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

#501

Post by dgudkov » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 2:09 AM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #165

dgudkov wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salary transparency is not possible and would be highly misleading because jobs are not standardized. A "senior Java developer" can be anything. Then you would have to provide a job description in a comparable format for every salary which is not trivial, if feasible at all. Salary transparency without job descriptions would be akin to showing house prices without describing house details - location, square footage,…

Why not? Just publish who makes how much money. That’s it.

>Why not? Just publish who makes how much money. That’s it.

Okay. Let's make a thought experiment.

  Company A. Senior Java Developer. $100K.
  Company B. Senior Java Developer. $120K.

Question: is the Java developer in Company A underpaid?

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

#502

Post by vl » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 2:10 AM 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…

>Instead many women just avoid HN

It seems like a ripe opportunity to create women-only HN.

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

#503

Post by roguecoder » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 2:12 AM UTC

Systems that can serve the least-privileged fairly are more fair for everyone. The people who are resistant to making things more fair are usually the people afraid they are getting away with something.

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

#504

Post by simoncoulton » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 2:15 AM UTC

rtkwe wrote: post #303

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The explanation is simple. When you provide women the opportunity to become anything they want. They choose the careers that they choose. Which tend to me more social related careers. Teaching or nursing for example does not scale well; therefore salaries are limited. Whereas men pick more "stuff" categories. It's men who work in STEM creating things. A car or an iphone is going to be generally speaking men who desig…

The 'people just choosing different careers' throws a lot of inequality under a rug and calls the problem solved. 1) If we tell women their whole childhood that some jobs are for men and some are for women and vice versa for men then ask them when they turn 18 what job they want we'll get horrendously unequal outcomes even though people are completely free to choose. 2) Valuation of jobs is based partially on the vie…

1) Except that in the western world we do not tell people their whole childhood that they are to do X because of their gender. We actively tell people they can be whatever they want, and as far back I can remember in primary school (early 80s) that's been the case.

2) Valuation doesn't always equate to monetary remuneration. For example (at least in Australia), police, teachers etc get FAR more leave and holidays compared to the rest of the country. That needs to be taken into account as part of the valuation. Stress also factors into why certain professions are "worth" more than others. IT is highly stressful, in comparison to other social professions.

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

#505

Post by roguecoder » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 2:16 AM UTC

wisty wrote: post #426

TeMPOraL wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 every…

Having to deal with men who "aren't happy" that they exist sure sounds like something that would make the job suck more for women than it does for men.

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

#506

Post by memmcgee » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 2:17 AM UTC

The solution to this is the solution to many problems in tech: unionization.

Many tech workers think unions cap the maximum achievement and result in people getting underpaid. In reality, we're _already_ underpaid when you look at how much the ownership of a company gets. Additionally, Hollywood's unionization hasn't hurt their pay.

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

#507

Post by roguecoder » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 2:18 AM UTC

whiddershins wrote: post #405

TeMPOraL wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don’t really like being accepting of oscillation. Forward movement, progress, shouldn’t be defined as updating who we discriminate against. Progress would be to stop discriminating. Optimizing for equality of outcome seems to be causing discrimination. That doesn’t look like progress to me.

If you aren't just hiring every person who walks through the door, you are discriminating. The question is whether you are hiring on relevant characteristics or irrelevant bullshit, and whether your job is more appealing to people on the basis of protected characteristics in ways that end up with an overwhelmingly-male workforce of people willing to be treated unfairly. Being thoughtful and taking responsibility for which people you are choosing to include is at least honest, unlike accepting a sexist status quo as magically "neutral".

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

#508

Post by roguecoder » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

simoncoulton wrote: post #492

roguecoder wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physics hardly any more applicable to software development than biology is, especially areas like biostats or neurophysiology that involve directly writing code. But these numbers sure suggest that something is wrong with computer science departments.

It does not suggest anything is wrong. Seeing any group represented more than another in anything that is due to CHOICE does not correlate to an issue.

"CHOICE" is not a get-out-of-sexism-free card. Anyone who builds products or sells anything to anyone ever should know that we have enormous influence over who chooses to consume our products.

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

#509

Post by cronix » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

hellisothers wrote: post #474

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume most of Google employees are exempt, so the exact number of hours spent on a job is hard to calculate.

Agreed, “hours worked” is starting to look like a dog whistle in these threads

How is it a dog whistle? How can you accurately compare unless you take such factors into account? Are you saying it's statistically insignificant?

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

#510

Post by roguecoder » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 2:23 AM UTC

CyberDildonics wrote: post #344

roguecoder wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physics hardly any more applicable to software development than biology is, especially areas like biostats or neurophysiology that involve directly writing code. But these numbers sure suggest that something is wrong with computer science departments.

Is something wrong with ballet since it's mostly women?

Yes. There is SO MUCH wrong with ballet. So much. Like, way more than is wrong with tech or computer science. Just... so much is wrong with ballet.

Of course, while a majority of ballet dancers are women the people who run ballets are almost entirely male, which should give you some insight into what is wrong with ballet.

Indeed, if you want to feel better about tech I have never heard of a tech company where developers were openly expected to sleep with the person running the team to get a promotion, so we are beating the New York City ballet by a mile.