Listen to Her: Gender on This American Life (2017) | Hacker News Reader

Listen to Her: Gender on This American Life (2017)

pudding.cool

36 pointsRaj7k74 comments

I consider myself a feminist and progressive, but utterances like this sort of test my wokeness and make me feel weary.

>The fact that our mostly female staff and I have created a show where most of the voices are men is interesting and, frankly, disturbing.

It's disturbing that your female staff doesn't produce content in the way you want? What am I supposed to take away from this?

I think the lesson is that just like any other goal, if you want to get a certain result you have to actually keep track of how well you're doing and look for ways to do better. You can't just be "not sexist" and hope everything works out because you're so woke.

Metrics are useful, Goodhart's law notwithstanding.

Blind leading the blind without metrics.

Yes, couldn't agree more. Apart from it is also important for women to come ahead and take the ownership and intiative to solve such issues.

Also an interesting question; does this mean we can rule out sexism as a contributing factor to men getting more airtime?

It appears unlikely that a mostly female staff is suffering from delusions of female incompetence. There are many reasons a system might be biased that are not attributed to prejudice.

No, because there's a competing hypothesis: women can be sexist too.

I really wish we could get away from "sexist/not-sexist", "racist/not-racist", "bigoted/not-bigoted" binaries. Every human is prejudiced -- we're designed that way by evolution.

Or that women can be sexist too. That they can pick up the unconscious bias towards men inherent in much of our society and apply it as easily as any man can.

I’m confused by your confusion. Glass assumed him and his staff, which is mostly female, would produce more shows that gave more voices to women. They did not. That means they are part of the problem (having listened to the show for over a decade, I’m confident him and his staff do consider it a problem), which is always disturbing to realize.

How is it surprising (let alone disturbing) that women and men employed in the same capacity at the same company produce the same results? That's what I'm still not getting. Why would it be reasonable to assume that a man will perform differently than a woman in the same role (let alone to be so certain of this to a degree that evidence to the contrary is "disturbing")?

Demographics which are not represented do not have their stories told and their interests and priorities are not included in the prevailing narrative. While it is perfectly possible for people to empathize with others who are different, it takes effort and it's easy to understand why it doesn't always happen.

Because it is a sexist outcome: significantly more men have a voice (literally!) in a general interest radio show where just about any story is fair game. It is surprising because the show is largely made by woman. I imagine it is disturbing for Glass because I assume he felt him and his staff were immune to a sexist outcome.

I think it's important to think about the trends and averages in the broader society before levying accusations of sexism. If a bank's male customers have higher average account balances than the average woman that holds an account, is it fair to call the bank sexist? If a publishing company hires mostly female publishers is it a sexist company? I'd argue no in both cases. In both scenarios the disparate outcome likely stems from broader trends in society - higher incomes among men, higher readership among women. It's entirely possible and definitely worth discussing whether these trends are influenced by sexism - but that very different than calling our hypothetical bank or publishing company. An organization or process is sexist if it exerts unequal treatment on the basis of gender. It's entirely possible for a completely unbiased process to create an outcome with gender disparities.

This American Life isn't one of the primary NPR podcasts to which I listen, but if it follows the trend of other NPR podcasts it probably draws more heavily on subject matter experts (e.g. university professors) and leadership positions in private enterprises than the rest of the population. These occupations, at least the latter, are disproportionately occupied by men. One could argue that the bias towards subject matter experts is sexist, but that seems fairly weak and indirect unless it can be demonstrated that the choice of interviewing these people is motivated by a desire to interview more men than women. One could also argue that the podcast should stop its focus on subject matter experts - but that would fundamentally change the nature of the podcast, essentially making it a different product.

Without changing the product fundamentally, they can also do things such as seek out perspectives from e.g. female professors who are less-frequently interviewed and less famous than their male colleagues yet are still authorities and entertaining guests.

In fact, that's possibly the next move for TAL in the wake of this study: asking themselves, why is our staff choosing the guests that we are and what opportunities do we have to go afield and find someone fresh?

