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Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

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Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#11

Post by Volpe »

ntkachov wrote: post #4

Women don't need to be "empowered". It's not some socieo-ecominic reason that's causing girls to steer clear of tech. It's been discussed here before many, many times and women have weighed in. According to them its the culture and insensitivity towards women thats causing skewed gender ratios. This isn't a problem you can throw money at.

Empowerment isn't just for socio-economic reasons... It's for all equality based issues.

> According to them its the culture and insensitivity towards women thats causing skewed gender ratios.

There are a multitude of problems, and they all need to be tackled, just because one solution doesn't solve all, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.

> This isn't a problem you can throw money at.

I would rephrase that as:

This isn't a problem you can just throw money at.

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#12

Post by benmccann »

ntkachov wrote: post #4

Women don't need to be "empowered". It's not some socieo-ecominic reason that's causing girls to steer clear of tech. It's been discussed here before many, many times and women have weighed in. According to them its the culture and insensitivity towards women thats causing skewed gender ratios. This isn't a problem you can throw money at.

There are far fewer women in tech majors than men and that happens before women ever hit the workplace. The skewed gender ratio starts much earlier in life.

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#13

Post by Volpe »

gms wrote: post #9
Volpe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I don't see it as 'tokenism' or 'charity'. We are solving a big problem (gender-inequality).

Is it a problem that the nursing profession is dominated by women? If so, why?

I don't know anything about the nursing industry.

But I would comment, that increased diversity (whether it is gender/race/age/etc) always yields benefits as you have a more diverse range of viewpoints to draw from. So it is always a problem when one group is over(or under) represented in a given area.

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#14

Post by wh-uws »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #3

Right, this is just a call for something akin to affirmative action, which has had questionable results at best. The onus here isn't on women. And the right solution is not to preferentially favor women in the tech field. What you'll end up with is a situation where asshole misogynists consider themselves even more justified in treating women in tech as second class citizens. This time because "they only got there th…

I completely disagree.

Tech is supposed to be meritocracy.

Anyone here who would discount other's because of perceived charity is shortsighted at best and ignorant asshole at worst.

All we are supposed to care about is can you code and/or help our business.

Being red/white/magenta or whatever gender or permutation there of shouldn't enter into the conversation if Tech is really the "meritocracy" it claims itself to be.

Obviously money won't necessarily hurt but anyone who has ever paid attention on HN or even to the Tech industry as a whole should know about "dumb money."

who cares how much you can raise if you can't figure out what to do with it

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#15

Post by rachelbythebay »

Okay. I left Google because I was fed up with how things were going over there (read my posts - link in profile - if you want to know more). I started my own little business.

So, okay, let's go. Throw money at me. I'll make more cool stuff with it. I'm mostly a "plumbing" sort of person, but I've been known to make actual top-level user interfaces on occasion too.

Well? Who's with me?

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#16

Post by prodigal_erik »

Volpe wrote: post #8
asto wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. You would also see resentment towards women founders from the guys who are pitching if startups are being picked based on the gender of the founders rather than quality.

But that's just a transitional thing. Once you build a bigger more vibrant culture of women in IT, the artificial bias can be removed.

Surely the victims of the transition will demand their kids also receive a favorable bias anew.

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#17

Post by LOLtampicoLOL »

Volpe wrote: post #13
gms wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a problem that the nursing profession is dominated by women? If so, why?

I don't know anything about the nursing industry. But I would comment, that increased diversity (whether it is gender/race/age/etc) always yields benefits as you have a more diverse range of viewpoints to draw from. So it is always a problem when one group is over(or under) represented in a given area.

By extension, do you support "empowering" the employment of men in a female dominated profession by decree with the same zeal you show here toward women in tech?

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#18

Post by ThomPete »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #3

Right, this is just a call for something akin to affirmative action, which has had questionable results at best. The onus here isn't on women. And the right solution is not to preferentially favor women in the tech field. What you'll end up with is a situation where asshole misogynists consider themselves even more justified in treating women in tech as second class citizens. This time because "they only got there th…

But here is the problem.

It just might be that women generally get so late into the tech game that there are just far fewer of them who are any good and have any experience.

I know a few amazing women in tech, but only a few. I don't think my experience is unique.

Hopefully people like Merissa Mayer will change that.

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#19

Post by sopooneo »

Volpe wrote: post #13
gms wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a problem that the nursing profession is dominated by women? If so, why?

I don't know anything about the nursing industry. But I would comment, that increased diversity (whether it is gender/race/age/etc) always yields benefits as you have a more diverse range of viewpoints to draw from. So it is always a problem when one group is over(or under) represented in a given area.

The benefits of diversity come with costs. Shared viewpoint and culture makes things much simpler. Things people consider universal ("well that's just common sense!", "It's about respect!") reasonably often turn out not to be universal. The very notion of the benefit of diversity is itself not held by all cultures.

Re: Women in Tech: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

#20

Post by Volpe »

wh-uws wrote: post #14
InclinedPlane wrote: post #3

Right, this is just a call for something akin to affirmative action, which has had questionable results at best. The onus here isn't on women. And the right solution is not to preferentially favor women in the tech field. What you'll end up with is a situation where asshole misogynists consider themselves even more justified in treating women in tech as second class citizens. This time because "they only got there th…

I completely disagree. Tech is supposed to be meritocracy. Anyone here who would discount other's because of perceived charity is shortsighted at best and ignorant asshole at worst. All we are supposed to care about is can you code and/or help our business. Being red/white/magenta or whatever gender or permutation there of shouldn't enter into the conversation if Tech is really the "meritocracy" it claims itself to b…

> Tech is supposed to be meritocracy.

You can't have a proper meritocracy if the prospective field don't have access to the same level of opportunities. Women get ostracised from I.T. fairly early on (i.e before education has finished).

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