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Win Or Lose, Discrimination Suit Is Having an Effect On Silicon Valley
SpzToid sends word that the Ellen Pao vs. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers discrimination case wrapped up yesterday. No matter what the outcome turns out to be, it has already affected how business is being done in Silicon Valley. "'Even before there's a verdict in this case, and regardless of what the verdict is, people in Silicon Valley are now talking,' said Kelly Dermody, managing partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, who chairs the San Francisco law firm's employment practice group. 'People are second-guessing and questioning whether there are exclusionary practices [and] everyday subtle acts of exclusion that collectively limit women's ability to succeed or even to compete for the best opportunities. And that's an incredibly positive impact.' Women in tech have long complained about an uneven playing field — lower pay for equal work, being passed over for promotions and a hostile 'brogrammer' culture — and have waited for a catalyst to finally overhaul the status quo. This trial — pitting a disgruntled, multimillionaire former junior partner against a powerful Menlo Park, Calif., venture capital firm — was far from the open-and-shut case that many women had hoped for. More gender discrimination suits against big tech firms are expected to follow; some already have, including lawsuits against Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc."
Jeez.
Some women can't succeed because they lack talent and now they need someone to blame. Sure makes a mockery of women who work hard to get into their positions.
Ellen Pao just accused John Doerr of KP of sexually harassing her when he gave her a print of "The Birth of Venus"
The only reason I don't like to work with women is because of the insane sexual harassment laws and HR policies.
As someone who happens to have been born with a penis, if I so much as smile the "wrong" way, I am instantly a creep, marked a sexual predator, fired, sued into oblivion, and my life ruined - all with everyone immediately believing the woman.
Immediate vilification. There doesn't have be any supporting evidence, or a witness, or anything - I'm immediately bad, no matter what actually happened. It's worse than being declared guilty before being proven innocent; it's simply guilty, with no chance of being innocent.
Women have ultimate power over the career of men. If a woman doesn't like someone, it's 1. Accuse, 2. Fired. Bam. Person gone. Any questions asked are merely procedural.
I have seen this happen to a co-worker, so don't give me that "that never happens" crap. It does happen.
I see women whining about this issue making claims, you're not bothered by that?
Cue the whiners, indeed.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
But in reality the actual pay difference is about 7%. Now look at the number of sick days women take compared to men, about 50% more. And guess the primary cause of that.....
A multimillionare woman complains of being passed up for promotion? How rich are the guys (I assume they are guys. For all I know, they are also women) that got the promotion( if there was even a promotion to be had)?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
If you're a dickhead (pun not-intended), you'll be treated like a shithead.
Sexual poetry book? Talk to the dude who gave it to you, tell him it's inappropriate. or go to HR (which is usually women-biased) and tell them you felt offended, they will talk tot he dude.
Colleagues discussing pornography on a plane? Tell them to keep it quiet (add "please!" because it's polite) and they will stop. if they don't, do as above.
Men tend to slip back to pseudo-savagery if women aren't around in a workplace for a while, and when a woman comes in, they tend do remain savage unless their eyes are opened. Don't pry their eyes open with a crowbar and acid, do it nicely and all's gonna be okay.
As for the other "reasons", they're dumb and weak.
A male partner touched your leg under a table? C'mon, really now. gender bias right there: imagine a male complaining about the same thing performed by a female: I bet everyone would laugh at him. but noo, when a woman experiences it, it's baaad, it's almost rape! Unacceptable!
It looks like currently the appropriate action is "shut up and sue" rather than "talk to the offender, then HRm then escalate, then sue if issue isn't resolved and he continues".
Here's something that happened at my workplace (which fields men and women almost in equal percentages). There was this new dude who had a rather unpolished character, swearing a lot, etc. One female colleague felt offended and went to HR. Another talked to him directly, in private and explained that he's crossing some lines. Dude got it, stopped, then a week later he's called to HR (follow-up from the first woman's complaint) and slammed with 10% pay cut for 3 months.
After that, everyone (men and women alike) isolated themselves from that woman (socially) because they felt uneasy around her. One could never be sure that they might slip and say something that "offended" her somehow and end up being punished for some little thing they might not have realized.
Being an arsehole swings both ways and can backfire.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Regardless of the outcome, it will continue to be socially acceptable to make fun of nerds, and The Big Bang Theory will still be America's #1 sitcom. I certainly don't participate in any "brogrammer" culture, but I can't feel sorry for it having an impact on the very people who fostered it in the first place. You may have the same right as I do to sit down and eat, but using bully tactics to win a seat at the lunch table isn't going to earn you any respect.
... that more and more investors are deciding to not put their money into places where frivolous lawsuits are prevalent, such as the Silicon Valley
Fact that Intel had to put up $300million for their 'woman in tech' program as a bribe to the feminists is alarming to many investors
IMHO everyone should have that amount of time off. People working 40+h/w for 50+w/y is just ridiculous. Give everybody 2m/y off and work 30h/w, then we will have less unemployment and more efficient businesses.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Good grief I am so tired of hearing this bullshit argument by people when it is so easily discounted with.. oh my.. FACTS! The only I can believe at this point, is that people in power are desperate to keep us pitted against each other so they are dumping shit tons of money into the extremist feminist movement. Everyone needs to just start boycotting. Turn off any TV station that repeats the bullshit, turn off the radio station, don't buy the publication, and don't read the blogs.
