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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

#91

Post by yummyfajitas »

nostrebored wrote: post #72
yummyfajitas wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a variety of studies suggesting that "solid support for working moms" - in the form of paid leave, subsidized day care and the general Nordic experience - do not actually help much. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/05/the... http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... In fact, paid leave encourages women to be less attached to the workforce - as paid leave goes up, w…

[0] "One reason for the poor Nordic performance at higher corporate levels is high taxes, which limits the amount of household services supplied through markets. If it is harder to hire someone to do the chores, that makes it harder for women to invest the time to climb the career ladder." This is just so goddamn laughable. Again we come back to the implication that women are the de-facto owners of housework. [1] jus…

Women are the de-facto consumers of housework - the party most likely to care if it's done or not.

Creating a disparity in paid leave for women and men again creates a default assumption of women as caregivers.

Sweden used to give both parents 16 months of leave to split as they liked. When parents chose to give it all to the mother, Sweden decided to force men to take 2 months (or give them up). Now they are increasing it to 3 months.

I guess Swedish bureaucrats know better than parents how leave should be distributed.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/28/swedish-fathers...

rather than pushing for extended maternal leave in the U.S., we should be pushing for equal paternity leave.

In the US we have equal paternity and maternity leave (namely none).

Here's another crazy idea: disproportionately more women than men enjoy being stay at home parents and make choices based on this preference. Can you think of a way the world would be different if this theory were true?

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

#92

Post by zassmin »

wyldfire wrote: post #46
alainapercival wrote: post #27

Hey @Alaina from Women Who Code here. We are thrilled to be joining the YC community and I'm happy to answer questions.

> Women Who Code is an international 501c3 non-profit organization that works to empower career-aged women to excel in their technology careers. Is there any relationship with the Girls Who Code organization? Because of the similarity of names it sounds as if it's a similar concept targeted at an older female audience.

Great question.

We focus on making sure our members stay in their engineering careers and excel in them!

Girls Who Code focuses on getting high school girls interested in STEM.

Our members often mentor Girls Who Code members.

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

#93

Post by jbh2016 »

ankey1 wrote: post #52
larrik wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has taken the kids out and about during the day, I have to say that it's awkward . You end up being the only man in a group of dozens of women with their kids, or you are the guy at the playground sitting by himself while his kids play on it (which looks a ton like you don't have any kids to an outsider). Society, at least in most of the U.S. is frankly a bit hostile to males as the caregivers. I can't…

And now you know how it feels to be the only woman engineer on a team of 20 engineers. It's awkward and sometimes hard for women engineers like me to focus on our jobs because of the awkwardness contributing to hostile work environments. And this is why it's awesome that YC is supporting Women Who Code.

thank you

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

#94

Post by rayiner »

throwaway293810 wrote: post #70
xenihn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Many couples just do it that way because that's "how it's done" without really thinking about it My hunch is that you don't actually know any women in tech who have decided to take a leave from their careers (either temporarily or permanently) in order to raise their children, and your handle + the fact that you just made that account makes me think you're a troll. Many (most?) mothers suffer if they can't be around…

Well, no, I don't think it's a burden and a sacrifice to take care of kids. From what I hear it's one of the most rewarding things in life, and I look forward to it (I'm in my late 20s and am thinking about having kids ten or so years from now). This is more in the context of career breaks, i.e., the current HN thread - in that context, taking time off a career is a burden. I actually do know a few couples who've had…

There is a huge cultural push for women to leave the workforce after having a kid, which you don't even really appreciate until you try to swim against the tide.

After law school, my wife and I pursued the best jobs we could find, which left us working about 120 miles apart. We also had a baby. There was enormous pressure on her to make a career sacrifice to come work where I did, none for me to do the same. Even when there wasn't active headwind, just the total lack of support and encouragement was demoralizing and might have caused a less obstinate woman to just give in.

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

#95

Post by chongli »

busterarm wrote: post #42
nck4222 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>i just don't believe in encouraging anyone to do anything in particular, except what they enjoy. There are plenty of women who would enjoy being a developer but it wasn't presented to them as a realistic option in their childhood, or it wasn't a welcoming atmosphere for them when they started learning about it.

You could swap the gender and career with just about any field in either end of this list[0] and have the same argument, but there is a razor focus on this one specific field/gender combination. [0]: https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/chal...

