Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer(betterprogramming.pub)
betterprogramming.pub
Four times I felt discriminated against for being a female developer
https://betterprogramming.pub/4-times-i-felt-discriminated-against-for-being-a-female-developer-b9579f696a5
463 comments
All of this sounds horribly cringe-inducing and I don't fault you at all for walking away from IBM.
At the same time, I can't help but look at this from an iterated organizational perspective. Let's say you had taken the offer at IBM. Next year, IBM does the recruiting event. But this time they have a Native American employee, you, that they can talk to about how to reach out to that group. So it's a little less awkward. Maybe they hire a couple more. Over time, the organization builds enough to overcome its own internal systemic bias and does have a strong local representative culture of Native American employees.
But I don't see how an organization gets to that point without it being sort of weird and cringy at first.
Of course, you are under no personal obligation to be the one to take those first steps simply because you happen to be a member of that group. But I have to wonder, if we're going to criticize an organization for trying to correct their biases this way... what other process would we suggest?
At the same time, I can't help but look at this from an iterated organizational perspective. Let's say you had taken the offer at IBM. Next year, IBM does the recruiting event. But this time they have a Native American employee, you, that they can talk to about how to reach out to that group. So it's a little less awkward. Maybe they hire a couple more. Over time, the organization builds enough to overcome its own internal systemic bias and does have a strong local representative culture of Native American employees.
But I don't see how an organization gets to that point without it being sort of weird and cringy at first.
Of course, you are under no personal obligation to be the one to take those first steps simply because you happen to be a member of that group. But I have to wonder, if we're going to criticize an organization for trying to correct their biases this way... what other process would we suggest?
> this time they have a Native American employee, you, that they can talk to about how to reach out to that group.
I remember reading someone's opinion basically stating that things like that for underrepresented groups are unpaid emotional labor, which I kind of agree with - it's got to be a weird position to be in to be hired to write code and somehow end up as the defacto sounding board for questions regarding the company's interactions with people similar to you. Imagine having randos come up to you and ask you for your time to pitch new ideas for how to recruit white dudes or asking questions about how it was growing up a white dude or even just people making the assumption that since you're a white dude you care about hiring more white dudes.
> what other process would we suggest?
Personal opinion alert: I feel like a lot of (not all) tech's diversity problem is a pipeline problem so maybe identifying people that belong to underrepresented groups out there doing good work getting folks from the group interested in cs/tech and then giving them more resources?
I remember reading someone's opinion basically stating that things like that for underrepresented groups are unpaid emotional labor, which I kind of agree with - it's got to be a weird position to be in to be hired to write code and somehow end up as the defacto sounding board for questions regarding the company's interactions with people similar to you. Imagine having randos come up to you and ask you for your time to pitch new ideas for how to recruit white dudes or asking questions about how it was growing up a white dude or even just people making the assumption that since you're a white dude you care about hiring more white dudes.
> what other process would we suggest?
Personal opinion alert: I feel like a lot of (not all) tech's diversity problem is a pipeline problem so maybe identifying people that belong to underrepresented groups out there doing good work getting folks from the group interested in cs/tech and then giving them more resources?
> things like that for underrepresented groups are unpaid emotional labor
Presumably if the person in question is salaried and it's understood that they are spending work time on this, then it's not unpaid emotional labor. But, sure, it's work that requires leaning on emotional and social sensitivies one might otherwise not have to bring to bear in their tech job.
I don't think anyone should be obligated to do that kind of work because of their background. But my experience is that organizations and culture often progress only when some people do volunteer to do that work. And, fortunately, there are many people who choose to do that because the intangible rewards, for them, outweigh the costs.
Presumably if the person in question is salaried and it's understood that they are spending work time on this, then it's not unpaid emotional labor. But, sure, it's work that requires leaning on emotional and social sensitivies one might otherwise not have to bring to bear in their tech job.
I don't think anyone should be obligated to do that kind of work because of their background. But my experience is that organizations and culture often progress only when some people do volunteer to do that work. And, fortunately, there are many people who choose to do that because the intangible rewards, for them, outweigh the costs.
> Imagine having randos come up to you and ask you for your time to pitch new ideas for how to recruit white dudes or asking questions about how it was growing up a white dude or even just people making the assumption that since you're a white dude you care about hiring more white dudes.
I imagine this all the time, yet it never happens.
I imagine this all the time, yet it never happens.
This is not how things happen, I have yet to see any large organization that let itself or its procedures changed by new hires. And telling someone that was mistreated by a company that they should have accepted and then tried to change the things from the inside is insensitivity at its best. Now if they hire you specifically for that purpose that's different, but it abaolutely doesnt sound like it here.
Why would a Native American feel prospect feel more comfortable talking to a Native American employee? I think that's the cringey stuff parent comment is complaining about.
Greater number of shared experiences and common ground? Why do any pair of humans feel more comfortable talking to each other than some other pairs?
Just hire based on skill / experience and don't not hire someone because they are a minority. Basic fair hiring goes a long way.
If you want more diverse candidates advertise in more diverse places.
To go through some cringe-inducing ordeal is not helpful. People want to be judged based on their skills not skin / gender.
If you want more diverse candidates advertise in more diverse places.
To go through some cringe-inducing ordeal is not helpful. People want to be judged based on their skills not skin / gender.
How does that overcome systemic bias, eg prevalent poverty in many minority groups. The poor don’t have resources, wealth or contacts, to become a super coder/manager/whatever so they don’t make it into your applicant pool based on skill alone in the first place.
The cycle continues.
Breaking the cycle is hard. You could target low income children but that leaves everyone looking for jobs today in the cold, etc etc.
It’s a tough nut to crack but trying to fix historical bias isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The cycle continues.
Breaking the cycle is hard. You could target low income children but that leaves everyone looking for jobs today in the cold, etc etc.
It’s a tough nut to crack but trying to fix historical bias isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Why do you single out poverty and bias in minority groups? What about say, Appalachia? You think the white people living there were born with a silver spoon in their mouth?
Why someone is poor today shouldn’t be rated. It’s not a suffering rating contest. You could be denied a job 50 years ago because of your skin, your accent, etc.
It’s far better to just look at where someone is financially and use to determine if they need help. It also prevents divides from popping up. A very good way to get people angry is to tell someone who needs help they are privileged and should shut up because they are either white, male, straight, don’t look poor, etc.
Why someone is poor today shouldn’t be rated. It’s not a suffering rating contest. You could be denied a job 50 years ago because of your skin, your accent, etc.
It’s far better to just look at where someone is financially and use to determine if they need help. It also prevents divides from popping up. A very good way to get people angry is to tell someone who needs help they are privileged and should shut up because they are either white, male, straight, don’t look poor, etc.
The systemic bias I faced was that people assumed I was poor, didn't have resources, wealth or contacts because I am a Native American.
My recently experience with the Choctaw Nation would have led me to think the exact opposite. Their new headquarters is absolutely amazing. Beautiful new buildings, and huge casino expansion underway too. They seem to have been taking care of the tribe members quite well.
But that may be an inaccurate assumption on my part as well.
But that may be an inaccurate assumption on my part as well.
conception(4)
It is impossible to solve systemic bias by using discrimination. It has never worked in the past despite an untold number of attempts. In a very similar way, violence create violence in very predictable cycles.
Like violence, the solution to systemic bias are simple but unattractive. Don't display and rub symbols in people faces. Do not create ambiguous borders between groups of people. Treat each person as individual and avoid generalizations. Add social and economical support based on lack of those resources on an individual level, from the bottom up.
The progress towards equally would look very different if people weren't constantly doing the opposite in the belief that this time the symbols will convince the enemy of the wrong doing, the ambiguous borders will work, the generalizations will send the important message, and that top to bottom approach will create a foundation for change.
Like violence, the solution to systemic bias are simple but unattractive. Don't display and rub symbols in people faces. Do not create ambiguous borders between groups of people. Treat each person as individual and avoid generalizations. Add social and economical support based on lack of those resources on an individual level, from the bottom up.
The progress towards equally would look very different if people weren't constantly doing the opposite in the belief that this time the symbols will convince the enemy of the wrong doing, the ambiguous borders will work, the generalizations will send the important message, and that top to bottom approach will create a foundation for change.
Despite declarations that busing to desegregate schools failed in the 1970s and 1980s, that era actually saw significant improvement in educational equity. When the National Assessment of Educational Progress began in the early 1970s, there was a 53-point gap in reading scores between black and white 17-year-olds. That chasm narrowed to 20 points by 1988. During that time, every region of the country except the Northeast saw steady gains in school integration. In the South in 1968, 78 percent of black children attended schools with almost exclusively minority students; by 1988, only 24 percent did. In the West during that period, the figure declined from 51 percent to 29 percent.
But since 1988, when education policy shifted away from desegregation efforts, the reading test score gap has grown — to 26 points in 2012 — with segregated schooling increasing in every region of the country.
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The case is interesting, through I would compare it to a similar but failed experiment in Sweden where students of got free points in their grade if they applied to a program where there would be a minority. Why did one have some success and the other had none? I would go back to the things I wrote above about what to do and what not to do.
Providing free buses to people who live far away from desired schools do not rub the act in the face of people who live near those schools and do not need buses. It might cause a negative side effect that school buses becomes a symbolic proxy for being poor, making those intended to use them less likely to agree to use them, but it extends the option available for those who only have few options to begin with. In contrast, free grade points is much more displayed directly in the face of other fellow students, both to those who get into the program and those who were rejected with similar grades.
Free buses does not provide any ambiguous borders or rules once the student is at school. The requirements and expectations of the student is same as any other student. There are few situation where uncertainty and doubt can occur between buss and non-buss student, except maybe for times of heavy snow or road congestion. To my knowledge, when students who depend on buses can't reach the school and thus given a pass to skip school, the other students are given the same pass. If we go back to the Swedish example, requirements and expectations get ambiguous when people get in through other means than merit, causing tensions between those who got in through grades and those who got in through the free points system.
Both systems has generalizations, so I would say that a way to improve the desegregation efforts would have been to skip the qualification of race and simply provide the busing to any individual that is below a set amount of wealth and live a distance far away from the desired school in order to need a bus. Such change might have saved it from being abandoned in 1988.
Providing free buses to people who live far away from desired schools do not rub the act in the face of people who live near those schools and do not need buses. It might cause a negative side effect that school buses becomes a symbolic proxy for being poor, making those intended to use them less likely to agree to use them, but it extends the option available for those who only have few options to begin with. In contrast, free grade points is much more displayed directly in the face of other fellow students, both to those who get into the program and those who were rejected with similar grades.
Free buses does not provide any ambiguous borders or rules once the student is at school. The requirements and expectations of the student is same as any other student. There are few situation where uncertainty and doubt can occur between buss and non-buss student, except maybe for times of heavy snow or road congestion. To my knowledge, when students who depend on buses can't reach the school and thus given a pass to skip school, the other students are given the same pass. If we go back to the Swedish example, requirements and expectations get ambiguous when people get in through other means than merit, causing tensions between those who got in through grades and those who got in through the free points system.
Both systems has generalizations, so I would say that a way to improve the desegregation efforts would have been to skip the qualification of race and simply provide the busing to any individual that is below a set amount of wealth and live a distance far away from the desired school in order to need a bus. Such change might have saved it from being abandoned in 1988.
For a majority individual to 'feel ok' with a minority jumping the line they must fundamentally believe their merits don't matter as much as the minority's group identity. Likewise, the minority must believe their merits don't matter either, only their group identity matters. Therein lies the problem, 'color blindness' and 'affirmative action' are diametrically opposed. The harder you push for the one is a push away from the other. Which is 'harder' for a society to learn - their merits don't matter or their group identity doesn't matter (in the context of say getting a job)?
It's such a shame, because we want as a society the hiring manager to go to the reservation job fair looking for applicants. But the manager knows that there are precious few 'qualified' applicants and we recognize they will tend to maximize the efficiency of their time.
Of course, it isn't an accident there are few qualified applicants in those places. Poverty has a holistic effect on a group. My hope is that groups can somehow separate financial poverty from poverty of ambition to try to break these cycles and make progress. Every 'group culture' has a unique ethos, many poor groups had rich ambition and rose out of their poverty over time. To me this is the only way I can see real progress being made without giving up on meritocracy (and by extension technological/scientific progression).
So the question becomes - what does it look like to cultivate group ambition?
1. Generational support: believe your situation is not guaranteed for your children. Fight for them. Sacrifice for them.
2. Education/medical: we pour resources into certain underprivileged places (not groups, physical locations). This isn't going against meritocracy, it's a long-term investment.
3. Recognize that human civilization is at its finest when people believe they can rise above their circumstances, despite all the external and internal factors pulling them down.
It's such a shame, because we want as a society the hiring manager to go to the reservation job fair looking for applicants. But the manager knows that there are precious few 'qualified' applicants and we recognize they will tend to maximize the efficiency of their time.
Of course, it isn't an accident there are few qualified applicants in those places. Poverty has a holistic effect on a group. My hope is that groups can somehow separate financial poverty from poverty of ambition to try to break these cycles and make progress. Every 'group culture' has a unique ethos, many poor groups had rich ambition and rose out of their poverty over time. To me this is the only way I can see real progress being made without giving up on meritocracy (and by extension technological/scientific progression).
So the question becomes - what does it look like to cultivate group ambition?
1. Generational support: believe your situation is not guaranteed for your children. Fight for them. Sacrifice for them.
2. Education/medical: we pour resources into certain underprivileged places (not groups, physical locations). This isn't going against meritocracy, it's a long-term investment.
3. Recognize that human civilization is at its finest when people believe they can rise above their circumstances, despite all the external and internal factors pulling them down.
> Add social and economical support based on lack of those resources on an individual level, from the bottom up
How do you apply this to a system that has favoured certain groups for so long that the whole structure has close to none of those it supposedly wants to help?
You need representation from groups that need help in order to help. You need representative individuals in the organisation to guide it. You may have to positively discriminate at first, or else you won’t have any representative to draw from.
There are abundant examples of butchered attempts at ‘helping’ when those with good intent have no idea (this thread gives plenty of cringe inducing examples).
The key, I think, it making it clear what the role is and what is wanted to those that are there in that role.
How do you apply this to a system that has favoured certain groups for so long that the whole structure has close to none of those it supposedly wants to help?
You need representation from groups that need help in order to help. You need representative individuals in the organisation to guide it. You may have to positively discriminate at first, or else you won’t have any representative to draw from.
There are abundant examples of butchered attempts at ‘helping’ when those with good intent have no idea (this thread gives plenty of cringe inducing examples).
The key, I think, it making it clear what the role is and what is wanted to those that are there in that role.
There are disparities companies can fix through hiring practices and ones they can’t. Systemic bias is one they can’t—who Google hires or doesn’t simply doesn’t move the needle on generational poverty. Even if every professional industry does it, that doesn’t move the needle because those industries employ a small fraction of overall workers. Fixing biases and barriers to promotion in service jobs and trades would do vastly more to fix systemic bias, because those industries simply employ vastly more people across a bigger cross section of the work force.
Then there are disparities that better hiring practices can fix, namely correcting the “first and only” problem. Most people just want to fit in, and being the “first and only X” makes that harder. It’s a kind of disparity that exists only because it exists and can be fixed by simply hiring people from diverse backgrounds to achieve a critical mass so that future applicants don’t face that conundrum.
Then there are disparities that better hiring practices can fix, namely correcting the “first and only” problem. Most people just want to fit in, and being the “first and only X” makes that harder. It’s a kind of disparity that exists only because it exists and can be fixed by simply hiring people from diverse backgrounds to achieve a critical mass so that future applicants don’t face that conundrum.
> who Google hires or doesn’t simply doesn’t move the needle on generational poverty.
If it can’t be done in one of the most successful companies on earth, in the richest country, who can?
The value in Google trying is greater than just the value to the successful applicants. It might not be much but just throwing up your hands because it’s hard is not helpful.
If it can’t be done in one of the most successful companies on earth, in the richest country, who can?
The value in Google trying is greater than just the value to the successful applicants. It might not be much but just throwing up your hands because it’s hard is not helpful.
You need to fix that at the education level. Offering free top notch education can go a long way.
> Offering free top notch education can go a long way
I find it strange that people think you can just magically provide a top notch school and things magically correct themselves. How can you completely discount the impact of the parents involvement with their children's educational life?
Paraphasing JFK, "Ask not what your school can do for your kid's education, but what you can do for your kid's education".
Parents play a huge part in imparting good values in their children and also holding their children accountable for their performance in school. Furthermore, when some kids do poorly that rubs off on all the other kids by lowering the bar and setting bad examples. The parents set bad examples for their kids and then those kids set bad examples for other kids. It's turtles all the way down.
"If you want to see the poor remain poor, generation after generation, just keep the standards low in their schools and make excuses for their academic shortcomings and personal misbehavior. But please don't congratulate yourself on your compassion." – Thomas Sowell
I find it strange that people think you can just magically provide a top notch school and things magically correct themselves. How can you completely discount the impact of the parents involvement with their children's educational life?
Paraphasing JFK, "Ask not what your school can do for your kid's education, but what you can do for your kid's education".
Parents play a huge part in imparting good values in their children and also holding their children accountable for their performance in school. Furthermore, when some kids do poorly that rubs off on all the other kids by lowering the bar and setting bad examples. The parents set bad examples for their kids and then those kids set bad examples for other kids. It's turtles all the way down.
"If you want to see the poor remain poor, generation after generation, just keep the standards low in their schools and make excuses for their academic shortcomings and personal misbehavior. But please don't congratulate yourself on your compassion." – Thomas Sowell
Usually, you need to start super super early. Achievement gaps show up pretty early and only get wider. And I don’t think most companies have the stomach for broad-based improvements to education starting all the way from elementary school or even preschool, particularly when the payoff is going to be when the first wave of kids in preschool make it out of at least undergrad.
Of course, the superlocal, balkanized property tax system used to fund schools really doesn’t help things.
Of course, the superlocal, balkanized property tax system used to fund schools really doesn’t help things.
I agree but that ignores people trying to make it today and doesn’t create any “heroes” or mentors for those in education today.
Oh, I think initial guidelines had that.
And then it was all tramped on by some insane incentive like a bonus being dependent on how many "diverse" people a particular person actually gets to hire. Or a stack ranking based on the same.
All it takes is just one perverse component in the mix.
And then it was all tramped on by some insane incentive like a bonus being dependent on how many "diverse" people a particular person actually gets to hire. Or a stack ranking based on the same.
All it takes is just one perverse component in the mix.
> it was all tramped on by some insane incentive like a bonus being dependent on how many "diverse" people a particular person actually gets to hire
my company has done this and while it's not illegal to provide the incentives, I don't understand how they can expect it not to result in illegal hiring behavior (discrimination based on protected class) by those optimizing for those incentives.
my company has done this and while it's not illegal to provide the incentives, I don't understand how they can expect it not to result in illegal hiring behavior (discrimination based on protected class) by those optimizing for those incentives.
> I don't understand how they can expect it not to result in illegal hiring behavior
Of course they expect it to result in illegal hiring behavior. They just also expect to always get away with it, because some technically illegal things are nonetheless tolerated by society.
Of course they expect it to result in illegal hiring behavior. They just also expect to always get away with it, because some technically illegal things are nonetheless tolerated by society.
I think the point is that IBM believed they were hiring based purely on skill and experience. Then they realized they weren't hiring any native americans. And they figured that the best way to address that would be to hire some.
You clearly don't understand Equity.
Ideally, yes. But the problem is that our implicit biases affect how we view potential candidates.
Certain groups need the chance to prove themselves. If certain groups aren't fairly represented, then it does pay to prefer to hire from those groups when everything else is roughly equal.
I do find it hard to believe that "the best" candidate is more often than not a straight white man.
Certain groups need the chance to prove themselves. If certain groups aren't fairly represented, then it does pay to prefer to hire from those groups when everything else is roughly equal.
I do find it hard to believe that "the best" candidate is more often than not a straight white man.
> I do find it hard to believe that "the best" candidate is more often than not a straight white man.
So do I, which is why I find this diversity hire exercise entirely pointless.
So do I, which is why I find this diversity hire exercise entirely pointless.
I always thought the best way was to treat those recruiting events as a way to get a more diverse set of candidates on the resume pile. Once they are on the same pile as everyone else, the higher ratios of minorities on the piles will naturally lead to more minority hires (assuming your hiring process is non discriminatory).
You are wondering about the wrong thing. Companies/Orgs are not designed to pull this type of stuff off. And thats the end of the story right there.
Society has developed other mechanisms precisely because orgs are dumb as shit at handling complexity.
Its sort of like encouraging 2nd graders to think about 10th grade problems. They need a whole lot of help and time from someone else before they can. Thats why the East India Company runs to King or Goldman runs to the President or Jack Ma evaporates from the earth when things get too complex.
Orgs are just dumb simple parts of society like the ribosome is a part of a cell. Expecting the ribosome to morph into something it is not just because every part of the ribosome has good intentions and feels it can be doing much more to influence the behavior of one cell, or a clump of them and therefore the whole body makes for a good Pixar movie and Google hiring material. But in real life that stuff happens on very different time scales and by very different institutions.
If you want to change the world don't work in the corporate world. Work in places that supervise them.
Society has developed other mechanisms precisely because orgs are dumb as shit at handling complexity.
Its sort of like encouraging 2nd graders to think about 10th grade problems. They need a whole lot of help and time from someone else before they can. Thats why the East India Company runs to King or Goldman runs to the President or Jack Ma evaporates from the earth when things get too complex.
Orgs are just dumb simple parts of society like the ribosome is a part of a cell. Expecting the ribosome to morph into something it is not just because every part of the ribosome has good intentions and feels it can be doing much more to influence the behavior of one cell, or a clump of them and therefore the whole body makes for a good Pixar movie and Google hiring material. But in real life that stuff happens on very different time scales and by very different institutions.
If you want to change the world don't work in the corporate world. Work in places that supervise them.
I think tech events focused on specific groups can be great, but from my perspective:
- Better if it is not the corporation organizing it, but just sponsoring either trough financial contributions or things like providing space instead.
- Have interesting topics beyond just talking about group X.
- Don’t assume everyone within a group is the same.
- Actual hiring/evaluation process should be same for everyone, do as much blindly as you can.
- Better if it is not the corporation organizing it, but just sponsoring either trough financial contributions or things like providing space instead.
- Have interesting topics beyond just talking about group X.
- Don’t assume everyone within a group is the same.
- Actual hiring/evaluation process should be same for everyone, do as much blindly as you can.
This is an example of a non-diverse company that doesn't understand diversity trying to implement some kind of diversity. I recall these kinds of ham-fisted attempts everywhere in the late 90's.
Ironically, this was most likely cringe because there were no minorities on the staff, a consequence of: no diversity.
I observed a similar event in the early 90's when a bunch of white folk in HR tried to show off diversity during a co-op tour and had posters of Africa all over the room. But why would I expect someone who just learned the term to actually grok it?
Bummer you go the offensive end of that.
EDIT: From the article "It was when I first realized that tech leaders have no idea what it is to manage work dynamics through a gendered lens."
When minorities are made "ambassadors" as though they suddenly speak for EVERYONE in their minority, it is awful, and wrong. People don't get this: "But X minority said it was OK..." No, it takes literal diversity of opinion.
Ironically, this was most likely cringe because there were no minorities on the staff, a consequence of: no diversity.
I observed a similar event in the early 90's when a bunch of white folk in HR tried to show off diversity during a co-op tour and had posters of Africa all over the room. But why would I expect someone who just learned the term to actually grok it?
Bummer you go the offensive end of that.
EDIT: From the article "It was when I first realized that tech leaders have no idea what it is to manage work dynamics through a gendered lens."
When minorities are made "ambassadors" as though they suddenly speak for EVERYONE in their minority, it is awful, and wrong. People don't get this: "But X minority said it was OK..." No, it takes literal diversity of opinion.
> When minorities are made "ambassadors" as though they suddenly speak for EVERYONE in their minority, it is awful, and wrong. People don't get this: "But X minority said it was OK..." No, it takes literal diversity of opinion.
Which is why the entire concept of demographics-based "diversity" is such a shambles. The premise is supposed to be that if you get some women and minorities in there then you'll have a diversity of opinion.
But then you select for the women willing to work 80 hour weeks, which is highly atypical and selects out e.g. prospective mothers, ensuring they're not represented in your organization. You select for the minorities with degrees from prestigious schools which selects out people who know what it's like to grow up poor.
You end up with diversity on paper but not in practice, which is not only useless but worse than nothing because it creates the impression that you now have a diversity of opinion and you don't.
Which is why the entire concept of demographics-based "diversity" is such a shambles. The premise is supposed to be that if you get some women and minorities in there then you'll have a diversity of opinion.
But then you select for the women willing to work 80 hour weeks, which is highly atypical and selects out e.g. prospective mothers, ensuring they're not represented in your organization. You select for the minorities with degrees from prestigious schools which selects out people who know what it's like to grow up poor.
You end up with diversity on paper but not in practice, which is not only useless but worse than nothing because it creates the impression that you now have a diversity of opinion and you don't.
Exactly. Overly focusing on race is pretty one dimensional when it comes to diversity.
The example I like is which would be more diverse in a silicon valley tech company - 1) an African American guy who grew up upper-middle class and went to an Ivy League school and always voted for "progressive" candidates or 2) a white guy who grew up poor in West Virginia, was the first to go to college and has an affinity for right wing politics?
The example I like is which would be more diverse in a silicon valley tech company - 1) an African American guy who grew up upper-middle class and went to an Ivy League school and always voted for "progressive" candidates or 2) a white guy who grew up poor in West Virginia, was the first to go to college and has an affinity for right wing politics?
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Your overall stance seems to require the assumption that “diversity on paper” is the more common/significant outcome relative to “diversity of opinion”. Do you happen to have any info which might support such an assumption?
The thing you're asking for is the source of the problem. It's the Seeing Like A State thing. If you had some kind of actually robust diversity metric and not something which is going to get crushed into a black hole by Goodhart's Law then you would have a solution to the problem, but if you don't then you can't even measure it.
If you wanted actual diversity then what you would presumably do is gather all the data you can on multiple metrics (birthplace, parental income, culture, language, etc.) and then hire for maximum entropy. "Diversity" hiring based on a specific individual metric is literally the opposite of that, because it finds the people who are the least unlike the existing people in your company but can check the box on the form.
If you wanted actual diversity then what you would presumably do is gather all the data you can on multiple metrics (birthplace, parental income, culture, language, etc.) and then hire for maximum entropy. "Diversity" hiring based on a specific individual metric is literally the opposite of that, because it finds the people who are the least unlike the existing people in your company but can check the box on the form.
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Amen. GE is a perfect example. Lots of different nationalities and skin colors and a solid mix of genders. Every one of them came from well off families, went to elitist universities, came in as interns and worked there thier entire career.
No one was self-made. If you hired in mid-career you were seen as different and if you brought a different point of view they just nodded their heads and basically ignored what you said until you came around to thier point of view. The most non-diverse environment I have ever seen.
No one was self-made. If you hired in mid-career you were seen as different and if you brought a different point of view they just nodded their heads and basically ignored what you said until you came around to thier point of view. The most non-diverse environment I have ever seen.
> When minorities are made "ambassadors" as though they suddenly speak for EVERYONE in their minority, it is awful, and wrong.
I've seen this described as "privilege of individuality", a privilege accorded to the majority and denied to the minority: https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/135278572082239488...
I've seen this described as "privilege of individuality", a privilege accorded to the majority and denied to the minority: https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/135278572082239488...
I think part of that is the "nobody got fired for buying IBM/Cisco/etc". You're somewhat more insulated from accusations of cringe or racism because you can't accuse someone of those things for how they view their own culture. It's a touchy area, nobody wants to be in the news because their recruiting event turned racist. Reactions are harsh, I don't think "We did research and tried to put on a tastefully themed event, but failed to consider this particular viewpoint" is going to get you out of the news.
I also always took the "ambassador" to be an external facing thing. They speak for their culture at that company; the places I've seen it I was never given the impression that they were meant to be an ambassador for their entire culture. Maybe I was misreading it, though.
I also always took the "ambassador" to be an external facing thing. They speak for their culture at that company; the places I've seen it I was never given the impression that they were meant to be an ambassador for their entire culture. Maybe I was misreading it, though.
There's always a relevant xkcd, right? https://xkcd.com/385/
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thats what you get when you government mandate things. You cant expect things like diversity and culture to be processed by law. You pretty much have to make it non profitable for companies to not be diverse.
Then they company has a personal responsiblity to change rather than a checkbox to check off , much like the "what race are you" checkbox given to pander to their diversity quota.
I blame society, people cry about diversity but all they want to see is someone of a particular type in a manager position and never really as, "what is this person doing", "do they really get to make an impact". Diversity propaganda is all so shallow and has only made relationships different cultures worse.
Then they company has a personal responsiblity to change rather than a checkbox to check off , much like the "what race are you" checkbox given to pander to their diversity quota.
I blame society, people cry about diversity but all they want to see is someone of a particular type in a manager position and never really as, "what is this person doing", "do they really get to make an impact". Diversity propaganda is all so shallow and has only made relationships different cultures worse.
You: "thats what you get when you government mandate things."
Also you: "You pretty much have to make it non profitable for companies to not be diverse."
/facepalm/
Also you: "You pretty much have to make it non profitable for companies to not be diverse."
/facepalm/
Where's the contradiction?
Things can be made non-profitable outside of government interventions like fines of tax incentives etc.
In fact, the parent's position is an 100% consistent libertarian position: they believe that such a problem will (or wont) be solved by the market itself, and that companies should follow such incentives not being forced by laws.
E.g. diversity would be good economically for companies, because else they will lose black, asian, indian, etc talent they could hire.
Things can be made non-profitable outside of government interventions like fines of tax incentives etc.
In fact, the parent's position is an 100% consistent libertarian position: they believe that such a problem will (or wont) be solved by the market itself, and that companies should follow such incentives not being forced by laws.
E.g. diversity would be good economically for companies, because else they will lose black, asian, indian, etc talent they could hire.
It's an example of treating the symptoms. The company has a hiring pipeline biased toward white people so it tries to compensate by having a second pipeline biased toward non white people when the actual solution is to make one pipeline that works for everyone.
This reminds me of a VC/incubator who was offering a favorable equity loan hybrid where you get no strings funding with the additional benefit that you can buy your equity back at any time for 3x the original investment. It turns out that this met the needs of a lot of black and female founders even though diversity was not even an explicit goal. You could literally feel the HN commenters roll their eyes while they said "So this is just a terrible loan with high interest rates?" as if having access to business loans is completely natural like breathing air, when it's the exception for black people.
This reminds me of a VC/incubator who was offering a favorable equity loan hybrid where you get no strings funding with the additional benefit that you can buy your equity back at any time for 3x the original investment. It turns out that this met the needs of a lot of black and female founders even though diversity was not even an explicit goal. You could literally feel the HN commenters roll their eyes while they said "So this is just a terrible loan with high interest rates?" as if having access to business loans is completely natural like breathing air, when it's the exception for black people.
Who defines the rules in the society that you blame? How would they be enforced?
It's sickening that a white man doesn't have a chance at any of the big companies, unless he's a programming god. This makes white supremacy even more of a problem because the white people that are there, are some of the best ever.
As a white, non-god developer who just went through a job hunt, I had offers from big companies. I don't think this is an issue in any manner.
Do you have statistics backing your claim that white men have no chance? It couldn't be further from my experience.
In the 20 years I've been working in tech, I've seen countless candidates rejected because of "culture fit." Of those, the majority were women; but also black, Hispanic, and indigenous men. Only one was a white guy: he was overtly sexist towards every woman he encountered, including the HR recruiter.
Edit: oh, I forgot one. One white guy was slightly effeminate by north American standards, and wasn't considered after somebody made a comment to the effect of "I think it's weird when men wear scarves". I think he was French (or Québécois), and I wouldn't speculate about his sexuality
In the 20 years I've been working in tech, I've seen countless candidates rejected because of "culture fit." Of those, the majority were women; but also black, Hispanic, and indigenous men. Only one was a white guy: he was overtly sexist towards every woman he encountered, including the HR recruiter.
Edit: oh, I forgot one. One white guy was slightly effeminate by north American standards, and wasn't considered after somebody made a comment to the effect of "I think it's weird when men wear scarves". I think he was French (or Québécois), and I wouldn't speculate about his sexuality
I'm as white as it gets. Blonde, blue eyes, and I've never had a problem getting a job. This victim complex is based on nothing but disinformation from alt-right actors. We're not the victims, not in any way. Just because people are trying to make opportunities more equal doesn't mean we are suddenly oppressed.
Absolutely. I also noticed (a feeling for now but I will start documenting) that in the last two years and especially more in the last months there seem to be more and more of this kind of comments here (the one you are dismantling, not yours). And weirdly they seem to be dog-whistling to each other and they gather in subcomments areas.
When it comes to these things you should never blame anyone other than yourself, not because the world is fair and just but rather because it will make you blind to opportunities that are in your favor.
TIL that I'm a programming God.
I've seen this before with hiring for women. Ending up as a 'diversity hire' can be absolutely awful, especially if you are really out of your depth. Even if you aren't a diversity hire, the fact that it happens a lot can sew that seed in your mind.
I think you mostly have two scenarios:
1. An employer has some/much systematic bias in their hiring process and they use this 'positive' bias hiring practice to negate it. I suspect this is what most people believe is happening.
2. An employer has zero/little bias in their hiring practices, but the people most suitable for the job happen to not come from some minority (due to any number of reasons or issues). They then turn down the most suitable candidate to hire a less suitable minority to make an excel sheet somewhere look right. I suspect this happens all of the time.
A real life scenario is a police department in the UK who were slammed by management for having only one black officer in their local unit. When they went away and crunched the numbers, they found that the one black officer they had actually over-represented the percentage of black people in the local community.
As I've said many times before, we really need to make a decision about equal opportunity vs equal outcome. You can't have both. Unequal outcome is _not_ direct evidence for unequal opportunity. I think currently society pushes towards equal outcome under some delusion that eventually they will have both equal opportunity and outcome.
