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I only got that job because I’m a girl

technologywoman.com

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Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl

#61

Post by gatordan »

btilly wrote: post #7

It is easy to rail against employers for showing the complained about bias against minorities and women. And doing so is clearly against the law. However playing Devil's advocate it is justifiable by the fact that hiring decisions are naturally risk adverse. The difference between a perfect hire and a merely good one is typically not that big. The difference between a hire that works out and one that does not is huge…

It's strange how convenient and accepted unchecked anecdotal evidence can be around here under certain circumstances . If this was a strictly tech article I would hope more people would be saying your sample size here is two or three, that's clearly not the best predictor of the future. But you're talking about race and gender from the majority white male centered perspective so your comment is at the top.

According to you a couple black people got farther than they should have because of affirmative action and because of that you wouldn't blame an employer for considering all black people "risky" hires. Doesn't that sound a bit ridiculous? Put another way, has anyone ever said "a couple white people screwed over the team a few years back so we think twice nowadays before hiring white people". Or "we found that guys seem to slack more during work hours and now we shy away from hiring men". Of course not, because white and male are normal when it comes to jobs in tech and so they enjoy the privilege of being treated as individuals. To drive the point home your bias is obvious in your comment - "you're going to naturally think 2 and 3 times before making a similar hire" - "similar" applies to black or female because it's understandable to aggregate those individuals, their actions easy fit into a narrative that already exists in your mind. Pick two white men at your work who consistently perform poorly and I don't think you would be as comfortable attributing their behavior to their race or gender.

Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl

#62

Post by [deleted] »

btilly wrote: post #47
alid wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, it's not politically correct to say that. Nor is it legal to act on it. Why? Because it engenders discrimination. Women are different to men - culturally, biologically, etc et al. However any reference/inference/undertone to those differences as being 'risky' or 'negative' to business re-enforces negative stereotypes. As the studies are showing, there's an opportunity cost to not achieving gender balanc…

There is actually quite a bit of evidence suggesting that the reason why discrimination on gender is illegal in the USA is that the term was slipped in as a rider when the Civil Rights Act was going down to defeat, and then after JFK died in the rush to pass it they forgot to take that rider out. See http://www.siop.org/tip/jan11/12highhouse.aspx for arguments both ways. (The one that I just presented was the convent…

[deleted]

Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl

#63

Post by btilly »

Volpe wrote: post #58
btilly wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption that past discrimination justifies reverse discrimination is a dangerous one, and gives lots of opportunities for those who want to discriminate to justify it to themselves. The US military addressed this exact problem by making extra resources available to black recruits who were interested in becoming officers to assist them in performing to the exact same standards that were required of whites. The…

> The assumption that past discrimination justifies reverse discrimination is a dangerous one I wasn't saying it was justified, I was saying it was a problem. One that doesn't exist if there was no discrimination. Racial Discrimination is racial discrimination, there is no such thing as 'well justified' racial discrimination. Saying that "Well I know that Blacks' go through school easier so their degree means less" i…

OK, you've made the argument that only horrid racists believe that black high school graduates are less likely than white high school graduates to have basic competency at reading, writing and arithmetic.

But have you made the argument that people who believe that are WRONG?

This is not a question of opinion. This is a question of fact. For instance http://www.betterhighschools.org/docs/nhsc_highschoolliterac... quotes the figure Only 16% of Black high school seniors and 20% of Hispanic high school seniors scored at or above proficient on the 2005 NAEP reading test, compared to 43% of Caucasian students (NCES, 2007).

Now what do you propose that we should do about it?

Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl

#64

Post by btilly »

columbo wrote: post #56
btilly wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've effectively said "I wont hire women because they might go form babbies" on a public forum. That conclusion can only be drawn by people who perform simplistic keyword matching and fail to comprehend what I've actually said. Did you notice that I've also pointed out several times that there is some evidence that companies who are more willing to hire women are likely to financially perform better? And that I've…

> That conclusion can only be drawn by people who perform simplistic keyword matching and fail to comprehend what I've actually said. Sure, I could have misread everything you've posted but imagine the lawyer for a potential failed hire reading your posts and slicing out exact paragraphs of your own wording: > given biology and current culture, women of child-bearing age clearly are riskier hires > Women have non-tri…

I don't deny that a lawyer could try to make hay out of those out of context. But every one of those quotes are statements of provable fact. That's the problem when you try to bring nuance to an emotionally charged issue. You wind up saying things that cause people to have a knee-jerk response, and their brains turn off.

Pondering http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html may be worthwhile.

Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl

#65

Post by jules »

glaak wrote: post #32
eightbitman wrote: post #30

You got the job because you're a girl. You kept it because you're competent. It's annoying how women refuse to acknowledge their gender opens certain doors for them. I want to work as a bartender, which means more than half of the places I apply will never even look at my resume because I'm not a girl. I'm all for giving disadvantaged people a chance over advantaged ones, but it's offensive when you pretend "Oh no, t…

Um. Read the studies. No, the odds aren't even. In technology, they're stacked against women. (And against black people in general.) (I would very much believe, however, that in bartending, it's stacked against men.)

Since you're familiar with the studies, please cite them. As it stands your comment is just "RTFM!!" without even saying which manual.

Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl

#66

Post by btilly »

gatordan wrote: post #61
btilly wrote: post #7

It is easy to rail against employers for showing the complained about bias against minorities and women. And doing so is clearly against the law. However playing Devil's advocate it is justifiable by the fact that hiring decisions are naturally risk adverse. The difference between a perfect hire and a merely good one is typically not that big. The difference between a hire that works out and one that does not is huge…

It's strange how convenient and accepted unchecked anecdotal evidence can be around here under certain circumstances . If this was a strictly tech article I would hope more people would be saying your sample size here is two or three, that's clearly not the best predictor of the future. But you're talking about race and gender from the majority white male centered perspective so your comment is at the top. According…

Are you familiar with the concept of playing Devil's advocate?

Also did you read the final paragraph?

Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl

#67

Post by smokey_the_bear »

glaak wrote: post #50
smokey_the_bear wrote: post #41

I also interned at Microsoft in college, and I'm sure the only reason I got the internship was because I'm a girl. MS hired only five interns from my school that year, and all were female, which is pretty remarkable given my school's sub 5% female representation. I also had an offer from IBM's Extreme Blue that summer, which I don't think had much to do with being female. I also think being female made it a little ea…

It is unusual that all 5 people hired were female. But, remember that coincidences happen. There are plenty of schools in which all 15 people hired are male. Unless there is some reason why your school specifically would be set apart, I don't think this is anything more than a strange coincidence. It's possible that something in the middle is going on -- a recruiter asked a professor for recommendations and he/she ha…

I'm pretty sure the recruiter assigned to my school was specifically a diversity recruiter.

Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl

#68

Post by btilly »

glaak wrote: post #50
smokey_the_bear wrote: post #41

I also interned at Microsoft in college, and I'm sure the only reason I got the internship was because I'm a girl. MS hired only five interns from my school that year, and all were female, which is pretty remarkable given my school's sub 5% female representation. I also had an offer from IBM's Extreme Blue that summer, which I don't think had much to do with being female. I also think being female made it a little ea…

It is unusual that all 5 people hired were female. But, remember that coincidences happen. There are plenty of schools in which all 15 people hired are male. Unless there is some reason why your school specifically would be set apart, I don't think this is anything more than a strange coincidence. It's possible that something in the middle is going on -- a recruiter asked a professor for recommendations and he/she ha…

If the presented figures are true, the probability of that happening entirely independently by chance are about 0.3 in a million.

It is reasonable to conclude that those decisions were not independent. But you're absolutely right that the correlation may come from the school rather than from Microsoft.

Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl

#69

Post by snogglethorpe »

glaak wrote: post #32
eightbitman wrote: post #30

You got the job because you're a girl. You kept it because you're competent. It's annoying how women refuse to acknowledge their gender opens certain doors for them. I want to work as a bartender, which means more than half of the places I apply will never even look at my resume because I'm not a girl. I'm all for giving disadvantaged people a chance over advantaged ones, but it's offensive when you pretend "Oh no, t…

Um. Read the studies. No, the odds aren't even. In technology, they're stacked against women. (And against black people in general.) (I would very much believe, however, that in bartending, it's stacked against men.)

> (I would very much believe, however, that in bartending, it's stacked against men.)

OTOH, bartending is a customer-facing business, and partially entails "entertainment" (e.g. the bar-tender talking with the customers), so in many cases there's an actual business reason to prefer female bartenders (when most customers are men who prefer talking to a woman bartender).

No such excuse exists in software development...

Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl

#70

Post by burntsushi »

btilly wrote: post #64
columbo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That conclusion can only be drawn by people who perform simplistic keyword matching and fail to comprehend what I've actually said. Sure, I could have misread everything you've posted but imagine the lawyer for a potential failed hire reading your posts and slicing out exact paragraphs of your own wording: > given biology and current culture, women of child-bearing age clearly are riskier hires > Women have non-tri…

I don't deny that a lawyer could try to make hay out of those out of context. But every one of those quotes are statements of provable fact. That's the problem when you try to bring nuance to an emotionally charged issue. You wind up saying things that cause people to have a knee-jerk response, and their brains turn off. Pondering http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html may be worthwhile.

I would just like to thank you very much for sharing that link. It was an amazing read. I found so many of the points made in that article things that I already practice, but I had never dreamed they could all be tied together in one cohesive whole like that.

That's one amazing piece of writing.

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