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Honestly, this whole thing is just ugly. I read what he wrote. It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth. Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mix

Honestly, this whole thing is just ugly. I read what he wrote. It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth. Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. I definitely see people hired just because of their minority status. I also see people hired who are minorities but also great at their job. It's not a binary pattern. But those who are hired just because they are a POC or female, yet are terrible at their job stand out. People notice it, but few say it. Our company recently hired a black woman as a "Software Engineer" who can't write a SQL statement. She has a "taken some tutorials" level of programming skill as far as I have noticed and produces things very, very slow. People notice this, and it makes them angry. I'm sure the other engineers talk about this even more when I'm not in the room. Our boss is proud of how much he is "making the team diverse" yet it's only going to cause problems for the team. I like to think I was hired based on my skillset, not to improve the numbers. I've worked hard to get here. People likely forget or don't care how "diverse" I am when I am working because I produce. And I fully support bringing in diverse candidates, it's essential to get those viewpoints, so long as they are a qualified candidate to start with. I do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women. Almost all of the women from my social circle are smart, pragmatic, driven and successful yet have zero interest in a technical career. They excel in their given industries but ours they want no part of. I don't believe intelligence is more prevalent in either gender, but I do believe there are some traits that shape who we are. That's something that's rarely addressed, for fear of being ostracized. As far as his "conservative white male" discrimination claims, I've seen that too. My boss specifically requested candidates that are not middle-aged white males. But it's nowhere near the same level of discrimination that people of color or women have endured for decades. Perhaps the reason people don't feel sorry for conservative white males is that if they are rejected by one company they can keep trying and will find an "old school" company that will hire them. We have not had that luxury, for blacks and women it was 100 nos for every 1 yes. It's not that way for white guys, sorry.

