
What Sephora Knows About Women in Tech - Geekette
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-sephora-knows-about-women-in-tech-that-silicon-valley-doesnt-1507539600
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rmk
The article seems to rely on a lot of people who _no longer work at Sephora_ :

Jenna Melendez

Terre Layton

Asheley Linnenbach

Nida Mitchell

At Sephora (not clear from the article, but assume so):

Mary Beth Laughton

Yvette Nichols

Also very weird, not a single _programmer_ (female or otherwise) at Sephora is
quoted in the article. The only possible exception is Layton, who had an
'engineering background' but was Product Manager at Sephora.

This article does not show anything concrete about whether Sephora actually
has a large percentage of female programmers, devops, or sysadmins. Neither
does it say what concrete steps they took to increase the percentage (final
count: 62%, but it's not at all clear from the article whether that number is
limited to people who actually program or tend to programs).

The article is complete garbage, and not worthy of HN. It does not elevate or
even contribute to the discussion over female participation in software
development in any way.

~~~
whamlastxmas
The state of most journalism these days is sad. When they so often get it so
wrong in the categories I know a lot about, it makes me feel like they get it
wrong in all the categories all the time.

~~~
tjalfi
Michael Crichton called this the Gell-Mann amnesia effect[0].

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5203871](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5203871)

------
whamlastxmas
TLDR:

>the retailer has managed to attract technical women by recruiting with an eye
toward candidates’ potential rather than specific skills

>“Even if a female candidate doesn’t have all the requirements for a technical
job, we want that person to come in and show what they can do,” says Yvette
Nichols, the company’s vice president of talent.

They hire women without the regular qualifications and are willing to train
them on the job, which is refreshing to see. It's a shame they only apply it
to female candidates though.

>At Sephora, Nida Mitchell, 29, got her chance to grow into a new role when
she was promoted from web developer to IT project manager after two years at
the company. The new job put her in charge of 14 male engineers, most of whom
were at least 10 years her senior. She encountered roadblocks on one of the
team’s first big projects, updating Sephora’s computing infrastructure ahead
of the chain’s expansion to Brazil. “My first week, I had a one-on-one with my
boss and said, ‘No one listens to me,’ ” Ms. Mitchell says.

She's concerned that within a single week of being promoted above 14 male
engineers that they don't take her seriously when she comparatively has very
little technical background (5 months with HTML and CSS) and no management
experience (per her linkedin)? The issue here isn't that she's a woman.

It's cool that women in tech roles have found a home at Sephora. Something
feels a little weird seeing them about bragging about the hiring process being
exclusive to women though.

~~~
BearGoesChirp
>They hire women without the regular qualifications and are willing to train
them on the job, which is refreshing to see. It's a shame they only apply it
to female candidates though.

I'm trying to imagine what would happen if a company decided to do the
opposite of this. Hires men on what they might one day do, while hiring women
only on what they do right now.

How is this not outright sex based discrimination?

~~~
adjkant
See my comment below for more, but essentially it is like affirmative action.
Simply reversing a constraint in a vacuum removes tons of other contexts. It's
not X + Y = Z, there and many more variables at play. This action is trying to
balance variables outside of the control of Sephora.

~~~
microcolonel
> _This action is trying to balance variables outside of the control of
> Sephora._

But if those variables exist in the applicant pool, they are discriminating
against individual people on the basis of sex.

It is not for Sephora's (or anyone else's) recruiters to wax philosophical on
what they think the statistics should look like for the population at large,
when considering a candidate.

~~~
adjkant
This brings into focus a very nuanced question of discrimination versus unjust
discrimination. The affirmative action debate is divided by these lines. I
don't think we're going to make progress on that here, but the summary is that
people who agree with you believe both discriminations are unjust, while those
who disagree see this discrimination as a temporary action that will lead
overall to more justice long term. Along with that comes the question of
consequentialism versus deontology, and if the consequential balance is
accurate to the world.

> It is not for Sephora's (or anyone else's) recruiters to wax philosophical
> on what they think the statistics should look like for the population at
> large, when considering a candidate.

