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The power of role models

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Re: The power of role models

#161

Post by ericjang »

Oxitendwe wrote: post #96
ericjang wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And what of the girls who learn that their role models have been given a handicap, pushed upwards beyond their skill by well-meaning but naive men? Proponents of affirmative-action policies argue that the handicap offsets disabilities from the glass ceiling, discrimination / stereotype threat in the workplace/education pipeline. The calculus of what "balances out inequality" is imperfect, but arguably better than j…

>proponents of affirmative-action policies argue that the handicap offsets disabilities from the glass ceiling, discrimination / stereotype threat in the workplace/education pipeline. How do you know that the disparity in women in the general population versus women in computer science is caused by the things you mentioned? How do you know that they have an equal interest and potential in this field than demographics…

Thank you for your civil reply, and I agree that the question has not been put to rest, as evident by the ongoing debate regarding how diversity initiatives should be implemented, if at all. I also agree that all this should be taken with utmost seriousness and consideration of opposing points of view.

Since I do not have firsthand experience with being a woman, my information comes from talking to women computer scientists and engineers from my school CS program and my workplace, and listening to their firsthand experiences dealing with sexism in the industry. Their opinions are diverse, but generally are in support for more empowerment of women/minorities in the workplace, so I generally support their agenda. Personally, I enjoy working in a more diverse workplace, anyway (long explanation for another day).

In Soviet Russia during the Cold War, I believe boys and girls were both encouraged to study math and sciences, which resulted in a fairly even gender representation in the career, and neither gender was better than the other on average. Food for thought.

Re: The power of role models

#162

Post by stale2002 »

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?

You have the pipeline problem backwards.

The women in tech pipeline is a leaky, toxic pipeline that results in talented women being driven out of the industry.

Of course many women are not that interested in programming. This is obviously true. Because the women who DO get into programming are quickly driven out by the toxic culture. If I were a woman I wouldn't want to be in the tech industry either.

It is a waste of time to focus on widening the top of the funnel, which leads to the toxic pipeline, and will result in most of them leaving anyway. We should focus more on making the industry less sucky for the women who are already here.

Once the toxic pipeline is fixed, THEN women will start being more interested in programming and tech.

Re: The power of role models

#163

Post by alphapapa »

stale2002 wrote: post #39
hd4 wrote: post #3

This is a fine and good idea, as long as the central pillar is that we remain meritocratic first, everything else should come after that.

Exactly. We need to be meritocratic. And the current world that we live in is NOT meritocratic, as half of the good talent is getting driven out of the industry. The way to promote meritocracy IS to support women. Anti diversity initiatives and environments are unmeritocratic.

Imagine a company which exists entirely online: no physical office, all employees work from home over the Internet. Imagine that all employees and managers and executives use gender-ambiguous screennames, and no one is allowed to ask any questions which would reveal identity, gender, etc. (Perhaps there's a small HR department that handles the real identities, but it's not allowed to share them with anyone else, nor to influence hiring or promotion.) Imagine that all hiring and promotion is done purely based on performance. It's impossible for identity or gender or race, etc. to be a factor in hiring or promotion.

Would such an environment be "unmeritocratic"?

Re: The power of role models

#164

Post by Oxitendwe »

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.

"It may take proactive behavior, like choosing a women over a man when growing your team, just because, or promoting women more freely."

Can you tell me what is equal about hiring a woman over a man, "just because"?

Re: The power of role models

#165

Post by stale2002 »

zigzigzag wrote: post #81
projektir wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meritocracy paradoxically seems to lead to worse results overall. Remember that measuring merit is effectively impossible in any kind of reliable and systematic fashion. Which means its measured by heuristics, and heuristics are very sensitive to preconceptions, stereotypes, etc.

Meritocracy paradoxically seems to lead to worse results overall An extreme opinion stated as if it's a fact. Can you show me the phalanx of companies systematically beating their competition by deliberately hiring incompetent but genetically "diverse" people?

No... You don't hire incompetent people. You hire competent people. The "competition" is the one that is hiring the incompetent people, by missing out on half of the talent.

Focusing on diversity makes your company MORE competent, not less.

Re: The power of role models

#166

Post by SwellJoe »

superioritycplx wrote: post #142
SwellJoe wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to the number of men with money, there sure as hell is. 95% (that number is me talking out of my ass, but, I can tell you I only met one female investing partner at a VC, and no female angels, the entire time I lived there, and countless men) of investors in Silicon Valley are men. The whole ecosystem is hugely weighted toward men making decisions.

Are you saying male investors won't invest in a promising start up because it's female-run?

I responded to someone who said "There's no shortage of women with money." So, in this particular comment, I am saying exactly what I said: There is a severe shortage of women with money who are making decisions in the tech funding industry. I'll go even further to suggest that the gap is even larger in tech investing than it is in tech in the general case.

But, since you asked: I will now say that there are biases in our industry that perhaps those of us not subject to them do not see. Those biases adversely impact the ability of women (and some people of color) to rise to positions of influence in the tech industry. I don't believe this is a controversial assertion (despite all of my comments to this effect being voted down). I consider the matter well-known to anyone who's willing to listen to the people it affects.

Re: The power of role models

#167

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

dominotw wrote: post #114
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pike was pointing out that the women present participated as one would expect of any professional in such a meeting. Do you think there are benefits to being shy in such a context?

>Do you think there are benefits to being shy in such a context? One doesn't decide to be shy after doing cost/benefit analysis of a situation, it's a character trait. In this particular context women have 'confidence gap'[1] so its kind of stange to brush them off as 'wallflowers' 1. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/the-con...

I used to be shy, now I'm not. Something happened. Character traits aren't fixed.

Re: The power of role models

#168

Post by nielsabel »

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.

> we need to get more women in kindergarden interested in math.

Why? What's the (supposed) benefit?

I'd rather see general improvement on math lessons in school. Most of these lessons are boring, given by boring teacher. I'd be happy if people went out of school simply not hating math (they don't have to like) it. I find this to be much worthwile instead of pushing girls into math even though they might not be inherently interested in it.

The problems in STEM (and science in general) won't be solved by quantity but by quality. (They definitely won't be solved by gender.)

Re: The power of role models

#169

Post by skookumchuck »

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.

For another anecdata, when I grew up being into computers meant social rejection, from boys as well as girls. I still recall meeting women in nightclubs and when they ask what I do, I say programming, they shrink and look away. I learned to hide what I did for a living during initial encounters.

Re: The power of role models

#170

Post by SwellJoe »

skookumchuck wrote: post #148
SwellJoe wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to the number of men with money, there sure as hell is. 95% (that number is me talking out of my ass, but, I can tell you I only met one female investing partner at a VC, and no female angels, the entire time I lived there, and countless men) of investors in Silicon Valley are men. The whole ecosystem is hugely weighted toward men making decisions.

Women are free to start a VC fund. Nobody is stopping them. As I said, there are plenty of women with money. Furthermore, VC funds are hardly the only source of funding. Friends and family are traditional sources of startup capital, and loaning money to businesses is a traditional business for banks.

> Friends and family are traditional sources of startup capital, and loaning money to businesses is a traditional business for banks.

Have you ever founded a tech startup funded exclusively by friends and family? Have you ever tried to get a loan from a bank for a tech startup?

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