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The power of role models

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Re: The power of role models

#151

Post by zigzigzag »

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #97
srssays wrote: post #74

Is 'diversity' selfish? Perhaps women/teenage girls aren't interested in becoming programmers, because they don't find it to be an interesting or fulfilling career.

As anecdata, one daughter felt that pursuing computing wasn't socially acceptable ( she was a cheerleader and all ) and another felt the first instructor was an abject misogynist. Perhaps women find better things to do :) I'm starting to think there is something wrong with those of us who pursue this.

And was it men who made your daughter feel like computing wasn't socially acceptable? Or was it her female friends in the cheerleading squad?

Re: The power of role models

#152

Post by grzm »

facepalm wrote: post #126
ArkyBeagle wrote: post #108

The problem isn't gender per se; the problem is how we define success and how leadership works. We're up to our neck in all sort of hubris sprung from the cultural emphasis on ambition at any cost. As Charlie Sheen might say, "Winning."[1] [1] if you don't see his story as a parody, intentional or otherwise, look again... But if diversity is your yardstick, then it's surprising how much better the military services a…

Why would diversity the yardstick? The yardstick is creating useful products. (Edit: no there can not be more yardsticks in the long run - a company needs to survive. It gets paid for great products, not for virtue signalling).

There can easily be more than one yardstick.

Edit: Yes, a company needs to survive. Which products or services a company provides are simple examples of choices that are not purely based on profit. Similarly, there's plenty of variety in how companies are run while still being able to survive. Maximizing profit at the expense of all else is a choice some do make, but that's not the only way to run a business.

Re: The power of role models

#153

Post by nielsabel »

“Science has been done without women for centuries, and it obviously worked.” – Luboš Motl

Can we please just stop all this PC bullshit. Robo Pike obviously doesn't realize that the reason these women attending that meeting are so excellent is because there are so few of them. I.e. only those survived/came so far who have actual skills.

The same goes for computer science. The women who are really skilled and who really want to work in this field WILL work in this field. Which, of course, means there will be less of them. I mean, we already got enough incompetent men in sotware engineering/computer science. Do we really need to flood the field with incompetent women? And on top of that, celebrate their non-achievement of being a woman?

Regarding role models: why can't women simply choose a male role model? Is the gender of their role models really that much more important than their achievements? Shouldn't you look up to someone because, let's say, they are especially skilled in their field instead of their genitals? (Same goes for men choosing a female role model)

Look at it from the other way around: has any man in fashion ever complained about there not being enough male role models in fashion (a field clearly dominated by women)?

And the only ones who ever complained about impoliteness are women and effeminates. If you judge people by hurt feelings instead of actual skills, then you end up with shit like being banned from the golang community for pointing out that someone's English is incomprehensible!

If women have something to contribute to the respective field, then they are more than welcome. If not, then they can simply fuck off (just as all those incompetent men).

Re: The power of role models

#154

Post by Kenji »

throw_away_777 wrote: post #40

In my opinion, the solution proposed in the article of: " choosing a women over a man when growing your team, just because" is counter-productive. These kind of suggestions cause people to question why a minority got promoted, if it was because of qualifications or because of reverse racism. Reverse racism is still racism, and it breeds resentment.

Wow, really?? What a radical thought in progressiveland. This is what it has come to. People have to hide behind throwaway accounts to speak their mind about the most basic matters that should be blatantly obvious to anyone.

Re: The power of role models

#155

Post by Oxitendwe »

swang wrote: post #130
Oxitendwe wrote: post #24

>The best way to improve the representation of women in the field is not to recruit them, important though that is, but to promote them. To create role models. To push them into positions of influence. I find the idea that we should "push them into positions of influence" abhorrent. These are zero sum games, to give them a special advantage over any other demographic is to disadvantage another. This is antithetical t…

You're assuming the playing field is level. That men somehow don't inherently have advantages like having the proper "look" consider the stereotypes of computer programmers "wear hoodies, look kinda disheveled and drink mountain dew. probably asian or white" women/girls don't (shouldn't?) look like that. therefore they can't be programmers. and let's step away from gender entirely. let's talk baseball. the entire gam…

>consider the stereotypes of computer programmers "wear hoodies, look kinda disheveled and drink mountain dew. probably asian or white" women/girls don't (shouldn't?) look like that. therefore they can't be programmers.

