Max Planck Society conducts bullying survey
nature.com
nature.com
And societies are now egalitarian without hierarchical power structures?
Most democracies have a lot of hierarchies, both on the government levels (federal, state, county, city etc) and in the political parties that make up those governments. Democracy formalizes decisions and transitions, but I haven't seen a lot of hierarchies removed.
Hierarchies save us from chaos and anarchy. And at the same time they open us up for abuse and make everything less democratic.
In practice, we seem to strive to find a balance where we allow some hierarchy to avoid chaos (representatives in our democracy, chain of command in governments) while we simultaneously try to cap the powers of such hierarchies and also establish competing hierarchies so they can check each other (e.g. separation of powers in most democracies).
However, we did not really solve anything, but created a system we constantly try to re-adjust once it tilts too much to either direction, and from which we try to eliminate bad actors.
And many academic institutions even add another power structure: non-academic administrators, whose primary incentive is to expand non-academic administration, build buildings &c.
And then there are collegiate sports. I don't even know why those exist, but for some reason they do, and for some reason they are an important power base in an American university or college.
I think it would make sense for a college or university to be primarily run by the tenured faculty: they do, after all, have the knowledge which is the whole reason that a school exists. They don't necessarily have administrative skills, so it makes sense that there be some sort of executive, accountable to the school government.
Perhaps there could be a tricameral school government: tenured-faculty senate, non-tenured employee representatives, student representatives. Assign certain decisions to each; make certain decisions decidable by two out of the three and others requiring all three to agree. Make administrators accountable to all three, perhaps on a sliding scale such the the chief administrator can be removed by one house but the lowest level of employee needing censure by all three to be removed.
But I honestly don't know if that would help.
Are you arguing that democracy has fixed abuses of power?
Definitely spend some time interacting with people that work in the space and listen to their stories, you'll quickly find out exactly how fair a democracy inherently makes things (not at all fair, in other words).
1) A unifying incentive that makes people cooperate (prospects of improvement, opportunity, economic growth).
2) Mechanisms of removing bad actors.
3) Free speech that allows a constant re-negotiation of ideals, values, interests etc. Don't expect a single formula or law is going to solve everything for good, but expect a constant dialogue which allows to adapt to constantly changing requirements even though it may seem tiring.
Decentralizing decision power alone does not cut it as people are going to be sneaky and selfish.
If making such reports is rewarded in a way that can help career advancement, then it should not be surprising to observe such a trend.
In practice virtually every such accusation I've seen reported ends up with the woman leaving the employer, not the reverse.
The counter hypothesis is that women who don't want to deal with the sexist bullshit just give up on careers like this. This has the notable advantage of explaining the gender balance and the inversion of accusation rates.
For example, the DOC fellowship of the Austrian Academy of Sciences which funded my PhD was structured in such a way that the grant was split into two equal pots. One pot took applications ONLY from women. The other pot was enforcing 50% of the fellowships going to women. That means: The rules stipulated that there was 3x as much funding available for women as there was for men, despite the fact that there were much fewer female applicants, so chances for a female to get funding were, by design, at least an order of magnitude higher than for a man. -- This was the only publicly funded scholarship program in Austria that pays enough to study at, say, an ivy leage in the U.S. or something like that. -- On top of that they had great mentoring programmes and networking opportunities that were open ONLY to women, and nothing of the sort that men were welcome for.
Similar story told to me by my male cousin, working for a solar technology startup with close ties to an Austrian university and the Austrian science funding ecosystem: They had received public funding to hire some physicists, but some of the funding was earmarked so it could be used only for hiring women. Hiring a woman proved to be a thing of impossibility, since they couldn't find a single one that wanted to apply. They ended up having to give back the funding. An applicant could have had a job there, and all it would have taken was to (a) be vaguely a physicist (b) be female. She didn't need to be good or anything. She just needed to show up, and the job would have been guaranteed to her, since, from the company's POV, it was free money being left on the table to do anything else.
I know a lot of people working for research institutions being funded by the Austrian taxpayer. They tend to all have really shitty careers, with one exception. Guess what that exception was. You guessed right: The one woman I know that travels in those circles.
I don't know if things are as bad in Germany yet as they are in Austria, but women in the publicly-funded science ecosystem in the STEM fields complaining about discrimination at this point in history is simply outrageous. If anything, men should be the ones complaining.
So they're hiring a woman, doing whatever it takes, as in: (a) making a conscious effort to lower the bar (b) making up a role that they don't even need with a job description that will appeal to women (c) paying high premiums for recruiting channels that will deliver female applicants (d) running the process in such a way that, unbeknownst to applicants due to legal ramifications, all applications by men are dead on arrival.
https://corporate.zalando.com/sites/default/files/media-down...
