# Discrimination, Google Underpays Male Software Engineers



## SG854 (Mar 5, 2019)

After a couple of lawsuits from Females that believed they are underpaid compared to their Male counterparts, Google conducted a study to see how much Women were underpaid, but found out they were actually underpaying many Male Software Engeeniers compared to Women with similar qualifications and similar work.

Source

The Wage Gap debate has been going on for a long time and still continues to this day, (Australia, Male Female Pay Gap). 

You can find videos even as far back as 1981 of Economists debunking the wage gap. Even found in the 70’s, depending on how you break the data, women being payed more. The wage gap is a nuanced topic, where in some jobs women are payed more and some males are, in which hours worked and small details needs to be accounted for.

Wage Gap continues to be debunked for decades (Warren Farrell, Why Men Earn More), but some people still believe that overall there is pay discrimination in our society against Women.

My question is why do you think that is? Why are some people so resilient that discrimination can happen to Males (as in this case of google), even when evidence is presented. Some people think that Males fighting for equity is a joke. Even when evidence does show areas of discrimination, why do they still don’t want to accept it? It is something I wondered myself. Using evidence I found, doesn’t always work, especially for a decades old topic.


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## Taleweaver (Mar 5, 2019)

Tough topic. And I've given up on even trying to debate it at my job. One of my (female) colleagues is nice and smart, but like other women on the workforce cannot even begin to start a discussion that even puts even the possibility of the wage gap to not be real into questioning. It's always "THERE IS A WAGE GAP  MEN EARN MORE END OF DISCUSSION".

We work at a multinational. Her direct colleagues (all female) calculate the wages of dozens if not hundreds of employees. And on pretty much all jobs I've been into, payroll was handled by women.
Apparently nobody realizes its odd that if there was a wage gap, it would be the responsibility of these payroll officers. In other words: *the patriarchy is ruled by women*. 

But in all honesty : I do believe in A wage gap  Yes, it's caused by women, but yes, they're payed less. It's simple : the large majority of women pick careers for their usefulness, whereas the large sum of men pick careers based on how much they earn. If markets worked the way they should work  this would balance out, but alas...we're in a situation where 10 hedge funds managers (male) earn as much as all the kindergarten teachers (overwhelmingly women) combined.

The wage gap is also a topic that's pretty polarized.women have a strong lobby group, and they use that to muddy the waters. In Belgium there are headlines screaming injustice when there are only a small minority of women are high school teachers or ceo's, but newspapers conveniently stay silent on the fact that women are (much more) overrepresented in all other teaching departments, and that women are far more underrepresented in pretty much all hazardous jobs.

Granted: women earning MORE when all the factors are made equal is a new one to me. But this isn't saying much for the very same reason : in smaller numbers, it's hard to draw a proper generalization. It's not because it happens at Google that it happens everywhere.


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## kuwanger (Mar 5, 2019)

SG854 said:


> My question is why do you think that is? Why are some people so resilient that discrimination can happen to Males (as in this case of google), even when evidence is presented. Some people think that Males fighting for equity is a joke. Even when evidence does show areas of discrimination, why do they still don’t want to accept it?



That's easy.  As Taleweaver lays out, there are CEOs, managers, etc who are predominantly male who earn tons of money.  Ergo, all males have better odds of being a CEO, manager, etc with better pay.  As Steinbeck put it, "in America [...] the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."  I'd argue, you can replace "the poor" with "everyone not wealthy" and "in America" with "near anywhere".  Elsewhere, I read a complaint that people in the same job class might be paid differently based on experience and not on productivity*.  People just aren't happy so long as they think others make more than they do when they think they deserve more, and it's easier to dump on extremely well paid males because of this.

* People who subscribe to the labor theory of value might also tie into this.


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## Xzi (Mar 5, 2019)

The fact that they didn't already know who was being underpaid and by how much is telling.  Coming from Google this also isn't that surprising, I'd guess their male employees outnumber females by a fair bit.

In the end capitalism is out to fuck us all, though.  Corporations don't underpay people in the name of feminism or men's rights, they do it because money is their primary driving factor.  The health and well-being of their employees is near the bottom of the list of priorities, if it's on the list at all.


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## CallmeBerto (Mar 5, 2019)

@SG854 

There is a perception that all men have all the power despite the fact that only the men at the very top do. Society has bought the lie that men and women are equal so when there is an unequal outcome in men's favorite it must be because of sexism/patriarchy. Nobody cares that the average man has a greater chance of being homeless, losing their kids etc. We live in a gynocentric society so it is all about the women.