I think you mostly have two scenarios:
1. An employer has some/much systematic bias in their hiring process and they use this 'positive' bias hiring practice to negate it. I suspect this is what most people believe is happening.
2. An employer has zero/little bias in their hiring practices, but the people most suitable for the job happen to not come from some minority (due to any number of reasons or issues). They then turn down the most suitable candidate to hire a less suitable minority to make an excel sheet somewhere look right. I suspect this happens all of the time.
A real life scenario is a police department in the UK who were slammed by management for having only one black officer in their local unit. When they went away and crunched the numbers, they found that the one black officer they had actually over-represented the percentage of black people in the local community.
As I've said many times before, we really need to make a decision about equal opportunity vs equal outcome. You can't have both. Unequal outcome is _not_ direct evidence for unequal opportunity. I think currently society pushes towards equal outcome under some delusion that eventually they will have both equal opportunity and outcome.
>An employer has some/much systematic bias in their hiring process and they use this 'positive' bias hiring practice to negate it.
Employers never actually discriminate on anything anymore. Instead, they let the recruitment firms do all that unpleasantness for them.
Employers never actually discriminate on anything anymore. Instead, they let the recruitment firms do all that unpleasantness for them.
I understand this is meant as a joke - but for sure it's a way of limiting your exposure on being accused of unfair hiring practices.
Thank you, I've been looking for a word to describe myself - turns out its "delusional".
I thought we were using the comparison of societal demographics to company demographics to measure how true the "equal opportunity" statement was. You know, like trying to find biases in die rolls - if 6 comes up more than 1, you might have a bias. Having looked at those numbers and found them to show bias, I delusionally thought that maybe we had looked at causes and effects, and found feedback loops like are present in so many complex systems.
Get this though - in the grandeur of my delusion, I thought that studies of these feedback loops we had found:
* people who see others in the same category as them doing a thing, will be more likely to do the thing themselves
* people who exist in a status quo will tend to make decisions preserving the status quo
* complex feedback systems sometimes need sub-optimal input to eventually converge optimally
And that these hiring practices were part of a bigger attempt to use the third bullet to address the other two.
But what do I know, I'm just a delusional fool who gets paid to work on complex systems. I should probably go resign. Anyone reading this - likely another person who works on complex systems - I encourage you to not apply your systems thinking to systems, you might end up delusional too!
I thought we were using the comparison of societal demographics to company demographics to measure how true the "equal opportunity" statement was. You know, like trying to find biases in die rolls - if 6 comes up more than 1, you might have a bias. Having looked at those numbers and found them to show bias, I delusionally thought that maybe we had looked at causes and effects, and found feedback loops like are present in so many complex systems.
Get this though - in the grandeur of my delusion, I thought that studies of these feedback loops we had found:
* people who see others in the same category as them doing a thing, will be more likely to do the thing themselves
* people who exist in a status quo will tend to make decisions preserving the status quo
* complex feedback systems sometimes need sub-optimal input to eventually converge optimally
And that these hiring practices were part of a bigger attempt to use the third bullet to address the other two.
But what do I know, I'm just a delusional fool who gets paid to work on complex systems. I should probably go resign. Anyone reading this - likely another person who works on complex systems - I encourage you to not apply your systems thinking to systems, you might end up delusional too!
> You know, like trying to find biases in die rolls - if 6 comes up more than 1, you might have a bias.
This is a false analogy, it robs people of their agency. Humans do not act with some uniform distribution. It could be cultural, social, environmental, class - any number of factors. People are different and these differences should be celebrated, not squashed and ironed out.
> people who see others in the same category as them doing a thing, will be more likely to do the thing themselves
> people who exist in a status quo will tend to make decisions preserving the status quo
> complex feedback systems sometimes need sub-optimal input to eventually converge optimally
Sure, but at what point have we biased the input enough? At what point do we except the result? Bare in mind for example, women were among the first programmers (computers). If we achieve equal numbers of men and women in programming roles, what makes you believe the situation won't once again become biased?
What concerns me is that equal outcome is a goal without any real measurement of success or plan to revert back to equal opportunity once the input has been 'corrected'.
This is a false analogy, it robs people of their agency. Humans do not act with some uniform distribution. It could be cultural, social, environmental, class - any number of factors. People are different and these differences should be celebrated, not squashed and ironed out.
> people who see others in the same category as them doing a thing, will be more likely to do the thing themselves
> people who exist in a status quo will tend to make decisions preserving the status quo
> complex feedback systems sometimes need sub-optimal input to eventually converge optimally
Sure, but at what point have we biased the input enough? At what point do we except the result? Bare in mind for example, women were among the first programmers (computers). If we achieve equal numbers of men and women in programming roles, what makes you believe the situation won't once again become biased?
What concerns me is that equal outcome is a goal without any real measurement of success or plan to revert back to equal opportunity once the input has been 'corrected'.
'The Case For Color Blindness' by Coleman Hughes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_hRr5J9UUc
I was sort of raised to believe 'Color blindness' was the right approach to take. It wasn't until the last couple years that I realized there was significant push back to the philosophy.
I was sort of raised to believe 'Color blindness' was the right approach to take. It wasn't until the last couple years that I realized there was significant push back to the philosophy.
Here's Coleman Hughes in an abbreviated version:
https://twitter.com/coldxman/status/1305959575930142723?lang...
This is the first time I've heard of this push-back.
I always thought that the words of Martin Luther King: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." was a good approach?
This is the first time I've heard of this push-back.
I always thought that the words of Martin Luther King: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." was a good approach?
> I always thought that the words of Martin Luther King: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." was a good approach?
I recently heard a radio interview where the guest explained that part of her character was "blackness", and she was offended by intimations that her character could be separated from her racial identity. (The context was a caller who had recited MLK's famous line.)
Taken at face value it necessarily implies a partial refutation of some of MLK's premises, and indeed of some of the premises behind the mid-century Civil Rights movement and even the American Experiment. Suffice it to say MLK can hardly be said to represent the sentiments of all black Americans, let alone all Americans.
That said, there's a ton to unpack there, and decades later many of the concepts that we as a society are implicitly discussing are quite different, such as what we mean by "character". (I seriously doubt MLK had a sense of self that was any less black than the guest speaker.) So the two sentiments may still be reconcilable. Certainly I don't think the guest's expression of her opinions would have been as well considered and articulated as MLK's. (Ditto the caller's.)
I recently heard a radio interview where the guest explained that part of her character was "blackness", and she was offended by intimations that her character could be separated from her racial identity. (The context was a caller who had recited MLK's famous line.)
Taken at face value it necessarily implies a partial refutation of some of MLK's premises, and indeed of some of the premises behind the mid-century Civil Rights movement and even the American Experiment. Suffice it to say MLK can hardly be said to represent the sentiments of all black Americans, let alone all Americans.
That said, there's a ton to unpack there, and decades later many of the concepts that we as a society are implicitly discussing are quite different, such as what we mean by "character". (I seriously doubt MLK had a sense of self that was any less black than the guest speaker.) So the two sentiments may still be reconcilable. Certainly I don't think the guest's expression of her opinions would have been as well considered and articulated as MLK's. (Ditto the caller's.)
> Suffice it to say MLK can hardly be said to represent the sentiments of all black Americans, let alone all Americans.
Let's not even say that, he was just a person who was trying to communicate how we should treat each other. It's easy to label him to a group and start saying he does/doesn't represent that group. Let's keep it simple and say he was 'Homo sapien'.
I find the association between cultural identity and the color of ones skin a simplistic way of looking at things. "Blackness"/"Whiteness" are so overloaded and it often brings confusion.
Being a s/w engineer I immediately went to edge cases, where skin color can muddle the waters:
- Elon Musk was born in S.Africa and living in the US. Is he African American? Technically yes.
- A black French person, raised by white French parents, living in the US would refer to himself as French.
- A white French person, raised by black French parents, living in the US would refer to himself as French.
I'm a white Englishman who's living in the US, but there's not a chance you can say I'm the same as a classic white born American.
Heck my parents are not English, so you'd be hard pressed to compare me to a 'standard' Englishman.
Ultimately I try and view MLK 'spirit' of the talk, which is are you a good/bad character (irrespective of your upbringing) and that's how you should be judged.
Edit: formating
Let's not even say that, he was just a person who was trying to communicate how we should treat each other. It's easy to label him to a group and start saying he does/doesn't represent that group. Let's keep it simple and say he was 'Homo sapien'.
I find the association between cultural identity and the color of ones skin a simplistic way of looking at things. "Blackness"/"Whiteness" are so overloaded and it often brings confusion.
Being a s/w engineer I immediately went to edge cases, where skin color can muddle the waters:
- Elon Musk was born in S.Africa and living in the US. Is he African American? Technically yes.
- A black French person, raised by white French parents, living in the US would refer to himself as French.
- A white French person, raised by black French parents, living in the US would refer to himself as French.
I'm a white Englishman who's living in the US, but there's not a chance you can say I'm the same as a classic white born American.
Heck my parents are not English, so you'd be hard pressed to compare me to a 'standard' Englishman.
Ultimately I try and view MLK 'spirit' of the talk, which is are you a good/bad character (irrespective of your upbringing) and that's how you should be judged.
Edit: formating
> Elon Musk was born in S.Africa and living in the US. Is he African American? Technically yes.
I believe that makes him just African, not African-American.
I believe that makes him just African, not African-American.
>Taken at face value it necessarily implies a partial refutation of some of MLK's premises
Having a self respect for your cultural identity doesn't mean you prefer to be judged by the color of your skin rather than your character.
Having a self respect for your cultural identity doesn't mean you prefer to be judged by the color of your skin rather than your character.
When somebody says, "you can't understand because you don't know what it's like to live as a [insert minority] in a [insert majority] world", they're implicitly saying that someone's empathy and/or analytical insight is constrained by their physical relationship to society. That also implies that someone else's capacities in that regard are necessarily broader than your own. And when people make those arguments without even consideration of a particular person's potentially analogous lived experiences--maybe they lived as some other kind of minority (very often a minority in class dimensions)--then there's the implication that a person's character is so completely shaped by their particular lived experiences (as perceived by others) that we can never consider their arguments and contributions independent of that.
There's nothing new about race essentialism. Anglo-American racial concepts are rooted in pseudo-scientific ideas about biological capacities, but that's a very peculiar flavor of race-ist scholarship. There are plenty of white supremacist groups who argue that equitable integration is impossible for various sociological reasons--i.e. racism cannot be completely extirpated and so will always impose an unacceptable burden on all groups in an attempt to achieve the unachievable, so all groups are better off segregated. But they didn't invent these arguments, either.
These same fatalistic sentiments and conclusions (albeit from a much different perspective) can also be found in the writings of famous black authors such as Malcolm X and Frantz Fanon. They're similarly race essentialist--race may be a cultural construct, but it's a durable one that imposes mutually exclusive options for organizing society, similar to class in the Marxist worldview. Frantz Fanon, who grew up under French Colonialism, does an amazing job articulating the various often mundane ways in which living as a racial minority in society leads (necessarily in his view) to systemic oppression of the self and group. These authors likewise believe that a truly multiracial polity is fundamentally impossible. (In Fanon's broader philosophy, racial fault lines lend themselves to class-based oppression in the vein of Marxist class warfare. An observation echoed by modern black scholars like Cornell West and Adolph Reed Jr.--neither of whom is race essentialist, FWIW, though I think alot of West's nuance is lost on people.) In fact, a significant amount of African-American and, more generally, anti-colonialist literature came to these conclusions. And if you speak to many well-read activist black Americans of a certain generation, you'll find many strongly sympathize with these views. Famously Justice Clarence Thomas is of this view--he opposes all affirmative action and many Civil Rights initiatives because he believes that black Americans will never be able to live as unburdened by race as those in white society, and that in many cases these initiatives ultimately increase that inevitable burden. (IOW, Thomas is resigned to a fundamentally unequal America, and that informs his cost/benefit calculus. Thomas' legal opinions are far more peculiar than his racial fatalism, however.)
I found Frantz Fanon quite enlightening, but I don't accept all his premises and his conclusions. I don't accept them intellectually, and as an American I feel obligated to reject them as anathema to our national moral framework--America may be a doomed experiment, but I have a civic duty to believe there's a way forward. My takeaway from Fanon, et al is an acceptance of the very deep, very systemic problems that multiracial polities face (in many ways no less today than 60 years ago); and an acceptance that the answers to those problems are still nowhere to be found. Fanon (better than any other author) not only taught me to recognize the depth and breadth of racism, but convinced me to be extremely wary of claims that it has been lifted. So I accept many of the premises, but not some crucial conclusory ones--e.g. that the absence of answers is evidence of absence. From my perspective it's actually not hard to see how anyone, black, white, or w'ever, could easily make the jump from these intractable dilemmas to the view that we simply cannot ever separate racial identity from our political character. (By political character I mean to say that while we may all be equal in God's eyes, such platitudes have no substantive meaning or application in the real world.)
IMO, we live in an age where we've inherited many concepts from the radical literature of the 1960s and 1970s, but without an appreciation of the context or the consequences. I have no reason to doubt that the radio speaker more-or-less meant what she said regarding her character, and intended it to mean precisely that her perspectives on race (in particular, the burdens and graces of living as a black woman) are intrinsically out of the reach of contemplation by others and therefore of more value in the political debate because of her lived experience as a black person. That is actually a quite common refrain these days. I even sympathize with this. In many ways it's a reaction to white people (or some other majority or power-dominate group--these same dynamics play out in multiethnic societies everywhere) systematically dismissing and discounting claims of racism by rationalizing their inability to see that racism as a consequence of adopting a color-blind mentality. In that vein, I can totally appreciate the use of radical leftist race essentialist concepts from the 1960s to argue that, hey, race and therefore racism is more than skin deep.
OTOH, if you confuse such pragmatic, matter-of-fact arguments with a broader cultural moral philosophy, then you're going to end up precisely where authors like Frantz Fanon did. And unfortunately I think a lot of people do precisely that, without an appreciation for where that ultimately leads. People want to be heard and recognized, and unfortunately sometimes resort to contradictory conceptual frameworks.
There's nothing new about race essentialism. Anglo-American racial concepts are rooted in pseudo-scientific ideas about biological capacities, but that's a very peculiar flavor of race-ist scholarship. There are plenty of white supremacist groups who argue that equitable integration is impossible for various sociological reasons--i.e. racism cannot be completely extirpated and so will always impose an unacceptable burden on all groups in an attempt to achieve the unachievable, so all groups are better off segregated. But they didn't invent these arguments, either.
These same fatalistic sentiments and conclusions (albeit from a much different perspective) can also be found in the writings of famous black authors such as Malcolm X and Frantz Fanon. They're similarly race essentialist--race may be a cultural construct, but it's a durable one that imposes mutually exclusive options for organizing society, similar to class in the Marxist worldview. Frantz Fanon, who grew up under French Colonialism, does an amazing job articulating the various often mundane ways in which living as a racial minority in society leads (necessarily in his view) to systemic oppression of the self and group. These authors likewise believe that a truly multiracial polity is fundamentally impossible. (In Fanon's broader philosophy, racial fault lines lend themselves to class-based oppression in the vein of Marxist class warfare. An observation echoed by modern black scholars like Cornell West and Adolph Reed Jr.--neither of whom is race essentialist, FWIW, though I think alot of West's nuance is lost on people.) In fact, a significant amount of African-American and, more generally, anti-colonialist literature came to these conclusions. And if you speak to many well-read activist black Americans of a certain generation, you'll find many strongly sympathize with these views. Famously Justice Clarence Thomas is of this view--he opposes all affirmative action and many Civil Rights initiatives because he believes that black Americans will never be able to live as unburdened by race as those in white society, and that in many cases these initiatives ultimately increase that inevitable burden. (IOW, Thomas is resigned to a fundamentally unequal America, and that informs his cost/benefit calculus. Thomas' legal opinions are far more peculiar than his racial fatalism, however.)
I found Frantz Fanon quite enlightening, but I don't accept all his premises and his conclusions. I don't accept them intellectually, and as an American I feel obligated to reject them as anathema to our national moral framework--America may be a doomed experiment, but I have a civic duty to believe there's a way forward. My takeaway from Fanon, et al is an acceptance of the very deep, very systemic problems that multiracial polities face (in many ways no less today than 60 years ago); and an acceptance that the answers to those problems are still nowhere to be found. Fanon (better than any other author) not only taught me to recognize the depth and breadth of racism, but convinced me to be extremely wary of claims that it has been lifted. So I accept many of the premises, but not some crucial conclusory ones--e.g. that the absence of answers is evidence of absence. From my perspective it's actually not hard to see how anyone, black, white, or w'ever, could easily make the jump from these intractable dilemmas to the view that we simply cannot ever separate racial identity from our political character. (By political character I mean to say that while we may all be equal in God's eyes, such platitudes have no substantive meaning or application in the real world.)
IMO, we live in an age where we've inherited many concepts from the radical literature of the 1960s and 1970s, but without an appreciation of the context or the consequences. I have no reason to doubt that the radio speaker more-or-less meant what she said regarding her character, and intended it to mean precisely that her perspectives on race (in particular, the burdens and graces of living as a black woman) are intrinsically out of the reach of contemplation by others and therefore of more value in the political debate because of her lived experience as a black person. That is actually a quite common refrain these days. I even sympathize with this. In many ways it's a reaction to white people (or some other majority or power-dominate group--these same dynamics play out in multiethnic societies everywhere) systematically dismissing and discounting claims of racism by rationalizing their inability to see that racism as a consequence of adopting a color-blind mentality. In that vein, I can totally appreciate the use of radical leftist race essentialist concepts from the 1960s to argue that, hey, race and therefore racism is more than skin deep.
OTOH, if you confuse such pragmatic, matter-of-fact arguments with a broader cultural moral philosophy, then you're going to end up precisely where authors like Frantz Fanon did. And unfortunately I think a lot of people do precisely that, without an appreciation for where that ultimately leads. People want to be heard and recognized, and unfortunately sometimes resort to contradictory conceptual frameworks.
[deleted]
CEO of Starbucks got eviscerated by the woke/CRT/Intersectionality mob for mentioning that he doesn't see color when evaluating who the best candidate for a job. The mob can't be appeased.
Advocating race neutrality is argued by anti-racist training types as ignoring the historical oppression that various groups have faced. Basically, it is why "equality" is out and "equity" is the new buzzword.
YMMV.
YMMV.
I think most people can agree with that. The debate is about how far from that we are now and what the appropriate methods to close the gap are.
Not to advocate for either approach, but surely MLK was describing an end goal, not a means for getting there, no?
I'd say he was articulating a principle and a virtue. With something like that, the journey is the destination.
It's probably next to impossible to imagine an end goal. There will always be 'crazies'.
I assume that most people would like to be treated by their characters. If everyone just started doing that, wouldn't the world be a better place? That's my take on MLK. Maybe it's naive.
I assume that most people would like to be treated by their characters. If everyone just started doing that, wouldn't the world be a better place? That's my take on MLK. Maybe it's naive.
"If everyone just started doing that" - that's the naive part. Everyone isn't.
What if you do it, but others don't? Then you're not directly responsible for the issues, sure, but you also aren't helping address any issues others are facing, and may in fact be benefiting from the biased actions those others are performing. You may not be part of the problem, but you're benefiting from the problem, and are not part of the solution.
What if you do it, but others don't? Then you're not directly responsible for the issues, sure, but you also aren't helping address any issues others are facing, and may in fact be benefiting from the biased actions those others are performing. You may not be part of the problem, but you're benefiting from the problem, and are not part of the solution.
> Everyone isn't.
My point is that there are IMHO a lot of people complaining about this (here on HN) but I don't see a lot of concrete solutions that are actionable.
> you also aren't helping address any issues others are facing, and may in fact be benefiting from the biased actions those others are performing.
I presented a way that would make it somewhat fairer (looks like the orchestra approach suggested that) till someone else brings something better to the table. Rinse and repeat has to be better than just talking. No?
> but you're benefiting from the problem, and are not part of the solution.
It's easy to criticize others. I would be interested in exploring your solution to this.
My point is that there are IMHO a lot of people complaining about this (here on HN) but I don't see a lot of concrete solutions that are actionable.
> you also aren't helping address any issues others are facing, and may in fact be benefiting from the biased actions those others are performing.
I presented a way that would make it somewhat fairer (looks like the orchestra approach suggested that) till someone else brings something better to the table. Rinse and repeat has to be better than just talking. No?
> but you're benefiting from the problem, and are not part of the solution.
It's easy to criticize others. I would be interested in exploring your solution to this.
Lack of proposed actionable solutions does not imply a lack of problem. Especially when just convincing people that there is a problem will help avoid the problem (i.e., if everyone agreed racism exists, and is a problem, there would be fewer implicit biases coming into play).
Sure; you can create hiring processes that hide as much identifying information as possible. That doesn't address the issue in other parts of the workforce though. Trying to just be as colorblind as possible for yourself doesn't address the systemic issues, nor the biases coworkers/etc may have. It also doesn't force others to adopt the solution you propose.
Recognize the contexts people aren't blind in and be an advocate for diversity in them (not instead of ability, but alongside it). Recognize that a person's lived experience may be different from yours because of their skin color or gender. Which implies recognizing when their skin color or gender is different than yours.
Sure; you can create hiring processes that hide as much identifying information as possible. That doesn't address the issue in other parts of the workforce though. Trying to just be as colorblind as possible for yourself doesn't address the systemic issues, nor the biases coworkers/etc may have. It also doesn't force others to adopt the solution you propose.
Recognize the contexts people aren't blind in and be an advocate for diversity in them (not instead of ability, but alongside it). Recognize that a person's lived experience may be different from yours because of their skin color or gender. Which implies recognizing when their skin color or gender is different than yours.
>That doesn't address the issue in other parts of the workforce though ... nor the biases coworkers/etc may have. It also doesn't force others to adopt the solution you propose.
Of course not, but it's a start. Getting X hired and in the door, means we can at least have the opportunity to tackle problems downstream. Hoping that we can solve X-ism (for the points you mention) and then everything will magically be fixed, is going to probably take at least another 3 generations.
>Recognize the contexts people aren't blind in and be an advocate for diversity in them (not instead of ability, but alongside it). Recognize that a person's lived experience may be different from yours because of their skin color or gender. Which implies recognizing when their skin color or gender is different than yours.
All great points, however we've been doing gender/diversity training (at big tech companies at least) what ~20 years? and we are still having problems. I guess it's getting better slowly...
Growing up in the UK (Ukrainian background), I was always taught to never trust Russians because they were the cause of ALL the problems of Ukraine. Completely idiotic I know. I had never meet a Russian and the people telling me hadn't either. Sigh.
Working in NYC, yep, I was right in the middle of a team of Russians and what did I find? There was nothing crazy about them, they had a dry (similar to British) humor and I got on well with them. My prejudges fell away.
Generally IMHO we can only change our view of X, by mixing with X and realize they're just 'normal' people and that previous generations/peers that manipulate us are a bunch of idiots.
Of course not, but it's a start. Getting X hired and in the door, means we can at least have the opportunity to tackle problems downstream. Hoping that we can solve X-ism (for the points you mention) and then everything will magically be fixed, is going to probably take at least another 3 generations.
>Recognize the contexts people aren't blind in and be an advocate for diversity in them (not instead of ability, but alongside it). Recognize that a person's lived experience may be different from yours because of their skin color or gender. Which implies recognizing when their skin color or gender is different than yours.
All great points, however we've been doing gender/diversity training (at big tech companies at least) what ~20 years? and we are still having problems. I guess it's getting better slowly...
Growing up in the UK (Ukrainian background), I was always taught to never trust Russians because they were the cause of ALL the problems of Ukraine. Completely idiotic I know. I had never meet a Russian and the people telling me hadn't either. Sigh.
Working in NYC, yep, I was right in the middle of a team of Russians and what did I find? There was nothing crazy about them, they had a dry (similar to British) humor and I got on well with them. My prejudges fell away.
Generally IMHO we can only change our view of X, by mixing with X and realize they're just 'normal' people and that previous generations/peers that manipulate us are a bunch of idiots.
We also have different people now from 20 years ago. And our understanding of how to handle diversity has evolved too.
But, yes, generally I think we're in agreement. I'm mostly just responding that "I'm colorblind", while possibly true, implicitly is distancing yourself from the problem. It's effectively saying "I don't recognize your skin color, so any experiences you ascribe to it will be alien to me". No, recognize color, accept that a person's experiences will be different from yours, especially those tied to skin color, and that your own experiences can't really touch that; a comment you find inoffensive they might find offensive, and you can't really adjudicate that. Etc.
But, yes, the best thing we can do is encounter those different than us and realize how similar they actually are.
But, yes, generally I think we're in agreement. I'm mostly just responding that "I'm colorblind", while possibly true, implicitly is distancing yourself from the problem. It's effectively saying "I don't recognize your skin color, so any experiences you ascribe to it will be alien to me". No, recognize color, accept that a person's experiences will be different from yours, especially those tied to skin color, and that your own experiences can't really touch that; a comment you find inoffensive they might find offensive, and you can't really adjudicate that. Etc.
But, yes, the best thing we can do is encounter those different than us and realize how similar they actually are.
Most of us were raised that way. This phenomenon of everything being about what color you are is relatively new and orders of magnitude more controversial than its pushers like to admit.
> This phenomenon of everything being about what color you are is relatively new
If by “is relatively new” you mean “very briefly receded before returning”, sure. The whole “we are living in a post-racial society” thing was trendy for about the second half of 00s, but fell apart fairly rapidly in the early 2010s.i
> and orders of magnitude more controversial than its pushers like to admit.
No one, anywhere, disputes that it's controversial, and always had been; what has changed notably, though, is the degree to which the divide had become much more aligned with the partisan divide than it had ever been in the past.
If by “is relatively new” you mean “very briefly receded before returning”, sure. The whole “we are living in a post-racial society” thing was trendy for about the second half of 00s, but fell apart fairly rapidly in the early 2010s.i
> and orders of magnitude more controversial than its pushers like to admit.
No one, anywhere, disputes that it's controversial, and always had been; what has changed notably, though, is the degree to which the divide had become much more aligned with the partisan divide than it had ever been in the past.
The people pushing the idea absolutely do pretend it is not controversial. It is "just the right thing to do", " any good person would do it", "it is just being decent" these are the sorts of justifications for it so as to frame it as noncontroversial.
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Let's say your company has a workforce where the minorities are only 5% but they are let's say 30% of the population.
Would that be fair to assume that Color-blindness has failed? Or perhaps there is some kind of biais that was missed and the policies were not as color blind as they pretended to be? In that case, in order to address it, would you rather entirely ignore the issue of race (and fail again) or perhaps have policies that want to address this inequality?
Lots of people agree that color blindness would be the ideal world, but seeing that the world is not color blind, trying to advocate for it seems like a way to continue pushing an injustice instead of addressing it.
Lots of people agree that color blindness would be the ideal world, but seeing that the world is not color blind, trying to advocate for it seems like a way to continue pushing an injustice instead of addressing it.
I think it can depend on the population that you're comparing against. If the company is a law firm, the positions being compared are entry-level lawyers, and a requirement for the role is holding a law degree, then when evaluating the law firm's hiring practices you should probably compare against the population who hold the qualifications for the role (law degree holders).
If there are biases upstream of that point in the process (such as "those with a social security number ending in 9 are admitted to law school at one-sixth the expected rate"), then I'd expect an unbiased hiring process to result in that same discrepancy in those hired (presuming here that social security digits are entirely uncorrelated with performance in law school and the practice of law).
Should the law firm work to try to eliminate that upstream bias? Sure. Should the law firm work to hire in a biased way such that they end up with an evenly distributed outcome? I personally don't think so, but I understand others who think they should.
If there are biases upstream of that point in the process (such as "those with a social security number ending in 9 are admitted to law school at one-sixth the expected rate"), then I'd expect an unbiased hiring process to result in that same discrepancy in those hired (presuming here that social security digits are entirely uncorrelated with performance in law school and the practice of law).
Should the law firm work to try to eliminate that upstream bias? Sure. Should the law firm work to hire in a biased way such that they end up with an evenly distributed outcome? I personally don't think so, but I understand others who think they should.
In other words, statistically biased outcomes cannot be attributed to the place where the statistic was measured, without further evidence upstream.
It would be fair to propose that color blindness has failed, and test that hypothesis.
If there is some other bias present, the solution is to rectify that bias, not force diversity hire. Forcing diversity hire is a lazy solution, a way to *not" actually fix the cause of the problem.
If there is some other bias present, the solution is to rectify that bias, not force diversity hire. Forcing diversity hire is a lazy solution, a way to *not" actually fix the cause of the problem.
Probably you dodged a bullet.
It's always seemed to me that people are aggressively attempting to hire for some criteria (even position) because they're either having trouble getting people on board, or holding onto them. There's something 'wrong' with them, for some definition of wrong.
Either they're looking in the wrong place, they're giving off a bad vibe that scares people off, or people who have that quality they're looking for are leaving at a higher rate than everyone else.
Why is this team trying so hard to hire team leads? Can't find any in house? Keep chewing them up? Or just incompetent hiring? Why doesn't this team have any women? Can't find any in house? Keep chewing them up? Or just incompetent hiring?
My guess is you would find out pretty quick why there is nobody quite like you at those companies, and soon they'll be fishing for your replacements.
It's always seemed to me that people are aggressively attempting to hire for some criteria (even position) because they're either having trouble getting people on board, or holding onto them. There's something 'wrong' with them, for some definition of wrong.
Either they're looking in the wrong place, they're giving off a bad vibe that scares people off, or people who have that quality they're looking for are leaving at a higher rate than everyone else.
Why is this team trying so hard to hire team leads? Can't find any in house? Keep chewing them up? Or just incompetent hiring? Why doesn't this team have any women? Can't find any in house? Keep chewing them up? Or just incompetent hiring?
My guess is you would find out pretty quick why there is nobody quite like you at those companies, and soon they'll be fishing for your replacements.
I would argue that the metaphorical "getting your foot in the door" is worth it above everything else.
But that could be true of the people in front of you too.
This place is worth working at to get some hours on your resume, but it's not worth staying at beyond that.
Within the wider world of employment, this is not an uncommon sentiment, but within software you don't hear so many people talking like this.
This place is worth working at to get some hours on your resume, but it's not worth staying at beyond that.
Within the wider world of employment, this is not an uncommon sentiment, but within software you don't hear so many people talking like this.
While I'm your everyday white guy, I've never understood why people among minority groups would accept this completely over-the-top pandering. It's a form of shaming and it's dehumanizing. Who wants this?
They're just putting up with stupid crap for pay. Plenty of people do that. After you've got a couple jobs on your resume nobody knows or cares you were the diversity hire at your first one. Yeah the mere presence of diversity hires makes your accomplishments worth slightly less but it's still better for you to take advantage of it. See also: prisoner's dilemma.
Thanks for this comment, I was thinking along the lines of the parent to your post. You put that in perspective.
Doesn't it have an obvious answer? The people who accept this are the ones for whom this is the best option. Upside: money. Downside: offensive pandering. That's often better than being unemployed.
If that's true, then it's not just an offensive strategy, it's also ineffective for the business employing it. It's a way to select the lowest performing of a target group.
If that's true, then it's not just an offensive strategy, it's also ineffective for the business employing it. It's a way to select the lowest performing of a target group.
You serious? I’d take the “shame and dehumanisation” of being hired for my innate attributes rather than skill for a big tech company salary for sure. Wouldn’t even have to think about it.
Hell, I’m mostly learning software dev because it seems like the most straight forward to way to turn my above average intelligence in to money. I’d love to cut out the middle man and just receive a high iq allowance.
Hell, I’m mostly learning software dev because it seems like the most straight forward to way to turn my above average intelligence in to money. I’d love to cut out the middle man and just receive a high iq allowance.
I don't think anyone does, but companies are absolutely desperate to meet the demands of (a subset of) society regarding diversity. That desperation manifests in funny ways.
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The common minority person hates it usually. The more vocal ones are the people who directly benefit from this system, they effectively have a rent-seeking behavior hidden behind the "diversity" umbrella.
>they effectively have a rent-seeking behavior hidden behind the "diversity" umbrella
It's the Diversity & Inclusion Industrial Complex and it's related to all the other "industrial complexes" that form in that it's just a problem/industry specific manifestation of the Shirky Principle:
https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky-prin/
It's the Diversity & Inclusion Industrial Complex and it's related to all the other "industrial complexes" that form in that it's just a problem/industry specific manifestation of the Shirky Principle:
https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky-prin/
Thank you for sharing your experience. There are more and more people who have had similar experiences that are speaking out about it and how condescended to it made them feel. It's good you were able to find an employer with whom you feel valued for your contributions and accomplishments.
Anyone want to explain why this discrimination is both legal and socially acceptable? This is not something that is stealthly flying under the radar, it's pretty much in the open and celebrated. What moral ground will anyone have to stand on should the pendulum swing the other way, which it always eventually does? Instead of attempting to create equality, we've instead continued playing the same old game but with different winners selected. How long will the current chosen winners continue to be the winner? And when things change to other selected winners, how will anyone be able to complain when they supported the concept of selecting winners as long as those selected were the ones they favored?
Anyone want to explain why this discrimination is both legal and socially acceptable? This is not something that is stealthly flying under the radar, it's pretty much in the open and celebrated. What moral ground will anyone have to stand on should the pendulum swing the other way, which it always eventually does? Instead of attempting to create equality, we've instead continued playing the same old game but with different winners selected. How long will the current chosen winners continue to be the winner? And when things change to other selected winners, how will anyone be able to complain when they supported the concept of selecting winners as long as those selected were the ones they favored?
Until the "ruling class" is technical and not there by some politik and bullshitting all the way up, this is bound to happen.
I was a diversity hire at Microsoft.
The difference was that it wasn't based on race. Eligibility was decided by a mental health diagnosis, and successful applicants also received specific coaching that is better tailored to the way they think.
