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I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

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791 points 317070 | 8 comments | 14 Aug 17 16:11 UTC | HN request time: 1.239s | source | bottom
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tptacek ◴[14 Aug 17 16:33 UTC] No.15009988[source]▶
Some of the reasoning in this post is very weak.

It's not very long, and its kernel is an anecdote about how her son is interested in programming and her daughter in photoshop. My daughter is also more interested in art than my son (who is more interested in video games). Both would make exceptional programmers, and both have a latent interest. Both are setting a course for STEM careers, but, like all 18 and 16 year olds --- let alone 9 and 7 year olds --- neither has any clue what they're really going to end up doing.

The piece culminates in a recommendation that we focus our diversity efforts on college admissions and earlier stages in the pipeline. But that's a cop-out. We should work on all stages of the pipeline. It's unsurprising that a Google engineer would believe that gender balance can't be addressed without fixing the college pipeline, but the fact is that virtually none of the software engineering we do in the industry --- very much including most of the work done at Google --- requires a college degree in the first place.

Most importantly, though, the only contribution this post makes to the discussion is to add "I'm a woman and I agree with one side of the debate" to the mix. Everything in it is a restatement of an argument that has been made, forcefully and loudly, already. Frankly: who cares?

Edit: I added "some of the" to the beginning of the comment, not because I believe that, but because I concede that there are arguments in the post that can't be dispatched with a single paragraph in a message board comment (through clearly there are some that can.)

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stevenwoo ◴[14 Aug 17 17:27 UTC] No.15010518[source]▶
Didn't we have a point where there was close to gender parity in college in computer science at a lot of colleges in the 80's/90's? My off the wall hypothesis from the gender pay disparity data is that the lack of women is more related to people making the judgement that the amount of time at work (versus time with family) in relationship to the value of the work itself means women choose not to work/continue a career in computer science/programming jobs, but women do not have this issue with the medical or legal profession (that have a much higher societal status in certain circles versus computers), i.e. working at Google in this case is associated (wrongly or rightly) with making money from motivating people to click on ads versus making a difference in people's lives with medicine or law.
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1. tptacek ◴[14 Aug 17 17:32 UTC] No.15010573[source]▶
This is special pleading. Software developers like to believe they're workaholics, but a job as a biglaw associate or a medical resident will eat your life in ways we'd find difficult to imagine, and it's hard to believe that the kind of work a law associate does (kowtowing to partners to gather more scut-work to get done for faceless corporate clients) is more meaningful than the work a developer does. That, and the fact that our supposed 80 hour work weeks consist of huge amounts of fucking around, and unlike an associate or a resident, we can almost always spend at least 30 of those "hours" WFH, and unlike either of those alternatives, if we roll into the office at 10:30 we're probably in the early bird cohort.
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2. stevenwoo ◴[14 Aug 17 17:45 UTC] No.15010697[source]▶
You might be right about the work load/work type on average/median/most cases? but I still think there is a difference in social status for the fields/titles. To go slightly off topic, can you speculate as to why is there more gender parity in those fields that are harder to get into (in terms of specific schooling) in the first place?
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3. tptacek ◴[14 Aug 17 19:02 UTC] No.15011572[source]▶
That's the entire question we're addressing in these threads. It is weird that women excel in:

* the rest of STEM,

* the law,

* medicine,

* pretty much all the rest of the professions (accounting, actuary, &c)

... despite the fact that many of those fields are, both intellectually and from the amount of work product expected, more challenging than computer science.

Add to that the fact that most software jobs are far more work/life flexible than other professions (roll in late, work from home, wear whatever, weekly+ deliverable cadence, &c).

It is difficult to come up with an explanation for the 82/18 split in this industry that doesn't primarily include an implied preference on behalf of industry incumbents to avoid working with women.

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4. reitanqild ◴[14 Aug 17 19:32 UTC] No.15011974{3}[source]▶
That's the entire question we're addressing in these threads. It is weird that women excel in:

- the rest of STEM,

- the law,

- medicine,

- pretty much all the rest of the professions (accounting, actuary, &c)

... despite the fact that many of those fields are, both intellectually and from the amount of work product expected, more challenging than computer science.

Agree, this is reason for concern.

It is difficult to come up with an explanation for the 82/18 split in this industry that doesn't primarily include an implied preference on behalf of industry incumbents to avoid working with women.

Here's were we disagree.

I think there are lots of things to be done but if this was true then there should be a massive opportunity for whatever company moved first and hired all those qualified candidates that others shun.

5. mjw1007 ◴[14 Aug 17 19:33 UTC] No.15011985{3}[source]▶
Any good explanation ought to also predict the similar ratio in volunteer and hobbyist software development, including single-programmer projects.

I don't think « preference on behalf of industry incumbents to avoid working with women » does that.

6. mduerksen ◴[14 Aug 17 21:10 UTC] No.15012942{3}[source]▶
Possible explanation as follows: The perks for those jobs in our culture are different ones and on average women prefer a different mix.

In western culture, my experience has been: When you tell some acquaintance you're a software developer, engineer etc., they are almost instantly bored.

Contrast that with

* Science - The flair of knowledge, curiosity, discovery and a general sense of meaning

* the law - Status and money

* Medicine - Making a real difference in peoples lives, also extremely prestigous

Maybe men are just less capable of resisting the urge to tinker in order to achieve more respected/better payed jobs?

It bears to be repeated: This is western culture valuation, might be different in other cultures, which also might result in a different distribution.

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7. foldr ◴[14 Aug 17 21:37 UTC] No.15013184{4}[source]▶
>In western culture, my experience has been: When you tell some acquaintance you're a software developer, engineer etc., they are almost instantly bored.

I think telling someone that you're a software engineer isn't the best way to make it sound exciting and high status. Tell people what the software does, or what the company does. Saying "I'm a software engineer" is like saying "I'm a screwdriver operator" rather than "I'm an aviation maintenance technician". Nobody cares about the nitty-gritty details of how exactly you get your work done.

8. canoebuilder ◴[15 Aug 17 05:08 UTC] No.15015662{3}[source]▶
the rest of STEM,

not the case

Law

At 35%, women practice law at about double the rate they do of more masculine occupations like engineering, while law practice involves abstract reasoning the degree of "social reasoning" is higher than engineering, thus more women I suppose.

medicine,

particularly the more caretaking functions of medicine

accounting

The work of an accountant and a mechanical engineer, or an information security analyst are hardly comparable, not in a hierarchical way necessarily, they just have totally different goals and methods.

Look at the actual data, it fits Damore's thesis to a T. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/06/chart-the-perce...

There is a very obvious gradient from people and nurturing oriented fields to abstract, spatial, and mechanical fields.

Women like working with people and caretaking, and are good at these things.

Men like working with things, and abstract and spatial visualization, and are good at these things.

Do you think society would materially improve if we swapped the sex ratio kindergarten teachers with that of engineers?

Kindergarten 97.5% women.

Engineers 85% men.