We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring(blog.interviewing.io)
blog.interviewing.io
We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring
http://blog.interviewing.io/we-ran-the-numbers-and-there-really-is-a-pipeline-problem-in-eng-hiring/
663 comments
> A while back, I did rough envelope calculations that if one of the major FAANG companies hit their diversity goal, there would be none left for any of the rest of them.
Not to mention, if the other companies also wish to hit their diversity goals, they will be forced to take on weaker hires, since the (already small) pool of adequate hires has been exhausted. In my opinion, diversity hiring is an anti-pattern. Hiring should instead ignore demographics information rather than use it to try and achieve some optimal representational balance. If demographics information are completely ignored in the hiring process (which is impossible if you do on-site hiring), then no one can accuse you of favoring a particular group of people.
Not to mention, if the other companies also wish to hit their diversity goals, they will be forced to take on weaker hires, since the (already small) pool of adequate hires has been exhausted. In my opinion, diversity hiring is an anti-pattern. Hiring should instead ignore demographics information rather than use it to try and achieve some optimal representational balance. If demographics information are completely ignored in the hiring process (which is impossible if you do on-site hiring), then no one can accuse you of favoring a particular group of people.
Common practice is to ignore diversity (to the extent possible) in assessing, but not in sourcing.
IIUC, I think the distinction between sourcing and assessing is not relevant here. Assuming the females in the pool of viable candidates have already been exhausted, then sourcing only females is suboptimal, as they are less likely to pass assessment because (by construction) they are not in the set of viable candidates.
It will always make the most sense to source the best people without regard to anything but job skill. If the best people aren't diverse, then chasing diversity requires you to look outside the set of best people, by construction. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.
It will always make the most sense to source the best people without regard to anything but job skill. If the best people aren't diverse, then chasing diversity requires you to look outside the set of best people, by construction. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.
How can that work for Google or Tesla or any other company that everyone knows about, where anyone who wants to work there is likely to apply?
Lots of people don't apply because they incorrectly believe they are not qualified.
Noted!
> they will be forced to take on weaker hires
What I have seen in my experience is not a lowering of the bar for more diverse hires, but a lowering of the bar when a company wants to drastically increase its number of engineers. Yet the lowered bar does not increase the percentage of diverse hires, quite the opposite. I've seen lowering the bar for white men, but no other group.
I say this as a white man who doesn't want to work with poor quality engineers who are uncoachable. It infuriates my sense of logic when they cry about not wanting to lower the bar while doing exactly that.
What I have seen in my experience is not a lowering of the bar for more diverse hires, but a lowering of the bar when a company wants to drastically increase its number of engineers. Yet the lowered bar does not increase the percentage of diverse hires, quite the opposite. I've seen lowering the bar for white men, but no other group.
I say this as a white man who doesn't want to work with poor quality engineers who are uncoachable. It infuriates my sense of logic when they cry about not wanting to lower the bar while doing exactly that.
If you've not seen it, Thomas Sowell incisively comments on the wish for the impossible in The Quest for Cosmic Justice. There's a full book, but the original speech gives the main point:
https://www.tsowell.com/spquestc.html
Definitely worth a look, even if you don't think it applies here.
https://www.tsowell.com/spquestc.html
Definitely worth a look, even if you don't think it applies here.
Oh it absolutely applies - excellent reminder and post!
The whole point of the article is that restricting your hiring pool to only CS graduates is a bad pattern and you should consider other qualities instead so saying only 18% of CS graduates are female misses the point.
Having no CS degree myself and excelling in a top 10 company I agree with this sentiment, especially seeing the epidemic of “over leveling” the small pool of CS graduates occurring. I’d rather work with correctly leveled non-CS graduates than over-leveled CS graduates
Having no CS degree myself and excelling in a top 10 company I agree with this sentiment, especially seeing the epidemic of “over leveling” the small pool of CS graduates occurring. I’d rather work with correctly leveled non-CS graduates than over-leveled CS graduates
The problem is how you gonna find a different hiring pattern to force 50%?
Internal training, ok, but are you going to only provide internal training to women? Is this even legal?
Basecamp training, ok, but are you going to only provide basecamp training to women? Is this even legal?
Special talents (dropouts etc.), ok, but are you going to only hire special talents who are women? Is this even legal?
Non-traditional education, ok, but are you going to only hire non-traditional education candidates who are women? Is this even legal?
The whole idea that there is a social engineering way to make programmers 50% male/female is not based on any facts as we know in a free society. On the contrary, there is evidence that the more gender equal society, the fewer women choose STEM. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...
The obsession of 50% is not only anti-science, it is also demeaning to other great contributions women provide to society. Yes, nurses and teachers make less money than programmers, but it does not mean nurses and teachers are less important than programmers. It is because personal caring kind of job is less scalable than STEM jobs, so a team of 10 programmers can provide services to far more people than 10 nurses.
Oh, are you going to disagree that caring for people is more a part of female nature than male nature? Are you going to say this is actually a result of society oppressed women and tricked them to care more about others? Because female psychology is exactly the same as male psychology? So maybe we should expect a gender equal society there are 50% male/female in murders and rapists?
Internal training, ok, but are you going to only provide internal training to women? Is this even legal?
Basecamp training, ok, but are you going to only provide basecamp training to women? Is this even legal?
Special talents (dropouts etc.), ok, but are you going to only hire special talents who are women? Is this even legal?
Non-traditional education, ok, but are you going to only hire non-traditional education candidates who are women? Is this even legal?
The whole idea that there is a social engineering way to make programmers 50% male/female is not based on any facts as we know in a free society. On the contrary, there is evidence that the more gender equal society, the fewer women choose STEM. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...
The obsession of 50% is not only anti-science, it is also demeaning to other great contributions women provide to society. Yes, nurses and teachers make less money than programmers, but it does not mean nurses and teachers are less important than programmers. It is because personal caring kind of job is less scalable than STEM jobs, so a team of 10 programmers can provide services to far more people than 10 nurses.
Oh, are you going to disagree that caring for people is more a part of female nature than male nature? Are you going to say this is actually a result of society oppressed women and tricked them to care more about others? Because female psychology is exactly the same as male psychology? So maybe we should expect a gender equal society there are 50% male/female in murders and rapists?
Always interesting that on Hacker News, people are always so ready to throw in the towel and call something impossible and list the 83 reasons why.
Unless it is about starting a business and making money via ads.... Then they're willing to devote thousand of hours of their life thinking creatively about how to solve problems to "change the world".
Unless it is about starting a business and making money via ads.... Then they're willing to devote thousand of hours of their life thinking creatively about how to solve problems to "change the world".
Lots of people have started businesses and made money via ads, in ways that increased wealth for everyone. Of course people think about how to do that.
In contrast nobody has changed the gender ratio in tech without discriminating against men: a zero sum game that definitely does not increase wealth for everyone.
As for your dismissal of people's 83 reasons, why not show us how it's done and address them?
In contrast nobody has changed the gender ratio in tech without discriminating against men: a zero sum game that definitely does not increase wealth for everyone.
As for your dismissal of people's 83 reasons, why not show us how it's done and address them?
> in ways that increased wealth for everyone
It certainly doesn't increase the wealth of people who are persuaded to buy stuff that really isn't worthwhile for them.
It certainly doesn't increase the wealth of people who are persuaded to buy stuff that really isn't worthwhile for them.
If buying things didn't provide value to people, they wouldn't have bought it.
Just because I cannot extract monetary value by buying another MIDI controller for my hobby doesn't mean it isn't a worthwhile purchase. If you derived enjoyment from a purchase, it increased your [non-material] wealth and added value.
The same way, Gmail and FB make money by selling ads, but if they didn't exist without ads, it is easily arguable that people would have missed out on a lot of wealth and benefits that comes with those things. I use Gmail, because I extract value from using it. And I pay for it by letting Google personalize my ads and sell them. For me, that exchange is absolutely worth it. If it wasn't, I wouldn't have been using it.
Just because I cannot extract monetary value by buying another MIDI controller for my hobby doesn't mean it isn't a worthwhile purchase. If you derived enjoyment from a purchase, it increased your [non-material] wealth and added value.
The same way, Gmail and FB make money by selling ads, but if they didn't exist without ads, it is easily arguable that people would have missed out on a lot of wealth and benefits that comes with those things. I use Gmail, because I extract value from using it. And I pay for it by letting Google personalize my ads and sell them. For me, that exchange is absolutely worth it. If it wasn't, I wouldn't have been using it.
That sounds like "magic key" cryptodenialist logic. Just because you really want something doesn't make it possible or viable.
They do support initiatives to help but realize it is essentially generational at this point.
They do support initiatives to help but realize it is essentially generational at this point.
I agree, 50% is probably an unreasonable goal, I could maybe even see arguing that any percent based goal is a bad goal. The goal should be “enough so those who are feeling disenfranchised don’t anymore” but that might be too squishy :)
>feeling
Good luck with that. People who profit exploiting "gender gap" like bootcamps, hr firms, speaker agencies, will never be happy.
Good luck with that. People who profit exploiting "gender gap" like bootcamps, hr firms, speaker agencies, will never be happy.
That’s a laudable goal, and to that end I imagine it would do a world of good to stop the constant exaggeration of how disenfranchised those groups are (NOTE that I’m not saying these groups are fully enfranchised, only that the disenfranchisement is exaggerated). At some point, advertising tech as a bunch of rapey, Nazi frat bros is probably more offputting than whatever discrimination actually exists. Let’s ditch the boogeyman and see what happens.
The numbers don't exaggerate.
You’re right: they don’t. They tell us the progressives are exaggerating.
kmonsen(2)
I’m a drop out too and have made my way to manager where I find myself training juniors many of which also do not have degrees. Unfortunately it is night and day between the ones who do have degrees and those that don’t. At this point I am now strongly recommending cs degrees to anyone seeking a career in programming because the theories do come up in any serious work, particularly full stack engineers who must have strong understandings of databases, type theory, statistical analysis, etc.
I would LOVE to create a large curriculum in house that aims to teach non degree holding individuals these skill sets because it would have tremendous return on investment. Be we are a small company (<100) with limited resources that can not afford to have a six month on boarding process to Do it properly (and I am not a professor).
It is an unrealistic burden to any small or medium org to do what is required by your comment.
I would LOVE to create a large curriculum in house that aims to teach non degree holding individuals these skill sets because it would have tremendous return on investment. Be we are a small company (<100) with limited resources that can not afford to have a six month on boarding process to Do it properly (and I am not a professor).
It is an unrealistic burden to any small or medium org to do what is required by your comment.
I'm currently teaching a class on databases to 10 junior engineers at a medium size org (~130 engineers). It's a huge amount of work but wonderfully fun and rewarding. The class is an even mix of CS grads and engineers from nontraditional backgrounds (mostly bootcamps). I myself trained in applied math and am a self-taught engineer who had a few good mentors along the way.
Having a CS degree perhaps helps a little for general background, but not every CS major has taken a db class and even then, they won't have learned many useful practical skills, like analyzing and fixing a slow production query. And conversely the folks who have been through bootcamps (that we have hired!) are all very self-directed and highly motivated to learn. So I'm not sure that the difference is quite as clear cut as you make it out to be.
I do completely agree with you that this is important, and that it's very hard to get companies to devote resources to it. Taking 6-8 hours a week out of a senior engineer's time to prepare and teach an effective class is a big ask; I had a lot of support from management to do this but I think that might be a rare luxury at other companies.
It's just sad that the tech industry doesn't invest more in high-quality structured teaching, when it could so clearly deliver benefits in terms of growing skills for engineers from both CS and non CS backgrounds. Assuming that they'll somehow learn everything they need without structure or direction might work in a few cases, but in general it's a poor long term strategy for both companies and the industry as a whole.
Having a CS degree perhaps helps a little for general background, but not every CS major has taken a db class and even then, they won't have learned many useful practical skills, like analyzing and fixing a slow production query. And conversely the folks who have been through bootcamps (that we have hired!) are all very self-directed and highly motivated to learn. So I'm not sure that the difference is quite as clear cut as you make it out to be.
I do completely agree with you that this is important, and that it's very hard to get companies to devote resources to it. Taking 6-8 hours a week out of a senior engineer's time to prepare and teach an effective class is a big ask; I had a lot of support from management to do this but I think that might be a rare luxury at other companies.
It's just sad that the tech industry doesn't invest more in high-quality structured teaching, when it could so clearly deliver benefits in terms of growing skills for engineers from both CS and non CS backgrounds. Assuming that they'll somehow learn everything they need without structure or direction might work in a few cases, but in general it's a poor long term strategy for both companies and the industry as a whole.
My experience is somewhat the opposite: I have a BSc in Software Engineering and MSc and PhD in Computer Science. I've been in the Software Industry for about 10 years now and have held a Eng Director/VP level positions at some start ups.
I used to be very degree-centric in my recruiting. But some time ago I started hiring from boothcamps, particularly for frontend jobs. The fact I saw is that as part of the development needs of the companies I have been at, there is a good amount of work that can be done by developers of these skill levels. Once my team was able to organize the work, we were able to make jr people productive.
This not only made us capable of hiring jr devs. It actually made more Sr devs happy because they did not have to do that work and made mid levels happy because they own the growth of the jr devs .
I used to be very degree-centric in my recruiting. But some time ago I started hiring from boothcamps, particularly for frontend jobs. The fact I saw is that as part of the development needs of the companies I have been at, there is a good amount of work that can be done by developers of these skill levels. Once my team was able to organize the work, we were able to make jr people productive.
This not only made us capable of hiring jr devs. It actually made more Sr devs happy because they did not have to do that work and made mid levels happy because they own the growth of the jr devs .
> theories do come up in any serious work
Depends on what you classify as serious work, I guess?
From years of reading similar comments and my own experience, I was under the impression most “software developer” jobs only lightly touch on anything complex - most of us aren’t designing databases and complex low-level stuff day-to-day, but we do need to know enough to not do something terribly inefficient and stupid in basic plumbing code.
I think what you really need are smart people, and people who are willing to put in the work to get past the first few years of stumbling and not knowing what anything means. Likewise, young developers need good mentors and patient senior developers to lean on and who they can pick this stuff up from.
Not sure what your company is doing, but if what you say is true, maybe you are one of the rarer groups actually doing the hard stuff.
Depends on what you classify as serious work, I guess?
From years of reading similar comments and my own experience, I was under the impression most “software developer” jobs only lightly touch on anything complex - most of us aren’t designing databases and complex low-level stuff day-to-day, but we do need to know enough to not do something terribly inefficient and stupid in basic plumbing code.
I think what you really need are smart people, and people who are willing to put in the work to get past the first few years of stumbling and not knowing what anything means. Likewise, young developers need good mentors and patient senior developers to lean on and who they can pick this stuff up from.
Not sure what your company is doing, but if what you say is true, maybe you are one of the rarer groups actually doing the hard stuff.
>I think what you really need are smart people, and people who are willing to put in the work to get past the first few years of stumbling and not knowing what anything means.
I totally agree with you, but that doesn't solve the issue, there are not that many of those people out there struggling to get jobs, because employers already know about this trick. That's why a bunch of quant and other top-tier finance shops are full of math and physics grads who had almost zero knowledge of finance before getting hired for those jobs.
I totally agree with you, but that doesn't solve the issue, there are not that many of those people out there struggling to get jobs, because employers already know about this trick. That's why a bunch of quant and other top-tier finance shops are full of math and physics grads who had almost zero knowledge of finance before getting hired for those jobs.
In my experience as somebody without a degree and employed for >15 years now, you don't need a degree to get enough understanding of type theory and statistics, even for things at senior level. It will obviously depend on the specific project, but self-learning is very much a viable option in this industry. Conversely, I've seen many candidates with a CS degree who couldn't handle trivial coding challenges (and I mean trivial, not puzzles).
Yes, but the issue is how likely is an arbitrary person interested in being a programmer but lacking a degree going to be able to self-teach the vast amounts of information needed to be productive as a modern developer? I wager it is very unlikely. Those who do follow the self-taught route are 1) unusually smart and/or self-motivated or 2) got into the field when there were fewer moving parts and so self-teaching had a much smaller learning curve, then they simply matured with the field. After all the field circa 2000 looks vastly different than it does circa 2019.
The value of a degree is less the information it teaches, and more as a filter for people who are unusually smart and/or self-motivated. Those people coming with the requisite CS theory is merely a bonus.
The value of a degree is less the information it teaches, and more as a filter for people who are unusually smart and/or self-motivated. Those people coming with the requisite CS theory is merely a bonus.
> Yes, but the issue is how likely is an arbitrary person interested in being a programmer but lacking a degree going to be able to self-teach the vast amounts of information needed to be productive as a modern developer?
You don’t need much to be productive. There’s plenty of great guardrails like code reviews, pair programming and shadowing that can make someone surprisingly productive.
The value of a degree is social signaling that you are the “type” of person to be able get that degree, socioeconomically and temperamentally. Plenty of people out there for whom the economics of a degree didn’t make any sense, or they had bigger needs that had to be filled immediately so didn’t have the ability to sacrifice for the long term.
You don’t need much to be productive. There’s plenty of great guardrails like code reviews, pair programming and shadowing that can make someone surprisingly productive.
The value of a degree is social signaling that you are the “type” of person to be able get that degree, socioeconomically and temperamentally. Plenty of people out there for whom the economics of a degree didn’t make any sense, or they had bigger needs that had to be filled immediately so didn’t have the ability to sacrifice for the long term.
That's what the interviews are for, no? The point of the article is that if you are using degrees as a filter, you're passing on a lot of otherwise qualified candidates.
I agree, but I don't think there is a substantial number of software shops that use relevant degrees as a hard filter, nor is there a significant number of non-degree holders bursting with realized CS talent that the field is somehow blind to.
I took the intended sentiment to be that of finding talent among non-degree holders that won't necessarily present itself in a typical CS interview scenario. Thus we need a way to identify future CS talent that is merely in need of training and mentoring. And so the problem reduces to, in my opinion, to finding people who are smart and unusually self-motivated. But there is just no good way of doing this.
I took the intended sentiment to be that of finding talent among non-degree holders that won't necessarily present itself in a typical CS interview scenario. Thus we need a way to identify future CS talent that is merely in need of training and mentoring. And so the problem reduces to, in my opinion, to finding people who are smart and unusually self-motivated. But there is just no good way of doing this.
My opinion: applying one-size-fits-all formulaic interviewing to your candidates excludes unconventional talent. Asking personal questions and following through on them unearths the smart and self-motivated talent. As an unconventional CS talent myself, I've had the most success with this approach on both sides of the interview process.
What do I mean by personal questions? My favorite interview so far left all the academic quizzing aside and asked me to talk in-depth about a particular real-world project I worked on. What patterns did I use? How did it interact with the database? How did I model the problem? This was not something that would be easily googled and it let me convey how I think about software on my own terms. Then it was up to the interviewer if my approach to software would be useful to them.
What do I mean by personal questions? My favorite interview so far left all the academic quizzing aside and asked me to talk in-depth about a particular real-world project I worked on. What patterns did I use? How did it interact with the database? How did I model the problem? This was not something that would be easily googled and it let me convey how I think about software on my own terms. Then it was up to the interviewer if my approach to software would be useful to them.
You're absolutely right. A degree is not needed but a structured university program does seem to succeed in putting the majority of its students through that study, while those doing self-study are more likely to miss such concepts for other things considered more "practical"
>>> theories do come up in any serious work
Counterpoint: the overwhelming majority of software companies out there do not work on problems and develop products that warrant deep computer science expertise.
I mean, if you're doing cutting edge and/or highly technical stuff, great, go nuts, recruit only those with CS degrees. But most software out there is your run-of-the-mill line of business software, mostly CRUD with a bit of specialized functionality. And the bar for working on that is way lower.
Counterpoint: the overwhelming majority of software companies out there do not work on problems and develop products that warrant deep computer science expertise.
I mean, if you're doing cutting edge and/or highly technical stuff, great, go nuts, recruit only those with CS degrees. But most software out there is your run-of-the-mill line of business software, mostly CRUD with a bit of specialized functionality. And the bar for working on that is way lower.
As a person without a CS education but with 30 years of industry experience, including several of The Bigs, I urge young people to get an education in anything but CS. The number of CS degree holders, even the masters and doctors, who struggle with statistics, linear algebra, or even thermodynamics and basic accounting is pretty dispiriting. Get an education and learn to program computers. Two separate things in my humble opinion.
I'm stunned to hear that. Well, not the part about basic accounting, or maybe thermodynamics, that I believe. But stats and linear algebra? I've worked at or attended several UC schools, and they all require calculus through linear algebra, vector calc, basic differential equations, and probability theory as part of the CS major. I myself was a math major and a grad student in Industrial Engineering, but we were all in the same core math sequence together.
Sometimes you go ahead and walk the fine line of the no true scotsman argument - a degree without this basic math isn't CS. And any "reputable" CS degree - and by "reputable" I don't mean top 10 or even top 50, I just mean a fine university with a proper curriculum - will absolutely have this requirement.
Sometimes you go ahead and walk the fine line of the no true scotsman argument - a degree without this basic math isn't CS. And any "reputable" CS degree - and by "reputable" I don't mean top 10 or even top 50, I just mean a fine university with a proper curriculum - will absolutely have this requirement.
Do you think other degrees, outside of maths or physics maybe, makes you better at the things you listed?
It seems unlikely to me, and the fact people struggle with this is more representative of the general population than of the degree itself I would say.
It might depend on how the degree is taught I guess, mine had very little actual programming.
It might depend on how the degree is taught I guess, mine had very little actual programming.
I'll never have personal first-hand experience with another kind of degree program, but my engineering program taught thermodynamics, accounting, technical writing, and ethics. I am looking right now at the Stanford CS undergraduate catalog and there are no requirements for technical writing, ethics, etc in here at all. Even the senior year writing requirement can be satisfied by working for Facebook for six months, which is disturbing and, frankly, explains a lot about why these kids can't write.
Your comment seemed really strange to me, because I remember that even back at Georgia Tech, we had both technical writing and ethics requirement for anyone in the CS program, so I decided to doublecheck the facts you listed about the Stanford CS program.
Where did you get your info from? Because I just checked the Stanford CS curriculum requirements for Bachelors degree, and it clearly has "Computers, Ethics, and Public Policy" requirement, along with a senior project requirement (that would, I assume, includes writing), as well as 3-5 credit units from the list of approved "Technology in Society" courses.[0]
0. https://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/schoolofengineering/comp...
Where did you get your info from? Because I just checked the Stanford CS curriculum requirements for Bachelors degree, and it clearly has "Computers, Ethics, and Public Policy" requirement, along with a senior project requirement (that would, I assume, includes writing), as well as 3-5 credit units from the list of approved "Technology in Society" courses.[0]
0. https://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/schoolofengineering/comp...
The senior project is the one I mentioned that can be fulfilled by CS210, working at “our industry partners” in lieu of actual university coursework. The “tech & society” catalog is a joke. Look at the courses. Archeology? Fine as an elective.
My engineering program required an upper-division course from the philosophy department on the development of rigorously ethical systems of thought.
My engineering program required an upper-division course from the philosophy department on the development of rigorously ethical systems of thought.
I'd like to see some proof that there's a large pool of competent software engineers without any degrees (or CS degrees) just waiting to be hired.
Additionally, if you meant specifically without CS degrees, I think a lot of companies accept unrelated degrees + experience.
Additionally, if you meant specifically without CS degrees, I think a lot of companies accept unrelated degrees + experience.
I am one of them. I have no college degree of any kind and bested CS grads in an interview.
> I'd like to see some proof that there's a large pool
> I am one of them
You, yourself, are a large pool? Or you, yourself are one instance of a fairly small pool (like OP suggests).
> I am one of them
You, yourself, are a large pool? Or you, yourself are one instance of a fairly small pool (like OP suggests).
I am proof a pool exists.
A pool of statistical outliers is not a "big pool" that the parent comment was referring too. There are quite a few brilliant software engineers I got a chance to work with who had no college education whatsoever, but they are very clearly outliers among very few. I strongly doubt there is some big untapped pool of engineers without degrees who are just being completely overlooked simply for not having a degree.
How could we use Newton's flaming laser sword to settle our argument?
One of the most disgusting things I have seen in my career was when my manager up-leveled a male candidate just to offer a salary the candidate might agree to, but he did not do the same for a female candidate who received similar feedback in the interview process. I mainly remember this because it happened around the same time for the same role we were trying to fill. Neither candidate accepted an offer.
How is this the top rated comment? It swats down the post based on points that the post has already addressed:
> Why do we place the blame and assign malice of intent to those who have little control over the constraints?
The post suggests searching and hiring outside of the traditional pipeline, which is something that is within control. The comment is then topped off with a strawman argument:
> If we put actual performance metrics and pay on the line for achieving these physically unattainable goals, everyone would be fired.
50% is clearly a goal that is a long way away but it doesn't mean we cannot work towards it. Yes, it's probably unrealistic to expect anyone to bring 50% representation to a significant sized workforce within an average tenure. It doesn't mean that the pursuit of gender parity is delusional or that meaningful and achievable targets cannot be set.
If anything this top comment is a prime example of the prevailing biased and unwilling attutide to improve representation in the industry, that has been placed on a pedestal.
> Why do we place the blame and assign malice of intent to those who have little control over the constraints?
The post suggests searching and hiring outside of the traditional pipeline, which is something that is within control. The comment is then topped off with a strawman argument:
> If we put actual performance metrics and pay on the line for achieving these physically unattainable goals, everyone would be fired.
50% is clearly a goal that is a long way away but it doesn't mean we cannot work towards it. Yes, it's probably unrealistic to expect anyone to bring 50% representation to a significant sized workforce within an average tenure. It doesn't mean that the pursuit of gender parity is delusional or that meaningful and achievable targets cannot be set.
If anything this top comment is a prime example of the prevailing biased and unwilling attutide to improve representation in the industry, that has been placed on a pedestal.
The article is based on how we have failed to achieve 50/50 parity and why that is bad. You yourself have reiterated it as a good goal to chase. But is it? That is what OP is objecting to.
Do you believe if the world was completely fair we would have 50/50 in every industry or is there (shock and horror) perhaps an uncomfortable biological difference driving our interests.
Do you believe if the world was completely fair we would have 50/50 in every industry or is there (shock and horror) perhaps an uncomfortable biological difference driving our interests.
You sound like a shining example of someone who believes that representation in a selected-for-some-attribute population should match the general population. That is a fallacy from the beginning, and I would encourage you to carefully justify to yourself why you believe that to be true.
And this also just illustrates how difficult it is to debate on similar ground with a random person in a well-defined scope on these kinds of issues.
I speak concretely of the things companies are able to achieve within the constraints and resources they're given. You speak of hopes and dreams. But more importantly (and worse), I think you seek to turn your hopes and dreams into unworkable policies that penalize people for not achieving your hopes and dreams.
And this also just illustrates how difficult it is to debate on similar ground with a random person in a well-defined scope on these kinds of issues.
I speak concretely of the things companies are able to achieve within the constraints and resources they're given. You speak of hopes and dreams. But more importantly (and worse), I think you seek to turn your hopes and dreams into unworkable policies that penalize people for not achieving your hopes and dreams.
The alternative sources in the post still aren’t at gender parity, though they do show a higher percentage of women. If you can hire equal amounts of men and women from those sources then you’ll move your metric up, but you won’t get to 50%.
To hit 50% when the hiring pool is less than 50% women would require women to get accepted at a higher rate than men.
To hit 50% when the hiring pool is less than 50% women would require women to get accepted at a higher rate than men.
[deleted]
[deleted]
How is this the top rated comment?
Because it spells out a view that the majority agrees with.
The post suggests searching and hiring outside of the traditional pipeline
It suggests the only way to hire more women is to discriminate against the best credentialed candidates.
It doesn't mean that the pursuit of gender parity is delusional
Lots of us believe it's actually, truly delusional.
How long have women been encouraged to go into engineering? Decades. My entire life. The numbers studying it don't shift. Diversity initiatives have long ago passed the King Canute stage and turned into full blown reality denial based on a big pile of nasty conspiracy theories about men. Aline Lerner is one of the better "women in tech" out there but even she goes there:
hostile university culture in male-dominated CS programs, biased hiring practices, and ultimately non-inclusive work environments that force women and people of color to leave tech
Ugh. Women would prefer teaching children to software? It must be that men are hostile, biased and "force" women to leave!
What about the fact that most childcare workers are women? Is it due to rampant bias, hostility and discrimination by women that "force" men to leave? Where are the hundreds of millions spent on fixing that? At least with teaching there's some slightly plausible argument about why gender diversity might be useful, whereas in engineering there is none.
These beliefs are insulting, demeaning, condescending and ultimately false. The vast, vast majority of men I've encountered in the tech world bend over backwards to give women anything they want if they even so much as express an interest in tech. Sometimes they push them to the front even if they don't. The idea that women's lack of interest in tech is all the nasty male's fault is absurd and is the inverse of the reality: namely, women routinely campaign hard to exclude men from opportunities. All in the name of "equality".
Because it spells out a view that the majority agrees with.
The post suggests searching and hiring outside of the traditional pipeline
It suggests the only way to hire more women is to discriminate against the best credentialed candidates.
It doesn't mean that the pursuit of gender parity is delusional
Lots of us believe it's actually, truly delusional.
How long have women been encouraged to go into engineering? Decades. My entire life. The numbers studying it don't shift. Diversity initiatives have long ago passed the King Canute stage and turned into full blown reality denial based on a big pile of nasty conspiracy theories about men. Aline Lerner is one of the better "women in tech" out there but even she goes there:
hostile university culture in male-dominated CS programs, biased hiring practices, and ultimately non-inclusive work environments that force women and people of color to leave tech
Ugh. Women would prefer teaching children to software? It must be that men are hostile, biased and "force" women to leave!
What about the fact that most childcare workers are women? Is it due to rampant bias, hostility and discrimination by women that "force" men to leave? Where are the hundreds of millions spent on fixing that? At least with teaching there's some slightly plausible argument about why gender diversity might be useful, whereas in engineering there is none.
These beliefs are insulting, demeaning, condescending and ultimately false. The vast, vast majority of men I've encountered in the tech world bend over backwards to give women anything they want if they even so much as express an interest in tech. Sometimes they push them to the front even if they don't. The idea that women's lack of interest in tech is all the nasty male's fault is absurd and is the inverse of the reality: namely, women routinely campaign hard to exclude men from opportunities. All in the name of "equality".
Please don't take HN threads into gender war. Most comments in this thread managed to stay thoughtful and substantive. You crossed the line and you made it worse downthread. Please don't post like that here. It's against the site rules and it evokes worse from others.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Except every single one of the dozen+ female engineers I personally at FAANGM+ has a first-hand account of something vile that a male collegue did. In one case an internship mentor asked someone to come to their house, stating the wife and kids aren't home at night. Maybe you're a great man, and you only know other great men . But you can't dismiss a whole group just because you don't experience what they do. Just because it's not happening to you, doesn't mean it's not happening.
Similar situation is when my non-minority friends are surprised that racism still exists in <area>. "I know racism exits, but that kind of thing cannot happen <here>!" Well, my friend, you wouldn't feel that way if you looked like me.
Similar situation is when my non-minority friends are surprised that racism still exists in <area>. "I know racism exits, but that kind of thing cannot happen <here>!" Well, my friend, you wouldn't feel that way if you looked like me.
> My entire life.
Mine, too, and I'm in my 40's now.
Mine, too, and I'm in my 40's now.
I generally agree with you, but such smart and resourceful companies could do something about it. They are not powerless.
Companies used to train internally - watch an older TV show (or even something like Better Call Saul) and see how many characters "worked their way up from the mail room". The death of company loyalty goes both ways but I'm sure it can be mended with some effort. Where I work one of the better programmers I knew was an immigrant from south east Asia who started in the warehouse and had an interest in programming. I don't know whether or not he had a degree, but the point was he worked hard to prove himself, and they took a chance to give him a go.
So I guess my point is, graduate statistics isn't the end of the story.
Companies used to train internally - watch an older TV show (or even something like Better Call Saul) and see how many characters "worked their way up from the mail room". The death of company loyalty goes both ways but I'm sure it can be mended with some effort. Where I work one of the better programmers I knew was an immigrant from south east Asia who started in the warehouse and had an interest in programming. I don't know whether or not he had a degree, but the point was he worked hard to prove himself, and they took a chance to give him a go.
So I guess my point is, graduate statistics isn't the end of the story.
> Companies used to train internally
Please no. Japan is that way. Japan pays programmers $20k to start, no better than working fast food. Their salaries go up to $60k at the top end at most big Japanese companies and they have the attitude that anyone over 35 is too old to code. I feel the fact they hire grads with zero experience is one of the reasons. Why pay someone $$$ if they can't actually do the job yet? Conversely interns at Google make $70k-$100k yearly equivalent. The two might not be connected but I feel they are and so AFAIK the "pay for experience" is better than "pay with free training" for employees.
It also seems better for the employer. Japan still has a culture of lifetime employment so the employer invests the equivalent of a college education into the employee and gets a lifetime commitment. That would never work in the west. People would take the free education and then leave for greener pastures the first chance they got.
Please no. Japan is that way. Japan pays programmers $20k to start, no better than working fast food. Their salaries go up to $60k at the top end at most big Japanese companies and they have the attitude that anyone over 35 is too old to code. I feel the fact they hire grads with zero experience is one of the reasons. Why pay someone $$$ if they can't actually do the job yet? Conversely interns at Google make $70k-$100k yearly equivalent. The two might not be connected but I feel they are and so AFAIK the "pay for experience" is better than "pay with free training" for employees.
It also seems better for the employer. Japan still has a culture of lifetime employment so the employer invests the equivalent of a college education into the employee and gets a lifetime commitment. That would never work in the west. People would take the free education and then leave for greener pastures the first chance they got.
Funny scene I'm translating from French (maybe it comes from the other side of the Atlantic, I don't remember when I read/heard it):
CEO : « We should train our workers. »
CFO : « It will be expensive and what do we do if we train them and they leave ? »
CEO : « What do we do if we don't and they stay ? »
Finally I think the parable is initially french, as it's harder to fire people just for lack of training here.
CEO : « We should train our workers. »
CFO : « It will be expensive and what do we do if we train them and they leave ? »
CEO : « What do we do if we don't and they stay ? »
Finally I think the parable is initially french, as it's harder to fire people just for lack of training here.
I question whether training internally for any role will ever make a big comeback given current labor markets, but even if it did in the US, the labor market here is nothing like in Japan for a whole bunch of reasons. I think programmer salaries are bad there because have you seen the software that comes out of corporate Japan? There may be smart programmers but its clear companies see software as an afterthought at best, not a competitive area like in the US. In some ways I kind of respect the basic approach of not leveraging data and AI to the max to be disruptive like the current US tech market, but I wouldn’t try to go be a programmer there.
I'm wondering if they don't have a different idea of training internally than you do...
When I was younger, my mother worked as a freight forwarder. After she'd been there for awhile, the company paid to send her for training and certification to work with hazardous materials. If I recall correctly, she signed a contract agreeing to repay the costs of the courses if she left the company before a certain period of time had passed.
Essentially, rather than hiring externally a freight forwarder who is already certified to handle dangerous goods, they identified their strongest existing employee without that certification and paid for them to learn what they needed for a more advanced position, with conditions to assure they recoup their investment. The way I read it, I thought the person you replied to was suggesting identifying existing employees with potential and paying to expand their skillsets for a different role, e.g. with bootcamps or MOOCs, not hiring fresh graduates for low pay.
When I was younger, my mother worked as a freight forwarder. After she'd been there for awhile, the company paid to send her for training and certification to work with hazardous materials. If I recall correctly, she signed a contract agreeing to repay the costs of the courses if she left the company before a certain period of time had passed.
Essentially, rather than hiring externally a freight forwarder who is already certified to handle dangerous goods, they identified their strongest existing employee without that certification and paid for them to learn what they needed for a more advanced position, with conditions to assure they recoup their investment. The way I read it, I thought the person you replied to was suggesting identifying existing employees with potential and paying to expand their skillsets for a different role, e.g. with bootcamps or MOOCs, not hiring fresh graduates for low pay.
> she signed a contract agreeing to repay the costs of the courses if she left the company before a certain period of time had passed.
I had a similar clause in my first contract. Since the team I was hired into was a Perl shop and I hadn't done any Perl before starting there, they sent me on a week-long Perl training early on. The contract said that if I quit within the first year, I would have to reimburse them for the cost of the training (going down progressively by 1/12th of the price per month that I'm staying with the company).
I had a similar clause in my first contract. Since the team I was hired into was a Perl shop and I hadn't done any Perl before starting there, they sent me on a week-long Perl training early on. The contract said that if I quit within the first year, I would have to reimburse them for the cost of the training (going down progressively by 1/12th of the price per month that I'm staying with the company).
I’ve wanted to work at flex port for awhile and always wondered if they offered this...freight has so many things to learn in terms of law, economics, and supply chain....not to mention dealing with things at sea..
How can you say it would never work in the west when it did for many years? It certainly wasn't the workers who stopped it working.
I personally value stability and would prefer to stay in one place if it were more feasible. Training can be at all career stages, not just the beginning.
Japan, yeah, I don't want that. It's a unique beast with a lot of dysfunctions, both anecdotally from friends and all the stories online. I'd say the things you listed are outcomes from lingering cultural problems rather than causes.
I personally value stability and would prefer to stay in one place if it were more feasible. Training can be at all career stages, not just the beginning.
Japan, yeah, I don't want that. It's a unique beast with a lot of dysfunctions, both anecdotally from friends and all the stories online. I'd say the things you listed are outcomes from lingering cultural problems rather than causes.
There was a piece on PBS Newshour recently about older workers (largely skilled blue collar) staying on longer with verious incentive because employers couldn't find skilled replacements.
What stuck me as ridiculous was some owner who said something about having invested 30 years in these guys. He hadn't invested shit as far as I could see. He has a handfull of employees that had invested in their own skills. If he had invested in his employees he have a new generation ready or almost ready to step up as one retired.
What stuck me as ridiculous was some owner who said something about having invested 30 years in these guys. He hadn't invested shit as far as I could see. He has a handfull of employees that had invested in their own skills. If he had invested in his employees he have a new generation ready or almost ready to step up as one retired.
> Why pay someone $$$ if they can't actually do the job yet?
Senior devs have to come from somewhere.
Senior devs have to come from somewhere.
/puts MBA hat on
yeah, other companies that invested in them but tried not to give them market raises.
yeah, other companies that invested in them but tried not to give them market raises.
But why would you expect women to be more like to choose the approach of not graduating than men, though? Women have the same options to attend university as men. It seems more likely to me that the proportions of applicants without a degree are similar to the ones with degrees.
The focus on Computer Science is a female filter. I’ve rarely run into a colleague who claimed their education truly prepared them anyway.
You’d be better off being diverse in major. When I think of the smartest developers or IT people I know, one was a sociologist who learned programming as a labor department statistician, another had an MFA in Piano, and the other was in pharmacy school and dropped out after an injury.
You’d be better off being diverse in major. When I think of the smartest developers or IT people I know, one was a sociologist who learned programming as a labor department statistician, another had an MFA in Piano, and the other was in pharmacy school and dropped out after an injury.
There are certainly people like this. What you generally find about them though is that they are highly motivated and deeply interested in the concepts of computing. They don't grow on trees -- they're quite rare.
Oddly enough, I've never met a single one that was female, though that's only anecdotal of course. The only female devs I know have CS degrees.
The focus on CS is important. Developers who don't have it are generally not educated in how to write good code. Many people do get into the field without the degree, but many of them are very bad at programming. I've had to rewrite O(n!) algorithms written by some of them, and they really didn't even understand why the algorithm was bad even when I broke it down to them.
My CS education absolutely gave me many of the tools I need for a career in software engineering. It didn't give me everything to be sure -- there's a lot of learning that still goes on in the job, but having a solid foundation is crucial to being a good engineer.
Oddly enough, I've never met a single one that was female, though that's only anecdotal of course. The only female devs I know have CS degrees.
The focus on CS is important. Developers who don't have it are generally not educated in how to write good code. Many people do get into the field without the degree, but many of them are very bad at programming. I've had to rewrite O(n!) algorithms written by some of them, and they really didn't even understand why the algorithm was bad even when I broke it down to them.
My CS education absolutely gave me many of the tools I need for a career in software engineering. It didn't give me everything to be sure -- there's a lot of learning that still goes on in the job, but having a solid foundation is crucial to being a good engineer.
Hello! Now you've met a female dev with no CS degree. There may be a reason we're thin on the ground, too. My "training" as a software dev consisted of 10 years of self-employment as a freelance web developer, and when I decided to transition to working for a company, I faced massive hiring discrimination. I couldn't pay someone to interview me! And I did demonstrate that it was discrimination, too. My resume was getting something like a 2% response rate with my name on it, but I put a man's name on it and sent out a bunch, and suddenly I was getting a response to more than 80% of them.
Anecdote is not data, and it's only my individual anecdote, but it's my experience that breaking through into the industry to be incredibly hard. Since then I've made up for lost time and advanced faster than a college grad would expect (junior dev in a shitty agency to enterprise lead dev in about four years), and I attribute that to spending so incredibly long as essentially a junior dev freelancer and just being older.
So it can be done, certainly, but I strongly suspect there are several filters working against self-taught developer women making that transition into the industry, and one of them is definitely gender discrimination. And no, aside from sending out resumes with a man's name on them, I don't know how to fix it.
Anecdote is not data, and it's only my individual anecdote, but it's my experience that breaking through into the industry to be incredibly hard. Since then I've made up for lost time and advanced faster than a college grad would expect (junior dev in a shitty agency to enterprise lead dev in about four years), and I attribute that to spending so incredibly long as essentially a junior dev freelancer and just being older.
So it can be done, certainly, but I strongly suspect there are several filters working against self-taught developer women making that transition into the industry, and one of them is definitely gender discrimination. And no, aside from sending out resumes with a man's name on them, I don't know how to fix it.
I suspect you'd have had far easier success with a BSCS on your resume. I can't imagine trying to get into this field without having had a degree -- it is a hard industry to get into.
I keep hearing about gender discrimination, and maybe this is a market segment thing, but everywhere I've worked is actively recruiting female devs. Also the places I've worked as a dev typically require a CS degree though for what that's worth. Many of them even require an MSCS -- I've actually been turned down for one job because even though I have an MS it wasn't an MSCS (gov contracts get very specific).
I keep hearing about gender discrimination, and maybe this is a market segment thing, but everywhere I've worked is actively recruiting female devs. Also the places I've worked as a dev typically require a CS degree though for what that's worth. Many of them even require an MSCS -- I've actually been turned down for one job because even though I have an MS it wasn't an MSCS (gov contracts get very specific).
Oh you're almost certainly right, it would have been easier with the degree. I don't have any degree, and programming is a second career for me, so in a world where 26 year old senior developers are a thing, it's just one more thing putting me on my back foot. My biggest regret is not starting down this path 10 or 15 years earlier, honestly.
I am absolutely willing to believe it's a market segment thing. I live in a smaller city full of colleges, so the handful of large companies hiring want all of their jr devs to be right out of college, and that's straight from the recruiter's mouths. I was forced to apply to all the small companies.
And, for what it's worth, my current job and the two before it "required" a degree. From what I can tell, that requirement is to filter people on the low end of years of experience. Old age and treachery counts for a lot more than you may think.
I am absolutely willing to believe it's a market segment thing. I live in a smaller city full of colleges, so the handful of large companies hiring want all of their jr devs to be right out of college, and that's straight from the recruiter's mouths. I was forced to apply to all the small companies.
And, for what it's worth, my current job and the two before it "required" a degree. From what I can tell, that requirement is to filter people on the low end of years of experience. Old age and treachery counts for a lot more than you may think.
Requirements can certainly be waived -- a good candidate who can "network in" can often bypass gates like that if they're a known quantity to someone in the company. Personal recommendations do make a huge difference -- I've networked my way to nearly every job I've gotten in some way.
> one of them is definitely gender discrimination
Definitely? As in, you have actual proof? Or even some evidence? Because if you do, that’s illegal, and ought to be reported to the DOL.
Definitely? As in, you have actual proof? Or even some evidence? Because if you do, that’s illegal, and ought to be reported to the DOL.
The only evidence I have is response rates, and about 12 companies that responded to a man's-name resume that did not respond to an identical resume with a woman's name. I have consulted with a labor lawyer, who told me that this might be actionable if I can get enough women together to also perform this experiment and gather together in a class-action lawsuit. I don't live in a particularly large city, and I believe it's almost impossible without astroturfing.
> responded to a man's-name resume that did not respond to an identical resume with a woman's name
If you can demonstrate evidence of this, you absolutely should, because that would be a particularly surprising finding considering how many organizations state upfront that they have preferential hiring for women. I’ve hired software developers for decades, and the resumes are dominated by Indian-sounding names: I don’t know about you, but I usually can’t tell whether those names are masculine or feminine. I’m shocked on the rare occasion I come across a resume with an American sounding name like Jim or Mary.
If you can demonstrate evidence of this, you absolutely should, because that would be a particularly surprising finding considering how many organizations state upfront that they have preferential hiring for women. I’ve hired software developers for decades, and the resumes are dominated by Indian-sounding names: I don’t know about you, but I usually can’t tell whether those names are masculine or feminine. I’m shocked on the rare occasion I come across a resume with an American sounding name like Jim or Mary.
I don't think that a computer science degree is bad, just that it's a poor filter. I have one, and while the math background is critical for many things, honestly the skills learned there are pretty limited in terms of what I've do.
If you have a background in any science, or even a good analysis ability in a liberal arts field, you can be trained pretty quickly to be a functional developer. I'm surprised this doesn't happen more given the absurd salaries people are getting paid these days!
If you have a background in any science, or even a good analysis ability in a liberal arts field, you can be trained pretty quickly to be a functional developer. I'm surprised this doesn't happen more given the absurd salaries people are getting paid these days!
Lots of people can be "trained" to be functional developers. That doesn't make them good software engineers.
A CS degree is supposed to educate you in how to think, not train you to write software. Being able to properly decompose a problem and use the right data structures and algorithms to solve it is more than just training. You need education in the fundamentals to do that effectively.
I don't believe that it is impossible for someone without a CS degree to be a developer -- far from it -- but in my experience most of the really good ones have CS or CE or EE degrees. YMMV of course.
A CS degree is supposed to educate you in how to think, not train you to write software. Being able to properly decompose a problem and use the right data structures and algorithms to solve it is more than just training. You need education in the fundamentals to do that effectively.
I don't believe that it is impossible for someone without a CS degree to be a developer -- far from it -- but in my experience most of the really good ones have CS or CE or EE degrees. YMMV of course.
Options don't exist in a vacuum. I had the option of signing up to the military, but my upbringing, preferences, and economic/social status made it almost certain I wouldn't. I had free will to make the choice but the outcome was almost foregone.
I think women in tech is a very similar situation. The article states that women graduate from bootcamps at a rate twice that of traditional CS courses. I'd say this is because there's less friction to join, so anything pushing them away is more easily overcome.
I think women in tech is a very similar situation. The article states that women graduate from bootcamps at a rate twice that of traditional CS courses. I'd say this is because there's less friction to join, so anything pushing them away is more easily overcome.
I'd like to have more data on the women graduating from bootcamps. Maybe it is a desperate move of aging single moms who find they can't make a living with their degree in English Literature? While most men who are interested took traditional degrees to begin with, so they have less need for bootcamps.
Sorry for the harsh formulation, but the point is, we really don't actually know what is going on. It is not legitimate to just assume women are being pushed away from traditional career paths in IT.
As for Military, I think the idea to become a Software Developer is by now a very common one, you don't have to come from a specific demographic to have heard of that option. Women come from the same backgrounds as men, the odds to have a baby girl or a baby boy are the same at all levels of society.
Sorry for the harsh formulation, but the point is, we really don't actually know what is going on. It is not legitimate to just assume women are being pushed away from traditional career paths in IT.
As for Military, I think the idea to become a Software Developer is by now a very common one, you don't have to come from a specific demographic to have heard of that option. Women come from the same backgrounds as men, the odds to have a baby girl or a baby boy are the same at all levels of society.
to build on this- among younger age groups- women are more likely to be college graduates than men.
Women willingly choose different education paths because of different interests.
Women willingly choose different education paths because of different interests.
That's not true. Harvey Mudd made changes to their CS program to remove bias and now more than half of its computer science majors are women. There is some very insidious bias in the pipeline that isn't explained away with "but different interests".
https://qz.com/730290/harvey-mudd-college-took-on-gender-bia...
https://qz.com/730290/harvey-mudd-college-took-on-gender-bia...
A bit of "wait a minute, something else is going on here" comes with the mention that Physics has a even higher % women, yet there's no mention of curriculum changes for that major. This wouldn't happen to be a very small school with a very low acceptance rate, would it?
It is: less than 900 students and less than 13%. They can have whatever gender ratio they want, more or less, with essentially no effort. I'm not sure they have cleverly solved "insidious bias", more than they are simply selecting for the gender ratio they want as they send out acceptance letters. It would be nice if a much larger school with a much higher acceptance rate adopted identical curriculum, so we could have real data on the idea. But until that happens I would be somewhat cautious about declaring success here.
It is: less than 900 students and less than 13%. They can have whatever gender ratio they want, more or less, with essentially no effort. I'm not sure they have cleverly solved "insidious bias", more than they are simply selecting for the gender ratio they want as they send out acceptance letters. It would be nice if a much larger school with a much higher acceptance rate adopted identical curriculum, so we could have real data on the idea. But until that happens I would be somewhat cautious about declaring success here.
23% of the women who apply to Harvey Mudd are admitted. 10% of the men who apply to Harvey Mudd are admitted. It sounds like they have one admissions process for women, and a different one for me. That's one way to get 50/50 I suppose.
That wouldn't fly in the workplace. I'm surprised it's acceptable under Title IX.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/03/1...
That wouldn't fly in the workplace. I'm surprised it's acceptable under Title IX.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/03/1...
There could be plenty of non-malicious natural explanations for this.
What if there are way more males applying to Harvey Mudd, thus, assuming equal ability levels of people in both groups, resulting in a higher women admission rate?
What if the women applying to Harvey Mudd are, on average, more competent than males applying for whatever reason? E.g., women being less confident about applying to schools like MIT, so a bunch of them would apply to Harvey Mudd instead, while all MIT-capable males wouldn't apply to Harvey Mudd.
I am not claiming whether that specific situation they have at Harvey Mudd is acceptable or not under Title IX, but the numbers your bring up should not be problematic on its own under Title IX imo, it is how those numbers were arrived at and other numbers in the context that make all the difference.
What if there are way more males applying to Harvey Mudd, thus, assuming equal ability levels of people in both groups, resulting in a higher women admission rate?
What if the women applying to Harvey Mudd are, on average, more competent than males applying for whatever reason? E.g., women being less confident about applying to schools like MIT, so a bunch of them would apply to Harvey Mudd instead, while all MIT-capable males wouldn't apply to Harvey Mudd.
I am not claiming whether that specific situation they have at Harvey Mudd is acceptable or not under Title IX, but the numbers your bring up should not be problematic on its own under Title IX imo, it is how those numbers were arrived at and other numbers in the context that make all the difference.
Obviously with proper marketing you can target the niche.
There are more than enough women interested in computing to make up 50% of a tiny school's program. There aren't nearly enough women interested in computing to make up 50% of the market.
