New research finds almost 90% of women penalized due to work achievements | Hacker News Reader

New research finds almost 90% of women penalized due to work achievements

womenofinfluence.ca

18 pointsmooreds78 comments

> 77 per cent of respondents had their achievements downplayed > 72.4 per cent of respondents were left out of meetings and discussions or were ignored > 70.7 per cent said they were undermined because of their achievement(s) > 68.3 per cent had their achievement(s) dismissed > 66.1 per cent said others took credit for their work

It's hard not to read this as "respondents overwhelmingly reported experiencing normal workplace things at work".

The numbers in the article are difficult to believe.

"Almost 90 per cent (85.6 per cent) indicated that their stress had increased because of Tall Poppy Syndrome"

So 90% of women are very successful and "tall poppys"

"Almost 70 per cent (67.8 per cent) of respondents looked for a new role/job and 50 per cent left their previous role/job"

50% of the 90% of women got new jobs because they were cut down for being too successful. That seems like a lot of people, due to the numbers this probably involves the majority of companies. Where did they go work?

The article is very vague with numbers only using percentages. I would not be shocked if the total number of respondents consisted entirely of the authors friends and family.

Edit: it's actually worse than I expected. While there were more participants than I thought; 4k+, they were all on the mailing list of the org. So a woman's org focused on sexism in the workplace polled it's members to ask if there was sexism in the workplace and then reported it as widespread fact.

Terrible

I can say yes to many of those situations, and I'm a man.

I am highly skeptical of research from an organization whos existence depends on the problem they are attempting to solve remaining in existence.

Rude. I don't see any reason why such organization shouldn't exist.

I see the different side though. There is a pretty big number of male-dominated industries. And I'm not surprised by the numbers the research found.

My recent conversation with a friend from Google:

- How many women are on your team?

- Not too much

- Oh, but what's the number?

- Zero, there aren't any

I'm not saying they shouldn't exist. If their funding depends on a problem existing though, I'm pretty confident that their research will always find that the problem exists and is of high importance. Not many charities are going to go, our research found this isn't really an issue, we're shutting down.

Are there no women on his team because of sexism? or because far fewer women choose to graduate with a CS degree? You are assuming sexism when the answer could simply be a lack of qualified candidates. What if women simply don't like CS at the same rate as men? Only ~22% of CS graduates are women. Or is that sexist to acknowledge that those numbers may drive team makeup at software companies?

It isn't about the organization existing, but about the organization backing research that reinforces the organizations beliefs(which could totally be valid). It's like the sugar industry backing research that says sugar is good for you.

This.

For the same reason I dismiss any paper from a department that focuses on 'Unified field theory'

Or Computer Scientist that do research. Those eggheads can't see the forest because of all the trees. 'Is iT cOMputaBLE?' sure, but if you don't start the computation and are just theorizing it will never be computable. 'QuaDratic TIMe ComPlexiTY oF TRansfomerS?' Just buy more RAM and CPUs. What's the problem?

this is every research organization and think tank in existence.

we should also never trust oncologists, because oncologists only exist if cancer exists.

A good reason to treat researchers with more scepticism.

> we should also never trust oncologists, because oncologists only exist if cancer exists.

Cancer objectively does exist and we will conclude this even if we ignore oncologists.

If cancer were something extremely subjective, widely believed to not be a problem at all and the only people claiming it was a problem were oncologists - then maybe. But it's not the case.

>Cancer objectively does exist and we will conclude this even if we ignore oncologists.

This isn't true. Can you see cancer? How exactly do you know someone (or yourself) has cancer?

If we eliminate oncologists and other medical professionals who are able to identify and diagnose cancer, then cancer won't exist any more. People will simply die from unexplained illnesses.

Um yes, of course can you see cancer. Just search Google Images for tumour to see many disturbing images of cancers. This stuff was taught in high school when I was a kid, how can you not know this? Cancer is so obvious it was being diagnosed and then described by the ancient Egyptians.

https://www.cancer.org/treatment/understanding-your-diagnosi...

> How exactly do you know someone (or yourself) has cancer?

By using your eyes or fingers to detect lumps.

> If we eliminate oncologists ... cancer won't exist any more. People will simply die from unexplained illnesses.

This is absurdly, catastrophically wrong.

