

I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume - Lisa2000
http://qz.com/103453/i-understood-gender-discrimination-after-i-added-mr-to-my-resume-and-landed-a-job/
&quot;I made one change that day. I put Mr. in front of my name [Kim] on my CV. It looked a little too formal for my liking but I got an interview for the very next job I applied for. And the one after that. It all happened in a fortnight, and the second job was a substantial increase in responsibility over anything I had done before. In the end I beat out a very competitive short-list and enjoyed that job for the next few years, further enhancing my career.&quot;
======
cupcake-unicorn
I get this so much, although I've had the opposite experience, where when
people notice that I'm female, certain companies get excited for the chance to
have a "token woman" on their team. Isn't necessarily a bad thing. Anyway, it
made me think of all the LinkedIn spam I get _addressing_ me as sir, Mr.,
"we're looking for some cool dudes like yourself", etc.

Sadly it's not just the gender thing that's going on here as well, I'm
thinking of some study they did where they attached photos with the resumes -
the "attractive" people (both men and women) were rated as better skilled than
the "normal" and "ugly" people that had the same resume. Although, I think
that if I took some fancy photos of myself and primped myself up, I don't
think it would do me any favors and I'd get some unwanted attention!

My name isn't even gender neutral, very feminine...I think I once was on some
board online using my real name and people were still assuming I was a guy.
When I asked how they could possibly think it was a male name, they replied,
"I dunno, I was thinking it was like one of those fancy Italian names, like
Fabio or whatever..Fabia..yeah, same thing...they always sound like girls
names."

I've now started picking the most ridiculously cutsie usernames possible, like
this one, to keep people guessing. Sometimes it backfires still and people
just get homophobic, but I generally stick with it anyway for fun :)

~~~
nawitus
>Isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I would personally find it offending that someone would hire me on the basis
of my gender to become a "token" person.

~~~
cupcake-unicorn
Well, that's why I said "isn't necessarily" \- some people may not mind and be
happy to reap the benefits, and others (like you) would (justifiably) feel
offended.

In my experience it hasn't really been 100% about "just being the token woman"
but I feel like I have gotten interviews and jobs that I wouldn't have
otherwise.

------
robot_friend
I am female with a hybrid background in UI design and front-end dev. A while
back I created a fake linkedin profile identical to mine except with a male
name. Even though it has no profile picture and no contacts, the fake profile
gets more recruiter messages than I do, and for more technical positions (I
get ones for design, he gets ones for engineering).

~~~
wf
You should write about this somewhere.

~~~
ralphc
LinkedIn has a blog, doesn't it have guest writers? You should try for that,
give them a chance first.

------
crazygringo
That's really, really sad.

And the worst part is, it's surely conscious on nobody's part. There have even
been studies showing this effect.

What's even sadder is that there's no obvious or easy way to fix it.

~~~
cliveowen
There is a simple way to fix it. Namely providing a means to submit your
resume that anonymizes name, gender, age and anything that could bias the
reviewer's assessment. The best HR departments already do that, at least
that's the hope.

~~~
noloqy
What's next? All the interviews have to take place in a dark room so that the
interviewer can't see the color of the interviewee's skin?

~~~
kragen
That would be excellent wherever it's feasible. The way Gladwell tells it (so
take it with a grain of salt), when symphony orchestras started conducting
their auditions with a screen in place so they couldn't see the person playing
the instrument, the fraction of female musicians in top orchestras shot way
up.

However, in cases where the quality of in-person interaction is a major part
of what you're trying to assess — like for a team programming environment —
it's going to be pretty hard to do anything comparable.