There are more than enough women interested in computing to make up 50% of a tiny school's program. There aren't nearly enough women interested in computing to make up 50% of the market.
Basically everyone at Harvey Mudd is in STEM -- the article says this. Their results are not really useful in the discussion, as their female student population is already heavily self-selected in favor of the hard sciences.
Adding on to this, Harvey Mudd puts forth significant effort at outreach and recruitment for their student body. Meaning they're pulling from the existing pool of STEM students to a large degree compared to creating new ones. It's very likely that Harvey Mudd's success cannot be reproduced at scale.
The more likely case is that they have a degree that isn't in CSC.
> But why would you expect women to be more like to choose the approach of not graduating than men, though?
Well, probably because the environment in all parts of the tech pipeline, is often times toxic the entire way through, and women don't want to deal with that.
So part of solving the pipeline problem means trying to solve it in many different parts of the pipeline, and recognizing that even if a previous part failed, you can still do stuff to fix it, later on.
Well, probably because the environment in all parts of the tech pipeline, is often times toxic the entire way through, and women don't want to deal with that.
So part of solving the pipeline problem means trying to solve it in many different parts of the pipeline, and recognizing that even if a previous part failed, you can still do stuff to fix it, later on.
It's certainly not "toxic all the way through". That's such an insulting assumption. I bet you for example that at engineering university women are more likely to get help than men.
The accusations against tech have been a decades long Kafkatrap essentially for the sin of "not fitting in with their expectations and being successful" as a trial where the conclusion is guilty but they must deliberate over what sins. Look at the oldest accusations which failed to illustrate it best. I believe one howler was that "It would make cultures homogenous."
At a certain point you are clearly dealing with bad actors and the default assumption stops being any attempt to accomidate them and starts being to tell them to fuck off.
At a certain point you are clearly dealing with bad actors and the default assumption stops being any attempt to accomidate them and starts being to tell them to fuck off.
Sorry I have difficulties parsing what you wrote. What exactly do you mean? Who are the bad actors?
Have you tried speaking to any women to get their opinion on the matter?
Because basically every women in tech has many many many stories of their bad experiences, all the way through the pipeline.
If you want to talk about universities, the problem with them is often the culture. Women are second guessed, every step of the way, and are often told that they don't belong there, and they have their abilities questions much more often than men.
This very common toxic culture of universities, often drives women out of the industry, because they feel like they don't belong, and aren't as good as their peers, even though they might actually be getting better grades than their peers.
If you speak to almost any woman in tech, they will be able to tell you this, and they will be able to give you many examples of the horrible experiences that they had to go through, every step of the way, through the pipeline.
It might not be all women that have these experiences. But it is most of them. Polling and data collection supports this conclusion.
Because basically every women in tech has many many many stories of their bad experiences, all the way through the pipeline.
If you want to talk about universities, the problem with them is often the culture. Women are second guessed, every step of the way, and are often told that they don't belong there, and they have their abilities questions much more often than men.
This very common toxic culture of universities, often drives women out of the industry, because they feel like they don't belong, and aren't as good as their peers, even though they might actually be getting better grades than their peers.
If you speak to almost any woman in tech, they will be able to tell you this, and they will be able to give you many examples of the horrible experiences that they had to go through, every step of the way, through the pipeline.
It might not be all women that have these experiences. But it is most of them. Polling and data collection supports this conclusion.
Most "studies" of that are rather distorted, you have to read very carefully. For example they may summarize that many women have experienced discrimination at some point. That can mean in 4 years of study, somebody once made a sexist joke in passing. It doesn't imply they had real issues. And the issues of men are not even studied for comparison.
That latter thing might be the biggest issue. The basic assumptions seems to be that things always come easy for men and they are always welcome.
And yes I know many women in tech, as I studied with them and worked with them.
I have also seen many articles by women in tech who say they didn't have issues. But somehow they don't count and are quickly forgotten, because they go against the narrative.
That latter thing might be the biggest issue. The basic assumptions seems to be that things always come easy for men and they are always welcome.
And yes I know many women in tech, as I studied with them and worked with them.
I have also seen many articles by women in tech who say they didn't have issues. But somehow they don't count and are quickly forgotten, because they go against the narrative.
> I have also seen many articles by women in tech who say they didn't have issues.
And there are many that do have issues. See, thats the thing about this stuff. Some women not having bad experiences, does not overrule the bad experiences of other women.
And there are many that do have issues. See, thats the thing about this stuff. Some women not having bad experiences, does not overrule the bad experiences of other women.
Why does it not work the other way round, some women with bad experiences don't overrule the good experiences of other women?
For what it's worth, many of the accounts of "bad experiences" didn't really convince me, either. It is too easy to attribute all of one's issues to sexism. For example the common complaint of being passed over in promotions, or of having one's opinions not being appreciated. That happens to men all the time, too, they just don't get to claim it is because of sexism.
Confirmation bias may play a huge role in those personal accounts, too.
As I said - usually the comparison to actual experiences of men is missing. There are many, many more men who have been passed over for promotion than women who have been passed over, in the tech industry, for example.
Another thing that is missing is an account of the advantages women have, like men being eager to help, extra funding only for women, hiring quotas, and so on.
For what it's worth, many of the accounts of "bad experiences" didn't really convince me, either. It is too easy to attribute all of one's issues to sexism. For example the common complaint of being passed over in promotions, or of having one's opinions not being appreciated. That happens to men all the time, too, they just don't get to claim it is because of sexism.
Confirmation bias may play a huge role in those personal accounts, too.
As I said - usually the comparison to actual experiences of men is missing. There are many, many more men who have been passed over for promotion than women who have been passed over, in the tech industry, for example.
Another thing that is missing is an account of the advantages women have, like men being eager to help, extra funding only for women, hiring quotas, and so on.
> some women with bad experiences don't overrule the good experiences of other women?
Because I am not overruling those womens experiences! So if you were to claim that some women have no problems, thats fine. I am sure there are some. But there still exists bad exeriences for many women, and thats still bad and we should try and solve those bad experiences!
See the difference? I am not saying that good experiences don't exist. I am saying that even if some good experiences exist, we should still try and solve the bad experiences, which definitely do exist.
You, on the other hand, seem to be trying to minimize the real life problems that other women definitely do have. (Whereas I am not denying that some women have no problems. Just that even if this is the case, we should still work to solve the bad experiences)
Because I am not overruling those womens experiences! So if you were to claim that some women have no problems, thats fine. I am sure there are some. But there still exists bad exeriences for many women, and thats still bad and we should try and solve those bad experiences!
See the difference? I am not saying that good experiences don't exist. I am saying that even if some good experiences exist, we should still try and solve the bad experiences, which definitely do exist.
You, on the other hand, seem to be trying to minimize the real life problems that other women definitely do have. (Whereas I am not denying that some women have no problems. Just that even if this is the case, we should still work to solve the bad experiences)
This is a good point. EDS during the 80s and 90s used to hire smart people with no college degree and send them to Texas to learn how to code for several months. They built their workforce this way because the demand was higher than the global supply. It would cost a blip on the balance sheet of FAANG co.’s to do the same. Interestingly there was a high number of married people that coupled up during that time. Sounded like a pretty intense but fun experience. Source: I interned there in the late 90s and heard a lot of stories from the then middle aged cohorts that went through it.
Sure, but the scope of what most companies are concerned with is their hiring goals for the next 1-2 years (let's be generous and say 5 years). What you're talking about clearly falls into the pipeline problem and just further supports the premise -- something like a 20 year timescale issue. Which goes to the truth of this article -- this problem is far beyond the power (or responsibility) of any company.
I'm not saying a company should throw up its hands and do nothing. But why are we looking to assign to companies the solving of a 50% problem (if that's the goal), when they can only ever achieve 15% within their reasonable powers?
I'm not saying a company should throw up its hands and do nothing. But why are we looking to assign to companies the solving of a 50% problem (if that's the goal), when they can only ever achieve 15% within their reasonable powers?
The article says to not rely on proxies like college degrees, so I was aiming more along those lines. As far as I can tell (I admit I skimmed it) they advocate hiring for skills over pedigree.
There's a pipeline problem if you are only taking a specific output and society is not producing it. As an individual company then you can either broaden what you accept (and I don't think this will lower quality, but it will make hiring harder), or take charge and extend the pipeline in your own backyard through training or probationary periods to trial someone.
FTA: > As you can see, broadening your pipeline isn’t a magic pill, and as long as demand for software engineers continues to grow, it’s still going to be really hard, systemic changes to our society notwithstanding. If we do make these changes, however, the tech industry as a whole can accelerate its path toward gender parity and potentially get there within a decade.
There's probably a feedback loop here where if they can broaden their intake, it will help accelerate societal change. The largest companies will have the most trouble, because they have the most seats to fill, but they also have the resources to try something different to fix this if they really want to.
On your last point, I think having a hard target like 50% can be damaging since it is demoralising to look at the gap and it might all feel like too much to deal with. I'd personally prefer to work towards 'a bit better than last year' with some achievable (non-startup) growth rates.
There's a pipeline problem if you are only taking a specific output and society is not producing it. As an individual company then you can either broaden what you accept (and I don't think this will lower quality, but it will make hiring harder), or take charge and extend the pipeline in your own backyard through training or probationary periods to trial someone.
FTA: > As you can see, broadening your pipeline isn’t a magic pill, and as long as demand for software engineers continues to grow, it’s still going to be really hard, systemic changes to our society notwithstanding. If we do make these changes, however, the tech industry as a whole can accelerate its path toward gender parity and potentially get there within a decade.
There's probably a feedback loop here where if they can broaden their intake, it will help accelerate societal change. The largest companies will have the most trouble, because they have the most seats to fill, but they also have the resources to try something different to fix this if they really want to.
On your last point, I think having a hard target like 50% can be damaging since it is demoralising to look at the gap and it might all feel like too much to deal with. I'd personally prefer to work towards 'a bit better than last year' with some achievable (non-startup) growth rates.
I believe hnick is not talking about twenty years, but taking a good employee, enrolling them in bootcamp, then training them for a number of months.
Yes that's one way. Many roles in some companies are relatively light on tech and rely a lot more on domain specific knowledge, so those are ideal stepping stones too.
So much this. I work at a FAANG company which has terrible diversity numbers in hardware development. Upper management is frequently asked about this by employees at big q&a sessions. The answer is always to blame the pipeline, as if we do not have billions of dollars that we could direct at solving it ourselves...
Except it isn't their responsibility. Clearly they don't have trouble making profit so why would they spend billions of dollars trying to urge people who may or may not even want the job to try and do it?
I like to think that companies run by humans don't solely consider profit as their only metric for success. If you're not solvent you can't do much as a company but it surely helps to actually give a shit about the people you affect both immediately and from a distance in both circumstance and over time.
Billions are being spent on housing in the bay area by these ultra rich companies even though it is arguably not at all their responsibility.
Except it is, because of course it is.
Who is responsible for fixing the gender imbalance in tech, if not the leaders in tech?
(Of course the housing thing may just be a cynical calculation that it’s cheaper than the toxic public relations of doing nothing. But maybe that should be the case for the gender thing too.)
Except it is, because of course it is.
Who is responsible for fixing the gender imbalance in tech, if not the leaders in tech?
(Of course the housing thing may just be a cynical calculation that it’s cheaper than the toxic public relations of doing nothing. But maybe that should be the case for the gender thing too.)
> fixing the gender imbalance
An imbalance doesn't inherently need to be fixed. If the imbalance is because women are simply less interested- an imbalance is desirable.
Equality in opportunity will not neccessarily lead to equality in outcome. Any argument on this topic that is rooted in outcomes can be immediately dismissed. Attempt to measure the actual source of the problem- which is opportunity.
An imbalance doesn't inherently need to be fixed. If the imbalance is because women are simply less interested- an imbalance is desirable.
Equality in opportunity will not neccessarily lead to equality in outcome. Any argument on this topic that is rooted in outcomes can be immediately dismissed. Attempt to measure the actual source of the problem- which is opportunity.
This is anecdotal, but I have noticed this pattern in several large (multinational) companies at which I have worked.
In a particular well-known American tech company with a large office in Tokyo, our recruiters were in part responsible for the pipeline of new recruits from abroad. I began to notice the recruiters feeding the pipeline with people that were essentially cookie-cutter templates of themselves.
I would say 90% of the interviewees had the same background: 30s-40s white male with a Japanese girlfriend/wife that wanted to move to Tokyo for family reasons. At one point, it just became a cliche.
I have no opinion on whether this was a good or bad thing, but it definitely overfitted for that particular persona and shifted the company's internal culture and diversity.
So while the source of the pipeline is definitely skewed, I would argue that whoever is doing the recruiting and subsequent hiring need also be evaluated regarding their criteria for employee selection.
In a particular well-known American tech company with a large office in Tokyo, our recruiters were in part responsible for the pipeline of new recruits from abroad. I began to notice the recruiters feeding the pipeline with people that were essentially cookie-cutter templates of themselves.
I would say 90% of the interviewees had the same background: 30s-40s white male with a Japanese girlfriend/wife that wanted to move to Tokyo for family reasons. At one point, it just became a cliche.
I have no opinion on whether this was a good or bad thing, but it definitely overfitted for that particular persona and shifted the company's internal culture and diversity.
So while the source of the pipeline is definitely skewed, I would argue that whoever is doing the recruiting and subsequent hiring need also be evaluated regarding their criteria for employee selection.
If you could showcase where women are born with DNA that leads them away from software related jobs, I would be very interested. Otherwise, "interested" is incredibly affected by environment and biases, which can be fixed, and should be.
https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-...
We still have very little understanding of the human brain- but we understand enough to know that women and men are different.
The theory of evolution also provides strong support for this idea. Women and men have had different selection criteria, and therefore have evolved differences.
We still have very little understanding of the human brain- but we understand enough to know that women and men are different.
The theory of evolution also provides strong support for this idea. Women and men have had different selection criteria, and therefore have evolved differences.
We do know that more egalitarian countries lead to significantly pronounced differences in choices between male and female. That directly suggest that males and females biologically like different things.
This is known as the Gender-equality paradox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox
They are? Hilarious since it seemingly has no impact at all.
[deleted]
Pretty sure this constitutes illegal discrimination under US law?
What does?
Australia BTW.
Australia BTW.
Not sure what GP meant, but I'd guess promotions are much more susceptible to discrimination cases than hires, since there's something much more concrete to compare against.
If you hire only one gender with narrowly targetted job advertisements, the"wronged party is a pool of thousands (or more) of engineers that didn't even know the job existed. If you promote only one gender from the mail room, the wronged party is a small cohort of peers that can visibly see exactly who is promoted above them. Those are much more dangerous waters to tread.
If you hire only one gender with narrowly targetted job advertisements, the"wronged party is a pool of thousands (or more) of engineers that didn't even know the job existed. If you promote only one gender from the mail room, the wronged party is a small cohort of peers that can visibly see exactly who is promoted above them. Those are much more dangerous waters to tread.
> If the percentage of female computer science graduates (as a strong proxy for the available candidate population) is 18% (Google for the facts and stats), how is every company to hit an idealistic goal of 50% representation?
I really thought it was the accepted fact and a starting point of all the discussions on this subject, that the issue is the pool of candidate.
Myself I recently tried to hire a developer and that’s a reality that there is nearly no female candidates. And I‘m not restricting it to CS degree.
I don’t understand how it’s not obvious that what can be done at the hiring process is completely marginal. There is no politics here.
The politics is how much we try to aim for 50% candidates (education, training...)
I really thought it was the accepted fact and a starting point of all the discussions on this subject, that the issue is the pool of candidate.
Myself I recently tried to hire a developer and that’s a reality that there is nearly no female candidates. And I‘m not restricting it to CS degree.
I don’t understand how it’s not obvious that what can be done at the hiring process is completely marginal. There is no politics here.
The politics is how much we try to aim for 50% candidates (education, training...)
The main driver is the H1B:
https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Re...
73.9% of H1B visas are given to Indians, 79.2% of those Indians are males.
The solution is to require at least 50% of all H1B recipients, from all countries, to be female.
High levels of Indian and Chinese migration also produce secondary effects, as families from those communities still carry out sex-selective abortion even into the 2nd and 3rd generations: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6133054/
73.9% of H1B visas are given to Indians, 79.2% of those Indians are males.
The solution is to require at least 50% of all H1B recipients, from all countries, to be female.
High levels of Indian and Chinese migration also produce secondary effects, as families from those communities still carry out sex-selective abortion even into the 2nd and 3rd generations: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6133054/
> If the percentage of female computer science graduates (as a strong proxy for the available candidate population)
I don't see why one would assume that gender distribution of CS degree holders is a strong proxy for the gender distribution of available candidates suitable for software development positions. Its true that many big firms (and even a large number of small firms) have a well-known strong bias for CS degree holders (and for CS degree holders from particular elite institutions), but the statistics of the field as a whole, and of CS degree holders, show that that is a bias inconsistent with the real qualifications for the field which cannot avoid exaggerating the gender gap in the field.
> A while back, I did rough envelope calculations that if one of the major FAANG companies hit their diversity goal, there would be none left for any of the rest of them.
That only makes sense if you assume that none of the meeting the target was done by bringing people into the field that otherwise would not be in it, despite the fact that that is typically a focus of such efforts by large firms.
I don't see why one would assume that gender distribution of CS degree holders is a strong proxy for the gender distribution of available candidates suitable for software development positions. Its true that many big firms (and even a large number of small firms) have a well-known strong bias for CS degree holders (and for CS degree holders from particular elite institutions), but the statistics of the field as a whole, and of CS degree holders, show that that is a bias inconsistent with the real qualifications for the field which cannot avoid exaggerating the gender gap in the field.
> A while back, I did rough envelope calculations that if one of the major FAANG companies hit their diversity goal, there would be none left for any of the rest of them.
That only makes sense if you assume that none of the meeting the target was done by bringing people into the field that otherwise would not be in it, despite the fact that that is typically a focus of such efforts by large firms.
"statistics of the field as a whole, and of CS degree holders, show that that is a bias inconsistent with the real qualifications for the field which cannot avoid exaggerating the gender gap in the field."
You've made a counter-intuitive point and claimed that it's confirmed by statistics and yet haven't included any...
You've made a counter-intuitive point and claimed that it's confirmed by statistics and yet haven't included any...
> Why do we place the blame and assign malice of intent to those who have little control over the constraints?
Some people presume that billionaire multinationals could spend some of their cash fixing the pipeline problem by convincing a few thousand women to take up coding.
More precisely: while technical proclivity and skill are obviously not uniformly distributed across the population, some people believe they "should" be more uniformly distributed than they currently are (because those things can correlate with wealth/power), and that whoever has the power to fix a gender imbalance in wealth/power-probability has the responsibility to do so.
Aside: Interesting how people push for these demographics at software companies but not at elementary/middle/high schools. Maybe if we solve that problem (which is literally just a matter of salaries) then there would be more openings in the tech industry for women and other under-represented groups.
Some people presume that billionaire multinationals could spend some of their cash fixing the pipeline problem by convincing a few thousand women to take up coding.
More precisely: while technical proclivity and skill are obviously not uniformly distributed across the population, some people believe they "should" be more uniformly distributed than they currently are (because those things can correlate with wealth/power), and that whoever has the power to fix a gender imbalance in wealth/power-probability has the responsibility to do so.
Aside: Interesting how people push for these demographics at software companies but not at elementary/middle/high schools. Maybe if we solve that problem (which is literally just a matter of salaries) then there would be more openings in the tech industry for women and other under-represented groups.
> by convincing a few thousand women to take up coding
Because we all know how well people react to being told "Hey, you should learn to code!"
Because we all know how well people react to being told "Hey, you should learn to code!"
>> If the percentage of female computer science graduates (as a strong proxy for the available candidate population) is 18%
Perhaps employers can expand the search to those with degrees in statistics, mathematics, physics, econometrics?
What I've seen time and time again is that when people dont want to hire, they come up with excuse after excuse. When they really want to hire [a VP's brother-in-low, or whatever], even the flimsiest of cases suddenly get made for the hire.
I'd say, we should look think bigger.
Perhaps employers can expand the search to those with degrees in statistics, mathematics, physics, econometrics?
What I've seen time and time again is that when people dont want to hire, they come up with excuse after excuse. When they really want to hire [a VP's brother-in-low, or whatever], even the flimsiest of cases suddenly get made for the hire.
I'd say, we should look think bigger.
Is the pipeline in other degrees any better? And more importantly, why is it even a suggestions to look for other degrees when searching for candiate just to fill out diversity quota?
Just to be clear, I am not saying there is anything wrong with looking for candidates from those areas, companies should, and already did source candidates from more than CS degrees. But the company should do that because those candidates were qualified, not because they have to hire to sastify a demographic composition requirements for the company
Just to be clear, I am not saying there is anything wrong with looking for candidates from those areas, companies should, and already did source candidates from more than CS degrees. But the company should do that because those candidates were qualified, not because they have to hire to sastify a demographic composition requirements for the company
Wall Street hires people from all kinds of degrees all the time (though not for the purpose of diversity). I’ve worked with fund managers who majored in Japanese history, astrophysics, a lawyer who clerked for SCOTUS, and even a former professional card counter who dropped out of college.
I thought the tech industry had pioneered the idea that a degree shouldn’t be the yard stick that all potential hires are judged against. And yet every time there’s a discussion about diversity in tech it’s the first excuse brought up. Suddenly a CS degree is a necessity.
I thought the tech industry had pioneered the idea that a degree shouldn’t be the yard stick that all potential hires are judged against. And yet every time there’s a discussion about diversity in tech it’s the first excuse brought up. Suddenly a CS degree is a necessity.
Not many people get degrees in fund management, but aren't actively managed funds being increasingly seen as just dart throwing anyway?
If fund managers are on average no more lucky than just following the market then it'd stand to reason it doesn't matter what their degrees are in because they had no real skill to begin with.
My own experience of finance has been that jobs are handed out in ways and for reasons that would seem extremely lax to someone from the tech world.
If fund managers are on average no more lucky than just following the market then it'd stand to reason it doesn't matter what their degrees are in because they had no real skill to begin with.
My own experience of finance has been that jobs are handed out in ways and for reasons that would seem extremely lax to someone from the tech world.
>> Perhaps employers can expand the search to those with degrees in statistics, mathematics, physics, econometrics?
Why do you assume there won't be a similar (or worse) gender bias in those fields too? And if you expand the search in some way or loosen the requirements, then you can't do it only for women, that wouldn't be legal. That's why there is a real pipeline problem that needs to be addressed by getting more women into STEM.
Why do you assume there won't be a similar (or worse) gender bias in those fields too? And if you expand the search in some way or loosen the requirements, then you can't do it only for women, that wouldn't be legal. That's why there is a real pipeline problem that needs to be addressed by getting more women into STEM.
Instead of getting economists and statisticians involved, why not just encourage companies to fund the educations of demographics of workers they're trying to recruit?
Not only is there a financial incentive (if you get people new to the field, you can pay them less until they get a new job or sufficient raises, and this is a benefit for both parties due to the lessened educational cost), it also creates loyalty out of almost nothing.
If not university classes or a bootcamp-like setup, apprenticeships would probably work amazingly for the purpose.
Not only is there a financial incentive (if you get people new to the field, you can pay them less until they get a new job or sufficient raises, and this is a benefit for both parties due to the lessened educational cost), it also creates loyalty out of almost nothing.
If not university classes or a bootcamp-like setup, apprenticeships would probably work amazingly for the purpose.
a) making for-profit companies responsible for education is an anti-pattern
b) suggesting that those people should be paid less is immoral
b) suggesting that those people should be paid less is immoral
[deleted]
There is a similar push for "women in statistics", "women in mathematics", etc.
> Why do we place the blame and assign malice of intent to those who have little control over the constraints?
Because 1) there is a feedback loop that does show that having role models at the end of the pipeline does help the entire pipeline. 2) It is easier than restructuring the entire pipeline than admitting that it is a societal problem rather than big bad Google being sexist (I'm not saying Google isn't sexist).
This is kind of a pattern in problems that don't have smoking guns. We like to pretend that things are first order problems (problem causes an effect, directly) when most problems are pretty high order and complex. First order problems are usually easier to solve because they have a clear smoking gun. You take care of the bad person that fired the gun and the problem is solved. I actually suspect that this is an evolutionary problem, being that most of our early problems could be approximated by first or second order and thus increase our survival rate. I'm also pretty convinced that we've solved most of those now, and thus that line of thinking doesn't work for modern problems.
But for part 1), if you have the flu, tissues help. They don't cure the flu, but they help you from preventing the spread and alleviate the symptoms. So if you take my preposition about first order problems, I don't think it is hard to see why people would get stuck at that stage. Essentially "we did something and it had a positive effect. So let's keep doing that thing!" That's not bad logic. You admit that they do have __a little__ control over the constraints, so it isn't surprising that they have __a little__ impact. The failure is not continuing to look for more potential solutions and stagnating. Just need to do some PCA, find the other factors, and push on those (as well as what we've already found to have positive effects). But this is much easier said than done, and I think that is part of the problem. Difficult problems are tautologically difficult, but we as a society like to pretend there are simple solutions (come on, admit it, you do this too).
So why do we do this? Well, how many people do you know break down complex problems into multiple components? I know very few, and even then they don't consistently do it.
> If we put actual performance metrics and pay on the line for achieving these physically unattainable goals, everyone would be fired.
I'd argue that they would just start cheating. Which I think that there is evidence that this is happening (some being given in this article).
Because 1) there is a feedback loop that does show that having role models at the end of the pipeline does help the entire pipeline. 2) It is easier than restructuring the entire pipeline than admitting that it is a societal problem rather than big bad Google being sexist (I'm not saying Google isn't sexist).
This is kind of a pattern in problems that don't have smoking guns. We like to pretend that things are first order problems (problem causes an effect, directly) when most problems are pretty high order and complex. First order problems are usually easier to solve because they have a clear smoking gun. You take care of the bad person that fired the gun and the problem is solved. I actually suspect that this is an evolutionary problem, being that most of our early problems could be approximated by first or second order and thus increase our survival rate. I'm also pretty convinced that we've solved most of those now, and thus that line of thinking doesn't work for modern problems.
But for part 1), if you have the flu, tissues help. They don't cure the flu, but they help you from preventing the spread and alleviate the symptoms. So if you take my preposition about first order problems, I don't think it is hard to see why people would get stuck at that stage. Essentially "we did something and it had a positive effect. So let's keep doing that thing!" That's not bad logic. You admit that they do have __a little__ control over the constraints, so it isn't surprising that they have __a little__ impact. The failure is not continuing to look for more potential solutions and stagnating. Just need to do some PCA, find the other factors, and push on those (as well as what we've already found to have positive effects). But this is much easier said than done, and I think that is part of the problem. Difficult problems are tautologically difficult, but we as a society like to pretend there are simple solutions (come on, admit it, you do this too).
So why do we do this? Well, how many people do you know break down complex problems into multiple components? I know very few, and even then they don't consistently do it.
> If we put actual performance metrics and pay on the line for achieving these physically unattainable goals, everyone would be fired.
I'd argue that they would just start cheating. Which I think that there is evidence that this is happening (some being given in this article).
> If the percentage of female computer science graduates (as a strong proxy for the available candidate population) is 18% (Google for the facts and stats), how is every company to hit an idealistic goal of 50% representation?
Oh it can be done, it just requires reducing the number of male employees in one way or another. Everyone wants to believe the utopian ideal of perfectly-balanced ratios of employees can be achieved without someone getting the short end of the stick, but reality says otherwise.
Oh it can be done, it just requires reducing the number of male employees in one way or another. Everyone wants to believe the utopian ideal of perfectly-balanced ratios of employees can be achieved without someone getting the short end of the stick, but reality says otherwise.
We've abandoned the pursuit of equality for the pursuit of equity.
I do agree that there is indeed a pipeline problem; however there is still much scope for improvement at workplaces. Notably, gender balance is not only skewed at the point of hiring; in fact, the skew gets worse and worse as one goes up through the ranks.
Do you think the numbers would change appreciably if the entire hiring process was boiled down to a multiple-choice exam, with no humans besides the applicant involved, which chose who gets hired based on the first applicant to pass it?
Yes.
The assumption you're making is that everyone who is capable of doing a dev job manages to get one, so if you remove all the hiring biases all those people will continue to get dev jobs and nothing will really change.
That assumption is wrong.
There are thousands of people who can't get dev jobs for reasons other than lacking technical ability. Some hiring managers filter out candidates before the make it to interview for absolutely stupid reasons. Some companies have hiring practices that are plain stupid and select out capable engineers for dumb reasons. If hiring was a multiple choice exam those people would be able to enter the industry and there'd be fewer companies with unfilled positions.
Also, even if you don't think it'd have much of an impact on the numbers across the industry, the numbers at the specific companies that have bad hiring biases obviously would change. That could be useful.
The assumption you're making is that everyone who is capable of doing a dev job manages to get one, so if you remove all the hiring biases all those people will continue to get dev jobs and nothing will really change.
That assumption is wrong.
There are thousands of people who can't get dev jobs for reasons other than lacking technical ability. Some hiring managers filter out candidates before the make it to interview for absolutely stupid reasons. Some companies have hiring practices that are plain stupid and select out capable engineers for dumb reasons. If hiring was a multiple choice exam those people would be able to enter the industry and there'd be fewer companies with unfilled positions.
Also, even if you don't think it'd have much of an impact on the numbers across the industry, the numbers at the specific companies that have bad hiring biases obviously would change. That could be useful.
Yes, you would get more men and less women than now as men do better on such tests while women do better on tests with more social cues such as interviews or writing resumes.
[deleted]
Does anyone have a goal of 50% female developers? Can we see some citations for that? Most companies I've worked at claimed to be trying for 20%, and they were failing abysmally at it.
Yes, my company has a goal of "at least 50% females in IT in all positions and at all levels". I have absolutely no idea how they calculated 50% as a good target for the business and why "at least 50%", but these targets have a lot of emotional loads and zero real world value, so I don't try anymore to understand.
I've heard from a Googler that yes, they want the workforce to match the outside world. With that in mind read https://diversity.google/annual-report/#!#_what-would-it-tak... and "That’s why in 2019 we challenge ourselves and others to think differently so that we widen pathways to tech. Only then will we reflect our consumer base, and truly elevate our ability to build products for everyone."
So Google wants to reflect the consumer base, so I guess we can take that to mean ~50% female devs?
So Google wants to reflect the consumer base, so I guess we can take that to mean ~50% female devs?
Most corporate statements of diversity goals I have ever seen take the simplistic position (in some form or another) that <x>, <y>, or <z> statistic "should mirror the representation of the general population." It seems to be an accepted truism that this equals unbiased selection and equity.
It is very politically unacceptable to object to this intellectually lazy reasoning.
It is very politically unacceptable to object to this intellectually lazy reasoning.
> So Google wants to reflect the consumer base
Which includes a good portion of extremists of all kinds, illiterates, drug dealers, etc. And of course, half of it is made of people with below average IQ.
You want your company to employ the people that are best at the job, not a cross-section of the population along some randomly chosen axis.
Which includes a good portion of extremists of all kinds, illiterates, drug dealers, etc. And of course, half of it is made of people with below average IQ.
You want your company to employ the people that are best at the job, not a cross-section of the population along some randomly chosen axis.
When I hear statements like that, I always wonder if they try to hire 2% pedophiles, too. About 2% of people in the real world are supposed to be pedophiles, so if they want to reflect the real world, they should aim to hire them.
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
arguing in bad faith seems unnecessary when there's so much authentically wrong with their view
It's not about bad faith, it is about showing the absurdity of aiming for representation of people by sexual preferences.
I don't see that as bad faith. Companies have weird diversity goals to do with physical features of their bodies and sexual preferences. Pedophiles are just part of that. They happen to be a marginalized group, but that's the thing about being marginalized, you get pushed to the margins and not advocated for by big companies and popular blogs.
Perhaps if you went back to the days of women's liberation and somebody said "what next, gays?" they'd get dismissed too. That might be right, but it's possible they really saw it as a serious issue before its time.
Perhaps if you went back to the days of women's liberation and somebody said "what next, gays?" they'd get dismissed too. That might be right, but it's possible they really saw it as a serious issue before its time.
You're outside the current Overton window, quick, hide!
Even so why do diversity weights exist at all? Should it not be based on performance or results? I understand the notion that people can be biased resulting in biased hirings, but why does that insist we must twist the bias in the opposite direction? Both sides of this fight are equally guilty of not hiring on the right principles which is how well can a person do a job.
The article claimed that 50% is the goal.
And if people aiming for diversity don't have 50% as a goal, somehow I have never seen them name another number that they would consider satisfactory.
And if people aiming for diversity don't have 50% as a goal, somehow I have never seen them name another number that they would consider satisfactory.
any big , resourceful company should
Every company can't hit 50/50, but it is obviously possible for any one company to hit 50/50, without compromising on their hiring bar. (Until everyone adopts that same mentality, at which point it, of course, becomes impossible.)
Also, just because you have a goal to aspire to doesn't mean you can realistically meet it. Suppose if every high achiever in a school wants to be valedictorian, but only one of them will make it. That in itself doesn't mean it's a pointless goal.
Also, just because you have a goal to aspire to doesn't mean you can realistically meet it. Suppose if every high achiever in a school wants to be valedictorian, but only one of them will make it. That in itself doesn't mean it's a pointless goal.
> but it is obviously possible for any one company to hit 50/50, without compromising on their hiring bar
How? If I interview a bunch of people for programming positions and pick the 10 best men and 10 best women, which group do you think will be best? Statistically I have considered several times more men than women, so the male group will almost surely be stronger. The only way to avoid this is to intentionally pick bad men, or if I just randomly ignore 83% of their resumes.
How? If I interview a bunch of people for programming positions and pick the 10 best men and 10 best women, which group do you think will be best? Statistically I have considered several times more men than women, so the male group will almost surely be stronger. The only way to avoid this is to intentionally pick bad men, or if I just randomly ignore 83% of their resumes.
No hiring bar in the world is looking for the best 10 people.
It's just looking for people who are better than (some arbitrary skill level).
More men than women could bench press 160 lbs, but if your hiring bar is 'we hire people who can bench 160 lbs', you can trivially find as many people from either gender as you want.
It's just looking for people who are better than (some arbitrary skill level).
More men than women could bench press 160 lbs, but if your hiring bar is 'we hire people who can bench 160 lbs', you can trivially find as many people from either gender as you want.
Would your point still stand, if the baseline of being able to bench press 160lb was just a starting requirement, with a possibility that requirements can change at any point and you might need people who can be trained to bench press 260lb instead?
Also, if you are buying a car with the goal of being able to accelerate from 0-60mph in under 4 seconds, and you have to choose between two cars priced exactly the same, but one can do it in 3.9 seconds and another one in 3.1 seconds, why would you pick the 3.9 car over the 3.1 one, even though the 3.9 one meets your requirements of under 4 seconds just as well (assuming all the other relevant characteristics are equivalent or about the same)?
Also, if you are buying a car with the goal of being able to accelerate from 0-60mph in under 4 seconds, and you have to choose between two cars priced exactly the same, but one can do it in 3.9 seconds and another one in 3.1 seconds, why would you pick the 3.9 car over the 3.1 one, even though the 3.9 one meets your requirements of under 4 seconds just as well (assuming all the other relevant characteristics are equivalent or about the same)?
I think the assumption you're making here is that companies don't influence the pipeline. Don't influence whether people choose do STEM degrees etc.
I think the idea behind diversity targets is an implicit assumption that they do. In subtle ways like how/where they advertise, and in more obvious ways like funding educational programs etc. It's there that diversity programs/targets need to start, not at the hiring stage.
I think the idea behind diversity targets is an implicit assumption that they do. In subtle ways like how/where they advertise, and in more obvious ways like funding educational programs etc. It's there that diversity programs/targets need to start, not at the hiring stage.
TFA says "then drop the CS degree requirement". It goes into a lot of detail about bootcamps, etc.
Its entire premise is "there aren't enough women with CS degrees, there is a pipeline problem, here are some things to get around it".
Its entire premise is "there aren't enough women with CS degrees, there is a pipeline problem, here are some things to get around it".
> If the percentage of female computer science graduates [is] a strong proxy for the available candidate population
I doubt it is. You’re writing off all the self-taught coders. You’re also writing off all the non-coders.
Most companies seem to think they want a 10:1:1 ratio of engineers:designers:product managers, etc.
I think 3:3:3 would be better, and makes your issue go away.
But we have this worship of “engineering” as some sort of magical thing that happens in a vacuum and requires no cross-discipline input.
Meanwhile every tech company I’ve ever worked for is pathologically rewriting the same code over and over, bashing their heads against the same tech debt over and over, and regularly wasting millions of dollars Building The Wrong Thing.
Heck we should probably have 10:1 masseuses and 10:1 psychotherapists on staff. Productivity would strictly increase.
I doubt it is. You’re writing off all the self-taught coders. You’re also writing off all the non-coders.
Most companies seem to think they want a 10:1:1 ratio of engineers:designers:product managers, etc.
I think 3:3:3 would be better, and makes your issue go away.
But we have this worship of “engineering” as some sort of magical thing that happens in a vacuum and requires no cross-discipline input.
Meanwhile every tech company I’ve ever worked for is pathologically rewriting the same code over and over, bashing their heads against the same tech debt over and over, and regularly wasting millions of dollars Building The Wrong Thing.
Heck we should probably have 10:1 masseuses and 10:1 psychotherapists on staff. Productivity would strictly increase.
This just means another paradox of fake liberal ideology is showing.
It's not surprising if the strategies such as diversity quotas are not effective. Because they're not meant to be effective. They're meant to virtue signal. Ergo they are meant to only redirect people's anger towards an ineffective end, not to create an actual improvement.
For another example, take a prevailing narrative in fake feminism that continually tells women they are disempowered victims. This doesn't help bring balance, it only helps disenfranchise women.
Of course, if that were true, why would anyone believe any of these narratives such as diversity quotas? Because they provide the fake victim fake payoff: there's something very compelling about not having to be responsible for your problem but instead being able to blame someone else albeit incorrectly. It's very satisfying and an effective means to redirect anger towards a ineffective but satisfying ends. It's very compelling for people and gets them hooked.
Another place these fake payoffs are used to manipulate people is in terrorist recruitment. You can sublimate raw economic issues and individuals dissatisfaction into blaming and hatred towards another state, you can create armies of willing footsoldiers.
I'd suggest there's a further parallel between armies and the "Twitter armies": legions of ideologues willing to crucify anyone who dares disagrees.
So it's not surprising these so-called strategies do little effective. they're not meant to, they're meant to preserve the status quo. And they do that by the simple psychological mechanism of redirecting people's anger towards something ineffective.
It's not surprising if the strategies such as diversity quotas are not effective. Because they're not meant to be effective. They're meant to virtue signal. Ergo they are meant to only redirect people's anger towards an ineffective end, not to create an actual improvement.
For another example, take a prevailing narrative in fake feminism that continually tells women they are disempowered victims. This doesn't help bring balance, it only helps disenfranchise women.
Of course, if that were true, why would anyone believe any of these narratives such as diversity quotas? Because they provide the fake victim fake payoff: there's something very compelling about not having to be responsible for your problem but instead being able to blame someone else albeit incorrectly. It's very satisfying and an effective means to redirect anger towards a ineffective but satisfying ends. It's very compelling for people and gets them hooked.
Another place these fake payoffs are used to manipulate people is in terrorist recruitment. You can sublimate raw economic issues and individuals dissatisfaction into blaming and hatred towards another state, you can create armies of willing footsoldiers.
I'd suggest there's a further parallel between armies and the "Twitter armies": legions of ideologues willing to crucify anyone who dares disagrees.
So it's not surprising these so-called strategies do little effective. they're not meant to, they're meant to preserve the status quo. And they do that by the simple psychological mechanism of redirecting people's anger towards something ineffective.
shrimp_emoji(1)
it's always a problem of people wanting to believe something is possible (and mandatory to pursue) banging their heads against what is true and actually possible.
I'm not sure if you realize this, but change always seems impossible until it happens. 10 years ago it seemed completely impossible that Facebook would have 1B users, let alone the ~3B it has now.
The same 10 years ago it seemed impossible to that gay people would be able to marry, and even 4 years ago the idea of a Trump presidency was considered a joke.
Change is and will remain hard. That doesn't mean it isn't desirable nor does it mean that people shouldn't bang their heads against walls to make it happen.
I'm not sure if you realize this, but change always seems impossible until it happens. 10 years ago it seemed completely impossible that Facebook would have 1B users, let alone the ~3B it has now.
The same 10 years ago it seemed impossible to that gay people would be able to marry, and even 4 years ago the idea of a Trump presidency was considered a joke.
Change is and will remain hard. That doesn't mean it isn't desirable nor does it mean that people shouldn't bang their heads against walls to make it happen.
[deleted]
It’s ridiculous you were down voted for this. These people don’t want to change their behavior or admit there’s bias. They would rather remain ignorant and pretend that it’s a problem caused by someone else rather than reflect on what might not be working.
I don't like to complain about it, but since you raised it...
I was shocked by how quickly this was downvoted. It went to -4 in minutes! I didn't even think anything I said there was particularly controversial. I think it's pretty well established that social change is hard.
I was shocked by how quickly this was downvoted. It went to -4 in minutes! I didn't even think anything I said there was particularly controversial. I think it's pretty well established that social change is hard.
Ignorning the fact that many engineering orgs can't hit 10% let along 18%; you've already lost if you've restricted your pipeline to "has a CS degree". Statistically your company isn't actually hiring for jobs that need higher level CS theory. It's not assigning malice, but pure negligence. There's a huge population of competent people with amazing ROI for your business and, especially companies with pockets as deep as FAANG, ignoring them because it's perceived as less risky to hire another (cis/het/white) guy is bad optics at best.
Ironically, in my experience, the companies who figured this out a decade ago are the major finance companies. Hire anyone with a pulse, put in the effort to train them, be the only company on the block that isn't active treating these populations like shit, the you get retention rates that are unheard of in tech (especially for such comparativly shitty jobs by metric of pay and interesting things to do). Talent is there, tech companies just choose to ignore it and play into the existing biases ( and out right misogynistic streaks) that already exist.
Maybe 50% is a perfect ideal, but, don't let perfect be the enemy of better. We absolutely should be loudly shaming those at the top that "just can't find talent".
#rantsFromAnAngryTransWoman
Ironically, in my experience, the companies who figured this out a decade ago are the major finance companies. Hire anyone with a pulse, put in the effort to train them, be the only company on the block that isn't active treating these populations like shit, the you get retention rates that are unheard of in tech (especially for such comparativly shitty jobs by metric of pay and interesting things to do). Talent is there, tech companies just choose to ignore it and play into the existing biases ( and out right misogynistic streaks) that already exist.
Maybe 50% is a perfect ideal, but, don't let perfect be the enemy of better. We absolutely should be loudly shaming those at the top that "just can't find talent".
#rantsFromAnAngryTransWoman
> you've already lost if you've restricted your pipeline to "has a CS degree".
But, why, though? Are you saying that women as a group are less capable of completing CS degrees than men?
But, why, though? Are you saying that women as a group are less capable of completing CS degrees than men?
There's a whole host of systematic reasons why women (as a group) might choose not to pursue a CS degree. As a hiring manager I can choose to complain about the ~pipeline~ (which i conveniently can't change nor appreciably effect in the short term) or I can re-examine my existing assumptions (namely whether a CS degree is necessary for filtering).
I'm, personally, not really a fan of programs that are trying to shuffle people into a specific degree to improve employment representation rather examining what skills are necessary to do the job in the first place. The university as proxy for job training model, I feel, is perverse and doesn't necessarily serve students nor employers.
I'm, personally, not really a fan of programs that are trying to shuffle people into a specific degree to improve employment representation rather examining what skills are necessary to do the job in the first place. The university as proxy for job training model, I feel, is perverse and doesn't necessarily serve students nor employers.
No, women are not less capable of getting a degree.
Instead, the problem is often that they have such a bad time, in those programs, due to the existence of a toxic culture, that they don't want to put up with that crap, and instead leave to get a job in industry that has a less bad culture (because they have other options).
Unfortunately, toxicity on all stages of the pipeline tends to drive out people who would be good engineers, but instead decide to do something else, because they have alternative options that don't suck so much, for cultural reasons.
Instead, the problem is often that they have such a bad time, in those programs, due to the existence of a toxic culture, that they don't want to put up with that crap, and instead leave to get a job in industry that has a less bad culture (because they have other options).
Unfortunately, toxicity on all stages of the pipeline tends to drive out people who would be good engineers, but instead decide to do something else, because they have alternative options that don't suck so much, for cultural reasons.
I'm going to preface this post by saying that I don't have a problem with most of my coworkers (male and female) being Asian. In fact, I prefer it. I'm not Asian, but the majority of my friends, classmates, and coworkers throughout my life have been, and that continues even now during my career in tech.
Whenever I see anything related to affirmative action being discussed nowadays, I think that it's only a matter of time until Asian women are treated the same way as Asian men. Once you've managed to close the gender gap in engineering, you have a new problem to deal with -- a lack of diversity among women engineers in regards to race and socio-economic class. A continued pursuit of diversity will require discrimination similar to that exhibited by prestigious American universities.
My coworkers (past and former) and friends who are women SWEs overwhelmingly fall into two buckets: American-born Chinese with parents who are middle-class or higher, and PRC-born Chinese with wealthy parents.
I get the strong impression that gender diversity is viewed as more important than race and class. I'm a male of color who has been in the industry for more than four years now, so I no longer have to worry about breaking in. If I were applying to CS programs or looking for my first job right now, I would feel some resentment. I've convinced and helped three of my friends to do a career switch because there's just so much assistance (financial, educational, and otherwise) available for women. From what I've seen, there is just so much more provided to help women get into the field.
I commend the big tech companies for lumping male URMs and all women together when it comes to prioritization, but this isn't the case for most companies, who are expending great effort on balancing the gender ratio while treating men of color as second-class URMs, or even ignoring their status completely. It's fortunate that the best jobs are the most fair, but even if a place sucks, a first SWE job is still a first SWE job.
What I predict will happen is the gender gap will begin to close, but the aforementioned diversity issues not related to gender will remain. This will be due to a combination of various factors, with the most significant being fatigue with affirmative action practices, and that discussing socio-economic and race is much more sensitive than discussing gender, Saying "stop hiring men" or "only hire women" is easy, even if you are asking people to discriminate against candidates similar to themselves. "Stop hiring Asian women" is not. And if you are willing to make that request, why would anyone listen?
Whenever I see anything related to affirmative action being discussed nowadays, I think that it's only a matter of time until Asian women are treated the same way as Asian men. Once you've managed to close the gender gap in engineering, you have a new problem to deal with -- a lack of diversity among women engineers in regards to race and socio-economic class. A continued pursuit of diversity will require discrimination similar to that exhibited by prestigious American universities.
My coworkers (past and former) and friends who are women SWEs overwhelmingly fall into two buckets: American-born Chinese with parents who are middle-class or higher, and PRC-born Chinese with wealthy parents.
I get the strong impression that gender diversity is viewed as more important than race and class. I'm a male of color who has been in the industry for more than four years now, so I no longer have to worry about breaking in. If I were applying to CS programs or looking for my first job right now, I would feel some resentment. I've convinced and helped three of my friends to do a career switch because there's just so much assistance (financial, educational, and otherwise) available for women. From what I've seen, there is just so much more provided to help women get into the field.
I commend the big tech companies for lumping male URMs and all women together when it comes to prioritization, but this isn't the case for most companies, who are expending great effort on balancing the gender ratio while treating men of color as second-class URMs, or even ignoring their status completely. It's fortunate that the best jobs are the most fair, but even if a place sucks, a first SWE job is still a first SWE job.
What I predict will happen is the gender gap will begin to close, but the aforementioned diversity issues not related to gender will remain. This will be due to a combination of various factors, with the most significant being fatigue with affirmative action practices, and that discussing socio-economic and race is much more sensitive than discussing gender, Saying "stop hiring men" or "only hire women" is easy, even if you are asking people to discriminate against candidates similar to themselves. "Stop hiring Asian women" is not. And if you are willing to make that request, why would anyone listen?
One thing I see few people discuss in terms of Asian and affirmative action, is that the immigration system overwhelmingly selects the wealthy, smart or other desirable qualities for all immigrants. And due to historical reasons like Chinese Exclusion Act, majority Asians in America had to go through those filters, or their parents had to.
Of course those people are going to succeed more than the average Americans who did not have to go through those filters, somehow being subject to harder selection became an unfair advantage?
You know the easiest way to bring down the average achievement of Asians? Invite a bunch of poor, uneducated, unmotivated Asians to become US citizens, soon those new arrivals will drag down the averages, making Asians into whichever socio-economic group you want.
Of course those people are going to succeed more than the average Americans who did not have to go through those filters, somehow being subject to harder selection became an unfair advantage?
You know the easiest way to bring down the average achievement of Asians? Invite a bunch of poor, uneducated, unmotivated Asians to become US citizens, soon those new arrivals will drag down the averages, making Asians into whichever socio-economic group you want.
They may bring down the average somewhat, but all the East Asians in the world do have a higher average IQ than all the white people in the world. So random unmotivated Asians (I presume you don't include Indians) are still likely to perform better than random unmotivated Americans.
> East Asians in the world do have a higher average IQ than all the white people in the world
citation needed
> some fact about all white people > basing on it, assesing statement about Americans
Americans are not all white people (in fact, many of them are not white), so you can't make statistical statements based on that.
citation needed
> some fact about all white people > basing on it, assesing statement about Americans
Americans are not all white people (in fact, many of them are not white), so you can't make statistical statements based on that.
> It's fortunate that the best jobs are the most fair, but even if a place sucks, a first SWE job is still a first SWE job.
I think part of this is just the free market at work. Some companies will pass on great talent to meet diversity goals and those that are focused on hiring the best people will end up giving themselves a better chance at succeeding
I think part of this is just the free market at work. Some companies will pass on great talent to meet diversity goals and those that are focused on hiring the best people will end up giving themselves a better chance at succeeding
it depends greatly on your definition of "best people". What I observed during my career is that no matter how much emphasis we put on things like schools, the best predictor of success is the quality and the composition of the organization. I've seen best people from other companies perform horribly, and people you wouldn't bet on with a sane mind go and do admirable things. Over time I learned to just let go of most of what my instinct tell me about perceived performance in tech work because frankly most of what we know and believe is bullshit.
> most companies, who are expending great effort on balancing the gender ratio while treating men of color as second-class URMs
At least in the US actually admitting to having gender biased hiring would have to violate a half dozen anti-discrimination labor protection laws, no? Universities are doing affirmative action because there is no legislation mandating they not be sexist in their enrollment whereas corporations don't have that freedom in hiring.
At least in the US actually admitting to having gender biased hiring would have to violate a half dozen anti-discrimination labor protection laws, no? Universities are doing affirmative action because there is no legislation mandating they not be sexist in their enrollment whereas corporations don't have that freedom in hiring.
The reverse is true.
Affirmative Action is requirer by law: "The order specifically requires certain organizations accepting federal funds to take affirmative action to increase employment of members of preferred racial or ethnic groups and women... quotas based on an analysis of the current workforce compared to the availability in the general labor pool of women and members of racial minorities. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_the_Unit...
