hpe said: Currently, you are discriminating men to reach a political goal. That is at best fighting the symptom and not the disease. At worst it is highly discriminatory towards male engineers.
LOL...the male/female population is roughly equal, which means the discrimination part already occurred in favor of males with your group of 180. You don't need to "figure out" what caused fewer females to be CS majors. It's gender bias in society.
Yes, that is a problem. But trying to solve it by later discriminating others is not a solution, not even a bad one. what should be done is figuring out what discriminatory mechanisms are behind the fact that women are so underrepresented in tech already at university.
hpe said: Currently, you are discriminating men to reach a political goal. That is at best fighting the symptom and not the disease. At worst it is highly discriminatory towards male engineers.
LOL...the male/female population is roughly equal, which means the discrimination part already occurred in favor of males with your group of 180. You don't need to "figure out" what caused fewer females to be CS majors. It's gender bias in society.
This demonstrates a profound misunderstanding as it completely ignores that the disparity results from individual choices. There are many disparities in life that are not the product of discrimination or gender bias. Tearing down meritocracies and using affirmative action to change such discrepancies perpetuates discrimination.
A. Anyone who has worked in corporate environments knows that they aren't really meritocracies. Example: LinkedIn openly admits that you're far more likely to get a job with a company where you know other people that work there versus a company where you're just applying on merit without any personal connections.
B. The idea that women have historically been presented with the same choices in life as men when it comes to computer science is laughable.
All the presenters were professional, informative, knowledgeable and had a good on camera presence. What more could you ask for. End of subject.
I like the increased presence, and agree with William's statement that "we are embarrassingly still in the situation where women contributors are unusual enough that it gets noticed", but I don't think they most of the presenters had a good presence. There were a lot of weird pregnant pauses, odd arm gestures, and unusual cadency that I felt took away from the amazing product presentation. Now, this Is (somewhat) resolvable with training, but these presenters seem more like one-offs, not using the same presenters every time like in the past.
I agree with you re: the odd arm gestures and cadence, and (maybe it was just me) the wide stance they all used--I'm not sure what that is supposed to convey--someone's idea of "strength", "confidence"? They seemed overly coached, but perhaps because they don't usually give presentations. At any rate, it was very similar to the male presenters in other recent events, which is good for the women. But I find them all very odd and robotic. What happened to "normal"? Maybe it's just the lack of an audience, where applause, laughs or cheers provide a break in a presenter's speech
The women (and men) did an outstanding job at Apple’s event. This seems obvious.
Countering the male biased argument in America (not talking about Apple here). It is currently in fashion to ask for one gender, race and event sexual orientation in the name of equity. Equity currently being defined as equal outcome along these 3 demissions. I disagree that historical male biased is the sole cause for female representation in the top1% of jobs.
- Men are 10 times more likely to die on the job than females. - Men represent 93% of those in prison - Men are 50 times less likely to have primary custody of their children then females - women, on average in Silicon Valley, make 6% more than men.
1) I care. During my 35 year engineering career, I worked with hundreds of white male engineers, perhaps a dozen males of color (mostly Asian, two Indian) and two white females. I encountered zero females in top management. Only four of my engineering school graduating class of 150 were women, The few women I had the pleasure of working with where bright, motivated, thoughtful, and frustrated by the lack of opportunity, even in places where management seemed progressive. I want better for women because they’re more than half our future, they’re undervalued and I want their different perspective involved in my decision making.
Thanks for answering why Apple had few women in senior roles until fairly recently. It's mostly about the education pipeline.
My daughter is in a masters program at an engineering school and the vast majority of her peers are dudes. Should Apple and other snap up my daughter because she's a woman even if she's only the middle of her class academically (I'm not saying that she is, this part is hypothetical)?
And your comment about only a small number of Asians in tech is very, very dated (as you admit since you're referring to a career that started in the 1980s or earlier).
1) I care. During my 35 year engineering career, I worked with hundreds of white male engineers, perhaps a dozen males of color (mostly Asian, two Indian) and two white females. I encountered zero females in top management. Only four of my engineering school graduating class of 150 were women, The few women I had the pleasure of working with where bright, motivated, thoughtful, and frustrated by the lack of opportunity, even in places where management seemed progressive. I want better for women because they’re more than half our future, they’re undervalued and I want their different perspective involved in my decision making.
