
I Don’t Want to Hire Women - jseliger
http://clarissasblog.com/2014/05/14/i-dont-want-to-hire-women/
======
ignostic
As a male who manages both men and women, I think the author is guilty of
selective perception and unfounded bias. I have had women on my team cry in
meetings, but I've had men on my team explode in anger. Neither is
appropriate.

Women on my team often want to "gossip," but I've learned to recognize it for
what it is: a (misguided) attempt to build rapport with me. I'm learning to
redirect the conversation to be more positive. The men on my team are more
likely to be jockeying for position, claiming credit for things they had small
roles in, and generally exaggerating the truth. I'm learning to ask follow-up
questions to get them to think twice before making any claims.

Males on my team are just as hard or harder to retain when compared to the
women. I believe they're more likely to leave when they're passed over for a
promotion or raise. Females at my company are perhaps more likely to leave
because they aren't feeling close relationships. Keep in mind that the reason
someone gives you for leaving is not always the real reason. The author
doesn't seem particularly sensitive, so I wouldn't be surprised if she's
getting "reasons" for quitting that are actually just evasions of hard topics.

These are all just my observations and experiences, but I'm sure there are
plenty of studies showing the pros and cons of hiring men and women. Whether
biological or cultural, I'm positive there are both pros and cons to hiring
either gender.

Regardless, you should see my point: it's easy to get a little selective
perception when you notice all the bad things about one gender. The fact that
the author claims to be a woman and a feminist doesn't excuse a thing. That
just means she's a woman and a feminist who stereotypes and wants to
discriminate against women.

~~~
mamoswined
"I have become profoundly tired of being a therapist and a babysitter"

Then don't be one. I'm a female manager and as soon as that shit starts I shut
it down. People only get away with that crap because people tolerate it and I
notice they often tolerate it more with women. I don't. Someone who drains
time with gossip or whining gets fired. Doesn't matter if they are a man or a
woman.

Also notice she talks about a receptionist, not an engineer. I admit I have
struggled finding admin staff like receptionists that aren't drama queens. If
you hired men for those kind of positions they'd be the same– these are lower
status jobs and attract people who can't do well in high-paid higher status
jobs. Since I work with some IT construction I also work with lower-status men
and they are also very hard to manage. They often quit to mooch off of others
or are late to work because of fights with their girlfriends or whatever.

~~~
throwaway516
Throwaway for obvious reasons. Several years ago I managed a team of three
male engineers and one female engineer (who was younger by the men by around
8-10 years) working on a typical software project complete with tight
deadlines and the usual last minute rush. Two days before launch while trying
to diagnose a particularly obscure bug the team digressed from trying to fix
the bug to griping about which framework was used and why it was a bad
decision and how unrealistic the expectations from the client were, etc. As a
developer I can sympathize with this frustration so I let it go on for about
15-20 minutes and then I interrupted the group by saying something like "We
can act like babies and whine and bitch about the things that are beyond our
control or we can accept those facts, put our heads down and push forward like
fucking adults". The language was rough, but I like everyone else had worked
60+ hours that week. The team begrudgingly agreed and after a coffee run went
back to work.

The project launched on time the next day (Friday) and everything seemed fine.
We all went out for lunch, toasted to success and hard work, and then went
home early for the weekend.

On Monday, the female engineer didn't show up for work, no call, no email, and
didn't respond to phone calls. Tuesday and Wednesday the same thing. On
Thursday I received the "hostile work environment" claim stating that I had
singled her out and referred to her specifically as a "bitch" and a "baby" and
my favorite part, that we used sexist names such as "Factory Girl" in our
everyday work environment. On Friday we met with our lawyer who explained that
despite having three other witnesses that would testify that her story is
shenanigans and that FactoryGirl is a commonly used library that we didn't
name, it would be cheaper from a cost perspective and from a PR perspective to
settle out of court.

The settlement cost more than the project brought in.

~~~
mamoswined
And then people get all mad when companies want to record everything their
employees do. Things like this are exactly why.

------
mediaman
I think this anonymous blogger should evaluate her hiring practices.

I have hired many women and men. If anything I have had fewer melodrama issues
with women. The women I have hired are focused, analytical, meticulate and
disciplined. I had exactly one so far leave for "soft" reasons; she wanted to
pursue nonprofit work in a developing country and we remain on good terms.

In a manufacturing environment, I've had far more issues with gossip,
melodrama and feuds with men. As I have brought more women in (not
intentionally, but just because they were good candidates) many of those
issues have disappeared and our production operations have become more upbeat
with fewer personnel issues.

In general, I find a much higher incidence rate of irresponsibility among male
production candidates: outstanding arrest warrants, inability to resolve past
DUI offenses with the courts, domestic violence that spreads into the
workplace, absenteeism, etc. -- all actual issues we have had to deal with.

Obviously not all male candidates are like this, and it would be wrong to draw
the opposite conclusion. It is also fairly easy to weed these people out of
the recruiting process, or, at worst, to part ways with them if we are not
successful in catching it before hiring. But if you find you have hired a
bunch of melodramatic and uncommitted women, you should probably ask yourself
why your hiring processes selected people with those traits (hint: it is not
because of their gender).

~~~
icambron
You have employees with outstanding arrest warrants and domestic violence
issues? It kind of sounds like you also need to reevaluate your hiring
practices...

