Accounting for gender imbalances

[Ganymede]

@Sparks said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

Do you know how many times I've seen a conversation about ...

Do you know how many times I have seen ...

I'm going to step in and take some flak because I want to.

I don't see anything in what Ghost said speaking to your experience or contradicting your frustration. To the contrary, it appears to me that Ghost understands the constant battle being warred in the boardrooms and hiring halls. Yet nothing Ghost has said is, to me, incorrect.

But you did ask him to step away. And then comes the dogpile.

How many times does a person have to say the following for everyone to put down the firebrands and pitchforks?

"Choose the right people/good team."

This is what Ghost has said from his first post. Actually, what he said was:

"Build a team who can do the job."

And I have to defend this because I said the exact same thing.

"Hire the best people for the job, regardless of gender."

@Ghost said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

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. If you give a woman a bump out of bias, then you're not hiring her solely for her skills, which isn't right either. At the end of the day, all you can do is build your team with the best people you can get, and if that ends up being a diverse team? Great. If not? It was the applications you had available at the time.

That's the advice. And I concur with it. That's why I responded with my post about intangibles. We had a male candidate that, on paper, looked better, but a female candidate that, in reality, was better. I stood there and advocated for the hire because I saw the intangibles, and, lo, I was right.

If Arkandel is going to do the hiring, he's going to need to do the defending. He's going to need to advocate for whoever he hires, regardless of gender. And if that's the case, as Ghost said, focus on the skills and experience when taking a position, and, as I said, don't forget about raising the intangibles.

Dave Chapelle was right, and I remain concerned.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Ganymede yeah and he also entirely neglected to acknowledge or mention the mountains of bias that have absolutely, 100% resulted in these types of jobs being almost entirely staffed by men, so let's not act like that omission means nothing.

No one was like "get thee behind me, devil". He was asked to examine his input and the thought behind it.

[Apos]

@Ganymede Saying, "hire the best candidate" is one of those things that makes me raise my eyebrows because... I mean, of course they will. It's like if someone invites you into the house and then as you enter seriously warns you,"Hey, don't steal anything." It's one of those things that's already well understood, and saying so says a little bit more about the person saying it than the person being told.

[Ghost]

@Kanye-Qwest said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@Ganymede yeah and he also entirely neglected to acknowledge or mention the mountains of bias that have absolutely, 100% resulted in these types of jobs being almost entirely staffed by men, so let's not act like that omission means nothing.

I was not aware that I was required to.

So youre saying that, as a man (myself), acknowledging the state of balance in gender roles in the IT industry is/was required as preamble to simply giving hiring advice?

I didn't come to testify before Congress. Just give hiring advice.

[Tempest]

@faraday said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

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.

I am going to 100% regret touching this thread, but this really stood out to me.

This appears to have quite literally nothing to do with gender or race?

I'd even dare to go so far as saying you are harming women's rights by taking some weird stance of "women have to spend all their time tending to their families, they don't have time to work".

What in the world does being a minority have to do with how much time you have to devote to things? If you as a person have 20 different responsibilities outside of work, that are going to render you incapable of doing what your employer expects of you, that sounds like a personal problem that, again, has literally nothing to do with sex or race or any of that.

It's on YOU to make that time if it's something you want to do. Tell your husband to go fuck himself and make dinner for himself and the kids, you've got to stay at work for another hour.

[BlondeBot]

@Kanye-Qwest said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@Ganymede yeah and he also entirely neglected to acknowledge or mention the mountains of bias that have absolutely, 100% resulted in these types of jobs being almost entirely staffed by men, so let's not act like that omission means nothing.

Are we now going after people for what they DON'T say?

This has gotten really weird.

[HorrorHound]

I have a .gif for this somewhere, hang on, hang on.

[Ganymede]

@Kanye-Qwest said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

yeah and he also entirely neglected to acknowledge or mention the mountains of bias that have absolutely, 100% resulted in these types of jobs being almost entirely staffed by men, so let's not act like that omission means nothing.

The responses infer this neglect or ignorance. Is there any evidence? I don't see any. I see no denial of experience; I see no denial of the very fact that you are presenting here; and I certainly don't deny it. And, more to my point, has anyone jumped down my throat about my thought processes, neglect of acknowledgment, or mention of what I already know and believe?

Apparently not.

@Apos said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

Saying, "hire the best candidate" is one of those things that makes me raise my eyebrows because... I mean, of course they will. ... It's one of those things that's already well understood, and saying so says a little bit more about the person saying it than the person being told.

Emphasis added. Since I believe that Ghost and I have said the exact same thing, why is it that my advice elicited no accusation of neglect or ignorance, but Ghost's did?

Folks.

We are all on the same side. Why are we responding to one another as if were not?

Maybe we should all take a step back.