~~~
lmm
How important is personal interaction to most programming jobs, really?

~~~
joshuacc
I'd go so far as to say that it might be slightly more important than the
ability to write code, depending on the company, the project, etc. Being able
to effectively discuss requirements and technical tradeoffs with non-technical
stakeholders is extremely valuable.

Obviously some level of programming expertise is required, but once you've
crossed that minimum threshold, personal communication becomes a larger and
larger share of an employees value.

------
Peroni
The fact that this post is getting so much attention is baffling me. There is
literally nothing in this story to indicate that the name made any difference.

It's blatant confirmation bias. Nothing more.

Allow me to state, once again, there is absolutely no denying that sexism
exists and that it's an issue that needs to (and eventually will) change
however this article adds absolutely nothing new to the debate.

~~~
lotyrin
He didn't provide empirical evidence because there are already resources for
that. This is a personal anecdote and is being shared because personal
anecdotes are effective in making people think in ways that many won't be
moved to by statistics.

It's not news and it's not providing any objective data, but that doesn't mean
it's devoid of value.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
But it happened in the "late 90s." One anecdote from 15 years ago is not
really of much value today, IMO.

------
johnvschmitt
As a father, when I had my first kid, & read a few "Parents" magazines, I was
so disheartened to see 99% of the references in articles referring to the
parent as the "mom" or "She/her". I said, "WTF! Are fathers not parents!?"

Then, it hit me. As a male engineer, manager, etc... I just got a very small
taste of the less than subtle gender biases that exist all around us. That
made me appreciate my wife more (who is also an engineer), and all the others
who put up with that crap even in this modern day.

This is the only forum I've complained about "Parent's Magazine"'s female
gender bias. And, I only do so within a context that shows it's just a lesson
in empathy for a much more severe bias in the other direction.

~~~
klipt
> bias in the other direction

No, both biases are in the same direction - "women stay home and parent" and
"men go out and work" are two sides of the same coin.

By choosing not to fight the stereotype that those parenting are women, you
are implicitly shoring up the stereotype that those working are men.

Mind blown yet?

------
throwaway420
Interesting, enlightening, and thought-provoking article.

To me, another interesting experiment would be changing the first name of the
resume to something that's nearly unambiguously male, say instead of Kim
O'Grady to just Robert O'Grady, and seeing if that has the same effect.

Another interesting experiment would be adding "Mrs." in front of the name Kim
and seeing if that has the same effect.

Personally speaking, I believe that technical people are sick and tired of the
sausage fests at most technical companies and all other things being equal
would go out of their way to hire more women.

~~~
dominotw
True. I would assume women would have a better chance since most men are tired
of being surrounded by other men all the time at work, like you said.

What is the motivation for someone to be biased against women, seems
counterintuitive.

~~~
Amadou
Men can get away with making sexist jokes (or even not-jokes) around other
men. You don't have to think so hard about how what you say might be
perceived. Taking the overhead of that mental filter out of the loop lets men
feel more at ease around each other.

I'm not making a moral judgment, just describing what I've seen over the years
as to one explanation of how men can have a subconscious bias that prefers
hiring men.

~~~
bitops
_> Men can get away with making sexist jokes (or even not-jokes) around other
men._

That's an important observation and plays a huge role in perpetuating sexism
and gender discrimination. It continues to exist because guys let other guys
get away with it. If you speak up and indicate that you're not okay with it,
behaviors and attitudes may change.

It's not easy and it requires courage. But it's necessary to really make a
dent in the historical patterns.

~~~
sliverstorm
Maybe it isn't a problem that needs fixing? Maybe making work another place of
constant judgement and time under the PC microscope would not be a net
positive?

Remember there's a difference between bare-faced misogyny and garden variety
politically incorrectness.

~~~
dominotw
Nice observation. One of my colleague got a stern warning for using the word
dick ( 'dont be a dick' kind of way) around female colleagues, because two
women sitting behind him complained to management about it. I am sure he is
not discriminatory, biased or misogynistic.

I guess it wise to think about what you are saying and not say stuff like
'fuck off', 'stop bitching' which may be construed as inappropriate.

~~~
sliverstorm
I can't claim it is my own observation. I got it from a feminist talking about
how maybe the reason men are resisting women's ingress into male-dominated
professions is because when women find the traditionally male workplace
environment unsatisfactory, they expect the environment to change to suit
them.

