I’m An Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader And I’m Sick Of Our Approach To Diversity!

[Sunseeker]

Yes, we need more women to want to enter the field at all in order for them to get hired up. But it's not like women are discouraged from the tech industry just at the hiring level. The bias against women in tech settings exists at almost every level and in every tech-based community. Just look at how women get treated in gaming circles.

You can encourage people to enter the field by favoring them in hiring...but it's a slow process because of how long it takes to go from "training" to "hired". So even if there was a huge, industry-wide push to get more women hired now, we wouldn't see their numbers in the pool increase for 3-5 years, or more.

[Phookah]

One chick isn't going to sway the mind of anybody on here. I don't have a single problem with tech jobs being 100% men and nursing jobs being 100% women. But people don't like that because diversity is super important for no reason other than to make people feel good they helped a minority.

Or you know, the intent is to get people who normally aren't traditionally considered for a certain field of work the ability to get said work.

It's pretty disingenuous to act like everyone promoting diversity is just doing it for the sake of having a of rainbow of people and not actually hiring said people based on qualifications.

[Video Games]

Or you know, the intent is to get people who normally aren't traditionally considered for a certain field of work the ability to get said work.

It's pretty disingenuous to act like everyone promoting diversity is just doing it for the sake of having a of rainbow of people and not actually hiring said people based on qualifications.

They aren't considered because women tend to not do stem fields nor should I think that we should feel the need to. Men and women do their own things and it's been fine the last 30 years.

[Phookah]

I always wonder what someone would say to a man "discouraged from the tech field" because someone was mean to them.

Being discriminated against based on your sex is now someone "just being mean to them".

[Phookah]

They aren't considered because women tend to not do stem fields nor should I think that we should feel the need to. Men and women do their own things and it's been fine the last 30 years.

That's great, I really enjoyed your personal opinion on where you think men and women belong/don't belong.

(?)

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I like the presumption of "discrimination" here.

It must be, because outcomes are proof of discrimination, right? And nothing else, nothing else at all.

Are you saying that women in the tech industry aren't at a basic disadvantage due to being women?

[Video Games]

That's great, I really enjoyed your personal opinion on where you think men and women belong/don't belong.

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Are you saying that women in the tech industry aren't at a basic disadvantage due to being women?

Nobody said don't belong. Don't get mad at me because we're biologically programmed to excel at different professions.

[Deleted]

Are you saying that women in the tech industry aren't at a basic disadvantage due to being women?

Yes, they have zero disadvantage due to being women.

[Phookah]

Nobody said don't belong. Don't get mad at me because we're biologically programmed to excel at different professions.

The fact that you think basic things like "biology" should dictate how humans live for all time is a giggle worthy one, thanks.

Good thing people who actually get things done didn't, or we'd probably be still whacking our neighbors wife in the head with a rock and dragging her to the cave.

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Yes, they have zero disadvantage due to being women.

Sure thing

[Video Games]

The fact that you think basic things like "biology" should dictate how humans live for all time is a giggle worthy one, thanks.

Good thing people who actually get things done didn't, or we'd probably be still whacking our neighbors wife in the head with a rock and dragging her to the cave.

Except I don't. Men are better at math and women are better at language. Why would you not take advantage of that? Take your progressive lens off and realize we aren't mentally built the same. You can do what you want but don't get mad if somebody is better than you at it.

[Deleted]

Sure thing

Tell me exactly, What disadvantages does a Woman have when applying for STEM jobs?

[Shkar]

I'm surprised I never see people mention the idea of different backgrounds having similar role models in a field as a valid reason for diversity. Is it just not thought of, or do the people that think of it just dismiss it? I mean, there aren't exactly a ton of well-known female scientists.

While it has certainly toned down (I believe), there are still teachers out there that believe women can't do math. There are still accounts of women being told to give it up, or not to pursue it. Taking it to the extreme for argument's sake, do you really want 50% of the people who might go on to cure disease, have a scientific breakthrough, or design the next top-selling game to never go into the field because they were heavily discouraged early on? How many people 10-20 years ago would have laughed at a black child dreaming about being president some day?

I haven't seen any statistics on this before, and I'm a white male so this might not actually be a large factor, but I could imagine it being very discouraging. And no, forcing someone to hire a radically inferior applicant is not the solution. If they are within spitting difference of each other though, there is something to be said for breaking convention.

[Rennadrel]

Forcing diversity down the throats of workers is the best way to create a toxic environment

[Deleted]

My freshman Computer Software courses had 4 women. When we graduated 2 had switched majors. They need to be started at a younger age and encouraged, but not forced.

Why should women be encouraged any more than Men? Let people chose their own fucking careers and don't chastise people when the results turn out how they do.

[Video Games]

My freshman Computer Software courses had 4 women. When we graduated 2 had switched majors. They need to be started at a younger age and encouraged, but not forced.

However our school was about equal representation for men to women.

We also had a nursing program, can you guess the men to women ratio in those classes?

There is nothing wrong with that. We tend to go towards the arts and humanitarians and boys tend to stick to stem. That's how it's been for a very long time and considering our technology leap I don't see why it has to change.

