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I recently completed a very difficult job search where I unfortunately had to lean on my ethnicity (I’m Mexican) to pass through very overt screening against wh

I recently completed a very difficult job search where I unfortunately had to lean on my ethnicity (I’m Mexican) to pass through very overt screening against white men. I was shocked to hear from multiple companies, large and small, that they did not want men and white men in particular. Now we see a YC co-founder giving 40 women $9000 to learn to program. Where does it end? I was really sad that while I personally can survive in this environment (if I abandon my ideals of not being judged by my genetics), many good men who are passionate about their work are being pressured from all sides. I honestly don’t see how any of this is legal but it’s such a taboo to talk about that fixing the problem seems impossible without a major shift back to valuing skills above demographics.

jordigh 8y ago
> I honestly don’t see how any of this is legal Let me help you, fellow Mexican: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2017-title29-vol4/xml/CFR-2017-title29-vol4-part1608.xml https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2017-title29-vol4/xm... The reason it's legal is because there are laws that explicitly allow this for certain underrepresented or disadvantaged groups. Espero que esto aclare tus dudas.
- atom-morgan 8y ago
  A legal justification doesn't make something right. It's also worth mentioning why the term "underrepresented minority" or "underrepresented group" is need in the first place. Considering how sexist and racist people claim tech is Asians seem to be doing perfectly fine which is exactly why the term URM is needed in the first place.
  - jordigh 8y ago
    The question was just about the legality of it. It's not a mystery why it's legal and people should be aware of what the laws actually are.
    - commandlinefan 8y ago
      > The question was just about the legality of it So somebody asked "how can this be legal" and your answer was "because it's a law" and you're actually trying to claim the moral high ground?
ReturnToVoid 8y ago
I have sadly witnessed a lot of discrimination against white men recently as well. God forbid you happen to be a white man from a third-world country, you'll literally never get a single interview anywhere no matter how good you happen to be.
- zimablue 8y ago
  Third world country is bad (although maybe the positive racial discrimination will count them in, I don't know) but the people who get screwed by this sort of thing are also the white working class. Most employers have some (fairly rational as well as irrational) desire to screen by class, alongside the people of the upper classes knowing how to game the system of education/etc. So when you push women and ethnicities in, you push white men out, and the ones who feel the pinch are the ones already onto a loser.
  - Tade0 8y ago
    Third world country is bad (although maybe the positive racial discrimination will count them in, I don't know) Being eastern-European myself I can confirm that while the negative stuff applies, the positive doesn't. But I say let them - I'm honestly curious what the end result of such policies will be.
- manfredo 8y ago
  I've seen even more against Asian men (not that it makes discrimination again white men any more okay). After all, if we are going to strive for for equal representation - which seems to be the goal - Asian are going to have to go down from 30-40% of many large companies down to a fraction of that. Asians are 14% of California and 5.2% of the US population.
  - icelancer 8y ago
    This is the currently acceptable form of prejudice in this country, yes. It is totally fine to enact policies or make statements that hurt Asian-American men (and women, I don't think gender is much of a factor here).
fizwhiz 8y ago
How did you leverage your ethnicity to get a competitive advantage in your job search?
- rosterface 8y ago
  Without doxing myself... It’s not apparently obvious what ethnicity I am based on looks. I had already been told there was a focus on diversity at the company I ended up getting an offer at and they “really want to build a diverse team from the ground up”. The conversation had been dragging for months and I resisted bringing up my background out of principle. I saw the hiring manager tweeting about a Latinx conference (I hate that term) and bit the bullet and told them I’m Latinx. I had an offer by the end of the week. This was after months of similar discussions with other companies where I stuck to my ideal of being hired for what I’ve accomplished and the skills I can prove I have. Ultimately I was running out of money and got desperate. I still feel terrible and angry but I have to put food on the table.
  - fizwhiz 8y ago
    Thanks for being honest about your experience. Though I wouldn't be surprised if you get downvoted for your unencumbered authenticity because it doesn't match the narrative du jour. Edit: it does seem like you're being downvoted. I predict manfredo's response will be next[1]. Sigh. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19464944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19464944
  - basura9999 8y ago
