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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

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.
tajen 10y ago
The whole equality story was, at the beginning, "If there's more men passing one stage (IQ tests, high school diploma or promotion), then it's biased against women. Then suddenly when women are promoted more often than men, your story becomes "Women are just smarter than men, it's normal". Can't you just have a little compassion for men who didn't have the skills and deserve to be pushed and taught a little bit? And the prejudice about "men are stupid" is repeated in many innocent settings: - https://snag.gy/qDceHS.jpg https://snag.gy/qDceHS.jpg - https://pics.onsizzle.com/i-wish-i-was-strong-like-him-i-wish-i-3621297.png https://pics.onsizzle.com/i-wish-i-was-strong-like-him-i-wis... - Everyone can cite 10 qualities of women, especially smartness [1]. - You can't quote any quality attributed to men. There's none, no quality attributed to men in any newspaper, in any document, in any culture. "What about muscles?" The thing about muscles is, women reckon we have strength because it would be hard to deny it and it helps construct the idea that we're violent. But muscles also help build the image of men being stupid, and it doesn't give us a skill. This prejudice does have real-world effects: - Men are twice more likely to be homeless or to fail their studies, - Men are 30 times more likely to land in prison. THIRTY times! But somehow, women succeed to capture all the work we do for equality. The fact you're unconscious about male difficulties shows how much work there's left to do about male equality. The progress we've made for women about equality of chances and freedom of pursuing good jobs, we now need to make it for men too. Since you're talking about politics, the fact that the only way to "vote for men equality" is to vote for Trump is a horrible abomination: I want equality, I'm keen to vote for a woman, but if that means that she'll do even more to accentuate the "privileged path" for women and accentuate messages breeding hate between women and men, then you're asking a voter to make... a dangerous choice. [1] Qualities that are generally attributed to women: "Women are better at multitasking" – where scientific studies are much more gray-area than that; "Women are better at communication" – where in fact it's males who are handicapped about communication and who deserve some equality budget for "education to communication" and "education to feelings"; "Women are better at tastes and decoration" which harms the participation of many interested men in decoration topics; "Women are more mature, earlier" when in fact this maturity is judged on a biased set of responsabilities; "Women are better at raising children" which creates unprecedented disadvantages for men who want the custody of their child, and finally, "Women are better at school" when in fact it's teacher bias which gives them better marks ( http://www.bbc.com/news/education-32302022 http://www.bbc.com/news/education-32302022 ) – As you can see I'm very well documented on every quality which is theoretically attributed to women and where, in fact, it's just that many papers are unfairly condescending towards men.
- harlanlewis 10y ago
  Edit: your comment has been edited extensively, so I'm responding to whatever it was at the point in time I started typing. --- To put this very dispassionately, filtering more aggressively reduces both total count and false positives (if the filter shares any correlation with success). The population subjected to the stricter filter will have a higher percentage of people who are deserving of promotion. This would be true even if we limited our entire workforce to ivy league white men and then applied an additional filter to a random subset of them. If the filter correlates, the subset will outperform. I don't mean to say this is the only thing impacting who works where and how successful they are, but it is certainly present. You're responding to an argument that I didn't make. The global population statements about which gender is "smarter" are your own. Regarding Trump (I'm pretty sure I didn't bring this up, either), his recent exhibit of repeatedly mentioning that he was being shortchanged on time during the debate while actually having (negligibly) more time to speak (~40min vs ~39min) is a perfect illustration of the “prejudice” you're describing. When used to a privileged position, equality feels like bias. (Debate time to speak, pick your source: https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+clinton+time+to+speak https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+clinton+time+to+speak)
  - FT_intern 10y ago
    Only recruiters can confirm but the filter for women, at least to get interviews, is often times lower than for men. Companies can't legally discriminate against men, but they can (and many do) post up at women engineer conferences and give interviews out like candy to people from that conference. They're discriminating based on where they source the resume from. The source just happens to be made up of all females. That's what Grace Hopper is for.
  - tajen 10y ago
    > You're responding to an argument that I didn't make. You're correct, I answered to both parents in one comment, and found it useful to put my comment under yours because you had a very common objection, although I forgot to address it. Concerning the "filter" story, how do you know girls just aren't just less interested in programming? Example that may be the norm: I've tried many times to get my god-daughter interested in computers, but the computer/tablet/phone/electricity/mechanics/woodworks/Mythbusters thingy really doesn't raise any interest or even bare curiosity. She just does it because she loves spending time with me, but remembers nothing. If there were a genetic or social construct that made that fewer girls identify with programming, then it would kill the argument that "due to filtering, women are better" and reinforce the argument that "Women are promoted, not because they're better, but because companies are required to promote women". And in fact, studies have demonstrated that fewer girls are interested in programming because of society.
sbov 10y ago
I generally agree, but what I can't explain is: if it really is because they are better because of this stricter filter, I would expect the stricter filter to apply to the promotion process too. So, why isn't it? Edit: maybe it's a sign of things getting "better". Women already working are on average better at what they do, and as people become more aware of the problem it's easier for them to become promoted because the filter isn't as strict when compared to X years ago.
- stale2002 10y ago
  It is also easier to show actual results at the promotion stage. At the hiring stage, it is mostly a crapshoot, and they don't really know if you are good or not, so it is easier for biases to get in the way.

