Facebook Sued Alleging Sex Discrimination, Harassment, Other Charges
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
1. How can I hire great people?
2. How can I create a culture where women aren't discriminated against?
Of course this isn't like it should be, is just the historical legacy of homogeneity on communities, is been this way for millions of years so it will take a lot time to change it.
It's an uphill battle, but one day there will be one female engineer for every male engineer, one female PM for every male PM. And no woman will be afraid to go and do her job.
We're still so far from this dream...
okay, i'll jump on this grenade.
will there one day also be one male nurse for every female nurse? one male elementary school teacher for one female elementary school teacher? or one male social worker for every female one? receptionist? hair stylist?
how about one female oil rig roughneck for every male roughneck? one female coal miner for every male? how about plumber, or roofer, or underwater welder? and garbage truck drivers?
what about the female civil engineers? structural engineers? physical plant engineers? construction foremen? these people build things too, arguably things even more real-er than stupid smartphone apps.
it's funny, back when programming computers and managing tech projects was (perceived as) low status work for nerds who didn't fit in anywhere else, i didn't see much if any hullaballoo over the lack of females in these roles. now that all of a sudden everyone including celebrities spends their entire day glued to the internet like a bad crack habit and people are getting rich off ones and zeroes, it's all of a sudden a real big deal and really super duper important. like i said, funny.
I think you're lacking a bit of perspective here. At first, when it was considered routine, rote work, it was mostly women who were programmers (you can find contemporaneous articles saying it's appropriate work for women because programming is basically like preparing a dinner). It was only as companies started to realize the importance and difficulty of the work that women were largely driven out.
The blatant unrepentant sexism in this thread, not just you but a bunch of other people, is disturbing.
You do realize that back when being a "computer" (look up the original definition) and programmer were low-status jobs, they were primarily held by women, don't you?
back in the day, women only had low status jobs. that's the point. they were secretaries, assistants, computer programmers, etc. now they're PR executives, bankers, lawyers, etc. the times changed, not the job.
Sexists say this every time the subject comes up on HN. There are programmes in each of those industries to reduce the gender imbalance.
Example: http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/135815/API_Study_Getti... https://jobs.telegraph.co.uk/article/fancy-commuting-by-heli... http://www.womeninmining.org.uk/
Rigzone:
> Another finding from the studies was that most women will go into white-collar jobs, but there will also be a large number of energy jobs available in blue-collar areas. Several jobs, such as welding, fall into this category, and they offer good salaries, but women typically do not pursue jobs in this area. In part, this could be because there are comparatively few women currently in these areas, so it is difficult for other women to see themselves doing these jobs. WIM
> Created in 2006, WIM (UK) now counts over 1,300 members, from all corners of mining-related businesses and professions.
//edit flippant attitude aside, there is real discrimination happening here.
> One important result from Table 6 is that females receive even shorter sentences relative to men than whites relative to blacks. The discrimination literature generally argues that females are objects of discrimination and receive worse outcomes. In sentencing, however, women receive better outcomes, consistent with women’s being treated paternalistically in court. Although some contend that the sentencing guidelines harm women,58 studies have usually concluded that females are sentenced more leniently than males.59
http://people.terry.uga.edu/mustard/sentencing.pdf
And if you have a philosophy of "equal outcomes" not just "equal opportunity", you need to think hard about how equal outcomes would look in all scenarios.
Forcing more women into a field that they didn't choose on their own is its own form of discrimination.
I also think we should stop pointing to unresolved harassment claims and using them as fact that there is discrimination in our industry. Anyone can file a claim, proving your case and winning is an entirely different thing.
Innocent until proven guilty is an ideal that I'm afraid is getting lost in a lot of this discussion.
Sally Programmer is working for Company X. One day, she gets an offer from Company Y. So she quits her job at Company X. What does Company X do? They start a search for a new programmer, of course. Oh... but they need to maintain their 1:1 quota... so for this round, only female applicants will be screened. Joe Coder sends in his resume. Sorry, Joe... they're only hiring women today.
