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I get asked for my gender often in online forms. What is it ultimately used for? Even for my employment why does my employer care what gender I am or my sexual
by fasteddie31003 4y ago
I get asked for my gender often in online forms. What is it ultimately used for? Even for my employment why does my employer care what gender I am or my sexual orientation? Personally I think there is an over emphasis on gender and sexual orientation. I don't care about your gender or sexual orientation unless I want to have a sexual relationship with you.
- bombcar 4y agoMany things have "reporting requirements" where, for example, your employer is required to report your gender and race to the government to determine how sexist and racist they are. I suspect it's very rarely actually important, it's just on the list of things they always have asked for and always will.
- geraldwhen 4y agoDiversity numbers show up on reports that affect ESG investment. ESG funds will buy more of your company’s stock if you have a higher percentage of women on boards, for example, and other metrics. And some positions are only offered to diverse candidates or candidates from a particular subgroup, like LGBT etc. Last year, one of the roles I had to fill was diverse-only. Only applicants of color were allowed to apply for the role.
- the_gastropod 4y agoWhat you're describing would likely violate Title VII and the EEOC.
- bombcar 4y agoBlatant violations occur way more often than you think; nobody cares. Technically-legal-but-still-violating-the-spirit happens if the people involved bother asking legal about it.
- the_gastropod 4y agoOh, I'm sure violations happen all the time. But I very much doubt such violations primarily benefit minorities. There's a reason these laws exist, after all. Further, "blatantly violating" these laws as a publicly traded company, to game ESG funds seems like a poor risk:reward gamble.
- MockObject 4y agoIf violations to improve ESG score are a poor risk:reward gamble, what are the rewards of these other violations that "happen all the time"? Are the rewards even greater than improvement of ESG score?
- the_gastropod 4y ago1. The types of companies ESG funds can invest in (publicly traded companies) probably aren't very likely to blatantly violate any laws. There are significant repercussions for such behavior. With privately held companies, there's a lot more room to work in shady nonsense like we're discussing in part because there's so much less oversight. 2. I can at least point to plenty of evidence that this happens. Take this 2021 UC Berkeley Study [1] showing that job applicants with black-sounding names were significantly less likely to get called back than applicants with white-sounding names. What's the motivation there? Good ol' fashioned racism. Y'know, the exact motivation that prompted the laws in question to be written. [1] https://eml.berkeley.edu//~crwalters/papers/randres.pdf https://eml.berkeley.edu//~crwalters/papers/randres.pdf
- geraldwhen 4y agoIf I wanted to dox myself I could list job postings. Companies do not care about unenforced laws. It’s not my job to argue with HR about what constitutes legal hiring practices.
- MockObject 4y agoThere is bad-faith activity on this thread when a substantive comment like this is downvoted without rebuttal.
- freejazz 4y agoNot really, it seems like the poster's own grievances about ESG. I've been asked these questions at every job I've ever had, and that preceded ESG by decades... I wish people here could use reasonable judgment instead of a kind of judgment that reflects "something is possibly true technically, but not really realistic, but I'm going to treat as true anyway because it runs against a mainstream/political narrative so someone rebut me"
- geraldwhen 4y agoI have inside knowledge with respect to fund investment.
- freejazz 4y agoWhat does that have to do with my point?
- MockObject 4y ago> ESG funds will buy more of your company’s stock if you have a higher percentage of women on boards, for example, and other metrics. This is as close to a neutral and objective description of ESG as could be written in English! That is not grievance, and it should not be downvoted as such.
- freejazz 4y agoYeah, that is a neutral description of it. My issue wasn't the description of ESG, but the conclusions drawn about how ESG is driving things (which I pointed out, significantly predated ESG) thats exactly the point I'm making about being obtuse for no reason at all. It's abundantly clear from my post that my issue is the conclusions the poster drawn about how ESG drives things, and not the poster's description of ESG on its own. Yet you are apparently under the belief pointing this out rebuts me? That's not reasonable at all.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- no-dr-onboard 4y ago> I don't care about your gender or sexual orientation unless I want to have a sexual relationship with you. I feel the same way and have never been able to get a good answer for this one. "Statistics and hiring" is a very lame-duck answer. How does it help our product knowing that we have +1 more homonormative person?
