7 ms·

Here's a question: Would it be sexist if the women on the team were offered either the men's jacket, or an opportunity to purchase the women's jacket at a cost

by nickff 10y ago

Here's a question: Would it be sexist if the women on the team were offered either the men's jacket, or an opportunity to purchase the women's jacket at a cost equal to the difference in cost between the two (i.e. Uber pays the same in both cases, but the women have to add a bit)? Would it be acceptable to only be offered one of the two options, or would each woman have to be allowed to choose for themselves? These questions also implicitly ask whether Uber should be considered to have given the men "a jacket", or "a value equal to the jacket".

RodericDay 10y ago
Yes, it would be sexist. If the company is doing their employees a courtesy, it's a courtesy to all or a courtesy to none.
- nickff 10y ago
  I am trying to ask what the 'courtesy' is; is it the value of the jacket, the sense of belonging, or the protection from the weather?
  - lzecon 10y ago
    It's the sense of belonging... employees didn't get jackets because they were cold and asked the company to buy one for them...
  - geofft 10y ago
    Here's another hypothetical: suppose a manager makes a practice of emailing all their male reports every week with "Just wanted to say that we appreciate your work at this company. Your work this week on ___ was fantastic," and not their female reports. Then there is no question of cost or value or function, other than the five seconds required to figure out something the female reports worked on this week. Would this be an acceptable thing for the manager to do?
    - nickff 10y ago
      That seems like it would be discriminatory, because the message contains no sex or gender-specific language, and sending the same message to the women would take no more time (per employee) than the men. Modifying the message to contain gender-specific language would mean that the manager would have to have two templates, but intentionally creating a gender-specific template for the purpose of excluding one group would itself be discriminatory.
btreesOfSpring 10y ago
i think the article attempts to address this question by this hypothetical: > Can you imagine what would have happened if Uber decided, because men gobble more food than women, that only women should get free catering in the company’s cafe, and men would have to reach into their wallets?
- nickff 10y ago
  Would it be remedied if the company offered to provide the same number of calories to each person (regardless of gender), with the obvious implication that women would be more satiated than men? What if Uber offered to provide the men their required calories at some additional charge? My questions don't directly address what happened at Uber, but I'm trying to figure out where the boundaries lie.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    Seems to me that, if you can afford to offer free catering but not for people who eat too much, that you can't actually afford to offer free catering. If the extra cost for the few is too much, you can't afford the whole. Same way with the jackets. If you can't spring for the extra $ for the womens's jackets, you really probably shouldn't be buying jackets for everyone at this time...
    - magic_beans 10y ago
      I doubt the issue was "can't" so much as "won't".
  - sedachv 10y ago
    There is very clear precedent on this from the way IRS treats perks as either deductible or wage compensation. Basically if your perks are not universal to all of your employees they cease to be deductible perks and start being treated as wage payments to those certain employees and therefore subject to Social Security and income tax withholding. With cafeteria food you can either provide free food to all of your employees, or run a cafeteria that charges for food at-cost (the cafeteria cannot operate at a loss). Having an executive cafeteria used to be a thing in companies. This is discrimination based on employee rank. The IRS treats executive cafeterias as wage compensation. Discriminating between employees of the same rank based on things like race would be racism, sex would be sexism, etc. The jackets were not provided to certain employees, therefore they are not a perk and their value is wage compensation according to the IRS. So this is exactly like denying all the women SREs a bonus because they are women. BTW it is very likely that those jackets were deducted as perks so this decision is not just overt discrimination by Uber but also breaking tax law.
kbenson 10y ago
Yes, in the same way it would be a bad idea to require employees needing larger sizes to pay for any extra cost. When you buy a lunch for employees, you don't charge people who might eat more an extra fee either. The whole point of these is to build community within the organization or team. Excluding certain groups is a horrible idea. Doing it based on sex, religion, or ethnicity is a whole extra level of bad and stupid rolled into one.
- nickff 10y ago
  What if you went to a restaurant for a Friday lunch (on the company's dime), and everyone orders a sandwich, except one individual (who may be of different race, sex, or size) that orders a steak and lobster meal? Could you discriminate by denying the request, or asking them to pay out of pocket? Does coming up with a rule ahead of time remedy the potential discrimination?
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    You probably think you're being clever by coming up with all of these "But... but what if!" scenarios, but you're not. You're just looking like you're trying to excuse their behavior.
  - trose 10y ago
    this isn't equivalent. In your scenario the single employee is choosing to take advantage of the company's hospitality and I think their manager would be right to either deny that or speak to them afterwards.
  - jonahrd 10y ago
    Except the world isn't run by some computer blindly following a strict set of rules. Obviously if someone orders a steak and lobster meal, they might not deserve the same treatment. If someone orders a vegetarian meal, or a kosher meal, etc, then they probably _should_ be covered. It's a judgement call with shades of grey, yes, but it's not too difficult to see which side is "right"
    - 10y ago
st3v3r 10y ago
No. Neither of those is acceptable, either. Do those who got a large or XL or XXL jacket have to pay the difference between that and a small?
- robalfonso 10y ago
  I think its entirely reasonable that if the company said ahead of time, we are covering cost X, anything outside cost X is on the employee. (thats obviously not what happened) Who wants to work for someone that cheap?
- prodigal_erik 10y ago
  As a fat guy it's really common to miss out on swag that we didn't get in my size. None of it was like a badge of office, though.
Retra 10y ago
Trading pennies for pennies is just not something a mature, reasonable person does. "Buy everyone a jacket" is as far as the thinking needs to go. If someone wants to debate the costs of jackets on the basis of sex (rather than, say, size) then they're being sexist about it. Equality isn't about balancing the checkbook. It's about making sure everyone has the ability to make equally good decisions. Which means giving your team the support they need to be cohesive ("everyone gets a jacket") and allowing them to focus on being an effective member of that team rather than petty and superficial issues ("don't worry about insignificant cost differences.")
- nickff 10y ago
  My post is not about my preferred option; I am trying to 'triangulate' where the limits of discrimination are.
xsmasher 10y ago
Not a lawyer, but that sounds like it touches on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact If you have a rule that is neutral in theory, but has disparate impact on a protected class in practice, it is not a neutral rule.
- nickff 10y ago
  I agree that disparate impact analysis could be applied here, but you would first have to decide what the 'benefit' was (i.e. money-equivalent, same garments, or similarly well-fitting garments).
tptacek 10y ago
You've entirely missed the point. The dollar amount of the jacket doesn't matter. The point of the jacket is that they're a part of SRE culture. To have the SRE jacket is to belong to an elite team within the company. And Uber is big enough for that distinction to matter. If you're going to create a wearable indication of membership in an elite division of your company, you'd damn sure better ensure that every member of that division can actually wear it. Not only did Uber fail to do that, it failed in a way that specifically excluded women. The jacket thing was less of a big deal to me before I read this story. With the SRE culture refresher, it rises to the level of "among the worst things Uber did".
- nickff 10y ago
  To be clear, I would not have done what Uber did, and I don't think it was a good idea. I am trying to figure out where the boundaries of discrimination lie; I thought I could have this kind of conversation on HN, but I was wrong.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Did the boundary I just laid out for you not make sense? If you create some kind of badge or wearable emblem of belonging to an elite division inside your company, it's the obligation of the company to ensure that every member of that division can wear it, and it's further egregiously discriminatory if you structure it in such a way that women are actively discouraged from wearing it.
    - nickff 10y ago
      I think that what you laid out was a good framework, and good advice, but I don't think that failing to follow best-practices necessarily means that you are being discriminatory.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        My two responses to this would be: * The failure here transcends "best practices" and reaches the level of "teamicidal". * While being teamicidal doesn't automatically make you bigoted, if your teamicidal action specifically targets a workplace minority, that does.

