[rayiner]

Your viewpoint is predicated on an assumption: that equality is the equilibrium state of human society. In such a world where this equilibrium exists, there is no need for "ideology and affirmative action" because any affirmative actions to create inequality will be erased through the passage of time as the world returns to the equilibrium of equality.

The problem with this attitude is that it is utterly unwarranted, unsubstantiated, and totally Panglossian. It is irrefutable that for generations American society took "affirmative action" to suppress women, to pigeonhole them into an impoverished gender role concerned only with housekeeping and child rearing. You don't even have to go back that far to see this "affirmative action" (http://www.boredpanda.com/vintage-ads). Even if you believe that there is no continuing discrimination,[1] what on earth makes you believe that past discrimination will simply be erased through the history of time?

The solution to gender inequality issues is to simply hire women. Hire women and promote women. Once your organization and industry isn't perceived as male-dominated, once qualified and ambitious women don't turn away from the field to pursue others where being a woman is less likely to be a career liability,[2] the qualified applications will materialize.

One of the greatest success stories of gender equality is, in my opinion, are professional services firms, law in particular but also accounting and consulting. The legal industry went from 95%+ male in the 1950's and 1960's to almost even today, even at large corporate law firms. While tech companies are scratching their heads trying to figure out how to get any women in the door, law firms are under fire because "only" 1/3 of new partners each year are women. "Only" 15% of Big 4 accounting firm partners are women and its a source of constant consternation for women.[3] While any discussion of trying to get women into tech is clouded by the specter of "affirmative action" law firms, at least at the lower levels, no longer even need to take explicit steps to recruit equal numbers of women. Professional services firms are proof that when you hire women and promote women, equalized gender ratios become self-perpetuating. There are still major challenges faced by women today in the professional services industry, but these firms are operating in a whole different century than the tech sector.

[1] Which is itself a ridiculous belief in the face of studies proving that older men are, say, less likely to mentor younger women than younger men, and that employers tend to treat similar resumes with male versus female names differently.

[2] Who wants to, as a woman, invest themselves in a career in tech when there is a decent chance your boss will be this guy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6875311 ("there are differences in the way men and women think, with men more naturally drawn to STEM fields...")

[3] At what tech company are the most senior engineering roles even 15% women? Marissa Mayer estimated about 15-17% for women engineers in Silicon Valley across the board. For comparison, Big 4 accounting firms are 45-50% women across the board, with 15-20% at the partner level.

[philwelch]

Law is a high status profession so of course feminists were interested in training more women lawyers. Now there are a lot of qualified women graduating from law school, and an overall oversupply of people with law degrees anyway, so it's easy to make gender equality a priority.

Look at the gender ratios getting CS degrees, consider how extremely competitive the hiring situation for programmers is, and then tell me it makes sense to put an emphasis on hiring women in particular when you can hardly hire anyone qualified at all.

[rayiner]

The gender equalization in law happened through the 1980's and 1990's, at a time when salaries at large law firms were dramatically increasing due to the limited supply of graduates from which large law firms source their entry-level hires. The key difference is that law schools, being generally very progressive places, took aggressive steps to fill their classes with approximately equal numbers of men and women. And the field, being very progressive itself, embraced that trend.

It's also interesting to note that when it comes to LSAT scores, men outnumber women 2:1 in the top percentile. This is very similar to the gender gap in the top percentile of the Math SAT. Law schools tend to simply ignore that slight distinction, relying on the fact that women tend to have higher GPAs, so an index combining GPA and LSAT tends to result in roughly equal numbers of men and women. And in practice, it's a theoretical difference that has basically zero impact in the real world. Yet, people repeatedly hold up differentials in the Math SAT to justify gender gaps in STEM more extreme than the differentials in the Math SAT itself, as evidence that men are somehow more suited for STEM jobs.

[philwelch]

And if CS programs set aside 50% of their slots for women as well, you might see similar results. There remains very little that employers can do about it though.

[rayiner]

Law schools would not make a change like that without buy-in from the employers that allow them to justify their tuition. If tech companies bought in the same way, I think you'd quickly see a change in how schools fill their classes.

[rfnslyr]

Sorry I have to disagree with this. I abide by one rule: if the candidate is good, they get hired. I am not a sexist nor do I discriminate, nor am I guilty of putting women down in any way, shape, or form, especially since before my time so I fail to see how the burden is on my shoulders, and why I should hire someone purely based on their genitalia. I am in no way responsible for what happened before my time.

The reality is both men and women suffer from different things, and it's ill to make blanket assumptions based entirely on gender.

What if the male I'm hiring is less experienced, but extremely poor and almost homeless. What if the the woman I'm interviewing right after is stable, but a woman? How do I evaluate this case?

I think the best we should do is treat both equally, as that's equality and we should all strive to eliminate discrimination amongst each other, not specifically and artificially target one demography that has been oppressed, because there are tons of other causes better suited for awareness than women. What about black people? I very rarely see black people in the tech sector. Maybe we should stop hiring asians and hire blacks instead to level out that inequality? Where does it stop?

Discrimination in the face of equality doesn't change the fact that it is still discrimination, even if it in favour of hiring women. Someone will always end up getting hurt, it's always a trade off.

I have loads of developer friends who are female and they have absolutely no problem getting hired, because they are GOOD. Just statistically, there are less women in this field.

Instead of sacrificing someone else's opportunities in the name of purely gender, offer everyone the same opportunities.

What I do think needs to be done is have more communities focused on the STEM fields to make women feel more comfortable ENTERING it, not EXITING it, they've already committed to the field.