    I've been in the same situation and I cringe about it. I am a Latino but white because I am from Argentina where people are mostly from European backgrounds. It seems that "Latino" is meant to mean a specific group of Latinos actually and not the whites ones but technically with the word "Latino" I also qualify. But I would like to hear them tell me to my face why I am not a Latino.
  - sergiotapia 8y ago
    Asquerosa la situacion, pero entiendo porque lo hiciste. Latinx es un termino gringo que me hace cagar de riza lol. Por el culo, somos Latinos y Latinas. No LaTiNX.
zeropnc 8y ago
Yeah this stuff is getting pretty absurd. Someday in the future we’ll have grants for ugly people or short people because every little inequality must be erased in the human collective.
- yters 8y ago
  We should have grants for unemployed people because they are underrepresented in companies.
lixtra 8y ago
Please don’t forget that it is her private money (I don’t know about tax benefits). So it’s like paying for the education of your children.
- zimablue 8y ago
  Except it's not your children, it's your arbitrary fashion-based tribal identity. (Gender isn't a fashion choice, no, but the choice to focus on gender over height, good looks, class, race, etc is very much a fashion that quickly shifts).
- deogeo 8y ago
  Inheritance is also private money, yet this case in Canada shows race/sexuality/gender-conditions in a will getting overturned: https://globalnews.ca/news/2533006/ontario-court-rejects-scholarships-for-straight-white-students/ https://globalnews.ca/news/2533006/ontario-court-rejects-sch...
klohto 8y ago
I'm seeing this as well and it isn't in any way positive experience. There is not much we can do without being labeled.
jakelazaroff 8y ago
We never really valued skills over demographics — it's just much less visible where it benefits a dominant group. Consider that the percentage of VC deals with female-founded companies is 5.4% and yet they receive only 2.2% of VC dollars [1]. This has held true for over a decade: the average female founders have received less than their average male counterparts. But for some reason, there aren't many people complaining that VCs are giving men money just because they're men! [1] http://fortune.com/2019/01/28/funding-female-founders-2018/ http://fortune.com/2019/01/28/funding-female-founders-2018/
- ng12 8y ago
  > Consider that the percentage of VC deals with female-founded companies is 5.4% and yet they receive only 2.2% of VC dollars Stats like this are so useless. Obviously if males make up 95% of the pool they're more likely to have founded some of the unicorns, therefore skewing the average. If one of the 5% of females founded a unicorn I bet they'd have a greater share of VC dollars.
  - jakelazaroff 8y ago
    The reason that companies become unicorns is that VCs invest in them at a certain valuation. You have cause and effect reversed. If VCs are underinvesting in female-founded companies, it's entirely expected that fewer of those companies will become unicorns.
    - ng12 8y ago
      I'm not talking about cause and effect, I'm talking about a lazy misapplication of statistics to bolster a talking point.
      - jakelazaroff 8y ago
        How can you separate them? Lack of female-founded unicorns is a direct consequence of underinvestment in female-founded companies.
- 8y ago
mywittyname 8y ago
> I honestly don’t see how any of this is legal It is illegal to discriminate for jobs on the basis of sex in the US (as per the Civil Rights Act of 1964). If you believe yourself to be the victim of discrimination, then submit a complaint the the EEOC [1] who will investigate. That being said, a large gap between the number men and women (or whites and blacks, etc) working at companies exist can be considered evidence of systematic discrimination. Increasing the pool of unrepresented applicants is a great way to ensure that a diverse pool of qualified candidates get interviews, thus reduce the likelihood that a company appears to be practicing discrimination during hiring. [1] https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sex.cfm https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sex.cfm
- rubicon33 8y ago
  Good luck with that complaint to the EEOC as a white man.
  - astura 8y ago
    The EEOC absolutely investigates discrimination against white males. https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/initiatives/e-race/caselist.cfm#reverse https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/initiatives/e-race/caselist.cfm#re...
    - rubicon33 8y ago
      I never said it's not possible. I said good luck. Pointing out a handful of cases hardly proves that they're given the same level of consideration.
- wolco 8y ago
  I can accept either point but not both. It is illegal to discriminate based on sex. By not discriminating based on sex to fix a ratio/percent you could be found discriminating
  - mywittyname 8y ago
