The Diversity Pipeline

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Language skills are skills.  Not all jobs need them, but if they do, they do not necessarily depend upon gender or skin color.

Eh, you're better off with a native speaker. Our society is diverse. To not recognize that is simply bad business. Not saying it should be forced by policy necessarily, but if you want to appeal to the widest possible market, you should seek a diverse workforce. Or at the very least, a diverse sales department. You're just hamstringing yourself in this country if you don't. That's just the marketplace speaking. Ignore it at your peril.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

23 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

How do you know I need a native speaker?  What language do you think I need my employee to speak?  And why do you assume a potential hiree's skin color will guaranty of his or her fluency in the language that you think I need.

You seem to think you know an awful lot about my business.

Well, nice to know that racism is not mandatory just yet.  

You don't want to sell your product or provide your service to the broadest possible market? Then why are you in Business?

 

/Just to clarify, I'm not addressing you specifically. I had no idea you ran your own business. Good luck to you if you ignore diversification.

 

//Oh look, I quoted you before you threw your Euro languages in there! Obviously, if you find yourself doing a lot of business with the Swedes or the Germans, then yes, you might want to consider hiring someone with those language skills. Probably somewhat unnecessary as a large percentage of those folks also speak English, but hey, knock yourself out.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

25 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Why would that be any of your business?

It's not my business, that's just Business.

 

 

[Seli]

11 hours ago, zelticgar said:

Interesting discussion regarding Chess but I'd like to move this back to the general diversity pipeline challenge around STEM, CompSci in particular.

I'd like to use a real world scenario and get some opinions. We are currently in the process of recruiting our next class of interns. We receive a huge amount of applicants (in the thousands) and typically we hire 150 to 200. We have the ability to specifically target diverse candidates using a number of methods. We generally take the philosophy that we want to effect the first part of the funnel - the presentation of the resume to the hiring manager. After that point we want to take everyone through the same interview process and hire the best candidate. We would generally target submitting somewhere around 8 to 10 candidates per opening.

 

I'd start with going one step back. Where do the applicants come from? Do they apply or do you actively stimulate them? Have you made sure that people belonging to classes currently underrepresented in the company know they are welcome? Have you reached out?

I don't have experience, but that seem the solutions that are necessary in real world situations where conferences want proper representation in speakers, when anthologies want diversity in their authors.

[zelticgar]

55 minutes ago, Seli said:

I'd start with going one step back. Where do the applicants come from? Do they apply or do you actively stimulate them? Have you made sure that people belonging to classes currently underrepresented in the company know they are welcome? Have you reached out?

I don't have experience, but that seem the solutions that are necessary in real world situations where conferences want proper representation in speakers, when anthologies want diversity in their authors.

Seli, those are all steps that are hiring 101. Most tech companies are doing that and have been doing it for years now. Companies create employee groups to address the welcoming environment and leverage those affinity groups to help with recruiting, conferences and events. You can make some impacts with employer brand and internal awareness but I think the long term challenge is the pool of candidates does not exist to significantly change the diverse make up of the tech community. This leaves a handful of options 

• Just accept the status quo
• Create your own talent through training (many employers are doing this now)
• Expand the tech talent pool through education channels (High School and University level) which does not seem to be happening (see my original post that started this thread

 

In the near term companies can target the applicant/submittal pool.  The most common way to do this is to target events and groups that are diverse and encourage them to apply. If you time these recruiting efforts correctly you can see a significant change in the applicant pool which should flow through to hires. The problem with this is that it seems like without addressing the system issue of why the pool is not growing we create a winner/loser scenario among the employers. 

 

 

[Altherion]

10 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Honestly I think it's just good business at the end of the day, especially when you're dealing with the public. In California, you're going to need people who speak Spanish. If you do business in San Francisco, you're going to need some folks who speak Cantonese. Etc, etc. Why not appeal to as wide a demographic as you can?

This reasoning is valid... but surely you can also see how it is at the root of anti-immigrant sentiment? This "good business" combined with the immigration policies strongly supported by those same businesses has made native-born American citizens disadvantaged in their own country.