Not having those things would have made work far less bearable than it was, as it had been for me in the past.
And while I do believe that Microsoft wants to hire people from diverse backgrounds, I personally found that the workplace support was a legitimate material benefit to me. I did not feel like I was forgotten about just because I now contributed to some organizational diversity makeup. Parts of me that I consider my "identity" change the way I experience the world in significant ways, from the perspective of mentality and the senses. I continued to receive assistance for those things provided by the company, for years, and as a result was more or less successful at living an adult working life.
If hiring candidates are preferred because they have a certain background, in a lot of cases it feels like it's not for a reason that makes sense except to reach a quota, but in my experience there are exceptions. Or programs that feel like exceptions, at least.
The difference was that it wasn't based on race. Eligibility was decided by a mental health diagnosis, and successful applicants also received specific coaching that is better tailored to the way they think.
Not having those things would have made work far less bearable than it was, as it had been for me in the past.
And while I do believe that Microsoft wants to hire people from diverse backgrounds, I personally found that the workplace support was a legitimate material benefit to me. I did not feel like I was forgotten about just because I now contributed to some organizational diversity makeup. Parts of me that I consider my "identity" change the way I experience the world in significant ways, from the perspective of mentality and the senses. I continued to receive assistance for those things provided by the company, for years, and as a result was more or less successful at living an adult working life.
If hiring candidates are preferred because they have a certain background, in a lot of cases it feels like it's not for a reason that makes sense except to reach a quota, but in my experience there are exceptions. Or programs that feel like exceptions, at least.
I wonder if anything will ever happen with reverse discriminatory hiring practices like this. They're all seem so barely legal, and if even one in ten people in HR disagree with them, there could be a #metoo-like flood of issues once a high-profile case goes a little too far.
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This type of thing is exactly what puts me off companies.
When I ask what the most challenging problems company’s are facing and they mention PC stuff, then I know it’s not a place for me.
I’m also mixed race, part Maori and I had a guy in an interview tell me that “white guys like us don’t add diversity to the company”.
These social justice warriors can go fuck themselves.
When I ask what the most challenging problems company’s are facing and they mention PC stuff, then I know it’s not a place for me.
I’m also mixed race, part Maori and I had a guy in an interview tell me that “white guys like us don’t add diversity to the company”.
These social justice warriors can go fuck themselves.
>One manager asked me "What was it like growing up Native American? Was it hard? Tell me about how hard it was for you." It felt gross.
While "diversity via token hires", and "faux-diversity celebrations with folklore food, music, etc" are fake-ass and crinzy, I don't see the manager's question as gross.
It's a legitimate question a human being can make to another. We're not just individual snowflakes, we're also people with certain traits and members of certain cultures with certain histories.
It makes sense for someone to ask us about those aspects of our life.
Of course, perhaps the way he did it was patronizing or fake, or whatever.
But really, it's a question one might legitimately ask another they met at a bar or an airplane, or some such...
While "diversity via token hires", and "faux-diversity celebrations with folklore food, music, etc" are fake-ass and crinzy, I don't see the manager's question as gross.
It's a legitimate question a human being can make to another. We're not just individual snowflakes, we're also people with certain traits and members of certain cultures with certain histories.
It makes sense for someone to ask us about those aspects of our life.
Of course, perhaps the way he did it was patronizing or fake, or whatever.
But really, it's a question one might legitimately ask another they met at a bar or an airplane, or some such...
NO! I have noticed that many white Americans cannot fathom how patronizing and "otherizing" are many of the attitudes they take. "Oh my god, it must have been hard to grow up as a POC, you must be so strong". " I am fully aware of my privilege , I had loving parents and a functional family, I must not assume other people had that luck" . "Racists cannot understand that the expectations for POC must be different because they have been oppressed all their lives"
If the applicant was white, should the manager have asked them; "Oh wow as a half Italian/half English person , how was to grow up in the suburbs of New Jersey, was it difficult? Was it hard? Gee I cannot begin to imagine how strong you are"
If the applicant was white, should the manager have asked them; "Oh wow as a half Italian/half English person , how was to grow up in the suburbs of New Jersey, was it difficult? Was it hard? Gee I cannot begin to imagine how strong you are"
>NO! I have noticed that many white Americans cannot fathom how patronizing and "otherizing" are many of the attitudes they take.
Well, I'm not American - and like many other cultures that aren't exactly black but just aren't WASP, my people weren't even considered white by Americans.
But I see no problem with "otherizing" you seem to fear so much. Is it an American pre-occupation, that every ethnic person is necessarily just a good-old American, with no distinction or unique experience coming out of an all-american melting pot?
And if you acknolwedge that an Italian American or an Native American, or an Asian American, etc could have different experiences growing up in the US because of their ethnicity/heritage you're "otherizing" and that's bad?
What the duck is wrong with a culture so afraid of discussing these things (except in adversarial tones: X are evil, Y have privilege, mentioning Z is otherizing, asking K is patronizing, and so on)?
>If the applicant was white, should the manager have asked them; "Oh wow as a half Italian/half English person , how was to grow up in the suburbs of New Jersey, was it difficult? Was it hard? Gee I cannot begin to imagine how strong you are"
Depends of if whites had it bad statistically, or perhaps whites from some specific area. I'd sure ask whites from Alaska say how it was growing up there, or italians from the Bronx in the 30s, etc...
Well, I'm not American - and like many other cultures that aren't exactly black but just aren't WASP, my people weren't even considered white by Americans.
But I see no problem with "otherizing" you seem to fear so much. Is it an American pre-occupation, that every ethnic person is necessarily just a good-old American, with no distinction or unique experience coming out of an all-american melting pot?
And if you acknolwedge that an Italian American or an Native American, or an Asian American, etc could have different experiences growing up in the US because of their ethnicity/heritage you're "otherizing" and that's bad?
What the duck is wrong with a culture so afraid of discussing these things (except in adversarial tones: X are evil, Y have privilege, mentioning Z is otherizing, asking K is patronizing, and so on)?
>If the applicant was white, should the manager have asked them; "Oh wow as a half Italian/half English person , how was to grow up in the suburbs of New Jersey, was it difficult? Was it hard? Gee I cannot begin to imagine how strong you are"
Depends of if whites had it bad statistically, or perhaps whites from some specific area. I'd sure ask whites from Alaska say how it was growing up there, or italians from the Bronx in the 30s, etc...
> But really, it's a question one might legitimately ask another they met at a bar or an airplane, or some such...
Really? Consider it this way, by substituting x for something that fits for you personally:
What was it like growing up x? Was it hard? Tell me about how hard it was for you."
How might you feel by the end of the flight?
Really? Consider it this way, by substituting x for something that fits for you personally:
What was it like growing up x? Was it hard? Tell me about how hard it was for you."
How might you feel by the end of the flight?
Like my neighbor is a curious person (perhaps more chatty than I would like)? Between acquaintances the above would be compassionate conversation. Of course in the wrong context many innocuous questions can come off as patronizing, and an employer should ask work-related questions over outside culture questions naturally. However, the plane-neighbor conversation doesn't seem belittling at face value.
What quality did you use for x?
>What was it like growing up x? Was it hard? Tell me about how hard it was for you."
I don't see absolutely any problem with that. In fact it's something we talk about frequently in casual discussions.
Sure beats BS casual talk that means nothing. It also gives you the opportunity to give the other person an idea about x (e.g. my ethnicity).
Perhaps it's about different ways societies see casual talk?
I don't see absolutely any problem with that. In fact it's something we talk about frequently in casual discussions.
Sure beats BS casual talk that means nothing. It also gives you the opportunity to give the other person an idea about x (e.g. my ethnicity).
Perhaps it's about different ways societies see casual talk?
Turns out Sowell was always right about the condescension angle.
Have had a former female coworker report a similar experience with IBM more recently than yours, pretty much search and replace "native american" with "female engineer". It was her first career out of college, and she just was not assigned very much duties in her actual team, and her management were far more interested in her DEI work than her engineering work. After a year of going "well maybe they just think I'm too junior for interesting work", she left for the company where we worked together.
If you have a developer you want to keep at all costs, I can imagine it making sense to some people to make that developer's life as easy as possible, including lowering expectations so there is no chance of attrition due to low performance.
IBM was so behind the times not only on technology. I'm glad that you found a place without any gimmicks.
I'm in Canada. In the job applications, we don't even have a section to specify ethnicity. When I applied for American companies, I felt a slight cringe when I saw the optional form asking me for my ethnicity, sexual orientation or veteran status for statistical purposes.
I'm in Canada. In the job applications, we don't even have a section to specify ethnicity. When I applied for American companies, I felt a slight cringe when I saw the optional form asking me for my ethnicity, sexual orientation or veteran status for statistical purposes.
You don't want to work for IBM anyway, they burn new-grads like you to a cinder then dump you in a third world country at local salary or HR you out the door. Not to mention they are pretty much a has-been company at this point anyway. I can't remember the last time I came across any of their products in the field. They have been in decline ever since Lou Gerstner retired and they were well past their peak before he came along.
You were right though that they were trying to check some boxes on a diversity report. IBM trots out those special events at trials to try and paint a favorable picture of their hiring practices - and if that doesn't work they just don't pay the judgements.
You were right though that they were trying to check some boxes on a diversity report. IBM trots out those special events at trials to try and paint a favorable picture of their hiring practices - and if that doesn't work they just don't pay the judgements.
I have multiple San Francisco and Bay Area friends that told me similar stories during a time period that coincides with AfroTech in recent years.
Completely contrived, but personalized, introductory events.
The difference is that they eventually took the job and have no issue performing on the job or have any stranger than usual corporate experiences.
(They experienced the same super long interviewing and matchmaking process plaguing the rest of the industry, and the contrived intros were just the silly responses to how to deal with the recruiting pipeline).
These were not right out of college though, and they would have likely gotten responses within 24 hours from the same companies anyway.
Completely contrived, but personalized, introductory events.
The difference is that they eventually took the job and have no issue performing on the job or have any stranger than usual corporate experiences.
(They experienced the same super long interviewing and matchmaking process plaguing the rest of the industry, and the contrived intros were just the silly responses to how to deal with the recruiting pipeline).
These were not right out of college though, and they would have likely gotten responses within 24 hours from the same companies anyway.
The reaction you had resonated with me in that it's the feeling I most want to avoid giving someone else. I'm a white male hiring manager who is often incorporating explicit diversity/inclusion strategies into work. It's tricky--like tap dancing around all the ways that the work can go wrong. And this is one I overindex for. I never want someone to think they are a token.
IMO, there are five main motivations for having a diversity & inclusion strategy. One is legal, to avoid breaking a law or facing a lawsuit. One is PR so that general public doesn't yell at you. The other three are a belief that it's the right thing to do, belief that it creates a more interesting or fun culture, belief that it will make the company more money.
I'm basically subscribed to all five. But I almost always lead with just the last one: diversity & inclusion helps the business by helping the business make better decisions, helps find higher quality candidates, helps avoid product/marketing blindspots that limit the reach of a product. All of those things boil down to: it's good for business.
This is the tap dancing. It's almost uncouth to tell an employee that you only care about their ability to help the business make money. But there's also something really unhealthy about not mentioning it at all. Of course, the business cares about an employee's happiness and positive social impact, but those aren't the foundation of the relationship. The foundation is the thing that allows the employment in the first place, which is making money.
I like leading with that good-for-business foundation because then if, say, I went out recruiting Native Americans, they can see a visible concrete motivation beyond tokenism. It's a relatively straightforward business hypothesis to think: "I bet this group of people doesn't see a lot of recruiters so if I get good at recruiting from that group then I'll be facing less competition from other recruiters."
That's a hypothesis that I've found to generally be true, especially when paired with at least a mediocre level of inclusivity after you make a hire. It's like a sad arbitrage that allows you to take advantage of industry bias. Statistically, hiring from an underrepresented group means fewer counter offers, and if you follow up by creating good opportunity for growth, a lot of people will way out perform their peers simply because other jobs had never given them much opportunity.
It's all about how do you talk about these issues which are real, and which are impossible for me to viscerally understand with my own limited & privileged life experience, in a way that doesn't sound like charity and instead sounds like raising the bar. "I know your past resume sucks, but you're here because we think you could out perform your past work by a lot."
IMO, there are five main motivations for having a diversity & inclusion strategy. One is legal, to avoid breaking a law or facing a lawsuit. One is PR so that general public doesn't yell at you. The other three are a belief that it's the right thing to do, belief that it creates a more interesting or fun culture, belief that it will make the company more money.
I'm basically subscribed to all five. But I almost always lead with just the last one: diversity & inclusion helps the business by helping the business make better decisions, helps find higher quality candidates, helps avoid product/marketing blindspots that limit the reach of a product. All of those things boil down to: it's good for business.
This is the tap dancing. It's almost uncouth to tell an employee that you only care about their ability to help the business make money. But there's also something really unhealthy about not mentioning it at all. Of course, the business cares about an employee's happiness and positive social impact, but those aren't the foundation of the relationship. The foundation is the thing that allows the employment in the first place, which is making money.
I like leading with that good-for-business foundation because then if, say, I went out recruiting Native Americans, they can see a visible concrete motivation beyond tokenism. It's a relatively straightforward business hypothesis to think: "I bet this group of people doesn't see a lot of recruiters so if I get good at recruiting from that group then I'll be facing less competition from other recruiters."
That's a hypothesis that I've found to generally be true, especially when paired with at least a mediocre level of inclusivity after you make a hire. It's like a sad arbitrage that allows you to take advantage of industry bias. Statistically, hiring from an underrepresented group means fewer counter offers, and if you follow up by creating good opportunity for growth, a lot of people will way out perform their peers simply because other jobs had never given them much opportunity.
It's all about how do you talk about these issues which are real, and which are impossible for me to viscerally understand with my own limited & privileged life experience, in a way that doesn't sound like charity and instead sounds like raising the bar. "I know your past resume sucks, but you're here because we think you could out perform your past work by a lot."
I would say the best way to make sure the diversity hires don't feel like being a token is by establishing a fair recruitment process. How? The more concrete the selection criteria better, so don't fall in the unconscious bias trap of assessing different candidates through different lens.
Since it's good for business, inclusivity policies should be considered an investment and not an expense. The best way is involving the employees directly (are anonymous surveys that hard to pull of?) and ask them what they need. Giving you a concrete example: As a woman in tech, I've work in tons of places with pingue pongue tables and beer on the community fridge. That doesn't really appeal to me, since I prefer to leave work as soon as possible to work in my non-paid female duties. But I would be SO APPRECIATED that the female toilets had menstrual products available just like toilet paper. It would have a relevant impact in reducing my monthly expenses and would make me be a better professional because it's something that would stop being part of my day-to-day logistics. Every time I suggest this, I am told it's too expensive or the H.R. men don't know how to buy it. There is always a residual number of females on the teams, is that really a great expense? And I learn to code every language my company asks me too but the HR can't learn how to buy properly menstrual pads? Please just asks us!
>One is legal, to avoid breaking a law or facing a lawsuit.
I don't really understand this. Isn't any kind of race based discrimination going to potentially cause legal liability? At the end of the day you're advocating for a policy of race/gender based discrimination, and I don't really get why you'd think it wouldn't be opening yourself up to liability with programs like these?
Have you actually talked to a lawyer about this? I've looked into in the the past, and while it seems to have a stronger case in Canada (where I live) I haven't really seen anything to suggest it's legal in the US unless you're a school.
Admittedly you're probably not going to be the case the brings it tumbling down, but it still seems like explicitly basing your hiring decisions on race open you up to a whole lot of potential liability.
I don't really understand this. Isn't any kind of race based discrimination going to potentially cause legal liability? At the end of the day you're advocating for a policy of race/gender based discrimination, and I don't really get why you'd think it wouldn't be opening yourself up to liability with programs like these?
Have you actually talked to a lawyer about this? I've looked into in the the past, and while it seems to have a stronger case in Canada (where I live) I haven't really seen anything to suggest it's legal in the US unless you're a school.
Admittedly you're probably not going to be the case the brings it tumbling down, but it still seems like explicitly basing your hiring decisions on race open you up to a whole lot of potential liability.
I don’t know anything about IBMs situation. But for me, a much smaller company, there’s a difference between saying you will only hire a Native American and saying you have intentionally chosen to put up a hiring booth at a Native American conference. In practice they have similar outcomes but the first is illegal, as you say, and the second isn’t. Every hiring pipeline will have demographic biases in it. And there is no law saying you have to investigate every single pipeline. But in practice how you choose your pipelines plays a big role in the demographics of your hires. I think too that this is not discrimination because it is merit based. I’m saying that because of other people’s discrimination you could probably operate on a valid business ROI hypothesis that choosing more diverse pipelines is a better use of a hiring managers time and money.
Another anecdote, but back in in the mid-2000's a VP at my Fortune 50 company (not tech) verbatim said "If you know any women or African Americans looking for a job let us know and we'll find a job for them".
I get the intent, but it seems so incredibly forced and to your point, condescending for someone who busted their ass to get where they are in their career.
I get the intent, but it seems so incredibly forced and to your point, condescending for someone who busted their ass to get where they are in their career.
> They had Native American speakers, food, performances and music. It felt so condescending.
How does that even work? Even if we restrict "Native American" to groups that were native to what later became the United States, that's still a whole lot of different cultures across a vast range of ecosystems.
They had different foods and different kinds of music. How could IBM pick which Native American culture's food and music to have? Wouldn't any such choice be essentially foreign food and music to people from other Native American cultures?
How does that even work? Even if we restrict "Native American" to groups that were native to what later became the United States, that's still a whole lot of different cultures across a vast range of ecosystems.
They had different foods and different kinds of music. How could IBM pick which Native American culture's food and music to have? Wouldn't any such choice be essentially foreign food and music to people from other Native American cultures?
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Lmfao that fucking sucks when the initial thing they ask for you to bring on the table is race or gender diversity - something born with you, out of your control, and didnt put any effort into
This is funny/sad - mostly because this is the complete opposite of what is parroted at universities.
Fwiw, I attended a nearly identical recruiting event at Microsoft for women and minorities.
Have you ever experienced life on a res? If not are you on the Dawes?
Not to fully doubt you but your entire story seems highly unlikely and politically convenient.
Considering the genocide of Native Americans in America, the lack of reparations and the amount of US government monies paid to IBM, native peoples should be rolled to the front of the line YET still hired solely based on their merit.
Rich executives’ kids are rolled to the front of the line for internships, entry level positions and college admissions.
Making sure that natives are considered is the least we can do in making the world more just.
Not to fully doubt you but your entire story seems highly unlikely and politically convenient.
Considering the genocide of Native Americans in America, the lack of reparations and the amount of US government monies paid to IBM, native peoples should be rolled to the front of the line YET still hired solely based on their merit.
Rich executives’ kids are rolled to the front of the line for internships, entry level positions and college admissions.
Making sure that natives are considered is the least we can do in making the world more just.
"I believe everyone can become a good professional as long as they’re willing to learn."
This isn't sexist. I've been told this, and I've told this to junior engineers of both genders. It's not even just a stretch to claim it's sexist, it's ridiculous to. The remark about prioritizing is actually more troublesome, and entirely independent of this comment.
"Some things went well, others not so well. I am not giving you a list specifying each. It has nothing to do with your technical skills; that is normal to have room for improvement. We just feel there is a lack of chemistry with the team."
This is just the way things are, especially in tech. It's not sexist, it's just unfair and dumb and political. And it's applied to all individuals. I've had it applied to me. I've been in management conversations on how to approach others to apply it to. This just isn't sexist.
"Carl is a difficult person to work with. But I trust in you to accomplish this. You will use your feminine approach and you’ll be fine."
"Boys are just predisposed for technology by nature, and there is nothing we can do. I see it in my children: While my son prefers video games, my daughter only cares about Facebook."
These are both sexist. The first one is disgusting and might also border on sexual harassment. The second is a gross demonstration of "anecdotes are not data."
This isn't sexist. I've been told this, and I've told this to junior engineers of both genders. It's not even just a stretch to claim it's sexist, it's ridiculous to. The remark about prioritizing is actually more troublesome, and entirely independent of this comment.
"Some things went well, others not so well. I am not giving you a list specifying each. It has nothing to do with your technical skills; that is normal to have room for improvement. We just feel there is a lack of chemistry with the team."
This is just the way things are, especially in tech. It's not sexist, it's just unfair and dumb and political. And it's applied to all individuals. I've had it applied to me. I've been in management conversations on how to approach others to apply it to. This just isn't sexist.
"Carl is a difficult person to work with. But I trust in you to accomplish this. You will use your feminine approach and you’ll be fine."
"Boys are just predisposed for technology by nature, and there is nothing we can do. I see it in my children: While my son prefers video games, my daughter only cares about Facebook."
These are both sexist. The first one is disgusting and might also border on sexual harassment. The second is a gross demonstration of "anecdotes are not data."
>"Some things went well, others not so well. I am not giving you a list specifying each. It has nothing to do with your technical skills; that is normal to have room for improvement. We just feel there is a lack of chemistry with the team."
>
>This is just the way things are, especially in tech. It's not sexist, it's just unfair and dumb and political. And it's applied to all individuals. I've had it applied to me. I've been in management conversations on how to approach others to apply it to. This just isn't sexist.
I think what you're missing is that the reason a statement like this was visited upon you, or whomever poor soul you visted upon in turn, may not be sexist in your case but perhaps so in the author's.
Precisely as you point out: it's dumb and political. The reasoning isn't going to be good and it's going to be opaque. Well, sexism, racism, etc are dumb, political, and opaque.
>
>This is just the way things are, especially in tech. It's not sexist, it's just unfair and dumb and political. And it's applied to all individuals. I've had it applied to me. I've been in management conversations on how to approach others to apply it to. This just isn't sexist.
I think what you're missing is that the reason a statement like this was visited upon you, or whomever poor soul you visted upon in turn, may not be sexist in your case but perhaps so in the author's.
Precisely as you point out: it's dumb and political. The reasoning isn't going to be good and it's going to be opaque. Well, sexism, racism, etc are dumb, political, and opaque.
> may not be sexist in your case but perhaps so in the author's.
'Perhaps' is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. I'm convinced social media is raising a generation of mind-readers.
'Perhaps' is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. I'm convinced social media is raising a generation of mind-readers.
I'm convinced it has made people a bit lacking in resilience. Everything anyone utters is suspect or to be picked apart to find even a hint of offensive content.
Some might say we're just surfacing issues that society has repressed in an unhealthy way, and I understand that to a degree, but I think the pendulum has swung a bit too far.
Not everything is racist, sexist, rude, or malicious, even unintentionally. That someone interprets or perceives such a thing shouldn't mean we automatically validate or legitimize that perception.
Some might say we're just surfacing issues that society has repressed in an unhealthy way, and I understand that to a degree, but I think the pendulum has swung a bit too far.
Not everything is racist, sexist, rude, or malicious, even unintentionally. That someone interprets or perceives such a thing shouldn't mean we automatically validate or legitimize that perception.
> The second is a gross demonstration of "anecdotes are not data."
The second one doesn't even support the premise. Video games aren't more "technical" than Facebook.
The second one doesn't even support the premise. Video games aren't more "technical" than Facebook.
>"Boys are just predisposed for technology by nature, and there is nothing we can do. I see it in my children: While my son prefers video games, my daughter only cares about Facebook."
Well you're not supposed to say that though there may be some differences between the sexes. Like myself and my sister fit the stereotype.
Well you're not supposed to say that though there may be some differences between the sexes. Like myself and my sister fit the stereotype.
>Carl is a difficult person to work with
sidenote - it is still, after more than 2 decades here, amuses me how people are allowed here to be "difficult to work with". Back in Russia - i was an engineer and later manager there - we didn't have "difficult to work with" persons, at least by the end of the first week of employment of any given person.
sidenote - it is still, after more than 2 decades here, amuses me how people are allowed here to be "difficult to work with". Back in Russia - i was an engineer and later manager there - we didn't have "difficult to work with" persons, at least by the end of the first week of employment of any given person.
The "willing to learn" case was construed as sexist since she was a diversity hire who did not undergo the same hiring process as her colleagues. While the double standard may have given her an advantage in being hired, it was a disadvantage with respect to her future prospects. The company did not know how to utilize her strengths nor what weaknesses had to be addressed. In effect, they abdicated responsibility for her success within the company prior to even interviewing her. This was not the case for non-diversity hires. Her interpretation is legitimate.
Plenty of other things she notes were sexist; pointing out that one is just absurd. It's more or less the advice senior staff are encouraged to give junior staff regardless of context in almost every manager/senior training program I've ever been in.
I understand the argument you're making (that in this context it's sexist, even if it's not sexist in other contexts), I just completely disagree with it.
I understand the argument you're making (that in this context it's sexist, even if it's not sexist in other contexts), I just completely disagree with it.
Just to be clear, I am supporting her interpretation of the statement. I am not claiming that the statement itself is sexist, intentionally or unintentionally, even in this context. We don't know what was going through her mentor's head when they said it. Even if we did, they were probably given incomplete information about her background and may have been given inaccurate information.
The problem lies with the company creating the framework for her interpretation. It set the tone for her tenure, a tone that implied that she was facing an uphill battle since she was hired in spite of her qualifications. That tone would understandably (in my opinion) alter the meaning of what was being said. In this case, the intent may have been to encourage her but the interpretation was that they saw her as unqualified.
The problem lies with the company creating the framework for her interpretation. It set the tone for her tenure, a tone that implied that she was facing an uphill battle since she was hired in spite of her qualifications. That tone would understandably (in my opinion) alter the meaning of what was being said. In this case, the intent may have been to encourage her but the interpretation was that they saw her as unqualified.
Well nobody respects diversity hires because they weren't put to the test at the same standards. It's like getting a job because your parents are wealthy, people don't respect those.
That is until they prove themselves somehow, if the stigma sticks after that then it might be sexist/racist...ist.
Personally I believe these "quotas" systems hurt more than they help, if you don't subject people to the same high standard test they don't improve, because they don't have technical challenges to overcome. That's why I never participate in them
Personally I believe these "quotas" systems hurt more than they help, if you don't subject people to the same high standard test they don't improve, because they don't have technical challenges to overcome. That's why I never participate in them
[deleted]
I wrote about my experience as a black developer not too long ago [1]. At first, you are shocked when you hear some insensitive comments made around you. Then you realize no one else even notices, so it must be something wrong with you.
Eventually you ignore it. When someone says something stupid, you rationalize it and move on. After all, you are only just here to do a job.
But then you get angry. You are angry at everything. No one understand why you are angry or why you blow things out of proportion. "Hey Carl didn't mean to offend you. It was just that one time." What they don't understand is that you've been hearing the same stupid jokes or comments for 15 years in your career.
In June of last summer, multiple companies contacted me to help them do something about diversity in their company. Here is what every company is excited to do: Diversity day, minority day, rainbow flag day, Awareness, BLM profile image, hashtags.
Here is what was incredibly hard to do: Hiring more black people. I interviewed hundreds of black people on their behalf, many highly qualified for the jobs. Not more than a 10 candidates got a reply for a follow up. So far I only know of one who was hired.
[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53180073
Eventually you ignore it. When someone says something stupid, you rationalize it and move on. After all, you are only just here to do a job.
But then you get angry. You are angry at everything. No one understand why you are angry or why you blow things out of proportion. "Hey Carl didn't mean to offend you. It was just that one time." What they don't understand is that you've been hearing the same stupid jokes or comments for 15 years in your career.
In June of last summer, multiple companies contacted me to help them do something about diversity in their company. Here is what every company is excited to do: Diversity day, minority day, rainbow flag day, Awareness, BLM profile image, hashtags.
Here is what was incredibly hard to do: Hiring more black people. I interviewed hundreds of black people on their behalf, many highly qualified for the jobs. Not more than a 10 candidates got a reply for a follow up. So far I only know of one who was hired.
[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53180073
> At first, you are shocked when you hear some insensitive comments made around you. Then you realize no one else even notices, so it must be something wrong with you.
I think is important to talk about because insensitive comments aren’t always clear. Finding a good way to talk about comments in a healthy way is the difference between me having more peace or stewing.
Sometimes people don’t know what they’re saying is offensive, sometimes I misperceive something.
An example is that I was in a staff meeting and one of the seniors said “Paying for itself in spades...” and another developer’s face just sunk and he was clearly upset but the senior didn’t notice.
Dev2 went to a colleague to talk and explained how he was really upset because Dev1 uses this term quite a bit and that it’s offensive. Colleague pulled up some info on the origins of the term [0] and how it has nothing to do with race.
If Dev2 hadn’t talked about it, then they would have continued thinking that Dev1 was saying racist things.
Obviously, the particulars of situations will vary and there are jerks. But given that we work with lots of different cultures, it’s good to try to find a way to confront these offenses in a way that’s not exhausting and can help build team relationships.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_a_spade_a_spade
I think is important to talk about because insensitive comments aren’t always clear. Finding a good way to talk about comments in a healthy way is the difference between me having more peace or stewing.
Sometimes people don’t know what they’re saying is offensive, sometimes I misperceive something.
An example is that I was in a staff meeting and one of the seniors said “Paying for itself in spades...” and another developer’s face just sunk and he was clearly upset but the senior didn’t notice.
Dev2 went to a colleague to talk and explained how he was really upset because Dev1 uses this term quite a bit and that it’s offensive. Colleague pulled up some info on the origins of the term [0] and how it has nothing to do with race.
If Dev2 hadn’t talked about it, then they would have continued thinking that Dev1 was saying racist things.
Obviously, the particulars of situations will vary and there are jerks. But given that we work with lots of different cultures, it’s good to try to find a way to confront these offenses in a way that’s not exhausting and can help build team relationships.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_a_spade_a_spade
The trick to what happened in your example is that Dev2 was able to find someone in the office (Colleague) they trusted to talk about the situation.
In some organizations I’ve been in, he could have talked to Dev3, who tells them to “not be so sensitive”, then tells other devs about how Dev2 played the race card.
Dev3 is more common than Colleague. Hell, Dev1 being an idiot and not learning to maybe adjust his language to be inclusive, and maybe read a book about race, is less common than Colleague.
In some organizations I’ve been in, he could have talked to Dev3, who tells them to “not be so sensitive”, then tells other devs about how Dev2 played the race card.
Dev3 is more common than Colleague. Hell, Dev1 being an idiot and not learning to maybe adjust his language to be inclusive, and maybe read a book about race, is less common than Colleague.
Yes, and this is what makes it so hard and sort of a wicked problem.
This is a “best case scenario” but there’s lots of other worse outcomes like the one you mention, or if dev2 reported Dev1 for a microaggression.
I think the important, and hard part, is to have trust and existing relationships where people can discuss these types of scenarios.
Also my perception is that Dev1 was not an idiot and did not need to do anything for his language and the moral here is that Dev2 was able to learn more context around Dev1’s speech so they understood that there was nothing racial about it. We all could have read lots of books about race and Dev1’s statement should not have changed.
But that doesn’t mean that Dev3 is right.
I think we want to train and improve Dev3s so they become more like Colleague.
And we also want to build more relationships like between Dev2 and Colleague so that Dev2 could talk to Dev1 directly.
I don’t like advice that people should be more thick skinned, because for every scenario where the misunderstanding is on the part of Dev2 there are lots of scenarios where the statement is racist.
Maybe the heuristic is that we should be more curious before judging.
This is a “best case scenario” but there’s lots of other worse outcomes like the one you mention, or if dev2 reported Dev1 for a microaggression.
I think the important, and hard part, is to have trust and existing relationships where people can discuss these types of scenarios.
Also my perception is that Dev1 was not an idiot and did not need to do anything for his language and the moral here is that Dev2 was able to learn more context around Dev1’s speech so they understood that there was nothing racial about it. We all could have read lots of books about race and Dev1’s statement should not have changed.
But that doesn’t mean that Dev3 is right.
I think we want to train and improve Dev3s so they become more like Colleague.
And we also want to build more relationships like between Dev2 and Colleague so that Dev2 could talk to Dev1 directly.
I don’t like advice that people should be more thick skinned, because for every scenario where the misunderstanding is on the part of Dev2 there are lots of scenarios where the statement is racist.
Maybe the heuristic is that we should be more curious before judging.
I'm in a similar boat, story time!
$current_company runs internal events and makes noise about leadership bonuses being tied to diversity targets. I'm part of $targeted_minority so I usually show to the relevant zoom meetings. There's recurring meetings but no actionable items emerge from these meetings.
In a way I'm alright with this because some people need the meetings as a coping mechanism but it doesn't fix the underlying problem; bringing in more $targeted_minority does that. What's missing: data about internal hiring/promotions/referrals showing whether $targeted_minority has a funnel problem. Maybe those reports are above my pay grade at this company. For some anecdata I've made over 30 referrals and not one has been hired. At $previous_company I made 6 referrals that turned into 4 offers and 3 hires (and one of those referrals walked away before being made an offer). Sure, $current_company has higher standards but I'm a bit incredulous at the success rate gap.
Maybe one day they will give up and pad the numbers with marketing/HR folk, etc. and pat themselves on the back. Maybe they already do that and I just don't know about it.
$current_company runs internal events and makes noise about leadership bonuses being tied to diversity targets. I'm part of $targeted_minority so I usually show to the relevant zoom meetings. There's recurring meetings but no actionable items emerge from these meetings.
In a way I'm alright with this because some people need the meetings as a coping mechanism but it doesn't fix the underlying problem; bringing in more $targeted_minority does that. What's missing: data about internal hiring/promotions/referrals showing whether $targeted_minority has a funnel problem. Maybe those reports are above my pay grade at this company. For some anecdata I've made over 30 referrals and not one has been hired. At $previous_company I made 6 referrals that turned into 4 offers and 3 hires (and one of those referrals walked away before being made an offer). Sure, $current_company has higher standards but I'm a bit incredulous at the success rate gap.
Maybe one day they will give up and pad the numbers with marketing/HR folk, etc. and pat themselves on the back. Maybe they already do that and I just don't know about it.
