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There are job boards that SPECIFICALLY make it their business to target women and deliver female candidates looking for tech roles (in organizations that are in
by stakhanov 7y ago
There are job boards that SPECIFICALLY make it their business to target women and deliver female candidates looking for tech roles (in organizations that are in need of diversity hires):
https://powertofly.com/
...and companies pay a premium for those job advertising channels.
Why is it a great business and an initiative to be applauded if it is about excluding men and a scandal if it is about excluding women?
- Dude2029 7y agoBecause it's the current year and men never complain.
- adrianN 7y agoI think for similar reasons like it generally being seen as a good thing to give free food and housing to the poor, but frowned upon to do the same for the rich.
- abbasaamer 7y agoThat's a poor comparison and I think most people understand that, even if the current environment discourages them from admitting it.
- adrianN 7y agoWhy do you think that it's a poor comparison?
- GrayTextIsTruth 7y agothere are more homeless men than women. So that's like targeting men to give free food and shelter because more men need it, which wouldn't happen.
- ptah 7y agoi think you are trying to stretch the metaphor too far
- GrayTextIsTruth 7y agoits more accurate. targeting the underrepresented cohort.
- ptah 7y agono, you are applying the thing "metaphorised" inside the metaphor. it is quite wrongheaded tbh
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- zahrc 7y agoI have trouble to understand your message behind your analogy... From what I get is that you are referring to woman as the poor, and man as the rich. Just because it's a man dominated field, does it mean the others remaining have no chance to get anything in that field? If so, do you suggest that one half of the world is not allowed to have these jobs at the same condition because some people already do, just because they have a male reproductive system? --- Meaning that all men are representative for all men, the same for women? This is not equality.
- stakhanov 7y agoI object to the use of "dominated". In a herd, a "dominant" animal will actively work to keep others away from food sources and mating opportunities when those are scarce. This is not what this is. Strictly my opinion: There are few women in software engineering because few women WANT to be in software engineering, period. ...and it's not a given that this is by definition a bad thing for them either.
- stakhanov 7y ago...actually, it occurs to me that the animal kingdom comparison is kind of funny, because it shows the absurdity of the claim that an entire gender of a species dominates another. If, in some herd, all animals of a given gender were actually kept away from food sources and/or mating opportunities, that herd would die out.
- hutzlibu 7y agoMaybe one of the reasons women do not want to work in IT is, that the atmosphere is still sometimes sexist? Or at least arkward. When I started to study IT, I was surprised to see, that the stereotypes were the majority. Meaning, long, oily hair, etc. So I guess that is still changing, and I really do not believe 50% women should be the goal, but maybe the IT world still needs reflection sometimes, why so little women want to get into it.
- merb 7y ago
- concordDance 7y agoI upvoted your comment because I think the reasoning reflects people's actual reasoning. That said, I don't think techy women can be described as metaphorically "poor" these days. Big tech firms are desperate for more women. For women as a whole it's another issue, but very few are going to learn an entirely new skillset just because they saw an ad.
- Traster 7y ago>Big tech firms are desperate for more women. I can't talk about everyone's experience, but this is true in a "We desperately want to have more women", but not true in the sense of "We're willing to address the systematic reasons women don't join our company". It doesn't matter how much you advertise on a website for women if you're advertising a job with no maternity benefits, or one of your engineers remarks "Oh! Is this our new HR lady?" when you're showing the prospective employee around the office.
- repolfx 7y agoHow many firms don't offer maternity leave? Outside of tiny 5 person startups that don't have any HR policies at all that seems like a strawman. As for men making condescending comments towards women, that's not a systematic problem with a systematic solution. And women (or really, feminists) pretty routinely make condescending comments towards men in my experience, at a much, much greater rate. The idea that women face a hostile work environment and men don't is the inversion of my own experience. Men face a much more hostile environment. The last thing the software industry needs is ramping up the hostility towards men even more because that's the only way feminists can think of to increase the number of female hires.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoI think what the warring feminist faction doesn't understand (or does and ignores) is that their actions are breeding fear and resentment towards women. There's a spectrum here, On the consequence-less wrong end you have assholes getting away with sexist comments toward their women colleagues[0]. In the desirable middle, you have everyone treating everyone else with proper professional respect. But on the other bad end, you have every male in the office becoming tense and extremely self-conscious in presence of their women co-workers, because of the perceived risk that they may be dealing with someone that gets easily offended about random things and is ready to create a stink with HR for it[1]. Now, I see the feminist movement in our industry definitely overshooting towards that other bad end, and it doesn't really matter that most women are reasonable - the mere possibility of chancing into someone unreasonable drives overly cautious behavior. There is such a thing as pushing too hard. Stirring a conflict of sexes may have been the fastest way to enact change, but the antagonistic atmosphere isn't going to just dissipate itself. -- [0] - I mean the cases that make women uncomfortable; I've worked with women whose sexual innuendos during regular office chats made me uncomfortable. [1] - Or, worst case, someone who does that on purpose, to advance their career at the expense of others. There's always a fraction of people of both genders ready to play dirty, but in current environment one of them is now armed with a superweapon.