I think the reason so much emphasis is put on attracting women to tech is the same reason so much emphasis is put on female politicians: tech people - especially startup founders - have the opportunity to have an outsize impact on the lives of everybody else in society. Encouraging more men to become kindergarten teachers may be great for the kids in their classroom but it's unlikely to have the impact of the next Twitter or a Facebook.

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

#96

Post by NTDF9 »

I don't understand this constant fight to have 50%.

There are capable women who climb ladders successfully. The other women who couldn't, simply couldn't, just like many men who couldn't.

Also, pregnancy and breastfeeding cannot be done by a man. A woman who aspires to be a mother will have to compromise on other things to be a mother, which probably will include a compromise in career.

A man who aspires to be a father will have to compromise on other things to be a father, which probably will include a compromise in EVERY OTHER FACET of his life ensuring he has a job to pay the bills for the woman and children.

Why is motherhood such a stigma? Why is career the all-important thing that EVERY woman has to pursue? Let the woman choose herself what she wants to do.

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

#97

Post by nostrebored »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #91
nostrebored wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[0] "One reason for the poor Nordic performance at higher corporate levels is high taxes, which limits the amount of household services supplied through markets. If it is harder to hire someone to do the chores, that makes it harder for women to invest the time to climb the career ladder." This is just so goddamn laughable. Again we come back to the implication that women are the de-facto owners of housework. [1] jus…

Women are the de-facto consumers of housework - the party most likely to care if it's done or not. Creating a disparity in paid leave for women and men again creates a default assumption of women as caregivers. Sweden used to give both parents 16 months of leave to split as they liked. When parents chose to give it all to the mother, Sweden decided to force men to take 2 months (or give them up). Now they are increas…

In the society that we live in now you're right. And you can either see this as an inequality that's been socialized or as essential to the female sex -- equivalent to saying that girls are born caring more about housework.

The fact of the matter is that being a stay at home parent is extremely isolating. Women who stay at home are significantly more likely to have mental problems [0][1]

"Researchers also found that most of the women in the highly suicidal group held jobs before becoming mothers – a significant life changing experience where they left behind their working identity in a predictable and controlled environment where they felt competent, to the unpredictability of caring for a newborn. This dramatic change could have been enough to catapult them into severe post partum depression." [2]

And there is also a disproportionate push for them to stay at home. The narrative around motherhood suggests that women who stay at home are better mothers.

I stayed at home for a few months while my partner went back to work. It's something I would never do again. It's unbelievably isolating, stressful, and in many ways (especially in the early months) unrewarding.

A way the world would be different would be we wouldn't have people making decisions against their own self interest due to societal pressure. You wouldn't receive polar opposite answers from women around other people and in one on one scenarios regarding their experiences as a SAHM.

[0] http://www.gallup.com/poll/154685/stay-home-moms-report-depr... [1] http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2011/12/working-moms.... [2]https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090903163854.h...

off topic: bloom filters are my favorite data structure and I enjoyed reading your blog post :)

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

#98

Post by rayiner »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #77
rayiner wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, we raised an entire generation of Americans on bottles (75% of children born in 1971 were never breastfed, even in the hospital) and everyone turned it fine.

"Turned out fine" is highly subjective. The peak violence rates in the US happened when that cohort was 22; right around the age at which people commit the most violent crimes. So at least on that one metric, that cohort was probably among the worst ever (I'm not claiming a relationship to breastfeeding, of course).

Breastfeeding declined dramatically from 1910 to 1945 (and stayed below 30% from 1945-1970s). While crime went up from 1965+, it also went steadily down from 1935-1960.

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

#99

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

jfe wrote: post #28

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…

> 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

As women enter a field, the pay decreases faster than can be explained by just "increased supply", because the job becomes perceived as "women's work" which is systematically undervalued.

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

#100

Post by antisthenes »

nck4222 wrote: post #40
jfe wrote: post #28

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…

>i just don't believe in encouraging anyone to do anything in particular, except what they enjoy. There are plenty of women who would enjoy being a developer but it wasn't presented to them as a realistic option in their childhood, or it wasn't a welcoming atmosphere for them when they started learning about it.

Being a developer was not presented to me as a realistic option in my childhood either, mainly because most of the many schools I've attended did not have any sort of computer science curriculum until the senior year.

Nor did I have anyone in my circles interested enough in programming until I've already picked my major.

Does that mean I now qualify for some special victim treatment just like those women?

Let's be honest here. If you want your argument to mean something, it can't have anything to do with gender. If it does - then the whole basis of it just boils down to "let's give women more handouts"

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