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How to attract girls to the tech industry

bbc.co.uk

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Re: How to attract girls to the tech industry

#51

Post by Tichy »

TomGullen wrote: post #42
clienthunter wrote: post #32

This stuff infuriates me. > But then last year I spoke at a conference and I heard that the numbers of women in technology was in decline and I thought, 'That isn't right.' It is not right nor wrong! It just is . To make a statement like this is to give legitimacy to the idea that the equipment you've got tucked between your thighs is in some way relevant to your ability to do the job. Who cares? Just do the damn job…

I don't think you're fully appreciative the hardships minorities in certain environments have to endure from the brazen level to the subtle and hard to isolate incidents.

I am willing to bet that there are no special hardships for women who want to enter IT. Quite the opposite really.

Re: How to attract girls to the tech industry

#52

Post by Tichy »

antocv wrote: post #30

Lets attract girls to construction and building jobs, and attract men to nursing and child care jobs as well. What can we do about that? These issues go hand in hand, they are the same. In my opinion it is bad taste to focus only on the tech industry. Go all in or go home.

Simple: pay more for nursing and child care.

Re: How to attract girls to the tech industry

#54

Post by Tichy »

crusso wrote: post #44

The article has the answer of why women aren't in tech fields: Choosing computer science is an unnecessarily tough choice and one you aren't going to make unless you are one of the stubborn girls like I was Women in western countries have a lot of life choices that don't include working at an office job. The article talks about IT tracks conflicting with drama tracks... I was thinking "wtf?". If you have drama as one…

"If you have drama as one of the main reason for going to school, then you're not really worried about having to earn a living some day. Must be nice."

Bingo

Re: How to attract girls to the tech industry

#55

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Tichy wrote: post #24

Incredible, that article seems to get by without blaming men at all. Did I miss something? In another note, the whole A-levels system seems rather stupid to me. I've met several people in the UK who weren't able to study what they want because they had the wrong A-levels. I guess ultimately it is questionable in general to deny people the possibility to study what they want. Why require some silly school certificate?

>I've met several people in the UK who weren't able to study what they want because they had the wrong A-levels. //

Presumably you mean weren't able to access the particular course+institution they wanted. Could you give some more details?

It's a balance I suppose, either allow for early specialisation and get a head start or retain a broad spread and retain greater choice. That said I was able to do some Art History at Uni off the back of science and maths A-levels and could, with effort, have pivoted to an Arts degree.

Re: How to attract girls to the tech industry

#56

Post by clienthunter »

TomGullen wrote: post #42
clienthunter wrote: post #32

This stuff infuriates me. > But then last year I spoke at a conference and I heard that the numbers of women in technology was in decline and I thought, 'That isn't right.' It is not right nor wrong! It just is . To make a statement like this is to give legitimacy to the idea that the equipment you've got tucked between your thighs is in some way relevant to your ability to do the job. Who cares? Just do the damn job…

I don't think you're fully appreciative the hardships minorities in certain environments have to endure from the brazen level to the subtle and hard to isolate incidents.

True! How exactly does that improve the case for a moral crusade?

I'm disabled in a way that if I told you, you'd probably consider me worthy of your pity. If I considered it relevant - no less fought for all my similarly defective comrades - I'd be a professional victim and in a constant state of argument with the world. No thank you. I get on with it, dealing with issues as and when. If I was discriminated against, you can be damn sure they'd think differently after I was done with them, and I would be livid if some do-gooder had gone on a crusade and taken it upon themselves to have that battle for me. In fact it'd probably have the opposite effect and cause me to leave the situation - I never, ever want anyone to have the preconceived idea that I'm in some way special. I'm different, yes, but I define the relevance of those differences on my terms.

Re: How to attract girls to the tech industry

#57

Post by V-2 »

hackula1 wrote: post #41
galapago wrote: post #6

Why do we have to "attract" them?

Discouraging 50% of the population from contributing just seems a bit inefficient to me.

But not discouraging someone is not the same as encouraging (aka attracting) :)

Also, since the number of women (or girls) is finite, you can't encourage them to pursue careers in the tech industry without discouraging them from whatever career choices they make instead now.

Re: How to attract girls to the tech industry

#58

Post by Tichy »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #55
Tichy wrote: post #24

Incredible, that article seems to get by without blaming men at all. Did I miss something? In another note, the whole A-levels system seems rather stupid to me. I've met several people in the UK who weren't able to study what they want because they had the wrong A-levels. I guess ultimately it is questionable in general to deny people the possibility to study what they want. Why require some silly school certificate?

> I've met several people in the UK who weren't able to study what they want because they had the wrong A-levels. // Presumably you mean weren't able to access the particular course+institution they wanted. Could you give some more details? It's a balance I suppose, either allow for early specialisation and get a head start or retain a broad spread and retain greater choice. That said I was able to do some Art Histor…

I admit I don't really know how the system works. My impression was that people can only study subjects they also had for A-Levels (or maybe related subjects, as defined by a university)? The people I met were all from UCL, so perhaps it was just that they wanted to get into specific universities and that made them compromise?

Are the A-Levels really giving much of a head start? When I studied maths, it was really much more advanced than the maths we did in grammar school (in Germany). The maths from grammar school was occasionally mentioned as a special application of the "real" maths.

Re: How to attract girls to the tech industry

#59

Post by liedra »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #43
liedra wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Applications of statistics in this area fail to illuminate but at all any useful causal link." - if you're relying on statistics to show things in this area you're missing the complexity of the situation which a more interpretative account may be able to find meaning in. Statistics is not the be all and end all. You may be bored/fed up/whatever by it but many women (and men) in tech aren't - and nor should we be. It…

if you're relying on statistics to show things in this area you're missing the complexity of the situation which a more interpretative account may be able to find meaning in. Statistics is not the be all and end all. Sounds a lot like "that A/B test didn't give the results I wanted so lets try again with a higher p-value cutoff and fewer controls."

Not at all - I think a qualitative approach may be able to illustrate the problem better because you can get more complexity from deeper questioning.

Re: How to attract girls to the tech industry

#60

Post by VLM »

ksk wrote: post #48
VLM wrote: post #34

I'll propose a theory which will probably not be very popular, that IT jobs are one of the few "male" support jobs that are marginally socially acceptable, causing intense demand for them by men and crowding out the women who have other opportunities. If a woman wants a low status / long hours / behind the scenes / support career there are a variety of socially acceptable job fields to enter. Secretary, nurse, day ca…

Interesting theory, but do you also account for the tiered nature of IT jobs? (Tiered w.r.t domain/difficulty/etc)

The general public unthinking consumer type is of the opinion there exists only one type of IT person. We all are experts on removing viruses from their windows machines and purchasing the "best" PC or phone, etc.

Career decisions are usually made by kids who are legendary for poor decision making in general and are (intentionally?) not very well informed. It would be interesting to compare the choices made by kids who decide they're going to "do computers" at age 6 vs adults retraining at age 35 (as if on average someone that old will be hired, but I digress)

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