- GrayTextIsTruth 7y agoand specifically targeting men with free food and housing, who have higher rates of homelessness...
- belorn 7y agoAs someone pointed out further down the comment thread, we do not give out free food and housing exclusively to the demographic that has more poor people. Doing so would be inhumane and heartless.
- xxxpupugo 7y agoNot all women are poor, not all men are rich. If discrimination is THE issue, then woman specific job ads also needs to be banned.
- DuskStar 7y agoWouldn't a better analogy be to give free food and housing to women, but not to men?
- lawnchair_larry 7y agoBecause “punching up” is allowed, apparently.
- AsyncAwait 7y agoI mean, yes? That's where a lot of comedy has historically come from, it's not necessarily a problem.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoWhen someone is sitting on you and you're punching up it can be seen as a fight for liberation, when you're sitting on someone and punching down it can be seen as violent oppression.
- concordDance 7y agoI expect that most of the people applauding women-targetted recruiting are not the same people disliking men-targetted recruiting.
- kstenerud 7y agoBecause it's a specialized channel where companies can specifically advertise their inclusiveness, which is important for a number of reasons. First, we need to stem the losses of women in tech that happen due to the traditionally woman-hostile culture that has pervaded the industry for so long, and is only now beginning to recede. Women (and in fact all minority groups) get pushed out of the industry by hostile work environments. A specialized channel like this allows companies to say "We don't tolerate that, so come work for us." It allows them to tap a potentially huge labor force before it shrinks too much. Second, markets like these offer a less stressful job search for marginalized groups, because they can have greater confidence that they won't get jerked around this time. It means that less women get so fed up that they quit, which means less time and effort is required to reach a critical mass where the momentum of women in tech begets more women in tech on its own. This isn't about excluding men; it's about providing a more confidence-inducing hiring process for marginalized groups.
- rimliu 7y agoFYI: the more choices women have, the less like are they to choose IT. Nothing to do with "hostility". Sitting for hours in front of the screen starring at code may not seem so appealing to everyone.
- moksly 7y agoIt has to do with the philosophical point of what you’re trying to do, doesn’t it? When you target your job-advertising at groups who are minorities in your field of expertise, then you’re being inclusive from an equality point of view. On the other hand, if your job-advertising targets members of the majority, then you’re being exclusive. The degree of “unfairness” is the same, but the goal isn’t “fairness” as such but rather equality. Whether we personally agree with forced equality or not is really beyond the point in a society that views inclusiveness as good and exclusion as bad.
- andybak 7y ago> Why is it a great business and an initiative to be applauded if it is about excluding men and a scandal if it is about excluding women? I suspect you probably know the reason (even if you disagree with it) and you're making a polemic point rather than genuinely asking this question. If I'm mistaken then forgive me. In short - certain sectors have a very skewed gender bias and it's regarded as a good thing to try and correct for that.
- trickstra 7y agoGender bias is when a company doesn't decide by anything relevant to the job (such as skills, quality or work discipline), but instead decided mostly by the sex. And this is happening. Female programmers are getting hired even when their skills/productivity/experience is way lower than male programmers.
- andybak 7y agoI don't want to get into the whole "positive discrimination" debate and my own thoughts on the matter are complex and change frequently. However - the arguments for, against and for many points in between have been stated many times. Either you already are aware of them in which case you should be engaging with those rather than restating a starting position - or you can just do a Google search and get up to date with what is a fairly complex and nuanced topic.
