
In China, Women Hired to Motivate Computer Programmers - ourmandave
http://kotaku.com/in-china-women-hired-to-motivate-computer-programmers-1725573574
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mcv
The way it's framed certainly seems a bit iffy, but on the face of it, having
people create a fun and motivating work environment is a great idea. Plenty of
companies offer massages and other perks to their programmers, and I've heard
that ping pong coaches are apparently a thing in Silicon Valley. Is it bad to
have someone always ready for a chat or a game of ping pong?

So is the problem that they specifically hire young women for this? Is sex
appeal a factor here? Detail is scarce, making it easy to jump to incorrect
conclusions. I find myself hesitant to call this sexism before I know a bit
more.

~~~
tajen
> So is the problem that they specifically hire young women for this?

It's completely legal to hire people based on looks for positions that require
it, e.g. salespeople, models, "experience managers".

It doesn't mean we should do it. Especially not as we're evolving towards a
developed, enhanced society.

Many SV startups display a website with 50% women programmers... all of them
cute and young. We know very well they're not here to attract more women to
programming. They're here to bias men into believing it's a balanced workplace
where it's fun to work and where he might find a soulmate. It has an impact on
the applicant's expectation.

Of course once males are recruited, it's a huge legal risk to date on the
workplace, and a human interaction with a hired hostress isn't genuine.

~~~
jeremysmyth
_It 's completely legal to hire people based on looks for positions that
require it, e.g. salespeople, models, "experience managers". It doesn't mean
we should do it. Especially not as we're evolving towards a developed,
enhanced society._

We're aspiring to such a society, not evolving. Evolution is an outcome, not a
direction. It's not possible to say what we're evolving toward, except
inasmuch as we are now closer to that ideal than we were 20 years ago.

Not only that, but I'm not sure that's true. Today's norms are those that
survived yesterday. The ones we think we want tomorrow are not always the ones
we'll have. When sex sells, sex sells, regardless of whether you want it to
sell or not. What has happened over the last 20 and more years is more a fine
tuning of how to use sex to sell, rather than removal of sex from the sales
process.

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jbob2000
People are quick to point out the sexism here, but NFL and NBA cheerleaders
are totally cool? Those girls literally dance around in mini-skirts and shake
their asses. At least these 'cheerleaders' are chatting, serving, and playing
games with people. You know, being human.

On another note, this is probably being highly editorialized. Maybe
cheerleader isn't the right word and "extra-curricular activity manager" got
lost in translation. Throw in a couple of pictures of scantily clad women and
hey! look how many clicks we got!

~~~
dragonwriter
> People are quick to point out the sexism here, but NFL and NBA cheerleaders
> are totally cool?

Lots of people have lots of problems with NBA and NFL cheerleaders and the way
they are employed, but that's not the subject here.

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murbard2
I always believed that, in many instances, the combination of an experienced
software developer and a minimum wage worker who reminds them to focus
throughout the day can have a really high ROI.

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harshreality
Isn't that one of the purposes of an assistant (in addition to offloading
tasks that can be offloaded)?

~~~
murbard2
No, it's typically not. I was thinking more along the lines of the comment
mentioning the periodic slapping.

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brudgers
Maybe productivity goes up because the female programmers are less pestered.

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brador
Original is here:
[https://www.facebook.com/trendinginchina/posts/6034617964239...](https://www.facebook.com/trendinginchina/posts/603461796423974?pnref=story)

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lohengramm
It _is_ sexist in the sense that it is a motivation mechanism completely
biased towards men. However, there is no such thing as discrimination going
on. These girls applied for the job and get paid for it. It's not like they
are being called engineers. They are not engineers and it makes no sense to
say that "they should hire female engineers" because that 1) is not always
possible (obvious lack of women in the field) and 2) may not even help to
solve the social problems that most male engineers suffer from (which is the
goal of hiring those girls), since female engineers are not there to cheer
boys up. This would be replacing A with B -- it's not the same thing.

It is sad, however, to see that so many computer programmers struggle so much
with social problems. I wonder how our (I am including myself in this set)
future looks like.

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zer00eyz
I get that folks in the states feel like they want to get bent out of shape
over this, however this isn't the US, and applying our cultural ideals to
another country don't make sense.

But lets not pretend it doesn't happen here:
[http://firstwefeast.com/drink/secret-lives-of-los-angeles-
bo...](http://firstwefeast.com/drink/secret-lives-of-los-angeles-bottle-
service-girls/)

If you follow the link to the source article (
[https://www.facebook.com/trendinginchina/posts/6034617964239...](https://www.facebook.com/trendinginchina/posts/603461796423974?pnref=story)
) there is this statement:

"According to the HR manager of an Internet company that hired three such
cheerleaders, its programmers are mostly male and terrible at socializing, and
the presence of these girls have greatly improved their job efficiency and
motivation."

