTC

apawloski wrote: post #27

artax77 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

exactly. it really is this simple. increase the number of female applicants and go from there.

>increase the number of female applicants and go from there. As it turns out, that's a lot easier said than done.

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Hiring_discrimination#Sol...

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#49

Post by voidlogic » Mon, Apr 22, 2013, 3:29 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #43

voidlogic wrote: post #19

How about you just keep hiring the best person for the job, but take care to be reflective and ensure you are fairly considering the female candidates... maybe make sure your female engineer is on the hiring committee? Put another way, rather than trying to explicitly seek awesome female employees, just make sure the awesome female candidates don't slip through. I think execs often mistakenly think they can fix cultu…

> maybe make sure your female engineer is on the hiring committee? Doing that for the reasons you are suggesting is hypocritical. On one hand, you want the best person for the job, but then you are suggesting that the female engineer is apart of the decision making process, as if her gender is what qualifies her to hire engineers, or, more precisely, female engineers. That's not what you intended to say, I know, but…

"Doing that for the reasons you are suggesting is hypocritical."

I think that is your own projection; The OP already mentioned that his female engineer is an awesome engineer, so I'm assuming she is qualified to be there from an engineering perspective (and I'm not saying she needs to be the only engineer there). And the organization is looking for a check to make sure the hiring team is not discriminating against women, having a woman there hopefully should help. At a minimum it would prevent outright sexist remarks during the discussion of candidates as making them in her presence would reasonably constitute sexual harassment. Also not to be over looked, the presence of a successful female engineer from the hiring organization may also make female candidates more comfortable.

As for dedication, I mean dedication to not over looking awesome female candidates, intentionally or otherwise.

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#50

Post by borplk » Mon, Apr 22, 2013, 3:30 PM UTC

darkchasma wrote: post #28

I always see these arguments as very very myopic. If I need a developer, then I hire a developer. I am very much discriminating against accountants, because they don't fit the qualifications that I am looking for. But no intelligent person would ever frame it that way. If you're a 10 to 1 ratio, then you need to diversify, and you would discriminate against men the same way you discriminate against accountants. The e…

That's not how it works.

An accountant will not have the qualification to get the job done and that's why you are not considering them, it's not discrimination.

Discrimination is when you ignore someone or treat them differently based on an attribute that is seemingly non-relevant to what is required to get the job done.

Gender, race, religion is often one of those attributes.

There may be cases where one of the above attributes is so crucial to the job that it is not discriminatory to consider them. For example a church will not accept an 'atheist bishop' and in that case that is not discrimination.

But if you apply for a fastfood job and get rejected because you are an atheist, then that is discrimination.

In the case of the author, it would be wrong to treat female applicants differently or only look for females or ignore the male applicants. In my opinion the right approach would be to do the things that results in getting more female applicants so that there will be a higher chance of the best applicant to be a female.