I have yet to be told why it is important for there to be as many women in STEM as men apart from statements that I'm sexist for not knowing
I was a full-time wife and mom for a lot of years. I don't self identify as a feminist. But, post divorce, I've found that sexism has been a real issue in establishing an adequate income to support myself and my sons.
So I think society still has work to do. It's very problematic to deny people a means to support themselves and then act like their poverty is due to laziness or the like. That kind of "fuck you" has been known to foment bloody revolution.
Hell, when I started my career--as a single father--I had no experience beyond what I'd done learning how to program on my own ... and I still had relatively few questions asked beyond me proving in an interview that I knew what I was talking about.
In all the years I worked there, I met only one person who knew what GIS was without me having to explain it. He was a senior programmer in the department I wanted a job in.
He asked me for a date, thereby making it vastly less likely that I would be able to work there (in his department).
I'm sure he stopped to think about whether or not it would tank his career to date me. No, it wouldn't.
I'm equally sure he didn't bother to wonder how the question would impact my future at the company.
(I'm sure he also never wondered what my educational background might do for the company. I imagine he would have wondered if I could do something for his department if he hadn't been thinking of me as a sex object.)
I also appear to be the only woman to have ever spent time on the leader board of HN. Over the course of nine+ years, I've established exactly one useful contact through HN.
I've been endlessly mocked for thinking I could use HN to network and put up with endless crap that I don't really want to get into.
A piece of my writing hit the front page in January. It got more than 60k page views.
This did not result in a single tip or new Patreon supporter.
Instead, someone wrote me around the same time about a two month old comment where I talked about being suicidal over the sexism I face on HN. He offered to do a fundraiser for me out of sympathy.
I wrote back and said I would rather be taken seriously for my work and pointed him to the piece with 60k+ page views. He didn't reply to that.
I am routinely treated like a charity case, not like someone with something of value to offer that's worth money.
I'm on day six of a fast that is partly rooted in waiting for a deposit I expected Friday and still don't have and partly rooted in my inability to figure out how to turn my skills into money because I have the wrong bits between my legs to get taken seriously and paid for my work.
On a side note, I come from a place where we had communism and as a consequence women in science are marginally a majority (the country is Bulgaria). The vast majority (80%) of the IT reqruiters here are female and despite of that they still target, interview and hire 90% of the times male candidates. I really wish I could tell if the cause is prejudice or merit, but I can't.
One of the first jobs I took (in IT) was for a large regional airline. After I had worked there for about a year, a position opened up that would have amounted to a promotion, both in pay and position. I had both the experience for the position, as well as a good reputation in the company. Further, my supervisor (with whom I had a good relationship) was in charge of the hiring effort, so I figured I had a pretty good in. Ultimately I was passed over for the position because my supervisor was a socially awkward man who used his position in the company to hire attractive women in hopes that they might one day sleep with him. He ended up hiring an (attractive) woman that worked nearby in accounting. She had no IT experience. I left because of this, and he hired two additional (unqualified) women this way before he got a little too touchy-feely and ended up fired.
I'm a man, in case you're wondering.
About ten years later I was working for a large healthcare provider. A position opened up for a senior software engineer and most of the software engineers in my department applied for it. Ultimately the head of IT ended up hiring an (attractive) data scientist from a different department, who had no experience in project management or software engineering. Everyone thought it was super weird until it came to light that he had hired her because she was his mistress and he was looking for a way to spend more time with her without arousing suspicion. He was also fired.
More years later, I put in a very competitive bid for some programming work with a company whom I had previously done contract programming work and had a good relationship with. Ultimately they selected someone else for the contract. Since I knew the owners, I contacted them directly to ask if there were anything I could have done to improve my bid. They explained to me that because they were a minority owned business (women) and were both of under-represented orientations (they were both lesbians) that they needed to select a contractor that reflected that, so they paid nearly twice as much to a small startup whom they had heard was also owned by lesbians. The project failed and they ended up paying almost three times as my bid.
Nobody I mentioned ended up ruined. The first two moved on to other jobs. The company that paid three times as much? Still around. They all paid a penalty for their bad decisions, though. Some people never do. Some people are just awful and life rewards them for it. It's not fair, but all you can really do is move on, try again, and do your best not to get bitter about the cards you've been dealt. I hope things get better for you.