Women don't want to work in tech! Oculus proved it, and even stated openly that they gave favoritism to women. Women did not apply for jobs, so how can they "fix" the balance unless these dipshit SJWs start forcing women into a career they don't want? Everyone knows that IT jobs in general are longer hours, less vacation, less time off, and extremely high stress. I don't blame women for not wanting to work in the field, and see nothing wrong with their choices.
Without all the recent hype, and since the very early 70s, women have been on an unequal field in THEIR favor! There are more women graduating college today than men, there are more women PHDs than men, there are more women in education than men, there are more women than men in industries like child care where women can be closer to their kids. Further, the rate of suicides for women is much lower than men while their work participation is at an all time high, meaning they are not suffering from the same stress as men.
All the bullshit about a patriarchy and rape culture is exactly bullshit. Most women get it and ignore the feminists, so why the fuck are our politicians and media outlets giving them so much air time hmm? I believe the answer is what I started with.. people in power want us pitted against each other and the argument is too simple to latch on to.... if you are a useful idiot that is
Just what can you reasonably expect? Most programmers have been emotionally hurt repeatedly by women (much fewer by men) so it is natural they form protective shells (no not `bash`, the other kind). Yes, that does tar all women with one brush but all men are equally tarred by the misbehaviours of a small minority.
As for discrimination, I personally consider it cowardly -- fair competition, and let the best [wo]man win.
It will encourage high tech companies in general and venture capital firms in specific to:
A). Locate their businesses in a state (like Texas) where Social Justice Warrior-type lawsuits have little chance to succeed.
B). More carefully screen potential employees for Social Justice Warrior tendencies so as to minimize the chance of future lawsuits.
Businesses exist to make money, they don't exit for believers in victimhood identity politics to wage politics and cash in at their expense.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
This also makes it more risky for companies to hire women. They need to increase the HR budget to make sure there is plenty of data to back up promotions. This is a very subjective area. Especially for a company like this one where I seriously doubt anyone is a slacker. It's like trying to judge between all 4.0 students. You have to look at things that are impossible to measure.
I'm not saying if she is right or wrong.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Are people really that stupid? Huge payouts in these sorts of lawsuits isn't going to demonstrate to companies they should spend all their time policing their "everyday subtle acts". It's going to convince them women are legally dangerous and shouldn't be hired at all. It's a hell of a lot harder to bring a suit against a company that never hires you than against one for which you're employed, and business owners know this.
Yes, the garbage pickers, ditch diggers, coal miners, EMT workers sure have women clamoring for equal opportunities.
Oh what's that? Only cushy office jobs?
Don't hire women. Don't take that risk of lawsuits.
I've been a reader of /. for many years now. While this site has never been known for having the highest quality content, I'm seeing more and more and more social justice submissions making it onto the front page here.
So there's this submission. Just a few hours ago there was one about "booth babes" being banned at some conference. A few hours before that there was one about some British TV host who was dismissed from his show over some incident.
While this stuff may be indirectly related to technology, it's all so irrelevant here. If I cared to read about whatever minor social injustice is trending these days, I'd go read Twitter comments or even the mainstream media.
Yeah, I know I could just ignore this submission, and the many others, but there are just so many of them these days! They also end up taking up front page space that could be used by more interesting and relevant submissions.
I say this as a woman, as well. Just because I was born with a vagina it doesn't mean that I want to read about all of this social nonsense junk. And just because I wasn't born with a penis it doesn't mean that I'm not interested in reading about scientific discoveries or technological breakthroughs or new mathematical proofs! /. editors, please tone down the social justice poop. Give us good articles about relevant topics! Social justice is not a relevant topic here!
If a person works 35-40 hours a week should they receive the same pay as someone working 45-50 hours? Anyone looking at that should say "No, the person working more hours should receive more pay." but somehow this obvious point eluded you.
There are several valid reasons for pay differences between genders. Men work more. More hours, more days, and even the shitty shifts tend to be occupied by males (barring food services where it's close to equal). Men choose higher risk and higher stress fields to work in. In the same fields of work with the same hours worked women make the same amount of money as men and often receive MORE money than men in the same field of work.
Your anecdotal fallacy of what an ideal work day provides nothing of value to the conversation. Logic is not that goddamn hard, learn to use it!
Most women get it and ignore the feminists
Exactly, the only way the summary makes any sense to me is if you replace the word "woman" with "feminist".
In reality the actual difference is NIL, or within margins of error.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
women...C Ya...guys, too.
In fact women of great standing within tech have long said the exact opposite and that it's the constant lies and fearmongering from Social Justice types convincing people there's a wage gap that doesn't exist.
There's a word for when someone uses fear and lies to control someone else's behavior for their own gain. Generally we call that an abusive relationship.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
My wife and I have this discussion all the time (she's pretty rational).
The thing is that in a lot of industries, and in tech in particular, salaries are negotiated. Sharks and more aggressive personalities always come up ahead with that.
We saw it pretty straight when at one point, she applied for a job in the same department as me, for the same company (we wouldn't work together, but we shared the same department director).
I have more experience than she does, but she has better credentials...roughly a wash. She interviewed a bit better than me. We got a similar initial offer (she got a HIGHER initial offer, and rightly so).
Here's the catch: I refused mine initially. They came back with counter offers, we negotiated for a few days, and I came up way ahead (20%~ higher or so). Even KNOWING this, when my wife got her offer, she just took it as is, no negotiation whatsoever.
Net result: she made about 10-15% less money than me even though she was more qualified.