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## supersonicwaffle (Mar 6, 2019)

Xzi said:


> The fact that they didn't already know who was being underpaid and by how much is telling.  Coming from Google this also isn't that surprising, I'd guess their male employees outnumber females by a fair bit.



Is it really telling though? These tech companies are working hard to drive AI technology for what's known as the fourth industrial revolution (AI decision making and automation). A few months ago it was revealed that Amazon had an algorithm that assisted in hiring which favored white males. It would be a fair assumption that they're using their own companies as testbeds and to acquire data to license the AI out to other companies.
Jack Dorsey also said on Joe Rogan last night that currently machine learning algorithms basically can't explain their decisions. In my estimation it's very likely that these tech companies know jack about what you mentioned until the dataset has sufficient size to run these studies, then they will probably start tweaking the algorithms to get the results they like.



> In the end capitalism is out to fuck us all, though.  Corporations don't underpay people in the name of feminism or men's rights, they do it because money is their primary driving factor.  The health and well-being of their employees is near the bottom of the list of priorities, if it's on the list at all.



I consult with a lot of small and medium businesses here in Germany and what I find is that health and well-being of their employees is actually a huge priority for them as it's a major factor driving productivity and efficiency. Talking to executives here they will tell that they already learn about this in university.
It may be completely different in the US and we have our fair share of shithead executives here but ultimately, as an employee, I'd rather have the freedom granted to me under capitalism to look for another job than have an authoritarian regime decide for me what to do.


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## Taleweaver (Mar 6, 2019)

There was something I forgot to mention in my blabbering response from yesterday: the wage gap isn't so much a gap between men and women (though it's usually portrayed as such), but is actually more a mother tax.

Lemme explain that a bit: taken on a graph, young men and women start out their careers with pretty comparable pay grades. Which is the obvious, because if there really was a pay gap with all the factors being equal...why would anyone hire a man for any given job(1)? But when you divide these "men - women" each up into "non-fathers - fathers - non-mothers - mothers", then you see an ever growing disparity between the non-mothers (career women) and mothers. The harsh truth is that when most women become mothers, their careers take a backseat. They become less flexible, work less overtime and more part-time. I'm not sure on the laws on each of these, but the fact remains: part timers get far less career boosts than full time employees (for obvious reasons). I admit I have heard that part time males earn less than part time females, but like this study it isn't talking about a broad investigation but anecdotal situations.

(1): I used this argument at one time this discussion was had in our cafetaria. There were about ten women talking on how underpayed women were (myself and perhaps one other colleague were the only males). I just chimed in that they were right: why the hell DID we have any male workers, then? if women were really so eager to work for that significant less pay...why didn't we hire them? I certainly wouldn't mind having a female colleague in ICT, and if she really would work for less than me they'd be stupid to keep me on the job.
As usual when discussing things with women, this got sidestepped. They grudgingly conceded that this only happens at ALL OTHER firms...not in ours.



Xzi said:


> The fact that they didn't already know who was being underpaid and by how much is telling.  Coming from Google this also isn't that surprising, I'd guess their male employees outnumber females by a fair bit.


That first part is indeed pretty weird. Not to sound pedantic(2), but is it normal in the US that you can just start law suits without bothering to check your evidence first? 

The latter seems rather obvious to me, although it's usually considered sexist that men might be better at technical/programming jobs.

(2)small note: my girlfriend often watches (imho mostly stupid) American series about police and doctors. Going from those, I think that "I'm going to sue you" is replacing the standard "fuck you!" to voice out any sort of disagreement with someone.


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## Deleted-401606 (Mar 6, 2019)

CallmeBerto said:


> @SG854
> 
> There is a perception that all men have all the power despite the fact that only the men at the very top do. Society has bought the lie that men and women are equal so when there is an unequal outcome in men's favorite it must be because of sexism/patriarchy. Nobody cares that the average man has a greater chance of being homeless, losing their kids etc. We live in a gynocentric society so it is all about the women.



Don't forget to include that men suicide at MUCH higher rates than women.


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## Xzi (Mar 6, 2019)

supersonicwaffle said:


> I consult with a lot of small and medium businesses here in Germany and what I find is that health and well-being of their employees is actually a huge priority for them as it's a major factor driving productivity and efficiency. Talking to executives here they will tell that they already learn about this in university.
> It may be completely different in the US and we have our fair share of shithead executives here but ultimately, as an employee, I'd rather have the freedom granted to me under capitalism to look for another job than have an authoritarian regime decide for me what to do.


