Paul Graham Isn't Keeping Women out of Tech

To repeat, look at engineering circa 1990s -- nearly entirely male-populated field, moderate prestige. Now look at engineering circa 2010s -- slightly more diverse field, significantly higher prestige. If you start with a 90+%-male base and you achieve moderate, growing success via entirely word-of-mouth advertising and by absorbing people from that base, you are setting yourself up for a situation where your organization reflects the base it grew out of (i.e. male engineers). And yet the media is not going to pay attention to you until your field is large and successful enough for spoils to be had from throwing rocks at you, at which point obviously they are going to criticize you for being "exclusionary". So what you have is a nearly entirely media-manufactured controversy. Why didn't the media focus on getting more women into engineering in the 1990s? Because it wasn't a prestigious enough field at the time for organized entryist action to exist.

Why is there a problem with this controversy? Because entryism exists. Entryists are interested in entering any high-prestige field and taking it over for themselves. They are not below taking up social justice banners to accomplish their goals. In fact, the most successful entryists utilize those banners to the highest effect. The whole controversy is pure manufactured evil. This is not about women's rights or social justice. It's about entryism.

When I was in seventh grade, we were assigned to write a little speech about what we'd do if we were in charge of the school. One of my classmates, Dan, gave a speech about how he'd use computers to more rightly integrate school and home-life. After I was done, I asked, "What about people who don't have computers at home?" He responded with a look of confusion on his face, "What? You mean like poor people or something?"

My family didn't have enough money to afford a computer growing up. I got my first computer in 10th grade: a 486 running Windows 3.1 that my mother's boss was going to simply throw away. Dan's words felt like a slap in the face, even in 7th grade.

If I had read pg's words in 7th grade, they would have felt like a slap in the face, too. Getting my face slapped does not make me or anyone else more interested. It makes people think, "This thing isn't for me."

People in technology, especially men, are utterly blind to privilege. It's astounding. It's also frustrating because explaining privilege to someone who has never seriously experienced the lack of it is like trying to explain to a fish what it's like to breath without water.

Here's another story. I recently mentored a 13-year-old kid through an after-school non-profit. I taught him the basics of programming. He had all the affinity in the world, but it was still hard even with my guidance. Why? There was one laptop shared among all the members of the family — mother, father, 3 brothers, 2 sisters — and he'd only show up to our sessions with the laptop maybe 50% of the time. Any work he'd do between session would often be lost because other people would tinker with it. Everyone around him teased him for playing with computers so much and being so "nerdy" and "gay." Neither of his parents spoke much English — a Spanish translator had to be present when I was having an extended conversation with either.

But obviously my student just didn't want it bad enough.

Blagh.

Yes, there are problems women face in STEM fields. No, getting everyone angry at pg isn't gonna help.

"The white privilege that benefits many white women in tech plays a huge role in allowing them to occupy a position denying gender oppression, supporting the patriarchy, and undermining feminist activism."

This "female team" is doing the exact opposite. I think they're safe from the feminist horde.

Also, you might get something from this comic: http://www.harkavagrant.com/?id=341 You seem to be experiencing similar terrors.