Basically, neither you nor zelticgar nor any of the other proponents of "diversity" seem to even understand that you are hurting people, not to mention that sooner or later, these people are going to fight back.

[Zorral]

56 minutes ago, Altherion said:

This reasoning is valid... but surely you can also see how it is at the root of anti-immigrant sentiment? This "good business" combined with the immigration policies strongly supported by those same businesses has made native-born American citizens disadvantaged in their own country.

Basically, neither you nor zelticgar nor any of the other proponents of "diversity" seem to even understand that you are hurting people, not to mention that sooner or later, these people are going to fight back.

Disadvantaged, how?  Hurting, how?  This makes no sense at all.

What does hurt us here in the USA is corps outsourcing to other countries a huge amount of what is supposed to be help and assistance.  Help and assistance are not provided because the people on the help lines aren't living -- not even in the area in which the person who needs help lives, not even the same country.  And generally these people are not speaking the language of the person who is calling for assistance.  This (corporate cost pinching and deliberate neglect of users / customers) is not the same as what you seem to mean by disadvantaging and hurting though, which seems to mean directly stealing jobs or something.

[zelticgar]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

This reasoning is valid... but surely you can also see how it is at the root of anti-immigrant sentiment? This "good business" combined with the immigration policies strongly supported by those same businesses has made native-born American citizens disadvantaged in their own country.

Basically, neither you nor zelticgar nor any of the other proponents of "diversity" seem to even understand that you are hurting people, not to mention that sooner or later, these people are going to fight back.

Altherion -  just to be clear, I am not a proponent of diversity. I view it as a problem with no easy answer. The easiest path would be to just deal with the status quo. I would be perfectly happy to do that and get on with life but there seems to be a lot of people lining up against that position and I am simply trying to understand why and what might be a solution. I also think there is a real opportunity to create a win/win across the board by expanding the overall pool of people with skills that are in demand.

You've been butting up agains the liberal echo chamber in this place for too long. You see liberals and SJW's lurking around every corner of the board 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

This reasoning is valid... but surely you can also see how it is at the root of anti-immigrant sentiment? This "good business" combined with the immigration policies strongly supported by those same businesses has made native-born American citizens disadvantaged in their own country.

Basically, neither you nor zelticgar nor any of the other proponents of "diversity" seem to even understand that you are hurting people, not to mention that sooner or later, these people are going to fight back.

It may well be hurting some folks, but since when has business in a general sense been overly concerned with that? It's all about what the market dictates, right? If a potential market can be opened by diversifying your workforce, you'd be stupid not to explore that. You will be left behind by your competitors. 

[Altherion]

3 hours ago, zelticgar said:

Altherion -  just to be clear, I am not a proponent of diversity. I view it as a problem with no easy answer. The easiest path would be to just deal with the status quo. I would be perfectly happy to do that and get on with life but there seems to be a lot of people lining up against that position and I am simply trying to understand why and what might be a solution. I also think there is a real opportunity to create a win/win across the board by expanding the overall pool of people with skills that are in demand.

You've been butting up agains the liberal echo chamber in this place for too long. You see liberals and SJW's lurking around every corner of the board 

My apologies. Indeed, I was interpreting your posts with the general trends of such discussions in mind. I'll try to be less prejudiced in this regard.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

15 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

A generation or two ago in the Deep South, discrimination against black folks might have been deemed good business in some contexts.  Even today, discrimination against women might be a good way to keep down costs for maternity leave and the like.  But these things are against the law, and these laws are supposed to protect everybody, not just certain people.  If I legitimately need a certain skill or background that's fine, but if not ....

As for my competitors, don't the same laws bind them as bind me?  Or should Article VII be repealed?

Sure, and the market has helped to correct those views, along with a little nudge from the law. None of that changes the fact that it is bad business to cut any demographic out of your business model. The black man's money is just as green as anyone else's. There are going to be female candidates for jobs that are better than many male candidates, and you are cutting your own throat as an entrepreneur is you don't recognize that fact.  

