[btilly]

It is not politically correct to say that women are riskier hires than men. But given biology and current culture, women of child-bearing age clearly are riskier hires. Women have non-trivial odds of getting pregnant, sometimes unexpectedly. In the event of pregnancy, moms usually require more time off than fathers, and are more likely to never return to their jobs.

That said, I am sympathetic to the position that employers tend to unfairly overestimate that risk. And furthermore US law is very clear that discriminating against women based on that risk is illegal. (But, laws notwithstanding, I've seen it happen in practice. Both directly in my workplace, and indirectly in my wife's.)

[FireBeyond]

Meh to 'risk'.

I've seen employers tell my ex- that they were looking for someone to commit to multiple years, not just be fly-by-night. She agreed, and was laid off two months later due to 'change in business direction'.

It's the flip side of 'at will' employment. Unless a company is willing to put it in contract, I would recommend often showing little hesitation in not being more open about your future plans than you need to be.

If a company demands/expects loyalty, can you say that you expect they'll show the same loyalty when it's not working out for them? In the vast majority of cases (and it's not even necessarily malicious), absolutely not. You'll turn up one day, have a meeting with your manager, and, if you're (very) lucky, get some form of severance.

Quid pro quo.

[spindritf]

> Meh to 'risk'.

I bet this one has a spot in top 10 most popular last thoughts.

[FireBeyond]

Context is, as they say, everything. "Meh to 'risk' in the context of "I as an employer should consider females more risky".

But... touché.

[eevee]

Yes, I can see how giving an employee time off to perpetuate the species might be inconvenient. How dare she! I need her to work on my social networking website, not make more people.

People quit their jobs, frequently, for a wide variety of reasons. Women have a potential reason that men don't have. Cry me a river.

[columbo]

Regardless of if I agree with this statement (I don't) making a public statement like this is a very dangerous choice. You've effectively said "I wont hire women because they might go form babbies" on a public forum.

If you ever have or ever will turn down a woman for a position regardless of her abilities and this comment is found and tracked back to you that candidate (and any previous candidate you ever turned down) would have a pretty solid case against you and your company.

[btilly]

You've effectively said "I wont hire women because they might go form babbies" on a public forum.

That conclusion can only be drawn by people who perform simplistic keyword matching and fail to comprehend what I've actually said.

Did you notice that I've also pointed out several times that there is some evidence that companies who are more willing to hire women are likely to financially perform better? And that I've also pointed out repeatedly that discriminating on the basis of gender (either way) is illegal?

There is a pretty big gulf between saying, "Here is the standard argument for discrimination" and saying "I advocate discrimination" or even "I would personally discriminate."

[columbo]

> That conclusion can only be drawn by people who perform simplistic keyword matching and fail to comprehend what I've actually said.

Sure, I could have misread everything you've posted but imagine the lawyer for a potential failed hire reading your posts and slicing out exact paragraphs of your own wording:

> given biology and current culture, women of child-bearing age clearly are riskier hires

> Women have non-trivial odds of getting pregnant, sometimes unexpectedly

> In the event of pregnancy, moms usually require more time off than fathers, and are more likely to never return to their jobs.

> I personally have seen a couple of situations where a black person had credentials only because of affirmative action and did not deserve those credentials.

> I've also have seen multiple cases where a woman gets hired, gets pregnant, and then you lose that employee in a painful way.

> I have never witnessed anything involving a white person that was anywhere near being similarly egregious.

> white people were not given anywhere near as much leniency.

> Can you really blame an employer for leaning towards being risk adverse in this situation?

Call me full of shit. Say I'm blowing all this out of context. Whatever you want... but realize that those quotes are pretty deadly rounds of ammo to a lawyer. Don't believe me? Forward them to your HR department and see what they think.

[btilly]

I don't deny that a lawyer could try to make hay out of those out of context. But every one of those quotes are statements of provable fact. That's the problem when you try to bring nuance to an emotionally charged issue. You wind up saying things that cause people to have a knee-jerk response, and their brains turn off.

Pondering http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html may be worthwhile.

[burntsushi]

I would just like to thank you very much for sharing that link. It was an amazing read. I found so many of the points made in that article things that I already practice, but I had never dreamed they could all be tied together in one cohesive whole like that.

That's one amazing piece of writing.

[alid]

You're right, it's not politically correct to say that. Nor is it legal to act on it. Why? Because it engenders discrimination.

Women are different to men - culturally, biologically, etc et al. However any reference/inference/undertone to those differences as being 'risky' or 'negative' to business re-enforces negative stereotypes.

As the studies are showing, there's an opportunity cost to not achieving gender balance in business. That's the bottom line.

[btilly]

There is actually quite a bit of evidence suggesting that the reason why discrimination on gender is illegal in the USA is that the term was slipped in as a rider when the Civil Rights Act was going down to defeat, and then after JFK died in the rush to pass it they forgot to take that rider out.

See http://www.siop.org/tip/jan11/12highhouse.aspx for arguments both ways. (The one that I just presented was the conventional view back when I was being educated about women's rights some 20 years ago.)

[jexe]

I guess the consolation prize from this fairly offensive point of view is that since my company doesn't share this bias against women, we're hiring all the great engineers that you're overlooking.

Sounds like we have the competitive advantage.

[batista]

>It is not politically correct to say that women are riskier hires than men. But given biology and current culture, women of child-bearing age clearly are riskier hires. Women have non-trivial odds of getting pregnant, sometimes unexpectedly. In the event of pregnancy, moms usually require more time off than fathers, and are more likely to never return to their jobs.

Then the people should make sure that such businesses are PUNISHED, and women are free to take time of for pregnancy.

The way to ruin a society is to stifle it's reproduction. As for the business risk, it should be an _assumed_ risk of all businesses if they want to operate within a society of people.