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Our approach to gender diversity

blog.whiteoctober.co.uk

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Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#41

Post by dep_b »

dgempesaw wrote: post #34
dep_b wrote: post #30

I can't help but wonder how this guy would go about to fix the lack of white people using public transportation. Reserve special seats in the front of the bus? It's discrimination all the same even though it's well meant. Please stop portraying the lack of female programmers as a problem caused by males while it's a problem that women just choose to not do it. From what I have seen most United States tech companies a…

Many "women choose not to do it," because of sexist environments composed primarily of men who repeatedly tell them not to be progammers . So, sure, the problem is women choosing not to be programmers, but that's not the underlying cause. The first-hand experiences of many women in tech, widely available on public blogs, are directly opposed to your second-hand experience of them. Should we take your word for it, or…

There are probably more blogs about Obama stealing your guns than blogs about women in tech being discriminated, does that mean we are about to enter the Obamacalypse? People blog either about awesome stuff or awful stuff and people behaving normally like expected is nothing to write about.

I fail to see why programmers are of a special fascist pig breed of men that are somehow way more discriminating towards woman than for example lawyers are. Yet there are way more female lawyers out there than programmers.

Modern life is full of hazards for women. I choose to not be one of them but they're everywhere and I'm not denying in any way the impact they can have on women. Yet somehow programmers seem to be able to scare women away where in other areas they don't feel intimidated.

I had a female boss once and a female programmer colleague and I never ever felt a single bit disrespect towards them because of their gender. Should I start a blog about that? "Today I accepted a suggestion about how to refactor my code from my female coworker and it totally felt like the most normal thing in the world".

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#42

Post by [deleted] »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #38
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did read the study. My question is: why do women still take a lot more time off their careers for childcare than men? Presumably most of the children that a woman doctor is missing work to look after also have fathers: why are fathers not taking more responsibility to raise their children?

Most of the time the fathers are taking responsibility. They typically provide income while the mother takes care of the children. Or perhaps you are asking why individual couples choose this particular breakdown of responsibility?

[deleted]

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#43

Post by sambeau »

elnate wrote: post #12

> Ours is a male-dominated industry – and weaker for it Has this ever actually been shown? I hear it a lot but have never heard any evidence either way. (the latter part)

The evidence is self evident:

Women perform equally to men in school/college in related subjects (better than men in the UK).

Women make up 51% of the population.

∴ Our industry is ignoring half the talent.

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#44

Post by yummyfajitas »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #40
yummyfajitas wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time the fathers are taking responsibility. They typically provide income while the mother takes care of the children. Or perhaps you are asking why individual couples choose this particular breakdown of responsibility?

I'm asking why the prevailing pattern in North American couples is for the mother to give up years of career advancement to provide direct child care while the father continues to work, earning more money and a higher income.

Most likely more than 50% of women have a comparative advantage (relative to their husband) in caring for children.

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#45

Post by dgempesaw »

dep_b wrote: post #41
dgempesaw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many "women choose not to do it," because of sexist environments composed primarily of men who repeatedly tell them not to be progammers . So, sure, the problem is women choosing not to be programmers, but that's not the underlying cause. The first-hand experiences of many women in tech, widely available on public blogs, are directly opposed to your second-hand experience of them. Should we take your word for it, or…

There are probably more blogs about Obama stealing your guns than blogs about women in tech being discriminated, does that mean we are about to enter the Obamacalypse? People blog either about awesome stuff or awful stuff and people behaving normally like expected is nothing to write about. I fail to see why programmers are of a special fascist pig breed of men that are somehow way more discriminating towards woman t…

> Yet there are way more female lawyers out there than programmers.

> Yet somehow programmers seem to be able to scare women away where in other areas they don't feel intimidated.

We're in agreement that it's the programmers who are the problem, and not just "women choosing not to do it," then?

I guess you're trying to attack the validity/veracity/relevance of blog posts in general? That's an interesting discussion to have on its own, but I'm not entirely sure what your first and last paragraphs have to do with the question I posed before:

Women say they are discriminated against, but you haven't seen any of that in your personal experience. That's great, but it's not logically sound to generalize your experience to the entire industry when there's a mountain of evidence to the contrary. So should we believe women who have first hand experience with discrimination, or your second hand account of it?

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#46

Post by RyanMcGreal »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #44
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm asking why the prevailing pattern in North American couples is for the mother to give up years of career advancement to provide direct child care while the father continues to work, earning more money and a higher income.

Most likely more than 50% of women have a comparative advantage (relative to their husband) in caring for children.

You're still begging the question. Shall I jump on the regress treadmill with you and ask why women have a "comparative advantage" with respect to caring for their children? I suspect you'd like us eventually to land on some innate, hard-coded difference between men and women that makes women's relative absence in tech and under-representation in pay and seniority in other industries okay, but that's bullshit.

