4 ms·

She writes: "I am also yet to have a single male employee come to my office to give me dirt on a co-worker or share an awkward gossip-like story. My female empl

She writes: "I am also yet to have a single male employee come to my office to give me dirt on a co-worker or share an awkward gossip-like story. My female employees though? Every. single. one." The Economist had an article which tangentially comports with her comment above: http://www.economist.com/node/21551535 http://www.economist.com/node/21551535

zenbowman 12y ago
That is a fascinating study. It's definitely true that at both companies I've worked at, HR has been totally dominated by women. So if it is true that women are discriminated against in the tech industry, why is that so, given that most people involved in the hiring process are also women? The fact that attractive women are more discriminated against than plain ones is something that never occurred to me, I always believed it was the other way round. And I never considered that attractive men were treated more favorably. I think at the very least the study shows that discrimination is very hard to root out, and simply hiring along certain quotas doesn't really solve the problem at all.
- zo1 12y ago
  I have absolutely no idea why you're being down modded. But it sounds like you've struck an uncomfortable observation, and people don't like it.
  - zenbowman 12y ago
    I don't think I've said anything remotely offensive, I'm not suggesting that women are not discriminated against, I'm just saying that discrimination is not a simple issue as many people claim.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - zo1 12y ago
      Well, you did also point out that HR is dominated by women. So that means that the hiring process is also dominated by women in quite a few workplaces. Combine that with the observations from the study, and all of a sudden we're put in the uncomfortable situation of explaining the apparently incongruent end-results of hiring processes favoring less-attractive women which doesn't fit the currently "accepted" paradigm of "men are sexist against women in the workplace". And you're completely right, the issue is not simple in any way. We're stuck making half-observations, trying to make connections between disparate points, etc. But what that tells me is that we're dealing with a very vague, soft, and ultimately subjective issue. Which people are trying to measure using quantitative, hard measurements.
- Pxtl 12y ago
  HR isn't getting the final say on hiring, just on that first crack of filtering out candidates. In my experience, all the "vaguely-eligible" candidates are still going into the hiring manager's hand, at least in software.
arbutus 12y ago
There's a piece of info in that article that I think might be a part of the problem: For men, the results were as expected. Hunks were more likely to be called for an interview if they included a photo. Ugly men were better off not including one. However, for women this was reversed. Attractive females were less likely to be offered an interview if they included a mugshot. Without knowing much about the person who wrote the article (as it's an anonymous guest post), I know a lot of women, myself included at points in the past, can be very harsh and judgemental towards other women. There's an attitude among a lot of women, especially in youth, that other women are too emotional, gossips, obsessed with looks, and so on. Many grow out of this, and some don't. If there is any real psychological difference between women and men, I think this sort of unnecessary competition, jealousy, or general discomfort towards other people of our same gender is where it lies. I'm sure there's some interesting studies on this kind of thing out there somewhere.
- malandrew 12y ago
  I reckon sexual competition is at play here. Guys generally fare better in the mating game by associating with other good looking men. Assuming heterosexuality here for simplicity's sake, being a good looking guy in a group of good looking guys increases the chance that one or more good looking women will hang out with the group. Anecdotally men succeed in the mating game when mating as a group to group. Dunno why that is the case. Maybe a larger group communicates presence of a powerful male that females may try to vie for. For attractive women, there generally is no benefit from being part of a group of attractive women, since it doesn't materially increase propinquity with attractive men as far as I can tell, but it does materially increase competition for the alpha male. Basically, mating-wise, men win more often when they cooperate and women win more often when they compete. Anyone know of any science to support this observation or am I way out on a limb here?
  - malandrew 12y ago
    Looks like just hypothesizing, even when admitting as much is downvote worthy. Another hypothesis worth considering is that intrasexual selection tactics of women are tolerated in the workplace but those of men are not. Across many species and many societies, male intrasexual selection takes places as overt direct competition (hand-to-hand combat, sports, male elephant seals). With females (again across species and across societies), intrasexual selection is more often indirect due to female choice. Direct competition is observable and easily addressed. Indirect competition is not by virtue of being indirect. This means that the modern workplace does not afford the conditions for men to compete much if at all except via promotion for doing good work. There are not the same mechanisms and norms in place in many modern workplaces to direct energy spent on indirect competition to more productive outlets. I expect another downvote here too because acknowledging the existence of differences between genders is only frowned upon when talking about humans, but whatever.
ignostic 12y ago
First, the study you referenced just shows that a sample of women were less likely to get interviews with their photo. From there it's just the authors throwing out guesses for their findings. Maybe HR workers are jealous, or maybe they're worried that attractive young women will cause drama at work. Based on this study, we have no idea. Even if the guess that "female HR workers don't want to hire other pretty females" is correct, you have no idea whether the same would be true were the roles reversed. Would all-male HR departments be less likely to call attractive men for interviews? It's very possible. The study you cite in no way supports the authors claim that women gossip more.
- niels_olson 12y ago
  > they are worried that attractive young women will cause drama That actually sounds like jealousy.

