
Did blind orchestra auditions benefit women? - jsweojtj
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/05/11/did-blind-orchestra-auditions-really-benefit-women/
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hmottestad
I did not find this very nuanced. The comments from Pallesen seem to try to
advocate for extremes.

One such comment: "Table 4 presents the first results comparing success in
blind auditions vs non-blind auditions. . . . this table unambigiously shows
that men are doing comparatively better in blind auditions than in non-blind
auditions. The exact opposite of what is claimed."

I had a look at the linked paper. And it is true that the table shows that
women perform worse in blind auditions. However, the paper does not claim that
this table shows that women perform better. Instead the paper elaborates on
the options of why women perform worse by arguing the following:

"One interpretation of this result is that the adoption of the screen lowered
the average quality of female auditionees in the blind auditions. Only if we
can hold quality constant can we identify the true impact of the screen."

The paper goes on to explain how they discovered that during blind auditions
there were a lot more under-qualified women and that this was skewing the
data. They discovered this because they had the names of all the participants
and saw that some women would participate in both blind and non-blind
auditions while others would only participate in blind ones.

The following was the papers conclusion on this matter: "When we limit the
sample to those who auditioned both with and without a screen, the success
rate for women competing in blind auditions is almost always higher than in
those that were not blind."

~~~
kuzehanka
> "One interpretation of this result is that the adoption of the screen
> lowered the average quality of female auditionees in the blind auditions.
> Only if we can hold quality constant can we identify the true impact of the
> screen."

There's something of a repeating theme lately. Study of blind interviews/tests
in various fields => women found to underperform despite experimental controls
and expectations => commentary and authors grasp at straws to explain the
result with anything but the fact that perhaps men and women don't have the
same performance envelope in every walk of life.

How many more of such studies and straw-grasping explanations will we have to
go through before someone considers occam's razor?

~~~
CathedralBorrow
Would you care to enlighten us with the truth?

~~~
taneq
They're suggesting that women, on average, just aren't as good as men at some
things (and vice versa):

> perhaps men and women don't have the same performance envelope in every walk
> of life

~~~
mafuy
No, they are suggesting that the top performing women just aren't as good as
the top performing men. A small but important difference.

I believe what they said is right. At the same time, I also believe that the
worst performing men perform worse than the worst performing women - males
have a wider spread of ability.

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beloch
If you're trying to justify the practice of blind auditions, it might be
better to target a _different_ prejudice. Sexism may well not be a significant
factor in hiring musicians today, but it's likely that other prejudices
persist. Although it would be hard to quantify, if you could show that
unattractive people or people who do not dress like typical musicians do
better in blind auditions to a significant degree, then you might well have
justified blind auditions.

~~~
xiphias2
This can be true, but orchestra is a performance act. If I look at it as a
business, I don't see anything wrong in giving higher value to more attractive
performers. On the other hand it's important how much higher value they get
(and the multiple round audition when only one of the rounds is blind makes
sense).

~~~
leereeves
That's essentially saying the orchestra should cater to the audience's
prejudices, and could be used to justify any prejudice.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
That's how entertainment industry works though?

~~~
atoav
Yeah but what is the point of having culture when it isn’t allowed to change
views, give new perspectives and so on.

Also: Give me the best orchestra. I don’t go to the concert to gaze at a bunch
of beuatiful penguins and ladies in dresses. I go there to listen to music. If
they are good I don’t give a damn about their looks.