At the end of the day, hiring managers have budgets and they will try to pay as low as possible without hurting employee moral/retention, and they do expect some level of negotiation. If you take the first offer, you'll be paid less. And less "pushy" individuals are more likely to not negotiate.
That's not the only reason for gender salary gaps, for sure. But its a FUCKING BIG ONE.
IMHO everyone should have that amount of time off.
Why? You may value time off. That doesn't mean everyone does. When I was younger, I routinely worked 60-80 hour weeks, and loved it. My work was much more interesting than anything I could sit at home and watch on TV. I got a lot of bonuses for getting stuff done, and at that age the extra money was far more important than time off. Now that I am older, with a family, and stable finances, I prefer the opposite tradeoff. But I am not going to force my choices onto anyone else.
This is a woman who fucked a married colleague, has a history of being abrasive, and thinks she's entitled to get paid more than Tim Cook earns in a year.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Sometimes cliques form for various reasons including a desire to get friends or family members hired into new openings or to simply create an illusion that workers in the clique are superior workers and they do that by targeting individuals. As these cliques often make false complaints to managers it can appear that the firm is the one holding back the victim. When loss of job or failure to get raises or promotions takes place the firm is often the one that pays in court. Management may never know the degree to which they have been steered into a precarious position. Worse yet a potential litigant can work with others to get hired and with cooperation of others create undeniable evidence that a firm is doing something that it simply did not do deliberately. For example you hire an applicant that unknown to you has a long time relationship with a trusted employee. That trusted employee is in place to affirm false claims by the new employee. Out of the blue there is a false witness claiming to have seen unwanted groping of the supposed victim. And when the victim throws a fit over the supposed molestation the company feels it has to dismiss her as the work place is not functional due her lashing out over the molestation, over and over again. So the gal works there for three months and ends up with twelve years pay due to law suits.
"Even before there's a verdict in this case, and regardless of what the verdict is, people in Silicon Valley are now talking," said Kelly Dermody, managing partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, who chairs the San Francisco law firm's employment practice group.
"People are second-guessing and questioning whether there are exclusionary practices [and] everyday subtle acts of exclusion that collectively limit women's ability to succeed or even to compete for the best opportunities. And that's an incredibly positive impact."
Which people? I'm in Silicon Valley, unlike people who work in San Francisco.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
That problem is solved by providing paternity leave. It the wave of the future, and men should be pushing for it so they can spend some time with their newborn kids as well.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
In the mid 2000's, I worked as a first level manager in a well-known tech firm everyone here would recognize by name. (Hint: it's one of the parties to the anti-poaching lawsuit who hasn't settled yet) I had a handful of subordinates, up to six at a time, perhaps a dozen total over three years, including two minority females. Mind you, all of my team were competent, technically proficient, and generally not problem employees. But each year at Ranking and Rating, there was a pointed questioning, only about the minority female technical employees, that was HR-driven. "What is your justification for not ranking this employee higher?" "What are you doing to make sure that this employee is promotion-ready next year?" On the basis of those directed questioning, one of the minority women was given a specific high-profile task by my manager, which she completed competently. On the basis of that task that was steered to her based on her gender and skin color, she was promoted. To the best of my knowledge, she has no idea that she was treated favorably; I know I never told her.
The other was when a minority female candidate was identified late in the process for a very weirdly specific job opening I had. I had identified three decent candidates, all of whom happened to be white males, interviewed them all, and made an offer to the top candidate before HR found this new resume for me. My department was given an extra FTE from magical goodness-knows-where to interview and extend an offer to this lady. You NEVER get free headcount--but I did. So, we interviewed her, but found she had already accepted another offer from another (non-competitor) firm. I was then authorized to beat their offer to get her on our team, and did. So, we ended up with an extra person to do the job, and life was very good for a while, since she turned out to be an even better fit for the job than the white guy we were already in the process of hiring.
Again, over the course of the several years I knew them, both of these women were middle- to top performers among a bunch of other technical specialists, but NEVER have I seen any white male bent-over-for like these two were.
IMHO everyone should have that amount of time off.
Why? You may value time off. That doesn't mean everyone does. When I was younger, I routinely worked 60-80 hour weeks, and loved it. My work was much more interesting than anything I could sit at home and watch on TV. I got a lot of bonuses for getting stuff done, and at that age the extra money was far more important than time off. Now that I am older, with a family, and stable finances, I prefer the opposite tradeoff. But I am not going to force my choices onto anyone else.
The problem is, the workaholics and institution types effectively have forced their ways on everyone else. Worker productivity has steadily risen since at least the 1950s, meanwhile wages (indexed against inflation) have remained relatively stagnant. That would be equitable if the number of hours worked per week had been reduced, but it hasn't (that, by the way, is what steadily improving technology could have brought us, but it's never enough, the owners want more, more more).
That means someone's getting screwed, and unless most of your revenue comes from investments or other unearned income, that includes you. If you don't work the overtime and place your corporation above your family, you're "not a team player". Because these are conflicting goals, they cannot all be simultaneously satisifed. One must be chosen at the expense of all others, meaning some group who want it one way are going to force this upon everyone else. Currently, in so many work environments, this favors those who want more work and less free time.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Most women get it and ignore the feminists
Exactly, the only way the summary makes any sense to me is if you replace the word "woman" with "feminist".
The feminist organizations are much like the federal Rural Electrification Commission. Long after their stated goals have been accomplished, the institution seeks to perpetuate its own existence and exaggerate its own relevance. A sane, rational institution established to accomplish a few clearly stated goals would dissolve itself after those goals have come to pass. But this is not the way of establishments of any sort. They take on a life of their own, complete with their own survival instincts, and become monsters, and truth is easily compromised if that helps advance this goal.