Affirmative Action is requirer by law: "The order specifically requires certain organizations accepting federal funds to take affirmative action to increase employment of members of preferred racial or ethnic groups and women... quotas based on an analysis of the current workforce compared to the availability in the general labor pool of women and members of racial minorities. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_the_Unit...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_the_Univ._of_Cal._v... established that affirmative action per se is legal in US under the Constitution and the federal law. What's illegal is hard quotas and other arrangements where the decision is made solely on the basis of e.g. race or gender - but it can be one of several deciding factors.
On state level, it depends on the state. Some have laws or constitutional amendments that prohibit affirmative action.
On state level, it depends on the state. Some have laws or constitutional amendments that prohibit affirmative action.
Sure, but nobody gives a shit unless you're absolutely blatant about it. As long as you don't hold a press conference and do a dance, you'll fly straight under the radar.
> I think that it's only a matter of time until Asian women are treated the same way as Asian men. Once you've managed to close the gender gap in engineering, you have a new problem to deal with -- a lack of diversity among women engineers in regards to race and socio-economic class.
The blanket catch-all term "Asian" is not doing this conversation any favors. You assert a monoculture, but Asia is a huge region with many cultures, not a monolith. South Korea is unlike India is unlike the Philippines is unlike Vietnam is unlike Iran is unlike China.
Can you narrow this down so we understand what kind of monoculture you're actually talking about?
The blanket catch-all term "Asian" is not doing this conversation any favors. You assert a monoculture, but Asia is a huge region with many cultures, not a monolith. South Korea is unlike India is unlike the Philippines is unlike Vietnam is unlike Iran is unlike China.
Can you narrow this down so we understand what kind of monoculture you're actually talking about?
They're talking about the American social construct of "Asians". Which is just like any other racial classification - it is a meaningful division solely because people make it real by discriminating along those lines.
If we can't say "Asian" then let's also stop saying "black" and "white".
One is quite welcome to say "Asian" in the abstract. It's the part where one says that "Asian" is an socio-ethnic monoculture in practice that is uninformative.
At the very least, name the Asians you're talking about. India and China, for instance, seem to have a lot more representation among US programmers than other Asian nations.
At the very least, name the Asians you're talking about. India and China, for instance, seem to have a lot more representation among US programmers than other Asian nations.
Sure, but the same thing can be said about white people as well. Somehow, there is a disproportionate representation of slavic/eastern european people in top tier tech and fintech jobs, but it seems to fly under most people's radars when it comes to that kind of conerns. So we are back at ground zero with nothing useful coming out of this, now what?
[deleted]
It's accurate so far as the discrimination is concerned. Most of those doing the discrimination don't even know or understand that "Asia" is a big place with a lot of different cultures.
Could you write a glossary for that post.
SWE = SoftWare Engineer
URM = Under Represented Minority (I think)
PRC = People's Republic of China.
URM = Under Represented Minority (I think)
PRC = People's Republic of China.
I don't think the point of criticizing "it's a pipeline problem" is that there isn't a pipeline problem, but that it's an easy out to avoid taking action at whatever stage of the 'pipeline' you happen to be working at.
If, as an manager at a FAANG, you say "it's a pipeline problem" you're probably saying that there aren't enough candidates because not enough women graduate from ST programs. If you're a program development person at a university you're probably saying not enough enroll. If you say it as a high school guidance counsellor you probably are saying there's not enough push for girls to do well in science and math classes and apply that to their higher education even if there is.
The point is that whatever stage of the pipeline you're at, if you want things to improve, you have to work with the tools at your disposal. You can't wait for universities to both increase enrollment and increase graduation (two separate problems as well). As this post points out you need to look for other ways to find talent that bypass that problem and recognize that the path to your job for a minority in your field will probably look drastically different to yours. It's just never going to be enough to wave your hand at the problem and blame the stage before you.
The post does get at this for sure, so I'm not really criticizing it for its conclusion, but the first couple of paragraphs build a strawman that I think is very unhelpful to understanding the nature of the problem.
If, as an manager at a FAANG, you say "it's a pipeline problem" you're probably saying that there aren't enough candidates because not enough women graduate from ST programs. If you're a program development person at a university you're probably saying not enough enroll. If you say it as a high school guidance counsellor you probably are saying there's not enough push for girls to do well in science and math classes and apply that to their higher education even if there is.
The point is that whatever stage of the pipeline you're at, if you want things to improve, you have to work with the tools at your disposal. You can't wait for universities to both increase enrollment and increase graduation (two separate problems as well). As this post points out you need to look for other ways to find talent that bypass that problem and recognize that the path to your job for a minority in your field will probably look drastically different to yours. It's just never going to be enough to wave your hand at the problem and blame the stage before you.
The post does get at this for sure, so I'm not really criticizing it for its conclusion, but the first couple of paragraphs build a strawman that I think is very unhelpful to understanding the nature of the problem.
Author here. Yeah, I went back and forth on the intro a bunch and couldn't find a clearer way to not dismiss systemic issues while calling out the fact that we're not being fair to the people on the ground by bundling everything up as bias.
I don't think in general people are bundling everything up as bias; many people are bundling up everything as sexism, but that is a superset of bias.
A silly example: if your job description said "We only hire men" (and this weren't illegal), then even if your entire interview process were unbiased, you're probably going to end up with fewer men.
There is an argument that individually and as a whole, the tech community has been sending a message of "not for women" in various ways. If this is true, then the communities complaining about the pipeline problem could both be unbiased and a significant cause of the pipeline problem.
A silly example: if your job description said "We only hire men" (and this weren't illegal), then even if your entire interview process were unbiased, you're probably going to end up with fewer men.
There is an argument that individually and as a whole, the tech community has been sending a message of "not for women" in various ways. If this is true, then the communities complaining about the pipeline problem could both be unbiased and a significant cause of the pipeline problem.
> many people are bundling up everything as sexism, but that is a superset of bias
I consider sexism to be a subset of bias, so this is an interesting take. I do not think your example shows something as unbiased, because I consider the statement "We only hire men" to be biased.
I consider sexism to be a subset of bias, so this is an interesting take. I do not think your example shows something as unbiased, because I consider the statement "We only hire men" to be biased.
Looking it up, there are many usages of the word bias that support your definition, so I'll concede that point.
However, I think GP was using the term bias in the way I tend to think of it which is measurement bias; that is evaluating male and female candidates differently from each other, so I was pointing out a way in which the candidates that show up to interview can be biased in a way which is definitely the fault of the company.
However, I think GP was using the term bias in the way I tend to think of it which is measurement bias; that is evaluating male and female candidates differently from each other, so I was pointing out a way in which the candidates that show up to interview can be biased in a way which is definitely the fault of the company.
[deleted]
And the point of criticizing the criticism of "it's a pipeline problem" is that, wherever you try to improve the pipeline, you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment. Working near the end of the pipe, you'll quickly hit diminishing returns. If the input at your segment is biased 4:1, then you can't improve past it. Sure, if your output is 8:1 then it's bad, but you won't get it better than 4:1. You definitely won't achieve parity, despite what the people screaming "it's not a pipeline problem" the loudest would want from you. For further improvement, you have to work on earlier segments of the pipe.
EDIT:
And another point: moving through the pipeline takes time. So e.g. if you're working on university recruiting and trying to fix the input bias at the high school->university interface, you can't expect to see improvement at the output (university->job) earlier than in 3 to 5 years. But the "it's not a pipeline problem" activists rarely have that kind of patience.
EDIT2:
"you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment", unless you're willing to start doing corrective discrimination - i.e. throwing overrepresented people out from the pipeline.
EDIT:
And another point: moving through the pipeline takes time. So e.g. if you're working on university recruiting and trying to fix the input bias at the high school->university interface, you can't expect to see improvement at the output (university->job) earlier than in 3 to 5 years. But the "it's not a pipeline problem" activists rarely have that kind of patience.
EDIT2:
"you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment", unless you're willing to start doing corrective discrimination - i.e. throwing overrepresented people out from the pipeline.
The STEM gap is lower in countries with more discrimination against women.
> Paradoxically, the sex differences in the magnitude of relative academic strengths and pursuit of STEM degrees rose with increases in national gender equality. The gap between boys’ science achievement and girls’ reading achievement relative to their mean academic performance was near universal. These sex differences in academic strengths and attitudes toward science correlated with the STEM graduation gap. A mediation analysis suggested that life-quality pressures in less gender-equal countries promote girls’ and women’s engagement with STEM subjects.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797617741719
Male over representation in STEM fields is probably due to their other options being poorer compared to women. Men generally have high math scores only while women with high math scores also have high reading scores.
> What they find is that comparative advantage (math ability relative to reading ability) explains math intentions better than actual math or reading ability. Comparative advantage is also a better predictor of math intentions than perceptions of math ability (women do perceive lower math ability relative to true ability than do men but the effect is less important than comparative advantage). In another data set the authors show that math intentions predict math education.
> Thus, accumulating evidence shows that over-representation of males in STEM fields is perhaps better framed as under-representation of males in reading fields and the latter is driven by relatively low reading achievement among males.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/09/gi...
> Paradoxically, the sex differences in the magnitude of relative academic strengths and pursuit of STEM degrees rose with increases in national gender equality. The gap between boys’ science achievement and girls’ reading achievement relative to their mean academic performance was near universal. These sex differences in academic strengths and attitudes toward science correlated with the STEM graduation gap. A mediation analysis suggested that life-quality pressures in less gender-equal countries promote girls’ and women’s engagement with STEM subjects.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797617741719
Male over representation in STEM fields is probably due to their other options being poorer compared to women. Men generally have high math scores only while women with high math scores also have high reading scores.
> What they find is that comparative advantage (math ability relative to reading ability) explains math intentions better than actual math or reading ability. Comparative advantage is also a better predictor of math intentions than perceptions of math ability (women do perceive lower math ability relative to true ability than do men but the effect is less important than comparative advantage). In another data set the authors show that math intentions predict math education.
> Thus, accumulating evidence shows that over-representation of males in STEM fields is perhaps better framed as under-representation of males in reading fields and the latter is driven by relatively low reading achievement among males.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/09/gi...
> The STEM gap is lower in countries with more discrimination against women.
> A mediation analysis suggested that life-quality pressures in less gender-equal countries promote girls’ and women’s engagement with STEM subjects.
In plain English, this is just saying that STEM is seen by women in those countries as a way to economic advancement, which is why they embrace it at higher rates.
This is especially the case in a country like India, which I suspect represents a significant sample of their study.
Added to this, despite those countries having higher overall gender discrimination in, they don't share the US's particular cultural tropes (themselves of pretty recent creation) that imply that women are inherently worse at STEM subjects. Indeed, among middle class educated Indian families, expectations of STEM achievement are as high for girls as for boys, evidenced by the large number of Indian women who became doctors even 2 generations ago.
That educated middle class population is who the tech worker population is being drawn from, which is why their gender representation in tech shows more parity. The paper referenced confuses the overall population for the sample population.
Also, it's not that similar discriminatory tropes don't exist in places like India, but instead of gender, they are projected over other classifications, like language or social class. As a result, the representation of certain linguistic groups and social classes is higher among Indian tech workers, regardless of gender.
In plain English, this is just saying that STEM is seen by women in those countries as a way to economic advancement, which is why they embrace it at higher rates.
This is especially the case in a country like India, which I suspect represents a significant sample of their study.
Added to this, despite those countries having higher overall gender discrimination in, they don't share the US's particular cultural tropes (themselves of pretty recent creation) that imply that women are inherently worse at STEM subjects. Indeed, among middle class educated Indian families, expectations of STEM achievement are as high for girls as for boys, evidenced by the large number of Indian women who became doctors even 2 generations ago.
That educated middle class population is who the tech worker population is being drawn from, which is why their gender representation in tech shows more parity. The paper referenced confuses the overall population for the sample population.
Also, it's not that similar discriminatory tropes don't exist in places like India, but instead of gender, they are projected over other classifications, like language or social class. As a result, the representation of certain linguistic groups and social classes is higher among Indian tech workers, regardless of gender.
Some patriarchal cultures can be curiously two-faced on women: there's a boatload of stereotypes that are attached to femininity, and they generally mirror the social conservative stereotypes in US... but if any particular woman can break through those stereotypes by succeeding in something that she is not "supposed to", that gets acknowledged by basically treating her as a man socially. It is still discriminatory as hell (e.g. social life gets complicated), but in terms of career and business success, that can mask some of the cultural misogyny.
> you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment
Not in the short-run. But the reason working on the pipeline is valuable is that discrimination includes negative feedback loops. When people who would be entering the pipeline look for role models and success stories and don't find any, they're discouraged from trying. So while there are of course diminishing returns in investing in a dry pipe, if one is interested in changing the status quo, it's valuable to keep the investment a bit above the break-even point to encourage flow upstream (flow that, one must remember, will take half a decade or so to show up as a pipeline increase, depending on how long you measure the pipe to be).
Not in the short-run. But the reason working on the pipeline is valuable is that discrimination includes negative feedback loops. When people who would be entering the pipeline look for role models and success stories and don't find any, they're discouraged from trying. So while there are of course diminishing returns in investing in a dry pipe, if one is interested in changing the status quo, it's valuable to keep the investment a bit above the break-even point to encourage flow upstream (flow that, one must remember, will take half a decade or so to show up as a pipeline increase, depending on how long you measure the pipe to be).
I'm sure I'll be downvoted for merely asking, but I'm genuinely curious: what is the evidence for discrimination? Is it simply the null hypothesis (gap, ergo discrimination) or are there studies or something that actually highlight discrimination, and if the latter, how much of the gap is explained by discrimination?
Last I asked this question, I was referred to the orchestra blind audition study (Goldin et al), but I'm pretty sure that was data from 1950s-80s, from a different industry, and didn't actually demonstrate a significant effect when accounting for large error margins.
Downvote me if you like, but at least explain the reasoning for those of us following along at home. In the worst case it's an opportunity to evangelize your point of view.
Last I asked this question, I was referred to the orchestra blind audition study (Goldin et al), but I'm pretty sure that was data from 1950s-80s, from a different industry, and didn't actually demonstrate a significant effect when accounting for large error margins.
Downvote me if you like, but at least explain the reasoning for those of us following along at home. In the worst case it's an opportunity to evangelize your point of view.
> Is it simply the null hypothesis (gap, ergo discrimination)
As far as I've ever seen, this plus occasional anecdotes, no actual data.
> Last I asked this question, I was referred to the orchestra blind audition study (Goldin et al), but I'm pretty sure that was data from 1950s-80s, from a different industry, and didn't actually demonstrate a significant effect when accounting for large error margins.
Forget the large error margins, it didn't have the effect everyone "knows" it had [0]. It even benefited the men instead of the women at certain points.
[0] https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/05/11/did-blind-...
As far as I've ever seen, this plus occasional anecdotes, no actual data.
> Last I asked this question, I was referred to the orchestra blind audition study (Goldin et al), but I'm pretty sure that was data from 1950s-80s, from a different industry, and didn't actually demonstrate a significant effect when accounting for large error margins.
Forget the large error margins, it didn't have the effect everyone "knows" it had [0]. It even benefited the men instead of the women at certain points.
[0] https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/05/11/did-blind-...
I agree. But as you note, these feedback loop work slowly (after all, they loop back, and people move through the pipes only as fast). The role model example you provide is great, and I absolutely agree that it's worth it to improve the pipe at every stage - I'm only saying that you shouldn't expect (and it shouldn't be expected of you) to get better results, or get them faster, than the pipe allows structurally.
> EDIT2:
> "you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment", unless you're willing to start doing corrective discrimination
Hum, no you can't. All you can do is change the local distribution in some place, at the expense of slightly biasing the other way everywhere else.
> "you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment", unless you're willing to start doing corrective discrimination
Hum, no you can't. All you can do is change the local distribution in some place, at the expense of slightly biasing the other way everywhere else.
> wherever you try to improve the pipeline, you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment.
But that's basically just complaining that there's no quick and easy fix to your hiring problem. Well, too bad, maybe it actually is a really hard problem that you're going to have to work really hard at for a long time. If there was some relatively trivial solution like "have all hiring managers do this diversity webinar" then I'm sure the problem would've been solved already.
In other words, to the extent that there may be a pipeline problem, that is your problem.
But that's basically just complaining that there's no quick and easy fix to your hiring problem. Well, too bad, maybe it actually is a really hard problem that you're going to have to work really hard at for a long time. If there was some relatively trivial solution like "have all hiring managers do this diversity webinar" then I'm sure the problem would've been solved already.
In other words, to the extent that there may be a pipeline problem, that is your problem.
Exactly. And that's what the pipeline argument tells. Whereas the more vocal pro-diversity movements tend to assume that if you haven't fixed that problem directly and immediately, it must be your moral failing.
> Whereas the more vocal pro-diversity movements tend to assume that if you haven't fixed that problem directly and immediately, it must be your moral failing.
I don't know about that interpretation. I think a better interpretation would be that diversity advocates would say "if you haven't fixed the problem yet, you should continue to work to fix the problem, even if it takes more time and effort than you initially hoped."
I don't know about that interpretation. I think a better interpretation would be that diversity advocates would say "if you haven't fixed the problem yet, you should continue to work to fix the problem, even if it takes more time and effort than you initially hoped."
I don't understand what you mean.
Are you saying that the people who are receiving a biased mix should introduce an opposite bias to counteract it before sending on to the next step, or not?
Possibly I am misunderstanding what a "pipeline problem" refers to.
Wow, I'm experiencing some deja vu. I feel like I already (like, a year or more ago) sent this comment and got a reply, but I don't remember what the reply was.
... Ok, I think this is the thing that doesn't make sense to me: >> wherever you try to improve the pipeline, you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment.
> But that's basically just complaining that there's no quick and easy fix to your hiring problem.
I don't understand this response. Saying "It is impossible to do x without doing y or z", saying "That's just complaining that it is hard to do x without doing y or z. Tough, that's what you have to do." doesn't make sense.
Responses that could make sense include "It actually is possible to do x without doing y or z, and that is what you have to do." or "You have to do x, even if it means doing y or z, even though doing y or z is hard".
Were one of these forms what you were saying? (Note : it is very possible that I simply misunderstood what you meant. This is the thing that I think I will probably conclude if you respond.)
The options that I can see for hiring people are: Introduce an opposite bias when hiring in order to counter-act a bias in the input Don't do that, simply work to not introduce any additional bias, and accept a biased result in the output Somehow(?) act in a way that works to make it so that the input received is not biased (or options worse than any of these)
If you are counting "the input" as meaning "the set of people who apply" then I suppose you might be able to influence "the input" by changing where you advertise the position, or things like that, but that seems to me like "potential applicant -> applicant" is just another step in the pipeline, and if the inputs there are also biased, then the same trilemma applies.
If one removes all the bias potentially introduced from each step which one can directly control, then one can no longer directly remove introducers of bias.
And I don't think smalltime company TUV's role is to work to change educational outcomes and the like, and therefore if this and its predecessors are the only remaining sources of bias, I don't see how it is their problem.
That's not to say that those are usually the only remaining sources of bias. I wouldn't be surprised if many such companies do introduce bias which they can and should address, but if the claim is that they should produce an unbiased output despite having a biased input which they cannot influence, then the only thing that can follow is that they should introduce a bias in the opposite direction.
Are you saying that the people who are receiving a biased mix should introduce an opposite bias to counteract it before sending on to the next step, or not?
Possibly I am misunderstanding what a "pipeline problem" refers to.
Wow, I'm experiencing some deja vu. I feel like I already (like, a year or more ago) sent this comment and got a reply, but I don't remember what the reply was.
... Ok, I think this is the thing that doesn't make sense to me: >> wherever you try to improve the pipeline, you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment.
> But that's basically just complaining that there's no quick and easy fix to your hiring problem.
I don't understand this response. Saying "It is impossible to do x without doing y or z", saying "That's just complaining that it is hard to do x without doing y or z. Tough, that's what you have to do." doesn't make sense.
Responses that could make sense include "It actually is possible to do x without doing y or z, and that is what you have to do." or "You have to do x, even if it means doing y or z, even though doing y or z is hard".
Were one of these forms what you were saying? (Note : it is very possible that I simply misunderstood what you meant. This is the thing that I think I will probably conclude if you respond.)
The options that I can see for hiring people are: Introduce an opposite bias when hiring in order to counter-act a bias in the input Don't do that, simply work to not introduce any additional bias, and accept a biased result in the output Somehow(?) act in a way that works to make it so that the input received is not biased (or options worse than any of these)
If you are counting "the input" as meaning "the set of people who apply" then I suppose you might be able to influence "the input" by changing where you advertise the position, or things like that, but that seems to me like "potential applicant -> applicant" is just another step in the pipeline, and if the inputs there are also biased, then the same trilemma applies.
If one removes all the bias potentially introduced from each step which one can directly control, then one can no longer directly remove introducers of bias.
And I don't think smalltime company TUV's role is to work to change educational outcomes and the like, and therefore if this and its predecessors are the only remaining sources of bias, I don't see how it is their problem.
That's not to say that those are usually the only remaining sources of bias. I wouldn't be surprised if many such companies do introduce bias which they can and should address, but if the claim is that they should produce an unbiased output despite having a biased input which they cannot influence, then the only thing that can follow is that they should introduce a bias in the opposite direction.
My point is that, if there is in fact a pipeline problem, that probably does not constitute a shift in responsibility away from the hiring company. Saying "you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment" is explicitly attempting to shift responsibility away from the hiring company. I simply disagree. I think a company is still largely responsible for the outcomes of its hiring process, even if fixing those outcomes turns out to be an extremely hard problem that cannot be solved overnight with a diversity webinar.
Are you saying:
1) the input is not actually biased
2) the company is responsible for making the output less biased than the input (or produce an unbiased output from a biased input)
3) the company is responsible for making sure that they don’t cause the output to be more biased than the input, (but you are not saying that it is responsible for more than that)
3’) The same as 3, except that the amount of bias in the input, while nonzero, is small and relatively unimportant
4) The company is responsible for preventing the bias in the input
5) I (drdeca) missed an option; none of the above (if so, please specify the option I missed, which can be the case while none of the above are)
My leanings are that either (2) or (3) (or 3’, but that is just a subtype of 3) (or 2’, but again that is just a subtype if 2) is the case.
1) the input is not actually biased
2) the company is responsible for making the output less biased than the input (or produce an unbiased output from a biased input)
3) the company is responsible for making sure that they don’t cause the output to be more biased than the input, (but you are not saying that it is responsible for more than that)
3’) The same as 3, except that the amount of bias in the input, while nonzero, is small and relatively unimportant
4) The company is responsible for preventing the bias in the input
5) I (drdeca) missed an option; none of the above (if so, please specify the option I missed, which can be the case while none of the above are)
My leanings are that either (2) or (3) (or 3’, but that is just a subtype of 3) (or 2’, but again that is just a subtype if 2) is the case.
With my current understanding, I believe I can answer this one. It's #2. Specifically, your parenthetical comment in #2.
Bias exists and is a problem. It is worth spending additional resources to draw additional samples from the underrepresented population in order to offset that bias. With more samples from that population than the previous pipeline stage would provide if you sampled evenly, you can counter some of the bias without adjusting any standards of quality (capability) based on the population being sampled.
If you are a member of the overrepresented population, you will have a smaller chance of being hired with this intervention. But for someone who is hired, their skill level will be independent of what population they belong to. (Women will not be given an easier interview. They will be more likely to be offered an interview in the first place.)
Whether that is "fair" depends entirely on how you define fairness. This procedure stacks the odds against a man. Our current overall system stacks the odds against a woman. Both can legitimately complain about unfairness.
Thus, it's largely irrelevant that the percentages in earlier stages of the pipeline mean that there's no way for the overall balance can reach 50/50 through only later-stage interventions. Where did this magic 50% figure come from? The only point is to improve the percentage from where it is now. The issues that prevent achieving 50% are real, but don't prevent progress anywhere in the pipeline.
I imagine the additional costs of sampling more from a smaller population would rise dramatically the closer you try to push the outcome towards 50%. So companies will have to decide how much they're willing to invest. Fortunately, there is still real value in pushing beyond the status quo even if you don't get to 50%.
(More generally, the magic number is not always 50%. It's the proportion of the URM in the overall population. 50% is roughly the female part of the population in areas advanced enough to have these sorts of jobs available.)
Bias exists and is a problem. It is worth spending additional resources to draw additional samples from the underrepresented population in order to offset that bias. With more samples from that population than the previous pipeline stage would provide if you sampled evenly, you can counter some of the bias without adjusting any standards of quality (capability) based on the population being sampled.
If you are a member of the overrepresented population, you will have a smaller chance of being hired with this intervention. But for someone who is hired, their skill level will be independent of what population they belong to. (Women will not be given an easier interview. They will be more likely to be offered an interview in the first place.)
Whether that is "fair" depends entirely on how you define fairness. This procedure stacks the odds against a man. Our current overall system stacks the odds against a woman. Both can legitimately complain about unfairness.
Thus, it's largely irrelevant that the percentages in earlier stages of the pipeline mean that there's no way for the overall balance can reach 50/50 through only later-stage interventions. Where did this magic 50% figure come from? The only point is to improve the percentage from where it is now. The issues that prevent achieving 50% are real, but don't prevent progress anywhere in the pipeline.
I imagine the additional costs of sampling more from a smaller population would rise dramatically the closer you try to push the outcome towards 50%. So companies will have to decide how much they're willing to invest. Fortunately, there is still real value in pushing beyond the status quo even if you don't get to 50%.
(More generally, the magic number is not always 50%. It's the proportion of the URM in the overall population. 50% is roughly the female part of the population in areas advanced enough to have these sorts of jobs available.)
thank you, that seems like a plausible idea to me.
It also seems possible to me that such an intervention might reduce feedback loops which cause the bias in the input anyway. Like, if women who are aware that a smaller proportion of the people employed in a field are women than the proportion of people in the population, maybe they might see that as a factor weighing against picking that field as one to go into? (of course, some might find it a reason to pick that field. I just mean that it seems possible that there is such an effect on average), and so, the #2 intervention might reduce such a feedback loop problem, if such feedback loops do exist.
It also seems possible to me that such an intervention might reduce feedback loops which cause the bias in the input anyway. Like, if women who are aware that a smaller proportion of the people employed in a field are women than the proportion of people in the population, maybe they might see that as a factor weighing against picking that field as one to go into? (of course, some might find it a reason to pick that field. I just mean that it seems possible that there is such an effect on average), and so, the #2 intervention might reduce such a feedback loop problem, if such feedback loops do exist.
Right. And those feedback loops do very much exist -- you can find plenty of women sharing their experiences of what it feels like to be the only woman in a room full of men. Over and over again. Being an "only" is rough. I'd imagine that going from 2 to 3 in a group is a much, much smaller change.
It also means that success often requires acting like a man, even when that is neither natural nor optimal for the situation. That's one reason why more than minimal diversity helps -- if there is a benefit to be had from diversity, you may not get it from having an "only" who is pressured to fit in.
It also means that success often requires acting like a man, even when that is neither natural nor optimal for the situation. That's one reason why more than minimal diversity helps -- if there is a benefit to be had from diversity, you may not get it from having an "only" who is pressured to fit in.
I'm saying that, if one thinks diversity is important [0] at companies, then the outcomes of hiring and retention are largely (overwhelmingly) the responsibility of the hiring company. This is especially for very large hiring companies.
[0] If you don't think diversity is important, then that's another discussion altogether. In this thread I have been operating under the assumption that we agree it is important (and in fact I personally do).
That means that in my view it's just not reasonable or acceptable for a company to say "diversity is really important to us, but we tried some things like diversity training for our hiring managers, and that hasn't worked, so we looked up some statistics and we have concluded that it's a pipeline problem so we can't be expected to do anything about that."
[0] If you don't think diversity is important, then that's another discussion altogether. In this thread I have been operating under the assumption that we agree it is important (and in fact I personally do).
That means that in my view it's just not reasonable or acceptable for a company to say "diversity is really important to us, but we tried some things like diversity training for our hiring managers, and that hasn't worked, so we looked up some statistics and we have concluded that it's a pipeline problem so we can't be expected to do anything about that."
I was also working under the assumption that diversity was important, or, at least, that a bias is bad.
I don’t see any conflict between this and the list of options that I listed.
Do you think that my list of options is missing an option, or are you refusing to pick one?
If the latter, why are you refusing to pick one?
Do you think that the list isn’t logically valid?
I am asking simple questions which I am aiming to make as easy to answer as I can, and you seem to be dodging the questions, and are instead responding with an accusation.
It is a simple question, and I left a clear option for in case the question would otherwise accidentally presuppose something false.
I don’t see any conflict between this and the list of options that I listed.
Do you think that my list of options is missing an option, or are you refusing to pick one?
If the latter, why are you refusing to pick one?
Do you think that the list isn’t logically valid?
I am asking simple questions which I am aiming to make as easy to answer as I can, and you seem to be dodging the questions, and are instead responding with an accusation.
It is a simple question, and I left a clear option for in case the question would otherwise accidentally presuppose something false.
> wherever you try to improve the pipeline, you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment.
You absolutely can. You can do so by not overindexing on traditional pipelines that have large amount of discrimination in them, such as top CS schools.
IE, if you are more willing to interview people from less discriminatory sources, such as bootcamps, then you can get around other, worse pipelines.
You absolutely can. You can do so by not overindexing on traditional pipelines that have large amount of discrimination in them, such as top CS schools.
IE, if you are more willing to interview people from less discriminatory sources, such as bootcamps, then you can get around other, worse pipelines.
By that logic shouldn't we also try to fix the overrepresentation of women in e.g. teaching and nursing by recruiting male teachers and nurses without degrees?
Possibly. And these industries do indeed already do this.
I am not sure why people aren't aware of this, and think this question is some sort of gotcha. These industries are indeed trying to get more male representation.
But, since engineers make a whole bunch of money, it makes much more sense to be worried about representation in this industry, because of all the power and money that it confers to people who have these jobs.
I am not sure why people aren't aware of this, and think this question is some sort of gotcha. These industries are indeed trying to get more male representation.
But, since engineers make a whole bunch of money, it makes much more sense to be worried about representation in this industry, because of all the power and money that it confers to people who have these jobs.
> you cannot expect to make things better than they are at the input of your pipe segment
People have been fired from Google for suggesting exactly that.
People have been fired from Google for suggesting exactly that.
I don't know about people getting fired for saying that, but it's probably not a true or reasonable thing to say. Consider that, to the extent that there may be a pipeline problem, one significant cause of it may be the conditions of work in your industry.
I know. Google deeply disappointed me with that one.
This isn't a fair characterization.
Damore's memo (which I assume is what you're talking about) absolutely did not attribute Google's lack of women candidates to a lack of graduates in the pipeline. It went with a straight on (and largely unsourced) "women are biologically different" argument. Wikipedia's page on the controversy is relatively good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...
And even that didn't get him fired per se. He got fired once it went viral and embarrassed his employer.
Damore's memo (which I assume is what you're talking about) absolutely did not attribute Google's lack of women candidates to a lack of graduates in the pipeline. It went with a straight on (and largely unsourced) "women are biologically different" argument. Wikipedia's page on the controversy is relatively good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...
And even that didn't get him fired per se. He got fired once it went viral and embarrassed his employer.
You're misreporting the very link you quoted. Indeed, the Wikipedia description is pretty fair. I'll quote the relevant paragraph directly:
"James Damore was spurred to write the memo when a Google diversity program he attended solicited feedback.[2] The memo was written on a flight to China.[12][13] Calling the culture at Google an "ideological echo chamber", the memo states that while discrimination exists, it is extreme to ascribe all disparities to oppression, and it is authoritarian to try to correct disparities through reverse discrimination. Instead, it argues that male/female disparities can be partly explained by biological differences.[1][14] Damore said that those differences include women generally having a stronger interest in people rather than things, and tending to be more social, artistic, and prone to neuroticism (a higher-order personality trait).[15] Damore's memorandum also suggests ways to adapt the tech workplace to those differences to increase women's representation and comfort, without resorting to discrimination.[1][14]"
In terms of pipeline argument, the memo can be viewed as arguing that the pipeline is biased at every stage, which is "partly explained by biological differences"[0], and that it's wrong to try and solve this by reverse discrimination at the tail end of the pipe (i.e. throwing perfectly good candidates out to improve the ratio). Instead, the memo proposed means to reduce the bias near the end of the pipe without resorting to discrimination.
--
[0] - Note that some of the differences - "stronger interest in people rather than things, and tending to be more social, artistic, and prone to neuroticism" - can be also plausibly explained by social factors (instead of biological), but that's orthogonal to those differences existing and biasing the entire pipeline.
"James Damore was spurred to write the memo when a Google diversity program he attended solicited feedback.[2] The memo was written on a flight to China.[12][13] Calling the culture at Google an "ideological echo chamber", the memo states that while discrimination exists, it is extreme to ascribe all disparities to oppression, and it is authoritarian to try to correct disparities through reverse discrimination. Instead, it argues that male/female disparities can be partly explained by biological differences.[1][14] Damore said that those differences include women generally having a stronger interest in people rather than things, and tending to be more social, artistic, and prone to neuroticism (a higher-order personality trait).[15] Damore's memorandum also suggests ways to adapt the tech workplace to those differences to increase women's representation and comfort, without resorting to discrimination.[1][14]"
In terms of pipeline argument, the memo can be viewed as arguing that the pipeline is biased at every stage, which is "partly explained by biological differences"[0], and that it's wrong to try and solve this by reverse discrimination at the tail end of the pipe (i.e. throwing perfectly good candidates out to improve the ratio). Instead, the memo proposed means to reduce the bias near the end of the pipe without resorting to discrimination.
--
[0] - Note that some of the differences - "stronger interest in people rather than things, and tending to be more social, artistic, and prone to neuroticism" - can be also plausibly explained by social factors (instead of biological), but that's orthogonal to those differences existing and biasing the entire pipeline.
Damore wasn't fired because he argued that the pipeline shortages largely explain gender disparity, he was fired because he made women felt excluded and othered. He wasn't fired because he argued against diversity, he was fired because he threatened inclusivity.
To quote:
"I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership"
"Abilities" is the operative word there, as in women, on average, aren't as able. Pointing that averages don't imply individual ability doesn't make it better.
See also Sundar's quote:
"to suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK ... At the same time, there are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint). They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK."
To quote:
"I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership"
"Abilities" is the operative word there, as in women, on average, aren't as able. Pointing that averages don't imply individual ability doesn't make it better.
See also Sundar's quote:
"to suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK ... At the same time, there are co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace (especially those with a minority viewpoint). They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK."
> "Abilities" is the operative word there, as in women, on average, aren't as able
Except that quote doesn't imply that women are less able. You could read it that way if you wanted to be uncharitable of course, but strictly speaking, that sentence simply says that women have different abilities, not lesser abilities. One way that sexism presents itself is an underappreciation of valuable skills, where traits that are typical of the dominant group are recognized as valuable and marked for advancement instead.
This is a standard feminist claim about work place sexism, and so a charitable reading of your quote is basically agreement with the prevailing wisdom.
> Pointing that averages don't imply individual ability doesn't make it better.
Sure it does. If you've made it, then you clearly have the skills required to be where you are.
"6 foot tall basketball players are at a serious disadvantage in the NBA". This is a clear fact. However, height doesn't determine individual ability. This too is a clear fact. Therefore, 6 foot tall players that make it into the NBA should feel reassured that they earned their place.
> he was fired because he made women felt excluded and othered
There was nothing exclusionary about the memo, and "othered" is a meaningless term. He was fired because his memo caused a PR nightmare, and through no fault of his own.
> See also Sundar's quote: "to suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK
Also not something that Damore claimed. This whole debacle has been a grand exercise in strawmanning.
Except that quote doesn't imply that women are less able. You could read it that way if you wanted to be uncharitable of course, but strictly speaking, that sentence simply says that women have different abilities, not lesser abilities. One way that sexism presents itself is an underappreciation of valuable skills, where traits that are typical of the dominant group are recognized as valuable and marked for advancement instead.
This is a standard feminist claim about work place sexism, and so a charitable reading of your quote is basically agreement with the prevailing wisdom.
> Pointing that averages don't imply individual ability doesn't make it better.
Sure it does. If you've made it, then you clearly have the skills required to be where you are.
"6 foot tall basketball players are at a serious disadvantage in the NBA". This is a clear fact. However, height doesn't determine individual ability. This too is a clear fact. Therefore, 6 foot tall players that make it into the NBA should feel reassured that they earned their place.
> he was fired because he made women felt excluded and othered
There was nothing exclusionary about the memo, and "othered" is a meaningless term. He was fired because his memo caused a PR nightmare, and through no fault of his own.
> See also Sundar's quote: "to suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK
Also not something that Damore claimed. This whole debacle has been a grand exercise in strawmanning.
The original argument was that it is uncharitable to claim that Damore was "exactly" fired for pointing out pipeline problems has an impact on closing the gender gap. That's not what he claimed, and it's not why he was fired.
> One way that sexism presents itself is an underappreciation of valuable skills, where traits that are typical of the dominant group are recognized as valuable and marked for advancement instead.
I agree, but Damore positioned the differences in gender abilities as a "Possible non bias cause" and not because of systemic sexism (of or relating to "implicit (unconscious) and explicit biases are holding women back in tech and leadership").
> "6 foot tall basketball players are at a serious disadvantage in the NBA". This is a clear fact.
This is a bad example because, unlike height in basketball, there is no evidence that dimorphism in humans (size, psychological, hormonal or otherwise) causes any difference in preference or ability in tech culture or software engineering in general.
> There was nothing exclusionary about the memo
You're welcome to that opinion, but many at Google felt otherwise.
> and "othered" is a meaningless term.
The editors at M-W feel otherwise [1] and a one sentence definition is returned by most dictionaries and at least one search engine[2].
> He was fired because his memo caused a PR nightmare, and through no fault of his own.
Again, you're welcome to this opinion but that doesn't change the original claim that he was fired for merely having an opinion about "pipeline" issues affecting the speed at which the gap can be closed. That claim would be uncharitable.
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/other-as-a-ver... [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=othered+definition
> One way that sexism presents itself is an underappreciation of valuable skills, where traits that are typical of the dominant group are recognized as valuable and marked for advancement instead.
I agree, but Damore positioned the differences in gender abilities as a "Possible non bias cause" and not because of systemic sexism (of or relating to "implicit (unconscious) and explicit biases are holding women back in tech and leadership").
> "6 foot tall basketball players are at a serious disadvantage in the NBA". This is a clear fact.
This is a bad example because, unlike height in basketball, there is no evidence that dimorphism in humans (size, psychological, hormonal or otherwise) causes any difference in preference or ability in tech culture or software engineering in general.
> There was nothing exclusionary about the memo
You're welcome to that opinion, but many at Google felt otherwise.
> and "othered" is a meaningless term.
The editors at M-W feel otherwise [1] and a one sentence definition is returned by most dictionaries and at least one search engine[2].
> He was fired because his memo caused a PR nightmare, and through no fault of his own.
Again, you're welcome to this opinion but that doesn't change the original claim that he was fired for merely having an opinion about "pipeline" issues affecting the speed at which the gap can be closed. That claim would be uncharitable.
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/other-as-a-ver... [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=othered+definition
> "to suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK"
That quote is plain stupid. I assume my colleagues to be all qualified for the job because they've been hired according to the same standards.
If my company only hires people that is more than 1.80 metres tall, I'm not diminishing the height of my female colleagues if I suggest that the reason there is a gender imbalance is that women are, on average, shorter.
That quote is plain stupid. I assume my colleagues to be all qualified for the job because they've been hired according to the same standards.
If my company only hires people that is more than 1.80 metres tall, I'm not diminishing the height of my female colleagues if I suggest that the reason there is a gender imbalance is that women are, on average, shorter.
[deleted]
That Sundar's quote is weird and it does a similar population sleight of hand. The "group of our colleagues" is already a subset of population selected for relevant skill (by virtue of having been hired by Google), so it's out of scope of Damore's memo.
I believe both Sundar's note and Damore's original memo were in the context of people hired by Google.
Damore's thesis was that Google shouldn't expect gender parity because (among other factors) the preferences of women are distributed differently than the preferences of men. So Damore was talking about both groups, but he was fired specifically for suggesting that Google's hiring practices were unfair--the argument being that criticizing Google's hiring practices implies that the women hired under those practices didn't really deserve to be there. This is especially interesting because lots of people make the inverse claim (Google's hiring practices are biased in favor of men) and no one is trying to fire them for implying that male Googlers don't belong (note that recently Google has discouraged activism, but this is because it stirs up unwanted controversy and impedes business, not because it offends a demographic; never mind that being told to behave is not the same as being terminated).
In terms of pipeline argument, the memo can be viewed as arguing that the pipeline is biased at every stage
That's your interpretation, and isn't mentioned in the Wikipedia page nor the original memo.
Both the memo and the Wikipedia page discuss the changes Damore suggested making at Google, not anything about changes in the pipeline.
That's your interpretation, and isn't mentioned in the Wikipedia page nor the original memo.
Both the memo and the Wikipedia page discuss the changes Damore suggested making at Google, not anything about changes in the pipeline.
> That's your interpretation, and isn't mentioned in the Wikipedia page nor the original memo.
Yes, it's my interpretation. I quoted Wikipedia to show directly (the quote is self-evident) that GP is misrepresenting the very article they're linking to, and I then followed with reinterpreting that quote through the lens of the "pipeline argument". As far as I recall the memo (I read it two years ago), Damore didn't explicitly talked about pipeline, and yes, his suggestions were entirely about what Google should and shouldn't do.
Yes, it's my interpretation. I quoted Wikipedia to show directly (the quote is self-evident) that GP is misrepresenting the very article they're linking to, and I then followed with reinterpreting that quote through the lens of the "pipeline argument". As far as I recall the memo (I read it two years ago), Damore didn't explicitly talked about pipeline, and yes, his suggestions were entirely about what Google should and shouldn't do.
In that case I think it's fair to point out that the OP's interpretation of the memo is valid ("Damore's memo (which I assume is what you're talking about) absolutely did not attribute Google's lack of women candidates to a lack of graduates in the pipeline.") and has to call into question your accusation of misquoting ("You're misreporting the very link you quoted.")
The OP's comment seems closer aligned to what Damore's actual argument was (as opposed to your interpretation).
The OP's comment seems closer aligned to what Damore's actual argument was (as opposed to your interpretation).
Sorry, how are these two arguments equivalent in your mind:
1. There are few women engineers at Google because there are few candidates in the pipeline.
2. women generally having a stronger interest in people rather than things, and tending to be more social, artistic, and prone to neuroticism
I don't see that at all. The only way you get there is to assume a common causality. But that assumption (that some people are inherently bad at coding) is offensive if made without good science. You can't start with bad pseudoscience and "prove" that Damore was fired because he pointed out the pipeline problem!
1. There are few women engineers at Google because there are few candidates in the pipeline.
2. women generally having a stronger interest in people rather than things, and tending to be more social, artistic, and prone to neuroticism
I don't see that at all. The only way you get there is to assume a common causality. But that assumption (that some people are inherently bad at coding) is offensive if made without good science. You can't start with bad pseudoscience and "prove" that Damore was fired because he pointed out the pipeline problem!
The argument is: because of 2), less women enter the pipeline that leads to a job that's less social and more about things, relative to other occupations, therefore 1).
2) is presented here as a plausible explanation of 1). The connection is very clear, so the validity of that view depends entirely on the validity of point 2) itself. Damore presented a boatload of links to research supporting that point, and plenty of other people did too. See e.g. SSC's take on it here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagge....
Now one big aspect of the whole drama is that 2) is being rejected out of hand as offensive wrongthink. The concept that men and women may have different interests is considered sexist, and instead a narrative of systemic oppression is proposed. Another big issue with the memo is that a lot of people couldn't - and a lot still can't - understand the fundamental concept that you cannot take population-level statistics and use them to pass judgements on individuals. Just because a certain population doesn't like X on average, does not mean that a particular member of that population currently doing X is somehow wrong or unsuitable because of that. Damore didn't make this mistake, but was widely accused of it (and from what I remember from reading the memo two years ago, he repeatedly warned the readers against making this mistake).
2) is presented here as a plausible explanation of 1). The connection is very clear, so the validity of that view depends entirely on the validity of point 2) itself. Damore presented a boatload of links to research supporting that point, and plenty of other people did too. See e.g. SSC's take on it here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagge....
Now one big aspect of the whole drama is that 2) is being rejected out of hand as offensive wrongthink. The concept that men and women may have different interests is considered sexist, and instead a narrative of systemic oppression is proposed. Another big issue with the memo is that a lot of people couldn't - and a lot still can't - understand the fundamental concept that you cannot take population-level statistics and use them to pass judgements on individuals. Just because a certain population doesn't like X on average, does not mean that a particular member of that population currently doing X is somehow wrong or unsuitable because of that. Damore didn't make this mistake, but was widely accused of it (and from what I remember from reading the memo two years ago, he repeatedly warned the readers against making this mistake).
The concept that men and women may have different interests is considered sexist
I would posit that men and women have different realities, thus different needs. This shapes interests.
It's not wholly unassailable, but needs to be approached differently than goals like "achieve x percentage of women in tech" are typically approached.
I would posit that men and women have different realities, thus different needs. This shapes interests.
It's not wholly unassailable, but needs to be approached differently than goals like "achieve x percentage of women in tech" are typically approached.
I'd agree with your observation about different realities, and I think it's woefully underappreciated. I think it only truly clicked with me once I entered a stable, long-term relationship with my now wife - which made me immersed in the daily minutiae of a woman's life, the stories, the perspectives, the concerns, the emotions. It's something that's hard to learn from just brief, casual interactions, no matter how open-minded one is.
Personally, I feel the issue of gender balance in tech is approached completely wrong from every direction. The goal should be to give opportunity for anyone who wants to join and excel in the field, and to let them feel comfortable and safe in it. But the topic became a battleground for interest groups that demand fixed ratios and discrimination in their own favor, and there's also the strong confounding factor of money - IT is currently one of the easiest, if not the easiest, way to make lots of money with little training and up-front investment, so the media spotlight is focused on tech (vs. other occupations).
Personally, I feel the issue of gender balance in tech is approached completely wrong from every direction. The goal should be to give opportunity for anyone who wants to join and excel in the field, and to let them feel comfortable and safe in it. But the topic became a battleground for interest groups that demand fixed ratios and discrimination in their own favor, and there's also the strong confounding factor of money - IT is currently one of the easiest, if not the easiest, way to make lots of money with little training and up-front investment, so the media spotlight is focused on tech (vs. other occupations).
There's also history to consider. Computing was a woman-dominated field until relatively recently in history, which strongly suggests that the root causes of the shift in male/female ratios in technical fields isn't biological (unless there was a massive biological upheaval in the human species in the past 50 years).
the root causes of the shift in male/female ratios in technical fields isn't biological
I agree with this, but I'd just note that the shift isn't as dramatic as you are making out.
Computing was a woman-dominated field until relatively recently in history
The field of computing started in the 1950s (generously). Worker proportions are difficult to estimate, but the maximum proportion of female computer science degrees was 37% in around 1987[1]. In 1986 The Atlantic noted that "[in the federal government] only seven percent of the employees in the top five CS [pay grade] ratings were women, while more than three quarters in the bottom grades were."[2]
[1] https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-the-declinin...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1986/09/women-i...
I agree with this, but I'd just note that the shift isn't as dramatic as you are making out.
Computing was a woman-dominated field until relatively recently in history
The field of computing started in the 1950s (generously). Worker proportions are difficult to estimate, but the maximum proportion of female computer science degrees was 37% in around 1987[1]. In 1986 The Atlantic noted that "[in the federal government] only seven percent of the employees in the top five CS [pay grade] ratings were women, while more than three quarters in the bottom grades were."[2]
[1] https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-the-declinin...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1986/09/women-i...
Going by computer science degrees is the wrong metric because computer science as a unique discipline only arose as late as the '50s. Before that, the field's predecessor was the human computer, a field dominated by women for quite some time.
This is also unlikely to be due to some inherent biological differences and instead reverse prejudices; women were assumed to be more patient and reliable and were favored in both human computation and telegraph / switchboard work.
This is also unlikely to be due to some inherent biological differences and instead reverse prejudices; women were assumed to be more patient and reliable and were favored in both human computation and telegraph / switchboard work.
How many aspects of the differing realities are due to inherent biological differences, and how many are due to societal environment, though?
Well it's basically always possible to claim that society has some hidden variable, but I'll bite. As a woman, if you want children/family you need to secure at least a certain baseline of living quality and stability before the age of 35 and realistically much earlier. This alone dramatically changes the timeline and priorities of women.
I'm not even suggesting some "hidden variable"; there are plenty of obvious variables that stare us right in the face without even having to look all that hard. Doesn't take much imagination to come up with a few.
The cost of freezing eggs is pretty small compared to tech salaries though, so if women's instincts are telling them not to go into tech because they need to hurry up and have kids, those instincts are out of date wrt what modern medicine can do.
With what modern medicine can do, sorta, kinda, in the West, if you're wealthy enough. Freezing eggs is nowhere near standard practice (though with ever growing credentialism, it may well just become such), and having kids (really: starting a family) involves a lot of other things than just getting some sperm and an egg to occupy the same space at the same time.
(Also, really, modern tech is currently one of the most family-friendly profession out there, because of demand surplus. I think GP is talking about women living a different reality than men, not about women not wanting to go to tech strictly because of it.)
(Also, really, modern tech is currently one of the most family-friendly profession out there, because of demand surplus. I think GP is talking about women living a different reality than men, not about women not wanting to go to tech strictly because of it.)
having babies when you are an elderly woman (which is the age of 35 according to obstetricians) becomes more difficult with each passing year.
I think enough are due to societal environment that this is something we can work on, but not by arbitrarily saying things like "We want to hire more women in tech."
I posted something of a "case study" in this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21695925
It's currently downvoted and has one not very nice reply. I guess it's far less of a shit show than it really "should" be, but this is kind of par for the course. People want to believe that sexism is some nebulous problem "out there" and it's not anything they, personally, are doing and if you try to point out what can be done differently in the here and now, well, people are offended and use that to justify doubling down on mistreating people who are already suffering from social exclusion based on gender, skin color, whatever.
I've had college classes in things like Social Psychology and Negotiation and Conflict Management. I'm a woman and I was one of the top three students of my graduating high school class and then I spent about two decades doing the full-time homemaker thing and wondering where the hell my life went wrong that I didn't get the two-career couple modern American dream that I had expected.
So I know a lot about the space. I've read a lot of books on women's issues and I spent a lot of time in therapy and so forth, but most people don't really want to hear what I have to say. It makes them uncomfortable.
Some points I have been trying to make on HN for years:
1. Most men will not genuinely engage me in a substantive and positive way that leads to some kind of professional development or professional opportunity. They either argue with me or they hit on me. Neither fosters the kind of professional connections I need.
Among other things, I need people to talk with me in earnest about my work. I need people to promote my work, which historically has just not been done. Only recently has anyone other than me apparently posted any of my writing to HN that wasn't basically mud slinging and gossip.
And I think I can't get that primarily because men basically are nice to women when they are looking for sex and that's pretty much it. And they actively avoid being too nice to any woman they aren't trying to sleep with for fear of it having some kind of negative outcome, such as an unintended affair or career-damaging gossip.
