8 ms·

Yes, diversity is important. However, if you are too focused on hiring female engineers, you can bring the overall quality of the team down. Now I do not mean

by hjay 14y ago

Yes, diversity is important. However, if you are too focused on hiring female engineers, you can bring the overall quality of the team down. Now I do not mean female engineers are any less competent compared to male engineers, but I will give an example from personal experience. The manager at my current day job has (in a team meeting) expressed that "females are better". The reasoning was that females are more creative and in general, more social. This idea of "females > males" was expressed multiple times over my time here, and it has really begun to take off. In our last round of hiring a co-op, our team lead said "the new co-op has to be a girl". In the screening phase, the team lead decided we would not interview a few of the male applicants, for no specific reason. We then picked 2 people (1 male, 1 female) for interviews. The female candidate was interviewed by myself, a co-worker, and the team lead. This candidate was not exceptional in any way and was not more skilled than the other candidate. She was hired the second the interview ended. A year prior, we had a female co-op student who was on a 8 month term. 3 months into the term, she was given an offer by the manager for a full-time position. This offer was in secret, and other teams were not to hear about it until her last month. As she was still in school, she expressed that she wanted the job but wanted to finish her last year and graduate. And so the position (and budget), was saved for her for the year, regardless of whether or not she was able to graduate. I have no problem against hiring female engineers. However, hiring female candidates over male candidates simply because of gender is discrimination, and that's not something I agree with. This kind of discrimination can also be detrimental to the success of the team/company. Simple example: Let's assume 10 of 30 (about 33%) applicants are female. The team decides to select 10 people for interviews (yes there are places that do not interview based on fit alone but fit + headcount). Since there are only 10 females, if we only select females, there are a few problems. 1) We lose out on any male candidates that may be a better fit (which also comes from a pool of 20/30). 2) We're forced to spend money and resources on candidates that essentially have a 0% chance of being hired because they would not have passed the screening if sexism were not in play.

