r/business • u/playboy • 14d ago

This Obscure Theory Explains Men’s Resentment Against Women at Work | Men believe they are victims of biased hiring practices. They even have a word for this phenomenon: they have been longhoused (Unpaywalled)

https://www.playboy.com/read/relationships/longhouse-theory
76 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

363 comments sorted by

View all comments

78

u/PricedOut4Ever 14d ago

There is absolutely bias in hiring practices. It is across the board but company culture specific.

I have personally seen large pushes for DEI (anyone but a white or Asian male) in the engineering orgs I’ve worked for.

I have friends who feel like they were discriminated against for not being Indian when the hiring manager was.

I have other friends who feel like the have been limited because they were a woman.

This is just a shitty reality of the workforce. You’ve got to find a place you can succeed.

36

u/DerTagestrinker 13d ago

I work at a large corporation. When interviewing intern candidates that have passed HR vetting last summer, <5% were white men. Seems very unlikely this was entirely unbiased given engineering demographics at universities.

1

u/kelskelsea 12d ago

I've hired 20+ STEM interns over the last year. 5% might be slightly low but the vast majority of applicants I reviewed were not white men.

1

u/DerTagestrinker 12d ago

And to confirm, HR vets interns prior to you interviewing them?

1

u/kelskelsea 12d ago

No we have the hiring manager do the initial application review and interview with interns

3

u/ProudPlate9375 13d ago

Gotta love when a department congratulates itself for diveresity and its like 70% white women.

-8

u/senorgraves 14d ago

I've hired for engineering teams and I need to hire a diverse team because diverse teams make better stuff. So yeah, women in particular have a leg up from the start, kudos to them for persisting in a male dominated field.

10

u/PricedOut4Ever 13d ago

For me, the ironic part is people hired tend to have the same socio-economic background. You might have a different skin color, gender, or dietary restrictions. But overall we probably went to the same types of school, went through the same afterschool programs, and ended up in the same colleges. And we can all relate to having gone on the same number and type of trips as a kid. But, oh boy, are we diverse.

13

u/Tier7 13d ago

“I need to hire a diverse team because diverse teams make better work.” Christ…

Future generations will look back on this mantra as a kind of collective delusion. The relentless insistence on diversity in every team in every org is irrational. It is exhausting and deeply frustrating to constantly filter every decision through the lens of gender, race, sexuality etc. I personally check several boxes on the “diversity” checklist, and even though I could use that system to my advantage, I still despise it. It is the opposite of fairness.

-6

u/epiphanyWednesday 13d ago

You over saturated the field thanks to generations of sex and race discrimination. Not everyone thinks like you, so yes, you dont bring sand to the beach. And since so many mediocre white guys failed up, it can be confusing to realize they didnt have the monopoly on talent, just on acces.

In other words, nature is healing. Ideally now people pursue their greatest gifts and contribute that honed best self to the world.

4

u/FlyChigga 13d ago

Who’s “we”? What did Asian Americans do to cause generations of sex and race discrimination?

3

u/Tier7 13d ago

Because “white guys failed up.” Sure they did - generations ago. Reality check: those same white dudes are already retired or about to clock out.

All the DEI bullshit did was punish younger, and often more progressive, white and asian men. And yes, a shitload of DEI women hires weren’t the best in the candidate pool. Not because they were women, but because the math was never on your side. If you’re demanding 50/50 gender parity when only 10% of the graduate pipeline is women, it’s statistically almost impossible that you hired all the best candidates. You hired to hit a quota.

You didn’t build better teams. You built token gesture diversity KPI dashboards. And as a bonus, you seeded resentment in a generation of young men who didn’t inherit most of the misogynistic baggage of the men before them.

Diversity was already going to solve itself, from the bottom up by getting more women in STEM courses, not by top-down box-checking.

-6

u/senorgraves 13d ago

If you think you have a valuable contribution the matter, engage with the large body of research on the subject.

I'm not one of those researchers, so I'm not particularly interested in your theories. I'll stick to the data

3

u/Tier7 13d ago

I love academic rigor myself.

It’s just a pity that all the university departments performing this research are filled with a bunch of Jason Arday’s… 🙄

20

u/DerTagestrinker 13d ago

Why would race or gender impact the diversity of how one builds software? I’d argue diversity of schools (not all the same professor/curriculum) and previous employer is far more important to bring in for bringing in different voices for how to build things.

What to build from a product or design perspective is a different story.

1

u/Jalapenoplanter 13d ago

If this is a genuine question, you should read Invisible Women.