pm90 9y ago
> Almost all of the women from my social circle are smart, pragmatic, driven and successful yet have zero interest in a technical career. They excel in their given industries but ours they want no part of. I don't believe intelligence is more prevalent in either gender, but I do believe there are some traits that shape who we are. That's most definitely a cultural thing, and I believe its what diversity programs try to address. > As far as his "conservative white male" discrimination claims, I've seen that too. My boss specifically requested candidates that are not middle-aged white males. But it's nowhere near the same level of discrimination that people of color or women have endured for decades. Perhaps the reason people don't feel sorry for conservative white males is that if they are rejected by one company they can keep trying and will find an "old school" company that will hire them. We have not had that luxury, for blacks and women it was 100 nos for every 1 yes. It's not that way for white guys, sorry. I get that, but I think your boss was still wrong to think and phrase of it that way. No one should be disqualified simply because of their race or age. Give more points to minorities? Yes definitely. But reducing points because you're of a certain race and age just sounds icky, and is probably illegal.
- bmelton 9y ago
  If the points are fungible (and they absolutely are) then what is the difference between giving extra points to <people not like x> and giving fewer points to <people like x>. How are they not functionally identical?
  - 55555 9y ago
    This isn't quite the same thing, but i've always found it annoying how it's generally okay to say, for example, that Chinese people are good at math but it's not okay to say that any other group is bad at math, even though the former claim is a relative claim that is presumably understood to be comparative to other groups of people, who are (on average) worse at math.
    - pm90 9y ago
      Why is it annoying? If I'm addressing a team of 5 people, I would much rather say that person A is amazing at math than tell 4 others that they suck at math. Social skills are a thing, even if they're logically equivalent statements.
    - johnny22 9y ago
      lots of folks are against that. Positive discrimination is a thing.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >That's most definitely a cultural thing, and I believe its what diversity programs try to address. If it's a cultural thing, why is one version (attitude/culture) towards it considered better than the other (and thus one has to be "addressed")?
- Veen 9y ago
  > That's most definitely a cultural thing If it is a cultural thing, then surely the correct response is not to mandate gender balance in corporate hiring practices, but to alter the education and socialization of girls. Whether it is cultural or biological, the results are the same: fewer women have the interest to excel in specific fields. App Camp for Girls might be a better approach than diversity hiring.
mistermann 9y ago
I watch a fair amount of Microsoft technical videos, and just off the top of my head I can think of 3 people who are very likely to be diversity hires. Although at the same time and despite being pretty far right on the political spectrum, I think there is some truth to the idea that big companies "should" hire visible minorities over and above those that are fully qualified, but it shouldn't be done at the expense of legitimately qualified people, or that it causes significant harm to product quality.
- dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
  I don't think minorities should be hired to be "visible", that doesn't sit right with me. Hiring minorities and even people from different economic backgrounds, country of origin etc is good for getting different perspectives and different ways of approaching problems. The hard truth is if you only hire white guys from Stanford you've got a ton of overlap in their background and the way they think. If you only hire black women from Somalia it's the same. You're going to have significant similarities. Making teams more diverse is extremely important and beneficial as long as all are otherwise qualified.
  - lawnchair_larry 9y ago
    There is nothing but debunked studies to back up your last statement as a generally applicable one. Obviously, it depends on the job. Designers, sure, it's very eqsy to think of examples where diverse backgrounds improve business outcomes. But let's not pretend that there is any difference in business outcomes if Foxconn's assembly lines snapping iPhone parts together are entirely Chinese hands vs if they were to equally represent all members of the united nations. Asserting that there is a benefit needs to be seriously qualified, as it can certainly be everything ranging from a benefit, to negligible, to an actual handicap.
superquest 9y ago
After your first two paragraphs, you mostly allude to the truths contained in Damore's document. Could you elaborate a little more about its "ugliness"?
praestigiare 9y ago
You claim that there is a pattern of bad diversity hires, but your anecdotes are just as easily explained by confirmation bias: You see an incompetent male engineer, and you write him off as an idiot and forget him. You see an incompetent woman, and she becomes evidence that there is a problem with diversity programs. You remember evidence that supports your narrative. Obviously my statement is not evidence either. I only wanted to point it out because this is so often overlooked when it comes to these issues. This is an arena where our cognitive biases are especially pernicious, and any discussion needs to address them.
- ng12 9y ago
  > you write him off as an idiot and forget him Not really. I have a lot of faith in our engineering staff so I wonder how he got hired and how he avoids getting fired. The uncomfortable truth is that if he was an employee that "looked good" I would know the answer to those questions.
  - praestigiare 9y ago
    As I said before, my response is not data, I know that. But what you just wrote is exactly how confirmation bias works: If he fit your narrative, he would confirm your narrative. That is why these discussions need to be about data, and not "what everyone sees and no one talks about."
    - ng12 9y ago
      My point is more that the anecdotal stuff matters -- by being ham-fisted in your attempts to address diversity you reduce inclusiveness.
  - richmarr 9y ago
    Your faith in your engineering staff is beside the point. Bias is human nature. Unless you're actively structuring your processes to exclude or minimise it then you're certainly suffering from it, the only question is how. It's not specifically gender or racial bias either. We ran a study of 700 candidates for a role, running regular hiring against blind assessment and found that the major difference for that role in that organisation was socio-economic... they'd been excluding great candidates who went to less prestigious universities.
Idontknowmyuser 9y ago
I hate the fact that you need to state "you're a mixed race woman in tech.". I'm not blaming you, I'm blaming the outrage culture instilled in big part by a bigoted academic clique.
- deleted 9y ago
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- nautilus12 9y ago
  Stating this fact is the only way this comment could possibly be noticed. I wouldnt be surprised if lieing to this extent is the only way that these anecdotes could ever see the light of day. Though it doesnt change the validity of the points made
  - dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
    I've been accused of lying about it before to get attention. Realistically I only state it as a precaution because lately some of the things I've posted on other venues get an immediate comment calling me a Nazi and I want to avoid all the explanation and just get to discussing the issues. I would prefer it if all of us could leave gender/race/religion at the door and talk but that's now the how the internet works now.
- hinkley 9y ago
  In any discussion of a social problem there are apologists. There are only so many ways to signal that you’re not a shill. It’s not a great solution, but we don’t have better. I agree on the data thing. I think when you get down to the bottom of things, lumping people under a label and treating them as a cohesive unit is part of the problem. If that’s true, getting permission from a small cohort of that group is still bad, because you’re assuming if these three people are okay with it then it’s okay. It’s that incident with Chevy Chase and the n-word that started this line of thought for me. I don’t care if Richard Pryor said it was okay. He is one voice. Don’t act surprised if other people don’t agree. Being surprised means you’ve already decided all black people are the same and a sample size of one means you’re okay to do something.
deleted 9y ago
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manigandham 9y ago
Diversity based on outward appearance is one of the most convoluted and ridiculous movements ever. We cannot spend decades trying to show that appearance is absolutely meaningless to talent, skills, and motivation, and then regress right back to it to show off "diversity". Also nobody ever seems to ask: diversity of what exactly? What's the target? Life experience? There is no qualitative score for that, nor is any single person's life more or less interesting and influential than anyone else. The only thing we can objectively and accurately measure is merit, motivation, and results, and we should use those metrics alone for hiring and advancement, in addition to fighting subjective bias (like removing names and photos from resumes) and making sure there's equivalent opportunity for anyone to try. After that, it would be best if just let people do what they want to do and move on.
- ng12 9y ago
  > diversity of what exactly is the target? Life experience? Clearly not when every company recruits from the same 10 schools.
  - manigandham 9y ago
    Surely you can agree that every student is an individual and just because they go to the same college does not mean they all have the same background?
    - ng12 9y ago
      No, but I would argue it makes them less diverse than their physical traits. Especially considering that college is a formative time for most people.
      - manigandham 9y ago
        If it's not about physical traits (which is good) then why does it matter? You realize every company does in fact discriminate for talent? (which is also fine). We all want smartest, more capable and most reliable people, not a mix of smart and average and dumb just to "represent". Picking the top schools aligns for that, as long as your competitive enough to hire them.
omegaworks 9y ago
> I do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women. The history of women in tech completely contradicts your belief. The lack of representation is a real problem, we can debate how to fix it, but to claim it doesn't exist is baseless and harmful. https://hackernoon.com/a-brief-history-of-women-in-computing-e7253ac24306 https://hackernoon.com/a-brief-history-of-women-in-computing...
- lurr 9y ago
  It doesn't. At all. The issue is that it doesn't matter. Women might be less interested in tech, as in if you took 100 men and 100 women and measured their interest the men might be higher. That doesn't mean no women are interested in tech, or that those who are interested are less competent. I do think the idea of "less interested" is shallow and ignores every other explanation. For example, women are a majority in health care but a minority of doctors. Why?
  - omegaworks 9y ago