- jfengel 4y agoIt means that you know that you don't have zero. If you have zero, and you're big enough to be collecting data, there's a good chance that something is wrong.
- ellisv 4y ago> How does it help our product knowing that we have +1 more homonormative person? Apparently it helped Subaru a lot. [1] [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/how-subarus-came-to-be-seen-as-cars-for-lesbians/488042/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/how-sub...
- torben-friis 4y agoAs I mentioned in a different comment, gender might be necessary for the feature of displaying content that addresses you, since some languages have gender baked in, there is no genderless 'you' form like in English. Now sexual orientation, that's a head scratcher.
- jeroenhd 4y agoThis is definitely a valid use case for gender. However, in most applications and services, this is not used like that. The gender mapping seems to be used exclusively to determine whether the marketing emails should start with "mr." or "mrs.".
- fknorangesite 4y ago> The gender mapping seems to be used exclusively to determine whether the marketing emails should start with "mr." or "mrs.". Anything vaguely social is going to have instances where you want to refer to a user in the third person. Of course, an easy solution to this is not to ask for gender per se, but for what pronouns to use. Even a dropdown with "he/she/they" options is going to cover basically everyone. If you need something more complicated than that, so be it, but probably YAGNI.
- xigoi 4y agoWhat if the client switches their display language to one where the gender matters?
- jeroenhd 4y agoShow a prompt, in their native language, asking for their preferred grammatical gender? Die deutsche Sprache hat Geschlechter, welches Geschlecht passt am besten zu dir? Maskulin, Feminin, Neutrum oder zurück zum Englischen wechseln?
- xigoi 4y agoSeems quite complex compared to just asking everyone for gender.
- skataz 4y agoIt is so employers can have stats to ensure diversity in their employees.
- imiric 4y agoSad but true. Which begs the question, if they're inclusive of a certain race and gender, are they exclusive of others? This whole agenda towards absolute equality in all aspects of life is ridiculous. Why settle for race and gender? Let's make sure we have equal amounts of people by eye and hair color, height, weight, or any other criteria. Doing anything less is surely discriminatory.
- dahfizz 4y agoThe secret is that discrimination is actually cool and encouraged / mandated as long as you do the right[1] kind of discrimination. [1] as defined by the prevailing political zeitgeist
- cywick 4y agoIt sounds like you are unfamiliar with the concept of a protected class. Those characteristics that are protected by (US) law are generally the ones that companies focus on in this kind of data collection. So rest assured, companies won't treat chin diameter the same way they treat race and gender in an imagined "agenda towards absolute equality in all aspects of life".
- david38 4y agoBecause of salutations also
- jeroenhd 4y agoI don't think salutations seriously matter in most (English-speaking) countries. Even in professional settings, I receive emails that address me by my first name. Even still, if you must record the relevant salutations, you can ask for the salutation to use rather than the gender or sex.
- leifg 4y agoIt doesn't matter for English website because you usually send out emails with "Hi Joe". Once you internationalize you will need this because in German it's an absolute no go to address a stranger by their first name (at least for B2B services). And internationalization is on the road map for a lot of companies.
- counttheforks 4y agoThey'll survive being addressed by their name. Much better than systematic sexism.
- CrazyPyroLinux 4y agoDevil's advocate: They'll also "survive" being "misgendered." Maybe embarrassing/rude event, to be avoided if possible, but not everything has to be "systemic -ism."
- shakesbeard 4y agoYou may wanna read up on honorifics [0]. That stuff is cultural and you'll be persevered as unprofessional or even non-trustworthy by failing to properly use it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorific https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorific
- 4y ago
- OtomotO 4y agoSame, I also don't care about your faith, religion, political views...
- cypress66 4y agoWhat's even more insane is when they ask for your race. I've been asked that by US based entities and I literally don't know what to answer because I've never been asked that in my country and don't actually know what "race" I am.
- ghusto 4y agoWhenever there's an "other" option, I fill in "human" :P
- pixl97 4y agoIn the US this is typically to prevent organizations from systematic racism against particular people groups.
- xigoi 4y agoHow could they be less racist if they know the race than if they don't?
- PuppyTailWags 4y agoInquiry: What do you suggest how a company would analyze if a hiring manager refuses to hire any applicants who are black?