by nickff 10y ago

RodericDay 10y ago

Yes, it would be sexist. If the company is doing their employees a courtesy, it's a courtesy to all or a courtesy to none.

nickff 10y ago
I am trying to ask what the 'courtesy' is; is it the value of the jacket, the sense of belonging, or the protection from the weather?
- lzecon 10y ago
  It's the sense of belonging... employees didn't get jackets because they were cold and asked the company to buy one for them...
- geofft 10y ago
  Here's another hypothetical: suppose a manager makes a practice of emailing all their male reports every week with "Just wanted to say that we appreciate your work at this company. Your work this week on ___ was fantastic," and not their female reports. Then there is no question of cost or value or function, other than the five seconds required to figure out something the female reports worked on this week. Would this be an acceptable thing for the manager to do?
  - nickff 10y ago
    That seems like it would be discriminatory, because the message contains no sex or gender-specific language, and sending the same message to the women would take no more time (per employee) than the men. Modifying the message to contain gender-specific language would mean that the manager would have to have two templates, but intentionally creating a gender-specific template for the purpose of excluding one group would itself be discriminatory.

btreesOfSpring 10y ago

i think the article attempts to address this question by this hypothetical: > Can you imagine what would have happened if Uber decided, because men gobble more food than women, that only women should get free catering in the company’s cafe, and men would have to reach into their wallets?

nickff 10y ago
Would it be remedied if the company offered to provide the same number of calories to each person (regardless of gender), with the obvious implication that women would be more satiated than men? What if Uber offered to provide the men their required calories at some additional charge? My questions don't directly address what happened at Uber, but I'm trying to figure out where the boundaries lie.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  Seems to me that, if you can afford to offer free catering but not for people who eat too much, that you can't actually afford to offer free catering. If the extra cost for the few is too much, you can't afford the whole. Same way with the jackets. If you can't spring for the extra $ for the womens's jackets, you really probably shouldn't be buying jackets for everyone at this time...
  - magic_beans 10y ago
    I doubt the issue was "can't" so much as "won't".
- sedachv 10y ago
  There is very clear precedent on this from the way IRS treats perks as either deductible or wage compensation. Basically if your perks are not universal to all of your employees they cease to be deductible perks and start being treated as wage payments to those certain employees and therefore subject to Social Security and income tax withholding. With cafeteria food you can either provide free food to all of your employees, or run a cafeteria that charges for food at-cost (the cafeteria cannot operate at a loss). Having an executive cafeteria used to be a thing in companies. This is discrimination based on employee rank. The IRS treats executive cafeterias as wage compensation. Discriminating between employees of the same rank based on things like race would be racism, sex would be sexism, etc. The jackets were not provided to certain employees, therefore they are not a perk and their value is wage compensation according to the IRS. So this is exactly like denying all the women SREs a bonus because they are women. BTW it is very likely that those jackets were deducted as perks so this decision is not just overt discrimination by Uber but also breaking tax law.