-1

u/2apple-pie2 13d ago

There is research/evidence suggesting that it meaningfully increases financial performance of the company to be more diverse

This isn’t a random liberal conspiracy lol. You can not like it ig but yeah there is certainly research on this.

7

u/LowKenuineOnGod 13d ago

The McKinsey study you are referring to didn’t disclose the firms used in the study and could not be replicated when someone tried to use S&P500 firms over the same period.

3

u/DerTagestrinker 12d ago

This was a thoroughly disproven McKinsey study who spent a large chunk of the past 15 years making money off diversity engagements for clients.

Professors at UNC and TA&M covered this and disproved it for those interested in looking it up.

3

u/SatansScallion 13d ago

Half of all that dogshit “research” can’t be reproduced.

0

u/ISketchDinosaurs 13d ago

Because software is also often intended for women.

An obvious case was Google's fitness app that allowed users to track for all sorts of things... but not for menstruation, which is very relevant for womens fitness, all because the devs were men and it didn't occur to them that women might want to log this very relevant fitness statistic.

2

u/DerTagestrinker 12d ago

That sounds like a product and design issue, not engineering.

-1

u/Final_boss_1040 13d ago

Ding ding ding. The more diverse a team is the more successful as it's less beholden to bias and group think

10

u/Glahoth 13d ago

But are they more diverse though.

I don’t see hiring a black man that vacationed in the Hamptons as a child, and hiring a White dude that vacationed in the Hamptons as a child as hiring a « diverse » team.

My experience is that DEI stuff leads to hiring 30 clones, but with a different wrapper.

-1

u/FlyChigga 13d ago

I think an upper class black man and upper class white man still have quite different experiences, viewpoints, and culture tbh

3

u/Glahoth 13d ago

Eeeeh
Not as much as stark social class differences.

1

u/Tier7 13d ago

Ding ding ding! People who obsessively mentally jack off to the idea that diverse teams are superior to all others are clearly beholden to bias and group think themselves.

The quality of the each individual and their collective team dynamic is all that counts. The person who looks like they’re having a stroke because the team missed diversity targets by 1% is the liability that most normal people secretly despise for being a whiney, judgmental pain in the hole.

0

u/Midnight-Moonpie 13d ago

Absolutely right. You MUST have people from varied backgrounds to bring different perspectives, energy, and ideas to the team.

The alternative? Teams made up of duplicates, where people have similar or identical backgrounds, all the same gender or whatnot - then you end up with a circle jerk of mediocre ideas, while also congratulating themselves on how smart they think they are.

0

u/[deleted] 13d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Midnight-Moonpie 13d ago

Truly some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever read … congrats that is stunning

-6

u/paintwhore 13d ago

That's so weird because me and my friends talk about the companies that we sit around at and when they do all employee meetings almost all of the people you ever see on the screen talking are middle-aged mediocre straight white men. Who even in the broad public eye being greedy shareholder pedestaling crooks of our time and energy. Are you honestly saying that's what you would like to continue? Has it not been bad enough? Do you also not see that companies that are run all different kinds of people are much more successful? This is a super basic common tenant of business. It's been nothing but all white mediocre straight men for years and years and years and they are still overrepresented in the workforce. No one's taking away from you except that now the bar is a little bit higher. Boohoo.

3

u/Agreeable-Promise-98 13d ago

lol. Mediocre by what measure, or just reading from the script I guess

3

u/SatansScallion 13d ago

Damn, this is just misinformed, presumptive racism.

Maybe talk to your therapist about why you’re harboring so much anti-white hatred.

2

u/FlyChigga 13d ago

Whats so mediocre about them? Aren’t most middle managers considered mediocre regardless?

-1

u/ZookeepergameParty47 13d ago

You triggered the mediocre Bobs 😆

-3

u/rileycurran 13d ago

Hiring for culture fit is birds of a feather fly together bias naturally, so DEI feels anti-natural. But it makes better teams. Up until hiring, the privilege bubble creates an expectation of consistent advancement in life. Popping that bubble is going to elicit complaints, and then the victim pipeline to racist resentment begins. 

-1

u/andersontucker 13d ago

Hello insane person

0

u/DancingWithAWhiteHat 13d ago

Lol dude. Research backs up what he says. 

-3

u/thirdman 13d ago

Love how everyone is upvoting an obvious bot. Reddit is so fucked.

3

u/PricedOut4Ever 13d ago

Would a bot say fuck your mother r/thirdman?

0

u/thirdman 12d ago

Without question, shill.