
More than 60 women consider suing Google, claiming sexism and a pay gap - dberhane
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/08/google-women-discrimination-class-action-lawsuit
======
trentnix
Here is a clue for everyone: you aren't paid according to the value you bring.

You are either paid according to some pseudo-arbitrary schedule or you are
paid what you can be had for. Unless Google has a secret pay penalty for
females, the problem here is women being willing to work for less. No lawsuit
is needed to correct that.

~~~
thesmallestcat
Quite recently, Google was found guilty of colluding to depress engineer
salaries via "no poaching" agreements. Google doesn't get the "free market"
benefit of the doubt anymore in these matters.

~~~
patrickaljord
"no poaching" is illegal but it doesn't go against free market principles.
It's just companies willingly agreeing not to poach, as long as there is no
coercion, it doesn't go against free market principles. Now, the question of
whether it is unethical or not is a whole other topic. I think that "no
poaching" is not very efficient anyway as it usually happens between incumbent
companies only whose stock isn't growing as much as it used to. There's always
an Uber or a Facebook around to poach your best employees anyway with generous
stock options offers, and they do.

~~~
CaptainZapp

      "no poaching" is illegal but it doesn't go against free market principles.
    

I call bullshit. A no poaching agreement very much resembles a cartel. Same as
companies colluding in order to squeeze the highest possible value out of,
say, tenders for public works.

If poaching agreements are in line with free markets then so are lying,
cheating and violating just about every aspect which is the basis of contract
law.

~~~
patrickaljord
I don't think no-poaching agreements infringe anyone's liberty and it that
sense I don't see how it goes against free market principles. If you sign a
contract with your employee saying you won't do no-poaching then doing so
would be a breach of contract obviously but that would be a specific use-case.
I totally agree that it breaks the laws though as it is illegal in the US. I
was talking about free-market principles and no-poaching doesn't break these
principles.

~~~
nowo
> If you sign a contract with your employee saying you won't do no-poaching
> then doing so would be a breach of contract obviously but that would be a
> specific use-case.

You contract is "employment law" \+ "your contract". I they don't agree with
employment law they have to override it in your contract, in this case with a
non-compete clause. If they don't, you have both agreed to the terms in
"employment law" \+ "your contract".

~~~
patrickaljord
> You contract is "employment law" \+ "your contract"

I don't live in the US so these laws do not apply to me, I was talking about
free market principles in general.

~~~
nowo
As far as I know the concept is the same in every country. I really don't
understand what you are talking about. When you sign a contract you agree to
become an employee under the terms of the contract and employment law. When
they agree to make you an employee they agree to follow employment law. So if
they don't they are effectively breaking the contract. If the don't want that
they have to not sign such an agreement. Which would sometimes be breaking the
law but that is another issue.

------
ebola1717
Every time an article like this pops up, I see the same sort of response. It's
always

\- Women don't negotiate

\- Women get pregnant

\- Women work in lower pay professions

And 90% of the time, the article already accounts for the nuances of those
topics. Not to mention these arguments have been answered thoroughly many
times over, and a cursory google would reveal that. I just wish people would
do some basic research before posting, especially in the light of the Google
memo.

~~~
jorgemf
Even if those facts are true, Google must have programs to make things fair.
For same responsibilities same salary.

You can say women are different than men or say they are exactly equals.
Whatever is your position for the same job you must have the same salary.
There shouldn't be any discussion here.

~~~
throwaway9853
> For same responsibilities same salary. Why is that? If there is someone who
> is willing to take on those responsibilities for less pay, well that's just
> fine for the company and I think that people tend to forget that Google (and
> many other IT companies) is a for-profit company.

For me at least, I've always seen salary negotiations as somewhat of a "right
person at the right moment". If you're very lucky and the company really needs
they will be willing to pay you more than what you would make at a different
company on the same role, maybe more than what others are doing on the same
role, just because you were there, at that time, when they were most in need.
It may not always be like that, but think of it as demand/offer relationship.

So regardless of gender/race it's the need of the company that comes first.
Because as a employee you fulfill a need that the company has and you are
being paid for that.

~~~
jorgemf
Throwaway account created one hour ago?