Whether actual gender discrimination is also incompetence and/or immaturity is up to discussion. But it seems to still be acceptable in some places in the US. I hope Western Europe is doing better, but I don't know.
I don't think asking job candidates out on dates is especially smart or professional, but the comments here seem backwards.
If a man asks a woman out on a date, that means he DOES want to spend more time with her ... like at work. Even if the woman were to say no, he might still want to give her the job, just because he likes her. This is discrimination to the woman's advantage should she choose to take it.
If a man refuses to hire another man because he'd rather hire a woman so he can try to date her, that means he does NOT want to spend time with that man. This is to the man's disadvantage.
There is clear discrimination in both these stories, against the men and in favour of the women. DoreenMichele may have felt she couldn't work with a man who asked her out on a date, but plenty of people do manage it. And of course men can ask women out on dates without perceiving them as "sex objects", that's itself a kind of bizarre assumption or even insult to men. Men and women date successfully all the time without objectification coming into it.
Traditionally, people can also help each other through big family, church and other local communities. The new generation does not want to be involved in any of these. Now they want the government and their employers to bear more responsibility to support their personal life.
~ Do you have any evidence showing single dads get better treatment than single moms?
This is not the question that needs to be shown; while parent comment is indeed a single mom, she cited sexism as the obstacle. This is not necessarily due to her particular circumstance as a single mom but may refer to discrimination that all women face.
Sexism is easier to show, due to the intense research on it. Not knowing a priori her experience, every year research comes out of some think tank about gendered discrimination in the workplace; a google search should return results.
During my time as a single dad, I began my career in in programming. I started working for others. I now work for myself. In that time ...
- Zero female superiors have asked me on a date.
- Zero female coworkers have asked me on a date.
- Zero female coworkers have commented on or complimented my appearance--I'm no Brad Pitt, mind you, but I also don't look like someone took a hatchet to a picket fence. The closest I've gotten to a female commenting on my appearance is someone saying she thought I looked a little like Mark Wahlberg.
- Zero comments have ever been made when I've shown up late due to something kid-related (like school being delayed and dropping them off at school 2 hours later than normal).
- Zero comments have ever been made when I leave earlier than everyone else for something kid-related (like picking them up from school).
- Zero comments have ever been made when I've missed entire days due to something kid-related (like a kid being sick, or a school holiday (which I've always taken as work-from-home days so I could be with them)).
- Zero comments have ever been made when I've taken a break mid-day to attend a school function. I do the function, come back asap, and get back to work without a hiccup.
- I've never been asked if or how kids (or being a single parent) might impact my work.
- I demand a higher salary explicitly because I have kids to support, want to provide them a good life, and I have never had that questioned.
- I have never once been asked to compromise when I say I cannot do something because it conflicts with my parenting, my kids' activities, or something I've planned to do with them. When I say I have something to do with my kids, that ends the conversation, because I do not have a partner who can do these things and they know this.
- I have never once had a client question if my kids will get in the way of 6-figure contracts.
- I have never once had a client complain or ask me to compromise when I decline to do something or cannot get to something because it interferes with my kids or parenting.
- I've never been denied a raise when I've asked for it, despite the fact that I openly do not compromise my time with my kids.
- I have never been denied a promotion when I've sought after them, despite the fact that I openly do not compromise my time with my kids.
I could continue to dig deeper if you'd like.
This comment reeks of being an outsider who does not have the slightest clue what being a single parent is like.
Your notions of these "traditional" means of people helping each other are anchored in a past that does not strongly exist in many areas today.
- Big family => what if you don't have one of those? what if family is far away?
- Church => what if you're not religious? what if (gasp!) church isn't terribly fond of single parents--especially single mothers--and treat them in a way that denigrates their humanity because they happen to be unwed parents?
- Local communities => like what? single parent groups? homeless shelters? something else? Most of these kinds of communities offer emotional or social support in some degree--say, people you can talk to about the struggles of being a single parent--but they cannot help you put food on the table, provide clothing and shelter, or buy diapers. That's what having a job is for! Single parents don't want to wind up in a homeless shelter because they cannot afford to support their children.