Steko 14y ago
Yes tell us more about how the system is incredibly biased against men.
- hjay 14y ago
  You've clearly missed the point. In an ideal world there would be no discrimination. My post was not even about how the system is biased against men, it was about how bias against men also exists. It is extremely difficult to achieve a perfect balance of a 50/50 gender split in the industry. There isn't a 50/50 ratio in Computer Science/Engineering to begin with. If a company or manager tries to bring the ratio to 50/50 (like in my post), you are bound to hire people who are not a good fit simply because you eliminated a portion of the pool for no valid reason. Of course bad hires occur all the time, but trying to force a 50/50 split or a female majority when the supply is not there will only increase that chance. Sexism against females in the industry is nothing to be laughed at. And the skewed gender ratio within the industry is also real. However, we cannot fix that ratio unless we increase the amount of female students in Computer Science/Engineering.
- rmc 14y ago
  BUT WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ!!! (Often in feminist spaces, when people talk about removing systematic disadvantages against women, someone'll suggest how it's really men that are disadvantaged now. This has morphed into a meme-like joke of "WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ!")
  - pleasebehonest 14y ago
    Bigoted, hateful feminists like you are exactly why the "feminists hate men" meme continues to gain steam. Feminists claim that feminism is about furthering the rights and living conditions of all people, be they men, women, or something else. Yet any time that someone dares to even mention the overreaching, harmful, unintended side effects of the policies feminist crusaders like you support, you literally respond with, "WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ". We're not going to lick your boots, rmc. Get over yourself.
  - JPKab 14y ago
    My son's elementary school appears to be hugely discriminatory towards men. Less than 10% of the teachers are male, all of the leadership at the school is female. Yet I don't see any gender equality organizations complaining about this very widespread reality. Gloria Steinem always argued that gender equality would only be achieved when society believed women could do what men could do, and men could do what women could. The latter half of that statement offers zero political advantages for the women's studies faculty members which make up the cornerstone of the gender equality movement of this country, and therefore Gloria's full vision is ignored. Girls have lower scores on math than boys. Explanation: There is something wrong wtih the way math is being taught. Boys have lower scores on writing than girls. Explanation: Boys are naturally biologically inferior when it comes to processing language. Boys have lower grades overall than girls. Explanation: Boys aren't as well behaved or attentive as girls. If the situation were reversed, there would be conversations about how to redesign the school day to erase the overall grade gap between female and male students. But because the group in question isn't a classically oppressed category, the cause of failure is immediately considered to be an internal factor. See my point? Within some of the social sciences, there is a very potent politically motivated push to search for only external, rather than internal, causes for issues within any group which is considered socially disadvantaged. Nobody has any doubt that Saudi Arabia's Wahabi influenced culture has major internal influences on undermining their economy, but if the same analysis is conducted on any disadvantaged cultural groups within a Western nation, the group conducting said analysis is shamed as being bigoted.
steveklabnik 14y ago
> hiring female candidates over male candidates simply because of gender is also sexism, No, it's not. It's sexual discrimination.
- hjay 14y ago
  Fixed. My mistake.
  - steveklabnik 14y ago
    Thank you. This confusion is really terrible, and I see it happening quite often around here.
    - rjknight 14y ago
      And not just here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sexism?s=t http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sexism?s=t http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism I think it's worth pointing out that the definitions you're using are relatively uncommon. That doesn't make them wrong, but it does mean that they're probably not the definitions that any of us learned in school, or the definitions that are mostly widely known and used. I'm all in favour of the idea that the meaning of words can change, but that normally goes alongside the idea that the meaning of a word is determined by its popular usage. Personally, I think your usage is fine, and I think it represents a more precise concept, but I'm not surprised that it causes confusion and I'm not sure it's fair to blame everyone else for that.
      - steveklabnik 14y ago
        Right! That's why I wrote the comment: people who haven't needed to care about this (coughmencough) generally... haven't needed to care. Dictionaries are really bad at terms of art: 1. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/object http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/object 2. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/thread http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/thread etc. Both of these terms (and many more) have special meanings within computing that aren't in the dictionary. (This one has a reference to the 'computing dictionary' at the bottom.) Likewise, social scientists have terms of art. > I'm not sure it's fair to blame everyone else for that. Who am I blaming? I just mentioned that a term was being mis-used. No blame here. I expect people who've never been forced to confront their privilege to not have any understanding of the topic, by definition.
king_jester 14y ago
Oddly enough, the manager(s) at your current job are using sexist rhetoric about women being creative and social to create a policy where women who are hired have to meet a standard of behavior/performance that is higher than would be for any other candidate. While it may be that women are getting hired more often under this state of things, it really is quite sexist. When you are underrepresented with a certain group of people, who don't start magically attributing sexist or racist attributes to them and demand they meet those stereotypes. Your job has way more problems then just hiring if that is how they approach things.
- ncallaway 14y ago
  I agree that the sexist rhetoric is wrong or misplaced. However, if they have a need for people who are especially creative and social, it's fine for that to be part of the hiring bar. I see absolutely no reason to tie it to any stereotype, though. "We have discovered that employees who are especially creative and social are more successful in our environment. Therefore, when we evaluate a candidate we are much more likely to consider people who are especially creative or social." Set the bar that you need for your environment. Evaluate people against that bar.
brown9-2 14y ago
This would seem to be true for any scenario where you decide to value one biological/unchangeable trait over another.

by hjay 14y ago

Steko 14y ago

Yes tell us more about how the system is incredibly biased against men.

