3 ms·

> Lamar, who worked at Google for four years before quitting in 2017, alleged that the technology company employed roughly 147 women and three men as pre-school

> Lamar, who worked at Google for four years before quitting in 2017, alleged that the technology company employed roughly 147 women and three men as pre-school teachers Sounds like affirmative action is drastically needed. Hire some men to increase diversity in the workforce. It's especially important to ensure men are equally represented in the more senior roles at level 2 and above...right?

danso 9y ago
Why do you think affirmative action is needed?
- legostormtroopr 9y ago
  Because only 2% of their teachers are male. Thats a massive gender inequality. Speaking seriously, if you want to normalise women in roles where they aren't you need to normalise men in roles were they aren't either. If more men go in to teaching, there are more roles for women to take up, or speaking in the inverse - if you exclude men from roles (such as teaching) they need to find jobs elsewhere, and thats usually in positions where men are the majority.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Because only 2% of their teachers are male. To be fair, they are at almost exactly the national pre-K average there. > Speaking seriously, if you want to normalise women in roles where they aren't you need to normalise men in roles were they aren't either. OTOH, given finite demand in each field, getting more women into high-paying professions that currently are disproportionately male should naturally result in more men in low-paying professions that are currently disproportionately female as a natural consequence.
    - imustbeevil 9y ago
      > To be fair, they are at almost exactly the national pre-K average there. And Google's representation of women in software engineering roles is also around the industry average. To your second point, it's not either or. You can both better incentivize women in tech and men in teaching.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > And Google's representation of women in software engineering roles is also around the industry average. Sure. And both scenarios need industry-wide efforts to increase gender equality. But Google is basically an irrelevant factor in the pre-K teaching industry, and a giant one in the software industry. > To your second point, it's not either or. Societally, sure. In the case of particular firms, their ability to impact different fields with the same expenditure of resources is highly dependent on their position in the various fields.
        kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
        We can talk after the pre-K teaching industry gets non-stop trenchant criticism of the kind that gets levied on the tech industry (not merely suggestive articles) about their massive gender disparity.
        danso 9y ago
        In the U.S., the executives and managing administrators of school districts skew heavily male, no matter the skew toward females for teachers and curriculum tracts: http://aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=14492 http://aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=14492 Is it the case in Silicon Valley that many of the executives are women?
        kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
        Not sure how this is relevant. No one is doubting that executives at all levels and in all industries skew male.
        danso 9y ago
        You’re not sure how relevant it is that men are still in control even in a field where they are vastly outnumbered in the rank and file?
nooron 9y ago
Don't know if you're being sarcastic. Advocating for more diverse teachers doesn't seem insane to me. I am male and think that my school experience was bettered by having a larger than normal number of male teachers. We should probably pay teachers more to encourage more high performers of both genders. I suspect paying better would attract more men as well.
- grandmczeb 9y ago
  > Advocating for more diverse teachers doesn't seem insane to me. Agreed. I am male as well and while my school did not have many male teachers, I definitely benefited from the few male teachers that did exist. > We should probably pay teachers more to encourage more high performers of both genders. I suspect paying better would attract more men as well. At the (public) schools I went to, teacher pay was solely determined by credentials and seniority. Anecdotally, men seem to be more attracted to positions where compensation is determined through performance and risk. If that's true, perhaps changing teacher pay to be more reflective of performance would increase the number of men.
  - sudosteph 9y ago
    I actually don't think it's a performance thing. If we're going with anecdotes here, the few people I know who went into teaching (3 women, 1 man): 1.) Did it because they found the work extremely meaningful 2.) Were already used to living in poverty and accepted that it would continue as a professional. 3.) Knew that any future family/kids would be dependent on having a spouse that earned more than them. I've talked to some men who considered that path, but a few told me they wouldn't pursue it because they'll need to be the breadwinner if they want a family some day, and they can't do that comfortably (without a second job) on a teacher's paycheck. Sorta makes sense though, the men who are most talented and interested in working with children are also most likely to want children of their own. And unfortunately societal pressures do still tell men that they are responsible for providing economically, and that doing so is critical to being attractive as a partner. Hopefully that will change going forward. I know far more partnerships where a woman makes more money among my peer group than my parents know among theirs.
sudosteph 9y ago
Or ... it's a pipeline problem. Exactly like it is for women in tech.
- dizzystar 9y ago
  If your child gives her teacher a hug... If the teacher is a woman, ah shucks how cute. If the teacher is a man, he's a perv. No sane male would take a teaching job in today's climate.
  - sudosteph 9y ago
    You've just described a socially-caused pipeline problem. A pipeline problem caused by unfair assumptions about someone's suitability for a career based on their sex. Weird, that feels so familiar...
    - scaryspooky 9y ago
      Can you describe common pipeline problems that deter women from entering tech? I'd like to be part of the solution if possible, but I don't know the cause(s).
      - T2_t2 9y ago
        One is a general admission of gender preferences and their consequences. The pipeline issue is caused, in every industry and not just tech, by either a mismatch of people's preferences and the working conditions of a job, or by the way the working conditions of a job are structured. As an example of a change over time that flips gender indifferences, men dominated Veterinarian roles while it was about livestock and birthing cows, but women now dominate (80%+) when it has become much more about cute little suburban pugs and kittens. Damore's memo - which I'm gonna assume everyone knows - made the generally accepted statement that women prefer people over things AND he offered a (rarely discussed) solution: a larger emphasis on peer programming. I think that sounds, in theory, like a very reasonable approach to the pipleline problem. If the standard mental model for programming changed from the Richard Hendrix sitting all alone in a dark, locked room belting out the code for Pied Piper "middle out" encryption in techo blaring headphones, to peer coding with human interaction at its core, that would be far more attractive to those with a people vs things preference.
shaki-dora 9y ago
Yes, indeed. You're being sarcastic, enjoying how you've supposedly caught all those SJWs in hypocrisy. Yet Google news finds more than 600 articles with titles such as: - Male teacher drought may hurt boys - How do we recruit boys into female-dominated professions? - Our schools are failing boys, which is bad news for Britain - Most schools would love to have more male teachers to serve as role models for boys, but not many volunteer. (first line of article, not headline) etc... https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&biw=1324&bih=1190&tbm=nws&q=%22more+male+teachers%22&oq=%22more+male+teachers%22 https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&biw=1324&bih=1190&tbm=n... The higher salaries for the male teachers this very article is about may actually be a sign for Google's attempts to improve the gender ratio.
- ravenstine 9y ago
  Respectfully, do you really believe that? I find that doubtful. Google has zero to gain from doing so.
  - shaki-dora 9y ago
    > Respectfully, do you really believe that? I have no knowledge of how these salaries are set. It's possible they're decided individually, because these jobs are rather different than most others at Google. In that case, I could imagine the people in charge of the daycare facilities trying to attract more men and (possibly without much active thought) making higher offers to them.
- Anderkent 9y ago
  The difference is in how the issue is phrased. You usually see people argue that the tech imbalance is in men/nerds/whoever discriminating against women and pushing them out. You usually see the school teaching problem phrased as "men don't want to work as teachers". Those two phrasings call for completely different action.
  - shaki-dora 9y ago
    > You usually see people argue that the tech imbalance is in men/nerds/whoever discriminating against women Now we're moving the goalpost. But anyway, I doubt your impression. ["women in it" discrimination] get 1.2 million hits on google, while ["women in it" culture] gets 37.5 million hits. Note that "changing culture" means nothing else but "making the job more attractive for women", or "women don't want to work in IT". Here's the first headline I get on Google News for ["women in IT"]: "Why We Should Encourage More Women to Work in IT" That's awfully close to the "How do we recruit boys[..]" I cited above.