zenbowman 12y ago

That is a fascinating study. It's definitely true that at both companies I've worked at, HR has been totally dominated by women. So if it is true that women are discriminated against in the tech industry, why is that so, given that most people involved in the hiring process are also women? The fact that attractive women are more discriminated against than plain ones is something that never occurred to me, I always believed it was the other way round. And I never considered that attractive men were treated more favorably. I think at the very least the study shows that discrimination is very hard to root out, and simply hiring along certain quotas doesn't really solve the problem at all.

zo1 12y ago
I have absolutely no idea why you're being down modded. But it sounds like you've struck an uncomfortable observation, and people don't like it.
- zenbowman 12y ago
  I don't think I've said anything remotely offensive, I'm not suggesting that women are not discriminated against, I'm just saying that discrimination is not a simple issue as many people claim.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - zo1 12y ago
    Well, you did also point out that HR is dominated by women. So that means that the hiring process is also dominated by women in quite a few workplaces. Combine that with the observations from the study, and all of a sudden we're put in the uncomfortable situation of explaining the apparently incongruent end-results of hiring processes favoring less-attractive women which doesn't fit the currently "accepted" paradigm of "men are sexist against women in the workplace". And you're completely right, the issue is not simple in any way. We're stuck making half-observations, trying to make connections between disparate points, etc. But what that tells me is that we're dealing with a very vague, soft, and ultimately subjective issue. Which people are trying to measure using quantitative, hard measurements.
Pxtl 12y ago
HR isn't getting the final say on hiring, just on that first crack of filtering out candidates. In my experience, all the "vaguely-eligible" candidates are still going into the hiring manager's hand, at least in software.

arbutus 12y ago

There's a piece of info in that article that I think might be a part of the problem: For men, the results were as expected. Hunks were more likely to be called for an interview if they included a photo. Ugly men were better off not including one. However, for women this was reversed. Attractive females were less likely to be offered an interview if they included a mugshot. Without knowing much about the person who wrote the article (as it's an anonymous guest post), I know a lot of women, myself included at points in the past, can be very harsh and judgemental towards other women. There's an attitude among a lot of women, especially in youth, that other women are too emotional, gossips, obsessed with looks, and so on. Many grow out of this, and some don't. If there is any real psychological difference between women and men, I think this sort of unnecessary competition, jealousy, or general discomfort towards other people of our same gender is where it lies. I'm sure there's some interesting studies on this kind of thing out there somewhere.

malandrew 12y ago
I reckon sexual competition is at play here. Guys generally fare better in the mating game by associating with other good looking men. Assuming heterosexuality here for simplicity's sake, being a good looking guy in a group of good looking guys increases the chance that one or more good looking women will hang out with the group. Anecdotally men succeed in the mating game when mating as a group to group. Dunno why that is the case. Maybe a larger group communicates presence of a powerful male that females may try to vie for. For attractive women, there generally is no benefit from being part of a group of attractive women, since it doesn't materially increase propinquity with attractive men as far as I can tell, but it does materially increase competition for the alpha male. Basically, mating-wise, men win more often when they cooperate and women win more often when they compete. Anyone know of any science to support this observation or am I way out on a limb here?
- malandrew 12y ago
  Looks like just hypothesizing, even when admitting as much is downvote worthy. Another hypothesis worth considering is that intrasexual selection tactics of women are tolerated in the workplace but those of men are not. Across many species and many societies, male intrasexual selection takes places as overt direct competition (hand-to-hand combat, sports, male elephant seals). With females (again across species and across societies), intrasexual selection is more often indirect due to female choice. Direct competition is observable and easily addressed. Indirect competition is not by virtue of being indirect. This means that the modern workplace does not afford the conditions for men to compete much if at all except via promotion for doing good work. There are not the same mechanisms and norms in place in many modern workplaces to direct energy spent on indirect competition to more productive outlets. I expect another downvote here too because acknowledging the existence of differences between genders is only frowned upon when talking about humans, but whatever.

ignostic 12y ago

First, the study you referenced just shows that a sample of women were less likely to get interviews with their photo. From there it's just the authors throwing out guesses for their findings. Maybe HR workers are jealous, or maybe they're worried that attractive young women will cause drama at work. Based on this study, we have no idea. Even if the guess that "female HR workers don't want to hire other pretty females" is correct, you have no idea whether the same would be true were the roles reversed. Would all-male HR departments be less likely to call attractive men for interviews? It's very possible. The study you cite in no way supports the authors claim that women gossip more.

niels_olson 12y ago
> they are worried that attractive young women will cause drama That actually sounds like jealousy.