    >The issue is that it doesn't matter. It does matter. As technology becomes more deeply embedded into our society the assumptions made by the people that designed that technology get amplified and hardened. Have you not heard the story about the soap-dispenser that wouldn't recognize black skin? It's a minor annoyance now, but it won't be when the technology is responsible for more critical stuff. https://mic.com/articles/124899/the-reason-this-racist-soap-dispenser-doesn-t-work-on-black-skin#.lXeni5f8X https://mic.com/articles/124899/the-reason-this-racist-soap-... >For example, women are a majority in health care but a minority of doctors. Why? Becoming a doctor requires an immense amount of capital and free time. There are structural barriers that prevent women from accessing this capital and free time as easily as men can.
    - lurr 9y ago
      > There are structural barriers that prevent women... There is also a long history of "men are doctors, women are nurses".
psyc 9y ago
I think a reasonable person can find snippets of what he wrote distasteful. But it’s more like uncomfortable. I agree there is truth in it. It’s very obvious to me that the negative reaction was greatly amplified by the ever-outraged and ever-posturing social (media) justice contingent.
bertil 9y ago
Stupid question, just to get a sense of the context of your testimony: are you working for Google or a similarly prestigious organisation? I can certainly expect “a "Software Engineer" who can't write a SQL statement” in some of the company I worked for a decade ago but I’d be confused to see those at Google. I saw one at Facebook (middle-aged white male) but he left the company after ten days and anyone’s reaction was a really confused: “How did he…?”
- dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
  No, I don't want to name my company for obvious reasons but it's not Google or Facebook, not in the same league. It's an organization with around 400 engineers in it total, so not a small shop, but not a giant household name either.
- flukus 9y ago
  Wouldn't it be more expected at google? I didn't think they had a lot of traditional databases, so it's not a relevant skill for them. They've also got a fair few low level guys working in c and the like that I wouldn't expect to know much about sql.
  - dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
    yes, but we use SQL in our job daily, if only for validation, but also we write a lot of scripts for reporting, migration etc. It's pretty crucial for the job and we've turned away several candidates for not being strong enough in SQL/TSQL
d1zzy 9y ago
There can be positives of hiring to increase diversity which aren't related strictly to their performance in the role they occupy. Two such arguments for this kind of policies: - by giving them jobs which they wouldn't otherwise have the skills to fill you are trying to break the "cycle" (more on that below) - having different viewpoints in a team can be beneficial beyond the skill set those people should bring according to their role (ex. for developing apps that don't just cater to the hipster young) Another thing to consider is that the way you measure performance may be biased, resulted from decades of privileged groups having the leadership role in that domain/area and having developed it in certain ways that caters to their skill set. For the "breaking the cycle" part, I mean that systematic discrimination results in people of certain origins simply not having the opportunity/chance to have developed the skills to be competitive with the privileged classes. And no, you can't just fix this by giving them a "chance to learn", some of the negative impacts on these groups of people are permanent and happen in early life. Obviously trying to handle this problem in the workplace is just a "hack", it's too late already but it does have the benefit that now those people get included in a social environment that they would normally be cut out from, get payed more than they would otherwise and, hopefully, this will trickle down to their children and grandchildren so in a few generations of doing this we don't actually need to be doing it anymore. I'm not saying that all of this means I'm convinced affirmative action is doing more good than bad, just that I see it has possible benefits.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  have the benefit that now those people get included in a social environment that they would normally be cut out from, get payed more than they would otherwise and, hopefully, this will trickle down to their children and grandchildren Irish immigrants started out from a culture, where the typical peasant was 1/2 to 1/4th as wealthy as the median pre-Civil War American Slave. There was a period of time when ethnic Irish political machines helped to place the party faithful into cozy government jobs. This was beneficial, up to a point. However, there is a point where such subgroup politics becomes so corrupt, the leaders of that group keep their people in deliberate isolation to maintain their power. The IQs of many ethnic immigrant groups to the US can be shown to have increased after several generations. The Polish and Italian immigrant groups' IQs increased from 85 to over 100 over the 1st half of the 20th century. There seems to have been a reversal of such trends for African American communities starting in the 60's. There are also studies of the African American children of US armed forces personnel in Germany. Their IQs are the same as other children growing up in Germany. My conclusion is that the leadership of the African American community and the influence of the US political Left, by glorifying a toxic subset of their ethnic culture, is holding the group back, in cultural isolation, in such a way as to harm the prospects of their children as strongly as lead in the water of Flint Michigan.
swiley 9y ago
>Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. No offence but I think it's kind of harmful to everyone when you make arguments based on your race and gender.
- Veelox 9y ago
  The issue is that if that statement had not been included than OP would have been accused of being privileged and thus disqualified from having an opinion.
  - dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
    Exactly, I'm not using it to bolster my statement, rather to prevent being called a Nazi
SyncSystems 9y ago
> As far as his "conservative white male" discrimination claims, I've seen that too. My boss specifically requested candidates that are not middle-aged white males. But it's nowhere near the same level of discrimination that people of color or women have endured for decades. Perhaps the reason people don't feel sorry for conservative white males is that if they are rejected by one company they can keep trying and will find an "old school" company that will hire them. We have not had that luxury, for blacks and women it was 100 nos for every 1 yes. It's not that way for white guys, sorry. But why does that make it okay? I absolutely believe that you're right in that there has been worse discrimination over the decades and that maybe old white men can find jobs elsewhere, but that doesn't make discrimination okay. It's not okay when those "old school companies" discriminate against any minorities and it's not okay when some discriminate against old white men.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  I don't think OP said that it made it OK. (It doesn't). I think OP was saying that people like her had to fight through worse - not to say it doesn't matter, but to place it in perspective and context. Say 100% discrimination is the KKK lynching people. Say 50% discrimination is redlining and refusal to hire. Then what are white males facing? Maybe 10%? Yes, it matters. And also yes, it's not in the same league as what other groups have had to face.
tabeth 9y ago
> I definitely see people hired just because of their minority status. How do you know that they were hired just because of their minority status?
- folknor 9y ago
  Because there are explicit examples of this with supporting evidence given in the lawsuit.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    No, there aren't. There are alleged examples and supposed evidence of lots of things in the lawsuit, but that isn't one of them.
    - folknor 9y ago
      Yes, in paragraphs 174 to 198, but specifically 179 to 181.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        Nothing in 174-198 is supported by evidence in the filing (this isn't unusual at this stage, since that's not generally required in an initial filing, but your claim was of evidence), except 188, which is part of an allegation of adverse politically-motivated job treatment, not hiring based on race/gender. So, no, there are no examples with evidence of people hired just for minority status in the lawsuit filing.
        folknor 9y ago
        Yes there is, there's an email embedded in the paragraphs I outlined. You might think that's not direct evidence, but it's evidence that supports the story in the paragraphs I outlined. It says explicitly in paragraph 179: "Upon information and belief, the Google employee was not selected due to the fact that the hiring managers were looking solely for “diverse” individuals, and as a Caucasian male, the Google employee did not help fill their mandatory (and illegal) quotas." And then "the Google employee’s former director initiated a “Diversity Team Kickoff” with the intent to freeze headcount so that teams could find diversity candidates to help fill the empty roles. Google was specifically looking for women and non-Caucasian individuals to fill these roles." I think _you_ think that _I_ think this is damning proof and that the case is settled, and I've never claimed that. I just said that there are examples of people being hired because of their diversity status, with supporting evidence. I'm not saying the evidence is true, or that it's directly related, but it _is_ "supporting evidence".
stcredzero 9y ago
I read what he wrote. It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth. Many of the media interpretations of what James Damore wrote were very biased, and effectively amounted to hit pieces. His use of terms like "Trait Neuroticism" were direct uses of psychological terms which just sound bad as everyday English. Evolutionary Biology also tends to have a "dismal" feeling to it, like Economics can. One can't take fields like Evolutionary Biology and Economics as morally prescriptive. In that direction lies madness, clearly. However, to then take a knee-jerk ideological stance towards science and declare that everyone must be equal inside is just the West's version of Lysenkoism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism As is usually the case, reality is complex, requires a nuanced understanding, and might sound depressing if you give it a pessimistic read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw
- FabHK 9y ago
  +1. Most of the pieces about the memo didn't take time to highlight that "neuroticism" and "agreeableness" refer to Big-5 personality traits, not the everyday understanding of the words. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits Most of the pieces didn't distinguish between descriptive and normative statements. Most of the pieces didn't distinguish between statements about distribution of something within a population, and statements about all members of that population.
  - bduerst 9y ago
    Except the Big Five has been debunked as being too lexical for biological differentiation. Basically its lexical nature introduces perceptual bias that skews any factor analysis for biological structures - i.e. behavior between genders, for example. The way Damore uses it to support his hypothesis wasn't correct. >And that is what the Big Five represents: a consistent model of how humans reflect individuality using language, no more. There were no considerations of findings in neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, experimental psychology, observations of behavior of people or animals in real situations – none of this was used at the research stage leading to the development of the Big Five. In this sense we can say that the Big Five does not represent the structure of temperament or the structure of biologically based traits, even though lexical perception reflects some elements of it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/
