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Comment by Raphmedia | Hacker News Reader

I'd argue that those words are not feminine but merely less assertive. Women score higher on the agreeableness score[1] which is not a quality that is looked for in many industries - but they are not the sole owners of agreeableness. Plenty of men will score high and that doesn't make them feminine.

The paragraph in the article where they describe how minorities get more calls when they "whiten" their resume has me wonder if this theory couldn't be simplified.

What I mean by this is that when you try to join a company where the culture is geared towards white men in their twenties, you have to fit that culture. I'd also argue that they would find the same results for age if they looked for it.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/

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> What I mean by this is that when you try to join a company where the culture is geared towards white men in their twenties, you have to fit that culture.

On the contrary, the study says the opposite (for women). If there is a cover letter by a fictive person, which appears to be a woman, which is trying "to fit in to that culture" by using more assertive terms, it will result in less callbacks. For fictive men, it is the reverse.

As the person is fictive, the actual supposed qualities of that person are irrelevant.

I think we are sharing a very similar viewpoint.

What I meant by this is that you have to "fit" that culture and that by not "being" part of it you won't get hired even if you're trying your best.

I'm afraid that comes across in an unfortunate way. So women can't fit that culture by trying their best to be part of it by sounding like white men, but only by being part of it - by being white men? I'm not going to go off the rails here, I understand you're trying to offer constructive advice and this conclusion wasn't what you intended.

Nevertheless I think it's clear the onus needs to be on employers to try to identify and remediate biases in their hiring practices.

I agree that's it's far from perfect. Those companies with very narrow cultures should be more open to diversity and I strongly believe they would benefit from it.

That being said, as a woman, that's a company I'd skip instead of lying my way in and then hating my daily life.

I've worked in a company with such a culture before and hated my years there. I thought my presence would change things - it didn't.

> What I mean by this is that when you try to join a company where the culture is geared towards white men in their twenties, you have to fit that culture.

That's the core of the problem isn't it? The source of gender discrimination and racial discrimination and religious discrimination and age discrimination is that there are a whole lot of teams at a whole lot of tech companies that are white men int their 20s, and have no interest in hiring anyone who isn't a while man in their 20s.

It's the reason 'culture' should be entirely removed from any sort of interview criteria - more specifically, interviewers should be warned that measuring a candidate based on 'culture' is an open door to discrimination.

More broadly. it's something that needs to be pointed out whenever discussions drag out about "why aren't there more of <X>?" and "Why do <X> make less?" It's because our entire industry does it's best to keep <X> out. It's not brain chemicals, it's not negative role models, it's not any other excuse that likes to get thrown up. It's deliberate, at least as deliberate as it can be.

I'd never even consider to assign feminine or masculine traits to any of those words. Is this an "English as a first language"-thing?

Like you, I can see how some of those words could be more or less assertive, but I'd go as far as to argue that anyone connecting gender with assertiveness is outright sexist. :)

The words themselves aren't, but the traits are based in gender stereotypes.

Being less assertive is considered a feminine quality. Being too assertive earns someone a label of "difficult to work with" "bossy" or cruder, "bitchy".

I personally don't like working with people that are too assertive, male or female. There is an intense energy and forced viewpoint that I don't enjoy the experienced of being pushed down my throat. Being more loud and more confident in what you're saying does not make you more right.

Same here. I really think it depends who is reading the cover letter and what they're looking for, doesn't it? I know if I'm reading a cover letter, and it's someone being "assertive" by telling me how awesome they are and how they like to assert control over others every sentence, I'm going to put it at the bottom of the pile, male or female.

Native English speaker here and I agree with you completely. When I saw the article I thought "What is feminine term?" until I got to the assertive stereotype.

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