Germany and most of Europe have far more robust worker's rights laws and protections than the US.  Not to mention guaranteed healthcare.  So all you're doing is rubbing it in our faces that the US is ass backwards in more than one respect.


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## kuwanger (Mar 6, 2019)

supersonicwaffle said:


> ack Dorsey also said on Joe Rogan last night that currently machine learning algorithms basically can't explain their decisions.



Actually, it's worse than that.  Basically, with machine learning we'll probably never understand how they work.  The main point of machine learning is precisely that it's consider much too hard to actually design things that act "smart".  Trying to retroactively understand a "smart" machine is borderline impossible.  Instead, you're left merely to do studies that try to tease out any effective bias incidentally incorporated in the learning process.



Taleweaver said:


> Not to sound pedantic(2), but is it normal in the US that you can just start law suits without bothering to check your evidence first?



As they saying goes, you can sue anyone for anything--not really true with sovereign/diplomatic immunity.  Having said that, most people don't engage in law suits, those that seek to deal with various civil, societal, etc issues are often done pro bono (possibly paid for by some foundation), and the actual law suit will frequently enough involve discovery precisely because the people being sued often are the only ones that actually have the evidence--only Google would reasonably have all the payroll information, but reasonably an informal survey might hint at possible biases in salary.

Overall, though, I'd tend to say it's abnormal (except maybe small claims court) just because most people don't have the money to pursue a case they're likely to lose and lawyers that frequently represent clients in what amount of fishing expedients that keep losing cases on their behalf have at least some risk of being disbarred for abusing the legal system--Jack Thompson got this more for his harassing of people he was suing and his general disparaging comments but at some point he might have been punished under anti-SLAPP laws.


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## supersonicwaffle (Mar 6, 2019)

Xzi said:


> Germany and most of Europe have far more robust worker's rights laws and protections than the US.  Not to mention guaranteed healthcare.  So all you're doing is rubbing it in our faces that the US is ass backwards in more than one respect.



I guess you can take it that way but the point I was trying to get across is that a lot of businesses will go beyond what's legally required.
Regarding Germany and its healthcare you also have to consider that income in Germany is significantly lower than in the US. Healthcare isn't guaranteed either, you have to pay your premiums, it's not like the money needed for healthcare is created out of thin air. I think what you mean is that over here the state is actually paying your premiums if you're unemployed. I have no idea about difference in price or quality. Over here you have doctors working on strict budgets with lots of regulations on what they can actually bill, a lot of times you will get necessary care only out of the goodness of the doctor's and their employees heart because they will not be able to bill your insurance for your treatment, for some treatments the prices they can bill are ridiculously low which in turn leads to healthcare workers being severely underpaid. Here in the south which is one of the richest regions in Germany healthcare workers start out with a salary that's less than 50% of the average income, a close friend of mine will only approach making around the average income after having worked 18 years in a practice in a leading position while being in the highest pay grade according to the union negotiated tariff.


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## Taleweaver (Mar 6, 2019)

kuwanger said:


> As they saying goes, you can sue anyone for anything--not really true with sovereign/diplomatic immunity.  Having said that, most people don't engage in law suits, those that seek to deal with various civil, societal, etc issues are often done pro bono (possibly paid for by some foundation), and the actual law suit will frequently enough involve discovery precisely because the people being sued often are the only ones that actually have the evidence--only Google would reasonably have all the payroll information, but reasonably an informal survey might hint at possible biases in salary.
> 
> Overall, though, I'd tend to say it's abnormal (except maybe small claims court) just because most people don't have the money to pursue a case they're likely to lose and lawyers that frequently represent clients in what amount of fishing expedients that keep losing cases on their behalf have at least some risk of being disbarred for abusing the legal system--Jack Thompson got this more for his harassing of people he was suing and his general disparaging comments but at some point he might have been punished under anti-SLAPP laws.


Thanks for the answer. I guess I should have worded it differently, because I'm fairly sure I (technically) CAN sue anyone over anything here in Belgium as well.