I believe it was a series of counter suits combined with public boycotting that finally ended these people in most areas. You know, the ones that would send a few million snail mails to the FCC when someone said something they didn't like, and had numerous people fired from jobs because their viewpoint was not the same. Similar actions are needed against the extremists.
I've yet to witness a Majority which was truly Moral in both word and deed.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The problem is, the workaholics and institution types effectively have forced their ways on everyone else.
Then negotiate your contract to get more days off. I've done it, you can do it, too.
The catch is, you won't get paid as much, and most people aren't willing to put up with that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I can hardly wait for the inevitable posts from while males complaining that if there's discrimination going on, they're not seeing it except against themselves. Their whining is so...
White males are the one group that it's tacitly deemed "okay" to discriminate against. Especially if they happen to be Christian, and even more so if they're Protestant ("WASP").
You just can't have a civil, enlightened society if there's ANY grounp it's okay to fuck with. Even if you think they deserve it. Even if retaliation, based on group identity, against those who didn't personally decide historical events (with their enduring consequences) is somehow your idea of "justice", and simultaneously not your idea of "vengeance". Reversing the tide doesn't cause the state of "tide-free". And it isn't going to.
Otherwise, like if a single individual -- or single institution -- or small group of institutions -- made all these bad decisions, I would be perfectly fine with shunning and refusing to trust that person based on an observed track record. But what you have with the group-guilt scenario is this implicit idea that a large group of people, including those who had no input into the process, should bear some guilt for it. That's a total flat-out rejection of any sort of accountability or individuality.
If you want some kind of one-ness or collective, you don't get it this way. Dystopias are created by trying to find more efficient ways of doing it like that. No, you start by honoring the individual and letting those flourish, interact, and coalesce as they will.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Give everybody 2m/y off and work 30h/w, then we will have less unemployment and more efficient businesses.
Actually... No.
You are incorrectly assuming that the per-employee cost for hourly employees to the business for 3 x 30 hr/wk is the same as for 2 x 45 hr/wk. It's not. There is cost loading to the business in the form of unfunded government mandates, such as employer provided medical insurance, workers comp, social security, and so on.
As a specific example, there's a social security tax cap, and employers must match employee contributions. What this effectively means is that if I have 2 employees, my business is out of pocket (2 x CAP) in matching funds, and the rest of my income is mine, whereas if I have 3 employees, I am out of pocket (3 x CAP). This is generally true of all capped max-out-of-pocket employer matching.
Similar capped match values include 401K matching contributions, Medicare.
Other per-employee costs include state unemployment tax, federal unemployment tax, workers compensation insurance, paid holidays, vacations, and sick days, profit sharing plans, direct pension contribution, post-retirement health insurance contributions.
This ignores non-shared resources, like office space for individual employees simultaneously at the business, business equipment costs per employee, furniture, electricity for their computers, and so on.
So it costs a hell of a lot more for a business to employ 3 people than it does for them to employ 2 people.
Your math does not work.
*shrug* the more people do it, the easier it will get. Maybe some people don't have the ability to negotiate that kind of contract. But if you're a programmer, you do.
Once again, the biggest problem here is that people aren't willing to take a paycut. If you're not willing to do that, then it's a lot harder.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
No. Just no. It _used_ to cater to the libertarians. It is now infested with oh-so-reasonable Eurosocialists and left wing progressives.
The subject is tech jobs, in silicon valley. You're all over the board on irrelevant things
I find it interesting we are bashing tech (AGAIN).
If you look at the Fortune 500, there are 5.2% women CEOs.
If you look at the Fortune 500 tech companies, there are 8% women CEOs.
If you look at the Fortune 500 non-tech companies, there are 2.8% women CEOs.
(1) Tell me again how this is a tech problem, and not a systemic problem.
(2) Tell me again that tech is not on the right trajectory, compared to all other businesses.
(3) Tell me again how tech is not more progressive than every other business sector.
By all means, lets go back to bashing tech, the only place where this social issue is being redressed in any meaningful fashion. I'm sure there will be absolutely no backlash from beating them up over something they are actually doing something about, while giving everyone else who is doing *NOTHING* about the issue is given a pass.
It's not like tech is full of people who are familiar with how bullying works... the actual bullies *ALWAYS* get a pass.
I have seen in digg (which is also driving a pro-feminist agenda but I digress), articles about employees not being promoted to management because they were women. well I also have not been promoted in many places, and never complained it was because I had a penis. Do I need to explain it to you? Maybe because I have a CV that his long, and quite an unusual experience, I have never experienced bullying on the field, and never witnessed it too. I also have some female friends in the industry, and fact is they are more afraid than us to make the jump to newer jobs. They are more social oriented, we always take the plunge for the green grass more impulsively and with lesser considerations "about the friends that we are leaving behind" (sic). Some of them also fail to grasp the unfortunate true, that despite having a penis, often on the industry the only way to get raises and promotions is to change jobs. The fact is guys change it more and have less qualms and fear about doing it.
What point proven, shall I say? I dont thing that my sexual organ automatically is a free pass to management or higher salaries. I also know that if I want raises and go up in the industry I have to change jobs. Heck, in the past I also changed countries to get raises and get into management. If I got where I am today, it is because of investing a lot of personal time studying technology, investigating, and lots of hard word. So tell me again, why should someone being treated differently because of what they have inside their trousers or because they have different colour? Stop the nonsense please. Btw, I am not in upper management anymore, and I do not get to complain I deserve it because of having a penis or not.
