Writing about FOSS sexism | Hacker News Reader

Writing about FOSS sexism

linux-magazine.com

11 pointsfogus42 comments

I fully believe it.

Lots of the 'men' in open source really are just boys with digital toys.

Sure, plenty of us have girlfriends, wives and children. But a large number do not, on /. one of the prevailing memes is that ./ers do not have a life outside of their computing.

The attitudes towards women in general, especially potential girlfriends is quite shocking.

Even on HN the stuff that comes by every now and then is beyond the pale, and even more scary, it gets voted up, suggesting the majority feels that way.

I think it's compounded as well by the fact that a lot of "geeks" struggle with being sociable, especially with women. In a lot of cases it really is not sexism; they just don't "get" people full stop and sometimes don't even really think about the concept that someone at the other end of the keyboard is a person too. As a result they come across as highly arrogant or unfeeling (and when talking to or about women as sexist).

I've noticed on the various forums I hang out a lot of the younger types have that ingrained mild sexism that young boys usually have - only they cling to it for just a little longer. It soon goes when they head off to college :D

EDIT( you know personally I find a large number of feminists as bad or worse than sexist men - they all need throwing into a bag and shaking about a bit :P)

Actually insightful. The notion that people who do not believe themselves to be sexist cannot detect ambient sexism rings true. I got in a bunch of fights with Erin early in our marriage by professing a similar world view. It was only when I watched her go out for IT jobs after staying home with the kids for a couple years that I saw how bad it was; interviewers would, for instance, ask who was going to take care of the kids if she was working.

It's also simply the case that there are fewer women in hard computer disciplines (dev, hardware) than in some of the softer ones (support, SE, QA, etc), which biases some people's expectations.

I'm wondering why it's sexist (devaluing one sex) to ask who is going to take care of the kids. Isn't it quite possible it's concern for their family situation (because work affects family)? A guy probably wouldn't be asked this simply because it is much more common for the mother to look after kids.

I'd be pleasantly surprised if my wife were being interviewed and they asked her this: "Does your husband work from home? We're just wondering if he's the one who's going to look after your kids, because we're happy to be flexible with your work hours if you need that. Even bringing the kids in here sometimes would be fine."

Because they ask the woman that, not the man.

Yes, but two things: 1) as I mentioned, the fact that they might ask the woman and not the man is simply due to the fact that more mums stay at home than dads, and 2) why is it devaluing her to ask that?

Anyone who's got kids knows that raising them is much more difficult (and rewarding) than most other day jobs.

That's pretty much sexism (or racism or ...ism) in a nutshell. Evaluating people by the statistical generalizations of a group they belong to, rather than evaluating them as individuals.

No, sexism would be treating it as a rule ("women miss work to care for their children") rather than a prior ("women have a higher probability of missing work to care for children").

If they are asking the question, they are attempting to evaluate the person based on their individual characteristics (i.e. their answer).

Some research says black people are Nx more likely to commit property crimes than white people. By your logic, it's not racist to ask about someone's race in an interview, because you might just be reasoning the likelihood of them stealing office supplies.

That doesn't necessarily imply the people asking are sexist. They might simply be Bayesians.

You know how the original article talked about how people that didn't believe there were being sexist ("just Bayesian!") are incapable of detecting sexism? Case in point.

Whatever you think about the question, apart from the fact that it's unlawful to ask, it's incredibly douchey. It's none of your business, and implies that you think the woman is going to be a complicated hire because she's got kids.

In case it wasn't clear enough, the idea isn't that the interviewers are concerned for the kids. They're not. They just think they can predict the absentee rate for people by their chromosomes. Women with kids have to stay home when the kids get sick, right?

I never suggested the interviewers were concerned for the kids -- my implicit assumption was simply that they want to avoid employee absence.

The only assumption I'm making is that P(absent|women with children) >> P(absent|no children or man). Do you dispute this prior? Similarly, you might also (unlawfully) ask about potential military service obligations if a person listed "Army Reserve" on their resume. Would that necessarily be motivated by anti-military bias? Of course not; it could simply reflect a desire that employees predictably show up to work. (As pointed out downthread, illegal != sexist.)

Note that I didn't say anyone was or was not sexist; I simply said they might not be.

I don't care whether the people are sexist, yummyfajitas. The process is sexist. I saw it firsthand: it's harder for a woman with kids to get a tech job than it is for a man to get the same job, absent any difference in qualifications.

What, exactly, is it that you want to argue about here?

The process is designed simply to find employees who will show up for work, not to eliminate women. So the process isn't sexist either.

Just because something disproportionately harms women (or men) does not make it sexist. It is only sexist if the goal is to reduce the number of women (rather than the number of absent employees, as in this case).

Thank you for making my point: there are in fact hiring managers who think like you type.

Now, add to that this fun bit: when a woman has a kid and stays home with them, she winds up with a gap on her resume. During a normal career, an unexplained gap is an obvious topic of conversaton in an interview. Women with kids can't effectively avoid disclosing that they have children, even though it's technically unlawful to ask the question directly.

