4 ms·

Let's be specific and replace FooSoft with Google. A quick search suggests that only 20% of programmers in general are female, but 30% of Google programmers ar

Let's be specific and replace FooSoft with Google. A quick search suggests that only 20% of programmers in general are female, but 30% of Google programmers are female. I'm not certain these numbers are accurate, but if they are, female programmers are over represented at Google. That would mean Google hired a greater percentage of female programmers than male programmers. That is, if Google hired the top 0.1% of male programmers, they hired the top 0.15% of female programmers. If we assume two groups have identical distribution of qualifications, the female programmers hired would have lower qualifications, as an obvious consequence of a hiring policy that favors women. That's not saying women are less qualified, it's saying that Google hires women who are less qualified because they want to hire more women than the 20% that sex-blind hiring would result in.

chc 8y ago
Let me get this straight: When women are hired less, it's because they're simply not interested. But when men are hired less, it's because they're being discriminated against? I think my hypothesis is simpler: - Women are discriminated against in the industry as a whole - Google actively discriminates in favor of women It's discrimination both times.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Women are discriminated against in the industry as a whole I would expect in 2019, that the industry as a whole discriminates in favor of women, but I'm just a layperson when it comes to that. Do you have citations? - Google actively discriminates in favor of women It's discrimination both times. I agree.
  - chc 8y ago
    It may be that it has changed very recently, but a few years ago there were quite a few studies that showed an anti-women bias in evaluating employees. For example, here's a quickly Googled cite that talks about a preference for resumes with male names over female: https://www.aauw.org/2015/06/11/john-or-jennifer/ https://www.aauw.org/2015/06/11/john-or-jennifer/ This could even still be true at Google, though I don't have insight into whether or not it is. It seems at least plausible that Google has put systemic biases in place to balance out more diffuse bias among individual humans, but has done too thorough a job.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      When orchestras started using blinds for auditions, the population of women hired shot up. Have there been attempts to do blind hiring? If so, what were the results?
      - waterhouse 8y ago
        Excellent question. There was an article a few years ago about an interviewing platform that tried using voice modulation to play with the gender of candidates: "Contrary to what we expected (and probably contrary to what you expected as well!), masking gender had no effect on interview performance with respect to any of the scoring criteria (would advance to next round, technical ability, problem solving ability). If anything, we started to notice some trends in the opposite direction of what we expected: for technical ability, it appeared that men who were modulated to sound like women did a bit better than unmodulated men and that women who were modulated to sound like men did a bit worse than unmodulated women. Though these trends weren’t statistically significant, I am mentioning them because they were unexpected and definitely something to watch for as we collect more data." http://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-mask-gender-in-technical-interviews-heres-what-happened/ http://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-mas...
      - camelite 8y ago
        I'd had that study in my mental lexicon of "gender bias studies that aren't total bullshit" for a long time until recently. Seemed like a pretty black and white way to isolate gender discrimination. Turns out it - or rather the reporting on it - is also bullshit[1]. [1] https://medium.com/@jsmp/orchestrating-false-beliefs-about-gender-discrimination-a25a48e1d02 https://medium.com/@jsmp/orchestrating-false-beliefs-about-g...
- leereeves 8y ago
  What makes you think women are hired less? When Google (and other top tech companies) actively discriminate in favor of women, that causes the appearance of discrimination elsewhere in the industry, because the top tech companies have taken more of the best female programmers and those who weren't hired by Google et al are, on average, worse than the men who weren't hired by Google et al. And when I spoke about interests, I was discussing why few women choose to study computer science.
stcredzero 8y ago
A quick search suggests that only 20% of programmers in general are female, but 30% of Google programmers are female. I'm not certain these numbers are accurate, but if they are, female programmers are over represented at Google. Going by the "logic" of outcomes being the "only holistic measure" this would indicate that Google is biased against male programmers within the context of the pool of available candidates. Yet if we change the scope of our consideration to that of the general population, Google would be biased against females. Seems like the "only holistic measure" has some kind of issue with logical consistency. One has to be careful with how the population sample relates to the specific pipeline of available candidates. If one isn't careful, then the interpretation of the numbers might as well be fiction. You can't just stop at, "Does it match the general population? No? Then BIAS!"
- leereeves 8y ago
  > Yet if we change the scope of our consideration to that of the general population, Google would be biased against females. That would be expecting Google to hire untrained people as programmers, which would be absurd. If we compare with the general population, any bias found wouldn't be at Google, but in the school system, children's entertainment, parenting, or some other group that influences people long before they apply to Google.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
sgift 8y ago
> A quick search suggests that only 20% of programmers in general are female, but 30% of Google programmers are female. I'm not certain these numbers are accurate, but if they are, female programmers are over represented at Google. The pool of programmers "In general" is not relevant for Google. They don't hire programmers in general, but are focused on a specific subset (usually from some big universities).
- stcredzero 8y ago
  What's the gender distribution of graduates from those big universities?

