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 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.)
Have you ever seen a white person not be good at their job? Yet you don't associate their failures with their race. Why do so with black people?
Also, read the studies. Black people and women actually have a harder time getting a job. So by your logic, of people getting jobs that they may not be the most qualified for, you'd be better off hiring women or black people. They have to be more qualified into to be seen as equals.
Have you ever seen a white person not be good at their job? Yet you don't associate their failures with their race. Why do so with black people?
The specific situation that is burned in my mind was a black girl who was in a math PhD program at the same time that I was. The department wound up bending their rules to the breaking point to give her a Masters on her way out because nobody wanted to risk the discrimination lawsuit that she was threatening. Her actual math knowledge was not even to the level that I would expect from a BSc in math.
I have never witnessed anything involving a white person that was anywhere near being similarly egregious. And I had experiences with that department which demonstrated in spades that white people were not given anywhere near as much leniency.
As for your final point, I thought I pretty much said that. I've not seen the specific studies that you're referring to.
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 result? They managed to achieve their diversity goals among officers. And the expectations that you should reasonably have of an officer do not depend on race.
I like the approach that the US military took to affirmative action. By contrast I object to the way that our educational establishment routinely makes much better resources available to help white students achieve in one set of schools, while shoving black students through grades regardless of achievement in a different set of schools. Which then lets us all cry about the horrible discrimination when employers fail to treat high school diplomas equally for white and black kids.
> 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" is no better than "They are black, I don't like them". It just helps people sleep better at night to think they have a 'good reason' for being racist.
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?
>Now what do you propose that we should do about it?
Asians (Chinese and Japanese Americans were severely discriminated against in the US --to the point it was illegal for them to own property in some states (till '46). Yet, in a few decades, they were able to overcome the discrimination and even best whites as a whole.
Much of that appears to me culture based, not even ethnicity based. Now, not all Asians do well and have the same aptitude toward education and sacrifice. Compare East Asians with SouthEast Asians with Island Asians. Still, from my exposure, there is a large percentage whose parents inculcate learning and education and sacrifice (ex. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother as modern example). On the other hand look at Appalachian whites. Education is made fun of and they are some of the poorest people in America.
Essentially, make education and learning something held dear and worthwhile. Many other white kinds I went to school with were apathetic towards education (these guys are now laying carpets and driving trucks and so on). It's totally different mindset comapred to say, ABCs. They might not "like" school, but they know it's a means to and end rather than an obstacle to having fun.
Jewish people are another example of a discriminated against minority which values education and has become successful. If you can get a group to actually acquire the skills that are needed, they succeed.
But the problem lies in getting them to do so. And if they do so, getting the rest of the country to realize that they have done so.
When I asked what should be done about it, I was being deliberately unfair. It is obvious to me that many well-meaning efforts to resolve the problems are backfiring. But I have no clue how to actually solve the problem.
For instance if you give kids credentials without requiring achievement, then people rationally will discount those credentials. But sufficient resources to allow kids to legitimately achieve to the same level are hard to come by. Particularly considering the fact that parents of affluent ethnic groups are generally willing to devote a lot of effort making sure that their children have all of the resources that they need.
However the one thing that I am sure does not work is to try to pretend that the problem does not exist, and to try to make it anathema for anyone to fail to step in line. And, unfortunately, that seems to be the most popular "solution" that we have.
Throwing resources for the sake of it, I think would fall short. There has to be a plan and a change of attitude towards education, towards teaching, etc. by parents, pupils and society. Lots of students are dismissive of school, lots of parents expect school to do the child formation for them and forget that most of the responsibility lies with them.
Finland and Singapore are small and so their successes might now translate perfectly for a large, diverse nation. Yet, they might still have some lessons for us to learn.
One of the largest problems, in my view, might just be inertia. There are lots of people with large political capital tied up in the current system and are not willing to give it up despite this hurting chances of progress for the people they are trying to help.
In the US, the Jewish people were never disenfranchised the way African-Americans were/are. I don't think they are comparable.
Why can't we admit the problem exists and work to reverse it. i.e give discriminated against minorities a chance where we otherwise wouldn't. It's not about 'fairness' it is about ending discrimination.