danso 9y ago

Why do you think affirmative action is needed?

legostormtroopr 9y ago
Because only 2% of their teachers are male. Thats a massive gender inequality. Speaking seriously, if you want to normalise women in roles where they aren't you need to normalise men in roles were they aren't either. If more men go in to teaching, there are more roles for women to take up, or speaking in the inverse - if you exclude men from roles (such as teaching) they need to find jobs elsewhere, and thats usually in positions where men are the majority.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Because only 2% of their teachers are male. To be fair, they are at almost exactly the national pre-K average there. > Speaking seriously, if you want to normalise women in roles where they aren't you need to normalise men in roles were they aren't either. OTOH, given finite demand in each field, getting more women into high-paying professions that currently are disproportionately male should naturally result in more men in low-paying professions that are currently disproportionately female as a natural consequence.
  - imustbeevil 9y ago
    > To be fair, they are at almost exactly the national pre-K average there. And Google's representation of women in software engineering roles is also around the industry average. To your second point, it's not either or. You can both better incentivize women in tech and men in teaching.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > And Google's representation of women in software engineering roles is also around the industry average. Sure. And both scenarios need industry-wide efforts to increase gender equality. But Google is basically an irrelevant factor in the pre-K teaching industry, and a giant one in the software industry. > To your second point, it's not either or. Societally, sure. In the case of particular firms, their ability to impact different fields with the same expenditure of resources is highly dependent on their position in the various fields.
      - kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
        We can talk after the pre-K teaching industry gets non-stop trenchant criticism of the kind that gets levied on the tech industry (not merely suggestive articles) about their massive gender disparity.
        danso 9y ago
        In the U.S., the executives and managing administrators of school districts skew heavily male, no matter the skew toward females for teachers and curriculum tracts: http://aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=14492 http://aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=14492 Is it the case in Silicon Valley that many of the executives are women?
        kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
        Not sure how this is relevant. No one is doubting that executives at all levels and in all industries skew male.
        danso 9y ago
        You’re not sure how relevant it is that men are still in control even in a field where they are vastly outnumbered in the rank and file?

nooron 9y ago

Don't know if you're being sarcastic. Advocating for more diverse teachers doesn't seem insane to me. I am male and think that my school experience was bettered by having a larger than normal number of male teachers. We should probably pay teachers more to encourage more high performers of both genders. I suspect paying better would attract more men as well.

