# Turing test for women? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 15, 2017, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719 "2017-08-15T16:06:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/41 "2017-08-16T15:38:47Z")
> [@Walton\_Firm](#): > > Not quite what the OP is looking for, since it’s about the resume evaluation stage rather than the actual interview, but there was a very large experiment with gender- and race-blinded resumes done in Australia just a few months ago. The purpose of the experiment was to see if the race or gender of a candidate would influence their chance of getting shortlisted for a senior position. So I clicked on [this](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-trial-to-improve-gender-equality-failing-study/8664888) report on this Australian study, and while it says > [@](#): > > The trial found assigning a male name to a candidate made them 3.2 per cent less likely to get a job interview. > > Adding a woman’s name to a CV made the candidate 2.9 per cent more likely to get a foot in the door. the statistical significance level of this is impossible to judge without a summary of the original data, but it does say > [@](#): > > Professor Michael Hiscox, a Harvard academic who oversaw the trial, said he was shocked by the results and has urged caution. > > […] > > Professor Hiscox said he discussed the trial with the ABS and did not consider it a rigorous or randomised control trial, warning against any “magic pill” solution. So he “oversaw” the trial, but at the same time is claiming it was not rigorous or properly randomised? Sounds like an experiment from which we can conclude nothing except the incompetence of those running it. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/42 "2017-08-16T15:45:54Z")
A link [from the BBC](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-40936719/gender-specific-toys-do-you-stereotype-children) that I found quite interesting regarding the question of social biases. It’s only a tidbit, but maybe we can set our UKDopers the homework to watch the full documentary and report back 🙂 Specially this bit: “Men hugely dominate careers prizing maths, spatial awareness and physical confidence.” “When children play spatial awareness games frequently their brains change physically within just three months.” Maybe one of the biggest reasons I’m an engineer is that the toys at Abuelita’s included a lot more board games, puzzles and construction games than fluffy dolls. ---
**Author:** ![Trafalgar\_Laura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trafalgar_laura/32/2907_2.png) [@Trafalgar\_Laura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trafalgar_Laura)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/43 "2017-08-16T16:27:02Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > A link [from the BBC](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-40936719/gender-specific-toys-do-you-stereotype-children) that I found quite interesting regarding the question of social biases. It’s only a tidbit, but maybe we can set our UKDopers the homework to watch the full documentary and report back 🙂 > > Specially this bit: > “Men hugely dominate careers prizing maths, spatial awareness and physical confidence.” > “When children play spatial awareness games frequently their brains change physically within just three months.” > > Maybe one of the biggest reasons I’m an engineer is that the toys at Abuelita’s included a lot more board games, puzzles and construction games than fluffy dolls. That could be! There are often anecdotes about female children naturally going to more domestic or traditionally feminine toys in these discussions, but I think that’s relative and varies depending on individuals too. Obviously you really enjoyed those games and puzzles, and probably benefited. I also played a lot with such toys as a child, which may have made me more inclined to taking advanced computer classes and programing classes in university, even if I didn’t pursue it as a career. Thank you for the link to that BBC clip! Too bad the entire documentary doesn’t seem available. I posted an overview of how women do in school from elementary to university, but I didn’t even think about the cultural bias I was showing by using a study of US girls and women alone… I have to admit I don’t really think any absolute test would be possible, especially when we’re considering not just personal but cultural differences affecting answers. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/44 "2017-08-16T16:35:07Z")
If you were allowed to ask very personal questions, you can tell the gender to a fairly high accuracy. You could ask about their spouse/SO, or thoughts about being a parent. The answers can be revealing, unless they were actively trying to hide their gender or mislead. (And yes, can be misleading if candidate is gay.) Of course, questions like these would (should) never be allowed in a job interview. But as others said/implied, addressing gender bias at the hiring stage is a bit late. As [this NPR story showed](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding), there % of women in computer science was improving along with other “traditionally male” fields until home computers became common, and they were almost always marketed towards men/boys. Same type of social bias exists for girls who show interest in science & math. (By the way, I seem to recall Carrie’s favorite brand was Manolo Blahnik, though I did have to look up the spelling. I have at least 15 pairs of shoes+boots. Many of them are nice Allen Edmonds shoes.) ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/45 "2017-08-16T17:00:46Z")
It is worth repeating that in a job interview, unlike the Imitation Game, the interviewer presumably is not trying to ferret out the candidate’s gender. Ideally the setup is just used to eliminate (some) unconscious biases. ---
