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"almost all of them said they liked the work itself, but cited discriminatory environments as their main reason for leaving" If the work environment is not to

"almost all of them said they liked the work itself, but cited discriminatory environments as their main reason for leaving" If the work environment is not to women' liking and has no bearing on outcome, where are all the successful companies formed by women who want a more friendly environment? "This is a huge, unnecessary, and expensive loss of talent in a field facing a supposed talent shortage." Again, if true, some enterprising person should have found a way to tap all the amazing talent.

todayiamme 11y ago
I try to usually stay away from such debates, but I've thought a lot about the point you're making: if people are being irrational with respect to hiring then clearly the solution is to start a company that isn't ageist, sexist, or any -ist by formalising the hiring logic and finding people who share something deep - like a passion for building things - in common. But after talking to people and many, many companies, I've come to realise that, although a "market correction" is inevitable, markets can stay irrational longer than most people can stay solvent. Change is inevitable and sooner or later a company will come along which will swoop up all of these people and apply them towards an audacious goal, but the time at which the stars align and such a company is born cannot be predicted and most people can't hold on until that time. Hence their desire to fix it through advocacy, which is quite understandable.
- personjerry 11y ago
  Sure, you may believe that to be the case, but in the meantime, others may believe that, exactly due to the lack of a company that has swooped up all these people, that there is no such opportunity.
- Jare 11y ago
  I think this argument needs to be less black and white than what you present. There's no need for a company to "swoop all" of these people and go for an "audacious goal"; that's all too exaggerated. All that's needed are a few companies competing in a largely male-dominated space, staffed with "a larger presence" of women, and being reasonably successful in whatever goal they have, regardless of how trivial or lofty it is. Advocacy is great, and necessary to get out of local maximas, but living proof is always going to be more effective. Of course, there's always the question of how useful such a competitive advantage (access to a large pool of excellent staff) would be to drive success. It may not be, which is a different discussion and one that would make engineers of both genders nervous regarding their own value.
  - malandrew 11y ago
    Some companies actually are able to disproportionately hire many of the women available to be hired in the industry. Company A has a hard time hiring women because Company B had a few more and better female engineers early on. Network effects take over as the company grows affording it the opportunity to hire far more women than other tech companies. This infographic shows the ratios at a bunch of companies from those with gender ratios below the higher education pipeline ratio to those well above that ratio: http://do-better.studiometric.co/ http://do-better.studiometric.co/ Women earn 18% of computer science degrees: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_349.asp http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_349.asp That table shows the ratio at that sample of companies to be around 19% women. Assuming those companies are representative, that is a 1% different in favor of more women than men based on the pipeline feeding the industry.
shoo 11y ago
I'll run with your thought experiment. The article's very first example of unconscious gender bias suggests that ~2/3rds of investors prefer the same pitch delivered by a man than by a woman. So there's one example of women following your proposed approach needing to overcome structural disadvantage in order to obtain investment. The article goes on to enumerate more examples of this disadvantage, etc. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that even if there is a pool of amazing talent (which I'm confident that there would be) then the playing field is NOT at all level. edit: which was roughly the whole point of the article... ?
- LoSboccacc 11y ago
  now this will sound sexist. believe me I am not - I'm just a dev and I wish we had more women in the field for reason I won't articulate here - take this as 'seen from vc eyes': on a big enterprise, the kind of which people work for more than ten years, maternity leave pay is just a fraction of the whole worker working life - say you work at a company ten years, it's just about 10% of productivity lost. less if you factor days instead of months and account for not giving out bonuses nor vacation in that period) this of course should not justify a 10% pay reduction, however it is what it is, I'm not deciding it, I'm just telling it. in the VC worlds, a company they invest on should have a return in three years or even less. in that context, a maternity leave is a 50% productivity loss - three years is too short to absorb a leave and too long for not being at risk of being impacted by it is this sexist? of course it is. is it fair? of course it isn't. are there any solutions to this? well, since VC is currently male dominated and they tend not to understand the potential of a woman energy, I can't see many.
  - anon4 11y ago
    Why do you assume that a female VC won't do the exact same calculation and still refuse funding? Women aren't some secret cabal that looks out for each other. They are literally normal people and just as nasty on average as everyone else.
    - LoSboccacc 11y ago
mehwoot 11y ago
Again, if true, some enterprising person should have found a way to tap all the amazing talent. Only if you actually believe the market is 100% efficient and everyone has perfect information. After a few bad experiences, someone isn't going to keep trying the same jobs, they are going to move industries. Yes, there probably are companies out there that are good to work for as a woman in tech and they probably get some advantage from that. But it doesn't just magically solve the problem for everyone in tech and it isn't easy for everyone to find those companies that are actually good without significant investment in time and effort. It takes time for attitudes to change, and in the meantime it's still bad for women in the industry.
- malandrew 11y ago
  What industries do they typically move to and why did they choose those industries? Do they choose work of similar nature but in industries without the same biases or do they move to industries where the nature of the labor involved is very different?
danieltillett 11y ago
Do VC funded female founders hire a disproportional percentage of tech women? The delta between women tech employees in male and female founded firms should tell us if a discriminatory environment is the cause.
- Someone 11y ago
  No. You cannot rule out the possibility that women discriminate women, too, or that environmental influences from outside the work floor cause the effect.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    If women discriminate then we should know this as it would be very helpful to know why. If the cause is environmental influences outside the workplace then it is a bit hard for anyone to solve from within the workplace. It also makes any hypothesis of sexism untestable since there is no possible evidence that could be gathered that could ever disprove sexism as the cause.
ulikunkel 11y ago
Yes, all everyone talks about is making changes to create a more friendly and equal work environment. I never see any good ideas to achieve this. Nobody is against this, but work is work, it can't be pleasant all the time. There is competition and money needs to be made. You can learn to compete or not play, that's your choice. Assuming its easier for majorities already working in the field is frankly a bit insulting.
rmc 11y ago
> If the work environment is not to women' liking and has no bearing on outcome, where are all the successful companies formed by women who want a more friendly environment? One explaination is given in the article: "Investors preferred entrepreneurial ventures pitched by a man than an identical pitch from a woman by a rate of 68% to 32% in a study "