[Shryke]

Touching on that subject of diversity and economic gains, I don't know if this was linked earlier and I missed it, but hey:

Quote

 

Striving to increase workplace diversity is not an empty slogan — it is a good business decision. A 2015 McKinsey report on 366 public companies found that those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean.

In a global analysis of 2,400 companies conducted by Credit Suisse, organizations with at least one female board member yielded higher return on equity and higher net income growth than those that did not have any women on the board.

In recent years a body of research has revealed another, more nuanced benefit of workplace diversity: nonhomogenous teams are simply smarter. Working with people who are different from you may challenge your brain to overcome its stale ways of thinking and sharpen its performance. Let’s dig into why diverse teams are smarter.

 

https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter
 

Quote

 

- Decades of research by organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and demographers show that socially diverse groups (that is, those with a diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation) are more innovative than homogeneous groups.

- It seems obvious that a group of people with diverse individual expertise would be better than a homogeneous group at solving complex, nonroutine problems. It is less obvious that social diversity should work in the same way—yet the science shows that it does.

- This is not only because people with different backgrounds bring new information. Simply interacting with individuals who are different forces group members to prepare better, to anticipate alternative viewpoints and to expect that reaching consensus will take effort.

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-diversity-makes-us-smarter/

There seems to be a lot of evidence that diversity is good for business.

Of course, real world business practices and what is good for business have rarely ever had a firm connection so we  get the usual shit going on instead.

[Happy Ent]

On 23/09/2017 at 5:14 AM, zelticgar said:

I see all three points in this problem and I mostly come back to the same solution. The solution needs to come from education. 

I don’t get this.

(Caveat: improving CS eduction is what I do. Most of my energy in this issue is currently devoted to universal CS education in school. This is a very hard and very frustrating endeavour. So I would love education to reduce gender imbalance as well. I just don’t see how this should work. I have no model for it.)

You seem to assume that women are mistaken about their own expected enjoyment of a career in tech (which they rate as low). That women are mistaken about how interesting they find programming (which they rate as not very interesting.)

I don’t understand on which basis we can claim that. How do we know that women are wrong. And that they are more wrong the richer, freer, and more empowered they are. I don’t get this.

Now, if we assume that women are correct in their assessment of their own enjoyment of CS (an assessment that they seem to share with most men, as far as I know), then we would be making a moral mistake by enticing them into tech, would we not? So how do we solve that by education?

(Maybe you mean education of the bad kind: “Think like me!” Then I understand your position. But I view education as the good kind: “Be more informed.”)

——

My own bias, of course, goes in the other direction. For the life of me I cannot understand how anybody could view CS as not interesting. So I teach it as well as I can. 

I assume somewhere out there the is a mirror image of mine who tries to make people-like-me understand spectator sports, and who thinks she just needs to educate me so that I no longer mistakenly find them boring. 

[zelticgar]

I theorize that even if there is a smaller population of women that would naturally gravitate towards CS there are more steps to be taken to make sure it is shown as an option to younger students. There has to be a significant population that is sufficiently ignorant of the demand and long term career opportunities in a CS career. Even if the ratio of undergrads tops out at 70/30 there are potentially 7,000 to 8,000 more undergrad females that could be graduating annually. We know this is possible because it reached close to those numbers in 2002. You view about only a smaller portion of women may enjoy the career is likely not wrong but I also do not think we have reached the ceiling of identifying those who would enjoy the career. There is more that can be done in education and exposure to the field at an earlier age before we can come to final conclusions about what the ceiling if for women in CS. 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Happy Ent said:

You seem to assume that women are mistaken about their own expected enjoyment of a career in tech (which they rate as low). That women are mistaken about how interesting they find programming (which they rate as not very interesting.)

I don’t understand on which basis we can claim that. How do we know that women are wrong. And that they are more wrong the richer, freer, and more empowered they are. I don’t get this.