deleted 9y ago
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dionian 9y ago
EDIT: Deleted this comment as it was downvoted for not agreeing with the hivemind.
- dang 9y ago
  If you're going to delete your comment, delete it, but what you left here violates the HN guidelines. Please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
tziki 9y ago
> Perhaps the reason people don't feel sorry for conservative white males is that if they are rejected by one company they can keep trying and will find an "old school" company that will hire them. We have not had that luxury, for blacks and women it was 100 nos for every 1 yes. It's not that way for white guys, sorry. More recent studies don't show any bias against women in callback rates. In fact, some show slight bias for women (and if you're willing to look at non peer reviewed sources, more than a slight: https://talent.works/blog/2018/01/08/the-science-of-the-job-search-part-i-13-data-backed-ways-to-win/ https://talent.works/blog/2018/01/08/the-science-of-the-job-...)
- Idontknowmyuser 9y ago
  another study supports this claim: "The trial found assigning a male name to a candidate made them 3.2 per cent less likely to get a job interview." "Adding a woman's name to a CV made the candidate 2.9 per cent more likely to get a foot in the door." source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-trial-to-improve-gender-equality-failing-study/8664888 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    “We built our castle 300 miles away from where they live, but if any of them make it here we are 3% more likely to let them in the door. The men live in a village 1000 yards away, but we’re 3% less likely to let one in, so it’s fair.”
    - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
      Or, to look at it this way: We cut our cake up to 10 pieces. You keep eight of them and I keep two of them. You eat one piece and I eat two pieces. And then I'm the glutton because I ate more pieces than you did and you can't argue with the numbers.
    - Idontknowmyuser 9y ago
      do you have any proof of this claims? and if they were true how and in what you way would this matter if we were to compare one individual to one individual instead of treating people like herds.
seemuch 9y ago
> Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. Why would it matter that you are "a mixed race woman in tech"? Your comment should be judged only by its content, not by its author's race or gender, right?
- dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
  Of course, that's how it used to be, but posting this without my profile picture next to it would bring out accusations of being sexist/nazi etc if I didn't clarify.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    I’ll violate my usual practice of not commenting explaining the reason for downvotes, to say this: Preemptive comments of this type, which reflect the posters hostile prejudgement of the likely responses, are IMO, contrary to the letter and spirit of the HN guidelines including the rule of presumption of good faith, frequently (as in this case) involve preemptive violations of the guideline against commenting on downvotes, and contribute to a hostile atmosphere rather than productive debate. If you are going to post something, with or without a disclaimer about your own background, do so without commenting about how you expect people to react in comments or votes. If there are responses you take issue with, take issue with them when they exist.
- wan23 9y ago
  That would be true for the content of a comment about whether .NET is dead or not. But then for that type of comment, you might judge it differently if the author is a user of Microsoft dev tools vs if she primarily works with open source tools.
omikun 9y ago
> I do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women. I don't think anyone believes in the opposite, that biological difference in gender plays exactly zero part in lack of interest in tech from women. The memo was suggesting this could play a part, but not whether if biological differences are significant or even meaningful. To the best of my knowledge, we can't disentangle biological from cultural biases across gender. Hunting down biological reasons isn't productive and threatens gender equality initiatives, hence the massive backlash. Should we question the ideals of gender equality in the workplace? That's probably the discussion the memo wanted to inspire, but it only led to out cries of "sheeple better wake up" and "hell no."
s73ver_ 9y ago
"It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth." That's just it; it really did not. It contained a lot of things that people who aren't members of those groups he targeted think are plausible. "I do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women. " And what, specifically, would those differences be?
- stcredzero 9y ago
  And what, specifically, would those differences be? The balance of the evidence, is that there are some biological differences in preferences. Both biological and cultural factors are at play. As groups, women and men are about the same in terms of average IQ, however, men tend to have a higher population of the extreme outliers. (Both extremely smart men and extremely stupid men.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0153857 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTWSoM1_6KM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTWSoM1_6KM
  - andrewprock 9y ago
    Is there any evidence that this is biological, as opposed to cultural?
    - stcredzero 9y ago
      In short, yes. You should look up the book which is cited in this video, and you should listen to the discussion of the prologue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw Since the human brain and its interaction with culture is very complicated, more research is needed. But a fair reading of what we have so far would seem to indicate: it's both. Beware of ideological just-so stories that make you feel good. Also, if it sounds messy and complicated, it sounds like actual biology and psychology.
      - 9y ago
0xWilliam 9y ago
>As far as his "conservative white male" discrimination claims, I've seen that too. My boss specifically requested candidates that are not middle-aged white males. But it's nowhere near the same level of discrimination that people of color or women have endured for decades. Perhaps the reason people don't feel sorry for conservative white males is that if they are rejected by one company they can keep trying and will find an "old school" company that will hire them. We have not had that luxury, for blacks and women it was 100 nos for every 1 yes. It's not that way for white guys, sorry. Its not that way for white guys to receive hundreds of Nos?
vfulco 9y ago
Kudos for such a well balanced piece. At the end of the day, it should be who can get the job done, that is all. And that is how companies will stay robust.
vfulco 9y ago
The really sad part is you have to preface your comments with this "Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech." Somehow this gives you legitimacy in the eyes of others, not the power and logic of your argument. It speaks to the left's misguided philosophy of "free speech so long as we approve what you say."
snvzz 9y ago
>People notice it, but few say it. Of course. They'd get fired.
petraeus 9y ago
You know what makes me even angrier, social injustice
YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
>> I do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women. Then there must be a biological difference between women from different cultures that's also contributing, because I've only observed this "lack of interest" in Anglosphere women. From my experience, for instance, Indian women have no such problem and are in fact strongly represented within the IT profession and I've worked alongside several of them. Women in my country of birth (Greece) have no such problem and about two fifths of the Greek programmers I know are women. In the British universities I studied and the British workplaces I worked in the last few years, on the other hand, women are about a tenth of all programmers I've met. So because it's a bit absurd for Anglo women to be so specifically genetically programmed to stay out of the IT professions, I'm going to assume it's not a genetic, but a cultural thing going on. Btw, I've discussed this with a female Indian software engineer I was working with and she explained that in India, working in IT is seen as an office job and so more suited to women. Traditional gender roles, innit.
- tscs37 9y ago
  There is plenty of evidence that there are genetic differences in how the brain is build up between men and women [0]. Several studies have also found that as early as 3 year old children will develop differences in their cognition; boys will develop better spatial skills at that age compared to girls, on the other hand the girls will have a better memory recall than the boys. This development can then be traced all the way into adulthood with a variety of skillsets (not only spatial tasks but eye-hand coordination, motor skills, reaction times, recollection, processing speed and verbal skills) [1] Now this doesn't mean women are incapable or bad at copmuter engineering or anything in IT. Quite the opposite, women are just as capable and can be just as good in IT as men, there is no reason they can't. If what you say is true and indian culture views IT as an office job and therefore a woman's job, then I don't see how that contradicts the assertion that there are biological cognitive differences, women can do the same job, they are just less inclined to be interested in it. On average. So while gender roles may play a role (pun intended) in the distribution of gender in the IT job, expecting a 50/50 representation is entirely fictional, there will be a bias towards one or the other based on simple cognitive development tendencies. --- 0: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00429-017-1600-2 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00429-017-1600-2 1: doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2013.10.011.
IanDrake 9y ago
>Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. That maybe one of the saddest statements in the history of modern discourse. It’s not your fault for saying it, it’s that you needed to say it. We have reached the point where identity matters more than content. This is the exact opposite of the MLK dream as I understood it.
virgilp 9y ago
I'm Eastern-european, and not fully aware of the US cultural issues. I participated at a company (US) "principal scientists summit", and the issue of women in tech was brought up. As the lady presented the data, and how we're making progress on hiring more women but there's still no equality, I asked the (innocent/legitimate, I thought) question "how are we doing compared to graduation stats". Seemed natural to me to look at that data in order to figure whether we're getting increasingly worse "return on investment" by focusing exclusively on hiring, but it was immediately spun off into me being somewhat sexist for suggesting that "we don't have a women-hiring problem". Which is not what I meant to imply at all! And from there on, there was sensible tension in the air, with some people taking to take my side without making "career-limiting" statements. It's crazy how taboo some subjects are, at least in California... (it's secondary, but FWIW, I'd debate that the Damore memo contained a lot of truth: yes it contained some truth, but it contained more/deeper falsehoods and wrong conclusions, IMO. So it's a bit unproductive to focus on the "truth" part. OTOH it's horrifically unproductive and wrong to fire someone for expressing a misguided, but not inherently evil/malicious p.o.v.)

