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posted by takyon on Tuesday February 20 2018, @01:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the everybody-knows dept.

From The Verge:

Google didn't violate labor laws by firing engineer James Damore for a memo criticizing the company's diversity program, according to a recently disclosed letter from the US National Labor Relations Board. The lightly redacted statement is written by Jayme Sophir, associate general counsel of the NLRB's division of advice; it dates to January, but was released yesterday, according to Law.com. Sophir concludes that while some parts of Damore's memo were legally protected by workplace regulations, "the statements regarding biological differences between the sexes were so harmful, discriminatory, and disruptive as to be unprotected."

Damore filed an NLRB complaint in August of 2017, after being fired for internally circulating a memo opposing Google's diversity efforts. Sophir recommends dismissing the case; Bloomberg reports that Damore withdrew it in January, and that his lawyer says he's focusing on a separate lawsuit alleging discrimination against conservative white men at Google. NLRB records state that its case was closed on January 19th.

There are White House Staff positions open, I hear.

Previously: Google Fires Author of Divisive Memo on Gender Differences
Google Cancels "Town Hall" Due to Leaks


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 20 2018, @04:41AM (18 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @04:41AM (#640463)

    Reading through the document in question, this employee offered no citations for any of his points. Also, none of what he described was a biological fact: He basically assumes his conclusion, namely that men are better than women at IT work, and tries to justify it with things that sound scientific but mostly aren't. For example, psychologists find not-zero but not-huge differences in personality test results between men and women.

    As for the under-representation of women in IT, my experience is that it has approximately nothing to do with their aptitude for technology, mathematics, and logical reasoning. What I directly observed happening, and what I've heard from my female peers and colleagues, has led me to the conclusion that among many reasons for the lack of women in tech are:

    - Disrespect from some of their professors in college CS programs, leading them to abandon CS for other STEM fields such as mathematics, finance, and physics. This was true even if their grades were among the top of the class.

    - Male colleagues and sometimes even professors and bosses drooling all over them trying to get a date / trying to get laid. Sometimes this rose to the level of sexual harassment. Basically, the reaction of "OMG, a woman! And she's talking to a nerd like me! That means she must want to have sex!" is quite harmful.

    - Some companies assumed women had better people skills and thus tended to be pushed towards project management, technical sales, customer support, and other people-oriented positions rather than technically-oriented positions. Even women who were actually better at programming and admin work than personal interactions. This didn't result in lawsuits because those moves were often accompanied by raises and fancier job titles.

    - Women are less likely to accept job requirements, whether express or implied, that involve large quantities of overtime and/or late nights at the office, especially if they aren't getting paid extra for them. Women with children in particular will tend to balk at this: If she's single-parenting, then she really doesn't have the option to work late, and if she's co-parenting she may or may not be able to trust her partner to take care of the kids while she's working late (or it's also possible he has to work late too). IT for a long time has made this an expectation, although some of the more enlightened management teams have learned that this is stupid.

    It's not as bad as it once was, but consider this basic history: During WWII, computing was dominated by women, in no small part because they weren't being sent off to fight the Nazis. They made substantial advances in the field, and some of the women of that era became revered experts. Then the men came back from war, and because of the highly sexist culture of the time the high-paying jobs such as IT got re-allocated to men, because in the logic of the times of course men are supposed to be the ones working while the women are supposed to at home. That ratio got a bit better as what was known then as "women's lib" took hold, but not by much, and when you look at the professions dominated by women today it's the very same professions they were allowed to still do in the 1950's (e.g. nursing and teaching). And absolutely none of that had to do with whether women were actually any good at the jobs in question.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 5, Touché) by frojack on Tuesday February 20 2018, @05:17AM (7 children)

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @05:17AM (#640470) Journal

    You transferred blame to:

    Professors
    Male Coworkers
    Employers

    Then you fell off the wagon and found a biological difference:
    - Women are less likely to accept job requirements, whether express or implied, that involve large quantities of overtime and/or late nights at the office.

