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To believe that blind applications would help increase female representation presupposes that they're being discriminated against right now, when TFA shows that

To believe that blind applications would help increase female representation presupposes that they're being discriminated against right now, when TFA shows that women are getting preferential callbacks. That completely jives with my experience: most female candidates are highly, highly sought-after, and are quickly hired by top tech companies (leaving smaller companies looking bad in the process, despire their equal desire for female candidates). Blind applications would probably hurt female representation. It's possible it would help minority representation.

dimitrios1 6y ago
It seems to me that if you choose something that is completely equitable in who is able to participate, then the rest of it sounds like manufacturing dissent by companies or corporations that want a "leg up" on the competition in the D&I category, which is all the rage these days in terms of marketing. Maybe there are other reasons women don't want to enter these fields, but prefer to wholly dominate others, and maybe that we should turn the conversation to this being OK. We've spent so many cycles trying to "figure this out" when there is research after research that just shows women don't prefer the "rat race" as much as men, and gravitate towards roles that focus on helping, nurturing, and community, hence why they dominate roles where those are highlighted: teachers, administrators, nurses, psychologists, etc. There's never going to be a feeling of "service" or caring when you are writing ad-tech for a FAANG. It's just not going to happen, no matter how many D&I articles you write.
- giantg2 6y ago
  I agree. There has been research on demographics pertaining to college majors and their career opportunities in the context of why some demographics make less money than others after graduating with a 4 year degree. One of the main factors that came up in the interviews was, like you said, the lower earning demographics wanted to have a bigger community impact, but that those jobs simply paid less money (like social workers).
- benjaminjosephw 6y ago
  I once went to a members-only hackerspace that was very open and equitable, at least in theory. To join, you had to get a recommendation from another member and support from one more. They held regular open days and were very welcoming but definitely had an established subculture that didn't include much diversity. Joining really meant being the friend of a member or possibly a friend of a friend. If you were an outsider, you'd really need to show them you were already a part of their sub-culture before they'd consider you. Openness to diversity really meant openness to conforming to an existing culture before joining. Diversity and inclusion is an extremely hard thing to get right or even to agree on what "right" means. I don't think anybody would agree that diversity issues are fixed now and so it can't be "time to turn the conversation to this being OK". As I pointed out in my story above, lots of people can't even see that there is a present and persistent problem despite the good intentions around fixing it. That's exactly why we need to pay more attention to studies like this. You seem keen to switch to a conversation about nature instead of having one about nurture/culture (there were a few historical arguments about race that took a similar approach). Perhaps these two are so intimately bound that it's not helpful to make observations about one in the abstract. Instead, should we not simply focus on those things we can change and try our best to ensure the inequalities of the past aren't reflected in the culture of today? It's not about some set of absolute outcomes, its about the absence of bias - an outcome I'd hope we were all on-board with.
  - monoideism 6y ago
    > Openness to diversity really meant openness to conforming to an existing culture before joining. Why is this a problem? I've been progressing most of my life, but I came to software development relatively late in life. The culture was dramatically different from that of my prior profession.
- tomp 6y ago
  > women don't prefer the "rat race" as much as men It's not just that. Money is like make-up for men. It's obvious why men would put more effort (on average) in acquiring it.
sanxiyn 6y ago
> Blind applications would probably hurt female representation. Isn't this good for gender equality?
- username90 6y ago
  Harvard's argument is that selecting candidates based on merit means we discriminate against those who had a harder time building merit and is therefore racist/sexist.
- michaelt 6y ago
  Some people believe girls don't study CS in large numbers because programming is "a boys' job" which is a self-perpetuating cycle; and a limited period of substantial positive discrimination could turn it into a gender-neutral job that appealed to men and women equally. Other fields, like medicine, law and chemistry have radically changed gender composition since the 1940s so it's not unprecedented for an industry to lose its gender bias. Personally I think it's far from certain such an effort would work - or that it wouldn't.
throwaway2245 6y ago
> most female candidates are highly, highly sought-after, and are quickly hired by top tech companies Let's say we believe that women are on average equally as capable of men, and we know there are maybe 10-20% as many women in the industry. Are those 10-20% women roughly as good as the average man, or are they roughly as good as the top 10-20% of men? Have they had the same experience as average men, or have they fought through and survived discriminatory barriers? Even if we suppose the answer is somewhere in-between, it wouldn't be surprising that women are highly sought-after. Because with these assumptions, the women in the industry are generally likely to be better on average. Maybe we don't observe discrimination against women in this specific context* (post-application and pre-salary negotiation), but that doesn't mean it isn't occurring elsewhere. *The summary data includes non-technical hires at tech companies
- username90 6y ago
  Your assumption relies on the women getting into the field are the best women. I don't see why that would be true. The fields with many women like law, medicine or psychology are much harder to get into than computer science or engineering so most of the best women likely ends up there.
  - nashalo_nighly 6y ago
    Given that as a woman you don’t benefit from the “competency bias” and constantly has to prove yourself (which is not necessarily bad), combined with the fact that many women simply walk out of careers in computer science and physics because of sexism/harassment, you could consider that the women left are indeed more competent than the average man in the industry.
    - username90 6y ago
      Women do benefit from likeability bias though, and likeability is certainly a factor when hiring and firing. As for fake resume studies, the problem with those is that male and female resumes are evaluated differently. If they made a male looking resume and sent it out with a female name it will do badly. But a female looking resume with a male name will also do badly.