> There's recurring meetings but no actionable items emerge from these meetings.
I'm curious what items are actionable that also don't run afoul of equal protection (i.e. don't discriminate based on a protected class).
My general observation of D&I in the years since it has become a corporate department at many companies is that the D&I department never sets specific and measurable target goals. They say they want to increase representation, but that's where things generally stop. Sub-metrics and sub-goals that would move the needle are conspicuously absent.
If you don't have specific and measurable goals, how do you know when you've solved the problem for which the D&I department was originally formed to address?
I'm curious what items are actionable that also don't run afoul of equal protection (i.e. don't discriminate based on a protected class).
My general observation of D&I in the years since it has become a corporate department at many companies is that the D&I department never sets specific and measurable target goals. They say they want to increase representation, but that's where things generally stop. Sub-metrics and sub-goals that would move the needle are conspicuously absent.
If you don't have specific and measurable goals, how do you know when you've solved the problem for which the D&I department was originally formed to address?
Both whites and blacks get bullied the same amount but when it happens to a black person, it’s racism and is actually taken seriously.
I get called dipshit and you get called the N-word. Why race-based bullying has suddenly become considered worse is beyond me.
I get called dipshit and you get called the N-word. Why race-based bullying has suddenly become considered worse is beyond me.
[deleted]
Probably because race based bullying is connected 1) to something a person can't really change - their skin color. On the other hand, most people can stop being dipshits. 2) A legacy of people being enslaved, murdered, etc. for the color of their skin.
> Hiring more black people
It's not like there's a large, untapped pool of talented black software engineers.
I'm at a large tech company. There was a team I worked with for a big with some really talented people, the sort of team where really smart domain experts go. There was a black guy on it who asked questions showing he wasn't an obviously talented domain expert. I found out he was recruited for coming from an unconventional background and was spending time with different teams.
Large tech companies are trying really hard to finds diamonds in the rough, and they're taking chances on people that aren't talented enough.
The other issue is blacks are only 13% of the American population. Seattle is only 7%. Now imagine you're an even smaller minority. It's about people not being assholes, not "hiring more x people" because that will always fall short for some group.
It's not like there's a large, untapped pool of talented black software engineers.
I'm at a large tech company. There was a team I worked with for a big with some really talented people, the sort of team where really smart domain experts go. There was a black guy on it who asked questions showing he wasn't an obviously talented domain expert. I found out he was recruited for coming from an unconventional background and was spending time with different teams.
Large tech companies are trying really hard to finds diamonds in the rough, and they're taking chances on people that aren't talented enough.
The other issue is blacks are only 13% of the American population. Seattle is only 7%. Now imagine you're an even smaller minority. It's about people not being assholes, not "hiring more x people" because that will always fall short for some group.
On the other hand, California is 37% white. The University of California freshman class for 2019 was 22% white. So why are tech companies so strikingly white? It makes no sense unless you admit there is a racial bias in the hiring process for knowledge workers.
Far more than 3% of my white tech colleagues have been Jewish, despite making up only 3% of the US and California populations. Would you claim this implies a pro-Jewish, anti-Gentile tech hiring bias?
I would disagree with you, and suggest that your kind of logic leads to very dark places.
I would disagree with you, and suggest that your kind of logic leads to very dark places.
I would argue that Jewish people are overrepresented in higher education than other groups and generally occupy a higher class level than more recent immigrants or groups under systemic oppression by the legal system in recent decades. Most Jewish families at this point have been in this country for several generations now building roots for their families, just like the Italians and Irish at this point who also came to NYC ~a century ago. They haven't been the whipping boy at the bottom of the economic totem in a long time. These days, that unfavorable position is occupied by more recently migrated groups. I mean the rhetoric from the outgoing president alone about central American immigrants was truly abhorrent and dehumanized them in the eyes of his supporters.
However, that still doesn't explain why in the CompSci major at UC berkely, only 16% were white (1). Yet when you look at the makeup of some of the FANGs in the bay area, most are ~50% white or more (2).
1. https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-califo...
2. https://www.wired.com/story/five-years-tech-diversity-report...
However, that still doesn't explain why in the CompSci major at UC berkely, only 16% were white (1). Yet when you look at the makeup of some of the FANGs in the bay area, most are ~50% white or more (2).
1. https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-califo...
2. https://www.wired.com/story/five-years-tech-diversity-report...
That is interesting. I didn't know that whites, who make up 73% of the US population, were so underrepresented not only in Silicon Valley but also at UC Berkeley.
"Strikingly white"? Tech industry in California is probably the least white white collar industry in this country.
You have to frame it relative to the pipeline to see how overt this bias is. In the CompSci major at UC berkely, for example, only 16% were white (1). Yet when you look at the makeup of some of the FANGs in the bay area, most are ~50% white or more (2). That is striking to me.
1. https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-califo...
2. https://www.wired.com/story/five-years-tech-diversity-report...
1. https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-califo...
2. https://www.wired.com/story/five-years-tech-diversity-report...
How many programmers graduate from Berkeley each year and how many are employed in the FANGs in the Bay Area? How many Berkeley graduates are in the top 0.01% of available talent, given all the other people who want to work for FANG’s in the Bay Area?
> 37%...22%
Metrics for particular degrees would be more helpful. Some of those 22% are in accounting.
> So why are tech companies so strikingly white
Um, what? Maybe for early-stage startups. If you'd said "strikingly white, Indian, and East Asian," I'd agree.
Metrics for particular degrees would be more helpful. Some of those 22% are in accounting.
> So why are tech companies so strikingly white
Um, what? Maybe for early-stage startups. If you'd said "strikingly white, Indian, and East Asian," I'd agree.
Lets look at the compSci major at UC berkely, then, where only 16% were white (1). Yet when you look at the makeup of some of the FANGs in the bay area, most are ~50% white or more (2). That is a striking difference to me.
1. https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-califo...
2. https://www.wired.com/story/five-years-tech-diversity-report...
1. https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-califo...
2. https://www.wired.com/story/five-years-tech-diversity-report...
Does culture play no role in this? Why assume race is the primary driver?
Surely it does, a culture that makes people feel unwelcome and doesn’t invest in helping them thrive in an environment where they are in the minority definitely plays a role.
How do you explain Asians making up almost half of FAANG startups?
Because they make up a high percentage of the graduating classes in CS programs (1). However, note how whites only make up 16% of the graduating class at UC berkely, yet many FANG companies are ~50% white (2). Whites are overrepresented at the expense of other groups.
1. https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-califo...
2. https://www.wired.com/story/five-years-tech-diversity-report...
1. https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-califo...
2. https://www.wired.com/story/five-years-tech-diversity-report...
Note that as far as I know, all the founders of FAANG were white guys. As for why many Asian people work there, I think there is a strong bias toward engineering/medicine among many immigrant communities that came from a relatively educated background in their home countries (I count myself in that cohort, though I’m not Asian). Crucially though, once they got into the community they were more likely to blend into the group at every stage.
It’s hard to be the only one in a class/company/group that looks like you. That’s a big obstacle and we should be more supportive of those who overcome it.
Also, while Asians make up a large portion of line engineer positions, they make up a smaller fraction of leadership positions. That’s troubling to me as well.
It’s hard to be the only one in a class/company/group that looks like you. That’s a big obstacle and we should be more supportive of those who overcome it.
Also, while Asians make up a large portion of line engineer positions, they make up a smaller fraction of leadership positions. That’s troubling to me as well.
https://kstatic.googleusercontent.com/files/25badfc6b6d1b33f...
See leadership.
30% Asian (6% us pop) 60% white (65% us pop)
Asians widely over represented.
Should we give less jobs to Asians and more to blacks and Hispanics?
This kind of points to socioeconomic and educational opportunities in early life. Blacks come from poorer backgrounds etc. But why bring race into it? Why not lift up people from poorer backgrounds of all races, instead of racist affirmative action policies.
These diversity reports are basically saying: we need to make our employees less racist and sexist when hiring.
See leadership.
30% Asian (6% us pop) 60% white (65% us pop)
Asians widely over represented.
Should we give less jobs to Asians and more to blacks and Hispanics?
This kind of points to socioeconomic and educational opportunities in early life. Blacks come from poorer backgrounds etc. But why bring race into it? Why not lift up people from poorer backgrounds of all races, instead of racist affirmative action policies.
These diversity reports are basically saying: we need to make our employees less racist and sexist when hiring.
That leaves the critical question: "lift up how and when?"
Lift up by better primary education? Lift up by more outreach to get more poorer people into computing as young adults? Or lift up by having hiring quotas for people whose family income was provably bottom quartile for at least 5 years in their childhood?
Lift up by better primary education? Lift up by more outreach to get more poorer people into computing as young adults? Or lift up by having hiring quotas for people whose family income was provably bottom quartile for at least 5 years in their childhood?
The goal should be to have the same academic achievement as their peers at the company they are working for. It’s unfair for smart blacks to be thought of us diversity hires. I can think of nothing worse than having your intelligence questioned your entire career.
Surely someone has studied this though. “Why did you not choose comp sci major?”
All the answers are there. The fact we don’t hear about it is probably because it doesn’t fit the narrative that intersectionalism wants to tell.
Last time I went to research the history of why women were dominant in tech and then then minority, it was nothing to do with sexism surprise, surprise.
Exposure to computers at a young age is everything.
I will do some more research though and come back <- the best part about HN conversations for me.
Surely someone has studied this though. “Why did you not choose comp sci major?”
All the answers are there. The fact we don’t hear about it is probably because it doesn’t fit the narrative that intersectionalism wants to tell.
Last time I went to research the history of why women were dominant in tech and then then minority, it was nothing to do with sexism surprise, surprise.
Exposure to computers at a young age is everything.
I will do some more research though and come back <- the best part about HN conversations for me.
[deleted]
Respectfully, this is the wrong way to look at the problem. It’s true, objectively, that there are fewer minority/female CS graduates. But there’s no way that gets better if a person who is “not a subject matter expert” gets dismissed. That person needs to be trained. If they want to be expert at that subject, we as an industry need to be able to help them get there.
Increasingly I believe the problem with diversity in tech is a retention and training problem, not a pipeline problem. If you’re a woman and you want to be a coder but all you hear about is hell stories, why would you sign up for that major? Our job is to make those who are generous enough in spirit to decide they want to do this thing, in spite of all the pain they might face, the best coders they can possibly be. Only then will they be able to provide the positive reinforcement necessary to improve input pipelines.
Same applies to any underrepresented group.
Increasingly I believe the problem with diversity in tech is a retention and training problem, not a pipeline problem. If you’re a woman and you want to be a coder but all you hear about is hell stories, why would you sign up for that major? Our job is to make those who are generous enough in spirit to decide they want to do this thing, in spite of all the pain they might face, the best coders they can possibly be. Only then will they be able to provide the positive reinforcement necessary to improve input pipelines.
Same applies to any underrepresented group.
> I believe the problem with diversity in tech is a retention and training problem, not a pipeline problem.
I saw one guy setting up a hiring pipeline in large industrial/tech company in the south, and changing the face of a office for that company.
- When he start : The city is 60% black, almost not black dev. A few in IT/Support. - He strike a deal with a local bootcamp, being extremely specific on the training content. Basically the boot-camp became a dedicated training ground for that company. several hiring event a year, summer internship program. Young folks from diverse backgroun. usually a solid 40/60 female/male blend.
- 2 years later I see junior black devs male AND female in a lot of teams. When I left some were promoted senior and a few really good recruits were on track to become team-lead/architect/whatever they wanted.
It's highly anecdotal, and that was matching that industrial behemoth goal to 'blend' into the culture of the south. ( read : hire black folks )
But I do think that a hiring pipeline do make a difference. Maybe this particular exemple was just too easy. Again, more than a majority of folk here are black, so it just natural to find more black candidate.
I saw one guy setting up a hiring pipeline in large industrial/tech company in the south, and changing the face of a office for that company.
- When he start : The city is 60% black, almost not black dev. A few in IT/Support. - He strike a deal with a local bootcamp, being extremely specific on the training content. Basically the boot-camp became a dedicated training ground for that company. several hiring event a year, summer internship program. Young folks from diverse backgroun. usually a solid 40/60 female/male blend.
- 2 years later I see junior black devs male AND female in a lot of teams. When I left some were promoted senior and a few really good recruits were on track to become team-lead/architect/whatever they wanted.
It's highly anecdotal, and that was matching that industrial behemoth goal to 'blend' into the culture of the south. ( read : hire black folks )
But I do think that a hiring pipeline do make a difference. Maybe this particular exemple was just too easy. Again, more than a majority of folk here are black, so it just natural to find more black candidate.
To be clear, I don’t think input pipelines are not a problem at all, I think they’re just a part of the problem. Sounds like this person is doing things right by investing time and effort across pipeline AND developing talent once hired. You can’t have success without both and the latter is often a secondary consideration at best.
you are very right.
Junior hire were strategically placed in 'ok' teams.
they had common "low-key" projects on top of their regular assignments, and a particular effort was put on exposing them to various roles ( dev, TPM, BA, design ). The idea was to create a community of new hires that can tap into to reach for help, advices and the like.
This person took advantage of a large company with a fat belly to do awesome thing. I'm not even sure they realized.
This person took advantage of a large company with a fat belly to do awesome thing. I'm not even sure they realized.
Hi, I would really like to know more about this guy and his program, and maybe get in touch. My contacts are in my profile.
While not the entirety of the under-representation situation, the pipeline is absolutely the biggest contributing factor. Take a look at any CS class today and you'll see a sea of white and east/south asian faces, an almost no black students – I took several CS courses at the University of Washington a couple years back (staff perk) and out of ~500 students perhaps 2-3 were black.
No amount of corporate diversity training or preferential hiring is going to fix that ratio.
No amount of corporate diversity training or preferential hiring is going to fix that ratio.
> but all you hear about is hell stories
The reality is distorted though. Like in this article many would argue that none of it is sexist and it is just human behavior.
Whereas other women reading this have their biases confirmed.
I really struggle to find any sexism stories that describe situations that don’t also happen to men.
Human nature is to pattern match. It’s easier to blame groups than to blame individuals than to blame yourself.
The reality is distorted though. Like in this article many would argue that none of it is sexist and it is just human behavior.
Whereas other women reading this have their biases confirmed.
I really struggle to find any sexism stories that describe situations that don’t also happen to men.
Human nature is to pattern match. It’s easier to blame groups than to blame individuals than to blame yourself.
I used to think this way, but I think it’s a mistake. If something happens to men but happens far more often to women, then there’s a problem. The fact that we keep hearing about these stories, with various shades of face-palming awfulness should be a sign that something is wrong. “Use your femininity”? I’ve been working professionally in various STEM positions for 15+ years, never once has someone told me to “use my masculinity” to help smooth a working relationship.
We can assume that all of these people, across the industry, in dozens of different contexts are all just whining, or we can do some introspection and wonder if we could do better. Even if some things are unintentional, if they make people en masse feel less welcome, we should re-examine how we do things, and if they are truly necessary.
I’ve personally known several women who are insanely smart and good at what they do who have felt rejected, mistreated and unwelcome in tech. It’s a tragedy they faced that, and it’s sadly way too common. We cannot deny there is something systematic at play here.
We can assume that all of these people, across the industry, in dozens of different contexts are all just whining, or we can do some introspection and wonder if we could do better. Even if some things are unintentional, if they make people en masse feel less welcome, we should re-examine how we do things, and if they are truly necessary.
I’ve personally known several women who are insanely smart and good at what they do who have felt rejected, mistreated and unwelcome in tech. It’s a tragedy they faced that, and it’s sadly way too common. We cannot deny there is something systematic at play here.
“Masculinity” does not predispose someone to working better with people. “Use your masculinity to help carry some boxes up the stairs” - is this sexist?
I don’t think sex plays into capability but more so motivation. If there wasn’t science to indicate there is a difference in what men and woman are drawn to...then you could write it off...but there are differences and those differences seem to play out.
The fact we hear more stories from women is because they are on trend of sexism. Whereas the same stories from men are just office politics. Take any office politics story, make the aggressor male and the subject female and voila - you can claim it’s sexism.
I don’t think sex plays into capability but more so motivation. If there wasn’t science to indicate there is a difference in what men and woman are drawn to...then you could write it off...but there are differences and those differences seem to play out.
The fact we hear more stories from women is because they are on trend of sexism. Whereas the same stories from men are just office politics. Take any office politics story, make the aggressor male and the subject female and voila - you can claim it’s sexism.
> If you’re a woman and you want to be a coder but all you hear about is hell stories, why would you sign up for that major
I think this is a bit more complex; think of something like Revenge of the Nerds where computer peeps are all socially inept (sometimes borderline creepy) otherworldly nerds whose only interest in life is computers.
Would you want to work in an environment like that? I wouldn't. And luckily I don't because that's not really what most programmers are like. I can count the number of people I've met that fit this stereotype on a single hand, and I've met quite a number of programmers at conferences and such over the years.
I feel these problems run much deeper than just "hell stories from women". Luckily in the last ~10/20 years attitudes seem to be changing somewhat for the better, but for a long time during the 80s, 90s, and 00s the perception of the average programmer was not especially positive.
I think this is a bit more complex; think of something like Revenge of the Nerds where computer peeps are all socially inept (sometimes borderline creepy) otherworldly nerds whose only interest in life is computers.
Would you want to work in an environment like that? I wouldn't. And luckily I don't because that's not really what most programmers are like. I can count the number of people I've met that fit this stereotype on a single hand, and I've met quite a number of programmers at conferences and such over the years.
I feel these problems run much deeper than just "hell stories from women". Luckily in the last ~10/20 years attitudes seem to be changing somewhat for the better, but for a long time during the 80s, 90s, and 00s the perception of the average programmer was not especially positive.
There are a lot of socially enept developers out there. Maybe it’s changed a bit recently. But if you think about taking your average developer and putting them in a propel-facing sales role, how well would they do?
Something you see often is developers who were bullied at school, finding refuge in their computer, finding something they enjoy, and then the feminists canceling them because they don’t have the social skills to understand all the new rules of what is not politically correct. E.g. James Damore - the fired Google guy - was just quoting scientific evidence regarding women in tech but without realizing the sensitivities of 2010+ and that some things are better left unsaid. This is simply a lack of social awareness, and now the nerds and re-bullied day in day out because they started making lots of money.
Something you see often is developers who were bullied at school, finding refuge in their computer, finding something they enjoy, and then the feminists canceling them because they don’t have the social skills to understand all the new rules of what is not politically correct. E.g. James Damore - the fired Google guy - was just quoting scientific evidence regarding women in tech but without realizing the sensitivities of 2010+ and that some things are better left unsaid. This is simply a lack of social awareness, and now the nerds and re-bullied day in day out because they started making lots of money.
> if you think about taking your average developer and putting them in a propel-facing sales role, how well would they do
Probably not too well, although I've known more than a few programmers that have also done sales. I have actually, and I'm very bad at it not because of my lack of social skills, but just because I don't like being pushy. Anyway, "not being good at sales" doesn't mean you're "socially inept" just as not being able to program a computer very well makes you "technically inept".
And maybe programmers, on average, are a little bit below average on social skills – I'm not sure if that's the case but it could be – but "a little below average" is still "normal" and not "inept", and it's a far cry from the stereotypes that were being propagated.
I don't really know enough about James Damore to say anything about this, especially not him as a person.
Probably not too well, although I've known more than a few programmers that have also done sales. I have actually, and I'm very bad at it not because of my lack of social skills, but just because I don't like being pushy. Anyway, "not being good at sales" doesn't mean you're "socially inept" just as not being able to program a computer very well makes you "technically inept".
And maybe programmers, on average, are a little bit below average on social skills – I'm not sure if that's the case but it could be – but "a little below average" is still "normal" and not "inept", and it's a far cry from the stereotypes that were being propagated.
I don't really know enough about James Damore to say anything about this, especially not him as a person.
Fully agreed, there's a whole lot going on beyond stories of bad experiences. It's a complicated issue, I just think we're focusing on the wrong problem if we're just looking at this from a pipeline point of view and not asking what factors contribute to the pipeline being sub-optimal. Too often I hear, "women just like people more than men," and other similar BS, which lets us as an industry off the hook for creating sub-par environments.
Do you think there's any chance hell stories become a self-fulfilling prophecy?
I am not sure mate. Yes, some things you mention sound annoying and insulting but still. You are an immigrant to the US, got a non US education, you got a job in Silicon Valley and you made it.
Honestly, I feel like I received more discrimination as a white, western European in the US than you did.
When I was still working in a university lab in the US, it was extremely diverse, with a strong bias/over-representation of Chinese people. But it was still diverse in skin color, heritage, religion, sex or whatever. I never saw any "insensitive comments" there, at least none that were meant in a bad way.
Honestly, I feel like I received more discrimination as a white, western European in the US than you did.
When I was still working in a university lab in the US, it was extremely diverse, with a strong bias/over-representation of Chinese people. But it was still diverse in skin color, heritage, religion, sex or whatever. I never saw any "insensitive comments" there, at least none that were meant in a bad way.
> Honestly, I feel like I received more discrimination as a white, western European in the US than you did.
What is the point of bringing this up - is this thread the oppression olympics/"Four Yorkshiremen" of discrimination? Do I have a bit for you: White, western European, you say? Try being an immigrant as a black, African in tech - I'm sure I had it worse than you, at least you people assume you had electricity growing up.
As you can imagine, it takes longer than I'd like to establish trust in my engineering chops, and this is an additional consideration when changing jobs.
What is the point of bringing this up - is this thread the oppression olympics/"Four Yorkshiremen" of discrimination? Do I have a bit for you: White, western European, you say? Try being an immigrant as a black, African in tech - I'm sure I had it worse than you, at least you people assume you had electricity growing up.
As you can imagine, it takes longer than I'd like to establish trust in my engineering chops, and this is an additional consideration when changing jobs.
>I'm sure I had it worse than you, at least you people assume you had electricity growing up.
Are there not times that cityfolk don't rib countryfolk about growing up in poorer conditions in almost any country? Not to say it's right. But I also think I'm not mistaken in thinking people back home have misconceptions about people in the US as well. Misconceptions are pretty universal.
Are there not times that cityfolk don't rib countryfolk about growing up in poorer conditions in almost any country? Not to say it's right. But I also think I'm not mistaken in thinking people back home have misconceptions about people in the US as well. Misconceptions are pretty universal.
> Are there not times that cityfolk don't rib countryfolk about growing up in poorer conditions in almost any country?
This is exactly the problem: I did not grow up in the country or in "poorer conditions" like you assumed.
> Misconceptions are pretty universal.
Tell me about it - I actually believed the US was the greatest country on earth, and that silicon valley is meritocratic.
This is exactly the problem: I did not grow up in the country or in "poorer conditions" like you assumed.
> Misconceptions are pretty universal.
Tell me about it - I actually believed the US was the greatest country on earth, and that silicon valley is meritocratic.
What OP is getting at is that any European country has people from the majority ethnicity live in the conditions you describe.
A lot living in rural places although the experience isn't limited to it.
You work in tech in the US, a place I had to leave because I did not have a job, shelter, food, health insurance and had to go to China.
I have black friends that work in tech, patent law or whatever in the US. Yes, racism exists, no doubt. They told me anecdotes. But I am not very impressed by your complaining. And this is the most polite way I can phrase it.
Don't like it in the US? Go to Africa. Good opportunities there. If I had to leave China, Ethiopia would be on of the places I would consider.
I have black friends that work in tech, patent law or whatever in the US. Yes, racism exists, no doubt. They told me anecdotes. But I am not very impressed by your complaining. And this is the most polite way I can phrase it.
Don't like it in the US? Go to Africa. Good opportunities there. If I had to leave China, Ethiopia would be on of the places I would consider.
[deleted]
> Yes, racism exists, no doubt...Don't like it in the US? Go to Africa.
Amazing. No thanks though - I'm staying put; I have what it takes, even if some people are slow to realize. I didn't get here by being mediocre.
Amazing. No thanks though - I'm staying put; I have what it takes, even if some people are slow to realize. I didn't get here by being mediocre.
> "Hey Carl didn't mean to offend you. It was just that one time." What they don't understand is that you've been hearing the same stupid jokes or comments for 15 years in your career.
Tangentially related: when I got a new tattoo a few years back at an artist I never been before I made some joke that tattoo artists are like dentists: they love to inflict pain on people. I immediately realized that he must have heard the same hundreds of times before, and that I said something pretty bloody stupid.
You're up close and personal for a few hours with a stranger; I'm not shy or socially awkward, but I'm also not especially outgoing; just average. Sitting in silence can be awkward for some human psychological reason, and you feel the pressure to say ... something, anything. Reflecting on my own behaviour since this, I've noticed it's in those kind of situations where I say the silliest things: when you feel a pressure to say something but you're not sure what.
I think many probably have the same experience to some degree getting a haircut or the like (although haircuts usually don't take 3 hours; or at least, mine don't).
I'd certainly like to think I wouldn't be the kind of person who would "the same stupid jokes or comments" that you mentioned – but I can point at least to once case where I've done so. There are probably others that I've forgotten.
My point is that it's hard to understand how something is perceived by someone else, especially when their experience is very different from yours, whether that's a tattoo artist or a black programmer.
An idea I had a while ago is a platform where people can post personal stories to expand on these kind of things and how it's perceived by them (about a wide variety of topics). "I didn't mean anything by it" comes off as rather weak, but it's my impression it is actually true in quite a few cases, especially these relatively minor ones: many people just don't understand what it is to be in the shoes of another person. You really need to explain this, and just saying "that's racist" isn't enough.
P.S. Don't get your ribs tattooed people. Good grief that one hurt so much more than any of the others.
Tangentially related: when I got a new tattoo a few years back at an artist I never been before I made some joke that tattoo artists are like dentists: they love to inflict pain on people. I immediately realized that he must have heard the same hundreds of times before, and that I said something pretty bloody stupid.
You're up close and personal for a few hours with a stranger; I'm not shy or socially awkward, but I'm also not especially outgoing; just average. Sitting in silence can be awkward for some human psychological reason, and you feel the pressure to say ... something, anything. Reflecting on my own behaviour since this, I've noticed it's in those kind of situations where I say the silliest things: when you feel a pressure to say something but you're not sure what.
I think many probably have the same experience to some degree getting a haircut or the like (although haircuts usually don't take 3 hours; or at least, mine don't).
I'd certainly like to think I wouldn't be the kind of person who would "the same stupid jokes or comments" that you mentioned – but I can point at least to once case where I've done so. There are probably others that I've forgotten.
My point is that it's hard to understand how something is perceived by someone else, especially when their experience is very different from yours, whether that's a tattoo artist or a black programmer.
An idea I had a while ago is a platform where people can post personal stories to expand on these kind of things and how it's perceived by them (about a wide variety of topics). "I didn't mean anything by it" comes off as rather weak, but it's my impression it is actually true in quite a few cases, especially these relatively minor ones: many people just don't understand what it is to be in the shoes of another person. You really need to explain this, and just saying "that's racist" isn't enough.
P.S. Don't get your ribs tattooed people. Good grief that one hurt so much more than any of the others.
> I was even madder when I found the data science interns hired in a parallel recruitment process had been submitted to technical challenges.
That's the miracle of "affirmative action" or whatever you want to call it.
When looking at candidates internally, if a company decides to do affirmative action there are those that you know are there because of their skills (non-diverse individuals) and there are the other ones. Are they there because of skills? Could be, could also be HR wanting to push diversity? Also possible.
Some places I've even seen a "diversity quota" for tech recruiters that's tied to a bonus. So at every "diverse" hire you encounter you have to ask yourself: are they here because of skills or because someone was one hire short of cashing out their bonus?
That's the miracle of "affirmative action" or whatever you want to call it.
When looking at candidates internally, if a company decides to do affirmative action there are those that you know are there because of their skills (non-diverse individuals) and there are the other ones. Are they there because of skills? Could be, could also be HR wanting to push diversity? Also possible.
Some places I've even seen a "diversity quota" for tech recruiters that's tied to a bonus. So at every "diverse" hire you encounter you have to ask yourself: are they here because of skills or because someone was one hire short of cashing out their bonus?
We had a great music director once, now world renowned (we never deserved him), who believed in blind as in blindfolded auditions.
Whoever the candidates were, whatever their backgrounds and accolades and educations, he didn't care. No one was to know who they were rating, and after a while there were complaints of bias... for talent.
During that period, yes, there were more women and people of color chosen than historically comprised their body, but they were from everywhere. It turns out musicians didn't want to be reduced to bigoted demographics, so it attracted many more "non-traditional" candidates when word spread you could make it on merit.
Blind auditions were scrapped when he left, and so did actual diversity. You can include everyone today in a single introduction by mentioning Yale, Juilliard, Paris Conservatory, Royal Academy, etc.
Merit destroys class privilege, which is a big faux pas when your patrons tend to be family of people who want to advance their careers in your institution. Just recently, I couldn't help but notice the timing of the creation of another superfluous position being filled by a fledgling choral director and a $MM donation by his parents to expand the performance hall he'll be using.
Mere dutiful patronage, surely, in these times of austerity.
Whoever the candidates were, whatever their backgrounds and accolades and educations, he didn't care. No one was to know who they were rating, and after a while there were complaints of bias... for talent.
During that period, yes, there were more women and people of color chosen than historically comprised their body, but they were from everywhere. It turns out musicians didn't want to be reduced to bigoted demographics, so it attracted many more "non-traditional" candidates when word spread you could make it on merit.
Blind auditions were scrapped when he left, and so did actual diversity. You can include everyone today in a single introduction by mentioning Yale, Juilliard, Paris Conservatory, Royal Academy, etc.
Merit destroys class privilege, which is a big faux pas when your patrons tend to be family of people who want to advance their careers in your institution. Just recently, I couldn't help but notice the timing of the creation of another superfluous position being filled by a fledgling choral director and a $MM donation by his parents to expand the performance hall he'll be using.
Mere dutiful patronage, surely, in these times of austerity.
I've read about this before (some fancy orchestra, not sure if it's the same one as you've mentioned) and I went to one of those "Let's get more X in technology" speeches. They had some crazy complicated ways to solve this (not Occam's Razor thinking).
I asked a question, mentioned the orchestra approach and suggested blind tests for tech recruiting.
i.e. HR scrubs the name, pronouns and anything likely to subconsciously discriminate and pass their resume to the hiring team. Not perfect, but it gives X at least a better shot.
I was pretty much told it would never work and there were better ways and dismissed with a wave of a hand.
So why don't we do these somewhat blind tests?
I asked a question, mentioned the orchestra approach and suggested blind tests for tech recruiting.
i.e. HR scrubs the name, pronouns and anything likely to subconsciously discriminate and pass their resume to the hiring team. Not perfect, but it gives X at least a better shot.
I was pretty much told it would never work and there were better ways and dismissed with a wave of a hand.
So why don't we do these somewhat blind tests?
It's been done. They dismissed it because when hiring is blinded like that the percentage of ordinary men who get hired goes up, not down. Men are discriminated against in hiring and that fixes it, but the type of people who want "diversity" don't want fair or blind hiring. They want to get trophy diversity hires.
Some recent-ish research (I can't remember enough keywords to find it right now) has found that doing this actually hurts women's success rate a couple percentage points.
this was part of the tech hiring method at one place I worked. The main filter was colleague review of an anonymised coding test. I don't know any details but it seemed to have the desired effect - high quality colleagues with diverse cultural identities.
This is the kind of thing I think of when people talk a out meritocracy. Somehow social studies have warped the perception of meritocracy to mean "anti my group" by selecting examples that aren't meritocratic.
Just look up "meritocracy dead" on a search engine of your choice. It's pretty minds boggling what people want to replace the goal of meritocracy with these days.
Just look up "meritocracy dead" on a search engine of your choice. It's pretty minds boggling what people want to replace the goal of meritocracy with these days.
merit weakens class privilege but it doesn't destroy it. even on tests of merit like the SAT, higher class students usually have advantages in tutoring, more free time to study, etc.
it is certainly still possible for lower class children to get a leg up, but it's still an uphill climb
it is certainly still possible for lower class children to get a leg up, but it's still an uphill climb
Often times it's pretty cheap. Really nice girl I knew at college, her dad dropped $10k on the school. This set her up for life in a town where a $45k per year job was life changing. When I left she was a VP in the college administration knocking down a very easy $85k. (The president made $155k, for comparison)
That's one take. Another take is that people want chums at work. An average person hires someone they see themselves as being friends with rather than the best qualified candidate. Animals such as bees, monkeys, and ourselves are also biased to favor their genetic group (kin selection). In other words, you subconsciously favor people who look like you and act like you.
In that light, the non diverse office might be seen as less productive. Maybe this is a bunch of pals goofing off, rather than people hired to do work?
But the whole point of the diversity hire isn't that you get someone who isn't white and that's it. The idea is that for every job, there are thousands of people who are qualified to do it, and among those, there are certainly people from all sorts of walks of life, and you'd spend earnest effort overcoming your subconscious biases by dipping your hand into the pool of equally skilled candidates, and pulling out the one that this overtly white dominated society we live in has held down since forever.
In that light, the non diverse office might be seen as less productive. Maybe this is a bunch of pals goofing off, rather than people hired to do work?
But the whole point of the diversity hire isn't that you get someone who isn't white and that's it. The idea is that for every job, there are thousands of people who are qualified to do it, and among those, there are certainly people from all sorts of walks of life, and you'd spend earnest effort overcoming your subconscious biases by dipping your hand into the pool of equally skilled candidates, and pulling out the one that this overtly white dominated society we live in has held down since forever.
> But the whole point of the diversity hire isn't that you get someone who isn't white and that's it. The idea is that for every job, there are thousands of people who are qualified to do it, and among those, there are certainly people from all sorts of walks of life, and you'd spend earnest effort overcoming your subconscious biases by dipping your hand into the pool of equally skilled candidates, and pulling out the one that this overtly white dominated society we live in has held down since forever.