    Sure, you tried to couch it in societal expectations, but there was gender in your assertion. You "tried to justify it with things that sound scientific but mostly aren't."

    Its a tar-pit out there.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 20 2018, @05:22PM (6 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @05:22PM (#640738)

      Then you fell off the wagon and found a biological difference:
      - Women are less likely to accept job requirements, whether express or implied, that involve large quantities of overtime and/or late nights at the office.

      There's nothing biological about that. I cited reasons why, for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with biology and everything to do with the social expectations of motherhood, women find those working conditions less acceptable. The reason you label that a "biological" reason is that you probably believe that parenting is primarily women's responsibility, which isn't a biological rule but a social one, proven wrong by many many fathers who are the primary parent of their kids.

      The only thing that women can do for their kids that men can't is breastfeed them, and men can substitute bottlefeeding (either of pumped breastmilk or formula). And the whole issue is completely irrelevant once the kid is weaned, at which point there's absolutely no inherent difference in the parenting capabilities of men and women.

      One of the reasons that matters is that the belief that motherhood is more important than fatherhood is actually something that hurts men's ability to get custody of their kids in divorces.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by Zinho on Tuesday February 20 2018, @10:09PM (3 children)

        by Zinho (759) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @10:09PM (#640889)

        I think you're putting words into frojack's mouth. All he said is that given the choice, women will choose shorter hours than men. He said nothing about why they would make that choice, you assumed it was about motherhood and child rearing.

        The difference in choices made by men and women regarding log work hours seems to be cross-cultural, and more pronounced where women have more choice in the matter. Here are a pair of example I found in a quick search on the topic:

        https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/upshot/the-pay-gap-is-because-of-gender-not-jobs.html [nytimes.com]
        http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2010/11/going_dutch.single.html [slate.com]

        This isn't settled science; little in psychology or sociology is. The current understanding, though, is that given the choice of working more or less hours women will happily choose less money and more free time while men will happily work more hours for more pay. This appears to be a biology-based difference between men and women, one that doesn't have a good explanation just in culture.

        So, which option is more oppressive of women?
        1) providing only more-work-for-more-pay advancement options for the women in the workforce (results in lower happiness for women)
        2) providing reduced-hour options to all employees, and paying each employee for the hours they choose to work (results in lower pay for women)

        --
        "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
        • (Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 20 2018, @11:43PM (2 children)

          by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @11:43PM (#640932)

          The current understanding, though, is that given the choice of working more or less hours women will happily choose less money and more free time while men will happily work more hours for more pay. This appears to be a biology-based difference between men and women, one that doesn't have a good explanation just in culture.

          The leap you're making is "women will choose less money and more free time while men will choose more money and less free time" is due to biological drives rather than some practical matter. And I presented a practical matter that would definitely cause those sorts of decisions, namely responsibility for children, which is still primarily foisted on mothers rather than fathers when all available evidence points to nothing biologically requiring that arrangement (e.g. there's no significant disadvantage to being raised by two dads versus two moms). Frojack then assumed that I was describing a biological difference, when I wasn't: I was describing a social difference.

          And to add even more teeth to the argument: According to this NIH study [nih.gov], the career disadvantage for women in general tends to start after the birth of their first child. Based on that, it looks a lot more like it's the additional parenting responsibilities of women, rather than anything inherent to women being women, that causes them to refuse long hours.

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
          • (Score: 2) by Zinho on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:52PM (1 child)

            by Zinho (759) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:52PM (#641225)

            Quick review of the conversation so far:

            Frojack: Then you fell off the wagon and found a biological difference:
                    - Women are less likely to accept job requirements, whether express or implied, that involve large quantities of overtime and/or late nights at the office.

            Thexalon: There's nothing biological about that.

            Zinho: The current understanding, though, is that given the choice of working more or less hours women will happily choose less money and more free time while men will happily work more hours for more pay. This appears to be a biology-based difference between men and women, one that doesn't have a good explanation just in culture.

            Thexalon: The leap you're making is "women will choose less money and more free time while men will choose more money and less free time" is due to biological drives rather than some practical matter.

