6 ms·

I only got that job because I’m a girl

55 points by glaak 14y ago

dlss 14y ago
Unfortunate, given the title of the article, that the site went down...
- zobzu 14y ago
  I clicked thinking i'd see some some skin. (Oh yeah I'll deserve the down-votes for that one, go ahead!)
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  It's back now. Here's a mirror in case it goes down again: http://i.imgur.com/hR9Mc.png http://i.imgur.com/hR9Mc.png
Zimahl 14y ago
To level the argument, let's just say that everyone has the same skill for a position. You can probably assume that there are a lot of equally qualified 'A' players who have applied at Google, Valve, Facebook, etc. So what sets all of them apart? Off the top of my head, I can only think of two things: personality and looks. While I can't comment on the personality of the author, from the picture in the article it seems as though she is attractive. Is that enough to set her apart? Would she have seen the same possibilities if she wasn't so attractive? Would she have seen the same possibilities if she didn't have the novelty (not sure what to call it) of being an attractive, capable woman in a male-dominated field?
- glaak 14y ago
  Interesting, but I disagree. (1) You can't assume that there are a lot of equally qualified A players for those companies. In fact, those companies struggle to hire enough qualified engineers. (2) You're assuming that those companies, if they were presented with multiple qualified people, can only hire one of them. In many cases, they would just hire all of them. (3) You're assuming that, if a company has to decide between multiple qualified people, it would use personality or looks as a dividing factor. Obviously, the people aren't actually identical, other than looks. The companies could instead decide based on a preference for public universities over equally ranked private ones, or what city the people are from, or whatever. There are many differences between people. (4) You're assuming that attractiveness would help someone's candidacy for an engineering role, and not hurt it. If you were talking to two people -- one was a very attractive woman and one was a very unattractive woman -- which would you assume is more technical, if you had to bet? You'd probably bet on the less attractive person.
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    The implications of your point 4 are precisely the same as the implications of the GP post.
  - Zimahl 14y ago
    (1) True. However, I was making an assumption for sake of the argument to take it out of the equation. (2) Even large companies have needs that wouldn't allow them to hire 5 great individuals for a singular position. You seem to just be complicating the argument with undue thoughts about the position and a company. My post was trying to remove the job-specific factors and think about how personality and looks affect hiring. (3) I've interviewed a lot of people for various positions that were all capable, that when it finally came down to it we argued more over team fit than anything else. If you had a grumpy, divisive individual or a friendly, articulate individual, which would you chose? This happens in 'A' player companies as much as any. (4) I'm not assuming anything about attractiveness of an individual. I merely presented a couple (albeit somewhat loaded) questions to invoke a conversation.
- alid 14y ago
  Hey man! I didn't quite understand your argument, but in this arena looks shouldn't come into it. The greater weight attributed by some people to women's appearance is a form of unconcsious discrimination. I appreciate you weren't sure what to call it, but the 'novelty of being attractive' doesn't sit well with me. She has the novelty of being highly skilled - that's what counts :)
  - moistgorilla 14y ago
    He is trying to point out that unfair bias is everywhere.
- breadbox 14y ago
  In my experience (and studies seem to bear this out), most people will automatically assume an attractive woman has poor skills in X (where X is anything that doesn't involve dealing with customers). So I don't think your "commonsense" argument actually holds in the real world.
  - moistgorilla 14y ago
    "most people will automatically assume an attractive woman has poor skills in X (where X is anything that doesn't involve dealing with customers). " Could you provide a source on that please? Because from the wording of your statement it seems that what you are claiming is completely anecdotal. I remember studying in one of my psychology courses that attractive people are instantly assumed to be smarter and more successful than unattractive people. It even has a name although I can't think of it right now. If I could I would provide a source. edit: Here is a source, not really great but it's something. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201108/why-we-pay-more-attention-beautiful-people http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201108/why... edit2: The word I was looking for was halo effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness_stereotype http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness_stereot...
    - glaak 14y ago
      As I recall being told by one of my professors as an MBA student, attractive people -- both men and women -- are generally assumed to be more competent. This effect is stronger for women than men. However, attractive women in "masculine" fields, like engineering, technology, or construction, are generally seen as being less competent.
      - moistgorilla 14y ago
        If you already objectively know that the person is qualified the fact that they are attractive is only a plus. I think the study you a mentioning is done with people that do not know the qualifications of the person they are viewing.
alid 14y ago
This is such an important issue, and it affects bottom line! - a recent Forbes article highlighted that companies with more women at senior levels earn upwards of 33% more on important financial metrics. Global research group Catalyst recently interviewed 325 American chief executives and 10,000 female executives around the obstacles to womens' progression into senior leadership roles. 52% of women cited male stereotyping, but only 25% of the male chief executives identified it as a problem - so there's definitely unconscious stereotyping at play.
- btilly 14y ago
  I did not see that article, but would be interested to. Do you have a link? The only research that I am aware of along those lines was specific to South Korea.