How did you find a recruiting pipeline where you can confidently say that there are thousands of equally competent potential hires in it? In Software Engineering?
I'm very curious to know where and how you source talent.
How did you find a recruiting pipeline where you can confidently say that there are thousands of equally competent potential hires in it? In Software Engineering?
I'm very curious to know where and how you source talent.
I have interviewed hundreds and hired dozens of software developers over the years. It’s always been a challenge to find qualified candidates and I’ve never had a situation where there were 5 similarly qualified programmers, much less thousands.
I think there may be some positions where there lots of people equally skilled, but not aware of any in tech.
Perhaps there are thousands in the entire world, but not that apply to my positions. I think this is a good argument for trying to get more and better applications. But it confuses me to think that of the applicants I get, I can assume many are equally skilled.
I think there may be some positions where there lots of people equally skilled, but not aware of any in tech.
Perhaps there are thousands in the entire world, but not that apply to my positions. I think this is a good argument for trying to get more and better applications. But it confuses me to think that of the applicants I get, I can assume many are equally skilled.
I spent some some doing work for a recruitment company and my takeaway from that was that culture fit is the #1 predictor of a successful placement.
Thanks for saying and explaining what diversity hiring actually is. Much needed and much appreciated.
So the whole thing is based off of false premises; good to know.
It sure would be easier to build software firms if every job got thousands of qualified applicants. Obviously, that isn't the case.
That has more to do with the lack of marketing of the job opening than a lack of qualified talent out there
I think more generally the issue is being swamped with unqualified talent, such that it's difficult to identify actual talent amongst the mess. A lot of people are not trying to be good at what they do, they're just trying to be paid for what they do.
What's the issue? Look through resumes, see who has worked in this area before, interview and see if they talk the talk, hire and get them up to speed to walk your walk.
If the job is so complex that you have difficulty finding someone who can fit in every required peg, then that job should be broken into smaller, more manageable tasks that can be done by several more common people from the labor pool. It's just good business sense, too. If you require some specialist that takes forever to find and they leave, then you are screwed while hunting for a replacement. If you've instead broken that complicated job into digestible pieces, and someone leaves, you can hire a decent candidate before your employee even leaves, and have your employee get their replacement up to speed in their last few weeks along with the rest of the team.
If the job is so complex that you have difficulty finding someone who can fit in every required peg, then that job should be broken into smaller, more manageable tasks that can be done by several more common people from the labor pool. It's just good business sense, too. If you require some specialist that takes forever to find and they leave, then you are screwed while hunting for a replacement. If you've instead broken that complicated job into digestible pieces, and someone leaves, you can hire a decent candidate before your employee even leaves, and have your employee get their replacement up to speed in their last few weeks along with the rest of the team.
The general problem, I think, is that talking the talk is not that hard, especially if you're not already well-covered in that domain (e.g. an established department/strong competency in the specific area) -- see all of sales. It's not that hard even if you are well-covered in that domain -- see all of pre-sales, and all of consulting. The fundamental issue is that describing a solution in broad strokes is much easier than in detail, and an interview doesn't give you so much time to even get into those details; and spending time to further evaluate is at least weeks of effort (because it's difficult to differentiate between someone competent getting up to speed on your codebase, and someone incompetent, and someone incompetent but can be made competent, without sufficient time to evaluate).
A lot of time is burned in recruitment cycles, largely because its much easier to say you're competent than to prove that you're not. (not to mention the natural reluctance & possible legal difficulties with firing).
Jobs get thousands of applicants; few of whom are worth considering, and resumes/interviews really don't tell you all that much. They tell you more than nothing, which is why they're used, but it's difficult to be comfortable on those alone, and there's not that much more you can do before it becomes weeks/days of free labor by your candidate.
Anyways, there's more than enough money burned on the subject that "throw more marketing at the problem" is very likely too easy an answer.
A lot of time is burned in recruitment cycles, largely because its much easier to say you're competent than to prove that you're not. (not to mention the natural reluctance & possible legal difficulties with firing).
Jobs get thousands of applicants; few of whom are worth considering, and resumes/interviews really don't tell you all that much. They tell you more than nothing, which is why they're used, but it's difficult to be comfortable on those alone, and there's not that much more you can do before it becomes weeks/days of free labor by your candidate.
Anyways, there's more than enough money burned on the subject that "throw more marketing at the problem" is very likely too easy an answer.
That's a potential issue in every job in every field. Somehow, it's only tech interviews that assign candidates unpaid homework. How are bridges not collapsing left and right from all the incompetent civil engineers they've been hiring with no whiteboard interviews?? Because you don't need to assign homework to probe whether or not a candidate knows the stuff they put on their resume. You can just talk to them about there experience and their approaches, like is done in any other discipline. You can call up references. Yes, you can fire the truly incompetent ones like is done in other fields, since California is an at-will state.
> How are bridges not collapsing left and right from all the incompetent civil engineers they've been hiring with no whiteboard interviews??
What? Other engineering fields have certifications and standards processes that actually mean something, and enforcement of it. That’s how they determine the baseline standard.
Software engineering’s closest thing is a 4-year degree who’s so routinely undervalued (per alignment to work requirements) it’s challenged by 3 month bootcamps, which are themselves challenged by garage-living dropouts with no explicit formal education.
And traditionally you had near-decade training with an apprentice/master system, or in a trade school, or expected-lifetime employment & training with the same company.
Software development is pretty new in trying to force feed training in large quantities with little to no verification, standards process or really any legitimate first or third-party trust-rings or evaluation process. I mean shit we’re still running on the assumption that the 20-year old dropout has decent potential to be an expert in his field ala wiz/gates/carmack.
As an industry, I think we’re fairly unique in our general incompetence.
What? Other engineering fields have certifications and standards processes that actually mean something, and enforcement of it. That’s how they determine the baseline standard.
Software engineering’s closest thing is a 4-year degree who’s so routinely undervalued (per alignment to work requirements) it’s challenged by 3 month bootcamps, which are themselves challenged by garage-living dropouts with no explicit formal education.
And traditionally you had near-decade training with an apprentice/master system, or in a trade school, or expected-lifetime employment & training with the same company.
Software development is pretty new in trying to force feed training in large quantities with little to no verification, standards process or really any legitimate first or third-party trust-rings or evaluation process. I mean shit we’re still running on the assumption that the 20-year old dropout has decent potential to be an expert in his field ala wiz/gates/carmack.
As an industry, I think we’re fairly unique in our general incompetence.
> Some places I've even seen a "diversity quota" for tech recruiters that's tied to a bonus.
It makes sense if you want to increase diversity to have the beginning of the funnel get lots of diverse candidates in. The recruiter is not a decision maker in most places, so the hiring bar is not necessarily affected by whether the recruiter got more diversity candidates into the funnel or not.
As an example, in my experience there were not a lot of female candidate resumes coming in via normal channels. If the recruiter wants a bonus for increasing gender diversity, they are doing extra work to go and find female candidates and convincing them to apply. That is probably exactly what you want to be happening.
It makes sense if you want to increase diversity to have the beginning of the funnel get lots of diverse candidates in. The recruiter is not a decision maker in most places, so the hiring bar is not necessarily affected by whether the recruiter got more diversity candidates into the funnel or not.
As an example, in my experience there were not a lot of female candidate resumes coming in via normal channels. If the recruiter wants a bonus for increasing gender diversity, they are doing extra work to go and find female candidates and convincing them to apply. That is probably exactly what you want to be happening.
> Some places
... yeah you mean all (~ most) places :)
I've seen this plenty of times. I even heard one manager at a happy hour say, "Thank god I finally hired an ABC and an XYZ, I can finally start recruiting based on talent again". This may be an extreme example, but still.
Unfortunately when you have affirmative action or hiring quotas, you inadvertently to create a culture where the diverse individuals are seen as less skilled and less qualified even when many of them would have gotten to the same place without the quotas.
Unfortunately when you have affirmative action or hiring quotas, you inadvertently to create a culture where the diverse individuals are seen as less skilled and less qualified even when many of them would have gotten to the same place without the quotas.
You can always do affirmative action like Google. Invite the minorities to boot camps, coaching and mentoring programmes and so on... But subject them to the regular interview process and hiring bar.
> Invite the minorities to boot camps, coaching and mentoring programmes and so on... But subject them to the regular interview process and hiring bar.
That's not affirmative action. That's like giving free SAT prep to disadvantaged minorities. Affirmative action is further down the line, moving the bar for test/interview results to hit targets.
Which is not to say Google doesn't do it, just that the programs you're describing aren't it.
That's not affirmative action. That's like giving free SAT prep to disadvantaged minorities. Affirmative action is further down the line, moving the bar for test/interview results to hit targets.
Which is not to say Google doesn't do it, just that the programs you're describing aren't it.
Even when I was there years ago, it was common knowledge amongst those of us who did hiring that women had an easier time in the interview process. For example, females could not fail the first phone screens. They would always be forwarded to on-site interviews regardless of earlier performance. The justification was that weak performance at the initial screens would be taken into account later by the hiring committee, however men were given no such second chances.
> however men were given no such second chances.
That is, of course, if your resume doesn't get tossed out for not being diverse enough [0][1]
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wi...
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/new-lawsuit-exposes-googles-desp...
That is, of course, if your resume doesn't get tossed out for not being diverse enough [0][1]
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wi...
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/new-lawsuit-exposes-googles-desp...
This was my experience at a tech company in the Silicon Valley about 15 years ago. Women who applied were put at the top of the stack and guaranteed an in-person interview, over all other candidates. Even if they absolutely bombed the phone screening. We did end up having one potential candidate, but she was making a huge amount at her previous job and would not 'settle' for what was our sysadmin pay scale at the time. (I can't remember the exact numbers, but she was demanding at least 50% more than the top end of our pay scale.)
I'm still doing this hiring thing (which really slowed down in the pandemic). Inviting people who bombed phone screens on site happens all the time. Some reasons behind that seem to be: gender, ethnicity, nationality, internal references, strong CV, recruiters d20.
They do get filtered later. Over the years only one person who bombed an on site with me got hired. It was a young white man. I believe described this case on HN before.
They do get filtered later. Over the years only one person who bombed an on site with me got hired. It was a young white man. I believe described this case on HN before.
pffft. Google’s screening process is decisively hostile to people with mobility and hearing challenged persuasion.
Been there, done that. It’s a no go.
Been there, done that. It’s a no go.
> there are those that you know are there because of their skills (non-diverse individuals) and there are the other ones.
Wow this is not at all correct based on my experience.
It is so common for "non-diverse individuals" to have gotten where they are based on things like network that I really don't think you can tell just by looking at someone.
The worst developers I have worked with are often traditional "non-diverse" candidates.
Wow this is not at all correct based on my experience.
It is so common for "non-diverse individuals" to have gotten where they are based on things like network that I really don't think you can tell just by looking at someone.
The worst developers I have worked with are often traditional "non-diverse" candidates.
> The worst developers I have worked with are often traditional "non-diverse" candidates.
That's generally in proportion to the ratios in the workspace itself, nothing surprising statistically.
Now ask yourself who are best developers you have ever worked with. Even that is probably non-diverse ones.
That's generally in proportion to the ratios in the workspace itself, nothing surprising statistically.
Now ask yourself who are best developers you have ever worked with. Even that is probably non-diverse ones.
So why isn't some company or founder dipping into this underutilized labor pool and blowing everybody's doors off?
That's a real question, and I don't have a good answer.
That's a real question, and I don't have a good answer.
Because that underutilized labor pool is also pretty green. It's hard to build a product with smart, talented developers who haven't spent a bunch of years learning the ecosystem. There's really no good substitute for the apprenticeship young devs get by being exposed to best practices, senior developers who can cut through problems that they've seen before, configure work flows, etc.
That apprenticeship is expensive. It takes a lot of handholding. Not because they're not smart, but just because there's a vast amount of information that's hard to write down. It's a million little factoids, and they're easy to Google ... once you already know that they're there.
It's not impossible to build a company with one really good senior dev and a bunch of fresh-outs. But that's made one level more complicated when you've got a diversity of cultures in the room, and the hiring process ends up coming down to "Well, that guy just seemed like a better fit". So the excluded ones give up, and the process perpetuates.
I'm oversimplifying like crazy, and every real situation is different. But startups don't have the money or time to do better, and established companies just keep repeating their situations because that's what got them there.
Some day somebody may figure out how to change that... and they're almost certainly going to get run through the wringer on HN accusing them of being affirmative-action SJW wokeness virtue-signallers. Which just makes it one step harder, and when they fail (as most new things do) it will further cement for people that Those People just can't code.
That apprenticeship is expensive. It takes a lot of handholding. Not because they're not smart, but just because there's a vast amount of information that's hard to write down. It's a million little factoids, and they're easy to Google ... once you already know that they're there.
It's not impossible to build a company with one really good senior dev and a bunch of fresh-outs. But that's made one level more complicated when you've got a diversity of cultures in the room, and the hiring process ends up coming down to "Well, that guy just seemed like a better fit". So the excluded ones give up, and the process perpetuates.
I'm oversimplifying like crazy, and every real situation is different. But startups don't have the money or time to do better, and established companies just keep repeating their situations because that's what got them there.
Some day somebody may figure out how to change that... and they're almost certainly going to get run through the wringer on HN accusing them of being affirmative-action SJW wokeness virtue-signallers. Which just makes it one step harder, and when they fail (as most new things do) it will further cement for people that Those People just can't code.
> It's hard to build a product with smart, talented developers who haven't spent a bunch of years learning the ecosystem.
And, yet, YC funds these kinds of companies all the time. So why isn't YC tapping that pool?
> But that's made one level more complicated when you've got a diversity of cultures in the room
I don't buy that.
Tech happily on a daily basis deals with people who can barely speak the same language.
And, yet, YC funds these kinds of companies all the time. So why isn't YC tapping that pool?
> But that's made one level more complicated when you've got a diversity of cultures in the room
I don't buy that.
Tech happily on a daily basis deals with people who can barely speak the same language.
... which is exactly why the post points out the need for the applicant to be informed about affirmative action being applied. If you know how much AA was applied, you can actually make a better argument when you're mistreated.
[for the people downvoting: I'm just pointing out what the article says.]
[for the people downvoting: I'm just pointing out what the article says.]
You are asking the companies to divulge that hiring you was a crass violation of labor laws?
That doesn't seem a likely course of action.
That doesn't seem a likely course of action.
Sure. Company wide email: "Careful with these demographics: make sure to re-interview them before joining your team, they might not have had a proper technical screen."
The lawsuit would be hilarious.
The lawsuit would be hilarious.
These conversations already happen, they just tend to be more subtle. "So and so has made tremendous progress over the last several months, and I think with a little more support and guidance they could really excel...".
as someone who would make a diversity hire myself I am aghast at how this situation isn't taken as a opportunity to show the fools who hired me how utterly wrongly they've judged me. this reads like it's creating the very conditions for not achieving that, born out by the litany of positions held too briefly for making anything out of them at all.
Recruiters don’t make the final decisions on hiring. The bonuses incentivize them or seek out diverse clients, not to lower standards. And your whole argument is, unfortunately, the standard-issue objection to any efforts to change an unfair system by, just to rub it in, once again blaming its victims.
Why don’t you ever suspect that young white guy to just have the job bececause their father knows the CXO from golf? Did that sysadmin use to room with the tech lead in colleges? Empirically, such employment biographies are far more common than your hypotheticals. Gut somehow, they do not seem to provoke this righteous anger of meritocracy.
Why don’t you ever suspect that young white guy to just have the job bececause their father knows the CXO from golf? Did that sysadmin use to room with the tech lead in colleges? Empirically, such employment biographies are far more common than your hypotheticals. Gut somehow, they do not seem to provoke this righteous anger of meritocracy.
If you're using whataboutism to justify something you already lost. Two wrongs don't make a right.
By the same conflation one could argue that nepotism is a prefectly valid employment tactic due to quota-filling also being.
By the same conflation one could argue that nepotism is a prefectly valid employment tactic due to quota-filling also being.
People always say "two wrongs don't make a right" and then make no effort to correct the first wrong that happens to benefit them.
You're making the assumption that all wrongs can be corrected or made right, and that's often not true. We want to believe that everything can be magically fixed if we just come up with a clever enough solution. But many things don't work that way, and can't be made right, even if someone wants to do so. For example if you best friend sleeps with your spouse, you can forgive everyone, you can get divorced, you can move on, but there's no "making the wrong right".
Never had anything given to me by any connection in my family. Heck, my family dosen't even have any connections I could profit off if I wanted to.
Now, it does annoy me having had to jump-backwards through the modern interviews for tech position and now there are people like the author who get handed the same kind of jobs solely based on the genitalia the were born with and still complains about it.
So save your dollar store philosophy and stop making judgments about my reasons.
Now, it does annoy me having had to jump-backwards through the modern interviews for tech position and now there are people like the author who get handed the same kind of jobs solely based on the genitalia the were born with and still complains about it.
So save your dollar store philosophy and stop making judgments about my reasons.
If you cheat during a football game, there's a yardage penalty applied that gives the other team an "unearned" advantage. It's somehow plainly obvious there that if you simply say "don't commit penalties" but don't enforce it, people will cheat and commit penalties. And this wouldn't be fair or just.
Yet people lose their shit when it comes to trying to apply proactive equalizers to a historically deeply unfair society.
There's no real mystery, it's just selfishness taking precedence over correcting past wrongs.
That said, to do it effectively, I believe we need to focus on doing it early on in schooling, and the burden and pressure being put on companies is a heavy one because it doesn't align with where the opportunities first diverge.
Yet people lose their shit when it comes to trying to apply proactive equalizers to a historically deeply unfair society.
There's no real mystery, it's just selfishness taking precedence over correcting past wrongs.
That said, to do it effectively, I believe we need to focus on doing it early on in schooling, and the burden and pressure being put on companies is a heavy one because it doesn't align with where the opportunities first diverge.
So you think countries are necessarily made of teams of extremely cohesive people organized by e.g. skin color? And that all their members shall be jointly punished in case of wrongdoing of other members or even of their ancestors? Some of the results of that policy, if applied in its entirety, could well be not what you seem to expect. And I'm not to say that would be fair, when looking at an appropriate big picture, but let's not fall into infalsifiable hypotheses either. Nor complete essentialisation.
I agree with the need to attempt to correct unfairness by starting early, though. Just also pay attention to confounding factors, and never lose sight of the goal.
I agree with the need to attempt to correct unfairness by starting early, though. Just also pay attention to confounding factors, and never lose sight of the goal.
Sports are one of the few examples of a zero sum game in life. It is impossible to punish one team without giving an opposing team an unearned advantage in their league's standings. This unearned advantage is a negative externality of a game's best solution to prevent bad behavior.
In hiring, which is not a zero sum game, we can prevent these undesired behaviors (acknowledging and correcting for bias) without giving token advantages which undermine meritocracy
In hiring, which is not a zero sum game, we can prevent these undesired behaviors (acknowledging and correcting for bias) without giving token advantages which undermine meritocracy
Can you explain to me how hiring is not a zero sum game? Suppose I have an open position. If I hire person A, I am not hiring person B, C, D, etc. How is it not zero sum?
This is an absurd analogy that doesn’t map to the situation at all. What you’re actually saying is that if a white person cheated at football before you were even alive, all white people playing today should get a yardage penalty.
What is selfish is you punishing someone else with the same skin color, and then upholding literal racism as a virtue.
They absolutely should lose their shit over that.
What is selfish is you punishing someone else with the same skin color, and then upholding literal racism as a virtue.
They absolutely should lose their shit over that.
You don't have to ask yourself that, you can just accept that the people who you work with will usually be out of your control and respect their skills separately from what they look like. If they suck, then they suck, but don't prejudge because you think diversity hiring is rampant everywhere, which it is not.
> who you work with will usually be out of your control and respect their skills
Unless you're in a small company with a substantial ownership stake, not only should you accept the reality of this but also accept that dealing with it is part of your job. Making the best of the team and resources available is part of the job description.
If given the reins of the hiring process, a given developer could not do a better job filling out company's a roster.
The company has made decisions. Unless you were consulted on those decisions, your opinions aren't desired. Most of the time, your helping of those decisions' consequences will be inline with your responsibility for them: nil (scapegoating happens and shit rolls downhill, but I'd argue both are necessarily rare).
Unless you're in a small company with a substantial ownership stake, not only should you accept the reality of this but also accept that dealing with it is part of your job. Making the best of the team and resources available is part of the job description.
If given the reins of the hiring process, a given developer could not do a better job filling out company's a roster.
The company has made decisions. Unless you were consulted on those decisions, your opinions aren't desired. Most of the time, your helping of those decisions' consequences will be inline with your responsibility for them: nil (scapegoating happens and shit rolls downhill, but I'd argue both are necessarily rare).
I guess not everyone agrees, since my comment was demolished.
Upvotes and downvotes are two sides to the same coin of passion! I'm used to my stricter "it's your job" comments getting downvotes. I always assume because they come off as hyper-conservative, bootstraps type language.
In this case, I think it's funny because the same mentality results in a more kumbaya attitude in the workplace (it's not my job to pick my coworkers. Whatever their faults, it is my job to succeed anyway). It's the type of thing I'd expect to be a bit of a upvote magnet...but I suppose hating on crappy coworkers trumps warmfuzzies in the HN crowd.
In this case, I think it's funny because the same mentality results in a more kumbaya attitude in the workplace (it's not my job to pick my coworkers. Whatever their faults, it is my job to succeed anyway). It's the type of thing I'd expect to be a bit of a upvote magnet...but I suppose hating on crappy coworkers trumps warmfuzzies in the HN crowd.
> Boys are just predisposed for technology by nature
This is true. There is scientific evidence that shows men prefer things, women prefer people. This is not to say women can’t succeed in tech or are not as good at tech, but the fact that women choose other fields belies this nature.
Women are better at language, social interactions, etc. So when her boss says to use her “feminine” skills to talk to a difficult co-worker, it’s simply a comment on a predisposed advantage women have over men when looking at the statistics.
Surprisingly, this would probably make females better managers rather than code monkeys. Managers make more money too.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19883140/
> the times I was over-explained, or the times interviewers made a “not bad” facial expression when I replied correctly to technical questions
The problem women have today is that they are programmed to see everything as sexism, when in fact such things happen regardless of sex.
This really approaches disbelief. A “not bad” facial expression being sexism.
When she was fired for lacking team chemistry, I don’t doubt it when you have someone psycho-analyzing every single gesture and seeing it through some sexism lens.
And a junior developer out of college complaining about being “over-explained”. How hard is it to say “I am very familiar with this topic” and move on.
This is true. There is scientific evidence that shows men prefer things, women prefer people. This is not to say women can’t succeed in tech or are not as good at tech, but the fact that women choose other fields belies this nature.
Women are better at language, social interactions, etc. So when her boss says to use her “feminine” skills to talk to a difficult co-worker, it’s simply a comment on a predisposed advantage women have over men when looking at the statistics.
Surprisingly, this would probably make females better managers rather than code monkeys. Managers make more money too.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19883140/
> the times I was over-explained, or the times interviewers made a “not bad” facial expression when I replied correctly to technical questions
The problem women have today is that they are programmed to see everything as sexism, when in fact such things happen regardless of sex.
This really approaches disbelief. A “not bad” facial expression being sexism.
When she was fired for lacking team chemistry, I don’t doubt it when you have someone psycho-analyzing every single gesture and seeing it through some sexism lens.
And a junior developer out of college complaining about being “over-explained”. How hard is it to say “I am very familiar with this topic” and move on.
>The problem women have today is that they are programmed to see everything as sexism, when in fact such things happen regardless of sex.
Case in point why women feel uncomfortable in the tech industry. Men holding opinions like this lurk there.
Case in point why women feel uncomfortable in the tech industry. Men holding opinions like this lurk there.
> > Boys are just predisposed for technology by nature
>
> This is true. There is scientific evidence that shows men
> prefer things, women prefer people. This is not to say
> women can’t succeed in tech or are not as good at tech,
> but the fact that women choose other fields belies this
> nature.
Even if most women prefer to work with people as opposed to working on things, it does not tell you anything about the specific candidate one is considering for a job.
Regarding the quote from the article: It was used to dismiss the idea of also going to high schools instead of just going to colleges to promote the companies opportunities. So while going into high schools to promote job opportunities in tech likely can not eliminate that general difference in interests, it can have an effect on those women who would be interested but are not convinced or aware (enough) yet.
Nah bud, this ain’t it.
> Women are better at language, social interactions, etc. So when her boss says to use her “feminine” skills to talk to a difficult co-worker, it’s simply a comment on a predisposed advantage women have over men when looking at the statistics.
This boss was clearly an amateur. A truly effective manager inputs their employees' eye colors, clothing preferences, heart rates, favorite books, and heights into the magic statistics machine to determine the correct person for each task.
This boss was clearly an amateur. A truly effective manager inputs their employees' eye colors, clothing preferences, heart rates, favorite books, and heights into the magic statistics machine to determine the correct person for each task.
I am amused about these perceptions of bias in “tech”, especially coming from those with little experience elsewhere. I work in tech and also in the tugboat industry. My consulting work has brought me into organizations in many industries. Tech is much better at being fair to minorities and the otherwise disadvantaged than non-tech industries. I don’t know how people end up complaining about tech without noticing the rest of the world around them. Have they wondered why the people who work on their car or dispose of their garbage are primarily men? Of the misogynists and racists with whom I interact, tech has the least representation.
It's simple. Tech pays well, so that's where people feel there is the highest leverage to change outcomes.
this is just a rehash of "you shouldn't complain because other people have it worse"
Not at all. I think the characterization of tech as especially bad is incorrect and put forward only by those with no experience in other industries.
As I thought more about this, I realized (again) that the reason this happens is that people in tech are more likely to have blogs and other ways to make themselves heard. They don't see their privilege. This article could easily be titled "4 Times I Felt Discriminated Against for Being a Female" and drop the word "Developer". The oppressed in other industries don't have as much power. This reinforces the case that those who oppose the tech industry having an outsize influence on culture.
No, that’s totally what your initial statement conveys. Whether that’s your intent is a different thing.
Point 1 and 2 shows why hiring based on gender instead of merit is a bad idea. It would have been way better for the author of this post to have been turned down by the diversity seekers and found a company that was looking for someone with her skillset and personality instead.
Point 3 is such a stupid thing to say. I don't know about reporting him for it, how about just telling him that he is stupid and condescending? That would work in Sweden at least, maybe there is a different work culture in USA.
Point 4 is actually true, proved scienctifically, and has nothing to do with discrimination. Due to differences in the brain that we are born with, men are on average more interested in technology than women. That does not mean that you can point to a specific women and draw the conclusion that because she is a women she is less suited to work in tech than a man. It does however explain why more men than female study computer science for example. Yes, I'm sure phenomens like computer games biased towards male might enhance this, but even without it you would see the differences.
Before you downvote me because I'm a sexist, please have a look here:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-mens-brains-a...
https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-...
Point 3 is such a stupid thing to say. I don't know about reporting him for it, how about just telling him that he is stupid and condescending? That would work in Sweden at least, maybe there is a different work culture in USA.
Point 4 is actually true, proved scienctifically, and has nothing to do with discrimination. Due to differences in the brain that we are born with, men are on average more interested in technology than women. That does not mean that you can point to a specific women and draw the conclusion that because she is a women she is less suited to work in tech than a man. It does however explain why more men than female study computer science for example. Yes, I'm sure phenomens like computer games biased towards male might enhance this, but even without it you would see the differences.
Before you downvote me because I'm a sexist, please have a look here:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-mens-brains-a...
https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-...
Unfortunately, today's radfem crowd quotes science only when it fits their agenda.
About this quote:
> “Boys are just predisposed for technology by nature, and there is nothing we can do. I see it in my children: While my son prefers video games, my daughter only cares about Facebook.”
We can see that adult women and men make different choices. We can go back in time and see they made different choices as teenagers and young adult when on average they chose to study different things. In the example above, her children make different choices as children.
A counter argument might be that different toys are targeted at girls and boys. It sounds like a possible explanation, but could it be that the reason different toys are targeted at girls and boys is because of different preferences? If there is demand, someone will deliver the supply.
If we take another step back in time and look at infants, we get the answer. Show newly born infants things and faces and the boys are more interested in the things and the girls are more interested in the faces (people).
So yes, there is an average difference in interest - not a difference in intelligence or ability, but in interest.
There is also plenty of overlap. Many women and men are interested in the same things. Some women are very interested in technology. Some men are very interested in people. But on average, there is a significant difference.
Is this a problem?
Only if we consider the typical male preference for technology to be better or superior than the typical female preference for people. This is where the real problem lies.
Men and women are, on average, different. Let's appreciate our differences.
> “Boys are just predisposed for technology by nature, and there is nothing we can do. I see it in my children: While my son prefers video games, my daughter only cares about Facebook.”
We can see that adult women and men make different choices. We can go back in time and see they made different choices as teenagers and young adult when on average they chose to study different things. In the example above, her children make different choices as children.
A counter argument might be that different toys are targeted at girls and boys. It sounds like a possible explanation, but could it be that the reason different toys are targeted at girls and boys is because of different preferences? If there is demand, someone will deliver the supply.
If we take another step back in time and look at infants, we get the answer. Show newly born infants things and faces and the boys are more interested in the things and the girls are more interested in the faces (people).
So yes, there is an average difference in interest - not a difference in intelligence or ability, but in interest.
There is also plenty of overlap. Many women and men are interested in the same things. Some women are very interested in technology. Some men are very interested in people. But on average, there is a significant difference.
Is this a problem?
Only if we consider the typical male preference for technology to be better or superior than the typical female preference for people. This is where the real problem lies.
Men and women are, on average, different. Let's appreciate our differences.
> Is this a problem?
It's a problem if one applies the typical to the specific. If a woman is sitting in front of you and you assume her characteristics match the mean of all women's characteristics, congrats, you are sexist.
It's a problem if one applies the typical to the specific. If a woman is sitting in front of you and you assume her characteristics match the mean of all women's characteristics, congrats, you are sexist.
Alright I have to share. I’m brownish and never I think encountered racism. As for the women I’ve had the pleasure of working with they’ve have all been an absolute joy to work with, with the exception of one. They’re in a male dominated field and I suspect they know and work to compensate against it. I bet it must suck for them honestly to live with that pressure but as their peer its made them exceptionally competent and professional. I’d work again with them anytime enthusiastically (which is rare)
The one woman I worked with that didn’t end up so well was an engineer, who when she decided she wanted to move on with her career developed a standard playbook of falsely claiming sexual harassment against an executive and walk away with a nice check in hand. Done to every employers she’s ever worked with including a few FAANGs.
On a more related note about this article, I got lost on the cultural termination. I didn’t hear discrimination. I heard bad hiring practice, probably by people who don’t have a lot experience hiring. If they were smart after that term they updated their hiring practices. That’s why some startups invite you to lunch or an outing.. to avoid those issues.
As a new founder having accusations like this terrify me of hiring in general. It’s different when it’s yours and not just a cog in a machine
The one woman I worked with that didn’t end up so well was an engineer, who when she decided she wanted to move on with her career developed a standard playbook of falsely claiming sexual harassment against an executive and walk away with a nice check in hand. Done to every employers she’s ever worked with including a few FAANGs.
On a more related note about this article, I got lost on the cultural termination. I didn’t hear discrimination. I heard bad hiring practice, probably by people who don’t have a lot experience hiring. If they were smart after that term they updated their hiring practices. That’s why some startups invite you to lunch or an outing.. to avoid those issues.
As a new founder having accusations like this terrify me of hiring in general. It’s different when it’s yours and not just a cog in a machine
Number 4 struck me as pretty toxic behavior that I wouldn't want on my team.
A female coworker shared a disagreeable opinion, which the author takes it as a personal attack, bottles up their response, deems the co-worker a sexist, and judges their parenting skills to boot.
Ironically, they then go on to call the event they were attending a wasted educational opportunity.
A female coworker shared a disagreeable opinion, which the author takes it as a personal attack, bottles up their response, deems the co-worker a sexist, and judges their parenting skills to boot.
Ironically, they then go on to call the event they were attending a wasted educational opportunity.
I’m over 50 and feel discriminated as a developer every day.
By people giving you jobs and asking for your input?
I interview candidates for developer positions and the bias against women in the (Australian) developer job market seems plain to me.
I work at a smallish company owned by a bigger group of companies, it is a nice place to work and family friendly, but not at the top of many people's list of exciting places to work.
I don't know all the filters between me and the people submitting their resumes, but there are lots of stages and filters and the process is slow.
As an unexciting company we're not getting the first draft picks from the market. By the time we get internal approval to offer a job to someone, more often than not men have another better offer, women generally don't.
I believe we are able to hire women with skills and experience that would not be as available to us if they were men.
Part of the dynamic would be that our company is very family friendly, and on average women are prioritising that higher than men, and thus on average ranking us higher than men, and therefore some of the bias is structural, rather than being entirely driven by personal misogyny of the recruiters and interviewers.
But that would only help explain the higher availability of excellent female candidates who are prioritising raising a family, it doesn't explain my belief that we have disproportionally been able to hire women with standout level of skills and experience no intention of ever having children*, candidates that I believe would be much less likely to be available to us if they were men.
(* no - I didn't ask that in the interview, I learned that afterwards, when we were work colleagues! )
I work at a smallish company owned by a bigger group of companies, it is a nice place to work and family friendly, but not at the top of many people's list of exciting places to work.
I don't know all the filters between me and the people submitting their resumes, but there are lots of stages and filters and the process is slow.
As an unexciting company we're not getting the first draft picks from the market. By the time we get internal approval to offer a job to someone, more often than not men have another better offer, women generally don't.
I believe we are able to hire women with skills and experience that would not be as available to us if they were men.
Part of the dynamic would be that our company is very family friendly, and on average women are prioritising that higher than men, and thus on average ranking us higher than men, and therefore some of the bias is structural, rather than being entirely driven by personal misogyny of the recruiters and interviewers.