            The leap you're making is that, having correctly identified a cultural explanation for a phenomenon, you assert there is no possible biological component to it at all. I had to double-check that I wasn't strawmanning on this; your "nothing biological" line put my mind at ease in that regard.

            There is an assumption inherent in the discussion of wage imbalance between men and women that both men and women want the same things in their jobs, and that women should be happy performing the same tasks for the same number of hours as men. Whether or not this is true has nothing to do with parenthood. It has everything to do with whether men and women have the same brain chemistry and structure; they do not. [duckduckgo.com] This is a biological difference, which has nothing to do with childbirth, nursing, or specific cultural policies about family leave.

            All that said, I want to give you credit for having a good source for your point that in the US wage difference between men and women starts at parenthood. That certainly is a cultural phenomenon, and one that we should work toward fixing.

            I skimmed through the NIH paper, and I think that it is asking the wrong question. Near the end, it asks:

            . . . why should the family gap in wages be systematically smaller in the unfettered labor market of the United States than in European countries like Britain and, especially, Germany that provide stronger public support to families?

            and answers itself with:

            . . . women in the United States seem to be acutely aware of the structure of the American labor market and act accordingly. Overall, the labor market behavior of American mothers is much more market oriented than that of their British or German counterparts: American mothers take much less time off for childcare, and they are much less likely to enter part-time jobs, typically female jobs, or low-prestige occupations in response to childbirth than mothers in Britain and Germany. In other words, our results imply that if American mothers behaved like their European sisters, they would see their total wage costs of motherhood soaring, whereas European mothers might actually see somewhat (although not very much, given weak market incentives) reduced wage penalties for motherhood if they behaved in a more market-oriented fashion.

            In other words, if German/British women played the game better they'd get a better score. That kinda sounds like victim-blaming to me, but I'll leave it alone.

            The questions they should be asking include: do men suffer the same penalties for fatherhood if they take time off for child care? [1] Why is paternity leave not legally protected the same way maternity leave is? What better employment model could we adopt that would improve the outcomes for everyone? [2] I think they missed some opportunities by focusing on three countries with toxic work/parenthood conditions for women and no focus whatever on neighboring countries with much better outcomes.

            [1] the paper does note that "In a Swedish study, Albrecht et al. (1999) established wage costs of some 2% per year of child-related work interruption for women and 7%–8% for men", but gave the issue no further analysis.
            [2] the paper also notes that Scandinavian countries give generous public support for new parents, and no further details. I happen to know that at least Norway gives generous time off for new parents, which can be split between the two parents in any proportion they wish.

            --
            "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
            • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:49PM

              by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:49PM (#641416)

              The questions they should be asking include: do men suffer the same penalties for fatherhood if they take time off for child care?

              For the record, I'd agree with the conclusion to [1] as being a solid "yes". And if you don't believe me, try refusing overtime so you can get to your kids' Little League game when there's a critical release that will be delayed if you do. I can guarantee you that at the very least somebody will label you as not being committed to your career, which will affect your salary and your odds of promotion.

              Why is paternity leave not legally protected the same way maternity leave is? What better employment model could we adopt that would improve the outcomes for everyone?

              My ideal if I were setting policy would be something along the lines of Finland's system. Finland has paid parental leave for both parents: Dad is expected to take a little over 2 months leave, and Mom gets up to 5 months starting in the 9th month of her pregnancy. Then there's another 6 months of leave that Mom & Dad get to split between them however they like. The culture as a result tends to be that both parents are heavily involved in caring for their child, right from the get-go. There are also I believe some Finns pushing to close the gap between the 2 months for Dad and the 5 months for Mom, which I would also support. (How do I know so much about this? Because my step-sister is married to a Finn and they just had a baby.)

              And guess what? The pay gap for women is substantially smaller in Finland than it is in the US, adding yet more evidence to my hypothesis that parenting is a major cause of the gap in professional treatment for men and women.