This is not a question of statistics of the population but one of morality.
This is what Sephora views as acting ethically. As noted above, not all agree,
but that is why they are doing this (assuming they didn't do this for PR,
which would be a far stretch, even if this story itself is for PR, which I
think is a case of both/and). It is the job of Sephora's recruiters to act
within the company's ethics.

~~~
microcolonel
I am not willing to accept a principle which artificially exempts people from
protection. I'm not going to protect the right to keep and bear arms _only for
whites_ , or freedom of expression _only for liberal conservatives_ , the
right to a fair trial _only for south asians_. Adding arbitrary, unfair
stipulations to a principle defeats the purpose of having principles.

It is a broadly respected civil right not to be discriminated against on the
basis of sex when being considered for a job in a role which is not reliant on
sex-differentiated characteristics.

The equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the U.S.
constitution is among the proudest arrangements of fourteen words in recent
history. That is the way principles work, there's no "unless you're a
homosexual" at the end, there's no "unless the allegations are recorded in the
wee hours of the morning".

I don't understand how anyone could trade something as eternal and beautiful
as body of principles into something as common and detestable as a body of
exceptions.

~~~
adjkant
There are two falsehoods your argument is presenting:

> Adding arbitrary, unfair stipulations to a principle defeats the purpose of
> having principles.

> I don't understand how anyone could trade something as eternal and beautiful
> as body of principles into something as common and detestable as a body of
> exceptions.

Neither of these things are occurring. The argument you present is a mix of
two straw man statements and a bit of slippery slope for both.

The stipulation is far from arbitrary - it's in direct response to negative
discrimination at other related levels. If we are talking justice and
fairness, this is a positive move to some (not all, hence grey area). Those
with more opportunities inherent in a system for arbitrary reasons do not have
those opportunities justly. This policy is an attempt at redistribution of
arbitrarily gained opportunity.

To the second, there are many flaws. First, the original principle you listed
has an exception itself ("for a job in a role which is not reliant on sex-
differentiated characteristics")! Adding a stipulation is a change to the
principle, not an abandonment of all principles or even the single principle
itself. Exceptions are incredibly important in many cases and are not an
argument against a specific exception itself. Additionally, even if we accept
the arbitrary "eternal beauty" of principles, the "common detestability" of
exceptions, and the binary between them, there is no requirement for all of
one or the other. It's just not logically sound. We can have many of one and a
few of the other, half and half, etc.

Again, I am not even staking any of these claims on the specific exception,
which is a very strong moral grey area. But it's a very understandable and
logically sound side. The question becomes one of restorative justice, not one
of "principles and exceptions". I think your argument is playing towards a
wish for the world and morality to be absolute and clear when we know the
world is far from that every time we look at situations that break hard
principles once held.

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notyourwork
When I read this article my first thought was cool, great to see women in
tech. Than my first question was what is their ratio of women to men in their
application process and how does it compare to the industry ratio?

I suspect that because of the nature of their business less men apply compared
to woman in relation to the industry average. As a person I apply to companies
I am interested in and would not see myself applying to work at Sephora
currently. I would see myself applying to mlb.tv for example since I like
baseball.

edit: s/ration/ratio/

~~~
whamlastxmas
I'm a guy but I have a woman's name, I wonder if that would give me an
advantage in the hiring process?

~~~
notyourwork
That is a really interesting thought. My wife, a R.N. has a male name and she
wonders if she easily received interviews after graduation due to the same.
There are few males in nursing.

------
holograham
the article doesnt mention this but I will ask ... does sephora attract more
female candidates because it is a very popular makeup brand?

Or perhaps do they also get less male applicants because it is a female
dominant brand?

"“Everyone spoke,” she says, “and felt comfortable offering opinions on
anything from e-commerce to a shade of blush.”"

For me as a male I would not feel comfortable offering my opinions on a shade
of blush. I am not offended by this -- I just have zero experience with blush.

Am I sexist because I wouldnt want to work there but also can see why women
would be more successful there in tech-centric roles?

~~~
whamlastxmas
Their "tech team" includes the content producers/writers/managers/web
marketing for their website, which I suspect is a sizable (if not majority)
chunk. It's not really comparable to a software-heavy company having a 62%
female tech team. So yes, it makes sense that having people who are
traditionally much more interested in make up would be attracted to these
positions.

~~~
fortythirteen
I'd be interested to see how their dev team (split out from
frontend/backend/fullstack) compares to the rest of the industry. I've worked
at a lot of companies that were at least close to 50/50 if you counted all of
marketing as "tech".

~~~
whamlastxmas
I worked in a tech team at a company and only 3 out of maybe 15 people did
programming above HTML/CSS/jQuery. At least a third were just management.

------
chmod775
They do realize that once you pass 50% females you actually start to become
less diverse, right?

With 74% females they are as diverse as a 26% female company. I'm positive
that's pretty damn far from setting any diversity records.

------
yasserkaddour
The comparison to Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon makes no sense. ASAIK
Sephora is not a tech company, I found nothing made by them on GitHub. Can you
think of any tech developed by Sephora?