----

See my other post as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6875633

[natch]

Presumably when you say GOOD you mean good for the position. If you take a holistic view, that metric should encompass things like how they will work on the team, whether they will fit in, and even whether they will be good for the company.

If your company gets measured (as it will) by future prospective job candidates beyond just this one hire, one thing they will look at is the health of the company (see the article).

A lack of diversity in a company does not say anything conclusive, but it can be a red flag.

As a very low level hiring manager (which it sounds like you may be, very low level) you don't have to think about this much. As you ascend to higher levels, the environment you are providing for employees, and consideration of how each employee you choose contributes to that environment, becomes more of a consideration as to whether someone is not only GOOD at what they do, but also GOOD for the company.

And if someone with an overwhelming advantage in the job marketplace gets edged out in a tie-breaker amongst equal candidates, cry me a river; they will be just fine.

[hacker789]

> It is irrefutable that for generations American society took "affirmative action" to suppress women, to pigeonhole them into an impoverished gender role concerned only with housekeeping and child rearing.

It is irrefutable that for generations American society took "affirmative action" to suppress men, to pigeonhole them into an overworked, hyper-stressed, diseased, prematurely fatal gender role concerned only with selfless providing for and protecting the women and children in their lives.

Feminists look at the 0.1% of men at the top of society throughout history, and willfully ignore the 99.9% of men at the bottom. Those men at the top of society are useful for shoring up sympathy for women; those men at the bottom of society are not.

> Who wants to, as a woman, invest themselves in a career in tech when there is a decent chance your boss will be this guy

What a sophomoric, hand-wavy thing to say. Who wants to, as a man, invest themselves in a career in tech when there is a decent chance your boss will be this guy, who is actually, literally a powerful boss who says bullying things toward men who don't toe the third-wave feminist line:

http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun

Plus, the man you're trying to ridicule is correct, as a recent large study shows beyond all reasonable doubt ("Penn Medicine Brain Imaging Study Helps Explain Different Cognitive Strengths in Men and Women"):

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/2013/12/verma/

When in life do men's and women's brains diverge? Not during their youngest, most plastic years. Nope. During the surge of sex hormones in puberty. It doesn't mean men or worse or women are worse. It just means that like all other intelligent species, humans have different psychological tendencies between sexes.

> The solution to gender inequality issues is to simply hire women. Hire women and promote women.

This is a terrible idea, unless you only care about ensuring that every company has at least one vagina for every penis. History (and the present) shows us that this sort of widespread coddling is guaranteed to help privileged, connected women at the expense of underprivileged, unconnected men.

Hyper-privileged, connected, powerful men like yourself will have no issues finding a job either way. But young men—who are already out-educated and out-earned by young women—are badly affected, especially those without connections. Considering the lack of personal repercussions, it's little surprise that it's trendy for old, rich men to throw young, poor men under the bus. It's par for the course for history, in fact.

> employers tend to treat similar resumes with male versus female names differently.

Why shouldn't they, especially in the world you want?

[tptacek]

Gender issues thread on HN? Requisite /r/MensRights post. It's like an iron law of the universe or something.

[selmnoo]

Why do you feel the need to diminish a counter viewpoint (however misguided it may be) in such a confrontational way? By reducing it to a buzzwordy opponent identity, you've pretty much nullified any chance of constructive discussion there was.

Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe the MensRights folks are the way they are because they felt discriminated against at some point in their life? And now they've found support by being there for each other? Who are you to mock them?

tptacek, you've been in the IT industry long enough, you should know by now that there actually are a considerable amount of men in this field who were made fun of when they younger, who were rejected by their peers and made to feel that no women would ever want them. They've lived their childhood, their adolescence thinking they're nerdy and unattractive, and there was no hope. Try and understand where they might be coming from.

I'm reasonably certain your intentions are good, but please understand that your insensitive demeanor on gender issues threads is more polarizing and inflammatory than anything that's likely to bring people together in any sort of conciliatory way. I implore you to really take a moment and reflect on this. Think about what you can do to really bring people together, rather than pushing them away and antagonizing them.

[tptacek]

I did think about it. I thought about it briefly. Then I decided that the idea that men are somehow oppressed by feminism (or, really, by any other kind of force directed solely at men) is fucking ridiculous and unworthy of point-by-point debate.

You show me the startup that carefully considers whether or not to hire 20-something men for fear that they might have children and need to take time off or work less than 60 hours a week. That happens, and I'll carefully consider the notion that men are oppressed in our workforce.

Good luck.

[Ygg2]

Why is it impossible? Nothing about women oppressing men, doesn't sound as ludicrous than vice-versa? Human capacity for evil is evenly distributed between genders.

Don't forget that there was a thing like matriarchy. I'm pretty sure that oppression on some level occurred even then, but since there was little written evidence, its just hard to prove.

As for hiring someone that might have children, and need to take time off, that part should be handled by the state. If someone leaves, the state pays employer and/or women caring for her 1year child. You are effectively down a one person but they are not to blame for things running their course.

That thing shouldn't come into equation at any point.

[tptacek]

Not helping.

[hacker789]

If my post came across as a generic "men's rights" post, rather than a direct response to the parent, then I didn't do a good enough job of tying it together.

Western culture's hypersensitivity toward women's issues, combined with its blindness toward men's issues, create an environment in which it's socially acceptable (even socially rewarded) to propose draconian measures that further throw young men under the bus that's carrying young women.

We should aim to help people who are suffering in society, rather than aim to help people with vaginas. And we absolutely shouldn't continue obsessing about leveling evening every single predominately male field without doing something to help the young men who are increasingly being left behind.

[tptacek]

Not helping.