2. I need income and no one really wants to hear that. I was a homemaker for years and the things I'm good at combined with my gender cause people to feel that I am supposed to do nice things for them out of the goodness of my heart because I care like I'm their mother. I have a pretty good idea where that pattern comes from, but it's a broken mental model that harms the incomes and lives of a great many women. This shitty expectation that I should benefit others for free out of the goodness of my heart was hung on me even when I was literally homeless.
-----
Decades of trying to sort out my own problems and reading up on what happens with other women has me convinced that the lack of ability to seriously connect with men socially in a professional way is a huge barrier to professional development. I'm convinced that a lot of female-led startups fail because they don't get those small nudges about what needs to happen with the business or code base that men get from having a beer with buddies or whatever and discussing it casually. So pivots happen much later and involve much larger changes and it's deadly to a lot of businesses.
I've been on HN for over a decade. Only in recent weeks do I have contacts via HN with men who will talk with me via email about something other than personal bullshit. I've been exchanging emails with two different men met through HN about housing issues.
Two contacts is something I should have been able to come up with in the first year, not more than a decade later. Everyone else has basically either emailed me to bond personally while doing not a fucking thing to further my professional goals, was actively trying to victimize me because they were shitty people, or they were hitting on me or they were writing me basically out of pity as their good deed for the day and not because they really had anything meaningful to discuss with me in earnest.
I feel I've been endlessly patient with a truly appalling situation and it hardly budges and if I get frustrated and upset because I'm still dirt poor and still can't make my life work and my gender is a very large factor there, then I get amazingly shitty feedback like it's somehow my fault for being rude or something. So basically no matter how virtuous I am, it's never enough and there is always some shitty BS excuse to blame me for it.
This boils down to "People don't really want it to change." It doesn't directly negatively impact the men here that they are aware of, so not their problem that there is a woman in their midst who routinely can't afford enough food to eat every day.
I'm quite fed up and if I had some means to go postal and murder a bunch of people that in my mind are "at fault," I probably would at this point. I just have no means to somehow blow up HN and multiple people met through HN.
I no longer know what to do. Being patient, diplomatic, articulate, long-suffering and blah blah blah isn't solving it. At the rate I'm going, I might have a middle class income in another hundred years, assuming I live that long and it's mind boggling to me that people who routinely claim they are interested in addressing issues like sexism are amazingly content to continue to basically step over my body in the gutter and mutter to themselves "Not my problem."
So the world isn't likely to change because the world doesn't actually want to change. It would rather look for excuses and justifications than viable solutions.
I posted something of a "case study" in this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21695925
It's currently downvoted and has one not very nice reply. I guess it's far less of a shit show than it really "should" be, but this is kind of par for the course. People want to believe that sexism is some nebulous problem "out there" and it's not anything they, personally, are doing and if you try to point out what can be done differently in the here and now, well, people are offended and use that to justify doubling down on mistreating people who are already suffering from social exclusion based on gender, skin color, whatever.
I've had college classes in things like Social Psychology and Negotiation and Conflict Management. I'm a woman and I was one of the top three students of my graduating high school class and then I spent about two decades doing the full-time homemaker thing and wondering where the hell my life went wrong that I didn't get the two-career couple modern American dream that I had expected.
So I know a lot about the space. I've read a lot of books on women's issues and I spent a lot of time in therapy and so forth, but most people don't really want to hear what I have to say. It makes them uncomfortable.
Some points I have been trying to make on HN for years:
1. Most men will not genuinely engage me in a substantive and positive way that leads to some kind of professional development or professional opportunity. They either argue with me or they hit on me. Neither fosters the kind of professional connections I need.
Among other things, I need people to talk with me in earnest about my work. I need people to promote my work, which historically has just not been done. Only recently has anyone other than me apparently posted any of my writing to HN that wasn't basically mud slinging and gossip.
And I think I can't get that primarily because men basically are nice to women when they are looking for sex and that's pretty much it. And they actively avoid being too nice to any woman they aren't trying to sleep with for fear of it having some kind of negative outcome, such as an unintended affair or career-damaging gossip.
2. I need income and no one really wants to hear that. I was a homemaker for years and the things I'm good at combined with my gender cause people to feel that I am supposed to do nice things for them out of the goodness of my heart because I care like I'm their mother. I have a pretty good idea where that pattern comes from, but it's a broken mental model that harms the incomes and lives of a great many women. This shitty expectation that I should benefit others for free out of the goodness of my heart was hung on me even when I was literally homeless.
-----
Decades of trying to sort out my own problems and reading up on what happens with other women has me convinced that the lack of ability to seriously connect with men socially in a professional way is a huge barrier to professional development. I'm convinced that a lot of female-led startups fail because they don't get those small nudges about what needs to happen with the business or code base that men get from having a beer with buddies or whatever and discussing it casually. So pivots happen much later and involve much larger changes and it's deadly to a lot of businesses.
I've been on HN for over a decade. Only in recent weeks do I have contacts via HN with men who will talk with me via email about something other than personal bullshit. I've been exchanging emails with two different men met through HN about housing issues.
Two contacts is something I should have been able to come up with in the first year, not more than a decade later. Everyone else has basically either emailed me to bond personally while doing not a fucking thing to further my professional goals, was actively trying to victimize me because they were shitty people, or they were hitting on me or they were writing me basically out of pity as their good deed for the day and not because they really had anything meaningful to discuss with me in earnest.
I feel I've been endlessly patient with a truly appalling situation and it hardly budges and if I get frustrated and upset because I'm still dirt poor and still can't make my life work and my gender is a very large factor there, then I get amazingly shitty feedback like it's somehow my fault for being rude or something. So basically no matter how virtuous I am, it's never enough and there is always some shitty BS excuse to blame me for it.
This boils down to "People don't really want it to change." It doesn't directly negatively impact the men here that they are aware of, so not their problem that there is a woman in their midst who routinely can't afford enough food to eat every day.
I'm quite fed up and if I had some means to go postal and murder a bunch of people that in my mind are "at fault," I probably would at this point. I just have no means to somehow blow up HN and multiple people met through HN.
I no longer know what to do. Being patient, diplomatic, articulate, long-suffering and blah blah blah isn't solving it. At the rate I'm going, I might have a middle class income in another hundred years, assuming I live that long and it's mind boggling to me that people who routinely claim they are interested in addressing issues like sexism are amazingly content to continue to basically step over my body in the gutter and mutter to themselves "Not my problem."
So the world isn't likely to change because the world doesn't actually want to change. It would rather look for excuses and justifications than viable solutions.
>>>And I think I can't get that primarily because men basically are nice to women when they are looking for sex and that's pretty much it. And they actively avoid being too nice to any woman they aren't trying to sleep with for fear of it having some kind of negative outcome, such as an unintended affair or career-damaging gossip.
You're not wrong....but I'm in no way, shape, or form surprised by this gender dynamic. Although I think the "career-damaging gossip" is a fairly recent phenomenon. Enough men have had their lives destroyed by either awkward romantic attempts on their part or flat-out lies on a woman's part that guys have reacted in an entirely rational manner by simply avoiding females. The assumption is that there is NO professional benefit to the guy that is worth the risk.
My (totally unsolicited) ¥2 is you probably need to overcome that assumption very early in any conversation if you expect assistance.
>>>I just have no means to somehow blow up HN and multiple people met through HN.
Do some social engineering to reveal their physical locations. Then strap tannerite-based nailbombs to UAVs? As long as we are brainstorming here...
You're not wrong....but I'm in no way, shape, or form surprised by this gender dynamic. Although I think the "career-damaging gossip" is a fairly recent phenomenon. Enough men have had their lives destroyed by either awkward romantic attempts on their part or flat-out lies on a woman's part that guys have reacted in an entirely rational manner by simply avoiding females. The assumption is that there is NO professional benefit to the guy that is worth the risk.
My (totally unsolicited) ¥2 is you probably need to overcome that assumption very early in any conversation if you expect assistance.
>>>I just have no means to somehow blow up HN and multiple people met through HN.
Do some social engineering to reveal their physical locations. Then strap tannerite-based nailbombs to UAVs? As long as we are brainstorming here...
My (totally unsolicited) ¥2 is you probably need to overcome that assumption very early in any conversation if you expect assistance
I've been celibate for medical reasons for over 14 years. I've been a member in good standing here for over a decade. I've gone to great lengths to avoid trouble. So far that seems to benefit me just enough to not yet be banned and that's it.
And it really shouldn't be that way. And I don't feel any good would come out of digging into those details here and now.
Do some social engineering to reveal their physical locations. Then strap tannerite-based nailbombs to UAVs? As long as we are brainstorming here...
That's good for a chuckle, but the reality is I'm far too poor to do anything like that. I'm not exaggerating when I say I routinely don't have enough money for food.
If I could come up with the means to assassinate six or ten assholes across the globe from a distance, I probably would be wealthy enough to pay cash for the building I want and would, therefore, have no reason to be sitting around stewing and wishing a few assholes would choke to death on their next bowl of soup.
I've been celibate for medical reasons for over 14 years. I've been a member in good standing here for over a decade. I've gone to great lengths to avoid trouble. So far that seems to benefit me just enough to not yet be banned and that's it.
And it really shouldn't be that way. And I don't feel any good would come out of digging into those details here and now.
Do some social engineering to reveal their physical locations. Then strap tannerite-based nailbombs to UAVs? As long as we are brainstorming here...
That's good for a chuckle, but the reality is I'm far too poor to do anything like that. I'm not exaggerating when I say I routinely don't have enough money for food.
If I could come up with the means to assassinate six or ten assholes across the globe from a distance, I probably would be wealthy enough to pay cash for the building I want and would, therefore, have no reason to be sitting around stewing and wishing a few assholes would choke to death on their next bowl of soup.
> The concept that men and women may have different interests is considered sexist
The concept that men and women may have different interests due to biological differences is extremely sexist, yes. For all the sources Damore cited, there's an entire body of academic work (and an entire cultural revolution in the United States spanning upwards of a century) to the contrary on that topic specifically. A large chunk of the feminist movement was and is women and men actively working to prove that biology is not a limiting factor in what women can choose to do with themselves.
Had he kept his comments to a realm of "men and women might have different representation in computer engineering because they have different interests on average," he would have been treading on thin ice with people disinclined to assume good faith but could have probably kept his job. Attempting to hang the causality on biology really did him in (and when his memo became public, it put Google in a situation where they ran serious risk of tolerating a hostile work environment if they kept him).
The concept that men and women may have different interests due to biological differences is extremely sexist, yes. For all the sources Damore cited, there's an entire body of academic work (and an entire cultural revolution in the United States spanning upwards of a century) to the contrary on that topic specifically. A large chunk of the feminist movement was and is women and men actively working to prove that biology is not a limiting factor in what women can choose to do with themselves.
Had he kept his comments to a realm of "men and women might have different representation in computer engineering because they have different interests on average," he would have been treading on thin ice with people disinclined to assume good faith but could have probably kept his job. Attempting to hang the causality on biology really did him in (and when his memo became public, it put Google in a situation where they ran serious risk of tolerating a hostile work environment if they kept him).
A large chunk of the feminist movement was and is women and men actively working to prove that biology is not a limiting factor in what women can choose to do with themselves
That's got nothing at all to do with what was being suggested.
Saying women have different "interests" -- or priorities, which is a better word in my opinion -- isn't suggesting they are incapable nor suggesting society should constrain their role. It's suggesting they have agency and make choices which fail to serve some abstract narrative about the theoretical importance of so-called equality of the sort that gets debated and hypothesized about in articles like the one under discussion.
I was a homemaker for a lot of years. Self-proclaimed feminists have a long history of being incredibly ugly to me.
I'm not the only person who has noticed that feminists are basically openly hostile and contemptuous towards homemakers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ1xOOyENmw
That's got nothing at all to do with what was being suggested.
Saying women have different "interests" -- or priorities, which is a better word in my opinion -- isn't suggesting they are incapable nor suggesting society should constrain their role. It's suggesting they have agency and make choices which fail to serve some abstract narrative about the theoretical importance of so-called equality of the sort that gets debated and hypothesized about in articles like the one under discussion.
I was a homemaker for a lot of years. Self-proclaimed feminists have a long history of being incredibly ugly to me.
I'm not the only person who has noticed that feminists are basically openly hostile and contemptuous towards homemakers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ1xOOyENmw
I'm sorry that happened to you, because whoever did that to you utterly missed the point. It's about choice, and if you chose to be a homemaker, it's exactly as valid a choice as someone who chooses to pursue a career that leaves no time to raise a family if they don't want to raise a family.
What we should avoid is choices being constrained by assumptions about what you want because of your biology (such as the assumption---clearly illegal to act upon but still acted upon nonetheless---that young women are a higher-risk hire and promotion because they probably want to leave the workforce to raise a family in three years). Assumptions like that constrain women who do want a career because the company is going to invest in the male employees who are assumed to be in it for life.
What we should avoid is choices being constrained by assumptions about what you want because of your biology (such as the assumption---clearly illegal to act upon but still acted upon nonetheless---that young women are a higher-risk hire and promotion because they probably want to leave the workforce to raise a family in three years). Assumptions like that constrain women who do want a career because the company is going to invest in the male employees who are assumed to be in it for life.
For various reasons, I've thought very long and hard about what I think of as "human sexual morality." A great deal of our historical cultural norms, such as expectations of monogamy, virginity prior to marriage and shotgun weddings, boil down to the fact that sex is a profound human drive and very often has unintended consequences. This includes both pregnancy and disease.
You talk about women and their lives as if what they want is or should be the driving factor in their lives. I don't think that's accurate at all.
A serious career woman I was close to for many years had serious fertility problems. After many years of intervention, she managed to have one child in her mid to late thirties. She had read enormous research and concluded that infertility was a driving factor in the lives of many career women.
Careers and children are both serious commitments. Studies show that every dollar invested in our small children for things like preschool saves multiple dollars down the line on things like prison.
I enjoyed being home with my sons. They both have special needs and I have a serious congenital defect that wasn't identified until my mid thirties. Getting a diagnosis was extremely empowering and allowed me to be able to more effectively pursue school, work and even a divorce at long last.
But to a large degree being a homemaker was not something I chose. To a large degree, it was a circumstance foisted upon me by circumstance beyond my control.
I'm not a feminist. I see feminists as people who feel women are entitled to a career as if a spiffy title with a big salary is a prize in a Cracker Jax box that unfairly is handed out to men arbitrarily based on the dark heart of society being a sexist pig. This attitude is fundamentally disrespectful of both what it costs men to have a real career and what it takes to adequately raise healthy kids.
Society is not going to solve these problems as long as it continues to chase this insane delusion that children are a casual choice no harder to get or avoid than picking your lunch from a menu.
Our current mental models throw everyone under the bus, men, women and children alike. Many women soak up a lot of the damage to lessen it for their children which is the morally and practically correct choice given the shitty state of the world. But we shouldn't be designing a world like that. It's evil to design a world where that's basically the norm and not some bizarre stastistical outlier.
I wish most self-proclaimed feminists would go die in a fucking fire. They are generally worse than most self-proclaimed Christians who all too often are just assholes giving Christianity a bad name.
I would like to see the birth of a post feminist world where we deal realistically with the thorny issue of human sexual morality, including the fact that sex can lead to pregnancy and this can have huge consequences for the lives of the parents. I hate labels but I tend to think of it as a humanist model, which to me means a model that is humane and cares equally about men, women and children.
The feminist narrative mostly cares about women having serious careers and it mostly cares about empowering a subset of very privileged women to live their lives like very privileged men. The reality is that when you have a very privileged woman who has a serious career and also children, it's usually some less privileged woman raising her children under a title like nanny.
Our current feminist narrative pretends that it wants equality for all. It actually doesn't.
It actually wants equality between a small subset of very privileged upper class women and very privileged upper class men and it expects that so-called equality to come largely at the expense of lower class women working as maids and nannies to make it possible for a few upper class two-career couples to "have it all."
Career paths must be reimagined if we are ever to escape this bullshit. Our current career paths are posited on an implicit assumption that the worker is a heterosexual man with a wife and kids to support and her labor is freeing him up to put all his time and energy into the job while she worries about making sure he eats healthy and arranges to make that possible for him. That pattern served humanity well when most families had multiple children and it improved quality of life for men, women and children.
The world has changed and our mental models are failing to adequately catch up. We aren't going to invent better ones while chasing bullshit delusions based on ridiculous ideals that cannot actually be achieved and are actively undermining the claimed goal of creating a better world.
You talk about women and their lives as if what they want is or should be the driving factor in their lives. I don't think that's accurate at all.
A serious career woman I was close to for many years had serious fertility problems. After many years of intervention, she managed to have one child in her mid to late thirties. She had read enormous research and concluded that infertility was a driving factor in the lives of many career women.
Careers and children are both serious commitments. Studies show that every dollar invested in our small children for things like preschool saves multiple dollars down the line on things like prison.
I enjoyed being home with my sons. They both have special needs and I have a serious congenital defect that wasn't identified until my mid thirties. Getting a diagnosis was extremely empowering and allowed me to be able to more effectively pursue school, work and even a divorce at long last.
But to a large degree being a homemaker was not something I chose. To a large degree, it was a circumstance foisted upon me by circumstance beyond my control.
I'm not a feminist. I see feminists as people who feel women are entitled to a career as if a spiffy title with a big salary is a prize in a Cracker Jax box that unfairly is handed out to men arbitrarily based on the dark heart of society being a sexist pig. This attitude is fundamentally disrespectful of both what it costs men to have a real career and what it takes to adequately raise healthy kids.
Society is not going to solve these problems as long as it continues to chase this insane delusion that children are a casual choice no harder to get or avoid than picking your lunch from a menu.
Our current mental models throw everyone under the bus, men, women and children alike. Many women soak up a lot of the damage to lessen it for their children which is the morally and practically correct choice given the shitty state of the world. But we shouldn't be designing a world like that. It's evil to design a world where that's basically the norm and not some bizarre stastistical outlier.
I wish most self-proclaimed feminists would go die in a fucking fire. They are generally worse than most self-proclaimed Christians who all too often are just assholes giving Christianity a bad name.
I would like to see the birth of a post feminist world where we deal realistically with the thorny issue of human sexual morality, including the fact that sex can lead to pregnancy and this can have huge consequences for the lives of the parents. I hate labels but I tend to think of it as a humanist model, which to me means a model that is humane and cares equally about men, women and children.
The feminist narrative mostly cares about women having serious careers and it mostly cares about empowering a subset of very privileged women to live their lives like very privileged men. The reality is that when you have a very privileged woman who has a serious career and also children, it's usually some less privileged woman raising her children under a title like nanny.
Our current feminist narrative pretends that it wants equality for all. It actually doesn't.
It actually wants equality between a small subset of very privileged upper class women and very privileged upper class men and it expects that so-called equality to come largely at the expense of lower class women working as maids and nannies to make it possible for a few upper class two-career couples to "have it all."
Career paths must be reimagined if we are ever to escape this bullshit. Our current career paths are posited on an implicit assumption that the worker is a heterosexual man with a wife and kids to support and her labor is freeing him up to put all his time and energy into the job while she worries about making sure he eats healthy and arranges to make that possible for him. That pattern served humanity well when most families had multiple children and it improved quality of life for men, women and children.
The world has changed and our mental models are failing to adequately catch up. We aren't going to invent better ones while chasing bullshit delusions based on ridiculous ideals that cannot actually be achieved and are actively undermining the claimed goal of creating a better world.
> You talk about women and their lives as if what they want is or should be the driving factor in their lives. I don't think that's accurate at all.
Is "what they want" the driving factor in men's lives? If so, it's a somewhat fundamental principle of American cultural philosophy that we do all we can to make the option available for women too, if they want it. To do otherwise is to abandon the notion of "created equal."
The American experiment may be founded on flawed reasoning there, but it's going to be a heck of an uphill battle to convince people that's true. A battle I'm not going to fight because I'm on board with the "created equal" notion.
Is "what they want" the driving factor in men's lives? If so, it's a somewhat fundamental principle of American cultural philosophy that we do all we can to make the option available for women too, if they want it. To do otherwise is to abandon the notion of "created equal."
The American experiment may be founded on flawed reasoning there, but it's going to be a heck of an uphill battle to convince people that's true. A battle I'm not going to fight because I'm on board with the "created equal" notion.
Nobody is saying biology is "limiting" anything. That's the crux. They are choosing something else. Not better and not worse, but something they feel better suits their needs or desires.
CS isn't some magical field that floats on air. In fact, it's mostly a miserable profession with managers who don't understand how it works, cooped up in an office the whole day under artificial white light while sitting on your ass.
CS isn't some magical field that floats on air. In fact, it's mostly a miserable profession with managers who don't understand how it works, cooped up in an office the whole day under artificial white light while sitting on your ass.
I can’t shake the feeling that the women who leave programming because it’s “unwelcoming” don’t realize that it’s just as miserable a profession with managers who don’t understand how it works cooped up in an office the whole day under artificial light for men as it is for women.
Uh, sure, there are common negatives. But from what I can tell, it really does appear that women have to put up with a boatload more shit than men in addition to the negatives they have in common. And a lot of it hits in exactly the areas that make up for the rest of the shit - try having every one of your nonobvious decisions challenged, subtly or overtly, and see how easy it is to work through your problems with managers or whatever.
Actually any psychologist can contradict you easily. If you find arguments like "men are on average taller and heavier than women" to be sexist, you have a wrong sense of what sexism is.
Your examples are not related to software engineering. Please name software engineering related biological differences between men and women, backed by solid scientific studies.
Do we even have a scientifically-backed set of essential biological or cognitive skills related to software engineering?
I would probably start with [1] and [2].
Paper [3] concludes that sex-based differences in risk tolerance tangibly impacted approaches to spatial navigation AND program development.
There's a few others on spatial cognition and mental information processing: [4][5][6]. Paper[5] in particular links spatial cognition to mental modeling, which was identified in [1] as a software engineering skill. And [6] directly connects it to navigating source code.
[1]https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/eafe/74dddaf7ada62a52a2e712...
[2]https://web.stanford.edu/~roypea/RoyPDF%20folder/A17_Pea_Kur...
[3]https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/4021352
[4]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03601...
[5]https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2729....
[6]https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1268852
I would probably start with [1] and [2].
Paper [3] concludes that sex-based differences in risk tolerance tangibly impacted approaches to spatial navigation AND program development.
There's a few others on spatial cognition and mental information processing: [4][5][6]. Paper[5] in particular links spatial cognition to mental modeling, which was identified in [1] as a software engineering skill. And [6] directly connects it to navigating source code.
[1]https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/eafe/74dddaf7ada62a52a2e712...
[2]https://web.stanford.edu/~roypea/RoyPDF%20folder/A17_Pea_Kur...
[3]https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/4021352
[4]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03601...
[5]https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2729....
[6]https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1268852
[1] and [2] are not studies. [2] isn't even peer reviewed.
[3] is behind a paywall. It appeared in the "2006 22nd IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance", which is a pretty good indicator that this is not work done by social scientists, i.e., not scientifically backed. I have worked in science, the good papers appear in journals highly relevant for the topic.
[4] and [5] are not about software engineering.
[6] is also behind a paywall, and is based on a study with 24 students.
As I can't access the full-text papers, what is the reported strength of the effect, i.e., if person A is x% better than person B in spatial recognition, how much better is A in software engineering?
edit: here is a study presenting evidence that spatial skill differences in gender are not biological, see https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-38414-001. Without paywall: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike_Stieff/publication...
[3] is behind a paywall. It appeared in the "2006 22nd IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance", which is a pretty good indicator that this is not work done by social scientists, i.e., not scientifically backed. I have worked in science, the good papers appear in journals highly relevant for the topic.
[4] and [5] are not about software engineering.
[6] is also behind a paywall, and is based on a study with 24 students.
As I can't access the full-text papers, what is the reported strength of the effect, i.e., if person A is x% better than person B in spatial recognition, how much better is A in software engineering?
edit: here is a study presenting evidence that spatial skill differences in gender are not biological, see https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-38414-001. Without paywall: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike_Stieff/publication...
That sounds suspiciously like a straw man. The actual meat of the argument is what matters, not the simple fact of the comparison.
People should look at the memo with all its links to papers to decide if these claims are "largely unsourced."
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
There was a version initially floating around that had all the links removed.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
There was a version initially floating around that had all the links removed.
There is absolutely no sourcing for research showing women being inherently or unfixably uninterested in computer science. None. He had a bunch of links to studies about bland stuff like personality differences, using them to make arguments the study authors never indended and (where asked) refused to support.
Calling that "sourcing" is essentially trying to treat Damore's fundamentally political document as an original piece of social science research.
Calling that "sourcing" is essentially trying to treat Damore's fundamentally political document as an original piece of social science research.
> There is absolutely no sourcing for research showing women being inherently or unfixably uninterested in computer science.
Damore never made such claims. At the population level, it does indeed seem like women tend to be more interested in people-oriented subjects (nursing, pediatrics, law) and men tend to be more interested in thing-oriented subjects (engineering, compsci, surgery).
So even a discipline like medicine which has roughly gender parity, you still see segregation along gender lines, where women are overrepresented in subfields which deal directly with people (pediatrics, obgyn), and men are overrepresented in subfields which treat people as things (surgery). So a theory that delineates things vs. people has good explanatory power for explaining gender disparities [1].
Furthermore, Damore never claimed that such tendencies aren't "fixable". He claimed that the discriminatory policies currently in place are not only completely ineffective at influencing the gender numbers (and so should be ended), but that policies that take this research into account would be more effective.
> Calling that "sourcing" is essentially trying to treat Damore's fundamentally political document as an original piece of social science research.
If you're actually interested in a proper analysis Damore's claims by actual researchers in this field, I suggest reading [2].
[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0018...
[2] https://heterodoxacademy.org/the-google-memo-what-does-the-r...
Damore never made such claims. At the population level, it does indeed seem like women tend to be more interested in people-oriented subjects (nursing, pediatrics, law) and men tend to be more interested in thing-oriented subjects (engineering, compsci, surgery).
So even a discipline like medicine which has roughly gender parity, you still see segregation along gender lines, where women are overrepresented in subfields which deal directly with people (pediatrics, obgyn), and men are overrepresented in subfields which treat people as things (surgery). So a theory that delineates things vs. people has good explanatory power for explaining gender disparities [1].
Furthermore, Damore never claimed that such tendencies aren't "fixable". He claimed that the discriminatory policies currently in place are not only completely ineffective at influencing the gender numbers (and so should be ended), but that policies that take this research into account would be more effective.
> Calling that "sourcing" is essentially trying to treat Damore's fundamentally political document as an original piece of social science research.
If you're actually interested in a proper analysis Damore's claims by actual researchers in this field, I suggest reading [2].
[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0018...
[2] https://heterodoxacademy.org/the-google-memo-what-does-the-r...
"women being inherently or unfixably uninterested in computer science" is not the claim. Do you grok the part where he talks about distributions?
Saying that women can or need to be "fixed" to make them interested in computer science is incredible sexist.
The author is leaving unstated what we all know to be true: most of these jobs aren't really that hard. You don't really need the people with pedigreed CS backgrounds, but it's easier than actually figuring out how to screen candidates. The "pipeline problem" is the pipeline itself. So you have to go around the pipeline by avoiding the formal education system, which is where the bias is observed.
The problem is that if you give a rocket engineer the job of opening a pickle jar, you are forever in danger of them doing something titanically ornate, instead of just opening the goddamn jar or installing one of those toothy wedges under a cabinet near the fridge, where people can still function normally if they forget it's even there.
The one time I worked on a team of all highly senior people you couldn't get any of us to do anything. We were always writing code to do the thing for us. Which sounds okay at first, until you started trying to trace through all that code and then holy shit, we have made a terrible mistake.
On any project there is a mix of tasks that are perfectly suited for mid-level developers, and a set of tasks that are interesting enough but relatively low risk that you can use to train up low- and mid-level people for something meatier. Many of those tasks are also perfect for introducing new team members too.
If you aren't constantly trying to make 90% of the tasks simple enough for a boring team member to do then I don't know how you prevent the overall complexity of the system from eventually swamping you all. There are systems that look like they avoid this but if you look hard enough there is almost always one or two people who are holding the system hostage, and if they don't want something done to the system, it's not getting done, no matter how many customers leave. Eventually power overshadows merit and you get an oligarchy instead of a democracy.
The one time I worked on a team of all highly senior people you couldn't get any of us to do anything. We were always writing code to do the thing for us. Which sounds okay at first, until you started trying to trace through all that code and then holy shit, we have made a terrible mistake.
On any project there is a mix of tasks that are perfectly suited for mid-level developers, and a set of tasks that are interesting enough but relatively low risk that you can use to train up low- and mid-level people for something meatier. Many of those tasks are also perfect for introducing new team members too.
If you aren't constantly trying to make 90% of the tasks simple enough for a boring team member to do then I don't know how you prevent the overall complexity of the system from eventually swamping you all. There are systems that look like they avoid this but if you look hard enough there is almost always one or two people who are holding the system hostage, and if they don't want something done to the system, it's not getting done, no matter how many customers leave. Eventually power overshadows merit and you get an oligarchy instead of a democracy.
> If you aren't constantly trying to make 90% of the tasks simple enough for a boring team member to do then I don't know how you prevent the overall complexity of the system from eventually swamping you all.
One has to keep in mind that the things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. Otherwise, you risk ending up with the stereotypical low-skill Java Enterprise shop, where inexperienced and not particularly skilled developers end up writing (or autogenerating) code by kilolines, where if someone better trained were to stop and think for an hour, it could all be done in 100-1000x less code, and with similar improvement in maintainability.
One has to keep in mind that the things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. Otherwise, you risk ending up with the stereotypical low-skill Java Enterprise shop, where inexperienced and not particularly skilled developers end up writing (or autogenerating) code by kilolines, where if someone better trained were to stop and think for an hour, it could all be done in 100-1000x less code, and with similar improvement in maintainability.
Yes, and for me the happy ratio is around a 90:10 split.
There is a time and place for really sophisticated code, and people will just have to expend some effort to understand its behavior at least, if not in fact how it accomplishes it. If that's leaking throughout the system then it's likely a code smell.
I'd like to reiterate that the statement you quoted was made in the active voice. It's a process. As you add things to the system you should be looking at all of the pain points around it and amortizing the cost of addressing those issues. If you don't arrive there around the time the system begins to gel, but before calcification, you will never arrive. But if you try to get there from day one, you'll pick the wrong priorities and you'll certainly end up in that Enterprise hell you mention.
What I see happen is that people grow with the project, memorizing one thing after another without ever appreciating the weight of it all, and then one day they have to hire more people because someone left, and all of a sudden they're terrified of letting that person do any real work. Because how could they know? Absolutely no effort has been expended setting new people up for success, and the token efforts feel more like sabotage than help. Then it takes years of their lives to memorize all the same stuff and really, I believe you should be investing that time in something more worthwhile. I'm living through that again and it's every bit as bad as I remembered.
There is a time and place for really sophisticated code, and people will just have to expend some effort to understand its behavior at least, if not in fact how it accomplishes it. If that's leaking throughout the system then it's likely a code smell.
I'd like to reiterate that the statement you quoted was made in the active voice. It's a process. As you add things to the system you should be looking at all of the pain points around it and amortizing the cost of addressing those issues. If you don't arrive there around the time the system begins to gel, but before calcification, you will never arrive. But if you try to get there from day one, you'll pick the wrong priorities and you'll certainly end up in that Enterprise hell you mention.
What I see happen is that people grow with the project, memorizing one thing after another without ever appreciating the weight of it all, and then one day they have to hire more people because someone left, and all of a sudden they're terrified of letting that person do any real work. Because how could they know? Absolutely no effort has been expended setting new people up for success, and the token efforts feel more like sabotage than help. Then it takes years of their lives to memorize all the same stuff and really, I believe you should be investing that time in something more worthwhile. I'm living through that again and it's every bit as bad as I remembered.
Thank you for elaborating. What you wrote resonates very strongly, it's essentially the way it's been in every job I worked on. Hell, I'm guilty of it myself - once I have my own fiefdom in the codebase, I feel terrified of letting someone else work in it. In my mind, I have the vision of them struggling unproductively because they lack the knowledge about all the tiny little idiosyncrasies, of various design decisions that were never documented, etc. I recognize this is a wrong state of things, but it's hard to fix.
I feel like a step towards a solution to this problem (which I likewise observe), is to document these idiosyncrasies in the code. My rule of thumb is that when I write or read weird code that's necessarily weird (to avoid idiosyncrasies in downstream/upstream systems), I try to add a very concise clarifying comment that acknowledges the code as weird, and points in the direction of both the problem we're avoiding and some potential solutions to make the code less weird in the future.
For example, when reading an old codebase, if I invest 20 minutes in determining why the code differs from the documentation, I add a comment saying `NOTE(gen220): the code does not match the comment. The reason appears to be X. We might resolve this with Y or Z`. That, or update one of either the code or the comment, whichever makes the most sense in the situation.
That way, a new team member (or myself, but 2 years older) won't have to stumble in the same places, and are empowered to take a stab at fixing the problem, which has been documented for them.
Personally, when my idiosyncrasies are so-documented, I feel much safer handing things off.
For example, when reading an old codebase, if I invest 20 minutes in determining why the code differs from the documentation, I add a comment saying `NOTE(gen220): the code does not match the comment. The reason appears to be X. We might resolve this with Y or Z`. That, or update one of either the code or the comment, whichever makes the most sense in the situation.
That way, a new team member (or myself, but 2 years older) won't have to stumble in the same places, and are empowered to take a stab at fixing the problem, which has been documented for them.
Personally, when my idiosyncrasies are so-documented, I feel much safer handing things off.
I agree with your proposed step forward.
Myself, recently I've been more often producing fresh code than working on someone else's, so I ended up aggressively documenting design decisions in code - most of them in top-level file comments, and the more local/tactical decisions within the scope they affect. I try to do that simultaneously with writing the code, because unless I write things down immediately, there's a good chance I'll never go back to put them in.
Myself, recently I've been more often producing fresh code than working on someone else's, so I ended up aggressively documenting design decisions in code - most of them in top-level file comments, and the more local/tactical decisions within the scope they affect. I try to do that simultaneously with writing the code, because unless I write things down immediately, there's a good chance I'll never go back to put them in.
I do this and I also initial and date the comment so people have some idea where in the timeline it was introduced and who to talk to about it.
In my old age I use comments to write my code before I write the code. The comments explain in pseudo code what Im trying to accomplish.
# check to see if the user has a cart. The default state for
# users is to not have a cart. The original implementation
#created a cart for every visitor which resulted in 10s of
#thousands of unused carts.
# if the cart does not exist only create a new one because
# they are adding an item. You can never assume the user has
# a cart.
as I read code that isnt mine and figure out what it does, I write comments like the above about why I think it works that way. I will sometimes date the comments. You can do that with your own code as you make modifications or additions. It adds minimal overhead and is tremendous for when you go back later.
For a check like if i > 5 then do something I have seen comments like "check for i>5" which is obvious. I would want something like
# Im hardcoding a 5 here because <bad reason> so that when
#<whatever I represents is > 5 then we do <some stuff>
# check to see if the user has a cart. The default state for
# users is to not have a cart. The original implementation
#created a cart for every visitor which resulted in 10s of
#thousands of unused carts.
# if the cart does not exist only create a new one because
# they are adding an item. You can never assume the user has
# a cart.
as I read code that isnt mine and figure out what it does, I write comments like the above about why I think it works that way. I will sometimes date the comments. You can do that with your own code as you make modifications or additions. It adds minimal overhead and is tremendous for when you go back later.
For a check like if i > 5 then do something I have seen comments like "check for i>5" which is obvious. I would want something like
# Im hardcoding a 5 here because <bad reason> so that when
#<whatever I represents is > 5 then we do <some stuff>
Exactly!
Most of tech is what I would consider "trade school" level work. That is, it's not really any harder than if you went to trade school for HVAC. Sure there's lots of thermodynamics and air flow stuff involved, but you don't need a physics degree. You just need training, and experience is 90% of the job qualifications. People routinely overestimate the importance of their "skill" at most jobs.
Most of tech is what I would consider "trade school" level work. That is, it's not really any harder than if you went to trade school for HVAC. Sure there's lots of thermodynamics and air flow stuff involved, but you don't need a physics degree. You just need training, and experience is 90% of the job qualifications. People routinely overestimate the importance of their "skill" at most jobs.
That's not quite right either, because if these were truly easy jobs someone would have figured that out and won by hiring cheap developers with non-traditional backgrounds. In fact engineering jobs are hard, and there is a big spread in candidate quality.
The issue is that heretofore the best proxy for candidate quality is educational background, hence the pipeline problem. And you definitely fix that by going around the pipeline. But we shouldn't be blind to the fact that this has costs. You need to see a lot more bootcamp grads than Stanford alums to fill the same position. It's a cost worth bearing, but still a cost.
The issue is that heretofore the best proxy for candidate quality is educational background, hence the pipeline problem. And you definitely fix that by going around the pipeline. But we shouldn't be blind to the fact that this has costs. You need to see a lot more bootcamp grads than Stanford alums to fill the same position. It's a cost worth bearing, but still a cost.
> if these were truly easy jobs someone would have figured that out and won by hiring cheap developers with non-traditional backgrounds
Note that the same argument works as evidence against recruiting bias and pay disparity. Discriminating against people or paying them less due to factors unrelated to job performance is leaving money on the table. Such discrimination persisting would imply that the market is very inefficient in this aspect.
Note that the same argument works as evidence against recruiting bias and pay disparity. Discriminating against people or paying them less due to factors unrelated to job performance is leaving money on the table. Such discrimination persisting would imply that the market is very inefficient in this aspect.
The fact that many of the web companies want to crowd everyone in a few hundred square kilometers of the Bay area demonstrates that they don't know what they are doing and are leaving money on the table. That doesn't disprove the fact that women are somewhat more uninterested in pursuing those jobs than men are.
> because if these were truly easy jobs someone would have figured that out and won by hiring cheap developers with non-traditional backgrounds.
This is literally what is happening at many companies, quite often. I know so many female developers who have, in the past, said things like "Oh, I'd never work at Uber". And because of this, Uber has to pay their engineers a lot more money, because they can't attract any female employees.
Skiping on diversity initiatives is not just immoral, it is dumb. And you will lose money because of it.
This is literally what is happening at many companies, quite often. I know so many female developers who have, in the past, said things like "Oh, I'd never work at Uber". And because of this, Uber has to pay their engineers a lot more money, because they can't attract any female employees.
Skiping on diversity initiatives is not just immoral, it is dumb. And you will lose money because of it.
> most of these jobs aren't really that hard
This is a popular trope among non-programmers, and I can see why they’d like it to be true (it would make hiring a lot easier!) but actually yes, these jobs _are_ that hard. They’re hard because they’re constantly changing. Environments change, languages change, tooling changes, team structuring changes… and the programmers have to keep up. What may have been easier for, say, a self-taught PHP developer who doesn’t really know how databases work, or how networks work, or how operating systems work, or how HTTP works, ten years ago is much harder for that same developer without a decent grasp on the fundamentals trying to get their head around, say, React. There are easier jobs in “tech” like project management or testing, but developing software isn’t one of them.
This is a popular trope among non-programmers, and I can see why they’d like it to be true (it would make hiring a lot easier!) but actually yes, these jobs _are_ that hard. They’re hard because they’re constantly changing. Environments change, languages change, tooling changes, team structuring changes… and the programmers have to keep up. What may have been easier for, say, a self-taught PHP developer who doesn’t really know how databases work, or how networks work, or how operating systems work, or how HTTP works, ten years ago is much harder for that same developer without a decent grasp on the fundamentals trying to get their head around, say, React. There are easier jobs in “tech” like project management or testing, but developing software isn’t one of them.
Stages at the end of the pipeline obviously get much more starved than stages closer to the beginning. Computer scientists learn this in computer architecture 101.
The problem isn’t FAANGs, it’s the rest of the smaller companies that have gone from 20% female to 0% because they can’t compete with google’s salary package and supply really is limited at that stage in the pipe. If you work at a non-FAANG, the problem has gotten much worse than it was 10 years ago.
The problem isn’t FAANGs, it’s the rest of the smaller companies that have gone from 20% female to 0% because they can’t compete with google’s salary package and supply really is limited at that stage in the pipe. If you work at a non-FAANG, the problem has gotten much worse than it was 10 years ago.
Or to play with the metaphor, it may be a pipeline problem but there's also the phenomenon of "back pressure", where cause-and-effect move in both directions.
> it's an easy out to avoid taking action at whatever stage of the 'pipeline' you happen to be working at...you need to look for other ways to find talent that bypass that problem
Another 'easy out' is to simply lower the bar for female applicants
Another 'easy out' is to simply lower the bar for female applicants
The exciting thing if you are a hiring manager is that, as long as there is talent that is being passed-over for the wrong reasons, you can beat your competitors in one of the most challenging ares of building a compay by being good at avoiding this error. A friend noted recently that a compounding benefit of hiring a gender-balanced team early is you won't lose female talent you find later when they refuse to join a team of all guys. But you have to be careful too, to not hire someone just because they fit a social profile you want more of on the team. Talented women don't want to be on a team where all of the women there were "tossed a softball". It's not only condescending, but it fosters the bias it intends to combat. Whoever is at fault, it is that there is a gender imbalance is worthy of debate. But addressing it is best viewed as opportunity, not an act of charity, if seen through the right lens.
The irony of this thinking is that if you do the whole "teams must be gender balanced" routine early on where you are getting the 5-1 or worse ratio of men to women applying for a software position you can often be the one passing over way more talent than the company with the toxic white-male dominated culture lacking diversity. If men and women are equally good at the job (and in programming there is no reason to think otherwise) and you have 1,000 men and 200 women applying and there is a uniform distribution of talent there are going to be 200 men and 40 women in the top quintile, and if you are hiring 200 overall that means you are passing over 100 top tier men for 40 second and 20 third tier women. And by trying to discriminate to correct discrimination you leave the ~66 men you would have on average hired instead if you went purely based off choosing the "best" candidates for the job in the same position as minorities historically rejected from work due to the inverse bias - they get declined from the position because of facets of their being they have no control over, not on their own merit for the job.
Avoiding bias in hiring can never be as hamfisted as "hire equal numbers of X always" without causing a ton of harm in the process. Especially when you start trying to always hire an equal number of men and women, every ethnicity, every religion, every spoken language, every sexual orientation, every country of origin, etc. There has to be a balance between being inhospitable to diversity and using discrimination to force arbitrary amounts of diversity.
Avoiding bias in hiring can never be as hamfisted as "hire equal numbers of X always" without causing a ton of harm in the process. Especially when you start trying to always hire an equal number of men and women, every ethnicity, every religion, every spoken language, every sexual orientation, every country of origin, etc. There has to be a balance between being inhospitable to diversity and using discrimination to force arbitrary amounts of diversity.
Simply applying normal statistics to candidates feels wrong as we usually have to make the “random independent variable” assumption for the simple statistical analysis we do.
I fairly certain that assumption does not hold about humans. Our social environment has a direct impact on our work outcomes.
Ergo, simply picking the top best candidates for some individual measure candidates does not guarantee the best work outcomes and so, depending on the effect size, doesn’t necessarily confer any advantage.
I fairly certain that assumption does not hold about humans. Our social environment has a direct impact on our work outcomes.
Ergo, simply picking the top best candidates for some individual measure candidates does not guarantee the best work outcomes and so, depending on the effect size, doesn’t necessarily confer any advantage.
Given the complexity of the feelings a lot of people have and are developing over time, I think it's worth emphasizing how the push for gender balance can backfire. The linked writeup mentions "diversity fatigue", and it can turn people who would otherwise support fixing the pipeline into cynics.
We have a woman who was hired on my team at work. As soon as management saw an actual woman had applied, the interview process was just a formality. She has been with us for several months now and has performed abysmally. If she were a white guy she would not have made it in the front door. Working with her is a constant frustration - explaining basic programming concepts and constantly reminding her what the current task is when she gets distracted looking at cat pictures.
The issue is that the male members of the team resent her and our bosses because she's unfireable as a woman. We want in good faith to support women and other demographics that might be interested in our field! We'd love to do whatever we can to foster interest among any human beings at any stage of the pipeline! But what we're coming to realize is that because management needs to meet some "quota", we'll be providing a subsistence for a net-negative-productivity member of the team for the foreseeable future. Nobody can say a word about it to our manager or director for fear of being labeled a sexist. It's making us resent the whole push for diversity as a whole.
We have a woman who was hired on my team at work. As soon as management saw an actual woman had applied, the interview process was just a formality. She has been with us for several months now and has performed abysmally. If she were a white guy she would not have made it in the front door. Working with her is a constant frustration - explaining basic programming concepts and constantly reminding her what the current task is when she gets distracted looking at cat pictures.
The issue is that the male members of the team resent her and our bosses because she's unfireable as a woman. We want in good faith to support women and other demographics that might be interested in our field! We'd love to do whatever we can to foster interest among any human beings at any stage of the pipeline! But what we're coming to realize is that because management needs to meet some "quota", we'll be providing a subsistence for a net-negative-productivity member of the team for the foreseeable future. Nobody can say a word about it to our manager or director for fear of being labeled a sexist. It's making us resent the whole push for diversity as a whole.
“When she gets distracted looking at cat pictures”
This is not the behaviour of someone who is comfortable and enjoying their job. Has anyone reached out to your female colleague to ask if everything is ok. What their goals and aspirations are and how the company can help them reach those?
Could you all just be sitting back watching a team member fail not helping because of their gender and your fear of talking to them / management about them?
This whole situation could it’s self be a manifestation of sexism. Not even intentionally.
This is not the behaviour of someone who is comfortable and enjoying their job. Has anyone reached out to your female colleague to ask if everything is ok. What their goals and aspirations are and how the company can help them reach those?
Could you all just be sitting back watching a team member fail not helping because of their gender and your fear of talking to them / management about them?
This whole situation could it’s self be a manifestation of sexism. Not even intentionally.
Surely it's the behaviour of someone who is very much comfortable and enjoying their job. Getting well paid to waste time on Instagram all day without risk of being fired is many people's idea of a dream job!
Perhaps. My experience of people comfortable in, and enjoying their job is that they are good at it and do it, usually quite socially.
Procrastination or “wasting time on instagram” would be better described as a symptom of dissatisfaction or discomfort.
Procrastination or “wasting time on instagram” would be better described as a symptom of dissatisfaction or discomfort.
For developers sure, because we tend to intrinsically enjoy our work. Sadly, many people don't.
This is exactly right and why corporate leaders are increasingly focused on diversity as a metric they manage to.
Essentially they have realized that many recruiting and hiring functions are underperforming, in that they are rejecting, or allowing others to reject, talented candidates who they should have hired.
And what they are realizing is that it is much harder than it seems to avoid this kind of error. Which means that even though they can see the opportunity you mention, they're finding that their companies can't seem to seize it.
Generally speaking, everyone involved in hiring is doing their jobs in good faith; there are very few mustache-twirling villains to be found and defeated. But every single person has preferences and biases which, even if essentially harmless on a personal level, can still create significant effects in the aggregate.
So leaders are trying to boot-strap more diverse cultures by managing to the outcome. It's far easier to reward a hiring function for increasing certain metrics of diversity, than tell them something like "be less racist and sexist when hiring." I mean, the vast majority of people would rightly take offense at that kind of guidance from their boss.
The hope is that in the long run, increasing staff diversity produces a broader mix of preferences and biases, which in aggregate reduces the skew against certain talented candidates. As you say: a compounding effect.
Essentially they have realized that many recruiting and hiring functions are underperforming, in that they are rejecting, or allowing others to reject, talented candidates who they should have hired.
And what they are realizing is that it is much harder than it seems to avoid this kind of error. Which means that even though they can see the opportunity you mention, they're finding that their companies can't seem to seize it.
Generally speaking, everyone involved in hiring is doing their jobs in good faith; there are very few mustache-twirling villains to be found and defeated. But every single person has preferences and biases which, even if essentially harmless on a personal level, can still create significant effects in the aggregate.
So leaders are trying to boot-strap more diverse cultures by managing to the outcome. It's far easier to reward a hiring function for increasing certain metrics of diversity, than tell them something like "be less racist and sexist when hiring." I mean, the vast majority of people would rightly take offense at that kind of guidance from their boss.
The hope is that in the long run, increasing staff diversity produces a broader mix of preferences and biases, which in aggregate reduces the skew against certain talented candidates. As you say: a compounding effect.
Yes but this is literally the point of an interview. Strip away what it says "on paper" and engage with the person directly. I'd say if they were passing over talent in the past then that's an issue with their interview process.
Is the right thing to assume we should target 50-50 gender representation as a first-principle outcome target in all fields? If so, it’s a negative sign that the marquee companies analyzed hired at about the gender split of universities they targeted.
Is it equally plausible that we should be looking bottoms-up from the perspective of a fresh college graduate entering the field and asking the question, “am I likely to get a systemically fair shake when interviewing?” From the data presented, it seems likely that the answer is “yes”.
By all means we should work on the pipeline. I’m supportive to the idea that, by default, we should expect 50-50 representation, but when we find pockets where that does not hold, we must be open to understanding possible reasons. Army/Marines, oil/gas work, and airline pilots are other readily identifiable fields without a 50-50 representation. Is this good, bad, or indifferent?
If women who enter those fields achieve success at the same rate as the overall population, is the hiring and evaluation system (basically after their decision to enter the field) “fair”? If not, why not?
Is it equally plausible that we should be looking bottoms-up from the perspective of a fresh college graduate entering the field and asking the question, “am I likely to get a systemically fair shake when interviewing?” From the data presented, it seems likely that the answer is “yes”.
By all means we should work on the pipeline. I’m supportive to the idea that, by default, we should expect 50-50 representation, but when we find pockets where that does not hold, we must be open to understanding possible reasons. Army/Marines, oil/gas work, and airline pilots are other readily identifiable fields without a 50-50 representation. Is this good, bad, or indifferent?
If women who enter those fields achieve success at the same rate as the overall population, is the hiring and evaluation system (basically after their decision to enter the field) “fair”? If not, why not?
I’ve got a bunch of hobbies and none of them are even close to gender parity. Go check out poker rooms in Vegas and find me a single table where the players are 50-50 men-women. Visit flying clubs, carpentry groups, engine mechanics shops, you won’t find gender parity in any of these. And nobody is really tackling any of these as some urgent problem to solve. Why do professions need to aim for 50-50 but not non-professional hobbies?
EDIT: Also, why do we think it can be fixed? Can the gender balances in hobbies be fixed? Is the lack of female metalworker hobbyists or male quilters attributable to a “pipeline problem”?
EDIT: Also, why do we think it can be fixed? Can the gender balances in hobbies be fixed? Is the lack of female metalworker hobbyists or male quilters attributable to a “pipeline problem”?
>>>Why do professions need to aim for 50-50 but not non-professional hobbies?
And it's not like it's ALL professions. I don't see anybody pushing for 50% female representation in coal mining, logging, or waste management.
And it's not like it's ALL professions. I don't see anybody pushing for 50% female representation in coal mining, logging, or waste management.
It's all about the money. People care about professions because "female" professions tend to be paid less than "male" ones.
I assume you mean something like care professions? They don't pay less because it's mainly female workers, they pay less because they can't easily scale the generated profits.
https://www.onlinefnpprograms.com/features/men-in-nursing/
"The ACS also reported that men are more likely to gravitate toward high-paying nursing jobs. The highest representation of men is in nurse anesthesia, a role that often pays six figures. According to the ACS, about 41 percent of nurse anesthetists are men, and their median earnings in 2011 were $162,900. Among nurse practitioners, 9 percent were men making $96,400 per year on average."