dimitrios1 6y ago

It seems to me that if you choose something that is completely equitable in who is able to participate, then the rest of it sounds like manufacturing dissent by companies or corporations that want a "leg up" on the competition in the D&I category, which is all the rage these days in terms of marketing. Maybe there are other reasons women don't want to enter these fields, but prefer to wholly dominate others, and maybe that we should turn the conversation to this being OK. We've spent so many cycles trying to "figure this out" when there is research after research that just shows women don't prefer the "rat race" as much as men, and gravitate towards roles that focus on helping, nurturing, and community, hence why they dominate roles where those are highlighted: teachers, administrators, nurses, psychologists, etc. There's never going to be a feeling of "service" or caring when you are writing ad-tech for a FAANG. It's just not going to happen, no matter how many D&I articles you write.

giantg2 6y ago
I agree. There has been research on demographics pertaining to college majors and their career opportunities in the context of why some demographics make less money than others after graduating with a 4 year degree. One of the main factors that came up in the interviews was, like you said, the lower earning demographics wanted to have a bigger community impact, but that those jobs simply paid less money (like social workers).
benjaminjosephw 6y ago
I once went to a members-only hackerspace that was very open and equitable, at least in theory. To join, you had to get a recommendation from another member and support from one more. They held regular open days and were very welcoming but definitely had an established subculture that didn't include much diversity. Joining really meant being the friend of a member or possibly a friend of a friend. If you were an outsider, you'd really need to show them you were already a part of their sub-culture before they'd consider you. Openness to diversity really meant openness to conforming to an existing culture before joining. Diversity and inclusion is an extremely hard thing to get right or even to agree on what "right" means. I don't think anybody would agree that diversity issues are fixed now and so it can't be "time to turn the conversation to this being OK". As I pointed out in my story above, lots of people can't even see that there is a present and persistent problem despite the good intentions around fixing it. That's exactly why we need to pay more attention to studies like this. You seem keen to switch to a conversation about nature instead of having one about nurture/culture (there were a few historical arguments about race that took a similar approach). Perhaps these two are so intimately bound that it's not helpful to make observations about one in the abstract. Instead, should we not simply focus on those things we can change and try our best to ensure the inequalities of the past aren't reflected in the culture of today? It's not about some set of absolute outcomes, its about the absence of bias - an outcome I'd hope we were all on-board with.
- monoideism 6y ago
  > Openness to diversity really meant openness to conforming to an existing culture before joining. Why is this a problem? I've been progressing most of my life, but I came to software development relatively late in life. The culture was dramatically different from that of my prior profession.
tomp 6y ago
> women don't prefer the "rat race" as much as men It's not just that. Money is like make-up for men. It's obvious why men would put more effort (on average) in acquiring it.

sanxiyn 6y ago

> Blind applications would probably hurt female representation. Isn't this good for gender equality?

username90 6y ago
Harvard's argument is that selecting candidates based on merit means we discriminate against those who had a harder time building merit and is therefore racist/sexist.
michaelt 6y ago
Some people believe girls don't study CS in large numbers because programming is "a boys' job" which is a self-perpetuating cycle; and a limited period of substantial positive discrimination could turn it into a gender-neutral job that appealed to men and women equally. Other fields, like medicine, law and chemistry have radically changed gender composition since the 1940s so it's not unprecedented for an industry to lose its gender bias. Personally I think it's far from certain such an effort would work - or that it wouldn't.

throwaway2245 6y ago

> most female candidates are highly, highly sought-after, and are quickly hired by top tech companies Let's say we believe that women are on average equally as capable of men, and we know there are maybe 10-20% as many women in the industry. Are those 10-20% women roughly as good as the average man, or are they roughly as good as the top 10-20% of men? Have they had the same experience as average men, or have they fought through and survived discriminatory barriers? Even if we suppose the answer is somewhere in-between, it wouldn't be surprising that women are highly sought-after. Because with these assumptions, the women in the industry are generally likely to be better on average. Maybe we don't observe discrimination against women in this specific context* (post-application and pre-salary negotiation), but that doesn't mean it isn't occurring elsewhere. *The summary data includes non-technical hires at tech companies

username90 6y ago
Your assumption relies on the women getting into the field are the best women. I don't see why that would be true. The fields with many women like law, medicine or psychology are much harder to get into than computer science or engineering so most of the best women likely ends up there.
- nashalo_nighly 6y ago
  Given that as a woman you don’t benefit from the “competency bias” and constantly has to prove yourself (which is not necessarily bad), combined with the fact that many women simply walk out of careers in computer science and physics because of sexism/harassment, you could consider that the women left are indeed more competent than the average man in the industry.
  - username90 6y ago
    Women do benefit from likeability bias though, and likeability is certainly a factor when hiring and firing. As for fake resume studies, the problem with those is that male and female resumes are evaluated differently. If they made a male looking resume and sent it out with a female name it will do badly. But a female looking resume with a male name will also do badly.