Get two jobs. IF one really works 80 hours/week, then I hope they're not salaried but get paid 1.5-2.5x for any time over 40, the facts however are that most people working 80h/week only get paid to do "~40".
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Solved is a pretty strong word to use to describe a benefit that lasts for, what, a few weeks? Maybe two months? Three?
Paternity leave is great and I'm all for it. But what happens afterward? Daycare, grandparents, or one of mom or dad stays home. And you can probably guess pretty well who it's going to be.
Please explain why men would want to spend time with our newborn kids.
Don't fornicate. Seriously, just don't do it.
1. Feminists attack, generalize, and stereotype mens character all the time. Apparently this is ok, so why do feminists complain when a specific woman is criticized?
2. Some women are whiners. So are some men.
3. Having people around whose workflow jars with established process creates inefficiency. Ask men who work in nursing how they're treated. Men and women think differently and that's ok. It could very well be that in certain tasks, mixing the sexes is not a good idea.
4. A sex pay gap doesn't exist. That 77% stat is the one they were throwing around in the 70s. It doesn't account for experience, area of the country, and industry type. The bottom line is that women choose to work fewer hours per year.
5. If anything aggressive women are given the benefit of the doubt because they are assumed to be oppressed. Try lodging a complaint against an aggressive woman and you'll lose your job (if you're male).
6. Actually, it's feminists who think men 'act crazy'. They're always calling them rapists.
7. Irrational shaming proves nothing. Irrational shaming with government backing is a threat to liberty.
Win or lose, merit or nonsense the lawyers always win.
All the bullshit about a patriarchy and rape culture is exactly bullshit. Most women get it and ignore the feminists, so why the fuck are our politicians and media outlets giving them so much air time hmm? I believe the answer is what I started with.. people in power want us pitted against each other and the argument is too simple to latch on to.... if you are a useful idiot that is
Note that even after we knew the UVA frat rape accusation was horseshit, MSM news articles about it still pushed the talking point that it "raised awareness" and "started a conversation" about "rape culture" and the "epidemic of sexual assault" on campuses. "Win or lose" (i.e. facts be damned) the narrative matters above all else.
Agreed - but only if they deserve it. I've been lucky and only worked with competent, non snivelling women and had no issues.
I think part of what helps tech (versus e.g. finance, middle management, etc...) is that it's put up or shut up. You can only fake it so much. See for example Shanley Kane. That lunatic had no tech skills and couldn't hack it, so she left to become an "activist".
Where women like that are more dangerous is in management. Harder to measure effectiveness there.
That problem is solved by providing paternity leave. It the wave of the future, and men should be pushing for it so they can spend some time with their newborn kids as well.
I used to think that too but I changed my mind. There's no point in doing that in the current marriage climate; not enough couples are together so paternity leave ends up useless to the unattached father and thus he may not take it anyway, making him even more valuable than women and attached men.
Unintended consequence: if only 2% of men are unattached fathers[1], they would be selected for the most by employers. This preference would lead to more men forfeiting paternity leave, and this situation would continue in a vicious cycle until *all* men forfeit their paternity leave. The end result would be an even greater resistance to hiring young women.[2] Another unintended consequence is that this situation makes being an unattached father even more desirable than it is now. There are precious few benefits to a man in marriage right now, so adding more points to the "don't get married" side is going to make the current decline in birth rates accelerate to off-a-cliff levels.
[1]The figure is a lot higher than this, IIRC.
[2]Older women have probably already had all the kids they want to and thus have a lower risk of taking maternity leave.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
The bullying comment was specifically in reference to the press bullying tech over something tech is already more cognizant of than any other industrial segment.
In terms of personal bullying, I think a lot of people who enter tech were bullied when they were younger, which has driven them towards technical pursuits, where they are less likely to have to associate with the general population. Perhaps, by implication, more young women should be bullies to address the STEM imbalance? I would not suggest that we should do that, even if it would be successful, since the tradeoffs are simply not worth it.
I maintain, however, social isolation leads to more STEM careers than it does to retail sales positions.
The whole "brogrammer" myth, which I think arose from the movie "The Social Network" and the Winklevii in particular, is pretty much a myth. The only fitness nerds I know in tech these days are fitness nerds because of reaction, not because that's the way they've been their entire life. In fact, most of them do it because they are using it as a means of life extension.
Maybe they write up crazy job descriptions that almost no one can fill out of a false estimation of what they need?
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
check and check about being bullied in the past and the gym comment. I was bullied in school by a couple of colleagues, one of them slightly retarded and twice my size, and one day I was so full of it, I broke my fist on that giant face. Nobody ever bothered me that year anymore. The year after I went to a private school and there they were much more friendly.
Sadly, this is true for any successful organization.
"But the more an organization succeeds and prospers, the more it is likely to be diverted from its original ideals, principles and purposes ........ Every combination of two or more human beings has both a useful aspect and a political aspect. These tend to conflict with each other. As the political aspect becomes more and more influential, the organization ceases to be useful to its members and starts using them.
Why does this happen? Because the better an organization is at fulfilling its purpose, the more it attracts people who see the organization as an opportunity to advance themselves.
The ability to get ahead in an organization is simply another talent, like the ability to play chess, paint pictures, do coronary bypass operations or pick pockets. There are some people who are extraordinarily good at manipulating- organizations to serve their own ends."
[Empire of the Rising Scum]
http://bobshea.net/empire_of_t...
