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"What if Marissa made it known that Yahoo would be the best tech company in the world for hiring women execs, putting women in leadership positions, and advanci
by realize 14y ago
"What if Marissa made it known that Yahoo would be the best tech company in the world for hiring women execs, putting women in leadership positions, and advancing the opportunities for women in the workplace (as Sheryl Sandberg is so well-known for promoting at Facebook)?"
Sounds discriminatory to me.
- waterlesscloud 14y agoThat part would likely be legally risky, but the essence of his post is an interesting idea. And the hiring lots of women in leadership roles part may simply follow naturally from pursuing such a course, rather than being an explicit policy.
- Cushman 14y agoThis presupposes that the industry-wide preference for male employees is not discriminatory, which scarcely goes without saying.
- d5tryr 14y agoAgreed, given the overwhelming discrimination that demonstrably exists in IT sectors it would be nigh on impossible to prove that hiring a lot of women was an act of discrimination as opposed to a natural result of not discriminating.
- toomuchcoffee 14y agoA covert, indirect bias is one thing; an explicit codified bias, quite another.
- oh_sigh 14y agoYou suppose that there is an "industry-wide preference for male employees". Just like I suppose there is an "industry-wide preference for female employees" in K-6 education.
- Cushman 14y agoThat there is a preference is a statistical fact; the controversial question is what is the cause for the preference. Incidentally, even if we were to pretend to compare the industries of "technology" and "education of children between the ages of 6 and 12", your quip fails the test: A majority of teachers may be female, but there is no such majority among those in "leadership positions" (administrators, principals and superintendants).
- DeepDuh 14y agoIs it? Preference would mean that for a woman in IT seeking a job it is harder than for a man, right? Given that high female employment percentages look good in an IT manager's report I doubt that this is the case but if you have some relevant statistics please share.
- svdad 14y agoNo, "preference" implies intention and active choice. A preference does not exist in the absence of a human actor to have it. That there is a majority is a statistical fact. Whether anyone has a preference for male employees is the controversial question you refer to.
- cellularmitosis 14y agoI think I misunderstand what you mean by "preference". Take as example a company where 90% of the programmer applicants are male. As I understand the word "preference", a resulting workforce of 90% males would indicate no preference one way or the other (assuming the men and women were equally skilled). Further, a 91% male workforce would be evidence of a male preference, while an 89% male workforce evidence of a female preference. Is that what you mean by "preference"?
- Cushman 14y agoYeah, obviously a lot of people misunderstood that. I apologize for the confusion. I was using "preference" in a more generic complex-systems-analysis sense. We begin with a potential workforce, at birth, of half men and half women. Over time, the further you go into the industry, you see more and more men and fewer and fewer women. The women are being rejected, the men are being selected for, this demonstrates a preference. Again, not imputing any consciousness here, it's just what the system is doing. The claim we are asked to accept is that this reflects a something real and measurable, such as my transportation preference for cars over horses, rather than something subjective and arbitrary, such as my berry preference for blueberries over strawberries.
- philwelch 14y agoThe industry doesn't prefer male employees; male employees prefer the industry.
- iand 14y agoMale employees prefer the industry because the industry prefers male employees.
- cheez 14y agoGive me an effing break. My family is a computer family, through and through. Surprise, surprise, my sister is in software too. Don't attribute malice where there is none. Quite simply, women are not encouraged to be scientists by OTHER WOMEN. Not men. Men LOVE women who love science.
- jaems33 14y agoIndeed. It's funny because I would argue that Asian men represent a notable minority in U.S. tech companies but have very little representation in executive positions at tech companies.