In the Article "Exposing Hidden Bias at Google" written by Farhad Manjoo, Manjoo talks about how Google is trying to hire people of different genders and ethnicities to increase the diversity between its ranks. According to the article, "Men make up 83 percent of Google's Engineering employees", leaving only 17 percent of Google's Engineering employees to be women. For such a large and well known company in the modern world to have such unbalanced gender ratios is not acceptable. In today's society, gender should not play a role in job selection, but rather a person's ability to perform the task, regardless of their gender. No matter what gender a Google employee, or any employee of that matter, may be, they all are capable of producing results of the same quality. A man can produce the same results as a woman, and a woman can produce the same results as a man.
As we speak, Google has taken notice about its diversity between workers, and has taken out the effort to help improve the statistics. As stated in this article written by Drake Baer, after Google tackled issues concerning unconscious bias, there was a significant increase in statistics."For instance, Google's IO conference was 20% women this year, as opposed to 8% last year."Compared to other companies, who might not even bat an eye about this issue, I would like to acknowledge Google for taking note about this issue, and attempting to at least do something about it, but I believe it will take more than just simple workshops to fix the unconsciously biased opinion the tech industry has towards gender what it comes to job selection.
The New York Times article also stated that "Google, like many tech companies, is a man’s world." This signifies that women that wish to work in big tech industries such as Google itself, have less opportunities of getting in, because of the belief that it is an industry primarily suited for men. Even after all these years, we humans still hold the belief that just because a person is a certain gender, they are not capable of doing things. Being a top notch name in the market today, Google needs to fix its ways, and start valuing its employees based on their abilities, not on their gender. Hopefully, the effort that Google is making to rid of unconscious bias will have an affect on all of the companies out there, and the future.
I agree with several points like how it'll take more than workshops to erase bias behavior in society and how women equate to men. However, this is only the beginning. I'm sure that Google and other companies will find other ways to solve this issue. By data collected, it seems as if these "unconscious biases" are becoming a lot more aware by people in the workplace from just taking a course in these workshops. In the end, these big companies do need to recognize the gender disparities and take action in order to relieve this problem.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with you on the topic about how women can give the same results as men, and how people are thinking about how women can't do certain things. I believe this is true, women aren't capable of understanding or doing types of things, and women should just embrace that. Same goes for men. There are some things that they Arne t capable that women are excellent at. Of course they're some exceptions now and then, just like mulan who saved hr dynasty, or even a male cheerleader, someone we don't see very often. In the end, people shouldn't take offense to their weakness, but embrace it, and try something they're better at.
ReplyDeleteI would like to disagree with your opinion that women can't do certain things that men can and vice versa. I don't think this sort of mentality would occur (not just with you but in general) if both genders were offered equal opportunities. Starting from education, transcending to equal work openings. I think either gender is capable of producing the same work as long as one gender is not favored over the other.
DeleteI don't agree with your statement that Google doesn't "value" its employees, but rather that the people who hire the workers simply have an unconscious bias towards who seem to be most eligible for the position. I liked how you used outside information as a reference to support your position on the "Hidden Bias at Google" document. I agree that there has been improvement over the past few decades in comparison to racism and sexism in the past, but large companies, such as Google, could really be supporting more effective programs to improve their diversity.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything in your article, but I must question your response. You say that women have less opportunities in this industry than men, but maybe the women that have been presented to the company so far have not been up to par with their standard and that could explain the lack of women at Google.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point of "it will take more than just simple workshops to fix the unconsciously biased". To add on, Workshops and seminars for adults aren't as effective as school lessons for children. The way we perceive the world starts in our childhood, therefore unconscious bias could be better tamed from there.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your claim that Google is a top brand name and should therefore be more liable especially with sensitive subjects such as discrimination and gender inequality. Also, you are right, a few workshops here and there will not change a mindset. As such a high level company, Google's efforts are mediocre and it is shameful to see how little effort they are putting into such a grand subject.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your claim that Google should stop with being gender biased. However, I think you should have included what Google is possibly doing to fix the problem. Overall, I really enjoyed it, especially when you said, "Hopefully, the effort that Google is making to rid of unconscious bias will have an affect on all of the companies out there, and the future." It would be great if other companies would be influenced by Google by stopping being gender-biased when applying people for jobs.
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