But that would only help explain the higher availability of excellent female candidates who are prioritising raising a family, it doesn't explain my belief that we have disproportionally been able to hire women with standout level of skills and experience no intention of ever having children*, candidates that I believe would be much less likely to be available to us if they were men.
(* no - I didn't ask that in the interview, I learned that afterwards, when we were work colleagues! )
Yea. I'm feeling pretty good about the policy of removing name/location/photos/etc from my profile reviews on applicants. It's an attempt to block some bias inducing factors. (It's not 100%).
I've always been afraid of having to lower the hiring bar due to diversity quotas. Thankfully, I have always had the chance to focus on the particular skill set, instead. The ideas about ensuring big enough sampling from diverse sources during sourcing sounds like a good solution, without having to lower your hiring bar.
What sparks my curiosity, though, is out of 3 companies the original poster has written about, the second time she knew she is a diversity hire. Yet, this time it doesn't matter at all, because she was excited about the opportunity.
It strikes me, because it suddenly wasn't a problem once it aligned with the original poster. If we stand up to some idea, shouldn't we live up to it every time? If you hate being a diversity hire, why would you accept it once it suits you?
What sparks my curiosity, though, is out of 3 companies the original poster has written about, the second time she knew she is a diversity hire. Yet, this time it doesn't matter at all, because she was excited about the opportunity.
It strikes me, because it suddenly wasn't a problem once it aligned with the original poster. If we stand up to some idea, shouldn't we live up to it every time? If you hate being a diversity hire, why would you accept it once it suits you?
I think you just misread what her objection was to the first point. Quoting from 1.,
> I didn’t know what to think. I have a strong opinion about diversity hires: Although I don’t think they are a perfect solution, I consider them an effective measure to break the ceiling glass that excludes minorities from certain roles. But I always thought that if it ever happened to me, it would be a transparent process and I would have the opportunity to accept the conditions deliberately.
It was at least implied upfront that she was a diversity hire for 2.
And maybe I just don't have as strong a moral compass as you, but I have found it difficult to always uphold the ideas I stand for. E.g. I like the idea of solely merit-based hiring. But if I got a dream job because I knew the CEO's friend and they put in a good word for me, I would have a hard time rejecting that offer.
> I didn’t know what to think. I have a strong opinion about diversity hires: Although I don’t think they are a perfect solution, I consider them an effective measure to break the ceiling glass that excludes minorities from certain roles. But I always thought that if it ever happened to me, it would be a transparent process and I would have the opportunity to accept the conditions deliberately.
It was at least implied upfront that she was a diversity hire for 2.
And maybe I just don't have as strong a moral compass as you, but I have found it difficult to always uphold the ideas I stand for. E.g. I like the idea of solely merit-based hiring. But if I got a dream job because I knew the CEO's friend and they put in a good word for me, I would have a hard time rejecting that offer.
I think I might simply be biased based on my experience. Haven't changed jobs often enough to use any of my friend's referrals. But none of them were my dream job, either. Might, in fact, change my PoV when an opportunity comes.
People react to many different things that are said or done to them. Many people use 'discrimination' as the cause. I will give you one example many hi-tech company's in the USA hire a people of the same heritage or culture - is that discrimination. If you say yes then many white people should put a class action lawsuit against all the non-white companies operating in silicon valley.
> If you say yes then many white people should put a class action lawsuit against all the non-white companies operating in silicon valley.
It only works if you're PoC, sweaty.
It only works if you're PoC, sweaty.
Some folks are nit-picking about which statements are really sexism and which are more universal. I can understand that but I think a better way for folks to sit with this is to pull back.
Homogeneous cultures are bad at understanding how they seem to outsiders. We all lose the trees in the forest. It's not exclusive to race or gender but it comes it in particular around identities (gender, inexperience, etc) that someone has. It's really easy to say a series of statements that an insider would recognize as referencing one quality (i.e. inexperience) but an outsider could easily mistake for referencing another quality (i.e. gender). In order to learn what insiders mean, you need to be in a space where you can hear what existing insiders mean, which generally means insiders should take care with their language.
This is one of the reasons I get suspicious any time "cultural fit" is brought up. It's often talked about as if the existing team has a 'good' culture, and new people might disrupt this existing good culture. However, whenever we discover a cultural mismatch between a new colleague and the existing norm, I suspect what is revealed is that the existing 'good' culture is hostile to certain other cultures. Sometimes that's a good thing (coders should be hostile to people who don't think typos should matter), but generally you want to avoid it.
To put it another way: people from new backgrounds let you see your organization from a different angle. It's a rare and valuable service. If folks are going around and saying things that are earnestly meant to be supportive, but are being heard as diminutive or reductive, that's valuable data! You can learn to not do that! Take the feelings of outsiders who you would like to be insiders seriously - as primary source data - in order to grow your org beyond what it is now.
Homogeneous cultures are bad at understanding how they seem to outsiders. We all lose the trees in the forest. It's not exclusive to race or gender but it comes it in particular around identities (gender, inexperience, etc) that someone has. It's really easy to say a series of statements that an insider would recognize as referencing one quality (i.e. inexperience) but an outsider could easily mistake for referencing another quality (i.e. gender). In order to learn what insiders mean, you need to be in a space where you can hear what existing insiders mean, which generally means insiders should take care with their language.
This is one of the reasons I get suspicious any time "cultural fit" is brought up. It's often talked about as if the existing team has a 'good' culture, and new people might disrupt this existing good culture. However, whenever we discover a cultural mismatch between a new colleague and the existing norm, I suspect what is revealed is that the existing 'good' culture is hostile to certain other cultures. Sometimes that's a good thing (coders should be hostile to people who don't think typos should matter), but generally you want to avoid it.
To put it another way: people from new backgrounds let you see your organization from a different angle. It's a rare and valuable service. If folks are going around and saying things that are earnestly meant to be supportive, but are being heard as diminutive or reductive, that's valuable data! You can learn to not do that! Take the feelings of outsiders who you would like to be insiders seriously - as primary source data - in order to grow your org beyond what it is now.
From what I can read organizations are somewhat awkward in their efforts to help women. Otherwise from the article:
1 & 3: the internship mentor is honest even when saying "interns have to learn". This is not discrimination. The fact UI dev interns do not pass a test versus data science interns is not that shocking. In 3 he tries to solve his problems with the help of the intern. That's quite unfair. At the minimum he should have obtained the intern's agreement beforehand, whether a man or woman.
2: a company of assholes
4: I guess companies should not single out women once they are on payroll. That's not helping them.
1 & 3: the internship mentor is honest even when saying "interns have to learn". This is not discrimination. The fact UI dev interns do not pass a test versus data science interns is not that shocking. In 3 he tries to solve his problems with the help of the intern. That's quite unfair. At the minimum he should have obtained the intern's agreement beforehand, whether a man or woman.
2: a company of assholes
4: I guess companies should not single out women once they are on payroll. That's not helping them.
But I always thought that if it ever happened to me, it would be a transparent process and I would have the opportunity to accept the conditions deliberately.
Why would anyone think that? The point of diversity hiring is to do deliberately what we should be doing naturally until we don't have to do it deliberately anymore. I would be flatly amazed if being told you are a diversity hire is common in any industry. Can you even imagine if a college recruiter said to a prospective student "You're only being accepted because you're Native American, do you still want to attend here?"
Why would anyone think that? The point of diversity hiring is to do deliberately what we should be doing naturally until we don't have to do it deliberately anymore. I would be flatly amazed if being told you are a diversity hire is common in any industry. Can you even imagine if a college recruiter said to a prospective student "You're only being accepted because you're Native American, do you still want to attend here?"
Messed up people a long time ago created a very unfair pyramid with straight white men at the top and transgender black women at the bottom. And too many intelligent people today think the solution to that problem is to rotate that order, rather than to just do away with a pyramid altogether. I hope this is just an interim phase before we consider things like ethnicity and gender as arbitrary as hair color.
I'm sorry, but...
> I have never considered that “having chemistry with the team” could be a reason for being let go.
When you're working in a startup with 5 people and you're not in sync with their personalities, it can be a major drag on everyone.
Having had to see people let go in startups for simply not fitting in, this has nothing to do with you being a woman and to frame it that way reduces the effectiveness of your overall narrative.
> I have never considered that “having chemistry with the team” could be a reason for being let go.
When you're working in a startup with 5 people and you're not in sync with their personalities, it can be a major drag on everyone.
Having had to see people let go in startups for simply not fitting in, this has nothing to do with you being a woman and to frame it that way reduces the effectiveness of your overall narrative.
You're excluding this part:
> I had never received any feedback indicating my performance was poor. In fact, it was exactly the other way around: I’ve never had a role that was such a good fit for my expertise before. So I asked if he could detail better where I failed. He refused to..
It is completely unprofessional to fire someone having never given any feedback. Startup or not.
> I had never received any feedback indicating my performance was poor. In fact, it was exactly the other way around: I’ve never had a role that was such a good fit for my expertise before. So I asked if he could detail better where I failed. He refused to..
It is completely unprofessional to fire someone having never given any feedback. Startup or not.
To me, it seems obvious (I should say though that this is speculation, even if I think I'm right) that she was fired for precisely what she's doing in the article: looking for sexism where it doesn't exist. You cannot coach that behavior, you'll get labelled sexist immediately. There's no way to correct such a problem before letting someone go.
And providing reasons after the fact, as others have stated, is a bad idea because it opens up liability. You have no discriminatory reasons whatsoever for letting someone go, but you bumble some words and the next thing you know you're getting sued. Better to treat it like you're talking to the cops and just not say anything.
And providing reasons after the fact, as others have stated, is a bad idea because it opens up liability. You have no discriminatory reasons whatsoever for letting someone go, but you bumble some words and the next thing you know you're getting sued. Better to treat it like you're talking to the cops and just not say anything.
I wasn't even necessarily defending the practice, just explaining the reason for it and why it's universal.
I agree there should be better feedback. If they are annoying, have the decency to tell them why and point out a few things so they don't go from job to job wondering why they don't fit in.
I agree there should be better feedback. If they are annoying, have the decency to tell them why and point out a few things so they don't go from job to job wondering why they don't fit in.
> I have never considered that “having chemistry with the team” could be a reason for being let go.
That about sums up these accounts of "discrimination." "I got a job because I was a girl! Which I'm totally okay with, except that I didn't know I was getting a job because I'm a girl, and that makes it discrimination."
That about sums up these accounts of "discrimination." "I got a job because I was a girl! Which I'm totally okay with, except that I didn't know I was getting a job because I'm a girl, and that makes it discrimination."
A lot of really insightful and disturbing stories in the comments here about discrimination in hiring. To bring them all together and improve, what hiring practices have you observed that have really worked well?
(Particularly interested in responses from often-marginalized individuals)
(Particularly interested in responses from often-marginalized individuals)
Appreciate the write up with specific examples. I haven’t been discriminated against at work (that I’m aware of) and try very, very hard to avoid it (though I’m sure I have failed unknowingly). This helps remind me of how it can happen whether intentional or not.
This SV clip says it for me. In the words of Guilfoyle "... we should hire the best person for the job. Period." [1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dek5HtNdIHY
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dek5HtNdIHY
This is a challenging issue. I see a few reasons that companies want to increase demographic diversity. One would be that some companies are trying to address more demographically diverse markets and having more diverse teams may reveal more opportunities, or at least help to prevent blunders. For example, if you have people from many skin tones on your team, it's natural for then to say attempt to use a product on themselves and not fix it. If you don't have someone on the team (or at least in a test group) from those backgrounds, you may not think to test broadly--not that anyone was actively trying to be discriminatory--just that it's pretty natural to test things on yourself and within your network. Another reason is to have a stronger work force. A natural human thing to do is to recruit within networks--who did I go to school with? Work with? Where did I go to school? But, if I restrict myself to that pool, maybe I miss out on excellent candidates who went elsewhere. For example, I once found an amazing intern from a tiny college that I never heard of--but he was amazing (now staff at Carnegie Mellon). Finally, there are questions of social justice--organizations should reach out to populations that are underrepresented and ask if their recruiting/hiring processes have blind spots. On the recruiting side, are we reaching outside of our normal channels to recruit? For example, one of my coworkers took on an intern from a community college to do some physics/software project. The intern did well and transferred to the local state school and kept working--as a result, they got several job offers based on that work. On the hiring side, does the current methodology result in good hires? Are relevant characteristics being considered? For example, we sometimes bring on postdocs and as part of the review someone screens them based on their undergraduate grades. To me, this is dumb--no idea where it came from, I care about what they did during their PhD, not if they got a B in calculus as a teenager. It rates right up there with how fast they can run a 400 m race. Not terribly predictive of their ability to do research and probably results in the loss of some good candidates (for example, I met a young woman who went to a crap high school, spent college recovering from crap high school--she went to a small university for her masters and did incredibly well, and now she's at Harvard doing publishing good papers during her PhD--under the current system, she would probably not make it pass that screen). What happens once you have people in the institution is a longer discussion--basically, are people promoted fairly (based on performance)? Are these evenly applied?
[deleted]
Poor thing. Someone get her an electric blanket to warm up her ice cream.
[deleted]
Honestly many of the comments in this thread illustrate the author's point - there is such blatant sexism in tech, to the point that many people don't even realize it is sexism.
Why don't you reply to those comments with your criticism then instead of leaving us wondering?
While being a diversity hire is understandably awkward, I'm not sure what the author expects? She supports the idea, but doesn't want the feeling that comes with it.
boo hoo, let's hear more about your pity party
> The time I was told at a feminist event that men are more naturally predisposed to do my job
They are. This is well studied in several countries now.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...
Edit for the downvoting morons:
'Predisposed to do job' doesn't mean 'better at doing job'. It means 'more likely to do job'. Read the fucking article.
They are. This is well studied in several countries now.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...
Edit for the downvoting morons:
'Predisposed to do job' doesn't mean 'better at doing job'. It means 'more likely to do job'. Read the fucking article.
The linked article says the exact opposite of what you are claiming:
> The issue doesn’t appear to be girls’ aptitude for STEM professions. In looking at test scores across 67 countries and regions, Stoet and Geary found that girls performed about as well or better than boys did on science in most countries, and in almost all countries, girls would have been capable of college-level science and math classes if they had enrolled in them.
> The issue doesn’t appear to be girls’ aptitude for STEM professions. In looking at test scores across 67 countries and regions, Stoet and Geary found that girls performed about as well or better than boys did on science in most countries, and in almost all countries, girls would have been capable of college-level science and math classes if they had enrolled in them.
'Predisposed to do job' doesn't mean 'better at doing job'. It means 'more likely to do job'. Which is what the linked article studies - the fact that as women get more choices, they choose STEM less and less.
Boys are unquestionably more likely to take an interest in tech than girls, and no amount of 'equality' or active enticement aimed at girls has been able to shift that balance. The only thing left is to set diversity targets and discriminate the way that is described in TFA. And it's condescending and harmful as hell towards women who are actually good at what they do in these fields.
Convincing society that every workplace should have a 50/50 gender split is one of the most nefarious things large corporates have done. They've doubled the size of the workforce while not paying a cent more for it. Which is why it takes 2 people working full time today to have the same lifestyle as one person could have funded 50 years ago. Feminism was subverted into enabling corporate greed.
The messaging was quietly shifted from 'all women should have the ability to work if they choose to' to 'all women should work'.
Boys are unquestionably more likely to take an interest in tech than girls, and no amount of 'equality' or active enticement aimed at girls has been able to shift that balance. The only thing left is to set diversity targets and discriminate the way that is described in TFA. And it's condescending and harmful as hell towards women who are actually good at what they do in these fields.
Convincing society that every workplace should have a 50/50 gender split is one of the most nefarious things large corporates have done. They've doubled the size of the workforce while not paying a cent more for it. Which is why it takes 2 people working full time today to have the same lifestyle as one person could have funded 50 years ago. Feminism was subverted into enabling corporate greed.
The messaging was quietly shifted from 'all women should have the ability to work if they choose to' to 'all women should work'.
You're galloping away from your own point here.
You said that the research shows that men are 'more naturally predisposed' towards the sciences. It doesn't show that.
The only thing in that article that addresses any kind of natural predisposition is the information on aptitude, and that doesn't show that men are more likely to do the job.
Everything else is firstly highly speculative, and secondly affected by a range of factors that the research doesn't explore. In fact, it actively suggests other factors - such as economic security - are likely to be involved. It would be difficult to find an article that was further from claiming a natural predisposition.
The research doesn't show any kind of predisposition, let alone a natural one. It notes a pattern - that may be reversing itself - that requires an awful lot more further research before using it to justify lazy stereotypes.
You said that the research shows that men are 'more naturally predisposed' towards the sciences. It doesn't show that.
The only thing in that article that addresses any kind of natural predisposition is the information on aptitude, and that doesn't show that men are more likely to do the job.
Everything else is firstly highly speculative, and secondly affected by a range of factors that the research doesn't explore. In fact, it actively suggests other factors - such as economic security - are likely to be involved. It would be difficult to find an article that was further from claiming a natural predisposition.
The research doesn't show any kind of predisposition, let alone a natural one. It notes a pattern - that may be reversing itself - that requires an awful lot more further research before using it to justify lazy stereotypes.
Aptitude for a thing is your raw capability to do a thing well.
Predisposition to do a thing is your inclination or desire to do a thing at all.
Basically the linked article finds that women are perfectly capable of doing the job, but the more choice they have, the less they want to do it.
Predisposition to do a thing is your inclination or desire to do a thing at all.
Basically the linked article finds that women are perfectly capable of doing the job, but the more choice they have, the less they want to do it.
'Predisposition' is not solely focused on your inclinations. It's absolutely absurd to say, for example, that a genetic predisposition towards cancer is desired by anyone.
What we *know* is that there is no aptitude problem preventing women from doing the job. We also know that many capable women choose not to, particularly in more equal societies.
Jumping from the above information to 'men are naturally more predisposed towards the sciences' is a massive and unsupportable reach, dependent on deliberately ignoring a host of factors and redefining words.
What we *know* is that there is no aptitude problem preventing women from doing the job. We also know that many capable women choose not to, particularly in more equal societies.
Jumping from the above information to 'men are naturally more predisposed towards the sciences' is a massive and unsupportable reach, dependent on deliberately ignoring a host of factors and redefining words.
Predisposition is unambiguous and well-defined. It means that a particular outcome is more likely. It says nothing about the cause or desire for it. You substituted the real meaning for your own agenda.
> Predisposition is unambiguous and well-defined
I agree; it isn't just about what you want.
I agree; it isn't just about what you want.
Two things some people have difficulty differentiating between:
- Being discriminated or insulted for being X
vs:
- Made fun or insulted with reference to X
Not getting a job, a promotion, or even simply heard by your colleagues because you're X is discrimination. Being treated worse because of X is discrimination. Being called anti-X slurs by people considering X being inferior is racism.
But being insulted or made fun of with reference to your X status might not be discrimination at all. Might just be an angry colleague or a colleague making a joke, and it might happen from each to every other member of the team.
E.g. if someone makes fun of an fellow British or German's or Texan's dev's accent, the team can just laught it off. Such jokes happen (or used to happen before fast-track-cancelling became a thing) all the time between young devs in teams.
But if the same is done with the same intent, but the person is e.g. Indian or Asian or Latino, many (especially outside the team or people new to one) make it all about racism and discrimination.
There's this idea that people must be 100% "professional", non joking, always zen-calm, all the time. That is, dry and passive aggresive.
- Being discriminated or insulted for being X
vs:
- Made fun or insulted with reference to X
Not getting a job, a promotion, or even simply heard by your colleagues because you're X is discrimination. Being treated worse because of X is discrimination. Being called anti-X slurs by people considering X being inferior is racism.
But being insulted or made fun of with reference to your X status might not be discrimination at all. Might just be an angry colleague or a colleague making a joke, and it might happen from each to every other member of the team.
E.g. if someone makes fun of an fellow British or German's or Texan's dev's accent, the team can just laught it off. Such jokes happen (or used to happen before fast-track-cancelling became a thing) all the time between young devs in teams.
But if the same is done with the same intent, but the person is e.g. Indian or Asian or Latino, many (especially outside the team or people new to one) make it all about racism and discrimination.
There's this idea that people must be 100% "professional", non joking, always zen-calm, all the time. That is, dry and passive aggresive.
As a white, straight, cisgender, male, <insert_identity_x>, I can't say I've ever been "insulted with reference to X" in the workplace.
The "let me explain discrimination to you" responses from white men in this thread is really cringe-inducing.
The "let me explain discrimination to you" responses from white men in this thread is really cringe-inducing.
Well, I'm not exactly white or American, so your comment is somewhat cringe-inducing.
That said as a X (ethnicity), straight, cisgender, male, I can say I have been mocked in jest, insulted in anger, etc for all those things in the workplace, and did the same to others in rounds. Both in 100% uniform teams, and in mixed teams.
Welcome to the real world.
That said as a X (ethnicity), straight, cisgender, male, I can say I have been mocked in jest, insulted in anger, etc for all those things in the workplace, and did the same to others in rounds. Both in 100% uniform teams, and in mixed teams.
Welcome to the real world.
> There's this idea that people must be 100% "professional", non joking, always zen-calm, all the time. That is, dry and passive aggresive.
This idea is likely held by people who have not had a lifetime of discrimination and insults and made fun of for X. When you have been such a victim, being in a professional, zen-calm work environment is a luxury, and honestly not too much to ask for.
This idea is likely held by people who have not had a lifetime of discrimination and insults and made fun of for X. When you have been such a victim, being in a professional, zen-calm work environment is a luxury, and honestly not too much to ask for.
Here's another anecdote about how female engineers are sometimes used to "balance" their team: https://twitter.com/SeaRyanC/status/1367191778386829312
Unfortunate, BUT how many engineers/people are placed on teams they have no interest in?
You can be hired for the perspectives you've obtained due to your experience, but god forbid you're hired for the perspective you can provide with your experience as a certain gender.
Firing someone for a "lack of chemistry" and refusing to give details is a Grade A dick move.
Honestly, not really. It sucks, but from a risk management perspective, less information given out is always better. Was she fired for legit reasons? Who knows. There is no advantage to the employer to give reasons. You can't really blame anyone for trying not to be sued.
I'd say the dick move is firing someone without any kind of coaching or explanation about what you'd like to see done differently. The coaching should have happened well in advance of the firing.
A firing that comes as a complete surprise to the employee is generally a sign of a bad manager (not always, but true enough to be a useful heuristic).
A firing that comes as a complete surprise to the employee is generally a sign of a bad manager (not always, but true enough to be a useful heuristic).
I guess there could be some improvements, such as a right to feedback law (protections for both parties), make it harder to legally fire someone but easier if it's a real democratic team decision, better short term unemployment benefits.
Knowingly hurting someone else in order to avoid the risk of getting sued is a dick move.
It's a selfish, rational dick move, but most are. People rarely do dick moves that don't benefit themselves.
It's a selfish, rational dick move, but most are. People rarely do dick moves that don't benefit themselves.
However, life isn't all about avoiding risk. Sometimes you should seek out risk to make you a better person. Or, if you're part of a company, to make you a better company. Telling people why they weren't hired / were fired helps them improve, and taken to the limit, it helps the entire society improve.
What could be a legit reason that could've given credence to a lawsuit?
If the reason was: "You're a woman" then they should've been sued.
If the reason was: "You're a woman" then they should've been sued.
Assuming that a firing for "lack of chemistry" (which is a very real and valid concern, btw: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-relationships-wor...) is, without evidence, veiled discrimination, is also a Grade A dick move, by being a "default victimization mindset". Anecdotal firings of minority hires are insubstantial proof of discrimination; in fact it may be the opposite, if there's a diversity retention policy (meaning that the problem was significant enough to violate their own policies). This is exactly the kind of conclusion-jumping that rubs people the wrong way and ironically makes it more likely for you to get let go based on "lack of chemistry" (because it's really "we can sense this person is just itching for an opportunity to be a victim and we don't want to be subject to a baseless lawsuit"... but of course, that can't be stated aloud, because http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)
I'll be honest again: Yes, I'm a white male, but I'm considering hiring people for the first time and this sort of thing TERRIFIES me because I genuinely want to help out whoever I can, and I'm even a natural fan of "underdogs"... What would I do if my nonwhite, nonmale (or both) hire just isn't working out (for valid reasons) but I can't yet afford to fight a discrimination lawsuit? Let's say my imperfect solution to this was simply to just keep hiring other white males for a while. Eventually I realize I NEED more diversity, but now I've created the perfect conditions for discrimination lawsuits by having an all-white, all-male company... Do you see yet what the problem is, here?
I'll be honest again: Yes, I'm a white male, but I'm considering hiring people for the first time and this sort of thing TERRIFIES me because I genuinely want to help out whoever I can, and I'm even a natural fan of "underdogs"... What would I do if my nonwhite, nonmale (or both) hire just isn't working out (for valid reasons) but I can't yet afford to fight a discrimination lawsuit? Let's say my imperfect solution to this was simply to just keep hiring other white males for a while. Eventually I realize I NEED more diversity, but now I've created the perfect conditions for discrimination lawsuits by having an all-white, all-male company... Do you see yet what the problem is, here?
This article may be worth a read for you: https://www.paychex.com/articles/human-resources/eeoc-workpl...
Below, I do some napkin math to attempt to estimate your likelihood of getting in trouble for firing somebody.
In 20 years, there were 1.8M employee discrimination cases filed in the US, so ~roughly 90K per year. Each year, about 19M employees are fired or laid off.
Considering that not all employee discrimination suits arise from termination, we can expect a rate to be significantly below the calculated likelihood of 0.04% (90K/19M), or less than 1 in 200. However, I don't have an estimate for this,
You can adjust that for the prevalence of underrepresented groups in your field, of course - usually it will be about half that have some protected factor (age, gender, ethnicity, disability, etc.), so let's double that, for 1 in 100.
Of those cases, 82% were closed without even a settlement. So we're back down to about 1 in 500, if you pretend that the EEOC chooses entirely randomly and cannot differentiate between real discrimination and made up ones.
I think it would be worthwhile for you to do some real risk assessment, and figure out whether the < 1/500 chance of paying some money, if you need to fire a person with a protected attribute, is worth being "terrified" about.
(Also, age discrimination constitutes the plurality of EEOC cases, so you should possibly be more concerned about hiring people over the age of 35 than hiring women or black people).
Below, I do some napkin math to attempt to estimate your likelihood of getting in trouble for firing somebody.
In 20 years, there were 1.8M employee discrimination cases filed in the US, so ~roughly 90K per year. Each year, about 19M employees are fired or laid off.
Considering that not all employee discrimination suits arise from termination, we can expect a rate to be significantly below the calculated likelihood of 0.04% (90K/19M), or less than 1 in 200. However, I don't have an estimate for this,
You can adjust that for the prevalence of underrepresented groups in your field, of course - usually it will be about half that have some protected factor (age, gender, ethnicity, disability, etc.), so let's double that, for 1 in 100.
Of those cases, 82% were closed without even a settlement. So we're back down to about 1 in 500, if you pretend that the EEOC chooses entirely randomly and cannot differentiate between real discrimination and made up ones.
I think it would be worthwhile for you to do some real risk assessment, and figure out whether the < 1/500 chance of paying some money, if you need to fire a person with a protected attribute, is worth being "terrified" about.
(Also, age discrimination constitutes the plurality of EEOC cases, so you should possibly be more concerned about hiring people over the age of 35 than hiring women or black people).
There's a difference between "this is evidence of discrimination" and "this is proof of discrimination". Getting fired without explanation is definitely evidence of discrimination: most employers are smart enough not to give a reason when firing someone for illegal reasons, so the majority of those firings are going to be "without giving a reason".
Conversely, if you do have a legitimate issue, it's (a) usually something you couch the employee on before firing them and (b) means you can give a vague reason like "performance" and thus avoid paying out unemployment.
The employee herself can also reasonably observe the social environment - it's not as common these days, but there's still plenty of places that have the Asshole Rockstar who is never going to get fired. It's a bit suspicious when places like that suddenly trot out "culture fit" for the first time, as an excuse to fire a woman.
(I'd also say that as long as you don't do anything stupid like TELL people you're discriminating, it's remarkably hard to prove discrimination - legally you're pretty safe there. The other reply does a good job breaking out the math)
Conversely, if you do have a legitimate issue, it's (a) usually something you couch the employee on before firing them and (b) means you can give a vague reason like "performance" and thus avoid paying out unemployment.
The employee herself can also reasonably observe the social environment - it's not as common these days, but there's still plenty of places that have the Asshole Rockstar who is never going to get fired. It's a bit suspicious when places like that suddenly trot out "culture fit" for the first time, as an excuse to fire a woman.
(I'd also say that as long as you don't do anything stupid like TELL people you're discriminating, it's remarkably hard to prove discrimination - legally you're pretty safe there. The other reply does a good job breaking out the math)
In my experience the sort of people who would play the racism/sexism card if it wasn't the case also tend to be the people who loudly virtue signal and shame others on social media about those topics all the time, and even announce it in their profile/blurb next to their avatars. I think as long as you do a quick google search on someone and test their character in the interview, it shouldn't be as risky as you're worried about.
I don't think the hiring all white guys scenario as a workaround as you described is very realistic. If people are actually doing that, they're missing out on the full talent pool certainly.
I don't think the hiring all white guys scenario as a workaround as you described is very realistic. If people are actually doing that, they're missing out on the full talent pool certainly.
If you consult an experienced HR specialist they will walk you through this difficult situation.
I'm a random person on the internet and we're unlikely to cross paths, but I would _strongly_ recommend hiring a good HR advisor and people who can explain the problems in your comment. Admitting your mindset isn't productive is hard, but I'd recommend some introspection here.
> Yes, I'm a white male, but I'm considering hiring people for the first time and this sort of thing TERRIFIES me because I genuinely want to help out whoever I can
You're not "helping out" by hiring a women, or a person of color. This mindset has set you up for failure before even starting.
> What would I do if my nonwhite, nonmale (or both) hire just isn't working out (for valid reasons) but I can't yet afford to fight a discrimination lawsuit?
If there's a valid reason, then there won't be a discriminiation lawsuit.
> Eventually I realize I NEED more diversity
"Eventually" is too late. Hire a diverse team from day 1. This comment suggests that "diversity", however you define it, is sub-optimal and a burden to be carried.
> but now I've created the perfect conditions for discrimination lawsuits by having an all-white, all-male company
This is a problem of your own making by not making the effort to hire a more diverse team from day 1. The additional potential legal costs are a cost associated with this approach.
Edit: "hourglass-figure adorer" in your HN bio is a bit of a concern. Does this have a meaning I'm not aware of, or is part of your public, profesisonal persona the enjoyment of a particular female body shape?
> Yes, I'm a white male, but I'm considering hiring people for the first time and this sort of thing TERRIFIES me because I genuinely want to help out whoever I can
You're not "helping out" by hiring a women, or a person of color. This mindset has set you up for failure before even starting.
> What would I do if my nonwhite, nonmale (or both) hire just isn't working out (for valid reasons) but I can't yet afford to fight a discrimination lawsuit?
If there's a valid reason, then there won't be a discriminiation lawsuit.
> Eventually I realize I NEED more diversity
"Eventually" is too late. Hire a diverse team from day 1. This comment suggests that "diversity", however you define it, is sub-optimal and a burden to be carried.
> but now I've created the perfect conditions for discrimination lawsuits by having an all-white, all-male company
This is a problem of your own making by not making the effort to hire a more diverse team from day 1. The additional potential legal costs are a cost associated with this approach.
Edit: "hourglass-figure adorer" in your HN bio is a bit of a concern. Does this have a meaning I'm not aware of, or is part of your public, profesisonal persona the enjoyment of a particular female body shape?
> Admitting your mindset isn't productive is hard
Nah, I am good at admitting fault given sufficient reasoning or evidence, unlike most people. But if I think I have a point, I may double down on it. Observe:
> You're not "helping out" by hiring a women, or a person of color. This mindset has set you up for failure before even starting.
Yeah, maybe. I was trying to suggest that I... ok, fine.
> If there's a valid reason, then there won't be a discriminiation lawsuit.
In the OP's article, the discrimination was assumed to be the reason even if other more valid reasons might have existed. This is not evidential.
> Hire a diverse team from day 1
That's what I was suggesting.
> Does this have a meaning I'm not aware of, or is part of your public, profesisonal persona the enjoyment of a particular female body shape?
Let's just say I am 48 years old and used to subscribe to Heavy Metal (https://www.heavymetal.com/), which prominently features... well, you probably already know. Also that shaming me for my sexuality (without me harassing anyone, of course) is not only not a rational argument, it is discriminatory, and I refuse to apologize for how I am. It may also be convenient in this era of "cancellation for disagreement" (or as the woke leftwing sugarcoats it, "consequences") that I work for myself. >..< If I ever hire someone who has a problem with that, I'll ask them if they feel uncomfortable and work from there (note that women who express open interest in certain male body types do not faze me... but I don't want to create an uncomfortable work environment, so yeah, I'd probably have to remove that, sigh)
Nah, I am good at admitting fault given sufficient reasoning or evidence, unlike most people. But if I think I have a point, I may double down on it. Observe:
> You're not "helping out" by hiring a women, or a person of color. This mindset has set you up for failure before even starting.
Yeah, maybe. I was trying to suggest that I... ok, fine.
> If there's a valid reason, then there won't be a discriminiation lawsuit.
In the OP's article, the discrimination was assumed to be the reason even if other more valid reasons might have existed. This is not evidential.
> Hire a diverse team from day 1
That's what I was suggesting.
> Does this have a meaning I'm not aware of, or is part of your public, profesisonal persona the enjoyment of a particular female body shape?
Let's just say I am 48 years old and used to subscribe to Heavy Metal (https://www.heavymetal.com/), which prominently features... well, you probably already know. Also that shaming me for my sexuality (without me harassing anyone, of course) is not only not a rational argument, it is discriminatory, and I refuse to apologize for how I am. It may also be convenient in this era of "cancellation for disagreement" (or as the woke leftwing sugarcoats it, "consequences") that I work for myself. >..< If I ever hire someone who has a problem with that, I'll ask them if they feel uncomfortable and work from there (note that women who express open interest in certain male body types do not faze me... but I don't want to create an uncomfortable work environment, so yeah, I'd probably have to remove that, sigh)
An impressively nuanced answer! Thank you.
