12 ms·

As a man, I've noticed the "women promotion difference" very importantly in companies I've been employed in: Since 2006, it's mostly women who are promoted, wit

by tajen 10y ago

As a man, I've noticed the "women promotion difference" very importantly in companies I've been employed in: Since 2006, it's mostly women who are promoted, with configurations like my last job where both my team lead and the manager were women. On the other hand, I've left those companies because I could notice there was no career path for me, and created my own. I identify to a generation of men who've been sacrified for women equality. I'm all for equality, as long as everyone has equal chances, which we currently don't have. I'm very happy that we now start having studies supporting that men are less promoted than women today in some context (a minima in Luxembourg, France and Australia for what I'm concerned). It's now time we study across all countries the mean-time-to-promotion, and it's time we include talks in conferences about the difficulties of men. And it's time we stop having differentiated education and career paths for women. Today, women are equal in the mind if most men, and have a large swathes of explicit advantages granted by laws.

nothrabannosir 10y ago
> I'm all for equality, as long as everyone has equal chances, which we currently don't have. But that will keep a status quo if one group is starting out as a serious minority. That's the whole point of equality movements: you have to adjust upwards for a bit, until it's actually equal. Then you can go back to being fair. EDIT: This thread is blowing up, so I want to clarify my comment: I'm talking about affirmative action, and I think it's a good idea in the case of women in tech, presently.
- dom0 10y ago
  Woah. Just to clarify: That's absolutely not the "whole point of equality movements". This is a stance some people take on it. By far not all.
- the8472 10y ago
  Equal chances would also mean an equal chance to get hired if you actually apply. So why do you need extra adjustment beyond that? Simple turnover should approach an equilibrium eventually.
  - jakelazaroff 10y ago
    Unfortunately, there are also many examples that white men have a huge advantage in the hiring process solely because they're white men. This is easily shown by sending companies the same résumé with different names that signify gender or race. - https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/study-shows-gender-bias-in-science-is-real-heres-why-it-matters https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/st... - http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/why-does-john-get-stem-job-rather-jennifer http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/why-does-john-get-stem-... - http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-bias-hiring-0504-biz-20160503-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-bias-hiring-0504-b...
    - reader5000 10y ago
      Actually your links (assuming replicability of the studies etc) just support the claim that "names that conform to the majority culture do better". They do not support your first sentence at all. It is perfectly possible for non-white people to have white names. Your implication that companies demonstrating preference for cultural/class conformity and familiarity is somehow unexpected or "unfortunate" doesn't follow.
      - jakelazaroff 10y ago
        Yes, that's the claim they support, but the "majority culture" that the names signify is "white and male" specifically. You seem to be saying that since people can be given any name there's no way to infer race and gender from a given name, which is ridiculous: of course there's a correlation between a name, race and gender. Look at the top 1000 names from 1995, the next birth year that will be graduating from college en masse. "Jessica" is the top name for girls, while it doesn't even appear in the top 1000 for boys. http://www.babynames.it/top100/1/year-1995.html http://www.babynames.it/top100/1/year-1995.html
        reader5000 10y ago
        Yes exactly, there is nothing "unfortunate" about the implications of those studies. Also thanks for taking the time to statistically prove "Jessica" is a girl's name for some reason.
- saintwind 10y ago
  Equal opportunity, not equal outcome. The latter is artificially enforced, and by its very nature is not equality.
- softawre 10y ago
  When do you stop over-correcting?
- aeharding 10y ago
  Can you provide an example of an equality movement where overcompensating worked better than making everyone "actually equal"? In America during the '50s, did black people demand white people to not be allowed to sit in the front of the bus until everyone was "actually equal"?
  - nothrabannosir 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action But I think you make a good point.