    Statistically speaking, an equal opportunity workforce should be comprised of some demographic makeup. If a company deviates dramatically from that target makeup, the implication is that hiring practices are unfair. Addressing the unfairness will cause the issue to naturally correct itself. This is a sound strategy that's commonly applied to other areas of engineering. If a company produces bearings and their QA department measures bearing tolerances from a shipment sample to deviate wildly from what is expected, then the implication is their is an issue with the manufacturing process that needs to be addressed. They don't just toss a handful of under-tolerant bearing in the shipment to bring the median value inline. In other words: > By not discriminating based on sex to fix a ratio/percent ...Is where your misunderstanding is. This idea is not over-correction -- you do no need to discriminate to achieve a specific makeup. You explicitly need to NOT discriminate and the problem will be correct itself. ELI5: If a company was found to have a workforce that was too short. An appropriate response is to notice the problem an conduct an investigation, which determines tall people were put off from applying because the doors were too short. They correct the doors and the average height of employees naturally correct. A wrong approach is to explicitly weight taller people more favorable in interviews.
fzeroracer 8y ago
I have never encountered this overt screening against white men as a white man. Do you have any statistical evidence that proves white men are being discriminated against?
manfredo 8y ago
I can confirm your observations. At my company we have a couple policies. 1. We only accept applicstions from candidate from non-traditional backgrounds if they're diverse. Diverse is defined as any of the following: women, black, Hispanic, or native American - maybe also veterans but I'm not sure. Non-traditional background means coming from a coding boot camp, or majoring in a non-computing related field. I think after 3 years industry experience candidates are considered traditional even if they came from one of those two.* 2. Diverse candidates get two attempts to pass the technical phone interview, non diverse get one.* That said, when it comes to the hiring decision we don't discriminate. No disrespect for those candidates considered diverse, just take what you get. And I'm Cuban myself (but not visibly Latino) so I may have benefitted from that part of my identity myself. Untimely I think the lower representation of Black and Hispanic people in tech roles is reflective of education rates. I suspect that were incomes and education more equal that would make representation in tech more equal. There also geography. Not many tech companies in the south where most black people live. As for women thats a more difficult situation. I think that there's strong evidence to back up the claim that women may not choose to enter tech on their own volition. I think the solution to that is to emphasize the value of fields other than tech. Being coder at Google doesn't make a person any more valuable than a lawyer, marketer, salesperson, etc. Sure they may make more money, but that's the product of the labor market. And not to mention the average lawyer probably makes more than the average coder. I've anecdotally seen a growing portion of coding boot camp that are exclusive to certain demographics. I wonder how much of that is due to policies like these. Especially for boot camps that only charge if the graduates get jobs in tech, I can see how it would be disadvantageous to admit white and Asian men. * Edit: I just checked and these policies also apply to people with referrals. So one could justify this by saying we treat diverse candidates as though they have a referral.
- pacala 8y ago
  > Diverse candidates get two attempts to pass the technical phone interview, non diverse get one. These rhyme with soviet era policies circa 1950-1960 in Eastern Europe. At universities, there was an admission exam for 'healthy origin' people for the majority of the spots, and then another exam where everybody, including those failing the first time, could compete for the scraps. We all know how that turned out economically speaking. Seeing the same policies in XXI century USA is surreal.
commandlinefan 8y ago
I'm a white man, and sometimes I fear that the best thing I ever did for my son was give him Hispanic heritage through his mother.
- WeakLanguage 8y ago
  I'm in the same situation. I've already resigned myself that I must tell him to always check those minority boxes and he may want to consider only using his mother's surname on his resume, instead of the traditional dual surname he legally has (Example: Lopez, instead of Smith Lopez).
- identity-haver 8y ago
  My plan would be to send my kids to dual language programs. If you're a somewhat native Spanish speaker, you can claim to be Hispanic with a clear conscience. "Hispanic" is, legally speaking (for now), an "ethnicity", not a race, which means it is independent of blood (but apparently race is a "socio-political construct" according to the US Census). People are already doing this, plus the people with one Mexican grandparent or something. This farcical system can't go on forever as is. Either racial preferences in hiring will be banned under the 14th amendment, or the US will adopt a Brazil-style racial preference system, where they will actually test your blood and have technicians measure the tone of your skin and the shape of your face in order to fit you into a category.
i_am_proteus 8y ago
> We use inclusive definitions of “women” and “female” and welcome trans women, genderqueer women, and non-binary people who are female-identified. If you are interested in the program, it seems like you could identify yourself as female and apply. Especially if there's no in-person interview. Cynically, if enough [biological males who identify as] men elect to identify as women for this application, the selection team will have some very difficult decisions to make.
