Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aloha | Hacker News Reader

Anyone who has ever worked with people of different sexes could have told them. Men and Women go about solving problems in vastly different ways.

Women do better in high stress, high information volume situations, are able to make more intelligent choices when little or no data is available. Men are better with logic puzzles, but generally are poor listeners, and have poor soft skills. Women are better managers of people, Men, better managers of things.

Obviously, these are not universal truths, but there are certain roles I would prefer a woman candidate for, others I would prefer a man, I'm going to make a judgement on the person, but their gender is part of the experience package.

View on HN

Better keep that under your hat in any consultation with HR.

It's one thing to have useful heuristics and rules of thumb, but when it conflicts with official, blessed truths about "humans are all identical", it's important to be careful what you say and to whom. Especially in the workplace, where there can be real consequences for having the "wrong" points of view.

It's understandable why it's an issue to use heuristics based on a person's gender, race or upbringing are an issue. However, there are likely instances where it's useful. I honestly don't know how to separate my logic from emotions on this one, especially when it comes to things like racial profiling or hiring practices based on gender. I am ethically opposed to each, despite the fact that I know that they can often be useful.

I agree, profiling based on race and sex is unwise and undesirable.

We all bring our particular preferences and biases to the table, so we need to do the best we can to be fair and reasonable to the candidates that come in front of us.

Where it would come into play is:

Two Candidates, identical qualifications, identical experience, both interview well, I'm going to go with my 'intuition' to make the final call, whatever it is that goes into that is between myself and my concience.

The loss of meaningful distinction in gender identity is a major cultural problem for the West that threatens our very survival. The "humans are all exactly identical, no questions asked" thing is extremely problematic.

Sure, but don't ever say that in a job interview or when you're dealing with HR, college administrators, politicians, or any other profession that requires a large dose of avoiding reality. ;)

And what do you have to back up that assertion?

From the outside it looks like your comment could easily be translated as "women need to know their place", but with fancier words to make it look philosophical.

> "humans are all exactly identical, no questions asked"

No one asserts this, not even gender studies majors. What's problematic is asserting that gender differences should have any bearing on what a member of a particular gender is allowed to do.

Subscribing to stereotypes is what excludes a large number of extraordinarily talented women from either entering or finding work in the tech industry.

It's actually the increasing feminization of society that I believe creates a huge problem for young boys.

Being unable to sit still, wanting to run around - now treated as an illness Roughhousing - a normal male activity, is now a crime in schools.

Here is a good article making my point - http://ideas.time.com/2013/08/19/school-has-become-too-hosti...

http://www.amazon.com/The-WAR-AGAINST-BOYS-Misguided/dp/0684...

Christina Hoff Sommers is one of the leading feminists who has helped focus some attention on the situation of boys, and making sure that boys are not getting left behind as there is a surge of effort to make sure things are "equal" for girls and women.

But is that a woman as society has created, or a woman as they are born?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com