[batbomb]

they could always admit their ratios are way off, fire everybody, and create 10 new backend job applications - 5 of which will go to men and 5 to women, so that way their hiring is more fair to both men and women.

... Or the could do it the way they are doing it.

[bin0]

The way you're phrasing it, they need to "admit guilt". They are guilty of nothing. First of all, what kind of heartless jerk fires every one to win PC points? That's a really bad practice, not fair to your employees, and I certainly wouldn't want to work for a company who did that.

Clearly, there are problems finding women. There are fewer women; that means it is not possible to have 50/50 across the board. He just said that they are lowering the bar. What are they doing about hiring that is unfair? Probably nothing, if they have to hire less-qualified women or a more-qualified man.

There are fewer women in tech. Why is immaterial to the current discussion. For better or for worse, that's where we are. If you want my two cents, I think part of it is risk. I worked in a start-up for a few years (not in the valley), and there was one female developer in a company of thirty. Why? I think men (especially young ones) are more willing to pick up and move for a high risk/high reward opportunity.

But all that aside, seriously, who actually advocates firing every one so you can have a nice press release? Would you want to lose your job to give some random woman one?

[batbomb]

> not fair to your employees

Certainly it's not fair to the employees. Certainly they probably didn't expect to get 10 men and 0 women in their current makeup. There may be no intentional guilt, but it's also not possible to know how they ended up with the makeup they have, 10 to 0, though it was probably incremental and without reflection on the makeup of the team along the way. Assuredly it probably wasn't malicious, but it's also like the people doing the hiring didn't reflect along the way - "hey, we've got 9 engineers and we need 10 and we are going to hire _another_ man for this role".

It's clear they (in this case the company) want to fix this in some way, as instructions "from on high" came down. Again company may or may not know how they got there. The company may also be failing to attract clients who want to vote with their dollars for a diverse company - so there could be a valid business case for this. Or not, maybe they just don't want a company with all dudes.

The original post was pointing out an unfair hiring practice due to this policy. I'm pointing out there is an alternative equitable hiring practice which actually leads to a fairer hiring practice for men and doesn't necessarily involve affirmative action, but that involves starting from scratch again (nobody said you'd necessarily lose your job - they could also easily make those positions available). Obviously this is not a tenable thought experiment, especially in academia thanks to tenure, so that's why we have these systems which, on the surface, may appear to discriminate against men. That said, many people interview for their current jobs in corporate restructurings all the time. That's probably not fair either, but it's accepted practice in the US.

[bin0]

I don't understand what you mean. Do you really think they should hire a less-qualified person because of her sex? "we are going to hire _another_ man" - if he's the most qualified, why wouldn't you?

What is this equitable hiring practice? Fire your team over and over until you get more women? What if your ten most qualified applicants are again men? It seems very possible.

And what is this unfair hiring practice? How do you know the most qualified weren't all male? You are using the term "equitable" over "equal", and I'm assuming you understand the difference. I don't believe a company ought to disadvantage men to the advantage of women, because I don't believe discrimination is just.

As for your "nobody said you'd lose your job", yes, you did. Your assumption is that at least one man will lose his job for a woman.

You did not answer my question - would you, personally, be willing to quit your job to allow a woman to take it? Even were she less qualified?