I listen to the show a fair amount. It tends toward the "human interest" side rather than "expert interview" side. In other words, the format doesn't seem to me to have a lot of in-built preference for subject matter experts who might tend to be men for reasons beyond the show's control.

I don't think that it's at all surprising. We do, after all, live in an extremely sexist society. In order to achieve gender balance, staff would need to be sexist, in the sense of favoring underrepresented female voices. And that would be a good thing.

Maybe each of those women isn’t ‘part of the problem’ so much as constrained by external forces. How many female interviewees are left on the cutting room floor? How many female contributors’ stories are denied for not having mass appeal? If Ira and the other senior leaders set the example that a successful story features mainly men, then his staff will follow that lead.

I can’t count the number of times my male bosses have told me that I need to act like a (white) male in order to get ahead. If I play by their rules, am I part of the problem, or am I the rare woman who’s successful in tech? Sometimes it’s about fighting for change when and where you can, and about playing the long game in cases where you can’t make a difference.

I think we all need to meet in the middle. Men acting more like women and women acting more like men. I guess the question is where exactly is "the middle"?

As an ally, I think this post is pretty interesting in terms of the efficacy of programs which increase inclusion and their projected impact along a variety of metrics.

I despair at having a decent conversation about it on HN, though. :(

I'm a woman.

FWIW, when I have been on email lists where the population was mostly female, men still dominated the conversation.

The dirty little secret is that an awful lot of women reinforce the male dominant status quo. Women often aligned themselves with the dominant male voice on the list and gave anyone hell who dared stand up to him. This often meant I was a target of such behavior.

So, the data from the story and your both hypothesis suggest that parity in representation alone won't in and of itself result in parity along other axes, like proportion of airtime. And thus, other initiatives would be required to move the needle on those other axes.

This comports with what we already know about the importance of female role models.

I don't think role models are enough. I think women need stronger rights.

I'm not sure what that would look like. But I think there is a power issue here with very deep roots, such deep roots that merely letting women get paid jobs doesn't fix it per se.

I'm frankly tired of my incredibly broken life. I'm feeling like all this shit is just unfixable.

Progress comes after burning out one generation of idealists after another. It won't be "fixed" in your lifetime or mine, but it's getting better.

> I don't think role models are enough. I think women need stronger rights.

Absolutely. Proportionate representation, stronger rights, role models, and more. (And that, awakeasleep, is the takeaway of the article.)

I'm not an idealist. But I'm pretty damn burned out at the moment.

I hear you. It's natural to feel that way. You've made some memorable posts, though -- in a forum where ideas are contended, rather than an echo chamber. Thank you.

What stronger rights do you think would move the needle in this kind of situation?

Organizations are filled with people that support its power structure even when the people in power do things that are counter to the organization's goals or mission.

The needle will probably only be moved by organizations that support diversity and are able to out-perform others.

Completely agreed, however, that doesn't answer my question.

I'm still trying to educate myself about what stronger rights are missing that would make a difference in the parity along the various axes discussed above.

When I was in my twenties, I did a lot of reading to try to understand where my life went so very wrong. My takeaway from all that reading:

European women sought societal support to help ease the burden of being child-bearers and child-rearers. In contrast, American women seem to have taken the traditional American political position of "Don't tread on me!" European women have generally done a better job of closing the wage gap.

The US is the only developed country on the planet with no national maternity leave, as just one example.

So you might start there in looking for stuff to read, though my kids are grown and I'm post menopausal, so that is largely irrelevant to my life currently and fails to fully explain my personal frustrations.

Thanks for sharing.

Anything that chips away at the power asymmetry that organizations have over individuals would make a positive difference. Universal health care and reproductive rights seem like good candidates.

It's slower than any of us like. But "merely letting women get paid jobs" - there is nothing mere about the independence that that slowly brings with it - at all levels of society.

I'm a former homemaker. Overall, I've had a better life in many ways than many women. I am often hated on by other women, probably because of that.

The reality is that in many heterosexual relationships, her job mostly relieves him of traditional male responsibilities. In most cases, even if he's currently unemployed, she comes home and cooks and cleans.

