5 ms·

Given the underrepresentation of women in tech I think I'm ok with them being chosen over satisfying your ambitions. Also working hard to better yourself is a

Given the underrepresentation of women in tech I think I'm ok with them being chosen over satisfying your ambitions. Also working hard to better yourself is a continuous process and it doesn't stop when you get hired at BigCorp, continue doing so and you'll get results no matter your gender.

steamy 12y ago
Given the underrepresentation of women in tech I think I'm ok with them being chosen over satisfying your ambitions. What's this supposed to mean? Is this some sort of reverse sexism? Reparation in kind for the gentle sex?
- timwaagh 12y ago
  its called feminism and its pretty scary
  - josinalvo 12y ago
    before you downvote this preciding comment (or mine, for that matter), allow me a challenge: If you pick 10 woman who self-identified as feminists at random, how many do you predict will find this 2:1 ratio a good thing ? I predict 7 or more.
- cmiles74 12y ago
  Perhaps the poster was pointing out that the under-representation of women in technology is an actual, real world problem that needs to be solved. This one male's ambitions is not really comparable.
  - steamy 12y ago
    How many female participants we got here on HN? Is it safe to say that male members outnumber their female counterparts? If so, what's the reason or the catalyst behind this disparity in interest and participation rate between sexes?
  - thsealienbstrds 12y ago
    What do you mean, women are under-represented in tech? As in: it needs to be 50/50 men and women? Or as in: the ratio of men/women working in tech should reflect the ratio of men/women who'd like to have a tech job?
ra1n85 12y ago
>Given the underrepresentation of women in tech I think I'm ok with them being chosen over satisfying your ambitions. There is so much wrong with this. You do no justice to anyone when you discount merit in the pursuit of ham-handed ratios.
- themartorana 12y ago
  Agreed. A company that hires no women will likely be at a disadvantage to the competition. Hiring diversely is an asset. While I'd like to fast-forward to a time where gender is in fact equal in most things, I think a much better way to start is to remove gender, race, etc. from college and work applications altogether. What would happen if we let merit and drive determine outcomes above all other things? Maybe there are caveats I'm not considering.
  - dylukes 12y ago
    More likely than not people start yelling loudly about who's advertising their skills better. In the end not enough businesses and institutions are equipped to accurately assess skill. So rather than being hired based on skill, what you'd really be hired based on is perceived skill. The people who can sell themselves and spin their skills will continue to thrive, the people who can't but have skills will find niches to do their work, and the people who don't have either will complain that the first two groups are being "pushy" or have an unfair advantage because they're selling themselves better. Something like that. Edit: even if we could measure skill... how? I don't suspect it's always an objectively measurable thing. e.g. most people who seek out psychiatric help want to find someone who is good fit for them and they can trust and talk to, not the "state's top ranked psychiatrist" (who is inherently intimidating).
    - kaybe 12y ago
      Here is a relevant paper for this: https://www.nber.org/papers/w5903 https://www.nber.org/papers/w5903 (1997) Essentially, they found that switching to blind auditing for orchestra musician positions raised the ratio of women hired severalfold. Thus, people' skill is (was?) rated lower if it is known they are female.
jstedfast 12y ago
What happened to hiring people based on merit?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- weland 12y ago
  It became bad PR.
- dylukes 12y ago
  Something like this became a bit of a meme. http://geekfeminism.org/2009/11/29/questioning-the-merit-of-meritocracy/ http://geekfeminism.org/2009/11/29/questioning-the-merit-of-...
- briandear 12y ago
  There are folks of certain political persuasions that would suggest that you are ignorant of the struggle and your white privilege is manifesting itself. This is exactly why I don't understand the "we need a woman president" malarkey. No, we need competent people regardless of their color or genatalia. This idea that we 'need' more this or more that is actually sexist and/or racist by definition.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
  You might as well ask 'what happened to bigfoot'.
- AlexandrB 12y ago
  When has this ever happened in reality? Every other week I see a HN link about how hard it is to actually identify talent and how companies continue to screw it up (hence: hire slow, fire fast). Many hires (especially of A peoople) tend happen on the basis of personal networks as well. While merit plays a role, pretending that before affirmative action hiring was merit-based is naive at best. Given this, I'd like you to please consider that the perception that a specific gender or race is worse at tech may be a bigger influence in an interview than the objective merit or lack thereof that candidate has (something that's impossible to measure in knowledge-work anyways).
smtddr 12y ago
>>Given the underrepresentation of women in tech I think I'm ok with them being chosen over satisfying your ambitions. This sounds like Affirmative-action; while having good intentions did not work out quite like they hoped. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action , search for the word "Negative". Also, I wouldn't want my coworkers thinking I only got the job because I'm a black male. Even I myself don't like the idea that I might have gotten something only because someone else saw me as a charity case or I'm just the "token black guy" so the company can prove "See? We got a black guy! We're cool & hip now!" Replace "black male" with "woman" and I still believe my statement is true for most people.
- humanfromearth 12y ago
  Ok. I see your point. Positive discrimination is harmful, but I think it only applies when it's abused. From my vantage point I don't think we are there. Do you think that any amount of positive discrimination is harmful for a given population?
  - dylukes 12y ago
    Ask someone anywhere in the lower-middle range who's sent a kid (moreso boy than girl) to college recently how they feel about whether we're there or not.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- humanfromearth 12y ago
  Sharing a personal anecdote: I'm somebody who was part of this affirmative action population. I come from the poorest country in Europe called Moldova, the unemployment is high, education low, your typical eastern-european anti-intelectual culture, you get the idea.. Anyway.. when I was 15 I got a scholarship in Romania because there were quotas for us 'moldavians'. At the time Romania was not much better off than Moldova, but certainly when it comes to math and CS to me at least it looked years ahead of the programs we had in Moldova! So I packed my bags and left for a much better education and what I would say now without reservation: a better life. Looking back I think I was very lucky to have gotten the education and exposure to an environment with great teachers/programmers. Maybe I could have succeeded in Moldova, who knows.. It's possible I suppose, but unlikely.

