I don't know... seems alright to me:
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/242634/986129bd-972d-4313-b203-8aaccdff2e9f/image.png
See, they're actually very progressive:
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/242634/0bd1aa17-38e2-4b5d-bd97-722d72f1b3bb/image.png
I need to remember to delete those fake files.
To be serious for a minute though, I worked in software development for quite a few years and a lot of our team was women. The two most intelligent colleagues I've ever worked with were also women and were developers, not management or anything. This meme that women can't do stuff like this frustrates me and I don't really understand it.
I think honestly the only thing I draw a problem with is the bit where:
financial incentives and performance metrics to ‘diversity hiring’ – as
long as we give more money and higher annual reviews explicitly for NOT
hiring/promoting white men and Asians, this will continue to be a
serious problem at the company.
is apparently going on. That's not okay. Women and minorities shouldn't be boiled down to paycheck padding for hiring managers. That's fucking disgusting.
FYI, the OP was a female program manager.
“I have an ever-increasing file of white male Microsoft employees who
have faced outright and overt discrimination because they had the
misfortune of being born both white and male. This is unacceptable,”
There are a ton of other statements from both sides. The conversation seems civil.
The problem isn't having a vagina, it 's being hired for a vagina when you aren't qualified and then being coddled at expense of other people's sanity and money thereafter simply for marketing points. frankly, if you're able to do that, your company has too much fucking money.
Hire people based on their skill and don't care about their gribbly bits. Real fucking simple, just takes back bone and removing yourself from social media circle jerks.
It frustrates me that this is so hard for a lot of people in the corporate world. I guess when it comes down to it the HR/PR grads that have the mentality of blindly following what ever corporate current is cool right now and making all of their decisions based off that are a big part of them problem. They feel like they're being "progressive" when there is absolutely nothing progressive about hiring people for their skin color or gender to fill an arbitrary "diversity" quota. Its just discrimination with extra steps.
Microsoft has a metric fuckload of staff, so "some" staff questioning a hiring procedure honestly just doesn't seem like news to me? I also have to question whether the constant "programmers and engineers hate women, and the companies are total sausage parties!" stories that you see in the media are actually amenable to getting more women into these professions. Instead of constantly talking up misogyny as a huge problem in these circles, I think a push towards developing the social life in those majors would be a massive boon, both to existing students, and also as a way to make them more appealing to women.
If everyone keeps telling you a party is filled with weirdos, you're probably less likely to go. Not saying there isn't an issue with misogyny, but maintaining the image that your average software company will execute anyone with tits is probably both untrue and also not very conducive to changing that.
It also makes a disservice to women to hire unqualified people just because they are women, because then it paints women as unqualified.
Exactly. Diversity quotas are such a dumb concept because HR will be looking to fill the quota for PR brownie points as a higher priority than actually hiring qualified professionals regardless of what demographic they belong to. And while I dislike even mentioning the term "meritocracy" nowadays because a lot of jerks use the term to justify some truly nasty behavior in both the business and political spheres, really, getting good workers should be first priority in hiring.
If you wanna solve the diversity problem, this isn't it. As was already said in this thread, there should be more of a push to encourage other demographics to get into these fields if that's what they want to do, and make it a positive thing. Not bashing on said fields for not being diverse enough or enforcing these superficial quotas that ultimately solve nothing. But even if a certain level of diversity isn't met yet, that shouldn't be a problem so long as the door is kept open to those other demographics. Sometimes the amount of workers is just concentrated to one particular demographic or another at that moment or in a particular area. Don't compromise your business to bend over backwards to appease arbitrary quotas that aren't actually feasible.
This is true, but the reality is that the problem is much more complex than that. It's a collection of things that if left solely to perceived meritocracy, would result in only straight, while men in high paying jobs, as they are the most likely to be able to attend and afford a college degree required for it.
Starting in school, women and minorities would be discouraged to look for STEM jobs as that's something only the smart people can do. If they looked at the work force and see only white men, they would very much feel the outlier and further dissuade them from even trying.
Then comes college: first they have to distinguish themselves from other kids who might have had a much more privileged upbringing, with more exposure to the field because they were given more opportunities. In a pure meritocracy, the white men would have a significantly greater chance of acceptance solely because of opportunities. The system is designed that way, intentionally or not.
Once in college, women and minorities are again in the minority. Women will be in classes full of guys trying to hit on them. It gets grating after a while, and then it even comes to a point where people question if you're just sleeping your way to the top. It doesn't matter how good you are, you would be working on a uphill battle.
The work force is similar to college except now you're being paid to do things. Homogenous groups would have less im of a problem cracking jokes at other's expense. And while they can be jokes, it does build up inside the person in the minority. It eventually creates a hostile work environment and they just end up leaving because it's more trouble than it's worth.
Affirmative action is the best solution to an already broken system. I'll be up front saying I don't like it either. I think it's ultimately a racist/sexist solution, but it's a solution to a racist/sexist problem. It does unfairly discriminate against the majority, but the majority have significantly more chances than a minority has.