              --
              The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by Demena on Tuesday February 20 2018, @11:47PM (1 child)

        by Demena (5637) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @11:47PM (#640934)

        You did exactly what James Damore did. Pointed out biologically lighted tendencies. You also lied. You either did not read his epistle or you read the abbreviated one in which the references were removed. All the references checked out and the people who were referenced very largely agreed. SO your entire line of posting is meaningless and indeed, counterproductive as it is contrary to fact.

        • (Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Tuesday February 20 2018, @11:58PM

          by insanumingenium (4824) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @11:58PM (#640939) Journal

          If there is a version in which references are provided, I would love to see it. Cause the only versions I have seen had nothing of the sort.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by TGV on Tuesday February 20 2018, @06:48AM (6 children)

    by TGV (2838) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @06:48AM (#640515)

    The usual drivel: male CS professors. My daughter and her friends never even got near a CS professor before they decided that STEM is not for them. One even chose a lower school level to avoid maths. I don't know who you're trying to troll.

    > During WWII, computing was dominated by women

    As in: arithmetic by hand, yes.

    > Then the men came back from war, and because of the highly sexist culture of the time the high-paying jobs such as IT

    In nineteen forty fucking five? IT jobs? There were none. You really are a troll.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @09:03AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @09:03AM (#640552)

      Really more of a gen Y-er, too young to qualify as a Gen X-er, but not really part of the Millenial culture either...

      Most of the women when I was in junior college during the late 90s early 00s had no interest in Computers. *LOTS* had interest in STEM, although still a fraction of their male counterparts. 25-33 percent in S(-T)EM, split mostly between teen/early twenties and 30-40 year old returning students, as opposed to maybe 5-15 percent in Technology, mostly clustered in office applications, web design, Photoshop/Flash/3D CAD+CAM, and CISCO. The outliers, who numbered less than a dozen in more than 4 years of classes (I was a slow learner, combined with single offering classes that took more than a year to get an opportunity to re-enroll in), were Computer Programming students: A mexican-american who was forced to drop her computer science classes because they didn't qualify as part of her MBA major. An Indian girl who hadn't even considered computer programming until I suggested it to her in a a different class a year before, who took it then decided (smartly I may add) to continue in a different SEM path (sadly lost to history, I think maybe biochemistry?), 3-5 japanese girls across C++/Java who were either too poor or too academically unqualified for Japanese schools, for whom the international rates at the Junior College/State level in the US made more sense, two Koreans (one in tech, one doing it as a side gig from Culinary Arts before returning to that career path after an opportunity to own her own business), and finally a big pile of Iranian/Ukrainian women most of whom were taking it as a transfer prerequisite for their Civil Engineering degrees at the local State College.

      Out of all of those polled, sexism was actually the *LAST* reason for any of them not entering the field. 'I can't been seen in a nerdy field' was #1 among the non-SEM people. The next group were trying to get into a field their culture respected. The third group hadn't grown up with computers and considered them a black box. And the rest had already figured out that many other fields both had better pay and better respect, unless you were using it as a backdoor path to management. Out of the few who both were in the Tech classes and continued through them for as long as I knew/heard from them, only maybe 5 chose to continue it either as a career or into the 4+ year degree level. A couple finished up Cisco certification then moved back to other fields, either due to lack of jobs (basically everyone wanted the second or third tier Cisco certs by that point, many of which were only offered via private classes and only a few of the middle classes were offered at a single local junior college once a year, meaning 5-10k+ just to get up to a level where somebody *MIGHT* hire you, unless you already had an in via HR/hiring managers.) A few others strung along guys trying to get through their degrees without actually learning the material, made it to mid-upper classes, then quit when they couldn't complete coursework that didn't have rote answers. Out of the ones left, I didn't keep in touch with any of them after college, although a few were friends of other people I was still in touch with and I got updates on. The ones who made it all the way and got jobs mostly stayed in tech. The student visa ones often stayed in the US and either became permanent residents or citizens. The rest left mostly because either the money to be made was misrepresented to them. The prestige they'd been lead to believe existed in the career paths didn't, and finally that there were easier paths to tech management for the ones who were interested in the money, which was far more lucrative at the managerial level than at the other levels.