Zalando:
> On top of this improved focus, we remain committed to increasing female leadership – our target is to have 25% of positions at the first level and 30% at the second level below the Management Board filled by women by 2022 (currently 11% and 16% respectively).
Curry On:
2/4 keynote speakers are men, 11/12 invited speakers are men, 29/32 presentations are held by men (as far as I can tell based on names and pictures).
My impression is women are less ambitious and value quality of life much more than men ( I don't blame them, I try to do as little as possible as well ).
When I go to conferences and look at management/tech teams, I see the opposite of what you are talking about: Very few women (or no women). I would like to know some of these woman-friendly conferences that you go to so I can actually attend, it might be nice.
* Are average women making a more rational decisions than average men in avoiding these fields?
* Is there a difference in how much pain average men and women will tolerate before they leave? Ie, is the average man desperate to achieve a certain type of success, leading to increased competitiveness?
I think we all know that leadership positions in STEM companies and academia (and beyond) tend to skew male, the entry level incentives skew female and that females are the target of lots of unwanted male attention.
This obviously implies a bias, because half the apt are going to be female. However the efforts to correct this bias don't seem to have done their due diligence to figure out what the cause is; because at the moment the entry level incentives are clearly unfair in and of themselves. Two wrongs don't make Right, they make Very Wrong - it is a bad idea to correct bias by introducing more biases. Also, my experience in the mining industry makes me think that these incentives aren't likely to work because the cause of the bias is not concern about monetary compensation. I'll spare the crowd my personal theories.
What if the cause is due to the existing precedent? Then wouldn't positive discrimination be an effective solution?
... Or the could do it the way they are doing it.
Clearly, there are problems finding women. There are fewer women; that means it is not possible to have 50/50 across the board. He just said that they are lowering the bar. What are they doing about hiring that is unfair? Probably nothing, if they have to hire less-qualified women or a more-qualified man.
There are fewer women in tech. Why is immaterial to the current discussion. For better or for worse, that's where we are. If you want my two cents, I think part of it is risk. I worked in a start-up for a few years (not in the valley), and there was one female developer in a company of thirty. Why? I think men (especially young ones) are more willing to pick up and move for a high risk/high reward opportunity.
But all that aside, seriously, who actually advocates firing every one so you can have a nice press release? Would you want to lose your job to give some random woman one?
Certainly it's not fair to the employees. Certainly they probably didn't expect to get 10 men and 0 women in their current makeup. There may be no intentional guilt, but it's also not possible to know how they ended up with the makeup they have, 10 to 0, though it was probably incremental and without reflection on the makeup of the team along the way. Assuredly it probably wasn't malicious, but it's also like the people doing the hiring didn't reflect along the way - "hey, we've got 9 engineers and we need 10 and we are going to hire _another_ man for this role".
It's clear they (in this case the company) want to fix this in some way, as instructions "from on high" came down. Again company may or may not know how they got there. The company may also be failing to attract clients who want to vote with their dollars for a diverse company - so there could be a valid business case for this. Or not, maybe they just don't want a company with all dudes.
The original post was pointing out an unfair hiring practice due to this policy. I'm pointing out there is an alternative equitable hiring practice which actually leads to a fairer hiring practice for men and doesn't necessarily involve affirmative action, but that involves starting from scratch again (nobody said you'd necessarily lose your job - they could also easily make those positions available). Obviously this is not a tenable thought experiment, especially in academia thanks to tenure, so that's why we have these systems which, on the surface, may appear to discriminate against men. That said, many people interview for their current jobs in corporate restructurings all the time. That's probably not fair either, but it's accepted practice in the US.
What is this equitable hiring practice? Fire your team over and over until you get more women? What if your ten most qualified applicants are again men? It seems very possible.
And what is this unfair hiring practice? How do you know the most qualified weren't all male? You are using the term "equitable" over "equal", and I'm assuming you understand the difference. I don't believe a company ought to disadvantage men to the advantage of women, because I don't believe discrimination is just.
As for your "nobody said you'd lose your job", yes, you did. Your assumption is that at least one man will lose his job for a woman.
You did not answer my question - would you, personally, be willing to quit your job to allow a woman to take it? Even were she less qualified?
I am 100% pro equal rights for everybody, but this is just the opposite, and all it will achieve is to create tension, prejudice and anger towards women hired under this rules.
https://www.tue.nl/en/news/news-overview/17-06-2019-tue-vaca...
Where did you read about "18 months"? Sounds like "first 6 months" to me. In my experience searching for good academic staff, especially in fields with a lucrative industry takes ages, so I wouldn't be too sure that there will be a strong discriminatory effect when there are not that many women to recruit anyway.
I agree that this move is not the best one. It will end up sending the wrong signals again, which will just lead to backlash on women working in STEM fields. Attacking with opposite discrimination is certainly a bad temporal fix for an existing systematic bias and the tendency of men to downplay competent women.