- gambiting 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bitlax 4y agoWhat would be correct, though? I don't think "It's not important" is really a satisfactory answer. There are many scenarios in which a site might want to personalize content for a voluntarily submitted gender preference. One example might be a site for people who want to have a sexual relationship with someone else.
- evrydayhustling 4y agoMost of these questions are about identities that have sometimes been discriminated against (intentionally or unintentionally). The reason for asking is to make sure that the process is reaching the people it's supposed to. Like, if you're running a vaccine clinic that is intended for everyone, but women don't feel comfortable going there, you'd like know that's happening so you can dig into why. As people have mentioned, this applies to hiring -- but at the top of the funnel in who your posts are reaching/motivating, not just at the end for diversity stats.
- nmz 4y agoI do wonder if there's less murders of cashiers if they're women than men at least.
- 0xbadcafebee 4y agoThis is why employers ask: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/centers-offices/civil-rights-center/internal/policies/gender-identity https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/centers-offices/civil-rig... https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ofccp/faqs/lgbt https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ofccp/faqs/lgbt https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/small-business/legal-requirements https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/small-business/legal-requirem...
- knicholes 4y agoFor healthcare, I think it makes a lot of sense, as diseases affect different genders differently. Also, those with certain sexual orientations are more prone to certain diseases. It's crucial to understand someone's gender, sexual activity, and even race to give them proper healthcare.
- wpietri 4y agoYes and no. There is also substantial proven bias in healthcare relating to gender and race. Unfortunately, I think that's another reason we need to collect those statistics. Because if we can't measure the problem, we'll have a very hard time fixing it.
- tzs 4y agoI'm not sure this counts as a bias in healthcare, but I remember reading a study that looked at a large walk-in clinic that served a diverse population. A patient on any given visit would be seen by whatever doctor was next available. They found that patients were more likely to follow the doctor's instructions after they left the clinic if the doctor was the same race as the patient.
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoDiseases affect different genders differently? Or different sexes? I mean, I guess both, but it's primarily sexes, isn't it?
- knicholes 4y agoOh, my bad. Sorry. I meant to say sexes. For hormone therapy the gender matters! :D
- invalidptr 4y agoIn a way, yes. The specific meaning of words here is important. Sex likely refers to primary sex characteristics and gender may refer to secondary sex characteristics. For example, breast cancer is not a high risk for men, but it is for trans women.
- londons_explore 4y agoI want that sort of information to be secret from both my government and my employer. Like, why should they know? I'm happy for them to have anonymized stats for decision making, but they shouldn't have it attached to a record with my name.
- bfgoodrich 4y ago[dead]
- rapind 4y ago> What is it ultimately used for? Insurance.
- matrix_overload 4y agoFor manipulating your attention instincts. A very similar thing is asking for your feedback on every second page of the website, and then forwarding it straight into /dev/null. It's because once you shared it via their website, you will be less inclined to go post a (possibly damaging) opinion elsewhere. Your instinct to be heard has been satisfied, and the chance of a negative review visible to others has decreased by N%, which is still good enough for "economies of scale". Similarly, HRs have somehow collectively figured out that if you nudge people to self-express by stuffing their gender issues into the peers' faces, they will be less likely to self-express by demanding better salary, scheduling, working conditions, etc. It organically grew from the "employee of the month" bullshit and other "trinkets in lieu of a raise" programs, and is now reaching completely ridiculous levels. Hopefully, the rising inflation will give people a more tangible problem to solve, and we will see more focus on things like quality of life, affording kids, retirement perspectives, and so on.
- playingalong 4y agoSome countries have labour laws with gender-specific rules.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- smrtinsert 4y agoBut you're not the one asking. Understanding diversity is a datapoint groups/services/people would like to know.
- danso 4y agoIdeally/ostensibly, this data collection is helpful for accountability, at the company level and also entities like Labor Dept. statistics. The concern is that companies who strive to be colorblind and non-discriminatory in their hiring don't end up that way in reality. And that assessment is impossible without some effort at data collection.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- t0bia_s 4y agoIt's a form of your ID. Same as age, weight, height...
