3 ms·

This actually seems to be moving in the other direction... https://hbr.org/2016/09/why-more-american-men-feel-discriminated-against https://hbr.org/2016/09/why

This actually seems to be moving in the other direction... https://hbr.org/2016/09/why-more-american-men-feel-discriminated-against https://hbr.org/2016/09/why-more-american-men-feel-discrimin... >Perhaps more important, though, researchers have found that men are prone to seeing discrimination as a zero-sum game. That is, they believe that discrimination against one group necessarily benefits another group and vice versa, so any policy that benefits African-Americans, for instance, harms whites, and any policy that benefits women amounts to discrimination against men. Fifteen years ago, younger men — and women of all ages — overwhelmingly rejected this view, but recent data shows that younger white men are now about as likely as older men to see discrimination as zero-sum.

chipperyman573 10y ago
That might be because, in a lot of ways, it i̶s̶ can be true. If I (a white man) don't get selected for a job because of a diversity program that requires that x% of workers be a PoC, it does actively harm me because I would have (possibly) otherwise have been chosen for that job. I'm not saying that this is always the case (or even that it usually is), but this scenario wasn't true 15 or 20 years ago.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- vertex-four 10y ago
  For the record, as a social justice type, I think that the solution to diversity issues in the workplace isn't to enforce percentage figures - it's to figure out why the workplace isn't attracting members of X group, change it so that it is, and actively seek out applications from diverse communities. If you're doing everything right, you should almost naturally wind up with a diverse workplace. Of course, guess which of these choices is the cheapest and requires the least amount of change in culture. One can also be imposed top-down while the other requires cultural buy-in in the first place.
  - chongli 10y ago
    you should almost naturally wind up with a diverse workplace That's a factual claim which implies that different groups of people are uniform in their preferences and thus you'd find equal representation of people across all fields. A lot of people find this to be an absurd proposition with a mountain of evidence to contradict it. If cultural and workplace issues were the explanation for disproportionate representation in different workplaces then we would expect to see the countries which implement the most solutions to those issues have the most equal representations. In fact, what we see is the opposite. The Scandinavian countries have the best policies (generous child care, long parental leave, extensive anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training, board quotas) and yet they have even more gender self-segregation by occupation than other developed countries [0]. [0] https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/gender-society/occupational-gender-segregation-pay-differences https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/gender-socie...
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Where have you ever encountered a diversity program that "requires that x% of workers be a PoC?"
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  That's one interpretation, another one is that if you're that marginal of a candidate anyway you've probably benefitted a lot already by previous employers and institutions.
rahimnathwani 10y ago
"This actually seems to be moving in the other direction..." That's not supported by the link you provided. That page says they're 'about as likely'. If it were moving in the other direction, it would instead say 'more likely'. Moreover, the last sentence you quoted gets that info from a paper[0] which found no significant correlation of attitudes with age. Even if it had found any correlation, the manner in which the survey was conducted wouldn't demonstrate that GP in incorrect. 99% of survey participants had graduated high school. It sounds like, though the authors claim the survey participants reflected the mix in the 2000 census, they've restricted their analysis to adults (18+ ?). So it says nothing about what teenagers think. [0] http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20sommers.pdf http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20sommers.pdf
belorn 10y ago
Fifteen years ago one of the primary theories for equality was treating everyone equally with no distinction to race or gender. Liberty and individuals own ability to control their life was the agenda, and benefits of liberty should have been rather obvious for anyone that its not a zero-sum game. The abolishment of single-gender profession like that of the article, Rosa Parks and abolishment of racial segregation, and burning of gender specific clothing can all be said as a product of this theory and described as equality of opportunity. The dominant theory today seems quite evident to be focused difference equality which is based on politics of action based upon treating people of different races and gender different but equal. Here local liberty and individuals freedom of choice can and often is sacrificed if the end result is predicted to provides less lower power differences in society. Affirmative action, diversity quota, and single-gender activities are all strongly associated with this under the concept of equality of outcome. Trying to convince young white men to have less liberty and choices in life compared to others in order for society to have more balanced power distribution in the future is a quite hard sell, and I agree with those that describe that as discrimination. Trying to convince them to treat everyone as equals with no distinction to race or gender is not that hard, and by what I have seen in the last 15 years, already achieved in the age group that libeclipse mentioned. The observation in that linked article simply fails to acknowledge the different tactics used from 15 years ago vs now.