And whilst I certainly do not wish to shame you. (Consenting adults can do as they please, enjoy what they please, etc.) as someone with responsibility for hiring and firing I'm glad you can see how it could lead someone to feel uncomfortable in a work environment.
And whilst I certainly do not wish to shame you. (Consenting adults can do as they please, enjoy what they please, etc.) as someone with responsibility for hiring and firing I'm glad you can see how it could lead someone to feel uncomfortable in a work environment.
IANAL, but I think the general perception is that by giving reasons, one exposes the employer to additional risk of a lawsuit.
So IIUC, the legal system carries some of the blame here.
So IIUC, the legal system carries some of the blame here.
I worked at a small company where everyone was on probation their first 3 months, towards the end of the 3 months our manager would come around and ask what we thought of the new person. If enough of the team found you annoying, you didn't get to stay.
And maybe a recipe for a lawsuit here in the US. The only female developer? It looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck.
Is it any better or worse than "Sorry, it's just not working out?" I've seen this happen a few times.
Similar to interviewing where they never tell you why you weren't selected (or very rarely - it's happened once in my experience) - they don't want any kind of legal liability. The less info they give you, the less you have to file a lawsuit is the theory. It definitely sucks, though.
I don't let candidates know either and it has nothing to do with legal liability whatsoever.
If I post a job up for a developer position, even as a small company in Toronto I get on the order of 1000 applicants in a matter of 2-3 weeks and I usually will only hire 1-4.
I am not going to come up with a rejection reason for 996 people. The reason you got rejected is because there are a ton of you out there and I can only hire so many so I am going to hire the very few who I am very certain will do a good job for the specific requirements my company has right now, even if it does something means I end up rejecting even better qualified candidates who I am uncertain about. Every hire costs me on the order of 50k per person in straight up recruiting costs, ramp up time to get that member to be productive, time lost doing interviews and filtering 1000s of people.
Hiring and firing people is basically the option of last resort because of how risky, expensive, and time consuming it is.
Finally it's highly unlikely that anything I say will be of much help to you anyways.
If I post a job up for a developer position, even as a small company in Toronto I get on the order of 1000 applicants in a matter of 2-3 weeks and I usually will only hire 1-4.
I am not going to come up with a rejection reason for 996 people. The reason you got rejected is because there are a ton of you out there and I can only hire so many so I am going to hire the very few who I am very certain will do a good job for the specific requirements my company has right now, even if it does something means I end up rejecting even better qualified candidates who I am uncertain about. Every hire costs me on the order of 50k per person in straight up recruiting costs, ramp up time to get that member to be productive, time lost doing interviews and filtering 1000s of people.
Hiring and firing people is basically the option of last resort because of how risky, expensive, and time consuming it is.
Finally it's highly unlikely that anything I say will be of much help to you anyways.
Not talking about all applicants here, I'm referring to people that have been interviewed and made it to some kind of final interviewing stage where typically you end up with only 3 or 4 applicants max.
The one time this happened I had gone through the phone interview and had what I thought was one of the best onsite interviews I'd ever had (in over 25 years of software development). The hiring manager actually called me up a few days later and apologized for not selecting me. He said that I interviewed well and everyone on the team liked me, but that the other candidate had some extra experience in an arcane area that was quite relevant to what they were going to be doing. I thanked him and told him that I understood as not many people would have actual experience in that tech. It was helpful to know that my perception (that I had interviewed well) matched their perception.
The one time this happened I had gone through the phone interview and had what I thought was one of the best onsite interviews I'd ever had (in over 25 years of software development). The hiring manager actually called me up a few days later and apologized for not selecting me. He said that I interviewed well and everyone on the team liked me, but that the other candidate had some extra experience in an arcane area that was quite relevant to what they were going to be doing. I thanked him and told him that I understood as not many people would have actual experience in that tech. It was helpful to know that my perception (that I had interviewed well) matched their perception.
I'm sorry you had to go through all of this. As myself being part of a minority, I can only tell you that I do my best to fight for minorities and women first in this IT env that can be rough.
Keep faith cause I've worked in different companies where everyone was really accepted and celebrated. Thank you for writing this article: hopefully, straight IT men will hear us and fight too.
Keep faith cause I've worked in different companies where everyone was really accepted and celebrated. Thank you for writing this article: hopefully, straight IT men will hear us and fight too.
Genuine question: Have you read the article?
The article is just as much for those who are trying to help women and minorities as it is for those who are biased.
The article is just as much for those who are trying to help women and minorities as it is for those who are biased.
1) Yes
2) Yes agreed. I just hope the people that are biased read this article more than the people who already helping, that's it.
>I have never considered that “having chemistry with the team” could be a reason for being let go.
That's what worries me too.
I like to throw a racist jokes, especially about my own nation from time to time
and I guess I'd have hard time in corpos and companies like faang because polacks tend to lack of thick skin /s
That's what worries me too.
I like to throw a racist jokes, especially about my own nation from time to time
and I guess I'd have hard time in corpos and companies like faang because polacks tend to lack of thick skin /s
So there's a wonderful idea from the world of comedy about this.
It's the idea of punching down, vs punching up.
That is, if you are joking about someone in a worse position than you, it's punching down, and a dick move. If you are joking about someone in a better position than you, it's punching up, and allowable. It's why it's okay for black comedians to joke about white people, but not okay for white comedians to joke about black people. It's why politics is always fair game to make fun of (people in power), but disabilities, say, aren't. Etc.
While punching across is technically doable, it's also very, very hard to do, because ultimately who are you telling the joke to? Who is laughing? I.e., if you talk about things your family does from your own homeland, and people laugh, what are they laughing at? They're laughing at your homeland, your culture, because they feel 'above' it in some way. It's an invitation to punch down. Otherwise it isn't funny; it's interesting. Truly punching across tends to be for an audience that is also the butt of the joke (think Vir Das telling jokes about Hindu beliefs).
Now, that's not to be confused with an explanation or similar. I've worked for a German company, and when asking about why we did something that seemed suboptimal to me, another employee, himself German, has said "That's very German". That's not necessarily a judgement, that's not an invitation to laugh at how silly German culture is; that's just a prelude to an explanation that it's a cultural difference in priorities.
It's the idea of punching down, vs punching up.
That is, if you are joking about someone in a worse position than you, it's punching down, and a dick move. If you are joking about someone in a better position than you, it's punching up, and allowable. It's why it's okay for black comedians to joke about white people, but not okay for white comedians to joke about black people. It's why politics is always fair game to make fun of (people in power), but disabilities, say, aren't. Etc.
While punching across is technically doable, it's also very, very hard to do, because ultimately who are you telling the joke to? Who is laughing? I.e., if you talk about things your family does from your own homeland, and people laugh, what are they laughing at? They're laughing at your homeland, your culture, because they feel 'above' it in some way. It's an invitation to punch down. Otherwise it isn't funny; it's interesting. Truly punching across tends to be for an audience that is also the butt of the joke (think Vir Das telling jokes about Hindu beliefs).
Now, that's not to be confused with an explanation or similar. I've worked for a German company, and when asking about why we did something that seemed suboptimal to me, another employee, himself German, has said "That's very German". That's not necessarily a judgement, that's not an invitation to laugh at how silly German culture is; that's just a prelude to an explanation that it's a cultural difference in priorities.
There was a time in the US when racist/cultural jokes about groups one was a member of were considered harmless and funny. But, for better or worse, that time is not now.
The set of things you can comfortably joke about at work is pretty small these days and almost never includes jokes about any kind of group identity.
The set of things you can comfortably joke about at work is pretty small these days and almost never includes jokes about any kind of group identity.
Racist “jokes” make people uncomfortable because it’s directly adjacent to racist insults, racist hiring/firing practices, and even racist violence. Employers have a duty to workers from employees that are potential threats, and to remove employees that are walking legal liabilities. And that very much includes employees who claim to be “equal-opportunity offenders.”
I understand that it’s more complicated when you are making jokes about your own ethnic group. But please understand that it’s not an issue of “bad culture fit.” As an example, employees who make relentless personal criticisms of their coworkers aren’t gruff people that have trouble fitting in to an upright corporate culture: they are jerks whose behavior rightfully makes them difficult to work with and hard to justify hiring. It is the same with making ethnic / racist jokes in the office. Just don’t do it.
(There is also a difference between ethnic jokes about Poles and racist jokes about black people or Jews, but that’s a different discussion. Both are really not appropriate for the office.)
I understand that it’s more complicated when you are making jokes about your own ethnic group. But please understand that it’s not an issue of “bad culture fit.” As an example, employees who make relentless personal criticisms of their coworkers aren’t gruff people that have trouble fitting in to an upright corporate culture: they are jerks whose behavior rightfully makes them difficult to work with and hard to justify hiring. It is the same with making ethnic / racist jokes in the office. Just don’t do it.
(There is also a difference between ethnic jokes about Poles and racist jokes about black people or Jews, but that’s a different discussion. Both are really not appropriate for the office.)
Generally one should read the room before opening the barn door of ethnic jokes.
In other words, it is all about social skills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAe867evM18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAe867evM18
[deleted]
Times like these make it critical to discern between those of a certain gender vs those without talent (or discipline, or perhaps both).
This is difficult to do without unfairly discounting the cases where people with talent still encounter unfair discrimination ...but this isn't it.
There are plenty of female developers / engineers who have their colleagues' respect. They would also never find out they are diversity hires.
If you are simply bad at your job, but also [protected status here], it's suddenly somehow newsworthy - I never liked this part of our culture.
This is difficult to do without unfairly discounting the cases where people with talent still encounter unfair discrimination ...but this isn't it.
There are plenty of female developers / engineers who have their colleagues' respect. They would also never find out they are diversity hires.
If you are simply bad at your job, but also [protected status here], it's suddenly somehow newsworthy - I never liked this part of our culture.
I don't have many female colleges. The ones I work with, I like them.
They are in avg more social.
But I also had one boss who did not want to hire one woman because " what happens when she gets pregnant" and we did hire her because she was good and I stood up for her.
I should not need do so this!
I think we would be better if with have more woman in our teams.
They are in avg more social.
But I also had one boss who did not want to hire one woman because " what happens when she gets pregnant" and we did hire her because she was good and I stood up for her.
I should not need do so this!
I think we would be better if with have more woman in our teams.
> But I also had one boss who did not want to hire one woman because " what happens when she gets pregnant"
This is perhaps an example where extending parental leave benefits to both parents solves both ends of the problem. Men also may leave if they choose to expand their family, and women aren't pressured into more child care than they prefer due to the men not having parental leave to help.
> They are in avg more social
Careful with these generalizations. Women get placed in impossible behavioral expectations. Told to be more assertive, but then perceived differently than men when they are.
This is perhaps an example where extending parental leave benefits to both parents solves both ends of the problem. Men also may leave if they choose to expand their family, and women aren't pressured into more child care than they prefer due to the men not having parental leave to help.
> They are in avg more social
Careful with these generalizations. Women get placed in impossible behavioral expectations. Told to be more assertive, but then perceived differently than men when they are.
> This is an example of how methods to empower women, when wrongly applied, can have the opposite effect, making them feel even more insecure and powerless.
The soft bigotry of low expectations and affirmative action rears its ugly head yet again.
Hire people of all races, genders and creeds based on _merit_, not diversity quotas. No one should have to show up to work feeling like a second class citizen and that they're only there because of their sex or the color of their skin.
The soft bigotry of low expectations and affirmative action rears its ugly head yet again.
Hire people of all races, genders and creeds based on _merit_, not diversity quotas. No one should have to show up to work feeling like a second class citizen and that they're only there because of their sex or the color of their skin.
Just a note that it’s useful to think about what merit criteria you have and what really matters for your job. There’s a lot of room for biases to sneak in under the guise of an objective measure.
For example, looking for only people who graduated from a certain tier of school limits you by adopting whatever discriminatory practices that those schools have adopted. Or looking for people with a particular experience that is rarely afforded to a particular class of people.
Instead, by working identify the merits that actually result in high performance and then working to evaluate those in an interview can get you better and more diverse employees.
For example, looking for only people who graduated from a certain tier of school limits you by adopting whatever discriminatory practices that those schools have adopted. Or looking for people with a particular experience that is rarely afforded to a particular class of people.
Instead, by working identify the merits that actually result in high performance and then working to evaluate those in an interview can get you better and more diverse employees.
>“Carl is a difficult person to work with. But I trust in you to accomplish this. You will use your feminine approach and you’ll be fine.”
What's wrong with feminine approach?
People use this kind of wording especially when it comes to design
- e.g room, or outfit, generally those things that are considered as a areas where women are way better, so?
>That social networks can involve as much technology as any video game and that actually Facebook was one of the most influential tech companies of the last ten years?
How's that relevant?
People don't learn coding during Facebooking, unlike games where it's way more probable.
What's wrong with feminine approach?
People use this kind of wording especially when it comes to design
- e.g room, or outfit, generally those things that are considered as a areas where women are way better, so?
>That social networks can involve as much technology as any video game and that actually Facebook was one of the most influential tech companies of the last ten years?
How's that relevant?
People don't learn coding during Facebooking, unlike games where it's way more probable.
What does “the feminine approach” mean? How is she supposed to employ “it”?
What if a manager advised to use “manly ruggedness” to fix an algorithm from O(n^2) to O(n)? It employ “Irish Luck”?
What if a manager advised to use “manly ruggedness” to fix an algorithm from O(n^2) to O(n)? It employ “Irish Luck”?
Ok, I get this, thank you.
what's wrong is that the implied expectation that she would automatically be successful because she is a woman. the boss was probably thinking that she should let her feminine charm work on him or something like that.
"you will use your whatever skill and you will be fine" is quite patronizing.
i would have stated the situation without making assumptions about her ability to do this, especially not any assumptions tied to her gender. i would have explained that she was the only person on the team who doesn't already have a bad relationship with carl. i would have asked her if she wants to do this and give her the option to decline. and maybe even offered a bonus for taking on a difficult task. and at the same time i would have pushed to have carl fired because he clearly isn't getting along with anyone else.
"you will use your whatever skill and you will be fine" is quite patronizing.
i would have stated the situation without making assumptions about her ability to do this, especially not any assumptions tied to her gender. i would have explained that she was the only person on the team who doesn't already have a bad relationship with carl. i would have asked her if she wants to do this and give her the option to decline. and maybe even offered a bonus for taking on a difficult task. and at the same time i would have pushed to have carl fired because he clearly isn't getting along with anyone else.
I agree with your first point but, with regards to the second point, how many people learn coding during gaming?
Do you mean that more people get into gaming because of modding?
Do you mean that more people get into gaming because of modding?
>Do you mean that more people get into gaming because of modding?
I meant that some games tend to get people into programming
I meant that some games tend to get people into programming
Tech certainly does have a diversity problem, by which I mean lack of diversity actually works to the detriment of tech companies. Yes, from the POV of companies who are hiring, this is largely a pipeline problem. No, tech companies aren't going to solve this problem directly themselves.
But, what tech companies can do is change their candidate sourcing practices. I'm in favor of some version of the Rooney Rule [0] in tech hiring. Roughly, you should make sure to interview at least one person from an underrepresented group each time there's a position to fill. Given the pipeline problem, I'd cap it at some arbitrary number of candidates per opening -- one large enough to ensure that the company made an effort to seek out candidates who would add diversity to the company, but small enough that you can still actually hire. You'd have to validate that recruiters were actually contacting people from underrepresented groups to make sure you're not just getting to a point where every position ended with "Welp, we tried, but the only people we could find to interview for the position were these N white and Asian guys," but it could certainly work.
The beauty of this approach is that you don't lower your hiring bar. You just make sure to get people from underrepresented groups in front of your interviewers and hire them if they're the most qualified people for the job.
Now, I get that big companies don't hire for 1 position at a time, so, the point here would be to have your pool of candidates interviewing always contain a certain number of people from underrepresented groups. This is explicitly not a hiring quota, because you don't lower your bar. It's just putting an opportunity in front of more people to see if you can get people who look different from your standard straight, cisgender, white or Asian male tech worker into your recruiting pipeline to begin with.
---
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooney_Rule
But, what tech companies can do is change their candidate sourcing practices. I'm in favor of some version of the Rooney Rule [0] in tech hiring. Roughly, you should make sure to interview at least one person from an underrepresented group each time there's a position to fill. Given the pipeline problem, I'd cap it at some arbitrary number of candidates per opening -- one large enough to ensure that the company made an effort to seek out candidates who would add diversity to the company, but small enough that you can still actually hire. You'd have to validate that recruiters were actually contacting people from underrepresented groups to make sure you're not just getting to a point where every position ended with "Welp, we tried, but the only people we could find to interview for the position were these N white and Asian guys," but it could certainly work.
The beauty of this approach is that you don't lower your hiring bar. You just make sure to get people from underrepresented groups in front of your interviewers and hire them if they're the most qualified people for the job.
Now, I get that big companies don't hire for 1 position at a time, so, the point here would be to have your pool of candidates interviewing always contain a certain number of people from underrepresented groups. This is explicitly not a hiring quota, because you don't lower your bar. It's just putting an opportunity in front of more people to see if you can get people who look different from your standard straight, cisgender, white or Asian male tech worker into your recruiting pipeline to begin with.
---
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooney_Rule
I saw an interview with one of the late night hosts (I think it was Seth Meyers). He told a story about building the staff for their show as part of the launch. They asked the various talent agencies for packets for writers (which are collections of sketches and other material tv comedy writers use to get hired. Think artist portfolio). The show wanted to hire a more diverse writing staff and asked for that in packet submissions. They only got a handful packets from women out of hundreds of options. The show went back and said they would only look at packets from women. Suddenly packets came from all over and the show found a number of great female writers.
It was a really interesting conversation because to get a diversity of outcomes they had to completely change their approach, not just sprinkle some diversity into their existing process.
Applied to the rooney rule from above it would involve cultivating multiple inputs to the talent pipeline to make sure interesting candidates don't get blocked along the way. NFL positions like head coach have a pretty limited pool of candidates to begin with, so ensuring an interview quota is likely sufficient. For something like software developer the pool is so much deeper and wider and interview quota on its own is unlikely to be sufficient.
It was a really interesting conversation because to get a diversity of outcomes they had to completely change their approach, not just sprinkle some diversity into their existing process.
Applied to the rooney rule from above it would involve cultivating multiple inputs to the talent pipeline to make sure interesting candidates don't get blocked along the way. NFL positions like head coach have a pretty limited pool of candidates to begin with, so ensuring an interview quota is likely sufficient. For something like software developer the pool is so much deeper and wider and interview quota on its own is unlikely to be sufficient.
That doesn't make a whole lot of sense though as a fair hiring process, it's just brutal gender-specific hiring.
Nobody ever doubted that there were 'good female writers' but there are 1000 writers for every 1 job, it's a hugely asymettrical situation.
The reason it's completely illegal and morally questionable to hire that way is because it ignores the material character of the individual in question.
If there are 10x more guys running the gauntlet of early-phase writing career, then it's really unfair and they are not getting the best writers (staff composition advantages notwithstanding).
A better approach wold have been to work with the agencies to get a true sense of the pipeline, and then to encourage and demonstrate the job is 'real' for more young women to understand that it's something they can aspire to.
The possibly sexist/racist actions of these companies are probably only going to get us into more culture wars, I'm not sure if they are a 'temporary pain' issue.
Edit: if you listen to 'Inside Conan OBrien' podcast by the head writers you'll get insight into several very inside conversations about the gender issue. In the 2000's there were hardly any female writers. Writing is a buddy-buddy system that's going to lean a certain way, so expressedly looking outside the boundaries of the pipeline is reasonable. Also a lot of the female writers in the 2000's indicated they literally 'did not know it was a job' in their youth. To be fair - almost nobody did. Though I'm not in the biz, as a young man I literally never contemplated the concept, I don't know anyone that even thought about it, it was like a thing that happened in a far off land. It's a hyper-niche kind of job with specific dynamics.
Nobody ever doubted that there were 'good female writers' but there are 1000 writers for every 1 job, it's a hugely asymettrical situation.
The reason it's completely illegal and morally questionable to hire that way is because it ignores the material character of the individual in question.
If there are 10x more guys running the gauntlet of early-phase writing career, then it's really unfair and they are not getting the best writers (staff composition advantages notwithstanding).
A better approach wold have been to work with the agencies to get a true sense of the pipeline, and then to encourage and demonstrate the job is 'real' for more young women to understand that it's something they can aspire to.
The possibly sexist/racist actions of these companies are probably only going to get us into more culture wars, I'm not sure if they are a 'temporary pain' issue.
Edit: if you listen to 'Inside Conan OBrien' podcast by the head writers you'll get insight into several very inside conversations about the gender issue. In the 2000's there were hardly any female writers. Writing is a buddy-buddy system that's going to lean a certain way, so expressedly looking outside the boundaries of the pipeline is reasonable. Also a lot of the female writers in the 2000's indicated they literally 'did not know it was a job' in their youth. To be fair - almost nobody did. Though I'm not in the biz, as a young man I literally never contemplated the concept, I don't know anyone that even thought about it, it was like a thing that happened in a far off land. It's a hyper-niche kind of job with specific dynamics.
Jon Stewart had a similar story. They had to change the way they did hiring to diversify the writer's room because the existing pipeline was just going to keep sending them college-educated ironic white guys.
https://youtu.be/p1H7KxPlbQw?t=2631
https://youtu.be/p1H7KxPlbQw?t=2631
"lack of diversity actually works to the detriment of tech companies. "
Tech companies are diverse, more so than most companies.
You mean to say 'not the right kind of diverse'.
The ridiculous, Monty Python conversation that nobody wants to have, is that since White Americans are slightly underrepresented, but Asian Americans are about 600% over-represented ... which means getting the 'right' kind of diversity literally means hiring less people of colour, specifically Asians, which seems really unfair to them for very obvious reasons.
It's funny and Orwellian at the same time that the problem exists out in the open, but nobody dare speak a word of it. These are the kinds of problems that Cults and the Bad Kinds of religions have.
The problem with the 'rule' as you describe it is it may decrease diversity in any sense.
There is no data to support the fact that African Americans and Latino Americans are showing up in the pipelines in sufficient the right qualifications to 'balance out' diversity.
The data actually works the other way - the ethnic and gender composition of people hired basically is a good reflection of the pipeline.
I understand we can do better than just looking at the pipeline, but from any specific, direct hiring perspective, the pipeline is it.
Within the pragmatic but admittedly narrow confines of 'the pipeline' - any company is going to be hard pressed to hire considerably more of the 'right race' of people. It's not going to matter that much how you do interviews.
'The Solution' is going to have to be 1) getting more kids from different backgrounds interested in tech at an early age and into the pipeline and 2) accepting that 'diversity' is an ideology on some level, and that just because you have people of some group, doesn't necessarily imply negative or racist behaviours. Nobody will ever state the later in public, but it's possible we come to terms with it.
Tech companies are diverse, more so than most companies.
You mean to say 'not the right kind of diverse'.
The ridiculous, Monty Python conversation that nobody wants to have, is that since White Americans are slightly underrepresented, but Asian Americans are about 600% over-represented ... which means getting the 'right' kind of diversity literally means hiring less people of colour, specifically Asians, which seems really unfair to them for very obvious reasons.
It's funny and Orwellian at the same time that the problem exists out in the open, but nobody dare speak a word of it. These are the kinds of problems that Cults and the Bad Kinds of religions have.
The problem with the 'rule' as you describe it is it may decrease diversity in any sense.
There is no data to support the fact that African Americans and Latino Americans are showing up in the pipelines in sufficient the right qualifications to 'balance out' diversity.
The data actually works the other way - the ethnic and gender composition of people hired basically is a good reflection of the pipeline.
I understand we can do better than just looking at the pipeline, but from any specific, direct hiring perspective, the pipeline is it.
Within the pragmatic but admittedly narrow confines of 'the pipeline' - any company is going to be hard pressed to hire considerably more of the 'right race' of people. It's not going to matter that much how you do interviews.
'The Solution' is going to have to be 1) getting more kids from different backgrounds interested in tech at an early age and into the pipeline and 2) accepting that 'diversity' is an ideology on some level, and that just because you have people of some group, doesn't necessarily imply negative or racist behaviours. Nobody will ever state the later in public, but it's possible we come to terms with it.
Can you cite sources for "more diverse"? I'm curious if you mean "higher percentage of POC" or "numerous different minorities are all represented"? A company composed entirely of 30-something black men is 100% POC, but it's still not actually that diverse.
I definitely agree that it's weird how much we focus on holding tech companies "accountable" for diversity when they're fundamentally working with whatever pipeline society gives them.
I definitely agree that it's weird how much we focus on holding tech companies "accountable" for diversity when they're fundamentally working with whatever pipeline society gives them.
By 'diverse' I meant 'PoC' mostly.
Tech, particularly in the Valley has technically an under representation of non-PoC.
(I myself have worked at companies that were 95% Asian, being almost the only 'White Guy').
The reason 'tech' is highlighted is ironically that's were the 'woke folk' are. You can go the Midwest Cracker Co. and find 90% White and people are not too worried about it, except for in a kind of 'corporate optics' way.
It's the general employees of tech, tech press etc. that are fairly assertive in promoting issues of diversity because it's what they care about. A company has to have a certain profile in order for it to be newsworthy. CNN, even if they wanted to, can't really run an article on the Midwest Cracker Co. but they can for Twitter because it has public resonance.
Tech, particularly in the Valley has technically an under representation of non-PoC.
(I myself have worked at companies that were 95% Asian, being almost the only 'White Guy').
The reason 'tech' is highlighted is ironically that's were the 'woke folk' are. You can go the Midwest Cracker Co. and find 90% White and people are not too worried about it, except for in a kind of 'corporate optics' way.
It's the general employees of tech, tech press etc. that are fairly assertive in promoting issues of diversity because it's what they care about. A company has to have a certain profile in order for it to be newsworthy. CNN, even if they wanted to, can't really run an article on the Midwest Cracker Co. but they can for Twitter because it has public resonance.
Traditionally, tech diversity referred to gender diversity, in which case, yes tech companies (especially engineering) are very skewed for a white collar position. Note that this post is about gender diversity.
If you attempt to extend it to ethnicity (which this post is not about), this gets all really arbitrary, which is where your point comes in.
The cause of underlying skews is then a different discussion altogether.
If you attempt to extend it to ethnicity (which this post is not about), this gets all really arbitrary, which is where your point comes in.
The cause of underlying skews is then a different discussion altogether.
"Traditionally, tech diversity referred to gender diversity"
This is definitely not true.
" extend it to ethnicity ... gets all really arbitrary "
I don't think so, the issues are very similar.
This is definitely not true.
" extend it to ethnicity ... gets all really arbitrary "
I don't think so, the issues are very similar.
Ethnic diversity is relatively new (it was rarely discussed much 10 years ago compared to gender, at least as far as goal settings was concerned) -- and how is it not arbitrary?
The "major groups" used are entirely arbitrary (yes, they are EEOC definitions generally, but those are arbitrary and there's no particular reason they should be relevant for tech).
It's also an arbitrary choice whether to consider group intersectionality or not. (e.g. Are Asian women underrepresented in tech?)
The "major groups" used are entirely arbitrary (yes, they are EEOC definitions generally, but those are arbitrary and there's no particular reason they should be relevant for tech).
It's also an arbitrary choice whether to consider group intersectionality or not. (e.g. Are Asian women underrepresented in tech?)
What’s funny to me is that people are only complaining about diversity in the US and Europe. Although I have seen a few articles about class based diversity in Latin America and India.
Maybe I am missing something but I don’t see complaints about diversity in Arabia, Persia, African Regions, Asian regions.
Yet there are historic multi-ethnic conflicts in most of not all of these areas.
Take the Hausa, Fula, Igbo, and Yoruba of Nigeria for example, as an example.
Ultimately, dividing people and calling it “diversity” resembles a divide and conquer tactic for reducing the cohesion of a society, making it easier to control (via narratives and reducing my inter-group trust compared to some central, approved authority), in my view.
Check out Ryan Long for a humorous example: “When Racists and Woke Agree On Everything”:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg
Maybe I am missing something but I don’t see complaints about diversity in Arabia, Persia, African Regions, Asian regions.
Yet there are historic multi-ethnic conflicts in most of not all of these areas.
Take the Hausa, Fula, Igbo, and Yoruba of Nigeria for example, as an example.
Ultimately, dividing people and calling it “diversity” resembles a divide and conquer tactic for reducing the cohesion of a society, making it easier to control (via narratives and reducing my inter-group trust compared to some central, approved authority), in my view.
Check out Ryan Long for a humorous example: “When Racists and Woke Agree On Everything”:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg
Diversity in the West basically means 'Not Just White People' due to historical power asymmetries, and the fact that at least in the 'New World', 'race' is not supposed to be a defining feature of national identity, or at least for some. It's slightly more of a paradox outside the New World because ethnicity and nationality are really tightly intertwined.
Power asymmetries are not always and not simply the result of a lack of "diversity".
Power asymmetry can be the result of a variety of interactions between a variety of factors-- not just "lack of diversity".
For example, a power asymmetry might result from information asymmetry, and information acquisition does not necessarily require [political/economic] power.
Also, a power asymmetry might result from a competency or cultural asymmetry (such as "need for achievement" *), which are also not necessarily due to a "lack of diversity".
Competency or cultural asymmetry can result from cultural or sociological tendencies of a given group to promote certain activities for their particularly culturally nuanced view of "status".
Power can also be a geographical asymmetry. And a demographic one, in terms of political economics.
* "Need for achievement (N-Ach) is an individual's desire for significant accomplishment, mastering of skills, control, or high standards. The term was first used by Henry Murray and associated with a range of actions. These include: "intense, prolonged and repeated efforts to accomplish something difficult." . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_achievement
Power asymmetry can be the result of a variety of interactions between a variety of factors-- not just "lack of diversity".
For example, a power asymmetry might result from information asymmetry, and information acquisition does not necessarily require [political/economic] power.
Also, a power asymmetry might result from a competency or cultural asymmetry (such as "need for achievement" *), which are also not necessarily due to a "lack of diversity".
Competency or cultural asymmetry can result from cultural or sociological tendencies of a given group to promote certain activities for their particularly culturally nuanced view of "status".
Power can also be a geographical asymmetry. And a demographic one, in terms of political economics.
* "Need for achievement (N-Ach) is an individual's desire for significant accomplishment, mastering of skills, control, or high standards. The term was first used by Henry Murray and associated with a range of actions. These include: "intense, prolonged and repeated efforts to accomplish something difficult." . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_achievement
There's multiple problems with a Rooney Rule:
1. You'll lose candidates to companies that close faster. In fact, you'll likely lose the best candidates.
2. Can be gamed by hiring managers. If they want to close a rec fast, they just find an unqualified member of an underrepresented group to interview to hit the Rule. Waste of time for everyone.
3. Demographic targeting (especially beyond gender) has a variety of issues (arbitrary definitions, unknowns about whether candidates are in what demographic, etc.).
1. You'll lose candidates to companies that close faster. In fact, you'll likely lose the best candidates.
2. Can be gamed by hiring managers. If they want to close a rec fast, they just find an unqualified member of an underrepresented group to interview to hit the Rule. Waste of time for everyone.
3. Demographic targeting (especially beyond gender) has a variety of issues (arbitrary definitions, unknowns about whether candidates are in what demographic, etc.).
> The beauty of this approach is that you don't lower your hiring bar.
You don't lower the bar but you do put a locking mechanism on your recruiting pipeline that reduces your hiring throughout in an already supply constrained environment and you impose greater hiring costs to make sure you always have a candidate.
Now that may still be a profitable thing to do, but you can pretend there are no costs and downsides. What you need to do it look at all the pros and cons and balance those considerations to find out what is most profitable. Anything that isn't profit maximizing over the time scale we are optimizing for is also to the detriment of the company.
You don't lower the bar but you do put a locking mechanism on your recruiting pipeline that reduces your hiring throughout in an already supply constrained environment and you impose greater hiring costs to make sure you always have a candidate.
Now that may still be a profitable thing to do, but you can pretend there are no costs and downsides. What you need to do it look at all the pros and cons and balance those considerations to find out what is most profitable. Anything that isn't profit maximizing over the time scale we are optimizing for is also to the detriment of the company.
I read the whole thing and I feel for her, especially around all the gendered language she has had to deal with, but had some thoughts.
I want to make constructive criticisms (which is extremely difficult in the context of someone perceiving harm), but I'd prefer not to get downvoted, so I will try to be as empathetic as possible when stating the following.
> I have a strong opinion about diversity hires: Although I don’t think they are a perfect solution, I consider them an effective measure to break the ceiling glass that excludes minorities from certain roles.
> Was I only selected because I was the only female applicant? Would I have passed the technical assessment? Would I keep moving up the company hierarchy only because I had a minority pass? Did they think that I wouldn’t mind knowing my own recruitment criteria?
These things are exactly why some people are against this way of increasing diversity. Critics of forced diversity hiring see this as a direct and obvious (at least to them) consequence of this practice; her experiencing the result is rather unsurprising (her surprise, however, is). She also does not suggest a better solution, so this just seems like whining (the definition of which is "complaining about a situation without a known solution"). I'd suggest that she probably wasn't informed that she was a diversity hire because intuitively, people know this is a shameful practice without great consequences...
> I have never considered that “having chemistry with the team” could be a reason for being let go. Guess what? After a quick Google search about “cultural fitting in tech,” I discovered that is an argument often used by tech companies to disguise a discriminatory preference.
