Is it Sexist to Recruit Women in Tech?

http://julieannhorvath.com/2013/10/10/is-it-sexist-to-recruit-women.html

by tyre • 13 years ago

29 53 13 years ago

spodek• 13 years ago

This is a common topic of discussion on HN.

I'll risk downvotes to create a discussion in a sometimes touchy subject.

STEM fields aren't the only ones with large gender imbalances. Others include elementary school teaching, nursing, garbage collecting, road maintenance, and many others.

Are there efforts to recruit men to become elementary school teachers on the scale to promote women in STEM field?

Are there efforts to recruit women into construction and collecting garbage?

Why or why not? I don't have the answers, although I don't think male-only scholarships exist to promote male teachers (though I think society would benefit from it) nor female-only apprenticeships to promote women going into construction or garbage collection (though I think society would benefit from it, and would probably result in making the fields safer).

I'm curious what people say. If nothing else, if we find successes in some areas we may be able to replicate them in others.

DanBC• 13 years ago

This is a common topic of discussion on HN.

All of your questions have been answered, very many times, in all of those other threads.

Impossible• 13 years ago

There are efforts to recruit men as teachers, nurses, therapists and other female dominated professions. There are efforts to recruit women in construction.

Garbage collection is seen as an undesirable job (for both men and women) so I don't think there are efforts to recruit anyone :).

judk• 13 years ago

Desirable jobs don't need to recruit, because they are desirable.

erikpukinskis4• 13 years ago

Are there efforts to recruit men to become elementary school teachers on the scale to promote women in STEM field? Are there efforts to recruit women into construction and collecting garbage?

If there aren't there should be.

The world is magic. Programming is amazing. Building houses is an incredibly powerful experience. Learning from someone who looks like you and knows more than you can be transformative. These are experiences that every person deserves, and any person of any race or gender, should they be interested in these experiences, deserves a shot at them.

Any time we see a phenomenon breaking down along gender or race lines, when skin color and genitals are not involved, that's a red flag that people are being excluded for silly reasons.

sliverstorm3• 13 years ago

Any time we see a phenomenon breaking down along gender or race lines, when skin color and genitals are not involved, that's a red flag that people are being excluded for silly reasons.

Well that's a sweeping statement if I ever saw one. Are you prepared to stand behind it? I'll give you a moment to reconsider.

Edit: Seriously, you all believe that any time there is a gender disparity not involving genitals, it is happening for "silly reasons"? There is not one job where gender-related phenotypes might naturally result in skewed distribution?

mrxd• 13 years ago

I like Mike Monteiro's perspective: we have to give a hand up to the people who have been held down.

smtddr2• 13 years ago

I'll jump into this touchy subject. The reason why there are not efforts to balance the other fields you mention is because of the "position of power"/"social prestige" of said jobs. I don't think anyone can debate that due to complicated social/economic issues, but significantly sexism/racism, the history of USA shows that jobs with power/prestige are usually held by white males. Oprah Winfrey crying at Obama's speech wouldn't of happened if Obama just became the first black garbage man. It was about the power/prestige of a black man being USA president. Sexism pretty much puts women as teachers & nurses and "men"(or society in general) is apparently fine with that. Road maintenance, garbage collection? Those are low-prestige & physical/dirty work. That's for minorities & men. Society(sexism) probably prevents most women from even considering those jobs and the few that do, I'm sure are greeted with an insane amount of inappropriate jokes/comments. Now, since positions of power/prestige tend to have a much greater impact on overall society, having some balance in those positions will help make products & laws more diverse to reflect the diverse society we're in. BTW, this is why I find it ridiculous the concept of exclusively men making laws on abortion.

Anecdotal: When I was a kid, I had to take some kind of "development" test to see if I was generally progressing properly. I failed that test, the results stated things such as "No solid understanding of reality vs fantasy". My parents were livid. They went to school to complain. Turns out, a lot of parents were complaining. Also turns out, all the complaining parents were foreigners. And it also turned out that the questions on the test had a heavy assumption that you were an american child with american parents. I didn't know what a pizza was when I was a kid; that's one of the questions I bombed. My parents never got it for me; at least not yet. The school ended up having to put the test-questions through some kind of minority/foreign-parents verification process and re-do the tests for everyone.

philwelch2• 13 years ago

Historically, programming was low-prestige as well.

calibraxis• 13 years ago

You claim to "risk downvotes". Women like Kathy Sierra risk — no, get — death and assault threats against their families. (http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindnes...)