Trying to make the transition to a real career post divorce has been very long and hard and feels mostly fruitless. I appear to be the highest ranked woman on HN. I appear to be the only woman to have ever spent time on the leaderboard (under a different handle). No, that in no way seems to open doors for me of a sort that lead to better income.

I've accomplished many things that are pretty unique. I get zero credit for it. I get nothing but pissed all over for even trying to state what my accomplishments are.

I know there are a lot of factors, such as the fact that I'm medically handicapped. But so was Stephen Hawking. He had public recognition and a real career.

I can't seem to find a solution and I'm tired. I just want out of this prison.

I'm tired of this shit. And I'm very much at a point where I feel the crux of the issue is my gender and it will simply never be fixed because of that and I very much resent it.

Money grows out of power. Not the other way around. Women mostly don't have real power. That fact seems unyielding.

In patriarchal societies, men stay fundamentally united while women compete against one another in a divided fashion. Important to not allow our differences and "competitive" advantages to be used as proxies for creating perpetual division.

But also, depends on circumstance. Don't have to see gender as being a problem unless you want to. Anything can be used against you for anything that can be used for you. That's both sides of everything. Nothing is ever an advantage, especially when being united (especially in technology!!!) is more advantageous than all the knowledge you could have access to.

I'm a software developer, female.

I've always valued your voice on HN. Sorry that you're disheartened. I have no answers either.

Yes, I hear that a lot: that I am valued. But it mostly doesn't translate to money. It mostly doesn't translate to Patreon supporters, tips, people hiring me to do paid writing, people hiring me to do resume work.

I need $150 to be okay-ish the rest of this month. It's not a huge sum. I'm failing to come up with it.

And any time I bitch about my financial problems, I'm told to basically shut up about it. Anytime I say sexism is part of why I remain poor, I'm told I'm wrong.

Etc. Ad nauseum.

I think I'm a contributor. When men contribute here, it eventually translates into money. But it mostly doesn't for me. And it seems to make zero difference how I try to approach that problem. It remains unbudging.

Edit: to be clear, the whole "I'm looking at starving for five days next week in spite of X, Y and Z accomplishments" is the crux of why I feel so negative at the moment.

Hey, I emailed you.

Is stronger relative or comparative? What do you think should be on the table for discussion?

I've already said I don't know what that would look like. I have no recommendations for what should be on the table.

I just feel strongly that women are missing some important detail and that detail is about power per se.

Yep, this rings true for many women whose careers I’ve been able to watch. Can’t say I have it figured out, but my instinct agrees with yours.

Is it that men won’t allow women in the circle due to pride? Or perhaps the only place men give women any kind of full power is within romantic relationships? Or maybe men don’t trust women to help them save face and even nurture them after a power struggle is lost (I think men sort of do this for each other)? I have no idea, but I want to see some brainstorming on it from smart people!

I used to blog about my thoughts on the subject. Those posts sometimes did okay here, though I recently took that blog offline.

I think a very large piece of it is that when hetero men are sociable to further their careers ("networking"), everyone is clear what the purpose is. When a man and a woman try to build those same bonds, it rapidly becomes problematic.

I think in a nutshell, most men are hesitant to talk overly much with a woman they aren't looking to sleep with because they don't want her, their wife or other people to get the wrong idea.

I find that most men don't really want to engage me in discussion unless they are hitting on me. When I try to engage them, they frequently misinterpret it as romantic interest.

I don't think most men are intentionally trying to exclude women, though some surely do. I think most men are just trying to avoid scandal of a sort that could ruin their own careers.

I don't have a ready solution.

Isn't the problem you're mentioning pervasive across and regardless of genders though?

When a woman is networking with a man - akin to a man networking with a woman - the intent of "looking to sleep with" can and most probably will be derived from it in the same way, instinctively. When women are networking between each others, everyone is also clear what the purpose is, professional only, akin to when men are networking between each other.