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  This is a great way to get a company to instantly reject you at the interview step if they have one or fired shortly after being hired. Because, you know, most companies look up the profile of candidates on LinkedIn, social media etc. Unless you actually consider yourself transgender, you would quickly be caught and removed just as quickly.
  - navigatesol 8y ago
    >Unless you actually consider yourself transgender, you would quickly be caught and removed just as quickly. In the current cultural zeitgeist it'd be unimaginable to see someone get fired because they didn't conform to someone's rules of "transgender enough" based on their social media profile. This is both the beauty and the irony of said zeitgeist; make all the rules you want, can't stop someone from playing.
    - menacingly 8y ago
      And let's not forget the very real cases where someone may be more comfortable telling a bootcamp something about themselves than _the entire world_ on social media
    - fzeroracer 8y ago
      Yes, you can actually. These sort of arguments remind me of the transgender bathroom fears: What's stopping a man from pretending to be transgender in order to enter the woman's bathroom? Well, the answer is that people that are transgender will have a history of being transgender or acting in such a way that confirms they consider themselves that gender. So any lawsuit as a result of this would look into your past, see that you lied about being transgender and make it an open and shut case. If that case became public then you could say goodbye to your job prospects.
lallysingh 8y ago
I suspect it'll end when people aren't surprised to hear things like this: https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-interviews https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...
umanwizard 8y ago
Do you live in the US? If so, I think this is a bit exaggerated. There are still a lot of white men from the US at all major tech companies.
Townley 8y ago
I'm sympathetic to anyone who's had a challenging job search, and am glad that you found something. Society is worse off for having barriers that prevent anyone who wants to code from being able to do so. That includes the inefficiencies of the job industry not placing you into a productive coding role faster. But it also includes the lower salaries, lack of support/representation, belittling, and near-universal campaign of horrible harassment that every woman I've talked to in the field has experienced. Everyone in the field of software development struggles, and I don't want to take away from that. We should be making life easier for everyone. But doing so involves recognizing problems specifically and succinctly, and building solutions that fit those problems. One of society's many problems is that women in tech have to contend with a nightmarish swirl of negative distractions that I've never had to think about as a white man. In the face of such a problem, giving resources to the effected population makes total sense, and it's a good thing that more organizations/companies are doing so. Even more than that, it brings us closer to meritocratic equality.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  Women are in extremely high demand in the tech industry. This post is just another example of a benefit women get but men don't. As a hiring manager I can say I've definitely been encouraged to pay women more than equally equipped men because their presence on the team is deemed so valuable.
tth3uoku 8y ago
I have applied for women's scholarships but not without feeling guilty. Why do I get a chance at something while as many eager men in need of financial assistance or technical mentorship do not? I am appreciative of every opportunity I have been given and will continue to take advantage of any opportunity afforded to me, even if it is on the base of my gender. If an investor wants to help a certain group of people, I will value that they are providing opportunities even though I may disagree with the idea of providing opportunities based on immutable characteristics.
ddayz 8y ago
Similar scenario that was sadly disturbing. It is quite advantageous to have an ethnic origin as a Pacific Islander. However some people I have met from southern Asia coming from a farming family background likely have had much worse conditions growing up. But they get lumped into the Asian mass where you must truly excel to get noticed.
rosege 8y ago
I don't live in USA but a couple of years back I was working for a large financial organization in my country and was flat out told don't even think you are getting promoted because we need to lift our diversity so no white men will be promoted. I left not too long after that.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Yetanfou 8y ago
This can only end when customers - from individuals to corporations - finally get fed up with the identity politics employed by these 'diversity' advocates and start shunning companies which profess adherence to this mantra. If this does not happen it will end when diversity has run its course and the population has been balkanised into nothing but oppressors and oppressed with the average size of the oppressed community being a single individual. Since by that time the economy will have ground to a halt they'll be fighting each other with sticks and stones.

