What bugs me the most is when employers take advantage of this to shift the playing field to the disadvantage of all workers and the "useful idiots"[1] cheer it as progress for a marginalized subset of workers. One example is Reddit's decision some time ago to make their offers non-negotiable. Letting the employer make 100% of the decision as to how surplus is divided between employer and employee is quite obviously a net negative for employees, but it was spun as a positive move by the CEO due to reducing the disparate impact of women being less likely to negotiate.
By contrast, when Google found out that they had a gender skew in promotion rates, they actually looked at the data and realized that the issue was that women employees were promoted at the same rate but put them self up for promotion at lower rates. Instead of taking more control out of every employee's hands, they launched a drive to make managers pay more attention to talented employees and encourage them to self-nominate for promotion. At the time, this closed the promotion-rates gender gap at the relevant levels.
Criticism of gender equity initiatives in tech is often taken as criticism of the goal, but much of the time it's simply a criticism of the cynicism and stupidity involved in the implementation.
By contrast, when Google found out that they had a gender skew in promotion rates, they actually looked at the data and realized that the issue was that women employees were promoted at the same rate but put them self up for promotion at lower rates. Instead of taking more control out of every employee's hands, they launched a drive to make managers pay more attention to talented employees and encourage them to self-nominate for promotion. At the time, this closed the promotion-rates gender gap at the relevant levels.
Criticism of gender equity initiatives in tech is often taken as criticism of the goal, but much of the time it's simply a criticism of the cynicism and stupidity involved in the implementation.
[1] Apologies for the inflammatory language on its face but I'm referencing a specific term that's somewhat less insulting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot