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Fighting Tech's Diversity Issues Without Burning Down the System
reifman writes: Fizzmint CEO Tarah Wheeler Van Vlack says she "never had a problem with Mitt Romney's use of the phrase 'binders full of women.' ... Instead of congratulating him for his realization and his attempt to (awkwardly) rectify the situation, we crucified him for not already having a network of accomplished women." The scarcity of women in tech is a central issue in Seattle, where Amazon's growth is literally reshaping the city. The company refuses to release its technology workforce diversity numbers, and it's been criticized for interviewing practices that put female candidates on a "horrifying steeplechase [by] careless and non-people-oriented technologists." Van Vlack says, "It's stupid on every level not to acknowledge the obstacles women face when they try to join a tech company." She suggests three concrete steps for technology leaders to attract more women into the fold: 1) Push your technical recruiters to hit 20% thresholds for female candidates 2) Challenge and question your personal assumptions about the leadership skills of women in technology and 3) Transparently and openly take a stand to improve your company's diversity figures.
We all need to realize that Mitt Romney is an old politician. He's not a computer guy. 'Binders' of candidates I can easily see. Again, not something to get uptight over.
I do get a bit irked with Van Vlack though - 20% goal for women? That low? In addition, it implies that women can't even make 20% without being chosen simply for the fact that she's a woman. More women are going to and graduating college today than men, and it's by a substantial fraction 43.6% male vs 56.4% female in public universities alone. Private universities the average is closer to 40-60. Her third statement amounts to a repeat of the first, implying that you can't simply have a policy of hiring the best employees - you have to hire looking to diversify. Does diversification even improve outcomes if you're a business? Please note that diversity of talent and experience is still a positive factor, hiring somebody with experience different than what's already in the group is generally beneficial. I'm talking about hiring somebody for a position substantially because the color of their skin is under-represented in your workcenter.
If women are still under-represented in some fields despite being the majority of college students, I think we need to look closer at social traditions and policies, because I think they might be the bigger factor at this point. Not much point at looking to hire women in a certain field if they're not even entering it due to 'reasons'.
Questioning my assumptions about the leadership skills of women, I can't really say. I don't really think I have any.
I don't read AC A human right
Because humans, for the most part, are pretty stupid and fail to grasp that just because there's an uneven number of something, doesn't make it not normal or perfectly fine.
Yes. But, but having an uneven number of something doesn't mean it's automatically bad, wrong, exclusionary or in need of "correction" either.
Simply throwing someone into a position because they do or do not happen to have a dick doesn't mean you're putting someone competent or appropriate in place.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
We all know that the exact same resume with a female name is much more likely to be rejected without being considered.
I have been in a hiring position before, and had to review resumes - it makes no sense at all that ANYONE would be rejected because of the name. I never did, I accepted or rejected candidates based on the resume, not the name. I have never seen any other co-worker doing anything different either (but then why would they when some of them were also women).
If anything because of many articles like this one, I would assume a female name at this point would make it MORE likely you'd be considered as a candidate. I have a friend graduating soon with a CS degree, she has interviewed at every company she sent a resume to...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How about you understand the parent before spouting your 'religion'. The GP is claiming the total amount of women looking for tech jobs is less than 20% of the available workforce thus there's not enough of a supply of them to reach 20%. That has nothing to do with the total amount of people in STEM. If you need 10 people and have 9830 men apply and 1 women, you'll never hire 20% women and there's no shortage of people.
Or are you really arguing that women should be paid considerable more just because they're female? They should be paid extra to ignore the crap they face in the workplace?
It only takes a few arrogant, know-it-all, elitist assholes to run people off. IT infrastructure and development are loaded with these assholes...and they generally make it hell for everyone. These assholes treat me nice but I see them treat others like shit repeatedly--and I hate it. Sprinkle in a bit social interaction awkwardness (especially with females) and I can see why women wouldn't want to live and work in these shops. Hell, I'm wondering if I can even take seeing it anymore...and I'm an insider.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
You're approaching this as if it's fact-based. Typical nerd error.
This is a social crusade to make sure there are more vaginas present in tech companies regardless of context, qualifications, or even women's preferences.
This is a quest not about fairness, but about righteousness.
It's curious, though, that I don't see a similar indignation that women are underrepresented as janitors, ditch-diggers, or even in the trades - electricians, plumbers, etc. Certainly, women are just as capable to fill those roles, so why no ardent crusade to bring those numbers up as well?
It's almost like they're cherry-picking where women should be treated fairly and where they should still be treated preferentially. Of course, it would be harder to summon up great gobs of indignation if your fuel is hypocrisy.
-Styopa
(1) is a terrible idea, and should be only "Push your technical recruiters to ignore sex completely and hire the most qualified person for the job, while pushing those who create the requirements for the jobs to stop requiring the ridiculous"
(2) meh. Just stop thinking about sex as an employment qualification. Stop it. Right now.
(3) No, definitely not, and also, fuck no. See (1) -- just behave reasonably and "diversity figures" will settle wherever they should be.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If the answer to that question is "no," then so be it. But that leads to a new question of, "why isn't IT experiencing the same relative gender parity that other professions are?" Admittedly, that question would probably be more suited for a sociologist or psychologist to answer than an employer that's just trying to fill a job vacancy, but it would still be a worthwhile question.
Personally, I am an actuary, and I find this issue to be interesting because my profession has had little trouble attracting qualified females once it started trying. Somewhere around 40%-45% of actuaries in the U.S. are female, up from 7%-8% in the 1970s. That number will presumably get pretty close to parity as the oldest, all-male generation finishes retiring.
Being an actuary is generally technically demanding - it usually requires the ability to perform complex statistical simulations, a knowledge of SQL (or at least enough SQL to be dangerous), an understanding of the finer points of applicable state insurance regulations, and passing a long series of reasonably difficult examinations on probability, finance, general insurance knowledge, and specialty topics. As far as I can tell, getting into the actuarial profession is every bit as difficult as getting into the IT profession, at least in terms of the amount of intelligence, adaptability, and perseverance needed to acquire the necessary technical skills and domain knowledge.
Yet, the actuarial professions has almost achieved achieved gender parity, without really even trying - it just stopped deliberately excluding women in the '70s, and the problem solved itself. And I would point out, my profession is not unique in this respect - it's almost an identical story in the medical profession. There's another post in this thread somewhere claiming that the legal profession is seeing the same pattern. So I do think it's fair to ask why all these other fields that require a high amount of technical skill, not to mention perseverance, can attract women, but IT (and nursing) can't. What makes IT (or nursing) different?