Men are every bit as capable of looking after children as women, and it is a convenient insult to men to suggest otherwise: convenient because it just happens to uphold the gender imbalance that leaves men in much more powerful positions, relatively speaking, than women.

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#47

Post by yummyfajitas »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #46
yummyfajitas wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely more than 50% of women have a comparative advantage (relative to their husband) in caring for children.

You're still begging the question. Shall I jump on the regress treadmill with you and ask why women have a "comparative advantage" with respect to caring for their children? I suspect you'd like us eventually to land on some innate, hard-coded difference between men and women that makes women's relative absence in tech and under-representation in pay and seniority in other industries okay, but that's bullshit. Men ar…

I don't know why, I haven't looked at the topic in detail. I just suggest comparative advantage because it is generally a good answer as to why two parties mutually agree to some particular economic arrangement.

I don't actually subscribe to collectivist moral theories that declare it somehow wrong when members of different groups are statistically more likely to make different choices. In fact, I believe most of the collectivist theories that do ascribe morality to statistics of this nature are not even well formed.

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#48

Post by dep_b »

dgempesaw wrote: post #45
dep_b wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are probably more blogs about Obama stealing your guns than blogs about women in tech being discriminated, does that mean we are about to enter the Obamacalypse? People blog either about awesome stuff or awful stuff and people behaving normally like expected is nothing to write about. I fail to see why programmers are of a special fascist pig breed of men that are somehow way more discriminating towards woman t…

> Yet there are way more female lawyers out there than programmers. > Yet somehow programmers seem to be able to scare women away where in other areas they don't feel intimidated. We're in agreement that it's the programmers who are the problem, and not just "women choosing not to do it," then? I guess you're trying to attack the validity/veracity/relevance of blog posts in general? That's an interesting discussion t…

Unless you have solid proof that male programmers are more machist than male surgeons, male lawyers or male financial experts, all fields that have seen a major influx of women in the past decades, we are in agreement that that is definitely not the thing that keeps women away from becoming programmers.

I am not saying nothing bad in that respect ever happened to a woman in the tech industry, I am saying that the tech industry is not an example of a hostile place to women that prevents them to be successful or accepted.

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#49

Post by Zigurd »

gametheoretic wrote: post #33
Zigurd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The evidence from other industries and organizations is pretty compelling. Including women gets you better decision-making overall: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130326101616.ht... Given the record of industries that have reformed to include more women, I would not bet on there being very many "naturally male" businesses. Especially not ones that have a lot of sitting and typing involved.

If your use of the word 'compelling' is in reference to the contents of that link, well, I just could not disagree more. a) Surveys are shit - they're as far removed from double-blind as you can get, and b) the framing of cause and effect is highly opinionated, e.g.: "Having just one female director on the board cuts the risk of bankruptcy by 20%" -- superior feminine corporate guidance or well-documented feminine av…

Where has adding women to a previous male bastion caused reduced performance? MDs? Parliamentarians? Senior corporate executives?

Men have a tendency to bullshit their way past lack of knowledge. Imagine if we had had ibankers who stopped to think "Maybe CDSs are a bullshit kind of insurance, but with inadequate capital, so the first black swan that poops on a big CDS position is going to blow up the planet."

Re: Our approach to gender diversity

#50

Post by rayiner »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #47
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still begging the question. Shall I jump on the regress treadmill with you and ask why women have a "comparative advantage" with respect to caring for their children? I suspect you'd like us eventually to land on some innate, hard-coded difference between men and women that makes women's relative absence in tech and under-representation in pay and seniority in other industries okay, but that's bullshit. Men ar…

I don't know why, I haven't looked at the topic in detail. I just suggest comparative advantage because it is generally a good answer as to why two parties mutually agree to some particular economic arrangement. I don't actually subscribe to collectivist moral theories that declare it somehow wrong when members of different groups are statistically more likely to make different choices. In fact, I believe most of the…

There are enormous social pressures involved. Families and child rearing are deeply tied up in culture and history. Pretending that it's just parties mutually agreeing to a particular arrangement based on comparative advantage ignores the evidence plainly in front of your face in order to preserve some idealistic theory.

Between my wife and I, there is no comparative advantage when it comes to child rearing. We're attorneys, we both work at big firms, we make similar incomes (hence have similar opportunity costs), neither of us is any better with the kid than the other (thanks to the magic of modern technology, like infant formula). Yet from the moment she got pregnant, the pressure was on my wife to be the primary caregiver. People talked about what a shame it was that she was a busy professional and the baby had to spend all day in daycare (nobody ever said anything similar about my job). People will say things like "she needs her mom" when the baby cries (no: she's either hungry or bored or needs to be changed). When we stroll around in winter with the baby without putting a hat on her, busybodies never tell me to put a hat on the baby, always my wife.

If you're a woman and you have a baby, the deck is totally stacked against you from the minute you get pregnant.

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