Edit: I'd like to encourage people responding to this to consider the context:
an article about why someone doesn't want to employ a certain category of
people, and a response to that article about how there's lots of value to be
found in that category, if only the author had better hiring practices. E.g.
"somebody's gotta hire them" would apply equally to the article's female
employees, and thus is _also a criticism of hiring practices that exclude
those "problem" people_, which presumably includes the parent. IOW, the
premise here is that you want to hire people maximally useful to your
business. Maybe you don't think that's should be the point, but then you're
having a different discussion.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Manufacturing is like that. I've bailed my guys out of jail (enough to get a
quickie card from the bondsman), separated fights, etc. It goes with the
territory.

~~~
dclowd9901
If this is the case, then this is hardly a fair comparison. Reason 1 being
women in manufacturing are typically in office jobs and Reason 2 being that,
compared to the kinds of men who typically work the floor, just about _anyone_
will look reasonable who works in the office, man or woman.

~~~
DanBC
> Reason 1 being women in manufacturing are typically in office jobs

"Nimble fingers" was one sexist reason to employ women, at lower pay rates,
than men in many industries including auto seat making (because of the sewing)
and electronic assembly (because of all those fiddly little components).

There are, and have been since the industrial revolution, very many women
involved in manufacturing and industry on the shop floor.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
This is still true in developing countries. e.g. FoxConn prefers women over
men for assembly, but these days they can't be so picky. Most of those died in
the recent Bangladesh factory tragedy were women.

------
vijayboyapati
She writes: "I am also yet to have a single male employee come to my office to
give me dirt on a co-worker or share an awkward gossip-like story. My female
employees though? Every. single. one."

The Economist had an article which tangentially comports with her comment
above:

[http://www.economist.com/node/21551535](http://www.economist.com/node/21551535)

~~~
zenbowman
That is a fascinating study. It's definitely true that at both companies I've
worked at, HR has been totally dominated by women.

So if it is true that women are discriminated against in the tech industry,
why is that so, given that most people involved in the hiring process are also
women?

The fact that attractive women are more discriminated against than plain ones
is something that never occurred to me, I always believed it was the other way
round. And I never considered that attractive men were treated more favorably.
I think at the very least the study shows that discrimination is very hard to
root out, and simply hiring along certain quotas doesn't really solve the
problem at all.

~~~
zo1
I have absolutely no idea why you're being down modded. But it sounds like
you've struck an uncomfortable observation, and people don't like it.

~~~
zenbowman
I don't think I've said anything remotely offensive, I'm not suggesting that
women are not discriminated against, I'm just saying that discrimination is
not a simple issue as many people claim.

~~~
zo1
Well, you did also point out that HR is dominated by women. So that means that
the hiring process is also dominated by women in quite a few workplaces.
Combine that with the observations from the study, and all of a sudden we're
put in the uncomfortable situation of explaining the apparently incongruent
end-results of hiring processes favoring less-attractive women which doesn't
fit the currently "accepted" paradigm of "men are sexist against women in the
workplace".

And you're completely right, the issue is not simple in any way. We're stuck
making half-observations, trying to make connections between disparate points,
etc. But what that tells me is that we're dealing with a very vague, soft, and
ultimately subjective issue. Which people are trying to measure using
quantitative, hard measurements.

------
KerrickStaley
> I get extremely angry when I come across articles that insist there are
> gender differences that extend beyond physiology.

This is backwards. There are certainly psychological differences between men
and women (see e.g. [1]).

However, assuming that statistical averages determine individual
characteristics is also wrong. People are _highly_ varied, and an individual's
difference from the mean often dwarfs the mean difference between two
populations (e.g. men/women). Add to this the fact that people are self-
conscious and can change their innate behavior. Sex is a very poor predictor
of an individual's psychological traits.

[1] [http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-
technology/2159115...](http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-
technology/21591157-new-technique-has-drawn-wiring-diagrams-brains-two-sexes)

~~~
zo1
Looks like she's got an axe to grind, and doesn't like getting side-tracked by
the topic you mention. As evidenced by her rant about it, and her comment-
deletions.

------
jqm
"I welcome your comments, as I secretly continue placing the resumes of female
applicants into the “call later” folder."

Not a lawyer, but I'm not sure this is a good idea for an employer to put in
writing.

~~~
facorreia
It's anonymous:

> The post was written by a guest blogger but the veracity of every aspect of
> the story has been verified by Blogger Clarissa.

~~~
dspillett
I wouldn't condone hacking of the sort per se, but if were someone were to get
into the relevant records and name & shame the anonymous author I would not
feel any measure of sympathy for them.

~~~
paulhauggis
what? really? I feel like we aren't allowed to have the freedom of speech
anymore.

It's A-OK to completely destroy lives and careers through shaming. It's a
method of silencing the opposition for having an opinion you don't like. This
is evil.