"But if you're a programmer, you do."
Yeah, right. Meanwhile, back in the real world where companies will simply not renew your contract and hire someone who WILL work the full hours....
There is such a thing as going to far, and the feminists have overshot the mark so far it's dangerous to even talk to a female in pubic or private without facing cries of discrimination, rape or bias that will cost you. No, I haven't ever been directly accused and I personally have no issue with women getting paid the same for doing the same work. The other day my son was telling me about his yearly mandatory HR lecture on how to go about work in the workplace. Did you know there is now such a thing as 'stare rape'? WTF? Did you know you can be censored at work (reprimand or fired) for having a relationship at work that makes someone totally unrelated uncomfortable? I guess the only way to ensure a completely level playing field is to have everyone wear a gender neutral suit that hides your sex, male or female from site. You will no longer have a name since that can give you away as being either male or female. Voice changers will be mandatory as well. Of course that means that all bathrooms will be open for everyone as well, with hermetically sealed cells to prevent anyone guessing that way too. I love the world we live in now.. we're so politically correct we can't even BE what we are without the possibility of someone filing a lawsuit.
If I sound stupid, it's not me talking....
Your example of Oculus is misleading. They are almost 100% male, and yet companies like Facebook are around 30% female, so clearly the problem is with the way they are hiring and not with women simply being uninterested in technology. They actually mentioned what the problem is in their Q/A session:
I will address this carefully. [laughter] I noted there were some people online pointing out that Oculus Connect is mostly male. I will point out that in the selection process, there were very few women that applied. It was not that we selected for males and, in fact, women may have come out slightly ahead in the selection process by a slight margin. But I'm not 100% sure what we could do.
So they know the problem - very few women applied - but don't know the solution. Companies like Facebook clearly do know the solution, it's no great mystery. A lot of applicants come from networking contacts. Men tend to network with other men more than women, so it's a feedback loop that ensures most of the applicants will be male. Maybe they were not offering much flexibility that women look for to balance their work and family lives. There are books about this stuff, they could fix it if they wanted to.
Why are you trying to make it into some kind of gender war, where one side has to lose for the other to gain? It's not a zero sum game and it's not about women trying to beat men down. That's your take on it, not what mainstream feminists and companies that make an effort to hire more women are trying to do.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Here is a really good post on Oculus and why they are failing, rather than being an example of why there isn't a problem: http://killscreendaily.com/art...
If you want to claim that Oculus is proof women don't want to work in tech, you have to explain why their parent company (Facebook) manages to employ a 30% female workforce.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Fewer women will get hired. Period.
Whenever you make hiring a particular person (woman, minority, gay, etc) riskier because of lawsuits, fewer such people will be hired. I know that if I were doing the hiring (and I do) this kind of risk would factor into my thinking. Would I say anything, would I put it in writing? Absolutely not, I'm not an idiot.
What Ellen Pao is doing with her lawsuit is making herself unemployable. And an anchor around Reddit's neck.
Corporatism != Free Market
Women make less than men over their careers because they have babies, and that process requires taking a lot of time off work. It's a fact of life. If you don't like it, sue God.
Corporatism != Free Market
I disagree with you. Here's my thoughts from my efforts in recruiting and trying to hire women in to CS. When posing the question to a woman "what if I proposed a field of study which I could almost guarantee a six figure salary within 5 years of graduation". They perk up and say something along the lines of "oh that sounds great, what is it?". I respond with computer science, and the falling of their face is almost comical, and followed up almost always exactly with "no, I want to do something more social, something where I work with people".
Now, lets take that, and no, this isn't anecdotal, unless you consider all of my recruiting efforts, hundreds of times, to be anecdotal, and look at Oculus vs Facebook. Facebook, a social networking site doesn't have a huge issue hiring women, who seem to want to work in the social space. Oculus, who makes VR equipment and is pretty close to the antithesis of social interaction has a hard time hiring people who seem to want to work in a social space.
I don't know, could there possibly be a connection?
Women in any industry have long complained about an uneven playing field
Funny, but I have yet to hear a single complaint from any woman about discrimination in the coal mining, garbage pickup, or commercial fishing industries. Somehow they're cool with men dominating all the fields that require hard and dangerous work. I guess they're okay with inequality when they're not on the receiving end of 93% of all workplace fatalities, the way men are. Don't hear too much from them about THAT glass ceiling, do you?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
The argument you make can be used to justify eliminating sick days, pension plans, weekends off, 12-hour work days, and no annual vacation.
You should be working to live, not living to work. If other countries can do it, why can't the US?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Your sig makes your comment terrible.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Solved is a pretty strong word to use to describe a benefit that lasts for, what, a few weeks? Maybe two months? Three?
Paternity leave is great and I'm all for it. But what happens afterward? Daycare, grandparents, or one of mom or dad stays home. And you can probably guess pretty well who it's going to be.
Up here in PoutineVille it's up to 50 weeks (paid for through a special line item on everyone's income tax). The total leave can be split as the parents decide. This also applies for adoption, and for same-sex couples (married or not).
After that, subsidized cay care is $7.30 a day for families earning under $50,000 a year, $8.00 a day for those earning up to $100,000 a year, to a maximum of $20 a day for families earning more than $150,000 a year.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
To give mom a break? Or for the same reasons as women want to spend time with their newborn kids? You know, to bond with them so that when they screw up in later life you don't immediately want to beat the living hell out of them, as too many parents do?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
If you want to claim that Oculus is proof women don't want to work in tech, you have to explain why their parent company (Facebook) manages to employ a 30% female workforce.