Yes but that cuts both ways: Women can cover a long gap in their resume in a socially acceptable fashion far easier than a man can. I know first hand: I wasn't "too ill to work my whole life until recently". Instead I was "a recently divorced former homemaker entering the workforce for the first time".

It doesn't cut both ways. It may be socially acceptable to stay home with your children for 2 years, but it isn't career-acceptable. Read the thread: women are penalized for returning to the workforce.

If a man took 2 years off, wouldn't his career also be harmed? I'm not saying it doesn't set a woman's career back to take time off. But women's lives are generally lived differently from that of men. There are good points and bad points to each side of that equation. And time taken off by a woman to stay home with kids is generally viewed more favorably than a lot of other reasons one might drop out of the work scene for a time. (Generally speaking, only going back to school is likely to improve your career after you go back.)

Going back to the original topic, I think that being active in FOSS, even at low levels @ a couple hours a week, is a good way to keep evidence of some skillset. This should hopefully help getting back into the workforce.

I would think so -- If you can figure out how to effectively put it on your resume.

I did lots and lots of volunteer work while I was a homemaker. I have a great many accomplishments to my name. But I have a lot of difficulty figuring out how to package it so it is taken seriously in a work environment. I am reminded of a comment made somewhere on HN about a member here volunteering on a project and not getting taken seriously because they were unpaid and saying they will never do that again because being unpaid so badly hurt their credibility.

Do women actually have higher absenteeism than men? My guess is that this is not actually true, and only assumed to be true. (I haven't seen any numbers either way.)

If this is not true, then the process is definitely sexist.

(I make no claims about the converse.)

A quick google search suggests they do.

http://www.allbusiness.com/human-resources/employee-developm...

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/71-211-x/2009000/part-partie1-e...

Not all female absenteeism is due to children. Menstruation also plays a significant role (as evidenced by a 28-day periodic spike in absenteeism for women):

http://www.nber.org/papers/w12369

You have to wonder, sometime around when you typed the word "menstruation" into a comment on Hacker News about job interviews, did any kind of warning light go on in your head saying "maybe I'm off in the weeds here"?

I have a really neat-o idea. How about we interview people based on their ability to actually perform a task, and then set, oh, I don't know, a 5-10 day limit to the number of allowable personal days in a year? We don't even have to give the women more of those days, despite their children and special times of the month. Hell, if we're worried that they're going to exploit their personal days to take care of sick children, we can just reduce the number of days.

Then we never have to talk about this issue in interviews or, god willing, on Hacker News again. I think that's a win. What do you think?

I haven't seen statistics in a long time, but my recollection is that women are more likely than men to take time off work for caring for a sick child, taking the child to a doctor's appointment, meeting school counselors and so on. Women are also far more likely than men to quit their own job in order to follow their spouse to a new city when the spouse changes jobs. Quiting your job because you got offered a different one usually is a career move forward. Quitting because you are following someone else is a career setback. Married women are more likely than married men to attend whatever college is "local". Married men are more likely than married women to pick a college that suits their career goals and move the entire family there. Women are more likely than men to quit their job or take time off for caring other family members as well, not just children (such as elderly parents). And the list goes on and on...or did the last time I saw such stats.

why hire women at all? other than getting to pay them less.

i kind of wonder whether it's harder for women to get funding, too. what if they get pregnant? what if they have a family? on the other hand, i've heard enough comments from the older crowd here who have families and personal lives to think that maybe it's a moot point.

You could not have made the point of the author of the article better than by showing exactly how that comes about.

An employer does not have a right to ask that question of either partner. It is a question concerning their private life.

If the question is not sexist then it should turn out that it is asked as much of guys as it is asked of women and it turns out that is not the case. It ends right there.

No amount of 'buts' or other terms like that going to make that go away. The condition is already satisfied, no need to inspect other variables to see if we can change the outcome of the program, they are now irrelevant.

Imagine the reverse, if an employer would ask a guy: "I take it your wife is home and looks after the children ?". My response would be 'none of your business'.

You can safely assume that people are not going to leave their children unattended, how they go about that is their problem, and none of your business as an employer. No matter whether the person in front of you is male or female.

The issue of whether employers can ask questions about one's private life is rather orthogonal to the issue of sexism, no?

Not that it matters, but I agree that children, hobbies, drug use and sex partners are not the business of my employer.

That's true, but the fact is that such a question would never be asked of a guy. That is what makes it sexist.

After all, if it is none of the employers business when they're talking to a guy why should that change when interviewing a woman ?

The employer may believe it is their business (regardless of gender), but that the probability of a man missing work due to children is considerably lower than a woman doing so.

Similarly, employers might ask reserve officers about service obligations, while not bothering to ask them of civilians. They could do this not out of a bias against military folk, but simply because reserve officers have a considerably higher chance of missing work due to service obligations.

How insightful. They are similar cases! So much so that it is also unlawful to consider an applicant's pending service obligations during hiring.

The interesting thing here is that as an employer you really don't want to go in to territory like that, because if you end up not accepting the employee for the position you are open to legal action because of having asked such questions during an interview.