I don't know what this new generation is in your eyes, but having been and known an awful lot of single parents over the last 15 years, I've never seen any of them want the government or their employers to bear responsibility to support their personal life. What they want is a fair shake at the job market, to be treated like everyone else, to have a bit of flexibility when their kids need it, and to never have their kids brought up as a liability in their employment lives. I've never seen a single parent believe they're entitled to an easy life. I've seen a lot of single parents struggle with navigating society and job markets that seem to want to ignore the reality of single parenthood.
Every single mother I've known has been hit on, asked on dates, had overt sexual advances made toward them physically and verbally--hey, she's a single mom, so you know she puts out, right?--had comments made toward them about their kids, experience a complete lack of flexibility when it comes to pay and schedule ... and a host of other things that directly contradict my own experience for 15 years as a single father. I think it's pretty fair to call out the inherent sexism in the general job market--and even in tech specifically. It's pretty ridiculous.
What we need is equality of opportunity.
We don't need to even strive for a 50/50 M/F split in STEM, parenting, dance, healthcare, martial arts, etc. for everything we do in society. The majority of men and women might have very different interests and we want people doing what they're interested in and what gives them joy, not pushing them to do something the majority of their gender isn't usually interested in.
But, when it's not close to a 50/50 split it's fair to ask why. Are men and women being given the same opportunity to join and be successful?
If it's because men and women on average are different then nothing is wrong. But if it's because men aren't hiring women because of a bias then something is wrong.
And historically we've been willing to give special treatment to those who are underrepresented to help correct past biases.
So, yes the pendulum might swing from a bias to a quota before it goes back to equality. We see this in college admissions and people are starting to want to swing it back to equality which is fine once the initial biases in the system become rare enough that striving for diversity becomes the biggest bias in the system.
Of course this is very difficult to measure and is largely influenced by culture and wether you've historically received preferential or biased treatment.
For a less sensitive example, imagine how hard football teams would practice if the NFL wanted the equality of outcome with each team winning the Super Bowl every 32 years. The worse my team is the harder the league has to try to make my team win which is great for me but bad for competition. And if I just won, I have no reason to try because the league doesn't want me to keep winning and will do whatever it takes to stop me from hogging all the trophies.
Equality of opportunity means an external force will step in to correct a situation to ensure that person A and person B are playing by the same rules.
Back to the OC, we should be obsessed with a level playing field in STEM but not obsessed with a 50/50 ratio.
I've often theorized that much of the widely talked about pay gap has to do with either professions that women often wish to work in - or that society steers them to - but I dont know enough to know if its personal preference, or sociocultural bias driving personal preference.
In the end, pay equality and open doors are important things, and is something we as a society should work on.
So yes, there is sexism in academic STEM hiring: 2:1 in favor of women.
But go on, rant against those straw men if it makes you feel better.
The same logic applies to businesses, to reduce the risk of making mistakes that come with echo chambers.
(Definitely not for me. Life today is much better than it was 50 years ago in communist Yugoslavia, despite higher inequality and bias, due to progress in science and business.)
That's only true if all biases cancel each other out perfectly.
A faculty is made up of 90% "ethnic Germans" and 10% Jews. According to the hypothesis, getting that makeup closer to the societal demographics will result in a "lower risk of bias".
I hope it is now obvious to see that the hypothesis is a non-sequitur.
Let's take another example:
A planet somewhere in the milky way galaxy is populated equally by Red, Blue and Green Octopodes. They are biased differently in three dimensions:
Red (3, 2, -2)
Blue (0, 3, 4)
Green (23, -56, 128)
Note, I'm not making an argument against diversity. The average Green Octopode may hold extremist views, but they shouldn't be excluded from a group merely to reduce bias. Just like humans, Green Octopodes should be treated as the individuals that they are, not as a weight in a multivariate optimization problem.
Demographics are only slightly correlated with how people think, so this form of argument falls flat unless you think encouraging conservatives to get into science is far more important.
[1] http://www.people-press.org/2009/07/09/section-4-scientists-...
If we state that bias is a risk then we must conclude that around 90% of the population work in echo chambers (more if we find that 60/40 is still quite bad segregation) and could use the benefit of reduced risk of mistakes. It would be interesting to hear what suggestions people have to address this generally so that the 88.4% of men and 88.6% women can reduce the risk.