I want to add that holyshitballs pressing and pushing for equitable treatment is annoying and exhausting as fuck, and I acknowledge -- and I want everyone to know this -- that I am 100% fine with people venting about this topic right here. Like, I can only imagine what Sparks, Auspice, Faraday, or any other woman in the IT industry has to go through. I don't even want to think about it. Don't step back from the anger and rage. Don't take your foot off the pedal.

I just don't think Ghost deserves to get run over for saying everything I did, unless you all intend to run me over too.

[faraday]

@Tempest said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

What in the world does being a minority have to do with how much time you have to devote to things? If you as a person have 20 different responsibilities outside of work, that are going to render you incapable of doing what your employer expects of you, that sounds like a personal problem that, again, has literally nothing to do with sex or race or any of that.

I said nothing about their ability to work. I was talking about things outside of work.

There are studies/articles on this very subject. You can go read them if you like. My point is that responsibilities outside of work should have nothing to do with your qualifications for work. If you can do your job, that's all that should matter. But in reality that's not all that matters. Employers bias towards people based on perceptions about their commitment or their ability to do things outside of work, and that causes a bias in hiring against certain demographics.

[Sunny]

I work in IT.

This conversation is far too exhausting to have here, given these posts. Someday I won't tell someone I work in this industry and have them go "Well if you REALLY were in IT..."

Lol

[Ganymede]

@faraday said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

My point is that responsibilities outside of work should have nothing to do with your qualifications for work. If you can do your job, that's all that should matter. But in reality that's not all that matters. Employers bias towards people based on perceptions about their commitment or their ability to do things outside of work, and that causes a bias in hiring against certain demographics.

I want to interject here to say the following.

There is more definitely an employer bias against people's outside commitments, and I believe they are highly sexist. A man who volunteers for the United Way "is committed to the community"; a woman who has to go take care of a sick child "is not committed enough to the business." It's horrible, ugly, and fucking nasty bullshit that I see and deal with on a daily basis.

I can remember our new associate frustrated and in tears because she had to take yet another day off because of a sick child. She was worried (because I was not a partner at the time) that she might lose her job because she was taking too much time off too soon from her hire. I had to reassure her repeatedly that the partners understood, and that they measured a person's commitment based on work product quality and timeliness. And that I would defend her to the death if otherwise. Now that I'm a partner, I'll guaran-damn-tee it.

Our firm has long-trended away from the antiquated "sit on your ass in your office" mentality of other firms, preferring to allow our staff to take needed time to be away from work with the understanding that the work will get done well and on-time, whenever. You can work from home, from the office, during office hours of after hours, and no one would be checking your clocking-in-and-out. Obviously, it's easier to get work done during business hours (because we do need to call courts and lawyers), but the firm is committed to making sure our attorneys and staff can reasonably raise families.

You may be able to make more at another firm, but good luck on that 2,000 billable-hour requirement.

[Tempest]

This post is deleted!

[BlondeBot]

@Ganymede said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@faraday said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

My point is that responsibilities outside of work should have nothing to do with your qualifications for work. If you can do your job, that's all that should matter. But in reality that's not all that matters. Employers bias towards people based on perceptions about their commitment or their ability to do things outside of work, and that causes a bias in hiring against certain demographics.

I want to interject here to say the following.

There is more definitely an employer bias against people's outside commitments, and I believe they are highly sexist. A man who volunteers for the United Way "is committed to the community"; a woman who has to go take care of a sick child "is not committed enough to the business." It's horrible, ugly, and fucking nasty bullshit that I see and deal with on a daily basis.

I can remember our new associate frustrated and in tears because she had to take yet another day off because of a sick child. She was worried (because I was not a partner at the time) that she might lose her job because she was taking too much time off too soon from her hire. I had to reassure her repeatedly that the partners understood, and that they measured a person's commitment based on work product quality and timeliness. And that I would defend her to the death if otherwise. Now that I'm a partner, I'll guaran-damn-tee it.

Our firm has long-trended away from the antiquated "sit on your ass in your office" mentality of other firms, preferring to allow our staff to take needed time to be away from work with the understanding that the work will get done well and on-time, whenever. You can work from home, from the office, during office hours of after hours, and no one would be checking your clocking-in-and-out. Obviously, it's easier to get work done during business hours (because we do need to call courts and lawyers), but the firm is committed to making sure our attorneys and staff can reasonably raise families.

You may be able to make more at another firm, but good luck on that 2,000 billable-hour requirement.

It's awesome that your workplace puts employees first enough to allow them to take time off as needed as long as they get their work done! Wish more workplaces were like that!

That said, comparing a volunteer duty to an obligation is like comparing apples to baseballs. The hypothetical man in this instance has no actual obligations that would cause him to miss work or suffer dire consequences.

[Ganymede]

@BlondeBot said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

That said, comparing a volunteer duty to an obligation is like comparing apples to baseballs. The hypothetical man in this instance has no actual obligations that would cause him to miss work or suffer dire consequences.

I'm using it to demonstrate a gender bias that we can appreciate. I selected the "volunteer obligation" deliberately.

[Arkandel]

Folks, I asked for advice - and I'm thankful for your insights.