2) If you don’t care whether Apple’s workforce has the diversity of its public face, why do you care whether Appleinsider does?
Similar to my experience. Of 180 CS majors only 12 were female. But if the graduation classes look like that, how do you expect the representation in upper managers to be much different? Unless you think the female engineers are better on average, any deviation from what you see at university would mean discriminating the male engineers. 🤷♂️
The only way to solve the problem and not just highlighting the symptoms is to encourage young women to apply for engineering school.
The women I had the pleasure of working with were well above the average of my experience with engineers overall. I can't count how many incompetent male engineers I found "retired in plain sight" over my career. Though the sample size was small, I never witnessed a female engineer who wasn't pulling more than her own weight, often in unseen ways.
Women have actually been losing ground in computer science for more than 30 years. We must do something at all ages and stages to encourage them to take up careers in hard science and engineering. If, at any stage we find a symptomatic gender imbalance, that's at least partly the result of previous stages. If you limit your efforts to only the first stage, change will come slowly, if at all.
When I hear "only the most qualified should get the job", I wonder what qualifications are being considered. There is value in having women (and minorities) in positions of power, as an encouragement for others. I am absolutely going to consider that value when hiring. I want to see women engineers going home to their children and enchanting them with stories of the excitement of creating things to make a better world.
While I agree we need more diversity in tech, it can only be so if those who are diverse are interested in tech to begin with. While Apple is fundamentally changing this by teaching kids at a young age to code, this will increase the odds of these kids becoming young adults with an interest in tech. If you were to ask your average white woman or your average person of color (regardless of gender) if they have any interest to get into tech, I am sincerely curious, what do you think their answer would be?
I'm very discouraged by the whole approach that the author of this article chose to pursue. If I had to summarize the author's points, as I see them, they would be:
1. Apple just put on a significant public event and utilized a fair number of their female staff to present their latest and greatest products.
2. Apple didn't make a big deal about who presented, how they were chosen, or why they were chosen. At all.
3. But even though Apple didn't make a big deal about anything with respect to who presented, how they were chosen, or why they were chosen the author is going to make it a big deal now by pointing out that Apple hasn't done enough in terms of gender inequity, and while I'm at it I'm going to throw in some quotes/gripes from some very vocal opponents of Apple just to stir the pot.
Okay, I get it that we want to keep the fire burning while the underlying inequities are still an issue, and they are, but I have to ask the author what exactly Apple should have done differently in this specific case at this specific event?
This was a new (and updated) product announcement and introduction. No more, No less. Tim could have talked about some of the horrible things currently happening in the world right now. He didn't because this was a time and a place for driving a singular set of points home - Apple's new products. At no point did the focus of the event ever deviate from that singular "new products to show off" focus. So why should we?
Heck, I can't recall a single name of any presenter except Tim Cook, but I sure do know the names of every new product coming down the Apple pipeline like they are burned into my brain. For a product development organization, it doesn't get any better than this. This event was a complete success and everyone who took part in making it happen did a fabulous job. The whole Apple team had one job to do and everyone nailed it.
Yeah, this is only one event on one day in the continuum of what Apple and its employees do. And yeah, there are systemic and point-level issues in all organizations including Apple that need to be addressed. But this particular event was a reminder that progress can be made and that greater inclusion should not feel as though it is unusual, destabilizing, or causing a loss of focus. It just worked and we were delighted. Apple should not have to rationalize or justify why they were so extraordinarily successful with this event. Put one in the win column and let's see how they do the next time. At the same time, don't hand out penalty cards to Apple when they did not commit any violations.
What happens to the morale of the over-achieving, highly qualified white males at Apple who were passed over just so a woman could be on stage?
So true. Male egos are so delicate and fragile. There are no doubt dozens of over-achieving, highly qualified white males at Apple who're now quietly sobbing in their cubicles, "I didn't get to be on stage! I didn't! I didn't! Oh, the world is SO unfair!!!!"
If only there was some way to find out who they were. You could send them some flowers or candy or something...
/s
I watched this exactly happen at a company I worked at for 8+ years. The best people left the company. It is not just about "getting on stage". It about promotions, responsibilities, recognition, etc..
In this time and age, families give the same consideration to girl or boy whatever education they want to pursue. If girl don't want to pursue STEM education and profession than how you going to have more female representation in work force ? Moreover, tech carrier demands lot(time,energy and brain) from each to survive and grow in tech world.