pm90 9y ago

> Almost all of the women from my social circle are smart, pragmatic, driven and successful yet have zero interest in a technical career. They excel in their given industries but ours they want no part of. I don't believe intelligence is more prevalent in either gender, but I do believe there are some traits that shape who we are. That's most definitely a cultural thing, and I believe its what diversity programs try to address. > As far as his "conservative white male" discrimination claims, I've seen that too. My boss specifically requested candidates that are not middle-aged white males. But it's nowhere near the same level of discrimination that people of color or women have endured for decades. Perhaps the reason people don't feel sorry for conservative white males is that if they are rejected by one company they can keep trying and will find an "old school" company that will hire them. We have not had that luxury, for blacks and women it was 100 nos for every 1 yes. It's not that way for white guys, sorry. I get that, but I think your boss was still wrong to think and phrase of it that way. No one should be disqualified simply because of their race or age. Give more points to minorities? Yes definitely. But reducing points because you're of a certain race and age just sounds icky, and is probably illegal.

bmelton 9y ago
If the points are fungible (and they absolutely are) then what is the difference between giving extra points to <people not like x> and giving fewer points to <people like x>. How are they not functionally identical?
- 55555 9y ago
  This isn't quite the same thing, but i've always found it annoying how it's generally okay to say, for example, that Chinese people are good at math but it's not okay to say that any other group is bad at math, even though the former claim is a relative claim that is presumably understood to be comparative to other groups of people, who are (on average) worse at math.
  - pm90 9y ago
    Why is it annoying? If I'm addressing a team of 5 people, I would much rather say that person A is amazing at math than tell 4 others that they suck at math. Social skills are a thing, even if they're logically equivalent statements.
  - johnny22 9y ago
    lots of folks are against that. Positive discrimination is a thing.
coldtea 9y ago
>That's most definitely a cultural thing, and I believe its what diversity programs try to address. If it's a cultural thing, why is one version (attitude/culture) towards it considered better than the other (and thus one has to be "addressed")?
Veen 9y ago
> That's most definitely a cultural thing If it is a cultural thing, then surely the correct response is not to mandate gender balance in corporate hiring practices, but to alter the education and socialization of girls. Whether it is cultural or biological, the results are the same: fewer women have the interest to excel in specific fields. App Camp for Girls might be a better approach than diversity hiring.

mistermann 9y ago

I watch a fair amount of Microsoft technical videos, and just off the top of my head I can think of 3 people who are very likely to be diversity hires. Although at the same time and despite being pretty far right on the political spectrum, I think there is some truth to the idea that big companies "should" hire visible minorities over and above those that are fully qualified, but it shouldn't be done at the expense of legitimately qualified people, or that it causes significant harm to product quality.

dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
I don't think minorities should be hired to be "visible", that doesn't sit right with me. Hiring minorities and even people from different economic backgrounds, country of origin etc is good for getting different perspectives and different ways of approaching problems. The hard truth is if you only hire white guys from Stanford you've got a ton of overlap in their background and the way they think. If you only hire black women from Somalia it's the same. You're going to have significant similarities. Making teams more diverse is extremely important and beneficial as long as all are otherwise qualified.
- lawnchair_larry 9y ago
  There is nothing but debunked studies to back up your last statement as a generally applicable one. Obviously, it depends on the job. Designers, sure, it's very eqsy to think of examples where diverse backgrounds improve business outcomes. But let's not pretend that there is any difference in business outcomes if Foxconn's assembly lines snapping iPhone parts together are entirely Chinese hands vs if they were to equally represent all members of the united nations. Asserting that there is a benefit needs to be seriously qualified, as it can certainly be everything ranging from a benefit, to negligible, to an actual handicap.

superquest 9y ago

After your first two paragraphs, you mostly allude to the truths contained in Damore's document. Could you elaborate a little more about its "ugliness"?

praestigiare 9y ago

You claim that there is a pattern of bad diversity hires, but your anecdotes are just as easily explained by confirmation bias: You see an incompetent male engineer, and you write him off as an idiot and forget him. You see an incompetent woman, and she becomes evidence that there is a problem with diversity programs. You remember evidence that supports your narrative. Obviously my statement is not evidence either. I only wanted to point it out because this is so often overlooked when it comes to these issues. This is an arena where our cognitive biases are especially pernicious, and any discussion needs to address them.

ng12 9y ago
> you write him off as an idiot and forget him Not really. I have a lot of faith in our engineering staff so I wonder how he got hired and how he avoids getting fired. The uncomfortable truth is that if he was an employee that "looked good" I would know the answer to those questions.
- praestigiare 9y ago
  As I said before, my response is not data, I know that. But what you just wrote is exactly how confirmation bias works: If he fit your narrative, he would confirm your narrative. That is why these discussions need to be about data, and not "what everyone sees and no one talks about."
  - ng12 9y ago
    My point is more that the anecdotal stuff matters -- by being ham-fisted in your attempts to address diversity you reduce inclusiveness.
- richmarr 9y ago
  Your faith in your engineering staff is beside the point. Bias is human nature. Unless you're actively structuring your processes to exclude or minimise it then you're certainly suffering from it, the only question is how. It's not specifically gender or racial bias either. We ran a study of 700 candidates for a role, running regular hiring against blind assessment and found that the major difference for that role in that organisation was socio-economic... they'd been excluding great candidates who went to less prestigious universities.

