Accounting for gender imbalances

[Sparks]

@Ghost said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@Arkandel I've been in my current IT Ops group for over 7 years now, and here is my advice:

Build a team who can do the job.

What you're in is a Catch-22 with your politics. At the end of the day, IT is about skills and experience. It's a Catch-22 because if you take a female candidate who isn't as skilled as another male candidate, your team will suffer.

Ok, honestly, this was probably not what you meant to come across as, so forgive this minor rant.

But I'm getting really tired of the implication a lot of people in the tech field throw around that if a woman was hired into a technical role, it's because of 'politics', and that there's a man who could've done the job 'better'. I'm tired of people assuming that 'white dude' is somehow the default, and that any deviation from that needs to be justified.

I'm tired of women in engineering positions having to work harder than a man in the same role just to prove to guys out there that we actually deserve to be in the positions we were hired for in the first place. I'm lucky that I don't generally have to do this at my actual job; the 'talking over the woman in meetings' does happen, but the folks who do that are genuinely trying to do better, and have asked the women in the company to please call them out when they do it so they can be more self aware.

But I have dealt with that 'prove yourself worthy of your position' elsewhere. At my current job, I have dealt with it from clients sometimes. I am not the only one, either; every woman in the engineering department has had it happen to them at least once. It's not as bad as it used to be, but that attitude is still out there, and more common than people want it to be.

There's a fairly stark difference between "I'm hiring based on criteria that are not actually related to suitability for the job because I want to look fair" and "I'd like to ensure I am not unconsciously biased in my hiring, and I'd like to know how I can get more diverse candidates to apply in the first place." I read Ark's question as the latter. Which I firmly believe companies should aspire to. That's not politics, it's just good sense.

Because there is demonstrable value in diversity. There are studies about this, and I have observed it firsthand at work. If you have a team of all straight white dudes put into a conference room for an engineering brainstorming session? A group of people with generally similar viewpoints will consistently produce a smaller variety of ideas, because... well, they have generally similar viewpoints. Once you start introducing people of different backgrounds—people who, due to those backgrounds, often look at the same thing in different ways—a brainstorming session produces a wider and more varied set of ideas and approaches.

Similarly, a diverse engineering team means problems that arise during actual development of the particular device we're working on can be approached from several different angles, and we often find solutions in a diverse group that a homogenous one blows past.

The benefits diversity brings to our various engineering projects have been genuinely observable in ways we can measure; the reason the company wants a more diverse workforce is not politics, it's because we get more shit done and make more money because our clients are happier with our work than our competitors.

This doesn't mean you should go "Oh, here's a candidate that's a woman, we should hire her." or "We absolutely have to make certain our engineering department looks like a Benetton advertisement." But it does mean you should work on dealing with unconscious bias. And it does mean you should work on attracting more diverse candidates to apply in the first place, so that the pipeline offers more diverse options anyway.

Because, frankly, if someone thinks that hiring a woman means it was 'your politics' that forced it, because 'a man could do the job better'? The implication that the hiring decision even has to be justified as not politically motivated when hiring a woman, whereas it doesn't when hiring a man? That attitude's politically motivated, too. And those ones are shitty politics.

(ETA: Okay, turns out that was not a "minor" rant.)

[Rinel]

@Sparks

Lengthy tired rant of my own incoming.

Everything you said is true and applies to pretty much any profession that involves fixing problems other people are having. Having a woman at our firm is important. Having a man at our firm is important. I am frequently told, though I do not believe their lies, that having a trans person at our firm is important. It's going to be important when we hire a black attorney who grew up in the city, because their life experiences are a useful skill.

This isn't bleeding-heart progressive political correctness. It's just business sense. We work in a majority-minority city where black people are vastly disproportionately targeted by cops and the criminal justice system in general. This is where Alton Sterling was murdered. Having a black lawyer matters. It's not about "who can get the job done best," because there's no such thing as being "the best" at a profession. Sure, I might be the best in the office at researching and analyzing complex legal issues, but I am the awkwardest of ducks. My colleague might need constant help with her citations when she's drafting up motions, but she is a holy terror in the courtroom. Another attorney is ex-military. He handles the firm's interactions with law enforcement and keeps all sorts of wheels greased.

It is way past my bedtime and I am doing a terrible job of explaining things, but your identity is a skillset. It influences how you approach things, like Pax said.

I AM JUST REPEATING WHAT PAX SAID BUT IT IS REALLY IMPORTANT AND I GET ANNOYED WHEN PEOPLE DON'T GET IT

tl;dr

@Sparks said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

the reason the company wants a more diverse workforce is not politics, it's because we get more shit done and make more money because our clients are happier with our work than our competitors.