- furyg3 7y agoBecause the goal may not be 'fair' for all individuals but instead 'equal' for groups of individuals, especially those who have been traditionally discriminated against.
- dgzl 7y agoBecause certain groups have abandoned the pursuit of equality for the pursuit of equity, and you can't have both.
- eanthy 7y agowomen are already so benefited in the tech industry, getting hired just for their gender, getting scholarships in universities and so on. The media makes it seem exactly the opposite because it gets them views. The reason there is lack of women in tech is because they are naturally not interested in it not because anyone is preventing them. If anything female starting salaries are higher than males
- toxik 7y agoI'm not saying quotas and affirmative action are the way to go, but it should be pointed out that women are still heavily outnumbered in the tech industry and STEM education. My personal view is that I'm not sure it's actually an issue that needs to (or can) be fixed, I think we should let people do what they want to do. Turns out that means bigger gender differences in career choice.
- trax 7y agowhy aren't we trying to fix the abnormal amount of women in nursing? why aren't there male only positions for nurses?
- eanthy 7y agoI don't think there is anything wrong with gender difference in subjects. Psychology for example is 95% women. Some professions are naturally more interesting for men other for women. Don't see why policy is trying to fore women into tech
- neilv 7y agoWhy do you conclude that the cause is "natural interest"? I've heard a number of other theories that also sound plausible, and they sound like problems that should be addressed. Examples of other theories (not exhaustive): alienated by brogrammer/strutting/aggressive culture many places, discriminated against in hiring many places, harassed by some individuals, not trying due to belief that they'll be discriminated against, not trying due to belief that they'll face harassment or other hostile culture.
- Angostura 7y ago> Why is it a great business and an initiative to be applauded if it is about excluding men and a scandal if it is about excluding women? Because the one aims to reduce an imbalance in the workforce, which leads to a particular section being under represented. Thwe other aims to increase an imbalance in the workforce, which leads to a particular section being under represented.
- AlexTWithBeard 7y agoWhy do we think the imbalance is bad?
- pdub123 7y agoIt's not, it's actually natural. Presenting it as bad is simply, at worst: propaganda espoused by sheep and their shepherds, and at best: ignornace. There has been a ton of research done on "Thing vs People" career interests, which show very clearly that men prefer working with Things, whereas Women prefer working with People. (When I say prefer, I mean the average in a normal distribution) Simply google: occupational interests people vs things Ex1: "Men and Things, Women and People: A Meta-Analysis of Sex Differences in Interests" https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38061313_Men_and_Things_Women_and_People_A_Meta-Analysis_of_Sex_Differences_in_Interests https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38061313_Men_and_Th... Ex2: "Straight Talk About Sex Differences in Occupational Choices and Work-Family Tradeoffs" "Sex differences in occupational interests have been known for decades, and a recent aggregate analysis of the interests of more than 500,000 people shows that some of these differences are quite large.1 The most relevant finding here is that about 15% of women have the same level of interest in engineering as the average man; 50% of men, by definition, would have stronger interests in engineering than the average man." https://ifstudies.org/blog/straight-talk-about-sex-differences-in-occupational-choices-and-work-family-tradeoffs https://ifstudies.org/blog/straight-talk-about-sex-differenc... Ex3: "Brainwash: The Gender Equality Paradox" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE
- Angostura 7y ago
- SAI_Peregrinus 7y agoSex is a federally protected class[1]. Discrimination in employment decisions based on any federally protected class is illegal, and can carry rather large fines. Using a job board that explicitly discriminates based on a protected class is a very, very risky idea. If a member of the untargeted portion of the class (a male) sees a job ad there and is denied employment they have very good evidence for a sex discrimination lawsuit. [1] https://content.next.westlaw.com/Document/Ibb0a38daef0511e28578f7ccc38dcbee/View/FullText.html https://content.next.westlaw.com/Document/Ibb0a38daef0511e28...
- captainredbeard 7y agoUnfortunately, the Department of Justice chooses to not enforce this law when the offending objective is to hire anything but white males. It should be enforced equally.
- hmry 7y agoDo you have any sources for that?
- stakhanov 7y agoThe next time I (male) am looking for a job, I will make a specific point of seeking out job advertisements targeted at women in tech and applying, just to see what happens.