I remember there was an episode on the podcast The Daily where Michael Barbaro interviewed a reporter who worked on the Harvey Weinstein story. I think they said that The New York Times had tried to pursue this story in the past, but they really wanted to make another push for it this year to expose the unreported stories of sexual harassment.
I guess time will tell. Before Travis left Uber was without a COO, CFO, CMO, SVP of business, and SVP of engineering. I recall reading something about how they were having trouble recruiting senior level execs willing to work with Travis. If kicking out Travis can result in Uber hiring competent execs across the board, then maybe.
Anyone who says that this guy's opinion shouldn't matter should consider that he likely interviews female candidates, sits on hiring committees that evaluate female candidates, decides whether or not female engineers get promoted, etc.
I'm sorry, but you're mischaracterizing what he wrote and by doing that making his point. There's no "genetic predisposition" for not liking tech, but there are biological differences between the sexes that affect a great many things and he's arguing that career choice might be one of them - which seems a pretty boring observation to me to be quite honest. I think it's weird that you've extrapolated that to conclude that he'll be discriminating against women in hiring decisions.
This guy is saying he would hire the best candidate regardless of gender or other byas. He wont promote women over men just because they are women, he will look at the individual skills and select the fittest for the position.
Note: He is also saying that leadership and tech skills are more frequent in men than in women and that the biology could be the reason.
I once heard a scientist (female) in this area that it is stupid to think that the brains of males and females are the same when clearly the evolution make males and females so biological differents that the brain cannot be the only exception when it is the more complex organ in our bodies.
As a former Girl Scout I think this is excellent. I think it'll be much easier to get girls to explore STEM activities if it's associated with an organization they're already involved in.
That's definitely true, and I would argue that "casual work attire" is even more ambiguous for women. One of the things I realized during my first internship is that "casual" and "casual work appropriate" aren't the same thing, even though every recruiter and manager I've spoken to has said to just wear what I'd wear casually on the weekends. There are some types of casual clothing that I wear--such as shorts, low-cut tops, crop tops, strapless anything, shorter dresses or skirts, etc--that are not work appropriate, even if this is not explicitly said or encoded in a company dress code. That being said, I would never sacrifice the luxury of wearing casual clothing to work in exchange for being able to make more straight-forward sartorial decisions.
It's not just biz-casual, all business attire is harder for women. My cousin is a lawyer in Texas, and in court the judge (yes, a judge), made a comment about her not being in a skirt. This judge was from a different era, but the incident happened within the last few years. Pretty unbelievable.
I previously worked a biz-cas place, and while everyone griped about the ambiguity, eventually you get the sense of the dos and donts and fall into line. Just takes more time.
I've noticed this as well. I'm walking around in chuck taylors jeans and a tee-shirt with a hoody in cool weather and I do it year round.
The female engineers I work with would not be what I consider casual. They wear dry clean only clothes, heals or boots. Usually clothes that are nicely fitted (As apposed to my square shirt that has arm holes sewed on. All this, +makup. (I shower, and wear deodorant, and get my hair cut weekly, but that's about it there). I could buy an entire 14 day work wardrobe for > $300.
I've wondered (perhaps worried) that is a reaction to not (or feeling) that they are not taken seriously. I can see when I walk around the halls at work that the women in my work place are putting in more effort than the guys but I don't have a cause for that.
I know that my wife likes to wear nice clothes to work. But I also know that on weekends she wears jeans and a hoody, or hoody and yoga pants. I also know that she enjoys looking at and buying clothes. I find it to be a chore, and try to do it all in about 2 hours for the whole year. I wear the same thing weather I'm doing the yard or writing code.
I don't really know why, but I can see that it's happening.
Especially as a younger female engineer, I consciously try to avoid looking younger since people consistently underestimate my technical abilities. I'm also average height for a woman but typically the shortest one on my team, so if I show up to work wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and converse I can look even more juvenile.
Yeesh... that post perfectly exemplifies how much stress women have to go through to just look "normal". I wish I could say that all you had to be was great at your assigned job, but unfortunately that's not enough (in both tech and non-tech positions).
I'll add though, that guys do deal with these rules too (see article below) but they are pretty clearly laid out. Guys' fashion changes over decades, whereas womans' changes over seasons.
Makes sense, one less thing to battle I guess. I've seen that with guys that look really young too where people assume they are the intern after they've been coming to happy hour for a year. . ..
The gender wage gap does exist. It's simply a fact that women earn less than men. The real question then, is why. Is it because sexist managers pay women less money than men? Are women less likely to negotiate their offers as aggressively as men? Do women on average have to work longer to get promoted (and consequently earn salary raises) and why does this happen? Is it because women are more likely to pursue careers that pay less? Is it because men are seen as more attractive when their income goes up but this doesn't hold true for women? Are women and men just biologically inclined to pursue different career paths? Does the wage gap exist because women are more likely to work part-time? Is it because women are more likely to choose to prioritize child-rearing over their career? Is it because society expects women to prioritize motherhood? Is it because managers pay women less because they assume women will be less committed to their career?
Some of these possible reasons are obviously more concerning than others. If the gender wage gap is 100% due to less concerning reasons, such as women simply making the choice to prioritize motherhood over their career, then you could argue that while the gender gap exists it's not a societal problem that we need to address since it's not caused by institutional discrimination of any sort. The reality is a lot more complicated and nuanced, and it's probable that there are several reasons that can explain the gender gap, that don't necessarily compete with each other.
The problem is that the way the issue is (intentionally, I'm sure) presented is with charged phrases like "for every dollar a man makes, a woman only makes X cents". To a reasonable person, that sounds like it implies "for the same work" -- otherwise, you're comparing apples to oranges, so they must not mean that, the reasonable person thinks. And so the reasonable person gets (rightfully) angry and it becomes a very emotional issue, even though it was based on deception. In that sense, what most people imagine when someone says "wage gap" doesn't exist.