"I don't have the answers..." Well, evidence is but a google away. We might discover commonsense answers, like from the founder of MenTeach: "If you started paying teachers $150,000 per year, you'd see a lot of guys going into the field". (http://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage)

I know many closeminded software devs who turn out bad product. Why would they turn down their cushy programming job, to be a deunionized elementary schoolteacher? And if we know that males dominate well-paying jobs like software dev... is it surprising that females get a higher proportion of lower-status jobs?

The claim, "if we find successes in some areas we may be able to replicate them in others", doesn't map to the real world. When females couldn't serve jury duty, were males merely waiting for female jury-duty successes? Or did it require firm activism to force humanity to improve?

Dewie6• 13 years ago

"I don't have the answers..." Well, evidence is but a google away. We might discover commonsense answers, like from the founder of MenTeach: "If you started paying teachers $150,000 per year, you'd see a lot of guys going into the field". (http://www.edutopia.org/male-teacher-shortage)

And who knows where he got that number from, based on that article. High school teachers are payed more than elementary teachers? Fine, but is that the only difference between teaching in elementary school and high school? Of course not.

I know many closeminded software devs who turn out bad product. Why would they turn down their cushy programming job, to be a deunionized elementary schoolteacher? And if we know that males dominate well-paying jobs like software dev... is it surprising that females get a higher proportion of lower-status jobs?

Whether being a software developer is higher status than being a teacher is debatable. Teachers are seen as the people that mold the up and coming generations, by some. Programmers? More like the unseen maintenance workers of a subway station: as long as everything works as expected, no one cares. Well, they might appreciate some flashy mobile app these days, though.

Women don't seem to have any problems pursuing careers as doctors and lawyers, professions with both good pay and status. While the those money-hungry men seem to be falling a little behind compared to them, either falling behind academically or quitting the academic route entirely, going into a more hands-on profession (that might be lucrative, or might 'break your back' prematurely, or both).

scott_s5• 13 years ago

Please don't mention how you think people will vote on your comment. It essentially becomes a dare.

TomGullen• 13 years ago

There are many gradients of inequality, and only one true equality. Anything that isn't true equality is inequality.

Is giving a helping hand to disadvantaged minorities an exercise in promotion of equality? I don't think so. So is it a bad thing? Not always.

colmvp• 13 years ago

Is it racist to recruit Black's and Hispanic's in Tech? Asian's in Hollywood, Politics, and Sports?

jonstjohn• 13 years ago

As somebody who is in a hiring position and aspires to a more gender-balanced work-place, I've found it really disheartening that so few applicants are female. We have mostly male developers and leadership, so I understand that a female coming into our office might not feel particularly attracted to it. I guess it is a slow process to try to improve that situation.

tekalon• 13 years ago

I don't think that having mostly men as coworkers is a deterrent. I had a conversation with a co-worker about general work life in our company. There are no work from home opportunities and no paid time off for maternity leave. Most of my (male and female) coworkers like the idea of a work from home or alternative work schedule (4x10 or 9x9 days) but only women commented about better maternity practices. Don't be disheartened by the few number of applicants, that's more due to there being less women in general with the skills needed. I agree don't hire for token numbers, but work on retention, see what keeps them.

Also work with community to encourage both boys and girls into your field. Women get discouraged not when its time to find a job, it starts when they are learning what they are supposed to do (good and bad of gender roles).

belorn3• 13 years ago

A previous discussion on HN mentioned good successes with out-reach programs. It seems the best method to get a larger number of female applicants, and it thankfully work fine without the need of affirmative action or other similar sexist methods.

baddox4• 13 years ago

The problem is that some discrimination of applicants based on "culture" reasons are considered acceptable, while others aren't. For example, it would be generally be considered acceptable for a fast-iterating early-stage startup to not hire a competent engineer who is more comfortable with longer release cycles that are highly-spec'd and polished, but unacceptable to not hire a competent engineer who is much older than the rest of the team, even though both engineers might not fit into the team's culture and therefore both hires might hurt team productivity.

ufmace3• 13 years ago

Yes. If you're discriminating on the basis of gender, how is that not sexist?

Gygash• 13 years ago

If men were being prevented or dissuaded from entering the tech industry then sure, that would be sexist.