~~~
omegaham
As a man in a pretty male-dominated profession, (Military) I can say that this
is the case. It's exacerbated by blatant sexism, but the biggest rational fear
is that women expect the environment to change when they arrive and that this
change will be detrimental. The current culture and environment has been tried
and proven to work, and they're fearful of a change in that culture impacting
success.

Having worked with women, I'm of the opinion that it really depends on
leadership and the maturity of everyone in the shop. If you have scumbags
around that are allowed to act unchecked, then a woman can destroy a shop in a
matter of weeks. If you have good leadership that clearly outlines proper and
improper behavior, then things usually come out ok.

~~~
bitops
Thanks for sharing your perspective. It's especially valuable since you are
working in a historically male institution. It'd be interesting if you wrote
about more of your experiences and observations on this topic (like a blog
post). I would be excited to read it.

~~~
omegaham
Women in the military is a really, really complicated topic. It'll take a long
post to do it justice; you could easily write several books on the subject.

First, as you have said, the military has always been a male-dominated
institution. The first time that we actually started putting large amounts of
women into uniform was during World War 2. We took women for clerical jobs so
that more men were able to fight on the front lines. The recruiting slogan was
"Free an Man to Fight."

The military has always been seen as a catalyst for social change. It's
arguable that the integration of black and white soldiers was the first step
in the civil rights movement, and the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is probably
going to be seen as the first step of the federal government ending _de jure_
discrimination of gay people. With this in mind, a lot of feminist lobby
groups are trying to do the same thing with women with the exact same goals.

The problem is that men and women are much further apart than these other
integration challenges. Black men and white men are culturally different, and
there were a lot of problems with integration. I'd say that there still are
problems; if you look at a battalion, you'll notice that all the black guys
hang out with each other, all the Hispanic guys hang out with each other, and
so on. However, everyone is still able to function as a unit. The same is true
for gays. I'd say that it's mostly because most gay men stay in the closet for
their terms, (lesbians are almost universally accepted) but the repeal of DADT
didn't really have much of an effect on anything because a gay man is still
basically the same as a straight man when it comes to doing work.

This is not so with women.

Similar to firefighting work, the military is a very physical job. Everything
ends up being physical in some shape or form, and it really doesn't matter
which MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) you pick, you're going to end up
doing something physical as a matter of your daily duty. There are
particularly egregious cases where they stick women into Ordnance, but even a
job like avionics technician involves doing hard labor (Ha, you thought you'd
use a soldering iron all day? Guess your recruiter didn't tell you that you
have to take off all the hydraulic lines before you can take the control box
out. Have fun).

There's a very clear double standard that is communicated, and it's insidious
for several reasons. When a man "falls out" (can't keep up with the rest of
the unit) of a run, his life sucks. In my shop, falling out means you just
volunteered to run with the master sergeant at 2:00 in the afternoon. It's
summer in Arizona, and it's usually around 115 degrees. Not a good time. We
have a guy who isn't very good at running; as a result, he gets to run every
day at 2:00. He is pretty miserable. He's definitely getting better, though.

When we had a female sergeant, she also fell out every time. The response was
indifference because, "well, she's a woman and it's just par for the course
that women can't keep up with men." It's also implicit that said sergeant
could make the case that the master sergeant is only making her run at 2:00
because she's a woman. The case would go, "Your standard is too high, and you
know that I can't keep up. You're being a big meaniehead and you're only
making this standard because you're sexist." The master sergeant's career
would be fried before you can say "Equal Opportunity." An EO case is a career-
ender.

