I only got that job because I’m a girl
technologywoman.com
I only got that job because I’m a girl
1–10 of 90 posts
Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl
#2Unfortunate, given the title of the article, that the site went down...
Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl
#3Unfortunate, given the title of the article, that the site went down...
I clicked thinking i'd see some some skin.
(Oh yeah I'll deserve the down-votes for that one, go ahead!)
Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl
#4Unfortunate, given the title of the article, that the site went down...
It's back now. Here's a mirror in case it goes down again: http://i.imgur.com/hR9Mc.png
Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl
#5To level the argument, let's just say that everyone has the same skill for a position. You can probably assume that there are a lot of equally qualified 'A' players who have applied at Google, Valve, Facebook, etc. So what sets all of them apart? Off the top of my head, I can only think of two things: personality and looks.
While I can't comment on the personality of the author, from the picture in the article it seems as though she is attractive. Is that enough to set her apart? Would she have seen the same possibilities if she wasn't so attractive? Would she have seen the same possibilities if she didn't have the novelty (not sure what to call it) of being an attractive, capable woman in a male-dominated field?
Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl
#6This is such an important issue, and it affects bottom line! - a recent Forbes article highlighted that companies with more women at senior levels earn upwards of 33% more on important financial metrics.
Global research group Catalyst recently interviewed 325 American chief executives and 10,000 female executives around the obstacles to womens' progression into senior leadership roles. 52% of women cited male stereotyping, but only 25% of the male chief executives identified it as a problem - so there's definitely unconscious stereotyping at play.
Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl
#7It 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 does not take many wrong hires to destroy a working team.
If you've ever been burned by a hire where a person did not work out for reason X, then you're going to naturally think 2 and 3 times before making a similar hire. I personally have seen a couple of situations where a black person had credentials only because of affirmative action and did not deserve those credentials. I've also have seen multiple cases where a woman gets hired, gets pregnant, and then you lose that employee in a painful way.
Can you really blame an employer for leaning towards being risk adverse in this situation?
(Turning it around, if everyone else is discriminating to an unfair degree against a specific group of people, a company that merely discriminates less will enjoy a competitive advantage. A while ago I ran across a fascinating study of how much better South Korean companies that were willing to hire women into management do than ones who are not. I've seen no data either way on whether the USA is past this tipping point for women in various professional careers.)
Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl
#8This is such an important issue, and it affects bottom line! - a recent Forbes article highlighted that companies with more women at senior levels earn upwards of 33% more on important financial metrics. Global research group Catalyst recently interviewed 325 American chief executives and 10,000 female executives around the obstacles to womens' progression into senior leadership roles. 52% of women cited male stereot…
I did not see that article, but would be interested to. Do you have a link?
The only research that I am aware of along those lines was specific to South Korea.
Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl
#9To level the argument, let's just say that everyone has the same skill for a position. You can probably assume that there are a lot of equally qualified 'A' players who have applied at Google, Valve, Facebook, etc. So what sets all of them apart? Off the top of my head, I can only think of two things: personality and looks. While I can't comment on the personality of the author, from the picture in the article it see…
Hey man! I didn't quite understand your argument, but in this arena looks shouldn't come into it. The greater weight attributed by some people to women's appearance is a form of unconcsious discrimination. I appreciate you weren't sure what to call it, but the 'novelty of being attractive' doesn't sit well with me. She has the novelty of being highly skilled - that's what counts :)
Re: I only got that job because I’m a girl
#10To level the argument, let's just say that everyone has the same skill for a position. You can probably assume that there are a lot of equally qualified 'A' players who have applied at Google, Valve, Facebook, etc. So what sets all of them apart? Off the top of my head, I can only think of two things: personality and looks. While I can't comment on the personality of the author, from the picture in the article it see…
Interesting, but I disagree.
(1) You can't assume that there are a lot of equally qualified A players for those companies. In fact, those companies struggle to hire enough qualified engineers.
(2) You're assuming that those companies, if they were presented with multiple qualified people, can only hire one of them. In many cases, they would just hire all of them.
(3) You're assuming that, if a company has to decide between multiple qualified people, it would use personality or looks as a dividing factor. Obviously, the people aren't actually identical, other than looks. The companies could instead decide based on a preference for public universities over equally ranked private ones, or what city the people are from, or whatever. There are many differences between people.
(4) You're assuming that attractiveness would help someone's candidacy for an engineering role, and not hurt it. If you were talking to two people -- one was a very attractive woman and one was a very unattractive woman -- which would you assume is more technical, if you had to bet? You'd probably bet on the less attractive person.