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0 pointsfalcolas12y ago0 comments

Women are picking the best man for the job as well.

"The gender of the faculty participants did not affect responses, such that female and male faculty were equally likely to exhibit bias against the female student."

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/14/1211286109#aff-...

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6 comments · 1 top-level

JulianMorrison12y ago· 5 in thread

Yup. I don't dispute that. Quotas would work against that too.

Quotas really are quite a multifaceted fix.

- Directly and immediately drive up numbers.

- Create a demand for women that pulls the supply.

- Create a supply of women leaders with experience and skills.

- And create somewhere for them to go, so they don't get discouraged and quit.

- Change people's mental image of working with/for women from abstract and theoretical to specific and personal. Overwrite their stereotypes with actual experience. This goes for both men and women.

nagrom12y ago

- immediately reduces your competitiveness with people outside your legal jurisdiction. (And software engineering can be done anywhere.)

- reinforces prejudice at an everyday level as the group whoa re being quota-ed down resent losing their jobs to people who can't do them.

- sends a signal that excellence doesn't matter and that what you are is more important than who you are.

In a list of really silly suggestions to reduce prejudice, quotas are the stand-out silliest. We surely want to increase the number of any discriminated-against group because there is a level of untapped excellence in that group; if we get rid of prejudice then we can access that excellence. Quotas go against that idea; you reduce the level of excellence in the field overall, retard development and competitiveness and reinforce the prejudice that you're trying to combat!

jack-r-abbit12y ago

Quotas: Because the best way to fight discrimination is with more discrimination.

jack-r-abbit12y ago

You forgot one:

- Cause some coworkers to resent a person for being hired just to fill a quota rather than on merit.

prodigal_erik12y ago

This. Nothing would cement widespread sexism more than forcing everyone to work around a highly visible influx of unqualified women. We've already seen outsourcing reinforce racism, as bottom-feeding scammers exploit clients' inability to screen out unqualified contract development shops, and the rank and file here assume there are no smart people from that country simply because they only got to work with the bench warmers hired at random by the lowest bidders.

If you want 50% of qualified candidates to be women, you have to find the nerdy girls in middle school with the aptitude and give them the latitude to develop the obsession the way boys can. Nobody who starts in college because they're chasing dollar signs is going to be very good.

JulianMorrison12y ago

You know what? I resent the current nearly all male quota.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

6 comments · 1 top-level

JulianMorrison12y ago· 5 in thread

Yup. I don't dispute that. Quotas would work against that too.

Quotas really are quite a multifaceted fix.

- Directly and immediately drive up numbers.

- Create a demand for women that pulls the supply.

- Create a supply of women leaders with experience and skills.

- And create somewhere for them to go, so they don't get discouraged and quit.

- Change people's mental image of working with/for women from abstract and theoretical to specific and personal. Overwrite their stereotypes with actual experience. This goes for both men and women.

nagrom12y ago

- immediately reduces your competitiveness with people outside your legal jurisdiction. (And software engineering can be done anywhere.)

- reinforces prejudice at an everyday level as the group whoa re being quota-ed down resent losing their jobs to people who can't do them.

- sends a signal that excellence doesn't matter and that what you are is more important than who you are.

jack-r-abbit12y ago

Quotas: Because the best way to fight discrimination is with more discrimination.

jack-r-abbit12y ago

You forgot one:

- Cause some coworkers to resent a person for being hired just to fill a quota rather than on merit.

prodigal_erik12y ago

JulianMorrison12y ago

You know what? I resent the current nearly all male quota.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse