Accounting for gender imbalances

[Coin]

@BlondeBot said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@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.

Gany was using that comparison to showcase the sexist way men are excused for their extracurricular volunteering and women are blamed for their extracurricular obligations. It's right there:

There is more definitely an employer bias against people's outside commitments, and I believe they are highly sexist.

[Tempest]

If some guy calls out of work, the day of work, to go volunteer somewhere... (Which would be the equivalent of a mother calling out to tend to her sick child.)

I don't really think his coworkers are going to be cheering for his community spirit.

If he put in a vacation request for it ahead of time, or is doing in his off time...

Not really seeing the correlation.

[faraday]

@BlondeBot said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

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

There are certainly some jobs where that's the case, but there are tons of jobs where it isn't. Particularly the M-F 9-5 jobs that you tend to find in the tech industry. As long as the person is able to fulfill their assigned schedule, with time off within the company's allowed limits, who the heck cares what their schedule is outside of work? They could be working three jobs to support their ailing mother, they could have a kid, how is that any of the company's business?

[BlondeBot]

@Coin said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@BlondeBot said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@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.

Gany was using that comparison to showcase the sexist way men are excused for their extracurricular volunteering and women are blamed for their extracurricular obligations. It's right there:

***There is more definitely an employer bias against people's outside commitments, and I believe they are highly sexist. ***

I have never heard of 'Sorry, I'm not coming in today because I'm volunteering.' being an acceptable excuse to miss work in any vocation, for any gender.

[faraday]

@BlondeBot said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

I have never heard of 'Sorry, I'm not coming in today because I'm volunteering.' being an acceptable excuse to miss work in any vocation, for any gender.

I have (from some more socially-focused companies), but that's completely beside the point here.

I think that there are two points being argued here, and that they're getting confused because they're related but distinct.

• A bias against people with outside of work commitments, which may impact their ability to do the extracurricular things that employers look for in the hiring process (my original point).
• A bias against people with obligations during work hours, which may necessitate them using more of their PTO days than someone else without said obligations. (Gany's point)

Neither of these is explicitly bound to gender. There was a single dad at my previous job who took just as much time off for kid obligations as me, a single mom.

However it is well-demonstrated that women, statistically, are frequently the target of these biases, and that it is a part of why women are underrepresented in the tech industry.

Also bear in mind, nobody's said that anyone of any gender should be given a pass for taking unexcused absences beyond the company's allowed amount, nor should they be given a pass for not being able to meet the requirements of their job.

[Ganymede]

@BlondeBot said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

I have never heard of 'Sorry, I'm not coming in today because I'm volunteering.' being an acceptable excuse to miss work in any vocation, for any gender.

The disconnect may be that I work in a profession where the concept of "sick days" and "vacation days" are mashed together.

Many attorneys don't get "sick days" or "vacation days." We work in small offices which run on the concept of getting billable hours paid. The more hours, the more money, the better off the firm. Larger firms or public entities are going to work differently, as do corporate counsel, but for the most part the legal profession in mid-sized cities operate on a "get hours get paid" basis.

Frankly, I think the concept of "sick days" and "vacation days" is antiquated and should be abolished, but that's another topic for another day.

So, where "sick days" and "vacation days" aren't used or important, people just take time off to handle their outside obligations. Around here, this includes fucking snow delays and other bullshit that comes with spawning. It is not uncommon to have firms lauding the volunteer work done by associates and partners (when they could be in the office), and at the same time lecturing women about how important it is to commit to their firms or suffer career failure. And the messages between the genders are sometimes offensively biased: a man goes off with the national guard to Afghanistan for three months, and dumps his work on his fellow associates, is a hero; however, a woman who has to spend a week with her sick child is somehow not committed to her firm because she couldn't find babysitter arrangements.

"Sorry, I'm not coming in today because I'm volunteering to help the people affected by the recent tornadoes" has been common over here in southern Ohio as of late, but man if I haven't heard stories of women reamed for asking for a day off to take care of their sick kid.

[Rinel]

@Ganymede

You sound like a great lawyer at a great firm. Even if you hire prosecutors.

Billables are antiquated af tho.

[Ganymede]

@Rinel said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

Billables are antiquated af tho.

Do you mean hour requirements or billables in general?

We just follow the medical industry's lead, yo.

[Arkandel]

Well, the lady in question just crushed the phone part of the interview so.

[Kanye Qwest]

@BlondeBot said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@Coin said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@BlondeBot said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@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.

Gany was using that comparison to showcase the sexist way men are excused for their extracurricular volunteering and women are blamed for their extracurricular obligations. It's right there:

***There is more definitely an employer bias against people's outside commitments, and I believe they are highly sexist. ***

I have never heard of 'Sorry, I'm not coming in today because I'm volunteering.' being an acceptable excuse to miss work in any vocation, for any gender.

I get 40 hours a year of paid time to do volunteer work! But. That's generally arranged ahead of time like vacation.

[Ghost]

@Sparks said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

it came across as his choice to step away from the conversation rather than do so.

Just an FYI. I did not step away as a decision rather to do so, but that I saw the conversation was becoming a minefield and that expounding on my viewpoints (whether or not people were going to agree with them) wasn't worthwhile.

I think that sometimes when people dissect posts for signs of ugly thoughts/feelings without really asking them what their viewpoint is, the end result is a scenario where upset people are seeking a sort of submission to whatever their perceived (and often negative) assumptions are. The assumption of having been educated or agreeing with one's viewpoint ends up being more important than the conversation, itself.

If you'd like to ask me in private what my views are, or would like to discuss, you know how to find me. It would probably be more productive.

