Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#421

Post by leereeves » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:06 PM UTC

chc wrote: post #413

stcredzero wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying that female programmers don't program, and therefore they deserve to be paid less This is weird. That's not how I read what leereeves wrote at all. Yet you repeatedly insist that's what he's saying. Are you perhaps projecting an opinion onto leereeves? Preferences can very much influence the outcomes of a training pipeline for a field. (I say this as someone who taught a class attended by Chic Tech stud…

I'm trying to get leereeves to actually explain what he means. What sort of difference do people think exists between men and women that makes them deserve to, for example, be paid less for the same work (i.e. worse outcome) without being worse at the job?

You're asking me to explain something that may not even be true. According to the article, your scenario is not reality:

> When Google conducted a study recently to determine whether the company was underpaying women and members of minority groups, it found, to the surprise of just about everyone, that men were paid less money than women for doing similar work.

men were paid less money than women for doing similar work.

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#422

Post by djsumdog » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:06 PM UTC

Will_Parker wrote: post #307

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High school, college, any STEM fields are all overwhelmingly biased in terms of favoring women. My daughter who is finishing the primary school has recently asked me if it's okay if she doesn't like math, but likes animals and babies. Sounds like some pressure is being applied...

> Sounds like some pressure is being applied... Maybe, rightly so? It doesn't matter if you like reading, you need to learn it. For a toddler in 2019, I think coding and some math is getting close to this level of importance.

Pressured is applied to make people fit into the working machine. We're okay with our kids being farmed because we want them to have good money and as good or better a life than ourselves.

My dad wanted to go into art school, but he went into engineering instead, got a visa and moved our entire family to the US. I wanted to go into journalism, but my sister kept telling me I needed to think about my future family, so I went into Computer Science (I'm also in my 30s with no family .. so, yea).

How about instead of telling women they should go for higher paying jobs, we tell men it's okay to go after your dreams. How about we find a way to support artists so they're not selling everything under iTunes/Google/Amazon at a 30% cut!

There is a much bigger problem here of people taking jobs they know they'll probably be unhappy with because they need the money. We are a factory pipeline of misery.

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#423

Post by Waterluvian » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:08 PM UTC

avivo wrote: post #410

It's interesting how this sort of discussion is actually leading HN to be more of an echo chamber. Most of my female friends in tech completely avoid it now because it seems that discussions that get voted up tend to ignore or belittle their experiences—even if there may be lots of great points and perspectives mixed in. In fact, the only response I noticed explicitly from someone who identified as female was being d…

I've resigned to never talking during any discussion that has to do with any form of inequality.

As a young, middle class, educated, employed, healthy white male, I'm perceived as the "default settings" of society. No groups are advocating for me because I apparently already have plenty of support.

There's nothing I can do to celebrate who I am because the conversation is so zero-sum. If I'm a white guy making a lot of money in tech, I'm part of the problem.

It's exhausting. Instead of being a booster for causes I think are important, I just stay on the sidelines.

I wonder if all the upvoters are just quieter than the down voters.

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#424

Post by slg » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:09 PM UTC

MRD85 wrote: post #393

slg wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, which is why the per capita number is not the proper way to measure this. For example, imagine a company with 7 male employees and 3 female employees. That company has 9 engineers and one administrative assistant. All the engineers are underpaid. The male engineers are underpaid by $1000 and the female engineers are underpaid by $1200. The administrative assistant is a woman who is fairly compensated. That means…

I understand how that works but we're going to need to draw a line somewhere. Going by job, rank, and salary alone could ignore hours worked per week (statistically men tend to do more in the same role), bonuses for high quality work (who knows how this plays out?), etc. I could choose whatever filters I want to frame the data how I want it to, it's one of the biggest tricks of the "women are paid X less than men" ca…

You asked a direct question and I gave you an answer why that question isn't the right one to ask. You are now shifting the debate to be about something completely different.

As I have said in other comments in this thread, there is simply not enough information in this article to say definitely whether there is any gender discrimination in pay at Google and if there is, what gender benefits from that discrimination. Too many people in these comments are approaching this article with biases of their own (on both sides).

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#425

Post by stcredzero » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:09 PM UTC

chc wrote: post #358

nwienert wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll repeat points that aren’t my original ideas, but are painfully obvious here. It’s very simple what it’s become: sexist against men. This is what happens when you aim for equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. I believe we’re in a Kantian second stage. We were sexist against women. Now, we’re sexist against men. The hopeful third step

> This is what happens when you aim for equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. People throw this accusation around all the time, but it doesn't make much sense. Outcomes are the only holistic way to measure opportunity. If you're seeing one group getting lesser outcomes, there are only two possibilities: Their opportunities are being artificially limited somewhere , or one of the groups is simply bet…

Outcomes are the only holistic way to measure opportunity.

I'm sorry, but that's "not even wrong" as Pauli would say.

what you're really saying is, "The groups who haven't traditionally been in power are in that position because they are innately less capable."

