Everyone in tech knows this is happening, and it's illegal, but nobody will do anything about it. Similar to ageism back in the 2000s.

Only once or twice this egregious. Most of the time however it’s explicit diversity incentives for executives if they want to hit their perf targets. If you can’t get the hires, the other way to game it is to shrink the denominator if you fail to increase the numerator.

Someone who was the ultimate decider said that the group already had enough "pale males;" a look was given to me and guy in the wheelchair because, by virtue of our disabilities, we were presumed to already be on the Yay Diversity! Squad, despite our pallor and penisness.

That was the phrase, I was in the room, etc. It doesn't just happen, they don't really try to hide it now.

Disclaimer: Not claiming anything about whiteness, just saying that it's not as uncommon as you might think. Specially in Europe.

But that puts it right in line with your average computer science or software engineering cohort at any given university, so I'm really not sure what your problem is.

Like I get you might think it's unfair there aren't more women in software but I'm not sure what you want us to do about that my dude.

We can't just force more girls into software if they aren't interested in it.

But at most 25% white male.

"Compared to overall private industry, the high tech sector employed a larger share of whites (63.5 percent to 68.5 percent), Asian Americans (5.8 percent to 14 percent) and men (52 percent to 64 percent"

First point would be that doesn't really support your contention that 90% of tech employees are white men.

That said, they can't be measuring what we think of as tech; it's certainly more than the claimed 64% male. I'm pretty sure that restricted to actual tech, it would be both more male and less white.

This can happen if they have a diversity hire directive but interview non-diverse candidates, but it can also happen if they want to hire a white guy but have a company directive to interview diverse candidates for every role. Either way, they can say they looked at everyone before hiring whatever candidate they wanted.

I understand that it creates a whole set of bad situations, so just asking what's the theoretical appropriate way to handle this

Document and report. Don't try to catch someone unless you're advised to do so by a lawyer or law enforcement or the like.

do you believe ageism "solved", or do you mean it's something people talk about openly these days? I thought it was discussed in the 00s too.

It's still present, but not as rampant and intense as it was. It was discussed and acknowledged, but that didn't magically make it go away. Zuck stated on record that if you're over 30, successful companies should not employ you, and he was the founder and owner of a major tech corporation.

Everyone knew it was going on, in fact it was acknowledged, and it was illegal, yet nobody did anything about it, and it kept going. Dispels your illusion of how illegal / immoral things just go away when they are exposed. The current trend of gender and race-based discrimination won't just go away by itself, either.

I can understand how those means of achieving that would leave a bad taste in your mouth, and I've heard from people on the receiving end (the folks who got hired) how it can also leave a bad taste in theirs.

It's still worth considering (IMHO) the outcome, as a counterbalance to the shitty means.

BTW, I think about this conversation a lot, any time I think about ends versus means, you might also appreciate it: https://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-6/page-112-2/

https://www.businessinsider.com/laid-off-engineer-says-googl...

You get mad if you were working for prestige, connections, or power-- things you can't just replace by getting another job.

Some people do both -- from the context, it sounds like Moore also hopes to replace it with a similar job, while also venting to anyone in the media who will propagate his framing about what a horrible injustice it is that Google can pay him a fortune and keep him around for 16 years.

>You get mad if you were working for prestige, connections, or power-- things you can't just replace by getting another job.

And this fits your model of someone eager to trade personal time for the prospect of power even when his material needs are met? From the link:

>>"This also just drives home that work is not your life, and employers — especially big, faceless ones like Google — see you as 100% disposable," Moore said.

>>"Live life, not work," he added.

If so, it's a foolish move! Venting in public absolutely makes someone less employable -- making it a freedom that people with less need of employment have more of!

> And this fits your model of someone eager

I don't know him so I could only speculate and I don't really have any speculation specific to him to offer.

The reason I replied was to dispute the position you took that being mad meant he needed the job. I stated it too strongly: I should have just said "people can get mad about losing a job even when they don't need it, e.g. if they were working for prestige, connections, or power-- probably more so since these are things you can't just replace by getting another job."

In other words needing it may be sufficient, but it's not necessary. I think those other reasons are stronger reasons to be mad-- they're harder to replace than a job.

> "This also just drives home that work is not your life, and employers — especially big, faceless ones like Google — see you as 100% disposable," "Live life, not work," he added.

I've heard statements just like that from people who I know have eight figure net worths and continue to work for someone else. ::shrugs::

In New York City. You're right, that requires a big income. And puts a sizeable dent in it.

Eng managers, directors, and VP's make tons more money than engineers.

Instead of an ad hominem dogwhistle, please describe how the paper's political leanings could bias its reporting here.