I am skeptical of the claim that anybody actually thinks this.

>and let's step away from gender entirely. let's talk baseball. the entire game is based on winning but rather than choose players based on their ability to play the game, a large portion of them are chosen based on how they "look" based on opinions from scouts. "is he tall? muscular? does he have nice teeth?" "this guy threw a 90mph fastball. he doesn't have any other pitch and 3 people hit homeruns off him but he's going to be a star!"

You don't think someone's height and musculature might affect how well they can play baseball? That their nice teeth will help their team's image and thus, their bottom line? That someone who is physically skilled but bad at the game can be taught to become better? These all feel like absolutely reasonable discrimination to me.

>nothing in life is fair. promoting people who have been overlooked is not a "special advantage" it is merely re-balancing the "special advantage" others have had due to gender, race, or just plain genetics.

You're right, fair was perhaps not the right word to use. But what do we actually get out of this? How do we even know that these people have been overlooked? Does this "re-balancing" provide more value than what is expended to achieve it?

Re: The power of role models

#156

Post by zigzigzag »

kstenson wrote: post #118
Oxitendwe wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it not his entire point that these people should be given an advantage? What else do you think it means to be "pushed into positions of influence"?

It's not giving people an advantage, it about giving people equal opportunities to succeed.

That's the exact opposite of what Pike is saying.

Re: The power of role models

#157

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #120
adwn wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> accept the idea that it's very unlikely that computer technology is unique among the professions in being suited to men To be fair, the gender gap is present in many engineering professions, computer science is in no way unique here.

The article we're talking about opens with an observation about better gender parity in another hard science field, so it's hard to see how computer science can somehow exempt itself from the observation without special pleading.

[deleted]

Re: The power of role models

#158

Post by azernik »

stale2002 wrote: post #140
facepalm wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do men never leave computer science? Or do they just write less about it, or if they do, it receives less attention? For sure men are unhappy with their companies. Otherwise nobody would ever switch jobs. Also it should be considered that women have more career options than men. Since they spread out over more professions (including fulltime mum), it is to be expected that they are not 50% of people in all profession…

Men do leave, but they leave much much less. All you have to do is look at incoming CS major undergrads vs finished degree CS undergrads, or you can look at any statistic at all along a women's career. Women are leaving in droves. We do not have a pipeline problem. We do not need to get more women in kindergarden interested in math. We have a toxic pipeline problem, when women are driven out of the industry.

Leaky pipeline? :-P

Re: The power of role models

#159

Post by dboreham »

superioritycplx wrote: post #137
skookumchuck wrote: post #66

The article suggests that power in computing is something men have to give. It isn't. Computing is a market based economy. Anyone can start a computing company, and run it as they please. I.e. women can start computing companies, and hire women. Women do not need permission from men to do this, nor do they need favor from men.

It can be literally free to learn programming if you're a woman. Girls Who Code, countless initiatives, you name it, it's there. Yet if you check contributors of any open source project it's going to be all men. What if most women are just... not that interested in programming?

I taught an elective coding class to middle school students. We had somewhat over 50% girls participate and most of the strongest students were girls. Make of that what you will.

In my career, I have worked for the same woman boss through several companies. I can't imagine having a stronger, better person to work for.

Yet of course I see what everyone else here reports : that there are very few female engineers/developers.

Re: The power of role models

#160

Post by tptacek »

zigzigzag wrote: post #150
tptacek wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the fact that Pike doesn't accept the same premises you do about the nature of merit in the technology industry doesn't mean that he believes tech should become less meritocratic. A different set of priors creates a condition where gender parity results in more meritocracy.

Only with an absurd definition of "merit". Yes, if you define "merit" as including particular genes in your DNA, then you can get away with Pike's attitude and still claim to be merit-based. But hello, reality check, Pike is advocating for something that is not only immoral but also explicitly illegal. The law says that people should be assessed on their skill at the job and not selected due to their gender. Like, wh…

No part of this engages with my comment. You can't convincingly dismiss the entire class of arguments about how "merit" is evaluated as facially absurd, unless your definition of "merit" is "whatever produces the set of circumstances we're currently living in now". Arguments of that form have a name; they're called "the just-world fallacy".
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