How do you know those lumps are "cancer"? Can you see the cells multiplying? Maybe you have microscopic vision, but I don't; I have to rely on some professional taking a sample and doing lab tests on it, and then telling me the results. To me, they're just lumps and I have no idea what I'm looking at.

>This stuff was taught in high school when I was a kid

You were taught in high school how to distinguish, visually, cancerous tumors from benign tumors, and you can take over as an oncologist today because of this ability? I find that hard to believe.

There is hard evidence that cancer exist that can be evaluated by individuals who do not make money treating cancer.

There is weak evidence of tall poppy syndrome being a workplace problem or a workplace problem affecting predominantly women.

If someone gave women a survey that asked “Do you believe that workplace stress on women is causing increased cancer risk?”, and 90% reported yes, that would be horrible evidence to decide that cancer research funding should be diverted to this women’s empowerment org.

One could also distrust them due to their incestuous relationship with pharmaceutical companies, politicization of the AMA, or the fact that medical errors are a leading cause of death every year.

Is it possible that men experience this in equal numbers, but just don't interpret those interactions in the same way?

Or no one cared enough to ask them. I find this the more likely explanation.

Yeah, this is all self-reporting based mostly on perceptions of things as opposed to things that are objective and/or quantifiable. I don't know about you, but when I tell my coworkers/managers "Hey I found like 100 SQL injection vulnerabilities in this legacy codebase can I please have permission to fix them?" and they ignore me, I don't assume they're undermining me or jealous of my success. I assume they're just idiots.

I've had an idea I proposed in a meeting ignored, only to be greeted warmly and immediately adopted when proposed later in the exact same meeting... by a woman (and not one higher than me on the "totem pole", either).

I didn't interpret it as sexism, but if I'd been a woman and her a man, I guess I probably would have taken it as not just sexism, but egregious sexism, the kind of blatant crap one can hardly believe exists.

I gather that's actually one of the nasty things about sexism—it's hard to really be sure when what's happening is sexism, versus when it's just ordinary shitty things that happen to everyone.

Your anecdote lacks any information on existing social networking that may be in effect, that could provide a gender-agnostic explanation for this outcome. This outcome occurs quite regularly with engineers who disregard social networking with their leadership, regardless of the gender of those who have invested in networking and reap the rewards of it in recognition and “being heard”. You’d need to establish a pattern of refusal to network with non-women, in order to have grounds to pursue a gendered case, given only this anecdote as evidence.

Oh, of course. Again, I don't think it was sexism. But something that, under other circumstances, would look very very much like blatant sexism—might not be. Which causes problems for lots of women (I've heard) because they'll hesitate to act on actual sexism, due to all the second-guessing.

This is relevant for the study, because "experienced a thing that, viewed through a certain lens, looks a ton like sexism" is something that I could answer "yes" to (more than once, actually! That was just the one that would have most-looked-like sexism if our positions had been reversed)... but I'm pretty sure it wasn't. Without some kind of baseline rate for this stuff, it's hard to tell what's actually going on. Further, as men and women might interpret the exact same events differently, you'd really need an observational study to begin to suss out the reality—a survey's not going to cut it, beyond maybe providing guidance on areas for further research.

Men don’t need more studies to tell them it’s unethical behavior. They’ll just ignore those studies, same as they’ve ignored the past few decades of them. Men need other men to tell them it’s unacceptable behavior.

No further studies are needed to confirm that poppy-cutting behaviors are unethical. Ending support for those behaviors has no downsides. If men, and women, stop tolerating these behaviors, then the world will improve: either the behaviors will stop being perceived (success!), and/or the true underlying cause of the misperceptions of those behaviors will be revealed (success!).

This survey indicates that three quarters of women surveyed reported perceiving these behaviors occurring without censure or punishment, so there’s a lot of work left to do by those in power - so, mostly, men - to stop tolerating them.

(Women will need to stop as well, but their motivations as the underclass are considerably different from men. That’s no excuse for inaction by men.)

Of course, as I posted elsewhere in this thread:

> (Nb. this doesn't necessarily mean that the proposed reforms aren't a good idea)

The study just seems to be... kinda useless, due to how poorly it's designed, and the study's what's linked (well, a press-release-type story about the study, anyway).