  - alid 14y ago
    Hey man, here's the link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2012/01/26/the-path-to-more-women-in-senior-leadership-a-users-guide/3/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2012/01/26/the-... "Companies with more women at senior levels earn upwards of 33% more on important financial metrics. Failure to resolve the obstacles that keep women from these roles means executives are leaving money on the table."
    - waterlesscloud 14y ago
      I would be very curious to see actual data (not hand-wavy conjecture) as to why that would happen. Most of what I've seen in that area is merely stereotyping of a different sort (women work by consensus etc).
      - bcoates 14y ago
        Is it that surprising that there are a lot of good ol' boy companies and that they are perverse in ways beyond just not hiring women? I don't think anyone is seriously claiming that women are automatically better executives.
btilly 14y ago
It is easy to rail against employers for showing the complained about bias against minorities and women. And doing so is clearly against the law. However playing Devil's advocate it is justifiable by the fact that hiring decisions are naturally risk adverse. The difference between a perfect hire and a merely good one is typically not that big. The difference between a hire that works out and one that does not is huge. It does not take many wrong hires to destroy a working team. If you've ever been burned by a hire where a person did not work out for reason X, then you're going to naturally think 2 and 3 times before making a similar hire. I personally have seen a couple of situations where a black person had credentials only because of affirmative action and did not deserve those credentials. I've also have seen multiple cases where a woman gets hired, gets pregnant, and then you lose that employee in a painful way. Can you really blame an employer for leaning towards being risk adverse in this situation? (Turning it around, if everyone else is discriminating to an unfair degree against a specific group of people, a company that merely discriminates less will enjoy a competitive advantage. A while ago I ran across a fascinating study of how much better South Korean companies that were willing to hire women into management do than ones who are not. I've seen no data either way on whether the USA is past this tipping point for women in various professional careers.)
- glaak 14y ago
  Have you ever seen a white person not be good at their job? Yet you don't associate their failures with their race. Why do so with black people? Also, read the studies. Black people and women actually have a harder time getting a job. So by your logic, of people getting jobs that they may not be the most qualified for, you'd be better off hiring women or black people. They have to be more qualified into to be seen as equals.
  - btilly 14y ago
    Have you ever seen a white person not be good at their job? Yet you don't associate their failures with their race. Why do so with black people? The specific situation that is burned in my mind was a black girl who was in a math PhD program at the same time that I was. The department wound up bending their rules to the breaking point to give her a Masters on her way out because nobody wanted to risk the discrimination lawsuit that she was threatening. Her actual math knowledge was not even to the level that I would expect from a BSc in math. I have never witnessed anything involving a white person that was anywhere near being similarly egregious. And I had experiences with that department which demonstrated in spades that white people were not given anywhere near as much leniency. As for your final point, I thought I pretty much said that. I've not seen the specific studies that you're referring to.
glaak 14y ago
Mirror here: http://i.imgur.com/hR9Mc.png http://i.imgur.com/hR9Mc.png
bravura 14y ago
Cue up a lot of people who are going to use rhetoric to take make a "reasonable", "non-dogmatic" issue about this topic, while only barely acknowledging sub-conscious prejudice for or against. I don't have a solution here, I'm sorry. But whenever I read a comment that sounds too cool, even-headed, and rhetorical, I know I'm going to be hit with some contrived hypotheticals and not much supporting data. I don't know how to address the issue of prejudice. I just dislike it when people engage in discussion and pat themselves on the back for having taken a "reasonable" position. Not that I think arguments should be unreasonable, I simply see in practice that most "reasonable" arguments don't actually illuminate and are simply exercises in rhetoric.
- oinksoft 14y ago
  Erm, do you have anything to say about the article or the general subject matter? And are you saying that anybody who would have nits to pick with this article is immediately discredited by your lurking suspicion that they are driven by prejudice? Further, "sub-conscious [sic] prejudice", which by definition the accused cannot refute?
- moistgorilla 14y ago
  I acknowledge that there is a huge sub-conscious prejudice. I don't like how society doesn't focus on all of the types of prejudices that exist. Like I posted before, there is the halo effect, prejudice against women, fat people, old people, people of a different race, people with disabilities, etc. I refuse to believe that this person (although she is qualified) managed to be hired completely free from any bias and only on her skill. edit: I don't want anyone to believe I am trying to undersell the prejudice women have to experience daily. It's absolutely horrible that it still happens. I just posted the rest of this because I'm a nihilist and have trouble seeing good things with humanity....
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - bravura 14y ago
    I agree that there probably was bias in her hiring. Positive? Negative? What is clear is that there is bias when it comes to the gamut of groups that you mentioned. In certain circumstances, this bias manifests as favorable, and sometimes it is unfavorable. (A particularly company might go out of their way, or be negatively prejudiced, respectively.) Also, some particular people are able to use bias to their advantage overall in their lives. Whereas other people are harmed by bias, overall, because they don't work around it. It's a really tricky issue.
eightbitman 14y ago