At face value, it's workplace sexual assault allegations with a power imbalance.

"In a 2004 survey conducted by Pace University, the Post was rated the least-credible major news outlet in New York, and the only news outlet to receive more responses calling it "not credible" than credible (44% not credible to 39% credible).[65]

The Post commonly publishes news reports based entirely on reporting from other sources without independent corroboration. In January 2021, the paper forbade the use of CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times as sole sources for such stories.[66]"

65: Jonathan Trichter (June 16, 2004). "Tabloids, Broadsheets, and Broadcast News" (PDF). Pace Poll Survey Research Study. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 23, 2004. Retrieved June 7, 2007. 66: Robertson, Katie (January 13, 2021). "New York Post to Staff: Stay Away From CNN, MSNBC, New York Times and Washington Post". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 1, 2021.

When someone cites [x, y, z], that someone is not credible instead of being not credible along with [x, y, z]?

Besides, the parent's whole point is that NY Post is the source, here!

But I would also point out that a lot of people here on HN (in past discussions) and elsewhere have noted that the New York Times and the Washington Post also publish creatively interpreted news (or outright creative writing) at times.

Despite this news articles from these sources are considered independently without outright dismissal due to past reporting.

I absolutely despise the word now, to the point I'll cringe a bit even when it's used legitimately.

In my book, it is much more reliable than the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Great phrasing. Reporting dirt on a faction will drive clicks to FROM all factions, including the smeared faction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty

Of course I'll take a tabloid that might be slightly right of center over that.

I don't think that's what "dogwhistle" means. IIUC, dog-whistling is surreptitiously sending a message to some readers, but having plausible deniability and/or non-recognition for the rest of the readers.

>I'd like to point out that CoastalCoder wrote this comment. Take that for what you will.

See? Highlighting with this phrasing aligns exactly with your definition. The framing is defaulting to negative-neutral.

I.e., he intends every reader to recognize that he's saying that the publisher might be biased. He's not being explicit about what that bias is, but presumably he expects curious readers to look into it themselves.

>the author isn't trying to conceal his point

False. The parent asked you to draw your own conclusions!

Think of the word melancholy it has a complex definition and connotations but how could you guess what that means.

Tabloidy/political/all the same.

How victims are portrayed in the media matters a great deal. Media can skewer a case by either poking holes in it or by flatly not investigating. The latter is what I feel is going on here. They could've interviewed potential witnesses at these NYC events, they could've interviewed some Googlers to find out if this "your team is too male" attitude actually exists in any contingent. They didn't do that though, instead, they plugged the hottest claims of the docket which all come from the plaintiff.

My statement was ambiguous on purpose. It says two things simultaneously:

1. If you don't believe this article, wait for better reporting.

2. If you believe this article, wait for better reporting.

I was hoping that might remind some people to temper their expectations until more information is known, which is why the last sentence is the way it is, and why I cited each of the allegations.

The parent expressly left their comment un-nuanced.

Are you redefining the term?

I’ll would add he was referring to the positioning of paper’s history of being more “low street”, sensationalist with lower journalistic standards as opposed to the high standards gold standard harbinger of Truth publications like the NYT. The reason this description looks so out of place now, it’s because the others suck so much and the Post continues being the Post.

Totally admirable intention, for sure (if only viewed from the lens of strict equality). But I’m sure the 90% of applicants that were male wouldn’t see it that way. So, poor execution.

Edit: clarified some incendiary phrasing

What? That’s not admirable at all. That’s blatant sexism.

“(STEM is 100% historically discriminatory to women)”

Lol no, if anything it’s clearly discriminatory towards men in the false assumption that low female population isn’t an internal cause

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/E...

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/software-deve...

My point is that we shouldn't be surprised by a gender imbalance on priors. By itself, a gender imbalance only goes to show that software engineering is like a lot of other jobs.

BTW, my suspicion is that similar experiences happen in many industries, and industries vary according to (a) how horrible a given experience is said to be and (b) social norms around registering a complaint.

Is this a Western/US thing? Woman STEM graduates outnumber man in a number of countries. Mine and Iran for example but most Muslim countries have strong woman numbers.

I don't think STEM in the west is discriminatory to women, out of the blue. It can't be more discriminatory than Iran? Unless, there is data and research that suggests otherwise.

These might be strong incentives for woman to pursue STEM degrees. These same incentives don't exist for Western woman since they already have their freedoms unquestioned. Also, a little note: This is just a speculation from me (less than an opinion) might be completely wrong.

So that women prefer to pick other fields is STEM's fault?