"mostly male" and "terrible at socializing" well this sounds a LOT like a good
number of the engineers that I know. But even among those who DONT have these
issues, were putting a LOT of them into conditions that DONT make a lot of
sense.

Take a team of people, mostly men, force them to be in the same room for 60
hours a week, add liquor and beer. How long before it starts looking like the
Stanford prison experiment, or lord of the flies? How long before you get
weird, emergent, monolithic culture from a self contained team? How long
before people start acting outside cultural norms because they lack a social
or sexual outlet? How much of our current issues around women and tech and the
experience they have is the result of the hours we put in, and the lack of
outside experience it creates?

If the reality was "hire some women to hang out with your engineers" or
"Reduce productivity so they can have a life" what course of action do you
THINK companies will take?

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wang42
Where is the source? The article links to nothing but a Facebook post. The
whole thing was a joke that several Chinese companies made during this year's
Apirl's Fool Day.

It is a very lame joke, though.

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S4M
I read that in China the government is creating jobs for the sake of keeping
people employed, even if they are not productive. Maybe this is another
occurrence of that phenomenon. It's true that it's private companies hiring
the cheerleaders here, but maybe they get subsidies from the government for
doing that.

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jimworm
A more human mode of rubber-duck debugging. Might have a detrimental effect on
office politics if these cheerleaders are not changed out regularly.

They might even become programmers themselves, after absorbing a lot of
experience with many programmers' trains of thought.

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ClassyHacker
It's almost crazy that a seemingly conservative country is embracing human
nature and being progressive with it while western companies are struggling to
balance diversity and being politically correct at the same time.

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werber
Objectification leads to productivity? Maybe they'd be better off stocking the
men's restroom with lotion.

~~~
ddoolin
Is this really denying those women agency, though? We don't know the detailed
circumstances, it's hard to say.

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stillsut
To play devil's/HR's advocate:

Couldn't this be better at producing the attitude and behavioral change that
we aim for with "sensitivity training"?

Training might ask two of these men to have a mock encounter with a
woman...and play act the legally approved way to deal with it.

But with cheerleaders you get the actual thing, and a tight feedback loop -
"Oh, by speaking in that tone, I offended her. Now I'll learn to monitor my
tone."

~~~
FilterSweep
I don't think so. I could see it also creating more workplace animosity in the
simple fact that when you put young guys and girls together, some of them will
pair off. Guys tend to be accutely aware that there is a difference between
"attention" and "sexual attention" (wrt. eye gaze, body language). Those
receiving the former might not like seeing the latter done with coworkers. We
may see some jealousy related issues with the ones that don't, or more
frustration and aggression.

PS: Love the "devils/HR" advocate line.

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JDDunn9
To be fair, mild sexism would seems pretty low on the priority list of
employee treatment issues in China.

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grondilu
They would probably get a better result if they opened a brothel next to their
building or something.

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1971genocide
Imagine Google hiring women to "cheerlead" programmer. I am sure Google would
go bankrupt just to pay lawyers to fight lawsuits.

This seems like free market at work. These women have social skills to sell
and programmers are buying it.

The way I see it the Chinese are being more progressive than the Europeans
where prostitution and drugs are legal.

~~~
deciplex
Why is it that every time I read an article about some degrading bullshit, I
also have to read a comment about the free market?

(And in motherfucking _China_ this time, apparently.)

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potatote
Cursing at a country for what? Hate China that much?

~~~
andybak
I read that as China + free market = irony.

Even if I misread it, you've jumped the gun somewhat in ascribing the most
negative interpretation without compelling evidence.

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Cheyana
So-o-o...comfort women?

~~~
Thriptic
You're likening women employed to chat and play games with lonely programmers
to women forced into sexual slavery in wartime?

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notNow
Food for thought:

Why is it OK for female cheerleaders to be used in male sports events whether
amateur or pro (It's worth mentioning that this is chiefly a North American
phenomenon) and all hell breaks loose when they're employed in other
professional workplaces to perform the same duties?

It's disappointing to see a lot of smart and good people who are tolerant and
open-minded in general engaging in moral absolutism when the issue at hand
involves people of different cultural or linguistic backgrounds that are
different from the prevalent mores and code of ethics in the Anglophone world.

It just shows how culture is so ingrained in people's brains even the smartest
ones to the point that it blinds them to take note of similar 'faults' resting
within.

~~~
ulisesrmzroche
Cheerleaders are not there for the football players, they're there for the
audience, to direct cheers. It's about audience engagement not subservience so
that's the difference.

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gizmo
An absurdly sexist practice, although kotaku seems hesitant to say it
outright.

~~~
bryanlarsen
It's much more effective to let readers draw their own conclusions than to
spell it out.

~~~
gizmo
Or perhaps people avoid using the label sexist for practices that are clearly
just that, in order to minimize the inevitable backlash. The way the article
is written now allows for the interpretation that this is just harmless and
quirky fun, which would be the wrong conclusion. Clear language that this
isn't appropriate would prevent that misunderstanding.

