Comment by JamesBarney | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JamesBarney | Hacker News Reader

I think that diversity is an important goal that we should strive for in tech. I also loved that the author included actionable advice we can all take to improve the impact of our female colleagues.

But I didn't like how the article bounces around a lot citing different studies without explaining why each study is relevant. For instance the first citation about how the #1 reason women leave their jobs is lack of career advancement opportunities. Well from that study(a linked in survey) the #1 reason men left their jobs was the same reason. The big difference between the 2 was men were much less likely to cite culture as a reason for switching jobs.

Then later cites a study showing how Latina women are paid less than white men. Which seems like a weird comparison, maybe the author had a good reason, but she doesn't explain why Latina women vs white men is the appropriate comparison and not all men vs women, or Latina women vs Latino men.(I suspect was this was the way to find the greatest discrepancy because Latino men were the most underpaid of anyone except Latina women.)

These strange comparisons and citations are pretty common in the article and set off my alarm bells that the author is using studies more for support than illumination.

And while most of us agree we need to get more women into tech (not just for women's sake but because I think it would benefit tech greatly). And precisely because it's important we need to be careful that we spend time, money and effort in the right places on the right things, and don't jump to conclusions blowing it on interventions that aren't impactful.

This was basically my read of it as well, I actually stopped reading right after the latina woman vs white male comparison for the very reasons you laid out.

"The big difference between the 2 was men were much less likely to cite culture as a reason for switching jobs."

That makes sense to me. Bad culture is more damaging to people who have bias against them - or just those who "think" there might be bias against them so they leave proactively (even when there is no bias).

As in, most workplaces are not sexist, but the workplaces who are sexist will have more women then men leaving because of culture. Bias in tech is against women, not against men (I would assume it to be opposite in traditionally female fields.)

Yes. Women leaving the teaching profession is also less likely to cite culture as a reason for switching jobs, which is commonly the case for work places which is dominated >60% of a single gender. Work culture in such places incorporate parts of gender identity and those of a different gender either has to assimilate to that culture or be forced to leave, a fact noted in a report by Swedish institute for higher education, published a few years ago.

It is very hard to find the right place to straddle the line of interpreting and explaining the sources for your reader, but not sounding condescending. The author, in this case, likely chose a tone she thought would resonate with male engineering managers best, and it's really hard to fault her for that. The author is an engineer after all, not a professional writer, and the article is not less trustworthy because of that.

While I would normally be fast to offer advice to the author on how to improve the tone and resonate with the reader more, in this case, this article is not something which needs to be written in an engaging, interesting way - it is just a collection of data, presented in an accessible manner. It encourages the reader to change their opinion in a Bayesian manner and use the sources, not just blindly follow the author.

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