      Out of the people I knew who were *MALE* and successful in tech, they were all self-taught. The only self taught women I met who were in tech were one of the Korean ladies mentioned above, plus a white girl who was literally a female doppelganger of me but like 5 years older, and she had run her own 8 line BBS in the early 90s during High School. The former was the only person to actually invite me to visit their office so I could check out her office's datacenter. The latter was the first of 5 girls I ever asked out, and the most epic rejection ever. I got burned for age. education, and my nerd cred in three sentences 'I was running an 8 line BBS before you got your first modem. Also, I'm in COLLEGE. I am just here because they didn't offer this class there, so I was allowed to enroll in it here.'

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday February 20 2018, @09:38PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @09:38PM (#640865)

        The rest left mostly because either the money to be made was misrepresented to them.

        Huh?

        I got burned for age. education, and my nerd cred in three sentences 'I was running an 8 line BBS before you got your first modem. Also, I'm in COLLEGE. I am just here because they didn't offer this class there, so I was allowed to enroll in it here.'

        Ouch!

        Out of all of those polled, sexism was actually the *LAST* reason for any of them not entering the field. 'I can't been seen in a nerdy field' was #1 among the non-SEM people. The next group were trying to get into a field their culture respected. The third group hadn't grown up with computers and considered them a black box. And the rest had already figured out that many other fields both had better pay and better respect, unless you were using it as a backdoor path to management.

        This is the thing that the STEM advocates just don't seem to get (or don't want to). They think STEM, especially programming, is some highly-coveted career field that pays a fortune, and it really isn't. It pays better than flipping burgers of course, and many other middle-class jobs requiring lower skills and education, but for really smart people able to do this work effectively, there's other career fields out there that are more lucrative, more interesting, more fulfilling or helpful to humanity, have better job security, or some combination of those, and on top of that, have better prestige. Which has higher prestige, a medical doctor or a Python programmer? Well, try asking out a bunch of desirable women (or men if you're female or gay), after claiming to be one or the other of those two, and see which one nets you more dates. And if you're worried about doing something to help people or humanity, which one is a better bet? Any highly-experience programmer should be able to tell you that it's *very* unlikely that your work as a programmer is really going to help humanity--very few programmers get to work on something genuinely useful to millions like Google Maps or a NASA project or a particle collider or medical device; most of them are lucky if whatever CRUD application they worked on actually gets used for a while to calculate payroll for some company, instead of being thrown in the trash because it "missed a market window" or whatever. However, work as a medical doctor and you're almost guaranteed to be helping people. Or if you want a highly-paid career that requires high attention to detail, but will also last you to retirement, law is a much better bet than programming. As a bonus, if you're a lawyer, you'll get a FAR nicer office to work in than almost any programmer these days, as lawyers (and even their assistants) get nice, comfortable offices to work in, whereas programmers are treated like cattle and forced to work in "open plan" offices with zero privacy and constant distractions.

        The main way to be extremely successful in tech is to either move into management, AND do really well there (which means you have to be skilled at corporate politicking), or start your own business and be lucky enough for it to win big.

    • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @09:11AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @09:11AM (#640556)

      And you claim to have a daughter? When everyone knows trolls do not. So who really is lacking all crediblity here?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 20 2018, @06:16PM (2 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @06:16PM (#640762)

      My daughter and her friends never even got near a CS professor before they decided that STEM is not for them. One even chose a lower school level to avoid maths.

      And yet most of my female CS classmates reported stuff like this, and as mentioned universally switched from CS to math, physics, or finance. That's not something that just happens, and it shows that these were women who have the aptitude for technical work. Your daughters' choices suggest she doesn't have that interest, which is fine, but doesn't explain why women who did have enough interest to start taking CS courses decided to stop taking CS courses. It also sounds like you're in a different country than I am.

      > During WWII, computing was dominated by women
      As in: arithmetic by hand, yes.

      No, I'm talking about the Bletchley Park bombes which deciphered German codes, which was a 75% female staff. And I was a little off on the dates when things shifted: The majority of programmers of the early American computers, such as ENIAC and the Mark I, were women as well.

