Great insight and a good read. To be honest I was more interested in the racial gap than the tired discussion of the gender gap. I thought racial bias would be a relative non-issue in a forward-thinking industry like the one discussed.
I just had to wonder about this:
I asked all of our recruiters to give me all resumes of prospective employees with their name, gender, place of origin, and age blacked out.[/quote]
People put the last three on resumes? A name is a must but in the US it's illegal to ask about things like gender, place of origin or age (except for obvious legal age requirements on certain jobs).
Fair article. Except for this:[font=helvetica, arial, clean, sans-serif]
[/font]
[font=helvetica, arial, clean, sans-serif]
What is true for aptitude is also true for interest. Some populations are more interested in science, in math, in business, and in taking risks than others. But all of the research I am aware of suggests that these differences are extremely small – not nearly big enough to explain what we’re observing in places like Y Combinator.
[/font]
[/quote]
O RLY? I am not aware of any such research so a citation would have been nice. Because I have the feeling this research doesnt actually exist. (the author is pulling a subtle bait-and-switch here; first he argues there are small differences in aptitude between gender (true), but now he tries to generalize that to populations... not so scientifically sound)
I am at the moment volunteering to organize a beginner level programming course in a biology department with something like 80% females. Everybody has been invited with a neutral email emphasizing the lack of prerequisite knowledge. Ive got something like 30 applicants; and though I havnt done any formal statistics on the application data, you can probably guess what pattern I am seeing.
Doing blind applications is nice and all, but insofar as there is a problem, its not going to be solved that way. My impression is that of those 30% females in CS, many of them have been badgered into it by their feminist mothers/teachers, and very few think of it as their ticket to taking over the world. (Infact, all female CS graduates I know try their very best to find some other way to fill their days rather than apply for any jobs that have anything to do with programming.) Granted, by definition, the majority of men are neither the most ambitious in their field, but the author presupposes a sign of the effect of institutionalized pressures, which might in actuality point the other way. As for racial minorities; are there fewer indians in silicon valley than in stanford? That wasnt the impression I had when I was living there, having hung out with the YC crowd specifically.
I can't fully read that article. The author is going around and round talking about other mildly-relevant things. Why is it talking about sexism while the article is titled "Racism"?
I am sick of people talking about race. I am sick of people injecting race especially in their studies. Can't find African-American CEOs? Why are they even looking for an African-American CEO in the first place? What point are they trying to establish there? Do they realize that by conducting such studies, any findings of that study will only strengthen the stereotypes whether that's against black or white??
Example:
There are fewer women in CS? True.
From this finding, people then postulate a whole lot of crazy things such as: women are stupid, women like shopping more, men hate women, men don't like women in their field, and whatever bullcrap they started to create. Then they started blaming men! The fact is: CS men love women in their field because it's sausage fest there! I can't describe how excited men were whenever there is a woman applying for a programmer position. "Holy shit, she's cute and smart!"
Same thing here. Can't find black CEOs? There must be something wrong! Blame white people. Wow, wait! Last time I came back from the Silicon Valley, I observed there are a lot of Indians and Asians making big bucks from startups! Did that article even mention Indians or Asians? No it didn't! Maybe it's the Indians and Asians are racist?? Let's do more studies if that's true. STOP!
Who gives a shit about people race. There are a whole lot of things to consider to fully explain the lack of one particular race in one particular field. Maybe due to their cultural habits, they never even heard of it? Or even if they've heard of it, they don't live in Silicon Valley such that moving there is a considerably costly for them? Maybe they prefer to excel in other activities?? People have choices and preferences!
The US had some fairly good reason for implementing "affirmative action", which was basically discrimination against white males. Although the rampant obvious discrimination had been much reduced, over the years there was still plenty of cultural discrimination going on.
The SCOTUS reviewed affirmative action last in 2003. In one case they said the discrimination against the white males was too great as the need had mostly vanished in that field, and in the other they ruled that the discrimination was still acceptable thanks to Affirmative Action.
The 2003 ruling also had a strong quote since people on both sides of the issue wanted clarification about how long it will need to continue. The court provided that. Along with a ruling that approved a mild use of affirmative action, they said “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.”
Fast forward to today (8 years later), two court cases are very close to making it back up to the Supreme Court.
The state of Michigan passed a requirement ending affirmative action in their state. (google: Michigan Civil Rights Initiative) The lower court found that the law passed the requirements and cited the 2003 SCOTUS rulings. The appeals court cited the same rulings but reversed the decision (saying the discrimination against white males needed to continue). All groups, including the appeals court, asked the SCOTUS to review the case. It has been three months and so far it seems this make make next year's SCOTUS docket.
