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> About this story--was it that they prejudiced all the women they interviewed as quiet, or did they just happen to interview a bunch of women who happened to b

> About this story--was it that they prejudiced all the women they interviewed as quiet, or did they just happen to interview a bunch of women who happened to be quiet because that's what our culture expects of women? I'm not sure that either scenario really paints a rosy picture. More on that below. > And yeah, if they interviewed a loud, well-spoken woman, and then rejected her because she was too "aggressive", that would definitely hint at bias to me. I'm sure you can find plenty of outspoken women to whom that's happened. > These are some hard problems, and assuming bad faith isn't the be-all end-all of talking about it. I think this is actually why this conversation rubs people the wrong way: I'm not assuming bad faith at all, even though I'm calling "culture fit" out as a bad metric used to discriminate against people. A relatively modern view of gender/racial relations is that it's not exclusively people acting in bad faith - that is, a minority of people are being overtly racist or sexist (though they obviously dominate the headlines). Rather, there's a lot of subtle and unspoken biases that creep into society and result in discrimination even if that wasn't the intended purpose or goal. To go back to your own example, if our culture "expects women to be quiet", and then discriminates against quiet people for jobs, that kinda sucks doesn't it? What are women supposed to do in that scenario? Are they really forced to choose between gainful employment and acting in a societally-approved way?

philwelch 8y ago
> To go back to your own example, if our culture "expects women to be quiet", and then discriminates against quiet people for jobs, that kinda sucks doesn't it? Well, yeah. Except there's a ton of jobs out there for meek, quiet, agreeable people who don't rock the boat, to the point where sometimes it's even more of an impediment being boisterous, loud, and outspoken, even if you are male. They're not always the best and most respected jobs, just as meek and quiet people aren't always the best and most respected people, but they're out there. And yeah...if you're conspiratorially minded, it's awful convenient if women are socially conditioned to have exactly the personality traits that make them easier to dominate, isn't it? Except, socially conditioned traits are a trailing indicator and not a leading indicator. Maybe it's easier for women to get away with being assertive now than it used to be, because we have tons of cultural countersignaling ("well-behaved women rarely make history") that seems to indicate that. I dunno; it's a hard problem to navigate, and I don't have the experience to advise what a woman should do in that situation. What I can say is that--as an employer--you should definitely make a point of hiring assertive people, and particularly assertive women. I think it's the wrong move to say, "women tend to be quiet and agreeable, so we should try to hire quiet, agreeable people instead of loud, assertive people for diversity reasons". No, being quiet and agreeable is exactly how you get oppressed and stay oppressed. If you're an individual woman trying to survive a sexist and unjust system, you do what you can, but if you're part of the system, you fix the damned system. Go out of your way to hire "aggressive" women, and coach the women you have to become more assertive. At least that's my advice.

philwelch 8y ago

> To go back to your own example, if our culture "expects women to be quiet", and then discriminates against quiet people for jobs, that kinda sucks doesn't it? Well, yeah. Except there's a ton of jobs out there for meek, quiet, agreeable people who don't rock the boat, to the point where sometimes it's even more of an impediment being boisterous, loud, and outspoken, even if you are male. They're not always the best and most respected jobs, just as meek and quiet people aren't always the best and most respected people, but they're out there. And yeah...if you're conspiratorially minded, it's awful convenient if women are socially conditioned to have exactly the personality traits that make them easier to dominate, isn't it? Except, socially conditioned traits are a trailing indicator and not a leading indicator. Maybe it's easier for women to get away with being assertive now than it used to be, because we have tons of cultural countersignaling ("well-behaved women rarely make history") that seems to indicate that. I dunno; it's a hard problem to navigate, and I don't have the experience to advise what a woman should do in that situation. What I can say is that--as an employer--you should definitely make a point of hiring assertive people, and particularly assertive women. I think it's the wrong move to say, "women tend to be quiet and agreeable, so we should try to hire quiet, agreeable people instead of loud, assertive people for diversity reasons". No, being quiet and agreeable is exactly how you get oppressed and stay oppressed. If you're an individual woman trying to survive a sexist and unjust system, you do what you can, but if you're part of the system, you fix the damned system. Go out of your way to hire "aggressive" women, and coach the women you have to become more assertive. At least that's my advice.