Ask a Female Engineer: How Can Managers Help Retain Technical Women?

If you can show me a company that is refusing to hire a woman, then I'll be right there with you opposing them. If a company is forcing a woman to work for lower pay because she is a woman, then I'll be right there with you opposing them. When you ask me to discriminate against someone because they are better at negotiating, I cannot offer support.

Blind moral assertion IS NOT FACT.

You assert that we must have the same number of men and women because it is the moral thing to do. You further assert that this moral imperative is so absolute that the use of force to compel other people is perfectly fine.

At its basis, this is no different than relatively small things like prohibition or large things like the inquisition or communist re-education camps.

EDIT: to answer your first statement in more concrete terms, I believe men and women make different choices because they are different (as stated at the top of that post). If you are insistent on forcing women into STEM whether they like it or not, there should be more to that argument than symmetry. What you quoted addresses one part that line of thought.

Reading the stories about uber, I keep hearing that the woman wanted to focus on work but the harassing person interfered. That is exactly what amorphid suggest that a company should work to prevent, fostering a culture that focus on making customers happier and getting people working together for that a common goal.

Men make money.

Women look good.

As terrible as that sounds. It is true. We are different species and have different advantages as the other.

A pretty girl can literally take pics of themselves and marry in to wealth. We see this all the time. A actress is now dating Prince Harry, she is not a programmer or engineer. Bieber "finds" Instagram models and you know... he doesn't look in a cubicle of his agents company.

A pretty guy gets no same benefits. There are girls on Instagram with literally millions of followers, even pretty male models barley crack a million.

A smart girl who is not pretty gets no real benefits unless she works like a dog and turns her personality in to a man. Look at CEOs, almost +90% male. Leadership trait of males?

A smart guy who is ugly has no problems being a star in the work force.

These are the way things are. Should they be changed? Absolutely. But let me tell you how...

but first a side note -- I do not approve of women in the military. Unless they can do their job as good or better then their male cohorts. I do not approve of slower lap times or lighter weights just because of gender. The enemy doesn't care about your gender, they will not go easy on you or slower. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/22/letter-to-th...

Using this same liberal premise, in high school we had 2 girls on the football team, because they wanted to be equal. one was actually bigger than some guys, but still not as skilled, the other was a "pretty girl". How do you expect a 200lb guy to treat the girls the same? As you know they quit in a couple months and practice was back to "normal". We lost a game because the coach had to put one of them in because their parents we upset.... --

So lets take this in to corporate america. If woman are as equal or better than a male candidate no problem they are good for the job. it is in the companies interest to hire them. But im sure in a extremely male dominated field it makes it very hard. I would assume, and from my own experience, guys get along with guys more than guys and girls. This is just fact. It is the same for women too. They feel more comfortable.

So now we have a male dominated industry where many more men are hired than women and this further makes it harder for women to be in the industry. It seems pretty f tough.

A short fix, a near sighted fix, is to start your own company, make your own "club" your rules, hire who you want. You can now be biased and shape things to your whim. Sorry if this is a let down but big companies are "club" and then the labor. big difference.

So why dont we ask another question, this will be extremely unpopular but the truth.

Why dont we each do what we are good at? Why dont we do what we have the best advantage in?

Woman outnumber men in many industries.

http://www.businessinsider.com/pink-collar-jobs-dominated-by...

Now your question will be, but i dont want to be a nurse i want to be a programmer! I dont want to be x i want to be y!

Then you shouldn't complain when it is difficult because you are swimming upstream.

I really wanted to be a basketball player when i was young you have no idea. Well guess what? im not above 6 ft, let alone a proper 6,6 so you know what i did?

I accepted that i could be a basket ball player and moved on with my life.

To be quite honest with you there are many more things i would rather be that a programmer.

I would love to be an actor. but i dont think im 9/10 pretty, nor tall.

I would love to be a doctor, but i couldn't think of doing surgery

I would love to be a race car driver, but im not rich enough to start.

I would love to be an entrepreneur, im working on that one.

I would love to be a better developer, im working on that one.

I would love to be free of debt, closer by the day.

what i do now is merely what i believe to be the easiest and most enjoyable path to what i deem a better future for myself.

if i had a million dollars i would not be doing much of what im doing now.

TLDR; kinda hard to do without sounding like an a$$, but do what you are good at and what is realistic. If you are good technically you will get the job but realize it is an extremely upward battle compared to numerous other "paths". Understand that, don't push for unrealistic compensations for it.

Would love to hear everyone's opinions. Sorry if blunt but sometimes i believe the truth gets shot down that only similar comments ever get read on grounds of "approval bias".

I can't say I see a clear pattern where physical strength is directly correlated to extreme gender segregation. The extremest male dominated profession is tile floor constructor (ie primarily bathrooms). Second was mechanic and third is tinsmith. The extremest female profession is indeed midwife, but it is then followed by dentist nurse, followed by pediatric nurse, followed by secretary in hospitals, followed by district nurse, followed by therapists, followed surgeon nurse, and we are still at 90%+ professions. After this comes a bunch of specific education and social security professions.

The common theme I would say is that female dominated professions are focused on social environments where a person can feel that they have a real impact on others in their local area, while male dominated professions is focused on profession where a person work mostly separated and alone, and where the work don't general cause a major impact in someones life. In return for not having those social benefit and status, they generally also have higher pay.

Tile floor constructor and dentist nurse, with both way over 99% gender segregation, are quite strong data point. You don't need massive strength to lay down tiles in a bathroom, nor is dentist nurse a very "children" focused profession. Why do those two profession so extremely repel each opposite gender?

Also, I think that these changes would likely benefit male workers too, but not to the same degree as women.