However, this tendency costs society a lot. It is a fix at least. Someone listened.
I wouldn't expect that they want to make this permanent once things have equaled out a bit.
"If a vacancy fails to attract suitable candidates within six months, it will be opened up to men, and after 18 months the entire scheme will be revised, the university said on Tuesday."
The rule is: For the first 6 months of any recruitment process, only look at female CVs. After this time, also start inviting the men. After 18 months, evaluate the success of this rule and decide whether to follow through for the full 5 years.
So yes, in that article it does say “18 months”. It’s right in the part where it says “18” and “months”.
Also, the original source you cited clears says:
> For the next year and a half, this will apply to 100 percent of vacancies, after which the university will review the percentage covered by the scheme each year.
but frankly, I don't really understand what they mean by "in the first six months of recruitment".
The interview clearly says that the rule applies to "the first 6 months of recruitment", which in my understanding of the process means "after the job ad is posted".
Btw, imho Dutch people have a tendency for "certainly good enough" solutions because it keeps things moving (instead of perfectionist stagnation whenever confronted with complexity like us germans often do). This 6-month period of only looking at female applicants during recruitment looks like one of those. Nobody says that this will stay the rule forever. Also consider that they will get very few female applicants anyway, so there is still a lot of room for men.
But try to understand the thinking for a moment:
If no solution is applied at all because people are waiting for the perfect one, there will be continued discrimination against competence. This has costs too.
"Take no action" might not feel like a decision, but it is one and has ill effects.
Is this better than trying a fix for a short period of time that may be mediocre, but is at least effective?
In most (but not all) fields of human intellectual endeavor, we have made progress far beyond needed, that with the right politics and social commitment, every human on this planet can have all their needs and basic wants fulfilled. There is no need to constantly fuel the GDP, only the craft a world in which people can be happy.
At some point – and you can adapt this example to other fields – you want build a bridge that doesn't collapse, and niceness is not going to get you there. The engineer can be female, from an ethnic minority, disabled or a kid with rich parents, but you want to rely on them being a good engineer and not someone who got a free pass and cuddle treatment.
This is why the primary goal should be skill and not some rather subjective sense of social justice. I feel you promote equality of outcome and not just equality of opportunity.
This needs not be a black and white comparison, but consistently choosing politicians that prefer cuddle over hard results could very well lead to a society where there is no money for the weak, unprivileged, disadvantaged minorities, education, social welfare, medical care, etc; a society that – perhaps out of necessity – will squeeze out some of those people you'd want to support.
I don't know if we have studies that indicate evidence that less-qualified women are getting more funding than more-qualified men. For example this comment chain is mostly anecdata, which makes it difficult, as it relies on how good-faith we wish to take the anecdote and how that anecdote either enforces one's existing biases or can just be dismissed as anecdotal and not genuine studies. But even the "genuine" studies are in a field where we have a replication crisis.
So, what I'm saying is: I don't know, and I don't think anyone else knows, the whole truth and breakdown of the matter. And I'd be suspicious of anyone claiming they are under a broadsale impression of anything regarding the quality of women in STEM.
unconscious biases
of the reviewers
studies that say this might be the case.
EDIT: In clarification, I'm essentially saying 'Well, X, but Y. On the other hand, P, but Q.' and you're demanding I prove X to arbirary metric M, even though Y evidences that I'm not in the interest of proving X at all.
(α) All the studies that claim show that the reason we have more men than women is due to malice (eg. misogyny, unconscious bias) are not standing up to scrutiny. They have no scientific validity.
(β) The reason that there are so many 'studies' of the kind I criticise as scientifically baseless is political. There is a political will to have more women in STEM positions.
(γ) The overt explanation for this political will is structurally rather similar to the explanation given by the early Soviet Union for the promotion of non-Russian ethnicities over Russians in the policy of constructing the New Soviet man (новый советский человек). This reason is cogently described in Marxism and the National Question [1].
(δ) I'm generally worried about policies similar to those carried out by the author of [1].
[1] https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1913...
I think there's mostly an economic need for more people in STEM positions, and with women being underrepresented, that's an obvious place to look for more talent. And there are countries that do have more women in STEM or other scientific positions. So for countries that don't, figuring out what's stopping those women is a valid concern.
basis for your first point is
Misogyny ... Sexism
mostly an economic need for more
people in STEM
countries that do have more women in STEM
is a valid concern.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentially_contested_concept
[2] https://retractionwatch.com/2016/04/07/philosophy-journal-sp...
This may sound rude, by why are you even talking to me if you're not desiring to engage with me and my literal words? Wouldn't a blog be more suitable for you? Because I'm still not entirely sure how your points interact with me, and why you're responding to me.
everything you're rebutting is
actually in agreement with your rebuttal.