todayiamme 11y ago

I try to usually stay away from such debates, but I've thought a lot about the point you're making: if people are being irrational with respect to hiring then clearly the solution is to start a company that isn't ageist, sexist, or any -ist by formalising the hiring logic and finding people who share something deep - like a passion for building things - in common. But after talking to people and many, many companies, I've come to realise that, although a "market correction" is inevitable, markets can stay irrational longer than most people can stay solvent. Change is inevitable and sooner or later a company will come along which will swoop up all of these people and apply them towards an audacious goal, but the time at which the stars align and such a company is born cannot be predicted and most people can't hold on until that time. Hence their desire to fix it through advocacy, which is quite understandable.

personjerry 11y ago
Sure, you may believe that to be the case, but in the meantime, others may believe that, exactly due to the lack of a company that has swooped up all these people, that there is no such opportunity.
Jare 11y ago
I think this argument needs to be less black and white than what you present. There's no need for a company to "swoop all" of these people and go for an "audacious goal"; that's all too exaggerated. All that's needed are a few companies competing in a largely male-dominated space, staffed with "a larger presence" of women, and being reasonably successful in whatever goal they have, regardless of how trivial or lofty it is. Advocacy is great, and necessary to get out of local maximas, but living proof is always going to be more effective. Of course, there's always the question of how useful such a competitive advantage (access to a large pool of excellent staff) would be to drive success. It may not be, which is a different discussion and one that would make engineers of both genders nervous regarding their own value.
- malandrew 11y ago
  Some companies actually are able to disproportionately hire many of the women available to be hired in the industry. Company A has a hard time hiring women because Company B had a few more and better female engineers early on. Network effects take over as the company grows affording it the opportunity to hire far more women than other tech companies. This infographic shows the ratios at a bunch of companies from those with gender ratios below the higher education pipeline ratio to those well above that ratio: http://do-better.studiometric.co/ http://do-better.studiometric.co/ Women earn 18% of computer science degrees: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_349.asp http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_349.asp That table shows the ratio at that sample of companies to be around 19% women. Assuming those companies are representative, that is a 1% different in favor of more women than men based on the pipeline feeding the industry.