Efforts to counter sexism against women are not sexist against men.

belorn3• 13 years ago

Using violence to counter violence is still violence. Using sexism to counter sexism is still sexism. Simply put, An eye for an eye will always leave two blind people no matter how justified one feels it is.

ufmace3• 13 years ago

That depends on what you mean by countering sexism. Telling your co-workers that they should treat the women they work with with the same respect they show to their male co-workers isn't sexist. Saying that you need to recruit more women is.

tshaddox2• 13 years ago

Using a definition that simple, most people in the world are deeply sexist.

obstacle12• 13 years ago

Yes, and...?

When someone self-identifies as 'not a sexist' they also implicitly identify as a liar. To think we can ever get past discrimination -- sex, race, or whatever -- is extremely naive. It is as fundamental to us as making the distinction between 'me' and 'not me'.

SheepSlapper2• 13 years ago

You're confusing -ist and -ism.

Men are better drivers = Sexist

Men are better drivers, so let's not hire women = Sexism

ninjac0der• 13 years ago

I'm not sure I follow this logic. She fessed up to pushing a sexist hiring policy and then tried to justify it by explaining it's just because she enjoys working with other females more?

Well, I enjoy a good laugh... and sexist jokes often make me laugh. Should I apologize?... I feel like I should.

Dewie6• 13 years ago

I remember I was helping out a friend with a side project after work one day. We sat down and spent the night writing code together. It was just so...easy. To get along, to get on the same page, our arguments were productive and from the minute we sat down together there was an immediate sense that we respected each other.

She get's along better with a person that has more in common with her. The outcome of this is kind of ironic, if you think that the purpose of these initiatives is 'diversity'.

ufmace3• 13 years ago

That's the part that I found a little funny too. Sure, it's a lot more pleasant to work closely with somebody you get along well with, but I don't really see what gender has to do with that. I guess she doesn't get along with the men she works with all that well, but being a guy myself, I don't necessarily enjoy working closely with every guy I've worked with just because we're both men. If there were 50 women developers at her company, would she enjoy working with every one of them? Or if there are 50 men and she doesn't enjoy working with any of them, then that's a little odd too.

scott_s5• 13 years ago

She probably gets along great with her male colleagues. But if she is straight (I don't know if she is), and she was with a straight, male colleague after work, and spent "the night writing code together", there would probably be at least some romantic tension.

At work, it's possible to have none, because everyone is a professional and we all understand the boundaries. But once you're electing to spend time with a person outside of work hours, then it can become ambiguous, and one party may feel compelled to say "By the way, this isn't a date...". If she is straight, and she is spending time with a straight female colleague, then that tension is not present at all.

When you're a straight guy, working almost exclusively with straight guys, then this doesn't have to enter your thinking.

nemothekid• 13 years ago

I don't think it is sexist, but I think its misguided. Maybe I lack the data, but it seems to me that forcibly encouraging companies to hire more women only seems to mask the real problem. Is the problem really top-down or is it bottom up?

For example, a couple months ago I read this report on bitcoin adoption that said bitcoin users were 92% male. If we assume this report is correct, then why? If bitcoin, (pretend with me here), is going to be the next driver in the global economy, why is it so heavily male dominated? Bitcoin is fairly anonymous and low entry. Now in our world where Bitcoin rules, if our bitcoin overlords were 92% male, who do we blame for this gender homogeneity?

Now, I may be ignorant in the latest innovations of public schooling, but is the problem that "Brogrammers" are refusing to hire women, or are women just not entering into CS/STEM tracks, and if the problem is the latter, wouldn't it be more sustainable to force our efforts into public schooling rather than constantly remind HN that if our company doesn't have a female mixer we are doing it wrong?

I really hope I'm right with this, and I'm really excited for BlackGirlsCode (http://www.blackgirlscode.com/). With this organization's efforts I hope in the next 10-15 years we see a growth of talented female/black developers leading to a more concentrated effort on the source of this problem.

Dewie6• 13 years ago

I'll believe that "tech" is interested in diversity when it stops being married to nerd-culture. Tech seems to be just as homogenus as any other subculture, and people within it actively encourage it with trying to playfully out-nerd each other with whatever slightly obsessive quirks are in vogue.

TeMPOraL2• 13 years ago

"I'll believe that "tech" is interested in diversity when it stops being married to nerd-culture."

I hope that will never happen. Being a nerd is not a fashion statement, it's a way of thinking, which happens to drive the progress of technology.

Dewie6• 13 years ago

But is the nerd "way of thinking" the only way to achieve things like that? Or is it just that being mired in such a homogeneous culture makes it seem like the two are inextricably and inevitably linked?

Is it Sexist to Recruit Women in Tech?

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