Most larger corporations have a pretty long list of stuff that you have to familiarize yourself with before being allowed to interview people independently for exactly that reason. Or they'll have someone from HR breathing down your neck during the interview.

Seriously, these questions are off limits. At all times.

An interview should concentrate on the applicants capabilities, suitability for the job in terms of teamwork, qualifications and so on.

Go outside those boundaries on the asking side and you are in trouble.

If someone volunteers information like that and you use it to make your decision better be ready to back it up with a 'real' reason or you are still going to be open to trouble.

That's one of the reasons why rejection letters are such inane boilerplate, most companies are loathe to tell you why you were rejected for fear of opening themselves up to legal issues.

I didn't claim it was legal. I claimed it wasn't sexist/anti-soldier-ist.

Hehe, but it is!

Asking someone about their service status is done so that you can then choose to not employ that person to minimize your risk for absence, which would lead to people in the service being less likely to get jobs, which in turn would lead people to not want to be in the service because of the effect on their job prospects.

Asking women about their private life (are you pregnant, do you want children, do you have children) would cause professional women to maybe decide they didn't want any children because of the effects that would have on their job prospects, or to simply not apply for jobs. This would negate decades of slow progress in getting the workforce to be reflective of society.

So, by definition it is discriminatory to ask these questions, the effect will be discrimination, even if that is not the stated purpose of the question. An employer could, and many do, for instance hide behind arguments like 'trying to maximize productivity' or 'being worries about the children of the employee', but none of that holds water.

At the end of the day the employer is simply worried that someone is going to miss a couple of days work.

And it's true, there is a real cost to all this, if someone gets pregnant, has to take care of their kids because they're ill or gets called up for the service then the employer will have to find and train a replacement if the absence is long enough, or swallow the loss in productivity for a shorter interruption.

But the cost to that business does not trump the cost to society as a whole if we let people pick and choose on those criteria, that is why it is illegal.

It sounds like you simply think that forcing employers/unprivileged employees to bear the costs of military service and child rearing is good policy. And it sounds like you would rather label those who disagree "sexist" or "anti-soldier" rather than actually debating this point.

Sorry, but that's just an ad-hominem.

Yes, the employer is worried that someone might miss a few days of work. This worry isn't sexist/anti-soldier, even if it results in fewer women/soldiers being hired. It would only be sexist if fewer women/soldiers (rather than fewer absences) was the goal.

are you pregnant, do you want children, do you have children

But they don't appear to have asked those questions :) (see my other comment)

Personally I do think it is reasonable, though, to ask whether a women plans to have children in the immediate future (say, the next 18 months). It's unavoidable that pregnancy does result in requiring time off (I've heard it argued that a women planning to have children soon and applying for a job is possibly defrauding her employer.... I don't agree with that but it is an interesting way to consider it). They're not going to be missing a few days in the office during a pregnancy - that is long term time off (usually). That's a scientific and genetic fact; asking the question is, surely, fine (and it can be refused to be answered etc.). Discriminating because of it is wrong; but the employer may wish to know so they are aware they will have to find a temporary replacement in the near future :)

I also am not sure why, if your faced with 2 candidates of equal ability you cant choose the one (male or female) who is NOT actively planning to bear children in the next year or so without being marked discriminatory etc.

But if they were interviewing the women; and one that was starting work again after looking after the kids for a few years?

I agree with what your saying - but the firm in the example seem to have asked a reasonable question! There is, surely, nothing wrong in asking about something which may affect a potential employee :) it's if they discriminate or stereotype that it becomes a problem surely!

Whatever else you might think about how reasonable this question is in practice, you should also know that it's unlawful to ask it.

True (thanks). Though illegal != sexist. Also: asking it might be many other things, but why is it "unreasonable"?

Because it's none of their damn business. The children in question are not under their care, so they have no reason to pay the matter any heed whatsoever. Ensuring that children are properly cared for while they are absent is the parents' responsibility, not their employers'. Perhaps you feel that businesses should be monitoring other aspects of their employees' private lives as well?

Members of the in-group are often blind to subtle things that are very exclusionary of members of the out-group. An example that doesn't bring racism or sexism into this: I joined a forum some years ago where the owner routinely lamented how he desperately wanted more international members. He was probably one of the biggest offenders in terms of creating an exclusionary environment that made foreigners feel unwelcome. One piece of the culture that was very obvious to me as an exclusionary practice was the on-going joke that if you were on the forum at certain times, you were a total loser with no personal life. These were the same times that people in other time zones would be available to be online (ie people in other countries).

At the time, I happened to be frequently up all night. I made it my goal to actively root out this piece of forum culture and "set an example" about how I was online all hours. About six months after I joined, membership began to go up quite a lot -- but especially international membership. I'm sure that to this day the forum owner has no clue whatsoever how that happened, even though I have stated that I made it happen. I doubt I am believed.

Second on unnoticed exclusionary behavior. Making sexist assumptions which are "reasonable" because there are not many women in the field may very well be self perpetuating.

Some asshole that I have never heard of writes "Raymond is not read much any more"! With the general suckiness of the articles, I don't see any reason to bother reading much more of Bruce Byfield. I just wish Raymond would actually write more.

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