steamy 12y ago

Given the underrepresentation of women in tech I think I'm ok with them being chosen over satisfying your ambitions. What's this supposed to mean? Is this some sort of reverse sexism? Reparation in kind for the gentle sex?

timwaagh 12y ago
its called feminism and its pretty scary
- josinalvo 12y ago
  before you downvote this preciding comment (or mine, for that matter), allow me a challenge: If you pick 10 woman who self-identified as feminists at random, how many do you predict will find this 2:1 ratio a good thing ? I predict 7 or more.
cmiles74 12y ago
Perhaps the poster was pointing out that the under-representation of women in technology is an actual, real world problem that needs to be solved. This one male's ambitions is not really comparable.
- steamy 12y ago
  How many female participants we got here on HN? Is it safe to say that male members outnumber their female counterparts? If so, what's the reason or the catalyst behind this disparity in interest and participation rate between sexes?
- thsealienbstrds 12y ago
  What do you mean, women are under-represented in tech? As in: it needs to be 50/50 men and women? Or as in: the ratio of men/women working in tech should reflect the ratio of men/women who'd like to have a tech job?

ra1n85 12y ago

>Given the underrepresentation of women in tech I think I'm ok with them being chosen over satisfying your ambitions. There is so much wrong with this. You do no justice to anyone when you discount merit in the pursuit of ham-handed ratios.