She links to an example of this, but the example is just another person pulling the racism card when the only example that person gave was not drinking after work with coworkers. You can't expect people to not see you as a diversity hire, but only when it is convenient for you... if you want them to not see you as one when hiring you, but if when letting go of you for some given reason, you want to jump to conclusions based on diversity... you're gonna need much better evidence than that. "Cultural fit" is unfortunately a very valid condition for hire, at least if the goal is productivity and happiness: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-relationships-wor... The fact that "lack of cultural fit" SEEMS TO sometimes fall along diversity lines, is not so much a problem with diversity hiring as it is a problem of people just hanging out too much with other people who seem more like them, something that is (unfortunately) a natural inclination and something that literally every one of us should be consciously fighting. But it's a subpar situation, for sure.
I want to make constructive criticisms (which is extremely difficult in the context of someone perceiving harm), but I'd prefer not to get downvoted, so I will try to be as empathetic as possible when stating the following.
> I have a strong opinion about diversity hires: Although I don’t think they are a perfect solution, I consider them an effective measure to break the ceiling glass that excludes minorities from certain roles.
> Was I only selected because I was the only female applicant? Would I have passed the technical assessment? Would I keep moving up the company hierarchy only because I had a minority pass? Did they think that I wouldn’t mind knowing my own recruitment criteria?
These things are exactly why some people are against this way of increasing diversity. Critics of forced diversity hiring see this as a direct and obvious (at least to them) consequence of this practice; her experiencing the result is rather unsurprising (her surprise, however, is). She also does not suggest a better solution, so this just seems like whining (the definition of which is "complaining about a situation without a known solution"). I'd suggest that she probably wasn't informed that she was a diversity hire because intuitively, people know this is a shameful practice without great consequences...
> I have never considered that “having chemistry with the team” could be a reason for being let go. Guess what? After a quick Google search about “cultural fitting in tech,” I discovered that is an argument often used by tech companies to disguise a discriminatory preference.
She links to an example of this, but the example is just another person pulling the racism card when the only example that person gave was not drinking after work with coworkers. You can't expect people to not see you as a diversity hire, but only when it is convenient for you... if you want them to not see you as one when hiring you, but if when letting go of you for some given reason, you want to jump to conclusions based on diversity... you're gonna need much better evidence than that. "Cultural fit" is unfortunately a very valid condition for hire, at least if the goal is productivity and happiness: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-relationships-wor... The fact that "lack of cultural fit" SEEMS TO sometimes fall along diversity lines, is not so much a problem with diversity hiring as it is a problem of people just hanging out too much with other people who seem more like them, something that is (unfortunately) a natural inclination and something that literally every one of us should be consciously fighting. But it's a subpar situation, for sure.
i disagree with the validity of cultural fit. if there is a problem with someone fitting into the culture, then it is the culture that needs to change. letting someone go because they don't participate in after-work activities or because they don't drink alcohol is unacceptable. as is letting someone go because of gender differences.
yes, some people have a problem working together. carl in the story is a good example. carl is someone i would let go because he is uncooperative. this again has nothing to do with cultural fit.
and especially if the difference in cultures falls along diversity lines, i would very carefully examine what the actual culture is and make a strong effort to push for a culture change.
yes, some people have a problem working together. carl in the story is a good example. carl is someone i would let go because he is uncooperative. this again has nothing to do with cultural fit.
and especially if the difference in cultures falls along diversity lines, i would very carefully examine what the actual culture is and make a strong effort to push for a culture change.
> if there is a problem with someone fitting into the culture, then it is the culture that needs to change.
I don't think this is realistic. Suppose I move to Texas and manage to start working for a company that likes to watch rodeos on weekends and listens to country music all day in the office. Meanwhile, I'm a techno guy who can't stand rodeos nor country music. I start to get irritated with the all-day-country thing, and (as it turns out) work sometimes gets discussed at these rodeos everyone else is going to that I'm missing, so I always end up a little behind where everyone's at regarding work stuff. The rest of the team starts to perceive this as me "not really caring" or whatever, and eventually I get fired due to "lack of fit".
I cannot claim veiled discrimination because I am a white male getting fired by other white males (and perhaps some females, but not 50%).
Do you really expect the entire company to conform to my taste in things? I took race and gender out of the picture here to try to show that this is unrealistic.
> carl is someone i would let go because he is uncooperative.
Honestly it's weird that he was even kept around. Sometimes, people who are willing to butt heads on something are good workers, though.
> if the difference in cultures falls along diversity lines, i would very carefully examine what the actual culture is and make a strong effort to push for a culture change.
I think the best time to do this is at the start, because I also think that after you get above, say, 20 people, the cultural trajectory has already been set and it becomes massively harder to change.
I don't think this is realistic. Suppose I move to Texas and manage to start working for a company that likes to watch rodeos on weekends and listens to country music all day in the office. Meanwhile, I'm a techno guy who can't stand rodeos nor country music. I start to get irritated with the all-day-country thing, and (as it turns out) work sometimes gets discussed at these rodeos everyone else is going to that I'm missing, so I always end up a little behind where everyone's at regarding work stuff. The rest of the team starts to perceive this as me "not really caring" or whatever, and eventually I get fired due to "lack of fit".
I cannot claim veiled discrimination because I am a white male getting fired by other white males (and perhaps some females, but not 50%).
Do you really expect the entire company to conform to my taste in things? I took race and gender out of the picture here to try to show that this is unrealistic.
> carl is someone i would let go because he is uncooperative.
Honestly it's weird that he was even kept around. Sometimes, people who are willing to butt heads on something are good workers, though.
> if the difference in cultures falls along diversity lines, i would very carefully examine what the actual culture is and make a strong effort to push for a culture change.
I think the best time to do this is at the start, because I also think that after you get above, say, 20 people, the cultural trajectory has already been set and it becomes massively harder to change.
i don't expect either of you to change your preferences, but i do expect everyone, and in this case you too, to not put so much weight on your personal preferences, and to stop to expect others to conform to them. there is no reason that you could not get along. that part of the culture is what needs to change. everyone needs to be more tolerant of different preferences and interests. in other words the culture of the company needs to change to be more tolerant
and you are right of course, the larger the company, the more difficult the change.
company culture comes from the top. it is the leaders that need to give good examples.
i'd say though that 20 people should still be manageable. as long as everyone knows everyone else.
it takes longer and more effort in larger companies
and you are right of course, the larger the company, the more difficult the change.
company culture comes from the top. it is the leaders that need to give good examples.
i'd say though that 20 people should still be manageable. as long as everyone knows everyone else.
it takes longer and more effort in larger companies
> problem with someone fitting into the culture, then it is the culture that needs to change.
So the team should change to accept a racist, a rude asshole, an elitist narcissist, all the other toxic personality types.
In my experience "doesn't fit culture" is code for they're an asshat.
Culture in this context doesn't mean ethnic culture. It's referring to work culture, work ethics and personality at work.
Also thinking the world needs to change to fit you is the epitome of entitled snowflake attitude. A cultural misfit anyplace I have or would work.
So the team should change to accept a racist, a rude asshole, an elitist narcissist, all the other toxic personality types.
In my experience "doesn't fit culture" is code for they're an asshat.
Culture in this context doesn't mean ethnic culture. It's referring to work culture, work ethics and personality at work.
Also thinking the world needs to change to fit you is the epitome of entitled snowflake attitude. A cultural misfit anyplace I have or would work.
i am not talking about toxic hires. especially when it comes to gender, it is usually the male majority that is being toxic towards the new hire.
the writer of the article certainly was not an asshat. and most culture-fit issues that i read about are bro-cultures where someone didn't fit in because they didn't join the rest in their behavior.
i am not saying the world needs to change around the new hire. i am saying the world needs to learn to tolerate different interests and not expect everyone to conform to their personal norms. but that also goes for the new hire. they shouldn't complain about about different norms unless they are rude or unreasonable.
on work culture, if for example someone leaves on time, while everyone else works late then that is a difference, but not a reason to fire.
a woman in a male team is usually not a culture fit, neither is an older person in a team full of 20 year olds. both are not a reason to fire someone for lack of culture fit, but require the team to adapt their culture to be more tolerant.
the writer of the article certainly was not an asshat. and most culture-fit issues that i read about are bro-cultures where someone didn't fit in because they didn't join the rest in their behavior.
i am not saying the world needs to change around the new hire. i am saying the world needs to learn to tolerate different interests and not expect everyone to conform to their personal norms. but that also goes for the new hire. they shouldn't complain about about different norms unless they are rude or unreasonable.
on work culture, if for example someone leaves on time, while everyone else works late then that is a difference, but not a reason to fire.
a woman in a male team is usually not a culture fit, neither is an older person in a team full of 20 year olds. both are not a reason to fire someone for lack of culture fit, but require the team to adapt their culture to be more tolerant.
Make that five times...
Very much not challenging the experiences in this post but I will say:
“I believe everyone can become a good professional as long as they’re willing to learn.”
was most likely speaking to her youth than her femininity.
Source: Myself as someone who has given advice to a lot of different interns/new grads along the same exact lines.
“I believe everyone can become a good professional as long as they’re willing to learn.”
was most likely speaking to her youth than her femininity.
Source: Myself as someone who has given advice to a lot of different interns/new grads along the same exact lines.
I almost stopped reading there. That sentence, no matter how I try to interpret it, seems like very common and genuine advice to a new graduate starter.
Why stop reading there? No one is right all the time and the author is probably younger than you. But her experience is also different from yours. It would be good not to assume they are wrong simply because you think they misunderstood
something.
> Why stop reading there?
I said 'almost'.
If you started reading a blog post on a topic and the very first example in the opening paragraph is a clear misinterpretation then it is quite natural to assume that the rest of the post will follow that trend. That's all part of critical thinking and the automatic assessment of trustworthiness any human being will engage when reading/listening to someone's ideas/opinions/experiences.
I gave the article the benefit of the doubt and continued reading; the rest of the post illustrates clear discrimination experiences so I am glad I continued reading.
I said 'almost'.
If you started reading a blog post on a topic and the very first example in the opening paragraph is a clear misinterpretation then it is quite natural to assume that the rest of the post will follow that trend. That's all part of critical thinking and the automatic assessment of trustworthiness any human being will engage when reading/listening to someone's ideas/opinions/experiences.
I gave the article the benefit of the doubt and continued reading; the rest of the post illustrates clear discrimination experiences so I am glad I continued reading.
I had the exact same thought. I skimmed through the rest of the article. The author's frustrations seem to center around the fact that she is a diversity hire, which is made even more evident by the discussion in the comments. The excuse is that they are "raising awareness" but this is something we are all painfully aware of so it comes across as "my personal anecdote about {buzzword}".
Some of the best and worst co-workers I've had in my relatively short career have been women. In my experience, women are much more sociable than men and bring a certain positive energy to a team, but are less competitive with the other men on the team. Men will always compete AGAINST other men FOR women. They want to be the alpha, which fundamentally means that they get the most women.
This means that women won't bother to compete with men and vice versa. Hiring a woman to work on a team of all men is probably exactly like hiring a man on a team of all women. It will bring undue, subversive, and potentially aggressive behavior between team members of the opposite sex because of the fundamentally sexual, subconscious forces we are subject to as human beings.
Some of the best and worst co-workers I've had in my relatively short career have been women. In my experience, women are much more sociable than men and bring a certain positive energy to a team, but are less competitive with the other men on the team. Men will always compete AGAINST other men FOR women. They want to be the alpha, which fundamentally means that they get the most women.
This means that women won't bother to compete with men and vice versa. Hiring a woman to work on a team of all men is probably exactly like hiring a man on a team of all women. It will bring undue, subversive, and potentially aggressive behavior between team members of the opposite sex because of the fundamentally sexual, subconscious forces we are subject to as human beings.
It might be! He -might- say it to every intern on their first day. But the problem with many statements or questions that land poorly, even ones not tied to race, gender, etc, is not the intention of the person saying them, but the experience of the person hearing them.
For instance, "are you supposed to be here?" may be a perfectly reasonable question asked purely because the asker doesn't recognize the person, and they would have asked it regardless of skin color, gender, etc. However, if you've heard things like that all your life, if your lived experience is that the majority don't expect someone of your gender or skin color to be in the exclusive areas they frequent, it can't help but hurt, and feel exclusive based on your gender, skin color, etc. You can't help but wonder "would they have asked that of me if I was a white man?", etc.
This doesn't mean the question asker meant anything by the question, but it does indicate a lack of sensitivity to the lived experience of the person here. You can compensate for it by learning about and recognizing that lived experience and reformulating the question; for instance "Hi! I don't think we've met; what do you do here?" for my example, or "Welcome aboard! I'm really excited to see what you accomplish here. My goal is to make sure this is a really positive experience for you, and my hope is that you'll be able to learn a lot while you're with us" for the original.
For instance, "are you supposed to be here?" may be a perfectly reasonable question asked purely because the asker doesn't recognize the person, and they would have asked it regardless of skin color, gender, etc. However, if you've heard things like that all your life, if your lived experience is that the majority don't expect someone of your gender or skin color to be in the exclusive areas they frequent, it can't help but hurt, and feel exclusive based on your gender, skin color, etc. You can't help but wonder "would they have asked that of me if I was a white man?", etc.
This doesn't mean the question asker meant anything by the question, but it does indicate a lack of sensitivity to the lived experience of the person here. You can compensate for it by learning about and recognizing that lived experience and reformulating the question; for instance "Hi! I don't think we've met; what do you do here?" for my example, or "Welcome aboard! I'm really excited to see what you accomplish here. My goal is to make sure this is a really positive experience for you, and my hope is that you'll be able to learn a lot while you're with us" for the original.
This is a problem I've been thinking about for the last week: how do you know a specific instance of something is sexist?
Sure, you can look at statistics and say that sexism exists, and that's all very important, but that doesn't really say all that much about individual social interactions, just like statistics about crime rates of ethnic group X doesn't really say anything about individual who belongs to ethnic group X.
A few years ago I tried to help someone on Stack Overflow who asked a series of very basic Python questions about the same piece of very basic code by pointing out that they're probably better off getting a Python book and actually learning the language first, as Stack Overflow is not really a mentoring platform. It was phrased fairly encouragingly (I thought anyway) and was intended just to help them in their struggle to get started with Python, but the person didn't take it very well and accused me of racism :-/
Perhaps the “everyone can become a good professional as long as they’re willing to learn” comment was especially patronizing towards her purely based on the fact that she was a women, or perhaps it wasn't. It's almost impossible to say for sure, especially not based on this one sentence devoid of any context. In my Stack Overflow example I know there wasn't any racism involved because I didn't even notice the person was Indian until after he made that comment, yet the person was still left with a feeling of a racist interaction. It was a shitty situation for everyone involved.
Sure, you can look at statistics and say that sexism exists, and that's all very important, but that doesn't really say all that much about individual social interactions, just like statistics about crime rates of ethnic group X doesn't really say anything about individual who belongs to ethnic group X.
A few years ago I tried to help someone on Stack Overflow who asked a series of very basic Python questions about the same piece of very basic code by pointing out that they're probably better off getting a Python book and actually learning the language first, as Stack Overflow is not really a mentoring platform. It was phrased fairly encouragingly (I thought anyway) and was intended just to help them in their struggle to get started with Python, but the person didn't take it very well and accused me of racism :-/
Perhaps the “everyone can become a good professional as long as they’re willing to learn” comment was especially patronizing towards her purely based on the fact that she was a women, or perhaps it wasn't. It's almost impossible to say for sure, especially not based on this one sentence devoid of any context. In my Stack Overflow example I know there wasn't any racism involved because I didn't even notice the person was Indian until after he made that comment, yet the person was still left with a feeling of a racist interaction. It was a shitty situation for everyone involved.
Reading between the lines, that says you aren't a good professional right now and have a lot to learn. That would be fine to tell to your nephew sitting on your knee or an undergrad you are mentoring, but I wouldn't say something like that to a coworker, that's being a jerk. If they got the job, clearly they are professional enough to work at your holy megacorp.
It's a pretty straightforward deadlock:
"We want to hire you because you'll add diversity."
vs.
"I don't want to be hired just because I'll add diversity."
Since the solution of giving preference based on diverse attributes creates a deadlock, the problem has been framed wrong.
I'm not going to posit the right framing... I'm actually not sure. But letting people know they are doing the job for reasons other than their capability means they'll forever feel less qualified than their colleagues.
"We want to hire you because you'll add diversity."
vs.
"I don't want to be hired just because I'll add diversity."
Since the solution of giving preference based on diverse attributes creates a deadlock, the problem has been framed wrong.
I'm not going to posit the right framing... I'm actually not sure. But letting people know they are doing the job for reasons other than their capability means they'll forever feel less qualified than their colleagues.
Actually, this is not a deadlock at all really.
If a company wants to hire someone because of diversity, it’s not necessarily just because of diversity.
In the article, the author describes their experience as having been different than non-diverse candidates, therefore creating a sense of personal doubt about their abilities, however unfounded.
If given two equally qualified candidates, giving a preference to diverse ones does not present any deadlock. If you’re not just hiring someone for diversity, then you are doing that due diligence. Additionally, I would hope also doing the due diligence to make the environment you are hiring them into welcoming as well. The authors stories reflect things breaking down in this regard in a big way as well.
If a company wants to hire someone because of diversity, it’s not necessarily just because of diversity.
In the article, the author describes their experience as having been different than non-diverse candidates, therefore creating a sense of personal doubt about their abilities, however unfounded.
If given two equally qualified candidates, giving a preference to diverse ones does not present any deadlock. If you’re not just hiring someone for diversity, then you are doing that due diligence. Additionally, I would hope also doing the due diligence to make the environment you are hiring them into welcoming as well. The authors stories reflect things breaking down in this regard in a big way as well.
In practice, how often is it really going to come down to a neck-and-neck tiebreaker?
There's a pretty standard accepted approach to this for software engineers: your resume might be more likely to make it to the first phone call because of diversity, but you have to go through the same interview loop as everyone else.
The fact that you got the same competence test should be enough. Leave it at "the team thinks you can do the job."
The fact that you got the same competence test should be enough. Leave it at "the team thinks you can do the job."
Taking a non-diverse population and making it diverse is not easy at first. You need to jumpstart the effort across the board. Example: if there are no minority engineers applying from schools, it is because there are no minority students getting degrees. Follow that back to the source. It also is a lot to ask of a non-diverse group to suddenly understand diversity: they really can't, you need the group to be diverse in the first place so that those opinions are baked-in to the system. It's a catch-22, and bootstrapping is gonna upset the status quo (and probably newcomers) until things are running smoothly.
One source: With engineering it can be followed back to opportunity at school. The US school funding model sucks: wealthy districts get the most money, which means better education, which means students come out primed for better jobs. Then there's the Gatekeeping common in engineering that tries to keep out others (in the late 80's it was harassing women so that they dropped out... one of the frats at my uni had an actual game to try to get women to drop out by making fun of them in recitation, which was horrific).
One source: With engineering it can be followed back to opportunity at school. The US school funding model sucks: wealthy districts get the most money, which means better education, which means students come out primed for better jobs. Then there's the Gatekeeping common in engineering that tries to keep out others (in the late 80's it was harassing women so that they dropped out... one of the frats at my uni had an actual game to try to get women to drop out by making fun of them in recitation, which was horrific).
More egalitarian funding will just make the wealthier classes just put their money and students somewhere else. I live in an area with a lot of private and charter schools. This is the mechanism that the community members have evolved to fund+support their children's education directly the way they want. If you try to make people pay for something they don't want to - they'll just find ways around it and you could even be left with even worse outcomes than before.
Simple. Don't let them. My province has a math education program that would rank amongst #2-3 in the world, and you aren't allowed to run a private school with a different curriculum - at all, beyond a certain amount of enriched tracks that are available to anyone.
This also applies to the first few years of college.
Result? Everyone gets an amazing education, and you can't pay your way around it.
You might say that there is a risk that universities will simply select around it. In order to prevent that, universities may not use any criteria to select students from within the province, except a score, calculated from pre-university college education, that is a Z-score augmented by metrics from the performance of your classmates at standardized high school exams, deviation thereof, and a few more. The exception are programs like medicine and dentistry, where this score is used as the primary criteria but the interview and scores at ethical tests are also taken into account.
That way, there is simply no way to pay your way around it. Private high-schools are not competitive with the best public schools (which you can enter by exam or recommendation), purely private colleges and universities are even worse, and everyone ends up on a common track.
Result? In my Computer Science program, almost every minority is over-represented (the others are more commonly in Math or EEng), altough there is still a large majority of men.
It works pretty well. I would recommend it to you, but you'd probably need to sort out your incompetent-on-purpose government (from both parties). It would also require basically nationalizing every accredited university, but on the upside you'd have tuition costs of ~3000$ per year for every university.
This also applies to the first few years of college.
Result? Everyone gets an amazing education, and you can't pay your way around it.
You might say that there is a risk that universities will simply select around it. In order to prevent that, universities may not use any criteria to select students from within the province, except a score, calculated from pre-university college education, that is a Z-score augmented by metrics from the performance of your classmates at standardized high school exams, deviation thereof, and a few more. The exception are programs like medicine and dentistry, where this score is used as the primary criteria but the interview and scores at ethical tests are also taken into account.
That way, there is simply no way to pay your way around it. Private high-schools are not competitive with the best public schools (which you can enter by exam or recommendation), purely private colleges and universities are even worse, and everyone ends up on a common track.
Result? In my Computer Science program, almost every minority is over-represented (the others are more commonly in Math or EEng), altough there is still a large majority of men.
It works pretty well. I would recommend it to you, but you'd probably need to sort out your incompetent-on-purpose government (from both parties). It would also require basically nationalizing every accredited university, but on the upside you'd have tuition costs of ~3000$ per year for every university.
First, that's maybe acceptable if you live in a place with such a great math education program available in the public system, but most of the world does not and limiting the options of people in a region to only attend the public option creates a local maxima.
What if someone were in a region where the math education program was #100 in the world? Would it not be reasonable to want to create a private program providing an education that is capable of producing students that are competitive to those students from your province? What if some parents from your province weren't satisfied with being #2 or #3 and instead want the option to send their kid to a local program competitive with the #1 ranked program in the world?
> and you aren't allowed to run a private school with a different curriculum - at all
That's some Harrison Bergeron level thinking that is blatantly liberty reducing.
You might say that I left off the rest of that statement, "beyond a certain amount of enriched tracks that are available to anyone.", but even that ignores the fact that resources are finite. Parents more invested in their children's futures might be able to pool resources together in the form of a more competitive private program for their children but not have enough resources for all children. One of those finite resources might be the ability to attract enough world class educators and still maintain a low teacher to student ratio that the teachers can have a significant impact on each child.
What if someone were in a region where the math education program was #100 in the world? Would it not be reasonable to want to create a private program providing an education that is capable of producing students that are competitive to those students from your province? What if some parents from your province weren't satisfied with being #2 or #3 and instead want the option to send their kid to a local program competitive with the #1 ranked program in the world?
> and you aren't allowed to run a private school with a different curriculum - at all
That's some Harrison Bergeron level thinking that is blatantly liberty reducing.
You might say that I left off the rest of that statement, "beyond a certain amount of enriched tracks that are available to anyone.", but even that ignores the fact that resources are finite. Parents more invested in their children's futures might be able to pool resources together in the form of a more competitive private program for their children but not have enough resources for all children. One of those finite resources might be the ability to attract enough world class educators and still maintain a low teacher to student ratio that the teachers can have a significant impact on each child.
If the education is not good enough, the solution is to make it better.
As a society, we made the decision that it is not fair for children of richer parents to be able to have much better education that the rest, and instead made it better for everyone.
Since you insist on stating it in terms of freedom, we traded freedom from the obligation of public schooling for the freedom to have high quality education (and thus equal opportunity). Thanks to this choice, we have better outcomes than the US, and just as much freedom - just not the reductive kind of freedom you recognize.
If you really want even better math education, the solution is that instead of shelling out money, you can do research on how to ameliorate teacher education or pedagogical techniques, or run as a politician to get those resources allocated. That is also your freedom.
Ultimately, if you care about creating something resembling equality of opportunity and if you want to reduce inequality, you will have to abandon your reductive concept of freedom, where a homeless man starving enjoys more freedom than if he was in public housing, somehow.
As a society, we made the decision that it is not fair for children of richer parents to be able to have much better education that the rest, and instead made it better for everyone.
Since you insist on stating it in terms of freedom, we traded freedom from the obligation of public schooling for the freedom to have high quality education (and thus equal opportunity). Thanks to this choice, we have better outcomes than the US, and just as much freedom - just not the reductive kind of freedom you recognize.
If you really want even better math education, the solution is that instead of shelling out money, you can do research on how to ameliorate teacher education or pedagogical techniques, or run as a politician to get those resources allocated. That is also your freedom.
Ultimately, if you care about creating something resembling equality of opportunity and if you want to reduce inequality, you will have to abandon your reductive concept of freedom, where a homeless man starving enjoys more freedom than if he was in public housing, somehow.
This isn't just a matter of richness. It is also a matter of how much parents are willing to invest in their children's education. I know many "poor" parents that invest a great deal in their kids' eduction (time and money) and many "wealthier" parents that invest less. We shouldn't punish those who are willing to give more to their own kids' education. How do you handle this in a "fair" way - can't force people to care about their kids more.
Unfortunately, in the US, people from higher socioeconomic strata don't like to mingle with those of the lower. That is why they flee public education and laws allow them.
In addition, charter schools have no curriculum requirements in the name of "flexibility". They can teach whatever they want and hire whomever they wish but still get federal $$$. It's absurd.
Even worse, the US lacks comprehensive nationalized standards to begin with - public schools can purchase textbooks that have completely different US histories, usually regarding the Civil War and racism. It really is a clusterf*ck of epic proportions driven entirely by the GOP. I know HN gets fussy about calling out political differences, but this is a huge one. The GOP fights standards tooth-and-nail, as do GOP governors at the state level.
In addition, charter schools have no curriculum requirements in the name of "flexibility". They can teach whatever they want and hire whomever they wish but still get federal $$$. It's absurd.
Even worse, the US lacks comprehensive nationalized standards to begin with - public schools can purchase textbooks that have completely different US histories, usually regarding the Civil War and racism. It really is a clusterf*ck of epic proportions driven entirely by the GOP. I know HN gets fussy about calling out political differences, but this is a huge one. The GOP fights standards tooth-and-nail, as do GOP governors at the state level.
Upside of being a token X: sometimes you get enough cash out of it to be able to leave it behind again. This only works if they get to trot you out. So get used to that bridle.
Downside of being a token X: normally they just keep you around long enough to tick off the "hiring" box(es), since nobody gives a shit about retention, and you probably won't be the one chosen to get put on a pedestal.
So yeah, keep trying until you can find a place where you can just do your work and be taken seriously and not have them treat you like a piece of meat or worse. Good luck. I'm still looking for that place.
Downside of being a token X: normally they just keep you around long enough to tick off the "hiring" box(es), since nobody gives a shit about retention, and you probably won't be the one chosen to get put on a pedestal.
So yeah, keep trying until you can find a place where you can just do your work and be taken seriously and not have them treat you like a piece of meat or worse. Good luck. I'm still looking for that place.
With all due respect, I think part of her issue is she looks at everything from a "sexism" lens. Her first discriminatory comment seems like a sensible thing to tell any new grad.
She complains that the company didn't tell her she was a diversity hire? Doing this seems like a recipe for any diversity hire to always have imposter syndrome.
There's definitely sexism in the tech industry but I'd argue the best way forward is with tact. Coming out guns blaring with accusations and always assuming bad intentions will just alienate people from the cause.
She'd be better served trying to understand where people are coming from and working through specific, addressable issues.
She complains that the company didn't tell her she was a diversity hire? Doing this seems like a recipe for any diversity hire to always have imposter syndrome.
There's definitely sexism in the tech industry but I'd argue the best way forward is with tact. Coming out guns blaring with accusations and always assuming bad intentions will just alienate people from the cause.
She'd be better served trying to understand where people are coming from and working through specific, addressable issues.
she looks at everything from a sexism lense?... in the essay's topic of sexism she experienced? Yeah, agreed, she's too narrowly focused on her topic... She should ramble more and include more unrelated observations.
It seems like she’s experienced a lot of inappropriate and difficult things explicitly about gender. My only question was the cultural fit — we don’t know for sure that gender had anything to do with it. Often times when people are fired not only can you never tell them why, they are incapable of seeing, assessing, and recognizing their own flaws (particular when it comes to personal interaction versus quantitative measurements).
"Culture fit" without any other explanation is fairly solid evidence. First off, programming is one of the most "culture agnostic" jobs I've worked - if you're a high performer, you can absolutely get away with being an abrasive asshole. At least, if you're male. That's slowly changing, but I still find the social skills of the average programmer to be significantly below what I'd expect from, say, a minimum wage cashier or call center employee. (And that's fine, but it makes "culture fit" look like a much more suspicious excuse)
The other aspect here is that they just fired her, without any effort to actually work on that "culture fit". I've worked with managers who had wildly different styles, and some of them did NOT like mine. But instead of getting fired, I had conversations with them.
It's certainly possible that she's lying, or in denial, or just plain wrong. But I'd say the weight of the evidence favors her.
The other aspect here is that they just fired her, without any effort to actually work on that "culture fit". I've worked with managers who had wildly different styles, and some of them did NOT like mine. But instead of getting fired, I had conversations with them.
It's certainly possible that she's lying, or in denial, or just plain wrong. But I'd say the weight of the evidence favors her.
We don’t know that issues were or weren’t discussed with her. She just might not have put 2+2 together. I also don’t agree that you can sometimes get away with being an asshole if you’re a high performer… there certainly are environments where that’s the case but equally there plenty of others where it doesn’t cut it. I remember telling another team who I (previously) worked for, to which he replied “that guy? He’s impossible to work with.” Not too much later he was let go despite all his accolades and status.
I’ve seen enough assholes and inadvertent jerks have zero ability to reflect on their lack of EQ to ever be able to understand why things didn’t work out for them. They always blame it on others. I don’t know if that’s the case here or not, but I’d never take a random blog post as complete truth of a situation that involves multiple people and subjective judgement rendered.
It reminds me of a recent posting to HN about an Apple employee who seemed to go thru hell. Her rant was so extreme and unprofessional in its rant-y-ness it made me heavily question her own judgment and behavior. She made have been in a toxic environment, to which she may or may not have equally contributed without realizing it.
I’ve seen enough assholes and inadvertent jerks have zero ability to reflect on their lack of EQ to ever be able to understand why things didn’t work out for them. They always blame it on others. I don’t know if that’s the case here or not, but I’d never take a random blog post as complete truth of a situation that involves multiple people and subjective judgement rendered.
It reminds me of a recent posting to HN about an Apple employee who seemed to go thru hell. Her rant was so extreme and unprofessional in its rant-y-ness it made me heavily question her own judgment and behavior. She made have been in a toxic environment, to which she may or may not have equally contributed without realizing it.
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> Coming out guns blaring with accusations
She is not doing that
> working through specific, addressable issues
She is doing exactly this
She is not doing that
> working through specific, addressable issues
She is doing exactly this
> didn't tell her she was a diversity hire
It's illegal to do and definitely illegal to put on paper (in the US) - it's discrimination. That said, depends on what "HR had intentions to prioritize candidates" means in context.
It's illegal to do and definitely illegal to put on paper (in the US) - it's discrimination. That said, depends on what "HR had intentions to prioritize candidates" means in context.
I have to agree. Some of it is sexist (her feminist coworker) but the others not so much. I could accuse them of lacking tact, perhaps.
One has to keep in mind that not only do Other people offend us inadvertently but also WE inadvertently offend others too.
We can’t be so sensitive that we become prickly and then have people avoid you because you’re so prickly.
We have to be okay with not everything coming from your point of view. You won’t be able to have the Other persons PoV either even if you’re conscious of it. You have no idea what I’m thinking in a moment. It’s a fool’s errand.
Be genuine, be respectful, but don’t fault people for coming short when trying.
When talking to an audience you cannot simultaneously please everyone. It’s just not possible. At best you can be compliant with whatever the accepted practice is.
One has to keep in mind that not only do Other people offend us inadvertently but also WE inadvertently offend others too.
We can’t be so sensitive that we become prickly and then have people avoid you because you’re so prickly.
We have to be okay with not everything coming from your point of view. You won’t be able to have the Other persons PoV either even if you’re conscious of it. You have no idea what I’m thinking in a moment. It’s a fool’s errand.
Be genuine, be respectful, but don’t fault people for coming short when trying.
When talking to an audience you cannot simultaneously please everyone. It’s just not possible. At best you can be compliant with whatever the accepted practice is.
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> The time I was asked to use my “female approach”
This stuff is why a lot of diversity recruiting makes no sense to me. There are lots of good arguments in favour of targeting under represented groups (social justice, discovering talented people who get missed with traditional methods, willing to accept lower wages, less likely to unionize, etc) but the idea that women or Black people are useful because they “think differently” just seems offensive.
This stuff is why a lot of diversity recruiting makes no sense to me. There are lots of good arguments in favour of targeting under represented groups (social justice, discovering talented people who get missed with traditional methods, willing to accept lower wages, less likely to unionize, etc) but the idea that women or Black people are useful because they “think differently” just seems offensive.
I decided to try an experiment - I applied to IBM and, for the first time, I selected "Native American" as my ethnicity. Within 24 hours I got an email inviting me to a special, all expenses paid IBM recruiting event held for Native Americans in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They followed up with several phone calls encouraging me to attend.
I didn't want to go because I felt like the only reason they wanted to talk to me was so they could add another number to their diversity report. My Dad convinced me to go.
They had Native American speakers, food, performances and music. It felt so condescending.
On day 2 they had hiring managers from dozens of departments. It was like speed dating. One manager asked me "What was it like growing up Native American? Was it hard? Tell me about how hard it was for you." It felt gross.
One hiring manager handed me an offer letter when I sat down. She hadn't even spoken a word to me. She told me she had reviewed my resume and that was enough. WTF.
I got several offers from that event. I turned them all down.
I ended up getting a job at Microsoft. They didn't ask me about my race when I applied.