hjay 14y ago
You've clearly missed the point. In an ideal world there would be no discrimination. My post was not even about how the system is biased against men, it was about how bias against men also exists. It is extremely difficult to achieve a perfect balance of a 50/50 gender split in the industry. There isn't a 50/50 ratio in Computer Science/Engineering to begin with. If a company or manager tries to bring the ratio to 50/50 (like in my post), you are bound to hire people who are not a good fit simply because you eliminated a portion of the pool for no valid reason. Of course bad hires occur all the time, but trying to force a 50/50 split or a female majority when the supply is not there will only increase that chance. Sexism against females in the industry is nothing to be laughed at. And the skewed gender ratio within the industry is also real. However, we cannot fix that ratio unless we increase the amount of female students in Computer Science/Engineering.
rmc 14y ago
BUT WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ!!! (Often in feminist spaces, when people talk about removing systematic disadvantages against women, someone'll suggest how it's really men that are disadvantaged now. This has morphed into a meme-like joke of "WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ!")
- pleasebehonest 14y ago
  Bigoted, hateful feminists like you are exactly why the "feminists hate men" meme continues to gain steam. Feminists claim that feminism is about furthering the rights and living conditions of all people, be they men, women, or something else. Yet any time that someone dares to even mention the overreaching, harmful, unintended side effects of the policies feminist crusaders like you support, you literally respond with, "WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ". We're not going to lick your boots, rmc. Get over yourself.
- JPKab 14y ago
  My son's elementary school appears to be hugely discriminatory towards men. Less than 10% of the teachers are male, all of the leadership at the school is female. Yet I don't see any gender equality organizations complaining about this very widespread reality. Gloria Steinem always argued that gender equality would only be achieved when society believed women could do what men could do, and men could do what women could. The latter half of that statement offers zero political advantages for the women's studies faculty members which make up the cornerstone of the gender equality movement of this country, and therefore Gloria's full vision is ignored. Girls have lower scores on math than boys. Explanation: There is something wrong wtih the way math is being taught. Boys have lower scores on writing than girls. Explanation: Boys are naturally biologically inferior when it comes to processing language. Boys have lower grades overall than girls. Explanation: Boys aren't as well behaved or attentive as girls. If the situation were reversed, there would be conversations about how to redesign the school day to erase the overall grade gap between female and male students. But because the group in question isn't a classically oppressed category, the cause of failure is immediately considered to be an internal factor. See my point? Within some of the social sciences, there is a very potent politically motivated push to search for only external, rather than internal, causes for issues within any group which is considered socially disadvantaged. Nobody has any doubt that Saudi Arabia's Wahabi influenced culture has major internal influences on undermining their economy, but if the same analysis is conducted on any disadvantaged cultural groups within a Western nation, the group conducting said analysis is shamed as being bigoted.

steveklabnik 14y ago

> hiring female candidates over male candidates simply because of gender is also sexism, No, it's not. It's sexual discrimination.

hjay 14y ago
Fixed. My mistake.
- steveklabnik 14y ago
  Thank you. This confusion is really terrible, and I see it happening quite often around here.
  - rjknight 14y ago
    And not just here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sexism?s=t http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sexism?s=t http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism I think it's worth pointing out that the definitions you're using are relatively uncommon. That doesn't make them wrong, but it does mean that they're probably not the definitions that any of us learned in school, or the definitions that are mostly widely known and used. I'm all in favour of the idea that the meaning of words can change, but that normally goes alongside the idea that the meaning of a word is determined by its popular usage. Personally, I think your usage is fine, and I think it represents a more precise concept, but I'm not surprised that it causes confusion and I'm not sure it's fair to blame everyone else for that.
    - steveklabnik 14y ago
      Right! That's why I wrote the comment: people who haven't needed to care about this (coughmencough) generally... haven't needed to care. Dictionaries are really bad at terms of art: 1. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/object http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/object 2. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/thread http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/thread etc. Both of these terms (and many more) have special meanings within computing that aren't in the dictionary. (This one has a reference to the 'computing dictionary' at the bottom.) Likewise, social scientists have terms of art. > I'm not sure it's fair to blame everyone else for that. Who am I blaming? I just mentioned that a term was being mis-used. No blame here. I expect people who've never been forced to confront their privilege to not have any understanding of the topic, by definition.

king_jester 14y ago

Oddly enough, the manager(s) at your current job are using sexist rhetoric about women being creative and social to create a policy where women who are hired have to meet a standard of behavior/performance that is higher than would be for any other candidate. While it may be that women are getting hired more often under this state of things, it really is quite sexist. When you are underrepresented with a certain group of people, who don't start magically attributing sexist or racist attributes to them and demand they meet those stereotypes. Your job has way more problems then just hiring if that is how they approach things.

ncallaway 14y ago
I agree that the sexist rhetoric is wrong or misplaced. However, if they have a need for people who are especially creative and social, it's fine for that to be part of the hiring bar. I see absolutely no reason to tie it to any stereotype, though. "We have discovered that employees who are especially creative and social are more successful in our environment. Therefore, when we evaluate a candidate we are much more likely to consider people who are especially creative or social." Set the bar that you need for your environment. Evaluate people against that bar.

brown9-2 14y ago

This would seem to be true for any scenario where you decide to value one biological/unchangeable trait over another.