**Author:** ![Walton\_Firm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/45deac/32.png) [@Walton\_Firm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walton_Firm)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/46 "2017-08-16T20:01:44Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > So he [Professor Hiscox] “oversaw” the trial, but at the same time is claiming it was not rigorous or properly randomised? Sounds like an experiment from which we can conclude nothing except the incompetence of those running it. On the Australian government’s official publication about the trial, which I linked to, Professor Hiscox is listed as the lead author, and the study is very explicitly described as a randomized controlled trial. See pages 1 and 11 in particular. (Page 1 is the third page of the PDF document.) Reading the whole document, it sure looks like a pretty formal and rigorous scientific study to me. Of course, no study is perfect, and on page 16 the authors list some potential confounders which they were unable to eliminate, and the steps they took to control for them as best they could. Reading the ABC article you linked to, it’s a bit confusingly written, but I _think_ his comment refers to another blind recruiting trial which the ABS had performed earlier (mentioned in the paragraph right before the line you quoted), and not to his own study. Anyway, I am not claiming that this study (or, for that matter, the other two I mentioned) represents the final word on the matter. But I find it interesting that it is often assumed as a self-evident fact that blind hiring practices would increase the number of women and minorities hired, whereas when the experiment is actually tried in practice, it happens quite frequently that the opposite result comes out. The oft-cited orchestra example from the OP might be more the exception than the rule in that regard. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/47 "2017-08-16T22:23:18Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > You wouldn’t ask that in a job interview. And if an interviewer agrees not to try to determine the sex of an interviewee, then that’s fine. > > But the thread also posits the possibility of a Turing test to distinguish women from men. That’s an interesting idea. What questions could someone ask (apart from “are you female?”) that give hints to someone’s sex? Take away someone’s appearance, and the sound of their voice, and what else is there that might reveal their gender? Ask them for directions? I remember reading a study that said that men _tended_ to use more cardinal directions, distances and street names when giving directions - “Go south on Main Street for three miles, then turn left on Park Drive…” Whereas women _tended_ to use more landmarks - “Go down Main Street towards midtown, and turn right when you come to the Kroger…” These were, of course, tendencies, not absolutes, so this might not be an effective test. > [@Infovore](#): > > Most people who’ve only communicated with me via computer (including in World of Warcraft) think I’m a guy unless I tell them. I don’t make any effort to mislead them–I just tend to have a fairly direct style of writing. I always assumed you to be male, as well. That speaks to my unconscious sexism, that I take _male_ as the default sex. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/48 "2017-08-16T23:37:56Z")
> [@kayT](#): > > Re my bolding: Why? And does this mean orchestras can’t do it any more either? Sorry, my bad. The “now” was intended as contrastive. Orchestras (or at least many) still use blink interviews. Many musicians were astonished at the results and came to realize their biases. They would say thinks like, “Women don’t have the power to play strong pieces” or similar put-downs. Well they have discovered that women play just as well as men. The violin sections of the Montreal Symphony are probably 3/4 women now. Even the Vienna orchestra that even ten years was all male now has a few women musicians. I wonder what would happen if there could be blind interviews for programmers. Maybe it would be an eye-opener. Just yesterday there was an op-ed piece in the NY Times by a woman who runs a business to improve diversity in the workplace. A company will come to her and say they want to diversify their workplace. She told the story of one such company who wanted to hire programmers. The first person she sent them was a black woman. Halfway through the interview, _before they had asked any technical questions_, the all white male committee ended the interview saying that she would not be a good fit for their corporate culture. Of course not; the company was trying to change its corporate culture. Why else come to this woman’s company? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2017, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/49 "2017-08-17T01:36:14Z")
> [@Walton\_Firm](#): > > … > Anyway, I am not claiming that this study (or, for that matter, the other two I mentioned) represents the final word on the matter. But I find it interesting that it is often assumed as a self-evident fact that blind hiring practices would increase the number of women and minorities hired, whereas when the experiment is actually tried in practice, it happens quite frequently that the opposite result comes out. The oft-cited orchestra example from the OP might be more the exception than the rule in that regard. There’s been research in the US on the effect of having recently banned the once-common practice of doing credit checks on prospective pre-hires and pre-screening for interviews on that basis. It was banned on the assumption that credit checks tended to paint lower income and particularly minority applicants in an especially adverse light, so banning this would improve their prospects. The early returns are the opposite. Instead of using credit scores to separate the reliable good minority workers from the useless flakes, the hiring folks simply assume all minority workers are useless flakes and refuse to hire any of them. The desire to discriminate seems the most deep seated desire of all. Until and unless we implement a union hiring hall approach where businesses have almost no choice in who they hire, they’ll always choose to pick the wrong people for the wrong reasons given even half a chance. A similar ban was placed on asking about criminal records until after a job offer was made. Likewise it was found that statistically speaking, businesses will avoid interviewing or hiring any minority folks rather than run the risk of getting to a job offer then discovering that brown applicant X has a criminal record. Easier for them to simply refuse to interview anyone not looking / sounding / appearing white. Remember people, Humanity is God’s idea of a practical joke. It’s the only explanation that makes any sense. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2017, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/50 "2017-08-17T03:09:44Z")
