(TL;DR: I scolded a female employee who caused a serious problem and was told I should have treated her differently because she's a woman having a hard time in a male industry)
This happened in the late 90s but it is still in my mind because I feel like it was a lose - lose situation.
It was in N...
@AakashM I explained that by deliberately ignoring the processes, we had all agreed on, she cost everyone else time while saving hers. And I went on that this wasn't a mistake, a bug, etc but an intentional choice. Her response to this was that she assumed that her code was correct (and all tech people know that we all write buggy code all the time)
@mxyzplk, there was definitely that vibe in the room where we all knew the error was coming from someone there but everybody had genuinely put efforts to find where it came from. Only one didn't speak and this is why all attention went to her, while I was the one conducting the event and had control on how much 'heat' was in that meeting, everyone clearly wanted an answer before leaving the room.
I have always thought there was a saying something like "Praise in public, tell off in private". So that in the meeting while you identified the potential source of errors, telling here she wasted everyones time was the wring time and place to do it. But I have no experience in this, so I'm only leaving it as a comment
@PeterM In retrospect, I could have handled it better: if I had the experience I have today, I could have said that we've identified the issue, close the meeting and then take the discussion elsewhere; but this doesn't address the male/female issue which is at the center of the dilemma where it was suggested that I should have behaved differently specifically because she is a woman
@jo1storm - If the individual was a man, would they become “that boy” who caused everyone additional work? I don’t disagree the raising the issue in public was a problem but not because the individual was female.
Based on your edit, you need to update the question. The question you state is "how should have this been handled?" -- to which the answer is, avoid public criticism, as you yourself mention in the edit. Are you wanting to ask "how to give women in tech criticism?" (A. same as men - be professional, courteous, curious and humble); or "do women have a more difficult time in tech than men?" or are you trying to ask - "between the two ideas you thought of at the time (which you present), which one should you have chosen?"
Or is the question (based on edit) "is criticism harder on women than exactly the same criticism on men"? (Note: I'm sure you could find men who crumble after some criticism, and others that would go out for drinks with you afterwards - though some might plot your demise while doing so...)
I don't think a good manager should ever "scold" someone. Ideally you should be dispassionate about delivering criticism rather than openly hostile. The emotions may cloud your message, also it should be in private.
@Donald rarely, because that's not how sexism works. Man are allowed to make mistakes, women are not, because they're both judged harsher and judged as representatives of their whole gender. We are talking about 90s here! Here's how it works: xkcd.com/385
About that title, just telling you have a dilemma without actually telling anything about that dilemma is quite uninformative, and really clickbaity. I don't think we need clickbait links in the hot network questions list, or on the sites either. Just tell the main point about the issue in the title directly. (I posted an edit suggestion on that, but it might be phrased a bit differently too.)
@ilkkachu the very first line of the post is a TLDR specifically so people don’t have to read the whole thing if they’re not interested.
@MarkRogers you are right, the situation should have been handled better and I was relatively inexperienced at the time and didn’t know better. That being said the core of the question remains male vs. female, regardless of the overall handling
@Thomas I do not see a concrete question being asked. You indicate “As I wrote several times here: the question is about man vs. woman” — this does not add clarity about what specific question you are wanting addressed.
@user76284 Did you not understand what you just posted? It proves my point, not yours. Less women are hired for the position than men, but once they ARE hired they stay in it longer. It has only recently started to change (2008-2010 period) and still not towards the preference but towards equality. This is like 9 out of 10 people were A, 1 B. Now 7 out of 10 people are A and 3 are B. It is 200% increase in B representation! Good job, getting better, but B make 60% of population, so it should be 6 B and 4 A in ideal world.
@jo1storm No, it doesn't. "The underrepresentation of women in academic science is typically attributed, both in scientific literature and in the media, to sexist hiring... Contrary to prevailing assumptions, men and women faculty members from all four fields preferred female applicants 2:1 over identically qualified males with matching lifestyles (single, married, divorced)... Our findings, supported by real-world academic hiring data, suggest advantages for women launching academic science careers."