- genderwhy 4y agoGathering this by employers is part of US federal law. It is also passed to your insurer, and used to do... insurance things invisibly. Gathering this by companies is so they can better profile you and serve you tailored content (as defined by them.) E.g. If you respond "Man", they might want to send you fewer ads for tampons and more ads for razors or whatever. Note, I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it's the reasoning.
- wintogreen74 4y agoThe answer is there are no good reasons, but one cycle goes like this: 1. HR gets asked by their employees for statistics on how many non-binary/PoC/women/<insert your label here> people in the organization are represented in management/executive/engineering/<insert your probably under-represented role here>. 2. The org at first responds "We don't know because we don't collect this data". 3. The question-askers respond "How convenient, that's because you know they're under-represented". 4. Company responds with typical "meritocracy" answer, then eventually launches long, drawn-out process because hey, "we're a data driven organization!" 5. Years later, after the original question-asker is long gone they share the data, ideally after a few cycles that show <current under-represented individuals> have grown from small percentage of total to slightly larger small percentage. Company loudly boasts on all social media platforms about wokeness and snowflake status. 6. Times change and society moves on, leading to questions of "why does the company care if I'm <whatever, it's now a non-event, progress!>" 7. Employees respond with lack of giving a sh!t or manufacture false outrage at the violation of their personal privacy. 8. the cycle continues, while data deteriorates, leading to some pretty hilarious options in drop-downs.
- krainboltgreene 4y agoThis would be slightly plausible if this practice started in 2010, but it didn't, so it isn't.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jdlyga 4y agoTo your point, we don't usually ask for similar information like blood type in online forms. In the past, single/married was much more frequently asked. Are we at the point where gender is heading the same direction? For signing up for a library card or a Netflix account, no. But it depends on the context.
- andrepd 4y agoIt's obviously for statistical purposes.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- runjake 4y agoOften, in the US, collection of gender and other personal data is to meet various federal requirements for compliance, funding, etc. We hate it, but we're required to.
- curun1r 4y ago> What is it ultimately used for? Quite often, it seems, they ask to build your profile to sell to advertisers. As much as it would be great for everyone to be treated equally, our genders do affect the crap that we buy and advertisers often care about it. But more broadly, finding trends/patterns really does come down to being able to sort people into different buckets. Especially now, with the push towards ML, you never know which feature will turn out to be significant, so the strategy ends up being to collect as much data as possible and let computers churn through it looking for patterns. It would be tempting to ascribe a gender-specific motive to the collection of gender data just based on the significance that we feel towards gender. But I'm not sure those collecting it have those motivations. They're just sucking in everything that they can get away with in the hopes that some of it will prove valuable.
- thrownawaydad 4y agoI've been asked on two job applications lately whether or not I'm "asexual". I'm not, but I'm appalled to be asked this in a professional setting. If I was, I'd also be appalled, if not seriously distraught. I immediately dropped the applications. Perhaps screening out people like me was the real goal to begin with, and maybe it's a win-win after all.
- LoveMortuus 4y agoWhat I also find a bit strange is when people feel the need to tell you what their sexual orientation is, even though you didn't ask. What's also strange is when you consider what you would have to ask them to have them give you that as their answer. And in some cases it could even be considered as sexual harassment. Example: "I am lesbian" in other words means I'm sexually attracted and may or may not have sexual intercourse with another woman. Now try to think of questions you would have to ask to receive the above as the answer. Maybe it's just me, but unless asked, it feels very inappropriate to just tell people with whom you have sex or wish to have sex with. Especially when the topic of conversation was about something completely different and in no way related.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hnbear 4y agoI don’t think it’s necessary in most cases, although oddly I recently had a medical insurance claim rejected because of a gender mismatch for my wife. (USA and all the health insurance mess) Turns out that my employer deliberately doesn’t send gender to the insurance company. This means it defaults to male. A urologist appointment for kidney stones was then rejected by the insurer when it didn’t match the provider. If this was an Ob/Gyn appointment that makes a little more sense, but kidney stones and urology in general are non-gendered. This was not the first claim either. Plenty of others were fine with other providers. I can see gender being used sort of generically for fraud prevention in some cases. But, it’s a stretch to say it’s broadly useful. In general now I lie on forms about as much as I can. At Panera Bread I was asked if I’m the CEO when my account came up first name Panera, last name Bread. There’s no reason for any personal data, so I don’t give it.