This women is just making an observation from her own experiences..and somehow
it's wrong.

~~~
gms7777
Well, we need to separate the two acts:

1.) Sharing an opinion and anecdotal experience on a blog

2.) Disclosing that you're participating in an illegal activity
(discriminatory hiring practices)

Should she be doxxed and publically shamed for sharing her opinon? Of course
not. But should the hiring practices of her company be looked into? Well,
thats certainly a much more fuzzy area, because it is no longer a victimless
act.

------
soneca
Sounds a lot of bad luck (or bad hiring skills) that every single woman she
hired was a failure. But every communication issue has two sides. I am pretty
sure she reinforced - even if unwillingly - this behavior after reading this:

" _I have developed a different approach for offering constructive criticism
to male and female employees. When I have something to say to one of the men,
I just say it! I don’t think it through – I simply spit it out, we have a
brief discussion and we move on. They even frequently thank me for the
feedback! Not so fast with my female staff. I plan, I prepare, I think, I run
it through my business partner and then I think again. I start with a lot of
positive feedback before I feel that I have cushioned my one small negative
comment sufficiently, yet it is rarely enough. We talk forever, dissect every
little piece of it, and then come back to the topic time and time again in the
future. And I also have to confirm that I still like them – again and again,
and again._ "

When you put so much effort on something that is not the focus, that thing
becomes the focus. If a woman cries after a reasonable feedback and you spend
a lot of time trying to justify and compensate on that crying, the crying
become justified. So you just reiforced the behavior. But if you are sure your
feedback was a fair one; just let it go. Let her cry on her own, without
giving much attention to it. She will stop crying sometime, think about things
more rationally and the next time she will take feedback differently.

I think the case is just that women express themselves different from men.
Women cry at the spot and go emotional. Men keep the things for themselves and
talk trash about you later on the bar. If you, as a boss, could listen to the
men employees and tried to get some confrontation about the trash talk men do,
this would reinforce the trash talking and a lot of new issues would appear on
the professional realtionship.

It is just bad luck in this particular scenario that women express their
emotion more strongly and vocational; so I think some conscious actions must
have being taken so this particular behavior doesn't extrapolate in more
serious issues.

~~~
watwut
"We talk forever, dissect every little piece of it, and then come back to the
topic time and time again in the future. And I also have to confirm that I
still like them – again and again, and again."

Maybe she should not talk forever, dissect every piece of it and then accept
the same discussion again. If the problem is emotional unsuitability, this
makes it worst.

Maybe she should cut analysis with something like this: "Dont worry about it,
everybody makes mistakes. Just do not repeat the same one again." Or something
similar. The point is to make them feel less insecure. Cushioning never works
with intelligent people, putting past into past can.

~~~
Entrepreneur-
You make interesting points. I am definitely open to reviewing my own
communication style and how it may be affecting the outcome. That being said,
does the problem lie fully with me or is this a trend other people are
experiencing also?

------
chrisBob
Everyone is giving this woman a hard time, but I have heard my wife say
something similar. I think a large part of what the (presumably male) posters
here are missing is how differently women interact with other women.

------
kstop
In a decade of managing teams on and off, I have had more melodrama from male
staff members than female. The major flameouts and freak-outs have all come
from men. Given that I never got to 50% parity and we're talking less than 50
hires overall it would be a mistake to draw any major inferences from my
experience, but the same is probably true of hers.

That said, different people need different management styles. But IMO this is
mostly cultural, not gender-based. It happens that in Western culture there
are gender behavioral norms that you have to allow for. This is something you
just have to get over, because a) nowadays you'll never get away with only
hiring people just like you and b) the benefits of hiring people from
different backgrounds far outweigh the hassle of having to display some
sensitivity and treat your reports as individuals.

------
keithpeter
_"...we were two women, both mothers with very small children, opening a
company in a very competitive industry."_

I'm a teacher in adult education in the UK. The students, mostly but not all
women, with lots of children/parents and other care responsibilities are, in
my experience, the ones who hand work in on time and who really focus in
lessons. They have so little time that they have to plan things carefully.

The younger students, mostly chaps, who have no responsibilities take the most
management. "Go figure" as I think the Americans say.

Seriously: good luck to Clarissa but she would need a _really good_ HR lawyer
in the UK.

Edit: Just bought a copy of 'River of Shadows' as I'm into Muybridge. I could
not give a kipper's dick about how the book's author behaved at a cocktail
party (having never attended one), I'm interested in the _content_ , you know,
what she _has to say_ on the subject. Good blog. Makes you think. Argue even.
On my list.

[http://clarissasblog.com/2014/05/15/feminism-
triviality/](http://clarissasblog.com/2014/05/15/feminism-triviality/)

~~~
chillingeffect
Yes, an excellent blog entry. Here's my fave part

"People’s Clothes Hurt Me"

> "It felt as though that shirt was trying to single-handedly put me in my
> place—a distinctly inferior and foreign place.”

~~~
keithpeter
"mind narrower than his trousers" is where I'm putting the shirt-wearer ("does
his Mum know he is out") but then...

------
steven777400
Of the issues she describes, I have seen them in men as well. I have male
friends who have quit with nothing in particular lined up next. I have a male
coworker who cried in a meeting, and went to his manager to demand that I
apologize for offending him and making him cry. Dirt and gossip? I get just as
much from male coworkers as female.

I don't mean to undermine or invalidate her experience, but I feel that the
sample is too small. At least, my experience is not consistent with hers.

------
timdierks
Note that this is an anonymous "guest post"—I thought for a while that it was
an account by the blog author.

~~~
rcthompson
Yeah, that disclaimer really should have appeared at the top of the article.

------
eduardordm
Except for me and my partner (founders, CTO and CEO respectively) all our
directors are women. Females represent more than 60% of our company. We never
had any of such events happening in the workplace. Immaturity is asexual.

This situation happened months ago in my company:

One female intern came to me, she was almost crying, telling she wanted to
quit. She was about to tell me what happened but I only wanted to hear her
only after she was a bit calmer. I told her to take the day off, since she had
a son, she could use the day to do something more fun. At this point I thought
that maybe it was some sort of problem with a phone call. She worked primarily
answering calls and giving initial support to users.

After a quick investigation: some employees had a whatsapp group for sharing
reddit links, gossip. She asked for an invite and was in the group only as a
reader, months later she never reads the group messages and didn't realize the
group now became a porn-heaven. Three engineers forgot that she was there made
some vulgar comments about her, she discovered. After she confronted them they
did some nasty sexual comments about her being in a porn-only whatsapp group.