themartorana 12y ago
Agreed. A company that hires no women will likely be at a disadvantage to the competition. Hiring diversely is an asset. While I'd like to fast-forward to a time where gender is in fact equal in most things, I think a much better way to start is to remove gender, race, etc. from college and work applications altogether. What would happen if we let merit and drive determine outcomes above all other things? Maybe there are caveats I'm not considering.
- dylukes 12y ago
  More likely than not people start yelling loudly about who's advertising their skills better. In the end not enough businesses and institutions are equipped to accurately assess skill. So rather than being hired based on skill, what you'd really be hired based on is perceived skill. The people who can sell themselves and spin their skills will continue to thrive, the people who can't but have skills will find niches to do their work, and the people who don't have either will complain that the first two groups are being "pushy" or have an unfair advantage because they're selling themselves better. Something like that. Edit: even if we could measure skill... how? I don't suspect it's always an objectively measurable thing. e.g. most people who seek out psychiatric help want to find someone who is good fit for them and they can trust and talk to, not the "state's top ranked psychiatrist" (who is inherently intimidating).
  - kaybe 12y ago
    Here is a relevant paper for this: https://www.nber.org/papers/w5903 https://www.nber.org/papers/w5903 (1997) Essentially, they found that switching to blind auditing for orchestra musician positions raised the ratio of women hired severalfold. Thus, people' skill is (was?) rated lower if it is known they are female.

jstedfast 12y ago

What happened to hiring people based on merit?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
weland 12y ago
It became bad PR.
dylukes 12y ago
Something like this became a bit of a meme. http://geekfeminism.org/2009/11/29/questioning-the-merit-of-meritocracy/ http://geekfeminism.org/2009/11/29/questioning-the-merit-of-...
briandear 12y ago
There are folks of certain political persuasions that would suggest that you are ignorant of the struggle and your white privilege is manifesting itself. This is exactly why I don't understand the "we need a woman president" malarkey. No, we need competent people regardless of their color or genatalia. This idea that we 'need' more this or more that is actually sexist and/or racist by definition.
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
You might as well ask 'what happened to bigfoot'.
AlexandrB 12y ago
When has this ever happened in reality? Every other week I see a HN link about how hard it is to actually identify talent and how companies continue to screw it up (hence: hire slow, fire fast). Many hires (especially of A peoople) tend happen on the basis of personal networks as well. While merit plays a role, pretending that before affirmative action hiring was merit-based is naive at best. Given this, I'd like you to please consider that the perception that a specific gender or race is worse at tech may be a bigger influence in an interview than the objective merit or lack thereof that candidate has (something that's impossible to measure in knowledge-work anyways).

smtddr 12y ago

>>Given the underrepresentation of women in tech I think I'm ok with them being chosen over satisfying your ambitions. This sounds like Affirmative-action; while having good intentions did not work out quite like they hoped. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action , search for the word "Negative". Also, I wouldn't want my coworkers thinking I only got the job because I'm a black male. Even I myself don't like the idea that I might have gotten something only because someone else saw me as a charity case or I'm just the "token black guy" so the company can prove "See? We got a black guy! We're cool & hip now!" Replace "black male" with "woman" and I still believe my statement is true for most people.

humanfromearth 12y ago
Ok. I see your point. Positive discrimination is harmful, but I think it only applies when it's abused. From my vantage point I don't think we are there. Do you think that any amount of positive discrimination is harmful for a given population?
- dylukes 12y ago
  Ask someone anywhere in the lower-middle range who's sent a kid (moreso boy than girl) to college recently how they feel about whether we're there or not.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
humanfromearth 12y ago
Sharing a personal anecdote: I'm somebody who was part of this affirmative action population. I come from the poorest country in Europe called Moldova, the unemployment is high, education low, your typical eastern-european anti-intelectual culture, you get the idea.. Anyway.. when I was 15 I got a scholarship in Romania because there were quotas for us 'moldavians'. At the time Romania was not much better off than Moldova, but certainly when it comes to math and CS to me at least it looked years ahead of the programs we had in Moldova! So I packed my bags and left for a much better education and what I would say now without reservation: a better life. Looking back I think I was very lucky to have gotten the education and exposure to an environment with great teachers/programmers. Maybe I could have succeeded in Moldova, who knows.. It's possible I suppose, but unlikely.