~~~
sgslo
Open source contribution does not indicate that is a company is or is not a
'tech company'.

~~~
yasserkaddour
Sure, but the best tech company do contribute to OSS, and this article
specifically compare Sephora to those (software) company.

------
koiz
"How Sephora used sexism to achieve a 60% female tech team"

Seriously this screams of sexism but what I'm most troubled about is hiring
inexperienced people and putting them in charge of seasoned teams. I've seen*
too many attempts at this and it rarely works.

------
jacknews
"At Sephora, Nida Mitchell, 29, got her chance to grow into a new role when
she was promoted from web developer to IT project manager after two years at
the company. The new job put her in charge of 14 male engineers"

How are they defining "tech role" exactly, is it that most of the developers
are male, but "tech sales", "tech marketing", "tech product management", "tech
PM" roles are female?

Is this merely a case of a company run by women, with a bias toward hiring and
promoting women?

That's perhaps not unlike other companies run by men, so I guess it balances,
but it's hardly a new model that everyone should emulate.

------
ksk
What is the definition of winning here?

------
symlinkk
> Managers say the retailer has managed to attract technical women by
> recruiting with an eye toward candidates’ potential rather than specific
> skills

Lmfao. So essentially what they're saying is a woman would be chosen over a
more highly qualified man simply because she has a vagina.

How is this not sexism?

~~~
kenferry
I'm not sure how you're reading this to get that take away. Hiring for
potential is what you want to do – what matters is what someone _will_ do, not
what they've done in the past. Obviously past accomplishments are an
indicator.

~~~
symlinkk
Because they say they've managed to attract WOMEN this way, instead of PEOPLE.
To me this implies that they judge men differently, in order to fulfill their
bullshit gender quota.

~~~
kenferry
They're saying that their emphasis on doing it this way has helped avoid the
traps everyone else is falling into.

~~~
symlinkk
Which traps are you referring to? The trap of hiring candidates based on their
qualifications?

~~~
blueline
qualifications which can be harder for women to obtain in the first place
since they might be passed over as a result of being women.

~~~
symlinkk
This is computer programming we're talking about. This is probably _the_
easiest field to get into if you're willing to teach yourself. Literally all
of the information you could ever want about programming is available for free
online.

~~~
bashmydotfiles
I believe a better barrier to entry to focus on would be the representation of
women in tech rather than qualifications. Symlinkk, I agree with you regarding
this comment.

I also believe that computer programming is the easiest field to find out if
someone who is in charge of hiring is potentially biased. For example, you can
have two candidates - candidate A who is a white male and candidate B who is a
woman of color. If candidate B does better on the technical interview (all of
her answers are more efficient, she answered the questions faster than
candidate A), but candidate A gets chosen then it's easy to call out bias.
That's an aspect of programming jobs that I love - that all of it is based on
your qualifications rather than outside factors (of course that depends on who
is hiring you and the company).

The real issue is getting women and people of color to want to get into tech
in the first place. For some people, when making a career choice they look
towards representation within that field. For some people, this might deter
them. When you've been faced with microaggressions most of your life in
certain spaces then you might want to avoid those spaces. For example, there
was an article on HN a while back about women in technical lead roles. Within
that article there was the story of a latina woman who is a head researcher
and she has gotten asked often / people have assumed that she is the cleaning
lady of the building. In my own experience I'm a mixed person and I've faced a
ton of microaggressions that have made me uncomfortable in places I've been -
like people asking me "Where are you from" and I tell them I'm from <insert
state here> and then they reply with, "Where are you REALLY from?." That
question has always made me feel like I'm not supposed to be in America - that
I'm unexpected and I've deviated from the norm.

I'd suggest checking out
[https://www.devcolor.org/](https://www.devcolor.org/) and reading some of the
personal stories of black software engineers. It's really enlightening to read
about some of the microaggressions they've faced in the work place and how
that has affected their career.

------
synicalx
How is deliberate over-representation of a particular gender "diversity"? Is
this over-representation what we're trying to fix with "diversity"?

------
microcolonel
Step 1: Be a famous cosmetics retail company.

Step 2: Consider more of your employees to be on the "tech team" than other
firms do.

Step 3: Lower the recruiting bar for one sex and not the other, potentially in
contravention of the law.

Just another corporate circle jerk.

------
yahna
They didn't beat anyone, they just flipped men to the minority.

Good for them I guess.

------
jankotek
From pictures (even on google search) this company seems white only. No people
of color, muslim, LGBTQ+, disabled...

~~~
whamlastxmas
A common issue in corporate environments:
[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_tmHvZRKFMM/maxresdefault.jpg](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_tmHvZRKFMM/maxresdefault.jpg)

Female-heavy workplaces to me have the connotation of being especially white.

