Walmart and Google do not hire from the same labor pool.
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Iâm in the âlacks contextâ camp. Without knowing the applicant pool, this doesnât mean anything.
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⌠the greater problem of how to ensure that more women and diverse ethnic
groups become part of the power flow in the tech industry.
How it sounds to me.
Women and minorities desperately needed to fulfil corporate diversity quotas are selfishly making their own career choices, and not the ones they should be making! They should make the choices we make for them.
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Right, because not hiring the Ivy League 4.0 white guy would leave him with no other options. An incredible immorality if Iâve ever heard one.
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Iâm not sure it would look all that different even if they didnât prefer Ivy League graduates.
Google is just representative of America. As a company with a positive reputation, they should be making every effort to try to balance things out, but this does start with education. Gender-based education stats are available if you hunt for them. The biggest difficulty in looking is that schools tend to lump programs together under degree level when discussing gender differences. Thatâs because it looks better. Plenty of women attend college (more than men!), but many go there seeking degrees that will never make them equal earners to men. In 1992, at UCSC (a school that definitely would provide graduates to Googleâs California location), here was the graduate student breakdown:
Overall
46.1% Female
53.9% Male
In only Computer Engineering
0.2% Female
98.0% Male
http://planning.ucsc.edu/irps/Stratpln/WASC94/d/sec3.htm
I know that count is old, but hereâs just one quote from a 2012 UCSC paper written about how to resolve gender discrepancies in higher education.
âIn the US, the rates of womenâs enrollment in computer science (CS) courses and completion of CS-related degrees have declined over the last 20 years [32].â
I recommend reading the paper in full. It isnât long. For people who donât understand the hurdles women encounter when pursuing classically male-dominated fields, it may prove to be an eye opener.
Itâs really not a shock that Google has the gender breakdown it has, but the paper I linked makes the point that a person wonât bother pursuing a degree if they donât believe theyâll actually find work. Tech is still harsh for women, and a high school girl with science and math interests may opt to avoid that stress in favor of a field already more accepting of women. Schools let girls know which fields those are. Take a look at the only natural science Masters program where women dominated men in 1992:
Science Communication
26.3% Male
73.7% Female
Science Communication is basically âscience journalismâ - not a hard science. (Note that women are typically considered to be better with language.) The âAboutâ page for the program at UCSC says this:
âThe women and men who popularize science enjoy a career that satisfies their intellectual restlessness.â - It directly addresses women.
On the home page slide show, the first image is a group of BOTH female and male students. More happy women continue to appear as the slide show progresses. The âAboutâ page image is a sign that helpfully directs you with an arrow straight to the Science Communication Program.
http://scicom.ucsc.edu/about/index.html
Meanwhile, the UCSC Chemistry âAboutâ page doesnât say âwomenâ on it. It only talks about âstudentsâ. The main page does show small photos of both men and women on staff. Larger images are not of people at all on the âHomeâ or âAboutâ page, and the building shown is given no signage.
http://www.chemistry.ucsc.edu/about/index.html
The Computer Engineering school doesnât even have a link to an âAboutâ page. Instead, the front page shows two pictures of men (static, no slide show), and the âoverviewâ of the program is provided by a âChairâs Welcomeâ. Females are again not referred to specifically, only âstudentsâ are mentioned.
Is it really so very surprising that women arenât choosing to enter a fight when already taking on the serious challenge of higher education? The school claims to be making positive gender choices, but when seen as a group, the web pages arenât really designed that way.
Last bit, because itâs best I write this all at once: Take a look at this article from the NYTimes. It gives a firsthand description of what science and math education in America are like for women, and what they have to look forward to after.
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Now letâs hear BoingBoingâs ethnic diversity breakdown.
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White: 4
Dragon: 1
Elven: 1
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I told you their motto was just to throw people offâŚ
are we doing a reader census? i am white male. (from birth)
Oooh, some choice quotes:
âFor example, women earn roughly 18 percent of all computer science degrees in the United States. Blacks and Hispanics make up under 10 percent of U.S. college grads and collect fewer than 5 percent of degrees in CS majors, respectively.â
Doing a little selective replacement:
âFor example, graduates with a 4.0 earn roughly 18 percent of all computer science degrees in the United States. Ivy League grads make up under 10 percent of U.S. college grads and collect fewer than 5 percent of degrees in CS majors, respectively.â
Yet companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft seem to have no problem finding them. I would think with the money and resources of a Google, if they wanted to hire the best minorities, theyâd have a higher percentage than other companies.
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So, what do you do, then? Lower the hiring standards for underrepresented groups?
I went to a uni that did that with their admissions standards, and the result wasâŚinteresting. And honestly, I think the aversion to massive societal changes, because itâll take a long time, hurts a lot of people. I know youâre seeing my avatar and youâre going to assume Iâm going to gripe about how those womenz and minorities have an advantage; nah.
