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Girls Who Code

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Re: Girls Who Code

#111

Post by crassus »

tptacek wrote: post #30
pflats wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by tons, you mean 9%, then yes, there are tons of male nurses. Many are nurse anesthetists, which isn't what most people think of when they think "nurse". (Anesthetists also earn an extra hundred grand a year, on average.) http://www.census.gov/people/io/files/Men_in_Nursing_Occupat...

It is not helpful that "nursing" is an explicitly gendered term. And despite that, the fraction of nurses who are male is climbing steadily.

What's the goal? A 50% gender ratio in all fields?

Just trying to understand the mindset of a SJW.

Re: Girls Who Code

#112

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

ZoFreX wrote: post #76
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #39

This is interesting: Of the 100 top academic authors in computer science today, per Microsoft, 96 are male: http://academic.research.microsoft.com/RankList?entitytype=2... The owner of this site appears to be a woman. Again, 20 males: http://www.bestcomputersciencedegrees.com/author/2admin/ And there is a preponderance of white males in the annals of computer history: http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm…

> Is this really YC's problem to solve? I think it's up to everyone to do their part. This problem, like all big problems, is made up of lots of little problems.

I don't think there is much they can do.

A similar review of Human Resources professionals, also courtesy LinkedIn, shows about 70% are women.

In another report, in 2013, 41% of college seniors that elected majors in Physical Science were women. Yet, only 18% of those who chose computer science or engineering were women. It seems they'd be equally capable in chemistry and physics as in computer science and engineer. But their major choices indicate it is not about ability and something else is going on:

http://www.directemployers.org/2012/08/16/the-college-class-...

I believe that the whole dust up is a matter of gender-based difference in interests. Nothing more, and not a real problem. Which is why YC is scratching their heads about how to solve it.

Re: Girls Who Code

#113

Post by draugadrotten »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #51
city41 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

9.6% of all RNs are male [0] Why is there not a male nurse initiative? Or male elementary teacher initiative[1]? I have to admit, I am strongly against things like "Girls who code". If there truly are issues in our culture that prevent girls from looking into coding, then absolutely let's get rid of those as best we can. But a girl can look into and explore coding just as easily as a boy can. There's really nothing s…

Maybe you're not old enough, but I am and I remember a huge stigma against men who wanted to become nurses because it was a job "for women" and what kind of man would want to do that kind of thing.

> huge stigma against men who wanted to become nurses because it was a job "for women" and what kind of man would want to do that kind of thing.

...and that's exactly the kind of label that women slaps on tech jobs. "What kind of woman would want to {drive race cars,work 60 hour weeks coding,debug java threads,maintain virtual server farms}"

And there you have it. It's clearly the oppressive white males' fault.

Re: Girls Who Code

#114

Post by parennoob »

overgard wrote: post #70

When I hear about this being a cultural thing, an important aspect people leave out is that men aren't exactly encouraged to be coders either. Writing code has pretty much no social cred until you're out of school, and pretty much automatically gets you tagged as a nerd. No coder I know started coding because it was cool, they just sort of enjoyed it and accepted the social consequences. I'm just going to throw this…

Yep, and a series of uncomfortable truths about how things work against men (specially Asian men) who are trying to learn to code:

1. At school and such, no one tries to encourage you to code. People naturally think, "Oh, male and Asian, screw him, the world doesn't need another Asian dude coding. Let's try and teach Rails to that cute girl -- we need more of her kind."

2. People assume you are better at coding, math, and suchlike, and are more strident in their criticism of you when you fail to live up to their standards. I have had people tell me "yeah, if you can't understand this, you might not be smart enough". Think of the brouhaha that would result (gasp!) if someone said that to a girl.

3. You are naturally left out of all of the outreach events. Everyone is trying to get more women into coding, for some yet-as-undefined goal (getting exactly 51% women, maybe?). But you -- you are just another male nerd, and you have apparently had a red carpet laid out for you to the world of coding, so you must be privileged.

There are tons of jobs that are female dominated. Nursing? Teaching? Fashion? Yet no one's complaining that there aren't enough men on the editorial staff of Cosmopolitan magazine, or starting movements for "Men Who Are Interested In Fashion". Draw your own conclusions from this.

Re: Girls Who Code

#115

Post by tptacek »

defen wrote: post #109
tptacek wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think about it at all, and for good reason: nothing that our process does could possibly be more risky than the crapshoot process other companies use. To wit: I know for a fact that my process isn't going to be dumb enough to ask a woman whether she's going to be able to manage her child care responsibilities and still be able to answer emergency work calls.