Overtonwindow 10y ago
At what point to we say enough promotions based on gender and race? When all of the worlds companies are 51% men, 51% minority? Serious question: Put yourselves in the shoes of a CEO. What's the proper proportion of men to women, whites to minorities? Does anyone make this calculus? When does it ever end?
- mjevans 10y ago
  When everyone stops thinking about quotas and focuses on empowering everyone and proceeding entirely based on qualifications.
  - vikiomega9 10y ago
    I agree, simply because humans will always tend to like anything that is familiar and similar.
  - striking 10y ago
    So never, then.
  - antisthenes 10y ago
    That's what 95% of the companies in the world already do, because they're struggling to find qualified talent (at their price point - because not every company is SV-rich). Only the companies with enough profit margins can afford to concern themselves with this inclusion/empowerment drivel, because they can hire "fluff" employees to boost their diversity or whatever other metrics they want to use to make them feel good about themselves.
  - turc1656 10y ago
    Yes, this is how it should be done. Actually, if I ran a company, I would go further. There would be no affirmative action or quota nonsense. Best person for the job, that is all. I care only about ability, work ethic, and whether they are a fit for the team/company. Anyone whose resume was being forwarded would have the name and any other gender/age/race info removed by HR before sending. And for anyone who came in for an interview but we passed on I would require the written, documented reason just to have for record-keeping. That way, HR could periodically go in and retroactively analyze to see if there was any sort of bias (intentional or not) or other funny business going on. That's how you maximize your productivity and efficiency and, by extension, profit. It also motivates people because they know they are much closer to a true meritocracy.
rubicon33 10y ago
For my own education, would you mind elaborating on the laws which provide explicit advantages for women?
- tomp 10y ago
  See e.g. http://thoughtcatalog.com/janet-bloomfield/2014/08/5-legal-rights-women-have-that-men-dont/ http://thoughtcatalog.com/janet-bloomfield/2014/08/5-legal-r... TL;DR: genital integrity (no circumcision), no draft, parental rights, privileged in courts. Differs by country, of course (e.g. in some EU countries, men have to work longer to retire).
  - nostrebored 10y ago
    Right, because 500k women in the U.S. who have undergone actual genital mutilation, not a surgery with tangible benefits, are non-existent. There has not been a draft in 50 years. Privilege in courts has been shown to be bullshit time and time again. Men who attempt to receive custody of their children actually get them more than 50% of the time.
    - tomp 10y ago
      Re: 1 and 2, parent was asking for laws. Also, there's no tangible benefits to circumcision in the US (if that's what you were implying). Re: 3, women also receive shorter sentences for same crimes (although the article doesn't mention it, and that's not an explicit legal disadvantage).
      - nostrebored 10y ago
        1. is extremely ridiculous - reduced risk of cancer - reduced risk of STIs - no difference in sensitivity I'm at work and don't feel like googling in depth circumcision articles, but "genital integrity" is a ridiculous minimization of the issues faced by women who have actually had their genitals mutilated. If anyone wants to dig up the citations for me, I'd appreciate it. But, this isn't a circumjerk article, so this is as far down the chain as I'll go. You're misremembering your studies -- women who are sentenced to prison (for felonies) receive roughly the same prison sentences as men. They are however, significantly less likely to be sentenced. But, they are also significantly less likely to commit violent crimes, which you have to take into account in your analysis.
WildUtah 10y ago
Women are promoted preferentially in large companies with HR departments that enforce affirmative action policies and produce reports detailing compliance with national goals for minority participation. That leads men to leave such companies and start their own businesses. Small companies are often more agile and innovative and far more likely to make founders and skilled employees rich. So the programs to promote women (and underrepresented minorities) that are intended to achieve equality just promote even more unfair advantages for men. It's a common pattern: even the best designed policies need to be constantly expanded so that unfair advantages for men can be mitigated. But no one can say that the proliferation of small innovative companies is bad for society. New innovative ideas make all our lives better, and some of that is owed to big corporate HR departments encouraging more entrepreneurship by limiting promotion opportunities for men.
