The performance required from a white man in an interview for the same job is higher. That is to say that a white man will be openly discarded in favor of a minority/woman with a similar background when applying for the same job.
This is a common occurrence.
I haven't seen a racial aspect where whites only hire whites either. I have worked in places that only hired white/black/asian and in others that only hired white/black/indian. I have never seen a true mix of asian and indian aside from government work. I've always wondered about that.
It feels like white/black/brown/yellow is not as acceptable yet. But various combos are.
A lot of it is nationalist or language based. A black person from the US is treated as the same as a white person from the US vs a white person for Europe generally because of language differences.
Even with these tie breakers, most large tech companies have about 10% women in engineering, so this discrimination isn't affecting the men that much. Are the companies you're thinking of different in this regard?
I’m not saying this never happens, but it’s much easier to tell yourself that the reason you didn’t get a job was because of some unfair factor beyond your control than to admit maybe you just failed to meet the bar.
On January 29, 2018, YouTube technical recruiter Arne Wilberg filed a suit accusing Google “of systematically discriminating in favor job applicants who are Hispanic, African American, or female, and against Caucasian and Asian men.”
https://www.scribd.com/document/372802863/18-CIV-00442-ARNE-...
Very strange time we live in.
I do agree with your second paragraph, but this isn't regarding anything that has happened to me personally
You just described affirmative action there. Your previous sentence doesn’t follow from this though:
> The performance required from a white man in an interview for the same job is higher.
This is true if and only if there are other applicants who are not white or male. Imagine that two white dudes with similar qualifications apply for the same job. How do you decide which one gets hired? The answer is often something like “A is a better cultural fit” or “B has a more likable personality” or, though this one won’t be spoken aloud, “C is more physically attractive.” And that’s that, the only person who minds in this case is the one passed over.
The problem is that “cultural fit” and “personality” and “attractiveness” are judgments that we tend to apply differently to people who don’t look like ourselves. There’s a lot more baggage around race and sex in America that influences these decisions, and the result has been the systemic disenfranchisement of women and people of color, especially black people. Affirmative action policies—preferring to hire from historically disadvantaged groups when all else is equal—are intended to counteract that tendency.
That’s what these companies are doing. People disagree on whether or not it’s a good idea. I personally think it is, until the industry (or perhaps the workforce as a whole) gets a lot closer to matching the demographics of the population.
(Edit: subject-verb agreement in a windy sentence)
With that in hand it's clear that it makes more sense to employ women.
Your second paragraph is completely logically disconnected from your first
I know its an idealistic comment, that the world should be fair in every place. But because these comments come out only when men are not in their usual favored position, I cannot help but see them as a kind of 'institutional bias' for men.
I'm not sure when or what you are talking about, but if there is injustice against anybody, I speak out against it. It just so happens that movements can go too far and become retaliatory, which is what I would like to prevent.
Women and minorities should OBVIOUSLY have equal opportunity, but the implementation of that cannot harm majority males BECAUSE::: that is not a good long term strategy for society. It WILL cause (and already has caused) resentment and anger and I do not want to see a USA devolve into an actual second civil war.
> I know its an idealistic comment, that the world should be fair in every place. But because these comments come out only when men are not in their usual favored position, I cannot help but see them as a kind of 'institutional bias' for men.
These comments do not ONLY come out in defense of men. Perhaps it is the particular posts you view, but to say there isn't overwhelming defense of women and minorities in the case of injustice is telling me that you aren't seeing the full picture.
I just explained in this post that MYSELF, a person wary of a situation disadvantaging white men, also speaks up when a minority or woman is disadvantaged for their sex or skin color.
Injustice is injustice.
The reality is these groups remain underrepresented, and others even more so (latinos in the Bay Area are a second class “minority”, for instance).
I ask because I think these questions are useful heuristics to look at how power is distributed within a company.
If it is a group of white guys who make most of the money, manage most of the people, and own most of the business, discriminating amongst hires of roughly equal ability for entry level roles, that is one thing, and has its own legitimate questions to be asked.
It would be pretty different from if a company, run, owned, and funded by women and people of color, was systematically discriminating against men with pale skin in all roles and positions and there were very few white guys at that company.
My informed guess would be that, in tech in the US, anything approaching what you describe describe is closer to the first scenario than the second.
Point being, if we are going to discuss discrimination, let’s discuss all of it, and not look at a painting through a microscope and call it red (unless it’s a Rothko ;) .
Again, I like to think all people discriminate somewhat if they see someone not familiar or from their groups. It is biological, you can try eliminate it as much as possible but it's never enough. What we can do possibly is probably ask whether white guys you speak of are being more discriminatory than someone else from other racial segment in those positions.
Outside discrimination is a factor but what isn't talked about is the inter-discrimination due to the history of a specific culture, system etc. You will be discriminated for pursuing a different career choice in certain cultures or taking routes different than how your mentors did (which well was due to discrimination).
If you think it's somehow due to discrimination for a person coming from a culture where one is more attracted or nutured for certain jobs or positions you don't think are good, then isn't that odd?
Indians are often pushed into STEM engineering because of cultural notions alone without any more thought put into it than assuming it is a trip to high salary and rep. That oversimplication and gross attitude stops a lot of Indians from pursuing things they would have otherwise. White dude isn't discriminating them otherwise on those positions, the culture is.
I often wonder why is there such dependence on for-profit corporates to drive cultural and environmental changes. Just somewhat astounding to me. Why isn't there more done from the government or public as a whole? Why are non profits not as visible as x for-profit shill making it known they are fighting discrimination by hiring more than there is in the supply chain. How is that fighting against discrimination from the bottom.
Don't understand the focus on race either. The way everyone talks about millions or even billions of people being discriminated in the same way is a gross generalization or its ok somehow?
Like thinking for a bit, if your race has millions of people while the specific disease you have, interests, background or lot of other stuff that might not have millions in representation and people constantly discriminate based on that. You would be hard pressed to take the later more seriously because of the statistical chance of falling prey to being discriminated.
It’s rare on a discussion forum that a thread goes from
- righteous indignation
- clarifying non insulting reply
- reply with a genuine question
- reply with a genuine answer.
- the original poster admits that they should learn more.
I had to commend both of you.
Seeing a list of "here's what people around you are making" is VERY helpful to give one the confidence to finally ask for that raise they deserve.