jordigh 8y ago

> I honestly don’t see how any of this is legal Let me help you, fellow Mexican: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2017-title29-vol4/xml/CFR-2017-title29-vol4-part1608.xml https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2017-title29-vol4/xm... The reason it's legal is because there are laws that explicitly allow this for certain underrepresented or disadvantaged groups. Espero que esto aclare tus dudas.

atom-morgan 8y ago
A legal justification doesn't make something right. It's also worth mentioning why the term "underrepresented minority" or "underrepresented group" is need in the first place. Considering how sexist and racist people claim tech is Asians seem to be doing perfectly fine which is exactly why the term URM is needed in the first place.
- jordigh 8y ago
  The question was just about the legality of it. It's not a mystery why it's legal and people should be aware of what the laws actually are.
  - commandlinefan 8y ago
    > The question was just about the legality of it So somebody asked "how can this be legal" and your answer was "because it's a law" and you're actually trying to claim the moral high ground?

ReturnToVoid 8y ago

I have sadly witnessed a lot of discrimination against white men recently as well. God forbid you happen to be a white man from a third-world country, you'll literally never get a single interview anywhere no matter how good you happen to be.

zimablue 8y ago
Third world country is bad (although maybe the positive racial discrimination will count them in, I don't know) but the people who get screwed by this sort of thing are also the white working class. Most employers have some (fairly rational as well as irrational) desire to screen by class, alongside the people of the upper classes knowing how to game the system of education/etc. So when you push women and ethnicities in, you push white men out, and the ones who feel the pinch are the ones already onto a loser.
- Tade0 8y ago
  Third world country is bad (although maybe the positive racial discrimination will count them in, I don't know) Being eastern-European myself I can confirm that while the negative stuff applies, the positive doesn't. But I say let them - I'm honestly curious what the end result of such policies will be.
manfredo 8y ago
I've seen even more against Asian men (not that it makes discrimination again white men any more okay). After all, if we are going to strive for for equal representation - which seems to be the goal - Asian are going to have to go down from 30-40% of many large companies down to a fraction of that. Asians are 14% of California and 5.2% of the US population.
- icelancer 8y ago
  This is the currently acceptable form of prejudice in this country, yes. It is totally fine to enact policies or make statements that hurt Asian-American men (and women, I don't think gender is much of a factor here).

fizwhiz 8y ago

How did you leverage your ethnicity to get a competitive advantage in your job search?

rosterface 8y ago
Without doxing myself... It’s not apparently obvious what ethnicity I am based on looks. I had already been told there was a focus on diversity at the company I ended up getting an offer at and they “really want to build a diverse team from the ground up”. The conversation had been dragging for months and I resisted bringing up my background out of principle. I saw the hiring manager tweeting about a Latinx conference (I hate that term) and bit the bullet and told them I’m Latinx. I had an offer by the end of the week. This was after months of similar discussions with other companies where I stuck to my ideal of being hired for what I’ve accomplished and the skills I can prove I have. Ultimately I was running out of money and got desperate. I still feel terrible and angry but I have to put food on the table.
- fizwhiz 8y ago
  Thanks for being honest about your experience. Though I wouldn't be surprised if you get downvoted for your unencumbered authenticity because it doesn't match the narrative du jour. Edit: it does seem like you're being downvoted. I predict manfredo's response will be next[1]. Sigh. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19464944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19464944
- basura9999 8y ago
  I've been in the same situation and I cringe about it. I am a Latino but white because I am from Argentina where people are mostly from European backgrounds. It seems that "Latino" is meant to mean a specific group of Latinos actually and not the whites ones but technically with the word "Latino" I also qualify. But I would like to hear them tell me to my face why I am not a Latino.
- sergiotapia 8y ago
  Asquerosa la situacion, pero entiendo porque lo hiciste. Latinx es un termino gringo que me hace cagar de riza lol. Por el culo, somos Latinos y Latinas. No LaTiNX.

zeropnc 8y ago

Yeah this stuff is getting pretty absurd. Someday in the future we’ll have grants for ugly people or short people because every little inequality must be erased in the human collective.

yters 8y ago
We should have grants for unemployed people because they are underrepresented in companies.

lixtra 8y ago

Please don’t forget that it is her private money (I don’t know about tax benefits). So it’s like paying for the education of your children.

zimablue 8y ago
Except it's not your children, it's your arbitrary fashion-based tribal identity. (Gender isn't a fashion choice, no, but the choice to focus on gender over height, good looks, class, race, etc is very much a fashion that quickly shifts).
deogeo 8y ago
Inheritance is also private money, yet this case in Canada shows race/sexuality/gender-conditions in a will getting overturned: https://globalnews.ca/news/2533006/ontario-court-rejects-scholarships-for-straight-white-students/ https://globalnews.ca/news/2533006/ontario-court-rejects-sch...

klohto 8y ago

I'm seeing this as well and it isn't in any way positive experience. There is not much we can do without being labeled.

jakelazaroff 8y ago

We never really valued skills over demographics — it's just much less visible where it benefits a dominant group. Consider that the percentage of VC deals with female-founded companies is 5.4% and yet they receive only 2.2% of VC dollars [1]. This has held true for over a decade: the average female founders have received less than their average male counterparts. But for some reason, there aren't many people complaining that VCs are giving men money just because they're men! [1] http://fortune.com/2019/01/28/funding-female-founders-2018/ http://fortune.com/2019/01/28/funding-female-founders-2018/

ng12 8y ago
> Consider that the percentage of VC deals with female-founded companies is 5.4% and yet they receive only 2.2% of VC dollars Stats like this are so useless. Obviously if males make up 95% of the pool they're more likely to have founded some of the unicorns, therefore skewing the average. If one of the 5% of females founded a unicorn I bet they'd have a greater share of VC dollars.
- jakelazaroff 8y ago
  The reason that companies become unicorns is that VCs invest in them at a certain valuation. You have cause and effect reversed. If VCs are underinvesting in female-founded companies, it's entirely expected that fewer of those companies will become unicorns.
  - ng12 8y ago
    I'm not talking about cause and effect, I'm talking about a lazy misapplication of statistics to bolster a talking point.
    - jakelazaroff 8y ago
      How can you separate them? Lack of female-founded unicorns is a direct consequence of underinvestment in female-founded companies.
8y ago

mywittyname 8y ago

> I honestly don’t see how any of this is legal It is illegal to discriminate for jobs on the basis of sex in the US (as per the Civil Rights Act of 1964). If you believe yourself to be the victim of discrimination, then submit a complaint the the EEOC [1] who will investigate. That being said, a large gap between the number men and women (or whites and blacks, etc) working at companies exist can be considered evidence of systematic discrimination. Increasing the pool of unrepresented applicants is a great way to ensure that a diverse pool of qualified candidates get interviews, thus reduce the likelihood that a company appears to be practicing discrimination during hiring. [1] https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sex.cfm https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sex.cfm

rubicon33 8y ago
Good luck with that complaint to the EEOC as a white man.
- astura 8y ago
  The EEOC absolutely investigates discrimination against white males. https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/initiatives/e-race/caselist.cfm#reverse https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/initiatives/e-race/caselist.cfm#re...
  - rubicon33 8y ago
    I never said it's not possible. I said good luck. Pointing out a handful of cases hardly proves that they're given the same level of consideration.
wolco 8y ago
I can accept either point but not both. It is illegal to discriminate based on sex. By not discriminating based on sex to fix a ratio/percent you could be found discriminating
- mywittyname 8y ago
  Statistically speaking, an equal opportunity workforce should be comprised of some demographic makeup. If a company deviates dramatically from that target makeup, the implication is that hiring practices are unfair. Addressing the unfairness will cause the issue to naturally correct itself. This is a sound strategy that's commonly applied to other areas of engineering. If a company produces bearings and their QA department measures bearing tolerances from a shipment sample to deviate wildly from what is expected, then the implication is their is an issue with the manufacturing process that needs to be addressed. They don't just toss a handful of under-tolerant bearing in the shipment to bring the median value inline. In other words: > By not discriminating based on sex to fix a ratio/percent ...Is where your misunderstanding is. This idea is not over-correction -- you do no need to discriminate to achieve a specific makeup. You explicitly need to NOT discriminate and the problem will be correct itself. ELI5: If a company was found to have a workforce that was too short. An appropriate response is to notice the problem an conduct an investigation, which determines tall people were put off from applying because the doors were too short. They correct the doors and the average height of employees naturally correct. A wrong approach is to explicitly weight taller people more favorable in interviews.