- cryptarch 10y ago
  How is not having the option of a stable career with promotions an unfair advantage? Women who decide they want to join a high risk, high gain startup and have the skills to do so, are free to and do just that. Men who decide they want to be treated equally have to leave their stable jobs for startups. edit: formating
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  How is men losing a career path due to discrimination and choosing to enter a different one an "unfair advantage for men"? Were the discriminatory practices that led Jews to start their own business also an "unfair advantage for the Jews"?
  - amyjess 10y ago
    As a Jew, I am deeply offended when MRAs appropriate my people's experiences. Please don't do that.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - 10y ago
DanBC 10y ago
> nd have a large swathes of explicit advantages granted by laws. Could you name some of those advantages, and link to the relevant laws? I'm interested to see what you're talking about.
- throwaway873456 10y ago
  Careful everyone, HNwatch is here https://twitter.com/hashtag/hnwatch https://twitter.com/hashtag/hnwatch
- tajen 10y ago
  > Name those advantages I'm French, so unfortunately I'll quote the French law. On the upside this law was an election promise of the current government (left-wing, socialist), so you're really reading the outcome of a current debate: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000029330832 https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFT... - First, let's note overall that there's no law that reserves something to men. It would be illegal. Obviously. - Let's also drop that women have a 10% longer life. It means their retirement is 6 years longer than men's average of 18 years. - Point #5 says "Fight against the poverty of women". What about the poverty of men? There are twice more homeless men than women. There are 30 times more men in prison than women. I see what they mean when they think about the poverty of women, but men need specific help that's attached to their gender. Failing their education and dealing drugs falls in that bucket. - Point #8 says "Equality of women headcount in politics". It's great, I like it, I'm all for equality of women in all areas including politics. But what about sectors where men are less frequent? One argument I often hear about women equality is "We're also fighting for a men, look at male nurse for example", where, in fact, those laws about "equality" don't fight for the equality of men in the nurse area. - Point #10 says "Make studies known about the social construction of gendered roles." One very actual gendered construct is that, as a woman, you'll get much more help. First because you naturally inspire kindness and solidarity, thanks to your body, gender and image. Second because there are big budgets allocated to women equality (e.g. benefits for creating a company[1], organizations that support you while you create your company[2]). And last, the social construct of genders is built upon years of communicating to women that they need help, and the government especially participates to this when they have http://femmes.gouv.fr http://femmes.gouv.fr but don't have http://hommes.gouv.fr http://hommes.gouv.fr . All in all, this law only cares about equality when women are impacted. If it were for men, you would see sections like "Fighting against the men-related prejudices", "Fighting for male dropouts", "Fighting for dad custody", "Fighting against street violence" (which mostly impacts men), "Fighting for kids who don't like football" (as a gay man, I can tell you it's really tough to feel abandoned when all your schoolmates play ball in so many occasions). Anyway, I don't feel like we're trying to close the gap: We're rather generating more hate both ways by increasing the care about one gender and not the other [3]. If you want peace, don't tease the losers. [1] Benefits reserved for women: http://www.familles-enfance-droitsdesfemmes.gouv.fr/dossiers/egalite-professionnelle/entrepreneuriat-des-femmes/fgif/ http://www.familles-enfance-droitsdesfemmes.gouv.fr/dossiers... [2] Organizations that support women only: http://www.ellesentreprennent.fr/pid14416/les-reseaux-au-service-des-creatrices.html http://www.ellesentreprennent.fr/pid14416/les-reseaux-au-ser... [3] Common-life example of increasing the resent between men and women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhB3l1gCz2E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhB3l1gCz2E
DanielleMolloy 10y ago
