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Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

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Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#21

Post by andkon »

grahamburger wrote: post #18
throwaway293810 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you might as well just stay home But why does it have to be the woman who stays home? Why is this just the tacit assumption? I'd love to see not just solid support for moms at work, but solid support / encouragement for dads at home: paternity leave up-to-par with maternity leave, a normalization and acceptance of stay-at-home dads where desired, etc. It's kind of amazing how prevalent the assumption is that childr…

You're right, of course. But there are biological reason why all else being equal, having mom stay home might work better than dad. (Breastfeeding, mainly) Also as a dad I fully agree with your other point - I want to spend time with my kids as well, and I bristle at the suggestion that my kids are my wife's 'problem.' I love my kids, and if I had the means I would spend all of my time with them. But considering the…

Did you know that breastfeeding pumps and refrigeration had been invented and refined over the last century?

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#22

Post by throwaway293810 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #19
throwaway293810 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you might as well just stay home But why does it have to be the woman who stays home? Why is this just the tacit assumption? I'd love to see not just solid support for moms at work, but solid support / encouragement for dads at home: paternity leave up-to-par with maternity leave, a normalization and acceptance of stay-at-home dads where desired, etc. It's kind of amazing how prevalent the assumption is that childr…

We should do all we can to support mothers and parents. They should be free to make their own choices. But nobody should be surprised if mothers make different choices than fathers. Nor should we force the matter. There is some biology here. Equality doesn't create interchangeability.

I'm arguing for equality of opportunity, not outcome. If the final split isn't 50/50, fine, as long as everyone is making free choices. The problem is that today that (equality of opportunity) is not the case -- there's immense pressure for the woman to be the one to stay home, if someone does.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#23

Post by busterarm »

belorn wrote: post #20
larrik wrote: post #7

Women who are halfway into their careers in tech are leaving at a rate of 56%, which is more than double the quit rate of men. One reason for the high quit rate may be that women have a much lower chance of being promoted, even when they have the same amount of experience and tenure as their male peers, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. So around the time a lot of people have kids? They probably…

I find it quite interesting that a similar number of 50% of men who enter the teacher profession also leaves while the number for women is about half. In stark contrast however, the quote text, the theory on why men drops out of female dominated professions share nothing in common with the theories on why women leave male dominated. In a 2009 report by the Swedish national agency, they argue that the reason why peopl…

Anecdotal, but my cousin was a primary school teacher and faced an incredible amount of hostility because of his gender from parents and colleagues and left for construction after 2 years.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#24

Post by grahamburger »

andkon wrote: post #21
grahamburger wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, of course. But there are biological reason why all else being equal, having mom stay home might work better than dad. (Breastfeeding, mainly) Also as a dad I fully agree with your other point - I want to spend time with my kids as well, and I bristle at the suggestion that my kids are my wife's 'problem.' I love my kids, and if I had the means I would spend all of my time with them. But considering the…

Did you know that breastfeeding pumps and refrigeration had been invented and refined over the last century?

Yes, I did know that. I assume you don't have kids? Breastfeeding is extremely difficult and painful for most women, and pumping moreso. I can only watch my wife crying from the excruciating pain of having her breasts pumped by a cold machine several times a day so many times before I say 'you know what, let's not do that anymore.'

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#25

Post by sandworm101 »

throwaway293810 wrote: post #22
sandworm101 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should do all we can to support mothers and parents. They should be free to make their own choices. But nobody should be surprised if mothers make different choices than fathers. Nor should we force the matter. There is some biology here. Equality doesn't create interchangeability.

I'm arguing for equality of opportunity, not outcome. If the final split isn't 50/50, fine, as long as everyone is making free choices. The problem is that today that (equality of opportunity) is not the case -- there's immense pressure for the woman to be the one to stay home, if someone does.

But "free choices" is a tricky thing. Many would say that so long as 50/50 isn't reached, for whatever reason known or unknown, the choice is not free.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#26

Post by grahamburger »

throwaway293810 wrote: post #17
xenihn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But why does it have to be the woman who stays home? Why is this just the tacit assumption? Maybe you should be asking the mothers.

Well, it's cultural, undoubtedly. Many couples just do it that way because that's "how it's done" without really thinking about it. But as far as I've seen/heard there is also significant social cost to stay-at-home dads. They're alternately demonized, ignored, assumed incompetent, assumed less worthy for not financially supporting the family, or just not accommodated in a thousand other ways. That's what we (society…

> Many couples just do it that way because that's "how it's done" without really thinking about it.

Are you sure about that? Have you asked them? No one that I know makes these decisions just because that's "how it's done," although I can imagine that might be how it looks from the outside.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#28

Post by jfe »

i have trouble accepting the idea that fewer women in tech is a problem. it's not that i want to discourage women -- or anyone -- from going into tech. i just don't believe in encouraging anyone to do anything in particular, except what they enjoy. i'd appreciate it if someone can persuade me that the hype is true so i no longer need to feel like a black sheep. but..

for one, the fact that there are fewer women than men in any field, computing or otherwise, is neither good nor bad. the disproportionate number of women in nursing is not seen as a problem, but somehow it has become one in tech.

two, as we flood more people into professional computing, the good pay -- one of the reasons given on the wwcode website for encouraging women to enter the field -- will decrease, due to the increased supply of workers. tech is reduced to Yet Another Job, and Women Who Bgurp becomes the next YC startup.

three, the wwcode website argues that diverse teams perform better by increasing collective intelligence -- measured in what units? and when it claims that organizations with the largest representation of women leadership have a higher return on investment, how is that measured? this seems super hand-wavy to me.

lastly, the website's statement about women investing 90% of their income in their communities "when [they] make more" is not only unlikely, but is predicated on the long-term availability of good pay in professional computing, which, as i mentioned earlier, will decline at a rate proportional to the frequency with which we encourage people to enter the field.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#29

Post by bastijn »

I wonder how much of the balance difference is due to boys liking tech more than girls. I'd say that if you ask 10-15 year olds, who hardly think about their future, about what they do in their free time you will find equal balance on the reply "gaming/stuff on my PC". Most girls don't like it, that translates to later stages in life I guess. Never see the reports for other fields where females excel in acceptance rates. Teachers, daycare, psychology, there are plenty really.

Mind you, I'm not saying women are treated equally once they _have_ the job, I'm just not sold on this whole "only x% of tech is women!" Thing. We can probably learn a thing or two on how to treat our female colleagues, but please stop trying to fight for 50% should be women kind of causes. There are other fields where it is completely the other way around and I don't see people fighting there for equal rights.

Re: Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers

#30

Post by lifeisstillgood »

I would be interested in the number of men or women who leave tech because the next promotion effectively is a promotion out of tech and into management.

What is the record like with tech companies with engineer tracks vs normal up or out? How big is the male female divide in those cases - and is the diff significant?

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