fzeroracer 8y ago

I have never encountered this overt screening against white men as a white man. Do you have any statistical evidence that proves white men are being discriminated against?

manfredo 8y ago

I can confirm your observations. At my company we have a couple policies. 1. We only accept applicstions from candidate from non-traditional backgrounds if they're diverse. Diverse is defined as any of the following: women, black, Hispanic, or native American - maybe also veterans but I'm not sure. Non-traditional background means coming from a coding boot camp, or majoring in a non-computing related field. I think after 3 years industry experience candidates are considered traditional even if they came from one of those two.* 2. Diverse candidates get two attempts to pass the technical phone interview, non diverse get one.* That said, when it comes to the hiring decision we don't discriminate. No disrespect for those candidates considered diverse, just take what you get. And I'm Cuban myself (but not visibly Latino) so I may have benefitted from that part of my identity myself. Untimely I think the lower representation of Black and Hispanic people in tech roles is reflective of education rates. I suspect that were incomes and education more equal that would make representation in tech more equal. There also geography. Not many tech companies in the south where most black people live. As for women thats a more difficult situation. I think that there's strong evidence to back up the claim that women may not choose to enter tech on their own volition. I think the solution to that is to emphasize the value of fields other than tech. Being coder at Google doesn't make a person any more valuable than a lawyer, marketer, salesperson, etc. Sure they may make more money, but that's the product of the labor market. And not to mention the average lawyer probably makes more than the average coder. I've anecdotally seen a growing portion of coding boot camp that are exclusive to certain demographics. I wonder how much of that is due to policies like these. Especially for boot camps that only charge if the graduates get jobs in tech, I can see how it would be disadvantageous to admit white and Asian men. * Edit: I just checked and these policies also apply to people with referrals. So one could justify this by saying we treat diverse candidates as though they have a referral.

pacala 8y ago
> Diverse candidates get two attempts to pass the technical phone interview, non diverse get one. These rhyme with soviet era policies circa 1950-1960 in Eastern Europe. At universities, there was an admission exam for 'healthy origin' people for the majority of the spots, and then another exam where everybody, including those failing the first time, could compete for the scraps. We all know how that turned out economically speaking. Seeing the same policies in XXI century USA is surreal.

commandlinefan 8y ago

I'm a white man, and sometimes I fear that the best thing I ever did for my son was give him Hispanic heritage through his mother.

WeakLanguage 8y ago
I'm in the same situation. I've already resigned myself that I must tell him to always check those minority boxes and he may want to consider only using his mother's surname on his resume, instead of the traditional dual surname he legally has (Example: Lopez, instead of Smith Lopez).
identity-haver 8y ago
My plan would be to send my kids to dual language programs. If you're a somewhat native Spanish speaker, you can claim to be Hispanic with a clear conscience. "Hispanic" is, legally speaking (for now), an "ethnicity", not a race, which means it is independent of blood (but apparently race is a "socio-political construct" according to the US Census). People are already doing this, plus the people with one Mexican grandparent or something. This farcical system can't go on forever as is. Either racial preferences in hiring will be banned under the 14th amendment, or the US will adopt a Brazil-style racial preference system, where they will actually test your blood and have technicians measure the tone of your skin and the shape of your face in order to fit you into a category.