- Normal_gaussian 10y ago
  Give unique groups liberty and complain when they do different things with it.
Normal_gaussian 10y ago
Yeah. They have gone through a schooling system full of 'positive' discrimination. As amusing as it is to say that I only have negative things to say about positive discrimination I actually feel that it is often terribly implemented, and that those who run round spouting such labels are often (though not always) the wrong people to be involved in enacting positive discrimination. Before enacting any form of discrimination ask yourself this - is the group I am discriminating actually the group I want to target, or are they a proxy group? It is all too easy to cite a gender paygap on the assumption that men and women both want the same things, but this isn't true. If you go to the wikipedia page [0] for 'Gender pay gap' you will find that direct discrimination is a very small part of the pay gap, and if you follow through to the EU links [1] you will find it is littered with the assumption that men and women should want the same things (work/life balance, family life, etc.). To my mind the category of 'woman' is not a good one for assesing pay discrimination. It is an interesting proxy group yes, but it doesn't provide a useful means of going forward. You need to identify causes and treat the causes without discrimination from your proxy, only based on your member group. Teaching negotiation strategies is a good thing to do, that treats a real problem. If you only teach women (as 'women in work' groups do) you create problems for men who aren't good, as they are now very likely to be the worst negotiators. If instead you use a real metric (say an evaluation for poor negotiation skills) as an entry requirement for the program you aren't hurting anybody and you are reducing one of the real portions of the gender pay gap. In other words actually solving problems is hard and net positive, but using prejudices to simplify your problem is easy and can be zero-sum or even negative. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap [1] - http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-pay-gap/causes/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-pay-gap/c...
- matt4077 10y ago
  Some problems with your example of "teaching negotiation strategies": - It assumes that discriminatory outcomes are solely created by behavioural differences (i. e. "Women would earn the same if only they were better negotiators"). While nobody is denying that behaviour is a contributing factor, it's hard to deny that there is some direct discrimination going on[0] - It takes the existing structures as god-given, unchangeable fact, i. e. "Compensation is set in an adversarial negotiation". - It assumes that the outcome of a process cannot be discriminatory if gender/race/age/... weren't direct inputs into the process, i. e. "we'd love to have more African-American engineers, but the Lacrosse-requirement has always been part of our hiring process". - It places the full burden of change on the group that is discriminated against, i. e. "Teach women to act more like white men when negotiating". - It fais to answer the question "What should I, an African-American, do to lower my chances of being shot at any random traffic stop?" [0]: from your Wikipedia link: "A 2007 study showed that for identical resumes fewer replies were sent to men compared with women (it also showed that women do worse when they have children, while men do worse when they don't).[66] Another study showed more jobs for women when orchestras moved to blind auditions"
edblarney 10y ago
"but recent data shows that younger white men are now about as likely as older men to see discrimination as zero-sum." This is not surprising. In 1960, it's pretty easy to see how 'ending segregation' can be a win-win (or at least, not detrimental to 'whites'), and that a lot of social justice was needed to help people along. In 2016, we still have more work to do, but a lot of progress can be made, and a Universities policy of requiring specific ethnic students to be accepted is technically definitely a 'zero sum' situation ... so it's not hugely surprising that public perception has shifted somewhat over time.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Universities enroll a LOT more people in 2016 than they did in 1960.
  - edblarney 10y ago
    I'm not rationalizing it, I'm describing why perception has changed. I you're a 'white guy' working in NYC in 1960, it's easy to see how desegregation is 'good thing' that doesn't challenge your status. If you're a 'white guy' in Alabama in 2016, and know that 4% of the spots in your College have to go to 'people of colour' - in 2016, 50 years after desegregation wherein most people have at least some opportunity - you might be more likely to perceive that specific scenario as zero-sum. It's perception, not necessarily reality.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  > In 1960, it's pretty easy to see how 'ending segregation' can be a win-win (or at least, not detrimental to 'whites') Lot of white people back in 1960 thought otherwise.

