4 ms·

Isn't the idea of underrepresentation of certain minority groups or genders basically that? we hear that there are only xy % of women in tech or PoC in tech and

Isn't the idea of underrepresentation of certain minority groups or genders basically that? we hear that there are only xy % of women in tech or PoC in tech and that the goal is to get for example 50/50% women/men. Isn't this basically a discussion about equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome. 50%/50% is basically equality of outcome. We can see for example in scandinavia that you get unequal outcomes if you amplify the equality of opportunities.

Loughla 5y ago
I mean, if you just take it at face value, then it could be interpreted that way. I think the problem is that there isn't an easy soundbite that companies can put out to identify how they will impact equality of opportunity, so they take the easy way to seem 'woke' or whatever other adjective you want to put on it, and attack with equality of outcome. I'm not trying to have a 'no true scotsman' sort of thing, but profit-driven companies are not a great measuring tool for most social issues. I guess, what I'm saying is, that the outcome being 'only xy% women in tech with a goal of 50/50' is an easily digestible way of saying, women do not have the same opportunity as men to get into tech. But it's harder for companies to outline the steps to ensure those opportunities than it is for them to proclaim that goal. >We can see for example in scandinavia that you get unequal outcomes if you amplify the equality of opportunities. Absolutely. (I actually had to look through my post history because I wondered if you were another person who brought up that statement!) What I said to them was, "And that's fair. My argument isn't that it needs to be split and completely equal. It's that the freedom to choose needs to be equal, and the playing field needs to be level, so that who is and who isn't in 'field a' is, in fact based on merit and not arbitrary classification at birth such as gender and ethnicity."
- giantg2 5y ago
  I agree. How do you propose measuring it if not using the 50/50 metric? Are we already at the point of equal opportunity? If not, why?
  - Loughla 5y ago
    >How do you propose measuring it if not using the 50/50 metric? If I had that answer, I honestly think I would be a billionaire. Really though, I have no practical ideas, because it isn't something I work with regularly. It seems like a sociologist could come up with something, some way to measure sentiment among youth, or something to that effect, but that's beyond me. >Are we already at the point of equal opportunity? If not, why? I don't believe so. Even the often touted Gender-equity paradox can be boiled down to gender stereotypes manifesting in individuals' decisions (https://www.pnas.org/content/117/49/31063 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/49/31063). All I know is that I see nearly no women enter STEM majors at the institutions I have worked with, whereas education and social work is almost 100% female. That is lopsided enough to tell me that something is at play here. I just simply am not educated enough to know what, how to measure it, or how to attempt to fix it.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Have you looked into that study? That seems kind of shady to me. They are using math attitudes to say there's a stereotype. It's not even asking stuff like 'do you think boys or girls are better at math' etc. It's just stuff like "Math is important for my career" etc. Well if they already have ideas about the careers they want to perform, then obviously the study is looking at the outcomes and not the drivers - why did they choose those careers? So it seems we're back at square one - that women as an aggregate choose fields that aren't as math centric. It seems like a leap to assume some implicit meaning behind those general questions on the survey. "If I had that answer, I honestly think I would be a billionaire." If we can't even define the problem and the underlying causes or measure the outcomes, then how can we fix it? Even if we try things, we would have no idea if they are actually beneficial because we don't even know what to measure. "I just simply am not educated enough to know what, how to measure it, or how to attempt to fix it." If we can't measure it and don't know how to fix it, then do we even know that a problem exists? "Even the often touted Gender-equity paradox can be boiled down to gender stereotypes manifesting in individuals' decisions" But if it's their own free choice, then why should we interfere with that? It's like saying my mom doesn't want me to play football because I might get hurt, so I'm going to base my decision on that. That is up to the person to decide if they want to use that as part of their decision making. Nobody is forcing them. The study had a question about if being a house wife is fulfilling. If a person finds that fulfilling, should we prevent them from doing that? I ha e a STEM job and I don't feel fulfilled. Judging by the number of disillusioned posts on HN, it looks like an engineering job is not something that is fulfilling. I don't see forcing people into it as a fix for anything. You're talking about swapping social norms that value family (fulfillment as a house wife) for the social norm that making more money, even at the expense of fulfillment, is what society values.
- Manuel_D 5y ago
  I've encountered a slightly more nuanced equity position that comes in the form of supporting equal opportunity, but simultaneously claiming that inequitable outcomes are indicative of unequal opportunity. If the goal is to fix inequality and inequity is assumed to be evidence of inequality, then that's just a roundabout way of pursuing equal outcomes. I'm not saying that this is your position. It's just a position I've encountered with fequency. Inequity is not evidence of inequality. Evidence of inequality are things like: sending identical resumes save for male vs. female names and measuring the difference in response rate, anonymizing candidates' voices and measuring changes in interview performance, or other tests that see changes in output directly attributable to aspects of the candidate's identity.
edgyquant 5y ago
Quotas guarantee opportunity they don’t guarantee outcome.
ska 5y ago
> Isn't the idea of underrepresentation of certain minority groups or genders basically that? Not really, but it's a bit nuanced. I'm not taking a position here on what is correct, but advocates for this sort thing will state that inequality in current distribution of outcomes is due inequality of opportunity in the past. If you accept that as true, you have a problem from a policy level as to what to do about it, if anything. One approach would be to attach the opportunity side only, and assume that in time a more equitable distribution will arrive over time. The problem is for something like this "in time" is probably measured in generations. Another is to try an tip the scales a bit to correct to impact of opportunity on those people effected, or on your company (or other institution) or both. A problem with this approach is you by definition don't really know what the correct distribution should be, so you are likely to be a bit hamfisted about it.