[Sparks]

No, you know what? Sorry, I'm not actually done. Because apparently I have far more pent-up ire inside me with regards to yet one more instance of something that just happened in this thread than I realized, and—to quote Grog Strongjaw—"I WOULD LIKE TO RAGE!"

(I shall endeavor my best to keep the post productive, as this is not the Hog Pit. I cannot promise that my tone is not going to be somewhat 'spirited' because—as I said—I would like to rage.)

Ark started a thread here suggesting that among the candidates for his team, there were women. He said "if one is hired", suggesting that they're going to be hiring on merits, not that they're going to hire one just to have a woman. He wanted to know how to avoid unconscious biases, and how to provide a welcoming workplace without making things awkward or hostile if the hire happens to be a woman. (Because, shockingly, sometimes the best candidate for the job does happen to be a woman.)

You know what a thread like that does not need? Someone coming in and saying "You should hire the best person for the job. Don't let politics motivate you. If you hire a woman just for politics when there's a man who can do the job better, it will only hurt your team." Which carries the unspoken but extremely strong implication that "the best person for the job" is not going to be one of the women in that stack of resumes, and that if one of those women is chosen it is therefore going to be politically motivated because one of those men could do the same job better. And now suddenly the discussion is shifted from how to make diverse workplaces welcoming to having to defend if the workplace can and should be diverse in the first place; the person has already won, by getting the other group to cede ground.

It is a technique used almost mind-numbingly frequently to derail topics like this, so much so that it's wearing a groove into the collective social discussion. And I've seen it so often I'm honestly somewhat ashamed I let myself fall into that trap with my last post.

Now maybe it genuinely is just an idle philosophical exercise to some people to shift discussion of "how" to "if" instead. But to a lot of us in the STEM fields? It is part of our daily professional life in some way or another, not just some abstract thought exercise.

Please keep that in mind, people, and strive to do better.

[faraday]

@Sparks said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

Now maybe it genuinely is just an idle philosophical exercise to some people to shift discussion of "how" to "if" instead. But to a lot of us in the STEM fields? It is part of our daily professional life in some way or another, not just some abstract thought exercise.

I'll start by saying that I don't believe that @Ghost's comment "if you take a female candidate who isn't as skilled..." was intended with any malice. That said, everything Sparks said is accurate. This is a daily grind. It sucks. It's exhausting. And "Just hire the best person for the job" is one of those arguments that is quite frequently trotted out to trivialize the very real struggles that women/POC/LGBTQ candidates face in tech.

Here's a concrete example that has nothing and everything to do with gender. It's quite trendy for software companies these days to expect candidates to do all kinds of extracurricular activities. Conferences. Open source projects. Community engagement. Or they'll make doing some kind of coding project--requiring hours of work--part of the interview process. Sounds great on paper, right? Anybody who's doing all that crap outside of work must be super devoted.

But you know who doesn't have time for that kind of stuff? People with families. Especially women. Also other minority candidates who may face additional social challenges that divert their attention outside of work.

Does that make them any worse at doing their job? Only if the core facet of the job is "your ability to work on your job outside of working hours", which is a pretty crappy reason to hire somebody.

There's plenty of research to support the idea that having a more diverse workforce is valuable, so this should be something we strive to change. But unless we challenge our preconceived notions about what constitutes a good candidate and recognize the inherent biases in the hiring processes and culture in tech, we're never going to make progress.

[Sparks]

@faraday said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

I'll start by saying that I don't believe that @Ghost's comment "if you take a female candidate who isn't as skilled..." was intended with any malice.

I don't think in this case it was, no. I suspect it was a thought exercise or playing Devil's Advocate. Doesn't change the fact that it's still something that I'm exhausted by encountering yet again, and for once I wasn't going to hold my tongue on it and play "get along nice". Apparently I had a decade or so of pent-up ire on the topic that needed to be lanced and drained.

@faraday said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

There's plenty of research to support the idea that having a more diverse workforce is valuable, so this should be something we strive to change.

True story of a tangible benefit of diversity: there's a device we worked on at work which is focused on women's health. It was a great project, brought in a lot of revenue, we did superb work on it, the client was thrilled. They gave us permission to publicly talk about the project, and it has helped bring in new clients and revenue.

I have heard through the grapevine that one of our competitors who also bid on the work was apparently very upset they didn't land that project and we did instead.

You know why we did? We have women on our engineering team. Enough of them that we were able to staff nearly the entire project with women of varied backgrounds.

Our competitor did not have the capability to do that and, shockingly, it turns out that having women be the dominant presence in the room working on a device related to women's reproductive health is something the client might actually value.

[HorrorHound]

@Arkandel

I'm a bit high, 225 ft actually, so I may seem a bit airheaded but, uh, what do you actually need? I PM and Trade. You always use the best tool you have access to, for the job, and anything is a hammer if you need one in a pinch.

