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Microsoft CEO says women need not ask for raise, should trust system

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Re: Microsoft CEO says women need not ask for raise, should trust system

#41

Post by anigbrowl »

neilellis wrote: post #25

The essential problem here is that we're still talking about men telling women what they need to do. Because, hey it's their problem. Let's just get it clear, it is all about what we (men) need to do. Slavery wasn't an African person's fault. Xenophobia isn't a problem for foreigners to sort out. There is nothing wrong with realising that we have a privilege over another group in society and making efforts to become…

I didn't downvote you, but he gave this advice in response to a direct question. True, he could and maybe should have been asked what he was going to do about it, but since there's one CEO and lots of individual employees wishing for raises, some of whom are women, the likelihood is that individual employees who get a raise will do so at the behest of their direct manager, regardless of gender.

Re: Microsoft CEO says women need not ask for raise, should trust system

#42

Post by neilellis »

neilellis wrote: post #32
neilellis wrote: post #25

The essential problem here is that we're still talking about men telling women what they need to do. Because, hey it's their problem. Let's just get it clear, it is all about what we (men) need to do. Slavery wasn't an African person's fault. Xenophobia isn't a problem for foreigners to sort out. There is nothing wrong with realising that we have a privilege over another group in society and making efforts to become…

PPPS: Thanks for those who voted back up. Would be nice to know the reasons for down votes still. Wouldn't it be quite easy to prompt a down voter for a reason and display that reason. Thus encouraging responsible downvoting?

And would you believe it, that comment was downvoted :-) oh the irony!

Re: Microsoft CEO says women need not ask for raise, should trust system

#43

Post by alukima »

neilellis wrote: post #25

The essential problem here is that we're still talking about men telling women what they need to do. Because, hey it's their problem. Let's just get it clear, it is all about what we (men) need to do. Slavery wasn't an African person's fault. Xenophobia isn't a problem for foreigners to sort out. There is nothing wrong with realising that we have a privilege over another group in society and making efforts to become…

Very well said. In general, I wish people would support each other more in tech. Too often people have a 'deal with it attitude'.

Re: Microsoft CEO says women need not ask for raise, should trust system

#44

Post by jacalata »

zxcvvcxz wrote: post #33

Isn't the problem that they don't ask for raises and negotiate as much or as hard as men do? I wonder what would help women with this. Everyone needs to look out for their own best interests in "the real world", no magic fairy is going to wave a wand and give people doing the same job the same money. There's no economic incentive to do so without pressure. And that pressure must come from the employees.

Partly. The other problem is that when they do negotiate the way men do, they tend to get far more negative reactions (like having the job offer withdrawn). http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf

Re: Microsoft CEO says women need not ask for raise, should trust system

#45

Post by anigbrowl »

nickbauman wrote: post #30
yzzxy wrote: post #13

His response to the response: "Was inarticulate re how women should ask for raise. Our industry must close gender pay gap so a raise is not needed because of a bias #GHC14" https://twitter.com/satyanadella/status/520311425726566400

Which implies that the solution to the problem is to LOWER the pay of men to match the pay of women. I think the term "unintended consequences" can be writ large here by now.

It implies no such thing.

Re: Microsoft CEO says women need not ask for raise, should trust system

#46

Post by daeken »

neilellis wrote: post #42
neilellis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PPPS: Thanks for those who voted back up. Would be nice to know the reasons for down votes still. Wouldn't it be quite easy to prompt a down voter for a reason and display that reason. Thus encouraging responsible downvoting?

And would you believe it, that comment was downvoted :-) oh the irony!

Comments about downvoting are [almost always nearly] content-free. The way to battle bad downvoting is just to upvote content that deserves to be promoted.

