I find it so ironic that tech has actually invented artificial intelligence programs that handle the interviews for hundreds of companies, including most of Wall Street, but doesn’t utilize that technology itself. The major reason to use the AI program, according to its marketing, is to eliminate bias…
Maybe these AI programs can be tweaked to replace AOs to eliminate biases, whether real or imagined, in college admissions, too.
The whiteboard interviews really discriminate against people who are shy and anxious. And don’t tell me that shy people can’t work in a team or communicate ideas, they can perfectly well as soon as they are established and don’t feel themselves judged. However, I don’t think gender plays a big role here, although women might have more anxiety on average.
But talking about girls’ abilities in math and CS, I had an opportunity to observe several math, computer and robotics clubs in our fairly affluent town, and a common distribution of numbers, from largest to smallest number of kids is: Asian boys, then Asian girls, then white boys, and, finally, very few white girls (our town is about 88% white and 5% Asian). Moreover, East Asians are represented better in math, and South Asians in computers/robotics. (And I suspect that a number of these white kids also have immigrant parents.) That’s nothing like a proper sociological evidence, of course, but still makes me think family culture, parental pressures, encouragement or discouragement trample all other factors.
Of course, sometimes unintended undesired bias creeps in, or gets manipulated in by others. For example:
https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-facial-recognition-congress-bias-law-enforcement/
https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist
https://gizmodo.com/can-we-make-non-racist-face-recognition-1827639249
https://www.wired.com/story/when-it-comes-to-gorillas-google-photos-remains-blind/
https://gizmodo.com/why-cant-this-soap-dispenser-identify-dark-skin-1797931773
Wouldn’t all job interviews (whether whiteboards are used or not) be problematic for those who are shy and/or anxious, or slower to think and talk on subjects that they are not specifically prepared for?
It’s even possible for AI to teach itself that male applicants are preferable to women for CS positions, using a similar criteria to what a biased human might choose – https://nypost.com/2018/10/10/amazons-job-recruiting-engine-discriminated-against-women/ .
“then it looks like Facebook is by far the most college-elitist of the well known computer companies in its recruiting and hiring practices.”
They are, and look where that got them!
"The major reason to use the AI program, according to its marketing, is to eliminate bias… "
Well if the person coding or writing the initial model is a man, you’re not going to remove many biases. It’s actually possible for AI to introduce more biases as ucb and data10 have posted.
The article totals make little sense. The article is using Forbes ranking as their top 10, which does not separate LACs from larger universities. 4 of their top 10 are small LACs. Only 1 is a west coast school. It would be nonsensical to expect the majority of Facebook hires to be from these 10 schools, as listed in the article.
If I use something similar to their LinkedIn methodology, but search only for Facebook employees with the job title “Software Engineer”, I get the following percentages. Note that the percentages indicate any level of degree , not just a bachelor’s; so 1 student could appear in the totals for multiple colleges, and totals can sum to over 100%. Only 8% are from the listed Forbes top 10, and the majority of that 8% is from Stanford alone. However, there is a stronger correlation between USNWR top 10 ranked colleges in CS. 22% of software engineers were from these 10 schools. CMU, Stanford, and Berkeley were all especially high.
Some of these colleges also have a higher than normal female CS percentage. I previously noted that Stanford and Berkeley were quite a bit higher than the national average. CMU is almost even, which partially relates to admissions preferences. The international schools do not fare as well. Waterloo is close to the US average, and it’s my understanding the female CS percentage at Tsinguhua is abysmal. The low female CS enrollment is not specific to just US colleges.
Top 10 USNWR: Computer Science – 22% of software engineers
Top 10 USNWR: National University – 11% of software engineers
The Article top 10 (Forbes) – 8% of software engineers
Ivy League – 7% of software engineers
Top Individual Colleges
1 -- CMU -- 4%
2 -- Stanford -- 4%
3 -- Berkeley -- 3%
4 -- Waterloo (Canada) -- 3%
5 -- Tsinghua (China) -- 2%
6 -- Washington -- 2%
@Rivet2000 The problem is not unconscious bias, but a basic fact that, when people are not on the receiving end of discrimination, they often do not see it. Things like being spoken over. if you’re in a group, it will happen to a couple of people. What most men will not notice is that, while the men who are being spoken over change, it happens to women in almost every conversation. Again, a man will not see it, because they are not present at every single conversation the woman has. When a woman says something and is ignored, while when a man repeats the exact same thing a moment later he is given, and accepts, credit for it, it looks like an unpleasantness, but maybe they didn’t hear it or something. The problem is that this is the third time this month that it happened.
Student evaluations are another good example. When a woman gets called “emotional” for the 27th time, in cases where the words used to describe a man would be “passionate”, and it affects her evaluations for thing like tenure, promotion or awards, unless you’ve been in her class and seen her behavior, you may accept the evaluation at its face value, and assume that she behaves emotionally. More likely, you will never know or see the evaluation nor the damage it does to her career. Yes, student evaluations can determine tenure cases, and "emotional: instead of “passionate” can be a deciding factor. This happens across academia, but is worse in CS and engineering, because it is generally men who do it, and in these fields, more than 80% of all undergraduate are men.
There is being called “Miss” instead of “Dr.” when you’re 45 and a full professor, while the young male graduate student next to you is referred to as “Dr”. Again, once, twice, it’s funny, but for the 37th time, and it never happens to any of your male colleagues - it gets old very quickly,
Most people do not really notice the interactions around them, so even much more blatant things will be missed, like the story I told of men who will, in the middle of a professional discussion, suggest that they go somewhere “more private”. How can a man on the other side of the room, or even within earshot but not listening in on the conversation, actually know what was going on? Unless it’s catcalls and obvious leers, most men won’t notice it.