"The ACS also reported that men are more likely to gravitate toward high-paying nursing jobs. The highest representation of men is in nurse anesthesia, a role that often pays six figures. According to the ACS, about 41 percent of nurse anesthetists are men, and their median earnings in 2011 were $162,900. Among nurse practitioners, 9 percent were men making $96,400 per year on average."
[deleted]
> Why do professions need to aim for 50-50 but not non-professional hobbies?
The logic is (from certain points of view at least) - if programming is a desirable occupation, both for individuals, and also for us as a society, then if we have something that "artificially" restricts the amount of programmers - we want to get rid of that something.
In other words, if it really is true that we could have twice as many programmers, that's better for society. If some segment of the population is far less represented in that profession, it could be for a number of reasons, but it's certainly some indication that there might be many potential programmers who are missing out on a possibly valuable profession (and who we as a society are missing out on being programmers), and this is possibly "fixable".
The logic is (from certain points of view at least) - if programming is a desirable occupation, both for individuals, and also for us as a society, then if we have something that "artificially" restricts the amount of programmers - we want to get rid of that something.
In other words, if it really is true that we could have twice as many programmers, that's better for society. If some segment of the population is far less represented in that profession, it could be for a number of reasons, but it's certainly some indication that there might be many potential programmers who are missing out on a possibly valuable profession (and who we as a society are missing out on being programmers), and this is possibly "fixable".
Real life does not work with targets, but with whatever gets. Creating artificial targets just because some people think they are right does not make it right.
Diversity is good. Diversity targets are evil. This is how you can become evil trying to do something good.
Diversity is good. Diversity targets are evil. This is how you can become evil trying to do something good.
My alma mater Harvey Mudd College has had rough gender parity in Computer Science for several years now. It's a small school but other colleges could learn from their practices.
https://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul/how-harvey-mudd-college-...
https://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul/how-harvey-mudd-college-...
For anyone who didn't read the linked article (it's short), it suggests that a key element is careful design of intro courses.
Students with computer science experience get a more advanced course that is explicitly designed not to make them more competitive in second-year courses (instead, it starts on material that will re-appear in third-year courses). Students with no computer science experience get their own intro course. And there is yet another "green" intro course tailored to biological applications.
The article suggests that these practices help level the playing field in the first two years of the computer science major, by which point people have enough invested to finish.
On reflection, these aren't new suggestions. Unlocking the Clubhouse, a 2002 book on women's experiences studying computer science, made similar recommendations. But I guess most colleges are struggling to handle the glut of first-year computer science students, let alone teach more courses to encourage more of them.
Students with computer science experience get a more advanced course that is explicitly designed not to make them more competitive in second-year courses (instead, it starts on material that will re-appear in third-year courses). Students with no computer science experience get their own intro course. And there is yet another "green" intro course tailored to biological applications.
The article suggests that these practices help level the playing field in the first two years of the computer science major, by which point people have enough invested to finish.
On reflection, these aren't new suggestions. Unlocking the Clubhouse, a 2002 book on women's experiences studying computer science, made similar recommendations. But I guess most colleges are struggling to handle the glut of first-year computer science students, let alone teach more courses to encourage more of them.
It's an interesting insight. When applying to colleges I never considered applying for CS as I (female) had no programming experience whatsoever, and seemed to be surrounded by people (male) who'd been working on computers for years,
( I'll leave speculation on that for another day )
It was only because they forced EE majors to take programming courses that I ended up in the field. I wrote my first "hello world" as an 18 year old freshman, but it never really seemed to matter.
( I'll leave speculation on that for another day )
It was only because they forced EE majors to take programming courses that I ended up in the field. I wrote my first "hello world" as an 18 year old freshman, but it never really seemed to matter.
Male here. CS courses were _not accessible_ to those without prior experience, male or female, full stop. That issue was compounded by having to use the IDEs and tooling available to us 10+ years ago. It wasn't until the last year of my business degree I was exposed to the simplicity of .NET/Visual Basic that made programming interesting, fun, and accessible to someone without experience. If only I had that exposure 4 years sooner, I'd have a CS degree today. C'est la vie.
I graduated college 20 years ago; everything I learned in college was new for everyone there (I had prior experience in other languages) and we were approximately 50%-50% male to female. From my former colleagues most males work in IT, most females work in other domains, by choice. It was no pipeline problem at that time, but the results are the same: people tend to do what they like and I don't see here (Eastern Europe) too many females that like CS. We have 80% females in marketing and over 60% in sales, how about forcing some of them to do IT instead?
When I started the "IDE" was vi running on a Solaris mainframe. 'vi' has has never been accused of being user friendly but since this was pre-linux, I'm not sure any of the experienced coders had ever seen either before. In retrospect it was a pretty good equalizer.
hmm.
I guess I'm in a small minority, but I had never written a line of code in my life before my CS100 class.
I guess I'm in a small minority, but I had never written a line of code in my life before my CS100 class.
How does this level the playing field? Why would this not reduce the overall rate of learning for everyone to suit the needs of the slowest students?
It's a matter of perspective taking.
If a "Never saw a line of code until I took this class" sits between two "Coding since 11" students, they're going to watch their neighbors effortlessly breeze through the curriculum. If they don't know those student's background, it's not unreasonable if they come to the (false) conclusion that they're not cut out to be a developer because it's just so much easier for "everyone else" (N=2).
If you "track" your intro classes, you can put the first-timers together and likewise keep the experienced students from falling asleep in class by tracking them into something more challenging
If a "Never saw a line of code until I took this class" sits between two "Coding since 11" students, they're going to watch their neighbors effortlessly breeze through the curriculum. If they don't know those student's background, it's not unreasonable if they come to the (false) conclusion that they're not cut out to be a developer because it's just so much easier for "everyone else" (N=2).
If you "track" your intro classes, you can put the first-timers together and likewise keep the experienced students from falling asleep in class by tracking them into something more challenging
Even if you do have a "fast" track and a "slow" track, the only ways I can think of to get travelers on either of these paths to the same place at the same time is to either slow down those on the "fast" track, or speed up those on the "slow" track. What I seem to be witnessing is a willingness of people to slow down those on the "fast" track instead of expecting people on the "slow" track to work harder to catch up.
> Even if you do have a "fast" track and a "slow" track, the only ways I can think of to get travelers on either of these paths to the same place at the same time
They don't have to get to the same place at the same time, they just all have to cross a finish line. The finish line is the same for everyone, even if the fast track students get to take a more fun route and play doing other things they enjoy along the way.
Certainly the fast track students will still have a competitive advantage since they will probably have worked on more challenging problems, but it fixes the graduation stats. Who knows if it will have positive downstream effects.
They don't have to get to the same place at the same time, they just all have to cross a finish line. The finish line is the same for everyone, even if the fast track students get to take a more fun route and play doing other things they enjoy along the way.
Certainly the fast track students will still have a competitive advantage since they will probably have worked on more challenging problems, but it fixes the graduation stats. Who knows if it will have positive downstream effects.
That assumes that there's no "padding" built in, and that to complete a 4-year CS degree you need to be focused on CS for every class that you take, every minute of the day.
Not a perfect analogy, but: due to my AP scores, I placed out of the first two semesters of the four-semester mathematics requirements. After two years, I didn't know more math than those who didn't place out, I just finished learning it a little earlier.
People with existing programming experience will start off at a slightly higher level than those without, but the latter group will end up in roughly the same place, by taking an elective or three fewer.
And even if they don't, so what? Maybe someone with more experience ends up diving deep into OS design, compiler writing, and database design, while someone with less experience only gets to dive deep into database design. The CS program has still prepared both groups for their first job after they graduate (or their masters/PhD program, if they choose that route), some people might just have less or more to learn later as they grow into the rest of their lives. This is true of pretty much any profession; programming is by no means unique here.
Not a perfect analogy, but: due to my AP scores, I placed out of the first two semesters of the four-semester mathematics requirements. After two years, I didn't know more math than those who didn't place out, I just finished learning it a little earlier.
People with existing programming experience will start off at a slightly higher level than those without, but the latter group will end up in roughly the same place, by taking an elective or three fewer.
And even if they don't, so what? Maybe someone with more experience ends up diving deep into OS design, compiler writing, and database design, while someone with less experience only gets to dive deep into database design. The CS program has still prepared both groups for their first job after they graduate (or their masters/PhD program, if they choose that route), some people might just have less or more to learn later as they grow into the rest of their lives. This is true of pretty much any profession; programming is by no means unique here.
I went to Pomona College, which shared some CS classes with Harvey Mudd. We also had gender parity among CS majors. I can assure you that everyone admitted to Mudd is whip-smart. There is a strong catalog of courses and the faculty there will find a way to challenge anyone. Nobody at Mudd is getting slowed down. Talk to anyone who has worked with someone who graduated from Mudd and they’ll agree.
They definitely don't need to get to the same place at the same time, and don't even need to end up at the same final destination. Some will go onto PhD programs, some will not, etc. Having two (or more) separate tracks allows the late starters a better chance at gaining competence without getting crushed by the competition with more experience.
Maria Klawe used to be the Dean of Engineering at my alma mater when I was a student there, and I distinctly remember being lost and demoralized by this exact situation of being in intro CS with classmates who grew up coding.
Some students end up in Grad level courses before finishing their undergrad careers. Some won't be on that track but will be experienced enough for a new grad job in industry. These two groups don't need to be in the same technical courses in their first year at school.
Some students end up in Grad level courses before finishing their undergrad careers. Some won't be on that track but will be experienced enough for a new grad job in industry. These two groups don't need to be in the same technical courses in their first year at school.
Inexperience doesn't equal unintelligence. Making sure that your intro class structure supports people with varying experience levels means you're more likely to engage people with the right interest and capabilities, not less so.
I've never experienced or witnessed a scenario in which trying to support varying levels of experience didn't result in lowering of standards. People with the right interest and capabilities will strive to clear the bar and will not expect the bar to be lowered for them.
You may not know this because Harvey Mudd College is a small school, but it is extremely rigorous (not quite MIT/Caltech, but pretty damn close). Their middle 50% of the admitted students' math SAT range is 770-800[0]
I would be extremely surprised if HMC had any bar-lowered classes.
Just because you offer both a linear algebra course and a course on groups and rings doesn't mean the linear algebra class is some kind of mickey mouse credit--it's just for people who haven't seen that material before.
[0] https://www.hmc.edu/institutional-research/wp-content/upload...
I would be extremely surprised if HMC had any bar-lowered classes.
Just because you offer both a linear algebra course and a course on groups and rings doesn't mean the linear algebra class is some kind of mickey mouse credit--it's just for people who haven't seen that material before.
[0] https://www.hmc.edu/institutional-research/wp-content/upload...
There's the "math majors' math track" and the non math majors' math track at most institutions. Even within the majors track, there's separation between experience levels and intended tracks within the discipline. Ex:
MAT215-217: Recommended for math majors, some prior experience in constructing formal proofs is useful but not required.
MAT216-218: Accelerated math major sequence, for students with substantial background in university-level proof-based analysis courses.
MAT214-204-203: Alternative path to majoring in math, with a more algebraic introduction to proofs
MAT203-204-215: Alternative path to majoring in math; good path for the applied math certificate.
https://www.math.princeton.edu/undergraduate/placement/seque...
Lumping all these students into one general course would be a disservice to everyone, like you say, and should be spilt up.
MAT215-217: Recommended for math majors, some prior experience in constructing formal proofs is useful but not required.
MAT216-218: Accelerated math major sequence, for students with substantial background in university-level proof-based analysis courses.
MAT214-204-203: Alternative path to majoring in math, with a more algebraic introduction to proofs
MAT203-204-215: Alternative path to majoring in math; good path for the applied math certificate.
https://www.math.princeton.edu/undergraduate/placement/seque...
Lumping all these students into one general course would be a disservice to everyone, like you say, and should be spilt up.
But the difference in your case is that we don't expect, nor care, whether math majors and non-math majors end up at the same destination. It's okay and expected that math majors will end up learning more and becoming better at math. But when we're talking about people studying the same major, then this is not okay. You will either end up slowing down the fast track students or you will give them an advantage over those that weren't on the fast track.
I disagree with your premise, since our current situation is that different students in the same major _already_ end up in different levels of aptitude by the end of their studies. Some far exceed that of the typical student.
Preserve the ability for those with this level of prior experience or aptitude to thrive, while providing support for those who do not have this head start but could either (a) Catch up, given the right initial environment and ramp up, or (b) never catch up to the most well equipped students, but will still be proper graduates of the program.
Preserve the ability for those with this level of prior experience or aptitude to thrive, while providing support for those who do not have this head start but could either (a) Catch up, given the right initial environment and ramp up, or (b) never catch up to the most well equipped students, but will still be proper graduates of the program.
Which is why they're creating separate tracks rather than trying to cram everyone into one class.
The people with prior experience can take classes that are suited for their level, and will be challenged rather than bored and resentful of their classmates.
The people without prior experience can ALSO take classes that are suited for their level, and will be challenged rather than intimidated and condescended to by their classmates.Once they have some experience, they can move on to the other classes.
It's a win win for everyone, including the people who through whatever luck or drive have experience before they enter the system. Remember, not everyone has the same access to things like books, computers, and programming classes in earlier environments like high school. Making an actually introductory path helps level the playing field without lowering the bar.
The people with prior experience can take classes that are suited for their level, and will be challenged rather than bored and resentful of their classmates.
The people without prior experience can ALSO take classes that are suited for their level, and will be challenged rather than intimidated and condescended to by their classmates.Once they have some experience, they can move on to the other classes.
It's a win win for everyone, including the people who through whatever luck or drive have experience before they enter the system. Remember, not everyone has the same access to things like books, computers, and programming classes in earlier environments like high school. Making an actually introductory path helps level the playing field without lowering the bar.
[deleted]
They have parity because a woman who applies is 2.5x more likely to be admitted compared to man who applies [0]. I think this is probably reasonable, since more there are likely more qualified applicants than spots, so all of the admitted students will be qualified either way.
However, I think it should still be mentioned as one of the key reasons why they have parity, rather than claiming it's simply due to changing the culture and courses, especially if we're asking other institutions to learn from them.
[0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/03/1...
However, I think it should still be mentioned as one of the key reasons why they have parity, rather than claiming it's simply due to changing the culture and courses, especially if we're asking other institutions to learn from them.
[0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/03/1...
It's likely also because almost all of their applicants are in STEM fields, because that's what they specialize in. So essentially all their female applicants are already self-selected into the hard sciences.
Because they make it so in the admissions process. How is that even an achievement? OK they get female applicants, which presumably is not automatic. But then to tune admissions so that you get to 50% is not really something to be proud about imo.
This article doesn't mention anything about scale. I think we may be criticizing an elephant for failing to lift as many times its bodyweight as an ant.
For a back-of-envelope calculation[1][2], it looks like there were 27 CS majors out of Harvey Mudd in 2017. We can probably add in another 20 from the joint CS-Math degree. So, about 50. Berkeley, on the other hand, graduates almost a thousand students in EE or CS every year. Stanford, MIT, Georgia Tech, University of Michigan, UCSD... these schools all graduate large numbers of CS majors and compete with each other for the top students.
The accounting is tough here because the degrees at Harvey Mudd and Berkeley are different, so I may be over or under counting, but we're talking about a massive difference in scale here.
Let's take one metric - the AP Computer science test. About 27% or the people who took the AP Computer science test are women. Harvey Mudd is small enough that it could probably fill 100% of the starting class with women who got 5's on the AP Computer science test and have near perfect math grades and SAT scores. But if scores are roughly evenly distributed between men and women, eventually, you're going to have a school that has more men with 5's than women - and the only way to reach 50-50 parity will be to select women who got 4s or 3s with men who got 5s. It won't be Harvey Mudd, but that's because HM is tiny and elite. Instead, it'll be Berkeley, or Georgia Tech, or UC San Diego, or U Texas. Would Harvey Mudd be able to maintain this at 1000 CS majors, using the same methods they do now, while competing fiercely for the top students in this environment and at this scale?
[1] https://www.hmc.edu/institutional-research/institutional-sta... [2] https://eecs.berkeley.edu/about/by-the-numbers
For a back-of-envelope calculation[1][2], it looks like there were 27 CS majors out of Harvey Mudd in 2017. We can probably add in another 20 from the joint CS-Math degree. So, about 50. Berkeley, on the other hand, graduates almost a thousand students in EE or CS every year. Stanford, MIT, Georgia Tech, University of Michigan, UCSD... these schools all graduate large numbers of CS majors and compete with each other for the top students.
The accounting is tough here because the degrees at Harvey Mudd and Berkeley are different, so I may be over or under counting, but we're talking about a massive difference in scale here.
Let's take one metric - the AP Computer science test. About 27% or the people who took the AP Computer science test are women. Harvey Mudd is small enough that it could probably fill 100% of the starting class with women who got 5's on the AP Computer science test and have near perfect math grades and SAT scores. But if scores are roughly evenly distributed between men and women, eventually, you're going to have a school that has more men with 5's than women - and the only way to reach 50-50 parity will be to select women who got 4s or 3s with men who got 5s. It won't be Harvey Mudd, but that's because HM is tiny and elite. Instead, it'll be Berkeley, or Georgia Tech, or UC San Diego, or U Texas. Would Harvey Mudd be able to maintain this at 1000 CS majors, using the same methods they do now, while competing fiercely for the top students in this environment and at this scale?
[1] https://www.hmc.edu/institutional-research/institutional-sta... [2] https://eecs.berkeley.edu/about/by-the-numbers
I know it is not politically correct to say it, but I remain unconvinced that gender parity is a desirable goal. Particularly given the current state of research into differences in gender averages.
Here is a real example. Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_visualization_ability#... men have about a one standard deviation advantage in spacial reasoning over women. Assuming that both distributions are normal with the same variance, that means that if we pick the top X% of the population on spacial reasoning where X is fairly small, we will get about an 80/20 split of male/female. Within that top group there will be no remaining difference between men and women.
Back in the 1960s there was discrimination and no women were in engineering. This was a terrible waste of talent. But by the late 1980s, women were 20% of engineering students. Decades of hand-wringing later, women are still about 20% of engineering students. Based on spacial reasoning ability, perhaps women SHOULD be about 20% of engineering students.
What happens if we force gender parity? If the research on gender differences is right, selecting on spacial reasoning except making sure to select 50% women would result in a situation where you had 50% men, 12.5% women who are as good as the men, and the remaining 37.5% women who are worse than EVERY man at spacial reasoning. The result is that 3/4 of the women are worse than all the men. Is this a better outcome? Why?
Now I picked an example where men have an advantage. But men don't in all fields though. According to other research, women are better on average at management. This is an argument to accept the data and do our best to hire and promote on competence.
Now that argument applies to hard engineering. It isn't software development. I do not know why the ratio is so extreme in software development. (More extreme than in, say, mechanical engineering.) However I have also never seen data suggesting that sorting on interest and ability shouldn't result in the ratios that we see. Before we double down on equality as a mandate, I would like to see that data collected.
As long as, on average, the men and women you hire are equally good, your hiring process is not broken. If your data finds that there is a difference in average ability, then adjust your practices to get higher average competence. Encourage everyone to have the opportunity. Make it clear that all people with title X are equivalent regardless of secondary characteristics, AND work to make that true. (I believe that it is pretty true today.)
Here is a real example. Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_visualization_ability#... men have about a one standard deviation advantage in spacial reasoning over women. Assuming that both distributions are normal with the same variance, that means that if we pick the top X% of the population on spacial reasoning where X is fairly small, we will get about an 80/20 split of male/female. Within that top group there will be no remaining difference between men and women.
Back in the 1960s there was discrimination and no women were in engineering. This was a terrible waste of talent. But by the late 1980s, women were 20% of engineering students. Decades of hand-wringing later, women are still about 20% of engineering students. Based on spacial reasoning ability, perhaps women SHOULD be about 20% of engineering students.
What happens if we force gender parity? If the research on gender differences is right, selecting on spacial reasoning except making sure to select 50% women would result in a situation where you had 50% men, 12.5% women who are as good as the men, and the remaining 37.5% women who are worse than EVERY man at spacial reasoning. The result is that 3/4 of the women are worse than all the men. Is this a better outcome? Why?
Now I picked an example where men have an advantage. But men don't in all fields though. According to other research, women are better on average at management. This is an argument to accept the data and do our best to hire and promote on competence.
Now that argument applies to hard engineering. It isn't software development. I do not know why the ratio is so extreme in software development. (More extreme than in, say, mechanical engineering.) However I have also never seen data suggesting that sorting on interest and ability shouldn't result in the ratios that we see. Before we double down on equality as a mandate, I would like to see that data collected.
As long as, on average, the men and women you hire are equally good, your hiring process is not broken. If your data finds that there is a difference in average ability, then adjust your practices to get higher average competence. Encourage everyone to have the opportunity. Make it clear that all people with title X are equivalent regardless of secondary characteristics, AND work to make that true. (I believe that it is pretty true today.)
I wrote a few direct responses, but they all felt patronizing. Apologies for the length, but I'm hoping to avoid that by showing my math, as it were:
About 7 years ago, I started to wonder about a cluster of concepts that I've yet to successfully explain to anyone without getting a confused look...
Roughly, it's a curiosity about what (if anything) is in the joints and gaps and shadows around the more salient features of our existence. An example is like: how (if at all) does having systems for getting rid of unpleasant things (human waste, trash, unwanted products, corpses, people who are disabled/invalid/elderly, criminals...) shape our thinking and understanding?
Privately, I think about this as unraveling: pulling on loose threads anywhere I catch myself or others taking something for granted.
A consequence of picking around in these gaps and cracks is that I've grown frustrated with most of the discourse, research, and subsequent popular-press reporting that has any overlap with a human/social system. The problem is pretty ubiquitous. The kindest diagnosis I can give is that there may be a big hole in our language(s)/grammar.
So, the methodology of the 2003 study (https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758%2FBF03196134.p...) cited first in the paragraph you link at Wikipedia documents its sample: "The participants were 60 men and 60 women who were each paid the equivalent of $4.50 U.S. Between 20 and 30 years of age (mean age, 22.2 years), all were right-handed students enrolled in either undergraduate or graduate programs (in social science, French, or administration) at the Université de Montréal."
Likewise, here's the first sentence of the discussion: "The present results revealed relatively high accuracy levels overall. Although men did not supply significantly more correct answers than did women across the three conditions, they needed, on average, less time to carry out the mental rotation of the structures illustrated in Vandenberg and Kuse’s (1978) items."
I want to draw a few threads out of this:
1. A more honest summary of the research is something like: "60 male and 60 female college students at a single university in Montreal, between the ages of 20 and 30, when studied in the early 2000s, representing 3 majors, selected by an unspecified strategy which involved compensation of $4.50 and then broken into 3 subgroups of 20 and given a similar mental rotation task in a different format, performed the mental rotations with similarly high levels of accuracy, though the selected male students groups did so around 33% faster." This is an improvement, but it still doesn't well-reflect how low our confidence still is that it measured anything accurate (let alone valid) about statistically indistinguishable groups ~now, let alone our roughly total inability to answer whether this relationship is fixed and durable across meaningful timescales.
2. There are reasonable alternatives to the headline treatment of the result. Since there was no statistically significant difference in the accuracy of their results--only the response time--the narrative about men's superior performance this task merits scrutiny. Is the difference explained by differences in confidence? Cautiousness? Familiarity with similar tasks? The study makes a halfhearted attempt to address cautiousness by asking for a self-report on whether they double-checked their answers, and on how difficult they thought the task was. Women consistently rated the problems as more difficult (but answered as accurately). Why did they rate it as more difficult?
3. The study discusses two main reported rotation strategies in the literature--holistic and analytic--and that the holistic strategies tend to be faster than the analytic strategies. It also notes that "The literature thus suggests that, in the standard visual presentation condition, the holistic strategies preferred by men are more efficient than the analytic strategies preferred by women." I haven't read the whole study, but I don't see any attempt to tease out to what extent response time differences persist or disappear when controlling for strategy. I see no discussion of or attempt to investigate why men and women are using different strategies. But, the fact that the primary difference is response time, and a response-time difference is noted between strategies, and strategy differences are noted between the genders, and how cultural/experiential and non-intrinsic strategy selection appears as a variable, I'm a bit slack-jawed that this isn't the headline result.
4. I see no examination or breakdown of demographics/activities that might matter. Keep in mind that while they covered 120 students in total, each individual test group is 20 students with no discussion of how they were selected. These groups are small enough to be vulnerable to weird samples even if they did draw statistically random samples. How many of these students played sports? Which one? How recently? At what level? What about adjacent recreational activities they might not consider a sport, such as shooting, skating, skateboarding, bowling, rock-climbing, kayaking, mountain-biking, yoga, running, etc. How many practice some sort of art or craft? Do they play video games? Pilot any sort of vehicle? Does controlling for any of these affect the observed gender difference?
Moving beyond the study itself:
5. If the response-time difference is durable and intrinsic, it's not obvious what if any bearing a response-time difference the measured task has on how well men and women can perform an engineering job. They might not even be meaningfully correlated. Is an engineer's performance strongly bottlenecked by how quickly they rotate objects, or is this delta largely leveled in practice by other factors (e.g., my typing speed is rarely the thing that limits how much code I write in a day).
6. Even if such a speed difference does have a bearing on how well men and women perform an engineering job, there's no basis for assuming the magnitude of the speed performance difference would equal the magnitude of the job performance difference (which could be larger, smaller).
About 7 years ago, I started to wonder about a cluster of concepts that I've yet to successfully explain to anyone without getting a confused look...
Roughly, it's a curiosity about what (if anything) is in the joints and gaps and shadows around the more salient features of our existence. An example is like: how (if at all) does having systems for getting rid of unpleasant things (human waste, trash, unwanted products, corpses, people who are disabled/invalid/elderly, criminals...) shape our thinking and understanding?
Privately, I think about this as unraveling: pulling on loose threads anywhere I catch myself or others taking something for granted.
A consequence of picking around in these gaps and cracks is that I've grown frustrated with most of the discourse, research, and subsequent popular-press reporting that has any overlap with a human/social system. The problem is pretty ubiquitous. The kindest diagnosis I can give is that there may be a big hole in our language(s)/grammar.
So, the methodology of the 2003 study (https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758%2FBF03196134.p...) cited first in the paragraph you link at Wikipedia documents its sample: "The participants were 60 men and 60 women who were each paid the equivalent of $4.50 U.S. Between 20 and 30 years of age (mean age, 22.2 years), all were right-handed students enrolled in either undergraduate or graduate programs (in social science, French, or administration) at the Université de Montréal."
Likewise, here's the first sentence of the discussion: "The present results revealed relatively high accuracy levels overall. Although men did not supply significantly more correct answers than did women across the three conditions, they needed, on average, less time to carry out the mental rotation of the structures illustrated in Vandenberg and Kuse’s (1978) items."
I want to draw a few threads out of this:
1. A more honest summary of the research is something like: "60 male and 60 female college students at a single university in Montreal, between the ages of 20 and 30, when studied in the early 2000s, representing 3 majors, selected by an unspecified strategy which involved compensation of $4.50 and then broken into 3 subgroups of 20 and given a similar mental rotation task in a different format, performed the mental rotations with similarly high levels of accuracy, though the selected male students groups did so around 33% faster." This is an improvement, but it still doesn't well-reflect how low our confidence still is that it measured anything accurate (let alone valid) about statistically indistinguishable groups ~now, let alone our roughly total inability to answer whether this relationship is fixed and durable across meaningful timescales.
2. There are reasonable alternatives to the headline treatment of the result. Since there was no statistically significant difference in the accuracy of their results--only the response time--the narrative about men's superior performance this task merits scrutiny. Is the difference explained by differences in confidence? Cautiousness? Familiarity with similar tasks? The study makes a halfhearted attempt to address cautiousness by asking for a self-report on whether they double-checked their answers, and on how difficult they thought the task was. Women consistently rated the problems as more difficult (but answered as accurately). Why did they rate it as more difficult?
3. The study discusses two main reported rotation strategies in the literature--holistic and analytic--and that the holistic strategies tend to be faster than the analytic strategies. It also notes that "The literature thus suggests that, in the standard visual presentation condition, the holistic strategies preferred by men are more efficient than the analytic strategies preferred by women." I haven't read the whole study, but I don't see any attempt to tease out to what extent response time differences persist or disappear when controlling for strategy. I see no discussion of or attempt to investigate why men and women are using different strategies. But, the fact that the primary difference is response time, and a response-time difference is noted between strategies, and strategy differences are noted between the genders, and how cultural/experiential and non-intrinsic strategy selection appears as a variable, I'm a bit slack-jawed that this isn't the headline result.
4. I see no examination or breakdown of demographics/activities that might matter. Keep in mind that while they covered 120 students in total, each individual test group is 20 students with no discussion of how they were selected. These groups are small enough to be vulnerable to weird samples even if they did draw statistically random samples. How many of these students played sports? Which one? How recently? At what level? What about adjacent recreational activities they might not consider a sport, such as shooting, skating, skateboarding, bowling, rock-climbing, kayaking, mountain-biking, yoga, running, etc. How many practice some sort of art or craft? Do they play video games? Pilot any sort of vehicle? Does controlling for any of these affect the observed gender difference?
Moving beyond the study itself:
5. If the response-time difference is durable and intrinsic, it's not obvious what if any bearing a response-time difference the measured task has on how well men and women can perform an engineering job. They might not even be meaningfully correlated. Is an engineer's performance strongly bottlenecked by how quickly they rotate objects, or is this delta largely leveled in practice by other factors (e.g., my typing speed is rarely the thing that limits how much code I write in a day).
6. Even if such a speed difference does have a bearing on how well men and women perform an engineering job, there's no basis for assuming the magnitude of the speed performance difference would equal the magnitude of the job performance difference (which could be larger, smaller).
The Wikipedia article picks one of many pieces of research to quote. Your criticism are fair as a criticism of that specific research paper. But after you've looked at a dozen of them, continuing to say that it is just an artifact of terrible methodology (even though most actually are terrible) becomes much harder to support.
But that said, here is a classic test showing strong gender differences accidentally discovered by Piaget. Draw two cups, one tilted. Assuming that both are halfway full of water, ask the subject to draw the water line.
Until puberty, neither gender can perform this task well. After puberty around 90% of men and 30% of women find it trivial, while the rest do not. (The most common answer that I have seen from women is to tilt the water line with the cup. The second is to tilt it double!) Performance on this task is not particularly correlated with education.
Ask a few friends and family, and it isn't hard to verify for yourself that a gender gap exists.
Interestingly I have yet to encounter a programmer, male or female, that doesn't find it trivial. I have no idea why programming would select for people who find this task easy. but it apparently does. And the population of people who find this task straightforward has 3x as many men in it as women.
But that said, here is a classic test showing strong gender differences accidentally discovered by Piaget. Draw two cups, one tilted. Assuming that both are halfway full of water, ask the subject to draw the water line.
Until puberty, neither gender can perform this task well. After puberty around 90% of men and 30% of women find it trivial, while the rest do not. (The most common answer that I have seen from women is to tilt the water line with the cup. The second is to tilt it double!) Performance on this task is not particularly correlated with education.
Ask a few friends and family, and it isn't hard to verify for yourself that a gender gap exists.
Interestingly I have yet to encounter a programmer, male or female, that doesn't find it trivial. I have no idea why programming would select for people who find this task easy. but it apparently does. And the population of people who find this task straightforward has 3x as many men in it as women.
Thank you for taking the time to read this; it took me long enough to write that I was afraid it would be for naught.
I think you are reading me more narrowly than I want to be read, but I don't fault you there. I am not good at communicating this concept yet.
I picked the first study because I start at the beginning, and look for loose threads.
I didn't pick on this study because I think its methodology is terrible. I just picked on the first few loose threads I found, and pulled.
I pulled on the threads to (try to) model and promote how I go about searching for things that aren't facially obvious, and to demonstrate how applying this process (showing my math) leads me inexorably to one conclusion: it is very hard to think and communicate about things like this in a sound, lucid manner.
I'm not here to poke holes in individual studies or "prove" anything, but to encourage you to look for loose threads in the epistemic fabric, here.
In closing, and to be more specific: listing a bunch of issues with the study doesn't make it wrong. Proving the study wrong is not the point. The issues highlight some of the epistemic hubris in the study, and hopefully to expose how that sort of hubris can compound as we summarize work like this and weave it into higher-level narratives. It may help to see this as laundering unearned/unexamined assumptions at lower levels.
I think you are reading me more narrowly than I want to be read, but I don't fault you there. I am not good at communicating this concept yet.
I picked the first study because I start at the beginning, and look for loose threads.
I didn't pick on this study because I think its methodology is terrible. I just picked on the first few loose threads I found, and pulled.
I pulled on the threads to (try to) model and promote how I go about searching for things that aren't facially obvious, and to demonstrate how applying this process (showing my math) leads me inexorably to one conclusion: it is very hard to think and communicate about things like this in a sound, lucid manner.
I'm not here to poke holes in individual studies or "prove" anything, but to encourage you to look for loose threads in the epistemic fabric, here.
In closing, and to be more specific: listing a bunch of issues with the study doesn't make it wrong. Proving the study wrong is not the point. The issues highlight some of the epistemic hubris in the study, and hopefully to expose how that sort of hubris can compound as we summarize work like this and weave it into higher-level narratives. It may help to see this as laundering unearned/unexamined assumptions at lower levels.
If you haven't already, you may be interested in the Replication Crisis and various related research on metascience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis has an overview and you can dig in from there.
That said, I've run across enough lines of evidence, both from anecdote and research, that this particular phenomena seems likely to be real.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis has an overview and you can dig in from there.
That said, I've run across enough lines of evidence, both from anecdote and research, that this particular phenomena seems likely to be real.
Last fall, my father asked what I thought about a video on YouTube that took a passage from the Book of Revelation, upcoming astral events from Stellarium, and interpreted them into an end-days prediction.
I said that it held about as much water as predictions based on numerology.
And then he asked what I would think if the astral event happened when and as described in the video.
I said I had no reason to assume Stellarium was wrong, but that the fact of some arrangement of astral bodies doesn't inherently validate any interpretation that the arrangement is significant, nor any subsequent interpretation of what its significance is.
I said that it held about as much water as predictions based on numerology.
And then he asked what I would think if the astral event happened when and as described in the video.
I said I had no reason to assume Stellarium was wrong, but that the fact of some arrangement of astral bodies doesn't inherently validate any interpretation that the arrangement is significant, nor any subsequent interpretation of what its significance is.
And the relevance of your example is...?
Hormonal differences are known to cause a host of physical differences between the genders, a host of behavioral differences (have you read the research on what testosterone does?), and a tremendous amount of mental differences in other species. But political correctness causes us to reject out of hand the idea that biology could cause modest differences in average mental abilities and interests in homo sapiens.
There is no question that a few decades ago people casually accepted conclusions about gender differences that we today recognize are fallacious. But the current consensus is an absurd overreaction.
Hormonal differences are known to cause a host of physical differences between the genders, a host of behavioral differences (have you read the research on what testosterone does?), and a tremendous amount of mental differences in other species. But political correctness causes us to reject out of hand the idea that biology could cause modest differences in average mental abilities and interests in homo sapiens.
There is no question that a few decades ago people casually accepted conclusions about gender differences that we today recognize are fallacious. But the current consensus is an absurd overreaction.
It feels like you're lobbing points from trench to trench. I am not in either trench, and wouldn't like to be (there are weird things in both trenches), so I'm doing what I can to avoid the established battle lines.
I am not trying to debate or argue or win, so there is no satisfying crunch. I am just hoping to say a few things you can chew on (without being too much of a jerk along the way).
I am not trying to debate or argue or win, so there is no satisfying crunch. I am just hoping to say a few things you can chew on (without being too much of a jerk along the way).
If I were presented with the task, I would first draw a tilted water line to figure out what the "halfway filled" amount looks like. Then I would "undo" the tilt, taking care to keep the represented amount of water the same. It could be that women are simply being more methodical in their approach.
Try it with actual women. Their reactions make it clear that they recognize the right answer when presented but have no way of calling up “water is horizontal” from the problem itself.
Try it.
Try it.
While I think your criticism about the example given is good, you're still only addressing the specific example given. The parent poster was trying to illustrate why gender parity might not actually be the ultimate goal. The example might have problems, but that doesn't necessarily invalidate the point that was made.
Oh, for sure. I just took the first study. And it's a good example of how big the leaps are in our thinking and communication around these topics.
It's possible the others are all stellar, but my experience says it's not likely. Because we aren't very good at thinking.
Lucid, complete thinking about even fairly simple things--as I imagine most if not all successful programmers have learned--is difficult.
Complex adaptive social systems, which can have the effects of events that happened thousands of years ago still rippling through them, have deep wells of unknown state and dynamics.
The only honest way to reason about them is with epistemic humility.
It's possible the others are all stellar, but my experience says it's not likely. Because we aren't very good at thinking.
Lucid, complete thinking about even fairly simple things--as I imagine most if not all successful programmers have learned--is difficult.
Complex adaptive social systems, which can have the effects of events that happened thousands of years ago still rippling through them, have deep wells of unknown state and dynamics.
The only honest way to reason about them is with epistemic humility.
FWIW, Paul Graham's essay circulating on HN today (http://paulgraham.com/lesson.html, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21729619) is a good example/approximation of what described in paragraphs 3 and 4 of the parent post.
Of course, if doing more things that involve spatial reasoning makes you better at spatial reasoning (which seems like a very likely assumption), this becomes a circular argument. (Did you read the Gender Differences section of that Wikipedia article?)
Yes, I did read the Gender Differences section of that article. You will note that I stated what research shows about population differences and did not wade into the more controversial question about why those differences exist.
That said, I have found that on controversial subjects, people grab every sliver of support for their own ideas, and ignore data that might contradict it. The more heated the debate, the harder it is to find a neutral data driven point of view. So rather than engage with the argument that I made, you grabbed on to, "But it might still be social and not biological!" And thereby bypass the argument that the gender discrepancy in engineering can be explained by population differences in ability and not by bias within engineering departments.
That said, articles like https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2015.0001... are highly suggestive that on this particular item there really could be a biological component to it.
That said, I have found that on controversial subjects, people grab every sliver of support for their own ideas, and ignore data that might contradict it. The more heated the debate, the harder it is to find a neutral data driven point of view. So rather than engage with the argument that I made, you grabbed on to, "But it might still be social and not biological!" And thereby bypass the argument that the gender discrepancy in engineering can be explained by population differences in ability and not by bias within engineering departments.
That said, articles like https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2015.0001... are highly suggestive that on this particular item there really could be a biological component to it.
You are a HS senior with good grades, test scores, and a decent essay. That's all the engineering school expects for admission. There is no explicit test for spacial reasoning ability, other than your ability to compete at your specific high school, your ability to take the SAT, and your ability to write a boilerplate 5 paragraph essay (probably strongly dependent on whether you use a writing coach or test prep service). You managed to continue to get decent grades in college and land an internship every summer. That's all the FANG expects for hiring.
No spacial reasoning is tested for entry level engineering jobs. Only academic performance which is dubious in its correlations to job performance, and your ability to network during undergrad.
Back to the gender disparity. If all it comes down to for jobs is your grades being decent, and it's not like genders skew in any direction here, and your ability to network, then in my eyes the elephant in the room is the effectiveness of networking. I don't think there is a big difference between nervous women and nervous men talking to recruiters about their first job, so the difference must be in the recruiter's biased perception of the candidate based on their gender.
I think spacial reasoning ability, even if it's stratified by gender as you claim, therefore has no effect on entry level job placement at all.
If you are really curious and want to explicitly prove that testosterone levels affect spacial reasoning, you have to set up an experiment that isolates these variables and not a meta analysis on populations full of confounding variables. You need an experiment.
A good experiment could be to develop a task that assayed spacial reasoning in female rats. You have your control rat, and one you treat with testosterone. Then you see if there is a difference in the ability to complete the task and test for significance. Until that experiment is done, and maybe it has been done already, I'd call this conclusion 'hand wavey,' at best.
No spacial reasoning is tested for entry level engineering jobs. Only academic performance which is dubious in its correlations to job performance, and your ability to network during undergrad.
Back to the gender disparity. If all it comes down to for jobs is your grades being decent, and it's not like genders skew in any direction here, and your ability to network, then in my eyes the elephant in the room is the effectiveness of networking. I don't think there is a big difference between nervous women and nervous men talking to recruiters about their first job, so the difference must be in the recruiter's biased perception of the candidate based on their gender.
I think spacial reasoning ability, even if it's stratified by gender as you claim, therefore has no effect on entry level job placement at all.
If you are really curious and want to explicitly prove that testosterone levels affect spacial reasoning, you have to set up an experiment that isolates these variables and not a meta analysis on populations full of confounding variables. You need an experiment.
A good experiment could be to develop a task that assayed spacial reasoning in female rats. You have your control rat, and one you treat with testosterone. Then you see if there is a difference in the ability to complete the task and test for significance. Until that experiment is done, and maybe it has been done already, I'd call this conclusion 'hand wavey,' at best.
First, the rat experiment that you want has actually been done. In rats, testosterone improves spatial reasoning. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3081396/ for verification.
Secondly an inability at spatial reasoning definitely is going to make engineering courses much, much harder. So your claim that there is no effect on getting to entry level engineer is overstating your case by a lot.
That said, there is a documented difference between men and women that affects a first hire. And that difference is that the whole "fake it until you make it" attitude is more commonly found among men than women. So there is actually a significant difference between nervous women and nervous men talking to recruiters about their first job. Not sure how important it is, but it should not be discounted.
Do you have followup questions?
Secondly an inability at spatial reasoning definitely is going to make engineering courses much, much harder. So your claim that there is no effect on getting to entry level engineer is overstating your case by a lot.
That said, there is a documented difference between men and women that affects a first hire. And that difference is that the whole "fake it until you make it" attitude is more commonly found among men than women. So there is actually a significant difference between nervous women and nervous men talking to recruiters about their first job. Not sure how important it is, but it should not be discounted.
Do you have followup questions?
[deleted]
It could be explained by lots of things — my point was that population differences in abilities that can be learned will obviously result if the population doesn’t have a uniform opportunity to practice those abilities uniformly, so it’s hard to avoid explaining the lack of learning by the lack of abilities without becoming circular.
It’s biological fact that brains are extremely plastic, and I’m sure we all know (or are) people who have rendered “innate” talents or lack thereof irrelevant by the application of study and practice. If cultural biases limit practice in a population, that population will certainly skew lower in ability as a result.
It’s biological fact that brains are extremely plastic, and I’m sure we all know (or are) people who have rendered “innate” talents or lack thereof irrelevant by the application of study and practice. If cultural biases limit practice in a population, that population will certainly skew lower in ability as a result.
Question. What evidence would it take to convince you that there are real biological differences?
In the hypothetical, yes. Absolutely. Social differences can explain a lot of what look like biological differences.
The opposite is also true. Biology may cause large differences.
These two explanations are also not necessarily in conflict. Biological factors may work through social dynamics. For example hormones can change our actions which affects our immediate social environment at impressionable ages.
That said, evidence suggests that testosterone levels during puberty affects our spatial reasoning abilities for the rest of our lives. Given the very large difference in testosterone levels between men and women, this suggests a biological explanation of the measured gender difference.
In the hypothetical, yes. Absolutely. Social differences can explain a lot of what look like biological differences.
The opposite is also true. Biology may cause large differences.
These two explanations are also not necessarily in conflict. Biological factors may work through social dynamics. For example hormones can change our actions which affects our immediate social environment at impressionable ages.
That said, evidence suggests that testosterone levels during puberty affects our spatial reasoning abilities for the rest of our lives. Given the very large difference in testosterone levels between men and women, this suggests a biological explanation of the measured gender difference.
Even if gender parity isn't the "equilibrium" state, there's still plenty of discrimination, bias, and alienation that keeps women out of software development, at every stage of the pipeline. If we can get rid of those, and still find that it's not 50/50, I think a lot of people will be happy with that. Sure, there will still be some people who will push the 50/50 narrative regardless, but we're not even to the point where we can say with a straight face that women have the same opportunities in software that white men have.
Another issue is in what's being measured. Even if you do observe a gender difference, how can you be sure it's an inherent difference caused by biology, and not an emergent difference caused by environmental or experiential factors?
Regardless, if you replace "women" with "people of color", then it's even more obvious that we're not in the equilibrium state. No matter how you dice it, suggesting that a man who is non-white is somehow less suited to software development work isn't defensible in any way.
Another issue is in what's being measured. Even if you do observe a gender difference, how can you be sure it's an inherent difference caused by biology, and not an emergent difference caused by environmental or experiential factors?
Regardless, if you replace "women" with "people of color", then it's even more obvious that we're not in the equilibrium state. No matter how you dice it, suggesting that a man who is non-white is somehow less suited to software development work isn't defensible in any way.
But unlike say basketball or other sports, there's no one thing that makes you better at engineering. Why spatial reasoning? I did engineering and what spatial reasoning is there? Maybe a few vector calculus courses, and some mechanics. A lot is a bunch of equations. There's also an argument that you can make up for a lack of skill by either spending more time, or for instance by recasting problems from one domain to another. This is what often happens precisely with geometry, you can turn it into algebra.
Anyway I assume you mean that there's a bunch of these types of skills that might be unevenly distributed, and indeed it would make sense to have the numbers.
I'd say one thing to think about is whether there's an economic effect taking place. Suppose women have comparative advantage in something that isn't software. Then even though they might be just as good at it, fewer of them would choose it. And this is where actually absolutes are not what matter, it's the relative opportunity costs that do. So looking at who is better at spatial reasoning might seem sensible, but the decision might be better understood as economic, requiring us to look at Ricardo.
Anyway I assume you mean that there's a bunch of these types of skills that might be unevenly distributed, and indeed it would make sense to have the numbers.
I'd say one thing to think about is whether there's an economic effect taking place. Suppose women have comparative advantage in something that isn't software. Then even though they might be just as good at it, fewer of them would choose it. And this is where actually absolutes are not what matter, it's the relative opportunity costs that do. So looking at who is better at spatial reasoning might seem sensible, but the decision might be better understood as economic, requiring us to look at Ricardo.
My wife's anecdotal experience as an engineering student at CalTech may be instructive.
She is very smart, but her spatial reasoning is weak. At first this wasn't too hard for her, but it became a real issue in lab courses. Then she discovered that CS courses qualified as lab courses and were easy for her. So she got her degree, then became a programmer.
So the answer that I give to you is that as soon as you actually have to any part of engineering that involves actually dealing with how physical stuff works in practice, spatial reasoning comes into play. And dealing with how physical stuff works in practice is pretty much core to being an engineer.
She is very smart, but her spatial reasoning is weak. At first this wasn't too hard for her, but it became a real issue in lab courses. Then she discovered that CS courses qualified as lab courses and were easy for her. So she got her degree, then became a programmer.
So the answer that I give to you is that as soon as you actually have to any part of engineering that involves actually dealing with how physical stuff works in practice, spatial reasoning comes into play. And dealing with how physical stuff works in practice is pretty much core to being an engineer.
> Back in the 1960s there was discrimination and no women were in engineering. This was a terrible waste of talent. But by the late 1980s, women were 20% of engineering students. Decades of hand-wringing later, women are still about 20% of engineering students. Based on spacial reasoning ability, perhaps women SHOULD be about 20% of engineering students.
I just wanted to point out that this is objectively wrong for our profession and misleading at best. Women were a large part of early software development and computer science, composing far more than 20% of majors [1] and that this article is specifically related to computer science and software engineering.
Clearly something happened in the 80s that caused a transformation and I think attempting to explain it with a biological basis is simply factually wrong. It seems like whenever an explanation attempts to use gender differences as some sort of rationale it comes coupled with ignoring the very objective history of computer science.
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when...
I just wanted to point out that this is objectively wrong for our profession and misleading at best. Women were a large part of early software development and computer science, composing far more than 20% of majors [1] and that this article is specifically related to computer science and software engineering.
Clearly something happened in the 80s that caused a transformation and I think attempting to explain it with a biological basis is simply factually wrong. It seems like whenever an explanation attempts to use gender differences as some sort of rationale it comes coupled with ignoring the very objective history of computer science.
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when...
I said engineering, and I meant engineering. Not computer science. See https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/table-of-the-day-bachelors-de... to verify that in 2016, just under 21% of engineering degrees were given to women. The figures for the mid 1980s were almost the same. But if you can find figures, in the mid-1960s, engineering degrees were almost exclusively given to men.
The ratios have been fairly constant in recent decades, but vary a lot from degree to apparently related degree. For example around 40% of degrees in mathematics go to women, and that factor of 2 difference from engineering has not changed appreciably since Reagan was President.
Now you are right that women were a large part of early software development. "Computer" used to be a job that was almost exclusively held by women. Who then made the transition from actually being the ones who did the calculations to writing code. (Note, the preponderance of women can be explained by mathematical ability being fairly evenly distributed, but most careers using that ability having been barred to women historically.) See Grace Hopper and Margaret Hamilton for justly famous examples.
However I have noticed that the gender ratio seems to be strongly dependent upon language. Some years ago I worked on a project with a COBOL and a Perl group. The COBOL group was largely women, but Perl was almost all men. I got to see what happened in Perl up close. You had a pretty good balance of men and women getting into web development. But a lot of men went from web development to back end web development into programming. Women were more significantly likely to go to front end, design and product management. And neither I nor the women that I talked to saw discrimination as having been the driving factor.
So why does it happen? Here is my best guess. Between COBOL and more modern languages we have introduced many language features that are hard for most people to get their heads around. For example recursion, pointers, closures, and class hierarchies. These barriers are sufficiently hard that many teachers privately say that only some people are able to learn to program. My suspicion is that one or more of these concepts is more of a barrier for women than men.
The ratios have been fairly constant in recent decades, but vary a lot from degree to apparently related degree. For example around 40% of degrees in mathematics go to women, and that factor of 2 difference from engineering has not changed appreciably since Reagan was President.
Now you are right that women were a large part of early software development. "Computer" used to be a job that was almost exclusively held by women. Who then made the transition from actually being the ones who did the calculations to writing code. (Note, the preponderance of women can be explained by mathematical ability being fairly evenly distributed, but most careers using that ability having been barred to women historically.) See Grace Hopper and Margaret Hamilton for justly famous examples.
However I have noticed that the gender ratio seems to be strongly dependent upon language. Some years ago I worked on a project with a COBOL and a Perl group. The COBOL group was largely women, but Perl was almost all men. I got to see what happened in Perl up close. You had a pretty good balance of men and women getting into web development. But a lot of men went from web development to back end web development into programming. Women were more significantly likely to go to front end, design and product management. And neither I nor the women that I talked to saw discrimination as having been the driving factor.
So why does it happen? Here is my best guess. Between COBOL and more modern languages we have introduced many language features that are hard for most people to get their heads around. For example recursion, pointers, closures, and class hierarchies. These barriers are sufficiently hard that many teachers privately say that only some people are able to learn to program. My suspicion is that one or more of these concepts is more of a barrier for women than men.
My point was that this article is specifically using the term engineering in the sense of computer science. Using engineering as a whole is misleading because as I have demonstrated, software engineering had a historically larger amount of women which faced a decline post-80s. It's burying the lede to make a point about something as a whole rather than the specifics of the article.