Advice from Up High:

• No one is inherently special.
• Meritocratic mindset will do you wonders.
• Be swift to establish a Code of Conduct.
• If someone has a legit problem with your way of doing things, fire them. Employment at Will, and all that.

I'll see if I can come up with more when I'm uh, not as high. You know?

[Ghost]

@Sparks @faraday Just wanna pop in and say that I, in no way, was saying that or had any malice. Politics is just probably the base word to use, but I'm not that guy that groks too much on the whole Convservative vs. Liberal shit.

Like you, I don't want to have to prove my technical capabilities against anything that I was born into. I don't assume anyone has to prove anything other than whether or not they can do the work, which is any job, really.

My job entails scripting, documentation, environment detailing, and writing of process. I've got a guy on my team who has somehow been coasting for 7 years by doing business as usual changes and has no capability (and has never done) of doing any of those things. It's unbelievable. I'd gladly see him replaced with someone who will, and frankly don't care what gender, nationality, or religion that person is.

I'll never say or suggest that someone has to prove their skill/worth in spite of who they are. Logically, though, any hiring manager has to weigh their responsibility to hire the best candidate for the job against the weight of any cultural biases they may have. That is a balancing act.

I said the same thing everyone else did: choose the right people/good team.

[BlondeBot]

@Kanye-Qwest said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@Caryatid this is all good too. Don't make your first woman hire all about how she's your first woman hired. Examine the culture and what needs to be changed or reinforced to make it appropriate for ANY worker who might come in, and don't put the onus on the 'diversity hire' to point those things out, or sign off on things.

Honestly, I do not think there are different standards for what is work appropriate for men, women, or other. Keep it professional and let all your employees do their jobs.

Yeah, this. I work in a male-dominated field (about 40+ men for every woman), and being treated like a token, special flower, or snowflake is incredibly insulting for anyone.

So if you want to hire a qualified person who happens to be a woman, just never, EVER bring it up. Treat them as part of the team, not a diversity hire. Hold them to the same standards everyone else is.

Even if your mission is to hire women, never let them know, or even think, that. Because God that'd be so belittling and condescending.

[Kanye Qwest]

For me it's the implicit presupposition that all the (probably largely white) men hired into these jobs were "the best candidate". That none of them were hired BECAUSE of bias, or politics.

Malice aforethought or no, that's a serious problem, and it takes some examination. Jumping in with "hire the BEST candidate, not based on politics" is about equivalent to "ALL lives matter" in that it is only brought up when the status quo is being questioned. No one is going after companies with huge gender imbalances and asking them to justify every man they've hired.

It's 2019, and this is canceled. Thanks for listening to my Ted talk.

[Arkandel]

@Kanye-Qwest I had a chat today with our (female) HR person who pointed out we all tend to hire people who look like we do. It's a natural bias, since we can find it easier to imagine working with such people.

I did have a chat with a project manager - also female - who works with my team pretty closely and she set my mind at ease saying we're probably too PG for our own good as it is. Having so many introverts on the team means there are no jokes at all most of the time, let alone inappropriate or even raunchy ones (her words: "I wish you guys DID swear more"). Which is probably good.

There are other things we do need to adjust. For example we have two washrooms in our area, both men's... that's gonna have to change unless we expect a new hire to walk across the first floor to use the facilities.

[mietze]

This post is deleted!

[Ganymede]

@Ghost said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

I said the same thing everyone else did: choose the right people/good team.

I concur, but again write separately.

I think it's important to remember that "the right people" aren't necessarily the people with the "best credentials." The "right people" can often seem, on paper, to be the "wrong person," and yet turn out to be the "right person" based on what some coaches might call "intangibles" that aren't immediately apparent.

Take, for example, these two candidates for a small-to-medium firm (5-10 attorneys) general litigation firm:

• Male, late-20s, runs his own small firm with criminal and civil experience based on his general practice, and has done so since he exited law school.

• Woman, late-20s, works in the local prosecutor's office doing sexual felony prosecution.

On paper, the male candidate looks like the "best candidate": he has his own practice; he handles general litigation; and he is enough of a self-starter to continue a practice for a few years out of law school. But based on how we greased him in a case recently, we made the better choice.

The woman had better intangibles. Working in a completely different field means no fewer bad habits. Working in a local prosecutor's office means being used to taking orders from others. Substantial experience as a prosecutor means that she has absolutely no problem walking into a courtroom with little or no backup and winging her way through an evidentiary hearing. And I'd rather have a new associate bugging me with questions on the smallest things or about areas of the law she has no familiarity with than to pretend that she knows what she's doing because, hey, she used to run her own practice.

Yeah, she wiped the floor with that other guy. It wasn't even close. And I'm so fucking proud of her. (Because I brought her to the firm, I pushed for her hire, and I got it dammit because I can see talent, bitch.)