Now, the fact that it isn’t leers and catcalls, and a woman can actually give a talk without being attacked for being a woman is progress, I guess, but it doesn’t mean that things are really a lot better. My wife describes it as a constant drain of energy, dealing with little humiliations, little jabs, little instances of lack of respect, and it makes life in Tech so much more difficult for women, but it is going over the heads of most men, especially those who generally do not engage in this type of behavior.
PS. Somebody actually did the work and collected student evaluations from a large number of universities and a large number of fields.
MWolf, wonderful post.
To the men here- it’s easy to say “if I were running a meeting and some new, junior employee came in and asked me for a cup of coffee, I’d just laugh it off, because I’m not so insecure that being mistaken for an administrative assistant would bother me at all”. But when you are 60 years old, and head of a division, and men have assumed that you are a secretary for 35 years it is a little grinding. And yes- it’s easy to laugh off. And yes- I’ve served coffee to men for the last 35 years, graciously, and watched their mortification once the meeting started and they realized their blunder. And it doesn’t keep me up at night.
But just once it would be nice for a man to say (in private of course) “I’m sorry that I asked you to make me coffee and it was very generous of you not to embarrass me in front of the group by calling me out”. Just once. The Mansplaining, being talked over, being interrupted- I ignore all of that. But I can promise you that if a woman walked into a meeting, asked the division head for a cup of coffee (who then poured and served it graciously) she’d be apologizing and walking on eggshells for two years. And likely a written note to follow up on the in-person apologize.
Women apologize. Men assume that since they’re usually right, an apology is a waste of time and energy.
Where in the job description of a secretary that says s/he must serve coffee? This is a cultural problem. We judge people based on stereotypes first before we get to know them. That’s why objective benchmarks such as tests, however imperfect, are always better than subjective ones.
Coffee is out on a table. The grown up thing to do is to pour yourself a cup. But why is it that women understand this, i.e. “If I am thirsty I get myself a drink” and SOME (not all of course) men assume that somebody is there to pour?
Another interesting article on this today.
Women built the tech industry. Then they were pushed out.
@Rivet2000 I think this just means your son is a decent guy. Good for him, and there are plenty of other decent guys out there, too. The thing is, lots of the misogynist behavior happens at a more individual level. The president of CS club didn’t tell my D she was only going to get a job because she was a woman in front of the club, where others might hear him. He told her one-on-one at budget meeting (she was treasurer). And the young man at the federal internship didn’t tell everyone he was sending on d’s work to the mentor as his own. He just did it. Things happen to women in many fields, not just this one, that the good guys don’t see because the not-so-good guys don’t announce it. The not-so-good guys don’t get called out publicly when they behave like jerks.
This article has its own gender stereotypes. Take this quote:
So what’s the implicit assumption in that: all men are introverts and no men have empathy for others?
@MWolf I agree in general with your remarks. The difference is that I was talking about a specific (feedback from my S) as opposed to a blanket statement. Again in our family, we are aware of these differences and discuss them over dinner on a regular basis. We also have a good basis to discuss these in terms specific to tech (actually my wife is at Sr Dir level in Fortune 50 tech company). So I think our S and D will be part of the solution. Take for instance the “talking over” issue. My wife solved that problem years ago and has been role modeling it for just as long. Recently while I was standing in the back of a classroom waiting for our Ds robotics club meeting to end I saw it in action. D was talking about an idea on how to integrate some new functions when a boy started to talk over her. She paused, raised and open palm in in a firm voice said “I’m finishing my thought and then you can respond to it”. Worked fine (she looked just like mom) and will continue to work. Please note that we also talk to her about not ascribing evil intent when over exuberance may be the culprit. I assume/hope that most parents on CC are equipping their daughter with similar skills. When it comes to boys I think how they are raised is a good predictor on how they will behave. In our family S was just as likely to ask mom for help with code (or HW) as he was to ask me. He has taken that experience with him to school, and yes I think he is aware. So, I guess maybe I’m over optimistic, but I am.
What industries still have 'secretary’s? I was in Tech for 15 years, and our open break room and coffee bar meant everyone fended for themselves, even visitors. Or, if it was a meeting with many outsiders, we’d setup a coffee table with treats inside the meeting room.
Heck, even our MegaCorp eliminated many Secretaries back in the 90’s for all but top execs.
Tech is actually among the most progressive of all industries, notwithstanding its current gender imbalance. Even so-called executive assistants shouldn’t be serving their bosses coffee. How hard is it to pour yourself a cup of coffee?
I went to a talk recently about encouraging women in film. We broke up into small discussion groups and then reported our ideas to the main group. One woman got about half way through her point, when her husband interrupted to say the same thing. We all jumped on him of course since it was sooo inappropriate in this context, but I think for many men, they just don’t realize they are doing this. We need to teach girls how to hold their own among other things. We can also teach our boys to stop this behavior when they see it happening. @Rivet2000 sounds like you have done a great job training the next generation!
“Women built the tech industry. Then they were pushed out.”
The article did not say anything about building an industry, it mentioned some of the women pioneers in tech and computing sure, but that’s not the same as building an industry. It’s a catchy headline, but not accurate on the building part, being pushed out yes. The tech industry at least in silicon valley was for better or worse, founded by white guys (Hewlett, Packard, Jobs, Noyce et al.) and aided by the emergence of Stanford and venture capitalists.