Idontknowmyuser 9y ago

I hate the fact that you need to state "you're a mixed race woman in tech.". I'm not blaming you, I'm blaming the outrage culture instilled in big part by a bigoted academic clique.

deleted 9y ago
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nautilus12 9y ago
Stating this fact is the only way this comment could possibly be noticed. I wouldnt be surprised if lieing to this extent is the only way that these anecdotes could ever see the light of day. Though it doesnt change the validity of the points made
- dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
  I've been accused of lying about it before to get attention. Realistically I only state it as a precaution because lately some of the things I've posted on other venues get an immediate comment calling me a Nazi and I want to avoid all the explanation and just get to discussing the issues. I would prefer it if all of us could leave gender/race/religion at the door and talk but that's now the how the internet works now.
hinkley 9y ago
In any discussion of a social problem there are apologists. There are only so many ways to signal that you’re not a shill. It’s not a great solution, but we don’t have better. I agree on the data thing. I think when you get down to the bottom of things, lumping people under a label and treating them as a cohesive unit is part of the problem. If that’s true, getting permission from a small cohort of that group is still bad, because you’re assuming if these three people are okay with it then it’s okay. It’s that incident with Chevy Chase and the n-word that started this line of thought for me. I don’t care if Richard Pryor said it was okay. He is one voice. Don’t act surprised if other people don’t agree. Being surprised means you’ve already decided all black people are the same and a sample size of one means you’re okay to do something.

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manigandham 9y ago

Diversity based on outward appearance is one of the most convoluted and ridiculous movements ever. We cannot spend decades trying to show that appearance is absolutely meaningless to talent, skills, and motivation, and then regress right back to it to show off "diversity". Also nobody ever seems to ask: diversity of what exactly? What's the target? Life experience? There is no qualitative score for that, nor is any single person's life more or less interesting and influential than anyone else. The only thing we can objectively and accurately measure is merit, motivation, and results, and we should use those metrics alone for hiring and advancement, in addition to fighting subjective bias (like removing names and photos from resumes) and making sure there's equivalent opportunity for anyone to try. After that, it would be best if just let people do what they want to do and move on.

ng12 9y ago
> diversity of what exactly is the target? Life experience? Clearly not when every company recruits from the same 10 schools.
- manigandham 9y ago
  Surely you can agree that every student is an individual and just because they go to the same college does not mean they all have the same background?
  - ng12 9y ago
    No, but I would argue it makes them less diverse than their physical traits. Especially considering that college is a formative time for most people.
    - manigandham 9y ago
      If it's not about physical traits (which is good) then why does it matter? You realize every company does in fact discriminate for talent? (which is also fine). We all want smartest, more capable and most reliable people, not a mix of smart and average and dumb just to "represent". Picking the top schools aligns for that, as long as your competitive enough to hire them.

omegaworks 9y ago

> I do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women. The history of women in tech completely contradicts your belief. The lack of representation is a real problem, we can debate how to fix it, but to claim it doesn't exist is baseless and harmful. https://hackernoon.com/a-brief-history-of-women-in-computing-e7253ac24306 https://hackernoon.com/a-brief-history-of-women-in-computing...

lurr 9y ago
It doesn't. At all. The issue is that it doesn't matter. Women might be less interested in tech, as in if you took 100 men and 100 women and measured their interest the men might be higher. That doesn't mean no women are interested in tech, or that those who are interested are less competent. I do think the idea of "less interested" is shallow and ignores every other explanation. For example, women are a majority in health care but a minority of doctors. Why?
- omegaworks 9y ago
  >The issue is that it doesn't matter. It does matter. As technology becomes more deeply embedded into our society the assumptions made by the people that designed that technology get amplified and hardened. Have you not heard the story about the soap-dispenser that wouldn't recognize black skin? It's a minor annoyance now, but it won't be when the technology is responsible for more critical stuff. https://mic.com/articles/124899/the-reason-this-racist-soap-dispenser-doesn-t-work-on-black-skin#.lXeni5f8X https://mic.com/articles/124899/the-reason-this-racist-soap-... >For example, women are a majority in health care but a minority of doctors. Why? Becoming a doctor requires an immense amount of capital and free time. There are structural barriers that prevent women from accessing this capital and free time as easily as men can.
  - lurr 9y ago
    > There are structural barriers that prevent women... There is also a long history of "men are doctors, women are nurses".

psyc 9y ago

I think a reasonable person can find snippets of what he wrote distasteful. But it’s more like uncomfortable. I agree there is truth in it. It’s very obvious to me that the negative reaction was greatly amplified by the ever-outraged and ever-posturing social (media) justice contingent.

bertil 9y ago

Stupid question, just to get a sense of the context of your testimony: are you working for Google or a similarly prestigious organisation? I can certainly expect “a "Software Engineer" who can't write a SQL statement” in some of the company I worked for a decade ago but I’d be confused to see those at Google. I saw one at Facebook (middle-aged white male) but he left the company after ten days and anyone’s reaction was a really confused: “How did he…?”

dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
No, I don't want to name my company for obvious reasons but it's not Google or Facebook, not in the same league. It's an organization with around 400 engineers in it total, so not a small shop, but not a giant household name either.
flukus 9y ago
Wouldn't it be more expected at google? I didn't think they had a lot of traditional databases, so it's not a relevant skill for them. They've also got a fair few low level guys working in c and the like that I wouldn't expect to know much about sql.
- dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
  yes, but we use SQL in our job daily, if only for validation, but also we write a lot of scripts for reporting, migration etc. It's pretty crucial for the job and we've turned away several candidates for not being strong enough in SQL/TSQL

d1zzy 9y ago

There can be positives of hiring to increase diversity which aren't related strictly to their performance in the role they occupy. Two such arguments for this kind of policies: - by giving them jobs which they wouldn't otherwise have the skills to fill you are trying to break the "cycle" (more on that below) - having different viewpoints in a team can be beneficial beyond the skill set those people should bring according to their role (ex. for developing apps that don't just cater to the hipster young) Another thing to consider is that the way you measure performance may be biased, resulted from decades of privileged groups having the leadership role in that domain/area and having developed it in certain ways that caters to their skill set. For the "breaking the cycle" part, I mean that systematic discrimination results in people of certain origins simply not having the opportunity/chance to have developed the skills to be competitive with the privileged classes. And no, you can't just fix this by giving them a "chance to learn", some of the negative impacts on these groups of people are permanent and happen in early life. Obviously trying to handle this problem in the workplace is just a "hack", it's too late already but it does have the benefit that now those people get included in a social environment that they would normally be cut out from, get payed more than they would otherwise and, hopefully, this will trickle down to their children and grandchildren so in a few generations of doing this we don't actually need to be doing it anymore. I'm not saying that all of this means I'm convinced affirmative action is doing more good than bad, just that I see it has possible benefits.

stcredzero 9y ago
have the benefit that now those people get included in a social environment that they would normally be cut out from, get payed more than they would otherwise and, hopefully, this will trickle down to their children and grandchildren Irish immigrants started out from a culture, where the typical peasant was 1/2 to 1/4th as wealthy as the median pre-Civil War American Slave. There was a period of time when ethnic Irish political machines helped to place the party faithful into cozy government jobs. This was beneficial, up to a point. However, there is a point where such subgroup politics becomes so corrupt, the leaders of that group keep their people in deliberate isolation to maintain their power. The IQs of many ethnic immigrant groups to the US can be shown to have increased after several generations. The Polish and Italian immigrant groups' IQs increased from 85 to over 100 over the 1st half of the 20th century. There seems to have been a reversal of such trends for African American communities starting in the 60's. There are also studies of the African American children of US armed forces personnel in Germany. Their IQs are the same as other children growing up in Germany. My conclusion is that the leadership of the African American community and the influence of the US political Left, by glorifying a toxic subset of their ethnic culture, is holding the group back, in cultural isolation, in such a way as to harm the prospects of their children as strongly as lead in the water of Flint Michigan.

swiley 9y ago

>Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. No offence but I think it's kind of harmful to everyone when you make arguments based on your race and gender.