You got the job because you're a girl. You kept it because you're competent. It's annoying how women refuse to acknowledge their gender opens certain doors for them. I want to work as a bartender, which means more than half of the places I apply will never even look at my resume because I'm not a girl. I'm all for giving disadvantaged people a chance over advantaged ones, but it's offensive when you pretend "Oh no, the odds are totally even!" No. They're not. You're lying to protect your ego.
- glaak 14y ago
  Um. Read the studies. No, the odds aren't even. In technology, they're stacked against women. (And against black people in general.) (I would very much believe, however, that in bartending, it's stacked against men.)
  - jules 14y ago
    Since you're familiar with the studies, please cite them. As it stands your comment is just "RTFM!!" without even saying which manual.
    - glaak 14y ago
      The studies cited on the original article which this comment thread it attached to. Read the graphs there. Equally qualified women were rated as less competent. http://www.technologywoman.com/2012/09/27/i-only-got-that-job-because-im-a-girl/ http://www.technologywoman.com/2012/09/27/i-only-got-that-jo...
  - snogglethorpe 14y ago
    > (I would very much believe, however, that in bartending, it's stacked against men.) OTOH, bartending is a customer-facing business, and partially entails "entertainment" (e.g. the bar-tender talking with the customers), so in many cases there's an actual business reason to prefer female bartenders (when most customers are men who prefer talking to a woman bartender). No such excuse exists in software development...
- 14y ago
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
gary4gar 14y ago
And the site went down....any mirrors?
smokey_the_bear 14y ago
I also interned at Microsoft in college, and I'm sure the only reason I got the internship was because I'm a girl. MS hired only five interns from my school that year, and all were female, which is pretty remarkable given my school's sub 5% female representation. I also had an offer from IBM's Extreme Blue that summer, which I don't think had much to do with being female. I also think being female made it a little easier to get my resume noticed, coming from a large state school. It probably helped me get my Google interview, but I don't think it actually helped me get the job much. There have also been some negative things about being a woman in technology. Everyone has their advantages and disadvantages in life.
- glaak 14y ago
  It is unusual that all 5 people hired were female. But, remember that coincidences happen. There are plenty of schools in which all 15 people hired are male. Unless there is some reason why your school specifically would be set apart, I don't think this is anything more than a strange coincidence. It's possible that something in the middle is going on -- a recruiter asked a professor for recommendations and he/she happened to recommend mostly women.
  - smokey_the_bear 14y ago
    I'm pretty sure the recruiter assigned to my school was specifically a diversity recruiter.
  - btilly 14y ago
    If the presented figures are true, the probability of that happening entirely independently by chance are about 0.3 in a million. It is reasonable to conclude that those decisions were not independent. But you're absolutely right that the correlation may come from the school rather than from Microsoft.
- glaak 14y ago
  Also, think through what it would mean to actually get the offer (not the interview -- the offer itself) because you were female. Your recruiter isn't deciding who is getting an offer; the individual teams are. So how would this collaboration have happened such that only women from your college were given offers? Remember that Microsoft still has a very low percent of female engineers, so it's not a company wide policy. You're telling me that a set of unrelated teams decided interdependently to specifically offer positions to women from your college? Why? Why your college? It just doesn't make sense. My guess is that there's something much less sinister going on, such as: -- It's just a weird coincidence. (After all, they recruit from many schools.) -- Some professor referred mostly female students, perhaps even being under the mistaken impression that they were asking for good female candidates. -- The female students are your schools are actually more qualified than the male. (This is not particularly unlikely, if your school is really less than 5% female. To get numbers that low, there may be some pressure to drop out, leaving only the best women there.) -- Microsoft hires mostly PMs from your school, which are more likely than devs to be female. -- Microsoft extended offers to a number of men too, who happened to not take the offer. -- Many of these 5 students were actually given offers for a specific program dedicated to minorities. -- You're wrong about the percent of women in your CS program (very likely). -- You're wrong about the number of women / men hired. These are just a few of the possibilities I can think of. What seems incredibly unlikely is that a bunch of unrelated teams all decided to hire only women from specifically your university. I just don't understand how that would work. By the way, are you sure your school is <5% female? That is WAY under the national average.
bencxr 14y ago
I'm not saying the poster got the job because she was a girl (or not), but the bottom line (imo) is that you have to play the hand you're dealt. Some people are born rich, into high society etc and some are not. I don't see people unhappy that others are saying they "got the job because their dad was powerful". Whether or not there was a real advantage doesn't matter. If there was a real advantage, well thank you, I'd take that advantage. If not, prove it. Either way, you still don't deserve to feel upset over it.
- glaak 14y ago
  First of all, when people are trying to diminutize your accomplishments -- saying that you don't deserve them -- it does matter. It affects not only your morale, but also your ability to achieve things in the future. Second, the point of the article is not the being a woman is an advantage but rather, that there's good evidence that it's a disadvantage. When you have a group that is already unrepresented in the sciences who face additional disadvantages, that IS a problem. Yes, of course you play the hand you're dealt. What other choice do you have? That doesn't mean you shouldn't fight for equality for everyone.