Re: Microsoft CEO says women need not ask for raise, should trust system

#47

Post by georgemcbay »

neilellis wrote: post #32
neilellis wrote: post #25

The essential problem here is that we're still talking about men telling women what they need to do. Because, hey it's their problem. Let's just get it clear, it is all about what we (men) need to do. Slavery wasn't an African person's fault. Xenophobia isn't a problem for foreigners to sort out. There is nothing wrong with realising that we have a privilege over another group in society and making efforts to become…

PPPS: Thanks for those who voted back up. Would be nice to know the reasons for down votes still. Wouldn't it be quite easy to prompt a down voter for a reason and display that reason. Thus encouraging responsible downvoting?

I kind of wish there were a link you could click on each post to see a list of the people who downvoted it.

I don't expect that to ever be added and I can imagine many ways in which it would backfire, but nothing annoys me more than silent downvotes (downvotes but no responses) to posts that are perfectly reasonable if maybe mildly controversial.

If you disagree with a post (that isn't just obviously a troll or otherwise clearly meant to be offensive) enough to downvote, respond with why, it is much more useful for everyone that way.

Re: Microsoft CEO says women need not ask for raise, should trust system

#48

Post by jnem »

neilellis wrote: post #25

The essential problem here is that we're still talking about men telling women what they need to do. Because, hey it's their problem. Let's just get it clear, it is all about what we (men) need to do. Slavery wasn't an African person's fault. Xenophobia isn't a problem for foreigners to sort out. There is nothing wrong with realising that we have a privilege over another group in society and making efforts to become…

First, when you say, "slavery wasn't an African person's fault", I have to assume you are talking about Slavery in recent American history and not Slavery as a thing throughout history. Humankind is at fault there because almost every race and culture did it at some point.

Second, if I understand it correctly, I think maybe people downvoted you (not me) because your statement implies (however unintended) that without men doing something about it, women cant close the pay gap on their own. Making the statement a bit leaner, it could be interpreted as, "Without men doing it for them, women cant close the gap". Which is all kinds of incorrect.

Anyway, I don't think you meant it that way, but as you can see from the "slavery" example, it's easy for us to be unaware of our own racial, cultural, historical, sexual, and sociological bias. Myself included.

Re: Microsoft CEO says women need not ask for raise, should trust system

#49

Post by jacalata »

dominotw wrote: post #19
ryanburk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://readwrite.com/2014/10/09/nadella-women-dont-ask-for-r... has a better write up, in my opinion. this was at the annual grace hopper celebration of women in computing and was not out of context / said ironically.

>> Twenty-nine percent of the general Microsoft workforce is female, and in the U.S., almost 61% is white. Can someone give me an american perspective on why Americans find 61% white to be an unacceptable thing considering 60-70% of american population identifies as white and America still predominantly is a white country.

I think they usually mean "much lower black and hispanic representation than demographics would suggest". The population of the USA is 13% black and 17% hispanic [0] - Microsoft employees are 4% black and 5% hispanic. [1] The coincidentally similar percentage of white people in the two groups is because MS has a far higher representation of Asians than the general population.

[0] - http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html [1] - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/inside-microsoft/de...

Re: Microsoft CEO says women need not ask for raise, should trust system

#50

Post by neilellis »

jnem wrote: post #48
neilellis wrote: post #25

The essential problem here is that we're still talking about men telling women what they need to do. Because, hey it's their problem. Let's just get it clear, it is all about what we (men) need to do. Slavery wasn't an African person's fault. Xenophobia isn't a problem for foreigners to sort out. There is nothing wrong with realising that we have a privilege over another group in society and making efforts to become…

First, when you say, "slavery wasn't an African person's fault", I have to assume you are talking about Slavery in recent American history and not Slavery as a thing throughout history. Humankind is at fault there because almost every race and culture did it at some point. Second, if I understand it correctly, I think maybe people downvoted you (not me) because your statement implies (however unintended) that without…

Fair comment, it's hard to communicate anything well :) Certainly not my intention, my emphasis is it is men's responsibility to help reduce gender inequality, not our privilege :-)

Though again I disagree with people using down votes to disagree with an opinion :-)

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