4 ms·

>My observations are that I typically see a female CEOs income be the first thing that is ever brought up when they are in the spotlight but I don't ever see th

• usmeteora 9y ago
  In this case, Marissa Mayer, Cheryl Sandberg, Ellen Pao, Elizabeth Smith, Sophia Amoruso, the last two being founders and not coming into rescue companies in crisis, who also both have experienced troubles, lawsuits, and failure. >You are aware of what confirmation bias is, right? I am aware of the confirmation bias, which is why I explicitly provided a disclaimer for that in the statements I made, and again, stated my observations to elicit feedback, and continue to welcome your constructive feedback. That being said, I've mostly observed over 5-7 years, and I never set out with the intention to observe this, because it was moreso a shock over time that this bias seemed to be occurring. For sure, most of the sexism I seem to realize as bias is due to a shock or feeling that something is not right, and never that I'm seeking it out. When I set out to be an Engineer, noone told me I would experience sexism. I thought it was going to be a lovely experience all in all, and was relatively naive going into about the ratio in general, and how much it would effect my life. So from my perspective, I don't feel confirmation bias is relevant, but I'm willing to believe over time it can cascade upon itself, just as much as men can cascade their negative opinions of females upon itself. I am a firm advocate that females can be sexist and abuse their positions too, and I've witnessed it first hand a number of time, and have plenty of criticisms of my own gender for sure. They have not been all in all, in aggregate the role models I needed when I started out in a male dominated environment, to the point where I don't expect women to be role models for me just because they are women anymore. >I'm not overlapping my perceptions of reddit with HN on how reddit treated both Ellen Pao and Sheryl Sanders (she devil, satanist among other things are names they endured upon their first week in office). >And you just did so don't pat yourself on the back too much. And you're right, it has nothing to do with this case. I brought this up because you used the word malicious that I would even bring up the idea that women CEOs face a bias. I wanted to clarify that there absolutely is one, and maliciousness is hardly an adequate term to describe the words used against female CEOS in explicitly wording that encompasses their gender, though I barely see it shine through maliciously on HN as I have seen on reddit and other communities. I don't think pointing out the fact that many people have acted malicously towards these individuals and wondering if its due to a bias conscious or unconscious, is malicious, or propogating maliciousness. > Unfortunately, I did not see Apple jumping into back the notion of childcare needs years ago When Marissa was chastized for having a nursery in her office. >I remember that, and this a good example of your dishonesty or maybe your blind-spot. Marissa was chastised for her hypocrisy. She banned working for home - a policy that was very popular with new parents, but then built herself a nursery - just for herself - so she could bring her kids to work because unlike everyone else, she worked long hours. Of course people will criticize her. Please reread my statements about her remote work decision, and how the data was related to not meeting remote work standards, and no data whatsoever was provided about remote work in relation to parenting, but news had no problem conflating the issues, and readers had no problem assuming there was hypocrisy in the decision, despite there being no data to prove hypocrisy existed in the decision. If anything, allowing the known lack of accountability and performance quality of remote work to continue due to parenting, would proprogate sexism further by sending a signal that quality of work/the bar can be lowered if you are parent. In regards to that while having a nursey, I'm going to have to push back here. I worked on wallstreet, and it is commonplace for years that they have one secretary for their work life, whose job it is to help manage their personal life, and this has ALWAYS been acceptable without question for decades in multple industries. For example, a secretary to a male boss is allowed and explicitly told to spend a large portion of their time arranging personal events around public events and I've sat next to a secretary interning on wallstreet who spend the majority of her day buying chanel and juicy couture gifts for her bosses daughters to apologize for him not being able to make it home, and doing these kinds of thing on a daily basis. There are entire sub markets within industries dedicated to secretaries being paid on company salary to help manage and perform private life upkeep to help with busy men. Its just that, the actions here tend to be buying gifts for women or paying their secretary to appease the women they never have time to be home for, because there is of course a woman at home to raise the children his secretary is buying gifts for, and arranging limos to pick their kids up in private schools to the after school events these men don't have time to make it to. Sitting next to one of these secretaries on wallstreet for a summer internship informed me greatly how commonplace this is. Of course though, this is not criticized ever, but for Mayer, investing office space to accomodate her personal life is. Why is that? The employees at the bank I worked for who also worked 80+ hour weeks did not get secretaries on pay to send limos to pick up their 12 yr old daughters from ballets they could not attend with a sorry note attached to a juicy couture bag, but I don't see articles about unfair and slighted the males and females feel about their inability to accomodate their children. The actions are exactly the same, but accomodations are in action explicitly different in representation because Mayer is a woman. The difference ends there. The criticism does not. Just because two things occur at the same time does not mean they are related. i.e. Marissa having a nursery, and also deciding remote work was not allowed at the company anymore.