But yes, reducing shitty behavior is nice for ~everyone even if 0% of it turns out to be driven by sexism (which I doubt is the case, but taking the extreme emphasizes that it's good absolutely). However, the most-effective approaches to reducing it may well differ depending on how much of it's driven by sexism, about which this study seems to tell us nothing, despite that sure looking like the angle they're going for.

Yeah, I wish there was more data on why people do this — but I’d rather see people stop it when they see it, because that works regardless of motivations.

It's like this with many forms of discrimination: it can be difficult to really discern the offending person's true motivation. Did they treat you badly because they're a racist or sexist? Or are they just an asshole or an idiot? For a single bad incident, you usually can't tell unless they specifically say something that's racist/sexist; otherwise, you need to see a larger pattern of behavior.

What garbage. Claiming survey results from self-selecting anonymous website visitors as "research" isn't even junk science — it's spam.

The actual study can be found here: https://www.womenofinfluence.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/t...

The methodology was thus:

> The study was planned and carried out between January and February 2023. An online survey,using a mixed-methods approach, was sent out on January 9, 2023, and closed on February 10, 2023. The survey was sent to contacts in Women of Influence+’s database and was also shared via social media. The majority of those who received the survey identify as women. In the end, 4,710 respondents across 103 countries took part in the survey. This paper discusses the data revealed by the survey including the prevalence of TPS for women in the workplace an examination of who is doing the cutting, the effect it has on women both in terms of their psychological health and workplace performance, the resulting impact on company productivity and retention, and the solutions suggested by women on the front lines to manage, mitigate, and eliminate this silent systemic syndrome

Couple of points to highlight from the methodology:

> The survey was sent to contacts in Women of Influence+’s database and was also shared via social media.

> In the end, 4,710 respondents across 103 countries took part in the survey Note the absence of what the response rate was.

> The majority of those who received the survey identify as women. Note: No control or comparison group.

So it isn't even published in a peer reviewed journal?

Arent women making more than men now in the younger generation? Below 30 they are blowing men out of the water in terms of income and educational achievement.

They are, but that is a hate fact.

What is a “hate fact”?

Presumably facts that imply politically incorrect statements. The most obvious one would be "despite being x% of the population, [group] commits y% of the crimes".

It's a mocking reference to how people can dislike it when facts that don't match their ideology are presented in a discussion. In this case, someone who wants the focus to be on women might be irritated when facts about men falling behind are presented.

>Below 30 they are blowing men out of the water in terms of income and educational achievement.

source?

Clickbait news sites.

I suspect OP is referring to articles about how young women make more money than young men in some metro areas.

You can look at actual nation-wide data from the BLS: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t03.htm

they don't have a source. or their claim is that women over 30 are making more than young men (read: have been working for more than a decade than their younger male counterparts).

The educational part is just true. It's been trending that way for years and years. Easily googleable. Not even controversial in education circles—the data are hard to ignore, and it's openly discussed as a problem (solutions, however, are hard to come by).

I'm not so sure about the income thing.

[EDIT] Some links—far from exhaustive, again, this is such a slam-dunk thing as far as the data go that it's regarded as a fact even by quite-liberal circles of teachers and education researchers, there's not a conservative/liberal divide on whether it's happening (what to do about it—there, differences may be observed).

Edutopia:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/boys-are-falling-behind-wha...

Brookings:

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2022/10/12/boys-left...

UN/UNESCO:

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1115802

(perhaps surprisingly, some aspects of the phenomenon are global)

The World Bank (I double-checked, this is really them, not some group with a similar-looking domain):

https://blogs.worldbank.org/education/what-about-boys-addres...

Financial Times:

https://www.ft.com/content/3b2509f2-fda2-11e8-aebf-99e208d3e...

Et cetera, it just goes on and on like that, pick a source you respect and decent odds you can find them reporting on this at some point.

Actual studies abound (it's a topic of active study in education research) but I'm not going to go dig through Library Genesis for them right now.

No. They are not. They are still earning less than men:

"the wage gap is smaller for workers ages 25 to 34 than for all workers 16 and older. In 2022, women ages 25 to 34 earned an average of 92 cents for every dollar earned by a man in the same age group – an 8-cent gap. By comparison, the gender pay gap among workers of all ages that year was 18 cents."

Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2023/03/01/gender-pay-...