Also, your point about those language features being harder is also, objectively wrong. All of those features you mentioned existed before the 80s and were used at the time. If anything software engineering has gotten easier to understand over time, not harder thanks to more robust tooling, debugging and support. Back then you didn't have access to easy resources and had to do everything yourself, so you would have to provide a better explanation than 'things are harder now than they were before'.
Also, your point about those language features being harder is also, objectively wrong. All of those features you mentioned existed before the 80s and were used at the time. If anything software engineering has gotten easier to understand over time, not harder thanks to more robust tooling, debugging and support. Back then you didn't have access to easy resources and had to do everything yourself, so you would have to provide a better explanation than 'things are harder now than they were before'.
Also, your point about those language features being harder is also, objectively wrong. All of those features you mentioned existed before the 80s and were used at the time.
Existed, yes. Widely used? That was a period of transition!
The period from the early 1980s to the late 1980s coincided with a host of changes. Including the rise of personal PCs and Unix, less VMS and mainframes, a decline in COBOL, a rise in C and Pascal, etc, etc, etc.
In 1980 it was reasonable to take introductory programming courses in COBOL (the most commonly used language in business) or FORTRAN (the most commonly used language in science). At the time neither language supported recursion, closures, or object oriented programming. Pointers existed, but were not as heavily used as they were later. That cohort graduated 37.1% women in 1984.
If you were taking your introductory programming course in 1986 on a personal computer in C or Pascal, you would have dealt with both recursion and pointers heavily. That was about when I took that course. This cohort graduated 29.9% women.
Object oriented programming didn't break into the mainstream until the 1990s. (The original Code Complete written in the 1980s doesn't even mention it.) It existed, but was not widely adopted "by industry".
Closures began to spread out from Scheme but remained a fairly niche concept until people got serious about them in JavaScript in the 2000s.
So the timeline is not evidence against my suspicion.
Of course so many other things were in flux that it isn't evidence for either.
Existed, yes. Widely used? That was a period of transition!
The period from the early 1980s to the late 1980s coincided with a host of changes. Including the rise of personal PCs and Unix, less VMS and mainframes, a decline in COBOL, a rise in C and Pascal, etc, etc, etc.
In 1980 it was reasonable to take introductory programming courses in COBOL (the most commonly used language in business) or FORTRAN (the most commonly used language in science). At the time neither language supported recursion, closures, or object oriented programming. Pointers existed, but were not as heavily used as they were later. That cohort graduated 37.1% women in 1984.
If you were taking your introductory programming course in 1986 on a personal computer in C or Pascal, you would have dealt with both recursion and pointers heavily. That was about when I took that course. This cohort graduated 29.9% women.
Object oriented programming didn't break into the mainstream until the 1990s. (The original Code Complete written in the 1980s doesn't even mention it.) It existed, but was not widely adopted "by industry".
Closures began to spread out from Scheme but remained a fairly niche concept until people got serious about them in JavaScript in the 2000s.
So the timeline is not evidence against my suspicion.
Of course so many other things were in flux that it isn't evidence for either.
>software engineering had a historically larger amount of women which faced a decline post-80s.
How much resemblance does software engineering pre-80's and post-80's have with each other? Furthermore, how much generalizations can one make when the sample size is small? Presumably when computer programming first became a distinct activity, the pool of players were significantly smaller than it currently is.
How much resemblance does software engineering pre-80's and post-80's have with each other? Furthermore, how much generalizations can one make when the sample size is small? Presumably when computer programming first became a distinct activity, the pool of players were significantly smaller than it currently is.
> For example recursion, pointers, closures, and class hierarchies.
> My suspicion is that one or more of these concepts is more of a barrier for women than men.
Seems like quite a stretch, given that those are all concepts created by mathematics, which women have long excelled in - after all, women were the original "computers" before we had machines to automate calculations.
Add to that that the hard sciences like chemistry are full of women, and many of the concepts they involve dwarf the complexity of concepts like classes and pointers.
What changed for women between the time of early programming languages and C++/Java wasn't pointers and classes, but rather the culture of tech itself moved from academia to business, and big business had a heavy male bias.
Seems like quite a stretch, given that those are all concepts created by mathematics, which women have long excelled in - after all, women were the original "computers" before we had machines to automate calculations.
Add to that that the hard sciences like chemistry are full of women, and many of the concepts they involve dwarf the complexity of concepts like classes and pointers.
What changed for women between the time of early programming languages and C++/Java wasn't pointers and classes, but rather the culture of tech itself moved from academia to business, and big business had a heavy male bias.
> given that those are all concepts created by mathematics, which women have long excelled in - after all, women were the original "computers" before we had machines to automate calculations.
Doing rote arithmetic is nothing like doing mathematics. Doing manual calculations is nothing like being a programmer. The activities have zero resemblance. Also, advanced mathematics degrees (i.e. Masters and above) have the same gender parity as computer science. Undergrad mathematics degrees has a more balanced gender parity, but this is explained by a large proportion of those women going on to become teachers.
Doing rote arithmetic is nothing like doing mathematics. Doing manual calculations is nothing like being a programmer. The activities have zero resemblance. Also, advanced mathematics degrees (i.e. Masters and above) have the same gender parity as computer science. Undergrad mathematics degrees has a more balanced gender parity, but this is explained by a large proportion of those women going on to become teachers.
Also, advanced mathematics degrees (i.e. Masters and above) have the same gender parity as computer science.
Not so fast. See https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/fraction-p... to verify that the percentage is a bit under 30% for women in mathematics and around 20% for women in computer science.
Also note that the ratios graduating with a BSc and a PhD are very different. There are a lot of challenges around the PhD program that have kept women out. (Challenges like, "long time spent poor during prime child bearing years".)
Not so fast. See https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/fraction-p... to verify that the percentage is a bit under 30% for women in mathematics and around 20% for women in computer science.
Also note that the ratios graduating with a BSc and a PhD are very different. There are a lot of challenges around the PhD program that have kept women out. (Challenges like, "long time spent poor during prime child bearing years".)
Thanks for the correction, I was too lazy to search for a source to verify my recollection of the numbers.
> Doing rote arithmetic is nothing like doing mathematics. Doing manual calculations is nothing like being a programmer. The activities have zero resemblance.
Understanding the function of pointers, classes, and most programming itself are also nothing like advanced mathematics. Even ML is largely stats and calculus in its technical aspects, not cutting edge math.
There is zero at all evidence to suggest that women are less capable of understanding the concepts behind programming.
Understanding the function of pointers, classes, and most programming itself are also nothing like advanced mathematics. Even ML is largely stats and calculus in its technical aspects, not cutting edge math.
There is zero at all evidence to suggest that women are less capable of understanding the concepts behind programming.
>most programming itself are also nothing like advanced mathematics.
This is certainly true. But they do overlap in requiring a heavy amount of abstract reasoning. While "abstract reasoning" is a bit vague, one proxy for this is spatial reasoning which shows strong gender disparities and has implications for science and math ability.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-44385-0_...
This is certainly true. But they do overlap in requiring a heavy amount of abstract reasoning. While "abstract reasoning" is a bit vague, one proxy for this is spatial reasoning which shows strong gender disparities and has implications for science and math ability.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-44385-0_...
> While "abstract reasoning" is a bit vague,
It's extremely vague, and therefore shouldn't be used to justify any conclusions about an entire population.
> one proxy for this is spatial reasoning which shows strong gender disparities and has implications for science and math ability.
Another proxy for it is symbolic reasoning, which is arguably even more closely related to programming (most programming is symbolic manipulation - arising from discrete mathematics). Programming languages themselves were inspired by the study of the structure of natural human languages.
Since women's language skills are often stronger than men's, I might argue that women are better suited to programming than men ... but I wouldn't argue that because that would be using the same fallacious reasoning that is behind the argument you used.
In the real world, most programming and software engineering tasks use a mix of quantitative, spatial, symbolic, analytical, and social reasoning skills. Above all, it takes a structured approach to problem solving, which can be achieved through many forms of reasoning.
It's extremely vague, and therefore shouldn't be used to justify any conclusions about an entire population.
> one proxy for this is spatial reasoning which shows strong gender disparities and has implications for science and math ability.
Another proxy for it is symbolic reasoning, which is arguably even more closely related to programming (most programming is symbolic manipulation - arising from discrete mathematics). Programming languages themselves were inspired by the study of the structure of natural human languages.
Since women's language skills are often stronger than men's, I might argue that women are better suited to programming than men ... but I wouldn't argue that because that would be using the same fallacious reasoning that is behind the argument you used.
In the real world, most programming and software engineering tasks use a mix of quantitative, spatial, symbolic, analytical, and social reasoning skills. Above all, it takes a structured approach to problem solving, which can be achieved through many forms of reasoning.
Which is why I wish there was better data available about gender differences in ability and interest for programming.
However coming at it from the opposite end, remove all barriers that you can find, and work to make sure your hiring process hires women and men who perform equivalently on the job. As long as those are true, you are probably doing about as well as you can to get the best workforce you can.
Note "who perform equivalently on the job" is a subtle and important criteria. As an example, men tend to have an advantage on standardized tests. Therefore I am firmly in support of such measures as adjusting SAT scores to be better predictors of class performance, and then removing all signs of gender from applications before passing them to the hiring committee. Not with the goal of achieving any particular mix of men/women, but with the goal of getting the best performing class that you can from the available applicants.
However coming at it from the opposite end, remove all barriers that you can find, and work to make sure your hiring process hires women and men who perform equivalently on the job. As long as those are true, you are probably doing about as well as you can to get the best workforce you can.
Note "who perform equivalently on the job" is a subtle and important criteria. As an example, men tend to have an advantage on standardized tests. Therefore I am firmly in support of such measures as adjusting SAT scores to be better predictors of class performance, and then removing all signs of gender from applications before passing them to the hiring committee. Not with the goal of achieving any particular mix of men/women, but with the goal of getting the best performing class that you can from the available applicants.
There's nothing fallacious about spatial reasoning being stronger in males on average, and math (and presumably programming) being heavy on utilizing spatial reasoning.
It's certainly an open question how much spatial reasoning is relevant, but its not irrelevant and so such data has explanatory power. Of course one doesn't have to be in the top 1% of spatial reasoning to be a capable software developer, but no one is making such a claim. We're looking for factors that help explain women's apparent disinterest in becoming software developers. But its a given that people are drawn to things they're good at and disinclined towards things they struggle with. And so the gender disparities in spatial reasoning is a relevant data point in this discussion.
It's certainly an open question how much spatial reasoning is relevant, but its not irrelevant and so such data has explanatory power. Of course one doesn't have to be in the top 1% of spatial reasoning to be a capable software developer, but no one is making such a claim. We're looking for factors that help explain women's apparent disinterest in becoming software developers. But its a given that people are drawn to things they're good at and disinclined towards things they struggle with. And so the gender disparities in spatial reasoning is a relevant data point in this discussion.
> There's nothing fallacious about spatial reasoning being stronger in males on average
If you read my comment again, you'll see that's not what I pointed out as fallacious. What I said was fallacious is arguing from just that factor to explain women being lower represented in tech. You can't argue something this complex from any single factor.
> Of course one doesn't have to be in the top 1% of spatial reasoning to be a capable software developer, but no one is making such a claim.
The very specific claim by the OP was that women have more difficulty understanding pointers, classes, closures, etc, and therefore are lower represented in tech.
Also, arguing what is needed for the top 1% is irrelevant because we are talking about gender participation rates across the industry.
> And so the gender disparities in spatial reasoning is a relevant data point in this discussion.
And even more relevant is the significant historical cultural signaling that women don't belong in tech. I'd never claim it's an exclusive factor, but to exclude it from the debate, just like excluding any type of relevant logical reasoning capability, spatial or otherwise, is fallacious.
If you read my comment again, you'll see that's not what I pointed out as fallacious. What I said was fallacious is arguing from just that factor to explain women being lower represented in tech. You can't argue something this complex from any single factor.
> Of course one doesn't have to be in the top 1% of spatial reasoning to be a capable software developer, but no one is making such a claim.
The very specific claim by the OP was that women have more difficulty understanding pointers, classes, closures, etc, and therefore are lower represented in tech.
Also, arguing what is needed for the top 1% is irrelevant because we are talking about gender participation rates across the industry.
> And so the gender disparities in spatial reasoning is a relevant data point in this discussion.
And even more relevant is the significant historical cultural signaling that women don't belong in tech. I'd never claim it's an exclusive factor, but to exclude it from the debate, just like excluding any type of relevant logical reasoning capability, spatial or otherwise, is fallacious.
The very specific claim by the OP was that women have more difficulty understanding pointers, classes, closures, etc, and therefore are lower represented in tech.
You will never see that stated as a claim. It appears as a guess, as a suspicion, and at multiple points I was at pains to point out that I have no evidence for it. It certainly is not a claim.
That said, men are way overrepresented in programming. It doesn't matter whether you look at CS departments of self-taught programmers, they are overwhelmingly (though not all) men. I am arguing that this fact is not in itself proof of discrimination.
Of the claims that I have made, one is that in my anecdotal experience I personally witnessed a lot of people in the early days of the web start in the same role, but the ones who followed a track to "programmer" were overwhelmingly men. When I personally asked women who both had and hadn't taken that path, they told me that discrimination was not a factor in their decisions. Actual responses, "You guys never pushed me away from programming, but I want to make things pretty." "Sure, there have been a few jackasses, but there are jackasses everywhere. Most of you are very welcoming as long as I can do the job."
Again, my personal experiences are anecdote, not data. YMMV and all that. But experiences like these are part of why I don't believe that the skewed ratios are the result of discrimination, no matter how many essays I read claiming otherwise. (Essays whose only real data point seems to be the fact that there is a gender ratio.)
You will never see that stated as a claim. It appears as a guess, as a suspicion, and at multiple points I was at pains to point out that I have no evidence for it. It certainly is not a claim.
That said, men are way overrepresented in programming. It doesn't matter whether you look at CS departments of self-taught programmers, they are overwhelmingly (though not all) men. I am arguing that this fact is not in itself proof of discrimination.
Of the claims that I have made, one is that in my anecdotal experience I personally witnessed a lot of people in the early days of the web start in the same role, but the ones who followed a track to "programmer" were overwhelmingly men. When I personally asked women who both had and hadn't taken that path, they told me that discrimination was not a factor in their decisions. Actual responses, "You guys never pushed me away from programming, but I want to make things pretty." "Sure, there have been a few jackasses, but there are jackasses everywhere. Most of you are very welcoming as long as I can do the job."
Again, my personal experiences are anecdote, not data. YMMV and all that. But experiences like these are part of why I don't believe that the skewed ratios are the result of discrimination, no matter how many essays I read claiming otherwise. (Essays whose only real data point seems to be the fact that there is a gender ratio.)
Circa the late 50s, I literally knew someone who was told there was only room for one woman engineering student at the school she wanted to go to, so she studied math instead and that's how she became a programmer. Subsequently, she became an assistant to an engineer, obviously being paid much less than him.
Compare to Ursula Burns, who started at Xerox in 1980 and eventually became CEO.
So, of course something happened that wasn't biological - the opportunities for women with the ability to program or do engineering dramatically increased.
Compare to Ursula Burns, who started at Xerox in 1980 and eventually became CEO.
So, of course something happened that wasn't biological - the opportunities for women with the ability to program or do engineering dramatically increased.
In the article they talk about more women in tech in India than in US. India is a highly sexist society having a male child is preferred over having a female child. Still more females are in CS than in a more egalitarian society like US. I think it is because there are less economic choices in India.
So if you are going to college in India you will choose a subject that makes more economic sense. Even if that means studying a subject that you don't like that much. When there is freedom to choose profession without economic constraints people will choose subject that interests them the most.
Edit: I might be downvoted for last sentence.
So if you are going to college in India you will choose a subject that makes more economic sense. Even if that means studying a subject that you don't like that much. When there is freedom to choose profession without economic constraints people will choose subject that interests them the most.
Edit: I might be downvoted for last sentence.
It is a curious phenomenon.
https://womenintheworld.com/2018/02/27/study-finds-women-in-...
https://womenintheworld.com/2018/02/27/study-finds-women-in-...
People often make reference to a time when programmers were predominantly women, say roughly the 50s-70s but I don't get the impression most younger people personally know someone whose career was largely during that era.
I do/did, and the reason she ended up as a programmer was because she wasn't considered for an engineering program (because they already had a woman studying engineering) and had to take a math scholarship instead.
If we want to continue to live in a world where women can become engineers, and managers, and CEOs, then some of the talented people who were forced to become programmers in earlier days are going to be diverted.
I do/did, and the reason she ended up as a programmer was because she wasn't considered for an engineering program (because they already had a woman studying engineering) and had to take a math scholarship instead.
If we want to continue to live in a world where women can become engineers, and managers, and CEOs, then some of the talented people who were forced to become programmers in earlier days are going to be diverted.
Not one mention of age as being a factor as passing over good talent because of ageism. I'm 54, I walk through the door to interview and people run the other way before I even sit down with them because I probably look like their Dad -- meanwhile, i'm not only as current on skills than anybody I'm talking to, I'm probably the best option at a startup since I've seen it all (three and four times over). It's ridiculous that you age out of this industry at 45.
I'm about your age, and it is indeed depressing. On my last hunt, after passing the all-day at a FAANG, I was declined at the executive review because of my "career trajectory".
Guess who doesn't have career trajectories. (Spoiler: It's young people.)
Guess who doesn't have career trajectories. (Spoiler: It's young people.)
Underneath all this: although companies need talent, interviews are adversarial and not structured to create a supportive environment so candidates are at their best. Quite often the interview setup is to see how the candidate performs at their worst-- stressed, time pressured, on the spot, performing for fragments of time to a number of people while in what (feels|is) an asymmetrical power relationship.
> Interviews are adversarial and not structured to create a supportive environment so candidates are at their best.
This is a really broad stroke and it may even be true to a high degree. But I've had (and given) plenty of interviews where we engage a topic and just talk about it openly as if we were already colleagues. Maybe that's a Swedish thing?
This is a really broad stroke and it may even be true to a high degree. But I've had (and given) plenty of interviews where we engage a topic and just talk about it openly as if we were already colleagues. Maybe that's a Swedish thing?
I suspect the grueling interview process is the result of CS being overrun by people who cheated through their programming classes and/or exaggerated (lied) on their resume, things which have become extremely prevalent in recent years. Plus in the US you can't get a meaningful reference anymore because of fear of lawsuits (former employers will often only confirm employment). There's nothing left to trust. Worse, I have come across a number of CS graduates who can't write a working program to save their lives, though many (particular international students) seem to be very well-prepared to talk all day about the technologies and all the cool projects they supposedly did. Not that a surprise exam is a good solution.
The best interviews I've participated in (on either side of the table) have been when it's been more of a conversation, not an explicit evaluation. Yes, there's a power imbalance, and I'm not sure there's a way to fix that, but you can counteract it by treating interviews as a two-way street.
Interviewers don't need to be adversarial to determine if a candidate is going to be good for the role. Interviewees shouldn't be passive, and should be using the time to determine if the company is even a good fit for them.
Interviewers don't need to be adversarial to determine if a candidate is going to be good for the role. Interviewees shouldn't be passive, and should be using the time to determine if the company is even a good fit for them.
That's independent of gender or race, though.
What is labor discrimination?
I don't know what your question refers to, tbh?
Well, the gist of this is: there aren’t enough women in “tech”, so different standards should be applied for women until there are. Setting aside all the other problems I have with this: law and medicine have much stricter barriers for entry. There are no practicing doctors or lawyers without advanced degrees, but there are plenty of women in both professions. So even if you accept the premise, it’s still pretty clear you’re barking up the wrong tree here.
Alternative hypothesis: law and medicine started proactively working on their "pipeline problem" many decades earlier, and have had time to reach parity. Computer science, in the sense of the modern job market of elite grads going to bay area employers, is barely into its third decade of existence.
Seriously: go back to the 50's and 60's and you'll find all these same arguments about how women can't be good doctors and law is a man's world. And they were all wrong.
Why is computer science special in a way that medicine isn't? Why can women heal but not code? Isn't that the harder point to prove than "it's a pipeline problem"?
Seriously: go back to the 50's and 60's and you'll find all these same arguments about how women can't be good doctors and law is a man's world. And they were all wrong.
Why is computer science special in a way that medicine isn't? Why can women heal but not code? Isn't that the harder point to prove than "it's a pipeline problem"?
Have you considered that women may prefer to heal than to code and when they need to choose a career they choose healing, so this is the real explanation why most doctors in my country are women and most people in IT are men?
What are lawyers healing?
Did women suddenly discover an interest in healing in the past 50 years?
Did women suddenly discover an interest in healing in the past 50 years?
They learned that being a lawyer earns you prestige and lots of money.
Compare that to computer science and being viewed as a geek, nerd, loner. Even though it's less bad at this day and age, it's not even comparable to medicine and law.
Equality of opportunity does not generate equality of outcome as soffits revealed on Scandinavia. And it shouldn't.
People are individuals and they should not need to conform to a flawed notion that everything should be 50/50
Compare that to computer science and being viewed as a geek, nerd, loner. Even though it's less bad at this day and age, it's not even comparable to medicine and law.
Equality of opportunity does not generate equality of outcome as soffits revealed on Scandinavia. And it shouldn't.
People are individuals and they should not need to conform to a flawed notion that everything should be 50/50
I think it's pretty bold to post something like this. As a person of color, I absolutely observe bias in hiring processes and recruiting...however as someone who majored in CS it's undeniable that we have far less women and minorities going through these programs.
After I graduated, my university managed to get the number closer to 60/40 of men vs. women but when I graduated there was just one woman in our graduating class. I heard anecdotally from those majoring in EE how they had professors actually discourage them from continuing because they were 'too anxious' about grades and other stuff.
I'm male and I was the only LatinX person in my CS major; there were several more in EE by comparison. Part of the problem might be cultural pressure...my parents were extremely disappointed when I decided to major in 'Computer Science' rather than a major with 'Engineering' in the title. They did not get that it was part of the school of engineering, that for all intents and purposes I was an engineer, and the job kicks ass. They wanted to be able to say I was an 'ingeniero' to family in Peru. I ignored them.
As for bias in interviewing, I think it's really hard for non-POC to understand the more subtle parts of what sucks about interviewing. Even tho I grew up in the states and have been around white people my entire life...there is something about the way most caucasian Americans telegraph (or don't) feelings and communicate during a technical interview that put me totally on edge. I get anxious with the 'Zuck' white guy personality type and somehow these feelings of being poor, being bilingual, going to a shit public school, etc bubble up in my head while I'm trying to rotate a binary tree. The two times I interviewed onsite at Google I couldn't escape the feeling. It felt like the 'whitest' place ever and that everyone I spoke to was Linus Torvalds or James Damore or someone like that. The fact they didn't seem coached to be friendly added dramatically to that effect.
It feels stupid to say but when I interview with people of other races, I feel more confident. When I interview with immigrants as well. It's my personal bias that I need to work against.
EDIT:
I'm not arguing that these anxieties are rational or desirable...they simply exist in my mind and that makes interviewing more challenging. Just as a musician may fear they'll forget their parts when they go on stage even if they are virtuosos, these sources of anxiety are real. For engineering interviews, not acknowledging some of these issues lowers your signal to noise ration. Someone might be a fantastic engineer but a 45 minute interview might present enough anxiety that they won't be able to show it.
After I graduated, my university managed to get the number closer to 60/40 of men vs. women but when I graduated there was just one woman in our graduating class. I heard anecdotally from those majoring in EE how they had professors actually discourage them from continuing because they were 'too anxious' about grades and other stuff.
I'm male and I was the only LatinX person in my CS major; there were several more in EE by comparison. Part of the problem might be cultural pressure...my parents were extremely disappointed when I decided to major in 'Computer Science' rather than a major with 'Engineering' in the title. They did not get that it was part of the school of engineering, that for all intents and purposes I was an engineer, and the job kicks ass. They wanted to be able to say I was an 'ingeniero' to family in Peru. I ignored them.
As for bias in interviewing, I think it's really hard for non-POC to understand the more subtle parts of what sucks about interviewing. Even tho I grew up in the states and have been around white people my entire life...there is something about the way most caucasian Americans telegraph (or don't) feelings and communicate during a technical interview that put me totally on edge. I get anxious with the 'Zuck' white guy personality type and somehow these feelings of being poor, being bilingual, going to a shit public school, etc bubble up in my head while I'm trying to rotate a binary tree. The two times I interviewed onsite at Google I couldn't escape the feeling. It felt like the 'whitest' place ever and that everyone I spoke to was Linus Torvalds or James Damore or someone like that. The fact they didn't seem coached to be friendly added dramatically to that effect.
It feels stupid to say but when I interview with people of other races, I feel more confident. When I interview with immigrants as well. It's my personal bias that I need to work against.
EDIT:
I'm not arguing that these anxieties are rational or desirable...they simply exist in my mind and that makes interviewing more challenging. Just as a musician may fear they'll forget their parts when they go on stage even if they are virtuosos, these sources of anxiety are real. For engineering interviews, not acknowledging some of these issues lowers your signal to noise ration. Someone might be a fantastic engineer but a 45 minute interview might present enough anxiety that they won't be able to show it.
I am Brazillian, mixed race, my dad family is from europe, my dad has green eyes, and I can apply for EU citizenship.
My mother family is mixed of black and native american.
Almost every single time I faced discrimination, was because I was "white", for example open hostility by 100% black people assuming that I was "white" and evil or something, or when I was informed I should not apply for affirmative action because I was too white looking, or many, many times I was called racist as soon people saw a picture of me during some argument or another.
To me it is obvious that further segregation and racism, is not the answer to segregation and racism.
My mother family is mixed of black and native american.
Almost every single time I faced discrimination, was because I was "white", for example open hostility by 100% black people assuming that I was "white" and evil or something, or when I was informed I should not apply for affirmative action because I was too white looking, or many, many times I was called racist as soon people saw a picture of me during some argument or another.
To me it is obvious that further segregation and racism, is not the answer to segregation and racism.
I've faced all these things too; I pass for white and have similarly been told I'm not hispanic enough. It's not a simple yes or no kind of situation. It simply can suck in some ways to be all mixed up.
I can't even pass as white, and I'm still excluded from most diversity programs because my race (South Asian) is overrepresented in tech.
However, overrepresentation in tech in Silicon Valley does not necessary translate into societal privilege, or even extend to all places in the US. Like sure, Google's CEO is Indian, but the entire upper layer of management at the company I work at (and a lot of other companies in Middle America) is 100% golf-playing white males with no way to break in. So I'm kinda SOL both in the diversity programs in Silicon Valley / more progressive tech places as well as the golf-and-whisky club at work.
Would like to hear solutions or experiences from other brown South Asians working outside Silicon Valley.
However, overrepresentation in tech in Silicon Valley does not necessary translate into societal privilege, or even extend to all places in the US. Like sure, Google's CEO is Indian, but the entire upper layer of management at the company I work at (and a lot of other companies in Middle America) is 100% golf-playing white males with no way to break in. So I'm kinda SOL both in the diversity programs in Silicon Valley / more progressive tech places as well as the golf-and-whisky club at work.
Would like to hear solutions or experiences from other brown South Asians working outside Silicon Valley.
I am in a similar situation, where I have a last name that is clearly "not local", mixed origins, but I'm very white by most standards.
Any sort of intervention will have some negative effects. I'm sorry you are being disadvantaged. Seeing how hostile people can be to others, especially in cases where they are wrong (like yours), shows how bad things have become, imho.
That said, we have to do something. If helping get parity in CS means a few guys get disadvantaged, or some people get otherwise mislabelled, it still helps a ton of people, helps break the systemic issues. In many situations, it's dammed if you do, dammed if you don't. You and I are still very privileged in the end (ex: dual citizenship).
Any sort of intervention will have some negative effects. I'm sorry you are being disadvantaged. Seeing how hostile people can be to others, especially in cases where they are wrong (like yours), shows how bad things have become, imho.
That said, we have to do something. If helping get parity in CS means a few guys get disadvantaged, or some people get otherwise mislabelled, it still helps a ton of people, helps break the systemic issues. In many situations, it's dammed if you do, dammed if you don't. You and I are still very privileged in the end (ex: dual citizenship).
So I'm ready for the downvotes, but its worth it. I don't think it is generally good to look for divisions and more ways to separate from the whole. I don't know if that is because you're out somewhere in super woke SF or similar but you've already used terms like "LatinX" and "person of color" like someone who is already woke but maybe stop for a sec?
Why don't you see yourself as a person who likes CS/tech and likes doing XYZ things with ABC tools? Or maybe believe for a brief second that the "caucasian American", is probably thinking about what show to watch on Netflix rather than some shitty thoughts about how you don't fit in.
I also would be willing to be my bottom dollar that Google of all places doesn't feel like a small town in Sweden. I'm willing to bet there are way too many Asians (yellow and brown) for that to be true.
Also, seriously wtf is LatinX? Seriously.
<--- this author is also an immigrant from that small country north of Peru.
Why don't you see yourself as a person who likes CS/tech and likes doing XYZ things with ABC tools? Or maybe believe for a brief second that the "caucasian American", is probably thinking about what show to watch on Netflix rather than some shitty thoughts about how you don't fit in.
I also would be willing to be my bottom dollar that Google of all places doesn't feel like a small town in Sweden. I'm willing to bet there are way too many Asians (yellow and brown) for that to be true.
Also, seriously wtf is LatinX? Seriously.
<--- this author is also an immigrant from that small country north of Peru.
I think you might be reading into what I wrote a bit. This is just how I feel...not how I WANT to feel. Obviously, these are biases and anxieties that exist in my own mixed-race low-income immigrant brain that i wish weren't there. As another latino founder told me..."walk into a VC pitch meeting with the confidence of a tall white man."
Like I don't hate caucasians but sometimes can't help but notice these differences. I also can't just focus on fucking Netflix during an interview! These anxieties and nervousness creep into our heads whether we like it or not!
Like I don't hate caucasians but sometimes can't help but notice these differences. I also can't just focus on fucking Netflix during an interview! These anxieties and nervousness creep into our heads whether we like it or not!
This sounds like your problem is not so much any actual discrimination as it is the expectation of it, and you are suffering real disadvantages due to that expectation. It might be better to try to reduce your consumption of US culture war content (including this article and discussion thread) and maybe even seek the company of more people who are not constantly preoccupied with it.
People of color don’t have a switch that allows them to turn off the experience of being a person of color. Your comment amounts to a claim that sbilstein is inventing all of the issues he’s faced in life.
If you’re seriously claiming that people of color aren’t treated differently, look at the implicit bias test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
It’s a very easily reproducible experiment (you can conduct it on yourself by following the link) that shows that most people respond differently to disadvantaged groups, even if those people are not consciously aware of having bigoted attitudes.
I think that if somebody is telling you they’ve faced discrimination, it shows respect to at least acknowledge the possibility that they are telling the truth and not hallucinating it.
If you’re seriously claiming that people of color aren’t treated differently, look at the implicit bias test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
It’s a very easily reproducible experiment (you can conduct it on yourself by following the link) that shows that most people respond differently to disadvantaged groups, even if those people are not consciously aware of having bigoted attitudes.
I think that if somebody is telling you they’ve faced discrimination, it shows respect to at least acknowledge the possibility that they are telling the truth and not hallucinating it.
I agree with you, but the implicit bias test has been crumbling under the replication crisis.
https://qz.com/1144504/the-world-is-relying-on-a-flawed-psyc...
https://www.thecut.com/2017/01/psychologys-racism-measuring-...
From that last link: "Both critics and proponents of the IAT now agree that the statistical evidence is simply too lacking for the test to be used to predict individual behavior."
https://qz.com/1144504/the-world-is-relying-on-a-flawed-psyc...
https://www.thecut.com/2017/01/psychologys-racism-measuring-...
From that last link: "Both critics and proponents of the IAT now agree that the statistical evidence is simply too lacking for the test to be used to predict individual behavior."
I don't understand how you get that out of my comment. Regardless of what problems the parent poster actually faced, it's clear from their descriptions that (1) at this point they are genuinely experiencing problems from their expectation of discrimination (it's not like the "anxieties and nervousness" creeping into their heads would have any benefit even if the interviewers are in fact biased against them!), and (2) their usage of terms like "LatinX" indicates that they had a lot of exposure to the sort of writings that tell them to expect concealed discriminatory attitudes in everyone - which, even if true, is very unlikely to be a healthy or useful mindset for the putative target of those discriminatory attitudes to have.
I would argue it is comparable to (an outward-oriented version of) body dysmorphic disorder: instead of social anxiety due to the perception that people are disgusted by your appearance, you get social anxiety due to the perception that people hold a negative view of your ethnicity.
I would argue it is comparable to (an outward-oriented version of) body dysmorphic disorder: instead of social anxiety due to the perception that people are disgusted by your appearance, you get social anxiety due to the perception that people hold a negative view of your ethnicity.
I don't know if this will be of any use to you. If you're pitching to VCs, you're already operating way above my level. I also don't know if it's different over here. I live and work in the UK and I'm white. I genuinely don't think I've worked with anyone in the tech industry who cares what race or background their co-workers have.
There's definitely an underrepresentation problem (most grievously with female engineers), but I sincerely believe the problem is mostly systemic, rather than driven by personal prejudice.
From my (limited) perspective, the only thing anyone gives a damn about is whether you're a good developer. If you can code, if you can ship, if you can work well with your other colleagues. Please don't feel like you have you walk into meetings pretending you're somebody else. Walk into meetings with the confidence of a great engineer and founder - because anybody who gives a crap about anything else isn't worth impressing.
With love, from one engineer to another ️
There's definitely an underrepresentation problem (most grievously with female engineers), but I sincerely believe the problem is mostly systemic, rather than driven by personal prejudice.
From my (limited) perspective, the only thing anyone gives a damn about is whether you're a good developer. If you can code, if you can ship, if you can work well with your other colleagues. Please don't feel like you have you walk into meetings pretending you're somebody else. Walk into meetings with the confidence of a great engineer and founder - because anybody who gives a crap about anything else isn't worth impressing.
With love, from one engineer to another ️
The best athletes in the world still get nervous before games. Same with musicians. I don’t feel meta bad about getting nervous. It just sucks to feel nervous!
As long as the nervousness doesn’t seriously affect the presentation it is ok or even good. I find a bit of adrenaline helps me put my best effort in.
Having lived and worked in the UK for five years, the class system overrides race. You would have to go far down the chain of accent, education, area you live in, people you hang out with and more before you hit race.
There are immigrants at the bottom that feel discriminated against because of race but they miss the basics of the culture and the ones that learn the system excel.
There are immigrants at the bottom that feel discriminated against because of race but they miss the basics of the culture and the ones that learn the system excel.
Not being a straight cis white male etc is now a MASSIVE superpower for fundraising and company building. I am happy to help anyone in this bucket for their pitching process if they do not already see that.
Lesson on HN: This comment got a whole bunch of upvotes, and a few hours later, super downvoted. I think we've learned something unfortunate about what the global community here wants to see happen :(
> "walk into a VC pitch meeting with the confidence of a tall white man."
As a tall white man, I find it hilarious you think we are all confident.
As a tall white man, I find it hilarious you think we are all confident.
As a tall while Caucasian I think you need you have a problem with the environment, not a racial one. I live in Eastern Europe and we don't really know what racism is because we have no history of problems in the past; I had direct reports that were Latino and Latina, Europeans (Caucasians), black (African): they were friends more than subordinates. In Bucharest my South African colleague, the Brazilian one and the Chinese lady are cool and they attract attention in a positive way, they have absolutely no issues living here. I think the problem is the US with the long history of treating poorly other races, not with your race.
Unfortunately, Wikipedia finds your experience to not be universal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Europe . I hope this continues to change, however!
More relevantly, it is useful to understand the VC process as selling to a mix of individuals. The horrible ones stink and need to be written off. It sucks, but that's life. (You probably don't want to work with them anyway: should you really trust them with your life's work through all the closed door activities that happen?) At the same time, there is a strong wave of individuals and firms that view non-traditional backgrounds as a valuable leading indicator for key difficult aspects of company building. Fundraising is a form of sales. You only really need one yes, so having access to otherwise closed off sources of capital is an amazing advantage.
It's a weird world and something I care about, so I'm genuine in my offer to folks here.
More relevantly, it is useful to understand the VC process as selling to a mix of individuals. The horrible ones stink and need to be written off. It sucks, but that's life. (You probably don't want to work with them anyway: should you really trust them with your life's work through all the closed door activities that happen?) At the same time, there is a strong wave of individuals and firms that view non-traditional backgrounds as a valuable leading indicator for key difficult aspects of company building. Fundraising is a form of sales. You only really need one yes, so having access to otherwise closed off sources of capital is an amazing advantage.
It's a weird world and something I care about, so I'm genuine in my offer to folks here.
I'm from Eastern Europe, and we absolutely know what racism is.
Just look at Roma.
Just look at Roma.
> I live in Eastern Europe and we don't really know what racism is because we have no history of problems in the past;
Then why do I read stories like this about black soccer players being racially abused?
https://www.euronews.com/2019/11/01/racism-at-the-heart-of-b...
Then why do I read stories like this about black soccer players being racially abused?
https://www.euronews.com/2019/11/01/racism-at-the-heart-of-b...
> I also would be willing to be my bottom dollar that Google of all places doesn't feel like a small town in Sweden.
You would win that bet - Google is 54.4% white, 39.8% asian, according to https://diversity.google/annual-report/#!#_this-years-data
The US is 61.5% white, so whites are underrepresented at Google.
You would win that bet - Google is 54.4% white, 39.8% asian, according to https://diversity.google/annual-report/#!#_this-years-data
The US is 61.5% white, so whites are underrepresented at Google.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect anyone to match the demographics of the entire US unless they have a uniform presence across the entire US, such as one might find with Wal-Mart. It's a big country, and the people tend to aggregate into clumps.
Alphabet keeps about 1/4 of its people in Mountain View. In terms of the demographics of San Francisco metropolitan area, those diversity report numbers likely only slightly overrepresent whites and Asians. Statistically, it is unlikely that Alphabet/Google has a racial bias in hiring, but it certainly has a geographical bias for California.
I might bet a dollar--other than my bottom one--that the offices outside of California all feel like a small town in Silicon Valley.
Alphabet keeps about 1/4 of its people in Mountain View. In terms of the demographics of San Francisco metropolitan area, those diversity report numbers likely only slightly overrepresent whites and Asians. Statistically, it is unlikely that Alphabet/Google has a racial bias in hiring, but it certainly has a geographical bias for California.
I might bet a dollar--other than my bottom one--that the offices outside of California all feel like a small town in Silicon Valley.
But what demographics were used to target 50% females?
>Google is 54.4% white, 39.8% asian
it correlates well with what population looks like if you look at the percentiles of 750 Math SAT - 3% of whites, 20% of asian and 1% of the rest of race/ethnicity categories (like African American and Hispanic) make it there:
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/sat-percentile...
Multiplying by their representation in the overall population, 61% white, 6% asian and 33% for the rest , we can see that the representation at Google is a very close correlate : (3 x 61) / (20 x 6) / (1 x 33) = 183 / 120 / 33 vs. (54.4 / 39.8 / the rest about 6%)
it correlates well with what population looks like if you look at the percentiles of 750 Math SAT - 3% of whites, 20% of asian and 1% of the rest of race/ethnicity categories (like African American and Hispanic) make it there:
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/sat-percentile...
Multiplying by their representation in the overall population, 61% white, 6% asian and 33% for the rest , we can see that the representation at Google is a very close correlate : (3 x 61) / (20 x 6) / (1 x 33) = 183 / 120 / 33 vs. (54.4 / 39.8 / the rest about 6%)
The problem with your stats is that not very long ago, the term "white" essentially referred to a Protestant European. Didn't actually apply to Italians, Greeks, Jews, etc. So if history tells us something is that this will also change.
Also Google's CEO is noticeably anything but white.
Also Google's CEO is noticeably anything but white.
Latinx is a term that USA whites prefer to use when referring to hispanic people or people from a country south of the USA.
It eliminates the misogyny that english-language-only whites read into romance languages.
Surveys show that only 2% of the people referred to as "Latinx" prefer that term. So the whole phenomenon is crazy to think about.
https://medium.com/@ThinkNowTweets/progressive-latino-pollst...
It eliminates the misogyny that english-language-only whites read into romance languages.
Surveys show that only 2% of the people referred to as "Latinx" prefer that term. So the whole phenomenon is crazy to think about.
https://medium.com/@ThinkNowTweets/progressive-latino-pollst...
[deleted]
>>>Also, seriously wtf is LatinX? Seriously.
As another minority I also looked at the poster's usage of LatinX unironically with surprise, and drew similar conclusions about their "wokeness".
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/98-of-hispanics-and-...
As another minority I also looked at the poster's usage of LatinX unironically with surprise, and drew similar conclusions about their "wokeness".
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/98-of-hispanics-and-...
Basic Principles of Respectful Discussion:
1) Assume good faith until you have reason to assume otherwise. Try your best to NOT make assumptions about people's experiences or situations.
2) If someone, particularly a marginalized person, brings up an experience they have had but you have not had, your first impulse should be to hear them out, NOT to invalidate them.
3) Likewise, just because you personally may not have seen or experienced something in this group/in real life, it does not mean that said thing does not happen.
4) Above all, just be good to each other. It can often be difficult to discern tone and intent over the internet, but try not to pounce on each other too quickly.
1) Assume good faith until you have reason to assume otherwise. Try your best to NOT make assumptions about people's experiences or situations.
2) If someone, particularly a marginalized person, brings up an experience they have had but you have not had, your first impulse should be to hear them out, NOT to invalidate them.
3) Likewise, just because you personally may not have seen or experienced something in this group/in real life, it does not mean that said thing does not happen.
4) Above all, just be good to each other. It can often be difficult to discern tone and intent over the internet, but try not to pounce on each other too quickly.
>If someone, particularly a marginalized person, brings up an experience they have had but you have not had, your first impulse should be to hear them out, NOT to invalidate them.
The fact that the recounter of a first hand experience is a monirity does not mean that their perspective is automatically valid. And it isn't some mortal sin to question or invalidate the conclusions they draw from experience. It drowns out unpopular (but not necessarily untrue) perspectives and stymies productive conversation.
No one deserves special privileges for having a particular skin color or sexuality. This is exactly the kind of unnecessary segregation that the gp is talking about. It's the first steps along the path that leads to some of us being more equal than others and these pedestals we place minorities on are doing far more harm than good.
The fact that the recounter of a first hand experience is a monirity does not mean that their perspective is automatically valid. And it isn't some mortal sin to question or invalidate the conclusions they draw from experience. It drowns out unpopular (but not necessarily untrue) perspectives and stymies productive conversation.
No one deserves special privileges for having a particular skin color or sexuality. This is exactly the kind of unnecessary segregation that the gp is talking about. It's the first steps along the path that leads to some of us being more equal than others and these pedestals we place minorities on are doing far more harm than good.
[deleted]
> I absolutely observe bias in hiring processes and recruiting
Ok, see, this assertion bugs me. The linked post SPECIFICALLY talks about biasing hiring and recruiting in favor of women. Diversity efforts, by definition, are hiring and recruiting bias, but for supposedly benevolent reasons. But you’re dismissing that and implying that there are subtle, hidden, unremovable biases that only certain people are capable of even seeing. If somebody were to suggest that you’re imagining things, there’s no way to test your theory against theirs, since you’re begging the question (in the original philosophical sense).
Ok, see, this assertion bugs me. The linked post SPECIFICALLY talks about biasing hiring and recruiting in favor of women. Diversity efforts, by definition, are hiring and recruiting bias, but for supposedly benevolent reasons. But you’re dismissing that and implying that there are subtle, hidden, unremovable biases that only certain people are capable of even seeing. If somebody were to suggest that you’re imagining things, there’s no way to test your theory against theirs, since you’re begging the question (in the original philosophical sense).
Even if it is in the imagination of the interviewee, it's still evidence that the interview is failing at its job of assessing who could be successful in the job.
> it's really hard for non-POC to understand the more subtle parts of what sucks about interviewing.
I get it. Interviewers still think they should evaluate how a candidate will "fit into our culture" without any examination of what that means. For a lot of teams that still translates to "same shows, same games, same fondness for happy hours, same comfort for vaguely inappropriate jokes". If a candidate doesn't seem to fit into that sort of "culture", it's easy to pass them over for the next one.
I get it. Interviewers still think they should evaluate how a candidate will "fit into our culture" without any examination of what that means. For a lot of teams that still translates to "same shows, same games, same fondness for happy hours, same comfort for vaguely inappropriate jokes". If a candidate doesn't seem to fit into that sort of "culture", it's easy to pass them over for the next one.
There are many stories of people who had horrible experiences with Google interviews. White people get anxious, too. You acknowledge yourself that those feelings may be irrational, but nevertheless I wanted to point out that you don't really know what it is like for white people going through those interviews. White people are not automatically being hired, either.
I'm relatively new to the US, can anyone explain why Asians or LatinX people born in the US in middle-class families should get better treatment than "white" immigrants who recently came from poor Eastern European countries?
Don't you think it is racist to actually care about the race of the interviewer? Would you even think about that if there wasn't a non-stop conversation about racial differences? Maybe the nonsense diversity discussion is only making it worse by creating anxieties that wouldn't even be there?
> I absolutely observe bias in hiring processes
It's interesting that you went on to describe your bias against white interviewers. It's going to be quite difficult for white people to hire non-white people into their organization if non-white people are biased against performing well for white interviewers.
It's interesting that you went on to describe your bias against white interviewers. It's going to be quite difficult for white people to hire non-white people into their organization if non-white people are biased against performing well for white interviewers.
Since you can find bias everywhere, that means there is lots of room for improvement everywhere. But when you talk about bias at the university level, isn't that evidence in favor of there being a pipeline problem? From a hiring company's point of view, that is. For a university, high schools are their pipeline.
Sorry if it wasn't clear in my comment. Yes, absolutely there is a pipeline problem. There is also a bias problem. Both those things are true.
I wish I knew what to do to help ameliorate the anxieties you've experienced, because as the white guy giving the interviews, I'm terrified that something about my approach or demeanor is enhancing those anxieties in my candidates (and I've seen entirely too many promising candidates wash out where I had to put as my feedback "I think they can do this, but they couldn't do it during the interview, and I suspect they got too nervous").
What can I do to do better?
What can I do to do better?
Hispanic here. I interviewed with Google and I did terribly bad. I was surprised how nice and patient my interviewer was. There is a lot of self imposed pressure as this is Google. I felt the interview went from 0 to 60MPh really fast. My mind was blocked instantly. I also needed to study specifically for this. It seems that on the job experience is not enough. You really need to train for it.
This is the same for almost all candidates of all races and genders.
https://careers.google.com/how-we-hire/interview/#interviews...
https://careers.google.com/how-we-hire/interview/#interviews...
> Even tho I grew up in the states and have been around white people my entire life...there is something about the way most caucasian Americans telegraph (or don't) feelings and communicate during a technical interview that put me totally on edge.
Anything specific that white interviewers could do differently to make you feel more at ease?
> It felt like the 'whitest' place ever and that everyone I spoke to was Linus Torvalds or James Damore or someone like that.
Well yeah, it's Google, so that's possible. Or maybe the company is large enough now that those kinds of high level individuals are diluted in their engineering pool? But it certainly had that reputation early on, that any random person interviewing you could be top in their field of expertise.
> The fact they didn't seem coached to be friendly added dramatically to that effect.
Hah, yeah, that's very much part of the culture. Having the best argument or data or working code matters. Not how politely you talk about it.
Which can certainly have its advantages, as long as everyone can let go of personally identifying with their idea once they are convinced of a better one. Then it can be a real positive.
Anything specific that white interviewers could do differently to make you feel more at ease?
> It felt like the 'whitest' place ever and that everyone I spoke to was Linus Torvalds or James Damore or someone like that.
Well yeah, it's Google, so that's possible. Or maybe the company is large enough now that those kinds of high level individuals are diluted in their engineering pool? But it certainly had that reputation early on, that any random person interviewing you could be top in their field of expertise.
> The fact they didn't seem coached to be friendly added dramatically to that effect.
Hah, yeah, that's very much part of the culture. Having the best argument or data or working code matters. Not how politely you talk about it.
Which can certainly have its advantages, as long as everyone can let go of personally identifying with their idea once they are convinced of a better one. Then it can be a real positive.
Working on anxiety can be life changing. I highly recommend the book "When Panic Attacks" by Dr. David Burns. In fact just the other day Dr. Burns had as a guest on his "Feel Good" podcast a tech guy who was rebuilding his web site (https://feelinggood.com/) in exchange for help with his anxieties. In a nutshell, the guy was a "handsome, successful, Yale educated, British" guy who was suffering from anxieties in social situations. Dr. Burns also has a book called "Feeling Good" which is geared more towards depression. Burns is one of the pioneers in cognitive behavior theory. If you're suffering from anxiety and/or depression I highly recommend his books/website/podcast - I will also note that Dr. Burns promotes drug free and rapid recovery that can be accomplished in many cases through "bibliotherapy" - e.g. just by reading a book and , most importantly, doing the exercises/work he recommends.
I'm asking to better understand - can you think of ways to make an interview process more comfortable? What about 'blind' remote interviews (ie, no video, but audio)?
The company that wrote this blogpost, which I work for part-time, does exactly that. I think it's a massive improvement.
I like this idea, but what makes it different from a phone call? I avoid video chat whenever I can. I don't want to see myself in the screen. When I can just speak to an interviewer on the phone, I do better.
We do a shared code editor and VoIP. It really helps to not be able to see any facial expressions IMO. I've done like a hundred or so of these interviews.
Awesome! I hope more companies begin to do the same!
>As for bias in interviewing, I think it's really hard for non-POC to understand the more subtle parts of what sucks about interviewing. Even tho I grew up in the states and have been around white people my entire life...there is something about the way most caucasian Americans telegraph (or don't) feelings and communicate during a technical interview that put me totally on edge. I get anxious with the 'Zuck' white guy personality type and somehow these feelings of being poor, being bilingual, going to a shit public school, etc bubble up in my head while I'm trying to rotate a binary tree. The two times I interviewed onsite at Google I couldn't escape the feeling. It felt like the 'whitest' place ever and that everyone I spoke to was Linus Torvalds or James Damore or someone like that. The fact they didn't seem coached to be friendly added dramatically to that effect.
You've described me perfectly. Except that I'm an anxious, pale-skinned, Jewish guy from rural Oregon who was bullied throughout high school for being, I dunno, skinny, pale, and awkward. This has resulted in a lot of self-worth issues, social anxiety, and major depression, which I struggle with to this day, nearly 15 years after high school. I have been interviewing for high-level companies for the past year and...have not secured a single offer, probably because I suck at interviewing, but who the hell knows?
Anyway, I get what you're saying about the "Zuck" personality type, and that's refreshing for you to mention. I, too, am pretty intimidated by some of the people you describe. I am sorry that they make you feel that way. They probably don't intend to. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that there are a LOT of "non-POC" people, AKA Zuckerberg-looking folks, who are incredibly anxious and just want you to smile at them and try to get to know them as a _human being_. I don't want to be grouped together with all the people in this country that have light skin. It's not fair to me.
