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I don't think that's what he was saying. His point was if we have equality of opportunity, meaning that interviews/applications are completely blind (this is im

I don't think that's what he was saying. His point was if we have equality of opportunity, meaning that interviews/applications are completely blind (this is impossible to do 100% in practice) and "fair", what would we expect the application and hire rate of men vs women to be? Is it 50/50? Or might it be different distributions for different jobs depending partially on biological predisposition to certain interests? If there are less women and more men interested in that type of role, then that could be partially due to biological predisposition to wanting that type of job. This is not at all to say that, as the person in charge of hiring, you should be concerned about these things. You should set objective standards for what you need in a particular role and hire the individuals that best meet those standards. That being said, there is ample evidence that most of the disparity in tech in hiring is due to cultural/social factors and focusing on biological aspects is mostly a waste of time. I think a lot of the diversity-increasing efforts in place at companies such as Google are commendable and should be continued.

dguaraglia 9y ago
> depending partially on biological predisposition to certain interests? This is a very, very, very slippery slope you are treading there. Again, going back to my point: who defines where that partiality starts and ends? > there is ample evidence that most of the disparity in tech in hiring is due to cultural/social factors and focusing on biological aspects is mostly a waste of time. And this is why bringing back the argument of testosterone is ridiculous. How can we know how many women are going to be interested in the field, when only recently we've realized that "jeez, they might be interested in something else than an oven and what cleaning liquid to use"?
- deleted 9y ago
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- justbuchanan 9y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean when you say "who defines where that partiality starts and ends?". I'm not advocating that anybody be deciding it. Here's my understanding. If a company posts a job and receives 30 applications from women and 70 applications from men, you need to explain the reason for the disparity. Why is there such a difference? I think it's generally accepted that in this case in the software field, the majority of the disparity is due to cultural/social factors. And there are a lot of programs dedicated to outreach, education, raising interest, etc to counteract these societal factors. And I think these are good! The point I was replying to was whether or not some of the difference in application rates could be explained because women, as a distribution of individuals, have a lower percentage that are interested in a particular type of job than men, perhaps due to biological factors. I don't think there are any conclusive studies that have shown this to be a significant effect, but for the sake of argument, I don't think it's unreasonable to consider. Of course, if it's not backed up by the evidence, then I won't continue looking at it. I think one of the many issues with the memo was that it significantly overplayed speculative (and incorrect) biological factors, while ignoring the many social and cultural factors that we know to be the cause of most of the lack of diversity.
  - dguaraglia 9y ago
    > I'm not sure what you mean when you say "who defines where that partiality starts and ends?". I'm not advocating that anybody be deciding it. I know, no rational person would. But on the other hand, assuming there is one such ratio and that "we shouldn't do anything to fix the current imbalance because the magic ratio explains it" is a terrible idea. That's what the whole manifesto was about really: let's not fix a problem that doesn't exist, because testosterone.

dguaraglia 9y ago

> depending partially on biological predisposition to certain interests? This is a very, very, very slippery slope you are treading there. Again, going back to my point: who defines where that partiality starts and ends? > there is ample evidence that most of the disparity in tech in hiring is due to cultural/social factors and focusing on biological aspects is mostly a waste of time. And this is why bringing back the argument of testosterone is ridiculous. How can we know how many women are going to be interested in the field, when only recently we've realized that "jeez, they might be interested in something else than an oven and what cleaning liquid to use"?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
justbuchanan 9y ago
I'm not sure what you mean when you say "who defines where that partiality starts and ends?". I'm not advocating that anybody be deciding it. Here's my understanding. If a company posts a job and receives 30 applications from women and 70 applications from men, you need to explain the reason for the disparity. Why is there such a difference? I think it's generally accepted that in this case in the software field, the majority of the disparity is due to cultural/social factors. And there are a lot of programs dedicated to outreach, education, raising interest, etc to counteract these societal factors. And I think these are good! The point I was replying to was whether or not some of the difference in application rates could be explained because women, as a distribution of individuals, have a lower percentage that are interested in a particular type of job than men, perhaps due to biological factors. I don't think there are any conclusive studies that have shown this to be a significant effect, but for the sake of argument, I don't think it's unreasonable to consider. Of course, if it's not backed up by the evidence, then I won't continue looking at it. I think one of the many issues with the memo was that it significantly overplayed speculative (and incorrect) biological factors, while ignoring the many social and cultural factors that we know to be the cause of most of the lack of diversity.
- dguaraglia 9y ago
  > I'm not sure what you mean when you say "who defines where that partiality starts and ends?". I'm not advocating that anybody be deciding it. I know, no rational person would. But on the other hand, assuming there is one such ratio and that "we shouldn't do anything to fix the current imbalance because the magic ratio explains it" is a terrible idea. That's what the whole manifesto was about really: let's not fix a problem that doesn't exist, because testosterone.