[matt_the_bass]

One thing that surprises me is how often society does not actively seek out candidates from underrepresented groups across all aspects of life. Often candidates from such groups are superior to candidates from the majority groups. Probably because they've had to work harder to acheive. Two anecdotal examples:

1. My work often enters into the world of super yachts. There are very few female yacht captains. Yet nearly all that i've met have been the best of the best. I suspect that in such a male dominated career path, the female captain had to work twice as hard as their male counterparts to get there. If I had a super yacht, I actively seek a female captain as i'd want the best of the best for my yacht. Yet of the largest, most expensive yachts none have a female captain. And female captains have a hard time finding good positions.

2. At my company we get significantly more male applicants than female applicants for our tech positions. As a whole though I'd say that average female applicant we get is better than the average male applicant and we've offer jobs to a significantly higher percentage of female applicants than male applicants. Sadly we get very few female applicants. Again I suspect it's because they had to work twice as hard as the their male counterparts to get to where they are. We didn't offer them positions because they were female. We offered them positions because they were the best candidate.

Please note I'm not saying that it is a good thing that they have experienced sexism along their career paths.