6 ms·

One question we should ask ourselves is why a field would be dominated by men and not evenly split, or mostly women, etc. Does one feel as if they would face an

One question we should ask ourselves is why a field would be dominated by men and not evenly split, or mostly women, etc. Does one feel as if they would face an uphill battle trying to get hired in a field that is 80% their other?

Manuel_D 2y ago
Because men and women have different interests. Even if you think that socialization is the cause, the law mandates that all applicants are treated equally with respect to gender. If gender discrimination is carried out in pursuit of a 50/50 gender split, that does not make it legal. > Does one feel as if they would face an uphill battle trying to get hired in a field that is 80% their other? What people feel is hard to quantify. But what we can quantify is the call back rates of male and female applicants. Tech companies are more likely to call back women: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3672484 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3672484 HN discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25069644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25069644
- kiitos 2y ago
  The point of all of this stuff is to find a balance between evaluating applicants independently and objectively according to a well-defined set of critera -- equality of opportunity -- and producing an end result that is representational and fair in the societal sense -- equality of outcome. A good illustration of this concept is the "equality vs. equity" cartoon, with people of different heights trying to look over a fence. https://interactioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/IISC_EqualityEquity.png https://interactioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/... I understand why a lot of folks, especially technically-minded folks, bias for equality of opportunity exclusively. This is essentially what a meritocracy is. There's lots of good things about equality of opportunity and meritocracies, but they also have problems, and one of those problems is that, generalizing, they both tend to reflect and reinforce pre-existing biases, and in particular implicit biases. This is exactly the kind of problem that DEI initiatives are trying to address. I don't really want to litigate the pros and cons of these two concepts, I just want to point out that they both exist, and that initiatives like DEI can have as goals improving one or the other or both. It's fine if you say, when doing hiring, you're only interested in equality of opportunity. That's probably the position that most people who are anti-DEI would take. But I think it's also fine if you say, when doing hiring, you're interested in both equality of opportunity and outcome. Both are valid.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Manuel_D 2y ago
    Using protected class as a factor in employment is prohibited nation-wide under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There is no "balance" between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. The former is required by law. Using protected class as a factor in hiring doesn't become legal just because it's done in pursuit of equality of outcome. They are not both valid concepts, at least not unless you're willing to violate people's civil rights. One is what employers are legally required to do. The other is illegal discrimination. Also, think through the implications of this photo in the context of hiring: https://interactioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/IISC_EqualityEquity.png https://interactioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/... What's really the difference between having a group of candidates standing on a box, and lowering the bar for those candidates? At the end of the day, whether it's standing on a box or lowering the bar the end result is the same: some candidates are considered to have met expectations despite not reaching the same heights as others. I highly encourage you to think through whether this is a good metaphor to use to justify DEI in a workplace setting.
    - kiitos 2y ago
      You are focusing on the specific details of the hiring process, and evaluating stuff like DEI in terms of a single hiring outcome. I'm trying to clarify that the relevant scope is actually much broader, for example it might be the demographics of the entire engineering org within that company, measured after this updated hiring process has been in place for a year or more.
      - Manuel_D 2y ago
        Again, deliberately engineering equitable demographics of the entire engineering org is illegal discrimination. Scope is irrelevant. You cannot use protected class as a factor in hiring, not in a single hiring decision nor in the broader scope of an entire org. Lets say you measure the hiring demographics over the span of a year. What then ? Directing your recruiters to prioritize underrepresented candidates is still illegal. It doesn't matter whether the scope is a single hire or an entire org: equality in hiring is mandatory. It's not a question of scope. Equality and equity are not equally valid concepts in hiring. The former is required by law, even if it produces an inequitable outcome. There is no "balance" between respecting candidates civil liberties and achieving your preferred demographic distribution.
AlexandrB 2y ago
This question only ever seems to be asked about "desirable" fields. There doesn't seem to be as much of a push to achieve gender parity in sanitation work[1], for example. The whole exercise feels like an effort to take attention off of the problem of income inequality by instead framing it as an issue of identity. Under this framing, "fair" means we have parity in male and female CEOs - never mind that those CEOs are still making 300x or more of what "frontline" workers make. Why not focus on pushing for higher wages in female dominated fields like teaching or nursing? [1] https://www.zippia.com/sanitation-worker-jobs/demographics/ https://www.zippia.com/sanitation-worker-jobs/demographics/
- MyHypatia 2y ago
  On Hacker news I see this question mostly asked about desirable fields. In education, there is a huge push to recruit more men. I can't speak for sanitation specifically, but I have seen efforts to get more women into stable, well paying blue collar professions.
- kiitos 2y ago
  Rather than "desirable" I would maybe say something like "economically dominant". If the highest-paying and most-powerful careers in a society don't at least somewhat meaningfully reflect the demographics of that society, then, well, what does that demonstrate, and is that something we want to try to fix? Hopefully you can at least see the position where the answer to that last question is yes, even if you don't agree with it.
  - xxreasonable 2y ago
    It may be that hire paying fields attract men who want to be able to attract mates. That women prefer men who make more than them is pretty established in research, as is is the lack of interest in what a woman makes as income. (On average in psych studies). Why wouldn’t we expect results and society to reflect this?
    - kiitos 2y ago
      It's not -- "why wouldn't we expect important career X to have way more men than women, given <whatever>" It's -- "if important career X has way more men than women, is this a good thing, at a net societal level, regardless of <whatever> that can explain why this is the case?" Nobody is looking for complete and perfect parity in all influential careers. The intent is just to make sure that, for the highest-impact careers, we should work towards making them representative of our society, as much as possible
caminante 2y ago
What should the split be? Take a step back on the supply side. CS education isn't a requirement, though only 20% of CS undergrads are female.[0] I'm curious what your stance is on the swathe of asians who got negatively handicapped for checking "asian" on their college applications. [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-are-too-few-women-in-computer-science-and-engineering/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-are-too-few...