The privileged class love to discuss what works and what doesn't as an excuse not to do anything: The problem is so complex what can I do? Maybe nothing is the best thing to do!
I think he's referring to the European experience, ghettoes, etc.
Anyhow, yes we know a problem exists. I think the main problem is not so much discrimination (it's a problem, but not the bigger/basic problem) as having equal access to education (from society and from the parents -i.e. it's not just up to teachers to teach).
Without a good education, anti-discrimination will only allow you equal opportunity at shitty jobs) The second issue is just having fewer children allows parents to plow more money and attention into the fewer children they have. I think some of the fruit of fewer children is being seen by black parents as compared to latin american parents (who tend to have larger families) this despite latin families not being subject to the same discrimination in the US.
Re discussion. Pick any topic --this is what happens here. It's hardly surprising nor is it only seen in these discussions.
>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 "past discrimination" was mass abductions from their countries, SLAVERY, Jim Crow laws, lynching, segregation, fewer rights and a hugely disproportionate percentage of the black population in prison.
The "reverse discrimination" is ...getting some more jobs or better grades.
Suddenly when it's for the benefit of the other side this 1/1000 less discrimination is "dangerous"?
Do you count the leniency in assuming white people have more legitimate credentials?
And how often are people hiring purely by the program of study? Can you affirmative action your way into top honors or great job experience? For the latter, it appears it's the opposite.
Can you affirmative action your way into top honors or great job experience?
In the specific case that I'm thinking of, thanks to affirmative action she had academic honors until, but not including grad school. (She did get a masters though.)
I've encountered some black people in the work place who I suspect were continuing to coast on affirmative action and willingness to accuse others of discrimination. They are a clear minority of the blacks that I've worked with. Furthermore I've never seen any of that minority manage to get good referrals from anyone I'd be interested in working with.
That said, there are some dysfunctional organizations out there where managers can find it easier to promote their problem employees to be someone else's problem than they do to fire them. Someone whose success was entirely dependent on affirmative action might do well in such an organization. My last experience with such an organization was fairly brief and was about 15 years ago. (I reached the point where I had to decide between finding a better job or filing a sexual harassment lawsuit against the man I was reporting to. Yes, that happens to men as well. I chose finding a better job.)
Update: I should clarify that my opinions about the relative competency of people in that program came from knowing them for several years, and from being in classes together.
>Have you ever seen a white person not be good at their job? Yet you don't associate their failures with their race. Why do so with black people?
That's one of the better arguments against "affirmative action". Competent minorities and women are naturally lumped in with people working the system and pay the price in terms of reputation.
>Can you really blame an employer for leaning towards being risk adverse in this situation?
Yes. It's called "the right thing to do", not "the easy and convenient thing to do", and for a reason.
Discriminating by race is convenient, but it puts a number of people in a dead end through no fault of their own. Had everyone done the convenient thing to do, those people would be locked out forever. For employers it's a matter convenience, for recruits it's a matter of having or not having a life. The impact is disproportionate.
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.
It is not politically correct to say that women are riskier hires than men. But given biology and current culture, women of child-bearing age clearly are riskier hires. Women have non-trivial odds of getting pregnant, sometimes unexpectedly. In the event of pregnancy, moms usually require more time off than fathers, and are more likely to never return to their jobs.
That said, I am sympathetic to the position that employers tend to unfairly overestimate that risk. And furthermore US law is very clear that discriminating against women based on that risk is illegal. (But, laws notwithstanding, I've seen it happen in practice. Both directly in my workplace, and indirectly in my wife's.)
I've seen employers tell my ex- that they were looking for someone to commit to multiple years, not just be fly-by-night. She agreed, and was laid off two months later due to 'change in business direction'.
It's the flip side of 'at will' employment. Unless a company is willing to put it in contract, I would recommend often showing little hesitation in not being more open about your future plans than you need to be.
If a company demands/expects loyalty, can you say that you expect they'll show the same loyalty when it's not working out for them? In the vast majority of cases (and it's not even necessarily malicious), absolutely not. You'll turn up one day, have a meeting with your manager, and, if you're (very) lucky, get some form of severance.
Yes, I can see how giving an employee time off to perpetuate the species might be inconvenient. How dare she! I need her to work on my social networking website, not make more people.
