Re:Neuroscientist Larry Cahill on the ‘neurosexism’ debate
by montecarl on Monday April 22, 2019 @12:46PM
(#19720416)
I guess there is also a (D), which would be, to make it so that most people regardless of height could do that job. There could be a simple or cheap way to enable shorter people to perform as well. In that case, you could greatly expand your available workforce. If there isn't an easy way to do that then you can fallback to (C).
Re:Neuroscientist Larry Cahill on the ‘neurosexism’ debate
by davrosthedalek on Monday April 22, 2019 @02:01PM
(#19721104)
I agree, but after some time I started wondering: What happens if the employers measurement of quality (height) has an uncertainty? If the employer has two candidates very close together, using Bayesian statistics, the employer must conclude that the male (for height) is more likely to be better, because there are more men that are this tall than women. I think this is "fair" for the employer to do, as their goal is to hire the best person. But obviously it's unfair to the tall woman.
The best non controversial example is height. As we all know, men are on average taller than women. As we also know, that doesn't mean every man is taller than every woman. If you're a man, there is almost certainly a taller woman out there, if you're a woman, there is surely a shorter man.
So if there is a job where height is an advantage, there are two stupid ways to approach this. (A) Since men are taller, only men should be allowed to do the job, (B) Since any gender can have any height, gender distribution in this job must be 50/50.
I claim the right answer is (C), let everyone who is qualified (by height) do the job, and don't be surprised or offended when there is a 80/20 distribution in that work force.