So you say that some who is starving if Africa we shouldn't care because he
wasn't at the right place at the right moment? If you answer is that it is not
the same case where do you put the line? Because your argument for getting
things is basically luck.

~~~
yellowapple
"Because your argument for getting things is basically luck."

Luck is really what drives a successful career and life:

\- Lucky to have been born in the right place

\- Lucky to have the right skin color

\- Lucky to have the right sex/gender/orientation (and for those to match up
in the "right" way)

\- Lucky to have the right family

\- Lucky to have an outgoing and/or extroverted personality

\- Lucky to have an interest in a skill that's in demand

\- Lucky to be in the workforce during a time when that skill is in demand

\- Lucky to be in a location where that skill is in demand

\- Lucky to have been hired amid the dozens or even hundreds of other
candidates applying for your desired position (this is less of a problem now,
but was a huge problem just a few years ago when labor demand was nowhere
close to being higher than labor supply)

\- Lucky to have been hired by a company that actually wants to give out
raises

\- Lucky to not have been laid off or otherwise terminated for circumstances
beyond your control

The list goes on and on and on. I certainly think we should care about the
implications of personal success and well-being being driven heavily by luck
rather than actual merit. The case where someone is starving in Africa is
indeed a case of "wrong place and/or time", and we as a species really ought
to be cognizant of that and try to work toward "wrong place and/or time" being
less severe of a problem.

~~~
rplst8
I'm not sure what you are arguing in favor of exactly.

Say we do make actual individual merit the only factor in hiring and pay.
Would those "unlucky" enough to have been born a starving child in Africa ever
have a chance at getting a high paying IT job? Likely not, as they won't have
the education or skills needed to do the work.

I'd argue your use of "luck" in all these cases is wrong. It's more like
fortune, and that hiring and pay is tied to both individual merit, and the
merit of your ancestors. And when I say ancestors, this is usually as little
as 2 or 3 generations. A vast majority of those in the US are descendants of a
wave of poor immigrants in the mid and late 19th century. Going back 4 or 5
generations on all sides of my family tree, no wealth of any significance was
transferred down, other than work ethic and usually trying to give offspring
the best chance they can. It was not by any means perfect, but I was the first
in my family to go to college, earn a degree, and be "successful". Note: I'm
defining successful as "more assets than debt". I'm not wealthy by any sense
of the word but I have a stable income and I'm able to save for retirement and
own a home (via mortgage).

If we take that merit out of the equation - what societal pressure or
incentive is there to improve upon oneself, and make a better life for one's
children?

~~~
yellowapple
"I'm not sure what you are arguing in favor of exactly."

I'm not really arguing in favor of anything. Just pointing out that personal
success and well-being is indeed currently driven by luck, regardless of
whether we like it or even realize it. Pretending that the only variable
involved is merit or "hard work" is ignorant of the existence of billions of
perfectly capable and "hard working" people currently unable to achieve such
personal success due to circumstances entirely out of their control.

That problem is currently unsolvable (or at least very difficult to solve, and
with no clear solution). I'm certainly not going to assume that _I_ \- of all
people - have some kind of magical answer there.

It _is_ , however, possible to at least gradually address the problem through
whatever hard work it takes to make the next generation a little luckier:
folks lending their shoulders for their children to stand on, and their
children in turn lending their shoulders to _their_ children, and so on. It
sounds like your own ancestors did precisely that, as did mine. Whether we
call it "luck" or "fortune" is a terminology issue that is irrelevant to the
main point: the playing field is by no means level, and neither of us chose to
be born into our respective families.

~~~
rplst8
> the playing field is by no means level, and neither of us chose to be born
> into our respective families.

Agreed. However our parents did choose to have us, raise us, and give us the
best fighting chance. Ignoring that ignores their hard work and skills to
properly rear children. If in this new system we just give everyone a job and
a good salary "because" then what incentivizes anyone to properly rear their
children or give them anything other than the minimum the State mandates.