Because this issue can't be dealt with in the open, (it's verboten to say that
women are simply not as physically capable as men) you have a lot of people
who pay lip service to the "We're all equal" party line but snicker at women
in leadership positions. And, sadly, it's justified in many cases. This
aforementioned double standard also get applied to promotion along with daily
life, and it's a kick in the teeth when you're a lance corporal obeying a
corporal who is, by all objective measures, a worse Marine than you. That
applies to either gender, but it just so happens that due to affirmative
action, there are a lot of women in leadership positions who have no business
being there. Couple that with the fact that women make just over 6% of the
Marine Corps, (small sample size) and you get sexism.

I don't really feel like going into the sexual harassment / assault part and
the fraternization, as that's just shitty behavior that can be remedied by
court-martialing people and setting a clear standard. In any case, the real
problem is the double standard. If you apply a double standard, then you get
sexism. If you hold everyone accountable, then you get genuine respect. Doing
so, however, would drastically decrease the number of women in the military. I
personally think that's a good thing if it means that the remainder are
respected and valued.

------
ds9
I was very surprised to see the admission of his giving family information.
Employers are prohibited from asking such questions here in the US, and I've
always thought it improper to put it on a resume. It either invites
unfavorable discrimination or comes across as a ploy for sympathy or
favoritism.

It may have been a lesser factor in this case, but I would guess hardly anyone
does this today, and I had thought it was no longer considered OK even before
the 90s.

~~~
larrys
"Employers are prohibited from asking such questions here in the US"

Regardless of what you can ask you can always ping people and find out
answers.

You can discuss your own situation and see a reaction on the part of the
person you are speaking with. Takes a bit of creativity.

I know of someone who wanted to hire only puerto ricans for his bricks and
mortar store (forgetting the reason). So you can't advertise for "puerto
ricans" but you can say "knowledge of spanish a plus".

------
JimmaDaRustla
Not to negate the point, but I witnessed some MALE gender discrimination when
applying to a local IBM office for a college co-op.

Ratio of females to males is low in computer programming courses, but 100% of
females were interviewed for an IBM position, and 0% of males were interviewed
(approx. 6 females and 16 males). This happened twice in back-to-back years.

It seems the whole gender discrimination has taken a swing in the opposite
direction for this small office - work hard to find female workers over male
workers. But I haven't figured if they are doing this because they care about
female workers, or they want to boost their public image? Are they giving
females a chance to prove themselves to work for IBM, or are they just filling
the most menial jobs with females to balance out their gender ratio?

This doesn't seem like the "give the job to the person best fit for it"
mentality, but maybe to them the "first glance" isn't enough to make that
decision. Plus, this was just a co-op, almost anyone in the class could
perform the position. I decided to view IBM's actions as a form of tactic to
develop female presence in IT industry rather than gender discrimination.

------
king_jester
Interesting article. I wouldn't necessarily say you can understand gender
discrimination just because you were affected by it as a side affect. It is
true the author became aware or more aware of gender discrimination because of
his name, but he still doesn't have the experience of living in a society
where gender discrimination is a daily occurrence.

That said, gender bias a real thing in hiring and faculty practices in the US.

[http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-
prognosis/201...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-
prognosis/2012/09/23/study-shows-gender-bias-in-science-is-real-heres-why-it-
matters/)

[http://www.upenn.edu/provost/images/uploads/Gender.Racial_.B...](http://www.upenn.edu/provost/images/uploads/Gender.Racial_.Bias_.pdf)
(pdf warning)

~~~
nawitus
>It is true the author became aware or more aware of gender discrimination
because of his name, but he still doesn't have the experience of living in a
society where gender discrimination is a daily occurrence.