People quit their jobs, frequently, for a wide variety of reasons. Women have a potential reason that men don't have. Cry me a river.
Regardless of if I agree with this statement (I don't) making a public statement like this is a very dangerous choice. You've effectively said "I wont hire women because they might go form babbies" on a public forum.
If you ever have or ever will turn down a woman for a position regardless of her abilities and this comment is found and tracked back to you that candidate (and any previous candidate you ever turned down) would have a pretty solid case against you and your company.
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 also pointed out repeatedly that discriminating on the basis of gender (either way) is illegal?
There is a pretty big gulf between saying, "Here is the standard argument for discrimination" and saying "I advocate discrimination" or even "I would personally discriminate."
> 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-trivial odds of getting pregnant, sometimes unexpectedly
> In the event of pregnancy, moms usually require more time off than fathers, and are more likely to never return to their jobs.
> 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.
> I have never witnessed anything involving a white person that was anywhere near being similarly egregious.
> white people were not given anywhere near as much leniency.
> Can you really blame an employer for leaning towards being risk adverse in this situation?
Call me full of shit. Say I'm blowing all this out of context. Whatever you want... but realize that those quotes are pretty deadly rounds of ammo to a lawyer. Don't believe me? Forward them to your HR department and see what they think.
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.
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.
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 balance in business. That's the bottom line.
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 conventional view back when I was being educated about women's rights some 20 years ago.)
I guess the consolation prize from this fairly offensive point of view is that since my company doesn't share this bias against women, we're hiring all the great engineers that you're overlooking.
>It is not politically correct to say that women are riskier hires than men. But given biology and current culture, women of child-bearing age clearly are riskier hires. Women have non-trivial odds of getting pregnant, sometimes unexpectedly. In the event of pregnancy, moms usually require more time off than fathers, and are more likely to never return to their jobs.
Then the people should make sure that such businesses are PUNISHED, and women are free to take time of for pregnancy.
The way to ruin a society is to stifle it's reproduction. As for the business risk, it should be an _assumed_ risk of all businesses if they want to operate within a society of people.
"risk averse" here really means "it may be a problem for society, but let someone else bear the cost of solving it". one point of antidiscrimination laws is to spread those risks and costs out evenly so that no one is unduly affected.
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, the odds are totally even!" No. They're not. You're lying to protect your ego.
So, there are some claims here that should be made explicit...
1) Some people get benefits undeservedly.
2) People will often rationalize after the fact to say that they deserved to get those benefits.
3) Women are people, so sometimes women will get benefits undeservedly but lie to themselves after the fact by thinking that they deserved it.
All certainly true. But I'd like to offer another claim:
4) Men are people, so sometimes men will get benefits undeservedly but lie to themselves after the fact by thinking they deserved it.
Is 4) unlikely, particularly relative to 3)?
How likely do you think it is that you might be deceiving yourself in the same way, about the relative benefits of being a man versus being a woman in tech?
If I've ever gotten undeserved benefits for being a white male, then nobody's ever told me about it. I won't deny that they exist, but from my experience it's more a case of cultural acceptance than outright discrimination. I love programming, and damn it, I'm good at it. Is my benefit simply the lack of feeling bad about my choice of career path, that I don't belong?
The problem is that (as far as I know) nobody's explicitly told "congratulations, you have gained additional benefits due to your gender and/or race!" It's easy to pinpoint moments of discrimination when you're the victim, but it's not so clear-cut when it ends up in your favor.
> (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).
The studies cited on the original article which this comment thread it attached to. Read the graphs there. Equally qualified women were rated as less competent.
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 easier to get my resume noticed, coming from a large state school. It probably helped me get my Google interview, but I don't think it actually helped me get the job much.
There have also been some negative things about being a woman in technology. Everyone has their advantages and disadvantages in life.
Also, think through what it would mean to actually get the offer (not the interview -- the offer itself) because you were female. Your recruiter isn't deciding who is getting an offer; the individual teams are. So how would this collaboration have happened such that only women from your college were given offers? Remember that Microsoft still has a very low percent of female engineers, so it's not a company wide policy.
You're telling me that a set of unrelated teams decided interdependently to specifically offer positions to women from your college? Why? Why your college? It just doesn't make sense.