Veelox 9y ago
The issue is that if that statement had not been included than OP would have been accused of being privileged and thus disqualified from having an opinion.
- dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
  Exactly, I'm not using it to bolster my statement, rather to prevent being called a Nazi

SyncSystems 9y ago

> As far as his "conservative white male" discrimination claims, I've seen that too. My boss specifically requested candidates that are not middle-aged white males. But it's nowhere near the same level of discrimination that people of color or women have endured for decades. Perhaps the reason people don't feel sorry for conservative white males is that if they are rejected by one company they can keep trying and will find an "old school" company that will hire them. We have not had that luxury, for blacks and women it was 100 nos for every 1 yes. It's not that way for white guys, sorry. But why does that make it okay? I absolutely believe that you're right in that there has been worse discrimination over the decades and that maybe old white men can find jobs elsewhere, but that doesn't make discrimination okay. It's not okay when those "old school companies" discriminate against any minorities and it's not okay when some discriminate against old white men.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
I don't think OP said that it made it OK. (It doesn't). I think OP was saying that people like her had to fight through worse - not to say it doesn't matter, but to place it in perspective and context. Say 100% discrimination is the KKK lynching people. Say 50% discrimination is redlining and refusal to hire. Then what are white males facing? Maybe 10%? Yes, it matters. And also yes, it's not in the same league as what other groups have had to face.

tabeth 9y ago

> I definitely see people hired just because of their minority status. How do you know that they were hired just because of their minority status?

folknor 9y ago
Because there are explicit examples of this with supporting evidence given in the lawsuit.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  No, there aren't. There are alleged examples and supposed evidence of lots of things in the lawsuit, but that isn't one of them.
  - folknor 9y ago
    Yes, in paragraphs 174 to 198, but specifically 179 to 181.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      Nothing in 174-198 is supported by evidence in the filing (this isn't unusual at this stage, since that's not generally required in an initial filing, but your claim was of evidence), except 188, which is part of an allegation of adverse politically-motivated job treatment, not hiring based on race/gender. So, no, there are no examples with evidence of people hired just for minority status in the lawsuit filing.
      - folknor 9y ago
        Yes there is, there's an email embedded in the paragraphs I outlined. You might think that's not direct evidence, but it's evidence that supports the story in the paragraphs I outlined. It says explicitly in paragraph 179: "Upon information and belief, the Google employee was not selected due to the fact that the hiring managers were looking solely for “diverse” individuals, and as a Caucasian male, the Google employee did not help fill their mandatory (and illegal) quotas." And then "the Google employee’s former director initiated a “Diversity Team Kickoff” with the intent to freeze headcount so that teams could find diversity candidates to help fill the empty roles. Google was specifically looking for women and non-Caucasian individuals to fill these roles." I think _you_ think that _I_ think this is damning proof and that the case is settled, and I've never claimed that. I just said that there are examples of people being hired because of their diversity status, with supporting evidence. I'm not saying the evidence is true, or that it's directly related, but it _is_ "supporting evidence".

stcredzero 9y ago

I read what he wrote. It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth. Many of the media interpretations of what James Damore wrote were very biased, and effectively amounted to hit pieces. His use of terms like "Trait Neuroticism" were direct uses of psychological terms which just sound bad as everyday English. Evolutionary Biology also tends to have a "dismal" feeling to it, like Economics can. One can't take fields like Evolutionary Biology and Economics as morally prescriptive. In that direction lies madness, clearly. However, to then take a knee-jerk ideological stance towards science and declare that everyone must be equal inside is just the West's version of Lysenkoism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism As is usually the case, reality is complex, requires a nuanced understanding, and might sound depressing if you give it a pessimistic read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw

FabHK 9y ago
+1. Most of the pieces about the memo didn't take time to highlight that "neuroticism" and "agreeableness" refer to Big-5 personality traits, not the everyday understanding of the words. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits Most of the pieces didn't distinguish between descriptive and normative statements. Most of the pieces didn't distinguish between statements about distribution of something within a population, and statements about all members of that population.
- bduerst 9y ago
  Except the Big Five has been debunked as being too lexical for biological differentiation. Basically its lexical nature introduces perceptual bias that skews any factor analysis for biological structures - i.e. behavior between genders, for example. The way Damore uses it to support his hypothesis wasn't correct. >And that is what the Big Five represents: a consistent model of how humans reflect individuality using language, no more. There were no considerations of findings in neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, experimental psychology, observations of behavior of people or animals in real situations – none of this was used at the research stage leading to the development of the Big Five. In this sense we can say that the Big Five does not represent the structure of temperament or the structure of biologically based traits, even though lexical perception reflects some elements of it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3903487/

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

dionian 9y ago

EDIT: Deleted this comment as it was downvoted for not agreeing with the hivemind.

dang 9y ago
If you're going to delete your comment, delete it, but what you left here violates the HN guidelines. Please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tziki 9y ago

> Perhaps the reason people don't feel sorry for conservative white males is that if they are rejected by one company they can keep trying and will find an "old school" company that will hire them. We have not had that luxury, for blacks and women it was 100 nos for every 1 yes. It's not that way for white guys, sorry. More recent studies don't show any bias against women in callback rates. In fact, some show slight bias for women (and if you're willing to look at non peer reviewed sources, more than a slight: https://talent.works/blog/2018/01/08/the-science-of-the-job-search-part-i-13-data-backed-ways-to-win/ https://talent.works/blog/2018/01/08/the-science-of-the-job-...)