Loughla 5y ago

I mean, if you just take it at face value, then it could be interpreted that way. I think the problem is that there isn't an easy soundbite that companies can put out to identify how they will impact equality of opportunity, so they take the easy way to seem 'woke' or whatever other adjective you want to put on it, and attack with equality of outcome. I'm not trying to have a 'no true scotsman' sort of thing, but profit-driven companies are not a great measuring tool for most social issues. I guess, what I'm saying is, that the outcome being 'only xy% women in tech with a goal of 50/50' is an easily digestible way of saying, women do not have the same opportunity as men to get into tech. But it's harder for companies to outline the steps to ensure those opportunities than it is for them to proclaim that goal. >We can see for example in scandinavia that you get unequal outcomes if you amplify the equality of opportunities. Absolutely. (I actually had to look through my post history because I wondered if you were another person who brought up that statement!) What I said to them was, "And that's fair. My argument isn't that it needs to be split and completely equal. It's that the freedom to choose needs to be equal, and the playing field needs to be level, so that who is and who isn't in 'field a' is, in fact based on merit and not arbitrary classification at birth such as gender and ethnicity."

giantg2 5y ago
I agree. How do you propose measuring it if not using the 50/50 metric? Are we already at the point of equal opportunity? If not, why?
- Loughla 5y ago
  >How do you propose measuring it if not using the 50/50 metric? If I had that answer, I honestly think I would be a billionaire. Really though, I have no practical ideas, because it isn't something I work with regularly. It seems like a sociologist could come up with something, some way to measure sentiment among youth, or something to that effect, but that's beyond me. >Are we already at the point of equal opportunity? If not, why? I don't believe so. Even the often touted Gender-equity paradox can be boiled down to gender stereotypes manifesting in individuals' decisions (https://www.pnas.org/content/117/49/31063 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/49/31063). All I know is that I see nearly no women enter STEM majors at the institutions I have worked with, whereas education and social work is almost 100% female. That is lopsided enough to tell me that something is at play here. I just simply am not educated enough to know what, how to measure it, or how to attempt to fix it.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Have you looked into that study? That seems kind of shady to me. They are using math attitudes to say there's a stereotype. It's not even asking stuff like 'do you think boys or girls are better at math' etc. It's just stuff like "Math is important for my career" etc. Well if they already have ideas about the careers they want to perform, then obviously the study is looking at the outcomes and not the drivers - why did they choose those careers? So it seems we're back at square one - that women as an aggregate choose fields that aren't as math centric. It seems like a leap to assume some implicit meaning behind those general questions on the survey. "If I had that answer, I honestly think I would be a billionaire." If we can't even define the problem and the underlying causes or measure the outcomes, then how can we fix it? Even if we try things, we would have no idea if they are actually beneficial because we don't even know what to measure. "I just simply am not educated enough to know what, how to measure it, or how to attempt to fix it." If we can't measure it and don't know how to fix it, then do we even know that a problem exists? "Even the often touted Gender-equity paradox can be boiled down to gender stereotypes manifesting in individuals' decisions" But if it's their own free choice, then why should we interfere with that? It's like saying my mom doesn't want me to play football because I might get hurt, so I'm going to base my decision on that. That is up to the person to decide if they want to use that as part of their decision making. Nobody is forcing them. The study had a question about if being a house wife is fulfilling. If a person finds that fulfilling, should we prevent them from doing that? I ha e a STEM job and I don't feel fulfilled. Judging by the number of disillusioned posts on HN, it looks like an engineering job is not something that is fulfilling. I don't see forcing people into it as a fix for anything. You're talking about swapping social norms that value family (fulfillment as a house wife) for the social norm that making more money, even at the expense of fulfillment, is what society values.
Manuel_D 5y ago
I've encountered a slightly more nuanced equity position that comes in the form of supporting equal opportunity, but simultaneously claiming that inequitable outcomes are indicative of unequal opportunity. If the goal is to fix inequality and inequity is assumed to be evidence of inequality, then that's just a roundabout way of pursuing equal outcomes. I'm not saying that this is your position. It's just a position I've encountered with fequency. Inequity is not evidence of inequality. Evidence of inequality are things like: sending identical resumes save for male vs. female names and measuring the difference in response rate, anonymizing candidates' voices and measuring changes in interview performance, or other tests that see changes in output directly attributable to aspects of the candidate's identity.

edgyquant 5y ago

Quotas guarantee opportunity they don’t guarantee outcome.

ska 5y ago

> Isn't the idea of underrepresentation of certain minority groups or genders basically that? Not really, but it's a bit nuanced. I'm not taking a position here on what is correct, but advocates for this sort thing will state that inequality in current distribution of outcomes is due inequality of opportunity in the past. If you accept that as true, you have a problem from a policy level as to what to do about it, if anything. One approach would be to attach the opportunity side only, and assume that in time a more equitable distribution will arrive over time. The problem is for something like this "in time" is probably measured in generations. Another is to try an tip the scales a bit to correct to impact of opportunity on those people effected, or on your company (or other institution) or both. A problem with this approach is you by definition don't really know what the correct distribution should be, so you are likely to be a bit hamfisted about it.