If the hiring were blind then they would not know the applicant’s name/sex/ethnic group/credit history, at all or at least until the very final stage, and then they would not be able to screen them in that manner. As in the study cited above, it does not necessarily follow that more non-whites/whatever will be hired, but at least it would be fair. The orchestra example remains a desirable ideal. There is the separate non-trivial problem of exactly how to evaluate the candidates, which is not always as obvious as for an orchestra. ---
**Author:** ![Walton\_Firm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/45deac/32.png) [@Walton\_Firm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walton_Firm)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2017, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/51 "2017-08-17T06:09:56Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > As in the study cited above, it does not necessarily follow that more non-whites/whatever will be hired, but at least it would be fair. The orchestra example remains a desirable ideal. Ironically, it appears that the study’s authors would not agree with you. In the “policy lessons” section of their report, they write: > [@](#): > > introducing de-identification would have the unintended consequence of setting back efforts to promote more diversity at the senior management level in the public service. As things stand, senior public servants appear to be promoting diversity in the way they make decisions when selecting job candidates for shortlists during the initial stage of the recruitment process. This is not possible if applications are de-identified. In other words, “we assumed that our hiring managers were discriminating against women/minorities, so we wanted to introduce blind hiring to stop them doing that. But now that we know they were actually biased _in favor_ of women/minorities already, we recommend to continue letting them have the information they need to keep discriminating.” Which is not an absurd position, although even if you agree that affirmative action is a good thing, maybe relying on the (perhaps subconscious) biases of individual recruiting managers is not the best way to implement it. You could have a situation where some managers are slightly biased against women, others are strongly biased in favor of women, and even if the outcome is favorable to women on average, it still doesn’t seem like a very good system. So maybe better to start with blind evaluations, let every recruitment manager give the candidate an unbiased score, and then give the female/minority candidates however many bonus points you need to give them in order to meet your diversity target? ---
**Author:** ![Walton\_Firm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/45deac/32.png) [@Walton\_Firm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walton_Firm)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2017, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/52 "2017-08-17T06:18:48Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Just yesterday there was an op-ed piece in the NY Times by a woman who runs a business to improve diversity in the workplace. A company will come to her and say they want to diversify their workplace. She told the story of one such company who wanted to hire programmers. The first person she sent them was a black woman. Halfway through the interview, _before they had asked any technical questions_, the all white male committee ended the interview saying that she would not be a good fit for their corporate culture. Of course not; the company was trying to change its corporate culture. Why else come to this woman’s company? I read the same piece, and I got the very strong impression that there was a part of the story missing. It would have been interesting (and good journalistic practice) if they had contacted the members of the hiring committee to ask what exactly they meant by “bad fit for the corporate culture” in this specific case, but the writer attempts to have made no attempts to do so. At the (European) companies which I’ve worked for, “poor cultural fit” was usually a euphemism for “total weirdo who seems to have a few screws loose, even by computer nerd standards / incredibly arrogant bastard who thinks he’s God’s gift to software development”. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2017, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/53 "2017-08-17T07:25:29Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Ask them for directions? I remember reading a study that said that men _tended_ to use more cardinal directions, distances and street names when giving directions - “Go south on Main Street for three miles, then turn left on Park Drive…” Whereas women _tended_ to use more landmarks - “Go down Main Street towards midtown, and turn right when you come to the Kroger…” These were, of course, tendencies, not absolutes, so this might not be an effective test. And cultural bias again. In most European countries, nobody uses cardinal directions. Even when “headings” are given, they are not cardinals but local landmarks (for Barcelona: sea, mountain, right and left; City Hall insists on using rivers Besós and Llobregat instead of right and left). So a candidate could be female or just European. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2017, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/54 "2017-08-17T17:02:19Z")
> [@Walton\_Firm](#): > > There was [a test](http://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-mask-gender-in-technical-interviews-heres-what-happened/) done using voice modulation to mask the gender of candidates for tech interviews. Contrary to the experimenters’ expectations, the outcome was that there was mostly no significant effect on the interviewers’ decisions, but men whose voices were changed to sound like women did slightly better than unmodulated men, and women whose voices were changed to sound like men did slightly worse. > > Not quite what the OP is looking for, since it’s about the resume evaluation stage rather than the actual interview, but there was a very large experiment with gender- and race-blinded resumes done in Australia just a few months ago. The purpose of the experiment was to see if the race or gender of a candidate would influence their chance of getting shortlisted for a senior position. > > The outcome was that this was indeed the case: removing that information from the resumes resulted in more white males getting shortlisted, and fewer women and minorities. [A large French study](http://ftp.iza.org/dp8517.pdf) a few years ago found similar effects, but it only looked at ethnicity, not gender. > > None of these is exactly what the OP proposes: a final interview for a white-collar job application, performed entirely via text. I couldn’t find any cases of that being tried. However, based on the above, I would not be too confident in trying to predict in advance what the effect on “diversity and lack of bias” would be. I remember reading a study from London, I think by Riach & Rich, 2006, which sent out duplicate CVs and found that there was a slight bias in favour of men in male-dominated fields of employment and a considerably larger bias in favour of women in three other fields which they defined as either female dominated or gender neutral (determined by the percentage of the current workforce in that trade). There was a follow-up study from Australia which found the same in female-dominated professions in Australia. I also recall an Israeli study publicised as showing discrimination against ugly women, but the numbers showed that the CVs of women in general were more likely to be progressed to interview. [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJBY41JCcjE)also questions the effectiveness of the behind-a-curtain technique for auditioning musicians. Basically the study it’s all based on was done from 1970 to 1996, has a rather small sample size and shows the blind audition process only making a small contribution to the change in sex-balance in orchestra performers, and some parts of the data show it benefiting male applicants. ---
**Author:** ![as\_u\_wish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@as\_u\_wish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/as_u_wish)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2017, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/55 "2017-08-17T23:16:19Z")
So would someone consider making a poll to determine if more women than men know who this Carrie person is? It was new information to me, a female person who has never watched Sex in the City… ---
**Author:** ![Pippers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b5a626/32.png) [@Pippers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pippers)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/56 "2017-08-18T00:54:49Z")
I’m still stuck on Carrie’s favorite shoe. I thought they were Jimmie Choo’s (sp?). ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/57 "2017-08-18T02:00:33Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Back to the OP and away from the red herring of job interviews … > > Given enough time and a wide enough range of natural topics I’d get a bunch, but by no means all, correct. As I think most people would. > > OTOH, until \*\*Infovore \*\*outed herself up-thread I thought she was male. We’ve had little to no direct back-and-forth interaction here, but I’d read enough of her words on various topics that she’d moved from my personal Doper default of “person, presumably male” to “male person”. Oops on me. :o > > I agree that one of the things I like about SDMB is that for many folks their sex is so submerged that I can process them as a person, not as a man or a woman. It was a refreshing, and somewhat unsettling, wakeup call back when I was a newbie to find out that so-and-so was male or female when I had earlier decided or (worse?) assumed, the opposite. > > Which really raises the much larger question of how different society would be if everybody really was just a person and their male/femaleness was no more important to interactions than is their eye color or ear shape? The number of female Dopers I have assumed were male (and male Dopers I have assumed were female) is somewhat startling. And definitely has shown me my own bias. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/58 "2017-08-18T02:01:55Z")
> [@Pippers](#): > > I’m still stuck on Carrie’s favorite shoe. I thought they were Jimmie Choo’s (sp?). Manolos. And I have never watched an episode of Sex in the City. I do, however, read the internet. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/59 "2017-08-18T02:44:42Z")
> [@as\_u\_wish](#): > > So would someone consider making a poll to determine if more women than men know who this Carrie person is? It was new information to me, a female person who has never watched Sex in the City… I knew about it mainly because of its cultural significance. I may have watched one episode out of curiosity. (I’m male.) It is widely recognized that the show was of particular importance for women. [What _Sex and the City_ Meant for Women](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/jan/29/broadcasting.tvandradio) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719/60 "2017-08-18T04:03:07Z")
I haven’t watched it and didn’t know the name of the protagonist (I’m sure I’ve heard it before, but I wouldn’t have been able to recall it). But I did guess the question was about her because “protagonist of Sex and the City\*” and “obsession with shoes” are two things that get put together a lot. - Spaniards reaction to “Bradshaw” is along the lines of “uh… is there a way I can avoid mangling that? I know, I won’t say it!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turing-test-for-women/793719.md?page=4)