Group cultures/subcultures can pass on knowledge, which can then provide advantages and then be transmitted to different groups. No racial or innate superiority or inferiority is needed for such an explanation. This is well corroborated by history. (See Thomas Sowell's Migrations And Cultures: A World View) An example of this is found in the German influences in Mexico, and the part of Monterrey one of my old hackerspace colleagues is from. He's quite proud of the progressive schooling he had and of the engineering culture there. (The story of German emigration has its stories of misfortune as well, including examples of German ethnic disadvantage as well.)

20th century hacker culture has its roots in the model railway building scene, which was largely a male space. There's nothing inherently male about model railway building or hacking itself, but there was something about the subculture which was. If we're to change this, then it shouldn't be done from the punitive and negative standpoint of blame, but from a positive view of transmission. No "inherent" or identitarian notions are needed at all.

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#426

Post by wisty » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:10 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #380

nwienert wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll repeat points that aren’t my original ideas, but are painfully obvious here. It’s very simple what it’s become: sexist against men. This is what happens when you aim for equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. I believe we’re in a Kantian second stage. We were sexist against women. Now, we’re sexist against men. The hopeful third step

I think I prefer dynamic systems view. We're oscillating. We've been under the target, overcorrected, and we're above the target now. Like always in (widely-understood) politics, this will be met with another overcorrection; all we can hope for is that there's dampening in the system, so that we'll converge on target at some point.

It doesn't seem like the system dampens. Instead, there seems to be some kind of anger that for 99% of men "privilege" means working hard, making compromises, and other stuff that's roughly as crappy as being a housewife. Men aren't all that happy they've got this "privilege", and when women have the option of being a salaryman they feel like they must have been cheated because it's not a top-floor office where everyone just sips whisky on leather lounges.

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#427

Post by renholder » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:12 PM UTC

lazyasciiart wrote: post #373

renholder wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are plenty of places with pay transparency and they work just fine. The information imbalance is only to the benefit of the employer. Citations?

Public servants. Sweden. Buffer.

>Public servants

All public servants or just those paid by your statea and/or federal governments? Could you find out how much someone made at the NSA, for example?

>Sweden.

Tax returns are not the same as pay transparency. In premise, yes, in practice, no, because a tax return is based on taxable income only. So, let's say I have tax credits for having three kids. My taxable income would be vastly different from yours, if you have no kids.

>Buffer

Overflow...?

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#428

Post by ZeroFries » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:13 PM UTC

chc wrote: post #408

ZeroFries wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that you still don't understand the third possibility. I wonder if it has something to do with why many hard-leaning leftists also only consider the first two as possibilities.

OK, let me give you an example outcome and maybe you can explain to me how the third possibility applies in a way that is meaningfully distinct from the first two. Outcome: The women working as programmers at FooSoft make on average 10% less than the men working there. Possible reasons: 1. Lack of opportunity (e.g. people in power at FooSoft have bias against them makes it harder for them to have their contributions…

Yeah, this isn't what we're talking about at all.

Outcome: Women working as programmers at FooSoft comprise 10% less of the workforce than men working there.

Possible reasons

1. Hiring bias

2. Not as qualified

3. Less applicants due to disinterest in programming as a vocation

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#429

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:13 PM UTC

avivo wrote: post #410

It's interesting how this sort of discussion is actually leading HN to be more of an echo chamber. Most of my female friends in tech completely avoid it now because it seems that discussions that get voted up tend to ignore or belittle their experiences—even if there may be lots of great points and perspectives mixed in. In fact, the only response I noticed explicitly from someone who identified as female was being d…

> accurate opinions

You can have an accurate or inaccurate belief on a question of fact, but “accuracy” is not a measure that applies to matters of opinion.

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#430

Post by some345 » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:13 PM UTC

EForEndeavour wrote: post #265

sorum wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 57% of college graduates are women What's the percentage female graduates in STEM fields? The 57% may not be representative for the fields which matter for engineers. Not saying the delta is big, I honestly don't know and am curious.

A quick search confirms your suspicion. The 57% female figure applies overall, but within STEM, the fraction of female graduates is low, except for life sciences: https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-science-technolog... The section entitled "Few Women Are Earning Degrees in STEM, Except in the Life Sciences" states that 35% of STEM undergrads are female. For engineering and computer-related bachelor's programs…

There are many factors to consider in order to interpret the stats.

The data indicates that women are underrepresented in STEM field, but we can also argue that men are underrepresented in educational field. Why aren't there more women in fields like firefighters, oil rigs, dangerous jobs?

Fundamentally, men and women are different both biologically and psychologically. To generalize, men are more interested in things and engineering and women are more interested in people and relationship. But that doesn't mean their intelligences differ. Intelligence expresses itself in different ways.

If a little girl says to her parents that she likes math, it's not like her parents would say, "no, you can't like math, you should go play with your dolls, math is for boys".

We can't equalize outcomes, there's no way we can have 50/50 across every field. What we can do is to equalize opportunity and level the playing field. Accepting women or men for a job just for the same of equal representation at workforce instead of evaluate their abilities for the job is just plain irresponsible.