      You're right that women also dominated the by-hand arithmetic that was relied on heavily by, for instance, NASA.

      > Then the men came back from war, and because of the highly sexist culture of the time the high-paying jobs such as IT

      In nineteen forty fucking five? IT jobs? There were none.

      Yes, there were. Not many, but they existed. And of course a lot of what was going on in the early days of computing was more focused on hardware engineering rather than software, because of course the challenges were mostly about building computers than programming them to do things, and the programs were relatively simple due to the limitations of the equipment.

      In the 1940's, women were most of the programmers, some of the engineers, and overall critical to the operation of computers. By the 1960's, all those professions were now dominated by men. That demands explanation, and a very reasonable explanation is that the well-documented sexism of the time affected computer-related professions just like they did most other professions.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by TGV on Tuesday February 20 2018, @08:44PM (1 child)

        by TGV (2838) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @08:44PM (#640828)

        > universally switched from CS to math, physics, or finance.

        Happens to a lot of the boys too. Except switching to physics is weird, since physics is a lot harder than CS.

        > Yes, there were. Not many, but they existed.

        No, there were no IT jobs. There were research jobs. There was no "information technology" in 1945. The ENIAC wasn't ready until 1946. In 1945, companies didn't have computers, only automated counters, which they didn't program.

        > That demands explanation, and a very reasonable explanation is that the well-documented sexism of the time affected computer-related professions just like they did most other professions.

        Absolute bollocks. Equally likely is that society in general didn't want it, or that they went on to get children, or that the returned men were simply better at programming stored program computers. And I mean equally likely in the sense of: reasoning you make up as you go without any proof, just to hammer on an idiotic argument. Much more likely is that it's a matter of numbers: in 1945, computers only existed as experiments, in 1960 all large companies and banks in the Western world had computers running. With all study grants for GIs returned from the front, men simply outnumbered women.

        • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 20 2018, @09:36PM

          by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @09:36PM (#640864)

          > universally switched from CS to math, physics, or finance.

          Happens to a lot of the boys too. Except switching to physics is weird, since physics is a lot harder than CS.

          The point that you're carefully ignoring is that the motivation for the switch wasn't because they weren't smart, or weren't good at math or science or engineering, it was to get away from the people in general and men in particular they were having to deal with in the CS department. Since dealing with those people added substantial difficulty to their CS work, they found physics the easier subject.

          To give you an idea of the kind of stuff I'm talking about: CS lab monitors had to remove substantial amounts of pornography from the shared machines and male students were asking female students to show their tits while they were trying to work on their homework. And nobody involved was being punished.

          As for my last point, are you denying that there was sexism in the US prior to 1960? Because it sure sounds like you are.

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday February 20 2018, @05:53PM (1 child)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @05:53PM (#640754)

    - Some companies assumed women had better people skills and thus tended to be pushed towards project management, technical sales, customer support, and other people-oriented positions rather than technically-oriented positions. Even women who were actually better at programming and admin work than personal interactions. This didn't result in lawsuits because those moves were often accompanied by raises and fancier job titles.

    Customer support gets higher salaries than development? Why have I never heard of this? How do I get into that line of work?

    I'm not all that social, but meeting and talking with customers here and there sounds better (and probably involves less socializing) than sitting in an open-plan office, especially if I get to travel.

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 20 2018, @07:17PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @07:17PM (#640780)

      Customer support gets higher salaries than development?

      It can when the job title is "technical sales consultant" or "account engineer" rather than "customer service representative".

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @07:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @07:18PM (#640782)

    The reaction of "OMG, a woman! And she's talking to a nerd like me! That means she must want to have sex!" is quite natural.

    Women hate it... until they don't. They are choosy. Undesired males are offensive. When a desirable male comes along, suddenly the situation changes. Most women end up picking somebody.

    If men didn't ask, women would be lonely.

    Fundamentally, you're asking for something unreasonable: that only Mr. Right bother asking.