The point of Griggs vs Duke Power is that a work sample test would probably need to be "reasonably related" to the job at issue, if it has a disparate impact on minorities (meaning minorities pass at a lower rate). I have no idea how one proves in court that a test is "reasonably related", because I'm not a lawyer :-)

Yeah, I'm familiar with it; my point is that the ad-hoc procedures companies use in place of work-sample testing are much more perilous. I've been a witness to more than one legal action that resulted from them.

Re: Girls Who Code

#116

Post by ericd »

tptacek wrote: post #75
WalterBright wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All decision making processes with a human in the loop are going to be random, arbitrary, capricious, etc. But inhumane? about a job? It actually seems very humane. After all, only a human can look past the rules and see that a candidate is someone special that would be great for the company despite not matching the criteria. Would you rather be selected for a job by a computer that follows inflexible rules embedded…

I am telling you that after watching the Nth person go through an on-site interview process that we had already actively tried to program as positive and encouraging, and seeing them physically shaking in the conference room, and then thinking back on the last time I had needed to endure a job interview and how I felt, that yes, the process is inhumane. It demands of candidates that they endure a deeply uncomfortable…

Yeah, I completely agree - I absolutely hate interviews, to the point where I would prefer to do a large amount of work on alternative methods over a full day of interviews.

Re: Girls Who Code

#117

Post by jfarmer »

crassus wrote: post #69
leahculver wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. IBM was >30% women engineers when I interned there in 2004/2005. About half the interns were women and there was plenty of racial diversity as well. My boss was a woman, my mentor was a woman, and frankly it was the most diverse place I have ever worked.

Google is reportedly over 30% women, too. I wonder if it is just something about startups - higher risk, lower guaranteed reward, worse training programs, higher pressure. The startup world compares well to the original California gold rush - a risk for a small shot at a high reward - and that was mostly male, too. Also, keep in mind that it's a zero-sum game. If Google and IBM each hire 1,000 female engineers from t…

> I wonder if it is just something about startups - higher risk, lower guaranteed reward, worse training programs, higher pressure.

This is explained equally well by inexperienced managers hiring people similar to themselves culturally, racially, and socioeconomically. Likewise, if I were a woman, I wouldn't want to work on a team with five dudes oblivious to their dude-dom.

Re: Girls Who Code

#118

Post by newnewnew »

ama729 wrote: post #108
newnewnew wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men do better than women at the Math SAT[1]. The male/female ratio is especially high in the higher Math percentiles, where you would expect your best engineers to come from. The polite way to explain this is some kind of "expectations effect", which is possible, but females do dominate at all other aspects of education. We cannot rule out simple innate ability, combined with higher male interest in abstract things.…

> where you would expect your best engineers to come from. I frequently see this assertion but I never see it sourced. Most programming use nothing more than simple math or just re-implementation of known algorithms (and we know how it turned out for Telegram to invent their own), why would you need hardcore math skills then? If you said "above average", that would have been understandable, but then there isn't much…

Startups try to keep a "high bar", only hiring people with sterling academic credentials or proven work in the field.

So I would expect the gender ratio to be less equal at startups that draw from the far right-hand side of the graph, and more equal at big firms that are willing to hire from the middle.

Re: Girls Who Code

#119

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

draugadrotten wrote: post #113
GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you're not old enough, but I am and I remember a huge stigma against men who wanted to become nurses because it was a job "for women" and what kind of man would want to do that kind of thing.

> huge stigma against men who wanted to become nurses because it was a job "for women" and what kind of man would want to do that kind of thing. ...and that's exactly the kind of label that women slaps on tech jobs. "What kind of woman would want to {drive race cars,work 60 hour weeks coding,debug java threads,maintain virtual server farms}" And there you have it. It's clearly the oppressive white males' fault.

"and that's exactly the kind of label that women slaps on tech jobs"

what kind of world are you living in because it's not one I've visited.

Re: Girls Who Code

#120

Post by defen »

tptacek wrote: post #115
defen wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of Griggs vs Duke Power is that a work sample test would probably need to be "reasonably related" to the job at issue, if it has a disparate impact on minorities (meaning minorities pass at a lower rate). I have no idea how one proves in court that a test is "reasonably related", because I'm not a lawyer :-)

Yeah, I'm familiar with it; my point is that the ad-hoc procedures companies use in place of work-sample testing are much more perilous. I've been a witness to more than one legal action that resulted from them.

I see. For some reason I read your statement as being about disparate impact rather than ad-hoc hiring procedures.
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