kbenson 10y ago

Yes, in the same way it would be a bad idea to require employees needing larger sizes to pay for any extra cost. When you buy a lunch for employees, you don't charge people who might eat more an extra fee either. The whole point of these is to build community within the organization or team. Excluding certain groups is a horrible idea. Doing it based on sex, religion, or ethnicity is a whole extra level of bad and stupid rolled into one.

nickff 10y ago
What if you went to a restaurant for a Friday lunch (on the company's dime), and everyone orders a sandwich, except one individual (who may be of different race, sex, or size) that orders a steak and lobster meal? Could you discriminate by denying the request, or asking them to pay out of pocket? Does coming up with a rule ahead of time remedy the potential discrimination?
- st3v3r 10y ago
  You probably think you're being clever by coming up with all of these "But... but what if!" scenarios, but you're not. You're just looking like you're trying to excuse their behavior.
- trose 10y ago
  this isn't equivalent. In your scenario the single employee is choosing to take advantage of the company's hospitality and I think their manager would be right to either deny that or speak to them afterwards.
- jonahrd 10y ago
  Except the world isn't run by some computer blindly following a strict set of rules. Obviously if someone orders a steak and lobster meal, they might not deserve the same treatment. If someone orders a vegetarian meal, or a kosher meal, etc, then they probably _should_ be covered. It's a judgement call with shades of grey, yes, but it's not too difficult to see which side is "right"
  - 10y ago

st3v3r 10y ago

No. Neither of those is acceptable, either. Do those who got a large or XL or XXL jacket have to pay the difference between that and a small?

robalfonso 10y ago
I think its entirely reasonable that if the company said ahead of time, we are covering cost X, anything outside cost X is on the employee. (thats obviously not what happened) Who wants to work for someone that cheap?
prodigal_erik 10y ago
As a fat guy it's really common to miss out on swag that we didn't get in my size. None of it was like a badge of office, though.

Retra 10y ago

Trading pennies for pennies is just not something a mature, reasonable person does. "Buy everyone a jacket" is as far as the thinking needs to go. If someone wants to debate the costs of jackets on the basis of sex (rather than, say, size) then they're being sexist about it. Equality isn't about balancing the checkbook. It's about making sure everyone has the ability to make equally good decisions. Which means giving your team the support they need to be cohesive ("everyone gets a jacket") and allowing them to focus on being an effective member of that team rather than petty and superficial issues ("don't worry about insignificant cost differences.")

nickff 10y ago
My post is not about my preferred option; I am trying to 'triangulate' where the limits of discrimination are.

xsmasher 10y ago

Not a lawyer, but that sounds like it touches on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact If you have a rule that is neutral in theory, but has disparate impact on a protected class in practice, it is not a neutral rule.

nickff 10y ago
I agree that disparate impact analysis could be applied here, but you would first have to decide what the 'benefit' was (i.e. money-equivalent, same garments, or similarly well-fitting garments).

tptacek 10y ago

You've entirely missed the point. The dollar amount of the jacket doesn't matter. The point of the jacket is that they're a part of SRE culture. To have the SRE jacket is to belong to an elite team within the company. And Uber is big enough for that distinction to matter. If you're going to create a wearable indication of membership in an elite division of your company, you'd damn sure better ensure that every member of that division can actually wear it. Not only did Uber fail to do that, it failed in a way that specifically excluded women. The jacket thing was less of a big deal to me before I read this story. With the SRE culture refresher, it rises to the level of "among the worst things Uber did".

nickff 10y ago
To be clear, I would not have done what Uber did, and I don't think it was a good idea. I am trying to figure out where the boundaries of discrimination lie; I thought I could have this kind of conversation on HN, but I was wrong.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Did the boundary I just laid out for you not make sense? If you create some kind of badge or wearable emblem of belonging to an elite division inside your company, it's the obligation of the company to ensure that every member of that division can wear it, and it's further egregiously discriminatory if you structure it in such a way that women are actively discouraged from wearing it.
  - nickff 10y ago
    I think that what you laid out was a good framework, and good advice, but I don't think that failing to follow best-practices necessarily means that you are being discriminatory.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      My two responses to this would be: * The failure here transcends "best practices" and reaches the level of "teamicidal". * While being teamicidal doesn't automatically make you bigoted, if your teamicidal action specifically targets a workplace minority, that does.