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He acknowledges that in practice the gender differences are real, but small. Then uses the existence of those small differences to justify fundamentally changi

He acknowledges that in practice the gender differences are real, but small. Then uses the existence of those small differences to justify fundamentally changing their hiring policies. The latter does not follow from the former. Again, as with the global warming debate, it makes a lot more sense to tackle the larger influencers first, before addressing these smaller factors.

rwcarlsen 9y ago
I think his thesis is we shouldn't fix discrimination by actually perpetrating the same thing - just against a different group.
- manicdee 9y ago
  If a see-saw is tipped to one side, you need to apply more weight to the other to balance it out. Nobody is suggesting that you can continue applying weight to the other end forever and still maintain balance, but you can't maintain balance unless you have some to start with. Even achieving a 30/70 split in a male-dominated industry will help defuse some of the rampant masculinity which passes as social interaction (aka primate chest-beating). Having people around who think differently and don't want to conform to the established practices of pissing contests, dick-measuring and chest thumping will help establish better modes of operation and contribute to better decisions being made (no more buying product X because the saleswoman had huge breasts or the salesman displayed dominant primate behaviour).
  - rwcarlsen 9y ago
    I'm not arguing we shouldn't try to get things more balanced. Maybe a better analogy is one side of the see-saw is winning because bullys (gender discrimination) are shoving people off one side. So to fix the problem, we decide to start shoving people off of the other side too. So now it is in balance, but everybody is shoving each other and generally being jerks.
- nodamage 9y ago
  If you have two equally qualified candidates but 90% of the time the male candidate is hired over the female candidate, and then you change your hiring practices to reduce that ratio to 50%, are you now discriminating against the male candidate? What if you literally reduce it to a coinflip?
  - rwcarlsen 9y ago
    That seems like a bit of a straw-man. The problem is that "equally qualified" is poorly defined. We all have biases (conscious and unconscious) - and we should be working to keep them in check and reduce bad discrimination (i.e. not based on "good" things like merit). I don't think anybody is arguing that they wouldn't want 50/50 hiring results given the repeated game of hiring between two hypothetically equally qualified candidates of each gender. But there are many unknowns. The author is saying that there are differences between the distributions of characteristics between genders (even if small). Some are biologically driven, some cultural. Since we don't know where any particular individual fits in their gender's distribution (also knowing the distributions overlap a ton), we shouldn't wholesale give them different treatment based on their membership in that group. Given representative candidates from each group we should expect hiring to be proportional to the difference in means of the distribution(s) of relevant characteristics (to the job) between the groups (genders) of the applicants. Consider a business where 90% of applicants are female and 10% male. If the business chooses to hire 50/50, they are probably getting some sub-par males assuming the distribution of qualifications between male and female for the two sets of applicants are similar (which we don't have much reason to believe they differ much). In this case the females might be annoyed with the "special" treatment given to male hires that perform worse. And male hires might wonder if they got the job because they were well qualified or maybe just because they were male. In my opinion, this kind of "reverse" discrimination perpetuates bitterness and discriminatory thinking on all sides. I don't think of myself as a strongly religious person, but I think Christ had something when he was teaching that an "eye for an eye" was the old way, but the better way to live is to treat others how you want to be treated.
    - nodamage 9y ago
      It is a hypothetical scenario but it illustrates the fundamental difference in perspectives: In scenario (1) otherwise qualified female candidates are overlooked during the hiring process due to systemic biases in the industry. Programs are instituted to reduce these biases. This puts men at a disadvantage (relative to the status quo), but actually merely equalizes the playing field. In scenario (2) there are not enough qualified female candidates. If that is the case, then any program which increases the hiring of female candidates will likely cause the hiring of sub-par candidates, causing all of the issues you describe. I can understand why people would object to (2) but I don't really see a problem with (1). I also don't understand why people assume that these programs actually lead to the hiring of sub-par candidates? I would think that Google's hiring practices would filter out unqualified candidates regardless of gender.

rwcarlsen 9y ago

I think his thesis is we shouldn't fix discrimination by actually perpetrating the same thing - just against a different group.

manicdee 9y ago
If a see-saw is tipped to one side, you need to apply more weight to the other to balance it out. Nobody is suggesting that you can continue applying weight to the other end forever and still maintain balance, but you can't maintain balance unless you have some to start with. Even achieving a 30/70 split in a male-dominated industry will help defuse some of the rampant masculinity which passes as social interaction (aka primate chest-beating). Having people around who think differently and don't want to conform to the established practices of pissing contests, dick-measuring and chest thumping will help establish better modes of operation and contribute to better decisions being made (no more buying product X because the saleswoman had huge breasts or the salesman displayed dominant primate behaviour).
- rwcarlsen 9y ago
  I'm not arguing we shouldn't try to get things more balanced. Maybe a better analogy is one side of the see-saw is winning because bullys (gender discrimination) are shoving people off one side. So to fix the problem, we decide to start shoving people off of the other side too. So now it is in balance, but everybody is shoving each other and generally being jerks.
nodamage 9y ago
If you have two equally qualified candidates but 90% of the time the male candidate is hired over the female candidate, and then you change your hiring practices to reduce that ratio to 50%, are you now discriminating against the male candidate? What if you literally reduce it to a coinflip?
- rwcarlsen 9y ago
  That seems like a bit of a straw-man. The problem is that "equally qualified" is poorly defined. We all have biases (conscious and unconscious) - and we should be working to keep them in check and reduce bad discrimination (i.e. not based on "good" things like merit). I don't think anybody is arguing that they wouldn't want 50/50 hiring results given the repeated game of hiring between two hypothetically equally qualified candidates of each gender. But there are many unknowns. The author is saying that there are differences between the distributions of characteristics between genders (even if small). Some are biologically driven, some cultural. Since we don't know where any particular individual fits in their gender's distribution (also knowing the distributions overlap a ton), we shouldn't wholesale give them different treatment based on their membership in that group. Given representative candidates from each group we should expect hiring to be proportional to the difference in means of the distribution(s) of relevant characteristics (to the job) between the groups (genders) of the applicants. Consider a business where 90% of applicants are female and 10% male. If the business chooses to hire 50/50, they are probably getting some sub-par males assuming the distribution of qualifications between male and female for the two sets of applicants are similar (which we don't have much reason to believe they differ much). In this case the females might be annoyed with the "special" treatment given to male hires that perform worse. And male hires might wonder if they got the job because they were well qualified or maybe just because they were male. In my opinion, this kind of "reverse" discrimination perpetuates bitterness and discriminatory thinking on all sides. I don't think of myself as a strongly religious person, but I think Christ had something when he was teaching that an "eye for an eye" was the old way, but the better way to live is to treat others how you want to be treated.
  - nodamage 9y ago
    It is a hypothetical scenario but it illustrates the fundamental difference in perspectives: In scenario (1) otherwise qualified female candidates are overlooked during the hiring process due to systemic biases in the industry. Programs are instituted to reduce these biases. This puts men at a disadvantage (relative to the status quo), but actually merely equalizes the playing field. In scenario (2) there are not enough qualified female candidates. If that is the case, then any program which increases the hiring of female candidates will likely cause the hiring of sub-par candidates, causing all of the issues you describe. I can understand why people would object to (2) but I don't really see a problem with (1). I also don't understand why people assume that these programs actually lead to the hiring of sub-par candidates? I would think that Google's hiring practices would filter out unqualified candidates regardless of gender.