All genders face gender discrimination. For example, the country I live in is
a Nordic country often hailed for equality, but the state forces all men to do
slave-labour for the government. Men and women face about the same amount of
gender discrimination in Western nations. Men's problems include more severe
jail sentences, forced labour, lack of father's rights and so on. Interesting
fact: majority of rape victims in USA are male.[1]

1\. [http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/men-outnumber-women-
among-a...](http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/men-outnumber-women-among-
american-rape-victims/)

~~~
king_jester
> All genders face gender discrimination.

This is true, but it should be noted that gender discrimination is
fundamentally related to patriarchy and misogyny.

> For example, the country I live in is a Nordic country often hailed for
> equality, but the state forces all men to do slave-labour for the
> government.

I don't know anything about this so I can't really comment.

> Men and women face about the same amount of gender discrimination in Western
> nations.

I'm from the US, so I can't speak for every place, but that is most certainly
not true here. Women and trans* folks are far more likely to experience sexual
assault and violence compared to men and generally women face systemic issues
revolving around family and work that men do not.

> Men's problems include more severe jail sentences, forced labour, lack of
> father's rights and so on.

In the US, its not just men that are more likely to receive jail time, but
esp. black and hispanic men. There are systemic issues with racism that
perpetuate this problem and this is intersectional with systemic issues with
gender. All prisoners suffer from work programs that are essentially
indentured servitude and forced work (not sure if that is what you were
getting at).

In the US lack of "father's rights" is a red herring. Men have a high success
rate in getting custody in family court when they pursue custody, however men
do not pursue custody nearly as often. Also, any kind of bias or
discrimination in favor of women in family court is rooted in misogyny in the
first place.

> Interesting fact: majority of rape victims in USA are male.

This because the rates of rape for men overwhelmingly come from prisons and
being incarcerated. Further more, this isn't really that useful of a thing to
say anyway outside of the context of prisoners rights and prison abolition, as
women do face high rates of sexual assault and rape and most perpetrators of
rape are never convicted.

~~~
papsosouid
>This is true, but it should be noted that gender discrimination is
fundamentally related to patriarchy and misogyny.

Making faith based statements like that and acting as though they are evidence
based is not productive. There is no evidence to support feminist mythology
surrounding their redefinition of patriarchy.

>In the US lack of "father's rights" is a red herring.

No it is not. A system that was equal would begin with shared custody as the
default, and a case would need to be made to remove either parent's custody
based on their being unfit. A system where men are required to spend
considerable time and money fighting to get less custody than women get by
default is not equal. The reason men have high success in getting custody when
they pursue it is because they almost exclusively pursue it in cases where
there is substantial evidence that the mother is grossly unfit. Have a man
talk to a custody lawyer while you listen in. They will universally tell you
not to bother pursuing custody unless you have proof the mother is an addict
or has allowed another man to assault the children frequently. Using selection
bias to dismiss valid concerns makes it appear as though you have a vested
interest in maintaining inequality.

>This because the rates of rape for men overwhelmingly come from prisons and
being incarcerated.

And those don't count because of what?

~~~
pqqqqq
> Making faith based statements like that and acting as though they are
> evidence based is not productive.

Cool; how about some evidence for your custody assertions?

> There is no evidence to support feminist mythology surrounding their
> redefinition of patriarchy.

Systemic sexism is widely documented. This ranges from pay gaps [1] to harsher
views on overweight women vs men [2] to sexual assault [3]. I'm not sure what
point you're trying to make here. Are you objecting to appropriation of the
word 'patriarchy'?

[1]
[http://www.oecd.org/social/family/LMF1.5%20Gender%20pay%20ga...](http://www.oecd.org/social/family/LMF1.5%20Gender%20pay%20gaps%20for%20full%20time%20workers%20-%20updated%20081212.pdf)

[2]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1108%2F02610150910937916](http://dx.doi.org/10.1108%2F02610150910937916)

[3]
[http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/SOO.PDF](http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/SOO.PDF)

> And those don't count because of what?

 _Read the next sentence_. Male rape is predominantly a the parent isn't
saying that male rape victims "don't count".

~~~
papsosouid
>Systemic sexism is widely documented.

Oh?

>This ranges from pay gaps

Which are a deliberately misleading "problem" feminists like to complain
about, but which don't actually exist.

>harsher views on overweight women vs men

Where? You mean personal preferences? Like how short men are viewed harsher
than short women? That is not systemic.

