carn 11
carn 11
Aug 9, 2017 · 1 min read

While better than many responses to the memo, i think the lesson is misplaced.

Because the actual issue the memo tried to raise, is whether the statistical distribution of some skills differs with men and women; so that the respective curves of men and women do not have the same middle (but are close) and maybe even different shape at the edges and what effect that would have if you only hire only above a certain skill level;

you could end up with more men than women or vice versa no matter how hard you try to be “gender blind”, because the small differences the curves might have due to biology, society role models, etc. could with a certain skill cutoff result in different number of male and female candidates fulfilling the criteria.

And whether dealing with that problem by quotas or other active measures is the issue. Thats because in the end in side the package of issues causing the unwanted discrepancies might also lurk “mother nature”.

Trying to neutralize “her” is difficult at best and usually — expecially if unaware that nature might be also in the package of problems — requires a well sorted “battle plan”.

So actually, the core issue of the memo is about a more complicated statistical issue, than the one explained here.

But cheers for willing to engage him in discussion instead of firing him.

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