shoo 11y ago

I'll run with your thought experiment. The article's very first example of unconscious gender bias suggests that ~2/3rds of investors prefer the same pitch delivered by a man than by a woman. So there's one example of women following your proposed approach needing to overcome structural disadvantage in order to obtain investment. The article goes on to enumerate more examples of this disadvantage, etc. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that even if there is a pool of amazing talent (which I'm confident that there would be) then the playing field is NOT at all level. edit: which was roughly the whole point of the article... ?

LoSboccacc 11y ago
now this will sound sexist. believe me I am not - I'm just a dev and I wish we had more women in the field for reason I won't articulate here - take this as 'seen from vc eyes': on a big enterprise, the kind of which people work for more than ten years, maternity leave pay is just a fraction of the whole worker working life - say you work at a company ten years, it's just about 10% of productivity lost. less if you factor days instead of months and account for not giving out bonuses nor vacation in that period) this of course should not justify a 10% pay reduction, however it is what it is, I'm not deciding it, I'm just telling it. in the VC worlds, a company they invest on should have a return in three years or even less. in that context, a maternity leave is a 50% productivity loss - three years is too short to absorb a leave and too long for not being at risk of being impacted by it is this sexist? of course it is. is it fair? of course it isn't. are there any solutions to this? well, since VC is currently male dominated and they tend not to understand the potential of a woman energy, I can't see many.
- anon4 11y ago
  Why do you assume that a female VC won't do the exact same calculation and still refuse funding? Women aren't some secret cabal that looks out for each other. They are literally normal people and just as nasty on average as everyone else.
  - LoSboccacc 11y ago

mehwoot 11y ago

Again, if true, some enterprising person should have found a way to tap all the amazing talent. Only if you actually believe the market is 100% efficient and everyone has perfect information. After a few bad experiences, someone isn't going to keep trying the same jobs, they are going to move industries. Yes, there probably are companies out there that are good to work for as a woman in tech and they probably get some advantage from that. But it doesn't just magically solve the problem for everyone in tech and it isn't easy for everyone to find those companies that are actually good without significant investment in time and effort. It takes time for attitudes to change, and in the meantime it's still bad for women in the industry.

malandrew 11y ago
What industries do they typically move to and why did they choose those industries? Do they choose work of similar nature but in industries without the same biases or do they move to industries where the nature of the labor involved is very different?

danieltillett 11y ago

Do VC funded female founders hire a disproportional percentage of tech women? The delta between women tech employees in male and female founded firms should tell us if a discriminatory environment is the cause.

Someone 11y ago
No. You cannot rule out the possibility that women discriminate women, too, or that environmental influences from outside the work floor cause the effect.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  If women discriminate then we should know this as it would be very helpful to know why. If the cause is environmental influences outside the workplace then it is a bit hard for anyone to solve from within the workplace. It also makes any hypothesis of sexism untestable since there is no possible evidence that could be gathered that could ever disprove sexism as the cause.

ulikunkel 11y ago

Yes, all everyone talks about is making changes to create a more friendly and equal work environment. I never see any good ideas to achieve this. Nobody is against this, but work is work, it can't be pleasant all the time. There is competition and money needs to be made. You can learn to compete or not play, that's your choice. Assuming its easier for majorities already working in the field is frankly a bit insulting.

rmc 11y ago

> If the work environment is not to women' liking and has no bearing on outcome, where are all the successful companies formed by women who want a more friendly environment? One explaination is given in the article: "Investors preferred entrepreneurial ventures pitched by a man than an identical pitch from a woman by a rate of 68% to 32% in a study "