The three nasty commentators were fired on the spot. Engineers often think
code and their github account the is exclusive reason I'm hiring them. They
argued about how that was their private, personal activity outside office
hours, digging their hole deeper.

After firing them I had a private talk with every engineer and explained what
happened and talked about the event. The reason I did this was to find another
employees with the same mindset as the ones who were fired, and I did. They
were fired weeks after.

One of the three nasty engineers was a woman, when confronted it was clear to
me that she was either a sexist or some sort of misogynist.

~~~
krainboltgreene
Damn that sounds like a textbook solution to a serious problem. Kudos on being
that strategic and methodical about removing the real problems.

------
wcfields
Wtf kind of 1950's world is this person living in? It sounds much less a woman
problem than a personal problem that this person is having.

Our company is probably 60w/40m and the dev/tech teams are at 36% women and I
can't imagine ANY of this happening.

------
mingabunga
I have a female friend who owns several womens fashion retail stores and so
hires all females. She always asks in a job interview what they do in their
spare time, if they answer that they hang out with their girlfriends all the
time, doing girly stuff etc then they don't get hired because they end up
causing bitchy problems in the workplace. If they answer that they hang out
with a mix with guys quite a lot, they're never a problem in the workplace.
It's worked for her for many years.

------
johngalt
I wonder if the author is judging other women for not making the proper
feminist choices 'mooching off a boyfriend' etc... Putting a magnifying glass
on other women while not even noticing a male who quit to pursue a video game
addiction. Someone cried in a meeting. So what? Who yells and pounds tables in
a meeting? Why don't we just cover all the stereotypes about gender? Even if
everything this author says were true, it doesn't excuse prejudging
_individuals_ based on their gender.

There aren't enough skilled people in the world. Don't cut the number
available to you in half.

------
gravity13
There's just as many idiot men as there are idiot women in the world.

The issue stems from the fact that every time there's an idiot man nobody
looks at him and says, "look, you're confirming a cultural stereotype!"

------
srdev
I can't say I've ever seen these problems with women at my work. I wonder if
these issues stem from larger problems in the workplace.

For example, if there was subtle sexism resulting in devaluing the women's
work, I could see why they would be seeking positive reinforcement from their
female manager.

------
stcredzero
_“Wait”, I said, “So, I did thank you then?” – “Yes! But you did not elaborate
on what exactly you liked about them! Why didn’t you?” She had bought them
with the company credit card and I actually did not like them at all, but I
digress._

This is a startup? Why not just say: Actually, I don't like those. Also, why
not just tell employees that you're not one for gossip? Did the author
understand direct communications? How good was she at cementing close
relationships with coworkers?

~~~
pessimizer
>Also, why not just tell employees that you're not one for gossip?

People have different definitions of gossip, the most common one being:
'something that other people do that's not as smart or interesting as what I'm
doing right now.'

~~~
nsomaru
ossreality: your account is hellbanned. I'm not sure how informing you of such
things flies on HN anymore, but to see so much wasted time is saddening to me.

------
xarien
Disclosure: MBTI has tons of issues and it's certainly not the end all for
evaluations. There's a reason why HR folks aren't allowed to use it in most
firms when recruiting. However, with that said, I think it's quite applicable
in this case.

MBTI; NT vs SF. Find women that fall into the NT category and your problem is
solved. This isn't an issue with gender as it is with certain individuals.
Although looking at the numbers, you will encounter more women falling into SF
and more men falling under NT. But, let me throw this out there, don't miss
the chance to hire some great women simply because you've encountered some bad
apples. You should simply tailor the initial screening phase to catch some of
these unwanted behaviors. Additionally, you can employ the try before you buy
option and remove bad apples within the first 90 days before they rot the
tree.

~~~
bdisraeli
MBTI doesn't have tons of issues. It's entirely unscientific.[1]

[1]
[http://www.indiana.edu/~jobtalk/HRMWebsite/hrm/articles/deve...](http://www.indiana.edu/~jobtalk/HRMWebsite/hrm/articles/develop/mbti.pdf)

------
zachlipton
Right, because no men ever behave badly in the workplace?

Sure, there are stereotypical ways in which a small number of people from each
gender behave like assholes and create toxic work environments. The solution
is to not hire jerks and to get rid of them if you've made a mistake, not
blame all ones ills on a particular group of people.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Man behaves badly "he is an ambitious d __k. "

Woman, "she is a b __ch, " maybe if we insert words such as perfectionist,
ambitious, meticulous, etc.. before the b word it may be different.

------
devnonymous
I read the article and AFAICT, the basic problem is right there in there in
the first paragraph:

    
    
      > I get extremely angry when I come across articles that insist there are
      > gender differences that extend beyond physiology.
    

That's just ridiculous and ignorant. Of course there are differences between
men and women that extend beyond physiology !! [1]

Reading the comments and the replies, the author seems to deny this fact and
wants everyone to be behaviourally uniform.

On the one hand she is applying broad strokes and describing her own
experiences with her male Vs female employees but on the other she wants to
deny that some of these differences exist and can be explained 'beyond
physiology'.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_humans#Psych...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_humans#Psychology)

------
Consultant32452
I read through a bunch of the comments and it seems like the author was a
victim of her own attitude. She talks about how she intended to employ and
empower women in her workplace. It sounds like she might have started with a
pro-woman bias but it had the negative side effect of creating a more "casual"
environment with the women than the men. The men continued to interact with
her professionally but the women interacted more casually and therefore took
feedback more personally.