> with configurations like my last job where both my team lead and the manager were women. I guess you have to get used to such "configurations", given that in a fully equal world having both a female team lead and manager is entirely possible. Or how does this confirm your claim that women are unfairly promoted more frequently? The reason for quicker promotions is probably a skewed distribution of personalities, as also mentioned further below. Men of all personalities are more likely to start science and engineering degrees because they are nurtured into it by society anyway. Women have to be the kind of person that does not care about such biases, and develops and follows interests.
- DanielleMolloy 10y ago
  I got downvoted for this comment multiple times. Could somebody explain why? Just curious.
  - amyjess 10y ago
    Because there's a very active hive of MRAs here.
  - warfangle 10y ago
    Because you're making sense in the face of the Red Pill Brigade.
- wott 10y ago
  I my former company, it was simple: people who sucked at technical stuff were promoted to managerial positions, hoping that they would show some qualities there, and making sure they would at least not any more harm the projects they were part of. Therefore we had between 0% and 5% women in technical teams, and 75% in management.
scdoshi 10y ago
What a disappointing thread on HN, full of anecdotal evidence.
- ixtli 10y ago
  The top-voted comment is almost literally "I agree with this because I saw many women get promoted."
csallen 10y ago
As a man, I'm embarrassed that this is the top comment on HN. This talk about "a generation of men being sacrificed" is absurd. Men still dominate the IT industry at all levels. To say that we're being sacrificed en masse is hyperbolic to say the least. It reminds me of the way that the Trump campaign makes its points about the state of the world. Furthermore, so many men in tech are quick to explain away statistics about women/minorities being hired less by saying, "There's no bias! It's because they're not as skilled!" But when stats show that women advance faster, the story flips, and suddenly it's, "This proves bias! There's no way it's due to skill!" Come on, HN, we're better than this.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ixtli 10y ago
  Specifically, we're better than allowing anecdotes to masquerade as data, even when we feel vague discomfort coming from the general direction of the issue being discussed.
- harlanlewis 10y ago
  Absolutely. It's not a hard argument to make that women (and many other underrepresented people) are subjected to a stricter filter in the tech world, playing with a deck socially and structurally stacked against them. It's no surprise at all that people who can find success despite playing on a harder difficulty level will be among the most capable. An article like this is actually heartening, as it indicates that achievement and ability are internally recognized. And now I've broken one of my cardinal rules (don't engage with social flamewar threads on HN), but you're exactly right - many of these comments are too embarrasing to let pass. edit: calex just made this point far better than I in another comment in this thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687015
  - ixtli 10y ago
    I thought a similar thing when I read this. Somewhat sad, but my first thought was that the second we near parity with the discrepancy between wage and representation between genders in IT/Engineering you'll see claims of "reverse" sexism. Then I read the discussion here.
paulcole 10y ago
> women are equal in the mind if most men Does this include your own? Because based on the rest of your comment, I'm not so sure.
galdosdi 10y ago
I'll counter your anecdotal evidence with my own anecdotal evidence, which is that I've observed either the opposite or no difference in the companies I've worked for (I'm a man in IT in NYC). Either way, anecdotal, so shrug. But "a generation of men who've been sacrificed" is definitely something I've never seen signs of in the IT industry. A separate thread has a much more plausible explanation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12686822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12686822
- tajen 10y ago
  > Either way, anecdotal, so shrug What? The article in the title just says "Women are promoted in 9 years against 12 for men", and you qualify examples as anecdotal?
  - galdosdi 10y ago
    No, I was not referring to the article. I'm only referring to the poster I directly replied to.
Certhas 10y ago
"I'm all for equality, as long as everyone has equal chances, which we currently don't have." Yes clearly overall women have much lower chances to rise to the top. You are complaining that a tiny section of the pipeline from birth to CEO potentially favours women while obviously the vast majority of parts of the pipeline favour men. Cumulatively they do so heavily. What you experienced is a tiny fraction of what women experienced to get to the point where you felt blocked.