By coming from a small, poorish town (actually, classified as a âvillageâ) with a crappy school system, I know for a fact that I had an easier time getting into university than, say, a kid from the north Chicago suburbs. And for the folks from other countries, school funding is based on things like average property value, which is why Barrington, ILâs high school has an Olympic-size swimming pool and a football coach with an NCAA-sized salary, while Cairo, ILâs school has a leaky roof. But I digress. Hereâs the thing: I still had to work harder than those kids. I was playing catch-up while the people from the more affluent areas were doing review.
I know, I know; work harder. I did. And, well, I ended up changing majors. And thatâs okay; everyone needs lib arts majors these days, right? âŚoh.
The thing is, Iâd be making excuses if I blamed that system; on the other hand, Iâd be remiss if I didnât assign some blame on it. I had classes with people from the south side of Chicago who were clearly completely out of their element, and frankly, didnât give a shit. Some did well, butâŚmy old college town is on the list of top 100 most dangerous cities in America. A good part of that is raised by the kids who canât let the old thug life go. I know it sounds racist as hell, but demographics donât lie: itâs not the Asian students, and itâs not the affluent kids going around stabbing each other on campus.
What would be better, imho? Better opportunities at a lower level of education. That means cracking down on crime in crime-ridden districts, getting better materials, paying for better talent at those districts, and so on. Itâll make people scream about socialism (I know, because those Chicago counties are already whining because they say too much of their money comes down here as it is) and itâs a hard problem to solve and takes time, but hey, Iâm 39 and theyâve been talking about these things my whole life. Weâd have people well into their adult years by now if theyâd gotten off their asses and whining about how itâd take at least a generation, because weâd have already seen the fruits of that labor if theyâd stopped whining.
If Google really wants workforce diversity, why arenât they hiring reckless incompetents who will destroy everything they touch and bring the company down into flaming ruin? I mean, such people exist, and they are apparently a completely unrepresented minority at Google! Clearly itâs inhumane and totally evil to hire only people with the education, desire and demonstrated ability to make the company prosper and bring about meaningful change in the world. Shame on you, Google!
Iâm not sure why everyone assumes that this is only an issue of hiring. These are their workplace data, not the data about their new hires. So, letâs say you have a woman like, I donât know, me , who has worked in engineering for 20 years. She doesnât have an engineering degree, but she knows the biz. How about we take a woman like me and get me the degree or training so I can work an actual technical job? That kind of thing does not happen.
Iâve been in so many R&D meetings, spent so much time with engineers, and yet it is a boys world. Talking with other women in our Lean In Circles I hear similar stories of being passed over for promotions - so despite the fact that there are women in tech they are not nurtured even by big corporations with an interest in hitting EEOC hiring numbers.
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So, what youâre saying is minorities = reckless incompetents? Is that your argument?
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First off, Iâm sick of this sort of this liberal apologist racism against white males. Iâve never owned slaves, my ancestors never owned slaves, weâve never oppressed any minorities and been oppressed ourselves - poor Irish - so fucking enough with that bullshit that all white males are supposed to be eternally apologizing for shit they didnât do.
And unless youâve been living in a cave on Mars with your head in the sand is it really a surprise that most people into tech in NA are white? Hey guess what, most people in the trades are white males too but I donât hear you pissing and moaning about that. How about we go to Japan or China and look at some of their dismal data? What most of them are Japanese or Chinese?! Iâm completely shocked! Oh those racist bastards! Whereâs the diversity? Oh right, they donât allow immigration into their countries.
The only actual real problem in tech - and just about every other field today - is ageism. Why donât you do an article about that? At least that would be honest and valid. Otherwise keep your Equal Opportunity crap to yourself because no one cares anymore except whiny liberals and self-entitled minorities. If you canât get the job because you lack the skills then you shouldnât be doing it.
Apparently, exceptional companies are only exceptional when it fits their needs. Try and change cars/roads so that people no longer drive? Sure. Fight a 100 year old publishing industry? Absolutely. Disruptive tech that takes on entrenched monopolies? Yup.
Hire a more diverse work force? Whoa whoa whoa, slow down there, theyâre just a simple American company.
I feel like we need a corporate Mom. âSo, if all the other companies jumped off a cliff, would you?â
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I didnât say we shouldnât do it, I said we shouldnât expect results from anything we do now before the middle of the century.
You could also read it as:
Women and minorities are having their career choices made for them by parties that are not Google preventing us from being able to hire any.
Iâm sure that doesnât exhaust the possibilities here but Iâm pretty sure women and minorities arenât going around saying stuff like: âWho the hell would want to work at Google? I have such a great job in food service working 60 hours a week for tips with no hope of career advancement.â
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