When the few women you can find are less qualified, you should ask yourself why. Why are the more qualified women avoiding you? If either your company or your industry had developed a reputation for being toxic and sexist, I can totally see why qualified women would avoid it. Giving more money to women is not going to solve the real problem here. It's also possible that your culture has somehow decided this is not a job for women. I work at a Dutch company that employs plenty of female developers, but all the female developers are from India. I don't think I know even a single female Dutch programmer here, which is weird. Why is this?
Those are the real issues we need to figure out. Simply occasionally throwing money at people, even if it's a lot, is unlikely to fix the structural problems here.
Sure — ashelmire's point was that right now there are more hurdles for men, which leads to men being more likely to be more qualified than women, which perpetuates and amplifies a stereotype.
Though I don't think the solution is to compensate by creating more hurdles for men; we need to identify and remove the hurdles for women. And whatever hurdles remain for men.
This has three very large assumptions:
1. Men and women share the same distribution of relevant abilities
2. Men and women share the same distribution of relevant interests
3. Men and women share the same distribution of societal expectations and external opportunities
A lot of people seem to assume that either #1 or #2 are false, and there's research to support #2 being false. #3 being false also seems intuitively obvious to me, given that it's stereotypically more acceptable to be a housewife than a househusband (as one example of many).
Re: 1, the Variability Hypothesis[1] argues that men have a different, "wider" distribution than women in many categories, including intelligence.
Re: 2, this Slate Star Codex article[2] is full of relevant pointers.
Discrimination sucks and we must push back when we see it, but not every difference in representation is automatically a sign of discrimination.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis#Modern_...
[2] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagge...
Social expectations can be a real hurdle.
Why is this?
There's always a bell curve distribution of skill, talent, aptitude, whatever. When the work force population (mostly) reflects the general population (gender, ethnicity, age, whatever), we'll see that people are just people. Some good, most meh, and a few whoopers (who should be paid to stay home, for the benefit of the rest of us).
Another situation - a former female colleague, a married wife with children, during a business trip suggested I go to her "beautiful" rented apartment she wanted to show me and that I could sleep there; "pajamas not needed", "marriage is just marriage, it's not important". I declined; she went cold in subsequent mutual interactions, and as she was a close friend of my boss (I don't want to explore how close), boss started to be cold towards me as well.
So no, there is no threat of physical violence, but there is a significant threat of unjust manipulation that for some reason is not on our society's radar at all. Shitty behavior comes in all genders, but only one is called out for it.
are 'they' mostly (all) men?
Anecdotally, the shittiest groups/institutions that I have worked in were over 80% male. In my experience the organizations that are diverse are also the most productive and enjoyable to work in.
As far as your cousin story goes, that exactly illustrates the problem. There is no reason a women could not have become a solar tech physicist. But the persistent misogyny that permeates academia, despite all these financial incentives from the top, stopped most women from taking that particular line. We need to fix the problem. You can argue that throwing money at women is perhaps not the best way, but then you have to present a method that works better at righting the wrongs in academia.
One’s person’s “joking” or playful banter can be another person’s triggering misogyny!
If you follow any high-profile women in tech on Twitter, wade into their mentions to see sex-based harassment directed at them. It's consistent and ongoing and must be exhausting for them to deal with. (I know it would be for me.)
If one's answer is that that's somehow not representative, I'd like to know why one thinks that shows up on a public forum but doesn't translate to any other parts of the industry.
They are outliers and not representative of the actual community or workforce.
Yes, actually, this entire comment chain is speculation because the original comment was a speculation. If that means that these positions are less merit then this entire comment chain has less merit.
Which lines up pretty well with what I personally observed during my graduate program.
Why aren't men with children staying home with the kids and having the same thing happen to them? Sexism.
I would say it is because of understandable historical reasons and that it is changing in a lot countries. For example in Sweden dads are taking out a larger and larger part of parental leave. It is still only 28% but increasing every year I think.
There are of course many other factors that weigh in of who will take parental leave. To take some anecdotes I've seen in my circles:
1. Women tend to have partners that are older and equal or higher in social status so it is not uncommon that the men have come further in their careers. So when the man is home there will be less money for the household. Sometimes the woman uses that as an excuse to be able to home more and sometimes the man uses it because they don't want to be home.
2. Women will logically be home in the beginning due to them nursing and some want to be home longer total and the dad say yes because they feel the mom have earned it. Some women also feel that the dad will get the more fun stay at home time and want a part of that as well and not only in the beginning.
It is changing but people also prioritize differently and not everything is sexism.
[1] 20% of all profs/50% societal gender ratio = 40% of women are employed as prof assuming only two careers (prof and SAHM).