Maybe those two companies are not doing the same kind of work ?
I can't help but think the recent attention to the gender wage gap is a convenient political distraction. It's a real problem, but the timing is very suspect. To explain, I'll repurpose a joke I once heard about unions...
A CEO, a politician and a male and female worker sit at a table. There are 302 cookies on the table. The CEO rakes 300 over for himself. He gives one of the remaining cookies to the male worker. Then he breaks the second remaining cookie into 6 fragments, gives 5 to the female worker and keeps the last fragment for himself.
Then the politician says to the female worker, "Hey, isn't it unfair that the male worker got more than you!? We gotta do something about that!"
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
That's better than fair. Most people working 80 hours/week are doing -20 hours/week of work.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Hey, don't burst his bubble. He makes more because he's manly and assertive.
Cheap storage VM.
Lily Ledbetter was a factory manager.
Cheap storage VM.
Because 30% of facebook employees are basically preschool teachers/moderators?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Women make less than men over their careers because they have babies, and that process requires taking a lot of time off work.
Yep, sexism doesn't exist and any evidence that women with the same qualifications as men are offered lower salaries just doesn't exist. You know, except that PNAS paper, but we'll ignore that becaus it doesn't agree with the "sexism is fake" narrative.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Your delusions of persecution have no place here.
Cheap storage VM.
You must be a kid. Women definitely lost the X/Y chromosome lottery. It's even more true as we all get older and deal with health issues.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Kleiner Perkins isn't a technology company, it's an investment bank. As far as technology goes, they're like a 13-year-olds who've watched a ton of porn but never had a partner: they know what everything looks like, and haven't a clue how to do it for real. The idea of being a member of team that achieves something greater than any one individual could, which IMHO is the essence and attraction of technology work, is totally foreign to these people. So we're supposed to generalize about technology organizations from a millionaire lawyer suing a shark tank like KP for acting like sharks? That's like complaining that the Palace of the Borgias was a hostile working environment. These outfits all work like Trump's Apprentice TV show. Whatever passes for a team is a loose coalition, all members of which are looking for a chance to knife the others in the back. There's plenty that needs to be said about gender and minority discrimination in the giant Middle School that Silicon Valley has turned into, but this is purely a case of privilege suing privilege. The only interesting story is how they got Tom "sack of Rolexes" Perkins to keep his mouth shut through the whole thing.
It would actually be far more equitable if ALL leave was unpaid leave, but you were guaranteed the ability to take it without otherwise being penalized. The person who uses up all their sick/vacation/maternity leave every year is doing less for the company than the one who only takes a 2 week vacation to refresh themselves, and thus earned proportionately less.
HOWEVER, it's probably not a good idea to actually operate that way due to perverse incentives for things such as burning themselves out, and coming to work while hacking up a lung and infecting all your other employees. I'm just saying that there's at least some logic the idea, and I don't think your point makes his argument ridiculous.
On an different note, 'other countries do it' is not a great argument. The general standard of living between the US and any given European country overall favors the US... depending on which factors you consider important. YMMV. They also suffered from the great recession for longer in most cases.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
If family leave was decently supported in this country, we would not be having this problem.
That is all.
We solved that here by having a specific payroll tax that is deducted to pay for maternity and paternity benefits. This covers a maximum of 50 weeks, and can be split between the parents as they wish. It also applies to same-sex couples and adopted children of all couples. And couples who aren't married. And single parents.
Considering that most couples in long-term relationships here no longer choose to get married, it's the only fair approach that doesn't discriminate against people based on their civil status. And employers can't ask about your civil status or children until after they've extended a job offer, again to prevent hiring discrimination.
After the leave expires, there's daycare available on a sliding revenue scale. $7.30 a day for families making less than $50,000, $8.00 a day for those making less than $100,000, and a maximum of $20.00 a day for those making $150,000 or more.
This addresses most of the situations you've brought up.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Or do like we have hear, where leave is paid for out of a fund that all taxpayers contribute to, so nobody is penalized for taking it, and the employer doesn't pay it.
You don't have to look to Europe - just look north of the New York border.
Also, I think most people would say that life and health is more important than money, and the US fails on that basis. Even the ACA is nowhere near as good as universal healthcare. Compare life expectancy. I'll stay in Kanuckistan, thanks :-)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Men also get offered lower salaries. But the offer is just the first step in the salary negotiations. If you don't think it's good enough, ask the HR lady for more, or leave.
But it makes the people who want to work 20h/w feel lazy and bad, so you should be forbidden from working that much.
Men also get offered lower salaries.
Not in this case.
http://www.pnas.org/content/10...
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Also, WTF has this to do with the Tech World and gender discrimination in Silicon Valley? This just sounds like a regular vanilla company discrimination issue. Well, maybe not Vanilla, but Big Money Big Business company.
Better health? Have you seen the shit women go through as they get old? Prolapsed vagina's make waiting a few minutes to pee seem like a party.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Or do like we have hear, where leave is paid for out of a fund that all taxpayers contribute to, so nobody is penalized for taking it, and the employer doesn't pay it.
After all, people don't have to have babies.
Countries on the other hand need a fresh supply of people - i.e. babies.
But that whole discussion above (as dictated by the OP who borderline blames women for getting knocked up) ignores the real issue with the whole baby producing thing.
That it is not something that can be permanently delayed or even planned 100% (and let's not even go into twins and triplets issues... or possible health issues), requiring from a woman to be absent from work during her most productive years - and to suffer from a reintegration gap once back at work.