55 points by glaak 14y ago

dlss 14y ago

Unfortunate, given the title of the article, that the site went down...

zobzu 14y ago
I clicked thinking i'd see some some skin. (Oh yeah I'll deserve the down-votes for that one, go ahead!)
w1ntermute 14y ago
It's back now. Here's a mirror in case it goes down again: http://i.imgur.com/hR9Mc.png http://i.imgur.com/hR9Mc.png

Zimahl 14y ago

To level the argument, let's just say that everyone has the same skill for a position. You can probably assume that there are a lot of equally qualified 'A' players who have applied at Google, Valve, Facebook, etc. So what sets all of them apart? Off the top of my head, I can only think of two things: personality and looks. While I can't comment on the personality of the author, from the picture in the article it seems as though she is attractive. Is that enough to set her apart? Would she have seen the same possibilities if she wasn't so attractive? Would she have seen the same possibilities if she didn't have the novelty (not sure what to call it) of being an attractive, capable woman in a male-dominated field?

glaak 14y ago
Interesting, but I disagree. (1) You can't assume that there are a lot of equally qualified A players for those companies. In fact, those companies struggle to hire enough qualified engineers. (2) You're assuming that those companies, if they were presented with multiple qualified people, can only hire one of them. In many cases, they would just hire all of them. (3) You're assuming that, if a company has to decide between multiple qualified people, it would use personality or looks as a dividing factor. Obviously, the people aren't actually identical, other than looks. The companies could instead decide based on a preference for public universities over equally ranked private ones, or what city the people are from, or whatever. There are many differences between people. (4) You're assuming that attractiveness would help someone's candidacy for an engineering role, and not hurt it. If you were talking to two people -- one was a very attractive woman and one was a very unattractive woman -- which would you assume is more technical, if you had to bet? You'd probably bet on the less attractive person.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  The implications of your point 4 are precisely the same as the implications of the GP post.
- Zimahl 14y ago
  (1) True. However, I was making an assumption for sake of the argument to take it out of the equation. (2) Even large companies have needs that wouldn't allow them to hire 5 great individuals for a singular position. You seem to just be complicating the argument with undue thoughts about the position and a company. My post was trying to remove the job-specific factors and think about how personality and looks affect hiring. (3) I've interviewed a lot of people for various positions that were all capable, that when it finally came down to it we argued more over team fit than anything else. If you had a grumpy, divisive individual or a friendly, articulate individual, which would you chose? This happens in 'A' player companies as much as any. (4) I'm not assuming anything about attractiveness of an individual. I merely presented a couple (albeit somewhat loaded) questions to invoke a conversation.
alid 14y ago
Hey man! I didn't quite understand your argument, but in this arena looks shouldn't come into it. The greater weight attributed by some people to women's appearance is a form of unconcsious discrimination. I appreciate you weren't sure what to call it, but the 'novelty of being attractive' doesn't sit well with me. She has the novelty of being highly skilled - that's what counts :)
- moistgorilla 14y ago
  He is trying to point out that unfair bias is everywhere.
breadbox 14y ago
In my experience (and studies seem to bear this out), most people will automatically assume an attractive woman has poor skills in X (where X is anything that doesn't involve dealing with customers). So I don't think your "commonsense" argument actually holds in the real world.
- moistgorilla 14y ago