There seems to be many other factors at play behind that "social understanding" for lack of a better term. I suppose one of them being the fact that the """norm""" in relationships being that of an heterosexual one, therefore leading to the unconscious acceptance that same gender people networking together is only professional, whereas two people of different gender might have another layer of intent behind it?

The only difference being that there are more men in high seniority position than women, therefore leading to a context where women need to network with men more than the reverse.

> Isn't the problem you're mentioning pervasive across and regardless of genders though?

No; in short, because patriarchy.

> When a woman is networking with a man - akin to a man networking with a woman - the intent of "looking to sleep with" can and most probably will be derived from it in the same way, instinctively.

No, this works quite differently by gender; a man is both less likely to need to seek professional connections with women to advance a career, and less likely to be seen as providing a sexual conquest opportunity each time he does so.

> When women are networking between each others, everyone is also clear what the purpose is, professional only, akin to when men are networking between each other.

I disagree that same gender networking is either actually or in perception purely professional, even when there is no sexual charge (which can be present though it's less likely than in opposite gender networking; not everyone is either heterosexual or keeping an iron wall between sex and professional life), or that the distribution and nature of non-professional ancillary dynamics are the same for one gender as the otherp; men and women are socialized to engage even in same gender social relationships differently (and there may be inherent/biological differences that are correlated with sex/gender that have an effect even aside from differential socialization.)

The only difference being that there are more men in high seniority position than women

Even if that were the only difference, that's a really huge difference that de facto closes a lot of doors for women.

> The dirty little secret is that an awful lot of women reinforce the male dominant status quo.

See also the white female Trump vote dynamic, when they could have elected a white woman.

But I say that somewhat facetiously because there's nothing special about that. A similar dynamic exists anywhere identities, privilege, disadvantage, and circumstance don't neatly align.

When the white woman vote is brought up, I often say, "I bet there's a pretty stark divide between white women married to white men versus all other white women".

Identity can't be deconstructed in neat little linear slices. And bias isn't just something oppressors do to the opposed -- it's systemic and universal. We're mostly all in this together, even though we gain from or suffer the consequences in different ways.

I question the unspoken assumption that there should be an equitable split of male and female voices on the program. An alternative hypothesis is that the most interesting people skew male, or at least the ones willing to talk into a microphone. You have to at least consider this hypothesis before jumping to the conclusion of bias in the reporting.

It seems like you're using "interesting" as an absolute metric, which I think is highly dubious for an aesthetic quality.

Another explanation is that interviewing people in positions of authority is unavoidable and those people are disproportionately male at present. But the point of this article is that they looked at the data and it didn't reveal what they expected.

I didn't really mean to use the word that way. I mean more in the sense of "serving This American Life's storytelling goals". The best of their programs are very thought-provoking, and I'll end up thinking about them long after the show is over. I don't think I could articulate what TAL's goals are exactly, but I do find some of them "interesting", and that's what I hope for when I tune in.

I meant the word to encompass a lot of different qualities. For instance if a story is told better with a first hand account of an authority, then that authority is of interest to the story, and hence that authority is interesting (as he or she relates to the story).

Isn't it one of the great assumptions of our age that everyone is "equal" and ought be proportionally represented in every endeavor? And that inequitable representation is evidence of a moral or actual crime against the under represented? (At least in cases when an official oppressor class is over represented and an official victim class is under represented. And also when participating in the endeavor is desirable.)

Well, everyone is "equal" in value as a human being, but it is incorrect to say that everyone is equal in talent or potential.

Take the Olympics for example. Different body types, genetically predetermined before birth, will give certain people advantages in one sport, but disadvantages in other sports. Tall people have a huge advantage in volleyball, basketball, etc, but not soccer. Kenyans have an advantage at long distance running, but I doubt they are a common sight in the powerlifting arena. Want to climb Mt Everest? More than likely, a Sherpa would go with you, because they have unique physical qualifications.

There's nothing inherently "better" about all these people, but they do happen to have an inherent advantage when it comes to performing specific tasks.

The argument that all people ought to be proportionally represented in every endeavor ignores the basic fact that people have distinctly different skill sets based on their genetic makeup.