And higher up the ladder the job goes, the more it shows. Particularly at promotion time.
Go away for half a year, return to find that your colleague with whom you shared a desk is now your boss.
Or that he simply has half a year of experience more, while you feel like a new recruit.
Or that you no longer know anyone in your division as everyone moved on, or up - or that the whole division got restructured while you were away.
On top of that, prolonged absences from "the grind", particularly coupled with significant changes in life, can and DO change the way one looks at their old workplace.
I got drafted two years into my first job, went away for 9 months.
But even though my employer even pulled some strings to get me out on one occasion for couple of days cause they needed someone to do the job... I still returned to a company staffed with many different faces and a new boss.
None of which was an issue - we used to have seasonal hirings so you get used to company blowing up then shrinking down, people coming and going, and my new boss was my old division boss who took over for our old boss... who incidentally just had a baby, and after her maternity leave went off to another company.
But you do get a different perspective... and you start noticing complaints other people make about things you took for granted. And so you start looking around. Or you get an offer.
And so you jump ship and start over elsewhere.
As a single, young, unattached male, switching to another company and a similar job was simple.
Sacrificed my vacation time in the process though.
Which was NOT fun after previously losing vacation time on account of being drafted, coming back to work, changing jobs and then working for another year to accumulate vacation time again...
Still... no biggie.
But had I had a baby at home... and maybe no one to take care of it while I worked...
There ARE elements of the whole "baby issue" and its effect on the career path of a woman that can't just be covered by monetary compensation (but it DOES help - a lot), NOR can the men experience all those effects even with paternity leave and shared responsibilities.
But even so - it is still the best strategy NOT to have babies, for both men and women.
Which is a form of discrimination of its own - against those who have to work for a living.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Because dads don't hate their own offspring?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The 73 cents on the dollar lie
It's surprisingly close to the truth. For every dollar a man earns, a woman gets 73 cents.
This leaves the man with 27 cents, but feminists still appear to think this is unfair.
Ok, I'm joking. The truth is that a married man will only spend 40% of his income - his wife will spend the other 60%. Unless they're divorced, in which case he only gets 30%.
Ouch.
Last time I checked, the vast majority of people in the US who have babies are married. It takes two to have a baby, and care of the child is both parents' responsibility. So you're basically saying that men in the tech industry shirk their childrearing responsibilities too.
Indeed. I know a 40 yr old woman who's Director in a technology company (a real director, not a startup 10 man company 'director', meaning big payout, big BMW company car) and she's also complaining about the glass ceiling because all collegues she works with at about the same level are VP. She doesn't seem to get that in the last 7 yrs she got promoted from Software Engineer to Project Management to Director. That's a pretty steep promotion curve, and she still has a long career in front of her to make it even bigger. I'm sure of the former software engineers she worked with most are still just that.
What happened to Be Nice, Think Twice?
Am I reporting harassment? Because that's that "Be Nice, Think Twice" was referring to.
when the first person disagreed with you
I pointed out where we were in agreement: that people have their own definitions of harassment and that the definitions can vary daily, hourly, or even more frequently. Was I terse? Yes because, most of the time (like 10AM in a Friday), I have better things to do than write novels to argue with ACs on Slashdot. Which brings us around to:
As an additional comment, your circular link back to your original post with the hyperlinking on "corporate policy" is douchetastically deceptive.
Or, I had just spent 15 minutes writing and revising the linked post only 4 minutes before writing the one you replied to and, well, I'll refer you to my prior statement regarding having better things to do.
Rather than attacking me (anonymously), why don't you try discussing what I'm actually saying? Is it that, while you disagree with my message, you can't seem to come up with any counterarguments? Are personal attacks really the best you've got? If so, perhaps you should reconsider your position. That always seems to work for me when I can't find any arguments against positions I disagree with; and it's not flip-flopping to change your position based on previously unconsidered information or viewpoints, it's growth. I've been doing it my whole life and I think everyone should try it, it's some good stuff.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Male engineers and programmers are often stereotyped as "nerds" before someone even meets with them, and high school (with Hollywood backing) has taught everyone that "nerds" are super-easy to push around. Thus, if someone has an agenda, they'll go after whom they see as the softest target first, which is why there seems to be such a big blowup about gender inequality in tech-related fields vs any other field (but I get most of my news from /., so I could be biased.)
Any actual outcome is immaterial so long as it can be painted in a light positive to those trying to push an agenda.
So you think video games are not social? How come 50% of gamers are now women?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Pray tell me how a father is supposed to bond with newborns. You do realise that babies sleep most of the time? And when they're awake they're too fragile for us to play with. And newborns are practically blind so it's not as if they can see us yet. Not that I'm opposed to paternity leave. Any kind of paid leave if fine by me. But in terms of necessity, we only need a couple of days after delivery to facilitate the delivery, hospital admissions and discharge, and registration of the babies and such. But after mother and child is settled at home and all the registration stuff is done, there's not really much for the father to do at home during the day.
Don't fornicate. Seriously, just don't do it.
Infants can see their parents faces, though not much further than that.
Also, I wrote that it's for the father to bond with the child, not vice versa. And just holding them and rocking them to sleep helps form that bond. Also, babies need attention at all hours of the day and night - wet diapers wait for no-one. And babies make for a LOT of laundry.
Then there's the hidden assumption in your question - that the man's job is more important economically to the family than the woman's. That's not a safe bet any more.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.