I assume they're accurate. What I don't assume is that this is innately biological in nature, nor do I assume that it is because the work itself is somehow boring to women and interesting to men. 

One of the big factors in enjoying a job? Not being harassed and objectified all the fucking time.

1 hour ago, Happy Ent said:

Now, if we assume that women are correct in their assessment of their own enjoyment of CS (an assessment that they seem to share with most men, as far as I know), then we would be making a moral mistake by enticing them into tech, would we not? So how do we solve that by education?

(Maybe you mean education of the bad kind: “Think like me!” Then I understand your position. But I view education as the good kind: “Be more informed.”)

We've seen in several other industries that once the actual amount of women reaches a certain tipping point the workplace becomes far more friendly to women and more amenable to them, and they start looking to that specific work as a net positive. The aforementioned lawyer, doctor, business areas are all examples which women were explicitly guided towards after centuries of oppression and denial, and after a certain point (about two generations, it appears) women started looking to these as good things to do. This also coincided with popular culture encouraging women to go into these fields, and having more representation in that way.

But if the women at an early age aren't going into these fields, there's not ever going to be that tipping point. 

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

I hesitate each time I venture back into this thread as to whether it is worth posting again.  So much of this thread is exactly what we lady types have been talking about.  Like, I could put this as Exhibit AA in my catalog of experiences on the subject.  And yet, here I am again.  So, a few observations:

1.  @Kalbear I wish people would keep touting law as some kind of huge success story in contrast to tech.  This is actually something that I know A LOT about.  It actually says more about tech than law that you could think that, I think.  Here is an old report from 2003 which shows a huge increase in the number of women in the legal profession at that time (approximately when I started practicing).  It shows women as 40% of lawyers.   GREAT, you say.  It also shows numbers of women partners.  And, you say, and that percentages have only increased!  Problem solved!  Nope, not at all.  I don't have time to do more than a quick google dump, but Here is an article from the Atlantic, about 7 years old, that I think is still pretty relevant, and some stuff from a legal tabloid, Above the Law, here, and some ABA statistics here), show a lot of what I've seen and experienced over my career.  You can google it yourself.  And, though the patent article tells you some of it, women are underrepresented in some of the more lucrative fields, including M&A and tax.  Where I am not the only woman in a meeting it is worth noting (I actually have become friendly with a banker that is opposite me a lot because we are almost always the only two women in the room - and these are not small meetings.  It's become kind of a joke).  So, this tech stuff resonates to me and is personal, because there are a lot of the same issues in my field, and honestly, when I started practice in 2002, there were lots of hope and dreams that things would be different based on the accumulation of pipeline (partner track is 8-10 years btw; industry standard).  They aren't that different, tbh, BUT at least I can say these days that more clients care, which may move things a bit more.  But pipeline didn't and hasn't solved the problem.  If I had to guess, the level will normalized at 25%-30% of equity partners at some point (which will be interpreted by people as more than 50%).  These days there are lots of discussions by naysayers about how women just aren't good at developing business.  You could guess what I think of that.

2.  People on this board don't like anecdotes.  But I have LOTS of anecdata of my lived experiences working as a woman in a male-dominated field.  I also have the lived experiences of good friends in similar situations (hardware developer (fordevicesyouuseandcompaniesyouhaveheardof), surgeon, cardiologist, engineers, financial services folks).  It's funny how we all have similar stories on some level.  The same stuff happens to us.  And, let me tell you, the amount of grief and aggravation that goes along with the job at all levels is substantial.  And, because many in this thread have never experienced it [oh, for example - here's one of mine, in your first job at a tech startup you wear a blouse with the guess! logo over the breast pocket and the founder/boss walks up to you and says "34B, right?"] it's easy to dismiss the drag of the accumulation of this crap over time.  And so people drop out.  And if it is a known thing that the profession isn't particularly friendly to women, that there are plenty of men who think that you aren't interested/aren't good at this kind of thinking/aren't dedicated enough/couldn't possibly want it enough because....lady parts!, wanting to participate at all in the first place means, I think, that you not only have to have an interest and an ability, but a real love for the thing, that wouldn't be satisfied by something else.  