chipperyman573 10y ago

That might be because, in a lot of ways, it i̶s̶ can be true. If I (a white man) don't get selected for a job because of a diversity program that requires that x% of workers be a PoC, it does actively harm me because I would have (possibly) otherwise have been chosen for that job. I'm not saying that this is always the case (or even that it usually is), but this scenario wasn't true 15 or 20 years ago.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
vertex-four 10y ago
For the record, as a social justice type, I think that the solution to diversity issues in the workplace isn't to enforce percentage figures - it's to figure out why the workplace isn't attracting members of X group, change it so that it is, and actively seek out applications from diverse communities. If you're doing everything right, you should almost naturally wind up with a diverse workplace. Of course, guess which of these choices is the cheapest and requires the least amount of change in culture. One can also be imposed top-down while the other requires cultural buy-in in the first place.
- chongli 10y ago
  you should almost naturally wind up with a diverse workplace That's a factual claim which implies that different groups of people are uniform in their preferences and thus you'd find equal representation of people across all fields. A lot of people find this to be an absurd proposition with a mountain of evidence to contradict it. If cultural and workplace issues were the explanation for disproportionate representation in different workplaces then we would expect to see the countries which implement the most solutions to those issues have the most equal representations. In fact, what we see is the opposite. The Scandinavian countries have the best policies (generous child care, long parental leave, extensive anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training, board quotas) and yet they have even more gender self-segregation by occupation than other developed countries [0]. [0] https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/gender-society/occupational-gender-segregation-pay-differences https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/gender-socie...
nommm-nommm 10y ago
Where have you ever encountered a diversity program that "requires that x% of workers be a PoC?"
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
That's one interpretation, another one is that if you're that marginal of a candidate anyway you've probably benefitted a lot already by previous employers and institutions.

rahimnathwani 10y ago

"This actually seems to be moving in the other direction..." That's not supported by the link you provided. That page says they're 'about as likely'. If it were moving in the other direction, it would instead say 'more likely'. Moreover, the last sentence you quoted gets that info from a paper[0] which found no significant correlation of attitudes with age. Even if it had found any correlation, the manner in which the survey was conducted wouldn't demonstrate that GP in incorrect. 99% of survey participants had graduated high school. It sounds like, though the authors claim the survey participants reflected the mix in the 2000 census, they've restricted their analysis to adults (18+ ?). So it says nothing about what teenagers think. [0] http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20sommers.pdf http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20sommers.pdf

belorn 10y ago

Fifteen years ago one of the primary theories for equality was treating everyone equally with no distinction to race or gender. Liberty and individuals own ability to control their life was the agenda, and benefits of liberty should have been rather obvious for anyone that its not a zero-sum game. The abolishment of single-gender profession like that of the article, Rosa Parks and abolishment of racial segregation, and burning of gender specific clothing can all be said as a product of this theory and described as equality of opportunity. The dominant theory today seems quite evident to be focused difference equality which is based on politics of action based upon treating people of different races and gender different but equal. Here local liberty and individuals freedom of choice can and often is sacrificed if the end result is predicted to provides less lower power differences in society. Affirmative action, diversity quota, and single-gender activities are all strongly associated with this under the concept of equality of outcome. Trying to convince young white men to have less liberty and choices in life compared to others in order for society to have more balanced power distribution in the future is a quite hard sell, and I agree with those that describe that as discrimination. Trying to convince them to treat everyone as equals with no distinction to race or gender is not that hard, and by what I have seen in the last 15 years, already achieved in the age group that libeclipse mentioned. The observation in that linked article simply fails to acknowledge the different tactics used from 15 years ago vs now.

