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Comment by _RPM | Hacker News Reader

> I did a code challenge that involved ranking soccer teams, and while going over the code a developer at the company asked me if I needed the rules of the game explained to me. While it's a good thing to make sure the candidate understands what the problem is, companies need to be aware that these things carry extra cultural baggage and asking a female candidate if they understand a basic sports rule (or any other male dominated theme) comes across as belittling and sexist.

As a male, I don't even know the rules of soccer, so I would have gladly wanted to hear the rules of the game so I could implement the solution correctly.

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I think too that there's nothing sexist about being explained the rules of soccer. Also I get the feeling that the OP is a little too over her head. At some point I thought it was Ken Thompson writing the blog post.

Anyway, I'm glad that turned out good for her, also some stats are interesting (2 responses out of 10 online approaches is a good number IMHO).

I'm considering pursuing a remote dev career but I'm writing only ruby code right now, have some personal projects which I need to polish and started learning JavaScript. I would be interested to read more stories on the same topic but with much less verbosity.

Yeah, I know I would want the rules explained to me. Personally, I think that it is a positive that an interviewer doesn't assume any extraneous knowledge on the candidate's part, since it prevents the candidate being in a position where they may feel anxious or embarrassed about asking for help or clarification, and lets them focus on demonstrating the coding abilities. It also presents a way to clear up any ambiguities right at the start.

Replace soccer with something like curling, or analyzing corn yields, or whatever obscure topic an interviewer wants to use to frame a question, and the interviewer's question comes across as perfectly valid thing to ask.

Totally agree. There's absolutely nothing sexist about it at all. I am male and there loads of sports I have no idea about the rules.

Now, let's say I stumble across this bit before I interview her. Red flag: tends to treat things as sexist when they clearly are not. Meaning a potential law suit or what not for nothing. Sorry, too big of a liability.

> Now, let's say I stumble across this bit before I interview her. Red flag: tends to treat things as sexist when they clearly are not. Meaning a potential law suit or what not for nothing. Sorry, too big of a liability.

Eh, that works both ways.

"Red flag: assumes I will sue the company based on one blog post they misunderstood. Meaning a potentially shitty company afraid of a lawsuit exposing their shittyness. Sorry, too big of a risk."

Congrats! You're not a match. I doubt either of you will spill many tears.

Unfortunately, our culture generally views sport as a male domain. While you and I are probably aware that there's nothing intrinsically "male" about sport, it can feel a little weird for someone to treat you as if your understanding is aligned with the gendered assumption. Anyone, if they don't understand the rules of the game, could still ask what they are. Would you feel weird if someone assumed you knew the rules because you were a man? How could you tell if they assumed that because you were a man, or because of some other reason?

I think the point the developer is trying to make is that all this could be avoided by using another context in the challenge. Not using a different challenge is at least somewhat displaying that they didn't think how this situation might make someone feel.

>Not using a different challenge

Like what?

Even something like maths can be claimed to be "viewed generally as a male domain". And once you start accounting for ethnicity and social background I think you would find it incredibly difficult to come up with something that had no possibly offensive cultural baggage.

Actually, maybe the challenge could be to design a challenge that was neutral.

P.S. Considering soccer's limited popularity in the US I doubt most candidates would know the rules.

We may very well find it very difficult to come up with something that has no possibly offensive cultural baggage. Do you think soccer was one where someone made even an attempt to mitigate that baggage?

I agree with the author that it would be better to have alternative coding challenges, even though interest in soccer is obviously not a male-only thing.

Possibly, as soccer isn't exactly a premier sport in the US. If it was American football, baseball, or basketball (with which the average American male is more familiar) I think the authors point would be stronger.

I could make an argument that using a sport which has massive popularity outside Western European culture is a sign that the interviewer was thinking about diversity.

Sports are good candidates for these challenges as they have reasonably complex rule, so it isn't necessarily that the interviewer was just selecting something they liked.

Or the could the company frame the help-giving to make it clear that this is offered to everyone?

But that would just make hiring feel yet more impersonal. More impersonal is the last thing hiring needs.

So.. the company asks a candidate if they understand the game, and just because the author of this post is female, she wildly speculates that they must only be asking her because she is female. This is ludicrous. Sounds like a feminist.

Whether you like it or not people make assumptions about other people based on their gender. Companies that are sensitive to that fact are less likely to pose code challenges that align with a common assumption about gender, which aligns with the gender of the majority of developers. They are also less likely to ask questions that also reflect that assumption. For this developer, this code challenge was a red flag.

There is absolutely no basis for that claim in this particular case. I'd expect them to ask all candidates if they understand the scenario, regardless of sex. But guess what? We have absolutely no idea because there is no data on it. As such, it is totally unjustified to call an employer "belittling and sexist" purely because they asked a single candidate if they understood something related to their code challenge.

It is quite interesting to me that you say we don't know what we'd expect the interviewers to do in this scenario. The applicant didn't either (and they state that), and in this case, the interviewer's lack of knowledge about the applicant's possible perceptions betrayed a lack of sensitivity to such topics. This was a red flag.

> she wildly speculates that they must only be asking her because she is female

Not sure what article you were reading but all she doesn't say anything of the sort. She simply points out that companies need to realize some questions may come with extra cultural baggage which could be misinterpreted.

It does. The questioner asked her if she understood the game before she started her code challenge. She proceeded to extrapolate from this by calling such questioning "belittling and sexist", implying that they're only asking HER because she is female. So yes, it is wild speculation on her behalf because she has no idea if the employer also asked guys the same thing.

> While it's a good thing to make sure the candidate understands what the problem is, companies need to be aware that these things carry extra cultural baggage and asking a female candidate if they understand a basic sports rule (or any other male dominated theme) comes across as belittling and sexist.

The full thing.

> she wildly speculates that they must only be asking her because she is female

Your bit.

At no point does she say they she thinks they are only asking her because she is female, in fact I read that as she knows that they ask everyone and not only women but the general context of the question and cultural baggage associated with the context can come across as belittling and sexist even when that is not the intent.

What you are quoting is out of context. The sentence prior to the one you quoted mentions her specifically. So the proceeding sentence seems to use her personal experience as a basis to then make a broader claim in a more general context.

Ok, previous sentence.

> If your code challenge involves a typically male oriented theme, such as sports, consider changing it to something else. Why not use something more neutral? I did a code challenge that involved ranking soccer teams, and while going over the code a developer at the company asked me if I needed the rules of the game explained to me.

Statement of fact, no "feminism" on display, no hint of anger that they asked her this question, this is merely explaining the situation. No "They only asked me because I am a woman" speculation.

Wherein she offers advice on why this might not be a good idea due to contextual baggage. A piece of advice as I mentioned in my previous comment.

> So.. the company asks a candidate if they understand the game, and just because the author of this post is female, she wildly speculates that they must only be asking her because she is female. This is ludicrous. Sounds like a feminist.

There is nothing she has written anywhere in any of these where she "wildly speculates that they must only be asking her because she is female" or says anything that indicates your rather pejorative use of "She must be a feminist".

>>> If your code challenge involves a typically male oriented theme, such as sports, consider changing it to something else. Why not use something more neutral?

Since when sport is not neutral? The quoted sentence makes it sound as if sports is some rich white dudes privilege. I would understand her if she was asked to sort women by attractiveness.

Combine the following two sections:

1) "...while going over the code a developer at the company asked me if I needed the rules of the game explained to me."

2) "...asking a female candidate if they understand a basic sports rule...comes across as belittling and sexist."

It seems pretty explicit that she found it sexist that they asked if she needed the rules explained. If she finds them sexist for asking her the question (as opposed to not asking), she must think they only asked because she's female. I don't see how it can be read otherwise. However, I don't think this makes the lady an OTT feminist.

A possible workaround would be to provide a cheat-sheet with a rules summary. I think one would be less likely to see or assume sexism if there are hard materials on offer to the interviewee - it implies that the same question and materials are used for a number of candidates, and an interviewer is unlikely to withhold the cheat-sheet just because an interviewee is male.

"She must think they only asked because she's female"

Alternatively, she cannot know whether they only asked because she's female. She has to give them the benefit of the doubt, but it leaves her wondering, because it's something someone with sexist attitudes would be more likely to say. If they had chosen a more neutral topic, or presented the material in a way where it was clear that male and female candidates were treated identically, she wouldn't have been placed in that position. Her point is about how it comes across, not about how it was intended. It's more, "here's how you can avoid accidentally making candidates unsure whether you are sexist" and not "this was a sexist thing that happened".

I'm male and pretty athletic, and I would definitely need the rules of soccer explained to me. That game was not played where I grew up.

I played soccer as a kid a local team, and I would need the rules explained to me 15 years later...

100% agree.

It's nothing to so with sex. If they were implementing rules for the TV game show Countdown would there be an issue there? I doubt it. You shouldn't have to be scared of checking if someone is familiar and briefed on the subject matter.

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