Not more female want to choose STEM carrier.
For Apple or similar high tech companies must not be forced to fulfill equality matrix/quota and hire substandard employees. That is a recipe for disaster to compete in tech world.
LOL...the male/female population is roughly equal, which means the discrimination part already occurred in favor of males with your group of 180. You don't need to "figure out" what caused fewer females to be CS majors. It's gender bias in society.
So I should be offended that the majority of Veterinarians and Vet Technicians are female, and that "society" pushed me into Civil Engineering. What a load.
There was many kinds of increased visibility in this presentation why only focus on gender?
For one - how long since niche pro apps have any exposure let alone all the slots?
Lots of icons in the app scroll from apps that would get air time. Lots smaller market pro apps that must bring Apple tonnes of reliable cash every year finally on stage and visible. Yes of the apps I've been involved with and had a chance to deal with staff via Beta there seems to me to be a higher representation of female staff so it seemed fairly natural to me that the presentation always went that way.
hpe said: Currently, you are discriminating men to reach a political goal. That is at best fighting the symptom and not the disease. At worst it is highly discriminatory towards male engineers.
You don't need to "figure out" what caused fewer females to be CS majors. It's gender bias in society.Lil
Is it though? Isn't it possible—even probable—that, by-and-large, women prefer different professions and doing different kinds of work?
hpe said: Currently, you are discriminating men to reach a political goal. That is at best fighting the symptom and not the disease. At worst it is highly discriminatory towards male engineers.
You don't need to "figure out" what caused fewer females to be CS majors. It's gender bias in society.Lil
Is it though? Isn't it possible—even probable—that, by-and-large, women prefer different professions and doing different kinds of work?
Like cooking, cleaning, and being housewives?
Thanks for self-identifying.
You're very welcome. Now how about you explain why you believe woman are by-and-large both incapable and lack interest in professions that are dominated by men? How about you tell us why women were able to do any jobs at all when by-and-large they were all done by men in the past? It's almost as if women can do well in "jobs previously only done by men" when given the opportunity.
hpe said: Currently, you are discriminating men to reach a political goal. That is at best fighting the symptom and not the disease. At worst it is highly discriminatory towards male engineers.
You don't need to "figure out" what caused fewer females to be CS majors. It's gender bias in society.Lil
Is it though? Isn't it possible—even probable—that, by-and-large, women prefer different professions and doing different kinds of work?
Like cooking, cleaning, and being housewives?
Thanks for self-identifying.
You're very welcome. Now how about you explain why you believe woman are by-and-large both incapable and lack interest in professions that are dominated by men? How about you tell us why women were able to do any jobs at all when by-and-large they were all done by men in the past? It's almost as if women can do well in "jobs previously only done by men" when given the opportunity.
Nope. You lost your chance. Next time think more carefully about your replies.
P.S. You are also misrepresenting what I wrote. So there's that too.
I lost my chance? To what? keep calling you out for your myopic, bigoted statement. Clearly that's not the case.
Let me refresh your memory, "even probable—that, by-and-large, women prefer different professions and doing different kinds of work." Again, what professions are these? Is stay at home wife the only one that fits your bill or you so gracious to also allow women to have "emotional" jobs that don't interfere with analytical jobs that will make your penis look even smaller if they excel at it?
If you don't think women are neither capable of nor want to do these so-called men-only professions they please show us peer reviewed studies that show that women aren't suited. I wager you can't prove your point because there are no such studies that show women as inferior in the way allude.
All the presenters were professional, informative, knowledgeable and had a good on camera presence. What more could you ask for. End of subject.
I like the increased presence, and agree with William's statement that "we are embarrassingly still in the situation where women contributors are unusual enough that it gets noticed", but I don't think they most of the presenters had a good presence. There were a lot of weird pregnant pauses, odd arm gestures, and unusual cadency that I felt took away from the amazing product presentation. Now, this Is (somewhat) resolvable with training, but these presenters seem more like one-offs, not using the same presenters every time like in the past.
I agree with you re: the odd arm gestures and cadence, and (maybe it was just me) the wide stance they all used--I'm not sure what that is supposed to convey--someone's idea of "strength", "confidence"? They seemed overly coached, but perhaps because they don't usually give presentations. At any rate, it was very similar to the male presenters in other recent events, which is good for the women. But I find them all very odd and robotic. What happened to "normal"? Maybe it's just the lack of an audience, where applause, laughs or cheers provide a break in a presenter's speech
Apple’s presenters as a group are awful:
1. What’s with the wide-legged stance? People don’t stand that way normally, so I’m not sure why Apple has all their presenters do it. It looks silly.
