4 ms·

Maybe they were hiring all the unrecognized talent the other companies were passing up on because the talent happened to be women. Perhaps they offered better b

by WWLink 2y ago

Maybe they were hiring all the unrecognized talent the other companies were passing up on because the talent happened to be women. Perhaps they offered better benefits or had better outreach? I agree that 5:1 sounds extreme, but you're also giving us a pretty vague description of a company and not naming them, so there's no evidence to back your claim up. Also random things: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinecastrillon/2019/03/24/why-women-led-companies-are-better-for-employees/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinecastrillon/2019/03/24/w...

coffeeaddict1 2y ago
Why would you guess that? Is there any evidence that companies are not hiring women despite them being equally/more talented than their male counterparts?
- WWLink 2y ago
  About as much evidence as there are companies hiring women over men 5:1 lmao.
  - coffeeaddict1 2y ago
    Except no one made that claim. Parent comment was sharing a personal anectode they witnessed. You on the other hand weren't.
jokethrowaway 2y ago
No, this happens because you score brownie points if you have a female workforce or a diverse (read non-white) workforce. In many countries (UK in my case) "positive discrimination" (an oxymoron, if you ask me) is enshrined in law and actually allow to discriminate candidates based on gender. At least 3 of my clients work with recruiters that bring candidates who are only female or non white. (I'm not white myself but I found the clients outside of recruitments, I hope I'm not a diversity hire!). Beside, whenever you start applying non meritocratic filters, the pool of talent shrink and you are forced to pick among a smaller pool, which inevitably will have less of the most talented folks.
pydry 2y ago
The fact she was proud of it and that at that time this form of discrimination was considered laudable is a signal that it was more likely just simple discrimination.
Spivak 2y ago
It's crazy how people are in denial of the reality for women breaking into male dominated fields. The "lived-experience" gap is real. In college in CS there was maybe 1-2 other women in my classes, in Maths there were none. Working in ops I have been the only woman on my team at every job I've ever had. Tooting my own horn a little I've been consistently a top if not the top performer and have the recs to show it. And yet every time I go for a job I'm fighting for them to "take a chance on me." It's so god damn frustrating how surprised they are that I'm a professional. I have to bust my ass to get back to my senior title that some guy just gets hired on with.
- scarab92 2y ago
  You're mistaking prevalence for bias. There's always going to be more men interested in this field than women, which means you'll see more men in class and more men in industry (read Damore's essay for why). However, that doesn't mean that at an individual level there is bias against women. In practice, in most tech companies, there is significant bias towards hiring and promoting women. As difficult as it may have been to achieve the career outcomes you desire, it is significantly more difficult for a individual man with the same skillset to achieve the same outcomes without that preferential treatment. I think you don't realise this because men are more prevalent. The majority of promotions may go to men, but that's simply because there are more men in this field, not because at an individual level they are each receiving preferential treatment over you.
  - Volundr 2y ago
    > As difficult as it may have been to achieve the career outcomes you desire, it is significantly more difficult for a individual man with the same skillset to achieve the same outcomes without that preferential treatment. As a man in this field, I can pretty concretely say I have never experienced the problems getting hired or getting promoted she just described.
    - scarab92 2y ago
      That’s a great anecdote for you, however it doesn’t change the fact that for an average 20 year old, it will be substantially easier in this industry to be hired and promoted as a woman than as a man. The only reason people think differently is because they see more men than women, and mistake that prevalence for bias.

by WWLink 2y ago

coffeeaddict1 2y ago

Why would you guess that? Is there any evidence that companies are not hiring women despite them being equally/more talented than their male counterparts?

WWLink 2y ago
About as much evidence as there are companies hiring women over men 5:1 lmao.
- coffeeaddict1 2y ago
  Except no one made that claim. Parent comment was sharing a personal anectode they witnessed. You on the other hand weren't.

jokethrowaway 2y ago

No, this happens because you score brownie points if you have a female workforce or a diverse (read non-white) workforce. In many countries (UK in my case) "positive discrimination" (an oxymoron, if you ask me) is enshrined in law and actually allow to discriminate candidates based on gender. At least 3 of my clients work with recruiters that bring candidates who are only female or non white. (I'm not white myself but I found the clients outside of recruitments, I hope I'm not a diversity hire!). Beside, whenever you start applying non meritocratic filters, the pool of talent shrink and you are forced to pick among a smaller pool, which inevitably will have less of the most talented folks.

pydry 2y ago

The fact she was proud of it and that at that time this form of discrimination was considered laudable is a signal that it was more likely just simple discrimination.

Spivak 2y ago

It's crazy how people are in denial of the reality for women breaking into male dominated fields. The "lived-experience" gap is real. In college in CS there was maybe 1-2 other women in my classes, in Maths there were none. Working in ops I have been the only woman on my team at every job I've ever had. Tooting my own horn a little I've been consistently a top if not the top performer and have the recs to show it. And yet every time I go for a job I'm fighting for them to "take a chance on me." It's so god damn frustrating how surprised they are that I'm a professional. I have to bust my ass to get back to my senior title that some guy just gets hired on with.

scarab92 2y ago
You're mistaking prevalence for bias. There's always going to be more men interested in this field than women, which means you'll see more men in class and more men in industry (read Damore's essay for why). However, that doesn't mean that at an individual level there is bias against women. In practice, in most tech companies, there is significant bias towards hiring and promoting women. As difficult as it may have been to achieve the career outcomes you desire, it is significantly more difficult for a individual man with the same skillset to achieve the same outcomes without that preferential treatment. I think you don't realise this because men are more prevalent. The majority of promotions may go to men, but that's simply because there are more men in this field, not because at an individual level they are each receiving preferential treatment over you.
- Volundr 2y ago
  > As difficult as it may have been to achieve the career outcomes you desire, it is significantly more difficult for a individual man with the same skillset to achieve the same outcomes without that preferential treatment. As a man in this field, I can pretty concretely say I have never experienced the problems getting hired or getting promoted she just described.
  - scarab92 2y ago
    That’s a great anecdote for you, however it doesn’t change the fact that for an average 20 year old, it will be substantially easier in this industry to be hired and promoted as a woman than as a man. The only reason people think differently is because they see more men than women, and mistake that prevalence for bias.