  • macspoofing 9y ago
    >In this case, Marissa Mayer, Cheryl Sandberg, Ellen Pao, Elizabeth Smith, Sophia Amoruso, the last two being founders and not coming into rescue companies in crisis, who also both have experienced troubles, lawsuits, and failure. I fail to see the connection between these individuals. Cheryl Sandberg is a successful executive ... so is Marissa Mayer for that matter - having had a senior position at Google and then led Yahoo. Sophia Amoruso ran a company that went bankrupt (it happens). I don't know anything about Elizabeth Smith and Ellen Pao implemented some needed but highly controversial and unpopular polices at the reddit cesspool but also fired a popular moderator, Victoria. What is the connection here besides these are all women? >I brought this up because you used the word malicious that I would even bring up the idea that women CEOs face a bias. Yes. It is malicious. You can't just assert racism or misogyny. Those are very powerful words and they are completely misused, frequently to push some ideological agenda. If I'm being charitable, it reminds me of the way UFO conspiracy theory nuts reason. They'll look at some phenomenon and argue "I can't think of anything that could explain X, therefore X must be aliens".. No. That's not how it works. If you don't know the cause of X, don't assert a conclusion. Aliens are not the default position for unknown stellar phenomena. Misogyny and sexism is not the default position every-time a woman gets fired or criticized. >Please reread my statements about her remote work decision, and how the data was related to not meeting remote work standards, and no data whatsoever was provided about remote work in relation to parenting But that doesn't change the optics of this policy contrasted with her private nursery. >but news had no problem conflating the issues, and readers had no problem assuming there was hypocrisy in the decision, despite there being no data to prove hypocrisy existed in the decision. Sure. You're trying to argue her criticism is unfair - nothing wrong with that. It may be unfair, but nuances and subtleties are lost all the time and certain narratives take hold. For example, I don't think Uber is a sexist organization, but now there's a narrative that they have a sexist culture top to bottom. All subtly is lost when Uber is discussed on HN. It happens. Argue against it and move on.