  "most people will automatically assume an attractive woman has poor skills in X (where X is anything that doesn't involve dealing with customers). " Could you provide a source on that please? Because from the wording of your statement it seems that what you are claiming is completely anecdotal. I remember studying in one of my psychology courses that attractive people are instantly assumed to be smarter and more successful than unattractive people. It even has a name although I can't think of it right now. If I could I would provide a source. edit: Here is a source, not really great but it's something. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201108/why-we-pay-more-attention-beautiful-people http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201108/why... edit2: The word I was looking for was halo effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness_stereotype http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness_stereot...
  - glaak 14y ago
    As I recall being told by one of my professors as an MBA student, attractive people -- both men and women -- are generally assumed to be more competent. This effect is stronger for women than men. However, attractive women in "masculine" fields, like engineering, technology, or construction, are generally seen as being less competent.
    - moistgorilla 14y ago
      If you already objectively know that the person is qualified the fact that they are attractive is only a plus. I think the study you a mentioning is done with people that do not know the qualifications of the person they are viewing.

alid 14y ago

This is such an important issue, and it affects bottom line! - a recent Forbes article highlighted that companies with more women at senior levels earn upwards of 33% more on important financial metrics. Global research group Catalyst recently interviewed 325 American chief executives and 10,000 female executives around the obstacles to womens' progression into senior leadership roles. 52% of women cited male stereotyping, but only 25% of the male chief executives identified it as a problem - so there's definitely unconscious stereotyping at play.

btilly 14y ago
I did not see that article, but would be interested to. Do you have a link? The only research that I am aware of along those lines was specific to South Korea.
- alid 14y ago
  Hey man, here's the link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2012/01/26/the-path-to-more-women-in-senior-leadership-a-users-guide/3/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2012/01/26/the-... "Companies with more women at senior levels earn upwards of 33% more on important financial metrics. Failure to resolve the obstacles that keep women from these roles means executives are leaving money on the table."
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    I would be very curious to see actual data (not hand-wavy conjecture) as to why that would happen. Most of what I've seen in that area is merely stereotyping of a different sort (women work by consensus etc).
    - bcoates 14y ago
      Is it that surprising that there are a lot of good ol' boy companies and that they are perverse in ways beyond just not hiring women? I don't think anyone is seriously claiming that women are automatically better executives.

btilly 14y ago

It is easy to rail against employers for showing the complained about bias against minorities and women. And doing so is clearly against the law. However playing Devil's advocate it is justifiable by the fact that hiring decisions are naturally risk adverse. The difference between a perfect hire and a merely good one is typically not that big. The difference between a hire that works out and one that does not is huge. It does not take many wrong hires to destroy a working team. If you've ever been burned by a hire where a person did not work out for reason X, then you're going to naturally think 2 and 3 times before making a similar hire. I personally have seen a couple of situations where a black person had credentials only because of affirmative action and did not deserve those credentials. I've also have seen multiple cases where a woman gets hired, gets pregnant, and then you lose that employee in a painful way. Can you really blame an employer for leaning towards being risk adverse in this situation? (Turning it around, if everyone else is discriminating to an unfair degree against a specific group of people, a company that merely discriminates less will enjoy a competitive advantage. A while ago I ran across a fascinating study of how much better South Korean companies that were willing to hire women into management do than ones who are not. I've seen no data either way on whether the USA is past this tipping point for women in various professional careers.)