My guess is that there's something much less sinister going on, such as:
-- It's just a weird coincidence. (After all, they recruit from many schools.)
-- Some professor referred mostly female students, perhaps even being under the mistaken impression that they were asking for good female candidates.
-- The female students are your schools are actually more qualified than the male. (This is not particularly unlikely, if your school is really less than 5% female. To get numbers that low, there may be some pressure to drop out, leaving only the best women there.)
-- Microsoft hires mostly PMs from your school, which are more likely than devs to be female.
-- Microsoft extended offers to a number of men too, who happened to not take the offer.
-- Many of these 5 students were actually given offers for a specific program dedicated to minorities.
-- You're wrong about the percent of women in your CS program (very likely).
-- You're wrong about the number of women / men hired.
These are just a few of the possibilities I can think of. What seems incredibly unlikely is that a bunch of unrelated teams all decided to hire only women from specifically your university. I just don't understand how that would work.
By the way, are you sure your school is <5% female? That is WAY under the national average.
2003/2004 was 8.7% female in that program, but that was after my year. The statistic I remembered from around 2000 was 4%. Three of the five MS interns that year were also Cpr E, the other two might have been computer science, for which I don't know the ratio. I don't think there was conspiracy among groups at MS to only hire women, I think the only people from my school who got interviews that year were women. And my impression was that MS handles intern recruiting differently than fulltime.
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 happened to recommend mostly women.
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.
Cue up a lot of people who are going to use rhetoric to take make a "reasonable", "non-dogmatic" issue about this topic, while only barely acknowledging sub-conscious prejudice for or against.
I don't have a solution here, I'm sorry. But whenever I read a comment that sounds too cool, even-headed, and rhetorical, I know I'm going to be hit with some contrived hypotheticals and not much supporting data.
I don't know how to address the issue of prejudice. I just dislike it when people engage in discussion and pat themselves on the back for having taken a "reasonable" position. Not that I think arguments should be unreasonable, I simply see in practice that most "reasonable" arguments don't actually illuminate and are simply exercises in rhetoric.
Erm, do you have anything to say about the article or the general subject matter? And are you saying that anybody who would have nits to pick with this article is immediately discredited by your lurking suspicion that they are driven by prejudice? Further, "sub-conscious [sic] prejudice", which by definition the accused cannot refute?
I acknowledge that there is a huge sub-conscious prejudice. I don't like how society doesn't focus on all of the types of prejudices that exist. Like I posted before, there is the halo effect, prejudice against women, fat people, old people, people of a different race, people with disabilities, etc.
I refuse to believe that this person (although she is qualified) managed to be hired completely free from any bias and only on her skill.
edit: I don't want anyone to believe I am trying to undersell the prejudice women have to experience daily. It's absolutely horrible that it still happens. I just posted the rest of this because I'm a nihilist and have trouble seeing good things with humanity....
I agree that there probably was bias in her hiring. Positive? Negative? What is clear is that there is bias when it comes to the gamut of groups that you mentioned.
In certain circumstances, this bias manifests as favorable, and sometimes it is unfavorable. (A particularly company might go out of their way, or be negatively prejudiced, respectively.)
Also, some particular people are able to use bias to their advantage overall in their lives. Whereas other people are harmed by bias, overall, because they don't work around it.
To 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?
In my experience (and studies seem to bear this out), most people will automatically assume an attractive woman has poor skills in X (where X is anything that doesn't involve dealing with customers). So I don't think your "commonsense" argument actually holds in the real world.
"most people will automatically assume an attractive woman has poor skills in X (where X is anything that doesn't involve dealing with customers). "
Could you provide a source on that please? Because from the wording of your statement it seems that what you are claiming is completely anecdotal. I remember studying in one of my psychology courses that attractive people are instantly assumed to be smarter and more successful than unattractive people. It even has a name although I can't think of it right now. If I could I would provide a source.
As I recall being told by one of my professors as an MBA student, attractive people -- both men and women -- are generally assumed to be more competent. This effect is stronger for women than men. However, attractive women in "masculine" fields, like engineering, technology, or construction, are generally seen as being less competent.
If you already objectively know that the person is qualified the fact that they are attractive is only a plus. I think the study you a mentioning is done with people that do not know the qualifications of the person they are viewing.