chc 8y ago

Let me get this straight: When women are hired less, it's because they're simply not interested. But when men are hired less, it's because they're being discriminated against? I think my hypothesis is simpler: - Women are discriminated against in the industry as a whole - Google actively discriminates in favor of women It's discrimination both times.

stcredzero 8y ago
Women are discriminated against in the industry as a whole I would expect in 2019, that the industry as a whole discriminates in favor of women, but I'm just a layperson when it comes to that. Do you have citations? - Google actively discriminates in favor of women It's discrimination both times. I agree.
- chc 8y ago
  It may be that it has changed very recently, but a few years ago there were quite a few studies that showed an anti-women bias in evaluating employees. For example, here's a quickly Googled cite that talks about a preference for resumes with male names over female: https://www.aauw.org/2015/06/11/john-or-jennifer/ https://www.aauw.org/2015/06/11/john-or-jennifer/ This could even still be true at Google, though I don't have insight into whether or not it is. It seems at least plausible that Google has put systemic biases in place to balance out more diffuse bias among individual humans, but has done too thorough a job.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    When orchestras started using blinds for auditions, the population of women hired shot up. Have there been attempts to do blind hiring? If so, what were the results?
    - waterhouse 8y ago
      Excellent question. There was an article a few years ago about an interviewing platform that tried using voice modulation to play with the gender of candidates: "Contrary to what we expected (and probably contrary to what you expected as well!), masking gender had no effect on interview performance with respect to any of the scoring criteria (would advance to next round, technical ability, problem solving ability). If anything, we started to notice some trends in the opposite direction of what we expected: for technical ability, it appeared that men who were modulated to sound like women did a bit better than unmodulated men and that women who were modulated to sound like men did a bit worse than unmodulated women. Though these trends weren’t statistically significant, I am mentioning them because they were unexpected and definitely something to watch for as we collect more data." http://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-mask-gender-in-technical-interviews-heres-what-happened/ http://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-mas...
    - camelite 8y ago
      I'd had that study in my mental lexicon of "gender bias studies that aren't total bullshit" for a long time until recently. Seemed like a pretty black and white way to isolate gender discrimination. Turns out it - or rather the reporting on it - is also bullshit[1]. [1] https://medium.com/@jsmp/orchestrating-false-beliefs-about-gender-discrimination-a25a48e1d02 https://medium.com/@jsmp/orchestrating-false-beliefs-about-g...
leereeves 8y ago
What makes you think women are hired less? When Google (and other top tech companies) actively discriminate in favor of women, that causes the appearance of discrimination elsewhere in the industry, because the top tech companies have taken more of the best female programmers and those who weren't hired by Google et al are, on average, worse than the men who weren't hired by Google et al. And when I spoke about interests, I was discussing why few women choose to study computer science.

stcredzero 8y ago

A quick search suggests that only 20% of programmers in general are female, but 30% of Google programmers are female. I'm not certain these numbers are accurate, but if they are, female programmers are over represented at Google. Going by the "logic" of outcomes being the "only holistic measure" this would indicate that Google is biased against male programmers within the context of the pool of available candidates. Yet if we change the scope of our consideration to that of the general population, Google would be biased against females. Seems like the "only holistic measure" has some kind of issue with logical consistency. One has to be careful with how the population sample relates to the specific pipeline of available candidates. If one isn't careful, then the interpretation of the numbers might as well be fiction. You can't just stop at, "Does it match the general population? No? Then BIAS!"

leereeves 8y ago
> Yet if we change the scope of our consideration to that of the general population, Google would be biased against females. That would be expecting Google to hire untrained people as programmers, which would be absurd. If we compare with the general population, any bias found wouldn't be at Google, but in the school system, children's entertainment, parenting, or some other group that influences people long before they apply to Google.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

sgift 8y ago

> A quick search suggests that only 20% of programmers in general are female, but 30% of Google programmers are female. I'm not certain these numbers are accurate, but if they are, female programmers are over represented at Google. The pool of programmers "In general" is not relevant for Google. They don't hire programmers in general, but are focused on a specific subset (usually from some big universities).

stcredzero 8y ago
What's the gender distribution of graduates from those big universities?