[Rinel]

@Ganymede

I'd like to see a shift towards blended arrangements in non-criminal law. I don't think flat fees are realistic anywhere. Unfortunately, in criminal law, I don't see an alternative to the billable. My firm is a low bono defense firm, and we use a sliding scale arrangement so we can subsidize poor clients with wealthy ones, but we still rely on the billable hour. It's the only way we've come across that will keep our doors open. There are just too many uncertainties, and we have to have an expert witness fund. And, you know, keep our support staff paid.

Still, asking someone to pay a hundred dollars for me to go through PDFs for an hour and rename them feels obscene on a visceral level.

[saosmash]

@Rinel I do all my criminal work that isn't government contracted on flat fee. That way I'm eating the risk of everything going pearshaped and taking all my time rather than subjecting my clients -- who are almost always low income -- to financial pressure to settle their constitutional rights.

I calculate my flat fees based on a.) other fees I hear about in my jurisdiction and b.) a time estimate of how many hours a case will cost me times my billable rate, which I keep comparable to other attorneys in my area.

It works for me as a solo. YMMV, I guess.

Now back to the not-derailed part of this conversation, sorry.

[Rinel]

@saosmash

I like this model, and if we can land government contracts we'll be able to be more flexible in our billing, but we do have to keep the doors open. Nobody makes over 30k at our firm right now. I'd be comfortable charging flat fees for misdemeanors, but I handle almost exclusively PCR cases--and we literally charge an order of magnitude less than many other attorneys.

[Ganymede]

@Rinel said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

Still, asking someone to pay a hundred dollars for me to go through PDFs for an hour and rename them feels obscene on a visceral level.

I hope you don't think this is what I do or like to do either. But I can tell you that I have accumulated over 2,000 hours of pro bono work in under 10 years because I use the billable hour system.

But that's another topic for another day.

[Rinel]

@Ganymede

IIRC you're a robot and therefore do not like anything except eating batteries and drinking motor oil

[Auspice]

@Rinel said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@Ganymede

IIRC you're a robot and therefore do not like anything except eating batteries and drinking motor oil

I reject the Gany Robot theory. Gany is forever a trash panda in my mind.

[Darinelle]

@Arkandel I'm going to comment on this from someone who isn't IN IT but works in Finance (and lord above that field is so old-white-male it's not even funny) and buck the trend a little.

Yes, you should hire someone who can do the job. I would bet real dollars that a woman who seems to meet your criteria will be insanely more qualified than most of the men who seem to meet your criteria, because of the differences women and men tend to create resumes and apply for jobs. THAT BEING SAID, assume you hire a woman because she's the one who can do the job the best and now you're trying to smooth that transition.

First - it's not going to be smooth. Just expect that.

Second - no woman wants to be treated like a mascot. I'm glad you're not planning to do that.

Third - it is not "treating women like a mascot" to have an open, honest discussion with her when she joins your team. Mention things like - "we hired you for your skillset, but I want to make sure we're not unconsciously hampering your efficacy. So I'll be keeping an eye on meetings and groupchat to make sure that you aren't getting talked over, and that when you suggest something we don't ignore it until a man says it, and when you ask questions they get answered. But if I fail, please feel free to either say something directly in the meeting, or if you're not comfortable with that come to me later and discuss it with me."

Openly discussing the elephant in the room isn't making someone feel like a mascot. It's proving that you know what the common pitfalls are, and you're aware of them and working to make sure they're not a problem. Doing it in that way makes sure she knows that she not only has an ally if she needs one, but that you're interested in making sure that the reasons you hired her aren't going to be wasted by the stupidity of men not being accustomed to listening when a woman speaks.

My previous boss had to call meetings for me with our IT guys so that they'd show up to the meetings and not blow them off. My current boss had to sit through IT meetings with me and literally repeat everything I said until people responded to it. And I am not a shy and retiring woman. It has gotten better with time. I call my own meetings with IT now and they show up. When I speak, the ones that have been through these exercises listen and pay attention, and now get other people to stop talking long enough for me to speak. It's a process, but it starts with awareness. Whatever woman you hire will be aware of the imbalance. Acknowledging it before it becomes an issue, creating a plan to deal with it if (when) it is an issue, and then acting on it will be the key to establishing a smooth, cohesive environment.

Ribald jokes are the least of your worries. I can brush off a ridiculous joke or a smarmy attitude (that doesn't involve touching, don't fucking touch me at work). But being ignored and talked over in meetings and having to wait for a man to repeat my ideas will destroy my enjoyment of what should be a good job, and honestly it's doing a disservice to the team because you've now hired someone and then forced her to underperform because you won't let her. Don't do that thing.

[Misadventure]

My not so practical thought:

It's not on someone to get others to act reasonably. It's on your team to not be harassers, to see beyond whatever limited images they have in their head of any group. No one is making them do anything, and work isn't anyone's private space, nor is it a public rights space. Everyone acts appropriately, everyone participates in setting the tone, and everyone adapts every time there is a change to group composition. No one gets especially catered to.

I work in tech, and for my team it's the largest ratio of women to men I've seen, in QA, management, SEs, SAs, and devs. And it's really easy.

[faraday]

@Darinelle said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

Ribald jokes are the least of your worries. I can brush off a ridiculous joke or a smarmy attitude (that doesn't involve touching, don't fucking touch me at work). But being ignored and talked over in meetings and having to wait for a man to repeat my ideas will destroy my enjoyment of what should be a good job, and honestly it's doing a disservice to the team because you've now hired someone and then forced her to underperform because you won't let her. Don't do that thing.

I just wanted to echo this. Occasionally the jokes or topics go overboard ("Guys, can we not talk about picking up hookers in Vegas while out at lunch with our new summer intern?" -- true story), but the general dismissal is the most pervasive day-to-day problem I've seen in tech.