I love technical things and am the father of 1 son and 3 girls. I of course would love to do technical things with all of them. With my son it's easy to get him excited about lego and such. With my girls? Well, maybe you should give it a try. I decided to play with my kids the things they like to play with. And with my girls it's (unfortunately for me) non technical things.

This preference is also highly documented in gender equal societies. So do us all a favor and stop talking bullshit while it's obvious why women don't select STEM: they don't want to.

PS: My oldest daughter is going to follow STEM next year. I'm happy, but mainly wish her to be happy. If she continues it, fine. If she decides she wants to do something else, also fine. She's good at math so that's the main reason she picked it.

In contrast this "real and documented" is just an assertion. I never saw any evidence of it.

See: Philippa Fawcett "above the Senior Wrangler"

And at work, women seems to rise to management levels easier than men. But hey, this is EU, not US.

Edit: you're pointing me to something that happened in 1890? WTF???

You replied to a comment about historically - and what was once a pattern still persists to a lesser degree.

The roots of higher education were laid with the exclusion of women baked in.

Is this your thing is it, incorrectly framing what others write and then appending. Wtf?

I would like to see some evidence of that related to today, not something from 1890. And not your empty statement of "what was once a pattern still persists to a lesser degree".

Maybe here is something you should read, which refers to the state as it is today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox#:~:tex....

No.

You claim that I made that claim.

I made no assertation of causal linkage, I merely pointed out a historic fact about the roots of modern education in the UK and US.

> and what was once a pattern still persists to a lesser degree.

And you'd like me to defend something that you see there?

This is your thing is it, framing what others say and then demanding they defend your reading?

This is the problem: It is believed that, at least historically, STEM only pushed itself on boys. They were given lego, electronic kits, etc. while girls were given dolls, kitchen sets, etc. Once one was ready to enter the working world, men had that experience to lean on. Women not so much.

I'm not sure how applicable that is anymore, though. It's quite okay, even encouraged, for girls to play with 'boys' toys these days.

Read bio's of everybody who got "Senior Wrangler" from (say) 1850 onwards, it's a great read and a number of them founded majar US seats of learning.

Now read the bio of the women who out thought all of them.

> STEM only values experience.

All of them started out as new born babies and progressed through school having no world experience until they got some on the back of offered opportunities or private wealth.

STEM today is built upon people with no initial experience who gain it along the way.

I think that even just five years ago I would’ve agreed with you on this, but when the attacks on elderly Asians began to happen during the pandemic, it was one of those painful things that it was the NY Post that could be counted on to make those visible.

As I’ve gotten older, I haven’t become more conservative. But I’ve realized that the left side of the spectrum is a lot sicker than I realized when I was younger, and to not automatically discount everything that goes on in the right, wince-worthy as it may often be.

Frankly, I read this article this morning when it broke on the NYP. The NYP stays in my feed but when I read their stuff I almost always cross it with other sources. There are none though because all that exists of this story right now is the docket. Miller, Google, and Olahan aren't talking.

How victims are portrayed in the media matters a great deal. Media can skewer a case by either poking holes in it or by flatly not investigating. The latter is what I feel is going on here. They could've interviewed potential witnesses at these NYC events, they could've interviewed some Googlers to find out if this "your team is too male" attitude actually exists in any contingent. They didn't do that though, instead, they plugged the hottest claims of the docket which all come from the plaintiff.

My statement was ambiguous on purpose. It says two things simultaneously:

1. If you don't believe this article, wait for better reporting.

2. If you believe this article, wait for better reporting.

I was hoping that might remind some people to temper their expectations until more information is known, which is why the last sentence is the way it is, and why I cited each of the allegations.

Changing perception is usually exactly how one would become more political.

My friend who still lives in the Valley says this kind of sentiment is incredibly common there nowadays, e.g. advertising an open position and having discussions internally that a man won't be hired for the role.

It's pretty surprising to me, because statistics show that most major careers have a gender imbalance in one direction or the other:

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/E...

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/software-deve...

Yet the gender imbalance in software engineering receives unique attention, to the point where people are willing to violate ethical rules in order to try & even out the genders in that particular career.

Why is this? What is the ethical justification for why addressing the gender imbalance in STEM/software engineering should be such an urgent moral priority?

My suspicion is that there is no good justification that holds up under scrutiny, and it's all just a moral panic fueled by social media.

My conspiracy theory is that software engineering is the last real, single, meritocratic, growing career path that costs a lot of money for employers and they'd rather tank the market by making sure the other 50% of sex is able to participate to wreck wages.

