Garbage, Not Science

I saw this a week or so ago, and wanted to comment, but hey, lots of things going on. There is this study being talked about that claims resumes with they/them listed as pronouns are more likely to be overlooked than other resumes. It’s a garbage study. Let me explain:

The flaw lies in the methods of the researchers. They sent two sets of identical resumes in to prospective employers in an effort to test “whether or not the inclusion of gender-neutral pronouns impacts how employers perceive resumes.” Both featured a gender-ambiguous name, ‘Taylor Williams.’ The only difference between the test and control resumes was the presence of gender pronouns on the test version. The test resume included “they/them” pronouns under the name in the header.

The flaw here is obvious. In order for a study to be valid, you should conduct the test with the control having only one difference from the test. That difference is called the dependent variable. In this case the dependent variable is the presence or absence of preferred pronouns, NOT the presence or absence of “they/them” as opposed to “he/him” or even “she/her.”

So all they have proven is that people who put preferred pronouns in their resumes are less likely to get hired. They set out to prove that nonbinary applicants were being discriminated against, but all they managed to provide was evidence that employers don’t want the drama of assholes who insist that everyone use their preferred pronouns. It’s my guess that, should the study be repeated with the other pronouns, the results would be similar. The last thing that a company needs is some woke gender pronoun warrior running around, creating drama and potentially suing because they were misgendered.

Companies don’t like drama, they don’t like getting sued. Companies are funny like that.