grandmczeb 9y ago
> Advocating for more diverse teachers doesn't seem insane to me. Agreed. I am male as well and while my school did not have many male teachers, I definitely benefited from the few male teachers that did exist. > We should probably pay teachers more to encourage more high performers of both genders. I suspect paying better would attract more men as well. At the (public) schools I went to, teacher pay was solely determined by credentials and seniority. Anecdotally, men seem to be more attracted to positions where compensation is determined through performance and risk. If that's true, perhaps changing teacher pay to be more reflective of performance would increase the number of men.
- sudosteph 9y ago
  I actually don't think it's a performance thing. If we're going with anecdotes here, the few people I know who went into teaching (3 women, 1 man): 1.) Did it because they found the work extremely meaningful 2.) Were already used to living in poverty and accepted that it would continue as a professional. 3.) Knew that any future family/kids would be dependent on having a spouse that earned more than them. I've talked to some men who considered that path, but a few told me they wouldn't pursue it because they'll need to be the breadwinner if they want a family some day, and they can't do that comfortably (without a second job) on a teacher's paycheck. Sorta makes sense though, the men who are most talented and interested in working with children are also most likely to want children of their own. And unfortunately societal pressures do still tell men that they are responsible for providing economically, and that doing so is critical to being attractive as a partner. Hopefully that will change going forward. I know far more partnerships where a woman makes more money among my peer group than my parents know among theirs.

sudosteph 9y ago

Or ... it's a pipeline problem. Exactly like it is for women in tech.

dizzystar 9y ago
If your child gives her teacher a hug... If the teacher is a woman, ah shucks how cute. If the teacher is a man, he's a perv. No sane male would take a teaching job in today's climate.
- sudosteph 9y ago
  You've just described a socially-caused pipeline problem. A pipeline problem caused by unfair assumptions about someone's suitability for a career based on their sex. Weird, that feels so familiar...
  - scaryspooky 9y ago
    Can you describe common pipeline problems that deter women from entering tech? I'd like to be part of the solution if possible, but I don't know the cause(s).
    - T2_t2 9y ago
      One is a general admission of gender preferences and their consequences. The pipeline issue is caused, in every industry and not just tech, by either a mismatch of people's preferences and the working conditions of a job, or by the way the working conditions of a job are structured. As an example of a change over time that flips gender indifferences, men dominated Veterinarian roles while it was about livestock and birthing cows, but women now dominate (80%+) when it has become much more about cute little suburban pugs and kittens. Damore's memo - which I'm gonna assume everyone knows - made the generally accepted statement that women prefer people over things AND he offered a (rarely discussed) solution: a larger emphasis on peer programming. I think that sounds, in theory, like a very reasonable approach to the pipleline problem. If the standard mental model for programming changed from the Richard Hendrix sitting all alone in a dark, locked room belting out the code for Pied Piper "middle out" encryption in techo blaring headphones, to peer coding with human interaction at its core, that would be far more attractive to those with a people vs things preference.

shaki-dora 9y ago

Yes, indeed. You're being sarcastic, enjoying how you've supposedly caught all those SJWs in hypocrisy. Yet Google news finds more than 600 articles with titles such as: - Male teacher drought may hurt boys - How do we recruit boys into female-dominated professions? - Our schools are failing boys, which is bad news for Britain - Most schools would love to have more male teachers to serve as role models for boys, but not many volunteer. (first line of article, not headline) etc... https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&biw=1324&bih=1190&tbm=nws&q=%22more+male+teachers%22&oq=%22more+male+teachers%22 https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&biw=1324&bih=1190&tbm=n... The higher salaries for the male teachers this very article is about may actually be a sign for Google's attempts to improve the gender ratio.

ravenstine 9y ago
Respectfully, do you really believe that? I find that doubtful. Google has zero to gain from doing so.
- shaki-dora 9y ago
  > Respectfully, do you really believe that? I have no knowledge of how these salaries are set. It's possible they're decided individually, because these jobs are rather different than most others at Google. In that case, I could imagine the people in charge of the daycare facilities trying to attract more men and (possibly without much active thought) making higher offers to them.
Anderkent 9y ago
The difference is in how the issue is phrased. You usually see people argue that the tech imbalance is in men/nerds/whoever discriminating against women and pushing them out. You usually see the school teaching problem phrased as "men don't want to work as teachers". Those two phrasings call for completely different action.
- shaki-dora 9y ago
  > You usually see people argue that the tech imbalance is in men/nerds/whoever discriminating against women Now we're moving the goalpost. But anyway, I doubt your impression. ["women in it" discrimination] get 1.2 million hits on google, while ["women in it" culture] gets 37.5 million hits. Note that "changing culture" means nothing else but "making the job more attractive for women", or "women don't want to work in IT". Here's the first headline I get on Google News for ["women in IT"]: "Why We Should Encourage More Women to Work in IT" That's awfully close to the "How do we recruit boys[..]" I cited above.