i_am_proteus 8y ago

> We use inclusive definitions of “women” and “female” and welcome trans women, genderqueer women, and non-binary people who are female-identified. If you are interested in the program, it seems like you could identify yourself as female and apply. Especially if there's no in-person interview. Cynically, if enough [biological males who identify as] men elect to identify as women for this application, the selection team will have some very difficult decisions to make.

fzeroracer 8y ago
This is a great way to get a company to instantly reject you at the interview step if they have one or fired shortly after being hired. Because, you know, most companies look up the profile of candidates on LinkedIn, social media etc. Unless you actually consider yourself transgender, you would quickly be caught and removed just as quickly.
- navigatesol 8y ago
  >Unless you actually consider yourself transgender, you would quickly be caught and removed just as quickly. In the current cultural zeitgeist it'd be unimaginable to see someone get fired because they didn't conform to someone's rules of "transgender enough" based on their social media profile. This is both the beauty and the irony of said zeitgeist; make all the rules you want, can't stop someone from playing.
  - menacingly 8y ago
    And let's not forget the very real cases where someone may be more comfortable telling a bootcamp something about themselves than _the entire world_ on social media
  - fzeroracer 8y ago
    Yes, you can actually. These sort of arguments remind me of the transgender bathroom fears: What's stopping a man from pretending to be transgender in order to enter the woman's bathroom? Well, the answer is that people that are transgender will have a history of being transgender or acting in such a way that confirms they consider themselves that gender. So any lawsuit as a result of this would look into your past, see that you lied about being transgender and make it an open and shut case. If that case became public then you could say goodbye to your job prospects.

lallysingh 8y ago

I suspect it'll end when people aren't surprised to hear things like this: https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-interviews https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...

umanwizard 8y ago

Do you live in the US? If so, I think this is a bit exaggerated. There are still a lot of white men from the US at all major tech companies.

Townley 8y ago

I'm sympathetic to anyone who's had a challenging job search, and am glad that you found something. Society is worse off for having barriers that prevent anyone who wants to code from being able to do so. That includes the inefficiencies of the job industry not placing you into a productive coding role faster. But it also includes the lower salaries, lack of support/representation, belittling, and near-universal campaign of horrible harassment that every woman I've talked to in the field has experienced. Everyone in the field of software development struggles, and I don't want to take away from that. We should be making life easier for everyone. But doing so involves recognizing problems specifically and succinctly, and building solutions that fit those problems. One of society's many problems is that women in tech have to contend with a nightmarish swirl of negative distractions that I've never had to think about as a white man. In the face of such a problem, giving resources to the effected population makes total sense, and it's a good thing that more organizations/companies are doing so. Even more than that, it brings us closer to meritocratic equality.

malvosenior 8y ago
Women are in extremely high demand in the tech industry. This post is just another example of a benefit women get but men don't. As a hiring manager I can say I've definitely been encouraged to pay women more than equally equipped men because their presence on the team is deemed so valuable.

tth3uoku 8y ago

I have applied for women's scholarships but not without feeling guilty. Why do I get a chance at something while as many eager men in need of financial assistance or technical mentorship do not? I am appreciative of every opportunity I have been given and will continue to take advantage of any opportunity afforded to me, even if it is on the base of my gender. If an investor wants to help a certain group of people, I will value that they are providing opportunities even though I may disagree with the idea of providing opportunities based on immutable characteristics.

ddayz 8y ago

Similar scenario that was sadly disturbing. It is quite advantageous to have an ethnic origin as a Pacific Islander. However some people I have met from southern Asia coming from a farming family background likely have had much worse conditions growing up. But they get lumped into the Asian mass where you must truly excel to get noticed.

rosege 8y ago

I don't live in USA but a couple of years back I was working for a large financial organization in my country and was flat out told don't even think you are getting promoted because we need to lift our diversity so no white men will be promoted. I left not too long after that.

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Yetanfou 8y ago

This can only end when customers - from individuals to corporations - finally get fed up with the identity politics employed by these 'diversity' advocates and start shunning companies which profess adherence to this mantra. If this does not happen it will end when diversity has run its course and the population has been balkanised into nothing but oppressors and oppressed with the average size of the oppressed community being a single individual. Since by that time the economy will have ground to a halt they'll be fighting each other with sticks and stones.