@user76284 preferred when asked in a questionnaire, but not in practice. And thus we come to my argument of "unconscious misogyny". Or unconscious bias, subconscious preferences or whatever you want to describe it. You should really read your sources more carefully.
@jo1storm "but not in practice" What is your evidence for that claim? abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/… "And thus we come to my argument" That's not an argument. That's your assertion.
Why are you still arguing in the comments? Go to chat I have opened just for you. Btw, you can always find a study to support any assertion you want to make. Did you read the original study or do you like to post news reporting about it? Do you know what the methodology was? What the sample was? They took 2108 heads and deputies of 14 government agencies and told them to deliberate about 16 potential candidates. Here's the original: google.com/…
@user76284 Read above comment. And again, all those 14 GOVERNMENT agencies have it in their hiring protocols to try to hire more diverse candidates and to give more points on certain characteristics. Because, again, there is a looong history of discrimination in hiring in government agencies that had only recently has been started being fixed. "Stabbing someone with a knife, pulling it out a little bit and saying 'Look, it is progress!' " situation that MLK described.
@jo1storm Once again: You've failed to explain how the study I linked to "proves your point" (it doesn't), you've failed to prove your claim that what it describes "doesn't happen in practice" (it does), and you've made yet more unsubstantiated assertions. Meanwhile: replicationindex.com/2017/04/07/…
@user76284 are we going to play this game forever? You find a news article claiming something, I find the original study, I read the original study (you never do), turns out the study claims what I claimed and not what you and the news article claimed. Congrats,one study on small sample of 114 people published in 1995 wasn't replicated in 2017. But it was replicated in 2020! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33074065 And journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/Fulltext/2020/11001/… Why are you not doing your homework but make me do it?
@jo1storm That's not true and you haven't done that for any study I linked to, so why are you lying? "the study claims what I claimed" Explain how the first study I linked to "claims what you claimed" right now or stop lying. See replicationindex.com/2022/02/15/rr22-stereotype-threat. Do you even know what "publication bias" means?
@jo1storm "But it was replicated in 2020!" Do you know what the word "replicated" means? Neither of the two links you posted replicates that study.
@jo1storm "First, the authors administered the quantitative Stereotype Vulnerability Scale (SVS) to fourth-year medical students. The authors then conducted semistructured interviews among a purposive sample of students with high SVS scores, using a qualitative phenomenographic approach to analyze experiences of stereotype threat." Are you sure this is what you meant to post?
@user76284 look at the second link. Also, why is Shimmack's blog quoting himself your only source of truth once you are out of news stories. Why not actually look at direct research papers Schimmack is quoting and research that followed it? This is very odd behavior from you.
You quote Schimmack's blog post from 2017 about a research paper and how it is not replicable, somebody replicates it in 2021 because of that criticism, you quote Schimmack's blog post from 2017 about some other piece of research not being replicable, somebody replicated it in 2020... And in circles we go.
@jo1storm "why is Shimmack's blog quoting himself your only source of truth" It's not. Why are you lying again? I linked directly to studies as well.
"Why not actually look at direct research papers Schimmack is quoting and research that followed it?" That's exactly what I did.
"This is very odd behavior from you." The only one exhibiting odd behavior here is you by repeatedly lying.
"somebody replicates it in 2021" Who?
"somebody replicated it in 2020" Who?
"Are you Ulrich Schimmack?" Of course not. What a bizarre question.
By the way, I'm not going to let you get away with your earlier lie. You claimed that the study stating the following:
"The underrepresentation of women in academic science is typically attributed, both in scientific literature and in the media, to sexist hiring... Contrary to prevailing assumptions, men and women faculty members from all four fields preferred female applicants 2:1 over identically qualified males with matching lifestyles (single, married, divorced)... Our findings, supported by real-world academic hiring data, suggest advantages for women launching academic science careers."
Discussion on question by Thomas: Thi…
Discussion on question by Thomas: Thi…