3.  For the record, I love men.  I love working with men.  I actually love humans in general.  And I absolutely think there are probably some things that will remain more dominated by men than women for whatever reason.  But, I'm deeply suspicious of any theory that purports to categorize >50% of the population based on what "they" are like, in terms of what they are capable, or want to do with their brains.  Similar things were said about women's ability to practice law and medicine, or even to vote if you really want to make the comparison..... 

/rant.

[Lily Valley]

On 9/23/2017 at 11:35 PM, Lew Theobald said:

A generation or two ago in the Deep South, discrimination against black folks might have been deemed good business in some contexts.  Even today, discrimination against women might be a good way to keep down costs for maternity leave and the like.  But these things are against the law, and these laws are supposed to protect everybody, not just certain people.  If I legitimately need a certain skill or background that's fine, but if not ....

As for my competitors, don't the same laws bind them as bind me?  Or should Article VII be repealed?

 

4 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

I don’t get this.

(Caveat: improving CS eduction is what I do. Most of my energy in this issue is currently devoted to universal CS education in school. This is a very hard and very frustrating endeavour. So I would love education to reduce gender imbalance as well. I just don’t see how this should work. I have no model for it.)

You seem to assume that women are mistaken about their own expected enjoyment of a career in tech (which they rate as low). That women are mistaken about how interesting they find programming (which they rate as not very interesting.)

I don’t understand on which basis we can claim that. How do we know that women are wrong. And that they are more wrong the richer, freer, and more empowered they are. I don’t get this.

Now, if we assume that women are correct in their assessment of their own enjoyment of CS (an assessment that they seem to share with most men, as far as I know), then we would be making a moral mistake by enticing them into tech, would we not? So how do we solve that by education?

(Maybe you mean education of the bad kind: “Think like me!” Then I understand your position. But I view education as the good kind: “Be more informed.”)

——

My own bias, of course, goes in the other direction. For the life of me I cannot understand how anybody could view CS as not interesting. So I teach it as well as I can. 

I assume somewhere out there the is a mirror image of mine who tries to make people-like-me understand spectator sports, and who thinks she just needs to educate me so that I no longer mistakenly find them boring. 

 

2 hours ago, zelticgar said:

I theorize that even if there is a smaller population of women that would naturally gravitate towards CS there are more steps to be taken to make sure it is shown as an option to younger students. There has to be a significant population that is sufficiently ignorant of the demand and long term career opportunities in a CS career. Even if the ratio of undergrads tops out at 70/30 there are potentially 7,000 to 8,000 more undergrad females that could be graduating annually. We know this is possible because it reached close to those numbers in 2002. You view about only a smaller portion of women may enjoy the career is likely not wrong but I also do not think we have reached the ceiling of identifying those who would enjoy the career. There is more that can be done in education and exposure to the field at an earlier age before we can come to final conclusions about what the ceiling if for women in CS. 

 

22 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

 

3.  For the record, I love men.  I love working with men.  I actually love humans in general.  And I absolutely think there are probably some things that will remain more dominated by men than women for whatever reason.  But, I'm deeply suspicious of any theory that purports to categorize >50% of the population based on what "they" are like, in terms of what they are capable, or want to do with their brains.  Similar things were said about women's ability to practice law and medicine, or even to vote if you really want to make the comparison..... 

/rant.

3.  For the record, I completely distrust all of you.  You are all men.  I fucking hate all of you.  I hate all of you with breakfast, lunch and dinner when it  comes to my JOB.  I HATE YOU ALL FUCKING DAY.  YES, ALL OF YOU.  If there were a planet where I never had to placate another one of you fragile-ego stupid motherfuckers again, I would go there.  Fuck all of you for not even ASKING a single one of your female friends (are we your friends or fucking not?) about WHY there aren't more women in these fields.  Fuck All Of You.

 

/rant

[Kalbear]

37 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

I hesitate each time I venture back into this thread as to whether it is worth posting again.  So much of this thread is exactly what we lady types have been talking about.  Like, I could put this as Exhibit AA in my catalog of experiences on the subject.  And yet, here I am again.  So, a few observations:

1.  @Kalbear I wish people would keep touting law as some kind of huge success story in contrast to tech.  This is actually something that I know A LOT about.  It actually says more about tech than law that you could think that, I think.  Here is an old report from 2003 which shows a huge increase in the number of women in the legal profession at that time (approximately when I started practicing).  It shows women as 40% of lawyers.   GREAT, you say.  It also shows numbers of women partners.  And, you say, and that percentages have only increased!  Problem solved!  Nope, not at all.  I don't have time to do more than a quick google dump, but Here is an article from the Atlantic, about 7 years old, that I think is still pretty relevant, and some stuff from a legal tabloid, Above the Law, here, and some ABA statistics here), show a lot of what I've seen and experienced over my career.  You can google it yourself.  And, though the patent article tells you some of it, women are underrepresented in some of the more lucrative fields, including M&A and tax.  Where I am not the only woman in a meeting it is worth noting (I actually have become friendly with a banker that is opposite me a lot because we are almost always the only two women in the room - and these are not small meetings.  It's become kind of a joke).  So, this tech stuff resonates to me and is personal, because there are a lot of the same issues in my field, and honestly, when I started practice in 2002, there were lots of hope and dreams that things would be different based on the accumulation of pipeline (partner track is 8-10 years btw; industry standard).  They aren't that different, tbh, BUT at least I can say these days that more clients care, which may move things a bit more.  But pipeline didn't and hasn't solved the problem.  If I had to guess, the level will normalized at 25%-30% of equity partners at some point (which will be interpreted by people as more than 50%).  These days there are lots of discussions by naysayers about how women just aren't good at developing business.  You could guess what I think of that.

Yeah, and that's totally fair and a good thing to point out - that just because the education system is appearing to favor women in certain fields doesn't mean the outcome is particularly good, nor does it mean that it's a good place to work anyway for those who buck down and continue at it. 

I do think that in general law is in a more healthy place for women than tech is, at least at some levels - but certainly not in the US by comparison to the rest of the world and definitely not equal or even close. 

I guess that's the most frustrating thing to me to see over and over. There are an absurd amount of reports about how hostile and uncomfortable the workplace is for women, over and over and over again. I can speak to this in tech well, but it certainly isn't just tech, and even in industries where women are well-represented they still get shit on again and again. 

And instead of looking at this really simple thing - that the workplace largely sucks for women, from stupid things like the standard temperature of office buildings to dress codes and makeup codes to actual issues with employment and advancement - it's all 'well, maybe women are more biologically disposed not to do this stuff'. 

It's the workplace, stupid.

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Surely, women can't have it both ways.  If women tend to make different CHOICES from men, the fact that they make those choices cannot be used as proof that they are being unfairly treated.

When they say "I choose not to do this because of how I'm treated" it should be, no? Especially when a bunch of men are coming in and saying 'huh, what could possibly the reason be' and the women are saying 'it's because of how I'm treated" and the men are all 'so mysterious, can't imagine what it is'.

I mean, really, there's been pages and pages about why more women don't play chess when there's also pages and pages on study on the deeply held belief that women aren't as good at men playing chess, because they've been told by men that they're not as good. It's not that mysterious!

[Lily Valley]

14 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

 If women tend to make different CHOICES from men, the fact that they make those choices cannot be used as proof that they are being unfairly treated.

Sure, women can TRY to have it both ways.  But then perhaps men can also exercise their right to be deeply suspicious.  I really don't think men have a monopoly on trying to get away with things.

I would really appreciate it if MGTOW would actually do that and leave me and mine alone.  I'd appreciate it if there were a thread on an internet board somewhere that was highly monitored where women could have a conversation once in a while without getting interrupted.

But please, carry on.

Edit:  Kal, at this point everyone knows that boobs are the wrong limb to move a knight with.  You're being redundant.