I can't speak to gender bias in hairdressing because I know nothing about the hairdressing industry. I think it's reasonable for articles about the gender bias in hairdressing (if one exists) not to be posted in Hacker News, and for commenters not to be familiar with it.
If there is a gender bias there, and there's something I can do about it that won't be sticking my nose where I don't belong (I don't really want hairdressers telling me how to do tech recruiting), let me know, I'm glad to support it. But until then, I'm in tech: this is my field, and the one I care about improving. This is a tech forum. And the people running Lever are in tech.
Simple as that, it has nothing to do with the job perks or pay. If there were outsiders putting pressure on the tech industry and not the dockworking or hairdressing industry, you'd have an argument--but that doesn't seem to be what's happening here.
You're just cherry picking what you want to pretend to be knowledgable about. You don't have to be a hair dresser to discuss trends in that industry. Just like I don't need to work for the Department of Labor to discuss labor trends.
And the question is why is there so much emphasis on only technology to make the workplace 50/50, but not similar pressure on other industries that might be experiencing some sort of imbalance? Besides, why is it a good thing or a necessary thing that technology be 50/50? If you want to argue that we need gender balance in this one specific industry, then I want gender balance in every industry. Otherwise, I'm not on board.
This is an article about the CEO of Lever and hiring practices at Lever. It's being posted on a forum about the technology industry. You're discussing it with people who hire people to be software engineers and not to be hairdressers or dock workers. I'm not interested in "discussing trends," I'm interested in actually doing the right thing for my company when I make hiring decisions. I assume so is the CEO of Lever. I want gender balance in every industry, but tech is the one I'm hiring in. I assume the CEO of Lever would be thrilled to see gender balance in every company, but there's only one company where she gets to make those decisions.
When you vote, do you make yourself as knowledgeable about the political problems of every other city and country in the world as with the political problems of your own city and country? Would you refuse to vote for a particular candidate who promises to do good things for your city and your country, but is silent on improving the lot of every other city and country?
Well you should apply the same criteria to yourself then and stop discussing the technology industry. If you're going to say that I have to be as knowledgable about every other city, country, municipality, or whatever, then you have to be knowledgeable about every university on the planet, every company, every hiring practice, every law, and every social/cultural norm, and that's just to get started. It's impossible to have complete knowledge of any topic, technology or otherwise, so your stringent criteria here for what constitutes the ability to discuss something, politics or economic trends or anything else is stringent enough that you basically can't discuss anything.
Anywho
What makes 50/50 gender balance "right"? What makes that desirable? The only arguments I'm seeing from anybody revolve around two things:
1. Diversity
2. The population is 50/50
If diversity is the aim, you have to come with some pretty convincing evidence that diversity = 50/50 male/female split.
If it's population, then you need to explain why technology has to have this split and not every industry, or at least explain why this is unique to technology.
Er, the critique that you have to understand everything else was your critique, not mine.
Anyway, my argument for the 50-50 gender balance being "right" is that it's the null hypothesis. Absent specific data, one should assume that every industry should have a 50-50 balance.
This is basically 2, except that my confidence about that statement depends a lot on the existence of data that would disprove the null hypothesis. I have little data about other industries, so while I would say that, yes, every industry should have a 50-50 split, my confidence about such a statement is pretty low for almost all industries; I can easily be convinced that there are physiological or sociological factors that justify a non-50-50-split.
I have much more data about tech, so I make the same claim that tech should have a 50-50 split that I make about industry. However, I am much more confident in that statement because I've seen a lot of attempts to reject the null hypothesis that haven't panned out. I would have to see some evidence that's at odds with a lot of existing evidence in order to be convinced of a different split.
If there is a gender bias there, and there's something I can do about it that won't be sticking my nose where I don't belong (I don't really want hairdressers telling me how to do tech recruiting), let me know, I'm glad to support it. But until then, I'm in tech: this is my field, and the one I care about improving. This is a tech forum. And the people running Lever are in tech.
Simple as that, it has nothing to do with the job perks or pay. If there were outsiders putting pressure on the tech industry and not the dockworking or hairdressing industry, you'd have an argument--but that doesn't seem to be what's happening here.