True, it is done with people whose qualifications are unknown. However, I would find it very hard to believe that the bias against attractive women in a "masculine" field would be removed as soon as you knew the qualifications. Diminished a bit? Sure. But removed? Unlikely. Your initial assumptions will give you a lens through which you view someone's accomplishments.
A study found that this isn't really true for attractive women though. Attractive women who included their photo with their resume got less response than less attractive women who did the same. The result was the opposite for men.
So assumptions aside, once you've vetted the person (a woman in this case) through an interview and they seem to be the real deal, what would be the deciding factor at that point?
People can exploit any number of traits to help them accomplish things, be it connections, looks, charms, etc.
(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.
(1) True. However, I was making an assumption for sake of the argument to take it out of the equation.
(2) Even large companies have needs that wouldn't allow them to hire 5 great individuals for a singular position.
You seem to just be complicating the argument with undue thoughts about the position and a company. My post was trying to remove the job-specific factors and think about how personality and looks affect hiring.
(3) I've interviewed a lot of people for various positions that were all capable, that when it finally came down to it we argued more over team fit than anything else. If you had a grumpy, divisive individual or a friendly, articulate individual, which would you chose? This happens in 'A' player companies as much as any.
(4) I'm not assuming anything about attractiveness of an individual. I merely presented a couple (albeit somewhat loaded) questions to invoke a conversation.
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 :)
I'm not saying the poster got the job because she was a girl (or not), but the bottom line (imo) is that you have to play the hand you're dealt.
Some people are born rich, into high society etc and some are not. I don't see people unhappy that others are saying they "got the job because their dad was powerful".
Whether or not there was a real advantage doesn't matter. If there was a real advantage, well thank you, I'd take that advantage. If not, prove it. Either way, you still don't deserve to feel upset over it.
First of all, when people are trying to diminutize your accomplishments -- saying that you don't deserve them -- it does matter. It affects not only your morale, but also your ability to achieve things in the future.
Second, the point of the article is not the being a woman is an advantage but rather, that there's good evidence that it's a disadvantage. When you have a group that is already unrepresented in the sciences who face additional disadvantages, that IS a problem.
Yes, of course you play the hand you're dealt. What other choice do you have? That doesn't mean you shouldn't fight for equality for everyone.
This 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.
> companies with more women at senior levels earn upwards of 33% more on important financial metrics
There are two major problems with that. First is that it's just correlation, "greener" companies also do better but it's quite likely that they simply can afford to be greener.
Second why is no one buying that? I mean, if companies with many women at senior levels really did significantly better, speculators would bet on those companies, their stock prices would jump and there would be a boom for female execs (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/femfirmfinance.html). That is not happening.
"Companies with more women at senior levels earn upwards of 33% more on important financial metrics. Failure to resolve the obstacles that keep women from these roles means executives are leaving money on the table."
The South Korean study that I'm aware of is described at http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6498.html and found that a 10% increase in women managers was associated with a 1% return on assets. There is every reason to believe that this effect is stronger in South Korea than in the USA, and there is no way to get near the quoted 33% more with that measured effect.
Try this one then - an in-depth, fact-based, study by McKinsey & Company: http://www.mckinsey.com/locations/swiss/news_publications/pd...
"Statistically significant studies show that companies with a higher proportion of women on their management committees are also the companies that have the best performance."
Interesting. The key things that stand out to me from that are the following:
1. They are analyzing the impact of having women in top management. The Korean study looked at women in middle management, where they presumably have less of an impact on overall corporate direction.
2. The Korean study was looking at companies in a single relatively uniform economy. The McKinsey data set looks at companies across a variety of different countries with different economies and cultures. There are very strong correlations between which country a company is in, and whether it had women in the boardroom.
3. The McKinsey study identified a number of specific reasonable reasons why awareness of a female perspective could be beneficial for companies. If you're in a consumer line of business, those reasons are worth paying attention to.
Do you know whether McKinsey tried to crunch the numbers to estimate how much of the difference in economic performance can reasonably be attributed to having women in the board room versus the company being in a country whose economy did well? (Yes, I'm aware that there might well be a correlation between gender equality and the country's economic performance. Getting conclusions out of real world data sets will always be ugly and messy.)
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.)