>to sexual assault

Where the actual systemic problem is that the government deliberately
misrepresents male rape victims by not counting "forced envelopment" as rape?

>Read the next sentence. Male rape is predominantly a the parent isn't saying
that male rape victims "don't count".

You didn't make their point any clearer.

~~~
pqqqqq
I accidentally deleted a line when I was typing; I meant to write "Male rape
is predominately a result of the way the United States does incarceration and
needs to be discussed in that context; the parent isn't saying that male rape
victims 'don't count' "

Also, you clearly didn't bother to glance over any of the data I provided. You
probably should, especially about the extremely well documented gendered pay
gap. Denying that such a gap exists when there are mountains of evidence to
the contrary only makes you sound ignorant and chauvinistic.

I'd still like citations on the male custody and on this 'forced envelopment'
business.

~~~
papsosouid
Yes, I did see your "data". Comparing the average income of all men to the
average income of all women does not establish a pay gap. The average of all
women works fewer hours than the average of all men, work less demanding jobs,
and has less experience. Comparisons of men and women with the same amount of
experience, working the same hours, in the same job show there is no
difference in pay.

I have no idea why you have such a hard time with the FBI rape stats, googling
"forced envolpment" would get you what you want:
[http://www.good.is/posts/the-fbi-expands-its-definition-
of-r...](http://www.good.is/posts/the-fbi-expands-its-definition-of-rape-will-
we-take-it-seriously-now)

------
lsiebert
If your company is discriminating, it's not getting the best applicant for the
job, it's getting the best young male for the job. That is missing out on at
least 60% of applicants. That should be all the reason any intelligent person
needs to be concerned about these factors. It is hard to hire good people.
Also the pool of individuals discriminated against by other employers is
perhaps more likely to contain qualified people who have not been hired.

~~~
lmm
Why should I be concerned? I like working with talented people, but my
experience has been that those employers that employ gender-balanced workforce
employ a lower proportion of highly talented people than those that do not.
And if we're speaking solely about self-interest then as a male such
discrimination works in my favour.

So no, that's not "all the reason any intelligent person needs", you have to
give an actual reason.

~~~
whiterabbit2
It depends on the definition of "talented". If "me myself and everybody like
me" then it's very logical.

~~~
claudius
If you need someone with qualification X, and n%, n != 50, of students
attending university to earn qualification X are of gender A, yet you try to
employ genders A and B equally, you will get fewer good people with
qualification X than if you employed n% people of gender A and (100-n)% people
of gender B.

Since there are very, very few subjects attended equally by both genders,
employing equally will get you worse people.

Note that the above actually assumes that people from both genders are in
general equally capable/intelligent. If you add, for example, a higher
standard deviation of the IQ for gender C, you will get even more skewed
results.

------
nashequilibrium
Okay HN, I knew this sounded familiar and then i remembered a similar story
which was flagged and kicked off the front page.
[http://www.techyville.com/2012/11/news/unemployed-black-
woma...](http://www.techyville.com/2012/11/news/unemployed-black-woman-
pretends-to-be-white-job-offers-suddenly-skyrocket/)

Could someone explain why one was flagged and the other not? I am honestly
just curious.

------
crazysaem
I am graduating in a few month and also applied for some jobs in the USA (I'm
from germany). I found it somewhat intresting that every employer I sent my
resume to was asking what gender and race(!) I was before I could submit. You
could also choose the option not to give an answer, but I have never seen that
in germany.

On the other hand some people on HN find it odd to have a picture of you on
your CV - which is the norm here.

~~~
mynewwork
They don't use that information for interviewing/hiring decisions. If they
have any contracts with the federal government, they are legally required to
collect that information about applicants specifically for compliance with
equal opportunity employment.

In other words, no one was looking at that information when looking at your
resume. Someone in HR was looking at aggregate data at the end of the year to
say "Hey, we're hiring group X at above/below average" or in the event of a
lawsuit to prove they don't discriminate.

