

High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews - rayiner
http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias/

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cperciva
My immediate thought when I saw this a few days ago was "sampling bias" \--
not that the author had a biased sample of professional women, but rather that
professional women are a biased sample of women. Given the social environment
-- pushing both females and males away from what they might have preferred as
a life trajectory -- I think it's very likely that the average professional
woman is significantly more aggressive than the average professional man,
simply because the non-aggressive women tend to not enter professional
careers.

This mirrors an observation I've heard from several faculty members in
computer science and engineering programs: As complete populations, girls
aren't any smarter than boys on average, but in those programs the girls are
always among the top students -- because it's only the most exceptional girls
who overcome the social factors which keep most of their peers out of those
subjects.

There may be a real effect here, but the evidence presented is inconclusive.

~~~
melindajb
Your argument is not logical. These were professionals in the same sphere:
tech. And one could make the argument that the sample of men was also biased--
towards men who liked tech.

No one claimed this was an iron clad peer reviewed scientific study--and I'd
love to see some done on this in addition to those that already exist. Deborah
Tannen is one of the more well known researchers in this area to uncover
distinct gender patterns in speech that affect performance, for example.

There are now hundreds and hundreds of data points, and anecdotes. At what
point is there enough evidence to convince some people that there IS a
problem, and believe those of us who have experienced this exact phenomenon?

TBH this response is exactly what I thought I'd see on hacker news: attack the
methodology, thus missing the forest for the trees.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
_At what point is there enough evidence to convince some people that there IS
a problem, and believe those of us who have experienced this exact
phenomenon?_

The existence of a problem is virtually undisputed, it's the nature of it that
is debated. In addition, the existence of a problem does not justify
misrepresenting it, even if the intention is to raise awareness.

~~~
conistonwater
> The existence of a problem is virtually undisputed

This thread includes people's opinions that this is not a real effect, and is
instead the result of poor methodology, sampling bias, and whatnot.

It is really not fair to say that the problem's existence is undisputed. There
are plenty of people who dispute it, and that's also a problem.

~~~
hackinthebochs
The question is _the_ problem vs _a_ problem. This research uncovers _a_
problem, it does not explicitly state what _the_ problem is. What problem this
research found is what people are questioning.

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rayiner
I think this is an outgrowth of our general social tendency to judge men by
what they do ("he works at a hedge fund!") and women by what they're like
("she's really sweet!").

I found this paragraph in particular interesting:

> Words like bossy, abrasive, strident, and aggressive are used to describe
> women’s behaviors when they lead . . . . Among these words, only aggressive
> shows up in men’s reviews at all. It shows up three times, twice with an
> exhortation to be more of it.

My current boss told me after I got hired that he liked me at my interview
because I came across as aggressive. It's a personality trait that works great
for men, because we're given a wide latitude between "aggressive behavior" and
"abrasive" behavior. To a certain extent, we correlate a certain level of
aggressiveness, credit-taking, and talking over others with leadership
potential. But it seems for women, such behavior can result in being told:
"Sometimes you need to step back to let others shine."

~~~
bkirkbri
I have a pet theory that the reason that women (as well as non-traditionally-
masculine men) are considered bossy, while other men are considered "go-
getters" is due to a lack of the threat of violence. Not that a type-A guy is
going to assault you if you don't capitulate to their authority. More that
there is a perceived or possible threat.

In contrast to women who would be considered bossy or abrasive because they
don't "back up" their claims to authority. I suppose that there is often a
feeling of resentment that society/culture/custom is taking the place of that
threat.

Again, all supposition and musing on my part. Probably much better articulated
by someone writing on the subject 50 years ago!

~~~
fenomas
I've never heard this but the idea seems compelling!

Another way to describe it might be as a mismatch between the pecking order
according to our simian brains and what's on the org chart. I.e. we don't
resent bossy behavior by someone we perceive as a dominant alpha, but bristle
when it's someone we see as below us in the "pack".

