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Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

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Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#2
What is it these days (for a couple decades now, actually) that somehow discrimination is totally fine when it's discrimination against many people. Why is an initiative to get women into tech ok (which begs to question how one gets women into tech without girls having been gotten into tech), but if there were an initiative to get more men into tech there would be all out hostility towards it? What happened to equality?

We should be offering the same opportunities to all. We should not be going down this road where some are allowed to discriminate and others are not, that's exactly how we got to this point and how you create hostilities through abuse and distortion.

Is there a need to start an initiative to get more Asian males into tech? Oh, wait, that kind of discrimination is banned, but the other kind of discrimination is ok? All in the name of doing good, of course.

Also, what is the bar, the limit when discrimination is no longer allowed? Is there a limit at all? Or does the sexual and racial discrimination just perpetuate against Asian and white males from now on? What is wrong with just providing the same opportunities as we currently do and letting people choose their path without engineering society like an authoritarian regime's social central planners.

We keep on distorting and contorting society to some delusional and fantastical ideal that simply will never happen and really even disrespects the differences and uniqueness of people of any kind. It's amazing that liberals, especially the neo-liberal tech elite, think that somehow all of society needs to converge and conform.

Maybe getting women into tech leads to a decline in the visual arts and design where women dominate, but none of the centrally planned society types ever thinks about that kind of reflexive stuff.

Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#4

Why not more female sanitation workers or more male elementary school teachers? What makes the gender demographics of building websites so much more important than all these other imbalanced fields?

There has been movements for more female sanitation workers, as for male elementary school teachers and nurses, haven't heard of that. The gender demographics of tech is important due to the perceived wealth and power of Silicon Valley. I personally say perceived because I thinks its the VC's who have the real wealth and power.

Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#5

Why not more female sanitation workers or more male elementary school teachers? What makes the gender demographics of building websites so much more important than all these other imbalanced fields?

Or commercial fisherman, mining machine operator, etc.

The money is in tech at this moment. And women want it.

Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#6

Why not more female sanitation workers or more male elementary school teachers? What makes the gender demographics of building websites so much more important than all these other imbalanced fields?

While I kind of agree with the thrust of your comment overall, I think it makes sense in the case of Melinda Gates. Look how fabulously wealthy her family has become as a result of tech. You can see why, if she thinks women are at an unjust disadvantage, she would want to try and fix that through getting women into tech.

Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#7

Why not more female sanitation workers or more male elementary school teachers? What makes the gender demographics of building websites so much more important than all these other imbalanced fields?

Or coal miners! /s

Seriously, the answer is the same as why half of the planet wants to be in tech, money, success, and influence. The general thinking is and has been that you try to fairly populate the mid-top range of jobs, and that's more effective than trying to shoehorn in more women driving dumpsters.

Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#8
> fewer than one in five CS degrees are earned by women

Boys born today are 40% less likely to graduate than girls. I think this 'problem' will solve itself.

EDIT: I was not very clear. This is not success rate after joining college. Today 60% of all students are women and this fraction is rising. In 18 years men will be a small minority at university education.

Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#10

Why not more female sanitation workers or more male elementary school teachers? What makes the gender demographics of building websites so much more important than all these other imbalanced fields?

Programmes to get more women into sanitation work, or men into teaching, already exist and have already been posted to HN.

Learn to search.

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