Idontknowmyuser 9y ago
another study supports this claim: "The trial found assigning a male name to a candidate made them 3.2 per cent less likely to get a job interview." "Adding a woman's name to a CV made the candidate 2.9 per cent more likely to get a foot in the door." source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-trial-to-improve-gender-equality-failing-study/8664888 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  “We built our castle 300 miles away from where they live, but if any of them make it here we are 3% more likely to let them in the door. The men live in a village 1000 yards away, but we’re 3% less likely to let one in, so it’s fair.”
  - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
    Or, to look at it this way: We cut our cake up to 10 pieces. You keep eight of them and I keep two of them. You eat one piece and I eat two pieces. And then I'm the glutton because I ate more pieces than you did and you can't argue with the numbers.
  - Idontknowmyuser 9y ago
    do you have any proof of this claims? and if they were true how and in what you way would this matter if we were to compare one individual to one individual instead of treating people like herds.

seemuch 9y ago

> Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. Why would it matter that you are "a mixed race woman in tech"? Your comment should be judged only by its content, not by its author's race or gender, right?

dotnetisnotdead 9y ago
Of course, that's how it used to be, but posting this without my profile picture next to it would bring out accusations of being sexist/nazi etc if I didn't clarify.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  I’ll violate my usual practice of not commenting explaining the reason for downvotes, to say this: Preemptive comments of this type, which reflect the posters hostile prejudgement of the likely responses, are IMO, contrary to the letter and spirit of the HN guidelines including the rule of presumption of good faith, frequently (as in this case) involve preemptive violations of the guideline against commenting on downvotes, and contribute to a hostile atmosphere rather than productive debate. If you are going to post something, with or without a disclaimer about your own background, do so without commenting about how you expect people to react in comments or votes. If there are responses you take issue with, take issue with them when they exist.
wan23 9y ago
That would be true for the content of a comment about whether .NET is dead or not. But then for that type of comment, you might judge it differently if the author is a user of Microsoft dev tools vs if she primarily works with open source tools.

omikun 9y ago

> I do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women. I don't think anyone believes in the opposite, that biological difference in gender plays exactly zero part in lack of interest in tech from women. The memo was suggesting this could play a part, but not whether if biological differences are significant or even meaningful. To the best of my knowledge, we can't disentangle biological from cultural biases across gender. Hunting down biological reasons isn't productive and threatens gender equality initiatives, hence the massive backlash. Should we question the ideals of gender equality in the workplace? That's probably the discussion the memo wanted to inspire, but it only led to out cries of "sheeple better wake up" and "hell no."

s73ver_ 9y ago

"It was (mostly) ugly but contained a lot of truth." That's just it; it really did not. It contained a lot of things that people who aren't members of those groups he targeted think are plausible. "I do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women. " And what, specifically, would those differences be?

stcredzero 9y ago
And what, specifically, would those differences be? The balance of the evidence, is that there are some biological differences in preferences. Both biological and cultural factors are at play. As groups, women and men are about the same in terms of average IQ, however, men tend to have a higher population of the extreme outliers. (Both extremely smart men and extremely stupid men.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0153857 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTWSoM1_6KM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTWSoM1_6KM
- andrewprock 9y ago
  Is there any evidence that this is biological, as opposed to cultural?
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    In short, yes. You should look up the book which is cited in this video, and you should listen to the discussion of the prologue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw Since the human brain and its interaction with culture is very complicated, more research is needed. But a fair reading of what we have so far would seem to indicate: it's both. Beware of ideological just-so stories that make you feel good. Also, if it sounds messy and complicated, it sounds like actual biology and psychology.
    - 9y ago

0xWilliam 9y ago

vfulco 9y ago

Kudos for such a well balanced piece. At the end of the day, it should be who can get the job done, that is all. And that is how companies will stay robust.

vfulco 9y ago

The really sad part is you have to preface your comments with this "Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech." Somehow this gives you legitimacy in the eyes of others, not the power and logic of your argument. It speaks to the left's misguided philosophy of "free speech so long as we approve what you say."

snvzz 9y ago

>People notice it, but few say it. Of course. They'd get fired.

petraeus 9y ago

You know what makes me even angrier, social injustice

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago

>> I do think that men and women are biologically different and, it likely does contribute to a lack of interest in tech from women. Then there must be a biological difference between women from different cultures that's also contributing, because I've only observed this "lack of interest" in Anglosphere women. From my experience, for instance, Indian women have no such problem and are in fact strongly represented within the IT profession and I've worked alongside several of them. Women in my country of birth (Greece) have no such problem and about two fifths of the Greek programmers I know are women. In the British universities I studied and the British workplaces I worked in the last few years, on the other hand, women are about a tenth of all programmers I've met. So because it's a bit absurd for Anglo women to be so specifically genetically programmed to stay out of the IT professions, I'm going to assume it's not a genetic, but a cultural thing going on. Btw, I've discussed this with a female Indian software engineer I was working with and she explained that in India, working in IT is seen as an office job and so more suited to women. Traditional gender roles, innit.

tscs37 9y ago
There is plenty of evidence that there are genetic differences in how the brain is build up between men and women [0]. Several studies have also found that as early as 3 year old children will develop differences in their cognition; boys will develop better spatial skills at that age compared to girls, on the other hand the girls will have a better memory recall than the boys. This development can then be traced all the way into adulthood with a variety of skillsets (not only spatial tasks but eye-hand coordination, motor skills, reaction times, recollection, processing speed and verbal skills) [1] Now this doesn't mean women are incapable or bad at copmuter engineering or anything in IT. Quite the opposite, women are just as capable and can be just as good in IT as men, there is no reason they can't. If what you say is true and indian culture views IT as an office job and therefore a woman's job, then I don't see how that contradicts the assertion that there are biological cognitive differences, women can do the same job, they are just less inclined to be interested in it. On average. So while gender roles may play a role (pun intended) in the distribution of gender in the IT job, expecting a 50/50 representation is entirely fictional, there will be a bias towards one or the other based on simple cognitive development tendencies. --- 0: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00429-017-1600-2 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00429-017-1600-2 1: doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2013.10.011.

IanDrake 9y ago

>Before you downvote/call me a Nazi, I'm a mixed race woman in tech. That maybe one of the saddest statements in the history of modern discourse. It’s not your fault for saying it, it’s that you needed to say it. We have reached the point where identity matters more than content. This is the exact opposite of the MLK dream as I understood it.

virgilp 9y ago

I'm Eastern-european, and not fully aware of the US cultural issues. I participated at a company (US) "principal scientists summit", and the issue of women in tech was brought up. As the lady presented the data, and how we're making progress on hiring more women but there's still no equality, I asked the (innocent/legitimate, I thought) question "how are we doing compared to graduation stats". Seemed natural to me to look at that data in order to figure whether we're getting increasingly worse "return on investment" by focusing exclusively on hiring, but it was immediately spun off into me being somewhat sexist for suggesting that "we don't have a women-hiring problem". Which is not what I meant to imply at all! And from there on, there was sensible tension in the air, with some people taking to take my side without making "career-limiting" statements. It's crazy how taboo some subjects are, at least in California... (it's secondary, but FWIW, I'd debate that the Damore memo contained a lot of truth: yes it contained some truth, but it contained more/deeper falsehoods and wrong conclusions, IMO. So it's a bit unproductive to focus on the "truth" part. OTOH it's horrifically unproductive and wrong to fire someone for expressing a misguided, but not inherently evil/malicious p.o.v.)