I've personally worked in a number of professional environments with men and
women and never seen this from any woman that had any sort of professional
job. I have seen it among low paid wage jobs, but no more often than the
violent or other harassing outbursts from men in those types of jobs.

------
dclowd9901
I don't think there's enough information here to make any judgments one way or
another. I find non-professional behavior has far more to do with the position
held than the sex of the person inhabiting it. I have a hard time imagining a
female VP, for instance, behaving so unprofessionally. Conversely, it wouldn't
surprise me to see a sales guy acting like a jackass. It's rather more likely
that one's professionalism stems from 1) the professionalism that's expected
from someone in their position and 2) the effort the individual has gone
through to reach their position.

------
rokhayakebe
Maybe women are too sensitive. Tell a girl at work her hairstyle does not look
nice after she asks you, and she is mad at you.

Maybe men are too sensitive. Tell a guy at a sports bar his team sucks and
they should be put out of the league, and you are lucky if he does not punch
you.

So someone can write a post about women gossiping at work and how that creates
all sorts of tension. And someone can write a post about how their boyfriend
is so sensitive about his app that telling him the truth and saying it's kind
of crappy will probably end up in break up.

Who is more sensitive? I have my opinion, but maybe all of this is a matter of
perspective?

~~~
Atheros
The man in your example is more sensitive and should be fired and then jailed
for assault. It's not ambiguous.

------
watwut
Women she employs are entirely different then all women I ever met.

I have never seen a women cry on meeting. I never knew any women that would
"stay home to “figure out what to do next”". On the other hand, I have seen
men leaving jobs without having another one lined up. I'm not sure whether she
sees significant difference between the two or why she would care what
employee is going to do.

I find it fascinating that she hires outstanding women and somehow ends up
with selection of worst possible personalities. All of them are so super
sensitive, that she can not communicate with them without extensive
preparation. Maybe, just maybe her criteria for "educated, intelligent and
highly articulate" actually select emotional and manipulative people?

It might be just my bias, but I suspect the "highly articulate" criteria.
Highly articulate is advantage in some jobs (sales), but irrelevant in jobs
like receptionist. Maybe she should look for "educated, intelligent,
communicates as adult and in control of emotions" instead. She will get more
introverts and less drama.

I also met women managers they managed not to become therapists for underlying
- not even for needy employees. So, I suspect there is something in her
behavior that encourages them to come into her office again and again.

~~~
Entrepreneur-
Most of my direct reports are indeed in sales; exceptional communication
skills are an essential requirement for everyone on the team, including the
receptionist, as there is a very high volume of people coming into our office
on a daily basis. I do find the last paragraph in your comment quite valid!

------
apta
> People in the past 2 hours I have had to Spam 63 comments from losers who
> tried to inform me that “men and women are psychologically / emotionally,
> etc. different.” Once again, anybody who embarrasses him or herself by
> chirping idiotically “yes, men and women are different” will be banned
> outright.

"losers"? "embarrasses him or herself"? Yes, men and women are different,
what's wrong with saying that?

------
smrtinsert
It sounds like women just hate working for "Enterpreneur".

------
devnonymous
Heh, what I find mildly amusing is the fact that in writing the blog post and
replying the comments the author is just reinforcing the very stereotype that
leads her to conclude that women are not worth the risk of hiring.

She is indulging the same type of drama she alleges is the cause of forming
her opinion !!

------
smtddr
Well... this doesn't match 95% of my experience. I've worked with several
ladies _(especially in my current gig)_ but only back in at&t do I vividly
recall 3 very gossip-driven, melodramatic women. This was out from an org with
like 40+ women in it. But those 3... those 3.... sheesh, you could see 'em
coming a mile away. They just had issues in general and happened to be
females. _(sidenote: if any of you are reading this, you know who you are. The
whole department knew who you were)_

I've worked with more unpleasant men than women, but this tech so there's just
more men than women in general. Yeah... I don't know where I'm going with this
other than this blogger's experience is not an accurate representation of the
employee-pool at large.

------
josephschmoe
There could be some bias coming from the career paths these individuals are
coming from. We can't know because she doesn't elaborate on her industry, but
here's an example which would produce this kind of bias naturally:

If she employs engineers (or some other equivalent), there's a good chance
they will provide little issues as they tend to be better-educated and more
stable than average. They are also predominately male.

Other office jobs are a mixed bag and tend to employ average individuals, with
a variety of education levels and backgrounds. This is often 50/50 or
sometimes predominately female, such as in HR.

In that case, it would be more accurately comparing average vs. unusually
well-educated individuals. Gender would only be proportional to this because
of her specific business case.

------
orionblastar
I worked with both men and women.

Some women are really good at their job, really professional.

Other women are not good at their job and unprofessional.

It is the later that are being talked about here. The ones that paint their
nails at work and then refuse to do any work until they dry. The ones that
gossip and lie about other people to stir up trouble. The ones that refuse to
do work and avoid doing work by reading romance novels, watering plants,
making coffee, bringing in food, walking around with a clipboard and not doing
anything, and wasting as much time as they can just to get that paycheck.

Some men waste time as well as do some of the things some women do to be
honest.

------
malandrew
I can't find the links now (signal to noise ratio is low given the search
terms I tried), but I've heard on numerous occasions that there are a few
landmark studies where men were given estradiol and other estrogens and that
resulted in behavior changes that ape the behavior patterns that most
frustrate the author of this essay.

Can anyone here point me to the experimental studies exploring the
administration of sex hormone to the opposite gender and its effect on
behavior? I've never read them myself and was curious as to their validity and
the strength of the results.

