Saturday, July 13, 2013

A boy called Sue

Kim O'Grady writes, "I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume and landed a job".

The tl;dr version is: Kim was an experienced engineering/business person who was applying for jobs. Sent out dozens of resumes to top places, did not get a single interview. Sent out his resume to a bunch of lower tier places, still no interview. Finally, he realizes they are taking "Kim" to mean he is a woman. So he adds the prefix "Mr." to his resume, sends it out again, and immediately lands interviews.
My first name is Kim. Technically, it’s gender neutral, but my experience showed that most people’s default setting in the absence of any other clues is to assume Kim is a woman’s name. And nothing else on my CV identified me as male. At first I thought I was being a little paranoid, but engineering, sales and management were all male-dominated industries. So I pictured all the managers I had over the years and, forming an amalgam of them in my mind, I read through the document as I imagined they would have. It was like being hit on the head with a big sheet of unbreakable glass ceiling.
This is so sad. It reminds me of neurobiologist Ben Barres' experience, where after giving a seminar as a Ben after his transition from Barbara someone in the audience remarked, "Ben Barres's work is much better than his sister's."

The one I hear a lot in my field is, "X is a superstar" or "X is gifted", and always "X" is a man. I've never heard a woman referred to as a superstar or being gifted in her field. I've also never heard of a young woman referred to as a child prodigy.

7 comments:

  1. The one I hear a lot in my field is, "X is a superstar" or "X is gifted", and always "X" is a man. I've never heard a woman referred to as a superstar or being gifted in her field. I've also never heard of a young woman referred to as a child prodigy.

    May I offer a recent counterexample?

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  2. Or how about Shafi Goldwasser... I think pretty much every one agrees she's a superstar.

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  4. "I've never heard a woman referred to as a superstar or being gifted in her field. I've also never heard of a young woman referred to as a child prodigy."

    You need to get out more. A lot more. Plenty of females get referred to as gifted (like both of my daughters) or child prodigy.

    As to whether or not companies prefer to hire men over women, this is merely a logical extension of the way women fit into society. I am sure it comes as no surprise to you that women MDs over their entire career only work half as many years in total as male MDs. There are excellent reasons for this such as raising children. Now before you go devaluing the raising of children by upper class birth mothers who have advanced degrees, just keep in mind that the alternative is a minimum wage worker who has no vested interest in your children.

    Furthermore, women exhibit other behaviours which tend to make them, *in general*, less desirable as an investment than men, to wit, they tend to follow their husbands when the husband gets transferred, they tend to take extended maternity leaves, they tend to claim more sick days, and they tend to work less hours in the day (arriving later and leaving earlier). As a hiring IT manager for the last 20 years, I have noticed and tracked these things. They don't necessarily make women less desirable employees, but they are facts of life, which need to be accounted for. Over time, many hiring managers tend to let these factors color their judgement. I am not saying this is right or wrong, but I think that for anyone in a management position in a publicly traded corporation must always put the goal of increasing shareholder wealth as the paramount decision factor when hiring or any other business related decision.

    You may take from that what you will. I have followed you for a good while now, and I suspect this post will truly ruffle your feathers. Just keep in mind that changing societal attitudes is a "boil the ocean" activity, and, in this case, there are real costs to be calculated.

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  5. FALPhil,

    I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you that, even after accounting for differences in work hours and specialties, female MDs continue to be paid less than male MDs. There are excellent reasons for that, such as... oh wait, there's no justification for that.

    I don't have the stats from your workplace to draw from, but I can say that *in general* such stats do not provide a sufficient explanation for the level of discrimination against women in hiring, pay, or promotions.

    You say that many hiring managers nevertheless "tend to let these factors color their judgement," which is true. Bias is very prevalent. I'm not sure how that refutes the idea that Kim's experience is the symptom of bias...?

    You say of this bias that you're "not saying this is right or wrong." I'm a straight white male. As the practical beneficiary of this form of bias, I'm happy to go ahead and take the leap to say it's wrong. Your gifted daughters shouldn't have to put up with that crap, and neither should anybody else.

    But unless those who do the hiring work on consciously changing their attitudes, change will be slow. I mean, look at your own argument:

    "...I think that for anyone in a management position in a publicly traded corporation must always put the goal of increasing shareholder wealth as the paramount decision factor when hiring or any other business related decision."

    *A* decision factor, yes, but surely you don't mean that it's more important than doing the right thing ethically and legally? Slavery, after all, is a proven approach to "increasing shareholder wealth," but it's clearly both immoral and illegal --just like gender discrimination (albeit at another order of magnitude).

    And then you want to raise the specter of the "real costs" associated with reducing hiring bias? Have you considered the real costs associated with the status quo? I don't just mean the costs to women and their families (reduced wages, reduced social capital, etc.), but also the population-wide misallocation of resources that results from bias. If it's a matter of "boiling the ocean," I'm perfectly willing to light a fire under a few butts. I hope after you think about it some more, you will be too.

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  6. Anonymous, your logic escapes me entirely. Are you saying that someone with half as much experience is worth the same pay as the norm? People are paid according to two factors in general - what the market will bear, and what they negotiate for.

    In the first case, the fallacy in logic that you are experiencing is that a person with twice the experience of his competition is worth more pay. If you cannot discern the reason for this, then maybe you should speak with some hiring managers. This is how all non-collectivist economies work.

    Secondly, if women do not negotiate for higher pay, whose fault is that? In non-collectivist economies, the goal is to pay as little as possible for all resources, including human resources. If I have budgeted $50K for a role, and a female applicant asks for $38K, I am more than willing to make her happy. She's happy and I am happy, and the manager above me who measures my performance on how well I manage the company's resources is happy. Everyone is happy except people like you who do not understand economics. What's "wrong" with that?

    I think you have an extremely immature attitude concerning the intersection of intersexual relations and economics. The labor theory of value has gone the way of the dodo bird.

    I am not going to change your mind. I have found that people who judge according to emotion rather than logic are lost cases. But here is an interesting statistic from the US Dept of Labor: The demographic profile garnering the highest pay, position for position, regardless of industry is a black woman. Why do you think that is?

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  7. @Jeff, thanks for posting the article about Tesca Fitzgerald. Both she and her sister sound amazing. I look forward to seeing what she ends up doing in her PhD.

    @Anon8:43, agreed on Goldwasser. I suppose I was thinking more about junior folks. The reference letters and watercooler talk seem to sound different when it comes to research rockstar qualities.

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