I'd argue that the drive to provide a better life for one's offspring is the
fundamental building block of empathy. By society ignoring that capital that
someone's parents built up in their children, you risk a change in behavior
where parents say, "your life will be great because you will have a job and
salary no matter what." Then, the very idea of love and empathy for one's
offspring breaks down, and thereby in society as a whole.

~~~
yellowapple
"However our parents did choose to have us, raise us, and give us the best
fighting chance."

Right, and we were lucky that they did so, which is my point. Plenty of people
weren't so lucky, whether because of a lack of parents (e.g. orphans),
neglectful/abusive parents, etc. Understanding that possibility is essential
to understand why the playing fields aren't level.

"If in this new system"

I'm not proposing any kind of "new system", as I already explained. I'm just
describing the problem.

"By society ignoring that capital"

I'm not calling for society to ignore that capital. If anything, I'm calling
for society to recognize that not everyone has access to that capital by zero
fault of their own and (ideally) to provide an alternative means to acquire
equivalent capital. Folks shouldn't have to be punished for their ancestors'
mistakes (or even non-mistakes).

A lot of this can and should happen through the public education system, but
even that's not a given; even for those who have access to public education
(which is far from 100%), not all public schools are created equal. It - again
- more often than not boils down to luck.

------
_Codemonkeyism
People think everyone is the same when it's their pay, but totally agree on
wide spreads in athletes pay.

------
_Codemonkeyism
How is Google handling pay? Is there a level system with fixed pay levels? Or
can anyone negotiate his salary - in limits - when starting his job?

~~~
Tyr42
Check out the court ruling in the labour vs Google case:

[https://www.oalj.dol.gov/Decisions/ALJ/OFC/2017/OFCCP_-
_SAN_...](https://www.oalj.dol.gov/Decisions/ALJ/OFC/2017/OFCCP_-
_SAN_FRANCISC_v_GOOGLE_INC_2017OFC00004_\(JUL_14_2017\)_195652_CADEC_SD.PDF)

Page 10 has the information:

A “compensation team” sets the salary for each hire. Tr. 165-69. The team has
no direct contact with the applicant and does not have the applicant’s name,
gender, race, or ethnicity. Id. For industry hires, the committee might be
given the applicant’s current compensation but no earlier compensation data.
Tr. 175-77.

For the employees included in the September 2015 “snapshot,” about 20 percent
were campus hires. Tr. 197-98. The only circumstance under which Google might
increase the starting compensation for a campus hire is when the applicant has
a competing offer greater Google’s. Google will not offer a larger salary or
annual bonus plan, but it might offer a larger sign-on bonus or one-time stock
grant. Tr. 207, 210-16, 223. There are no starting pay negotiations, and
Google considers no other factors. Tr. 197-98.

~~~
trobertson
That doesn't pass the smell test. They've been paying huge sums of money for
some people (deep learning, and Levandowski's $100 million). Their process is
far more arbitrary and open to negotiation than that summary claims.

Maybe for little people they have a standard process. But certainly not for
everyone.

------
return0
Google might have set a trap on itself by aggressively pursuing "affirmative"
policies. They are now being sued by both sides.

------
boona
It seems that HN is flagging all articles that mention the Google Memo. Which
speaks to the need to have this conversation even more.

For those who are interested, James has a new interview with psychology
professor Jordan Peterson.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU)

------
boona
It's fascinating that management at google didn't speak to fact that the memo
points to the very real issue in silicon valley that the culture there openly
shames those who are right of center into silence. Discrimination is something
both the left and the right can do, but in the current landscape, the left
seems to get away with it, and are sometimes even praised for it (see virtue
signaling).

This could be a wake up call, and I suspect that secretly it is for many
people.

------
weberc2
I've been a bit of a Google fan for a long time, but I'm also afraid of
leftist authoritarianism, and their handling of the memo had galvanized me
against them. I'm not one for boycotts or overreactions, but the "silencing
cultural dissenters" business is simply the antithesis of liberal values, and
it's especially wrong coming from a company that purports to be a bastion of
freedom and defender of rights. So on the one hand, hang 'em high, but on the
other hand, not for failing to sufficiently toe the party line.

------
legendiriz68
They should be publicly whipped for trying to abuse recent media witch-hunt.

------
josteink
> The document, which was _widely condemned_ as misogynistic and
> scientifically inaccurate

Citation needed? Have The Guardian actually read the memo?

They are re-iterating misconceptions based on Gizmodos original story, where
Gizmodo deliberately gave a misleading report, removed sources and incorrectly
presented an internal memo for internal discussion as an "anti-diversity
manifesto".

Even a cursory glance of the actual memo would have shown that none of these
allegations hold. Less so that they were "widely condemned" by anyone who had
actually _read_ the memo.

I has honestly expected The Guardian to hold higher standards.