~~~
kngspook
It also seems to tangentially make sense with the bias against "smaller" men
in leadership positions.

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cm2012
Is it possible that professional women are more abrasive than men in
aggregate? I am not saying that is the case, only that it is another
hypothesis from the data. If that was the case and I had to guess a reason, it
would be that groups with more power insecurity tend to overcompensate in
other areas.

Another explanation could be industry. More women work in Fashion and
marketing, which have generally more dramatic environments.

~~~
justinsteele
It's possible, but the likelihood is so low some might wonder why you're
bringing that possibility up rather than discuss the much more likely
alternative and how we can fix it.

Also; "I asked men and women in tech if they would be willing to share their
reviews for a study and didn’t stipulate anything else."

~~~
NotAtWork
Why do you think the likelihood is very small?

Has there been research?

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megaman22
This surprises anyone? I was engaged to a high achieving woman for a period of
time. I loved her, but damn, if I had to work with her, I wouldn't put up with
her personality. Very aggressive, pushy, and intolerant, to my mind. Very
quick to take offense at the slightest provocation, whether offense was
intended, or merely the result of ignorance or incompetence. Then again, I'm a
libertarian-minded introvert, so I basically just want to let other people do
their thing and have them leave me alone...

On the whole, I see the adversarial nature of gender politics that is often
pushed as profoundly dysfunctional. Men and women are not the same. Each
gender is better at some things and worse at others, on average. Men tend to
have more variance, so you see more male geniuses and male idiots (the tails
on the bell-curve are bigger), where women tend to cluster towards the mean
more strongly. If we could just accept this, and spend our time trying to be
happy, rather than demonizing each other, the world would be a better place.

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hownottowrite
I'm not surprised by this, but I am surprised that the author didn't mention
her past research on this topic. Her shock at the "discovery" seems a little
disingenuous.

[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13513](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13513)

~~~
hownottowrite
The down vote is interesting since I actually agree with her primary research.
Women should interrupt more. I've said as much when doing reviews myself.

~~~
waqf
Had I downvoted (I didn't) it would have been because I didn't see any shock
in her article, real or feigned. It was clear that the effect she found was
the one she was looking for.

~~~
hownottowrite
I think it was really this statement which made me crinkle my nose.

"As a woman in tech who has been called all of these things before, there is
some validation in confirming with data that the pattern is real. But as a
leader in tech, I’m aghast at how closely under our noses we let this live."

Her past research would seem to suggest that this finding was all but assured.
But to be fair, that could just be my reading if it. I have a lot of respect
for Kieran's work, so that also has something to do with it.

------
BadassFractal
It's very hard for us to overlook sexual dimorphism in everything we do, and
it's not even clear we should. It's however very trendy nowadays to pretend
that it doesn't exist, probably for political correctness reasons.

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clairity
it's not that women are more aggressive, it's that they're perceived as more
aggressive relative to expectations (by both male & female managers).

also, it's much more acceptable to challenge a woman's authority than it is a
man's. when all you want to do is get things done, this social norm slows you
down. you have to explain, persuade, and butter up your peers more as a woman.
this is just one way that these subtle biases can lead to divergent outcomes
(seeming to be less effective and successful in this case).

~~~
chc
That may be so, but it unfortunately can't be determined from this study.

~~~
melindajb
Let me understand: you think nothing of value can be determined from this
study even though my entire newsfeed on facebook is full of my friends in all
industries sharing it as exactly in line with their experiences?

~~~
NotAtWork
Yes.

You have a sampling bias in the types of people you associate. Facebook
applies a filter to posts which selects for things that are popular with a
wide swath of your friends and which support your political/social views (as
guessed by their profiling tools).