Look for the intangibles. Take a bit of a risk on paper. The rewards are enormous, and you better damn believe I have an ally in the office place.

[saosmash]

@Ganymede She sounds like a badass.

[Roz]

@Ghost said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

I said the same thing everyone else did: choose the right people/good team.

That's not what anyone else was saying or talking about, though. The reason it was a frustrating post was because it was an unnecessary reminder to make sure you only hire women that deserve it, when the topic at hand is how to build a workplace that's supportive of women when it's thus far been male-dominated. These aren't the same issue, and is difficult for women to repeatedly hear people bring up the former in discussions of the latter because it is, in fact, a derailing of a topic that is incredibly important to them and affects them on a daily basis. It is a reminder that there will always be a contingent of people wondering if we're even qualified for our jobs.

[Ganymede]

@saosmash said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

She sounds like a badass.

I would hire former prosecutors and criminal defense people in a second. You have to train them closely, yes, but they take on huge (for civil attorneys) caseloads, work themselves to the bone, and have the sort of idgaf i put away/defended rapists before attitude that makes every office hour go by faster.

It's always amusing at the office when you hear:

"This dickwad wants $250,000 for his client because of a rear-ender that caused minor bruising to her boob? I've had to put an asshole away for raping his sister while hitting her with a hammer, and she barely got her medical bills paid. Fuck her, fuck her lawyer, and fucking bring it."

An absolute joy to work with.

[Sparks]

@Ghost said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@Sparks @faraday Just wanna pop in and say that I, in no way, was saying that or had any malice. Politics is just probably the base word to use, but I'm not that guy that groks too much on the whole Convservative vs. Liberal shit.
[ ... ]
I said the same thing everyone else did: choose the right people/good team.

I am totally willing to accept that there was no malicious intent in what you said. But, I really want you to genuinely step back from the situation for a moment and consider what I'm about to say.

Do you know how many times I've seen a conversation about "So, we have a pretty defined corporate culture, but we need to make some new hires and I'm a little worried it might be jarring or off-putting to a new guy to come into. Anyone have advice on how to make the environment welcoming to him?" get derailed by men stepping in and going "Just be sure you aren't hiring a guy because of political motivations, just to meet a quota!" and thus subtly shifting the conversation to being about whether or not a man was the best qualified for the job? Thus far, in my technical career, that would be 0. (Or nil, or NULL, or None, depending on your preferred programming language.)

Do you know how many times I have seen "So, I'm a little worried that we're a homogenous corporate culture of guys, and that could be off-putting to any women we hire. Anyone have advice on how to make a more inclusive and welcoming environment at work?" get derailed by a guy stepping in and going, "Make sure you aren't hiring a woman just for politics; if you hire a woman instead of a guy who can do the job better, it will hurt your team!" and thus redirecting the conversation from "how to be welcoming to the women we include" to justifying whether or not women should even be included in the first place? I actually cannot tell you, because I lost count years ago.

Somehow, the "be sure to choose the right people/team" topic shift only ever comes up when people are discussing how to make a work environment more comfortable for women or minorities. And after a certain point, it doesn't matter whether it's an intentional redirect or acting on an unconscious bias; the effect on the discourse is the same.

So I ask that you please step back and ask yourself, honestly, if you saw that first question in this post—"what are some good tips I should consider in making a welcoming environment for the new guy we hired?"—would your instinctive gut response to be "Make sure the new guy who you hired wasn't politically motivated; if you hire a man just to have a man, when a woman might be the better candidate, you'll only hurt your team." rather than giving tips on how to make a fun and welcoming work environment?

If not, then take a minute or so and dwell on that fact.

Like I said earlier, we—collectively, as a society—need to do better.

@Arkandel said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

There are other things we do need to adjust. For example we have two washrooms in our area, both men's... that's gonna have to change unless we expect a new hire to walk across the first floor to use the facilities.

The guys used to complain about restrooms on the engineering design floor not having enough stalls and how they'd have to wait in line. The first day, years ago, that we had a line in the women's design floor restroom? There was actually a victory email sent out among the women at the company (we made an internal mailing list ages ago) going, "Yes! There's finally enough of us that this happened!" and a fistpump GIF.

[Ghost]

Apologies. I thought we were answering a guy asking for advice. I'll step away.

[Roz]

@Ghost said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

Apologies. I thought we were answering a guy asking for advice.

That's really unkindly dismissive.

[Ghost]

@Roz said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@Ghost said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

Apologies. I thought we were answering a guy asking for advice.

That's really unkindly dismissive.

I think you're stretching the definition of unkind a bit there.

I involved myself to give my advice on the matter; not to attend church. Someone asked that I step out and I think that's a good idea.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Ghost I mean you weren't adding anything but more of the nonsense causing the issue so