What I meant is more in the lines of the following. Say I feel discriminated against. If so, there needs to be a quantifiable reason for that. I cannot...erm...damn. Lemme rephrase that. The way our social standards are set up in such a way that one would become a complete social outcast if one would start a lawsuit with little more than a hunch. Say, for instance, that I would file a discrimination claim against my job based on absolutely nothing. The upcoming investigation would have be on my own costs should it turn out that I made it up. My job could counter-sue for reputation damage and win (again: because I made it up). And I'm fairly sure that my reputation would not only land me without a job and probably some future jobs as well ("we've heard from your last job you sued them for causes you made up. Is that true?"), but it would estrange me from friends and family as well ("that guy in the photo? don't mind him. that's our crazy cousin that thought he could sue his job for imaginary reasons").

So for all those reasons, nobody in their right mind would simply go that route. Rather than actually starting a lawsuit, I would search for indications for the reason that I have that idea ("Say, Susan...how much do you actually make each month?").

But anyway...seeing your reply, I assume this is more or less the same on your end of the ocean.


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## kuwanger (Mar 6, 2019)

More or less, yes, but I'm not sure (1) how likely the company could counter-sue and win for reputation damage (generally defamation only applies upon public figures if there's malice or reckless disregard for the truth) and (2) unless it was in the news or you were going out of your way to tell people about it, it's possible no one knows you were sued or suing someone else so the amount of being a social outcast varies.  The other part is, in the suggested scenario the idea is sort of based on the idea that co-workers/friends actually agree with your point of view, so they may not be as likely to become estranged from you.

Now, as far as family having ideas about you being the "crazy cousin"?  I'd say sadly Americans generally have so many racist and/or other misfits in our extended family that we quietly tolerate--and try not to bring up anything that might set them to rambling--that merely suing over questionable standards might well be considered pretty low key.  Ie, there'd probably be more anger from "crazy uncle" about the "feminist" for being a feminist, not the lawsuit.

Having said that, I was presuming the whole "Say, Susan...how much do you actually make each month?" did occur; the problem with that approach is the plural of anecdote is note evidence.  Also, a lot of people don't want to tell you how much they make because they fear they make less or worse they make more and you'll be horrible to them for it; ie, you're probably going to get a selection bias if you start asking around.  Americans are really good at the whole selective bias to re-affirm their beliefs--look at the whole anti-vaxxing thing.  If you push hard enough or frequently enough, eventually you'll be "crazy cousin", but one lawsuit which ends up being pretty baseless might not be enough.


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## SG854 (Mar 6, 2019)

Taleweaver said:


> Tough topic. And I've given up on even trying to debate it at my job. One of my (female) colleagues is nice and smart, but like other women on the workforce cannot even begin to start a discussion that even puts even the possibility of the wage gap to not be real into questioning. It's always "THERE IS A WAGE GAP  MEN EARN MORE END OF DISCUSSION".
> 
> We work at a multinational. Her direct colleagues (all female) calculate the wages of dozens if not hundreds of employees. And on pretty much all jobs I've been into, payroll was handled by women.
> Apparently nobody realizes its odd that if there was a wage gap, it would be the responsibility of these payroll officers. In other words: *the patriarchy is ruled by women*.
> ...


The Wage Gap is similar from country to country, whether it’s Belgium, USA, Japan, Australia, Canada, and on. Unless Men from every country got together and decided to secretly conspire against Women to pay them less, this is not a just a mere coincidence.

There is an excellent article here that was made after James Demore got fired from google, it’s long but this is debating at its finest. It goes into carrer differences and psychological differences on why men and women choose different careers. Men more likely go into Anesthesiology, emergency medicine, surgery, all high risk high paying careers, and women go into pediatrics, family medicine, psychology which aren’t as high paying and lower risk. It’s not just hours worked but career choices, and sub category choices within the same label and career.

Women being payed more depends on how what type of job your looking at and how you break data. Women get promoted faster, because they want to avoid lawsuit. But females at a higher level have lower starting pay then males at the same level because males usually have seniority when promoted. But they look at starting pay without looking at how long they been with the company and sue. Many managers including females ones, are afraid of hiring women because they say they are a walking lawsuit waiting to happen.

Warren Farrell’s book is excellent at breaking down the data to show it’s not a Male Female gap, it’s a Mother and Father gap like you mentioned. Men with kids earns more then men without kids. Are Men with Kids oppressing Men without kids, because they just hate people that don’t have kids, or are they earning more because they work more hours and more over time to support their family compared to a man that doesn’t have to worry about a family.

The wage gap debate essentially makes Men that earn more and that work hard to care for their families, to pay for food, pay for Medical, pay for psychology therapy their kid might need, to turning them into heartless people earning more not because they care about their family but to oppress women. There is no respect for what they do and sacrifices they made.


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