Normal_gaussian 10y ago
Give unique groups liberty and complain when they do different things with it.

Normal_gaussian 10y ago

Yeah. They have gone through a schooling system full of 'positive' discrimination. As amusing as it is to say that I only have negative things to say about positive discrimination I actually feel that it is often terribly implemented, and that those who run round spouting such labels are often (though not always) the wrong people to be involved in enacting positive discrimination. Before enacting any form of discrimination ask yourself this - is the group I am discriminating actually the group I want to target, or are they a proxy group? It is all too easy to cite a gender paygap on the assumption that men and women both want the same things, but this isn't true. If you go to the wikipedia page [0] for 'Gender pay gap' you will find that direct discrimination is a very small part of the pay gap, and if you follow through to the EU links [1] you will find it is littered with the assumption that men and women should want the same things (work/life balance, family life, etc.). To my mind the category of 'woman' is not a good one for assesing pay discrimination. It is an interesting proxy group yes, but it doesn't provide a useful means of going forward. You need to identify causes and treat the causes without discrimination from your proxy, only based on your member group. Teaching negotiation strategies is a good thing to do, that treats a real problem. If you only teach women (as 'women in work' groups do) you create problems for men who aren't good, as they are now very likely to be the worst negotiators. If instead you use a real metric (say an evaluation for poor negotiation skills) as an entry requirement for the program you aren't hurting anybody and you are reducing one of the real portions of the gender pay gap. In other words actually solving problems is hard and net positive, but using prejudices to simplify your problem is easy and can be zero-sum or even negative. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap [1] - http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-pay-gap/causes/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-pay-gap/c...

matt4077 10y ago
Some problems with your example of "teaching negotiation strategies": - It assumes that discriminatory outcomes are solely created by behavioural differences (i. e. "Women would earn the same if only they were better negotiators"). While nobody is denying that behaviour is a contributing factor, it's hard to deny that there is some direct discrimination going on[0] - It takes the existing structures as god-given, unchangeable fact, i. e. "Compensation is set in an adversarial negotiation". - It assumes that the outcome of a process cannot be discriminatory if gender/race/age/... weren't direct inputs into the process, i. e. "we'd love to have more African-American engineers, but the Lacrosse-requirement has always been part of our hiring process". - It places the full burden of change on the group that is discriminated against, i. e. "Teach women to act more like white men when negotiating". - It fais to answer the question "What should I, an African-American, do to lower my chances of being shot at any random traffic stop?" [0]: from your Wikipedia link: "A 2007 study showed that for identical resumes fewer replies were sent to men compared with women (it also showed that women do worse when they have children, while men do worse when they don't).[66] Another study showed more jobs for women when orchestras moved to blind auditions"

edblarney 10y ago

"but recent data shows that younger white men are now about as likely as older men to see discrimination as zero-sum." This is not surprising. In 1960, it's pretty easy to see how 'ending segregation' can be a win-win (or at least, not detrimental to 'whites'), and that a lot of social justice was needed to help people along. In 2016, we still have more work to do, but a lot of progress can be made, and a Universities policy of requiring specific ethnic students to be accepted is technically definitely a 'zero sum' situation ... so it's not hugely surprising that public perception has shifted somewhat over time.

nommm-nommm 10y ago
Universities enroll a LOT more people in 2016 than they did in 1960.
- edblarney 10y ago
  I'm not rationalizing it, I'm describing why perception has changed. I you're a 'white guy' working in NYC in 1960, it's easy to see how desegregation is 'good thing' that doesn't challenge your status. If you're a 'white guy' in Alabama in 2016, and know that 4% of the spots in your College have to go to 'people of colour' - in 2016, 50 years after desegregation wherein most people have at least some opportunity - you might be more likely to perceive that specific scenario as zero-sum. It's perception, not necessarily reality.
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
> In 1960, it's pretty easy to see how 'ending segregation' can be a win-win (or at least, not detrimental to 'whites') Lot of white people back in 1960 thought otherwise.