4 ms·
This is a strawman argument. The goal is not to have 50% women, sharp. The goal is to fix the problem that in the US, where there are 5 men for every woman wor
by romwell 7y ago
This is a strawman argument.
The goal is not to have 50% women, sharp. The goal is to fix the problem that in the US, where there are 5 men for every woman working in top major software corporations, and those are the ones that supposedly try to improve things.
It's 2019, and yet a company with all-male board was the norm until this year (arguably still is). We are so, so far from any form of reasonable balance that I am not sure which universe your comment applies to.
And yes, what you said matters, as does race, country of origin, and economic background. Intersectionality is a fancy word, but it's useful, and the article mentions it.
So that said, 50% is a useful number. It's useful to say that if the actual hiring rate is at 15%, we still have a problem.
- AdrianB1 7y agoWhy is 50% the useful number? Why not 25 or 40 or 60 or 75%? Any number needs a justification, 25% or 75% alike, so why 50%? We have 80% females in the marketing department and it is actually much larger than the IT department. Should we have 50%? Why? Actually we have a pipeline problem there too, not so many males interested in marketing. Is that a problem that needs to be solved?
- romwell 7y ago>We have 80% females in the marketing department and it is actually much larger than the IT department. Is that a problem that needs to be solved? It depends on whether it has been a consistent trend across the vast majority of marketing departments and companies, like it is wit software. Just like having one software company with 80% women is not a solution, having one company with 80% women in marketing is not a problem. 50% is a useful number because that's about the proportion of women in the world (did I really have to spell that out?).
- seangrogg 7y agoAccenture [1], BHP [2], Dell [3], and that's just a cursory glance at those that have made public commitments to 50% women "sharp" by a target year. My comment had nothing to do with software in particular (I explicitly call that out), just the utilization of the metrics themselves by any company. I have nothing against companies taking a moment to reflect on how their hiring practices may be unintentionally (or worse, intentionally) stifling diversity. Rather, I'm invoking Goodhart's law here, in that "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." [1] https://www.accenture.com/us-en/about/inclusion-diversity/gender-equality https://www.accenture.com/us-en/about/inclusion-diversity/ge... [2] https://www.bhp.com/media-and-insights/prospects/2017/09/no-silver-bullet-but-great-progress-on-gender-balance https://www.bhp.com/media-and-insights/prospects/2017/09/no-... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-12/dell-aims-to-make-women-half-of-workforce-in-diversity-push https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-12/dell-aims...
- CapricornNoble 7y ago>>>The goal is to fix the problem that in the US, where there are 5 men for every woman working in top major software corporations There's also 99 men for every 1 woman working in coal mining. Why is no one (especially women) advocating we "fix" this gender disparity?
- romwell 7y agoBecause we treat mental and physical work differently.
- CapricornNoble 7y agoIf physical work is overwhelmingly dangerous, and physical work is (currently) overwhelmingly male, then wouldn't it be misandrist to treat it differently from mental work, where an equal labor distribution is lauded?
- romwell 7y agoWhere did I say anything about danger?
- CapricornNoble 7y agoYou didn't. I did.