------
simonbarker87
We've been interviewing for our first 2 roles recently and I have to say that
male or female doesn't bother me either way - we've interviewed in equal
quantities and, while we're yet to fill the positions, I genuinely am not
bothered if the successful person is male or female.

Reasons for this could be: 1\. I'm 25 so I wonder if I haven't experienced
enough to bias me one way or another (what that experience would be I've no
idea)? (don't claim I'm being ageist, I'm not it's just one possibility) 2\.
My fiancé is an excellent engineer so I might have had the male dominated
field bias squashed by that.

~~~
untog
You might be surprised. Many times biases like these are subconscious.

~~~
yaddayadda
Indeed!

Anybody claiming to be unbiased (color, race, sexuality, etc.) should take
several Implicit Association Tests -
[https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/](https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/)

~~~
kstenerud
Unfortunately, their software is broken. It goes through the test, and then
the post test questions (I strongly prefer X, etc) just keep repeating over
and over. You can't actually complete a test.

------
redwood
Interestingly, it's not _just_ a case of gender: Rather the uncertainty and
its associated cognitive dissonance, leaves a negative feeling in the mind of
a reader.

There are many other kinds of uncertainty present in a resume; and its always
a risky factor because folks like to understand context.

Have an ethnic name? Assume people might think you're an immigrant. If you
don't want them to assume that: emphasize where you're from, etc. This is good
personal branding. Is it unfortunate that you might feel a liability here? yes

For example, in my office when someone doesn't show their picture in our email
system: I feel negative about them. When they don't show a picture _and_ have
a name that makes it difficult to know how to refer to them, I'm doubly-
frustrated.

Much of this frustration is subconscious but people need to be congnicent of
how they come across to others in many contexts.

 _here_ I choose to be 100% identity neutral, because I can be. But in work
this is a big mistake, because formal expectations are applied in
correspondence and you need to feel you're meeting those expectations with a
job applicant.

If you're in this position, you've done yourself a disservice: "Dear Sir or
Madam, We are sorry to inform you that we cannot offer you a position"

Is this a problem with our society? yes.

------
jessriedel
There is much better data out there concerning the effect of gender (and race)
on CVs. That would be much more useful than this guy's anecdotal experience.

~~~
sp332
It's not supposed to be data. It's supposed to change your perspective on the
data you have.

~~~
jessriedel
The first third of the story leads with all this talk about how he had all the
qualifications and shouldn't have any trouble finding a job. Then a couple
paragraphs about how hard it was to find, and how this was so surprising. Then
a couple of paragraphs on how "Kim" could be assumed female. And then a
complete turn around when he added "Mr".

This _was_ supposed to be data, in the sense that it _was_ supposed to provide
you with the sense that, empirically, gender has a huge effect.

If you subtract this from the story, what do you have left? A personal account
of how having difficulty finding a job shakes your confidence, forming maybe 3
or 4 sentences? Were you unaware that getting rejections is hard?

~~~
sp332
The article gives you a mental tool that you can apply as you like to various
situations that you encounter. It's like learning a type of logical fallacy.
You wouldn't disregard an article that described what a "false dilemma" is as
"having no data".

~~~
jessriedel
First, what is the tool? (This is an honest question.)

Second, my complaint wasn't that it had no data, my complaint was that it was
essentially _just_ data, and that this data was much noisier than some good,
widely available data. Wrapping crappy data in an engaging story that stick in
the mind of the reader, when better data exists, is doing the reader a
disservice.

------
eikenberry
Not to argue that gender bias doesn't exist. But this is not a good study case
as he tainted his resume pretty badly from the start. Not being currently
employed is a red flag to a lot of employers and gets you immediately
discarded. And putting personal information, even if seemingly innocent,
triggers the lawsuit avoidance mechanism at a lot of places and immediately
gets you discarded.

~~~
acjohnson55
I'm not sure you really read it closely. The ONLY thing that changed about his
resume is the clarifying "Mr.". Whatever faults his resume might have were
present before and after, yet the differences in its reception were dramatic.

