HACKER Q&A
📣 anticristi

Physical work creep in IT jobs, the root cause of unconscious bias?


I recently took the Linux Foundation "Inclusive Speaker Training". In brief, it argues that the IT sector favors men due to unconscious bias. This got me thinking: Is it possible that unconscious bias is due to certain IT jobs benefiting (or having benefited in the past) from physical strength? For better or worse, our species features sexual dimorphism: Women are on average physically less strong than men, although intellectually at least as capable. I found that many IT jobs still benefit from physical strength: When working as a network engineer, it was beneficial to be able to lift a 120kg router (with a co-worker, of course) to install it in the rack. When working in start-ups, we often had to mount our own furniture and physical strength could reduce the number of person-hours required to complete the task. Few decades ago, computer screens were crazy heavy, even for men, and being able to put one on your desk would give you access to more screen estate, better colors and/or higher resolutions. I conjecture that each instance of physical work creep gives men more opportunities. For example, a better screen a decade ago could give male graphics designer a small heads-up. Even if men do not intellectually benefit from physical work creep, it might still reinforce the stereotype: "This male candidate feels more suitable for X".

Fortunately, if my conjecture is true, the solution is "easy": Fight physical work creep, by making devices, installations, furniture, etc. more physically inclusive.

Could physical work creep cause unconscious bias? Have any scholars studied this issue? Are there more / better examples of physical work creep in IT jobs?

P.S.: I conjecture that this issue is not restricted to IT. Non-fly-by-wire airliners, e.g., B737, require force to command the stick, which be designed to the strength of men. I would be curious to see if the proportion of female pilots on Airbus A320 is larger than on B737.


  👤 ecmascript Accepted Answer ✓
I think the more obvious answer is that men and women prefer different things on a group basis and there is a lot of science to back this up. In countries that are less free, there are more women in IT than in western countries where people are free to go after whatever interests them. This holds true even when loads of money are poured onto different diversity projects.

There is a great Norwegian documentary about this subject, called "Hjernevask - The gender equality paradox" which translates to "brain washing". You can watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E577jhf25t4


👤 raxxorrax
Did you really take such a course voluntarily? Nobody forced you? Just checking...

Honestly I think unconscious bias is snake oil in its worst form. The topic was popular in my country in the early nineties and it really got towards level I would call child abuse. Like testing the reactions of infants towards people of different skin colors. If such a reaction was perceived, children were shown a "corrective movie" which could induce trauma. There isn't much info on this on the net sadly, I would be quite interested in it because I was subjected to it. In my opinion it is plain child abuse.

But basically I would recommend not to partake in anything mentioning unconscious bias. Everyone has bias and that is completely okay, it is part of your personality. I don't know what the Linux Foundation has on the topic, but I don't want to have anything to do with them anymore or the people selling their "training".

I also don't want to make anything inclusive aside from ensuring physical accessibility for disabled people. Anything else is ideological bullshit in my opinion and doesn't speak too well on the foundation.

What is your favorite color? If you have one you are probably biased.

Women that see themselves as victims from "invisible barriers" shouldn't be a role model. Those that just work in IT might be a good start.

edit:

https://nypost.com/2020/07/16/obscene-federal-diversity-trai...

If you do it voluntarily, please call me for your next batch of penis enlargement. This is basic corruption btw.