glaak 14y ago
Have you ever seen a white person not be good at their job? Yet you don't associate their failures with their race. Why do so with black people? Also, read the studies. Black people and women actually have a harder time getting a job. So by your logic, of people getting jobs that they may not be the most qualified for, you'd be better off hiring women or black people. They have to be more qualified into to be seen as equals.
- btilly 14y ago
  Have you ever seen a white person not be good at their job? Yet you don't associate their failures with their race. Why do so with black people? The specific situation that is burned in my mind was a black girl who was in a math PhD program at the same time that I was. The department wound up bending their rules to the breaking point to give her a Masters on her way out because nobody wanted to risk the discrimination lawsuit that she was threatening. Her actual math knowledge was not even to the level that I would expect from a BSc in math. I have never witnessed anything involving a white person that was anywhere near being similarly egregious. And I had experiences with that department which demonstrated in spades that white people were not given anywhere near as much leniency. As for your final point, I thought I pretty much said that. I've not seen the specific studies that you're referring to.

glaak 14y ago

Mirror here: http://i.imgur.com/hR9Mc.png http://i.imgur.com/hR9Mc.png

bravura 14y ago

Cue up a lot of people who are going to use rhetoric to take make a "reasonable", "non-dogmatic" issue about this topic, while only barely acknowledging sub-conscious prejudice for or against. I don't have a solution here, I'm sorry. But whenever I read a comment that sounds too cool, even-headed, and rhetorical, I know I'm going to be hit with some contrived hypotheticals and not much supporting data. I don't know how to address the issue of prejudice. I just dislike it when people engage in discussion and pat themselves on the back for having taken a "reasonable" position. Not that I think arguments should be unreasonable, I simply see in practice that most "reasonable" arguments don't actually illuminate and are simply exercises in rhetoric.

oinksoft 14y ago
Erm, do you have anything to say about the article or the general subject matter? And are you saying that anybody who would have nits to pick with this article is immediately discredited by your lurking suspicion that they are driven by prejudice? Further, "sub-conscious [sic] prejudice", which by definition the accused cannot refute?
moistgorilla 14y ago
I acknowledge that there is a huge sub-conscious prejudice. I don't like how society doesn't focus on all of the types of prejudices that exist. Like I posted before, there is the halo effect, prejudice against women, fat people, old people, people of a different race, people with disabilities, etc. I refuse to believe that this person (although she is qualified) managed to be hired completely free from any bias and only on her skill. edit: I don't want anyone to believe I am trying to undersell the prejudice women have to experience daily. It's absolutely horrible that it still happens. I just posted the rest of this because I'm a nihilist and have trouble seeing good things with humanity....
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- bravura 14y ago
  I agree that there probably was bias in her hiring. Positive? Negative? What is clear is that there is bias when it comes to the gamut of groups that you mentioned. In certain circumstances, this bias manifests as favorable, and sometimes it is unfavorable. (A particularly company might go out of their way, or be negatively prejudiced, respectively.) Also, some particular people are able to use bias to their advantage overall in their lives. Whereas other people are harmed by bias, overall, because they don't work around it. It's a really tricky issue.

eightbitman 14y ago

You got the job because you're a girl. You kept it because you're competent. It's annoying how women refuse to acknowledge their gender opens certain doors for them. I want to work as a bartender, which means more than half of the places I apply will never even look at my resume because I'm not a girl. I'm all for giving disadvantaged people a chance over advantaged ones, but it's offensive when you pretend "Oh no, the odds are totally even!" No. They're not. You're lying to protect your ego.

