I believe the world is more biased towards men and against women because women are capable of creating offspring and so if they have children they will have to take breaks periodically to take care of and raise it. Whereas the father won't have to stay at home and is able to go to work. Google and other enormous companies don't have the time for their women employees to take "vacations" in order to nurse their child so they will hire the father, or the man, because he usually does not need to take breaks as extended as a woman's. This doesn't mean that every woman has a baby, but the companies will just assume that because this woman is young and a woman that she will have a baby, but it doesn't apply to everyone.
In the article, it is explaining how Google is trying to create a more diverse community within the company, although they don't have any evidence of them making an effort. The article is focusing on Google specifically choosing the majority of the male gender, but what if the majority gender of employees at Google are males because more men were intrigued by the subject of technology than women. The article doesn't really explain this topic because it is not a major contributor of the bias.
I believe everybody in the world contains bias in them. There will always be bias in the world as long as people have opinions for things. The issue with Google, i'm not sure how they will "solve" their issue of no/low diversity, I believe they will at least improve the diversity, but it might be impossible for Google to be symmetrically diverse between men and women.
I found your explanation for gender bias in the second paragraph quite surprising. I doubt potential for childbirth is often thrown into the mix with gender bias, however after thinking about it, I imagine that it could be one of the many factors that people consider. The only hole I see in the notion is that the "stay-at-home mom" isn't as prevalent as in the past; both men as well as women stay home and take care of children nowadays, therefore the whole "potential for childbirth" argument may very well be taken with a grain of salt in nearly every company looking for workers.
ReplyDeleteGreat point about childbirth. It can't be overlooked as a biasing factor and therefore needs to be taken into the equation of how to create a company culture and climate that supports both genders.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Brenden and Mrs. Mathews. The thought of childbirth and raising a child never even crossed my mind. For example, If a company were hiring a new manager and the applicants were a young female, 6 months pregnant and a young male, the company would probably choose the male because they need the future employee to start working immediately with out them being gone for 3 months, 2 months after being employed. This also opens up the fact that many women may be holding off from having children because they hope to soon get a job and a child may jeopardize that.
ReplyDeleteI found your statement about childbirth was very interesting, but I also agree with Brendan. I researched more about the topic and found that many middle class families require incomes from both parents. Women being the primary earners and "in 2010 the labor force participation rate for mothers of children younger than a year was 56.5 percent. "(http://www.naccrra.org/sites/default/files/default_site_pages/2012/ccgb_mothers_workforce_jan2012.pdf)
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do believe there was a specific time period where childbirth was a form of bias against women. I do not believe it is a cause for the reason women why there are not many women in the workforce today.
I agree with the others who responded to your explanation. Childbirth is a point that others did not discuss in their responses. Although it may not truly be the reason for the unequal genders, it is a possibility. Also your statement that you are unsure of how Google will resolve these issues takes a realist approach on the situation, rather than an overly optimistic approach believing Google will reach a perfect solution of equal gender.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your second to last paragraph about how there might not even be any bias at all. I also agree with Evelyn. To really get to the root of this issue I think we should evaluate who is doing the hiring and what thought is put into each employee. Then we can have a clearer picture as to why men dominate Google.
ReplyDeleteThe subject of childbirth was an interesting one since I have not come across many posts regarding it. It is a simple topic that is overlooked due to people's concern over racial discrimination or statistics of bias. Putting one's self in the place of the company mangers helps towards getting a better understanding of the matter. Do I want a worker who is consistent with his work and has a steady schedule? Or, do I want a worker who may have to change their schedule due to an unpremeditated cause, thereby affecting my company's efficiency? It becomes a tough call to make when they have people encroaching their business fighting for the opportunities of women, but without those people, they would go for the choice prior.
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