After reading about Googles newfound realization of a huge gender gap within their company as well as other tech companies it raises some questions and thoughts. The article NYTimes: Exposing Hidden Biases at Google to Improve Diversity discussed Googles thoughts and part of its plans for change. Thoughts that come to my head are whether the company really cares, after never even realizing it or at least not caring, the company has obvious discrimination. Another thought is will Google make a drastic effort to fix their gender gap and hire at more of a one to one ratio specifically, turning down males to balance out the gender ratio? Thirdly this article and Googles effort to try and make a change is exciting to see, any change to make things more diverse and equal is a good shift. Unfortunately what this article and the statistics of gender and race diversity within major tech businesses portrays is that even in our most intelligent and forward thinking areas of society there is a clear discrimination which can only display the underlying discrimination across our society.
Google is approaching its gender gap with workshops that are supposed to work with the Google employees to tackle unconscious bias. Once people are more open and accepting they believe that the gap should close and a greater diversity will emerge. The belief is that once people see the hidden discrimination that occurs they will see how prevalent it is and will be able to make a conscious effort to fight these biases. With a 70% male work force Google has a clear gender gap which is not representative of the population at all. Google is approach in this problem due to it being morally right and also because research has shown that more diverse work forces are able to be more creative than homogenous ones. I do not know how Google decides on applications and with its hiring but it is just logical that the work force should be decided upon by their qualifications and the skill they have, I highly doubt that most of the 70% of males at google are really more qualified than the many women not filling these positions. An even greater issue is that men make up 83 percent of its engineering employees and 79 percent of its managers. This statistic shows a clear gap in opportunities and positions given to women at the companies when they're already a minority in the work place. One anecdote of Google was that a panel of men were deciding on the promotion of a women and when they were brought to realize that they might not have the point of view of a woman and they realized how unequal it is to have a group of white men deciding on the fates of women and other minorities. All in all something needs to be done to balance out the numbers in Google and other tech businesses with similar gender and racial gaps because it is plain unfair and wrong to not have equal opportunity and representation. Th fact that Google is trying to make a move is great but the change must be strong and needs to occur everywhere or else nothing will really change and this unconscious discrimination and imbalance is throughout all of society.
I enjoyed reading your article. Like you, I am also for diversity in the the employee workforce. I like that you included facts to support your claim. However, I recommend that you include the data other than Google to lead your argument. You should follow me back also. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteIn your response you provide statistics showing that the vast majority of Google's work force is male. You then state that the gender gap is not representative of the population. I think when analyzing this information, we should take into account what is the gender breakdown of applicants, and then compare that to the gender breakdown of the hired workers. Perhaps, the number of men applying for jobs at Google is substantially larger than the number of female applicants?
ReplyDeleteI love the sentence, "Unfortunately what this article and the statistics of gender and race diversity within major tech businesses portrays is that even in our most intelligent and forward thinking areas of society there is a clear discrimination which can only display the underlying discrimination across our society." It makes such a huge point! Also, I enjoyed reading your response as well and how you used the statistics given by the article. However, it would be nice if you had smaller paragraphs that are easier to scan!
ReplyDeleteYour article is highly descriptive and offers great data and statistics. I really liked how you opened with your thoughts and questions, it really gave me an opportunity to further think about Google's attitude and actions.
ReplyDeleteHowever, you didn't offer any "creative" solutions or further analysis, and it began to sound like a conclusion because you offered so much data.
But in the end, your last ending sentences were great!
I agree with what you stated, it is very similar to what I wrote in my article. Google just stating they're going to make changes, but not doing anything physically definitely does not help the problem. I like how you included specific data from the text and integrated your opinion into that. However, to prove your point even further, it would be beneficial to also include data from other sources.
ReplyDeleteYour post was an eye-opener and brought along some ideas in my mind that I haven't considered yet, such as your statement of there being a clear discrimination that displays the underlying discrimination. It sounded as if you were just about to peak in offering some personal ideas on how Google should try to resolve the issue of unfairness in their hiring process and it would be interesting to hear some of your opinions on that. I could clearly hear your voice on this situation through your diction and insightful information.
ReplyDelete