------
sequoia
Blog editor comment on TFA, referring to the post author ("Entrepreneur"): _"
In the spirit of full disclosure, Entrepreneur has been known to come to
social gatherings with a list of controversial topics for the group to discuss
so that the party wouldn't be boring."_

It's worth noting that the Entrepreneur's friend feels the need to point out
that she has a reputation of stirring up/manufacturing controversy. In light
of this, the post makes a lot more sense: i.e. 'I'm saying something
controversial to stir the pot.'

------
digita88
In most of my work environments, I've worked with a lot of females and I have
to admit that some of the work behaviours outlined are behaviours that annoy
me and actually drive me to move companies (citing it as a part of 'work
culture'). HOWEVER I don't attribute this to a single sex because I can also
see it in the males. Same goes regardless of race and age.

However I do believe that your gender does play a role in the workplace,
whether you would like it or not. The only thing is that personality trumps
gender stereotypes.

------
mblack68
I am very disappointed that one of my "own kind" is disparaging women. If
that's what females in this field encounter, no wonder there are so few. My
deep disappointment cannot be expressed in words right now. Hiring is hard to
get right, period. Why are we worrying about gender traits--this article is
generalizing to the point of absurdity.

I feel motivated at this point, to change my name to a gender neutral one for
hiring purposes.

When people see articles like this, it is affirming, and others will follow
silently.

------
BESebastian
> a feminist, ... I don’t just stand for equality – I have crashed the glass
> ceiling in every aspect of my life.

> As a feminist ...

> ... which is why I have decided not to hire women altogether.

Something doesn't add up here!

~~~
sp332
If women acted like men do, she would hire them. So it's _kind of_ pro-
equality.

~~~
zachlipton
???

~~~
sp332
Well she's not inherently against women, or pro-men. But of course men (on
average) have an advantage in acting like her ideal person, since it's closer
to typical male behavior. So it's still not really equal.

------
arbutus
Anyone who was ever a teenaged girl at any point in their life can confirm
that the people who complain the most about drama are generally the people who
create the most drama.

------
dcre
For once I'm satisfied with HN's reaction.

~~~
tptacek
Same!

------
GUNHED_158
This is the essence : "It is not men who sabotage women and stump their career
growth – it is women themselves!"

------
breadbox
This is all I can think of: [http://xkcd.com/385/](http://xkcd.com/385/)

------
epx
Indeed sounds a lot like bad luck. I have been working with women, as
subordinates, and superiors, and it is perfect.

------
swayvil
The view that our gender (glands, various gender-related cues, etc) influences
our mind and behavior seems to be surreally unpopular these days. Many well
worded essays on such in the comments.

------
briancaw2
The problem here is that she is holding one group's (Women's) behavior to the
standard of a workplace created by another group (Men).

------
littlemerman
I completely disagree with the presumptions of this article. Hopefully not too
many employers feel this way.

------
ripb
How is this HN appropriate content?

If I could flag this, I would. This is an anonymous post on a completely
irrelevant blog that has nothing to do with the world HN surrounds.

Is it too much to ask that Reddit/Tumblr-esque gender wars not be dragged into
every online discussion forum available?

From the guidelines: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find
interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to
reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's
intellectual curiosity."

Just look at the quality of the discussion this has spawned - pure and utter
trash.

~~~
SolarNet
I'm on the fence, but to play devil's advocate:

This is about start ups, it's about hiring and managing different genders,
I've seen many great links posted which may help managers in start ups deal
with gender issues. I've seen great anecdotal stories about managing different
genders. Honestly I've seen very little gender flame war, perhaps because the
original article was written by a woman.

~~~
ripb
Well, how do we know it was written by a woman? The post has about as much
credibility as an anonymous rant written on a Tumblr blog.

It is an anonymous, anecdotal, generalised rant and little more and this type
of content, as can be witnessed on a plethora of other popular online fora,
tend to lead to the same things repeatedly:

\- People charging in to furiously counter the generalisation with other
shallow personal anecdotes - "Well I have seen men/women do x,y,z!", "In my
experience men/women are even worse than men/women at x,y,z!"

\- People charging in with the "not all men/women" argument

\- People charging in to back the generalisation up and commit a rant of their
own on men/women

\- etc.

But the resounding repeated behaviour is people charging in, emotions on high,
to exclaim shallow, generalised and anecdotal stories of their own. Mainly not
to discuss the matter, but to push their agenda in the matter.

This drives the signal:noise ratio in the wrong direction and, if tolerated,
degrades the forum as a whole.

I'm not saying that there isn't space for such discussions, but this is not
the format for such discussion and only bad can come of it. If anything,
mainstream fora have proven to be completely incapable of having rational
discussions on gender issues - the more mainstream the less capable (see
Reddit.com for example) - and HN is becoming more mainstream as people flood
from such sites due to said degradation of the content there.

------
sergiotapia
Can confirm, I've worked in a workplace where it was about 6 men and 48 women
(no lie).

The gossip dear lord the gossip and cliques that were formed. The cattiness
among each other, the talking behind each others back - it felt like high
school on TV.

The guys were 4 on tech team and 2 on management.

The rest were sales girls, making calls to close sales in the higher-education
sector. (Think e-learning master degrees). Never worked in a place with that
many women so I don't have any other measuring stick, but yeesh did that leave
me with weird memories.

------
michaelochurch
_It is not men who sabotage women and stump their career growth – it is women
themselves!_

I wonder if she is (subconsciously?) part of the problem. Now, I'm not saying
that she overtly engages in that sort of passive-aggressive, competitive
behavior (stereotypically female, but characteristic of the sexes about
equally, if not more often by men, in the office context) against them... but
it could be that she carries a subconscious bias that leads her to hire a
different and possibly lower quality of women than the men she brings on.

