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Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

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Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#71

Post by jasonlotito »

antonID wrote: post #44
jasonlotito wrote: post #30

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. 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.

Obviously we can't know what they will actually do. I interpret their article as their goal, not their actual point-by-point plan. YMMV

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#72

Post by LuminousPath »

chrisrhoden wrote: post #58
xemoka wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 audie…

Because there is a difference between making decisions based on gender, race, age, religion, etc... and making decisions based on the ability of the applicant to perform their duties. If your goal is to add someone to your team with skills that you believe are likely to be easier to find in a woman, you are not permitted to disregard men - just as if you are looking to hire someone to do heavy physical labor, you are…

If they're actively seeking somebody who's purpose is to bring the female perspective to a development team, how do you do that without being discriminatory?

"Hiring a person who is very familiar with application usage and development from a female perspective"?

This applies to the original argument the article made. Phrases like that sound creepy and off-putting to applicants.

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#73

Post by TheCoelacanth »

darkchasma wrote: post #61
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not illegal to discriminate against accountants. It is illegal to discriminate against someone because of their gender.

No, it's not. When is the last time you went to a gentlemans club and saw a naked man on stage?

It is allowable only in circumstances where it is a "bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise".

A gentlemans club can get away with it. Someone who simply wants to change their gender ratio can't.

Discriminating against accountants is legal in all circumstances.

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#74

Post by tzs »

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…

> 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

Discrimination by private employers based on sexual orientation is not illegal in the United States under Federal law, nor under the state law of approximately 60% of the states.

There are long standing efforts to make such discrimination legal at the Federal level, and they have come close a couple times. [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Non-Discrimination_A...

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#76

Post by darkchasma »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #73
darkchasma wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. When is the last time you went to a gentlemans club and saw a naked man on stage?

It is allowable only in circumstances where it is a "bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise". A gentlemans club can get away with it. Someone who simply wants to change their gender ratio can't. Discriminating against accountants is legal in all circumstances.

I haven't seen the case law which prohibits hiring for diversity. Could you direct me to some which demonstrates your assertion?

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#77

Post by voidlogic »

jasonlotito wrote: post #69
voidlogic wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 wo…

> I think that is your own projection It's not. Regardless, everything else you say ignores the fact that you are bringing the woman in specifically because you think she'll be better at hiring women. It's a strategy. She's in there not because she's a great engineer, but because she is a woman who happens to be a great engineer.

I think one persons "you think she'll be better at hiring women" is easily another persons "she'll be good at making sure women are not unfairly turned away".

>>It's a strategy. Yes it is. It is a strategy to avoid over looking awesome female candidates, intentionally or otherwise. Calling this a strategy is fair, calling is hypocrisy is not.

>>She's in there not because she's a great engineer, but because she is a woman who happens to be a great engineer.

No, she is there because she is a member of a group you think you may be discriminating against AND she is a member of the group you are seeking to hire for. Like you said it is a strategy.

You seem offended by what I think are very pragmatic ways to deal with the issue, care to suggest your alternatives? If you recall the OP is looking for legal ways to address the issue-

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#78

Post by zaroth »

randomdata wrote: post #57
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…

> You should be hiring based on the applicant's experience, education I find it concerning that we so easily discount this discrimination. Someone who is equally capable of doing the job with less experience and education should have an equal chance at the job, no? Now, perhaps someone with more experience is statistically better for the job, so you might want to look for that, but what if men are statically better f…

> I don't think it is right to say one is discrimination and the other is not. > In both cases you are making prejudicial judgements about people through categorization.

They are both discrimination, and they are both prejudicial judgement, but only one is illegal. Any property or characteristic of a candidate you use to make a hiring decision is the process of discriminating between the available candidates, and making prejudicial judgements.

Discrimination based on certain properties, like gender, is illegal. Discrimination based on any other properties, like college education, prior experience, communication skills, or how quickly (or more often slowly) they can do FizzBuzz is called 'the decision making process'.

An effective hiring process usually starts with trying to find good places to advertise, and then followed very shortly by figuring out how you will discriminate/prejudge the qualified candidates from the other [95% of] applicants.

As a general guide, typically it's the immutable properties which are the ones where discrimination is illegal.

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#79

Post by mikestew »

My response to the title is "duh". Setting out to hire a woman is, by the very definition of the word, discriminatory. For the moment, drop the legal aspects of the word "discrimination". Think more along the lines of hiring a designer versus a dev. That's discriminatory, too, but in a perfectly legal sense. In the end, though, one has made a distinction between those that design and those that write code. But if one needs a designer and not a dev, that discrimination needs to be made. Discriminating by gender, however, is not only of questionable legality, it can also make for a bad hire if one discriminates for gender above all else.

Looping back to the topic of hiring women, it was good that he sought the feedback of his wife and his employee. Despite his noble goals, it sure struck me as creepy. "Do you have a vagina? Come work for us!" I read the article, but maybe I missed the part where he asked himself how the workforce got out of balance to begin with. I'm going to guess (given the attitude that he conveys) that he didn't set out to create a boy's club of brogrammers. Advertising in the wrong places? Maybe something in the interview process was more discriminatory than he thought? Something in the company that subtly doesn't appeal to women? An industry predominantly populated by those with penises? Look to identify problems like that, rather than running around where the girls hang out and blatantly recruit for chicks.

Re: Turns out Hiring a Woman is Discriminatory

#80

Post by tzs »

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…

> 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 enlightened individual realizes very quickly that diversity is the goal because it works better.

In a professional work environment, how does gender diversity work better? In over 30 years of programming, dealing with a wide range of types of code and many languages, I've yet to run into a situation where having female-written code would have made any difference.

I can see it making a difference in a non-professional environment where work and social life are heavily intertwined. That's why, for instance, it is important at schools where most students live at the school and the school is where most of their social activity occurs. Things get uncomfortable when you have 15-20% females in an environment where people are both colleagues and boyfriend/girlfriend candidates.

That was the situation at Caltech when I was there. Since then, they have balanced things more, and are now something like 40% female. They did this without discriminating. What they did was work hard on getting qualified females to apply. The actual admission process, though, was kept gender blind.

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