Manuel_D 2y ago

Because men and women have different interests. Even if you think that socialization is the cause, the law mandates that all applicants are treated equally with respect to gender. If gender discrimination is carried out in pursuit of a 50/50 gender split, that does not make it legal. > Does one feel as if they would face an uphill battle trying to get hired in a field that is 80% their other? What people feel is hard to quantify. But what we can quantify is the call back rates of male and female applicants. Tech companies are more likely to call back women: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3672484 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3672484 HN discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25069644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25069644

kiitos 2y ago
The point of all of this stuff is to find a balance between evaluating applicants independently and objectively according to a well-defined set of critera -- equality of opportunity -- and producing an end result that is representational and fair in the societal sense -- equality of outcome. A good illustration of this concept is the "equality vs. equity" cartoon, with people of different heights trying to look over a fence. https://interactioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/IISC_EqualityEquity.png https://interactioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/... I understand why a lot of folks, especially technically-minded folks, bias for equality of opportunity exclusively. This is essentially what a meritocracy is. There's lots of good things about equality of opportunity and meritocracies, but they also have problems, and one of those problems is that, generalizing, they both tend to reflect and reinforce pre-existing biases, and in particular implicit biases. This is exactly the kind of problem that DEI initiatives are trying to address. I don't really want to litigate the pros and cons of these two concepts, I just want to point out that they both exist, and that initiatives like DEI can have as goals improving one or the other or both. It's fine if you say, when doing hiring, you're only interested in equality of opportunity. That's probably the position that most people who are anti-DEI would take. But I think it's also fine if you say, when doing hiring, you're interested in both equality of opportunity and outcome. Both are valid.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Manuel_D 2y ago
  Using protected class as a factor in employment is prohibited nation-wide under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There is no "balance" between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. The former is required by law. Using protected class as a factor in hiring doesn't become legal just because it's done in pursuit of equality of outcome. They are not both valid concepts, at least not unless you're willing to violate people's civil rights. One is what employers are legally required to do. The other is illegal discrimination. Also, think through the implications of this photo in the context of hiring: https://interactioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/IISC_EqualityEquity.png https://interactioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/... What's really the difference between having a group of candidates standing on a box, and lowering the bar for those candidates? At the end of the day, whether it's standing on a box or lowering the bar the end result is the same: some candidates are considered to have met expectations despite not reaching the same heights as others. I highly encourage you to think through whether this is a good metaphor to use to justify DEI in a workplace setting.
  - kiitos 2y ago
    You are focusing on the specific details of the hiring process, and evaluating stuff like DEI in terms of a single hiring outcome. I'm trying to clarify that the relevant scope is actually much broader, for example it might be the demographics of the entire engineering org within that company, measured after this updated hiring process has been in place for a year or more.
    - Manuel_D 2y ago
      Again, deliberately engineering equitable demographics of the entire engineering org is illegal discrimination. Scope is irrelevant. You cannot use protected class as a factor in hiring, not in a single hiring decision nor in the broader scope of an entire org. Lets say you measure the hiring demographics over the span of a year. What then ? Directing your recruiters to prioritize underrepresented candidates is still illegal. It doesn't matter whether the scope is a single hire or an entire org: equality in hiring is mandatory. It's not a question of scope. Equality and equity are not equally valid concepts in hiring. The former is required by law, even if it produces an inequitable outcome. There is no "balance" between respecting candidates civil liberties and achieving your preferred demographic distribution.

AlexandrB 2y ago

This question only ever seems to be asked about "desirable" fields. There doesn't seem to be as much of a push to achieve gender parity in sanitation work[1], for example. The whole exercise feels like an effort to take attention off of the problem of income inequality by instead framing it as an issue of identity. Under this framing, "fair" means we have parity in male and female CEOs - never mind that those CEOs are still making 300x or more of what "frontline" workers make. Why not focus on pushing for higher wages in female dominated fields like teaching or nursing? [1] https://www.zippia.com/sanitation-worker-jobs/demographics/ https://www.zippia.com/sanitation-worker-jobs/demographics/

MyHypatia 2y ago
On Hacker news I see this question mostly asked about desirable fields. In education, there is a huge push to recruit more men. I can't speak for sanitation specifically, but I have seen efforts to get more women into stable, well paying blue collar professions.
kiitos 2y ago
Rather than "desirable" I would maybe say something like "economically dominant". If the highest-paying and most-powerful careers in a society don't at least somewhat meaningfully reflect the demographics of that society, then, well, what does that demonstrate, and is that something we want to try to fix? Hopefully you can at least see the position where the answer to that last question is yes, even if you don't agree with it.
- xxreasonable 2y ago
  It may be that hire paying fields attract men who want to be able to attract mates. That women prefer men who make more than them is pretty established in research, as is is the lack of interest in what a woman makes as income. (On average in psych studies). Why wouldn’t we expect results and society to reflect this?
  - kiitos 2y ago
    It's not -- "why wouldn't we expect important career X to have way more men than women, given <whatever>" It's -- "if important career X has way more men than women, is this a good thing, at a net societal level, regardless of <whatever> that can explain why this is the case?" Nobody is looking for complete and perfect parity in all influential careers. The intent is just to make sure that, for the highest-impact careers, we should work towards making them representative of our society, as much as possible

caminante 2y ago

What should the split be? Take a step back on the supply side. CS education isn't a requirement, though only 20% of CS undergrads are female.[0] I'm curious what your stance is on the swathe of asians who got negatively handicapped for checking "asian" on their college applications. [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-are-too-few-women-in-computer-science-and-engineering/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-are-too-few...