If it seems far-fetched, consider the casual misogyny of a high school or
college campus, and the vicious cycle it creates for young men. We're not
talking about a raving woman-hater. We're talking about the average-case
college male who thinks women are irrational, flighty, and manipulative. He's
actually right-- about most of the women he pays attention to. That's the
misogyny loop: guys who think ill of "women" tend to hang around low-quality
women (high-quality women just avoid them) and end up confirming their own
biases ("misogyny loop"). If he stopped focusing on the bubbly/popular girls
with broken personalities (who get away with it, because everyone wants them)
and took a representative sample, he'd realize that women aren't any worse or
better than men. Of course, such guys are usually blind to their own broken
personalities.

See, I've never seen these patterns she's described. I've worked with a lot of
horrible people and only one of my top 10 is female... and, to her credit, she
was pretty "active-aggressive" in her toxicity.

I know that these behaviors exist in workplaces, but I don't think they're
especially gendered. Passive-aggressive, gossiping men are out there as well.

~~~
Dewie
> If it seems far-fetched, consider the casual misogyny of a high school or
> college campus, and the vicious cycle it creates for young men. We're not
> talking about a raving woman-hater. We're talking about the average-case
> college male who thinks women are irrational, flighty, and manipulative.

What makes this an objective observation about men in college, as opposed to
the selection bias that you think that these men (however many of them) have
and the author of this article?

~~~
stcredzero
_What makes this an objective observation about men in college, as opposed to
the selection bias..._

Are you assuming that he is making this observation in comparison to college
women?

I think the observation has to do with _who holds the preponderance of power_.
In the artificial age-segregated school environments we've created, young,
inexperienced people dealing with the full flush of their hormones and newly
matured bodies create their own "Lord of the Flies" society, largely free of
the influence of older, wiser people. Natural human instincts create
concentrations of power in a minority of popular individuals, and this power
corrupts.

This is quite unfortunate, as young people in school are still forming their
models of the world.

~~~
Dewie
> Are you assuming that he is making this observation in comparison to college
> women?

I don't really care. Whether he thinks that college women are misogynist, or
misandrist, or whatever is supposed to be the comparison; 'most college men
are misogynistic' is a pretty stones-in-glasshouses thing to utter after
having complained about other peoples broad generalizations being a result of
selection bias. It's fine if it is backed up, but without substantiating it,
why would I readily assume that this kind of judgement comes from kind of
reasoned perspective, instead of just hanging out with the "wrong" people
(which was what Michael originally claimed the author was doing)?

> I think the observation has to do with who holds the preponderance of power.
> In the artificial age-segregated school environments we've created, young,
> inexperienced people dealing with the full flush of their hormones and newly
> matured bodies create their own "Lord of the Flies" society, largely free of
> the influence of older, wiser people. Natural human instincts create
> concentrations of power in a minority of popular individuals, and this power
> corrupts.

> This is quite unfortunate, as young people in school are still forming their
> models of the world.

I was talking about men in college. People in university (Masters or lower)
are in the age range 19-26, at least in my experience. Even if they are
immature, which I won't comment on, there really isn't much of a breeding
ground for this kind of environment where I go to school; everyone is
responsible for handing in some compulsory assignments and showing up for the
exams. How they go about doing this, is up to them. Unlike in high school,
people aren't confined to hanging out at the same place from 8000-1500 (again;
just my experience), and if some person is disagreeing to you, it is
relatively simple to avoid them.

Michael seemed to talk about how these men view women is due to who they hang
out with. And certainly, at a decent sized university, you're not strictly
confined to whoever happens to take the same classes that you do.

EDIT: I see that the two O'Church fans have been able to get their jollies by
now.

~~~
nostrademons
I also upvoted you, because I think your observation that there's a bunch of
selection bias in Michael's perspective itself is right-on. However, I also
upvoted Michael himself, because I thought his description of the system
itself was _also_ right-on. People can be aware of how systems work while
still falling victim to those particular dynamics themselves. And on Hacker
News, we try to critique the ideas themselves rather than the people behind
them.

FWIW, in my own personal experience, most of the guys I went to college with
were not misogynists. Most of them actually seemed pretty nerdy, with both men
and women alike enjoying LARPing, duct-tape swordplay, D&D, and board
games...and another group that enjoyed sailing and Kings...and another group
that was all about music and arts...and another group that was all into
technology & philosophy. This is probably a reflection of who I am. There were
one or two people I can think of who _were_ misogynist assholes, but I didn't
really hang out with them much, besides reading about them in the school
newspaper or hearing an exasperated sigh that mentioned them.

I also have not met many truly horrible people in the workforce, so I suspect
that is also selection bias. I'm sure they exist; I just don't work for
companies or teams where they make up a majority, I usually can sense them in
the interview process and steer clear, or quit and find a new job if they
start popping up.

~~~
Dewie
> And on Hacker News, we try to critique the ideas themselves rather than the
> people behind them.

What can I say, character assassination is one of my favorite hobbies.

------
Dewie
It seems that she is swinging from one extreme - from being enthusiastic about
lifting women up and helping them, to actively avoiding them. But maybe a more
balanced approach would yield better results?

Maybe the women just became spoilt by how accommodating she was? She says, for
example, that she has to scrutinize every interaction with her women
employees, for fear of the ensuing drama. Maybe she should just tell them to
get over it? I don't know. But some people will readily bite the hands that
feed them too eagerly.