It's also worth noting that affirmative action is not the be-all, end-all solution either, but part of a greater one. Outreach programs to young women and minorites help give the exposure of STEM careers at a young age. It gives them the experience that would otherwise be generally reserved to white males.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/08/why-men-are-the-new-college-minority/536103/
The Gender Gap in College Education
https://www.aei.org/publication/prediction-no-2017-graduation-speaker-will-mention-this-the-growing-gender-college-degree-gap-favoring-women/
This is not true. Women make up the majority of college students in the US and are graduating at higher rates than men.
I should have clarified in the context of STEM degrees. My bad.
That still isn't entirely true though and depends solely on your definition of "STEM", which different organizations do count different disciplines. Some for instance some count Health Sciences as STEM while others don't.
In certain subfields, sure! I just don't think it's as clear cut and dry everywhere as "they get hit on in class". Especially when you potentially have higher rates of women going into STEM in more traditionally unequal societies (like the UAE) compared to more equal societies like the Nordic countries.
The findings will likely seem controversial, since the idea that men and women have different inherent abilities is often used as a reason, by some, to argue we should forget trying to recruit more women into the STEM fields. But, as the University of Wisconsin gender-studies professor Janet Shibley Hyde, who wasn’t involved with the study, put it to me, that’s not quite what’s happening here.
“Some would say that the gender STEM gap occurs not because girls can’t do science, but because they have other alternatives, based on their strengths in verbal skills,” she said. “In wealthy nations, they believe that they have the freedom to pursue those alternatives and not worry so much that they pay less.”
Instead, this line of research, if it’s replicated, might hold useful takeaways for people who do want to see more Western women entering STEM fields. In this study, the percentage of girls who did excel in science or math was still larger than the number of women who were graduating
with STEM degrees. That means there’s something in even the most liberal societies that’s nudging women away from math and science, even when those are their best subjects. The women-in-STEM advocates could, for starters, focus their efforts on those would-be STEM stars.
Then again, it could just be that, feeling financially secure and on equal footing with men, some women will always choose to follow their passions, rather than whatever labor economists recommend. And those passions don’t always lie within science.
The conclusion of that second article is fairly important - because there are plenty of women who excel in math and science, far more than are getting STEM degrees. If the reasons for those women not pursuing STEM degrees is due to latent sexism, then I certainly agree that is something that needs to be changed. But if it's down to people following their passions, then I don't think there's really a problem at that level. People will want to study what they find interesting.
I think the vast majority of people agree that there is nothing wrong with questioning diversity that exists for diversity's sake.
Most people don't mind diversity that is a result of an organic process.
However, diversity for diversity's sake exists in such prevalence that any diversity starts to be tied to the former, and thus questioned - which is a shame.
I think another important takeaway is that the issue isn't being expressed at the hiring level.
It's not that women are being turned down for software engineering positions because they're women. Trust me, that's not the case.
Rather, it's that women aren't going into the field in the first place, which is not something that hiring practices will fairly solve.
You're surely not seriously implying that men just get taken seriously because they're men, right? Men also get denigrated and not taken seriously if their contribution to any particular problem or situation is seen as unhelpful, silly or generally unconstructive. Men don't just get some magical dude pass that shields them from stupidity and the consequences thereafter. Who the hell keeps perpetuating this idea that men just sit around in cushy positions that they assign to themselves and circlejerk eachother while grabbing womens' asses and treating them like silly kids trying to play "big boy games"?
You claim you've lived the females not getting taken seriously part, but it seems that you then haven't lived the males experiencing the same thing part that goes alongside it.
I've seen enough appropriately stern, hard working, ambitious and results oriented women in leading and management positions to seriously doubt that women are being held back in any way, at least in the western, first world countries. You get out what you put in, just like the men. And if you don't cut it, then you don't cut it, just like the men. IMHO the sad irony of pushing women into fields via quotas is that this basically treats women as incapable of achieving things and securing gender-unconventional employment on their own. There is nothing wrong with asymmetric representation in different fields. Just let women do and achieve whatever the hell they want - if they want it , they can do it.
This is one of the better ways I've heard of describing this issue.
Forced diversity is worthless in comparison to one's work ethic and abilities when it comes to employment. Diversity isn't an objective necessity, it's a forced standard that shouldn't exist because it offers zero value other than feel-good points for employers and idiots who otherwise wouldn't have been employed if not for their genitals or melanin levels.
I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that Microsoft is hiring random women and minorites of the street for software engineering jobs. Literally every tech company's diversity initiative is just putting more effort into recruiting minorites at colleges and conferences, funding STEM programs in schools, and improving their workplace culture to prevent existing employees from leaving.
Probably from the article in the OP.
To be honest I really doubt the push for more employee diversity is for diversity's sake. That's naive. There's more than likely a financial or marketing incentive behind it. For instance, tax-credits. Alternatively, there are increases in profitability for diverse businesses, but with caveats if done poorly.