However even if we disagree with someone can we please not dissect their every word looking for offense? Not only is that the wrong attitude for this forum but it's also not constructive.

Obviously women are not being treated fairly in the workplace and there's a lot we can and must do to address it but I don't think bringing down the temperature a notch on the thread will hinder our ability to discuss ways to do so.

[Sparks]

@Ganymede said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

I don't see anything in what Ghost said speaking to your experience or contradicting your frustration. To the contrary, it appears to me that Ghost understands the constant battle being warred in the boardrooms and hiring halls. Yet nothing Ghost has said is, to me, incorrect.

It is possible to be completely factually accurate in your statement and also display harmful bias at the same time.

"You should always hire the right person for the job." is a factual statement and very good advice; of course this is what you want to do.

But take the context; "how do I make this process/workspace more inviting to a new woman who we might be hiring" is often met with that reminder to "always hire the right person for the job", while "how do I make this process/workspace more inviting to the new guy we're looking at hiring" somehow never seems to prompt that same reminder. In both cases, the reminder given is completely correct; the fact that people only feel it necessary to constantly give that reminder in one of those two situations is the thing I think is worth examining more deeply.

It doesn't have to be active intentional malice or misogyny to exist, nor to be harmful. This example of unconscious bias is something where if you drag it out into the light and look at it, you can see the monster for what it is and slowly begin to kill it. It's not comfortable to do so, but I believe it's absolutely worthwhile.

Because I can find no reason that almost every mention of hiring a woman needs the reminder to "hire the right person for the job", whereas mention of hiring a man merits it rarely (if ever).

The advice is perfectly reasonable; the context makes an implication which is not.

@Ganymede said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

But you did ask him to step away. And then comes the dogpile.

I did not ask him to step away, and I apologize if it came across that way to some folks; I was feeling somewhat impassioned and perhaps not at my most eloquent, so I may not have been as clear as I hoped.

I did ask him to examine his response and posed a question he could ask himself to genuinely self-reflect on if there was an unconscious bias there; it came across as his choice to step away from the conversation rather than do so. That's a valid, albeit depressingly common, choice; no one can really force you into examining your unconscious biases, especially not online.

But the reason I think it's important to do so is that if you do want to build an inclusive environment, these are exactly the sort of ingrained things we need to address. The unspoken assumption that a woman needs to actively prove she can do the job and wasn't hired just because of her gender identity, while a man is given the time and space to prove he can't do the same job? That's exactly the sort of thing that makes for a low-grade hostile work environment rather than an inclusive one.

And the sad thing is, at least in STEM fields, most of the women I know just assume they're going to get the former and brace themselves for that low-grade hostility to be their daily reality. It's just the assumed baseline.

At any rate. It was not my intention to become preachy in a non-constructive manner and it appears I have done so, for which I apologize. (Plus I think I have pretty much expended all the words I have in me to expend on this without just going back and reiterating myself.) So I'll just let what I've said already stand as my statement on the type of things I think we need to deal with—the bits of unconscious bias and assumption we need to drag into the light and kill—if we really do want to make environments inclusive and welcoming.

[Tempest]

Deleted that long ass post, just to sum my comments up more succinctly.

If you want to say that some employers are racist/sexist and think a minority isn't going to be willing to devote that extra time, you probably have a point.

But saying they expect the extra things and it's not fair to those minorities is, I feel, a completely different point, and an invalid one.

[Coin]

@BlondeBot said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

That said, comparing a volunteer duty to an obligation is like comparing apples to baseballs. The hypothetical man in this instance has no actual obligations that would cause him to miss work or suffer dire consequences.

I think that's part of @Ganymede's point, though.

[BlondeBot]

@Coin said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@BlondeBot said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

That said, comparing a volunteer duty to an obligation is like comparing apples to baseballs. The hypothetical man in this instance has no actual obligations that would cause him to miss work or suffer dire consequences.

I think that's part of @Ganymede's point, though.

Then I don't understand the point of saying a person with no obligations has a career advantage over a person with outside-work obligations. Obviously they do. It has nothing to do with gender.

The person who can show up more often, when asked, on short notice has the advantage.

[faraday]

@Ganymede said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

I can remember our new associate frustrated and in tears because she had to take yet another day off because of a sick child. She was worried (because I was not a partner at the time) that she might lose her job because she was taking too much time off too soon from her hire.

That's exactly the sort of thing I'm referring to, yes. Statistically, this falls more on women more than men, and especially on single parents.

Now an employer can look at that and say: "Wow, if I hire this lady she might have to take time away from work for her kids - I'll hire this other guy instead because all I care about is hours in seats" or an employer can look at that and say: "Hmm... maybe the fact that we don't allow all parents to take the time they need off for familial obligations is detrimental to their emotional well-being and places an undue burden on one gender and an implicit hiring bias. Maybe we should fix that, huh?"

You see the same thing when it comes to parental and family leave, which often is biased against men.