~~~
rayiner
I read the whole thing and I think the allegations hold. There is one citation
to a scientific article in the memo:
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x/abstract).
It's a meta analysis that looks at abstract personality traits (agreeableness,
people-orientation) in studies involving socialized adults. The big takeaway
is that these studies show that women are more "agreeable" and "people-
oriented."

Everything after that is handwaving and ipse dixit. Egregiously, the memo
takes it for granted that software is "thing-oriented" rather than "people-
oriented." That defies reality. Software development is far more collaborative
and social than, say, being a historian (a field where women receive 45% of
the PhDs).

The memo also asserts, without proof, that these observed differences are
stable across cultures. That's just false. Take education, for example. In
India, men are overrepresented in teaching (80% of teachers are men).[1] And
gender representation in STEM majors varies dramatically between different
countries. Women are 40% of the STEM workforce in China. Over a third of the
USSR's engineers were women, even in the 1960s.

In short, the reasoning in the article is so flimsy I'd be embarassed to be
that sloppy in an HN post, much less in a company-wide memo. Which brings me
to sexism. I have a hard time believing that anyone smart enough to work at
Google actually finds such sloppy reasoning convincing. Instead, the memo
smacks of the sort of grasping at straws rationalization used to justify
existing prejudices.

[1] The underlying study also makes egregious assumptions about whether
professions are "people oriented" versus "thing oriented." Figure 1 depicts a
people-things axis and an ideas-data axis. It puts "teacher" at the far end of
the "people" axis, and characterizes that as a feminine profession. The study
also characterizes "biologist" on the masculine side of the column, even
though a significant majority of biology majors in the U.S. are women.

~~~
ardit33
all your examples are from repressive regimes (either economically, or
politically). You see very low participation rates on hard STEM among women on
countries where women have both large degree of economic and political
freedom. Basically, when women have choices, they choose against hard STEM. It
is not just the US, but other countries with even better gender relations
(Norwawy, Sweden, Denmark), it seems women just don't want to study computer
science/engineering or physics.

In communist countries people were assigned jobs and often it was not their
choice where they ended up. If the country had X % has to be women, then so be
it. But, we all know his forced centralized planning is a failure on the long
term.

~~~
rayiner
> all your examples are from repressive regimes (either economically, or
> politically).

So socialization doesn't affect peoples' preferences, except in societies
where socialization does affect peoples' preferences. Got it.

> Basically, when women have choices, they choose against hard STEM.

1) This presupposes, without evidence, that girls in the U.S., Denmark, etc.,
aren't socialized differently than boys, even if they are not actively
discriminated against in terms of careers.

2) This uses "hard STEM" as a wiggle word. Under any rational definition, math
is "harder STEM" than computer science. (And frankly, I'd argue that so is
chemistry and biology.) Yet, the representation of women in math and physical
sciences majors is twice as high as in CS: [https://higheredtoday.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/03/nsc-bs-...](https://higheredtoday.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/03/nsc-bs-stem-gender-copy.jpg).

~~~
krotton
May that be because tech is perceived as more competitive or stressful? Lots
of people make fortunes these days doing technology and the pace is
tremendous, unlike in sciences. Anyway, I think the theory that it's probably
just parents telling their girls it's a man's sport most of the time appeals
to me a tiny bit more. I don't however see any reason to straight out presume
biology has no effect whatsoever, it's probably a complex mixture of factors.

------
needlessly2
For Google, the rope was already dosed in kerosene. The guy who wrote the
manifesto just lit the fire.

------
throw2016
This incident confirms tech is indeed a hostile place for women full of
insecure men, who will grasp at anything to retain privilege.

And women should be rightfully wary of all these fragile men who will watch
them like hawks looking for any excuse to confirm their bias.

The kind of comments these threads are full of are a shocking reflection of a
complete lack of understanding of history, sexism, privilege and women.

But the root cause is some people have convinced themselves they are so
'special' and 'superior' only a tiny 'approved' elite can do the jobs they do
and anyone who diminishes this supremacist insecure identity will pay with bad
science.

The irony is all these self appointed 'geniuses' who can 'decide' all by
themselves about their own skill level and 'lowering the bar' do not have
anything remotely approaching science or measure to explain how they came to
this fruity conclusion about themselves and others. This is beyond absurd.

This is out of control self importance and hubris fuelled by SV culture and is
as far away from rational scientific discourse as any self obsessed victimhood
peddling supremacist.