[Deleted]

Because men or boys are already encouraged. It's the social construct of western society, boys get GI Joe and girls get Barbie. Boys get mechanical toy cars for their gi joes and girls get doll houses.

I think boys should also be pushed toward more traditional female roles. When i was in the hospital for over a month the best nurses were the two guys. They took care of me, where always upbeat, and even cheered me up when I got in a funk.

Or how about this. Let the Boys and Girls PICK what they want and not push people towards things they don't want?

[Polyxo]

People are often hired to fill requirements for diversity, all over the place.

It's not insane, not at first. sometimes the hires are fine, and people fit in. but it's tougher and if they don't have the skillset or experience, it's worse for everyone.

management has to deal with the fallout and repercussions regardless. And i guess it's doubly meaningless since diversity hires that come through pad out their resumes with references and experience so they can get jobs elsewhere, while the fallout hits the rest of the workforce and leaves a bad impression with the others in the company/business as to the management's competence / motives.


The argument people want to make is that the hire process is hindering women because they don't get through the interview process as women candidates, because of stereotyped or behavioral /perceptual norms that women aren't capable, or have other subliminal biases.



That could be true. Maybe. You can pretty quickly see that there's a slight chance, but it relies on the same kind of kitsch argument that if you have lousy management or interviewers, then women can't get past the resume or interview wall.

Just like most people firing off hundreds of resumes these days, if you can't get past their biases, you're not getting in the door, let alone the job.

So hiring and PR companies attempted to correct after bad PR, and in the 2000s, brought more women into the HR pools to review and interview. And, that didn't work. So, they built blind review and interview systems where people did open tests or tried to separate the management or review candidates into test rounds and skipped women through the review stages so they'd be put up against filtered candidates who had passed those tests, blanked out names in candidate pools, etc.

There's also a few infamous examples of candidates who changed their names to be more anglicised to get interviews. many examples exist, even a few included in freakonomics,

The famous symphony curtain example (it must be the only positive one available since i hear it every year), or Fortune, http://fortune.com/2016/06/08/name-bias-in-hiring/ sic. And UBT, training people out of habits or behaviors through essentially, brainwashing to move the dial 2% or 1% in a more diverse way.



However, 20 years later, the stereotypes are going the other way.

The Australian Public Service made this handy animated video with their free time ... on how actual people in 2017, i.e. Current Year, performed against blind testing.



i.e. It didn't go well for the feminist arguments of subliminal bias.



there was a clear 3% pro-women in the management sample and a 7-8% bias for pro-ethnic names in the candidate pool.

As for Vidya Narayanan, there's very likely an impossible disparity to overcome because women aren't disposed to technology. As much as i'd want to champion or believe in the whole "Women in Tech" parade,

the candidates are predisposed, people will choose women when they apply, teams are willing to train on the job, or even handicap their team in order to fill diversity quotas or extend training out to a whole team so that the new hire can catch up. but it's still going to be 3 people out of 200. or 8 if they relax the standards and let any women in. The numbers are minimal. And telling.

I don't buy the misogyny angle, just because i've gone to 10+ coed schools and colleges, universities, and girls want different things once they get into college/university. This might change, as while programming is stupidly easier than when i was growing up in the 90s, I've been in 5 different university courses with a co-ed group makeup, it was never higher than 4% except in games design where it was 16% depending on who turned up out of ~100 students.

You could setup "preschool programming gulags" and develop "Kindy Kreatives" "Girl Game Jams", it won't push women in. It can help those that are predisposed, but it's not going to keep people around for long.

There's some of that. There's also the fact that from the beginning, CS is a generally pretty hostile field for women compared to others. If you're a woman in CS, you're going to have to deal with a significant amount of creepers, and a significant amount of people in the field who look down on you specifically because you're a woman, and will resent your presence there (and really resent it if you're in a leadership position). This kind of sorts out a lot of female candidates at the college level in the first couple of years. Going through my degree, I know a number of other girls who did fantastic in classes, and switched majors anyway because it wasn't worth it dealing with the in-class politics and the creepers.

[Video Games]

Because since I joined the field I found women every bit as capable. I never said forced, but give them the option and if they want to play with legos or a raspberry pi board then promote their curiosity that's all.

It's cool if they want to do that, but we usually don't. All I was taught growing up is I can do whatever I want and my only dream was to not be homeless; with varying degrees of success. Let us girls choose what we want instead of trying to entice us with stuff we might struggle with or might not end up being happy with. There are many studies indicating women don't want long hour jobs and that is what stem field jobs usually entail.

[Deleted]

So when you go to the store to buy a surprised gift what do you get a girl and what do get a boy? Why people are offended by encourage girls odd. I'm not saying to discourage boys. Encouraging kids is a good thing if it promotes learning and understanding.

Find out what they like? Also here is a hint. For Toys there is literally no such thing as "boys toys" anymore, they are marketed all as Unisex and then girls toys.

[Spacewalrus2010]

Sigh. As a mathematician this makes me sad.

I am greatly confused as to why this is considered bad math. Care to explain please?

Not saying I am great at math or even agree with the statement...I'm just confused as to what you are getting at here?

[Post]

Most logical people have this opinion, which is why it's weird to see Google so much against it.