[WWLink]

Maybe they were hiring all the unrecognized talent the other companies were passing up on because the talent happened to be women. Perhaps they offered better benefits or had better outreach? I agree that 5:1 sounds extreme, but you're also giving us a pretty vague description of a company and not naming them, so there's no evidence to back your claim up.

Also random things: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinecastrillon/2019/03/24/w...

[Spivak]

It's crazy how people are in denial of the reality for women breaking into male dominated fields. The "lived-experience" gap is real. In college in CS there was maybe 1-2 other women in my classes, in Maths there were none. Working in ops I have been the only woman on my team at every job I've ever had. Tooting my own horn a little I've been consistently a top if not the top performer and have the recs to show it. And yet every time I go for a job I'm fighting for them to "take a chance on me." It's so god damn frustrating how surprised they are that I'm a professional. I have to bust my ass to get back to my senior title that some guy just gets hired on with.

[scarab92]

You're mistaking prevalence for bias.

There's always going to be more men interested in this field than women, which means you'll see more men in class and more men in industry (read Damore's essay for why).

However, that doesn't mean that at an individual level there is bias against women. In practice, in most tech companies, there is significant bias towards hiring and promoting women.

As difficult as it may have been to achieve the career outcomes you desire, it is significantly more difficult for a individual man with the same skillset to achieve the same outcomes without that preferential treatment.

I think you don't realise this because men are more prevalent. The majority of promotions may go to men, but that's simply because there are more men in this field, not because at an individual level they are each receiving preferential treatment over you.

[Volundr]

> As difficult as it may have been to achieve the career outcomes you desire, it is significantly more difficult for a individual man with the same skillset to achieve the same outcomes without that preferential treatment.

As a man in this field, I can pretty concretely say I have never experienced the problems getting hired or getting promoted she just described.

[scarab92]

That’s a great anecdote for you, however it doesn’t change the fact that for an average 20 year old, it will be substantially easier in this industry to be hired and promoted as a woman than as a man.

The only reason people think differently is because they see more men than women, and mistake that prevalence for bias.

[Volundr]

> for an average 20 year old, it will be substantially easier in this industry to be hired and promoted as a woman than as a man.

You keep making claims like this, but never with data. Got any? Because I only ever see this backed by anecdotes.

[scarab92]

Tech companies keep trialing blind hiring, then abandoning it, because it results in fewer women being hired rather than more.

Women-only recruiting events exist.

Companies incentivise managers to hire and promote women over men. I’ve seen companies use KPIs/quotas, and companies where you are allowed more headcount if you hire majority women.

[mcv]

You claim that, but I've seen research that shows that even when a company actively tries to hire more women, they still subconsciously give men preferential treatment, simply because they look the part.

[scarab92]

Blind hiring studies tend to disprove that, at least in the tech industry.

When you remove all indicators of gender companies hire fewer women, which means knowing that a candidate is a woman results in higher likelihood to hire than not knowing gender.

[trescenzi]

If this is the case why aren’t we seeing large influxes of women into software? If it’s substantially easier I’d expect us to see people taking advantage of that.

[bdangubic]

it is not the case :) you are trying to apply common sense with people commenting on this thread that have none

[lostmsu]

Software engineering does not help Instagram posts, but does help hacking video games, for example.

[mcv]

Really? When I was in university in the 1990s, Math had more women than men.

Women were rarer in CS, but still more common than female software developers I've encountered in my working life. All of the ones I've worked with were excellent.

[Spivak]

That's crazy about math I can't even picture it. Wild how it's swung completely the other direction in -25 years which is what, two generations? I would love to know the history of how maths even growing became such a strongly "boy" subject.

[coffeeaddict1]

Why would you guess that? Is there any evidence that companies are not hiring women despite them being equally/more talented than their male counterparts?

[WWLink]

About as much evidence as there are companies hiring women over men 5:1 lmao.

[coffeeaddict1]

Except no one made that claim. Parent comment was sharing a personal anectode they witnessed. You on the other hand weren't.

[pydry]

The fact she was proud of it and that at that time this form of discrimination was considered laudable is a signal that it was more likely just simple discrimination.

[jokethrowaway]

No, this happens because you score brownie points if you have a female workforce or a diverse (read non-white) workforce.

In many countries (UK in my case) "positive discrimination" (an oxymoron, if you ask me) is enshrined in law and actually allow to discriminate candidates based on gender.

At least 3 of my clients work with recruiters that bring candidates who are only female or non white. (I'm not white myself but I found the clients outside of recruitments, I hope I'm not a diversity hire!).

Beside, whenever you start applying non meritocratic filters, the pool of talent shrink and you are forced to pick among a smaller pool, which inevitably will have less of the most talented folks.