------
vertis
Original blog post:
[http://whatwouldkingleonidasdo.tumblr.com/post/54989171152/h...](http://whatwouldkingleonidasdo.tumblr.com/post/54989171152/how-
i-discovered-gender-discrimination)

------
rachelbythebay
I really want to read this, but the site goes completely bonkers on iOS. I can
see some content but it's wedged behind this top banner. They don't really
expect people to read through a tiny gap in their images, do they?

~~~
Sprint
If it makes you feel any better, on my desktop scrolling does not work with
neither space, the cursor arrows or the scroll wheel.

Another addition for my "don't waste my time" domain block list.

The whole content of the post is "I got rejected many times. I added a Mr.
before my name. I got accepted many times."

------
betterunix
Maybe it had to do with the resume appearing more formal. Try another version
with "Ms." and another with "Mrs." to really make this something we can draw
conclusions from.

~~~
crygin
When you use the "anecdote-not-data" contentless dismissal, you're not
supposed to follow it up with a suggestion to add a control to the single data
point.

------
thehme
This is so sad...wow! I cannot imagine what goes through people's heads when
they see a very qualifies individual and then they decide it's a woman and
skip even considering her.

~~~
sp332
They never see the qualified individual. They trained their brain to do
pattern-recognition on the resume for quick filtering, and women just don't
fit the pattern. They probably don't even realize they've trained themselves
to ignore women like you don't pay attention to the weight of the shirt on
your back. It doesn't rise to the level of consciousness.

------
cm2012
I kind of doubt that this is true. Wouldn't the managers see that she was a
female in the interview, and ask why she misrepresented herself or take that
opportunity to not hire her?

------
eldude
Since this is entirely devoid of any discernible facts, it's a little
disturbing that this has made it to the front page of HN. When did random
assertions become unquestioned truth?

This feels a lot like a sensationalized modern day witch hunt, "Burn the
misoginists! Burn the sexists!"

Also, for whatever it's worth, never have I heard "Kim" considered anything
but a woman's name.

------
niccl
This is scary. I go out of my way to remove gender hints from my CV. In
particular I use a shortened version of my first name which is slightly more
commonly associated with women. And I have had problems finding work recently.
Now, do I change things because I need work? I could even pretend it was a bit
of research to give a second data point to this story.

------
lucb1e
Oh my god. I'd seriously write fuck you letters in 72pt bold comic sans ms to
all other companies, explaining what dicks they were. Seriously, 4 months of
nothing (must have been lots of applications), and then the word "Mr" changes
it all? Incredible.

------
nkorth
I would love to read this article, but quartz.com is horribly broken in Opera
Mobile on my phone...

I'll just wait and read it on my laptop, but this does look like a sign of
Webkit bringing back the days of sites "best viewed in Internet Explorer 6".

------
typon
Is it weird that this article doesn't have many comments?

~~~
bitops
Not at all. Thoughtful and open discussion on gender discrimination is hard to
come by, even on Hacker News. I think a hard first step to take is admitting
that the problem really is quite serious and that it is something that affects
all of us.

------
Dirlewanger
This was the late 90s. A lot has changed since then. Yeah, there's still
problems with male-dominated industries but it's gotten a lot better. Nowadays
it's more about getting women even interested in the fields.

~~~
hack_edu
You would hope, but sadly not much as changed. There have been numerous
experiments lately where someone created identical mid-career LinkedIn
profiles one posing as a man and another as a woman.

The male profile always gets far more views and recruiter messages.

~~~
Peroni
>You would hope, but sadly not much as changed.

The finance industry has a terrible reputation for blatant sexism for example
however it's been proven categorically by the world largest finance
recruitment firm that over the last 70 years the number of females in
executive positions in finance is steadily and blatantly improving.

Their studies also prove that there is still a gender issue in finance but
claiming that not much has changed is categorically wrong.