Congratulations, you just traded one discrimination for another. And this new discrimination cuts both ways. Next time, after Bob Builder quits, Company X would not be screening female applicants. (Imagine how the world would lose their shit right now if a company posted an ad: "Wanted ~ Programmer (males only please)".
Edit: Oh snap! We forgot to mention, Sally is also Indian. There is a racial quota too. So Company X needs to hire an Indian woman.
Edit 2: Well, isn't this embarrassing... turns out Sally is also gay. Company X needs to hire a gay Indian woman to maintain that ratio too.
Edit 3: Son of a ... We were just informed that Sally also suffered from Spina Bifida. Company X says "screw it!" and decides to just pay the fine and hire the most qualified person because that makes more sense than trying to find another gay, handicapped Indian woman to replace Sally.
But.
>one day there will be one female engineer for every male engineer >We're still so far from this dream...
There are billions of women who live on less than $5 per day. There are hundreds of thousands, even millions of curious, intlelligent, inquisitve girls who won't have even a miniscule chance to become a modern Ada Lovelace because of poverty, abuse, preventable illnesses, lack of education, early pregnancies and exploitation. But somehow I am not seeing nearly as many posts and comments full with righteous indignation about that on HN.
I wish there would be a community dedicated to programming, tech entrepreneurship and social good for like-minded people from developing countries. No first world problems allowed.
Working to achieve a 1:1 sex ratio between men and women creates a sense of division by fundamentally looking at men and women as different when they should be looked at as the same in the workplace. It fosters a sense of "otherness", polarization, two separate groups and a sense of difference, when there should be a sense of LACK of importance of gender/sex.
Same pattern applies to racial diversity. By looking at skin color and purposefully categorizing people and trying to achieve a certain balance, you enhance a sense of group-identity and otherness that creates racial division in the first place.
I think this is why this issue seems so intractable. Just by talking about and labeling groups you help reinforce and create those groups and divisions between them.
I understand what you are saying, but there's no other way to achieve equality, other than specifically separating the groups that need to be treated differently than they are now. Otherwise you wouldn't even be able to do statistics or anything to see if what you are doing is working.
> no other way to achieve equality, other than specifically separating the groups that need to be treated differently than they are now
Is this really true? Perhaps you could find ways to improve processes overall so that "equality" was an outcome of an improved unbiased process without focusing on specific race, sex or beliefs.
I want equality. I want all women and men to have the jobs they desire. If that ends up 1.5 men for every woman in tech, that's okay! If it ends up with 2 women for every man that's okay!
Equality is not about the numbers. Focusing on the numbers will only lead to furthering equality issues.
1: were being downvoted at the time of my writing this, atleast heh.
edit: Sad that the people downvoting don't have the courage to discuss it on a forum. Be bigger, explain your points.. if you have any.
Why is this a desirable outcome?
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing#Statistics_i...
I wish i had answers, but all i see are problems.
Shifting towards a 1:1 ratio would be nice, but that needs to be fixed by growing the talent pool, and isn't going to be solved at the hiring practice level.
To me, giving women and men a fair and equal chance at working in X industry, is equality. We have no idea what that ratio would be though, but i highly doubt it would end up at 1:1.
Where I've worked women far outnumber men in PM roles... and that's OK.
I'm not a misogynist, I like woman. But this lawsuit is not going to change anything, because it attacks just the symptoms. Women need to understand first that they really are just as good as men, consider Maire Curie or Ada Lovelace good examples.
Yeah. The gender problem in tech is because women don't understand something. Astute observation there. Perhaps you can explain it to women?
And my second point was that women are perfectly capable of doing arbitrarily challenging work in IT.
For example, in the Netherlands, where (if I understand correctly) companies are incentivised offer part-time positions, 60% of women choose to work only part-time [1].
[1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/11/du...