That something blows up with your friends on Facebook is usually a better
indicator that it's polarizing drivel than that it's a well thought out,
impactful study, since that's what the machines (essentially) optimize for.

~~~
melindajb
Polarizing Drivel. Wow. That's pretty harsh.

The author posts the data, then calls for further study. Isn't that the very
basis of science? She admits fully its potential for inaccuracies and wonders
aloud about its flaws. Isn't that what peer review is for? The women in tech
say it feels true, and it matches their experience. So why isn't the Hacker
News Community demanding a peer reviewed study and supporting it, and
financing it? Why does it instead choose to ignore its substance, and tear
down its conclusions based on its already admitted flaws?

Truly, the persistent and relentless attempts on the part of some Hacker News
denizens to discredit any science about bias in technology is disappointing.
Any and all attempts to quantify the problem are met with such resistance that
it belies the community's own assertions about its objectivity.

~~~
NotAtWork
Looking at the data, I don't think the author did anything with it than see
initial numbers matched her feelings, and then called on people to undertake a
massive, actual study because she just know this is it.

I certainly think that there are problems with gender in society in virtually
every place we could examine, and that we have a long way to go before things
are what anyone could call ideal.

I just have trouble with a lot of the statistics used in these discussions,
and find that they're very often 20+ years out of date (ie, from or before
1994-1995), don't control for confounding influences, make misleading
comparisons, etc.

I would take posts like this much more seriously if she posted the dataset,
but I'm not sure how she could do this without revealing personal details or
editing the text (which likely would bias the choice of recipients further, or
could introduce a new bias). I would even settle for the details of how she
did the bucketing, correlations between words and numbers of entries per
person, etc.

The short answer to why I think that this article isn't a real source of data
is that the study in it has about the statistical power of just asking
everyone who's a friend of a friend on Facebook for people with a moderate
number of friends.

Everyone already knows that there's a problem with gender in tech. This
article does nothing about saying where it is and doesn't really contribute
anything to the topic.

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tbrownaw
_The manager’s gender isn’t a factor._

So what's the best way to rearrange corporate structures so that doing well in
business doesn't require traits that don't match our cultural ideal for what
women should be like? Or would changing cultural ideals be easier (maybe find
a way to get hollywood on board)?

I guess I'm assuming here that _" I figured only strong performers would be
willing to share"_ is correct, and selected for mostly people who do behave in
a mostly-ideal fashion for business success.

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kelukelugames
At my previous job, I had both male and female co workers who were bossy and
abrasive.

I don't know if that means I transcended gender or just needed to find a
better place to work.

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belorn
Men and women get different from of criticism. Our current culture is to judge
men by what they do, women by their person. This article simply include an
other example of a rather well established concept.

It would be kind of fun to see what happen if the reviewer intentionally
reversed this and judged women solely from what they accomplish, and men on
their personality with a token "The work ultimately went well". The resulting
culture shock and mixed signals would be an interesting pattern to observe.

An other kind of interesting test would be a dating site that write the
profiles for its clients. If they wrote female profile that only focused on
job, earning, and skills, and a male profiles that only describe the person
personality and looks, would the clients be happy when they got to read their
own profiles?

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Shivetya
I am a bit surprised, the review process I participate in would probably
automatically reject the review; there is a legal check and one other whose
name escapes me done with software that is really restrictive on words you can
use. So I doubt these would arise in any company which has a robust legal
department, you just don't do that anymore especially in writing. Mandatory HR
meetings, too many electronically signed HR type docs, and it all goes the
same way - offend certain groups and your not going to receive any support.

~~~
melindajb
Did you happen to notice the author's full name and workplace? And at startups
where much of the more recent notorious and egregious behavior is happening,
there is no such thing as a legal department, let alone a robust one.

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dang
Url changed from [http://m.fastcompany.com/3034895/strong-female-lead/the-
one-...](http://m.fastcompany.com/3034895/strong-female-lead/the-one-word-men-
never-see-in-their-performance-reviews), which points to this.

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ThoreauAway
i don't find this shocking