2. Stop using teleprompters. That’s why the presentations sound robotic. Tim Cook has never done well on stage and he still doesn’t, largely because of this.
3. Associated with #2, how about knowing your product well enough that you can talk conversationally about it? Good presenters only need bullet points as reminders of the flow of their briefing, instead of reading their script word for word.
As with any company, Apple should employ the best people for the job, not because they are male or female, of a particularly chosen gender or none, or because of race, colour, nationality or creed. It should also be borne in mind we are not all the same: we should be recognised for our differences and enjoyed because of that. Trying to make diversity a requirement of whom to employ is condescending and a waste of talent. Bringing in people for any reason other than that they are the best person for the job, devalues the person and devalues the company.
Apple, as a huge organisation, cannot please all of the people all of the time so will be applauded and criticised whatever it does.
As with any company, Apple should employ the best people for the job, not because they are male or female, of a particularly chosen gender or none, or because of race, colour, nationality or creed. It should also be borne in mind we are not all the same: we should be recognised for our differences and enjoyed because of that. Trying to make diversity a requirement of whom to employ is condescending and a waste of talent. Bringing in people for any reason other than that they are the best person for the job, devalues the person and devalues the company.
Apple, as a huge organisation, cannot please all of the people all of the time so will be applauded and criticised whatever it does.
The author, William, did address all of that in his article. While it should be the best presenters—and for all we know these were the best presenters chosen from the available employees from their associated departments—it's the fact all women presenters stood out at all that makes it an issue, especially in comparison to decades of it being only male presenters without it even registering as being unbalanced.
Comments
what should be done is figuring out what discriminatory mechanisms are behind the fact that women are so underrepresented in tech already at university.
B. The idea that women have historically been presented with the same choices in life as men when it comes to computer science is laughable.
My daughter is in a masters program at an engineering school and the vast majority of her peers are dudes. Should Apple and other snap up my daughter because she's a woman even if she's only the middle of her class academically (I'm not saying that she is, this part is hypothetical)?
And your comment about only a small number of Asians in tech is very, very dated (as you admit since you're referring to a career that started in the 1980s or earlier).
Women have actually been losing ground in computer science for more than 30 years. We must do something at all ages and stages to encourage them to take up careers in hard science and engineering. If, at any stage we find a symptomatic gender imbalance, that's at least partly the result of previous stages. If you limit your efforts to only the first stage, change will come slowly, if at all.
When I hear "only the most qualified should get the job", I wonder what qualifications are being considered. There is value in having women (and minorities) in positions of power, as an encouragement for others. I am absolutely going to consider that value when hiring. I want to see women engineers going home to their children and enchanting them with stories of the excitement of creating things to make a better world.
Also, try not being an a**
So I should be offended that the majority of Veterinarians and Vet Technicians are female, and that "society" pushed me into Civil Engineering. What a load.
For one - how long since niche pro apps have any exposure let alone all the slots?
Lots of icons in the app scroll from apps that would get air time. Lots smaller market pro apps that must bring Apple tonnes of reliable cash every year finally on stage and visible. Yes of the apps I've been involved with and had a chance to deal with staff via Beta there seems to me to be a higher representation of female staff so it seemed fairly natural to me that the presentation always went that way.
Let me refresh your memory, "even probable—that, by-and-large, women prefer different professions and doing different kinds of work." Again, what professions are these? Is stay at home wife the only one that fits your bill or you so gracious to also allow women to have "emotional" jobs that don't interfere with analytical jobs that will make your penis look even smaller if they excel at it?
If you don't think women are neither capable of nor want to do these so-called men-only professions they please show us peer reviewed studies that show that women aren't suited. I wager you can't prove your point because there are no such studies that show women as inferior in the way allude.
1. What’s with the wide-legged stance? People don’t stand that way normally, so I’m not sure why Apple has all their presenters do it. It looks silly.
2. Stop using teleprompters. That’s why the presentations sound robotic. Tim Cook has never done well on stage and he still doesn’t, largely because of this.
Apple, as a huge organisation, cannot please all of the people all of the time so will be applauded and criticised whatever it does.