Will never happen, if for no other reason than the fact that a non-trivial amount of women are stay-at-home mothers (even though it's far less than previous generations, plenty of mothers still choose this option).
Uh, what does her replacement being Indian have to do with anything? Unless the implication is that most/many of the other team members are also Indian? While it's not a stretch to believe that an employee would experience discrimination for being one of the relatively few women at a tech company...are there really that few Asian/ethnically Chinese employees at Facebook? Or perhaps just in her department?
That seems to be the implication. And yes, it may be relevant to understanding the context and merit of her claims.
EDIT: Not that the replacement hire's ethnicity by itself is relevant; but it may be relevant to her claim that after she was fired, they replaced her with with someone of the dominant ethnicity within that group.
1) Don't think any company will ever do this 2) She realised this after she got replaced?
Edit: why am I getting downvotes here? People need to explain before downvoting..
A lawyer told me even if you have a legitimate case then you still try to tack on as much extra shit as possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_inequality_in_India
India ranked 101 out of 136 countries in 2013.
Not every male of Indian ancestry is a brutal rapist, nor should every male of Indian ancestry be singled out as a potential sexist because of brutal rapes happening in India.
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(Also, asking women why they aren't staying home instead of having a family is the example HR uses when they talk about sexual discrimination. If you're working in a major corporation in America in the 21st Century, you should know that that question is not ok.)
This is like a kind of thought policing, and it's sick.
One of my problems with feminism is that it elevates women to a priviliged status while leaving males with low status behind, which just makes them worse off overall.
We have to stop this groupism and treat everyone properly, period. The only rights there are are human rights.
I disagree. You're confusing Misandry and Feminism.
That is my bigger problem with feminism: people with more reasonable views are providing cover for people with less reasonable views, since they all just call it "feminism."
For many feminists, feminism absolutely is about "overthrowing patriarchy," which in practice means taking retribution against all men---including all those men that are already at the bottom of the pyramid (like, say, the ones who serve as cannon fodder in wars). That is reprehensible. Those men need our help, not to be treated like crap even more.
The only kind of intellectual position that is a respectable one is an intellectual position that is well defined. "Big tent" terms and movements should be rejected. They always consist of better people providing cover for worse people. "Islam" is another example.
That applies to pretty much everything -- from agile development to democracy -- not just feminism.
> For many feminists, feminism absolutely is about "overthrowing patriarchy," which in practice means taking retribution against all men
The support for the claim that this is particularly interpretation of "overthrowing patriarchy" is in fact the goal of "many feminists" is non-obvious. Please identify it.
No it doesn't. It doesn't apply to most concepts. If it did, concepts would not work.
Democracy is rule by the majority. There is no ambiguity there. That there are many implementations doesn't make the term ambiguous.
> The support for the claim that this is particularly interpretation of "overthrowing patriarchy" is in fact the goal of "many feminists" is non-obvious. Please identify it.
It is not non-obvious. You just have to listen to feminists.
Patriarchy is defined as "a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it." Overthrowing such a system =/= 'taking retribution against all men'
I think it can be just as oppressive when a stronger man treats a weaker man like shit as it is when a man treats a woman like shit. (By 'weak' in this context I am talking about power differential and not some inherent quality of the individual).
Yes. If you can't take the heat, don't jump in the oven.
Respect is something that have to be earned. I will treat anyone with disrespect (bosses, presidents and pope included) until you earn it and show you have worth as a human being.
People should be treated with respect until they have shown they don't deserve it.
Your comment here betrays a nasty perspective on the human race.
Is this an axiom (in which case further discussion is pointless, since your world view is incompatible with mine) or something you could prove.
because asking a female coworker this question has a subtext behind it that is, "I find it peculiar or odd that you chose to have a career". In what other ways do you think it's normal for someone to justify why they want to work? You would never ask this question to a male coworker who recently had a child.
Considering most Indian families in the bay area are dual income, I find it weird that they'd be surprised to see a woman working instead of taking care of her child.