glaak 14y ago
Um. Read the studies. No, the odds aren't even. In technology, they're stacked against women. (And against black people in general.) (I would very much believe, however, that in bartending, it's stacked against men.)
- jules 14y ago
  Since you're familiar with the studies, please cite them. As it stands your comment is just "RTFM!!" without even saying which manual.
  - glaak 14y ago
    The studies cited on the original article which this comment thread it attached to. Read the graphs there. Equally qualified women were rated as less competent. http://www.technologywoman.com/2012/09/27/i-only-got-that-job-because-im-a-girl/ http://www.technologywoman.com/2012/09/27/i-only-got-that-jo...
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  > (I would very much believe, however, that in bartending, it's stacked against men.) OTOH, bartending is a customer-facing business, and partially entails "entertainment" (e.g. the bar-tender talking with the customers), so in many cases there's an actual business reason to prefer female bartenders (when most customers are men who prefer talking to a woman bartender). No such excuse exists in software development...
14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

gary4gar 14y ago

And the site went down....any mirrors?

smokey_the_bear 14y ago

I also interned at Microsoft in college, and I'm sure the only reason I got the internship was because I'm a girl. MS hired only five interns from my school that year, and all were female, which is pretty remarkable given my school's sub 5% female representation. I also had an offer from IBM's Extreme Blue that summer, which I don't think had much to do with being female. I also think being female made it a little easier to get my resume noticed, coming from a large state school. It probably helped me get my Google interview, but I don't think it actually helped me get the job much. There have also been some negative things about being a woman in technology. Everyone has their advantages and disadvantages in life.

glaak 14y ago
It is unusual that all 5 people hired were female. But, remember that coincidences happen. There are plenty of schools in which all 15 people hired are male. Unless there is some reason why your school specifically would be set apart, I don't think this is anything more than a strange coincidence. It's possible that something in the middle is going on -- a recruiter asked a professor for recommendations and he/she happened to recommend mostly women.
- smokey_the_bear 14y ago
  I'm pretty sure the recruiter assigned to my school was specifically a diversity recruiter.
- btilly 14y ago
  If the presented figures are true, the probability of that happening entirely independently by chance are about 0.3 in a million. It is reasonable to conclude that those decisions were not independent. But you're absolutely right that the correlation may come from the school rather than from Microsoft.
glaak 14y ago
Also, think through what it would mean to actually get the offer (not the interview -- the offer itself) because you were female. Your recruiter isn't deciding who is getting an offer; the individual teams are. So how would this collaboration have happened such that only women from your college were given offers? Remember that Microsoft still has a very low percent of female engineers, so it's not a company wide policy. You're telling me that a set of unrelated teams decided interdependently to specifically offer positions to women from your college? Why? Why your college? It just doesn't make sense. My guess is that there's something much less sinister going on, such as: -- It's just a weird coincidence. (After all, they recruit from many schools.) -- Some professor referred mostly female students, perhaps even being under the mistaken impression that they were asking for good female candidates. -- The female students are your schools are actually more qualified than the male. (This is not particularly unlikely, if your school is really less than 5% female. To get numbers that low, there may be some pressure to drop out, leaving only the best women there.) -- Microsoft hires mostly PMs from your school, which are more likely than devs to be female. -- Microsoft extended offers to a number of men too, who happened to not take the offer. -- Many of these 5 students were actually given offers for a specific program dedicated to minorities. -- You're wrong about the percent of women in your CS program (very likely). -- You're wrong about the number of women / men hired. These are just a few of the possibilities I can think of. What seems incredibly unlikely is that a bunch of unrelated teams all decided to hire only women from specifically your university. I just don't understand how that would work. By the way, are you sure your school is <5% female? That is WAY under the national average.

bencxr 14y ago

I'm not saying the poster got the job because she was a girl (or not), but the bottom line (imo) is that you have to play the hand you're dealt. Some people are born rich, into high society etc and some are not. I don't see people unhappy that others are saying they "got the job because their dad was powerful". Whether or not there was a real advantage doesn't matter. If there was a real advantage, well thank you, I'd take that advantage. If not, prove it. Either way, you still don't deserve to feel upset over it.

glaak 14y ago
First of all, when people are trying to diminutize your accomplishments -- saying that you don't deserve them -- it does matter. It affects not only your morale, but also your ability to achieve things in the future. Second, the point of the article is not the being a woman is an advantage but rather, that there's good evidence that it's a disadvantage. When you have a group that is already unrepresented in the sciences who face additional disadvantages, that IS a problem. Yes, of course you play the hand you're dealt. What other choice do you have? That doesn't mean you shouldn't fight for equality for everyone.