You're assuming that 1) affirmative action is effective, 2) that women are dropping out for reasons related to sexism, 3) that entrenched policies are so easily "phased out". I'm not sure any of these are true.
Here in Sweden we had last year one higher education program where every single student is of the same gender. 100% gender segregation. The profession that those students graduate for is also unsurprising the profession with highest gender segregation.
I have toyed with the idea that maybe a good step to right the wrongs and get all industries numbers closer to 50% would be to create a new tax which gave under represented genders a tax cut and over represented genders a corresponding tax increase depending on how gender segregated their chosen profession is. That would create an incentive to break gender norms in a country where 88.5% of women and men work in professions that is considered gender segregated, and employment rate of both is almost identical.
The worst are narcissistic, harassing women who are presumed to be incapable of such behavior by people like you, and shielded from any consequences for their recurring bad behavior that spans across years.
We were a very technical field of studies and had only a few woman enlisted. Bringing those few successfully through their time was valued quite high.
Requirements to their work were clearly lower than for us and getting an appointment with the professors was easier for them, too. All in all it was less of an overall-hassle for them.
But yeah, one might say this is some kind of survivorship bias or whatever, I don't care. It's what I perceived and it was also a recurring topic in "mens only"-discussions. So other perceived it that way, too.
For the past forty years, there have been no male-only advancement programs, and (nearly) all sex-based funding has been provided to the majority sex, to advantage them in any field where they’re not currently dominant (and sometimes, just to advantage them in general).
It’s a willful and generational-scale violation of Title IX: that kind of sexist favoritism of the majority is blatantly illegal under discrimination laws.
For forty years, feminism on college campuses has been a majoritarian, sexist power movement — and now it’s spreading to the workplace, as a generation of entitled women graduate and demand the continuation of privilege.
Why is this not the case?
(For the record: I'm not denying your understanding of the situation. I'm trying to understand your position regarding feminism's role in empowering women and the disparate power between men and women that you're seeing.
I would describe myself as "burning for the job", to a level that is not really healthy sometimes. But I love what I do, it's more than a job for me and I will (maybe) stop looking for better jobs and giving 110%, once I reach a salary of 100k or more a year (this is still quite a number in Germany, I think).
While some male colleagues also really burn for their jobs and want to achieve great things, my female colleagues are really hard to motivate to go the extra mile. They value free time and work-life balance more than staying overtime, getting something done today and not tomorrow and things alike.
Maybe they are doing the right thing, work is not everything, but I think this might lead to men taking positions which require the aforementioned "mindset", no matter whether it's healthy or not.
Being a stay at home parent is very difficult and very valuable work.
So it still isn't making intuitive sense to me why most leadership is still male if it holds true that women should have the most power and have held the most power over the leadership pipeline for over a generation.
I don’t find it hard to believe at all that extreme dedication and ruthlessness are highly correlated with testosterone for instance. We already know it’s coupled with aggression.
Edit: And this isn’t to say women aren’t competent and can’t be leaders! There are females CEOs, just not as many as males CEOs. There are also more male inmates and homeless. The same traits can easily lead to opposite results.
For example, it makes no intuitive sense that the vast majority of world leaders, CEOs, business owners, etc. are men if all men are being systematically oppressed by feminisim. This isn't how any other system of oppression works (race, class, physical ability). It also makes no sense that extreme dedication is correlated with testosterone but males are not correlated with child rearing, which requires arguably the maximum possible dedication.
So it isn't making intuitive sense why the most people at the bottom of society is male if it holds true that men should have the most power and have held the most power over the success pipeline for over a generation.
It also does not make any sense looking at other system of oppression. If we model our theory based on the typical caste system with the oppressed at the bottom and the powerful at top, then men and women as either the oppressed or oppressor does not fit.
Because many women don't want power over others, preferring co-op over hierarchical structure, while a lot of men don't want equality but to fight and climb the ladder (or die)?
I'm not asserting as univocally true, just musing that the environmental structures in which "normative" men and women thrive might be quite different.
In other words, are men collectively squeezing women out of the game, or are men playing each to the death for personal victory, not handing out free passes to the other opponents, male or female? While the former might regrettably happen, I feel the latter is really the common case.
Oppression conjures images of physical force, so perhaps intolerance is a better word than oppression, by a small but very vocal group of women. You can control others without taking part in a hierarchical structure.
On the one hand, women seem to be evolutionarily adapted to want to be cared for. At least a subset of them is going to complain about just about anything much like children and taking that seriously is beginning to have seriously adverse consequences.
On the other hand, there are sneaky males who try to get the attention of women by standing in for them. Such males are largely pushed to such strategies because they have been starved of physical affection because society denies the fact that women predominantly want men who emerge from dominance competition over them and ceased to cultivate this, which itself is a consequence of women's complaining taken seriously.