I think they probably misremembered the stat that young, single women are making more than young, single men in some metro areas.

Limiting it to single people shrinks the gap because single women make more than married women while single men make less than married men. Cherry-picking specific metro areas also helps.

You make a lot of claims here (which I have a hard time believing on face value). Can you back-up any of this?

First Google result: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/28/young-women...

What is the purpose of this statistic if it is not comparing the prices of the same labor?

Fine, go here and look at the PDF (also linked). However its from 2020 though most other research suggest snot much has changed. Still very representative.

https://iwpr.org/iwpr-issues/esme/the-gender-wage-gap-by-occ...

https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2021-Occupationa...

I am surprised (but maybe not so much) on the number of people who seem so quick to dismiss gender inequality in pay.

Requesting relevant data is not "dismissing" anything.

Also, a seller that shops around more often for buyers would be expected to earn more than a seller than shops around less frequently.

Is it possible that women shop around less and men shop around more? I can give myself and my wife as an example. She values stability at work and being able to flex time so she can be available for the kids, so she stays put in her job where she has a favorable work environment. I do not care as much about being available for the kids and am willing to risk new workplaces, so I hop around. If we had the same job, the statistics would show she is getting paid less and I am getting paid more, but it would have nothing to do with man or woman.

I would guess women are getting paid less due to discrimination, but I am also guessing there are multiple factors at play.

"The controlled gender pay gap is $0.99 cents for every $1 men make, [...]. The controlled pay gap tells us what women earn compared to men when all compensable factors are accounted for — such as job title, education, experience, industry, job level, and hours worked. This is equal pay for equal work."

https://www.payscale.com/research-and-insights/gender-pay-ga...

"It should be noted that Payscale’s crowdsourced data weights toward salaried professionals with college degrees. When analyzing by race, we restrict our sample to those with at least a bachelor’s degree."

Makes sense. Labor-intensive jobs tend to have higher pay, as well as being nearly exclusively male.

With all due respect, the comparisons need to be on a career to career basis. The above numbers are so misleading it is sad

Fixed it for you...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35084580

Would you like me to bing/google more research on this for you?

Pro-tip: go to www.google.com and search for the terms "gender pay gap by profession" (without quotes)

Shortcut: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=gender%20pay%20gap%20b...

Profession is only one of the controlled variables. You also have to account for hours worked, experience, etc. As I linked in the other comment, the controlled pay gap (once you account for everything) is $0.01.

https://www.payscale.com/research-and-insights/gender-pay-ga...

Would be nice to see what tools can help women give insights into culture before being locked into an environment. I feel lucky I found a company that values my input and efforts.

"insights into culture" Would be logical and reduce perceptions and assumptions of sexist behaviour. Unfortunately, it won't be done because the expectation is that it is a culture that must accommodate anyone that thinks they belong there. Unless it's men in women's prisons, then it's ok for some reason.

Survey-based, it appears, and I'm not seeing what the results look like for men. Which is weird considering the apparent focus of the study, since you can't even begin to draw any conclusions about the role of sex in this, without that point of comparison. Maybe it's in the full study?

(Nb. this doesn't necessarily mean that the proposed reforms aren't a good idea)

from tfa:

> Methodology: The study was planned and carried out in 2023. An online survey was sent out to contacts in Women of Influence+’s database and was also shared on social media. Most of those who received the survey identify as women. The survey was sent out on January 9, 2023, and closed on February 10, 2023. In the end, 4,710 respondents took part in the survey across 103 countries.

So scientific! This would be like if the NRA claimed that there actually isn't a gun problem in america because they surveyed their members.

Is this a problem on the gender axis? Or is it a problem across the board? It's entirely unclear, and it'd be a mistake to conclude that women get penalized [while men do not].

> The survey was sent to contacts in Women of Influence+’s database and was also shared via social media. The majority of those who received the survey identify as women.

So the study didn't actually measure women specifically? There's no breakdown by gender anywhere in the whitepaper.

The methodology backing this report is garbage.

The methodology of this study is embarrassing.

I'm going to take commentary about women problems from a website called "women of influence" with the tiniest grain of salt.

Since everyone is complaining about methodology, what would be a valid research experiment? What did they miss?

Is it just the self-reporting aspect?

I wonder what the biologic reason behind this is.

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