I suspect that some of the "non-POC" people (why don't you just say white people?) COULD wrongfully see you as an intended "diversity hire", and need to "prove your worth" accordingly, which is racist and wrong. But the problem is that the narrative you're putting forth is encouraging companies to take measures to make the workplace more diverse. If you follow this idea down the rabbit hole, I think it will hurt people that look like me, who have no acceptable "race card" to play. And that's OK. But down the road, it's going to lead to more racial friction. I don't want to be put into a racial box based on my phenotypes. What if there was a form of affirmative action that led to more anxious and depressed people getting better jobs? For a few minutes it sounds awesome, but it's probably the wrong way to go about things, because I think it would lead to animosity between neurotypical people and, to use a woke term, the "neurodiverse".
You've described me perfectly. Except that I'm an anxious, pale-skinned, Jewish guy from rural Oregon who was bullied throughout high school for being, I dunno, skinny, pale, and awkward. This has resulted in a lot of self-worth issues, social anxiety, and major depression, which I struggle with to this day, nearly 15 years after high school. I have been interviewing for high-level companies for the past year and...have not secured a single offer, probably because I suck at interviewing, but who the hell knows?
Anyway, I get what you're saying about the "Zuck" personality type, and that's refreshing for you to mention. I, too, am pretty intimidated by some of the people you describe. I am sorry that they make you feel that way. They probably don't intend to. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that there are a LOT of "non-POC" people, AKA Zuckerberg-looking folks, who are incredibly anxious and just want you to smile at them and try to get to know them as a _human being_. I don't want to be grouped together with all the people in this country that have light skin. It's not fair to me.
I suspect that some of the "non-POC" people (why don't you just say white people?) COULD wrongfully see you as an intended "diversity hire", and need to "prove your worth" accordingly, which is racist and wrong. But the problem is that the narrative you're putting forth is encouraging companies to take measures to make the workplace more diverse. If you follow this idea down the rabbit hole, I think it will hurt people that look like me, who have no acceptable "race card" to play. And that's OK. But down the road, it's going to lead to more racial friction. I don't want to be put into a racial box based on my phenotypes. What if there was a form of affirmative action that led to more anxious and depressed people getting better jobs? For a few minutes it sounds awesome, but it's probably the wrong way to go about things, because I think it would lead to animosity between neurotypical people and, to use a woke term, the "neurodiverse".
In my experience, making an interview less biased is not about color of skin. It's about comfort and acknowledging how these anxieties creep up. At big companies I've worked at, we coached interviewers to do at least 5 minutes of small talk and resume review, to smile, to always leave time for questions at the end, to show some amount of enthusiasm for the work the interviewee is doing.
It's not about an interview format for a different race but interviews that take into account how being the odd person out may make it harder than it needs to be. In my ideal process, that helps everyone have a better interview.
It's not about an interview format for a different race but interviews that take into account how being the odd person out may make it harder than it needs to be. In my ideal process, that helps everyone have a better interview.
When I was at Google, interviewing was considered everybody's job, but without any particular benefit from doing them. They'd just try to guilt you into doing them. (I think they'd try to guilt some people harder than others, though.)
I think this is a mistake. Interviewing is a teaching/sales role and many people need coaching to come across as friendly. They aren't going to get that coaching if they see it primarily as an obligation.
I did them for many years out of a feeling of obligation, but if I got better at it, it was slowly, and with diminishing returns. It was just more of the same experience.
I think this is a mistake. Interviewing is a teaching/sales role and many people need coaching to come across as friendly. They aren't going to get that coaching if they see it primarily as an obligation.
I did them for many years out of a feeling of obligation, but if I got better at it, it was slowly, and with diminishing returns. It was just more of the same experience.
So much this. I don’t mind running interviews, but I don’t think I’m particularly good at running them, especially in the “making the candidate feel comfortable” angle. With engineering having such an outsized proportion of introverts and, for the lack of a better term, oddballs, we could take a better look at who _should_ be interviewing.
Yea, I’m white and I feel I have less in common with the Ivy League Zuckerbro personality than I have with poor and working class folks like who I grew up with. When I see my interviewer has two popped collars under his Stanford sweater I can instantly feel the anxiety growing. I think to myself “the minute I open my mouth he’s going to hear the mining town and farm work coming out.” It’s more about cultural background and not about race.
> At big companies I've worked at, we coached interviewers to do at least 5 minutes of small talk
For some people that causes anxiety, the exact opposite of comfort.
For some people that causes anxiety, the exact opposite of comfort.
What is the "Zuck" personality type? Zuck is famous for being a supposed Aspie robot in front of Congress, quite an "anxious, pale-skinned, Jewish guy" as you write
Or are we talking about the personality type of a movie character pretending to be Zuck?
Or are we talking about the personality type of a movie character pretending to be Zuck?
Torvalds is Finnish
Although his family was part of the Swedish speaking minority.
As a fellow Latin American, I find "LatinX" offensive.
English already has a gender neutral adjective to refer to us, Latin, and therefore Latin American.
LatinX means you've internalized the colonialization of white "liberals" [0] who would refer to us as Latinos or Latinas while speaking English to show off their poor Spanish and therefore pretend to be sophisticated and woke.
[0] I don't consider liberal bad or good, just that the people who use latino/a/X seem to self-identify as liberals.
English already has a gender neutral adjective to refer to us, Latin, and therefore Latin American.
LatinX means you've internalized the colonialization of white "liberals" [0] who would refer to us as Latinos or Latinas while speaking English to show off their poor Spanish and therefore pretend to be sophisticated and woke.
[0] I don't consider liberal bad or good, just that the people who use latino/a/X seem to self-identify as liberals.
I too hate the term LatinX but it's become the preferred term around so many I know that I'd rather just conform than argue about it. Just cause I used it doesn't mean I endorse it.
I upvoted your reply to my "Impose yourself" comment. Specifically the "Choose my battles".
I get it. I live in the mid-West. Most people haven't heard the neologism. My parents (well educated, sophisticated people) certainly hadn't.
SV is different.
But culturally where I live doesn't matter. We accept the culture. If SV adopts LatinX, then all Latin Americans will have to adopt it.
Imagine being referred to be a noun that you hate! (well you're a visible minority, so I guess you're more aware of this than I).
We despise -nX. I'm willing to adopt your "Latines" as a compromise. But I'll die refusing to use that X ("X" is dehumanizing, as if we're a mere unknown in an eq.)
I get it. I live in the mid-West. Most people haven't heard the neologism. My parents (well educated, sophisticated people) certainly hadn't.
SV is different.
But culturally where I live doesn't matter. We accept the culture. If SV adopts LatinX, then all Latin Americans will have to adopt it.
Imagine being referred to be a noun that you hate! (well you're a visible minority, so I guess you're more aware of this than I).
We despise -nX. I'm willing to adopt your "Latines" as a compromise. But I'll die refusing to use that X ("X" is dehumanizing, as if we're a mere unknown in an eq.)
lol I just moved to NYC and you bet I’m not gonna say LatinX in a fucking bodega. When in Rome.
You're Latin American! Impose the right terminology!
This is cultural colonialism from the, typically WASP, urban elite. Who possibly finds Spanish's gendered pronouns annoying? How many are them are native Spanish speakers? And yet they feel slighted and therefore try to impose their (typically poor) Spanish on us!
They ignore that, technically, Spanish has three genders (the neutral which is almost, but not completely, withered away; see "esto/este/esta"). So, even in Spanish, "Latin" would be a far more correct gender neutral form.
They ignore that objects can have multiple genders according to the synonyms used to refer to them.
They ignore that linguistic "gender" has little to do with gender, the term appears to have been coined by Aristotle to refer to sets of nouns, which largely follow gender when applied to people.
Why are on Earth are we accepting of unpronounceable adjectives and nouns (the -nX soup of constants being especially unpronounceable for us native Spanish speakers!)
This is cultural colonialism from the, typically WASP, urban elite. Who possibly finds Spanish's gendered pronouns annoying? How many are them are native Spanish speakers? And yet they feel slighted and therefore try to impose their (typically poor) Spanish on us!
They ignore that, technically, Spanish has three genders (the neutral which is almost, but not completely, withered away; see "esto/este/esta"). So, even in Spanish, "Latin" would be a far more correct gender neutral form.
They ignore that objects can have multiple genders according to the synonyms used to refer to them.
They ignore that linguistic "gender" has little to do with gender, the term appears to have been coined by Aristotle to refer to sets of nouns, which largely follow gender when applied to people.
Why are on Earth are we accepting of unpronounceable adjectives and nouns (the -nX soup of constants being especially unpronounceable for us native Spanish speakers!)
For real, I've looked into this and in LatAm some people prefer Latines as the neutral collective noun. I like that myself cause I'm down with gender neutrality but everyone thinks it's a fucking typo so I give up.
Outside of the Bay Area tech scene, I can't imagine I would ever use LatinX in Spanish conversation. I choose my battles.
Outside of the Bay Area tech scene, I can't imagine I would ever use LatinX in Spanish conversation. I choose my battles.
I don't understand what's wrong with the terms "Latino", "Latina", and "Hispanic". These are _Spanish_ words, and we're speaking English, so it doesn't make much sense to invent new words just to appease the tiny activist trans community on Twitter.
That only just occurred to me as I was reading OP's comment. The construction of "LatinX" has always bothered me for how contrived and nonstandard it is, but I think what's really been getting under my skin is that it's entirely superfluous. The meaning is entirely legitimate but since the word for it already exists I can't see any purpose for such a weird new one other than signaling woke group affiliation.
I read a recent poll that 90% of Latin Americans don't like the term.
The poll is here [0]. It was discussed recently in an NYT oped here [1]. It was an interesting result that definitely altered my opinion.
[0] https://medium.com/@ThinkNowTweets/progressive-latino-pollst...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/opinion/latinix-warren-de...
[0] https://medium.com/@ThinkNowTweets/progressive-latino-pollst...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/opinion/latinix-warren-de...
Wait, that question is awful. As a Hispanic person, I would also put "Hispanic" but that doesn't put into context why. If someone sees me, reads my name, and uses that to refer to me as Latinx, I wouldn't be offended at all, and would prefer Latinx over something like Hispanic.
Oh yes. Hispanic is the correct term when speaking English.
Latinx is a sign of wanting to show off Spanish (to virtue signal) but actually being intolerant of the way the language works. Values collided, and thus Latinx was born. Using the correct term, Hispanic, just wasn't an option.
Latinx is a sign of wanting to show off Spanish (to virtue signal) but actually being intolerant of the way the language works. Values collided, and thus Latinx was born. Using the correct term, Hispanic, just wasn't an option.
As a Brazilian Latin American, there's nothing Hispanic about me or my people. Most of us are some mixture of European (primarily Italian or Portuguese), African, indian (as in the native people of South America) descendents. Our official language is Portuguese.
So you're Brazilian.
Latinx, Latino, Latina are not normally used for all Latin-based languages. Italians and French don't qualify either, despite being Latin-based. (Quebec???) It's also not race; the Cherokee do not qualify even if of mixed ancestry. Really it is just a synonym for Hispanic.
Latinx, Latino, Latina are not normally used for all Latin-based languages. Italians and French don't qualify either, despite being Latin-based. (Quebec???) It's also not race; the Cherokee do not qualify even if of mixed ancestry. Really it is just a synonym for Hispanic.
rinchik(4)
I can't believe you are openly racist enough to claim that interviews are unfair because you have to be interviewed by white people (who you would have to work with every day if you were hired). If I said that I was uncomfortable being interviewed by latinos what do you think the reaction would be?
You've broken the site guidelines badly here. Would you please review them and stick to the spirit of this site when posting to HN? Note this in particular:
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
In this case what is the stronger interpretation? He cites and example of "bias in interviewing" but does not point to any biased action of the interviewers, but rather the fact that they are of a different race, which makes him uncomfortable. The obvious interpretation, that an interview conducted by people of a certain race is inherently biased against him. Calling this "bias in interviewing" also carries the connotation that this is the company's fault and their responsibility to fix. In this case, that they should exclude people from the interview team based on race to reduce interviewee anxiety. If the poster I replied to had only mentioned that he got anxiety around white interviewers without the accusation that this constitutes bias against him I would not have responded that way.
That's not at all what I said. I related a very personal set of anxieties (largely irrational) that I feel as a minority.
Plenty of white people are uncomfortable around minorities. Do they all love that feeling? I'm confident most feel intense guilt about it and never act on those impulses in any way. Just having a 'racist' feeling doesn't make someone racist.
Plenty of white people are uncomfortable around minorities. Do they all love that feeling? I'm confident most feel intense guilt about it and never act on those impulses in any way. Just having a 'racist' feeling doesn't make someone racist.
> Just having a 'racist' feeling doesn't make someone racist.
I would argue that that is exactly what racism is. It's having an irrational feeling towards someone and assuming they have characteristics based solely on their race. Why is it so hard to judge people on a case-by-case basis? By your own admission you say that these personal anxieties are irrational and then you go on to attribute it to being a minority. If instead you attribute it to yourself personally, it becomes a problem that you can solve for yourself rather than an affliction of which you are victim to. There are plenty of minorities (myself included) who don't feel this way.
I would argue that that is exactly what racism is. It's having an irrational feeling towards someone and assuming they have characteristics based solely on their race. Why is it so hard to judge people on a case-by-case basis? By your own admission you say that these personal anxieties are irrational and then you go on to attribute it to being a minority. If instead you attribute it to yourself personally, it becomes a problem that you can solve for yourself rather than an affliction of which you are victim to. There are plenty of minorities (myself included) who don't feel this way.
False dichotomy. Some people may feel the weight of group membership more than others. Just cause group membership is the cause does not imply there is no personal solution. It’s both. I’m not gonna solve this for everyone but I can solve it for myself. It’s stupid to ignore my upbringing and blame it instead on just personal failure.
Group membership is not the cause.. that's exactly the kind of reasoning that leads to racism. The cause is you believing your identity comes first from being a member of a group rather than being an individual first.
No group dictates the characteristics of the individuals in that group. Instead, the emergent quality of individuals that belong to a group can give that group a stereotype. However, being the unique individual that you know you are, you're capable of shattering any and all of those stereotypes! You're right that you can solve it for yourself; focus on that opportunity/growth mindset! Don't let anyone tell you how you should think/act because of your group "membership"
No group dictates the characteristics of the individuals in that group. Instead, the emergent quality of individuals that belong to a group can give that group a stereotype. However, being the unique individual that you know you are, you're capable of shattering any and all of those stereotypes! You're right that you can solve it for yourself; focus on that opportunity/growth mindset! Don't let anyone tell you how you should think/act because of your group "membership"
I don't really care whether or not your feelings constitute "racism," but I don't hold it against you. What I call racist is that you suggest an interview by people of a different race is biased against you.
No he didn't.
But it very well might be (biased against him).
Racism exists. Racism is widespread. People in populations that are targeted by racism are much more familiar with what racism is present than those of us in untargeted populations. Much racism is subtle and implicit.
If you can logically accept those statements, then I don't see how you can claim to know how likely the presence of bias might be. And worrying about something that could actually be true is not racism. Even if the reasons involve race. Assuming that the interviewers are thinking X or will do Y because they are white is racist. Worrying that they might is probably just being realistic.
Again, though, I am the one making this argument that you are declaring to be racist. The person you replied to wasn't. He was just expressing an anxiety he experiences, and wasn't even speculating on how likely that anxiety might be based on reality.
But it very well might be (biased against him).
Racism exists. Racism is widespread. People in populations that are targeted by racism are much more familiar with what racism is present than those of us in untargeted populations. Much racism is subtle and implicit.
If you can logically accept those statements, then I don't see how you can claim to know how likely the presence of bias might be. And worrying about something that could actually be true is not racism. Even if the reasons involve race. Assuming that the interviewers are thinking X or will do Y because they are white is racist. Worrying that they might is probably just being realistic.
Again, though, I am the one making this argument that you are declaring to be racist. The person you replied to wasn't. He was just expressing an anxiety he experiences, and wasn't even speculating on how likely that anxiety might be based on reality.
Your statements are irrelevant because he didn't claim that there was any racism against him in the interviews. Only that the interviewers were a different race and that made h
That would be the "no he didn't" that I started with.
>Plenty of white people are uncomfortable around minorities.
Pretty glaring assumption there.
Pretty glaring assumption there.
> however as someone who majored in CS it's undeniable that we have far less women and minorities going through these programs.
Why should there be predetermined amount of women or "minorities" in these programs? Who says that's how it should be?
Is this true for all jobs in the world, or just in "these" programs? If so, who chose these particular programs to be "special"?
If not, where is the "fight" for all the other jobs like plumbing, oil drilling, special forces in combat, working on top of 35+ story buildings? Why is nobody counting in those fields?
Those are the things I like to think about whenever I hear something that makes no sense.
Why should there be predetermined amount of women or "minorities" in these programs? Who says that's how it should be?
Is this true for all jobs in the world, or just in "these" programs? If so, who chose these particular programs to be "special"?
If not, where is the "fight" for all the other jobs like plumbing, oil drilling, special forces in combat, working on top of 35+ story buildings? Why is nobody counting in those fields?
Those are the things I like to think about whenever I hear something that makes no sense.
Some of these are lower status, and often lower paying, jobs. Others, such as special forces, DO have people pushing for women to be included.
Those fighting for equality are focused on getting equality in great careers, and that's why they're focused on SWE jobs over oil drilling.
You might disagree with them because you think being a plumber really is a good career. You'd probably be right, but that's not how society sees it. Society sees SWE jobs as being much much better, and so that's what's being fought for first.
Those fighting for equality are focused on getting equality in great careers, and that's why they're focused on SWE jobs over oil drilling.
You might disagree with them because you think being a plumber really is a good career. You'd probably be right, but that's not how society sees it. Society sees SWE jobs as being much much better, and so that's what's being fought for first.
I don't understand why people deliberately hire people of certain group. Be it women, or black, or whatever. Why? Why can't you just hire the right person for the job?
To me, this is just as bad as actively discriminating against certain groups of people.
Why must everyone be absolutely and uniformly represented? It just doesn't make sense, that's not how reality works. It will never be so, and all you end up doing is crunching the numbers to "make it work on paper".
Are women or black or whatever group we discuss equally represented across all jobs across the whole universe, everywhere?
It's a ridiculous concept, I don't understand who came up with it.
To me, this is just as bad as actively discriminating against certain groups of people.
Why must everyone be absolutely and uniformly represented? It just doesn't make sense, that's not how reality works. It will never be so, and all you end up doing is crunching the numbers to "make it work on paper".
Are women or black or whatever group we discuss equally represented across all jobs across the whole universe, everywhere?
It's a ridiculous concept, I don't understand who came up with it.
It's an awkward, overly simplified attempt to correct systemic errors.
There is reason to believe that women, people of color, etc are unfairly kept out and it does great harm to their lives (and has other undesirable consequences). We mostly don't know how to remedy that, so we come up with some cludgy thing like "Let's set a goal of hiring more women" instead of looking for a more elegant solution.
Unsurprisingly, it tends to not work all that well. Then you get articles like this one trying to explain the failure, in essence.
Edit: The Rooney Rule is the only elegant solution I've really seen for systemic bias in hiring. The NFL requires teams to interview people of color who apply for certain positions because they determined that the bias in their pipeline was pre-interview stage. It did wonders to improve the numbers without setting a quota.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooney_Rule
There is reason to believe that women, people of color, etc are unfairly kept out and it does great harm to their lives (and has other undesirable consequences). We mostly don't know how to remedy that, so we come up with some cludgy thing like "Let's set a goal of hiring more women" instead of looking for a more elegant solution.
Unsurprisingly, it tends to not work all that well. Then you get articles like this one trying to explain the failure, in essence.
Edit: The Rooney Rule is the only elegant solution I've really seen for systemic bias in hiring. The NFL requires teams to interview people of color who apply for certain positions because they determined that the bias in their pipeline was pre-interview stage. It did wonders to improve the numbers without setting a quota.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooney_Rule
It's abuse of statistics to fabricate a nonexistent problem. People do it because it works so well and is so easy. Everybody wants to help women and "marginalized groups". So with some superficial, misleading statistics, you can attract attention, money and hiring advantages. Why wouldn't people do it? (I mean campaigning for those parity goals. Why companies chose to try to comply is probably simply PR, and the hope to be able to hire cheaper developers).
Look into "unconscious biases"
Basically, someone similar to you will naturally seem like a better and more skilled person
Basically, someone similar to you will naturally seem like a better and more skilled person
Unconscious bias has been debunked.
> I don't understand why people deliberately hire people of certain group.
Because humans are biased.
Because humans are biased.
> STEM in early education being unfriendly to children from underrepresented backgrounds
> hostile university culture in male-dominated CS programs
> biased hiring practices
> non-inclusive work environments
Is there any actual proof of any of this rather than some bogus numbers from noname Kapor Center who admit they are just evangelists?
https://www.kaporcenter.org/our-work/ > Our pioneering work ranges from education programs and community building to evangelism and investing.
Is there any actual proof of any of this rather than some bogus numbers from noname Kapor Center who admit they are just evangelists?
https://www.kaporcenter.org/our-work/ > Our pioneering work ranges from education programs and community building to evangelism and investing.
I'll preface this with the usual "my views are my own" but I do think that diversity in the workplace is a very deep and interesting problem and that we do a major disservice to it by creating ridiculous metrics.
I think the most damning metric I see constantly touted is percentage gender; "We aim to have 50% women in the workplace" is a prime example of this. If this is by sexual assignment then even if the value is reached the intent will not be (one could be a female by sex but a male by gender and thus from a diversity standpoint is largely contributing as a male). If this is by gender assignment not only is the metric focused on a fluid concept but it's also not a binary - in order to reach 50% women we'd only have 50% for the remaining non-women, which represents a broad range of gender expression and is not exclusively male.
I do respect that many companies (not just in tech) see diversity as an issue and are trying to do something about it. However, I do hope that they spend more time investigating the full range of the issue and begin by making small attempts at approaching the problem space before declaring metrics as objectives.
I think the most damning metric I see constantly touted is percentage gender; "We aim to have 50% women in the workplace" is a prime example of this. If this is by sexual assignment then even if the value is reached the intent will not be (one could be a female by sex but a male by gender and thus from a diversity standpoint is largely contributing as a male). If this is by gender assignment not only is the metric focused on a fluid concept but it's also not a binary - in order to reach 50% women we'd only have 50% for the remaining non-women, which represents a broad range of gender expression and is not exclusively male.
I do respect that many companies (not just in tech) see diversity as an issue and are trying to do something about it. However, I do hope that they spend more time investigating the full range of the issue and begin by making small attempts at approaching the problem space before declaring metrics as objectives.
This is a strawman argument.
The goal is not to have 50% women, sharp. The goal is to fix the problem that in the US, where there are 5 men for every woman working in top major software corporations, and those are the ones that supposedly try to improve things.
It's 2019, and yet a company with all-male board was the norm until this year (arguably still is). We are so, so far from any form of reasonable balance that I am not sure which universe your comment applies to.
And yes, what you said matters, as does race, country of origin, and economic background. Intersectionality is a fancy word, but it's useful, and the article mentions it.
So that said, 50% is a useful number. It's useful to say that if the actual hiring rate is at 15%, we still have a problem.
The goal is not to have 50% women, sharp. The goal is to fix the problem that in the US, where there are 5 men for every woman working in top major software corporations, and those are the ones that supposedly try to improve things.
It's 2019, and yet a company with all-male board was the norm until this year (arguably still is). We are so, so far from any form of reasonable balance that I am not sure which universe your comment applies to.
And yes, what you said matters, as does race, country of origin, and economic background. Intersectionality is a fancy word, but it's useful, and the article mentions it.
So that said, 50% is a useful number. It's useful to say that if the actual hiring rate is at 15%, we still have a problem.
Accenture [1], BHP [2], Dell [3], and that's just a cursory glance at those that have made public commitments to 50% women "sharp" by a target year. My comment had nothing to do with software in particular (I explicitly call that out), just the utilization of the metrics themselves by any company.
I have nothing against companies taking a moment to reflect on how their hiring practices may be unintentionally (or worse, intentionally) stifling diversity. Rather, I'm invoking Goodhart's law here, in that "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
[1] https://www.accenture.com/us-en/about/inclusion-diversity/ge...
[2] https://www.bhp.com/media-and-insights/prospects/2017/09/no-...
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-12/dell-aims...
I have nothing against companies taking a moment to reflect on how their hiring practices may be unintentionally (or worse, intentionally) stifling diversity. Rather, I'm invoking Goodhart's law here, in that "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
[1] https://www.accenture.com/us-en/about/inclusion-diversity/ge...
[2] https://www.bhp.com/media-and-insights/prospects/2017/09/no-...
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-12/dell-aims...
Why is 50% the useful number? Why not 25 or 40 or 60 or 75%? Any number needs a justification, 25% or 75% alike, so why 50%?
We have 80% females in the marketing department and it is actually much larger than the IT department. Should we have 50%? Why? Actually we have a pipeline problem there too, not so many males interested in marketing. Is that a problem that needs to be solved?
>We have 80% females in the marketing department and it is actually much larger than the IT department. Is that a problem that needs to be solved?
It depends on whether it has been a consistent trend across the vast majority of marketing departments and companies, like it is wit software.
Just like having one software company with 80% women is not a solution, having one company with 80% women in marketing is not a problem.
50% is a useful number because that's about the proportion of women in the world (did I really have to spell that out?).
It depends on whether it has been a consistent trend across the vast majority of marketing departments and companies, like it is wit software.
Just like having one software company with 80% women is not a solution, having one company with 80% women in marketing is not a problem.
50% is a useful number because that's about the proportion of women in the world (did I really have to spell that out?).
>>>The goal is to fix the problem that in the US, where there are 5 men for every woman working in top major software corporations
There's also 99 men for every 1 woman working in coal mining. Why is no one (especially women) advocating we "fix" this gender disparity?
There's also 99 men for every 1 woman working in coal mining. Why is no one (especially women) advocating we "fix" this gender disparity?
Because we treat mental and physical work differently.
If physical work is overwhelmingly dangerous, and physical work is (currently) overwhelmingly male, then wouldn't it be misandrist to treat it differently from mental work, where an equal labor distribution is lauded?
The companies, I've worked at so far, had 0 female software engineers. I'm not even looking at percentages. It's horrible.
How many engineers at these companies? The only place I had to extend my range a bit to find women engineers in my part of the organization was at Amazon.
Uh, people like this are rounding errors in these kinds of statistics...
This stood out to me, and aligns with my observations in the (limited) female representation in the workplace:
> In India, for instance, about 35% of developers are women; in the U.S., it’s 16%
Does India not have the various gender biases we often attribute a large part of the problem to? What is India doing so well in this space to have over double the percentage of female software developers as the U.S.?
> In India, for instance, about 35% of developers are women; in the U.S., it’s 16%
Does India not have the various gender biases we often attribute a large part of the problem to? What is India doing so well in this space to have over double the percentage of female software developers as the U.S.?
In India, your major is largely determine by your academic results and social pressure when you finish up secondary schools.
If you score at the top in your entrance exams, you will applying to medical or engineering schools. The good schools are hyper selective and only take the top scorers (at a rate more selective than our ivy's). Very, very few people consider majors outside of these areas. Secondly, there is a huge amount of social pressure to be an engineer or doctor. It is quite often that parents choose your major, or at least heavily push their kids into one. There are lots of Bollywood movies whose plots are centered around parents forcing their kids into engineering.
Since your choice of major is largely determined by academic and social reasons there isn't a big gender disparity. Females do just as well on the entrance exams, and there is no societal view that engineering is a male major. If you are a parent who wants your kids to earn well and marry well, you will push your kids towards medicine or engineering regardless of gender. If you are female who scored well and got entrance into a top engineering school, dropping out would be unthinkable. It would be an insult to your family. You would be throwing away years of hard work in their view; some kids start preparing for entrance exams when the hit 14. There is even a suicide problem when people fail out of the top schools (see the movie 3 Idiots). Essentially majors and careers have a hierarchy which is the same regardless of gender.
As to why there isn't a societal bias that engineering is a male major, I'm not sure. It was definitely a quick change as it was only in the 1960s when most engineering colleges started admitting females.
There is definitely still a gender gap (many women are not supported to even finish basic schooling), but there isn't a huge societal bias that engineering major or STEM is a male profession.
I have heard that some of the USSR countries (Russia, Ukraine) have a similar culture and don't view engineering or STEM as "male" majors.
Maybe the problem is parents don't bully their daughters and sons into engineering here :)
If you score at the top in your entrance exams, you will applying to medical or engineering schools. The good schools are hyper selective and only take the top scorers (at a rate more selective than our ivy's). Very, very few people consider majors outside of these areas. Secondly, there is a huge amount of social pressure to be an engineer or doctor. It is quite often that parents choose your major, or at least heavily push their kids into one. There are lots of Bollywood movies whose plots are centered around parents forcing their kids into engineering.
Since your choice of major is largely determined by academic and social reasons there isn't a big gender disparity. Females do just as well on the entrance exams, and there is no societal view that engineering is a male major. If you are a parent who wants your kids to earn well and marry well, you will push your kids towards medicine or engineering regardless of gender. If you are female who scored well and got entrance into a top engineering school, dropping out would be unthinkable. It would be an insult to your family. You would be throwing away years of hard work in their view; some kids start preparing for entrance exams when the hit 14. There is even a suicide problem when people fail out of the top schools (see the movie 3 Idiots). Essentially majors and careers have a hierarchy which is the same regardless of gender.
As to why there isn't a societal bias that engineering is a male major, I'm not sure. It was definitely a quick change as it was only in the 1960s when most engineering colleges started admitting females.
There is definitely still a gender gap (many women are not supported to even finish basic schooling), but there isn't a huge societal bias that engineering major or STEM is a male profession.
I have heard that some of the USSR countries (Russia, Ukraine) have a similar culture and don't view engineering or STEM as "male" majors.
Maybe the problem is parents don't bully their daughters and sons into engineering here :)
Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response. On its face that seems plausible.
I wonder if gender bias still kicks in once in career. I seem to see way less than 35% Indian women vs men in very senior or management roles. (Just my anecdotal data point of one, I don't have any numbers to back that up).
I wonder if gender bias still kicks in once in career. I seem to see way less than 35% Indian women vs men in very senior or management roles. (Just my anecdotal data point of one, I don't have any numbers to back that up).
That's probably the case, but I believe it's a slightly different issue. I'd assume it's harder to break into management as a women because:
1) women entered the field later than men (so the distribution on the experienced end is less) 2) women have a significantly higher societal expectation to be the caretaker. Many pause or stop their careers when they have kids. 3) Indian society is heavily patriarchal
Regardless, I personally think the situation is better in India. It's pretty hard for the US to improve if not enough women enter the field in college. If the bottom of your funnel is weak, all the efforts on managing the middle and end are largely fruitless. We (Americans) need to take a better look at how our education and culture is causing the gap at the university level. I think that some of the approaches Harvey Mudd has taken is something we need to implement across universities.
1) women entered the field later than men (so the distribution on the experienced end is less) 2) women have a significantly higher societal expectation to be the caretaker. Many pause or stop their careers when they have kids. 3) Indian society is heavily patriarchal
Regardless, I personally think the situation is better in India. It's pretty hard for the US to improve if not enough women enter the field in college. If the bottom of your funnel is weak, all the efforts on managing the middle and end are largely fruitless. We (Americans) need to take a better look at how our education and culture is causing the gap at the university level. I think that some of the approaches Harvey Mudd has taken is something we need to implement across universities.
Studies show that the more egalitarian the society, the larger the differences in choices men and women make.
It's only when there's a lot of economic pressure that women that they start going into fields they don't tend to go into. India, specifically, has a lot of pressure for people to go into software dev.
Here's the LA Times talking about it:
https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-women-e...
It's only when there's a lot of economic pressure that women that they start going into fields they don't tend to go into. India, specifically, has a lot of pressure for people to go into software dev.
Here's the LA Times talking about it:
https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-women-e...
Basing this solely as a person from India and not some research background,
In the small minority of hacker rank study set, I would say that women are just as much encouraged or frankly expected to be in STEM as men. Although I am fairly certain that this observation will quickly disappear and will be heavily male dominated on a larger percentage of the population.
Really, looking at the actual hacker rank source, it seems like their sample set is really tiny and heavily biased.
In the small minority of hacker rank study set, I would say that women are just as much encouraged or frankly expected to be in STEM as men. Although I am fairly certain that this observation will quickly disappear and will be heavily male dominated on a larger percentage of the population.
Really, looking at the actual hacker rank source, it seems like their sample set is really tiny and heavily biased.
What you want to do rapidly evaporates when you're faced with the question of what you have to do. Engineering, medicine, and law are three real paths to success in India, so you will face heavy parental pressure to participate here, irrespective of gender. Success is being in your high-school engineering or medical stream. Escape from failure is being in the third stream but intending to participate in law. All else is failure.
Secondarily, Indian education admissions have a high co-efficient on standardized tests and a near zero co-efficient on 'well-roundedness'. Affirmative action is caste-based and implemented via quotas filled from the standardized-test scores.
Finally, lots of SWEs in India are drudge-work engineers. They may spend a few days changing the text on a ColdFusion page. For these jobs there is a bare selection mechanism that involves your university GPA-equivalent and whether you can speak English (usually). The large number of graduates will then spend their time 'on the bench' as spare burstable capacity to perform this sort of drudge-work maintenance. The lack of a selection mechanism removes a source of bias.
So some good things, some bad things. Some don't apply to Google India (like the last one, I think).
EDIT: Sorry, had to create a throwaway for this one, but I lived there (and observed this for many of my friends, though not for myself) and felt you deserved to have live info. I'll accept the full ban on my account for bypassing the rate-limit.
Secondarily, Indian education admissions have a high co-efficient on standardized tests and a near zero co-efficient on 'well-roundedness'. Affirmative action is caste-based and implemented via quotas filled from the standardized-test scores.
Finally, lots of SWEs in India are drudge-work engineers. They may spend a few days changing the text on a ColdFusion page. For these jobs there is a bare selection mechanism that involves your university GPA-equivalent and whether you can speak English (usually). The large number of graduates will then spend their time 'on the bench' as spare burstable capacity to perform this sort of drudge-work maintenance. The lack of a selection mechanism removes a source of bias.
So some good things, some bad things. Some don't apply to Google India (like the last one, I think).
EDIT: Sorry, had to create a throwaway for this one, but I lived there (and observed this for many of my friends, though not for myself) and felt you deserved to have live info. I'll accept the full ban on my account for bypassing the rate-limit.
> > In India, for instance, about 35% of developers are women; in the U.S., it’s 16%
> Does India not have the various gender biases we often attribute a large part of the problem to?
The gender equality paradox details many of these sorts of inconsistencies. For instance, why does Iran have gender parity in compsci while virtually all progressive cultures struggle to crack 20% in compsci?
> Does India not have the various gender biases we often attribute a large part of the problem to?
The gender equality paradox details many of these sorts of inconsistencies. For instance, why does Iran have gender parity in compsci while virtually all progressive cultures struggle to crack 20% in compsci?
at my workplace we try very hard to hire women programmers and we are at about 10% - 15% which is still quite low but better than other companies around us.
At the same time I noticed that the majority of engineering managers, product owners and agile coaches in our company are women. Some of these women were programmers at some point in their career.
I'm not deducing anything from this (especially since it’s a single datapoint) but it sure is interesting.
At the same time I noticed that the majority of engineering managers, product owners and agile coaches in our company are women. Some of these women were programmers at some point in their career.
I'm not deducing anything from this (especially since it’s a single datapoint) but it sure is interesting.
> at my workplace we try very hard to hire women programmers and we are at about 10% - 15% which is still quite low but better than other companies around us.
Are you actually counting how many of you are woman and conclude based on that, that you are better off than other companies?
It's not low, or high, or medium. It just is. As long as you are not rejecting perfectly capable women/females (just because they are so), you are not doing anything wrong and you are not worse off.
Are you actually counting how many of you are woman and conclude based on that, that you are better off than other companies?
It's not low, or high, or medium. It just is. As long as you are not rejecting perfectly capable women/females (just because they are so), you are not doing anything wrong and you are not worse off.
True. But I also believe that a diverse workplace is a better workplace because of a combination of different perspectives.
I also believe women are underrepresented in programming, the main consequence being the infantile machismo we all know exists.
>At the same time I noticed that the majority of engineering managers, product owners and agile coaches in our company are women. Some of these women were programmers at some point in their career.
Many women get nudged/pushed into middle management instead of promoted to technical leads or directorships. It's often a way for companies to claim they "promote" women, while forcing them into roles that are vulnerable to layoffs.
Many women get nudged/pushed into middle management instead of promoted to technical leads or directorships. It's often a way for companies to claim they "promote" women, while forcing them into roles that are vulnerable to layoffs.
That's rather tin-foil-hatty. Directors and above are a rounding error in employment. The conventional wisdom is that the good jobs are management, the only way to get pay rises and survive ageism-based layoff. This is the first I've heard someone claim that getting promoted to management is an attack.
My suspicion is that the pipeline has fewer women, partly because they leave Engineering so quickly. Thus there are hardly any experienced women in the pipeline.
Since an Engineer may change jobs half a dozen times over a career, but women generally change once (to non-Engineering job) we have a cumulative effect.
Since an Engineer may change jobs half a dozen times over a career, but women generally change once (to non-Engineering job) we have a cumulative effect.
> Since an Engineer may change jobs half a dozen times over a career, but women generally change once (to non-Engineering job) we have a cumulative effect.
I don't understand this reasoning. Are you saying that women generally have one engineering job and then they change to a non-engineering one? If not, where is the number difference coming from?
Off-topic: why do you capitalize "engineering"?
I don't understand this reasoning. Are you saying that women generally have one engineering job and then they change to a non-engineering one? If not, where is the number difference coming from?
Off-topic: why do you capitalize "engineering"?
Even if there were equal numbers of women and men starting out in engineering, but women never 'recycle', then the flows would be different. That's all.
I capitalize Engineer as an occupation, like Doctor Smith. Yeah, probably don't want to capitalize it as an adjective.
I capitalize Engineer as an occupation, like Doctor Smith. Yeah, probably don't want to capitalize it as an adjective.
Doctor is capitalized there as a title, not as a profession.
HR is far more of a nepotistic clique as regards as hiring their own for race and gender, and they often wield power over everybody else on those terms.
To me the question is not why this statistic looks a certain way, but what is the actual experience of women in software engineering. And if you ask women, the problem doesn’t usually seem to be getting hired. It’s the work environment that is alienating.
So if you want a number to target, it’s not a proportion of female employees, it’s the retention rate. And that’s not affected by pipeline problems.
So if you want a number to target, it’s not a proportion of female employees, it’s the retention rate. And that’s not affected by pipeline problems.
This is a pretty old and well established research fact: For most people being a minority in any environment feels alienating.
The problem look very similar if you want male employees in a female dominate work place or female employees in a male dominated work place. Retention rate is going to be problem, and it is going to be a consistent problem from the first year as a student to 30 years later into the career.
The common result is that people move into local groups where they can be part of a majority. Male teachers going into physical education where most the other physical education teachers are also male. In IT we see female programmers go into design or team leader, where most other designers and team leaders are female.
It is a very hard problem to solve.
The problem look very similar if you want male employees in a female dominate work place or female employees in a male dominated work place. Retention rate is going to be problem, and it is going to be a consistent problem from the first year as a student to 30 years later into the career.
The common result is that people move into local groups where they can be part of a majority. Male teachers going into physical education where most the other physical education teachers are also male. In IT we see female programmers go into design or team leader, where most other designers and team leaders are female.
It is a very hard problem to solve.
I have a 4 year old daughter who I'm trying to get interested in programming. The first step is to teach her reading/writing and math.
Every time we start with basic counting, after just 2 minutes, she's constantly telling me "daddy, I don't want to count anymore". I'm not giving up yet. But, we have to accept the fact that certain genders don't like math and don't like programming.
Sometimes, I see the same thing playing out at older ages. We once hired a female intern and our PM was like "ok everyone, now do your best to make programming seem as fun as possible so we can get this person to go into CS". I'm thinking, at that age, I would have killed for an internship, you wouldn't have had to convince me to "think it was fun", I already knew it was.
There's so much focus on gender equality in programming but where is the gender equality talk in other industries like: cosmetics, football, ballet dancing, etc
Every time we start with basic counting, after just 2 minutes, she's constantly telling me "daddy, I don't want to count anymore". I'm not giving up yet. But, we have to accept the fact that certain genders don't like math and don't like programming.
Sometimes, I see the same thing playing out at older ages. We once hired a female intern and our PM was like "ok everyone, now do your best to make programming seem as fun as possible so we can get this person to go into CS". I'm thinking, at that age, I would have killed for an internship, you wouldn't have had to convince me to "think it was fun", I already knew it was.
There's so much focus on gender equality in programming but where is the gender equality talk in other industries like: cosmetics, football, ballet dancing, etc
I have a very specific memory of the first moment I encountered a "math" book, in kindergarten. It was literally just a book of the numbers from one to ten, with pictures illustrating what those meant, etc. I wouldn't have been able to verbalize it, but the feeling was "I am going to f___ing love this.".
And indeed I did, and took to math and CS like a duck to water.
No idea whether that's common, nor whether it might be more common for males, but it's hard to see how someone with that intuitive drive wasn't going to do quite well in the subject.
And indeed I did, and took to math and CS like a duck to water.
No idea whether that's common, nor whether it might be more common for males, but it's hard to see how someone with that intuitive drive wasn't going to do quite well in the subject.
I have to wonder if there's some missing detail, because I can't imagine a 4-year-old sitting down and doing counting exercises for two minutes without being distracted, boy or girl.
In fact, if it was a boy, many people would have chalked it up to "Well of course boys like to move around and be active. Who likes to sit down and count things, anyway?"
In fact, if it was a boy, many people would have chalked it up to "Well of course boys like to move around and be active. Who likes to sit down and count things, anyway?"
jeromebaek(2)
Sure, 50% of boot camp graduates are women. What’s the ratio if we include actual university undergrads gender ratios?
If I’m not mistaken, there are more men going into cs than women here in the US. I don’t think a parity can happen unless equal number of women pursues cs degrees. I believe the disparity is more inline with career choice/goals.
Unfortunately factoring in case studies involving the technical aptitude’s of women versus men in technical hiring, the results are bleak for women; hopefully this changes and I am not saying women are not able to compete; it could be a cultural issue and the low numbers of women entering the field makes it even harder to achieve gender parity.
I find relevance when discussing gender disparity represented in the trucking industry.
If I’m not mistaken, there are more men going into cs than women here in the US. I don’t think a parity can happen unless equal number of women pursues cs degrees. I believe the disparity is more inline with career choice/goals.
Unfortunately factoring in case studies involving the technical aptitude’s of women versus men in technical hiring, the results are bleak for women; hopefully this changes and I am not saying women are not able to compete; it could be a cultural issue and the low numbers of women entering the field makes it even harder to achieve gender parity.
I find relevance when discussing gender disparity represented in the trucking industry.
Key point:
> there really aren’t enough women to meet demand… if we keep hiring the way we’re hiring. Namely, if we keep over-indexing on CS degrees from top schools, and even if we remove unconscious bias from the process entirely, we will not get to gender parity. And yes, there is a way to surface strong candidates without relying on proxies like college degree.
I am all in favour of reducing the industry’s reliance on fancy name schools for hiring.
> there really aren’t enough women to meet demand… if we keep hiring the way we’re hiring. Namely, if we keep over-indexing on CS degrees from top schools, and even if we remove unconscious bias from the process entirely, we will not get to gender parity. And yes, there is a way to surface strong candidates without relying on proxies like college degree.
I am all in favour of reducing the industry’s reliance on fancy name schools for hiring.
Several of the best developers I know have no degree at all. I know one guy who did a boot camp 2-3 years ago and since then has self taught himself so much that he's one of the most knowledgeable people I've been around.
He was recently told in an interview that he otherwise passed with flying colors that, "someone with a boot camp education couldn't be seriously considered."
It's mind blowing to me that anyone in charge of hiring for technical positions can be dense enough to think that your education stops when your career starts.
He was recently told in an interview that he otherwise passed with flying colors that, "someone with a boot camp education couldn't be seriously considered."
It's mind blowing to me that anyone in charge of hiring for technical positions can be dense enough to think that your education stops when your career starts.
> "someone with a boot camp education couldn't be seriously considered."
Ok, wait a minute - they brought him in for a full interview, knowing that he didn’t have a degree, made him jump through all the hoops and then told him that he was never actually under consideration at all? That’s douche behavior no matter how you feel about college degrees.
Ok, wait a minute - they brought him in for a full interview, knowing that he didn’t have a degree, made him jump through all the hoops and then told him that he was never actually under consideration at all? That’s douche behavior no matter how you feel about college degrees.
Yes. It was as if they brought him in to fill an interview requirement and didn't actually think he would qualify.
Well, that’s inexcusable behavior BUT - we can safely assume they ended up hiring somebody else, who had a degree. In other words, somebody who was as qualified as he was, but who also had a degree. In other other words, somebody more (maybe only slightly more, but still more) qualified. Requiring some sort of a degree is still reasonable, up until the point where a position actually goes unfilled due to it.
Why is that a safe assumption?
You're assuming that he wasn't, in fact, the best candidate that interviewed based on what?
Since they didn't seriously consider him they may have left behind the best candidate available to them. The original poster said "he's one of the most knowledgeable people I've been around."
Assuming that poster has a wide exposure to developers, its highly possible that the position didn't get a better applicant.
You're assuming that he wasn't, in fact, the best candidate that interviewed based on what?
Since they didn't seriously consider him they may have left behind the best candidate available to them. The original poster said "he's one of the most knowledgeable people I've been around."
Assuming that poster has a wide exposure to developers, its highly possible that the position didn't get a better applicant.
You're going to find any stupid choices in a wide enough pool. That's not representative: I know boot camp grads at FAANGs.
At smaller companies -- like mine -- it's not that we won't hire out of boot camps. We do, and have. But we're very conscious of search and training costs. Search costs can be somewhat fixed with money by using internal recruiters; training costs are horrific. Bootcamp grads are nearly useless in a professional environment without enormous amounts of senior / staff eng time.
At smaller companies -- like mine -- it's not that we won't hire out of boot camps. We do, and have. But we're very conscious of search and training costs. Search costs can be somewhat fixed with money by using internal recruiters; training costs are horrific. Bootcamp grads are nearly useless in a professional environment without enormous amounts of senior / staff eng time.
If the boot camp is used as a get up to speed mechanism by someone with a previous technical background of some kind, even tangential, I guess it could work out sometimes.
I tried to look for a junior dev recently and was flooded with boot camp resumes from career changers. The code samples were all more or less cut and paste type stuff where you could tell immediately that even if the candidate were a fairly bright and motivated person, the degree of handholding needed to ramp them up would be just impossible.
I tried to look for a junior dev recently and was flooded with boot camp resumes from career changers. The code samples were all more or less cut and paste type stuff where you could tell immediately that even if the candidate were a fairly bright and motivated person, the degree of handholding needed to ramp them up would be just impossible.
> Bootcamp grads are nearly useless in a professional environment without enormous amounts of senior / staff eng time.
To be fair, this is also true for standard undergrads.
The difference between a cooperative engineering student and a standard undergrad is quite staggering--9-12 months of working experience causes a vast differential.
To be fair, this is also true for standard undergrads.
The difference between a cooperative engineering student and a standard undergrad is quite staggering--9-12 months of working experience causes a vast differential.
Our experience is similar. The skills gained in the first year -- how to actually use git, basic db skills, bash skills, bundler/nvm/etc, better debugging, better problem solving, working outside of greenfield projects, etc make a huge difference.
I’ve had to change my thinking about this to adapt to modern times. I used to think like this about internal recruiting however there is a bias — to avoid anything they do not know. There are recent grads and outsider devs that are really good actually. Top engineers are not immune to saying somebody is bad and lying about it because what they believe is good only means “never question tribal judgement”. They aren’t immune to creating networks across various companies to take hiring managers for the proverbial ride either. Dig deeper because what you may believe is hand-holding is an unwillingness by the team to disclose basic info to get the job done. It happens way more than we want to admit but people are still just people despite the fancy job titles.
I definitely believe you and I think plenty of good devs have just a boot camp education, but I've also had a conversation with someone who came out of a dev boot camp and was very upset that they weren't treated like any other dev in the job market. Meanwhile, it was quite obvious they had no foundational experience/knowledge in terms of technical problem solving skills.
No argument there. It's not a wholesale endorsement of boot camps or anything...more that you need to judge the person and not the piece of paper.
In my experience in France, all of the genius-level developers I know come from a prestigious school.
Not surprising as the prestigious schools pretty much exclusively take in the top ~2000 students of the country every year.
Not surprising as the prestigious schools pretty much exclusively take in the top ~2000 students of the country every year.
> I am all in favour of reducing the industry’s reliance on fancy name schools for hiring.
Soon after the industry seriously stops doing this, the fancy name schools will quickly get female-dominated, and whatever the industry starts using as a signal of candidate quality that hadn't been male-dominated before, will start to be.
When proposing new policies, always solve for equilibrium, don't ignore second order effects, and never assume the world is steady state system.
Soon after the industry seriously stops doing this, the fancy name schools will quickly get female-dominated, and whatever the industry starts using as a signal of candidate quality that hadn't been male-dominated before, will start to be.
When proposing new policies, always solve for equilibrium, don't ignore second order effects, and never assume the world is steady state system.
> Soon after the industry seriously stops doing this, the fancy name schools will quickly get female-dominated
Why would this happen? Is your thinking that men will respond to the lower incentive of a fancy school degree by pursuing other options, but women won't? If so, why?
Why would this happen? Is your thinking that men will respond to the lower incentive of a fancy school degree by pursuing other options, but women won't? If so, why?
Pretty much, yes. You are asking why would the response to this incentive affect people of different gender differently. I don’t have any clear answer to this question, other than pointing out that in the current system, we already have an existing imbalance, so there is already a difference in how incentives affect different people, and unless we determine the exact mechanism here, random changes are unlikely to change it.
By the way, this is called Campbell’s law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law
By the way, this is called Campbell’s law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law
Presumably because the gap exists in the current system, and the current system is optimized for the current scoring function. Changing the scoring function will cause the system to rebalance into a new steady state.
Although, there is no clear reason why the new steady state would not be female dominant or evenly split, but if I were to take a bet, I would bet that the new scoring function will still hold existing bias because the problem starts much earlier.
Although, there is no clear reason why the new steady state would not be female dominant or evenly split, but if I were to take a bet, I would bet that the new scoring function will still hold existing bias because the problem starts much earlier.
I would think the opposite. More males are in trade schools programming than females. Females make up a higher percentage number of college students compared to males.
I think that was his point - "the fancy name schools will get female-dominated".
> When proposing new policies, always solve for equilibrium, don't ignore second order effects, and never assume the world is steady state system.
I've thought along similar lines, but it was never clear to me if such a policy really performs "better" in real-world, politicized policy issues.
Do you know of any supporting examples?
I've thought along similar lines, but it was never clear to me if such a policy really performs "better" in real-world, politicized policy issues.
Do you know of any supporting examples?
> I am all in favour of reducing the industry’s reliance on fancy name schools for hiring.
1) The fact that people aren't hiring from schools lower on the list tells me that we have an oversupply of CS majors. If I need an employee, I'll do what I have to to get one--this indicates that most companies don't really need CS people.
2) "60% of software engineers at FAAMNG hold a degree from a top 20 school" isn't automatically damning. Some of those schools simply produce a LOT of students. I seem to remember something like University of Illinois produces almost 20% of all engineers graduated annually. Silicon Valley also may simply have a local bias because Berkeley and Stanford are literally next door.