Nobody cares that nurses and teachers are majority female dominated fields ripe with discrimination and harassment because they don't make enough money. They're overstressed, understaffed, and underpaid and society needs more of both yet the bar is so low and so biased against men that nobody is even trying to fix it.

I think maybe there's a workable argument along these lines: Both nursing and teaching are bureaucratic industries with heavy government involvement. The price system doesn't function effectively in those industries, which means that a shortage of workers doesn't cause wages to rise. And the overall dysfunction means that managers in those industries don't think strategically about how to increase the supply of workers, the way managers in the software industry do.

I think at this point salary already doesn't matter as wages are already depressed. In other words, fishing for true workplace equity isn't an altruistic endeavor as much as cost savings. Once that is achieved, it's irrelevant who populates the industry. Nobody is interested in hiring male teachers as costs are already down and there's plenty of female applicants lined up, even though they actually should in the interests of equity and workplace representation.

Your government bureaucracy argument brings up an interesting tangent. Government agencies should be one of the most inclusive workplace environments, (looking at some US administrations, they generally try to espouse that trend [0][1][2]) so it's only reasonable to assume that the same principles would trickle down to heavily regulated industries. If anything, heavy government involvement would mandate such quotas. But they don't. Which leads me to believe there's something else afoot.

[0]https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

[1]https://facts.usps.com/postal-service-diversity/

[2]https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/28/racial-ethn...

the tinfoil hat stays on and secure

Not exactly, teacher shortages are widespread in the US.

Probably just because $$$. Have you ever seen someone advocate for more female coal miners or truck drivers?

All the time, as they should.

They also let women be engineers, geologists, farmers, doctors, etc.

Is this surprising to you?

[1] https://www.riotinto.com/news/releases/2022/Rio-Tinto-female...

[2] https://www.macktrucks.com.au/community/blog/2017/february/m...

0. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-26/qld-push-for-female-t...

These are all closer to home, have better hours, somewhat better pay for the light machines and exceptional rates for the Haulpaks.

Your friend (and your friend's HR organization) should be aware that this is extremely illegal.

I've been in a company all hands, which was broadcast to the whole multi-office company via video link, where the CEO himself announced that the next person to fill a very senior executive role had to be a woman and it would remain empty for as long as it took to do that. Did he care that he just admitted the company would break the law, on video? No because it's not illegal, it's outright encouraged.

Fundamentally, you cannot have left wing people in charge of enforcing equality rules, whether it be legislation or company policies. They point blank will not do it because they think that handing women or racial minorities unique powers is the most morally virtuous thing they can do, and that the system they're tasked with enforcing is immoral.

DEI initiatives harm corporations long-term and will always ultimately fail because the corporation is no longer maximizing profits. This is not a new idea: IIRC even Adam Smith had something to say about such kind of activity.

Yes it harms corporations in both long and short term but the people who do it don't care, because their moral code states that corporate harm either isn't real or is actually a good thing. You can't win when arguing with someone's fundamental moral code.

Police officers have a lot of power in society & are mostly male. I think there's a strong case to be made that bringing women into the force would be very beneficial, in terms of improved handling of sexual assault cases and reduced police violence. However, I haven't seen a peep about the need to make policing gender-balanced.

It's often mentioned about UK politicians too, ie the gender balance of cabinet positions.

Perhaps your view of the apparent moral urgency is because you're in the tech industry and therefore closer to it?

Fair enough, I've never seen discussion of police gender balance here in the US.

>Perhaps your view of the apparent moral urgency is because you're in the tech industry and therefore closer to it?

I doubt that's it. I feel like I've seen a lot more coverage of "Women in Tech" in mainstream news sources than any other "Gender in Career" pairing.

My mother made a left field comment a couple of years ago that I've thought about a lot. She was a programmer starting in the 70s through to the late 00s. I mentioned the lack of women in tech thing and she said "Oh. I've never noticed. I always considered it completely equal and never felt treated differently."

So there's (IMO) historical evidence that it's not inherently a "male" field; which I see as evidence that the imbalance is unexpected and undesirable.

(That said, I can't speak to why it's an "urgent" priority)

[1] Babbage invented the mechanical calculator. Ada realized you could do calculations on something other than numbers. IMO that makes Babbage the first computer engineer, and Ada the first computer scientist.

[2] one article of many on this: https://digitalfuturesociety.com/programming-when-did-womens...

Looking up the funnel, about 80% of CS graduates are male (even though females outnumber males in college attendance).

Can we conclude that the gender imbalance among veterinarians is unexpected and undesirable?

I would say tho that yes, I think it's unexpected and it's probably undesirable. What I'd want to check is how the male veterinarians felt about it. Do they feel like they're running into issues doing their job because of their gender?