~~~
orthecreedence
Completely agree. If you treat people like children they will act like
children. To be honest, the author of the post sounds like a somewhat
spineless person who's too afraid of hurting people's feelings to manage
effectively. The women percieve this and react to it, as perhaps the men do as
well by completely ignoring her (not alpha, not a threat, no problems).

You can't tiptoe around people and also lead effectively. Yes, some people
will cry. Some people will have angry outbursts. But you remain calm, let them
cool off a bit, and then move on with life.

------
cbp
Holy shit this site. This crap is getting so much upvotes, the comments in
here make me vomit. Where are the mods? surely they would never allow this
kind of link on this site?

------
fred_durst
_> She had bought them with the company credit card and I actually did not
like them at all, but I digress._

She definitely sounds like someone I wouldn't want to work for. Apparently she
didn't like the flowers "at all"? Who hates flowers? This is probably one of
those cases where the person complaining might want to look inward as a first
step.

EDIT: Oops, it was butterflies. Either way, is a picture of butterflies really
some to not like "at all"? Just sounds bitter and angry to me. And why does
she feel the need to "digress" and let us know that she didn't like them?

~~~
brazzy
The word "flower" does not appear anywhere on the page. The passage you quote
refers to "pictures with butterflies".

------
peterwwillis
INSERT COMMENT GENERALIZING ABOUT ALL MEN OR WOMEN BASED ON SELECT PERSONAL
EXPERIENCE

BACK UP WITH STUDY FROM 1972 LINKING GENDER WITH PREDETERMINED BEHAVIOR

CORRELATE THE TWO

~~~
tptacek
If you had simply not uppercased this comment, it would be snarky but useful.
Instead, it reads like an assault; it's the kind of comment a reader looks at
and knows they can't use as the basis of a civil discussion.

~~~
peterwwillis
Yeah, I figured that after I posted it. Oh well. (I'm used to using all caps
on other mediums when I want to express meta-language/ideas and not natural
speech, but I forgot that anything on HN that doesn't look 'respectable' gets
downvoted quicker than INSERT JOKE NOBODY ON HN WILL LIKE)

~~~
tptacek
It's a guideline on HN. For emphasis, use asterisks, and your text _will be
bolded_.

------
lampe3
click bait...

------
softatlas
Do you folks even know what gossip is?

Small talk !== Gossip. God, it's obnoxious reading like 98% of you.

You think "stuff I'm not interested in" is gossip, which is even worse than
the assumption "Small talk === Gossip".

Look, adding a qualification or narrative component (predicates not strictly
quantifiable over the domain) is a mark of conversation.

BUILDING RAPPORT is NOT GOSSIP.

BUILDING RAPPORT is NOT GOSSIP.

BUILDING RAPPORT is NOT GOSSIP.

BUILDING RAPPORT is NOT GOSSIP.

BUILDING RAPPORT is NOT GOSSIP.

AGAIN:

BUILDING RAPPORT is NOT GOSSIP.

VAGUENESS is not gossip.

It's SYSTEMATIC oppression. A laundry list of "why this, why this" at the end
of a post COMPLETELY FAILS to grok what SYSTEMATIC/STRUCTURAL oppression
MEANS.

Learn how to more categories of conversation. LEARN what speech genres are.
Stop reducing everything to "gossip/actionable". Stop the elimination of human
spontaneity. Stop building the ideal language that the ideal person must
speak.

Stop. STOP.

~~~
tptacek
Please don't use all-caps for emphasis.

Please don't repeat lines several times for emphasis.

Please avoid assessments of the people writing comments (or call them
"obnoxious"); focus instead on the arguments that dismay you.

It's unfortunate because I think there are probably valid points in this
comment, but they've been worded in such a way that even people who disagree
with you will be repelled.

------
arctansusan
This is such a bullshit misogynistic article that hurts women in the work
force and makes sweeping inaccurate generalizations. If the HN staff have any
once of morality and sense of equality, please delete this article from HN now
and ban the author.

~~~
chillingeffect
wow - do you delete your posts shortly after posting them or do you just have
incredible restraint which was suddenly broken by this post?

(bg: this is arctansusan's first post after 399 days. Two more quickly
followed within 10 minutes).

------
mhurron
It's too bad it's anonymous, because it so nice when assholes label themselves
as such.

It never ceases to amaze me how stupid people can be, women do this, ethnic
group a can't do that. We're all human, we're just not that different.

~~~
stcredzero
When prejudice reveals itself, costing you nothing, it's a time to be
thankful. However, the prejudiced shouldn't be vilified as somehow subhuman.
When you do that, you're taking a simple token and using it to lay a reductive
judgment on a complex person. In other words, you are engaging in a form of
prejudice yourself.

Grandparents watching Fox News or saying something racist over Thanksgiving
dinner doesn't make them horrible people or evil. They are a product of their
time, as are you. This doesn't excuse their behavior, but it doesn't by itself
render them subhuman or worthy of hate.

Prejudice is best counteracted by engagement, commerce, and exposure. The
vilification of political enemies in the US was understandable given some of
the truly horrific things done as recently the 20th century. Today's 1st world
should be a different place.

~~~
paulhauggis
I see you only mentioned Fox News. You do know CNN and MSNBC are horribly
biased as well.

~~~
orthecreedence
How does arguing over which news provider is more biased contribute anything
to the argument you're responding to? All news outlets are biased. Fox is
known by many people for taking it to an unrelenting extreme and it's
perfectly acceptable to use them as an example of such without listing ten
more networks.