It is also expected that they will hear the case Fisher v. University of Texas, which is very similar to the case they ruled on in 2003 but just different enough that they will probably review it. This one had a similar background to the Michigan case, but it is a little farther along in the review process at the Supreme Court level.
My guess is that they will hear both of them next year. Justice O'Conner has retired and was succeeded by Justice Alito, and his views seem to be even stronger that affirmative action needs to end. But only time will tell.
I can't fully read that article.
[/quote]
Perhaps try reading it. The article has some interesting insights. One example is in the field of classical musicians, which until recently was an almost exclusively male field. People speculated a bunch of reasons, like you stated, for why this might be an innate trait. It turned out, when the musician was placed behind a screen and judged purely on the music itself, then the field reversed into an even split.
Why is it talking about sexism while the article is titled "Racism"?
[/quote]
Because they are both common forms of discrimination? One can draw apt analogies and examples from related areas.
Who gives a shit about people race.
[/quote]
Racists, definitely. And probably most everyone else. People are pattern matching machines - and race is a pattern that people are all to eager to match. I am sure I have a different attitude towards people who are not like me, even if I would like to think I am not racist.
There are a whole lot of things to consider to fully explain the lack of one particular race in one particular field. Maybe due to their cultural habits, they never even heard of it? Or even if they've heard of it, they don't live in Silicon Valley such that moving there is a considerably costly for them? Maybe they prefer to excel in other activities??
[/quote]
In the case of racism, sexism, and indeed other issues (class issues in some places, ageism, etc), we can see a statistical inequality. Yes, this is a mere correlation, it doesn't imply that the "ism" of choice is the root cause. But given the historical prevalence of such "ism"s, I believe it is only fair to consider how to build a system where you can start judging people on only their talents in a field, even if it requires effectively "hiding" the things that are traditional sources of bias. If doing so means that people start hiring more <insert traditional minority here>, then this can show that these "whole lot of things" that people postulate might not actually exist.
If there had been an even start for each race/gender/religion/whatever, then yes it would be easy to say that <traditional minority> prefer to pursue different goals. Sadly, we are still living with the generations where vast inequalities existed. The echoes of such inequality will not disappear overnight. It behooves us to not hand wave these echoes away, but instead to seriously look at and think about the systems and structures in society, and ensure that there are no hidden barriers to entry, having removed most of the more obvious ones.
If there had been an even start for each race/gender/religion/whatever, then yes it would be easy to say that <traditional minority> prefer to pursue different goals. Sadly, we are still living with the generations where vast inequalities existed. The echoes of such inequality will not disappear overnight. It behooves us to not hand wave these echoes away, but instead to seriously look at and think about the systems and structures in society, and ensure that there are no hidden barriers to entry, having removed most of the more obvious ones.
[/quote]
True. Different ethnicity (instead of 'race') have their own history in the United States and all of them have suffered racism in varying magnitudes. Yes, it is not easy to create equality among them as they start living in different ways. For example, some black families are still carrying the culture that they developed through years of slavery, and it has unfortunately become part of how they live now. This is why a lot of people still apply racial profiling and stereotypes and all that nonsense because the history gives birth to such interactions.
It's a good thing that people are aware of the biases they are capable of producing. However, a study such as this feels like it's done just for the sake of poking things at racism while there might be none. Tech industry is probably the least racist, and the most diverse, of all. Nerds don't care about looks. I am pretty sure Hollywood is more racist than Silicon Valley -- it's an industry largely driven by looks and stereotypes.
A black actor? Alright put him as a foul-mouthed guy who can't stop talking. Pair him up with an Asian or white cop for the striking differences. Perfect harmony.
An Asian actor? Er...can he do kungfu? No? Alright, he's the Chinese food delivery guy with an accent.
Yet, people are okay watching obvious racism in Hollywood, but get all outraged somewhere else.
True. Different ethnicity (instead of 'race') have their own history in the United States and all of them have suffered racism in varying magnitudes. Yes, it is not easy to create equality among them as they start living in different ways. For example, some black families are still carrying the culture that they developed through years of slavery, and it has unfortunately become part of how they live now. This is why a lot of people still apply racial profiling and stereotypes and all that nonsense because the history gives birth to such interactions.
That's one thing I didn't like about the article, He seems to note correlation v causality, but he doesn't note the most obvious correlative driver being that the lower income brackets and poor school districts are dominated by minorities. Not to say everybody doesn't have racial biases, but I don't think it's nearly as bad as the picture the author paints.
The last link is the best, but it indicates that caucasian people seem to enroll at a rate 7 times higher than any other ethnic group and have a higher graduation percentage than any other group except Asian. This almost definitely supports correlation rather than causation for racism in business.
I was also totally surprised that race was on someone's resume. That usually gets a resume thrown in the trash from most of the people I've heard from just to avoid any legal problems regardless of candidate quality.