These two mechanisms form a feedback loop that is hard to break, especially in the current political climate.
HN's 2 hour edit policy is ludicrous, btw.
All babies cry for help and attention. The bifurcation into two rigid binary genders with roles and expectations layered on later is cultural and varies through history. Evolution isn't that fast.
For example: historians often assumed all relationships between two men were platonic because they were raised in a society with enforced heterosexuality. Their lens became the story. Alternate explanations, like trying to read a character as queer, can fall victim to the same conformation bias. You can look to more recent times to, for example, see Native culture crushed legally and compressed until people believe running around in mass produced war bonnets while hollering respects the culture.
Loki, however, was definitely genderfluid and pansexual.
Secondly, these programs are there to counteract long-standing structural discrimination of women in those fields. Mere legal equality and lack of blatant discrimination does not mean equality is achieved. These programs help push toward a society that may give women equal standing not only in the legal but also in the political, social, cultural, and economic spheres. (Outcomes can speak to existing inequalities in society [1])
Women are paid less than men, are much less represented in well-paying jobs, and barely hold any jobs in many academic fields and decision-making (funding) bodies. Computer science is still a hostile environment for many women [2]. You might common with the continuously disproven "it's due to personal choice" but it ain't that easy: These choices of e.g. working less hours are strongly influenced by our social surroundings and the fact that e.g. working less earns you a lower hourly wage is too. For example, in Germany the share of female academics suddenly drops as they move up the ladder because that happens at an age, when many women might choose to become mothers [3]. However, limiting career progression because of a possible pregnancy is definitely not their choice. Also, the idea that women are just naturally less assertive doesn't hold as studies show that when the social pressure wanes (e.g. by advocating for someone else) they become comparable assertive [4]. The idea that women choose not to work in high-paying professions is also wrong, looking at the historical change in CS [5] or at countries like India or Turkey [6]. Also, pay drops when women move into an industry [7]. Stuff like long working hours also factor in [8].
Third, you are merely offering some anecdotal evidence without providing any case for why women are more advantaged now. The existence of positive discrimination doesn't show equality is achieved and by stating that women are evena dvandatged now, you're going against the scientific consensus.
That doesn't detract from the original point: Your whataboutism regarding funding earmarking has nothing to do with sexual harrassment and bullying. It's still interesting how all the comments piling up ere are based on anecdotes of shock "discrimination" - probably the first time they experience something like that.
[1] For the case: Phillips, Anne. 2004. “Defending Equality of Outcome.” Journal of Political Philosophy 12(1): 1–19.
[2] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/20/the-tech-indus...
[3] https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bildun...
[4] Amanatullah, Emily T., and Michael W. Morris. 2010. “Negotiating gender roles: Gender differences in assertive negotiating are mediated by women's fear of backlash and attenuated when negotiating on behalf of others.” [eng]. Journal of personality and socialpsychology 98 (2): 256–67.
[5] https://gender.stanford.edu/news-publications/gender-news/re...
[6] https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/5/186026-decoding-femini...
[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over...
[8] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/upshot/women-long-hours-g...
About the survey: The question is actually a leading question. Why is sexual harrassment and gender-based discrimination being put in the same category? That very phrasing already suggests "If your boss got a little drunk at the company event, leading him to say nice things about your perfume, you clearly have a very good reason to presume that you not getting the promotion has something to do with that. Do you agree that's what happened to you in the last year?" If you phrase it like that, and 93% of the women go "Well, ... no!" then, really, I must complement the upstanding gentlemen of Max Planck!
About your third paragraph, which strikes me as a very recognizable feminist narrative from the 80s, just a few points that I'd raise as food for thought: (a) The way these organizations, in particular, work, it's not a game of musical chairs where you lose when you don't do the right thing at a key point in time. They are very flat organizations, more bazaar than cathedral, with reverse-hockeystick careerpaths. If you go away for a year, you just get to the same point in your career a year later. (b) Nowadays, men in Austria and Germany, when they have children, generally do take the opportunity that the law prescribes that parenting time can be split between man and woman. Not a single one of the men that I grew up with in Austria was an exception to that rule when they had a child. Not a single male colleague that had a child during the time I was working for a German company was an exception to that rule. When their wives interrupted their careers, so did they. Again, anecdotal. But there you go. (c) Austria is one of the countries with the lowest Gini-coefficients in the world. If everybody earns the same, what is the point of that "money is power is status and women don't have any" narrative? Many women prefer to be teachers, nurses, etc. If that doesn't lessen their status in society, then how do you explain it to a 5-year-old girl that wants to play with dolls, not robots, that you think that that's a problem?