So, I'd say your assumption is incorrect.
If you don't agree with that, I'd love to hear why, and why the related studies are false. Can start with this one, which is the first result: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.685...
There's quite the bibliography to pour through there, though, if you really want to shatter the science behind why diversity is a good thing. Good luck!
We can be pretty confident that if 50% of the population are women then 50% of the best candidates for a given job, by natural aptitude, are women. The same logic applies to minorities as well, so we can be confident that any process calibrated to finding the best person for the job is going to turn up a diverse workforce.
However, once policies designed to enforce diversity come in to play, that correlation will be broken and you just have a sexist/racist/whatever hiring system.
What would be the motivation to induce or somehow encourage males to take up a career for which they clearly have no particular enthusiasm. I wonder how many males harbour a secret desire to be a nurse but are discouraged by societal norms? Need some amazing evidence for that one.
Pretty sure more males harbour a secret desire to be a nurse than males that harbour a secret desire to be a garbage man, and yet we see nurses are 90% female and garbage men being 90% male. The question is why.
You shouldn't be as confident as you're probably wrong. Women have on average better verbal intelligence, and men have on average better spacial intelligence. So we can be confident there are jobs where either men or women are more likely to be best candidates.
And even then you can't reasonably claim that most jobs are better performed by spatial or verbal thinking. Both tend to have their moments.
Wether it's effective is highly circumstancial.
Some things that would help in my opinion as a mother: affordable and accessible day care including back up care, at least 12 months maternity leave, flexible work arrangements (time and place), PTO (imagine both parents only have 2 weeks to spend with their kids outside of weekends), extended school and camp programs, affordability of all.
I went back to work when babe was 4 months. I have only 2 weeks PTO, there inst even a Christmas shut down, I have no family in the area, the daycare centers around me have 1 year waiting lists and are over $2500/month. I am underpaid. My work is flexible thankfully.
I don't blame women who quit.
I like common theories in order to explain similar data, so what theory can we make in order to explain why being a minority gender, for example women in science and men in the teaching profession, both tend to leave their positions in greater rate than the majority gender? A lack of support from family members and communities? I find that possible but a bit grim given how universal gender segregation is with about 90% of all employed here in Sweden.
And that's important because it means a portion of the best brains are dropping out the mix, largely against their will.
The other 4 men and 4 women are pretty good, but not nearly as good as the top developers.
If a company needs to hire 10 people, and they hire men, they will not be able to fill their entire hiring need.
Obviously a silly policy, and it leaves a lot of good talent on the table.
So instead, the company hires the best it can.
4 amazing women
4 amazing men
1 average woman
1 average man
That is an optimal team given the local talent!
But now let's have the company put in some sexist work place policies. Half the woman leave. Now the company is down to
2 amazing women
4 amazing men
1 average woman
1 average man
to make up for lost numbers, the company is going to have to hire talent that is not as good as the talent that left!
The tl;dr is that discriminatory policies artificially limit the labor pool, reducing the overall efficiency of a company (and the economy of a nation as a whole if looked at broadly enough).
The other thing is that the labor pool is already too large, lies from the industry notwithstanding.
Discussions about quotas are separate from discussions about how discriminatory practices limit hiring pools, and how discriminatory workplace environments decrease the overall level of talent at an organization.
(For what it is worth, the same reasoning being discussed here is why professional sports teams figured out long ago that racism was bad for business.)
Mathematically, if there is a labor shortage, then cutting out part of the hiring pool based on criteria that are not correlated with the qualifications of candidates, will always result in worse hiring decisions being made.
If there is a surplus of talented labor then whoever is doing the hiring can be pretty much as nasty as they want to be and still form a team of pretty good caliber.
The rational debate is generally surrounding equal opportunity and compensation.
Of course there are always going to be quacks pushing the debate in irrational directions however, and it's a trendy topic at the moment.
So if you are in favor of STEM getting the best STEM minds, its important for STEM fields to reflect that STEM is for everyone. Having as many women as men is a step in that direction.
Richard Feynman's IQ was famously average though his scientific contributions to society were most certainly not.
http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/25/average-iq-of-students...
Richard Feynman is the exception that proves the rule.