I wonder what the relation is between "We need more in " and the average salary of workers in a sector?
Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech
31–40 of 84 posts
Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I totally agree with you. No one really seems to be able to explain this.
There are many programme to try to increase male elementary school teachers, you just don't hang around on elementary school related forums.
The Swedish institute for higher education made a study that looked at the teaching profession, and their conclusion was perfectly clear on this. There are barely any programme to increase the number of male teachers, and this was in stark contrast to the long history of programs to get more women into tech and engineering. They suggested that teaching universities, who just now are beginning to address the lack male students should look at the programs for women for inspiration and ideas in how to build similar program towards men.
But surely you have references that show those "many programme" and that the number of initatives to get men interested (and to remain once enrolled) is identical to the number of similar programs to get women into STEM. Or maybe it just Sweden with its self defined feminist government thats are backwards on this.
Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Woman have certain standards they need to live up to that aren't necessarily expected of men. Could you name some? I have opposite experience.
I can't quantify it. Sociology is not my field. However, it has been my experience that men are expected to have a fair amount of recklessness and irresponsibility that woman are not. Examples: - Men being with many woman during college is considered experimenting, whereas for woman it is considered slutty. - A man answers wrong on a question in class and people just move on. A blond woman does the same and she's a d…
> Men being with many woman during college is considered experimenting
Or it is considered a rape. General advice today is to treat college as a workplace and date girls outside, who are not students.
> A blond woman does the same and she's a dumb blond.
I seen many dumb men
> A woman fails, and it's because maybe women aren't cut out for this.
...or maybe it is because of environment, conditioning.. When women fails we need to raise awareness, funds...
When men fails it is natural, no help is needed.
Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech
#34Why 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?
Technology is ones of the places where money, status, power, and influence is (like finance, etc.) Diversification of the elite requires elite professions; sanitation worker, school teacher, and coal miner are not elite professions.
It's true that this doesn't always get stated, but it is the most likely reason.
Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech
#35Why 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?
Engineers are respected for their ingenuity, intelligence, real-world problem-solving, studious determination, maybe even grit. These skills are on the opposite spectrum from vanity skills(presentation, socializing, marketing), which unfortunately are at the core of gendered expectations for girls. Since engineering skills actually reflect a depth of the holder(especially in our vanity driven world), they implicitly demand more respect. Really, more professional females in engineering is the only way forward for current gender issues. I would argue it's the same battle that must be fought to combat racism as well.
Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
A mix of articles about men in nursing and men in teaching: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7088418
Thanks.
Half of those aren't about pushing men into nursing or teaching, not many are in valued news oulets( abc go). Its mostly blog posts, others are about the difficulties being a male nurse or teacher.
I also just googled "men in nursing" and "men in teaching" as quick sanity check.
Its pretty clear there is nowhere the same level of push we have going for women in tech and nowhere near the same social validation for pushing men into those fields.
Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't quantify it. Sociology is not my field. However, it has been my experience that men are expected to have a fair amount of recklessness and irresponsibility that woman are not. Examples: - Men being with many woman during college is considered experimenting, whereas for woman it is considered slutty. - A man answers wrong on a question in class and people just move on. A blond woman does the same and she's a d…
> Men being with many woman during college is considered experimenting Or it is considered a rape. General advice today is to treat college as a workplace and date girls outside, who are not students. > A blond woman does the same and she's a dumb blond. I seen many dumb men > A woman fails, and it's because maybe women aren't cut out for this. ...or maybe it is because of environment, conditioning.. When women fails…
For the record I don't agree with any of those things at all. Far from it. I married a feminist and it is hard not to be one myself :)
Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Men being with many woman during college is considered experimenting Or it is considered a rape. General advice today is to treat college as a workplace and date girls outside, who are not students. > A blond woman does the same and she's a dumb blond. I seen many dumb men > A woman fails, and it's because maybe women aren't cut out for this. ...or maybe it is because of environment, conditioning.. When women fails…
For the record I don't agree with any of those things at all. Far from it. I married a feminist and it is hard not to be one myself :)
I am feminist myself. It is about gender equality after all. Anyway, good luck ;-)
Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many programme to try to increase male elementary school teachers, you just don't hang around on elementary school related forums.
Okay, that's actually great to know, but I am yet to see feminists fighting to get more females into other male-dominated jobs that are not as well-paid as software engineering.
Have you tried looking? There are plenty of programs encouraging women to go into non-traditional jobs.
Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech
#40It's easy to dismiss the push for diversity by saying that women themselves do not want to go into tech. I used to believe the same when I saw most of my girlfriends opt for non-tech majors - their reason being this is not my cup of tea. Made me feel superior for not only choosing tech, but also being successful academically and later in career.
Now that I have kids, I realize how early the push for conformation to some societal ideals starts. 3-4 yr old kids in day care already have this notion of how girls are not supposed to play with boys, they should look pretty all the time, they should not play rough with each other or other boys. Girls in 1st grade paying more attention to how their hair looks than how good they are reading/writing. I remember that many of my girlfriend's families passively discouraged them from going into male dominated majors, saying it would be easier for them in the long run.
Once, in a line at gamestop, I saw an altercation between a pre-teen girl and a pre-teen boy. The pre-teen boy was adamant that the girl should not be allowed to purchase a game he thought was meant just for boys. Neither of them knew each other. The girl's father interjected and made it clear to the boy that she can choose to play whatever game she wanted and it was not his job to keep her out of it. This is not abnormal in gaming world, grown men even today scorn on female gamers.
IMO, the best way to combat this problem is to have parents actively push their daughters into tech education from early years. Dads spending time with their daughters and giving them confidence that they can be as good as boys will work wonders. And I say Dad specifically because when the most important man in a girl's life shows her that she is as capable and can compete against other boys who will eventually become men, she cares less about fitting societal norms.