~~~
EForEndeavour
Visual appearance is indisputably part of the orchestral experience, otherwise
they'd play out of sight (to reduce distractions from the audience) in
comfortable clothing.

~~~
atoav
Well sonic waves travel with the line of sight, if you wanna get a direct
signal, they will have to sit there either way. And you want to see them
playing ans performing. Do they need to look really pretty to do that? Not
necessarilly. Some of the best classical musicians are not beauties at all.

------
Jolter
Did no one follow up on this study since 2000? Presumably more blind auditions
have taken place since then, and the basic problem seems to have been lack of
data.

------
jl2718
Perhaps it is a problem when the investigator’s entire career would be
destroyed if they were to discover anything to contradict the zeitgeist of the
field.

It seems to me that tenure was meant to solve this, but it doesn’t. Academics
are groomed and selected to be career climbers, willing to sacrifice anything
to please the gods of their establishment. 1000 years later, still a
monastery.

------
kfk
Honest question, how does it work if you are trying to have a good balance
man/women in your team? Especially in IT trying to keep a good mix and avoid
man only teams? Is this kind of advise even “safe” to ask these days?

~~~
danieltillett
Why do you want to avoid "man only" teams?

~~~
onion2k
Making software is about asking questions. You ask the questions necessary to
figure out the best solution to a problem. If you have a "man only" team, or "
_anything_ only" really, you're less likely to have people asking different
questions - they're all going to ask the same questions if they all have the
same perspectives, biases, etc.

Diverse teams gather more information which leads to better insight of edge
cases, and ultimately to better products.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Hmm, it's a good idea, but it relies on men and women being fundamentally
different (which I think they are) which goes directly against modern
feminism.

If men and women are fundamentally different then there are good reasons to
choose men or women only in a given situation (along normal stereotypes: women
are better caregivers, men are better manual labourers).

Recruiting in this way is illegal in a lot of places.

>they're all going to ask the same questions if they all have the same
perspectives, biases, etc. //

Then shoudln't you choose people based on their ability to consider the
specific perspectives you need?

One of the things about people is the ability to adopt the perspective of
others readily.

~~~
atoav
I don’t think there is a widespread consesus within Feminism for the idea that
women and men aren’t different — and honestly, everybody who says so didn’t
bother to inform themselves.

Different genders/races/cultural backgrounds/educational backgrounds are
connected to having different experiences in life. Of course you can _imagine_
what e.g. sexism looks like, but when it happens to you every other day as a
woman you will have it much more present than a man. Same thing with other
aspects, people who have different racial/educational/cultural backgrounds
bring different experiences with them and they might offer them precisely at
the point where you didn’t think about it, not because you are a bad person,
but because emulating all other perspectives your self is exhausting.

The variance between individuals of both genders and within
races/nationalities/etc is big enough for you to look on the individual level.
When you say “women are statistically on average better caregivers” and hire
only women, not only are you missing out on very talented men, but the
functionality of your team is reduced as well. E.g. because in some situation
a male caregiver might be a better fit for a given client. Not because they
are better or worse at their job, but because beeing male brings a whole set
of experiences, cultural expectations etc with itself. The same apparently
goes for other traits your employee might have.

Most jobs require teams to react to new and unpredictable challanges and
having a broad range of backgrounds, helps them to always have a team member
whi knows how to deal with it, because of their background ans life
experience.

When you hire a team where you have a monoculture, it is hit or miss. It might
work well for a certain job at a certain time, but if anything changes, your
team might be less resilent, flexible and able to solve problems compared to a
more diverse team.

~~~
Udik
> I don’t think there is a widespread consesus within Feminism for the idea
> that women and men aren’t different — and honestly, everybody who says so
> didn’t bother to inform themselves.

Apprently there is, otherwise why claim that any gender imbalance in the
workplace must be the result of discrimination? I agree with you that diverse
points of view can be useful; but diverse points of view imply (average)
psychological and cultural differences, diverse attitudes and interests, and
these might well be the reason of the gender imbalance. To use a steereotype
(don't kill me for this) if female software developers can bring value to a
team because on average they have a better eye for UX or design, then it is
also probable that more females will be in UX or design than males, creating a
gender imbalance in the number of candidates for software development
positions.

~~~
Anthony-G
Feminism is a broad church. The point being made is that there isn't a
consensus on the idea that "any gender imbalance in the workplace must be the
result of discrimination". Many of the louder voices within the movement
express this view but it's not a consensus.

