
The “4% of people are a**holes” theory – or: why I dislike equality discussions - aberlaber
http://voss.world/diversity-in-a-team-or-why-i-dislike-equality-discussions/
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aberlaber
hey, I left you a reply o nthe blog :-)

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yosamino
> Where is my logical mistake then?

Your logical mistake is in understanding "discrimination" as happening mostly
on a personal level, and pretty much disregarding that there is systemic
discrimination through which, while everyone is being pleasant to each other,
an outcome is achieved that still promotes inequality.

So while you not willing to believe this...

> This means that almost EVERY hiring manager in almost EVERY company across
> Germany is discriminating women. I decided for myself that this is really
> unlikely and that I am not willing to believe it.

...it's probably true. Not in the sense that every hiring manager is a
terrible chauvinist, but there is a bias in the system which is skewed against
women. The most basic example:

A hypothetical hiring manager when faced with the choice of hiring a woman,
has it somewhere in their head that in humans women are the sex which can get
pregnant, and they'd have to hire a temp, possibly continue paying her, and
then deal with maybe even a part-time employee when they wanted a full-time
one. That's simply something that a male candidate doesn't have to deal with.

This doesn't happen because someone is being particularly mean, it just
happens.

Consider that this phenomenon of women's liberation is a relatively recent
one, through our culture we have ingrained in us millennia of womens'
oppression. Consider that women, in the American context - even just white
women, haven't had the right to vote for even a hundred years.

We've come a long way, but we're not "finished", and these forces are still
there - sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker. You even see it yourself, when
you write:

> Very quickly it was clear to me that the boys were much more aggressive in
> asking for money than the girls. The ladies were mostly shy.

Have you given some thought as to _why_ women were shyer than men ? I would
put it to you that they're being taught, from childhood, that to be a girl
means to be a bit more on the quiet side, and to be a boy means to be a bit
more on the loud and more demanding side. And no-one means the girls or the
boys any harm in doing it, it's probably not even all that conscious of an
effort. That's the link between "gender" and "personality" you were missing in
:

> Hence I started to believe that lower salaries have nothing to do with
> gender but with personality.

The end result of it is, that _you_ in the team that _you_ manage, pay the
women less. Which is clearly unfair.

I think if I were in that situation as your female employee, I would be a
pretty loud obnoxious asshole about it.

You're doing yourself a dis-favor by just calling the people who loudly attack
you, "assholes". The progress we've made in gender equality has depended to a
large extent on women being unpleasant and loud.

Maybe instead of just dismissing them, try to actually imagine what life looks
like from these people's perspective. Because while I am sure there is lot's
of anger that get's released in an over-the-top way, that doesn't mean there
isn't some truth in there that might well justify being angry.

