Sunday, September 28, 2014

Response to: "Exposing Hidden Biases at Google to Improve Diversity"

According to The New York Times, Google is just like every other tech company, a man's world. If you think about it, this statement is true. Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft. Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple. Jerry Yang and David Filo founded Yahoo!. Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google. These giant tech companies were all founded by men.

Being stuck in a "man's world" also means that women do not have the opportunity to play a role in these companies, more specifically, Google. According to general stereotypes, men are seen as the dominant role - the stronger, smarter, clever ones. Sex discrimination even goes back to the fifteenth century. Men were the only ones who were able to receive a proper education, while the women were stuck at home, cleaning and cooking. In modern day, women are seen as the ones who can't defend themselves, the ones who get abused on the side of a road, the ones who should just become a stay-at-home mom instead of working, the ones who aren't capable of doing anything.

Luckily, over the past centuries, women have been seen as a more serious contender, not just in the real world, but also the business world. However, data about Google's workforce highlights that there is still work to be done in order for women to achieve equal treatment. According to The New York Times, eighty-three percent of Google's engineering employees are male and out of the thirty six top ranking executives and managers, only three of them were women.

Maybe this was all a coincidence and that Google was unconsciously being biased. Or maybe Google was caught red-handed and trying to cover up their faults. Whatever the case is, the only important point is that Google is attempting to fix the situation. Women and men are both living, breathing, human beings and they should be treated equally. Men shouldn't get more opportunities and privileges simply because they are of a different sex than women. Hiring somebody for a position should be based on skills rather than gender.

According to The New York Times, Google has been offering several anecdotes about how a less biased culture in the workplace is improving. And while that's all good and exciting to hear, we have to remember that these stories are just that. Stories. They are unreliable sources, that provide no evidence what-so-ever. Google can say that they're working on improving conditions all they want, but they have to provide the evidence to back up their statements. If Google has time to invent "self-driving cars", then you better believe that they have time to improve gender equality in the work force.

Sometimes, a person (or group) can be unknowingly biased, like how Google claims they have been. As Brian Welles says, "Everyone is a little bit racist or sexist", and that is true. However, it doesn't matter if Google is lying or not about their staffing. The critical point is that they are taking appropriate measures to fix this problem. Hopefully, Google isn't just talking the talk, but actually walking the walk, because nobody deserves to be judged due to gender. Although, it hasn't ceased to exist in our world, we are now recognizing the problem and doing something about it.


via abc7 news

9 comments:

  1. While I do agree that a person should be hired based on their merit, I believe that it is possible that the men were actually better qualified during the hiring process. While gender bias does exist, we cannot assume that Google is affected by it in its interviews. Possibly, more men applied for the job, so it'd make sense to say that more men would get the job compared to women.

    On the other hand, you could argue that women relegate themselves to different jobs because of gender bias and that there should be more women applying in the first place if the bias didn't exist. We can't really know until women and men are equal and even then people might remember the old times when women were inferior and that would remain in their subconscious. Gender bias may exist for as long as humans exist, who knows?

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    1. Although there is some logic behind these statements, Google itself feels like there is a problem and scientists have even researched the issue. So there is something larger at play than men being more qualified than women.

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  2. I think you made a good point when listing the founders of big-name companies because those who create something important often influence the type of people who follow. In addition, I agree that our history affects our behavior today since we are so used to what we have been doing for so long. Unfortunately, since we have adjusted ourselves to those standards, it will be difficult for us to break out of the habit.
    I believe that it is important that companies, in this case Google, are making changes to their work environment to ensure fair and equal opportunities for everyone, no matter their gender.

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  3. I really like how you connected history from the Western Civilization to today.The continuation of this problem reveals the diffusion and influence of this idea of women being a homemaker and such from its original hearths. It truly portrays how sexism has been a problem for fairly a long time.

    I also find it unfair that men are given better opportunities and benefits than women. I find that your statement in your response, "Women and men are both living, breathing, human beings and they should be treated equally," is very accurate and can not only relate to genders but all human beings that are being discriminated and categorized by their race, background, and other factors.

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  4. Be careful with statements such as "Sex discrimination even goes back to the fifteenth century." That implies that there wasn't any discrimination before that time and there definitely was!

    I like the reference to the tech company founders. Good additional information to support your point.

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  5. I would like to point out that I did mention that Google was attempting to fix the situation very briefly. I was a bit vague on exactly how they were trying to fix it and I'm sorry I wasn't clear about that subject. My main point was that although are working to fix the gender inequality (with the lectures and the ideas of diversity), they haven't provided actual proof on if it actually worked.

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  6. I like the fact that you stated all the founders of big tech companies to support your statement but wouldn't you agree that maybe the reason why they are all men that have founded these companies is maybe because tech stuff isn't really a job that women want to do. I mean there are women that do it but there are few, making them the minority, because women aren't interested in jobs like these.

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    1. I don't think you can make these assumptions. You can't assume that women don't like these types of jobs. Are you making these assumptions based on stereotypes?

      I read an article where studies showed that women were more likely to leave the tech industry due to male dominance and superiority. So, I don't necessarily believe that the low number of women in the field are because women aren't interested, but because of gender differences.

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  7. I wholeheartedly agree with all of the points you made in your post, and I appreciate how passionate your tone was.

    Your fifth paragraph stood out to me the most, since I do agree with your reasoning on how the examples Google gave may be faulty or unreliable. Your last claim in the paragraph is an especially strong point, as it does not give Google an excuse to ignore these problems that are plaguing their company.

    I do share some discomfort about how Google may or may not be taking the initiative to strive towards gender equality when it has ignored it for years merely for good publicity, but then again, I'm probably too pessimistic about this for my own good. At any rate, I'm glad that they are at least doing something to raise awareness about workplace bias.

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