Women Who Code (YC S16) helps female engineers level up in their careers • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by H0n3sty » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 5:54 AM UTC

H0n3sty wrote: post #214

deciplex wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice subtle accusation of racism, person-who-literally-thinks-that-some-races-are-inferior-to-others.

You have that backwards. If you don't believe that some races are inferior then there are no reasons for things like affirmative action.

In case anyone is wondering what the "textbook" definition of racism is:

the belief that "ALL" members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.

The belief that races may be different in average ability with respect to certain characteristics or that members of certain races have their own preferences is not racist. Some people like to use the term racist as some sort of a perverted trump card to silence an opposing view rather than engaging in an actual debate. Good luck trying to have a civil conversation with someone like that.

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

#222

Post by deciplex » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 6:13 AM UTC

H0n3sty wrote: post #221

H0n3sty wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have that backwards. If you don't believe that some races are inferior then there are no reasons for things like affirmative action.

In case anyone is wondering what the "textbook" definition of racism is: the belief that "ALL" members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. The belief that races may be different in average ability with respect to certain characteristics or that members of certain races have their own preferences i…

I refrained from calling you a racist even after you said the obviously racist thing. Moreover you first implied I'm racist out of the blue, because I disagree with a SCOTUS Justice who happens to be black. Also:

> The belief that races may be different in average ability with respect to certain characteristics or that members of certain races have their own preferences is not racist.

Quoting this for posterity in case you try to edit it out later. Sorry for you, I think you'll find the belief that black people are just not "on average" intelligent enough to be enrolled at university in the same proportion as white people, or that women are just too emotional to be in tech, or whatever, are rather unpopular opinions and likely to get you labeled (indeed, correctly) a racist and a sexist. Good luck with that.

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

#223

Post by cgriswald » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 6:20 AM UTC

exstudent2 wrote: post #187

imron wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know it's boring and very, very hard work So you're now agreeing with 'unfulfilling manual labor'?

hard != unfulfilling. The result is very fulfilling. It's really telling that raising a child being fulfilling is even up for debate.

That's the debate only in your own mind. You've completely failed to grasp the not-so-nuanced context. He's not talking about the raising of the child, but the meaningless, but necessary, work that goes with it.

Watching my kid succeed at something that I've helped her to learn is very fulfilling. But no matter how much you protest, being a stay-at-home dad was filled with thankless, unfulfilling tasks. I gagged -every- -single- -time- I changed my kid's diapers. The "result" of changing those diapers? Another filled diaper.

No matter how much of a rock star she is and becomes, changing diapers wasn't, isn't, and will never be a fulfilling task. And parenting is absolutely filled with similar tasks.

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

#224

Post by mryan » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 6:22 AM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #213

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…

To my knowledge none of these groups who champion women in IT seem to talk about maternity leave. It mystifies me to be honest. The situation with maternal leave is very problematic because it is available to women only in most countries. Women get about 10 years into their career and decide to have families. In high tech, my experience has been that maternity leave benefits are common. So women often take up to a ye…

> This is fixable. 6 months maternity leave followed by 6 moths paternity leave. Make it a law that spouses have the right to that 6 months.

This is similar to how it works in parts of the EU. You have maternity leave, paternity leave, and parental leave. The latter can be taken by either parent. The amount of time allocated to each category varies from country to country.

Leave must be requested (I think) 21 days in advance, and an employer that punishes you for taking parental leave can be taken to an employment tribunal.

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

#225

Post by strictnein » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 6:23 AM UTC

HarshTruth wrote: post #202

wpietri wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason women dominate in certain fields is that those fields were generally seen as less important, so women were pushed into them. E.g., doctors were men, women were nurses, and there was an enormous pay and prestige difference between the two. (Hint: it did not favor the nurses.) If you're interested in learning more, researching "pink ghetto" will get you started.

Its actually the other way around. Men face more pressure to earn a higher income than women, so more men enter higher paying careers. 1. Women prefer to marry a guy who makes more money than her. So there is significant sexual pressure to become a high status ($) man. 2. Men (statistically) can't marry up large income gaps. So they know that what ever lifestyle they want, they have to be solely responsible for it. W…

Men also end up working in far more dangerous jobs, which pay more. The gap in workplace accidents and deaths affecting men vs women is staggering. Over 90% of workplace deaths are men.

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

#226

Post by carrja99 » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 6:25 AM UTC

This is likely going to be 100% ignored since I'm late to the party on this but my wife's experiences have been that true discrimination and difficulty doesn't rise until a female engineer tries to enter management. When she was "just an engineer" things were great and nothing went wrong.

When she tried to level up into management, she faced these difficulties:

- competition from other female managers who had transitioned into the role from product management. They often times felt immensely threatened by her technical acumen and played politics to stop her.

- Lots of pretending from engineers (never the ones she's led, oddly enough) that she "doesn't know anything"

- Her current manager recently demoted her on his second day and told her "she should do engineering because he believes she'll do great at it and, if she can prove herself, she might be put in charge of a project and have a chance at leadership in the future."

The last one still has me pretty irked since it's recent.

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

#227

Post by jacobr » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 6:37 AM UTC

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 considered moving from Sweden to England for a job a while back. If we did so, the cost for day care and school would be significantly more than my wife's potential salary, so she would probably have stayed at home. That would have been completely absurd living in Sweden, I don't know any stay at home moms, barely even in my parent's generation.

Of course culture, role models, mentors, etc are very important to some, but economic factors establish the baseline for what is actually reasonable and possible for most.

As an example, to diversify the police force in Sweden, one method was to have more opportunity for remote studies at the police academy. It turns out women (for various reasons) have a harder time getting away from their families frequently, so when they could have remote classes that helped.

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

#228

Post by morgtheborg » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 6:38 AM UTC

throwaway293810 wrote: post #11

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…

> 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…

100% agree. At the start-up I work at when I brought up we needed to set a maternity leave policy, I made a point of saying we should match it with a paternity leave policy.

I'm a woman, but if I was hiring and it came down to someone I had to give x weeks of paid leave to if they had a child (aka a woman) or someone with the same credentials and skills who I wouldn't need to give that leave to (a man), you bet your ass it would impact my hiring decisions. Particularly at a small company.

Matching maternity leave with paternity leave removes at least one rational incentive to hire men over women.

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

#229

Post by startling » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 6:40 AM UTC

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…

> just don't believe in encouraging anyone to do anything in particular, except what they enjoy.

Great. What about the women working in tech now who feel isolated and held back, and the women who leave tech because of it?

(i.e. the people this initiative is supposed to help)

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

#230

Post by startling » Fri, Jun 03, 2016, 7:00 AM UTC

douche wrote: post #186

nostrebored wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mobile/face study has not been reproduced. Researchers who tried again, making the study gender-blind (i.e. dressing the babies in gender neutral outfits and not looking at the names) found that there was no significant differences. [4] [3] is thoroughly conditioned into women [5]. Not only do people say that males are more visually intelligent, boys take part in more activities that develop spatial reasoning and…

Spatial reasoning does seem to have strong male/female correlation. Give a hundred men and a hundred woman a map and an address to reach, and guess which cohort gets there more easily? Or give the same groups a Lego set and the instruction booklet (especially the tediously piece-by-piece modern ones), and see which population completes the set more quickly and more accurately.

Do you have a source, or is this a thought experiment?

> Or give the same groups a Lego set and the instruction booklet (especially the tediously piece-by-piece modern ones), and see which population completes the set more quickly and more accurately.

fwiw, Lego are overwhelmingly marketed to, and given to, boys. I'm not sure it's safe to draw a conclusion from this.