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Lies, Damn Lies, and Tech Diversity Statistics
theodp writes Some of the world's leading Data Scientists are on the payrolls of Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and Apple. So, it'd be interesting to get their take on the infographics the tech giants have passed off as diversity data disclosures. Microsoft, for example, reported its workforce is 29% female, which isn't great, but if one takes the trouble to run the numbers on a linked EEO-1 filing snippet (PDF), some things look even worse. For example, only 23.35% of its reported white U.S. employee workforce is female (Microsoft, like Google, footnotes that "Gender data are global, ethnicity data are US only"). And while Google and Facebook blame their companies' lack of diversity on the demographics of U.S. computer science grads, CS grad and nationality breakouts were not provided as part of their diversity disclosures. Also, the EEOC notes that EEO-1 numbers reflect "any individual on the payroll of an employer who is an employee for purposes of the employers withholding of Social Security taxes," further muddying the disclosures of companies relying on imported talent, like H-1B visa dependent Facebook. So, were the diversity disclosure mea culpas less about providing meaningful data for analysis, and more about deflecting criticism and convincing lawmakers there's a need for education and immigration legislation (aka Microsoft's National Talent Strategy) that's in tech's interest?
... becomes subjective bias-reinforcement when using the phrase "even worse" in comparing numbers
SJW posts on Slashdot.org are getting ridiculous, why it is some tragedy that both genders choose other things to do in their life?
I find it unlikely that the tech sector will ever even get close to parity. Too many boys get interested in tech as a reaction to be ostracized from other groups. They develop a culture all their own, and that culture is usually not particularly friendly to people that are different from them, that have not gotten along with them terribly well, or that they don't think measure-up. Girls, and later women, squarely hit all three for the the vast majority of them, and when that's the base to which others entering technical fields through career planning rather than through personal interest have to deal with, that will turn-off people that don't like what they find.
When one looks at scandals like "gamergate" and other situations where women are finding themselves subject to personal attack when they disagree with other members of the community, you can begin to see the underbelly of the problem. Boys that don't get along with girls, objectify girls because of their own needs, and never are taught to behave otherwise will automatically reinforce an environment that's struggled with gender parity from the beginning.
The solution is to fix this when boys are in their tween and teen years, but that takes effort and a willingness to deal with the social issues that led to the problem in the first place. Screeching about the problem after it's become established won't fix it.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
... or they'll choose to do something else. There is no institutional sexism. No one has been able to find it.
All you have is a stat that shows women don't statistically pursue this career. There is no evidence that universities are discriminating and there is no evidence that companies are discriminating.
So what you are really upset about is women CHOOSING to not go into tech.
You apparently don't like people having choices. You want everyone to statistically fall into perfect little patterns and do things according to your numbers.
Only one way to do that. Force women to and men and any other arbitrary group your stupid statistics think are relevant... and force them into tech... or else... scorpions? I'll leave that up to you.
Absent that, people are not going to fall into these statistical patterns. More men are going to get into some careers. More women are going to get into others. How many male kindergarten teachers are there? How many men work at maternity wards in hospitals? Women like small children and babies. They just do. And so that is ONE example of a career women tend to be happier in then men. I am not saying they should be pushed into it or that they should do it. They personally choose to do it because they like it. It is a choice.
And men often like solitary complex tasks working long hours often for no more reason then because it is hard and if they don't do it no one will.
Men like jobs that no one else will do. We gravitate to that stuff. We like being the guy that signs up for a couple years in the Merchant Marines seeing land no more then a couple days out of a month for years. Our contacts with civilization basically being a bar crawl climaxing with a trip to a brothel. Deal with it.
Men and women are not the same. They're not. We like different things. Pretending it is all socialization and otherwise women would love action movies and guys would be crying on the couch eating ice cream while watching romantic comedies is the opinion MORONS have.
I am not a moron. However, there are clearly a lot of morons running around and quite a few people don't seem to be able to tell the difference between morons and normal people. Because the morons are being treated like they're smart.
I think part of it might be that what the morons are saying doesn't make any sense. And we tend to associate things that do not make sense these days with something so smart that it is just beyond us. Except, sometimes things that don't make sense actually don't make sense... because they're stupid.
This whole feminist kick that the media is going on these days is dumb. You are embarrassing yourselves and you're not helping women.
If you actually won, the best you'd have accomplished is cause the competency of women for a generation to be questioned because no one would know if they earned their job or if they were some sort of diversity hire.
Stop being stupid. No really. Stop eating the lead paint chips which I am assuming is a popular ingredient at jamba juice.. and just stop. It is your job to write articles and talk. I don't want you to starve.
Just try harder to not literally have the opinions of literal idiots. Not saying you are idiots... just that you happen to be thinking in much the same way and it is not acceptable.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
How does being diverse help a company or team?
Why stop at Microsoft?
Let's look at the NBA Portland Trail Blazers. No women, not enough south-Americans, Asians, native-Americans or even whites!
Doesn't the NBA realize they would be so much better off if they focused on diversity instead of their narrow minded goal of getting the best basketball players?
That Paul Allen guy is a performance and results bigot. Just look at what he is doing with the Seattle Seahawks.
I see anti-diversity examples all over Allen's successful investments, with a clear focus on talent, skill, work ethic, etc. instead of a person's race or sex.
What kind of world will this result in, if people are rewarded for what they contribute instead of what they look like and whether or not they have any balls?
Respect the Constitution
No, let's first come up with some real data. The feminazis all want to know how many people work in nice white collar jobs, but I have yet to see a single feminazi complain about:
- The number of women working in trash collection;
- The number of women working in sewer treatment plants;
- The number of women working car manufacturing;
- The number of men working as a psychologist;
- The number of men working as a nurse;
- The number of men that do not get custody of their children after a divorce;
Fact of the matter is that feminazis are looking for selective equality. Real feminists look for real equality.
Why do silicon valley companies hire so few women? Very simple: most female candidates are simply not skilled enough to do coding, network administration etc. I'd love to get more girls working on the team.
The running gag in our Santa Clara based company is this:
There are only two types of female engineers: good engineers and pretty engineers. If she's a good engineer, she usually looks like a brick. If she's pretty, she usually doesn't know the difference between an int and a struct.
Please please please girls, we need you to brighten up our workplace. But we need good engineers, not pretty ones!
Is there a way to reclaim Slashdot from this constant barrage of psychological assault on IT professionals by outsiders?
I'm a bit of a nerd and I'm an IT professional. This place used to be a place to find news of interest to nerds and IT professionals. Now it's a place where there's going to be a daily article about how shitty a person I am and how shitty my industry is.
Is this what the rest of you guys come here for? To get shit on daily? It's kinda feeling like Slashdot has just become a bad habit I do when I'm bored because I've done it so many times before.
Is your target audience people who are nerds, or is it people who are envious of nerds? It's kinds feeling like this place has become the latter.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
The very best engineers, programmers and wizards are not school taught - they are autodidact.
To the point that many have a CS education, that is only pro-forma so they fulfill employment requirements.
Anyone who takes CS to learn CS is already behind. If you actually learned something you didn't already know, you probably didn't have much of an interest or a knack in the first place.
To get more [insert favorite minority] into STEM/CS, the members of [insert favorite minority] have to take an interest in it. Schools can't teach you the drive and curiosity that makes you worth keeping as an employee. They can only teach you what you can pick up in a fraction of the time by reading and playing around.
To expect to be a successful engineer because your parents sent you to UCB is as silly as expecting to be a successful musician because you took music classes. Without an inner drive and interest, it won't do much good.
And the problem is that women in general don't take a personal interest in maths, science, engineering or similar. That has to come first.