>>The gender wage gap does exist. It's simply a fact that women earn less than men.
Not for the same work it does not.
When you actually look at the data the vast majority of the so called gap is directly attributable to field of work. Right or wrong Teaching, Social Work,Child Care and Nursing pay less than Executives, Programming, STEM Fields, etc.
There is now more than ever more opportunities for women to enter these higher paying fields, many many many still choose not to. Do you advocate for forcing Women into STEM vocation against their will?
> Right or wrong Teaching, Social Work,Child Care and Nursing pay less than Executives, Programming, STEM Fields, etc
But when we only look at nursing we still see a gender pay gap.
When you look at nursing, specifically midwifery (surely the most feminised sector of nursing) we see that at lower pay bands the ratio of men:women is almost no men to almost all women. As we go up the pay bands we see that ratio changing.
We see this for many different types of health care staff. Ambulance workers start with a 60:40 male:female ratio at the lower bands, and end up at band 8d with a 95:5 male female ratio.
So, for the English NHS when we only look at eg midwifery (we see it when we look at other HSCS staff too) we still see a gender pay gap.
NHS Workforce Statistics - September 2016, Provisional statistics
Publication date: December 20, 2016
We want this file: HCHS staff in NHS Trusts and CCGs in England, Equality and Diversity, September 2016 [.xlsx]
Hospital and Community Health Services Staff statistics.
Midwives
Payband Men Women Total Ratio men:women
Band 5 11 2301 2312 0.00:1.00
Band 6 57 18294 18351 0.00:1.00
Band 7 36 4663 4699 0.01:0.99
Band 8a 2 183 185 0.01:0.99
Band 8b 1 31 32 0.03:0.97
Band 8c 2 15 17 0.12:0.88
Here's the table for Ambulance staff.
Ambulance staff
payband men women total ratio men:women
Band 4 2222 1479 3701 0.60:0.40
Band 5 5986 4072 10058 0.60:0.40
Band 6 3553 1889 5442 0.65:0.35
Band 7 610 202 812 0.75:0.25
Band 8a 85 25 110 0.77:0.23
Band 8b 49 10 59 0.83:0.17
Band 8c 14 1 15 0.93:0.07
Band 8d 14 1 15 0.93:0.07
Could you explain the gender pay gap in these midwifery statistics please? I am struggling to find that information.
I see that as people get higher bands (probably get older) they get paid more. I see one or two men in the higher bands which to me raises some statistical significance queries. I see that the Ratio of men to women increase from incredibly small to very small, but that doesn't (to me) indicate a gender pay gap. Unless the "gender pay gap" here is that men are paid less compared to women as there are less men in the profession? Perhaps it's about the definition of "pay gap" - does it just refer to unequal outcome? Does it mean that we should expect the same ratio to occur in all pay bands, equally (e.g. not allow men to have pay grade 8), and if we do not see the same ratio that there is a pay gap by virtue of unequal representation?
For midwifery we see that even though hardly any men enter the profession (just 11 men at band 5) we still see men in the senior positions (2 at band 8a, 1 at 8b, 2 at 8c).
So, if hardly any men enter the profession and very many women enter the profession I'd expect to see no men at band 8x (because the tiny number of men have to compete against a huge number of women at each promotion). Instead we see a higher percentage of men at band 8x than at band 5 or 6. This shows one of the mechanisms of the gender pay gap: men get promoted faster and further than women. This debunks one of the points some people are making in this thread that the gender pay gap disappears if you only look at one profession.
I've added the numbers for ambulance staff.
At the entry level positions we see a split of 60% men to 40% women.
As you go up the paybands you see the percentages changing - you see men being promoted more readily than women, until you get to the band 8ds where we see 95% men to 5% women.
Why are the ratios changing? Why do we see a higher percentage of men in senior roles in health care professions?
Thanks, I see what the point is now. To show how one there is a similar effect or mechanism in play even when looking at another (and you could say non obvious) field. I was confused as I assumed it indicated The Gender Pay Gap in it's own right but I think it has more accuracy in saying that it shows to be evidence of one of the indicators.
All of those are important questions, but I think it's also important to prefix "gender wage gap" with the words "adjusted" or "unadjusted" in order to identify which problem you're talking about. All of those questions will fit into one of those two categories, and the arguments for each vary wildly. Unadjusted (~78% [1]) wage gap deals more with society's impact on a woman's wage, or a woman's intrinsic desire to pursue a career in a particular field, whereas adjusted wage gap (5-8% [1]) deals more with factors like sexism and the economic impact of hiring a woman.
In my opinion, it would be worth while to tackle the adjusted wage gap in the short term, and the unadjusted wage gap in the long term, as the latter requires more dramatic changes in society, I think.
I totally reject your frame of "women earn less than men." Mainly because 'earnings' are not the only thing people should be measured by. They should probably be the LAST.
Women do productive things that are harder to account for in standard GDP metrics. Does GDP count the implied value of rearing a child? The years of care that go into motherhood? Does GDP go up $40 when a mom teaches a young child some words for an hour? It would if it was a tutor but it doesn't when it's just a parent.
The frame of "women earn less than men" is used to implicitly degrade the life choices of women. I personally just learned that a friend's mom is a foster mother. That is an incredible level of generosity that is outside of my comprehension. Is her being a foster mother worthless because it isn't in wage statistics? She earns a modest income by accounting standards, but the actual value she creates is much higher. Should we tell her to learn to code instead?
As another user posted I would say the university Facebook meme pages have filled the void left by Yik Yak: inside jokes for people in your school. It's not anonymous, but the general use case and type of content is very similar.