    • usmeteora 9y ago
      > What is the connection here besides these are all women? My first statement in my first comment > Yes. It is malicious. You can't just assert racism or misogyny. We both agree overt name calling is malicious. We both agree you can't assert racism or misogyny. If terms like "she devil" is used, I'm going to assume misogyny. If name callers want to be recognized as name callers, but are particularly sensitive about also being labeled as misogynists, I will leave it up to them to find another word to use. Enough on this topic, I think, as in my first statement where I asked if there was a slight bias and did not state or assert there was one, is enough to reiterate my agreement on all of these things with you. >But that doesn't change the optics of this policy contrasted with her private nursery. Again, commonplace for a long time that personal secretaries are hired to manage private lives of CEOs, in this case it seems the money was oriented towards childcare. But its commonplace CEOs have long since hired or invested in personal management secretaries or other arrangements in their offices. I've never seen it criticised before, but I'm open to proof that it has been. you are correct, the optics do not seem to be an issue when secretaries are hired to manage the private lives of male CEOs, but the optics of investing in personal life management of the CEO do appear to be an issue of optics here. We agree. >Sure. You're trying to argue her criticism is unfair - nothing wrong with that. It may be unfair, but nuances and subtleties are lost all the time and certain narratives take hold. For example, I don't think Uber is a sexist organization, but now there's a narrative that they have a sexist culture top to bottom. All subtly is lost when Uber is discussed on HN. It happens. Argue against it and move on. https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/13/uber-board-member-gets-sexist-at-a-sexism-apology-all-hands/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/13/uber-board-member-gets-sex... There is no sexism on this point. We all agree that if a person is added to a board meeting, there will be more talking, assuming the board member talks. Again, I'm not disagreeing that humans who are paid to discuss and vote on issues increase the amount of talking, I'm just asking why its pointed out specifically in the context of a women, and where the proof is that if a woman is added to a board meeting, the net amount of talking is more than if she isn't there. I would love to not only see the data for this, but have the opportunity to hear the things women say in board meetings with men like this. We also agree. The subtlety is definitely lost on me here, and a new narrative took hold so quickly on Uber over this sentence that the billionaire resigned. There is no subtlety retained here. We agree. Speaking of Uber, how much does the CEO make and when was the last time someone thought the CEO of Uber paid himself too highly or maybe...noones thought to bring that up yet? I guess it just has not popped into anyones mind yet. Perhaps noone knows how much the CEO of Uber makes because there are not enough women on his board asking those questions. As we agree with the now previous employee of Uber David Bonderman, women just result in so much more "talking" in board meetings, maybe they can talk about this next time.
• usmeteora 9y ago
  > So I cannot believe you actually went there on this issue and in light of countless articles and podcasts discussing this matter from all angles, from the right-wing, mainstream, and left-wing media, and all you could see is that women (one woman specifically - because you haven't given any other examples) are unfairly singled out. I was responding to the top rated comment on HN, and not all of these other podcasts and articles you were referring to which were not mentioned anywhere in the conversation until you brought them up. I'm talking about the HN community, and the comments on HN in general tend to be related to the posting, and other comments (by hitting reply) and not all of these other podcasts from multiple sides you never named. Given a comment at the time I replied was top ranked after multiple days to be a criticism of her golden parachute (which is actually not an outlier situation at all given most CEOs exiting companies like this do leave with a financial situation) financial exit situation without any other context, and that was the number one pervading comment after a multibillion dollar precedent setting silicon valley company calls it quits, I did bring up that we seemed to focusing on her income more than yahoo as a failure in it's entire context. Furthermore, I did not state anywhere (go read again) that the criticism was overall a bad thing or sexist, at all anywhere (go read again), but that I was "more interested" (go read it) in bigger questions about yahoos decline and eventual sale, and of course Marissa can and will be apart of that discussion. That's exactly where I went, and that is exactly how it is described (go read it). "Also, on a separate note, I've noticed" as a I say, I went on to say how I noticed this being a phenomenom I've seen with many other female CEOs and provided a disclaimer as a tangential observation because I read HN throughout the day and see conversations evolve when big companies fail or sell. Again, yes that's exactly where I went, and that is exactly how I described it. I am sorry madam or sir, but there are no words in my comment in which you described my behavior as a malicious propaganda of sexism that purport to be so in any way, and anything related to Marissa none of which the critical comments are labeled as sexist by me, are just observed and noted, and then I asked more questions to elicit more conversation about yahoos failure as whole, and got a response from you accusing me of malicously propogating sexism. Anyone who feels my comment above besides this person is a "malicious" propogation of unfounded accusations of sexism can feel free to call me out on it. Please educate me about how I could edit my wording to make it seem less so. Unlike some people in this thread, I am more than open to constructive feedback and considering this from a different view point other than "malicious" which is literally defined as intentional nefarious intent. I strongly reject that definition of myself and the comment as it stands in context and all by itself in the conversation.