by tajen 10y ago

nothrabannosir 10y ago

> I'm all for equality, as long as everyone has equal chances, which we currently don't have. But that will keep a status quo if one group is starting out as a serious minority. That's the whole point of equality movements: you have to adjust upwards for a bit, until it's actually equal. Then you can go back to being fair. EDIT: This thread is blowing up, so I want to clarify my comment: I'm talking about affirmative action, and I think it's a good idea in the case of women in tech, presently.

dom0 10y ago
Woah. Just to clarify: That's absolutely not the "whole point of equality movements". This is a stance some people take on it. By far not all.
the8472 10y ago
Equal chances would also mean an equal chance to get hired if you actually apply. So why do you need extra adjustment beyond that? Simple turnover should approach an equilibrium eventually.
- jakelazaroff 10y ago
  Unfortunately, there are also many examples that white men have a huge advantage in the hiring process solely because they're white men. This is easily shown by sending companies the same résumé with different names that signify gender or race. - https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/study-shows-gender-bias-in-science-is-real-heres-why-it-matters https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/st... - http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/why-does-john-get-stem-job-rather-jennifer http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/why-does-john-get-stem-... - http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-bias-hiring-0504-biz-20160503-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-bias-hiring-0504-b...
  - reader5000 10y ago
    Actually your links (assuming replicability of the studies etc) just support the claim that "names that conform to the majority culture do better". They do not support your first sentence at all. It is perfectly possible for non-white people to have white names. Your implication that companies demonstrating preference for cultural/class conformity and familiarity is somehow unexpected or "unfortunate" doesn't follow.
    - jakelazaroff 10y ago
      Yes, that's the claim they support, but the "majority culture" that the names signify is "white and male" specifically. You seem to be saying that since people can be given any name there's no way to infer race and gender from a given name, which is ridiculous: of course there's a correlation between a name, race and gender. Look at the top 1000 names from 1995, the next birth year that will be graduating from college en masse. "Jessica" is the top name for girls, while it doesn't even appear in the top 1000 for boys. http://www.babynames.it/top100/1/year-1995.html http://www.babynames.it/top100/1/year-1995.html
      - reader5000 10y ago
        Yes exactly, there is nothing "unfortunate" about the implications of those studies. Also thanks for taking the time to statistically prove "Jessica" is a girl's name for some reason.
saintwind 10y ago
Equal opportunity, not equal outcome. The latter is artificially enforced, and by its very nature is not equality.
softawre 10y ago
When do you stop over-correcting?
aeharding 10y ago
Can you provide an example of an equality movement where overcompensating worked better than making everyone "actually equal"? In America during the '50s, did black people demand white people to not be allowed to sit in the front of the bus until everyone was "actually equal"?
- nothrabannosir 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action But I think you make a good point.

Overtonwindow 10y ago

At what point to we say enough promotions based on gender and race? When all of the worlds companies are 51% men, 51% minority? Serious question: Put yourselves in the shoes of a CEO. What's the proper proportion of men to women, whites to minorities? Does anyone make this calculus? When does it ever end?

mjevans 10y ago
When everyone stops thinking about quotas and focuses on empowering everyone and proceeding entirely based on qualifications.
- vikiomega9 10y ago
  I agree, simply because humans will always tend to like anything that is familiar and similar.
- striking 10y ago
  So never, then.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  That's what 95% of the companies in the world already do, because they're struggling to find qualified talent (at their price point - because not every company is SV-rich). Only the companies with enough profit margins can afford to concern themselves with this inclusion/empowerment drivel, because they can hire "fluff" employees to boost their diversity or whatever other metrics they want to use to make them feel good about themselves.
- turc1656 10y ago
  Yes, this is how it should be done. Actually, if I ran a company, I would go further. There would be no affirmative action or quota nonsense. Best person for the job, that is all. I care only about ability, work ethic, and whether they are a fit for the team/company. Anyone whose resume was being forwarded would have the name and any other gender/age/race info removed by HR before sending. And for anyone who came in for an interview but we passed on I would require the written, documented reason just to have for record-keeping. That way, HR could periodically go in and retroactively analyze to see if there was any sort of bias (intentional or not) or other funny business going on. That's how you maximize your productivity and efficiency and, by extension, profit. It also motivates people because they know they are much closer to a true meritocracy.

rubicon33 10y ago

For my own education, would you mind elaborating on the laws which provide explicit advantages for women?

tomp 10y ago
See e.g. http://thoughtcatalog.com/janet-bloomfield/2014/08/5-legal-rights-women-have-that-men-dont/ http://thoughtcatalog.com/janet-bloomfield/2014/08/5-legal-r... TL;DR: genital integrity (no circumcision), no draft, parental rights, privileged in courts. Differs by country, of course (e.g. in some EU countries, men have to work longer to retire).
- nostrebored 10y ago
  Right, because 500k women in the U.S. who have undergone actual genital mutilation, not a surgery with tangible benefits, are non-existent. There has not been a draft in 50 years. Privilege in courts has been shown to be bullshit time and time again. Men who attempt to receive custody of their children actually get them more than 50% of the time.
  - tomp 10y ago
    Re: 1 and 2, parent was asking for laws. Also, there's no tangible benefits to circumcision in the US (if that's what you were implying). Re: 3, women also receive shorter sentences for same crimes (although the article doesn't mention it, and that's not an explicit legal disadvantage).
    - nostrebored 10y ago
      1. is extremely ridiculous - reduced risk of cancer - reduced risk of STIs - no difference in sensitivity I'm at work and don't feel like googling in depth circumcision articles, but "genital integrity" is a ridiculous minimization of the issues faced by women who have actually had their genitals mutilated. If anyone wants to dig up the citations for me, I'd appreciate it. But, this isn't a circumjerk article, so this is as far down the chain as I'll go. You're misremembering your studies -- women who are sentenced to prison (for felonies) receive roughly the same prison sentences as men. They are however, significantly less likely to be sentenced. But, they are also significantly less likely to commit violent crimes, which you have to take into account in your analysis.