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.

tajen 10y ago

The whole equality story was, at the beginning, "If there's more men passing one stage (IQ tests, high school diploma or promotion), then it's biased against women. Then suddenly when women are promoted more often than men, your story becomes "Women are just smarter than men, it's normal". Can't you just have a little compassion for men who didn't have the skills and deserve to be pushed and taught a little bit? And the prejudice about "men are stupid" is repeated in many innocent settings: - https://snag.gy/qDceHS.jpg https://snag.gy/qDceHS.jpg - https://pics.onsizzle.com/i-wish-i-was-strong-like-him-i-wish-i-3621297.png https://pics.onsizzle.com/i-wish-i-was-strong-like-him-i-wis... - Everyone can cite 10 qualities of women, especially smartness [1]. - You can't quote any quality attributed to men. There's none, no quality attributed to men in any newspaper, in any document, in any culture. "What about muscles?" The thing about muscles is, women reckon we have strength because it would be hard to deny it and it helps construct the idea that we're violent. But muscles also help build the image of men being stupid, and it doesn't give us a skill. This prejudice does have real-world effects: - Men are twice more likely to be homeless or to fail their studies, - Men are 30 times more likely to land in prison. THIRTY times! But somehow, women succeed to capture all the work we do for equality. The fact you're unconscious about male difficulties shows how much work there's left to do about male equality. The progress we've made for women about equality of chances and freedom of pursuing good jobs, we now need to make it for men too. Since you're talking about politics, the fact that the only way to "vote for men equality" is to vote for Trump is a horrible abomination: I want equality, I'm keen to vote for a woman, but if that means that she'll do even more to accentuate the "privileged path" for women and accentuate messages breeding hate between women and men, then you're asking a voter to make... a dangerous choice. [1] Qualities that are generally attributed to women: "Women are better at multitasking" – where scientific studies are much more gray-area than that; "Women are better at communication" – where in fact it's males who are handicapped about communication and who deserve some equality budget for "education to communication" and "education to feelings"; "Women are better at tastes and decoration" which harms the participation of many interested men in decoration topics; "Women are more mature, earlier" when in fact this maturity is judged on a biased set of responsabilities; "Women are better at raising children" which creates unprecedented disadvantages for men who want the custody of their child, and finally, "Women are better at school" when in fact it's teacher bias which gives them better marks ( http://www.bbc.com/news/education-32302022 http://www.bbc.com/news/education-32302022 ) – As you can see I'm very well documented on every quality which is theoretically attributed to women and where, in fact, it's just that many papers are unfairly condescending towards men.

harlanlewis 10y ago
Edit: your comment has been edited extensively, so I'm responding to whatever it was at the point in time I started typing. --- To put this very dispassionately, filtering more aggressively reduces both total count and false positives (if the filter shares any correlation with success). The population subjected to the stricter filter will have a higher percentage of people who are deserving of promotion. This would be true even if we limited our entire workforce to ivy league white men and then applied an additional filter to a random subset of them. If the filter correlates, the subset will outperform. I don't mean to say this is the only thing impacting who works where and how successful they are, but it is certainly present. You're responding to an argument that I didn't make. The global population statements about which gender is "smarter" are your own. Regarding Trump (I'm pretty sure I didn't bring this up, either), his recent exhibit of repeatedly mentioning that he was being shortchanged on time during the debate while actually having (negligibly) more time to speak (~40min vs ~39min) is a perfect illustration of the “prejudice” you're describing. When used to a privileged position, equality feels like bias. (Debate time to speak, pick your source: https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+clinton+time+to+speak https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+clinton+time+to+speak)
- FT_intern 10y ago
  Only recruiters can confirm but the filter for women, at least to get interviews, is often times lower than for men. Companies can't legally discriminate against men, but they can (and many do) post up at women engineer conferences and give interviews out like candy to people from that conference. They're discriminating based on where they source the resume from. The source just happens to be made up of all females. That's what Grace Hopper is for.
- tajen 10y ago
  > You're responding to an argument that I didn't make. You're correct, I answered to both parents in one comment, and found it useful to put my comment under yours because you had a very common objection, although I forgot to address it. Concerning the "filter" story, how do you know girls just aren't just less interested in programming? Example that may be the norm: I've tried many times to get my god-daughter interested in computers, but the computer/tablet/phone/electricity/mechanics/woodworks/Mythbusters thingy really doesn't raise any interest or even bare curiosity. She just does it because she loves spending time with me, but remembers nothing. If there were a genetic or social construct that made that fewer girls identify with programming, then it would kill the argument that "due to filtering, women are better" and reinforce the argument that "Women are promoted, not because they're better, but because companies are required to promote women". And in fact, studies have demonstrated that fewer girls are interested in programming because of society.

sbov 10y ago

I generally agree, but what I can't explain is: if it really is because they are better because of this stricter filter, I would expect the stricter filter to apply to the promotion process too. So, why isn't it? Edit: maybe it's a sign of things getting "better". Women already working are on average better at what they do, and as people become more aware of the problem it's easier for them to become promoted because the filter isn't as strict when compared to X years ago.

stale2002 10y ago
It is also easier to show actual results at the promotion stage. At the hiring stage, it is mostly a crapshoot, and they don't really know if you are good or not, so it is easier for biases to get in the way.