A survey from the Society of Human Resource Managers found that 66 percent of companies had no way of measuring how much their diversity programs had an impact, and 93 percent didn't even bother to measure their programs' impact. Ernst & Young-supported study noted that there is great variation in the academic literature as to whether firm performance and gender diversity are linked. Some studies have found a strongly positive relationship while others have found either none at all, or even a negative one. However, the study did note that there is a positive correlation between gender-diverse firm performance within a country and that country's place on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index.
Ultimately a lot of studies showing the benefits of diverse workplaces are correlational, and there are completely homogeneous businesses that do well. Thus, it's understandable why people lower on the corporate ladder may see diversity as forced or ineffective, especially if programs to increase diversity are poorly thought out. I can see why in certain fields diversity may not even be important - why does the color of your skin or the genitalia between your legs matter if your job consists of doing something where your unique perspective is not even relevant, like Network Administration?
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I'm of the opinion that whatever field you want to go into, you should be able to. But a lot of people are scared away from fields based on their reputation or misrepresentation, and it's not up to employers to fix this perception, it needs to be done socially at a young age. It's somewhat of a cultural problem, which are the hardest to fix, because you need to communicate with people at a young age, and it takes time to reap those benefits.
More women than ever are entering STEM fields, but that's still a low amount, nearly half as many as men (7% compared to 15%). STEM fields as a whole include so many different jobs. Looking at the degrees that women graduate with on average, the STEM degrees that women are more likely to pursue are more science-oriented over engineering, math or computers, and tend to be lower paid. Life sciences and healthcare, especially nursing, have huge representation with women - 91% of nurses in America are female.
More and more women are graduating from college, and a lot of the research showing why women choose not to go into Science, Math or Engineering specifically has to do with their perception of the field. Ironically, by constantly talking about how these fields are male dominated, we may actually be encouraging women to choose other fields. Alternatively, by stereotyping these fields as dominated by rigid, non-creative tech people who will harass women, we underlay the creativity inherent in these fields and the decency of most human beings, and make the roles seem more cold, difficult and obtuse than they really are.
We are on the right track to encourage more women to go into Science, Math and Engineering, but we can't leave the boys behind either: more men are discouraged at an early age to continue their education into college, compared to women, let alone to grad school and beyond. Encouraging men to go into fields like teaching or nursing doesn't get the same push as getting women into STEM. Conversely, barely anyone complains about the lack of female construction workers, when it's a great field to make a living in with high demand.
Honestly, gender balance and diversity in jobs has nebulously defined and calculated benefits compared to homogeneity, and there are plenty of reasons why women aren't going into STEM, but STEM is not the only field lacking women, and there are other fields lacking men that aren't getting mentioned in the conversation. I think the best thing we can do is stop telling people STEM is male dominated, and start showing young people all of the different fields out there and why it would be great to work in them. This includes things like construction for women and nursing for men. The more people are aware of the benefits and less of the negative perceptions, organically these fields will even out.
I think diversity for diversity's sake is stupid, and giving grants or monetary incentives to hire a certain number of minorities or women, or fining companies that don't, is even worse. Hire people that are qualified, stop dropping standards so you can fill the ranks
It sucks to know you got passed over for a job you wanted and you're perfect for and qualified for because of some forced diversity quota so even though they interview all these people, they already know who they're going to hire. Qualifications don't matter
Anecdotal evidence, but my friend started getting significantly more responses when he changed his resume to say Mackenzie instead of just Mack.
That doesn't really contradict anything, though. Recruiters aren't involved in the final hiring decision, and the incentives would motivate them to encourage more qualified employees to apply, via the methods I mentioned earlier. There are literally 6-8 other people in the hiring process who evaluate the candidate's resume and coding skills before the hiring manager can even make a decision. I don't think there's any way for a candidate to make it that far without being qualified.
A lot of stuff im about to say has already been said but I still wanted to share my opinion.
I really feel like if we stopped hiring underqualified minorities to fill quotas and rather just hire good employees, regardless of sex/race/whatever, the stigma that minorities arent that good at something would vanish from the zeitgeist on its own over time. The idea of women, for example, not being good at maths/programming/science is already a lot less present in modern society than it was ~50 years ago. Id even like to argue that the younger generation has very few people that still believes that, atleast in my country. If you want more women in it, for example, do it using advertising and not by calling the industry sexist and imposing quotas onto them. That will just lead to hiring women because they are women and then just reinforcing the idea that women cant do IT in the coworkers, who will most likely have to help the under qualified female coworkers management was forced to hire. Women can do IT but there are just fewer of them and forcehiring them will do more damage than good in my eyes. It will make white males feel like they are being disadvantaged because they arent a minority and also provide nothing but bad examples of the average female scientist/it-specialist/whatever to them.
I only used women as an example, what I said can be applied to any minority that there is a hiring quota on.
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