Well that line got me thinking, because it absolutely does. Nurses have lower status than doctors and teachers have lower status than professors. For that matter, dolls have lower status than robots, there are heavily pushed competitions for Lego robots with prizes and institutional support but I've never heard of a competition for doll narrative building. Anti-natalists might think that they're a rebellious rationalist subculture, but I think they're closer to a direct expression of what our society values.
No, not "rationality", "rationalism" as a philosophical position
I think a more interesting comparison would be what has highest status between a male software developer and a female nurse? If we ignore compensation because software development is in a pretty special situation right now.
I have no idea of answer myself.
That in and of itself is a weird one. I used to think that physics was harder than sociology, because of the stereotype that physicists were smarter than sociologists. Then I realized that whatever it is that sociologists do, you could make it twice as hard by making them do twice as much, or by raising the quality standards twice as high. Likewise you could make physics the easiest science by altering the publication requirements to be, well, easier than every other science. It's not that studying the universe is harder in any objective way than studying sociology, it's that what counts as success is defined based on other people's success.
To use doctors as an example, the standard for how good you have to be to practice would get lower if all humans were altered to be half as good at medicine. At the same time, med school for doctors is far harder than med school for nurses. I'm not sure what sets the hard-ness levels for these different fields, but the point is, we absolutely could have a society where nurses were driven twice as hard and had to be twice as smart as doctors, but for some reason that didn't happen.
Just like a software engineer that creates simple internal CRUD applications for an Enterprise will have lower requirements than someone who works in R&D at a cutting edge field. One is easier than the other while both still give value and both are still important.
One thing to note is that when it comes to for example doctors there are more young female doctors than young male doctors in Sweden these days so soon we will probably see a field were that is true for all age groups.
You're comparing the upper and lower ends of the same field, and I agree that it's clear enough why one is harder than the other. However, doctors and nurses do not simply have two versions of the same job.
Using your example, suppose that every software developer was worse. Then, CRUD apps would be cutting edge R&D and enterprise applications would be, I don't know, Excel spreadsheets. If CRUD apps were cutting edge R&D, programming would be easier, and worse programmers would be able to keep their jobs. The field is easier because the people are worse, the people are worse because the field is easier. The question is, what starts this cycle?
Nursing is a tough job, with demanding hours, but I could get a nursing degree in 2 years, whereas I probably couldn't even get into med school, much less get through 4 years + residency. (I'm a biomedical Engineer, have most of the background).
Also, your argument doesn't hold up. If every software developer was worse, it would be as difficult to get into because everyone is worse, not just current devs.
Affirmative action and legal victories can help, but it doesn't mean much without a society-level movement. I do see how this could become a problem at the university level if the pipeline situation isn't fixed. You can see it in other fields where the gender balance flips. Programming became highly paid and women got pushed out. PHDs became overworked and underpaid, and now men don't want to do it because they can access better opportunities.
It becomes a matter of status and culture where people who don't look like everyone there feels it and goes on to other fields. Men may not care about the pay difference, but they do care about the bullying in the workplace and the negative stereotypes.
Spot treatments are usually a frustration thing. They come when people run out of energy trying to fix the system and start looking for Infinity Stones.
It seems to me that much of the pushback is from people who can't even imagine, much less perceive, that there's a problem needing fixing.
Any way, learning about these truth telling exercises, like done at the end of Apartheid in South Africa, is on my to do list.
Input, ideas, and tips most welcome.
Hilariously enough, the Pulse shooter didn't know it was a gay nightclub [0]. Not that this hurts your position - after all, fear doesn't have to be real. But it does offer a (potential) parallel to the "women are being discriminated against in tech!" issues we've been seeing lately...
0: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/5/17202026/pu...
But I also based that on the report of his father saying he planned the attack after seeing people kiss outside the club. I'm sure he figured out what it was when he saw the room full of people there for Latin Night. It may be that he knew what it was and had it as a backup because of what it was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_nightclub_shooting#Mot...
>> "On the day of the shooting, Mateen's father, Mir Seddique Mateen, said that he had seen his son get angry after seeing a gay couple kiss in front of his family at the Bayside Marketplace in Miami months prior to the shooting, which he suggested might have been a motivating factor."
One theory is that he was deep in the closet, self-hating, and knew about it because he went there. The FBI thinks not because they found no evidence, but it's normal for people in the closet to bifurcate their lives. If he were planning to go out like this, ensuring no one found any evidence of that would be a priority.
History is hard to pin down when the people in it are dead.
Bullies may seem super productive, but they will bring down the organizations productivity as a whole.
0. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/malcolm...
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_evolutionary_psyc...
I have experienced 3 out of 4 of these and never considered it bullying. Arsehole / incompetent behavior from my superiors, yes, but not bullying.
I never have been and would be completely shocked if anyone did shout at me during my job, no matter what I did. That’s completely unacceptable.