3) If I had a chance to direct a talented female in terms of college study, I would point her at engineering, not CS. Engineering has its own bias problems, but seems to be a lot less toxic than CS. It also seems to have better geographic spread of jobs than CS right now.
1) The fact that people aren't hiring from schools lower on the list tells me that we have an oversupply of CS majors. If I need an employee, I'll do what I have to to get one--this indicates that most companies don't really need CS people.
2) "60% of software engineers at FAAMNG hold a degree from a top 20 school" isn't automatically damning. Some of those schools simply produce a LOT of students. I seem to remember something like University of Illinois produces almost 20% of all engineers graduated annually. Silicon Valley also may simply have a local bias because Berkeley and Stanford are literally next door.
3) If I had a chance to direct a talented female in terms of college study, I would point her at engineering, not CS. Engineering has its own bias problems, but seems to be a lot less toxic than CS. It also seems to have better geographic spread of jobs than CS right now.
That does seem to be the key point, but it directly contradicts the catchy headline "there really is a pipeline problem." This reads like the author is complaining that there's no way to improve hiring diversity without....significantly changing the hiring process. Well, yeah?
They keep saying "top schools", but lower tier schools have the same gender disparity. And 40% of bootcamp grads might be female, but how much of that is due to the fact that there are bootcamps, apprenticeships, etc. that exist purely to pluck women & underrepresented groups from the mass of mostly-male non-traditional candidates? And other bootcamps that give scholarships preferentially to those groups?
I am pretty confident I would have gotten into LEAP or ADA if I were a woman. Instead I went fully self-taught because I didn't want to pay $20k for a bootcamp.
I am pretty confident I would have gotten into LEAP or ADA if I were a woman. Instead I went fully self-taught because I didn't want to pay $20k for a bootcamp.
It's important to give the right answers to questions, answers that signal the right intentions. Giving the wrong answers means you don't really understand the situation, and aren't really invested in solving the problem.
So when a young female applicant asks you a question that might not precisely be worded as "why is your company all men with only the white ones in positions of power," it's important to not frame the reason why this is as a pipeline problem. She's not dumb. She knows that.
Because she's not actually asking for the reason. She wants to know if your company has the wherewithal to overcome the diversity problem in spite of the fact that there just aren't a whole lot of women looking for tech careers at present compared to men. Everyone already knows there aren't that many applicants. Everyone knows you can't just hire a woman just because of her gender. That's not the point.
The way you answer this question is to, without right out stating there's a pipeline problem, make sure you've put into place all the other pieces that will cause women to not run screaming to all their friends what insensitive clods you are. Talk about your code of conduct. Talk about your contributions to the cause of diversity. Talk about any issue you had in the past relating to you not understanding people that have very very different life circumstances than you and what your failings were in obtaining a resolution satisfactory to all parties. It's hard to talk about but well, diversity is a hard topic.
Anything but passing the buck.
So when a young female applicant asks you a question that might not precisely be worded as "why is your company all men with only the white ones in positions of power," it's important to not frame the reason why this is as a pipeline problem. She's not dumb. She knows that.
Because she's not actually asking for the reason. She wants to know if your company has the wherewithal to overcome the diversity problem in spite of the fact that there just aren't a whole lot of women looking for tech careers at present compared to men. Everyone already knows there aren't that many applicants. Everyone knows you can't just hire a woman just because of her gender. That's not the point.
The way you answer this question is to, without right out stating there's a pipeline problem, make sure you've put into place all the other pieces that will cause women to not run screaming to all their friends what insensitive clods you are. Talk about your code of conduct. Talk about your contributions to the cause of diversity. Talk about any issue you had in the past relating to you not understanding people that have very very different life circumstances than you and what your failings were in obtaining a resolution satisfactory to all parties. It's hard to talk about but well, diversity is a hard topic.
Anything but passing the buck.
The bit where she says 39% of Hires from india are women.Thats because parents decide what major their kids take which is completely opposite of the west. Thus the more no of female grads.The college i go to has a 50:50 ratio. Majority of the people there both men and women have no idea why they picked cs,they just are there because it pays ways and their parents told them to rather forced them into cs.
When ~15% of CS graduates in a nation are women, it's going to be nary impossible for most companies to get too far beyond that.
If companies are hiring commensurate with that level, then that's good on them, it gets very impossible to much beyond that at scale without serious distortions.
'The Pipeline Problem' shouldn't be used as an all out excuse - but - it's a fundamental reality, like gravity.
It's shameful that someone would get sidelined for pointing out the blatantly obvious fact that 'the pipeline' is the problem.
Of course the pipeline is the problem, on what planet do the laws of gravity not apply?
There's always room for discussion, but avoiding the Elephant in the Room is smacks me as a lot of koolaid.
There's a few things that can done beyond that surely, particularly highlighting women and minorities in certain fields so as they don't lack encouragement/role models etc. - but no single company, not even Google is going to move any needle in a short period of time.
Finally, consider this: "The 'problem' may never be solved". There is evidence that as societies evolve, that gender disparity in fields doesn't necessarily increase or decrease. (The classical progressive thinking would have us believe that as we gain more rights etc. gender difference goes away, but this doesn't seem to be the case) We may have to try to create the most 'fair world we can' given that genderism may be an innate feature of human culture, at least for a very long time.
So a) the Pipeline is the primary thing b) we can help make sure people are encouraged and not systematically pushed out c) no one group will change anything d) there may always be differences between genders.
If companies are hiring commensurate with that level, then that's good on them, it gets very impossible to much beyond that at scale without serious distortions.
'The Pipeline Problem' shouldn't be used as an all out excuse - but - it's a fundamental reality, like gravity.
It's shameful that someone would get sidelined for pointing out the blatantly obvious fact that 'the pipeline' is the problem.
Of course the pipeline is the problem, on what planet do the laws of gravity not apply?
There's always room for discussion, but avoiding the Elephant in the Room is smacks me as a lot of koolaid.
There's a few things that can done beyond that surely, particularly highlighting women and minorities in certain fields so as they don't lack encouragement/role models etc. - but no single company, not even Google is going to move any needle in a short period of time.
Finally, consider this: "The 'problem' may never be solved". There is evidence that as societies evolve, that gender disparity in fields doesn't necessarily increase or decrease. (The classical progressive thinking would have us believe that as we gain more rights etc. gender difference goes away, but this doesn't seem to be the case) We may have to try to create the most 'fair world we can' given that genderism may be an innate feature of human culture, at least for a very long time.
So a) the Pipeline is the primary thing b) we can help make sure people are encouraged and not systematically pushed out c) no one group will change anything d) there may always be differences between genders.
Regarding the enrollment chart, as recently as 2015 CS was the most popular undergraduate major among women at Stanford University:
https://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/10/12/computer-science-no...
https://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/10/12/computer-science-no...
One year later:
https://www.stanforddaily.com/2016/11/08/graphic-gender-rati...
It would seem declared majors aren't following through to the end of their programs.
https://www.stanforddaily.com/2016/11/08/graphic-gender-rati...
It would seem declared majors aren't following through to the end of their programs.
The percentage of undergrad women CS majors didn't change significantly between 2015 and 2016.
It appears to be slightly lower (26% vs. 30%) on the 2016 chart because that chart includes grad students.
However, even if the percentage of undergrad majors had dropped from 2015 to 2016, that by itself wouldn't tell us anything about the retention or graduation rate over time, since we don't know what the breakdown was for 2015 graduates, CS majors declared or dropped in 2016, etc..
It appears to be slightly lower (26% vs. 30%) on the 2016 chart because that chart includes grad students.
However, even if the percentage of undergrad majors had dropped from 2015 to 2016, that by itself wouldn't tell us anything about the retention or graduation rate over time, since we don't know what the breakdown was for 2015 graduates, CS majors declared or dropped in 2016, etc..
In software development in particular, the "pipeline problem" has only existed since the 1980s in Western nations. Prior to that, I've heard it said that women were over-represented in software development compared to men (which wouldn't have been a bad thing), or at least that there was much less of a gender gap.
I have a theory about why this changed in the 1980's in particular.
- The 1980's saw the dawn of personal computers, and many people either bought them or brought them home from work.
- Personal computers, especially the inner workings and programmability appeal very much to people with Asperger's and high-functioning autism, as they present a highly complex but perfectly logical and predictable user interface. Because of this appeal, a much higher proportion of young people on the Autism spectrum learned to program computers (that their parents had at home) long before they went to college.
- Autism and Asperger's occur more frequently among boys than girls.
- Because so many "geeky" (i.e. autism spectrum) kids, mostly boys, got into computers during their high school years. This in turn likely caused neurotypical people (of whom more are girls than boys - remember autism occurs more frequently in boys) to associate computers with "geekiness" and caused them to gravitate towards less "geeky" hobbies and interests.
The key, I think, to making computers more appealing to girls is to dis-associate computers with social "uncoolness", and a lot has been done towards this end in the last 10 years.
EDIT: I'm getting some downvotes and I'm curious - do people disagree with or not like my theory about the connection between male representation in software and autism? I really don't think it's sexist to observe that autism occurs more frequently in men...
I have a theory about why this changed in the 1980's in particular.
- The 1980's saw the dawn of personal computers, and many people either bought them or brought them home from work.
- Personal computers, especially the inner workings and programmability appeal very much to people with Asperger's and high-functioning autism, as they present a highly complex but perfectly logical and predictable user interface. Because of this appeal, a much higher proportion of young people on the Autism spectrum learned to program computers (that their parents had at home) long before they went to college.
- Autism and Asperger's occur more frequently among boys than girls.
- Because so many "geeky" (i.e. autism spectrum) kids, mostly boys, got into computers during their high school years. This in turn likely caused neurotypical people (of whom more are girls than boys - remember autism occurs more frequently in boys) to associate computers with "geekiness" and caused them to gravitate towards less "geeky" hobbies and interests.
The key, I think, to making computers more appealing to girls is to dis-associate computers with social "uncoolness", and a lot has been done towards this end in the last 10 years.
EDIT: I'm getting some downvotes and I'm curious - do people disagree with or not like my theory about the connection between male representation in software and autism? I really don't think it's sexist to observe that autism occurs more frequently in men...
> women were over-represented in software development compared to men
This is a narrative I see taking hold in the past few years but I'm not convinced that prior to the 1980s women were the majority of software developers. My impression was that this has to do with how a job was defined, and that many data entry type positions were considered to fall beneath the rubric of computer science.
Having no evidence to offer of my own for or against, I wonder if anyone else can link anything germane to the discussion.
This is a narrative I see taking hold in the past few years but I'm not convinced that prior to the 1980s women were the majority of software developers. My impression was that this has to do with how a job was defined, and that many data entry type positions were considered to fall beneath the rubric of computer science.
Having no evidence to offer of my own for or against, I wonder if anyone else can link anything germane to the discussion.
Can you provide a source that women outnumbered men in 'software development' before the 80s? I hear it thrown around a lot, and it usually revolves around counting human computers as software developers, which is akin to counting a CPU a software developer.
Human computers were mathematically technical people, the sort of job a modern programmer would fit well at if programming didn't exist.
> Autism and Asperger's occur more frequently among boys than girls.
More males are diagnosed, doesn't necessarily mean it occurs more.
More males are diagnosed, doesn't necessarily mean it occurs more.
One thing I've found very interesting is that even though the majority of software developers in an enterprise or organization are male, with the ratio being as high as 80/20, the ratio of male to female managers directly managing software developers is closer to 50/50. I would say this is evidence of bias in favor of women.
edited for clarity
edited for clarity
Doesn’t have to be bias. Could just be that a higher percentage of women in engineering are here for the big money and not for the love of spending 14 hours with their head down coding. If that’s the case you would naturally expect a significantly higher percentage of them to jump on that management pay raise when offered instead of turning it down for a pay raise.
Not in anyway stating I believe this is true or is what is happening, just offering a counter point for how it could happen with no bias on anyone’s part.
Not in anyway stating I believe this is true or is what is happening, just offering a counter point for how it could happen with no bias on anyone’s part.
I'm curious where you got that measurement from. It's quite common to overestimate small fractions, do see 3/10 and believe it's half, because one stops noticing the multiplicity of the majority.
Here's a link to an article by the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/08/why-are.... It was published in 2017. The third paragraph points out that 20% of Google engineers are women, and they further go on to claim that statistic is roughly matched among big tech companies. I work for a large employer (30K+ employees), and 4 of the 5 software developer managers I interact with on a daily basis are women. I work on a team of 8 developers. We have one female developer. Two of our sibling teams of about the same size have three female developers between them.
You can see how toxic the discourse has gotten around this kind of issues if you get 20% of the article dedicated to disclaimers.
So her claim is that going to t top tier university is a complete waste of time and money, because boot camp graduates end up being just as capable?
What are top tier universities doing to keep being competitive with those low cost boot camps? It seems to me for the additional money, they should be able to provide some additional value?
What are top tier universities doing to keep being competitive with those low cost boot camps? It seems to me for the additional money, they should be able to provide some additional value?
> What are top tier universities doing to keep being competitive with those low cost boot camps?
Students from top tier universities go on to jobs where their education is actually useful. (Usually; there are always a number that don't quite make it.) Somebody has to write all the system software, database engines, compilers, and frameworks that the boot camp graduates use to do their jobs.
Students from top tier universities go on to jobs where their education is actually useful. (Usually; there are always a number that don't quite make it.) Somebody has to write all the system software, database engines, compilers, and frameworks that the boot camp graduates use to do their jobs.
They signal to the employers, "our alumni are more likely to be either smart or well-connected than boot camp survivors". Hiring people is expensive, so interviewing people that have been preselected to be likely to show potential is cheaper in the long run.
No, it isn’t a waste, since many companies only hire from the narrow pool of top tier universities, as she pointed out.
From my experience many women are put off by the way they see the average computer science student. The geeky weird stereotype scares many off. There does seems to be more socially awkward people that choose computer science (myself included). I'm not sure how you can address that.
Spanish guy here. Just to give ya'll some context of why bootcamp hiring does not work here.
I had to go through the "do I go to a bootcamp or get a CS degree" conundrum 5 years ago. The answer was quite clear for me.
All the serious and stable jobs that were offered in the entire nation except for the capital city, Madrid, required you to have a CS degree + bootcamps/X years of experience for a specific language.
Either that or they outright asked for a Master's degree or a PHD in a specific field.
I had to go through the "do I go to a bootcamp or get a CS degree" conundrum 5 years ago. The answer was quite clear for me.
All the serious and stable jobs that were offered in the entire nation except for the capital city, Madrid, required you to have a CS degree + bootcamps/X years of experience for a specific language.
Either that or they outright asked for a Master's degree or a PHD in a specific field.
Hmm.
https://nsf.gov/nsb/sei/edTool/data/college-14.html
"Science and engineering" bachelors degrees have been about 50% male and 50% female since 2000, growing from about 400,000 degrees in 2000 to 589,000 in 2012.
From 2000 to 2004, women's share of computer science degrees were between 25% and 28%. From 2007 to 2012, they stabilized at about 18%.
Now, the question is, did men preferentially enter computer science, or did women preferentially leave? Hint: the latter.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_349.asp
[Edit: more recent.] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_325.35.a...
In 2004-2008, degrees granted to men decreased by 6%, 10%, 9% and 8%. Degrees granted to women decreased by 20%, 18%, 20%, and 13%. (The other big drop in degrees, from 1986 to 1993-6, shows the same pattern and is when degrees granted to women went from 35-37% of the total to 27%.)
Whence comes this pipeline difference?
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_222.10.a...
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics scale score, the difference between boys and girls up to grade 12 has been stable for years and doesn't really amount to a hill of beans. Same with science.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_224.70.a...
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_224.74b....
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_224.74a....
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_224.73.a...
The Technology and Engineering Literacy scores for 8th graders don't have any difference to write home about.
https://nsf.gov/nsb/sei/edTool/data/college-14.html
"Science and engineering" bachelors degrees have been about 50% male and 50% female since 2000, growing from about 400,000 degrees in 2000 to 589,000 in 2012.
From 2000 to 2004, women's share of computer science degrees were between 25% and 28%. From 2007 to 2012, they stabilized at about 18%.
Now, the question is, did men preferentially enter computer science, or did women preferentially leave? Hint: the latter.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_349.asp
[Edit: more recent.] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_325.35.a...
In 2004-2008, degrees granted to men decreased by 6%, 10%, 9% and 8%. Degrees granted to women decreased by 20%, 18%, 20%, and 13%. (The other big drop in degrees, from 1986 to 1993-6, shows the same pattern and is when degrees granted to women went from 35-37% of the total to 27%.)
Whence comes this pipeline difference?
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_222.10.a...
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics scale score, the difference between boys and girls up to grade 12 has been stable for years and doesn't really amount to a hill of beans. Same with science.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_224.70.a...
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_224.74b....
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_224.74a....
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_224.73.a...
The Technology and Engineering Literacy scores for 8th graders don't have any difference to write home about.
It's also worth remembering that the problem continues in the workforce; there's fewer women reaching senior roles, fewer taking EM positions, etc. Those steps are entirely under the control of employers - women drop out of tech faster than men even when they get jobs in it.
A funnel representation would be clearer.
If you start with 50% women at age 0, which steps are leaking the most? High school, university, company interviews, people leaving companies/switching careers?
I think the answer is that many of these steps are losing women in the process.
But in my opinion, companies are only responsible for: hiring fairly, retaining fairly, promoting fairly.
If you start with 50% women at age 0, which steps are leaking the most? High school, university, company interviews, people leaving companies/switching careers?
I think the answer is that many of these steps are losing women in the process.
But in my opinion, companies are only responsible for: hiring fairly, retaining fairly, promoting fairly.
"If you say the words “there’s a pipeline problem” to explain why we’ve failed to make meaningful progress toward gender parity in software engineering, you probably won’t make many friends (or many hires)."
Am I the only one who thought this was some kind of double entendre at first?
Am I the only one who thought this was some kind of double entendre at first?
I'm just going to leave this here as food for thought:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21684088
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21684088
(Politically inconvenient differences across various human subgroups aside) if you're trying to deal with this situation as late as hiring, you already fucked up.
There are unresolved social issues in terms of racial disparity in America (and this comes with an inherent inter-generational cycling).
The place to start dealing with this is per-capita equality of resourcing for primary and secondary schools (and make sure the kids are fed).
Even if that weren't a political no-go from the initialisation perspective, the 20 year latency on emergent benefits means that any progress will be demolished at the next swing of the political pendulum.
Short of the extinction of regressive political ideologies in America, this is an intractable problem.
There are unresolved social issues in terms of racial disparity in America (and this comes with an inherent inter-generational cycling).
The place to start dealing with this is per-capita equality of resourcing for primary and secondary schools (and make sure the kids are fed).
Even if that weren't a political no-go from the initialisation perspective, the 20 year latency on emergent benefits means that any progress will be demolished at the next swing of the political pendulum.
Short of the extinction of regressive political ideologies in America, this is an intractable problem.
Is it just me or is this an advertisement for interviewing.io?
These selective biases are far more pervasive than just sex parity at all stages of the pipeline and result in all kinds of malformed decisions.
> And even if we could meaningfully increase the number of women enrolling in CS programs overall, top companies have historically tended to favor candidates from elite universities (based on some targeted LinkedIn Recruiter searches, 60% of software engineers at FAAMNG hold a degree from a top 20 school).
That is a hiring bias offering very little to qualify a candidate's potential longevity in the field or their potential innovation performance. If employers really wanted to fix this sex parity problem (without sacrificing applicant quality) they could, but they would have to be willing to abandon certain premises they hold dear about hiring, candidate sourcing, and qualification criteria.
---
One example of a naive selective bias is the notion of the standard 4-year computer science degree as the path to excellent in corporate software. The 4-year degree exists to take a person off the street make them a credible hire as an entry level developer in the most generic way possible. That's it. You don't need any formal education to be an incredible developer might result in a far wider distribution of skills from self-education.
If your goal in life is to do something other than write C++ or Java, the most commonly taught languages in most 4-year degree programs, you need to find experience or training elsewhere. The inherent bias is that a person with a degree from an excellent school is well prepared for any aspect of software development, because its all just software. This is why so many entry-level front-end developers want their front-end technology to behave like Java or impose frameworks to make it so.
Its also why many software developers are over confident in their understanding of security when in reality they are grossly ignorant of it with a severely misplaced understanding of what security actually is. As an example many software developers might believe security is limited to something like intrusion prevention. Information security is actually: confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA). If you cannot keep your application from crashing or cannot keep it online that is classified as a priority security failure without regard for intrusion.
---
Another example, the one that convinced me to delete my Reddit account after being flamed multiple times by impassioned echo chambers, is the notion that Web Assembly will free the front-end from JavaScript. The most interesting thing about that conversation is that people most supportive of the idea that Web Assembly will replace JavaScript is that the DOM is a fantastic technology that will be the key to ultimate salvation without any understanding of or experience with the DOM.
As an aside most JavaScript developers dreadfully HATE the DOM and also have a poor understanding of its mechanics. Even still injecting the page's DOM directly into a Web Assembly instance was seen as ultimate salvation to replace JavaScript despite all evidence to the contrary merely because some developers hate JavaScript more than many JavaScript developers hate the DOM. This was 3 years ago, and this fantasy still has not come to pass, because its based on a dillusion of wishful thinking opposed to an investigation of technologies available or any consideration of data.
There is a technology that has made great strides in, at least superficially, replacing JavaScript: TypeScript. This is the opposite line of thinking of abandoning JavaScript for some drop in alternative. Instead TypeScript is a superset that requires embracing JavaScript.
---
The pitfalls of selective bias are personality failures rather than anything related to education or intelligence. Bias is formed either out of intellectual laziness or out of reinforcing some deeply held personal belief, but both are an absence of objectivity. When a bias is formed to reinforce some personal opinion it is done so emotionally, often non-cognitively, and often for a perceived security motive. Because a bias can be deeply rooted, non-cognitive, emotionally-based, and defensively focused in can result in really bad decisions resulting in subjective positioning to maintain a poorly-formed belief at hand (digging in). This is a cultural problem and education alone will not fix it.
> And even if we could meaningfully increase the number of women enrolling in CS programs overall, top companies have historically tended to favor candidates from elite universities (based on some targeted LinkedIn Recruiter searches, 60% of software engineers at FAAMNG hold a degree from a top 20 school).
That is a hiring bias offering very little to qualify a candidate's potential longevity in the field or their potential innovation performance. If employers really wanted to fix this sex parity problem (without sacrificing applicant quality) they could, but they would have to be willing to abandon certain premises they hold dear about hiring, candidate sourcing, and qualification criteria.
---
One example of a naive selective bias is the notion of the standard 4-year computer science degree as the path to excellent in corporate software. The 4-year degree exists to take a person off the street make them a credible hire as an entry level developer in the most generic way possible. That's it. You don't need any formal education to be an incredible developer might result in a far wider distribution of skills from self-education.
If your goal in life is to do something other than write C++ or Java, the most commonly taught languages in most 4-year degree programs, you need to find experience or training elsewhere. The inherent bias is that a person with a degree from an excellent school is well prepared for any aspect of software development, because its all just software. This is why so many entry-level front-end developers want their front-end technology to behave like Java or impose frameworks to make it so.
Its also why many software developers are over confident in their understanding of security when in reality they are grossly ignorant of it with a severely misplaced understanding of what security actually is. As an example many software developers might believe security is limited to something like intrusion prevention. Information security is actually: confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA). If you cannot keep your application from crashing or cannot keep it online that is classified as a priority security failure without regard for intrusion.
---
Another example, the one that convinced me to delete my Reddit account after being flamed multiple times by impassioned echo chambers, is the notion that Web Assembly will free the front-end from JavaScript. The most interesting thing about that conversation is that people most supportive of the idea that Web Assembly will replace JavaScript is that the DOM is a fantastic technology that will be the key to ultimate salvation without any understanding of or experience with the DOM.
As an aside most JavaScript developers dreadfully HATE the DOM and also have a poor understanding of its mechanics. Even still injecting the page's DOM directly into a Web Assembly instance was seen as ultimate salvation to replace JavaScript despite all evidence to the contrary merely because some developers hate JavaScript more than many JavaScript developers hate the DOM. This was 3 years ago, and this fantasy still has not come to pass, because its based on a dillusion of wishful thinking opposed to an investigation of technologies available or any consideration of data.
There is a technology that has made great strides in, at least superficially, replacing JavaScript: TypeScript. This is the opposite line of thinking of abandoning JavaScript for some drop in alternative. Instead TypeScript is a superset that requires embracing JavaScript.
---
The pitfalls of selective bias are personality failures rather than anything related to education or intelligence. Bias is formed either out of intellectual laziness or out of reinforcing some deeply held personal belief, but both are an absence of objectivity. When a bias is formed to reinforce some personal opinion it is done so emotionally, often non-cognitively, and often for a perceived security motive. Because a bias can be deeply rooted, non-cognitive, emotionally-based, and defensively focused in can result in really bad decisions resulting in subjective positioning to maintain a poorly-formed belief at hand (digging in). This is a cultural problem and education alone will not fix it.
Jordan Peterson and James Damore explained this as well...but we'll yeah the narrative of SJW and Google don't like science all the time
Collective madness is largely reached at this point: the writer is complaining about a totally self-made issue. If I was trying to recruit men for nurse jobs, or people of color in Korea I would ran in a similar pipeline problem. The real issue is that "diversity" had became a metrics to reach for its own sake by companies instead of simply recruiting people that fit the job. Moreover, you can’t complain about so-called systemic sexism or racism when your policy is to not recruit white, asian or men that could fulfill the job precisely because of their race/sex.
It's weird to use the nursing example since the population of male nurses is exploding. Male nurses have gone from 2% of the population to 13% in just a few decades: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/04/upshot/male-n...
When we see extremes of representation we should take a step back and question why. In a lot of cases you are dealing with something systemic that may be able to change. For nursing, in the 1950s it was perceived as a female profession but as that viewpoint is going away, more men are joining the field.
When we see extremes of representation we should take a step back and question why. In a lot of cases you are dealing with something systemic that may be able to change. For nursing, in the 1950s it was perceived as a female profession but as that viewpoint is going away, more men are joining the field.
What these people are arguing on behalf of is affirmative action, and the end result has been white people having to tip-toe around each other in order to not seen like bigots to other white people.
Ironically, most people of color I've met find this all to be quite silly - they are professionals in their career, and want to be treated as such.
Ironically, most people of color I've met find this all to be quite silly - they are professionals in their career, and want to be treated as such.
The desire for diversity is not for its own sake.
Recruiting people that 'fit the job' leads to a mono-culture. Besides being unfair, this is bad for companies. It means you get collective blind-spots, collective hype-trains. Moreover, you reduce the effective hiring pool. Because, if you have a mono-culture then there is significant disruption to adding things outside the mono-culture. This reduction in the hiring pool means there is a lot of talent left on the table.
This means you hit a local maximum that is not a global one. Trying to move to the global maximum means moving away from the local maximum for a while.
> Moreover, you can’t complain about so-called systemic sexism or racism when your policy is to not recruit white, asian or men that could fulfill the job precisely because of their race/sex.
You can however complain about systemic disadvantages conferred to women and people who aren't Caucasian and have a policy to prefer people who are women or not Caucasian. Especially if you think that these people would have a positive effect on your company.
Recruiting people that 'fit the job' leads to a mono-culture. Besides being unfair, this is bad for companies. It means you get collective blind-spots, collective hype-trains. Moreover, you reduce the effective hiring pool. Because, if you have a mono-culture then there is significant disruption to adding things outside the mono-culture. This reduction in the hiring pool means there is a lot of talent left on the table.
This means you hit a local maximum that is not a global one. Trying to move to the global maximum means moving away from the local maximum for a while.
> Moreover, you can’t complain about so-called systemic sexism or racism when your policy is to not recruit white, asian or men that could fulfill the job precisely because of their race/sex.
You can however complain about systemic disadvantages conferred to women and people who aren't Caucasian and have a policy to prefer people who are women or not Caucasian. Especially if you think that these people would have a positive effect on your company.
While we're at it, can we stop using the word Caucasian to talk about white people?[0] It's completely historically and factually inaccurate. Unless you're talking about Georgians, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Dagestanis, Chechens, etc.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples_of_the_Caucasus
[deleted]
> The real issue is that "diversity" had became a metrics to reach for its own sake by companies instead of simply recruiting people that fit the job.
Completely insane. I can't understand who came up with and spread it around with a straight face.
"hey we better hire predetermined % of <insert any group that is non-white-christian-men> otherwise we are bigots"
Truly remarkable how insane it is.
I haven't seen a single case where the people that ought to be employed are white Christian men.
Why is that so? Does nobody ask this question? Can it be coincidence that nobody, ever, ever raised an issue that not enough white Christian men were employed?
A lot of illogical and improbable things, and IMHO it's just not a coincidence. But I don't have good understanding on why it happens, though.
Completely insane. I can't understand who came up with and spread it around with a straight face.
"hey we better hire predetermined % of <insert any group that is non-white-christian-men> otherwise we are bigots"
Truly remarkable how insane it is.
I haven't seen a single case where the people that ought to be employed are white Christian men.
Why is that so? Does nobody ask this question? Can it be coincidence that nobody, ever, ever raised an issue that not enough white Christian men were employed?
A lot of illogical and improbable things, and IMHO it's just not a coincidence. But I don't have good understanding on why it happens, though.
I find it extremely ironic that those opposing discrimination and racism are now the ones to view people as just statistics. The whole reason why racism and sexism is bad is because it doesn't look at people as individuals.
Behind every person who goes to an interview there's whole life, and every interviewer has so much more information about that person than just her being a female or black. Pretending that by knowing only 1 piece of information, you know they made a mistake, when they clearly have so much more information than you, calling it bias or whatever, is insult to their intelligence. Who the hell are you to know they made a mistake, when you literally know nothing except one little piece of a giant puzzle?!
It also goes for women / black people who didn't choose a career in tech. There are people behind these decisions. They have freedom and free will. You can't just pretend that they are all stupid and don't know what's good for them.
Role model nonsense is even more absurd, because it already assumes things like women can't have men role models. You need to have the sexist mindset in the first place for this to even be a problem.
The whole diversity conversation reeks of so many self-contradictions and fighting windmills, but the defining feature is envy. envy for people who succeeded. and a deep need to excuse their failure with someone else.
Behind every person who goes to an interview there's whole life, and every interviewer has so much more information about that person than just her being a female or black. Pretending that by knowing only 1 piece of information, you know they made a mistake, when they clearly have so much more information than you, calling it bias or whatever, is insult to their intelligence. Who the hell are you to know they made a mistake, when you literally know nothing except one little piece of a giant puzzle?!
It also goes for women / black people who didn't choose a career in tech. There are people behind these decisions. They have freedom and free will. You can't just pretend that they are all stupid and don't know what's good for them.
Role model nonsense is even more absurd, because it already assumes things like women can't have men role models. You need to have the sexist mindset in the first place for this to even be a problem.
The whole diversity conversation reeks of so many self-contradictions and fighting windmills, but the defining feature is envy. envy for people who succeeded. and a deep need to excuse their failure with someone else.
This whole thing is ignorant to the point of being offensive.
> Role model nonsense is even more absurd, because it already assumes things like women can't have men role models. You need to have the sexist mindset in the first place for this to even be a problem.
I have felt this very acutely and it's offensive to assume I'm sexist just because I don't see people like me at the higher levels of the org, and struggle to figure out how to balance my identity with what the org wants as a result.
Women can have male role models, but it's not the same - there are behavioral expectations of men and women that are just different. A woman can't simply "act like a man" and get the same response, and saying that's a perfectly fine solution is quite ignorant. In any case you shouldn't have to give up your identity when that has nothing to do with what actually gets the work done.
When you enter a new workplace and realize that there is nobody like you there - especially in the higher ranks - you are fighting a very difficult battle. You aren't sure what behaviors get rewarded and which get you attacked. You get left out of the little friend groups and other opportunities for connection, and you feel like an outsider.
It's not about envy at all. It's about feeling seen, about feeling accepted and like you belong in the workplace. It's about getting the group that can do the best job, and that often means a diverse team, not a homogenous one.
> Role model nonsense is even more absurd, because it already assumes things like women can't have men role models. You need to have the sexist mindset in the first place for this to even be a problem.
I have felt this very acutely and it's offensive to assume I'm sexist just because I don't see people like me at the higher levels of the org, and struggle to figure out how to balance my identity with what the org wants as a result.
Women can have male role models, but it's not the same - there are behavioral expectations of men and women that are just different. A woman can't simply "act like a man" and get the same response, and saying that's a perfectly fine solution is quite ignorant. In any case you shouldn't have to give up your identity when that has nothing to do with what actually gets the work done.
When you enter a new workplace and realize that there is nobody like you there - especially in the higher ranks - you are fighting a very difficult battle. You aren't sure what behaviors get rewarded and which get you attacked. You get left out of the little friend groups and other opportunities for connection, and you feel like an outsider.
It's not about envy at all. It's about feeling seen, about feeling accepted and like you belong in the workplace. It's about getting the group that can do the best job, and that often means a diverse team, not a homogenous one.
So that's the only defining bit of personality? That you're a woman? What about your personality? Up-front / discrete? Introvert / extrovert? Mannered / rude? So many other traits? I'm pretty sure there are man with much more similar personality to you than just a random woman. You've just been brainwashed to have a single bit when judging people, by the same 'diversity' advocates. There is no one like you, and that is not a bad thing. There is no one like every other single person. You don't need someone like you to know you can succeed.
Carl Sagan wrote in his book The Demon-Haunted World about a kind of intellectual laziness.
"instead of judging people on their individual merits and deficits, we concentrate on one or two bits of information about them, and then place them in a small number of previously constructed pigeonholes. This saves the trouble of thinking, at the price in many cases of committing a profound injustice. It also shields the stereotyper from contact with the enormous variety of people, the multiplicity of ways of being human"
He talked about the issue of stereotyping in science and the harm this caused his field, but it can really be seen as an insight in why people so easy start to do it once the culture makes it acceptable. It is easier. It does save the trouble of thinking. Looking at people as individuals is hard, takes energy and is prone to come back and bite you. Much easier to just reduce people to single bits of information and follow what ever the cultural accepted stereotyping (ie discrimination) that the environment allow.
"instead of judging people on their individual merits and deficits, we concentrate on one or two bits of information about them, and then place them in a small number of previously constructed pigeonholes. This saves the trouble of thinking, at the price in many cases of committing a profound injustice. It also shields the stereotyper from contact with the enormous variety of people, the multiplicity of ways of being human"
He talked about the issue of stereotyping in science and the harm this caused his field, but it can really be seen as an insight in why people so easy start to do it once the culture makes it acceptable. It is easier. It does save the trouble of thinking. Looking at people as individuals is hard, takes energy and is prone to come back and bite you. Much easier to just reduce people to single bits of information and follow what ever the cultural accepted stereotyping (ie discrimination) that the environment allow.
> The whole reason why racism and sexism is bad is because it doesn't look at people as individuals.
No, that's not the reason. Senior/youth discount rates also doesn't look at individuals, and yet they're not generally seen as bad. The inherent moral nature of the discrimination itself is extremely important.
No, that's not the reason. Senior/youth discount rates also doesn't look at individuals, and yet they're not generally seen as bad. The inherent moral nature of the discrimination itself is extremely important.
> the defining feature is envy. envy for people who succeeded.
Unfortunately, that describes human nature in general.
Unfortunately, that describes human nature in general.
I've gotten used to the reeking smell of envy all my life. I was always encouraged by everyone to 'still be nice to them', to try to appease them, etc. It never, ever, and will never, work.
I've had enough of that and decided and realized that the best way to deal with envy, is to stick it to them. Hit them as hard as you can with the reality. Even when it hurts them. Hurt them with the facts of how much you're better and they suck.
You can't ever be accepted by those that envy you, the most you can get is that they stop using you to cope with their insecurities.
EDIT:
It's not about me thinking I'm successful, because I don't. It's about not giving envious people the positive feedback they desire so much from their corrupt behavior. It's about getting them so hurt they will never again consider coping with their insecurities by transference.
If you've never felt like you need to justify your 'success' (even tho you never felt like it is a big deal) to envious people in disguise you'll never understand. It is the most frustratingly impossible task. They can't and will never separate you as an individual from the negative emotion of envy they feel.
Unlike what it might sound, this isn't about me at all. I usually try to stay humble around normal non-envious people. But the best way to deal with envious people is to break their positive feedback loop. They need a strong negative feedback for their behavior so they don't repeat it.
I realize I will be hated by them. I also realize from so many different experiences being loved by them was never a possibility, and I am content with the small success of them dealing with their issues elsewhere.
I've had enough of that and decided and realized that the best way to deal with envy, is to stick it to them. Hit them as hard as you can with the reality. Even when it hurts them. Hurt them with the facts of how much you're better and they suck.
You can't ever be accepted by those that envy you, the most you can get is that they stop using you to cope with their insecurities.
EDIT:
It's not about me thinking I'm successful, because I don't. It's about not giving envious people the positive feedback they desire so much from their corrupt behavior. It's about getting them so hurt they will never again consider coping with their insecurities by transference.
If you've never felt like you need to justify your 'success' (even tho you never felt like it is a big deal) to envious people in disguise you'll never understand. It is the most frustratingly impossible task. They can't and will never separate you as an individual from the negative emotion of envy they feel.
Unlike what it might sound, this isn't about me at all. I usually try to stay humble around normal non-envious people. But the best way to deal with envious people is to break their positive feedback loop. They need a strong negative feedback for their behavior so they don't repeat it.
I realize I will be hated by them. I also realize from so many different experiences being loved by them was never a possibility, and I am content with the small success of them dealing with their issues elsewhere.
Just going out on a limb here, I may well be wrong, but you might want to consider asking around for better tools in this area. None of this sounds healthy. Or enviable, for that matter.
Or how about they hit you with the reality that most of success is luck? https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-rol...
> In general [in the simulation], mediocre-but-lucky people were much more successful than more-talented-but-unlucky individuals. The most successful agents tended to be those who were only slightly above average in talent but with a lot of luck in their lives.
But hey, even if you are literally Superman, we all love Superman because he goes around boasting how great he is and how much everyone else sucks, right?
> In general [in the simulation], mediocre-but-lucky people were much more successful than more-talented-but-unlucky individuals. The most successful agents tended to be those who were only slightly above average in talent but with a lot of luck in their lives.
But hey, even if you are literally Superman, we all love Superman because he goes around boasting how great he is and how much everyone else sucks, right?
It's not about me thinking I'm successful, because I don't. It's about not giving envious people the positive feedback they desire so much from their corrupt behavior. It's about getting them so hurt they will never again consider coping with their insecurities by transference.
If you've never felt like you need to justify your 'success' (even tho you never felt like it isn't a big deal) to envious people in disguise you'll never understand. It is the most frustratingly impossible task. They can't and will never separate you as an individual from the negative emotion of envy they feel.
If you've never felt like you need to justify your 'success' (even tho you never felt like it isn't a big deal) to envious people in disguise you'll never understand. It is the most frustratingly impossible task. They can't and will never separate you as an individual from the negative emotion of envy they feel.
I saw this going differently, in my mind. In my mind, when I started reading this comment, you were the envious one.
When I finished reading the comment, you still are, but with layers and ironies. Much less healthy layers.
When I finished reading the comment, you still are, but with layers and ironies. Much less healthy layers.
> Role model nonsense is even more absurd
As someone who moved from a post-socialist country to USA, I would like you to know there's a lot more to role model nonsense than meets the eye. And to environment in general.
My perspective on life, career, and success is completely than my girlfriend's. I grew up surrounded assuming that the only way to make more than $50k/year is to be a crook. She grew up in Palo Alto, making $X00k/year to her sounds like just a default. Successful people start the next ebay.
It took me years to overcome that. Without anyone discriminating against me at all. It was just me discriminating against myself by [subconsciously] thinking certain things just aren't possible.
Yes even though I had Bill Gates, James Watt, Edison, Tesla, and Oprah Winfrey as role models growing up. That was nice to dream but surely not achievable.
As someone who moved from a post-socialist country to USA, I would like you to know there's a lot more to role model nonsense than meets the eye. And to environment in general.
My perspective on life, career, and success is completely than my girlfriend's. I grew up surrounded assuming that the only way to make more than $50k/year is to be a crook. She grew up in Palo Alto, making $X00k/year to her sounds like just a default. Successful people start the next ebay.
It took me years to overcome that. Without anyone discriminating against me at all. It was just me discriminating against myself by [subconsciously] thinking certain things just aren't possible.
Yes even though I had Bill Gates, James Watt, Edison, Tesla, and Oprah Winfrey as role models growing up. That was nice to dream but surely not achievable.
There's also the weirdness of these equality crusaders defining what white males are doing as the norm, and as the world should be, and trying to make other groups more like white males in certain respects.
What if the rate at which women enter, say, CS, relative to other fields is actaully the "correct" rate, and the male population's numbers are inflated for some bad reason?
What if the rate at which women enter, say, CS, relative to other fields is actaully the "correct" rate, and the male population's numbers are inflated for some bad reason?
The article points that specific entry points into the field are more biased than others. If you stop gatekeeping on these biased entry points, you will end up with a much more diverse workforce that correctly represents this "correct rate" rather than the biases of the industry.
I'm not speaking specifically - clearly, sexism exists, and it has the effect of keeping some people away from a field who would otherwise join, or driving some people away from a field they would otherwise stay in. My point is that using white males as a baseline of the way the world should be is flawed.
Honestly for young children I wouldn't want any of the girls to become software engineers. Most Software Engineers including myself are friendly but also grumpy, nerdy and annoying, with poor communication skills and an unhealthy lifestyle. For some reason for men its OK because all they do is work, but for women I'd rather my daughters have more human contact and nicer environment - esp one without developers in it. Yeah its sexist when I write it down but that's how I'm sure a lot of parents feel, which is one reason why there aren't so many women at the entry to the pipeline.
One of the most effective ways to make devs less “grumpy nerdy and annoying” is to inject the dev community with voices that are different. There must be bottom-up pressure for there to be positive change.
I like it being needy and “annoying” (I actually enjoy awkward jokes and general asociality).
I've always said women are too smart to become programmers. I'm pretty sure it is better for the soul to have a job with more people interactions. (Yeah I know there are meetings and you have to communicate with clients - still, you end up staring into a glowing screen most of the time. The general work environment often isn't great either. Why would Software Engineers need a nice environment, they only stare at their computers anyway, seems to be the general thinking).
I get the sentiment, but reread your first sentence. "Women are too ___ to become ___." Doesn't that read as super condescending and prescriptive? I understand it's coming from ostensibly a good place, but it's the same thing as saying "all Asians are smart and good at math." It doesn't matter if the stereotype/prejudice/whatever you call it is "positive", it's still generalization, speaking for a group instead of letting them speak for themselves, and it's the wrong way to approach these things.
You're making assumptions about what "women" are good at or what "women" want or what "they" should do, when the fact is there is no such homogeneous category for you to speak about. Sure, some women are better at/enjoy more face-to-face type work. Some women are better at/enjoy programming/heads-down type work. A comic book artist probably spends as much time doing heads-down work as a programmer, but would you say female comic book artists should try doing some other career instead?
You're making assumptions about what "women" are good at or what "women" want or what "they" should do, when the fact is there is no such homogeneous category for you to speak about. Sure, some women are better at/enjoy more face-to-face type work. Some women are better at/enjoy programming/heads-down type work. A comic book artist probably spends as much time doing heads-down work as a programmer, but would you say female comic book artists should try doing some other career instead?
Women (or any other group) can't speak for themselves about properties of the group. Everybody is just an individual. Statements about groups can only be made by using statistics or at least observance of several members of the group.
If that sentence offends people, I don't know. It is obviously a joke (not implying the opposite, but of course smart people go into programming).
Also, I am sorry, but I am entitled to have an opinion on that matter. You are welcome to challenge my opinion, debate me, present alternate facts, whatever. But you (or anybody else) don't get to tell me that I am not allowed to have an opinion. That's a ground rule I am not willing to budge on. Nobody gets to tell me what to think, or to like.
The second reason (apart from being smart) is that women have more choices/options than men. This is actually well documented, but the article chooses to ignore it because it would spoil their pitch.
All these discussions, by the way, imply that women are stupid for not choosing engineering, and need to be convinced to choose it against their own judgement. Is that really better than my quip about them being too smart to choose it?
Edit: I seem to have overlooked the second part of your statement , or you added it later.
As I said, there are studies showing women have more options - they tend to have talent in multiple fields, and many men only in one. (That's for the studies). Women are also shown in studies to be perceived as more agreeable than men. Another reason they have options is that they have less need to make a good income. And the ultimate option is to have kids and drop out of work that is not entirely pleasant. I personally like Math, but even I find it difficult to voluntarily do Math. So I am not surprised if many people don't keep doing it, when they don't have to.
Also I think drawing cartoons is very different from being an engineer in a Software Company. You can work in cafes. You can stroll the city and draw sketches. You can do such things as a programmer, but it is not the norm - actually you can only make cartoons if you can afford that lifestyle, anyway.
And the bias is different. Employers have tried to put me into ugly rooms several times in my career (basements, windowless rooms, open plan offices). I think for creative work like drawing cartoons, people would be more ready to acknowledge that the artists need a nice environment to get inspiration.
Also, there is the prestige. Being an artist vs being a programmer. Or being a doctor vs being a programmer (70% of medicine graduates are women, but conveniently it doesn't count as STEM for some reason). There are glamor TV shows about being a doctor or a lawyer. How many shows are there glamorizing programming? It has only gained some prestige because some people famously got rich doing it.
If that sentence offends people, I don't know. It is obviously a joke (not implying the opposite, but of course smart people go into programming).
Also, I am sorry, but I am entitled to have an opinion on that matter. You are welcome to challenge my opinion, debate me, present alternate facts, whatever. But you (or anybody else) don't get to tell me that I am not allowed to have an opinion. That's a ground rule I am not willing to budge on. Nobody gets to tell me what to think, or to like.
The second reason (apart from being smart) is that women have more choices/options than men. This is actually well documented, but the article chooses to ignore it because it would spoil their pitch.
All these discussions, by the way, imply that women are stupid for not choosing engineering, and need to be convinced to choose it against their own judgement. Is that really better than my quip about them being too smart to choose it?
Edit: I seem to have overlooked the second part of your statement , or you added it later.
As I said, there are studies showing women have more options - they tend to have talent in multiple fields, and many men only in one. (That's for the studies). Women are also shown in studies to be perceived as more agreeable than men. Another reason they have options is that they have less need to make a good income. And the ultimate option is to have kids and drop out of work that is not entirely pleasant. I personally like Math, but even I find it difficult to voluntarily do Math. So I am not surprised if many people don't keep doing it, when they don't have to.
Also I think drawing cartoons is very different from being an engineer in a Software Company. You can work in cafes. You can stroll the city and draw sketches. You can do such things as a programmer, but it is not the norm - actually you can only make cartoons if you can afford that lifestyle, anyway.
And the bias is different. Employers have tried to put me into ugly rooms several times in my career (basements, windowless rooms, open plan offices). I think for creative work like drawing cartoons, people would be more ready to acknowledge that the artists need a nice environment to get inspiration.
Also, there is the prestige. Being an artist vs being a programmer. Or being a doctor vs being a programmer (70% of medicine graduates are women, but conveniently it doesn't count as STEM for some reason). There are glamor TV shows about being a doctor or a lawyer. How many shows are there glamorizing programming? It has only gained some prestige because some people famously got rich doing it.
Counterpoint: If not you, then who? Your daughters could be part of a cultural shift with respect to the tech workplace, so why discourage them?
Because you would sacrifice your kid's wellbeing just to make some arbitrary, meaningless statistic look good.
And do you think women having to work with computers all day would end up being less grumpy than men who have to do it? Why?
And do you think women having to work with computers all day would end up being less grumpy than men who have to do it? Why?
You misunderstood my comment. I said "why discourage them?", not "push them to become programmers". The parent I was responding to made it seem like he/she would want to actively steer their daughter away from programming because of the workplace conditions. But what if their daughter really likes software/tech? You don't want to push her to some other career just because of how you feel about it, she can decide for herself. Software work isn't a lost cause either, it just needs some sanity injected into it, it isn't coal mining or fracking after all.
Isn't the whole point of parenting to leverage our significantly larger base of life experience to steer our children away from potentially harmful (or at least sub-optimal) decisions somewhat induced by their own inexperience?
No, that would be helicopter parenting. A parents job is to teach the child how the world works and how to deal with its shortcomings using that bank of experience. Not to make decisions for them or shield them from risk at the expense of their adult life.
You can't "patch the bugs" in the life you lived by telling your child how to live, you just have to try to teach them so that they fully understand the situation and will make the "right" decision when the time comes. Sometimes they will have the information but still make the "wrong" decision, which is frustrating I imagine (no kids, but I've seen people do this). This is normal though because there are some things you can't explain to someone, they just need to experience it. How to love and be loved is the big one, but there are a lot of other smaller ones.
You can't "patch the bugs" in the life you lived by telling your child how to live, you just have to try to teach them so that they fully understand the situation and will make the "right" decision when the time comes. Sometimes they will have the information but still make the "wrong" decision, which is frustrating I imagine (no kids, but I've seen people do this). This is normal though because there are some things you can't explain to someone, they just need to experience it. How to love and be loved is the big one, but there are a lot of other smaller ones.
Am I the only one who sees the elephant in the room? 15-30 is the prime time when women make relationships and men make money. Software engineering needs full time commitmentent and no personal life is a part of the deal. Someone who learns programming only in college will be mediocre at best and FANG doesn't want to hire mediocricy. so women have a choice: go into programming and forget about personal life, because the money they earn by 35 won't help them, or choose personal life and have no time for programming.
There's also a cultural issue driving this that starts with programming gender and biases into kids at or before birth. It is driven, in part, by common confusions between gender, biological sex, and genitals. My partner and I didn't know what our child's genitalia was until 20+ minutes after birth. We witnessed so much unconscious (and conscious!) gendering from people throughout pregnancy and labor we decided to not share what's between our kid's legs with people. They only just turned one, so we're not sure about how this will affect them. We're doing a considerable amount of work to counter cultural programming in the hopes of raising an empowered person in such a traumatizing and disempowering world. We're planning on homeschooling them in order to focus on learning how to learn what they choose in an environment without bonds to capitalism to limit the impact of that hot mess of programming, too.
This is a collective issue and will generate pipeline issues until we collectively get our cultural programming shit together.
I think we need to collectively focus on modeling culture through the lenses of category theory and computer science, ie. maths of relationships and programming.
This is a collective issue and will generate pipeline issues until we collectively get our cultural programming shit together.
I think we need to collectively focus on modeling culture through the lenses of category theory and computer science, ie. maths of relationships and programming.
If the percentage of female computer science graduates (as a strong proxy for the available candidate population) is 18% (Google for the facts and stats), how is every company to hit an idealistic goal of 50% representation?
A while back, I did rough envelope calculations that if one of the major FAANG companies hit their diversity goal, there would be none left for any of the rest of them. Look at these percentages and you can see unsentimentally that this must be true.
Why do we place the blame and assign malice of intent to those who have little control over the constraints? If we put actual performance metrics and pay on the line for achieving these physically unattainable goals, everyone would be fired.