No, of course not, to both questions. All people should be treated equitably under the law, and we decided it’s illegal to discriminate along a very small number of dimensions for the essentials of life: employment and housing. But people are not equal at all. Some people are better tenants or employees than others, and it’s ethical to discriminate along those lines. And, yes, some people are better interviewees, too.

Good points all. Some people are more disciplined, motivated, and responsible than others and that should be rewarded.

Meh, I don't know what to make of this. I don't think equal proportion of gender talking is a meaningful goal, and the more I think about it the less sense it makes to me.

I think about it and start to ask should all shows need to be gender-balanced? Should then The View need to be 50% male? Oprah? Should we strive for an equal proportion of races in all shows? What about non-Americans, should they be represented proportionally?

I think the best way to answer this question is to listen to what those who are currently underrepresented have to say about it.

I don't understand. Do you mean "listen to" as in "hear the opinion of" or as in "obey"?

"hear the opinion of" would be the normal interpretation (US English), especially when "listen to" is followed by "what [they] have to say about it". I struggle to understand in what context "obey" would make sense.

"listen to" is commonly used as a form of follow/obey in vernacular English. "Listen to Bob, he knows what he is doing." At minimum it frequently connotes more than just listening.

Good point. That is a different context I hadn't thought of.

What do they say about that

I agree. A related anecdote - I was on another forum filled with mostly uber-progressive white people. The topic of racism came up (origins, impact, how to combat, etc) and there were no shortage of passionate posts. Then, one person of color came on the board and described his real world experience, which didn't really sync up with the narrative the rest of the board had glommed onto.

So, did all of these uber-progressive white folks re-think their positions and use this as an opportunity for a bit of enlightenment? Not so much. They proceeded to discount this person's actual experiences, demean them, accuse them of being racist themselves, and actually got them banned from the forum. And of course patted themselves on the back for their valiant fight against racism.

Heh. I have also seen that.

Sharing power means actually ceding power and trusting that it will work out on average. Listening doesn't mean "talking".

So, this is a fascinating article and I greatly appreciate the time that went into it. I also appreciate that Ira Glass was not immediately defensive about it, and seems to have cooperated with it to at least some degree. But... isn't the most obvious answer, that it's male dominated because the Boss is a male? I'm not saying that I have proof of this being the case, but it seems like an obvious hypothesis to check out. Too simple? Or are there no comparable shows where a woman is the Top Boss, to compare to?

they could do a comparison with Fresh Air, hosted by Terry Gross on NPR

It's not really the same kind of show. Fresh Air mostly consists of Gross interviewing a single interviewee.

True, but over many years. It would be interesting to see if the pattern is different (or maybe even more interesting if the pattern is the same).

There is something weird about the percentage dialog - contributors graph. The line doesn't look like it goes through the points.

yeah, that one seems off, and the interviewees one looks like a regression line should be flatter

> To figure out how much airtime is divided between men and women, we pulled the show's transcripts and categorized the gender of every person who speaks.

It sounds difficult to figure out the gender of the speakers from their voice. They probably made some assumptions.

Transcripts are annotated text documents usually written by professional staff.

An example: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/474/transcript

This helps how?

Really? You can't imagine how knowing who is speaking would help identify the gender of who is speaking?

That could be -- there are more people whose genders are not as they seem than most realize. But they're surely not going on voice alone but also name, in-person impression based on appearance and so on.

I once made a gender survey of several hundred people going by names, falling back to pictures in LinkedIn profiles, falling back to pronouns in forum posts referring to the person in question by people who ought to know. I assume the results were not perfect -- but they were probably good enough to be useful. (The result was 95+% male, which was enough to prove a point.)

"Any sufficiently advanced sarcasm is indistinguishable from sincerity."

I'm gonna have to start adding sarcasm tags.

They didn't just rely on voice. They assigned gender based on names. And names for those with various sexuality and gender transformations can be ambiguous. Maybe male vs female is just too limiting a distinction.

>> transcripts

> voice

Transcripts have written names, which can help. It also seems they used written words and not spoken words.

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