- they implicitly discourage men to apply for job by adding "We especially encourage women to apply." to job ads,
- they understand "equality" as equal number men and women working at some institute/position/area instead of equal rights and opportunities and promoting best minds,
- they have plenty of grants and awards considered only for women.
And all above is coming from so called "smart people" that should give education for the next generations.
Wait, how does that implicitly discourage men to apply? Sure, it is a direct encouragement to women to apply, but that is not therefore an implicit discouragement to men. An implicit discouragement to men would say something like: "We encourage women to apply above others" or "We encourage men to also look for other opportunities".
"We especially encourage white, heterosexual men"
would be completely OK? Because nothing here is "therefore an implicit discouragement to" other ethnicity/sexuality/gender.
Like, women are obviously under represented in tech, despite many efforts by the Big 4 to increase representation [0]. The Big 4 are doing better at getting women into tech, but they still have a ways to go. The survey details some of those struggles. So, logically, you'd like to continue to encourage women to apply. WASPy men don't seem to need this encouragement thus far, but times may change.
Why is master and slave unacceptable? Why is fireman unacceptable?
The claim is that using this terminology makes people feel unwelcome. The same logic applies above.
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
The reason we have guidelines like this is that these discussions are totally predictable, and therefore devoid of curiosity. They generate a lot of het-up agitation though, which is destructive to the community.
One of the topics mentioned in linked article is "sexual discrimination". How is it suddenly not related?
"The reason we have guidelines like this is that these discussions are totally predictable, and therefore devoid of curiosity. They generate a lot of het-up agitation though, which is destructive to the community."
Saying the truth is destructive to the community? Is this some kind of censorship?
HN is moderated. You can call that censorship if you like; that word is used in so many different ways that at this point it just expresses a feeling.
Censorship is not a feeling. You are not even correcting me. It's seems that you are marking my comment because you are told so, not because you can show any failure in my logic. Shame on you.
Look at the way society is handling Prime Bully Trump. He has written the text book for all other bullies to follow. And they happily will, taking a piss on whatever social norm or code of conduct, everyone else is obediently following. If he can climb to the top of the hill, they know they can too.
You don't want Bullies in an org, you have to be better than them and more useful than them. It's that simple.
Interesting. In my experience bullies tend to play politics rather than out-and-out shouting matches.
It makes others uncomfortable and leads to unnecessary confrontations and distraction. It's a very obvious personality flaw too, it's always aimed at someone in a lower position of power than yourself. Go try and bully your manager or department head, see how that works out.
Describe to me the special utility of a bully, which cannot be provided by someone employing non-bullying methods.
To avoid confusion, let's use a dictionary definition of bully
Oxford: A person who habitually seeks to harm or intimidate those whom they perceive as vulnerable.
Dictionary.com: a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.
> You don't want Bullies in an org, you have to be better than them and more useful than them.
Doing absolutely nothing (no work done) is better than bullying (negative work done).
Your "fact of life" is not only unethical but if proven it can be grounds for constructive discharge.
If they cant stand up for themselves i guess they wont do it for me either which makes me not wanna work with them.
So a little bit friction/bullying isnt that bad i guess. If often goes too far though
You always have Situations where something did go wrong. Usually multiple persons involved. Owning up their share of the blame has a corellation to standing up for yourself in my experience
You implied it by suggesting bullying is useful for getting rid of those people. I don't know how you advocate for them being bullied and removed, yet stand up for them at the same time.
> Owning up their share of the blame has a corellation to standing up for yourself in my experience
I would not be surprised if there is a correlation; but the causality seems pretty obvious to me. If you were bullied would you admit to anything that might result in more bullying? What if the people who supposedly support you are secretly hoping you fail?
I have no problem standing up for myself, even if I have no support. I also have no problem with the truth. I'll look my boss in the eye and tell him if I screwed up. I do it out of respect and because I'm about solving problems, even if I created it. But, if he's a bully and the only thing that is going to happen is I'm going to get more abuse? Well, I've probably already complained to HR and/or quit, but if I haven't... screw that guy. He can prove I was the one who screwed up or he can stuff it.
But let's not forget the context: bullies are useful. So what if the bully is the one who screwed up? Is he going to take his share of the blame? Doubtful. My guess is he blames his victim.
I would rather be a part of a work culture where I can focus on getting work done rather than dealing with antisocials.
I'm hesitant to include "in German" as the summary is chock full of anglicisms such as "mobbing", "dual career", "work-life balance", or "code of conduct" which mean exactly nothing in a scientific context. I'm not trying to downplay any results the survey may be showing, but what is "mobbing" anyway? If you can't think of a satisfactory definition in English, think about the even more diluted meaning of this term in German where there's a habit of brainlessly using anglicisms to hide lack of clarity of thought, and even to make up pseudo-English words.