Software Developers’ Growing Elitism Problem • Hacker News Board

Re: Software Developers’ Growing Elitism Problem

#51

Post by mycroft-holmes » Fri, Nov 27, 2015, 6:50 PM UTC

wwzuk wrote: post #48

onion2k wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of women in the software industry when they join it might be roughly equal to the number of men, and their salaries might well be higher, but after a few years a lot of the women have left. That's the problem. The industry is set up in a way that isn't inclusive, doesn't treat people equally, and in a lot of cases is actively anti-women because hiring practises don't deal with things like pregnancy well en…

Whenever I see these sort of topics discussed, I rhetorically think: why is there no initiatives to make careers like HR, veterinary work and other areas more inclusive. Both genders have strengths and weaknesses due to their biological and genetic differences, so it's only natural for one side to dominate certain fields. Pushing equality to the point of progressive politics is just going to harm people. They won't b…

> Both genders have strengths and weaknesses due to their biological and genetic differences, so it's only natural for one side to dominate certain fields.

This is exactly why it's so hard to have a conversation about this issue. That statement alone pisses off a lot of people who don't believe there are differences between gender - even biological.

Re: Software Developers’ Growing Elitism Problem

#52

Post by onion2k » Fri, Nov 27, 2015, 10:30 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #46

onion2k wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of women in the software industry when they join it might be roughly equal to the number of men, and their salaries might well be higher, but after a few years a lot of the women have left. That's the problem. The industry is set up in a way that isn't inclusive, doesn't treat people equally, and in a lot of cases is actively anti-women because hiring practises don't deal with things like pregnancy well en…

> The number of women in the software industry when they join it might be roughly equal to the number of men, and their salaries might well be higher, but after a few years a lot of the women have left. Note: we've just shifted the goalpost from "women don't join the industry because its misogynist and elitist" - as it used to be for the past year or two with those discussions - to "women join the industry about just…

Not at all. They're paid more because the only companies that hire them are good ones, who pay well, and who understand women are just as good as men. In order to have equality the bad companies need to start being equal too. That doesn't make men victims. Men have many more opportunities than women, but mainly at the bottom where companies pay badly.

Re: Software Developers’ Growing Elitism Problem

#53

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 3:36 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #52

TeMPOraL wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The number of women in the software industry when they join it might be roughly equal to the number of men, and their salaries might well be higher, but after a few years a lot of the women have left. Note: we've just shifted the goalpost from "women don't join the industry because its misogynist and elitist" - as it used to be for the past year or two with those discussions - to "women join the industry about just…

Not at all. They're paid more because the only companies that hire them are good ones, who pay well, and who understand women are just as good as men. In order to have equality the bad companies need to start being equal too. That doesn't make men victims. Men have many more opportunities than women, but mainly at the bottom where companies pay badly.

Now this is a nice thing to believe - the only companies that hire women are the good companies. I assume they're good by virtue of hiring women. So, company + hires women + pays them well => good company, good company => does well on the market. I don't think it stands to scrutiny. I'm not sure if you mean that those companies are morally good, therefore successful on the market (generally, the reverse is true), so I'll ignore this point, but I propose another interpretation:

The companies that hire women are the ones that can afford it. Seems more likely, but it would imply that women are less capable than men in this field. Assuming this is not true, with less women than men in the industry, you should expect proportional amounts of them in both "bad" and "good" companies. It should average out to equal pay.

Since it's not virtue, and not good companies being charitable, I smell only one other likely explanation: maybe it's profitable for companies to hire women as programmers now? If it's not because of merit, then how could it be? Maybe it's because it is fashionable nowadays to go out of your way to make it good for women, and you risk PR flop if you don't? Here. I smell sexism.

Re: Software Developers’ Growing Elitism Problem

#54

Post by akiselev » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 4:54 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #43

akiselev wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're commiting the same exact mistake the article is. This is the vocal minority who is, you know, vocal and unrepresentative of all software developers, the majority of whom have little to say about the religious battles on online forums and don't give a damn about programming except to feed their families. If you want an example of a real problem of elitism go look at the metastudies on narcissism, which talk abo…

> at the metastudies on narcissism, which talk about how the selection process for surgeons (brain surgeons especially) tends to select for egomaniacs and results in a very politically charged industry Are there any surprising findings there, or is it just what you could reasonably expect after putting people through 10+ years of life-sucking training, deep in debt, to work on the most complicated thing humans ever h…

Not really. Doctors are part of a very science/research heavy industry so most of the serious research is focused on them but the relatively few sources available on lawyers have the same conclusions about competitive, economic, and intellectual incentives selecting for a very narrow class of people. The really interesting part comes when you expand your outlook beyond the Western research world (which very few metastudies in psychology do, unfortunately) where these results aren't always so clear cut. It appears that a culture such as the one in India or Cuba, which heavily emphasizes education in family life, can have turn a lot of that arrogance into humility.