WildUtah 10y ago

Women are promoted preferentially in large companies with HR departments that enforce affirmative action policies and produce reports detailing compliance with national goals for minority participation. That leads men to leave such companies and start their own businesses. Small companies are often more agile and innovative and far more likely to make founders and skilled employees rich. So the programs to promote women (and underrepresented minorities) that are intended to achieve equality just promote even more unfair advantages for men. It's a common pattern: even the best designed policies need to be constantly expanded so that unfair advantages for men can be mitigated. But no one can say that the proliferation of small innovative companies is bad for society. New innovative ideas make all our lives better, and some of that is owed to big corporate HR departments encouraging more entrepreneurship by limiting promotion opportunities for men.

cryptarch 10y ago
How is not having the option of a stable career with promotions an unfair advantage? Women who decide they want to join a high risk, high gain startup and have the skills to do so, are free to and do just that. Men who decide they want to be treated equally have to leave their stable jobs for startups. edit: formating
yummyfajitas 10y ago
How is men losing a career path due to discrimination and choosing to enter a different one an "unfair advantage for men"? Were the discriminatory practices that led Jews to start their own business also an "unfair advantage for the Jews"?
- amyjess 10y ago
  As a Jew, I am deeply offended when MRAs appropriate my people's experiences. Please don't do that.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - 10y ago

DanBC 10y ago

> nd have a large swathes of explicit advantages granted by laws. Could you name some of those advantages, and link to the relevant laws? I'm interested to see what you're talking about.

throwaway873456 10y ago
Careful everyone, HNwatch is here https://twitter.com/hashtag/hnwatch https://twitter.com/hashtag/hnwatch
tajen 10y ago
> Name those advantages I'm French, so unfortunately I'll quote the French law. On the upside this law was an election promise of the current government (left-wing, socialist), so you're really reading the outcome of a current debate: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000029330832 https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFT... - First, let's note overall that there's no law that reserves something to men. It would be illegal. Obviously. - Let's also drop that women have a 10% longer life. It means their retirement is 6 years longer than men's average of 18 years. - Point #5 says "Fight against the poverty of women". What about the poverty of men? There are twice more homeless men than women. There are 30 times more men in prison than women. I see what they mean when they think about the poverty of women, but men need specific help that's attached to their gender. Failing their education and dealing drugs falls in that bucket. - Point #8 says "Equality of women headcount in politics". It's great, I like it, I'm all for equality of women in all areas including politics. But what about sectors where men are less frequent? One argument I often hear about women equality is "We're also fighting for a men, look at male nurse for example", where, in fact, those laws about "equality" don't fight for the equality of men in the nurse area. - Point #10 says "Make studies known about the social construction of gendered roles." One very actual gendered construct is that, as a woman, you'll get much more help. First because you naturally inspire kindness and solidarity, thanks to your body, gender and image. Second because there are big budgets allocated to women equality (e.g. benefits for creating a company[1], organizations that support you while you create your company[2]). And last, the social construct of genders is built upon years of communicating to women that they need help, and the government especially participates to this when they have http://femmes.gouv.fr http://femmes.gouv.fr but don't have http://hommes.gouv.fr http://hommes.gouv.fr . All in all, this law only cares about equality when women are impacted. If it were for men, you would see sections like "Fighting against the men-related prejudices", "Fighting for male dropouts", "Fighting for dad custody", "Fighting against street violence" (which mostly impacts men), "Fighting for kids who don't like football" (as a gay man, I can tell you it's really tough to feel abandoned when all your schoolmates play ball in so many occasions). Anyway, I don't feel like we're trying to close the gap: We're rather generating more hate both ways by increasing the care about one gender and not the other [3]. If you want peace, don't tease the losers. [1] Benefits reserved for women: http://www.familles-enfance-droitsdesfemmes.gouv.fr/dossiers/egalite-professionnelle/entrepreneuriat-des-femmes/fgif/ http://www.familles-enfance-droitsdesfemmes.gouv.fr/dossiers... [2] Organizations that support women only: http://www.ellesentreprennent.fr/pid14416/les-reseaux-au-service-des-creatrices.html http://www.ellesentreprennent.fr/pid14416/les-reseaux-au-ser... [3] Common-life example of increasing the resent between men and women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhB3l1gCz2E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhB3l1gCz2E

DanielleMolloy 10y ago

> with configurations like my last job where both my team lead and the manager were women. I guess you have to get used to such "configurations", given that in a fully equal world having both a female team lead and manager is entirely possible. Or how does this confirm your claim that women are unfairly promoted more frequently? The reason for quicker promotions is probably a skewed distribution of personalities, as also mentioned further below. Men of all personalities are more likely to start science and engineering degrees because they are nurtured into it by society anyway. Women have to be the kind of person that does not care about such biases, and develops and follows interests.

DanielleMolloy 10y ago
I got downvoted for this comment multiple times. Could somebody explain why? Just curious.
- amyjess 10y ago
  Because there's a very active hive of MRAs here.
- warfangle 10y ago
  Because you're making sense in the face of the Red Pill Brigade.
wott 10y ago
I my former company, it was simple: people who sucked at technical stuff were promoted to managerial positions, hoping that they would show some qualities there, and making sure they would at least not any more harm the projects they were part of. Therefore we had between 0% and 5% women in technical teams, and 75% in management.

scdoshi 10y ago

What a disappointing thread on HN, full of anecdotal evidence.

ixtli 10y ago
The top-voted comment is almost literally "I agree with this because I saw many women get promoted."

csallen 10y ago

As a man, I'm embarrassed that this is the top comment on HN. This talk about "a generation of men being sacrificed" is absurd. Men still dominate the IT industry at all levels. To say that we're being sacrificed en masse is hyperbolic to say the least. It reminds me of the way that the Trump campaign makes its points about the state of the world. Furthermore, so many men in tech are quick to explain away statistics about women/minorities being hired less by saying, "There's no bias! It's because they're not as skilled!" But when stats show that women advance faster, the story flips, and suddenly it's, "This proves bias! There's no way it's due to skill!" Come on, HN, we're better than this.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ixtli 10y ago
Specifically, we're better than allowing anecdotes to masquerade as data, even when we feel vague discomfort coming from the general direction of the issue being discussed.
harlanlewis 10y ago
Absolutely. It's not a hard argument to make that women (and many other underrepresented people) are subjected to a stricter filter in the tech world, playing with a deck socially and structurally stacked against them. It's no surprise at all that people who can find success despite playing on a harder difficulty level will be among the most capable. An article like this is actually heartening, as it indicates that achievement and ability are internally recognized. And now I've broken one of my cardinal rules (don't engage with social flamewar threads on HN), but you're exactly right - many of these comments are too embarrasing to let pass. edit: calex just made this point far better than I in another comment in this thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687015
- ixtli 10y ago
  I thought a similar thing when I read this. Somewhat sad, but my first thought was that the second we near parity with the discrepancy between wage and representation between genders in IT/Engineering you'll see claims of "reverse" sexism. Then I read the discussion here.

paulcole 10y ago

> women are equal in the mind if most men Does this include your own? Because based on the rest of your comment, I'm not so sure.

galdosdi 10y ago

I'll counter your anecdotal evidence with my own anecdotal evidence, which is that I've observed either the opposite or no difference in the companies I've worked for (I'm a man in IT in NYC). Either way, anecdotal, so shrug. But "a generation of men who've been sacrificed" is definitely something I've never seen signs of in the IT industry. A separate thread has a much more plausible explanation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12686822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12686822

tajen 10y ago
> Either way, anecdotal, so shrug What? The article in the title just says "Women are promoted in 9 years against 12 for men", and you qualify examples as anecdotal?
- galdosdi 10y ago
  No, I was not referring to the article. I'm only referring to the poster I directly replied to.

Certhas 10y ago

"I'm all for equality, as long as everyone has equal chances, which we currently don't have." Yes clearly overall women have much lower chances to rise to the top. You are complaining that a tiny section of the pipeline from birth to CEO potentially favours women while obviously the vast majority of parts of the pipeline favour men. Cumulatively they do so heavily. What you experienced is a tiny fraction of what women experienced to get to the point where you felt blocked.